Karen Tumulty: The Sununu Effect in New Hampshire

Speaker 1 Even though severe cases can be rare, respiratory syncytial virus or RSV is still the leading cause of hospitalization in babies under one.

Speaker 4 RSV often begins like a cold or the flu, but can quickly spread to your baby's lungs.

Speaker 6 Ask your doctor about preventative antibodies for your baby this season and visit protectagainstrsv.com. The information presented is for general educational purposes only.

Speaker 6 Please ask your healthcare provider about any questions regarding your health or your baby's health.

Speaker 8 California has millions of homes that could be damaged in a strong earthquake. Older homes are especially vulnerable to quake damage, so you may need to take steps to strengthen yours.

Speaker 10 Visit strengthenyourhouse.com to learn how to strengthen your home and help protect it from damage.

Speaker 13 The work may cost less than you think and can often be done in just a few days.

Speaker 14 Strengthen your home and help protect your family.

Speaker 15 Get prepared today and worry less tomorrow.

Speaker 10 Visit strengthenyourhouse.com.

Speaker 17 Welcome to the Bullwork podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes.
It is two days before Thanksgiving. I think we are kind of ramping down for the holiday.
I hope everybody has a great Thanksgiving.

Speaker 17 But before we descend into the long weekend, I wanted to get a view from, well, from the front lines, from the field.

Speaker 17 And so we are very fortunate to be joined by the Washington Post's Karen Karen Tummelty, who is on the ground in New Hampshire this morning. So first of all, welcome back to the podcast, Karen.

Speaker 16 Well, thank you very much and happy Thanksgiving.

Speaker 17 So let's talk about what you are seeing and doing because you have been very, very busy. You've seen Nikki Haley in action.
You've seen Chris Christie. You're going to see Ron DeSantis.

Speaker 17 So just give me a sense of what's happening up in New Hampshire because the conventional wisdom is, okay, it's Donald Trump's party. He's going to win.
There's a race for second.

Speaker 17 Nikki's having her moment. So let's start with Nikki Haley.
Is there a little bit of Nikki momentum going on there?

Speaker 16 Yeah, I think there is. And, you know, the other thing that I'm seeing here is a lot of very curious voters.

Speaker 16 And of course, in New Hampshire, you have not only the Republican base, but Independents can vote in the primary.

Speaker 16 And there's no Democratic primary. So to the degree they vote, they're all going to be playing in the Republican primary.

Speaker 16 And there are just already, and this is a holiday week, a lot of people showing up to hear these people.

Speaker 16 But I think the most single most interesting factor, the bell of the ball up here, is Governor Chris Sununu, who is appearing with all of these other candidates.

Speaker 16 And he, as you know, has broken with Trump. He is extremely popular up here.

Speaker 16 And he is making it pretty clear that he is going to endorse somebody, probably certainly one of these three,

Speaker 16 and that when he does, he's going, as he put it with me yesterday, 110%.

Speaker 16 Now, you know, you can say endorsements don't matter. And, you know, as popular as he is, you know, does it rub off on other people? But what he has is an incredibly deep and robust network.

Speaker 16 You know, he's a two-generation name up here.

Speaker 16 And, you know, that really could, I think, potentially make a difference.

Speaker 17 Well, this is always the big question is whether or not popularity is transferable.

Speaker 17 You know, we have the Republican governor of Iowa that has endorsed Ron DeSantis, you know, despite the fact that he's running double digits behind Donald Trump.

Speaker 17 Donald Trump's very, very unhappy about it. New Hampshire is just a different beast, though.
I mean, I think we just ought to step back.

Speaker 17 And New Hampshire voters are just notoriously contrarian and independent, right? I mean, there's something distinctive about the New Hampshire primary. It's not just it's the first primary.

Speaker 17 It's not just this sort of, you know, weird artifact of American democracy. So give me a sense of who these people are that are showing up and what they're looking for.

Speaker 16 Well, New Hampshire has a history in both parties of kind of whacking back at whoever wins Iowa.

Speaker 16 They love to do that. They're sort of contrarian.
And I do think that where in Iowa, you know, you have a huge evangelical Christian base.

Speaker 16 Here, voters across the board, I think, tend to be a little more libertarian, a little more independent-minded. I mean, this is a place where it says live free or die on the license plates.

Speaker 16 You know, they are also saying because the Democrats are snubbing them this time around and putting their first primary in South Carolina, you do get a sense that they are quite eager to protect their tradition and their first in line status.

Speaker 16 And certainly the governor is quite eager. Their primary is relatively early.
I think it's what, like eight days after Iowa. So it's nine weeks away, and it's starting to feel pretty close.

Speaker 17 Okay, so, I mean, the Republican Party is really Trump's party. He's got more than 60% of the vote.
Are New Hampshire Republicans different than the National Republicans?

Speaker 17 I mean, that's what I'm trying to get out of here: is that the people who are showing up to hear Nikki Haley and Chris Christie, clearly they have not all bought into Donald Trump.

Speaker 17 Is the New Hampshire Republican Party significantly less MAGA than other states?

Speaker 16 Again, I am talking to people who are showing up to hear Nikki Haley. So these are not, and they were wearing these little buttons that say NH, heart emoji, NH.

Speaker 16 So it's a luck of the draw that her initials are perfect for a little slogan up here. But I do get the sense, like I said, that a lot of people are shopping.

Speaker 16 And that the thing is, too, if you look at the poll numbers, here's the big question for me.

Speaker 16 I mean, if you look at the poll numbers, if you were to take Nikki Haley and add it to Chris Christie and add it to DeSantis, all of these people are kind of within the margin of error of each other.

Speaker 16 But if you add it all three together against Donald Trump, you got a race. So another question is,

Speaker 16 is anybody going to step aside? Is anybody going to drop out? Because as long as there are all three there, it works to Trump's advantage.

Speaker 17 Oh, very much so. I mean, this is the replay of 2016.
Are you working under the assumption that all three go right up through the New Hampshire primary?

Speaker 17 That if there's a sorting, it would only take place afterwards? What do you think?

Speaker 16 You definitely get the sense that both Haley and Christie are in it. I mean, Christie's ignoring Iowa.
He's putting all of his chips here.

Speaker 16 I don't know, though, if DeSantis doesn't do well in Iowa, where he is putting most of his resources, you know, there may be a way to nudge him out. But again, I have not seen him up here.

Speaker 16 We still have nine weeks, but I think if any of the three is likely to be nudged either out or to the sidelines. It would be DeSantis, yeah.
Right.

Speaker 17 Okay, so DeSantis supporters, though, they're not necessarily just going to break for another non-Trump candidate.

Speaker 17 You know, my sense is looking at some of these numbers that Ron DeSandis drops out, that Donald Trump is basically their second choice, that he was sort of MAGA without the baggage.

Speaker 17 So you take him out of there and they might as well go with the original MAGA with the, you know, the OG.

Speaker 17 What do you think?

Speaker 16 Yeah. Exactly.

Speaker 16 And also Chris Christie, who's been the most kind of direct in attacking Trump up here on the thesis that there's a very different electorate here and that this is a way to bring in some of those independents who can vote in the primary here.

Speaker 16 But you have seen his negatives go up very sharply with the Republican base.

Speaker 17 So what is Nikki Haley's message there? I'm trying to get a sense of how they are pitching themselves.

Speaker 17 I mean, look, we know that they're politicians, so they're going to pitch themselves differently to New Hampshire voters than to, say, Iowa evangelicals. And something's working for Nikki right now.

Speaker 17 We'll get to Chris Christie in a moment. What is her pitch? Why Republicans should ditch Donald Trump for her? Or does she not put it in those terms?

Speaker 16 She uses a lot of the lines that we've heard her use quite effectively on the debate stage. She talks a lot about the need for a generational change in this party.

Speaker 16 She talks a lot about the need to get beyond the drama. And she also digs pretty deep into foreign policy.
She is really the only candidate who is touting her credentials there.

Speaker 17 She does have really clear lines of difference with the other candidates on Ukraine. So does she bring up Ukraine on the stump, Ukraine and Israel?

Speaker 16 She does. The way she portrays it is that this is a unified field, that what happens in Ukraine is going to affect what happens in the Middle East, and that's going to affect what happens in Taiwan.

Speaker 16 That, you know, all of these autocrats are

Speaker 16 watching each other. That if Russia prevails in Ukraine, that's going to embolden China.

Speaker 16 If the United States doesn't stand up for Israel, that's going to, you know, the argument she makes is this is one issue, not three.

Speaker 17 What kind of a reception does she get, though? How do Republicans in New Hampshire react to this?

Speaker 17 I'm putting this in the context of this rising isolationism, America first, that you're seeing in polls, you're seeing in Congress.

Speaker 17 And New Hampshire has kind of an isolationist streak, anti-war streak. So how does it play there?

Speaker 16 Again, I have mostly seen her in front of audiences who have come out to hear her.

Speaker 17 So they're pre-selected to agree with her.

Speaker 16 Right. But they are receptive.
And the other thing that she does is talks about the border as an issue that is not just a southern issue, but a northern issue.

Speaker 16 And that is something to know about here in New Hampshire, where, you know, they have had a big border problem, which is fentany.

Speaker 16 Yes. So border security does have a resonance up here that I think all of the candidates would do well to understand.

Speaker 17 Okay, so does she raise, this always feels surreal when we're talking about this Republican primary because, of course, you know, the great orange elephant looming over all of this is the fact that, you know, Donald Trump is the frontrunner, is the, you know, expected nominee, and he's facing multiple criminal charges and seems to become,

Speaker 17 I'm trying to finish this sentence without using the word fascist, but I'm going to fail. You know, continues to signal exactly what kind of regime he would bring in if it was Trump 2.0.

Speaker 17 Does she talk about that at all?

Speaker 17 Or is that just something that I know that Chris Christie raises it, but does anyone other than Chris Christie talk about the fact that the Republican Party might actually nominate a convicted felon or certainly somebody who is under criminal indictment?

Speaker 17 Does that ever come up anywhere other than a Chris Christie event?

Speaker 16 No, Charlie, and that is what really struck me last night because Chris Christie is the only one of the candidates who is talking about the charges against Trump on their merits.

Speaker 16 Nikki Haley kind of tries to sidestep it. She talks about how, well, they don't treat the Democrats this way, and that's not, you know, it's a deflection.

Speaker 16 She certainly, though, doesn't go as far as Vivek Ramaswamy, a name, by the way, I'm not hearing much here, to say Trump should be pardoned.

Speaker 16 But it really is only Chris Christie who actually deals with the substance of the charges against Donald Trump, again, on their merits.

Speaker 1 Even though severe cases can be rare, respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, is still the leading cause of hospitalization in babies under one.

Speaker 4 RSV often begins like a cold or the flu, but can quickly spread to your baby's lungs.

Speaker 6 Ask your doctor about preventative antibodies for your baby this season and visit protectagainstrsv.com. The information presented is for general educational purposes only.

Speaker 6 Please ask your healthcare provider about any questions regarding your health or your baby's health.

Speaker 8 California has millions of homes that could be damaged in a strong earthquake. Older homes are especially vulnerable to quake damage, so you may need to take steps to strengthen yours.

Speaker 10 Visit strengthenyourhouse.com to learn how to strengthen your home and help protect it from damage.

Speaker 13 The work may cost less than you think and can often be done in just a few days.

Speaker 14 Strengthen your home and help protect your family.

Speaker 15 Get prepared today and worry less tomorrow.

Speaker 10 Visit strengthenyourhouse.com.

Speaker 17 Let's talk a little bit about Chris Christie. I talked about this with my colleague Will Salatin on our podcast yesterday.

Speaker 17 Chris Christie's made it very, very clear that he was basically a one-man wrecking ball going after Donald Trump.

Speaker 17 It seems to me, at least from the outside, that he's really sort of stepping into this role, that he's kind of sharpening his critique. I don't know, how does he appear on the stump?

Speaker 17 Because, you know, I'm sitting here in Wisconsin thinking, you know, Chris Christie is this magnificent beast who's also seems like the happy warrior. He seems to be enjoying himself.

Speaker 17 And he seems to actually, when he talks about, say, moral clarity, the moral clarity of calling out dangers to democracy, it feels like the longer he's in the race, the sharper his critique is.

Speaker 17 Do you have any sense of this?

Speaker 16 Oh, I absolutely agree. And he's also, at least, you know, from what I've seen lately, just the most engaging candidate on the stump.
And you're right. He is a happy warrior.
He's funny.

Speaker 16 I also find that he is

Speaker 16 taking on not only Trump, but his opponents, his other opponents in the primary. I mean, he is telling people, look, you know,

Speaker 16 these other people that I'm running against, they will tell you they will send the army into Mexico. They're not going to do that.
They're not going to be shooting people on site at the border.

Speaker 16 That's just not the kind of country we are. But, you know, basically telling them they are selling you a line.

Speaker 16 Again, it's an argument that nobody else is making.

Speaker 16 He also talks quite a bit about his own experiences as governor. Somebody asked him last night, would you appoint? Democrats to your cabinet.

Speaker 16 He said, I appointed Democrats to key positions when I was governor. I was a governor of a blue state.
So he's making the electability argument, I think, as well.

Speaker 16 The question is, though, the more he does all of this, the more he drives up his negatives with the MAGA base.

Speaker 17 Well, right. And that's why this is great political theater, but it's not going to end up, I have spoiler alert, with him getting the Republican nomination.

Speaker 17 I thought you tweeted about something that he said last night. He's also willing to take on the Republicans in Congress, including the new speaker, Mike Johnson.

Speaker 17 Let's play this little clip where he talks about all the celebration of the fact that the new speaker managed not to actually crash the government and managed to not shut down the government.

Speaker 17 This was Chris Christie.

Speaker 16 You look at Washington. These jokers take a victory lap for not closing the government and think like they deserve a big round of applause for that.
Congratulations. You didn't close the government.

Speaker 16 You're supposed to be down there running.

Speaker 16 I don't think that deserves any great round of applause but they do because they haven't had a president who has worked with them and made them understand that our job

Speaker 16 is to work for you

Speaker 16 so tell me why you thought that was interesting i just thought it was uh interesting to hear a republican candidate for president repeatedly referring to the republicans who are running the house as clowns

Speaker 16 you know

Speaker 16 it's well,

Speaker 16 I think he's pretty much expressing how a lot of people feel about Congress right now.

Speaker 17 Now, you did write a piece a little while ago. I want to get back to Ronda Sanders in a moment.
The Mike Johnson might be more skillful than expected.

Speaker 17 That was written before the final deal went through.

Speaker 16 By the way, second paragraph of that piece is, you know, more skillful than expected. That's a pretty low bar.

Speaker 17 Yeah, that's a very low bar. Well, and actually since then, I mean, so we had that one deal.
They didn't close down the government.

Speaker 17 And then it was just one clown car crash after another under the speakership, including the failure to pass any of these individual appropriation bill. They couldn't even get the rules through.

Speaker 17 And then they essentially just kind of threw up their hands and went home. There's no indication so far.
Well, and correct me if you have other evidence on this.

Speaker 17 Weirdly enough, and we live in these weird times, there's no indication that all of this chaos and dysfunction is is actually costing Republicans in the polls.

Speaker 17 There seems to be this massive disconnect between

Speaker 17 what's happening in the presidential race or in the Congress. And then you see how voters are processing it, and it doesn't seem to register.

Speaker 16 I think in part it's because voters have gotten so cynical about Congress ever getting anything done other than lurch from crisis to crisis.

Speaker 17 And that's become normalized. They just sort of assume that it's going to be like this?

Speaker 16 Exactly. And going back to Mike Johnson, I mean, Mike Johnson as speaker seems far more pragmatic than Mike Johnson as backbencher was.

Speaker 16 First of all, the people who are causing all the chaos on the House floor and not letting them proceed to

Speaker 16 even pass what they call the rule to get a bill onto the floor are the exact same people who keep claiming they want regular order.

Speaker 16 What we have with this very short window before the next time we look at whether the government closes down is, you know, could they at least try and pass one or two of these 12 appropriations bills, which I think is something they haven't done since, I believe, 2016.

Speaker 16 It's been a while. They just keep rolling up all government spending into these hairball bills that get written in the leadership offices with

Speaker 16 no transparency. What the heck is the Appropriations Committee doing?

Speaker 17 Well, I always wondered this. Now, so you mentioned that Mike Johnson seems more pragmatic as Speaker.
And yeah, in the first few weeks, he seems that.

Speaker 17 On the other hand, he presides over a caucus that is anything but pragmatic. I mean, it's sort of this Rubik's Cube.
How do you get things done? How do you get the age for Israel?

Speaker 17 How do do you get the age for Ukraine without being blown up by the same people that blew up Kevin McCarthy and without relying heavily on Democratic votes? I mean, I frankly don't see how he does it.

Speaker 17 Now, he may want to get it done and he may have this mild demeanor, but he's never chaired a committee. He has no experience doing this.

Speaker 17 I mean, this is a guy who is way out of his depth in a situation where even if you were a master legislature, a master legislator, you'd probably have a hard time navigating this.

Speaker 16 Well, he's going to need the Democrats and he got the Democrats to get the government to remain open. The thing about it is, because

Speaker 16 I think the mega Republicans in the House still view him as one of their own, I think even they have to realize how

Speaker 16 mortifying it was for the country to see them go three weeks without being able to come up with a speaker.

Speaker 16 you do get a sense that Johnson's going to get a little more leeway than Kevin McCarthy got to do exactly what Kevin McCarthy did and got fired for.

Speaker 17 If he ends up doing exactly the kinds of thing that Kevin McCarthy would have done, but is it Mike Johnson's house or is it Matt Gates' house?

Speaker 16 Gosh, who wants that house? Oh, exactly.

Speaker 16 It's nobody's house. You know, it's Lord of the Flies in there.

Speaker 1 Even though severe cases can be rare, respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, is still the leading cause of hospitalization in babies under one.

Speaker 4 RSV often begins like a cold or the flu, but can quickly spread to your baby's lungs.

Speaker 6 Ask your doctor about preventative antibodies for your baby this season and visit protectagainstrsv.com. The information presented is for general educational purposes only.

Speaker 6 Please ask your healthcare provider about any questions regarding your health or your baby's health.

Speaker 8 California has millions of homes that could be damaged in a strong earthquake. Older homes are especially vulnerable to quake damage, so you may need to take steps to strengthen yours.

Speaker 10 Visit strengthenyourhouse.com to learn how to strengthen your home and help protect it from damage.

Speaker 13 The work may cost less than you think and can often be done in just a few days.

Speaker 14 Strengthen your home and help protect your family.

Speaker 15 Get prepared today and worry less tomorrow.

Speaker 10 Visit strengthenyourhouse.com.

Speaker 17 Okay, let's go back to New Hampshire. I'm really intrigued by the role of Chris Sununo.
You said that he's kind of the bell of the ball, very, very popular governor. It's a very small state.

Speaker 17 He knows everybody. He's got these deep networks.
He's showing up with the various candidates, and he's going to go in, as you point out, 110% for whoever it is.

Speaker 17 I'm guessing it's not going to be Ron DeSantis. So is he waiting to see who is the strongest opponent to Trump? I mean, if we go into January and Nikki Haley continues to rise, what do you sense?

Speaker 17 What does he say at the events that he shows up at?

Speaker 16 He just keeps reminding voters of how important they are, but surely he is taking an assessment of who's got the better shot.

Speaker 16 You know, and there's also something to think about here.

Speaker 16 And again, he insists this is not part of his calculation, but you know, say you had a female governor from South Carolina get the nomination.

Speaker 16 She could pick worse running mates than a New England governor from a swing state.

Speaker 16 You know, who knows what all is going to go into his calculation, but I do think

Speaker 16 he does bring a lot.

Speaker 16 He is one of the more articulate people I've ever heard in making the case against Donald Trump. And he's not afraid to do it.

Speaker 16 And you do have, as he was saying yesterday, a network where whoever he endorses, he can introduce them to every selectman and every school board member.

Speaker 16 And, you know, all the people that the Sununu network going back two generations has cultivated.

Speaker 17 We ought to clarify that even though he's broken with Donald Trump and makes the case against Donald Trump, he is among those Republicans who have said that he will support the nominee.

Speaker 17 He tried to finesse that months ago by saying, well, I'll support the nominee, but it's not going to be Donald Trump, so I don't really have to make that statement. What does he say now?

Speaker 17 Now that it's increasingly likely that it's going to be Donald Trump?

Speaker 16 He is not being asked that anymore. And of course, I mean, come on, Charlie.
You know, I mean, if Trump's the nominee, they're all going to support. Donald Trump.

Speaker 17 Well, when you say all of them, see, this is what's interesting is that cognitive shift from saying, you know, this man is he's crazy he's a danger to the republic he's become detached from reality yes but by all means i will vote to put him back in the oval office i mean it's just i mean it we know that partisanship and tribalism can be a hell of a drug but this year it's really it's amazing watching some of these guys make the case against trump now and then

Speaker 17 you know, with the gravitational pull of partisan loyalty coming back home after it's all over.

Speaker 16 And then all we're going to hear is, well, he's not Joe Biden. You know, it was interesting.

Speaker 16 I was sitting next to one voter yesterday at the Haley event, and she was saying, she's a staunch Republican.

Speaker 16 She said her kids are both Democrats, but she said, I don't know what I do if it comes down to Trump versus Biden, because I can't vote for Trump and I can't vote for Biden.

Speaker 16 And I'm going to go to the polls and write somebody in.

Speaker 17 These are the double haters.

Speaker 16 Yeah, and I'm wondering, too, I mean, our assumption has always been that having Trump on the ballot drives turnout on both sides.

Speaker 16 But if we end up having two nominees that at least all indications now are people just aren't enthusiastic about, I wonder if turnout just goes through the floor.

Speaker 17 Geez, yeah, well, it's hard to predict what the mood in the country is going to be. So let's talk about Joe Biden for a moment.

Speaker 17 It's going to be very, very hard to get even some of these anti-Trump Republicans to vote for Joe Biden.

Speaker 17 But we had another one of these panic polls this week showing that Donald Trump is actually leading Joe Biden, his approval ratings, being down at pretty much historic lows.

Speaker 17 Give me your sense of like,

Speaker 17 what is Joe Biden's problem? Why is Joe Biden having such a hard time connecting with the American public? What do you think is going on here?

Speaker 16 I think, number one,

Speaker 16 if you're talking about why he personally is having trouble connecting, is age.

Speaker 16 Ronald Reagan had a supposed age issue. When he was nominated, he was three weeks short of his 70th birthday.
I mean, when he was inaugurated, rather.

Speaker 16 I think personally, people are worried about his age, but I do think there's just kind of a sour mood in the country that, yes, there's economic economic growth and yes, inflation has slowed down, but you go to the grocery store and everything still looks pretty expensive.

Speaker 16 And the world is outside our borders, is looking like such a scary place.

Speaker 16 But I honestly think that polls this far out and when you don't have an actual defined race, I genuinely don't think they are dispositive.

Speaker 17 Okay, because so many voters are still in denial about the fact that it's going to be Trump versus Biden?

Speaker 16 Yeah, and also an election is a choice.

Speaker 16 So if you ask people, what do you think of Joe Biden?

Speaker 16 It's one thing. But if you say, if you, you know, if you got to look at these two people and vote for one, I just think these numbers are just too close.

Speaker 16 And in most people's mind, an election that is a year away is still too theoretical.

Speaker 17 Does Joe Biden have a Jimmy Carter problem?

Speaker 16 Not like Jimmy Carter had a Jimmy Carter problem.

Speaker 17 I mean, there was that perception that he, you know, people might not have disliked him, but that he was

Speaker 17 kind of perceived to be weak, did not bestride the world state in a relatively forceful way. And then there was just the accumulation of

Speaker 17 reasons to be dissatisfied with what was going on in the world. There are presidents that connect with the American public.
The American public says, I am with that guy.

Speaker 17 I trust him, even if I disagree with him. There seems to be a lack of connection.

Speaker 17 And I know that Democrats are immensely frustrated by this because they say, but look, look at all of the programs and policies he has put into place.

Speaker 17 You know, they are all successful or they say that they poll well. And yet, for some reason, this is not translating into support for Joe Biden, the person.

Speaker 16 But Jimmy Carter had so many specific crises going on at the same time.

Speaker 16 I mean, we had Americans being held hostage in the Iranian embassy and Ted Koppel counting it down the number of days every night. We had lines at the gas pump.

Speaker 17 Well, we have hostages in Gaza.

Speaker 16 It still, I think, feels like a far-off thing.

Speaker 16 And again, who knows how this plays out? over the months.

Speaker 16 And by the way, it's worth pointing out when the Americans were first taken hostage in Iran, Carter's numbers went through the world.

Speaker 16 People really rallied around him.

Speaker 16 And that basically killed Ted Kennedy's challenge of him in his primary challenge. But the fact that it dragged on was what really, I think, killed him.

Speaker 17 Well, and the fact that they had the one-year anniversary right before the election.

Speaker 17 So speaking of Jimmy Carter, and I'm sorry to bring him in in sort of a negative way, you wrote a wonderful appreciation for Rosalind Carter.

Speaker 17 So let's talk a little bit about the former first lady and what she represented because you opened your column by noting that the former first lady, who died on Sunday, wore the same gown to her husband's presidential inaugural balls in 1977 that she wore to his gubernatorial inauguration.

Speaker 17 This was a gown that was actually bought off the rack in Georgia. That still seems kind of refreshing.
And in the context of the times, it was kind of a moment of like someone who was like us.

Speaker 17 So talk to me a little bit about her because you've written a fantastic book about Nancy Reagan. Rosalind Carter, very, very different First Lady.

Speaker 16 Yes. And this decision of hers to wear the same dress that she had worn six years before and had worn at least once in between was, believe it or not, criticized at the time.

Speaker 16 How dare she?

Speaker 17 Yeah, the New York Times was kind of sniffy about it, right? Mutters were heard from members of the fashion industry who felt the first lady could ill afford such a sentimental gesture.

Speaker 16 But, you know, part of it spoke to her humility and her frugality. I mean, this is a first lady who had let us know that she was bringing her sewing machine to the White House.

Speaker 16 But I think, too, it was a signal to the country that Rosalind Carter did not intend to be just an ornament on her husband's presidency. And certainly we have seen that

Speaker 16 many of the first ladies in history and especially first ladies in modern history were in fact highly influential in their husband's presidency.

Speaker 16 But the deal was you weren't supposed to let the world know that you were influential.

Speaker 16 So they would all, with the possible exception of Eleanor Roosevelt, would just sort of pretend as was it Bess Truman or Mamie Eisenhower who said, my husband runs the country and I flip the lamb chops.

Speaker 16 I mean,

Speaker 16 but Rosalind Carter made no pretense, nor did her husband. It was considered a radical act when she showed up at cabinet meetings and sat there quietly taking notes.

Speaker 16 And she was really frustrated by some of the reactions she would get from breaking against those stereotypes, even in the 1970s when

Speaker 16 second wave feminism was in its bloom. And I thought it was interesting that it was her predecessor, Betty Ford, who gave her a piece of advice that she really took to heart.

Speaker 16 She said, look, you're going to get criticized no matter what you do. So you might as well do what you want to do.

Speaker 17 That sounds very Barbara Bush. She wrote in her autobiography that Jimmy and I had always worked side by side.

Speaker 17 It's a tradition in southern families and one that is not seen in any way demeaning to the man. I also think there was not a very subtle implication that cabinet meetings were no place for a wife.

Speaker 17 I was supposed to take care of the house, period. She knew that this would raise eyebrows, that she would show up at the cabinet meetings.

Speaker 17 But you also point out she challenged traditional constraints that had been put on other first ladies and maybe making it easier for people like Hillary Clinton. She traveled abroad.

Speaker 17 She met heads of state on matters of actual substance, right?

Speaker 17 I mean, as you reminded us, she also would interrupt her husband at White House dinners to explain something more clearly than he was doing, which is Pretty remarkable when you think about that.

Speaker 16 And I really do think that the first ladies who have come since really owe her a great debt for,

Speaker 16 you know, kind of clearing a path that gave all of them a lot more ability to kind of decide for themselves.

Speaker 16 Because first lady is such a tough, you know, it's a role that comes with so many expectations,

Speaker 16 but, you no job description. I mean, each of them has had to

Speaker 17 make this role their own.

Speaker 16 And also each of them, you know, as they find themselves in their own moment in history, you know, as a partner to someone whose weaknesses and strengths they understand

Speaker 16 like no one else does.

Speaker 16 I do think Rosalind Carter made it easier for those who came after her.

Speaker 17 You also pointed out, though, that her instincts were not always perfect. I mean, she kept a very, very close eye on politics.

Speaker 17 She was very much a political creature, but she was the one who urged Jimmy to shake up his cabinet and to give that famous crisis of confidence address to the nation, which is often called the Malays speech, even though he didn't use the word malaise.

Speaker 17 That's what I was actually thinking of before, that sort of that sense of Jimmy Carter, the Malays speech, in some ways defined him in a way that I don't think that he intended.

Speaker 17 Maybe it was completely unfair, but that was her idea.

Speaker 16 She was very much on board and pushing him to do this. Now, would he have done it without her influence? You know, who knows?

Speaker 16 I mean, but the other thing is, and I found this as I was researching my own book, the wives often carry the scars.

Speaker 16 even

Speaker 16 in a way their husbands don't. And when Jimmy Carter lost in 1980, someone said to him, you know, you don't seem all that bitter.
And she says, because I'm bitter enough for both of us.

Speaker 17 Which is really interesting because when I read that, I was thinking, well, that's, that's really not the persona that you think of.

Speaker 17 But, but it, but it is true that I think one of the hardest things in politics is to be the spouse of the candidate or the official because you're taking all the arrows, but you don't always have the ability to fire back in the same kind of way.

Speaker 17 And I have noted this in the past, but yeah, that quote, I am bitter enough for the both of us. What was she bitter about?

Speaker 16 I think that her husband's achievements were not recognized,

Speaker 16 which certainly they have been, I think, in some ways a lot more by history than by the population. Then

Speaker 16 she was mad at Reagan.

Speaker 16 When I was writing my own book, one of the great mysteries to me was why did Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush hate each other so much?

Speaker 16 And it was George Will, who was very close to Nancy Reagan, said, because, you know, the wives sometimes can't get past things. And the two of them never got past the 1980 primary.
Wow.

Speaker 17 How did Nancy get along with Rosalind Carter?

Speaker 16 Oh, they didn't get along either.

Speaker 17 Maybe it was a Nancy issue.

Speaker 16 Well, it could have been.

Speaker 16 In fact, so as Nancy Reagan is getting in trouble for a number of things early in her own time as first lady, the biggest you might remember was in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression, she raised private money to buy a set of $1,000 a place setting China, new China for the White House.

Speaker 16 Basically, Nancy Reagan would get up and say basically that Carters had just let the place go.

Speaker 16 And finally, Rosalind Carter gets up and says you know i thought it was sort of charming to mix place settings and we always tried to make it i mean she had just sort of rosalyn just sort of had it and the other thing nancy regan did was

Speaker 16 she called up you know people who were running the white house and asked if it was possible for the carters to move out a little early so that they could start redecorating that didn't go over well either no you wouldn't expect that it would You know, you think back, I mean, I was thinking as you were describing the long history of very, very influential first ladies.

Speaker 17 It is such an interesting story because, of course, you had some who were not particularly, at least as far as we know, not particularly impactful.

Speaker 17 But then you have the Eleanor Roosevelts, you have the Edith Wilsons,

Speaker 17 and you have Lady Bird Johnson, and of course, Nancy Reagan, and then, of course, leading up to Hillary Clinton.

Speaker 17 In some ways, Melania Trump is really the exception, being one of the obviously quite glamorous, but really, in the tradition of influential first ladies, probably the most negligible.

Speaker 17 What do you think?

Speaker 16 Yeah, I think her big initiative, which was to, you know, that be best initiative where she was talking about

Speaker 16 anti-bullying. I couldn't tell whether she was trolling her husband.

Speaker 17 Yeah, I don't think that people, historians, are going to look back. And one of the turning points in civility in America was the Trump administration's Be Best initiative.

Speaker 17 I suppose if you looked at it askance, you could say, yeah, this is her way of trying to distance herself from the husband.

Speaker 17 I mean, it is extraordinary when you think about how close many of these couples were and how much their stories are intertwined.

Speaker 17 Donald Trump is going through some things right now, and Milani is never at his side. And I'm trying to think, is there a historical parallel to that? I mean, it's just odd, don't you think?

Speaker 16 It is unusual.

Speaker 16 And I think another contrast here there's a wonderful netflix documentary based on this ladybird book that came out a few years ago where they're playing the audio from ladybird's diary and and again as i point out in the column it shows her influence but the fact that she stipulated that these diaries couldn't come out until after her death was evidence that she didn't want people to know how influential she was but what she

Speaker 16 would do, she was an incredibly important source of support and strength to her husband as he was suffering what sounded like some pretty severe problems with depression.

Speaker 16 And again, this is certainly not the sort of role you hear about from Melania, but who knows? Maybe there's a Melania audio diary that we will get to hear someday.

Speaker 17 That's possible. It could be there somewhere.
I'm not going to hold out a great deal of hope for all of this.

Speaker 17 Karen Tumblety is associate editor and columnist for The Washington Post on the ground, on the front lines in New Hampshire. Thank you so much for taking time out from the field to talk with us today.

Speaker 17 I appreciate it. And have a happy Thanksgiving.

Speaker 16 Thank you, Charlie. It is always a pleasure.

Speaker 17 And just a reminder that with everything that's going on, we still actually do have things to be thankful for. And thank you all for listening to today's Bullwork podcast.
I'm Charlie Sykes.

Speaker 17 I will be back next week, and we'll do this all over again.

Speaker 17 The Bullwork Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.

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