Tim Miller: Normal v Crazy

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Speaker 3 Well, it is Friday. It is June 2nd, which means that it is the first Friday podcast of the month that I'm doing with Tim Miller, who's a little bit raspy because you were in Denver last night.

Speaker 2 I was, Charlie. Happy Pride Month, everyone.
Happy Nuggets game one victory. It was the first NBA Finals game ever for my beloved Denver Nuggets, the first NBA Finals game ever in Denver.

Speaker 2 And so I flew in to go with my brother, who is just a die-hard Nuggets fan. It was an emotional evening to just kind of walk in there, 30 years of watching this team.

Speaker 2 And it also was really fun to just beat the shit out of the heat last night. And it was a good evening.
But I'm ready. I'm ready to podcast.
I'm up and at them. I got my coffee.

Speaker 2 You know, I'm riding high off the victory, off the Nikola Jokic magic fumes, and I'm ready to go.

Speaker 3 But was worried that I would need to do something to get you into the mood. So I actually have a tune for for you.

Speaker 2 Oh, no.

Speaker 3 No, no, this is not a name that tune. This is not like

Speaker 3 this is, believe it or not, and I have this in my newsletter this morning on the deplorables of the week.

Speaker 3 I mean, normally Carrie Lake, I think, would be sidelined because otherwise she would be in every week. But, you know, kind of a special thing for her.

Speaker 3 The election denialist and fabulous is now showing off her musical skills.

Speaker 2 I've missed this. This is exciting.

Speaker 3 I know, I know. I thought you'd like this.
So, Carrie Lake is releasing a song called 81 Million Votes My Ass with the team that is behind Trump's January 6th prison choir track. Okay.

Speaker 3 And they played a preview of this new song. This is undoubtedly about to go to the top of the charts.
81 Million Votes My Ass.

Speaker 3 It appeared Wednesday night on Gateway Pundits Rumble accounts, which is probably why you missed it. So here's Carrie Lake.
It's a short, short bit of it.

Speaker 2 Not the whole thing, I promise.

Speaker 2 If you would have told me two years ago, three years ago, that I would be in the middle of a political movement, I would have said, put down Hunter's crackpipe

Speaker 4 right now

Speaker 4 right now.

Speaker 4 I can't afford

Speaker 4 to start this.

Speaker 4 It's by inflation, cross the nation.

Speaker 4 81 million votes my ass.

Speaker 4 Hey, 81 million

Speaker 3 Okay, so you're welcome, Tim.

Speaker 2 A little pitchy. That actually did not meet my very low expectations for what it was going to be.

Speaker 3 It's not going to make your playlist, is it?

Speaker 2 No. Who do you think did the mixing on that?

Speaker 2 Was the weekend on that, do you think? Or did they bring in?

Speaker 3 Not sure. I could speculate, but I don't think I should.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 3 we probably should interrupt the non-stop coverage of the fall of Joe Biden, the Biden fall. But apparently there's news out there.

Speaker 3 The Senate passed the debt deal, so we're not going to have a cataclysmic, catastrophic default, which is kind of good.

Speaker 3 This GOP slap fight between Trump and DeSantis is kind of picking up a little bit of steam. I want to get your take on all of that.
As you probably noticed, the economy just added 339,000 new jobs.

Speaker 3 I think it's about nearly twice what was expected. And

Speaker 3 Mike Heaven is still hanging on to his job, despite the fact that he kind of slam-dunked the Freedom Caucus. So, where do you want to start with all of this, Tim?

Speaker 2 Let's start with the good news. It's Friday.
I'm riding high. You know, Jamal Murray was draining threes.
I want to just, let's just, let's keep it positive at the start.

Speaker 3 You don't want to talk about the Joe Biden sandbagging thing.

Speaker 2 We can get to that. I mean, as a stumbler.

Speaker 2 It didn't really jar me that much. I'm somebody who's been known to trip.
I've tripped a few times.

Speaker 2 You know, sometimes I'm spending too much time scrolling Twitter and I don't notice a tree branch or something. I've had some injuries related to that.
So it's hard for me to judge.

Speaker 3 A chan bag that somebody left like.

Speaker 3 What's interesting to me, though, is the way in which it's so predictable. I mean, the knee-jerk response, where it became this doom scroll on Fox News and on conservative media.

Speaker 3 I mean, you go to right-wing Twitter, and it's like everybody felt the need to do it, including my old friend Scott Walker, the former governor of Wisconsin, who felt the need to comment on this, you reaching deep into his Christian roots and suggesting how sad this was and how this was a sign that Joe Biden needed to retire because he tripped over a sandbag.

Speaker 2 Scott Walker is just a model of athletic prowess. I'm sure that he's never tripped over anything.
And you can just see him out there with the Green Bay Packers that never five to four and a half.

Speaker 3 I mean, there are options, right? I mean, you can not comment on it, or you can be compassionate, or you can say, hey, here's my chance to take a cheap shot.

Speaker 3 And by the way, I think my informal poll would suggest that 94%

Speaker 3 of right-wing Twitter felt the need to go with door number three.

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, that's just how we got here. I think there's a book about this that somebody wrote that a couple of people wrote, maybe, that people could go back and check.

Speaker 2 But, you know, I think that there is this incentive structure where people feel the need, like that they need to feed the content beast.

Speaker 2 And if they've provided a memeable moment where they can mock, you know, the other political tribe, they're going to do it. This is not just a providence of the right, by the way.

Speaker 2 But obviously the right isn't particularly obnoxious when it comes to executing it.

Speaker 2 You know, I think that the only thing that has any relevance when it comes to the Biden fall, you know, as far as our actual governing and our actual politics is concerned, is I was like legitimately concerned for the guy's hip.

Speaker 2 And he seems to be okay. Everybody says that he's okay.

Speaker 2 But this is just the risk that we're running, you know, having potentially two 80-plus-year-old nominees, is that when 80-year-olds fall, you know,

Speaker 2 their bruises sometimes are a little bit deeper than mine when I'm not paying attention to the sidewalk and I trip while I'm trying to send a mean tweet.

Speaker 2 So that is like slightly concerning, but it didn't end up being any issue in this case. And I think, once again,

Speaker 2 literally every right-wing person I follow showed their ass on this.

Speaker 3 I know. It was really interesting.
You know, in part, though, it was...

Speaker 3 It was necessary for them, just like the whole Hunter Biden thing is kind of necessary, because otherwise they would have to reflect on the fact that Joe Biden had a, I want to preface this by saying that I am not one of our crew's Biden fanboys here, but Joe Biden had a very, very good week.

Speaker 2 You have to preface with that, Charlie? You just got to do it. Yeah, I did.

Speaker 3 I just had to. But he had a pretty good week as president.
This debt deal, I mean, it is not perfect, but the way he finessed it is pretty impressive.

Speaker 3 I mean, just the simple fact that he managed to avoid a economy crushing default. I mean, that may actually determine the outcome of the 2024 election.

Speaker 3 And the whole style of not using the bully pulpit, as people like me suggested that he would, and playing that insider game, not boasting about it.

Speaker 3 And yet it has to be settling in to the consciousness of the right that this guy that they have been deriding as, you know, in cognitive decline and completely senile just pants to them.

Speaker 3 in this negotiation. And all of the energy, if you notice, all of the energy before the fall of Joe Biden stuff, all of the energy on the right is right now attacking other people on the right.

Speaker 3 It is fascinating watching this kind of crackup right now.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'd add another point. In addition to Joe Biden not being senile and dementia-ridden, he also is not a radical far-left socialist, again, it turns out.

Speaker 2 I don't think that that is settling in because I think that most people on the right are living in hermetically sealed bubbles where the only thing that they're seeing is

Speaker 2 the takes from the pundits that like your friend Scott Walker that focused on the fall.

Speaker 2 But the reality is that Joe Biden cut a very practical deal, and so did Kevin on your podcast and on the next level. We've praised Kevin for this this week.
It was a low bar.

Speaker 2 My expectations were really low, but Kevin stepped over it, and that should be acknowledged. So the deal that Biden cut, you said it's not perfect, it's pretty damn good.

Speaker 2 It does keep spending flat. It did not include any of the things that were actually bad that were in negotiation on both sides.
The Republicans wanted work requirements for Medicaid as one example.

Speaker 2 example.

Speaker 2 I think certain areas work requirements are okay, but for Medicaid, that would have been an insane and frankly immoral policy to include. That didn't end up in there.

Speaker 2 On the left, you have Ed Markey was tweeting that he was mad that Biden was fast-tracking the pipeline that Joe Manchin has wanted, that has been approved by the U.S.

Speaker 2 Army Corps of Engineers since 2017, that was part of the IRA deal that Schumer and Biden and Manchin cut last year, which included a ton of great investment in green energy and climate stuff, but it also included the pipeline that has been approved.

Speaker 2 The left went after them for including that.

Speaker 2 So it was a completely, once again, Joe Biden, a completely sensible, practical deal that was gettable, just like he did on guns, just like he did on infrastructure and chips.

Speaker 2 And yet somehow this fake image of him, this fantastical image of him as a puppet, a Trojan horse for the radical socialists is just required to sustain the conservative media industrial complex.

Speaker 3 And this is an important point because you had two memes that were central to the right-wing critique of Joe Biden. Number one, that he's senior, he's too old, right? And that's number one.

Speaker 3 And number two, that he's, you know, is a communist, socialist, Marxist, et cetera. Well, here's the problem.
He obviously skillfully negotiated this. That's number one.

Speaker 3 Number two, they just made a deal with the guy that they've been saying is this. socialist Marxist.
So they're in the room with him. They're voting along with him.

Speaker 3 And I have to say that for the moment, everybody is saying, you know, hey, Kevin McCarthy pulled this off, which he did against expectations. But I guess I would just suggest wait a few minutes.

Speaker 3 Watch as this sort of percolates out there when people kind of realize that Kevin McCarthy made a deal with this guy that you've been saying wants to destroy America. Right.

Speaker 3 There's not a lot of incentive structure to compromise in the Republican Party right now.

Speaker 3 And right now, the Taliban 20, which is what Puck Buck calls them, you know, they're kind of, you know, nursing their wounds and they're not going to try to oust Kevin McCarthy.

Speaker 3 But they have to be pretty pissed about all of this.

Speaker 3 And by the way, Kevin McCarthy, my Kevin, before we give him too much of a tongue bath here, you know, he's still held hostage by the outpatient caucus.

Speaker 3 And he is throwing, you know, a few scraps to them.

Speaker 3 Did you see that he actually is giving John Solomon, who is one of these conspiracy theorists on the right access to the January 6th surveillance tapes?

Speaker 3 I mean, McCarthy knows exactly what he's doing here. I mean, he's giving it to one of the, you know, one of the freaks of the right-wing fringe.

Speaker 3 He's still withholding it from legitimate news organizations, and he knows what John Solomon's going to do with it.

Speaker 3 He knows he's going to use it to push bogus conspiracy theories about what happened.

Speaker 3 But I think he's feeling the need right now to throw the fever swamps all sorts of scraps to sort of distract attention from the fact that he just sat down and got taken at the poker table by Joe Biden.

Speaker 2 Well, he's got to keep Marge happy.

Speaker 2 I mean, part of the reason why he was able to get this deal done, which is, you know, why you can be a little bit moderating in the complimenting of Kevin McCarthy, is that he kind of had to make a deal with the devil to do it, right?

Speaker 2 And he needs the Marjorie Taylor Greens and Jim Jordans, you know, to have endorsed these deals, which Marjorie was doing even on Twitter, like rather aggressively, in order to kind of have the cover to be able to do a deal like this.

Speaker 2 And part of that deal with the devil is doing this January 6th, you know, retrofitting conspiratorial, you know, BS. So, I mean, that's part of it.

Speaker 2 I always thought if you go back, I'm pretty sure this would stand up.

Speaker 2 I don't have the exact tape, but after McCarthy survived the 15 speaker votes, I was always of the view that he was going to have one get out of jail free cart on one of these big deals.

Speaker 2 And that the real question of his strength was always going to be, what happens when he's got to do it again?

Speaker 2 What happens if a Ukraine emergency happens after this? You know, when you're not going to have Marjorie's cover, maybe he's not.

Speaker 2 Like, maybe we're not going to run in because part of this deal was extending the debt ceiling through to pass the next election.

Speaker 2 Maybe he's not going to reach another crisis and he'll be able to survive. But I do think the test of whether he can hold that coalition together will come

Speaker 2 after he gets his first freebie.

Speaker 3 I think that's right because he had three tests and we really haven't gotten through all three of them yet. Number one, could he make a deal? He did.

Speaker 3 Number two, could he come up with the votes to get it passed? He did. Number three, would he be able to survive the inevitable blowback?

Speaker 3 And we still have those outrage machines machines out there, you know, which are, you know, always target the rhinos. We have to see how that plays out.
And I think you're exactly right.

Speaker 3 What happens the next time that he does all of this?

Speaker 3 So there's another word that's worth bringing up here because we talk about Donald Trump and say, this is not normal, just reminding people that this is not normal politics.

Speaker 3 This is not normal in American culture. Well, what we saw this week was actually pretty normal, wasn't it?

Speaker 3 I mean, it was kind of a normal moment where you had Republicans and Democrats disagreeing about spending levels and sitting in a room and coming up with an actual compromise that reflected some of the priorities of both parties.

Speaker 3 That felt normal. And it does seem as if this was also one of the contrasts of the week, the normalcy, the pre-fall, normalcy of Joe Biden versus the

Speaker 3 just, it feels like the escalating dementia of the Orange God king.

Speaker 2 Demented, maybe. Demented.

Speaker 3 Do you pay any attention on a regular basis to the Trump bleats on Truth Social?

Speaker 3 Because they are getting worse and worse and worse.

Speaker 3 And I think David French made the point that if you saw a family member or a coworker saying these kinds of things, you would make a call for a wellness check. Yes.

Speaker 3 You would ask for an intervention of some. It is so bad.

Speaker 2 If you were the assistant to the regional manager of some kind of paper-selling company and one of your subordinates was doing this, yeah, you'd be like, this is insane.

Speaker 3 We got to call HR. And the contrast, Joe Biden may be boring and low-key and old, but he's normal.
So the question is, what do Americans want next year?

Speaker 3 If next year becomes a referendum on normal versus crazy, how does that play out, Tim?

Speaker 2 You know, because there is so much abnormal, you know, within kind of the Republican Party, kind of the post-COVID fallout that we are still dealing with, particularly inflation, you know, the Ukraine war, the shootings, right?

Speaker 2 Like, like, there's always something in the news, right? Like, it's never going to be the most boring year that we had in the 1990s again or whatever.

Speaker 2 And so Biden, I do think, kind of suffers from that a little bit, that people sort of project onto the president that there are still going to be things happening in the world that feel abnormal.

Speaker 2 But really, ever since the, now inflation hasn't completely ebbed,

Speaker 2 gone back to where it was before, but ever since it started to tick back down, pretty much everything has been pretty normal, at least within the auspices of what the White White House can do.

Speaker 2 And I think that if that continues going into next year,

Speaker 2 that sense around people can start to build.

Speaker 2 And I just, in casual conversations, I don't know if you feel this way about people that I check in with who are not political obsessives, you know, like us.

Speaker 2 That feeling of anxiousness and anxiety about the world and about Biden that was really, I think, kind of strong last year and the beginning half of last year in particular is starting to ebb.

Speaker 2 Like, I am hearing less of that anecdotally. And it hasn't really shown up in his polls yet.

Speaker 2 And so, you know, I'm interested to see if maybe that changes once it becomes clear to people that he's really not going to get primarily, because I think that casual folks are still kind of hoping that maybe, you know, the Democrats will find a younger person.

Speaker 2 But I do wonder if his numbers will start to tick back up as a result of that, because he, particularly in dealings with Congress, but just also generally, like the management of the country has been pretty normal.

Speaker 2 We didn't mint a coin.

Speaker 3 No, he didn't do that. He didn't take any of those extreme steps.

Speaker 3 So I don't know whether he'll get any credit for it because I do think that next year, I think, is going to be, if it is Donald Trump, it's going to be a referendum on Donald Trump, not on Joe Biden, which is if you're Republicans, that's the worst case scenario.

Speaker 3 So let's talk about this. We've been waiting for the Ron DeSantis Donald Trump slap fight to begin.
You know, we've asked questions, you know, would he be willing to throw punches?

Speaker 3 Can he take a punch? It does feel like it's escalating. I see some media outlets referring to it as a brawl.
I think that's overstating it.

Speaker 3 That's why I'm thinking of it's more of a slap fight rather than a brawl. But you can feel the intensity level and the personal animus really coming out.
And when you have two,

Speaker 3 I think, rather aggressive assholes, you know, in the bag there, in the ring, in the cage, it can get nasty. So give me your take on how this is playing out so far.

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, I'm going to start with a...

Speaker 2 quasi-compliment of Ron DeSantis, which is unusual for me

Speaker 2 out of character.

Speaker 2 But don't worry, I've got a criticism coming behind.

Speaker 2 His initial attacks on Trump, just grading them not on the merits of the arguments, but on whether he's willing to do it and whether he's willing to do it directly, whether he's willing to engage from positions of strength, have been better than I think people in the pundit class have been grading him on.

Speaker 2 And I think that particularly there's one I saw just yesterday, for example, where he was asked about this question about how Trump said, oh, if I'm in there, I'll vanquish the deep state in six months.

Speaker 2 And DeSantis, you know, know, kind of replies and says, well, then why didn't you do it already? Okay, if you're, if you're so great.

Speaker 3 That was a good reply.

Speaker 2 Yes. Yeah, it was a good retort.
And it's the kind of thing you can see him kind of finding his C-legs a little bit. It's the kind of thing he's going to need to be able to do on a debate stage.

Speaker 2 I still have doubts. Everyone still has doubts whether he can stand there and do it.
But he's starting to demonstrate it. And he does still have time.
The announcement was brutal and rocky.

Speaker 2 And all the criticisms were worthy of it. But he's got time.

Speaker 2 There's a YouGov poll out. It's the first one post-announcement.
And he has lost a little ground. And so that's obviously a terrible sign for an announcement.
I mean, you want to be gaining ground.

Speaker 2 And, you know, we'll see. I want to see a couple other polls before you render a verdict on that.

Speaker 2 But, you know, he's now down 28, I think, and was down 24 the last time YouGov did a poll, so he actually lost ground. So that's not a good sign.

Speaker 2 But I think that if he continues to be able to fight Trump from positions of strength, then that, I mean, that's his only chance.

Speaker 2 And I think that to actually bury him and put dirt on his grave misunderstands like how these primaries work.

Speaker 2 And I think that obviously, you know, there's a lot of reasons to think that he won't be able to do it.

Speaker 2 But I think that there's a tiny ray of light for him versus maybe how people were analyzing the campaign last week.

Speaker 3 As a slight digression here, I noticed that some New Hampshire legislator has withdrawn his support of Donald Trump and endorsed Ron DeSantis because he was just absolutely shocked, shocked, shocked that Donald Trump would insult Kayleigh McEnaney, his former press secretary.

Speaker 3 And he says, This kind of vitriol is, there's just no place for it. And it's like, okay, where have you been the last seven years? I mean, these people who are, you know, on Twitter, who are shocked.

Speaker 2 I have a poem for you, Mr. Legislator.
It's called The Snake. Yeah,

Speaker 2 to read.

Speaker 3 They're shocked, shocked to find out this guy's being insulting. He's being a boar.
He's being juvenile. I mean, you know, where did this come from? Like, okay,

Speaker 3 whatever. All right.
So you see a ray of hope. And yet, Donald Trump is also getting exactly what he wants and having a crowded field, and that field is getting more crowded.

Speaker 3 Mike Pence is going to get in next week. Chris Christie is going to get in next week.
So you say people misunderstand how the primaries work out.

Speaker 3 My understanding of the primaries is going to be that if the vote is split nine ways, that Donald Trump is going to win.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 None of these people are above 3%. That same YouGov poll doesn't have anyone else above 3%.

Speaker 2 How much does that really matter? Maybe it matters on the margins. Alec, for DeSantis to win this primary, he's going to have to get up into the mid-40s.
Okay. Like, that's just it.

Speaker 2 And if he can't do that, then none of this other stuff matters. And so I think that worrying about these guys being at 3% at this point is a little premature.

Speaker 2 My point about how these primaries work is that a lot of people tune in at the debate times. A lot of people tune in late.

Speaker 2 Not as many in the Republican primary as the Democratic primary, but there are strategic voters out there, people who change their mind, people who like both candidates and are trying to decide who the best horse is.

Speaker 2 We saw this very clearly in the 2020 primary where there's a ton of Democrats who like popped around from, you know, Warren to Pete to Amy and then landed on Joe.

Speaker 2 You know, Joe looked dead after New Hampshire.

Speaker 2 Presidential primaries are just different than Senate primaries where like these ideas get baked in and then people don't really know the candidates that well. And, you know, it's tough to change.

Speaker 2 Like you do have time. There is unending earned media coverage about this.
Like people will not be able to escape discussions of Trump versus DeSantis and conservative world.

Speaker 2 And so I just think that he has a clear message that is a winning message if he can deliver it. You know, and that is that I can win.
I can give you all the mag goodies you like.

Speaker 2 And so I just think he has a chance to do that. And he hadn't even shown that he was capable of that before this week.
And so all I'm saying is he's now at least shown he might be capable of it.

Speaker 2 That's all.

Speaker 3 I don't know whether you've seen because I have not had a chance to actually read it through in great detail, but Axios got their hands on this polling memo from a Trump-affiliated Buckholster, really going after DeSantis, saying that DeSantis is not more electable than Trump, and then zeroing in on some of the areas of his weakness, including his support for a six-week abortion ban, his fight with Disney, and then most fatally, his position on Social Security and entitlements.

Speaker 3 And so they're about to unload a lot of stuff on DeSantis.

Speaker 3 It's a very clear and not altogether stupid analysis, but what is interesting is that DeSantis is trying to run to the far right of Trump, and Trump seems to be carving out kind of, I hesitate to say this, kind of a

Speaker 3 middle road to run against Ron DeSantis. I mean, can Donald Trump actually run saying Ron DeSantis is too extreme to be the nominee?

Speaker 2 Yes, he did it in 2016 against Ted Cruz, and it worked. Now we get to my criticism, the substitute.
I have seen this poll. I do think that's legitimate.

Speaker 2 And DeSantis has this tough line he's got to walk. You know, that good case that I said that he has to make is that I am a guy that can win and deliver you the stuff that you want.

Speaker 2 Trump is a loser, right? Like that's his strongest argument. But if he doesn't seem like a winner, then what does he have left? You know, it all becomes vaporware.

Speaker 2 And so just like I think there's a ray of hope for DeSantis winning, I think there's a ray of hope that the thing collapses. And

Speaker 2 he still has his base of support of college-educated, you know, conservatives. But after that, like, how do you gain? And so...

Speaker 2 And I think that this legislative session where he went way to the far right was a mistake. I think he was in the sweet spot for the Republican primary on abortion before this.

Speaker 2 I don't think he needed to go down to the six weeks. Forget just like the fact that I disagree with that policy on the merits as well.
And then look at his message.

Speaker 2 I have an article that I'm working on writing, Charlie, so we can give people a little behind the scenes. We can sort of workshop it together.

Speaker 2 And it's like, everyone is out, you know, all the DeSantis supporters clutch their pearls, so to speak.

Speaker 2 Anytime somebody on, you know, the Never Trump or somebody on the left suggests that DeSantis, you know, might be more extreme than Trump. They're like, oh, you said Trump was Hitler.

Speaker 2 And now you're saying DeSantis is more extreme than Trump. You're a hypocrite.
You're a grifter. And it's like, wait a minute.
I'm not saying that DeSantis is more extreme than Trump.

Speaker 2 I'm observing DeSantis say that he's more extreme than Trump. Here's a prime example of this.
So yesterday, Trump is in Iowa. And there are two clips that jump out of me.

Speaker 2 In one clip, Donald Trump defends Ashley Babbitt, calls the cop that shot her a thug.

Speaker 2 And does the whole January 6th was a historic thing. This was a good person.
He does trutherism about whether five people really died there. Okay, that was one clip.

Speaker 2 Another clip was he gets confronted by an anti-vaxxer in the crowd who says that people have died because you supported the jab.

Speaker 2 Trump responds by praising the COVID shots and doesn't say anything about adverse effects. So those are two clips from Donald Trump yesterday.

Speaker 2 Which one do you think the DeSantis campaign attacked him on? His attack on the cop who killed Ashley Babbitt or his defense of the COVID jab?

Speaker 3 You know the answer. I know the answer to this one.
They went after the vaccines because they're not going to touch January 6th. Right.

Speaker 2 So DeSantis, the DeSantis campaign, this is not some surrogate. It is the official DeSantis campaign account that attacks Trump for defending the life-saving COVID vaccine.

Speaker 2 Then there's been a string of these these weeks. The DeSantis campaign went after Trump for being too lenient on dreamers, the immigrants who are brought here as children.

Speaker 3 I wasn't even sure how to read that because it was written pretty badly, but they're actually attacking Trump because Trump considered providing some sort of relief for the DREAMers.

Speaker 3 Yes, the dreamers. The dreamers.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And then he's also gone after Trump on the First Step Act, which wasn't perfect, but was, I think, a very reasonable, probably the most reasonable thing that the Trump administration did as a tribunal justice reform is bipartisan.

Speaker 2 So this is the DeSantis campaign, right? Like it is them saying, we think Trump is being too lenient to immigrants.

Speaker 2 We think Trump was being too, you know, lenient when it comes to criminal justice issues. And we think Trump was being too pro-vaccine.

Speaker 2 So, okay, you can do that, and maybe that's the right thing to do in the primary.

Speaker 2 I'm sure they've got polling that reflects this, but you can't run to the right, to the nutball right of Trump on vaccines, immigration, and law and order, and then get mad when we notice that you're doing that.

Speaker 3 So the vaccine thing is fascinating to me because

Speaker 3 you could argue, and please just bear with me as I'm working this out. We're doing this in real time, that

Speaker 3 among the best things that Donald Trump did, I can't believe these words are even coming out of my mouth, was the development of the vaccine.

Speaker 3 It was always puzzling to me that he did not embrace this. This is my vaccine.
I am the one who did that because he's flirted. He understands how strong that anti-vax sentiment is.

Speaker 3 But what is the breakdown in the Republican base about pro-vaccine, anti-vaccine? I mean, how potent is it? I mean, obviously, DeSantis has made a calculation.

Speaker 3 This is a really potent wedge issue to use against him. Is he right?

Speaker 2 Yeah. Maybe.
I don't know the numbers in front of me. I think here's the bet DeSantis is making.
And I think this is their strategic gambit. And maybe it'll work out.

Speaker 2 I'm just going to explain to you the logic. They think that the National Review, Wall Street Journal class of Republican is going to support him no matter what.

Speaker 2 I think they think that they have no risk of losing anyone from that part of their already existing support base.

Speaker 2 And that they need to find issues that can help them claw away at Donald Trump's support among his base, non-college MAGA voters, and then also among evangelicals.

Speaker 2 So I think it's our swing potential group here. And so I think that explains the six-week abortion ban, and I think that explains the vaccine thing.

Speaker 2 If you look at the polls right now, DeSantis is actually narrowly defeating Trump among college edited Republicans and then just getting slaughtered among non-college.

Speaker 2 And I think they look at that group and they're like, how do we get to non-college secular voters and how do we get to non-college evangelicals?

Speaker 2 And abortion and the jab are the way I think they think that they can do it.

Speaker 2 But at the same time, in my view, they're deeply undermining the electability case for DeSantis, which might be the strongest case.

Speaker 2 I think it's a very risky tightrope to walk, but I think that's their strategic mindset.

Speaker 3 Before we switch gears and get away for a minute, because I wanted to get your thoughts on Pence and Chris Christie. We can just skip ahead.

Speaker 3 Well, I mean, we don't have to spend a lot of time time on all of this because, you know, because I'm going to repeat what I've said before, I just do not

Speaker 3 understand what Pence thinks is his path to this nomination, what he imagines is going to happen.

Speaker 3 But again, having met some Republicans who still seem to be living in 2015, it is hard to overstate the degree of denial about how much the party has changed.

Speaker 3 And so if Mike Pence is looking around and thinking, okay, you know, this is me. It is 2015.
This is what the Republican Party is.

Speaker 3 Then he could convince himself that there is a path, but there's clearly a flaw there, isn't there?

Speaker 2 Yeah, Mike Pence has, I think the last poll I saw has upwards of 40 plus percent of the Republican electorate has an unfavorable view of him. 40 plus percent.
So that's where you're starting.

Speaker 2 Like, forget people that have a neutral view of him or think that he's a nice man that can't win. Like unfavorable, there's 40 plus percent that he has no ability to reach.

Speaker 2 That, by the way, overlaps probably completely with the Trump 40% base.

Speaker 2 That's going to be hard for DeSantis to puncture. There's Pence.
So, you know, what is your path when you are

Speaker 2 probably less popular than Kristen Cinema with the Republican base? You don't have one.

Speaker 2 And I think that to explain Mike Pence, why he thinks this way, I just go back to the conversation I had with Carl Rove a couple months ago. We were on that panel together.

Speaker 2 And, you know, he said that he brought Pence to a room full of folks in Texas that gave him a standing ovation. Like, what room? And it's like, donors.
It's like, oh, okay.

Speaker 2 So there are enough people, you know, in his circles, elite evangelical circles, elite rich guy circles, who are still living in 2015 and want the party to be what the 2015 party was to give him Atta Boys, to make him feel like in his little bubble, there might be a path.

Speaker 2 And I think that's why he's thinking about getting in.

Speaker 3 Okay, I think that you and I have a slight disagreement about this, and I think the audience is going to agree with you and disagree with me. Okay.

Speaker 2 I like that.

Speaker 3 I want Chris Christie to get into this race. I am looking forward to Chris Christie getting into this race.

Speaker 2 Great. And I endorse that.
I think that Chris Christie should come on your show. I've said that multiple times.

Speaker 2 I don't, man, I just don't know that it matters. I guess I'll just say, let's wait and see.

Speaker 2 Man, if Chris Christie does a good thing, then I'll come on this podcast and be like, way to go, Chris Christie. But A, I don't trust Chris Christie.

Speaker 2 And B, even if I did trust him, I'm not sure Trump's going to get on a debate stage with him.

Speaker 3 There will be no debate stage with Donald Trump. I think everybody's talking about, well, what will they do when they're on the debate stage? This is not going to happen, people.

Speaker 2 It's just not. The rules are already very Trump friendly.
Rana, I think this is kind of an undertold story.

Speaker 2 Rana, I assume intentionally, but maybe out of stupidity, set the debate stage rules that are going to make it very hard for anybody besides Trump and DeSantis to make the debates.

Speaker 2 And I think that Trump, you know, the only way that some of these other people get on the stage is if Trump decides he'd rather have a bigger stage and negotiates that with the RNC and threatens to not debate unless they change this rule or that rule.

Speaker 2 And so we'll see how that plays out. But I don't see any reason to believe at this point that Chris Christie and Donald Trump will be on the debate stage together.

Speaker 3 Okay, so let's switch gears for a moment. I wanted to get your take on all of this.

Speaker 3 I have to admit that I think it is really remarkable watching how much of the right-wing media ecosystem is now deeply invested in not just going after corporate boycotts, but targeting the whole idea of Pride Month.

Speaker 3 It felt as if a few years ago that this was a settled issue, that we were a tolerant, live-and-let-live country. And now the right has decided that it is

Speaker 3 going after you, going after your marriage, going after companies that even sell products that have rainbows on them.

Speaker 3 And it feels as if it has moved at warped speed to any acknowledgement or embrace of gay rights.

Speaker 3 And I have not seen any polls that would suggest that an overwhelming majority of Americans have decided they want to roll back these rights. In fact, absolutely the opposite.
What's going on here?

Speaker 3 If people are going, why are you puzzled about this?

Speaker 3 I can remember distinctly Donald Trump in 2016 accepting the Republican nomination at the convention in Cleveland, specifically endorsing gay marriage, specifically endorsing gay rights.

Speaker 3 And yet now this has become the beating heart of the culture war on the right.

Speaker 2 Yeah, a lot there.

Speaker 2 One observation I have that's kind of funny, I guess darkly funny, is that the critics of Pride, like even three years ago, were mostly on the left, right?

Speaker 2 It was like liberals were like, these corporations are trying to use us, you know, they're trying to gay wash, and they don't actually care about us, and like it's phony, and I liked it better when Pride was, you know, just authentic and like, you know, bears and chaps or whatever.

Speaker 2 And like, that was like the big discourse for a while was people, you know, in the gay community on the left, like, thought that Pride was becoming too corporate or whatever.

Speaker 2 You know, now, in some ways, I think everybody's kind of been thrust into the defense of the corporations that are standing up for gay rights because of these attacks coming from the right.

Speaker 2 And what undergirds this change, this shift, is that the people on the right who had animus towards gays, lesbians, trans folks, they didn't change their views.

Speaker 2 I mean, some people did, you know, some people evolved over time, you know, folks that had meet gay people in their lives, et cetera.

Speaker 2 But like the ideologues, the politicians, most of them, did not change their views. It just became impractical to be against gay marriage.

Speaker 2 It was not a winning issue.

Speaker 2 Gay marriage was overwhelmingly popular among the electorate. You saw the bathroom bill in North Carolina, the original one, backfired dramatically on Governor McCrory.

Speaker 2 So they saw it as a losing issue. But because of what was happening with schools,

Speaker 2 because they saw that they had a line that was working, which was that they are grooming your kids,

Speaker 2 there's too much talk about gender identity and sexuality in schools, that this is becoming faddish.

Speaker 2 Once they saw that this was a winning political issue, that opened the floodgates to kind of like for folks to

Speaker 2 bring back out this hatred, you know, that had maybe lay dormant. And I really think that is kind of what explains the shift over the past three years.
And I got to tell you, Charlie,

Speaker 2 I hope I'm wrong about this, but I'm genuinely concerned about violence at Pride stuff this month. I think that it is as hot as I really can remember it since the Pulse shooting.

Speaker 2 People were on high alert around the Pulse shooting because that happened, I believe, in Pride Month. Since then, I've not felt kind of this level of potential threat.

Speaker 2 And I think that with the drag bans,

Speaker 2 with the rhetoric coming from the right, it's something that I worry about that is going to dampen these celebrations.

Speaker 3 Well, I don't think that's an irrational fear because you know, you are, in fact, you know, stoking this animus and this fear and this target.

Speaker 3 And this is what feels like it's a throwback, you know, 30, 40 years that it's not just that, you know, homosexuality is banned by Leviticus or whatever.

Speaker 2 So it's worth mentioning that the guy that gave Ron DeSantis invocation did quote Leviticus with the Leviticus line, which is like, you should be put to death on Twitter this week.

Speaker 2 So, you know, there's also the Leviticus.

Speaker 3 He made my deplorables of the week list this week because of this. No, no, no.
I mean, but let me just stop right there.

Speaker 3 I mean, it's so Ted Cruz, of all people, no, tweets out a condemnation of this new law in Uganda, which actually has the death penalty for aggravated homosexuality.

Speaker 3 And Ted Cruz says, you know, this is a violation of human rights, et cetera. I mean, weirdly enough, woke Ted Cruz puts this out.

Speaker 3 This pastor, who is all in for Ron DeSantis, basically says, well, what are your standards, Senator Cruz?

Speaker 3 Because Leviticus, you know, basically says that people should be put to death and all of this. And as you point out, this guy is a key supporter of Ron DeSantis.

Speaker 3 So these people who would normally think are on the far fringes are really very much part of the mainstream.

Speaker 3 But the point I was making is that the attack on homosexuality is not just that it is anti-Christian or immoral, it is that it is a threat to your children.

Speaker 3 And that's the throwback to 30, 40, 50 years ago. The gays are trying to recruit your children.
That's the whole groomer thing, which has become

Speaker 3 basically part of the talking point of people on the right.

Speaker 3 And once you believe that, in fact, that there are these pedophiles who are targeting your children, then the potential for really serious action rises rather significantly, including violence.

Speaker 3 And there's no indication that there's any pushback, anyone saying, hey, listen, we need to dial this down. We need to be careful about this.

Speaker 3 We need to distinguish between the gay community and the people you are talking about or that you are trying to get people to fear.

Speaker 3 I mean, and we've seen over and over again, you know, it doesn't take a lot of people to be convinced that there is this massive existential threat, you know, facing them, and especially when you have so many, you know, people who are heavily armed and paranoid at the same time.

Speaker 3 So, I don't think it's irrational for you to express that concern.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. And it's also going the other way as far as just this notion of how they're not limiting anymore to, you know, just concerns about young children.

Speaker 2 I mean, just look at Florida, for example. The original, you know, don't say gay bill was, you know, K3, and they've expanded it to 12.

Speaker 2 New State, Louisiana, has basically a copycat bill that's kind of worse than the Florida bill, really, because it includes some elements that were in the original Florida bill that got stripped out about how, you know, teachers can talk about their own, you know, relationships, kind of the don't ask, don't tell element to all this.

Speaker 2 So, and then obviously, you know, the drag bans, which expand outside of, it's not like they're just banning. drag queens from schools or whatever, right?

Speaker 2 Like they're having blanket bans in a place like Tennessee anywhere besides besides strip clubs, you know, essentially. I think that, you know, this is going to continue.

Speaker 2 I think that the corporate America element of this, I think a big part of why Target, some people on the left are criticizing Target for, you know, I guess wimping out in the face of these attacks from the right.

Speaker 2 I was actually a little bit sympathetic to this. I mean, the Target stores, the Pride t-shirts that they sell and whatnot, are usually at the store when you walk in.

Speaker 2 You know, it's kind of that first section, at least in the Target that I went to.

Speaker 2 They were nervous and I think had legitimate threats from, you know, weirdos who walked in and were triggered, you know, by seeing a rainbow shirt right when they walked in the door and started threatening employees.

Speaker 2 And if your target, like your first priority has to be protecting your employees. And you have these states with constitutional carry and all this.

Speaker 2 I think that it's very legitimate for them to have these concerns.

Speaker 3 Aaron Powell, Jr.: It's a legitimate concern, but also then, do you give the crazy veto? Do you give the veto to people who come in? I mean, it is kind of interesting.

Speaker 3 Some of the same people who are saying that we need to crack down on any sort of anti-social behavior. I mean, look what's going on in these stores.

Speaker 3 And yet somehow they had a level of tolerance for people who are trashing target stores and threatening employees when the first line of reaction should be, let's call the cops.

Speaker 3 First of all, let's have our own security and then let's call the cops if anybody is behaving in this particular way, as opposed to, okay, if some bigoted nutjob comes in here and starts screaming, you know, by all means, let them get their way.

Speaker 3 There's danger both ways on all of this. And I wonder which way it's going to play out because as you know, these are not just spontaneous campaigns.

Speaker 3 There are people out there in social media saying, we need to keep picking targets. We need to go after Bud Light.
We need to go after Target.

Speaker 3 We need to go after maybe Chick-fil-A that kind of blew up in their face. But you know that corporate America is looking at this going, do we want what happened to Bud Light to happen to us?

Speaker 3 Do we want what happened to Target to happen to us? And you're talking about people giving in to this kind of pressure. And I can see that happening.

Speaker 2 I agree with you on the crazy veto. I think it's sad, but I'm saying that I think that the fears of corporate are legitimate and what Target is dealing with.
And here's the thing about all this.

Speaker 2 I also think that sometimes they're less so because of just how visible the attacks have been on the gay community and the LGBT, the trans community in particular, recently.

Speaker 2 But a lot of times people kind of have this tendency to be like, you know, the kids are all right, and history is moving in the right direction on this, and this is going to blow over, and the Republicans will be punished for this at the ballot box.

Speaker 2 And I kind of agree with all of that in the medium term. I really do.

Speaker 2 I think that the normie voters that voted for Democrats in the midterms, that voted for Joe Biden, Atlanta and Phoenix and all this, they look at this and think Republicans are insane and crazy and that the Disney fight is ludicrous.

Speaker 2 That said, there are still really big pockets of this country where there are young men and women that are trying to deal with their sexuality, that are trying to understand, that are confused, and that are now going to be in very fraught situations again, like to a degree they haven't been in a while.

Speaker 2 And I think that while this is definitely a losing issue in the Atlanta suburbs for Republicans, kids that are in Shreveport and in these red pockets in red and purple states, I think it's really ugly right now.

Speaker 2 And it's a very serious, serious thing, these crackdowns.

Speaker 3 And I don't think that can be overstated. And I don't think that people ought to just simply assume that there's an inevitable arc to history.

Speaker 3 I think that's one of the myths that we tell ourselves that the arc of history bends a certain way.

Speaker 3 If you read a lot of history, you realize that the arc of history can bend back and can become kind of a dangerous spiral at some point. I know you need to to catch a plane.
Have a great weekend.

Speaker 3 Congratulations on the Denver Nuggets, and we will do this again soon, Tim. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 2 Thanks, Charlie. Happy Friday.
Go Nugs. Nugs and Four.

Speaker 3 And thank you all for listening to this weekend's Bullworth Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes.
We will be back on Monday and we'll do this all over again.

Speaker 3 The Bullworth Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.

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