A.B. Stoddard: Insane and Surreal

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

Speaker 6 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

Speaker 3 This edge-of-your-seat revenge thriller unravels a deliciously dark mystery in a world full of wealth, secrets, and betrayal.

Speaker 5 Malice will constantly keep you on your toes.

Speaker 1 Why is Adam after the Tanner family?

Speaker 8 What lengths will he go to?

Speaker 6 One thing's for sure, the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

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

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Speaker 13 Welcome to the Bullwork Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes.
It is November 9th, 2023, and we're all hungover from watching the big Republican debate from last night and

Speaker 13 parsing all of the nuance and the substance and the winners. No, I'm just kidding.

Speaker 13 I sort of watched it. As I wrote in my morning shots, I knew that I was supposed to be taking notes, but my mind was wandering.

Speaker 13 And I kept sort of thinking, what would Abraham Lincoln think of Vivek Ramaswamy? What would William F. Buckley Jr.?

Speaker 13 And I concluded that they'd probably be sitting back, probably have started drinking, and thinking, what an insufferable dick this guy is. Okay, so joining me.

Speaker 13 On our post-debate podcast, my colleague A.B. Stoddard.
How are you, A.B.?

Speaker 12 I am well, Charlie. How are you?

Speaker 13 Well, I'm looking for you for the more substantive stuff since I was having a hard time sort of getting my head around this kind of runner-up debate where, you know, in theory, it's supposed to be a presidential debate and you're looking at the stage and going, okay, none of these guys are going to be president.

Speaker 13 They're not going to be the nominee. Some of them are running for podcaster of the year.
Some of them might think they're going to be VP. They're not.
So should we start doing our hot takes here?

Speaker 13 Before we get started, the elephant who was not in the room, the orange elephant who was not in the room, of course, was Donald Trump.

Speaker 13 You know, A.B., you and I are both old enough to remember when a candidate refused to debate any of his opponents show up ever, that would be a thing, right?

Speaker 12 Yeah, amazing.

Speaker 13 It sort of barely registers. And in case you missed it, while

Speaker 13 the also rans of the Republican Party were having their debate, Donald Trump was having a rally.

Speaker 13 And of course, because he is the classiest American president ever, because he does everything first class.

Speaker 13 He had Roseanne Barr as his opening act. Did you catch this? That Roseanne Barr was the opening act for the former president of the United States.

Speaker 13 And in case you missed it, it sounded something like this.

Speaker 13 Aren't we all fed up with the deep state bullshit?

Speaker 13 Deep state bullshit.

Speaker 13 Deep state bullshit.

Speaker 13 And the bullshit.

Speaker 13 We want Trump, the Magador, to kill that goddamn bull.

Speaker 13 And the bullshit! Kill that goddamn bull.

Speaker 13 Oh my.

Speaker 13 And after that, they had a moment of silence and prayer. Let us pray for traditional values.
And I don't know, Aby, I was struggling as I listened to this thinking, okay, was Rose Ambarr ever funny?

Speaker 13 Yeah. Was she ever actually funny? I think she was.
Until the brain worms got her? Right.

Speaker 12 I mean, she was a talented comedic, you know, actress. So she was, she might have not written all the best stuff, but she was really good with delivery.
But obviously, the brain worms have taken over.

Speaker 12 I hope everyone at the rally was also on edibles so that they could enjoy the primal screen.

Speaker 13 Yeah, that's right. I actually think that you'd have to have had quite a number of edibles to really appreciate that.

Speaker 13 Let's kill the goddamn deep state bullshit. So, A.B., this is, I regret to tell you, this is what our next 12 months is going to be like, I am afraid.

Speaker 13 Okay, so we're going to get to the substance of the debate, but... We might as well start with the high point, Vivek Ramaswamy, who is,

Speaker 13 I suppose there was a moment a few weeks ago when people were actually taking him seriously, when we were thinking that, okay, he's going to make the surge and he's going to be the inheritor of the MAGA mantle.

Speaker 13 And, you know, I think he's going to have a great career as a host on Newsmax or whatever.

Speaker 13 But this was one of the few memorable moments from last night where Vivek Ramaswamy decided that in his campaign to be president of the United States, he was going to go after Nikki Haley's daughter because she was on TikTok.

Speaker 13 Let's play that.

Speaker 14 I want to laugh at why Nikki Haley didn't answer your question, which is about looking at families in the eye.

Speaker 14 In the last debate, she made fun of me for actually joining TikTok while her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time. So you might want to take care of your family first.

Speaker 14 Leave my daughter.

Speaker 14 The next generation of Americans are using it. And that's actually the point.
You have her support.

Speaker 14 You're propping her up. That's fine.
Here's the truth.

Speaker 14 The easy answer is actually to say that we're just going to ban one app. We got to go further.
We have to ban any U.S. company.

Speaker 13 Whatever. You catch that, she goes, you're just scum, which I think is probably a first in American presidential debate history, maybe.
What do you think? Richly deserved, however.

Speaker 11 It is true that he deserved it.

Speaker 12 But as I watched it,

Speaker 12 I was stunned that she said it. And I'm sure that she's just angry that she was provoked.
And he is so funny that you...

Speaker 12 When you opened talking about him being a dick, because last night in Slack, I called him a prick.

Speaker 12 He is so god-awful. It's gonna be so hard for me to watch the fourth debate.
And I regret to inform you, Charlie, that there is one if he is still on that stage. He has got to go.

Speaker 12 It's just the most overwrought, punky, his opening, attacking Ronna McDaniel, and then the media.

Speaker 13 It's all Ronna McDaniel's fault. It's like, it's not Donald Trump's fault.
It's Ronna McDaniel's. Well, every party needs a scapegoat, right?

Speaker 12 He's so tired at this point.

Speaker 12 It's so draining to watch him. And the other people loathing him on stage.
It's just all so, oh, it just, it's got to end.

Speaker 13 Oh, they loathed him. This is one thing that has united the Republican Party, at least for the moment.
It is the mutual loathing for Vivek Ramaswamy.

Speaker 13 Okay, so we're only going to spend a few more minutes on him because I share your, can we just move on with our lives? But there was a moment where I actually had to go back and listen several times.

Speaker 13 And when I first saw it on social media, I thought, no, they misheard it. Because that does happen sometimes.

Speaker 13 You know, somebody will say, would you hear somebody say, you know, X, Y, or Z, and it turns out that maybe they didn't exactly say that word or was taken out of context.

Speaker 13 Here, and you correct me if you have a different take on this, he actually calls Vlodimir Zelensky, who is Jewish, the Jewish president of Ukraine, who is fighting for his country's future.

Speaker 13 He actually calls Zelensky a Nazi.

Speaker 13 I mean, it's one thing to have a different opinion about Ukrainian policy, and I think that his entire foreign policy position is completely deplorable, essentially wanting to give up everything to Vladimir Putin, reward Vladimir Putin.

Speaker 13 I mean, that's bad enough. But listen to this clip.

Speaker 14 I'm actually enjoying watching the Ukraine Hawks quietly, delicately tiptoe back from their position as this thing has unwound into a disaster.

Speaker 14 The first half of this race, I was the only person standing for it. Now they're actually quietly coming around to being more cautious as they should.
Level with the American people here.

Speaker 14 Ukraine is not a paragon of democracy. This is a country that has banned 11 opposition parties.
It has consolidated all media into one state TV media arm. That's not democratic.

Speaker 14 It has threatened not to hold elections this year unless the U.S. forks over more money.
That is not democratic.

Speaker 14 It has celebrated a Nazi in its ranks, the comedian in cargo pants, a man called Zelensky, doing it in their own ranks. That is not democratic.

Speaker 13 A Nazi in cargo pants.

Speaker 12 It's basically quoting Putin. Even Steve Bannon doesn't talk this way.
He's really,

Speaker 13 really radical.

Speaker 13 Really humble. This would embarrass Steve Bannon.
I mean, he went full Alex Jones, but it's an indication of how the Overton window of discourse continues to move in this party.

Speaker 13 Maybe the one thing that Vivek is going to accomplish will be to make people think that, yeah, Donald Trump doesn't sound quite as crazy. I mean, he could be, you know, like Vivek Prevaswami.

Speaker 13 Okay, I'm not going to double down on that. All right, so Ron DeSantis was less cringy than usual, but clearly ineffectual.
But he did take a couple of sort of slap shots at Donald Trump.

Speaker 13 Here's DeSantis.

Speaker 14 Now, if you look where we are now, it's a lot different than we were in 2016. And Donald Trump's a lot different guy than he was in 2016.

Speaker 14 He owes it to you to be on this stage and explain why he should get another chance.

Speaker 14 He should explain why he didn't have Mexico pay for the border wall. He should explain why he racked up so much debt.
He should explain why he didn't drain the swamp.

Speaker 14 And he said Republicans were going to get tired of winning. Well, we saw last night, I'm sick of Republicans losing.
In Florida, I showed how it's done.

Speaker 14 One year ago here, we want a historic victory, including a massive landslide right here in Miami-Dade County. That's how we have to do it.

Speaker 14 So I promise you this, as the nominee, next November, I'll get the job done. And as president, I will deliver this.
Your time is up. Let me turn to Ambassador Lowe.

Speaker 13 Yeah, okay. Yeah, your time is up.
AB, your thoughts about DeSantis.

Speaker 12 So I was really surprised by his performance. I'm not going to use the word impressed, but he was so noticeably more calm and less miserable than he usually is.

Speaker 12 And he just didn't make me nervous and give me the stomachache that he usually does when he talks. And I do think if you compare Nikki Haley's wimpy, I'll criticize Trump moments to DeSantis there.

Speaker 12 I thought it was more forceful and more impressive. I don't believe he's going to be the nominee.
I don't believe he's even going to end up in a two-man fight with Trump.

Speaker 12 She criticized Trump on debt, and then she said that he's going soft on Ukraine. That's not going to get her anywhere with that audience.

Speaker 12 Again, I don't think that DeSantis had a shining moment last night.

Speaker 12 I think his mode when he goes into these debates is to do no harm, but you could just see he was better prepared and more confident in what he was going to do. He did not knock down Nikki Haley.

Speaker 12 He didn't even seem like

Speaker 12 he had planned to very well.

Speaker 12 It was really weird. I don't know what his strategy was, but when I see him performing in these debates, the vibe I get is he just needs to survive the night and not blow up.

Speaker 12 And he was better at that last night than he has been in the first two.

Speaker 13 Okay, so summarizing, you're at the stage of that he doesn't actually make you break out into hives anymore and he didn't blow himself up. So congratulations.

Speaker 13 See, I actually had the sense that that speech was, you know, it looks like he's hitting Trump. Not one of those points is going to move a single MAGA voter.
It was just sort of reheated.

Speaker 13 Old DeSantis stuff, I won, he lost. The debt, I think by now, it should be obvious that Republicans, frankly, Republican primary voters, don't give a shit about the debt or the deficit.

Speaker 13 So this felt very kabooky to me. Yeah, he was less cringy.
He didn't score any points, but there was no moment at which I thought, he's going to be the last man standing.

Speaker 13 You know, he's going to be number two. This was a race for number two.
I mean, this is like who is going to be the podcaster? And we're doing a podcast. Who's going to be a podcaster?

Speaker 13 And who's going to be the last person who has to concede to Donald Trump? I actually thought she did better. I thought she was more forceful.
I thought she was substantive. I thought she was poised.

Speaker 13 And I have to tell you that, look, I am not a Nikki Haley fan. I have written extensively about her.
I think she has made some, shall we say, bad compromises.

Speaker 13 But I also had this moment where I kind of went to my happy place and thought, oh, our political world would be, even if you disagree with her, would be so dramatically better if you swapped out Donald Trump for Nikki Haley.

Speaker 13 Look, I know it's not going to happen. I know this is a unicorn.
I get that. But in a blink of an eye, we would be in a better place.

Speaker 13 And from a Republican political, just a pragmatic point of view, she'd be a much stronger candidate in a general election. You look at the polls out of Wisconsin yesterday.

Speaker 13 Donald Trump loses in Wisconsin. She wins easily in Wisconsin.
It's not going to happen. I thought she had a pretty good night to the extent that it matters at all, which it does.

Speaker 12 Right.

Speaker 12 Well, Charlie, I pledged coming into this podcast after the third debate since we've done the last two together not to use the words, what's the point, because I'll overused them in the first two.

Speaker 12 But you and I swooned for her debate performance in late August. Her best debate, I thought, was the first one.
Last night, her abortion answer was, I mean, her Ukraine answer was excellent.

Speaker 12 Her abortion answer was better than the first time she gave it. Very good delivery, as always.
She's the best political performer. I think she'll probably overtake DeSantis.

Speaker 12 I completely agree with you. And yes, she totally outpolls everybody in general election matchups with Biden.

Speaker 12 But to the point you just made about DeSantis, not one of his criticisms of Trump is going to resonate with any MAGA voters. Neither are hers.
They're not taking him on.

Speaker 12 They have no real plan to take him on unless he dies or has a health event. So that they would be positioned to succeed him for the nomination should he meet with some horrible twist of fate.

Speaker 12 So it was so surreal to sort of watch Tim Scott for Comic Relief be super moved by Chris Christie's substance. He was amazing last night.
On Ukraine, it was, he said, this is the price we pay.

Speaker 12 We have no choice. We're leading the free world.
And he was so moving. And then again, I just sat there thinking,

Speaker 12 what am I doing? I've lost two hours of my life for no reason.

Speaker 13 Yeah, this is part of the problem. And we need to keep coming back to this, but Chris Christie alone on that stage is willing to go there and say, look, this is the moment we're in.

Speaker 13 We are dealing with a guy who is facing multiple criminal counts.

Speaker 13 Let's just play Chris Christie because this is about the only recognition of this giant reality, this big orange cloud hanging over the Republican Party.

Speaker 14 Anybody who's going to be spending the next year and a half of their life focusing on keeping themselves out of jail and courtrooms cannot lead this party or this country. It needs to be said plainly.

Speaker 14 Governor, thank you.

Speaker 13 Yeah,

Speaker 13 up until about five minutes ago, that would have been a, you know, a reasonable point to make for a reasonably rational political party. But see, Amy, this is the surreal moment here.

Speaker 13 that you have the leading candidate for president who is facing multiple felony charges, more than 91 indictments. He's on trial for fraud.
He has been found liable for rape.

Speaker 13 He's facing racketeering charges in Georgia. He has been charged by the federal government with violating the Espionage Act for absconding and sharing war plans.

Speaker 13 The federal government is accusing him of deceit, trickery, and fraud in his attempt to overthrow the presidential election.

Speaker 13 And in New York, they're about to take away his business license because he is such a chronic fraudster and liar. And no Republican can figure out out how do we run against this guy?

Speaker 13 How do we beat this guy? Huh. If only there was something we could use.

Speaker 13 This is the this disconnect between the moment we're in and then watching these people go through the motions of a pretend debate as if it's 2015 still or something.

Speaker 12 Yeah, and just the opening question was the only Trump question.

Speaker 12 And it was, hello, governor, hello, senator, just tell us why you're a better nominee than Trump. Not good evening, candidates.

Speaker 12 The leader of your party and the former president tried to overthrow our government after plotting a two-month coup. Why does he not deserve to be in office and you do?

Speaker 12 And how will you plan to take him on? Nothing about that.

Speaker 13 Okay, this is the part where you get the surreal quality, where you actually have reporters. who have a chance to ask these candidates questions.

Speaker 13 Now, this was a joint venture between NBC and Salem, which, by the way, what a mind-bending coalition there. You know, Salem being utter shills.
They actually have Hugh Hewitt out there on the stage.

Speaker 13 But yeah, you would think that given the fact that, I don't know, was it last week, last month, that the former president of the United States was suggesting that Mark Milley, General Mark Milley, be given the death penalty?

Speaker 13 Wasn't it a couple of months ago that the former president was suggesting suspending the Constitution? Yeah.

Speaker 13 Wasn't it just a few months ago that the former president was having dinner with notorious neo-Nazis?

Speaker 13 You would think that these things might come up, or the fact that he had suggested suspending the Constitution to restore him to power, or the fact that any of these cases, none of it came up, AB.

Speaker 13 I mean, like, what the, how do you not ask these questions?

Speaker 12 Also, I mean, there have been extensive reports about Project 25, but the story from the Washington Post about

Speaker 12 Lester Holt doesn't want to bring this up in his opening question

Speaker 12 that the president is planning, openly plotting to melt the constitutional order and our checks and balances and try to use the Department of Justice to go after General John Kelly?

Speaker 12 Why would that not be the opening question? This is the problem that we're in is that he, like we knew he would be, is being treated like a normal candidate.

Speaker 12 And because the New York Times-Sienna poll was so stunning, but also backed up by the exact findings in the CBS News poll and the CNN poll, that the news this week was all about Biden and Trump's general election matchups and not what he is plotting in terms of a centralized sort of mini-autocracy in the executive branch in a second term.

Speaker 13 This does seem to be a relevant point and a challenge once again for the American media, which has to decide what is news. Is it the horse race? Is it the artificial news of these polls?

Speaker 13 Or is the news the fact that this man continues to tell us rather graphically what his plans and his intentions are? I think you and I probably have been accused of having Trump derangement syndrome.

Speaker 13 And I confess that, yes, I probably have. But when we say things like, you know, if he gets back into the White House, it's going to be a campaign of revenge and retribution.

Speaker 13 Almost on a daily basis, Donald Trump says, hey, hold my beer. Actually, it's not just going to be revenge and retribution.
Here's my list of people that I will criminally prosecute.

Speaker 13 I will criminally prosecute my former chief of staff. I will prosecute these people because they criticize me.
We're going to put maybe the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to death.

Speaker 13 Whatever you come up with, Donald Trump is like, wait, no, it's actually more than that. So we're saying he's going to abandon Ukraine.
And Donald Trump says, wait, hold my beer.

Speaker 13 I'm not just going to abandon Ukraine. I'm going to say, fuck you, NATO.
I'm going to tell all of our allies that if Russia invades you, that we're not going to defend you.

Speaker 13 And, you know, we say, he's kind of got a fetish for authoritarianism. And Donald Trump says, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold my beer.

Speaker 13 I'm going to give another speech where I say how brilliant Kim Jong-un is, that he must be brilliant to be, you know, the master of North Korea.

Speaker 13 And yet, here we have the mainstream media going, hey, so what does that latest poll say? So

Speaker 13 what's the horse race here? It's just like, guys,

Speaker 13 guys,

Speaker 13 there's a meteor coming. It's about to hit.
Don't look up.

Speaker 13 I'm sorry. That was my rant.

Speaker 12 I don't know when it will change. I mean, you know, I guess they're going to have to cover his trials, but then they will acknowledge how surreal it is, right?

Speaker 12 It'll be a non-normal general election campaign. But his trials don't begin until he swept the nomination on Tuesday, March 5.
So his first trial date is March 4.

Speaker 12 So he is the nominee, and nothing is going to stop him except for that meteor or that cheeseburger.

Speaker 12 And the way that this whole primary campaign is being treated, I mean, mean, to see just watching Charlie, the people that are going to have to fully embrace him in a couple of months, you know, watching them squirm, but then watching also just the all-in, the all-in-ness.

Speaker 12 You know, Steve Daines is running the National Republican Senatorial Committee. He's actually supposed to, after their debacle in 2022, be finding really good candidates that can win in swing states.

Speaker 12 And he's supposed to be appealing to all parts of the Republican Party, even the non-Trump voters, as well as Independents and Democrats in places, you know, whatever that they want to take back, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada.

Speaker 12 And that's his job. And two months before the voting is even taking place, he says, everyone should just, like Pence, drop out and just unite behind President Trump.
Like the sooner, the better.

Speaker 12 Like that'll be better for the party. And this is completely surreal and against the rules.
And like you would say, five minutes ago would have been like the earth would have opened up.

Speaker 11 You don't do that. No.

Speaker 12 No voter has had a say in the primary.

Speaker 12 And so from his crimes to his, you know, his desire to basically make a second term into a dictatorship to the fact that they're not even letting the voters participate in the way that they're making this a coronation.

Speaker 12 Just at every level, this is such an insane process.

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

Speaker 8 Jack Whitehall plays Adam, a charming manny infiltrates the wealthy Tanner family with a hidden motive to destroy them.

Speaker 3 This edge-of-your-seat revenge thriller unravels a deliciously dark mystery in a world full of wealth, secrets, and betrayal.

Speaker 1 Malice will constantly keep you on your toes. Why is Adam after the Tanner family?

Speaker 8 What lengths will he go to?

Speaker 6 One thing's for sure, the past never stays buried, so keep your enemies close.

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

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Speaker 15 The information presented is for general educational purposes only. Please ask your healthcare provider about any questions regarding your health or your baby's health.

Speaker 13 Talk to me about your piece yesterday in the board where you called on Mitch McConnell. Like, Mitch, you're old.
You only got a little time left. This would be a moment to go rogue.
Yeah.

Speaker 13 What do you mean? What do you want cocaine Mitch to do in his Twilight years or months?

Speaker 12 I just want him to go go hard and go rogue and just go uniparty and give himself a legacy, which would involve, obviously, we can all see he's working really hard to try to support the defense of Ukraine.

Speaker 12 And he's with the majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and the president on this in terms of coming up with a security package that combines assistance for Israel and Ukraine and Taiwan.

Speaker 12 The Republicans largely are against that. And without getting into the boring boring details, he is fighting this hard

Speaker 12 because he knows that he's only going to be leader until next November. So no matter who wins the election, Mitch McConnell is no longer going to be leader.

Speaker 12 He's the longest running party leader in the Senate, and he's been the party leader for the Republicans since 2007 in Senate history. And I just...

Speaker 12 advise him, looking at the situation that he's in, you know, he's been miserable since 2015. Does he want to actually endorse Trump in the spring for the third time?

Speaker 12 Last January, I didn't put this in the column, but when Trump was getting excited, calling Elaine Chow a bunch of racist nicknames, not one of Mitch McConnell's colleagues came out and said, this is disgusting, and came to her defense.

Speaker 12 The road for him has been so painful. And don't worry, I'm mad at him for a bunch of things, and I put that in the piece.

Speaker 12 He's no hero, but he could take the Mike Pence, Mitt Romney road, and just liberate himself.

Speaker 13 As you laid this out, he's basically got this buffet of humiliation before him, or he can free himself. Either he has to swallow more insults,

Speaker 13 more humiliations, right, of Trump, because if he bows the knee to Trump, what happens? You know, they might win some seats, but he's done. This is not about his majority anymore.

Speaker 13 And so what is his legacy? You know, this is part of the problem, though.

Speaker 13 You never know what goes on in people's minds, but like every person has a certain idea of what their life is about and what their legacy is going to be.

Speaker 13 And it must be an extraordinary moment to have late in life to begin to realize, wait, maybe it's going to be something completely different.

Speaker 13 Maybe it's not going to be what I thought 20 years ago or 10 years ago or five years ago. Maybe those doors are closed now.

Speaker 13 Maybe I have a completely different and unexpected possible path I could take. And the one you're sketching out, I think, is interesting.

Speaker 13 Whether he's capable of doing it, whether somebody, you know, in his 80s is capable of saying, okay, you know, I have been this partisan attack dog.

Speaker 13 Maybe I'm going to go rogue because, you know, the alternative is I have to crawl on my belly in front of someone that I thoroughly despise and who is going to keep insulting me and my family.

Speaker 13 and stomp on many of the things that I believe in deeply. We've seen this so many times, the people who have been willing to sacrifice their self-respect.
I

Speaker 13 like Peter Meyer, this story out of Michigan, continues to blow my mind. I'm going to come back to McConnell in a moment.

Speaker 13 But Peter Meyer is still in the middle of his career, the beginning of his career. He was a congressman from Michigan.
He's from a wealthy family. He did the right thing after January 6th.

Speaker 13 He voted his conscience. He voted to impeach Donald Trump, was one of 10.
He lost his seat in a primary to a MAGA opponent. And now he's back running for the United States Senate as a Republican.

Speaker 13 And the first thing he did was to say that, yeah, I would vote for Donald Trump again in 2024. Having voted to impeach him back in 2021, he would vote again for Donald Trump.

Speaker 13 And it's one thing to sell your soul. It's another thing to sell your soul when it's not going to work for you.
So we've seen it over and over again. Any thoughts on Peter Meyer?

Speaker 13 Because, I mean, he just seems like a type that is familiar to us, but still kind of shocking.

Speaker 12 I was

Speaker 12 so stunned and so pissed off by that. I really cannot believe it.
It calls up this question, Charlie, which is who is going to hold and who's going to fold? Yeah.

Speaker 12 So Peter Meyers is like, In the before times, he would have been the rising star and a future in the party.

Speaker 12 In the before times, Mike Gallagher from Wisconsin would be, you know, a rising star and a future in the party. So is Mike Gallagher going to endorse Trump next spring? Of course.

Speaker 13 Of course. We're past that now.

Speaker 12 Who's going to fold? Is Senator Bill Cassidy, who had the balls to vote to convict Trump? Is he going to say, I'm going to vote for the no labels candidate and actually take the hit?

Speaker 12 Who is going to do this? And so for Mitch McConnell, there should be no question. that it's over, that he's not going to eat shit next year only to be ousted as leader.

Speaker 12 And he's not going to let Rick Scott and J.D. Vance define the end of his life.

Speaker 12 I mean, this Peter Meyer does this incredibly brave thing that could have been the legacy, you know, the defining, you know, Peter Meyer story through which all future endeavors, you know, are executed through the prism of this like historic integrity.

Speaker 12 Just days into his freshman term, he has members telling him, oh, I wish I was as brave as you.

Speaker 12 We know the president inside of the insurrection, but we're afraid of the guys going through our garbage and threatening my wife and my kids on the way to school.

Speaker 12 And Peter Meyer does it anyway and loses his seat to do this, to come around when he knows he's not going to survive the Michigan primary. It is the craziest Republican Party in the country.

Speaker 12 But it's just such a sign, right, that they've decided this is permanent and they want to be in the Trump dictatorship. They can't get off the dictator's treadmill.

Speaker 12 And if they want to be in the circle, this is like the Trump stain on the party, the Trump hold to them is permanent. No one's like riding it out till 2032 anymore.

Speaker 13 Well, and he could, by the way, to your point, he's young enough that he could go, you know, I'm going to keep my head down. I'm going to ride this out and then I'm going to, you know, try again.

Speaker 13 He's not doing that. But again, this is a very, very clear choice.
And we've seen this choice made over and over again. I have a hard time

Speaker 13 understanding. Well, actually, I don't.
But I mean, here's a young guy who looks at Liz Cheney and J.D. Vance, and he thinks, I want to be like J.D.
Vance.

Speaker 13 Or he looks at Adam Kinzinger and Lindsey Graham and he says, I want to be like Lindsey Graham. I want to be like that.
That's what I want. What they're really saying is, I want this office.

Speaker 13 I want to be a senator so badly that I'm willing to contort myself into all of these shapes, which brings us back to Mitch McConnell. What does Mitch McConnell want?

Speaker 13 He's had everything he could possibly want. He's not going to get a promotion.
Does he want an ambassadorship? Does he want, you know, he's rich?

Speaker 13 You know, this is the moment where you really have to look yourself in the mirror and say, okay, if you're given everything you want, what do you do with it?

Speaker 13 What do you want to do when you're out the door? And I don't know what he's going to do, but I'm prepared to be disappointed, as usual.

Speaker 12 Yeah, we have to be. But, Charlie, like you said, if you reach a point in life where you realize that

Speaker 12 your story, that your journey is now going to be defined in another way, Wouldn't you want to take back control and not let Ted Cruz or Josh Hawley

Speaker 12 tell the end of your story or Donald Trump? And the thing, I think that's what's so important.

Speaker 13 It's a great point. It's great stuff.

Speaker 12 Is what I went through in this piece is how much the party has changed just in the last 12 months.

Speaker 12 Everyone is looking back at the eight years, and you and I have been so deformed by our TDS that we can hardly recognize ourselves or our lives.

Speaker 12 But look, just in the last 12 months after the midterm elections, Trump was getting a lot of heat for backing crazy candidates.

Speaker 12 And Ron DeSantis looks like he could, you know, be a comer and maybe take him on.

Speaker 12 If you look at the election of Mike Johnson, proving that the big lie is now a litmus test for House Republicans, they will not

Speaker 12 promote a leader who doesn't deny Joe Biden's free and fair election as president.

Speaker 12 And you look at Peter Meyer, the Senate committee has basically said right away that Peter Meyer is a non-starter in that primary. And that's because he voted to impeach President Trump.

Speaker 12 And a candidate that normally would be like great for a state like Michigan. It's solidly blue.
You look at what Steve Daines said: you know, everyone should drop out and rally around.

Speaker 12 It's like the complete capitulation.

Speaker 12 I mean, we knew it was coming, but last winter, Charlie, we hoped it wouldn't be this way.

Speaker 13 And in fairness to those of us suffering from TDS, I think that there were a lot of other Republicans, including the DeSantis camp, that didn't think it was going to be this way, right?

Speaker 13 I mean, it wasn't the whole theory behind the DeSantis campaign is that there would come a point where Republican voters would say, yeah, we need to move on. We need to take this off-ramp.

Speaker 13 that there was going to be some indictment or something was going to come along and people were going to be looking at some fresh new face, maybe Trumpism without Trump. That was the whole belief.

Speaker 13 You had all of these smart Republicans who frankly did not understand how thoroughly corrupted their party had become or the fact that if you cave in over and over again, you develop the muscle memory of surrender and it's hard to get back.

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Speaker 13 So let's talk about the election this week because, of course, there's a lot of punditry about an off-term election.

Speaker 13 I was on yesterday with David Plouffe, Obama-era pundit, who I thought had some really good points about, hey, guys, this is good for Democrats, but we should should not engage in irrational exuberance about what it says about 2024 because a presidential election is completely different than these off-year elections.

Speaker 13 The electorate will be much different. It will be much bigger.
These are, you know, single-issue referendums do not necessarily translate into candidate elections. Really good points.

Speaker 13 But let's talk about this. I mean, from a Republican point of view, it struck me.
that there are two reasons why they are so depressed this week.

Speaker 13 Number one, they really were hoping that somebody like Glenn Youngkin would crack the code of abortion, coming up with a 15-week ban, which polls much better than the six-week ban.

Speaker 13 And in fact, that turned out not to work. It failed spectacularly.
And now they're going, what's our plan B? What's our way out of all of this?

Speaker 13 What I have been saying is that, you know, at least my preliminary look at this, is that while the conventional wisdom had been that a 15-week ban would be so much more popular than a six-week ban, that most voters look at at that and they don't focus on the number.

Speaker 13 They don't focus on the first part of that sentence. They're focusing on the ban.
So it's not so much 15 or 6, it's ban, and that's toxic.

Speaker 13 The second big problem is that MAGA is still a boat anchor around the necks of some Republicans, and you really saw that in Kentucky.

Speaker 13 So, your thoughts about rather surprising results from Tuesday's election?

Speaker 12 Yeah, I think it was a great night for Democrats in that if it was a bad night for Democrats, that it would really spell doom when you're looking at those general election matchups for Trump and Biden.

Speaker 12 Charlie, the reason I'm glad to hear that Plough was trying to counsel some measure about this, different populations show up and people who show up in off years and special elections and random times when these are held, they're the most engaged.

Speaker 12 And what will happen next year in the presidential cycle is a wash of highly engaged, I mean, you know, very motivated Trump voters, and then we're going to have what we're so panicked about: the apathy in the Democratic coalition.

Speaker 12 So, when I look at the Biden is too old argument, I mean, A, abortion is not going to save them, right? It was great for Ohio Democrats that abortion was enshrined in the state constitution.

Speaker 12 That's not going to be on the ballot next year for Senator Sherrod Brown when he's up for re-election in a red state.

Speaker 12 So, it's really a salient issue at the state level, but at the presidential level, how much, how much energy is that going to bring? And will it rescue Joe Biden? Absolutely not.

Speaker 12 It's good that groups of voters in their coalition have been organized, volunteering, giving money, getting psyched, going to the polls, telling their neighbors, you know, dragging their friends.

Speaker 12 That will help them next year. The fact that they've done so well in special elections in 23 means they're recently engaged.

Speaker 12 But my concern about next year's election and this apathy in the Democratic coalition is I don't think that Democrats, this will breed complacency as the midterms did.

Speaker 12 They did not, after the midterms, have a come to Jesus moment on immigration or crime. Of course, inflation is not entirely Joe Biden's fault and it's global.

Speaker 12 And why would the Democrats sit down and blame him for inflation? But immigration and crime is a huge liability for them as a party.

Speaker 12 No come to Jesus after the midterms because they did surprisingly well.

Speaker 12 After Tuesday night, are they going to sit down and address their problems that are measured in the New York Times, Sienna, CNN, and CBS news polls. I don't see a lot of it.

Speaker 12 Biden is old, and I've made the argument multiple times, and the Bulwark audience is familiar with this, that he has been disqualified by a large sector of the electorate, including his own voters, because of his age.

Speaker 12 And so, no amount of commercials about the new battery plant is going to change that.

Speaker 12 If you throw in the gasoline in the frying pan of the Hamas-Israel war and the fact that young people do not see Trump as a threat to democracy.

Speaker 12 Non-college whites and non-college black voters and young people are moving to Trump because of their personal finances and they don't want to be in wars.

Speaker 12 And the fact that we have this kind of realignment that Democrats are denying, where young people, and I have three college students.

Speaker 12 Your grandson was raised in France, so he's probably not as poisoned because it's a different culture. But our 20-somethings these days, as we have seen in the Hamas, Israel,

Speaker 12 the explosion of anti-Semitism, is coming from a, they're disinformed because they're being radicalized. on social media.

Speaker 12 And I think the Democrats are in denial about the fact that many of these young people really can't be sold on Biden's accomplishments ever,

Speaker 12 and that his age has put an end to the possibility that they will support him next year, and that Trump is compelling because they can't be sold on how dangerous the end of the constitutional order is.

Speaker 12 Their eyes glaze over. So this is my long way of telling you, I have lost sleep this week and I'm very panicked.
And I think the Democrats remain complacent and in denial.

Speaker 13 One of the other things that Plouffe said, though, was on the economy, which I was also, kind of my eyes widened to hear this from him. He says, look,

Speaker 13 we can't be in a position of telling people what they should think about the economy. We cannot tell them that their lived experience is wrong.

Speaker 13 We have to tell them that we understand where they are and that we are doing something about it. So when we hear this talk about, well, we just need more messaging.

Speaker 13 We need to have Biden explain that you're stupid if you think that inflation is a problem. Or we need to have Biden explain the crime is going down.
No, there's really not a problem at the border.

Speaker 13 No, that is not going to change people's minds. You cannot tell people that what they are seeing at the grocery store is not what they are seeing.

Speaker 13 But let me just go back to abortion, because I do think that abortion is going to be a salient issue.

Speaker 13 I do think that it's going to continue to motivate to the extent that the Democratic coalition appears to be apathetic. You know, this is going to continue to be a firebell.

Speaker 13 And I think it's completely wrong to assume that Donald Trump somehow is going to escape all of this. Trump unlike other Republicans, understands that this is dangerous.

Speaker 13 I mean, after the midterms, remember he said he kind of blamed some of the losses on the pro-lifers, the too extreme legislation. He's ripped DeSantis for having a six-week ban.

Speaker 13 And he's kind of positioning himself as I am more moderate. I am the person that can cut the deal, make the compromise.
But you know what?

Speaker 13 Donald Trump also owns the fact that he is responsible directly and indirectly for everything that's happening on the abortion issue.

Speaker 13 And I think it's going to be very difficult for him to escape because whether he supports a national ban or not, every single horrific bill that is being passed in any state is as a result of the overturning of Roe versus Wade, which he promised and he effectuated and which he has bragged about.

Speaker 13 So I never overestimate the ability of Democrats to weaponize an issue, but they would be very, very foolish if they let Donald Trump move an inch on this particular issue.

Speaker 13 So I still think that's there. I agree with you about the sort of the complacency.

Speaker 13 And also, you just look at the reaction to people like my good friend Rui Teixeira when he's trying to explain to Democrats, like, these are the voters who ought to be your people.

Speaker 13 Why are you losing them? What is pushing them away, focusing on that problem? And there's just this incredible, like, we don't need to listen to you. You're wrong.

Speaker 13 You know, the blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like.
There has to come a moment where they sit down and go, all right, we do need to ask, why are we not not beating this guy by 50 points?

Speaker 13 The question that Hillary Clinton asked in 2016. You know, this is, after all, the party that put up the one candidate that maybe could not beat Donald Trump back in 2016.

Speaker 13 So I would hope, and this would include listeners to this podcast and readers of the Bulwer,

Speaker 13 at some point, you have to ask yourself why there are areas of the country that used to vote routinely for Democrats that are now bright red. What happened? You can't blame it all on disinformation.

Speaker 13 There's something else going on and telling people that they're idiots is perhaps not the winning strategy.

Speaker 12 I totally agree and it is very true that denying inflation is very dangerous. I mean, things cost more.
We're in a rapid cycle of change. There's a new war in the Middle East.

Speaker 12 People are really anxious and they are struggling. But I want to ask you a question on abortion.

Speaker 12 Don't you think that Donald Trump will just, I know you're very experienced in the politics of this on the right, don't you think, and you and I have talked about this before, that Donald Trump will just, he will dictate the policy and he will just come out in the general and say, I'm not for a federal ban.

Speaker 12 We're never going to have that.

Speaker 13 It's very possible. And I think that he understands the danger of this, you know, to the extent that he understands things.
I think his reptilian instinct is right here.

Speaker 13 And I think that that's very likely to happen. Will the pro-life movement go along with it? Yes, they will.
But this is where I think the battle lines are going to be drawn.

Speaker 13 You know, are the Democrats going to allow him to step away from what he has unleashed with the overturning of Roe versus Wade?

Speaker 13 And I think that that's going to be a more difficult sell. I think that this is what I keep coming back to in Virginia, because I would have been among those arguing that

Speaker 13 the sweet spot compromise is 15 weeks. I mean, the poll numbers are completely different.

Speaker 13 If the pro-life movement had been thinking for the last 50 years, how would you react to this moment? There is an alternative reality where you come up with incremental reforms, changes.

Speaker 13 You also show that you're pro-life for people after birth, and you could actually establish a broad coalition.

Speaker 13 None of that's happened, and I'm not sure that Donald Trump is the person to put that together, but it is true that the pro-life movement is going to push, but ultimately they will see this as a binary choice and they will go along with whatever he says.

Speaker 13 But again,

Speaker 13 you know, there's no way you separate Donald Trump from the overturning of Roe versus Wade. You just cannot do it.

Speaker 12 Yeah, agreed.

Speaker 13 Okay. All right, A.B.

Speaker 13 Happy Thursday. Thank you for joining me once again.
Oh, by the way, I'm just looking at the next debate. Hold on, can I just pull this up here? Very interesting.

Speaker 13 Because this just came out a few minutes ago. Yes.
The next debate is going to be a real shit show. News Nation, the Washington Free Beacon, Megan Kelly.

Speaker 13 If you thought that last night was softballs, hang on. I don't know.
Maybe you're gonna have to watch for me and just send me some notes or something. Maybe.

Speaker 12 I don't know how we're gonna get through it.

Speaker 13 I am really coming up to the life is too freaking short for this sort of thing. Hey, listen, you have a great weekend, and we will talk again soon.

Speaker 13 And I want to thank everybody for listening to today's Bulwark podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes.
We will be back tomorrow and we'll do this all over again.

Speaker 13 Bullwork Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.

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