Will Saletan: Trump Is Anti-America

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Speaker 7 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny, infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

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

Speaker 2 Why is Adam after the Tanner family?

Speaker 7 What lengths will he go to?

Speaker 9 One thing's for sure, the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

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Speaker 11 Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm A.B.
Stoddard, columnist of the Bulwark, sitting in for Charlie and Will Mondays for Charlie Sykes.

Speaker 11 He is on a well-deserved vacation, and I'm delighted to be with Will Salatin, my old friend and colleague. And we have a mountain of news.

Speaker 11 Actually, I was surprised how much news has happened in the last few days for us to chew over. And I'm not going to get to the juice of the crackup of the DeSantis campaign or super PAC.

Speaker 11 I'm going to start right in on some substance because this is very seriously depressing, Will.

Speaker 11 Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has landed in Israel for what will be very difficult discussions i am sure situation with the hostages and i want to start because this is the bull war podcast after all with a repulsive tweet from rick rinnell who needs no introduction but to back everybody up he was the illustrious ambassador to germany under donald trump and later acting d and i in that like very creepy end part of the trump administration where everyone was getting like mini temporary assignments to do horrible things and he writes this morning, will Sec Jeff Lloyd Austin bring the U.S.

Speaker 11 hostages home while he's in Israel? Or is he there to tell Israel to stop looking for them?

Speaker 11 So we're framing this discussion about the serious matter of

Speaker 11 where

Speaker 11 not only our government

Speaker 11 is positioning itself with the Israeli government will, but in terms of this supplemental funding that people keep hearing about that Congress is considering, which is security aid for Israel, security aid for Taiwan, security aid for Ukraine.

Speaker 11 Lots of fighting. They're all different.
And we see now this kind of tension within the Democratic Party will about where to go with this.

Speaker 11 And there's concern about where the bombing campaign is going. So I want to start with this.

Speaker 11 sound from over the weekend from Maryland Senator Holland being interviewed about this topic.

Speaker 13 We also heard him this week in a closed event, but say that Israel was doing indiscriminate bombing, indiscriminate bombing, and this was risking them losing support.

Speaker 13 That's not a phrase that I've heard others in the administration repeat or him repeat. Is that what Israel has been doing?

Speaker 13 Because that, I mean, indiscriminate bombing, depending on how you define it, is potentially a war crime.

Speaker 14 Well, John, look, here's the bottom line. We do have unacceptably high levels of civilian casualties.
We see very loose rules of engagement,

Speaker 14 way looser than anything the United States would exercise. We would not drop a 2,000-pound bomb on a refugee camp to target a Hamas commander.
Just yesterday,

Speaker 14 snipers fired into a church compound, killing a mom and her daughter without warning. So it is very important

Speaker 14 because the United States is not a bystander to this. We are a big supplier, of course, of military assistance to Israel.
So we are with them entirely in the objective of ending the military threat.

Speaker 14 But again,

Speaker 14 we need to make sure that our values are reflected in this so long as we are providing all of this equipment.

Speaker 11 So Will, we share this objective, but we want to make sure

Speaker 11 that the conduct reflects our values. Can you translate this for me?

Speaker 12 So a very complicated topic. First of all, first of all, A.B., I'm so, so delighted.

Speaker 12 This is my first chance to do the Bulwark podcast with you, many times as a guest, but this time I get to be with you as a host.

Speaker 12 And hopefully we're going to get through this show, folks, without any expletives. With apologies to Charlie, we're going to manage to do that.
So let me start with the Grinnell thing.

Speaker 12 Here is Lloyd Austin going to Israel, and Grinnell is asking whether we're going to stop Israel from looking for the hostages.

Speaker 12 By the way, this tweet from Grinnell, is this after Israel has actually killed three of the hostages? I believe he does this.

Speaker 12 So maybe Lloyd Austin would be there, instead of telling Israel to stop looking for the hostages, maybe tell them to stop killing the hostages.

Speaker 12 And the fact that the hostages got killed is a symptom of what Chris Van Hollen is talking about in that clip when he says loose rules of engagement. That's a very important phrase.

Speaker 12 So there's two things in that clip that we just played. One is Joe Biden saying that Israel is doing indiscriminate bombing.
Now, Biden didn't say this on camera, but he did say it.

Speaker 12 And so what we're seeing is an escalation from Joe Biden, not going further away from the truth, but going toward it. He's been very restrained.

Speaker 12 He's been, look, we're going to be good friends to Israel. We're going to talk behind any criticism we're going to try to do.
backstage out in front. We're just saying we're friends of Israel.

Speaker 12 But he's being increasingly explicit about saying that what Israel is doing is indiscriminate.

Speaker 12 And when Chris Van Holland talks about dropping 2,000 bombs on a refugee camp, he's getting detailed about. So this is not just a blind accusation.

Speaker 12 There was recently a report on CNN that there have been about 30,000 Israeli munitions bombs dropped in Gaza and half of them are dumb bombs. They're not precise.
They're going to kill civilians.

Speaker 12 So what Israel is doing is predictably going to kill a lot of civilians and it has. And when Chris Van Holland talks about the loose rules of engagement, That is a much more serious accusation.

Speaker 12 That is saying that Israel is telling its troops to operate by rules of fire. Again, we just saw three hostages killed.
Supposedly that was against the rules of engagement.

Speaker 12 But Israel is deliberately using rules that, while not intended to kill civilians, are much more likely to kill civilians than if you had tighter rules of engagement.

Speaker 11 Where do you see these conversations going?

Speaker 11 What I think is interesting is there is some nervousness building among Democrats, definitely not among Republicans, about the execution of the campaign in Hamas

Speaker 11 and the conduct and everything you just described. And so there is some talk about conditioning aid.
So apparently, Biden has called this a worthwhile idea, but is not embracing it.

Speaker 11 What I see is that this is going to be punted until after the holidays, and this debate could change a lot between now and when that aid package is being voted on.

Speaker 11 So, in terms of the politics of this, where do you see it going here?

Speaker 11 And what do you anticipate as Biden gets more explicit and leans more into the truth and puts more pressure on Bibi Netanyahu? Where do you see it going between now and, let's say, like January 10th?

Speaker 11 You know, when the Congress returns on January 8th, they have nine days to pass a bunch of government funding to just fund government operations.

Speaker 11 This is a different set of money, just so that the viewers understand it's separate and apart. It's sort of emergency spending.

Speaker 11 And so this whole debate is going to be in the middle of the stew of inviting over just our, you know, our annual spending, which everyone knows is a regular feature of the Congress.

Speaker 11 So take us overseas. Where do you see that conversation going?

Speaker 11 And then do you actually think Democrats are going to lean in to conditioning aid because they don't like the execution of this campaign and the way it's going in Gaza?

Speaker 11 Or do you think that Biden between now and then can put enough pressure on Netanyahu that they pull back a bit, they change their conduct, they tighten their rules of engagement?

Speaker 11 Where do you see it going?

Speaker 12 Yeah, so I think they're connected in the sense that Biden may be more able to persuade Netanyahu and the Israelis to tighten the rules of engagement, to change the way that they're conducting the war to be less dangerous to civilians.

Speaker 12 If the Democrats and Biden have behind them the threat, the implicit threat, that they will make this an issue in terms of whether to continue funding Israel's side of the war.

Speaker 12 I don't think they really want to do that. There are some progressives who are willing to do that.

Speaker 12 The Democratic Party as a whole, and certainly Joe Biden, they don't want there to be a big public fight. over whether we're going to give money to Israel.

Speaker 12 First of all, as we're going to be discussing, there's so many other fights going on.

Speaker 12 And the Democrats are fighting with the Republicans about the border policies, which are all part of this this negotiation. That's a fight where the Democrats need to be united.

Speaker 12 They need to figure out a position. So I don't think they want to open this fight with Israel.
But it is true that we are helping Israel conduct this war by funding them. There are, in fact, U.S.

Speaker 12 laws about

Speaker 12 enforcing our values when we give money for something like this. So there is a legitimate case to be made.

Speaker 12 What's going on in Israel is Benjamin Netanyahu and Biden are at loggerheads about this, and Netanyahu is resisting the Americans.

Speaker 12 And at some point, the Americans have to be able to have some leverage they can point to against Netanyahu and say, listen, buddy, if you don't change what you're doing in Gaza, we're not going to be able to get our Congress to continue to support you.

Speaker 12 And what's going on between Democrats and Republicans around Israel is that the Republicans have a totally carte blanche position about Israel.

Speaker 12 Because Israel was victimized horribly on October 7th, Israel can do whatever the hell it wants. Absolutely.
And it is.

Speaker 12 And so the Democrats are going to be taking any position to the, I don't know what to say, not to the left of that, but inside of that in terms of drawing some boundaries on what Israel can do.

Speaker 11 Do you think that Bibi Netanyahu goes around Biden to the Republicans, or is he humbly aware of the danger of his circumstance?

Speaker 12 I would love to believe, AB, that Bibi Netanyahu has ever been humbly aware of anything.

Speaker 12 Humility and this guy really don't go together. Can I flag one thing about these hostages that got shot? Yeah.

Speaker 12 Okay, so the IDF is in Gaza, is in Gaza city, and three hostages come out. They're shirtless, they're waving a makeshift white flag, and they get shot.

Speaker 12 And supposedly, the soldier who shot them wasn't supposed to shoot them. Supposedly, this is against the rules of engagement, but they got shot.
Two of them get shot dead.

Speaker 12 One of them goes in, comes back out, gets shot again, and killed. Okay, this scene, the only reason we know about this is that those three people were Israelis because they were hostages.

Speaker 12 And so the IDF had to account for them. Three hostages are dead.
We can't hide this.

Speaker 12 AB, how many times has this happened with people in Gaza who were not Israeli hostages, who were just Palestinian civilians?

Speaker 12 Because if you have a bunch of 20-year-olds going around, which is what happens in war, they're armed, they're scared, they're on high alert, and somebody comes out.

Speaker 12 How many Palestinian civilians have died this way? And we just don't know about it because the IDF didn't have to account for them. So I'm very concerned about that.

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Speaker 4 Get ready for Malice, a twisted new drama starring Jack Whitehall, David DeCovney, and Carice Van Houten.

Speaker 7 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

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

Speaker 2 Why is Adam after the Tanner family?

Speaker 7 What lengths will he go to?

Speaker 9 One thing's for sure, the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

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

Speaker 11 Let's move on to another deeply disturbing topic, which is Ukraine. And so when we're looking at this battle over supplemental funding, this is as bleak as it can be.

Speaker 11 Vladimir Zelensky comes to the U.S.,

Speaker 11 again,

Speaker 11 leaves empty-handed with congressional Republicans saying, enough of the blank checks, and we can't continue to do this. And a lot of them on the far right really kind of trashing him.

Speaker 11 I mean, just if you look at social media, the way that they talk about him, it's really so nakedly pro-Putin. It's amazing.
It's not just...

Speaker 11 oh, the brave people of Ukraine can't depend on our money forever because we're broke. It's not at all that.
It's just naked hostility to Ukraine.

Speaker 11 So this is in the balance and it's terrifying that we're in this place where it's definitely the last money that will go out. If Trump wins, that's the end.

Speaker 11 I don't know where this debate is going long term, but it doesn't look good.

Speaker 11 And just in the next, again, as I said, three weeks or so, the idea that they're going to be able to balance this supplemental dance.

Speaker 11 Taiwan doesn't seem to be controversial, but how he gets the Israeli package right with the Ukraine funding right and gets it out the door depends on this immigration compromise.

Speaker 11 Will My Gut tells me that Republicans don't want to fund Ukraine. And so

Speaker 11 the idea that they would go in and approve a border compromise that would help Joe Biden control the border, calm the border, give the public the impression that he's tightening up, restricting asylum criteria, et cetera, trying to get control of the mass, which obviously would just help Joe Biden next year politically.

Speaker 11 It just doesn't seem feasible to me that Republicans are in this to do this, to fund Ukraine and to actually vote on a border compromise. What do you think they're doing?

Speaker 12 All right. So I think there's two categories of problematic Republicans.

Speaker 12 One is those who really don't want to fund Ukraine, Ukraine, who think that Vladimir Zelensky is like some thug in track pants and, you know, they've followed the Donald Trump pro-Putin line, right?

Speaker 12 There's a lot of them, and especially in the House. But there's another category of Republicans who say, hey, I really supp, like the Lindsey Graham camp, I really deeply support Ukraine.

Speaker 12 I want us to fund Ukraine. But if you don't give us exactly what we want on the border policy, we're just not going to fund Ukraine.

Speaker 12 So these are kind of, I don't know what you could call these people exactly.

Speaker 12 When somebody takes the Ukraine money hostage, I think they're kind of telling you they don't really support Ukraine, but you can get their votes.

Speaker 12 So I think that Biden actually can put together this package.

Speaker 12 He's going to have to make concessions on the border, a lot of which I agree with, but he's going to have to give Republicans a lot of what they want, and he'll be able to get those Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell Republicans who are sort of half on Ukraine.

Speaker 12 And with their vote, I mean, the Republicans are all in on Israel, as we were discussing. It's the Democrats who are problematic there.
So I actually think Biden can put this together.

Speaker 12 And the hitch is not really going to be Ukraine. It's going to be what Democrats are going to have to give away on the border to get it done.
But I think they can put that coalition together.

Speaker 11 Wow. Okay.
So it's going to look like 10 Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell Republicans over on the Senate side. And

Speaker 11 how's it going to get through the House?

Speaker 12 Remember, if this is all in a package, then there's cover.

Speaker 11 Because Republicans have to vote for Israel.

Speaker 12 Yeah,

Speaker 12 you want to be seen as voting for Israel. You want to be seen as, you know, Ukraine has become unpopular, right? But why should we help them with their border?

Speaker 11 Right. So they won't tank it because of Ukraine and the border and say it's not fair to do this to Israel?

Speaker 12 Yeah, I think Israel gives some of them cover. Look, there are a lot of Republicans in Congress who actually know that we should be funding Ukraine, but they've gotten the vibe.

Speaker 12 They know which way the wind is blowing inside their party, and it's blowing, thanks to Trump and others, towards isolationism.

Speaker 12 What they need is political cover to do. They don't need to be persuaded, those folks, that funding Ukraine is the right thing to do, but they need

Speaker 12 a little bit of sugar.

Speaker 12 They need something that they can point to and say, look, I voted for the package because we had to stand with our friends in Israel and we had to get the, you know, change the border policies, and we did.

Speaker 12 And Ukraine goes along for the ride in that politically.

Speaker 11 So this is sounding good. A deal would help Biden, obviously.

Speaker 11 Although, let's be honest, Will, nothing has.

Speaker 12 And with that,

Speaker 11 I am very concerned. Apparently, the White House has said something about Trump's fascistic language over the weekend, but let's play that sound from Saturday of him sounding like a maniac.

Speaker 17 Joe Biden is a threat to democracy. He's a threat.

Speaker 17 And you know, we'll bring in adversaries, and I'll bring it in right now, but even Vladimir Putin, has anybody ever heard of Vladimir Putin

Speaker 17 of Russia says that Biden's, and this is a quote, politically motivated persecution of his political rival is very good for Russia because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy.

Speaker 17 So, you know, we talk about democracy, but the whole world is watching the persecution of a political opponent that's kicking his ass.

Speaker 12 It's an amazing thing.

Speaker 17 And they're all laughing at us. Viktor Orban, the highly respected prime minister of Hungary, said, Trump is the man who can save the Western world.
He said this out of an interview to A.

Speaker 11 Yeah, so he seems, I know that he has talked this way before, but he seems to be really loosening up.

Speaker 11 If I didn't know he didn't drink, I would thought maybe he had like something in his milkshake for McDonald's that night.

Speaker 11 Because when he's actually naming Putin and saying like Putin's a validator for him, because Putin understands and appreciates the preservation of democracy and thinks that this government investigating and indicting Donald Trump is just basically the fall of the West.

Speaker 11 So he knows the nomination fight is over. Will, why do you think it's getting worse?

Speaker 12 Well, Donald Trump is just being who he is and who he is.

Speaker 12 So just so everybody understands who Donald Trump is, Donald Trump has always been sort of a CEO type, a narcissist, an egotist, loves power, loves the trappings of power.

Speaker 12 And he loves, when he got elected president, he became a member of the country club of dictators. He loves these guys, Putin and Xi and Kim Jong-un.
He wants to be part of this country club.

Speaker 12 These are his buddies. He would be playing golf with them, right? And the fact that they run, you know, we always talk about how Xi runs China with an iron fist.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 12 Gosh, I'd love to be doing that. And he goes around and talks about things that she does, like executing people with one-day trials.
Gosh, wouldn't it be great if we could do that in this country?

Speaker 12 And Trump is just getting increasingly explicit about it because he hasn't been punished by the American voters. And he may not be, which, you know, is horrifying.

Speaker 12 But let me set the scene for you on this speech that Trump is giving. This is Saturday in New Hampshire.
So Trump is in New Hampshire. He's doing this rally.
Everyone behind Donald Trump.

Speaker 12 is holding a sign. All the signs say the same thing because they're in New Hampshire.
The signs say, live free or die, right? Liberty, New Hampshire, freedom, live free or die, right?

Speaker 12 This entire section of the speech, Trump is doing nothing but quoting his dictator friends, right? He starts off with Kim Jong-un.

Speaker 12 He's talking about, he says, Kim Jong-un was out of nowhere. He brings up Kim Jong-un.
He was very nice to me. We had a very good relationship.

Speaker 12 Then he invoked Kim Jong-un, like, Kim Jong-un likes me, but he doesn't like Joe Biden because he literally says, because Kim Jong-un doesn't like incompetent people.

Speaker 12 So he's using the North Korean dictator as a standard of how to run a country and saying Joe Biden doesn't measure up to that. Then he gets to this Putin stuff, right?

Speaker 12 And he's quoting Putin, saying Putin's line about how the prosecution of Donald Trump shows that America isn't a real democracy.

Speaker 12 The government has a politically motivated prosecution of a political rival.

Speaker 12 He's actually quoting Putin's indictment of America, of the American system, that the American system is no better than the Russian system or anyone else's. He's saying that's true.

Speaker 12 He's saying that's true. And elsewhere in the speech, Trump says what he often says at these rallies, we're not a great country anymore.
We're a laughingstock. We're terrible.

Speaker 12 Donald Trump is anti-American and he's anti-American democracy. And that's why he's quoting Putin and she and Kim and all of these dictators to that effect.

Speaker 11 So I've heard him talk about these guys, you know, frequently in Orban and G

Speaker 11 and the ruthless control and everything. But I don't know, he just wanted to tickle Vladimir Putin.
Just the naming him, it was a little too much for me. And of course, when Lindsey Graham,

Speaker 11 because I had to bring up Lindsey Graham with you, Will. Of course,

Speaker 11 when he was asked about this dictator talk, he says, I could care less about the way he talks.

Speaker 12 Right.

Speaker 11 So I'm really appreciative of that. And I'm so glad John McCain is not here to know that.

Speaker 12 Wait, sorry, there was one other guy that he brought up. I forgot from the clip.
Orban. Yeah, yeah.
Orban, right? He loves it. Orban.

Speaker 12 So he's he's like Victor Orban in quoting him to the F, and Trump does this all the time. Victor Orban, he's picked the one Western leader, the West European leader who is himself an authoritarian.

Speaker 12 And just so folks understand the context, last week, Victor Orban, the authoritarian leader of Hungary, vetoed the EU's financial aid package to Ukraine.

Speaker 12 So Trump is working with Orban. Trump is the vehicle in the United States to block funding to Ukraine.
Orban is the vehicle for doing it in in Europe. So they're all part of the Vladimir Putin team.

Speaker 11 And the Country Club of Dictators, which I love.

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Speaker 16 Listen to on purpose on on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 4 Get ready for Malice, a twisted new drama starring Jack Whitehall, David DeCovney, and Carice Van Houten.

Speaker 7 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

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

Speaker 2 Why is Adam after the Tanner family?

Speaker 7 What lengths will he go to?

Speaker 9 One thing's for sure, the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

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

Speaker 11 So, you and I feel the same way, which is that Christy has been providing a valuable service in being the truth teller in the Republican primary.

Speaker 11 But I think we have to look at the developments from over the weekend and sort of ask, you know, what's he doing?

Speaker 11 There's a new poll out from CBS showing Nikki Haley now at 29 in New Hampshire, and she's gone up from 11%. She's gone up 18 points in September.

Speaker 11 Trump went from 50 points in September in New Hampshire in the CBS poll to 44.

Speaker 11 So he's seen some erosion, and she's really made this crazy gain.

Speaker 11 So currently, Christie is at 10, DeSantis at 11. So if you added Christie and DeSantis,

Speaker 11 she bests Trump in New Hampshire. So this is getting everybody very excited.

Speaker 11 And CBS face the nation anchor Margaret Brennan was talking to Christie about it and he got grumpy and was like fighting with her.

Speaker 16 about the polls.

Speaker 11 I don't know what he's doing. I don't know what his end game is.

Speaker 11 But again, he is the only person, and we have to give him props for this, who is willing to talk about this kind of language from Donald Trump and the threat of Donald Trump.

Speaker 11 So in honor of Chris Christie, we're going to play a little Christie rant from yesterday.

Speaker 12 I want you to take a listen to something else that Donald Trump said about immigrants last night.

Speaker 17 They're poisoning the blood of our country. That's what they've done.

Speaker 17 They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world they're coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world.

Speaker 17 They're pouring into our country.

Speaker 12 South America, Africa, Asia, immigrants poisoning the blood of our country. The words of the leading Republican presidential candidate, your response.

Speaker 15 He's disgusting.

Speaker 15 And what he's doing is dog whistling. to Americans who feel absolutely under stress and strain from the economy and from the conflicts around the world.

Speaker 15 And he's dog whistling it to blame it on people from areas that don't look like us. And look, Jake, the other problem with this is the Republicans who are saying this is okay.

Speaker 15 Almost 100 members of Congress who have endorsed him. Nikki Haley, who this week said he is fit to be president.

Speaker 15 You're telling me that someone who says that immigrants are poisoning the blood of this country, someone

Speaker 15 who says Vladimir Vladimir Putin is a character witness, is fit to be president of the United States, was the right president at the right time. Nikki Haley should be ashamed of herself.

Speaker 11 What Trump says is disgusting. I'm so grateful to Chris Christie.
I would like to just actually will just listen to him for the rest of 2024.

Speaker 11 Like there's part of me that doesn't want him to leave the race because I want him to tell the truth.

Speaker 11 And I was very, very surprised to hear him say that Nikki Haley should be ashamed of himself because everyone is trying to get Chris Christie to leave the race and back Nikki Nikki Haley.

Speaker 11 And I don't know that I see an endorsement coming. What are your thoughts on his comments?

Speaker 12 Well, just so everybody understands where I'm coming from on this, I'm a Biden supporter. I'm going to vote for Joe Biden.
Within the Republicans, I'm a Christie supporter.

Speaker 12 Christie is the guy telling, he's the only one left. Asa Hodginson's technically in the race, but come on.
Christie is the only one left.

Speaker 12 who is telling the moral truth about Donald Trump and the cult of the Republican Party. Nikki Haley is in this middle ground where she is,

Speaker 12 the classic line is Nikki Haley saying, rightly or wrongly, chaos follows Donald Trump. Chris Christie is telling the truth, which is rightly, because Trump is causing the chaos.

Speaker 12 But Nikki Haley is leaving an opening for Trump supporters to come to her by saying, you know, it might be wrong that chaos follows Donald Trump, but we all sort of know that, right?

Speaker 12 And this cowardice is what makes Nikki Haley more electable within the Republican Party than Chris Christie.

Speaker 12 So the reasons why I like Chris Christie are reasons why I don't think he can get nominated in that party.

Speaker 12 And as a realist, I want Nikki Haley to surge because I think Ron DeSantis has proven himself to be a total stiff.

Speaker 12 So there's really only one candidate who could possibly, long shot, take out Donald Trump in the primary, and that's Nikki Haley. And so I feel terrible and I hate myself for saying this, AB, but

Speaker 12 my moral satisfaction in hearing Chris Christie continue to speak the truth is not more important than consolidation behind a plausible alternative to Trump. Oh, okay.
And so I want

Speaker 12 this poll that shows a massive increase for Haley in New Hampshire, already close enough.

Speaker 12 Maybe if this happened tomorrow and Trump got 44 in New Hampshire and Haley got 29, that's already sort of Gary Hart level of, you know, wow, somebody came up and, you know, that's already.

Speaker 12 That would be portrayed by the press as a real race. But I think she could pass him with more consolidation.

Speaker 12 And that would give the Trump alternatives at least a shot shot of going into Super Tuesday with an alternative.

Speaker 11 Trump dominates in Iowa. He is going to have a great Iowa.
My theory of the case is that there was a piece, actually, when you and I were on with Charlie and Mona at the end of last week.

Speaker 11 Charlie mentioned an NBC piece, which he's quoted in, about what a cult it is in Iowa of Trump. Obviously, it is nationally, but.
In Iowa, there are three Iowans on the record.

Speaker 11 They dare to go on the record to say, it's really hard to oppose Trump. Like, you don't want to tell your friends and family and neighbors that you do.

Speaker 11 So given that on the ground, that tension, in Iowa caucuses, you have to physically represent your choices and it is not a secret ballot, right? You're like caucusing for somebody.

Speaker 11 So Trump is going to roll, dude.

Speaker 11 He is going to pound in Iowa.

Speaker 11 Not only does he have the polling lead by way, like you can't add Nikki, Christie, and Ron together to get close to Trump and Iowa, but even people who want to caucus for other people are going to back out and wimp out.

Speaker 11 So this is the thing. That's what happens in Iowa.
And then my question to you is why would New Hampshire even matter?

Speaker 11 New Hampshire is going to be an open primary where Democrats and Independents are going to vote. Republicans are going to write it off.

Speaker 11 I bet the RNC puts out a statement and says, Trump will say it's rigged if Haley were to win it with this consolidation.

Speaker 11 Let's say she got the 50 and Trump came in at 44. It's a total outlier, right? Why would anyone care about New Hampshire? It's a Democrat-rigged primary.
It's not real. It's not real Republicans.

Speaker 11 It's just a rhino thing for her.

Speaker 11 And then he goes on to South Carolina and pounds her. I just, that's my dark view, and I invite your disagreement.

Speaker 12 Okay, so I brought out the pony. I brought out the pony because I'm glad it's always on hand.
Here are my ponies. And again, I think Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee for president.
Right.

Speaker 12 So setting that aside, the case is,

Speaker 12 first of all, that New Hampshire loves to tweak Iowa. New Hampshire loves to go the opposite way, has often done so in the past.
Right. So, no, I think Iowa is a lost cause.

Speaker 12 And I'm going to give just a special demerit to Kim Reynolds, the governor of Iowa, for endorsing Ron DeSantis, which did nothing. I mean, this total stiff has no shot.

Speaker 12 And every dollar that goes into that guy, every endorsement that goes in, prevents consolidation of a plausible alternative, which he is not. Okay, so Iowa's screwed.
We get to New Hampshire.

Speaker 12 I think there's every chance that New Hampshire says, hell with you, especially because of all the factors you just cited, A.B. You know, there are a lot of independents.

Speaker 12 Well, Democrats can't technically vote, but you can vote as an independent in the Republican primary, right? Right.

Speaker 11 So they might be because Biden's not on the

Speaker 12 Democratic race. Exactly, exactly.
And so I think it's quite plausible if with some consolidation that Nikki Haley wins New Hampshire. At that point, we have pony number two.

Speaker 12 Sorry, it's the same pony. I'll do it.
Oh, pony number two is

Speaker 12 the media loves a race. The media loves a contest.

Speaker 11 Loves to pretend they're super.

Speaker 12 I mean,

Speaker 12 look, look, I want to grant you all the pessimism.

Speaker 12 You and JVL and Charlie every pessimism is based on a very well-founded thing, which is that the entire Republican Party, the electorate of the Republican Party, is sick, is just locked into a cult, doesn't seem to care about any principle that gets violated.

Speaker 12 All that matters is standing behind Donald Trump. And so just winning in that party is really, really difficult for us to anybody sane, which Nikki Haley is sort of half trying to be.

Speaker 12 So that's all true. But she wins New Hampshire.
South Carolina's a big problem. Big problem because the governor there, Henry McMaster, is behind Trump.

Speaker 12 Nikki Haley losing her own state, I grant you, that probably cuts her throat. Even if she does okay there, We're going into Super Tuesday in like a week after that.

Speaker 12 And like 47% of the Republican delegates will be gone after Super Tuesday. Like there's no time for her to like put together an operation after that.

Speaker 12 Maybe there has to be a whole lot of like half Trump skeptical Republicans who in the space of a couple of weeks turn around and say, yeah, you know what? Nikki Haley. And then they all vote for her.

Speaker 12 And that has to happen in all these states or Trump runs away with the delegates.

Speaker 11 I don't know if that technically was a pony the second vote.

Speaker 12 I felt like I need to put the pony away after I said that because I just killed it.

Speaker 11 This is really rough. Everyone in the Bulwark community knows how fond I am of Joe Biden

Speaker 11 and

Speaker 11 how

Speaker 11 just depressing it is that he has been written off because of his age.

Speaker 11 And now I just feel this bleakness around him that is today is the 51st anniversary of the death of his wife and daughter in a car crash seven days before Christmas.

Speaker 11 And he is in Delaware at their grave site. Last night, he and Jill were in Delaware at the campaign headquarters, and a car hit one of the cars in his motorcade.

Speaker 11 He comes out of the campaign headquarters and a reporter asks, why are you losing to Trump in the polls? And he says, they're the wrong polls. Like, Will, this is getting so sad.

Speaker 11 The polls are terrible. They continue to be terrible.

Speaker 11 There's There's a Washington Post story today saying that Alyssa Slotkin, House member who's running for Senate in Michigan, has told the high order of Democrats that she doesn't think she can win in her state if Biden is at the top of the ticket.

Speaker 11 There was an anecdote in this Washington Post report about Biden gathering his brain trust before he left for Nantucket for Thanksgiving and basically saying, like, why aren't the polls getting better?

Speaker 11 Like, what's our plan? Oh, by the way, President Obama, in another bleak account in Wall Street Journal on Saturday, two days ago, December 16,

Speaker 11 Obama let it be known to this reporter, to Annie Linsky, that like he is one of the people that is worried that Biden will lose and will have an autocracy. So this is so, so, so seriously bad.

Speaker 11 And my heart hurts for Joe Biden. I love Joe Biden.
I can't believe what a good man. This man is,

Speaker 11 he's been through so much. He is managing two massively important conflicts overseas.
And he's telling his team, like, how are we going to change these poll numbers? I mean, Will, do you have a pony?

Speaker 12 I don't have a pony here. So anytime Joe Biden or anyone else says they're the wrong polls, don't believe the polls.
The polls are a snapshot. This is almost always denial.
It's unhealthy.

Speaker 12 It's outright dangerous, obviously, to deny election results. But when you're denying polls, you're in a similar sort of silo about not accepting negative feedback.

Speaker 12 The feedback here is unanimous. They're not all skewed.
All these polls are showing Biden in Trump. So just the general picture of where we are.

Speaker 12 All it takes to have a second Trump presidency and with all of the danger that that poses to the continued existence of American democracy is two things. And they're both happening.

Speaker 12 One is the Republican Party itself remains a cult. After January 6th, did not turn away, turned back, is rallying around him.

Speaker 12 You could live with that one if the party got punished for that in the general election.

Speaker 12 But what we simultaneously have is not just in the United States, but in a lot of Western democracies, a lot of anger at incumbents and a lot of dissatisfaction with various economies.

Speaker 12 We have the best of the economies, and people still feel like... So those two things together are producing an autocrat.

Speaker 12 in the one major political party that's running against the incumbent and a lot of anti-incumbent sentiment. Those two things together can result in the autocrat getting elected again.

Speaker 12 It's very, very plausible. So I don't have a pony for you on the prospects, as we say, the odds of Biden.

Speaker 12 So all I can do is really talk about the stakes and why people need to focus on the autocracy, as we just discussed.

Speaker 12 The alternative to the incumbent everybody is grumbling about is right out there saying, and you've written about this. He's making it real explicit that he is going to be an autocrat.

Speaker 12 He's not hiding the ball. You and IAB can't make people care care about that, but we can underscore that this is what's at stake and that you, Mr.
and Mrs.

Speaker 12 America, you may be unhappy with inflation, which is actually coming down. You may be unhappy with the border, which is going to get better as the Republicans and Democrats work out a deal.

Speaker 12 There are a lot of things you may be unhappy about.

Speaker 12 But this thing, the fact that this guy will steamroll the Constitution, has already said he would suspend the Constitution, has already tried to overthrow the American government, tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.

Speaker 12 We're just going to remind you of this and get you to focus on this because this is more important than any of that other stuff. You don't get any more elections if we lose democracy.

Speaker 11 Exactly. I saw Joe Trippy trying to be optimistic about the gap in economic polling versus economic reality and that there is a lag and that there will be improvement that is probably felt.

Speaker 11 11 months from now that isn't being felt today, or let's say 10 months from now or nine months from now that isn't being felt today.

Speaker 11 What will help you know, is interest rates, people's ability to get a mortgage, that should shift into better territory. That's a huge complaint.

Speaker 11 The frustration is that inflation, like once prices go up, they don't go down. And so I love that JVL is championing zero inflation,

Speaker 11 but the average voter, consumer, you know, American taxpayer has no idea that inflation is at zero because they still can't believe. I saw butter on sale the other day and it was on on sale for $5.99.

Speaker 11 I mean, it was like $2 off, you know, for four sticks of butter. And so that is just so hard to grapple with when we're trying to convince Mr.
and Mrs.

Speaker 11 America that once you lose the system, you never get it back. Inflation is the easy line, no matter what.

Speaker 12 Folks, this is why we do the bulwark.

Speaker 12 Like, I know that some listeners and viewers, people complain that we talk too much about Joe Biden's age and the polls and all that stuff, and we're too bleak about that stuff.

Speaker 12 People, you can go everywhere in the media. They're all talking about this.
They're all talking about how much trouble Joe Biden is and how, you know, the Democrats are screwed and all that.

Speaker 12 That's the media line. What's different about us is we're the ones talking about the stakes.

Speaker 12 We're in here talking every day about, hey, Donald Trump is categorically different from any other bad presidential candidate you ever had, right?

Speaker 12 He is literally going to undermine, throw away the Constitution, democracy, the rule of law. This is a categorical difference.

Speaker 12 And every day, every week, we're out there talking about this and his latest iteration of making clear that that's what he would do. So this is why we do what we do.

Speaker 12 And we hope that it has some effect.

Speaker 11 I totally agree, Will. I want everyone to try to find a way to talk to the people who probably are not tuned in.
to the stakes and try to encourage them to appreciate the stakes.

Speaker 11 I think that's what we all need to do. We do it at the bulwark and we want our readers and our viewers to try to invest some energy in the time we have left to convince the convincible, right?

Speaker 11 I don't think we need to worry about the people who will never, who just want to re-elect Donald Trump.

Speaker 11 I think there are Americans who don't entirely understand the gravity and the consequences of electing Donald Trump again. And that's our mission.

Speaker 11 That's our mission in the next 10 months is to make sure that we persuade the persuadable to wake up, to sense the urgency, and to do what they can.

Speaker 12 And there are enough persuadables. There are enough of them.
Yes. It happened in 2020.
We saw it happen. It can happen again.
That's true.

Speaker 16 Thank God for the pony.

Speaker 11 Will, you're delightful. It's really been fun.
And thank you. And thank you for joining us today.
Stay here for awesome lineup of subs for Charlie all week and throughout the holiday.

Speaker 11 He'll, of course, be back in the dreaded 2024, which is soon upon us. And I want to send everyone best wishes for health, hope, and laughter in the new year and constitutional order as well.

Speaker 11 Thanks, everyone.

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