Bill Kristol: Fake News on '60 Minutes'

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Speaker 5 Hello and welcome to the Bullwood Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller.

Speaker 5 It is the worst Monday of the year because, you know, Tom Cotton and others have decided that we need to be engulfed in darkness, you know, that they want me to have a vitamin D deficiency.

Speaker 5 And I don't understand it. If you're one of the people who likes this extra darkness, a pockets on your house as well.
And so I'm going to be grumpy this week.

Speaker 5 And I'm hoping that our usual Monday guest can cheer me up. As always, it's Bill Crystal.

Speaker 2 Isn't it better to have some light in the morning when you walk the kid to school in the school bus or something like that?

Speaker 5 No, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 Everyone in New Orleans is on such a late time that, of course, you guys don't even... The elementary school is probably beginning around 11 a.m., right? So they

Speaker 5 go until 8 p.m.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 5 We're hung over. I want to shoot hoops with the kid after school.

Speaker 5 Is that so bad? No, it's going to be dark. But good thing.
It's 6.15 a.m. It'll be nice and bright with the sun coming in my window.
Really love that. Really useful.

Speaker 5 Donald Trump was on 60 Minutes last night. And you did not suffer through that, I hear?

Speaker 2 No, I didn't watch that.

Speaker 5 Okay, great. So we're going to suffer through it together.

Speaker 5 I thought, you know, it's typical Trump. Trump knows how to work these people.
It's a little frustrating, I would say. It's a frustrating watch.
I mean, Nora, I guess, is asking about hard topics.

Speaker 5 So it's not like a Fox News interview exactly, but she's, you know, you do the things.

Speaker 5 and you hate to nitpick interviewers because it's harder than it looks at somebody who has to do it, who's had to learn how to do it.

Speaker 5 But it's like, are you not worried about the appearance of corruption? She has to unemploy it. And I'm like, it's corruption, you know?

Speaker 5 And she's like, did you and did you instruct the Department of Justice to go after Comey? It's like, he instructed them. Like, why are you doing, why are you letting him spin? Just say what happened.

Speaker 5 Anyway, so I got a little frustrated with that. We'll start here with you, Bill.

Speaker 5 There was a question from Nora about 2028. And on TV, they played the short answer, which is him talking about how he's got a good bench and how people really would love for him to run, etc.

Speaker 5 And then it cuts off. But if you go to the, and this is apparently allowed now, I guess there is a longer answer that's online.
You read the transcript.

Speaker 5 And in this long answer, Trump talks about how he won in 2020 by a lot, how Jasmine Crockett is low IQ. And then he pivots into the 60 Minutes lawsuit.

Speaker 5 60 Minutes didn't ask him about the 60 Minutes lawsuit. He just starts talking about it randomly after a question about 2028.
And actually, 60 Minutes paid me a lot of money.

Speaker 5 And you don't have to put this on because I don't want to embarrass you.

Speaker 5 I think you have a great new leader, frankly, who's the young woman that's leading your whole enterprise is great from what I know. I don't know her, but I hear she's a great person.

Speaker 5 But 60 Minutes was forced to pay me a lot of money because they took her answer out that was so bad. It was election changing.

Speaker 5 Two nights before the election, they put a new answer in and they paid me a lot of money for that. You can't have fake news.
You got to have legit news. It is fake news that they didn't air that.

Speaker 5 Like they didn't air that.

Speaker 5 Like there's supposed to be a news organization and there's a whole conversation about how their news organization folded to his extortion and they just tried to pretend like it didn't exist.

Speaker 5 Do I, should I not be enraged about this? Should we sue? I feel like we should sue, Bill. I want to sue them.
I feel like the bulwark has been harmed by the fact that they did not air that.

Speaker 2 I'll call sort of our lawyer friend, Brian Goodman, who was on with me yesterday, distinguished law professor at NYU. I'm sure he'd be happy to take this suit.

Speaker 2 Maybe there's some standing issues, you know, and damages. How much were we damaged by that? It could be hundreds.
Hundreds were damaged.

Speaker 5 Hundreds significantly.

Speaker 5 I mean, Barry Weiss got $150 million out of the deal. So I think I feel like I was damaged at least $150 million.
I mean, I guess if I would have gone along with this bullshit that

Speaker 5 this was an election-changing edit by 60 minutes, it's unclear how that exists since Donald Trump won the election, right? Didn't Donald Trump win?

Speaker 5 So I don't know how it could have been an election-changing answer.

Speaker 5 And then this new supposed news magazine pays him off as a reward for paying him off, gets an interview with him, and then doesn't air any of the the discussion of the payoff.

Speaker 5 It doesn't feel like free press, I wouldn't say.

Speaker 2 Doesn't he in the middle of this okay some merger that the parent organization of CBS is very interested in? Maybe they should disclose that. I don't know.

Speaker 2 Just like simple-minded of me to think that, I'm sure. And silly, but he also says they didn't air the 2020 election stuff entirely, right? That he goes on about the election.

Speaker 2 No, they didn't air it at all. So

Speaker 2 what do you make of that? I mean, I have assumed for five years that, you know, he knows he's lying and he's just, this is a core lie. He's got to stick with it.

Speaker 2 And he sort of repeats it when he has to. But I don't know.
Would you bring it up that way just out of nowhere? Maybe he, does he believe it? I really, this is an honest question. What do you think?

Speaker 5 You remember the

Speaker 5 Seinfeld where Costanza is given,

Speaker 5 I think he was giving Jerry advice on how to beat the lie detector. He says it's not a lie if you believe it.
Oh, that's cool. I think it's that situation.

Speaker 5 I think he's convinced himself a little bit.

Speaker 5 I bet he could pass. I think at some level he knows it's not not true, but I bet he could pass a lie detector because he's so convinced himself over the time.
That would be my theory. I don't know.

Speaker 5 But again, you would think that I don't know what this would do at this point. So it's kind of like I'm just barking at the moon a little bit over this, over nothing.
But like, I don't know.

Speaker 5 If the President of the United States advances on your news magazine an absurd, ridiculous lie about how he won the 2020 election by a lot, you would feel like there'd be a journalistic obligation to kind of discuss that a little bit.

Speaker 2 Right. Because A, if it's in his mind, that tells you something about the state of his mind because it's so beyond.

Speaker 2 I mean, we understand all the demagogy and the normal grifting and lying, but this is pretty far down the road of just believing in something that's ludicrously, so obviously untrue and has been extensively investigated.

Speaker 2 It isn't just a slightly oddball conspiracy theory. You know, you know, it's like kind of important theory, kind of led to important events in January 6, 2021.

Speaker 2 And it's actually important now because what does it imply about the next three years, right?

Speaker 5 I mean, if you ask comment about the 2028 election, she's like, I don't know. I'm thinking about running.
I might run. Dems have a good bench.
The moon is made of cheese,

Speaker 5 et cetera, et cetera. Like, you'd think the interviewer would be like, wait, the moon is made of cheese? Like, why are you bringing that up? Like, that's essentially what happened.

Speaker 5 He just brings it up apropos of nothing.

Speaker 2 It also implies that he's going to spend the next three years. This happened, remember, when he was president in his account in 2020.

Speaker 2 So he's going to spend the next three years preventing whatever moles and deep state operatives are left in his administration and in government, and I suppose in state governments too and everywhere, from doing this again, which means the degree to which he is going to be focused on

Speaker 2 rigging the 2028 election his way, if I can put it that way, ensuring that 2020, which was a free and fair and honest election, doesn't happen again. Yes.
I think that's newsworthy too, right?

Speaker 2 It's not just an ⁇ in a way, it's worse than the moon made of cheese, but that's kind of abstract.

Speaker 5 Great point. It's relevant to the policy that the government is running.
Great point. You're right.
You give some bad answers. I want to just go through rapid fire really quick.

Speaker 5 Nora asked about the cost of living. She says this.

Speaker 5 And to people uh that say they're struggling with the cost of living expenses what could you do about that trump replies well let me just say cashless bail is a disaster it's got to be changed sanctuary cities really have to be changed when i saw that clip i was like okay i don't maybe he was referencing something previous and then i went to and watched the whole thing and and eventually he does come back around to the cost of living question he blames biden offers no solutions that seems like a real vulnerability for him i think over time no for for the republicans that you can't answer that question?

Speaker 5 They don't even have like a pat bullshit response to what they're doing about the cost of living. Like, you think they'd be at least like, oh, we got a plan, you know, two weeks.

Speaker 2 What is cashless bail doing in there? Is that if he hears that he hears cost and it triggers something in his mind about we don't like cashless bail? The cost of cashless bail's got a problem.

Speaker 2 I blame Biden for it. You know, cashless bail was cheap under Trump.

Speaker 5 I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 2 We are at a level of ludicrous. I've always disliked the Trump's losing it.
You know, it doesn't have all his marbles. He's losing it.

Speaker 2 He's, you know, I just think that's a, we need to take him seriously in the sense that he's such a danger. And maybe he's a little slower than he was four years ago.

Speaker 2 But you hear an answer like that and you think, I don't know, right?

Speaker 5 Okay. On things that you don't know about, which one should I do next? How about the Shang Peng Zhao? He's the

Speaker 5 Chinese national that we pardoned that is doing business with the Trump family. Nora did ask him about this.
This was the one time Trump seemed to be a little flustered. And he gives a couple answers.

Speaker 5 First, he's like, are you ready? I don't know who he is. I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that.
I heard it was a Biden witch hunt.

Speaker 5 Nora follows up. Then he's like, Well, here's the thing.
I knew nothing about it because I'm too busy doing the other thing, which I think means the job of being president.

Speaker 5 I guess his kids go on talking about how his kids are focused on crypto and how it's important that America is strong in crypto.

Speaker 5 You know, there wasn't anything particularly from that answer that I think was useful, except for the fact that, like, that is obviously a lie, right?

Speaker 5 And, you know, as far as like this guy getting pardoned who's doing a two billion business deal with the family on crypto, I kind of just want to put a pin in that and keep mentioning it because it feels like something that will eventually come back around, particularly if the Democrats are all back in power in 2026, at least in the House.

Speaker 5 Feels like something to investigate. Like, how did he get pardoned exactly? We didn't really get that answer.
Like, Trump is like, I don't know who he is. My kids are doing a business deal with him.

Speaker 5 So I guess I just pardoned it. But who recommended it? Was it the kids? Was it, you know,

Speaker 5 was it David Balsacks? Was it your crypto, you know, czar? So I don't know. Anything on Chiang Bang Zhao, CZ?

Speaker 2 I love the I don't know who he is as kind of the all-purpose. Trump said this a long time, I think, way of ducking questions.
Just say you don't know anything about it.

Speaker 2 Even though you literally pardoned this guy, he's only pardoned one guy, I think, in the last couple of weeks. He's the only guy.

Speaker 2 He's the crypto guy who's basically funneling billions of dollars, probably bad, of criminal money to whatever, I don't know, money of unregulated money, let's say.

Speaker 2 Is it Hassan who's on the board? I can't even, I've lost track of all the

Speaker 5 kids. Actually, Baron, I think, is in on this.

Speaker 2 But on your more, on the more substantive point of this, a friend of mine who's not that political and a policy guy, he said, you know, I just, the corruption thing, I just think you guys and the Democrats need to hit this more.

Speaker 2 It's so massive. How could you even raise it?

Speaker 2 I mean, it's like such a scale of billions of dollars and money laundering and stuff that it's not like he stole $120,000 from this, you know, or he was bribed for $80,000 for this deal.

Speaker 2 But maybe it is massive enough and pervasive enough that it could break through. Do you think it, what do you think about that?

Speaker 5 I think that the corruption stuff overall is absolutely a big deal. And I think it's a big deal substantively.

Speaker 5 And, you know, anybody you talk to that's an expert on this stuff globally, you know, says that corruption is something that can bring down the autocrats.

Speaker 5 Obviously, there have been times where corruption hasn't brought down the autocrats because corruption is kind of part and parcel of being an autocrat.

Speaker 5 You know, so I've been somewhat optimistic about that. The crypto thing, it's just a weakness of it, of using it is that Democrats don't understand it.
Journalists don't really understand it, right?

Speaker 5 A lot of pundits don't really understand it. So it makes it challenging for people to make a compelling political argument because they feel lost and uncertain in talking about it.

Speaker 5 So A, I like my recommendation to Democrats is to like learn about this a little bit more. Some people have been good on it.
Chris Murphy's been good on it. It's not that complicated.

Speaker 5 If Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump can figure out how crypto works, you can figure out how crypto works.
I guess I would just say that's all right.

Speaker 5 That said, I've become more bullish on it. That deciding to win memo, there's like one of the sub points of it was like a poll that they took where they were asking people.

Speaker 5 you know, about various issues and what their views on. The second most unpopular issue, I don't have it in front of me, I think it was like, I think the first was like regulating IVF.

Speaker 5 It was something birth control, regulating birth control, something in that reproductive reproductive space was the Republicans' most unpopular position.

Speaker 5 The next was Trump having a national cryptocurrency.

Speaker 5 And like the way that they framed it, maybe, you know, I don't know, maybe people were reading it as like Trump is making an official government cryptocurrency with his name on it.

Speaker 5 But even still, the fact that it was unpopular made me think, I don't know, maybe this isn't as complicated as it just seems.

Speaker 5 It's just like, you know, you don't have to know the details of a stable coin to just say like, this is crazy that the president of the United States has a coin that people are paying him off with.

Speaker 5 I don't know. And the fucking Syrian, the new al-Qaeda Syrian leader cut off his family.
There was this news story over the weekend.

Speaker 5 Like the Syrian leader, like, it was like, said it, told his brothers, like, you have to stop doing business deals that relate to the government.

Speaker 5 So it's like the al-Qaeda leader of Syria is less corrupt than the Trump family. So I don't know.
Maybe that does sink in.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 No, I think I want to provide, I mean, maybe not so much the crypto thing per se, but just the general massiveness of the corruption, the whole family being involved, the endless scope of it, then all the cabinet people, everyone now is involved in Sidelli.

Speaker 2 It's really anyway.

Speaker 5 The ICE insurrection answers. One of the things I just want to mention before we move on.

Speaker 5 These are two separate answers. I'm just kind of lumping them together.
Trump said he could use the Insurrection Act. Nobody could stop him if he wants.
Judges couldn't stop him.

Speaker 5 I just thought that was kind of ominous that he brought that up. He then doesn't decide about how he should be getting credit.

Speaker 5 He's like, Nora, you should be giving me credit for not using it so far, which just speaks to his compulsions and psychosis. He also says that he thinks ICE hasn't gone far enough.

Speaker 5 To me, those two answers tell you all you need to know about kind of the trajectory that we're on with both the

Speaker 5 deportation campaign, but also the military and the street stuff.

Speaker 5 He still sees this as a winner.

Speaker 2 He thinks it's a winner, and I guess he's come to believe it. I always thought there, too, he'd never been involved in anti-immigrant stuff before 2015, particularly.
He employed a lot of them.

Speaker 2 He married two of them, you know, and it was not his thing. You know, other people we know, other wealthy right-wingers were very into that issue way back in the 2000s and so forth.

Speaker 2 So I've always assumed it was pure opportunism and pure demagoguery. But I think maybe your point about the Seinfeld point is right here too, that he now has internalized it and he believes it.

Speaker 2 Because, I mean, there's no poll showing that what ICE is doing is popular.

Speaker 2 And there's no way I would say, I don't believe that it's going to get more popular the more they go after people who've been here 20 years and so forth, right?

Speaker 2 I mean, they, you know, but so I guess he just believes it and has talked himself into that.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 he's also in a media bubble of his own yes well that's a very good point that is very good i think that his information like how he's receiving information i think is more one-sided than even it was in the first time around and and so i do think that like he thinks

Speaker 5 i think that if you asked him what are your self-impressions of like what your successes are so far i think he would say the eight-piece deal right like that he thinks that he's brought peace to the world which whatever we'll table that and the other thing i think he would say is like crime is down Like, the city is like, we're working.

Speaker 5 Like, the tough, and the border is closed, right? Like, border is closed, crime is down. That's succeeding.
Like, there's less crime now. It's working what we're doing with the guys in the streets.

Speaker 5 And so, if that is your like self-assessment of everything, then I think it's natural to think, well, let's keep doing more, like, more, more crackdowns of the military, more ice crackdowns. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And he yearns to use the Insurrection Act. And he totally misunderstands it, needless to say.
I mean, it would be bad if it used, don't get me wrong.

Speaker 2 We don't want American troops, I don't believe, routinely patrolling and doing law enforcement in American cities or anywhere within the United States. These huge opportunities for abuse.

Speaker 2 But as a literal matter of fact, as I understand it, the Insurrection Act doesn't suspend any law. I mean, it allows the military to enforce the laws, which is all problematic in a million ways.

Speaker 2 He doesn't get to order the military to do a lot of things that law enforcement can't otherwise do, like arrest people without cause, detain people without letting them have habeas corpus and so forth.

Speaker 2 But he thinks it does. And if he thinks it does, no one's telling him it doesn't.
And will ICE and others enforce it in the way he thinks as opposed to what's on the statute, on the statute of books?

Speaker 2 I mean, the degree to which he's internalized a deep desire to be a dictator. I'm going to not sugarcoat this, is what you see there, right? Don't you think? Yeah.
And that's really what he wants.

Speaker 2 I mean,

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Speaker 5 Well, that takes us to the Venezuela of it, which is what you wrote about in the newsletter this morning. It's just kind of funny as an aside.

Speaker 5 You start the newsletter with a reference to what was the movie?

Speaker 2 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 1948, Humphrey Bogart, John Huston,

Speaker 2 one of the great movies of that era, which was the great era of American movies, a little bit before you were born, I understand.

Speaker 2 Even a little bit before, even a little bit before I was born, but those were the things you saw. you know, in college, you know, 20 from 20 years before, right, when I was in college.

Speaker 5 Yeah, the treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Speaker 5 Anyway, I thought it was funny because this happens sometimes, I think, to everybody in life, where like you kind of gain like a cultural tent something through osmosis.

Speaker 5 Like, I'd heard the, like, we don't need no stinking badges. Like, I'd heard that audio so many times, whatever it is,

Speaker 2 and it's used and parodied in later movies and TV shows and stuff.

Speaker 5 Yeah, so I heard, I had no idea what the origin was of it until I was reading an article this morning. And there it was, a 1948 Sarah Madre film.

Speaker 2 I'm glad to provide a little cultural

Speaker 2 enlightenment here.

Speaker 2 We actually had a funny, just as it was being edited, one of our colleagues who's more your age said, maybe you should put in the fact that it's been quoted, mimicked, parodied in subsequent movies.

Speaker 2 He mentioned a couple, but

Speaker 2 I wouldn't stoop to that level of just catering to people who aren't willing to go back and think about the 1948

Speaker 5 movie. The treasure of the Sierra Madre.
Anyway, it's a little homework assignment. I've got to go

Speaker 5 pull that up. Anywho, you're writing it in regards to how...
essentially, now both domestically with ICE and

Speaker 5 internationally with what we're doing in the Caribbean Caribbean and Pacific with regards to

Speaker 5 yeeting these

Speaker 5 Venezuelan boats that were no longer abiding by these norms of how you do things in a free country, where if you're police, you have to demonstrate that you're police and show people who you are rather than just

Speaker 5 kill and detain people willy-nilly. It's how they do things in countries where there is no rule of law, countries where the gangs control the streets.
And

Speaker 5 you point out that we are now officially today past the 60-day mark of the bombing campaign. The first vote that we took out was September 2nd.
Today's November 3rd.

Speaker 5 And that means that they've officially broken the War Powers Act. You discussed this about with Ryan Goodman yesterday and in the newsletter.
So let's talk about that.

Speaker 2 They acknowledge that the War Powers Act applied because they submitted this letter two days later, September 4th, which is the first step.

Speaker 2 You have to tell Congress what you're doing and give some rationale. Their rationale wasn't very compelling or detailed or convincing, but whatever.
They sort of went by the letter of the law.

Speaker 2 And now they just decided, forget it. You know, this isn't a hostilities because American troops aren't actually at risk.

Speaker 2 And though, on the other hand, half their justification for the whole thing is that we're a huge risk because each of these votes is killing so many people.

Speaker 2 And so why aren't people in America at risk? And why aren't the troops conceivably at risk if they're these so powerful, these drug cartels?

Speaker 2 Anyway, it's all incoherent as a matter of legal argument, but he desperately does not want to explain what's happening to Congress. And he certainly wants to keep doing it.

Speaker 2 I mean, again, one of these things, one thought, okay, he's first time. I keep getting suckered a little bit by Trump, you know, bombs a few boats.
I think, okay, it's horrible and it's demographic.

Speaker 2 You know, he's doing his demonstrative little quasi-fascist thing, but he'll stop. It's accelerating, not the opposite.
And now he's moving massive amounts of military hardware near Venezuela.

Speaker 2 And I guess I've lost confidence that he's not going to actually bomb Venezuela, Venezuelan bases, and claim that he's destroying narco-terrorist centers.

Speaker 2 And of course, that all ties ties it with the war at home against narco-terrorists here at home and Antifa. It is

Speaker 2 whatever he's thinking, the sort of radicalization or intensification of authoritarianism once you get going down this path is what strikes me.

Speaker 5 That is authoritarian, you know.

Speaker 2 Right, war on drugs, war on immigrants, war in Venezuela. It's all kind of a package and ignore all the laws that might constrain you.

Speaker 5 Military in the streets is part of the package, right? Right. Very much so.
Yeah, because it's the same. It's connected, right?

Speaker 5 It's like these drugs, whatever, these criminals have now gotten into the country and are in the streets. And so we need to crack down on it.

Speaker 5 I thought it was worth noting, though, that we had officially reached a point where it is an illegal war now, which is like not nothing, I guess.

Speaker 5 The peace candidate is conducting an illegal war. And then on 60 last night, Nora asked him about this and he said

Speaker 5 about whether Maduro's days are numbered. And he said, I would think so.
Yeah. He kind of doesn't want to commit to anything.
He does the Trump thing where it's like word salad.

Speaker 5 And it's like, well, I wouldn't tell you what I'm planning on doing and all that. But even to say that, you know, to me indicates that

Speaker 5 I mean, I, all you can do is look at their words and actions, right? Which is they're bringing all this military hardware into the Caribbean. Trump is saying he thinks Maduro's days are numbered.

Speaker 5 Marco obviously wants regime change. Like it seems to me that they are planning on continuing this and escalating it, you know, without any approval from Congress.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think Trump, apparently Marco, Hexeth, they all believe they have the right to decide at some point that they want to get rid of Maduro, get rid of bomb various places in Venezuela, and Congress doesn't have to say anything ahead of time.

Speaker 2 Congress doesn't get any information in real time. It's really kind of startling.

Speaker 2 And there are obviously great cases of presidential use of power and reaction before letting Congress know and times when we've done things and we stretched a little bit the War Powers Act.

Speaker 2 But this is a level of just my commander in chief powers extend to the right to use force whatever I want, against whoever I want, with no evidence being presented, with no obligation of accountability to Congress or to the public.

Speaker 2 And if you look at the rationale they're using, which hinges on this thing, which came up a little bit under Obama, if your forces aren't really at risk, if your fire troops aren't at risk, it's not really a hostility, which is not consistent with the original meaning of the War Powers Act.

Speaker 2 But anyway.

Speaker 2 Basically, they say that literally in the email they sent the Washington Post, that this is, you know, these are standoff drones and missiles.

Speaker 2 We're not at risk. It's not like ground troops.
Think about the implications of that for a minute.

Speaker 2 It implies that if we drop a nuclear weapon, I hate to sound crazy, but I mean, from 30,000 feet away and the American pilot's not at risk, if we use a missile, an intercontinental ballistic missile to send a nuclear weapon somewhere, Trump just can do it, I guess, because there's no war powers obligation.

Speaker 2 You know, he doesn't have to go to Congress ahead of time. And there's no war powers obligation because no American is marching towards opposing forces.
It's really nuts.

Speaker 2 And we'll see what happens with the Republicans on the Hill.

Speaker 5 Yeah, Roger Wicker wrote a letter, I saw. It's interesting.
You mentioned the nuclear thing. And it does sound ridiculous, but like we're testing nukes.

Speaker 5 Trump said he wants to test nukes again to just throw that out there, which is okay. Like, we haven't done that in 30 years or so, maybe more.
And

Speaker 5 nobody is actually testing nukes besides the North Koreans. Trump seems to be confused into thinking that China and Russia are, or he's lying.

Speaker 5 I don't know, whatever, either way, when the reality is that they've tested, like, I guess, the equipment, right? Like, to make sure that

Speaker 5 it launches like the launcher, but they're not launching a nuke. They're like launching something else, right? But Trump, I guess, is claiming that he's planning on testing, testing nukes.

Speaker 5 I don't know. I hadn't really thought about that as a possibility enough to like develop a view on it, but it doesn't seem great.

Speaker 2 No, and I think get back to your earlier point.

Speaker 2 I think the bubble he's in, the degree to which he repeats these things that are just manifestly absurd with statistics about inflation's down, crime has gone away, and

Speaker 2 just making things up. And I used to think, oh, he just makes things up.
That's sort of what what being a lying demagogue is.

Speaker 2 But I do wonder how much he is, as you say, sort of in a bubble where he believes his own bullshit. And that's more dangerous.
I guess it's more dangerous than just lying.

Speaker 2 I mean, knowingly lying is bad and can be very dangerous for the country. But if he's delusional and no one's telling him that he's delusional, that's not good.

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Speaker 5 All right, one of the great heroes of our time, the sandwich man. Appreciate the listener at one of the live events that brought me the crocheted sandwich.
Uh, my daughter has enjoyed that.

Speaker 5 He is uh on trial, or I guess jury selection for his trial begins today. I should mention that uh they first tried to indict him on felony charges.
The grand jury rejected that attempt.

Speaker 5 So then Janine Pirro inserted herself as the U.S. Attorney from D.C.
So I just want to repeat that one more time. The U.S.
Attorney from D.C. is Janine Pirro.

Speaker 5 And Judge Janine edited the indictment, downgraded to a misdemeanor. That did get approved.
And so now we're going to have a jury trial.

Speaker 5 There's jury selection for a misdemeanor sandwich toss happening today in D.C. That seems unusual.

Speaker 5 I don't think a ton of federal misdemeanors come to jury trials.

Speaker 2 I don't know much about it, but I've never really can't think of of any offhand. Why is it very important to make that point, though?

Speaker 2 Because, you know, Tim, it's very important when you have these National Guardsmen and others patrolling the streets of our cities, no one to throw a sandwich at them.

Speaker 2 And they really need to be, we need to spend millions of dollars on a jury selection and jury trial in District of Columbia.

Speaker 5 That is, we have the, we're paying for this.

Speaker 5 The taxpayers are paying for the prosecutors, the lawyers, you know, the courtroom, the security to go after this guy for a sandwich toss, throw in a subway sub.

Speaker 5 Salami, I guess, was on there. Okay, well, good luck to him in that trial.
I'm feeling pretty good about it, but we'll continue to monitor. I want to do a little politics with you.

Speaker 5 An interesting NBC poll. I've been committed to not like overreacting to polls at this point because it doesn't really matter.

Speaker 5 We're a year away from the midterms, but there's one thing in here that I think is worth noodling on. The Trump job performance is 43.55,

Speaker 5 43 approved, 55 disapprove.

Speaker 5 The generic ballot for the midterms next year, which is basically saying to people, like, do you plan on voting for a Democrat or a Republican for your for Congress in your district next year?

Speaker 5 50% say Democrat, 42% say Republican.

Speaker 5 And in the same poll, they asked, what is your opinion of the two parties? The Democrats have only a 28% positive view and a 53% negative. Well, the GOP has a 37% positive view, 46% negative.

Speaker 5 I lay all that out because

Speaker 5 it tells you something. Like even if the poll is off somewhat, right? Like even if there's a margin of error one way or the other,

Speaker 5 you can see the same people in that poll are saying, I have a negative view of the Democrats, but I'm going to be voting for them anyway next year. And I think that's pretty telling about like

Speaker 5 who those, you know, about who those people are and where things stand.

Speaker 5 In a lot of ways, I think it's one of the more encouraging data points we've seen for the Democrats, that there are a lot of people out there who are frustrated with them who also plan on voting for them in the midterms.

Speaker 2 Totally. I mean, the Trump approval is the predictor of the midterm vote.
I mean, it literally is in the sense that it's minus, Trump's minus 12. Midterm vote is minus eight for Republicans.

Speaker 2 But the Republicans are plus 10 over Democrats, something like that, right? In terms of the general thought about the parties.

Speaker 2 So people, midterm, this has been a Ron Brownstein theme for a long time, and I think he's got a lot of data to back it up historically, that the best single predictor of the midterm vote is the approval of the president, especially when his party controls both branches of Congress.

Speaker 2 That was the case, obviously, in 2018 and at other times as well. So that's good for 2026.

Speaker 2 The relative ranking of the parties is worrisome for 2028, if you want to think about it this way, because the Democrats need to actually defeat a Republican, maybe not Trump, in 2028, running on like who should govern for the next four years, not who do you want in there to check this president you don't approve of.

Speaker 2 Single most important thing remains, knocking Trump. If Trump's at 43 now, the single best thing the Democrats can do is get him to 40 or 38 over the next 12 months.

Speaker 2 And that's why I've been a little bit impatient, maybe is the word, with all the Democratic, you know, navel-gazing, and we have to have this agenda and that agenda. I'm all for doing that work.

Speaker 2 It's very important for post-26. But the key political task over the next 10 months is to further knock Trump's numbers down.

Speaker 5 I also think it's

Speaker 5 the key political task for the Democrats in their own coalition management. I think that there's a lot of misunderstanding of what their own base wants.

Speaker 5 I think certainly there are some rabid partisans out there that want the Democrats to move left or want it to move center, right? Like both of those things, groups exist.

Speaker 5 I think the former group is larger. But like really what Democratic voters want is for the Democrats to show some cojones and fight.

Speaker 5 and be tougher and demonstrate some leadership and strength in this moment. And so when you see this

Speaker 5 where like 28% of voters say they have a positive view of Democrats, but 50% of voters say they're going to vote for them, that's who those people are.

Speaker 5 Like, there's a huge group of people that want to vote for the Democrats that think that the Democrats are fucking it up when it comes to checking Trump.

Speaker 5 And I'm sure some percentage of those people are mad about the Democrats ideologically, one way or the other, but most of them are frustrated that the party is feckless. And so

Speaker 5 you aren't helping yourself by doing internal factional fighting and positioning. Like what you're supposed to do is demonstrate that you're not feckless.

Speaker 5 You know, it feels like some people have gotten that message, but not enough.

Speaker 2 I don't know if you can find this or deduce this from crosstabs in that poll.

Speaker 2 I haven't looked, but I would suspect that the Democrats who want the Democrats to fight, to stand up to Trump and fight, and suspect, think they aren't quite doing it as much as they might do now, might should be doing now.

Speaker 2 They're both leftists, progressives, and centrists who believe that, right? I mean, it unites the Democrats is what I'm saying. This is not like a progressive view,

Speaker 2 as we know from, I think, Bullwork Land, and I'd say personally from the No Kings rally I attended and stuff, plenty of centrist, ex-Republican-ish, never-Trumpers, voting Democrats these days want the Democrats to fight hard around a bunch of issues, and plenty of progressives want to fight around.

Speaker 2 Maybe they slightly differ on which issues to put first or second, but I'm not even sure there's that much difference on that. So, I very much agree.

Speaker 2 It's fashionable to say you can't just win by being anti-Trump. Oh, oh, boy.
But you know what? For now, you can win by being anti-Trump. And you should win by being anti-Trump.

Speaker 5 You can, actually. In the midterms, you can.
Yeah. And it's also the most acute sale.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it's the right thing. Like, it's the biggest problem right now.
Like, that's the other thing. Like, sure.

Speaker 5 Like, yeah, in the long term, there should be a fight over Medicare for all versus Medicare for some or whatever. You know what I mean? Over like opt-in, Medicare for all those who want.
But like.

Speaker 5 You're not going to get any of those things in the next three years. Right.

Speaker 5 Like, so while it might have been a correct critique of the Democrats looking back, like looking backwards to 2024 to say maybe you focused too much on Nanti Trump and maybe you didn't offer enough of an alternative that galvanized people, okay, sure.

Speaker 5 Like for that academic conversation,

Speaker 5 which we can have on a podcast if you want, I do that from time to time, sure. But like for the candidates now,

Speaker 5 like that is not right, right? Like that is not right for 2026. For 2026, it's go after this guy and fuck him up

Speaker 5 politically and bring down his numbers. That's the job.
On that point, final thoughts on the Virginia and New Jersey race.

Speaker 5 So we'll have governor's races in both states and lieutenant governors, AG, et cetera, tomorrow.

Speaker 5 There's a sub-kind of interest in that Virginia race related to the midterms, which is, in addition to the governor's race being important, obviously there's been a lot of attention on the AG's race because of the Democrats' deranged text messages.

Speaker 5 But the House of Delegates elections are also very important in Virginia because the Democrats need to hold that if they want to redistrict next year and offset some of the Republican redistricting in other states.

Speaker 5 So that, and frankly, the Virginia House of Delegates and Governor's Race is probably the most important thing tomorrow for the big picture of our politics for that reason.

Speaker 5 If the Democrats control both, then it seems like they will redistrict and be able to gain. somewhere between two and four seats in next year's midterms.

Speaker 5 Do you have any other thoughts on final thoughts in those races?

Speaker 2 I'm here in Virginia. I think Spanberger is going to win big, maybe double digits.

Speaker 2 I think Democrats will pick up seats, maybe half a dozen seats or even a little more in the House of Delegates to get to a comfortable majority.

Speaker 2 It makes it a little easier to govern for Spanberger, too. So I'm pretty bullish.
And I think the polls I've seen have a drop-off, as is to be expected, for the AG candidate.

Speaker 2 But in one case, I think Jones's drop is like plus four or something like that, plus three when Spanberger's plus eight or 10, which shows you, again, how strong even a gubernatorial or AG election in an off year when Trump is the head head of the other party is.

Speaker 2 How should I say this?

Speaker 2 How strong, even in a non-federal election, even in a state election, in an off-year state election where there are not any national offices on the ballot, even, how strong the Trump gravitational pull and push is.

Speaker 2 And I'd say the same about Jersey, where I think Cheryl, I will say this, you know, the progressives, I sometimes sympathize with the progressives when they whine that moderates aren't doing enough to help them once they've won the nomination fair and square.

Speaker 2 New York City, I suppose. On the other hand, in New Jersey, a couple of progressive mayors have done almost nothing to help Mikey Sheryl.
I don't really even understand why.

Speaker 2 It's not like she's she lost the primary to her. She didn't run a nasty primary against them or anything.
She just beat them and they're they're sitting on their hands.

Speaker 2 One of them is criticizing her all the time. I still think she'll win by you know more than five, six points, but that might account for a little of the weakness there, though.

Speaker 5 Yeah, don't do that. I know.

Speaker 5 You know, just get on board. Obviously, Mikey Sheryl is the superior candidate here against this MAGA guy who's run three times.

Speaker 5 The other thing, just to note to your point about Trump, the Trump factor, not campaigning either state. Yeah, interesting.
Obama campaigned in both. I'm pretty sure.
I think so.

Speaker 5 Correct me if that's wrong.

Speaker 5 He definitely is in Virginia. I think he campaigned in both.
Trump didn't in either. He's doing a...

Speaker 5 teletown haul, I think, tonight into the states, which is like what you do if you don't want pictures of yourself in the newspaper on election day, you know, or on local news.

Speaker 5 You're worried that's going to hurt your candidates.

Speaker 5 And it speaks to this conundrum that Republicans have still in non-Trump elections, which is like, you need Trump to turn out the less engaged voters that are only there for Trump. But

Speaker 5 Trump also has a negative boomerang effect among the voters who are more likely to turn out in off-year elections, right? And so on that balance, I guess they figure it's better to not have them.

Speaker 5 participate for all of their bluster about how strong it is and how big his mandate was. Like if Trump was that strong, you'd be in New Jersey tonight.
He's not.

Speaker 2 Yeah, these are both states. Trump lost by about six points in 2024.

Speaker 2 So you could argue if this were a state that Trump would want, if this election were happening in Pennsylvania, he'd be out there or Michigan or to say nothing of Red State.

Speaker 2 It probably would be out there in a Red State. Well, we'll see what the results are.
I'd say if the Democrats shouldn't get too high on this, because they are Democratic states, obviously. And so

Speaker 2 if Trump lost them by six, that means they're what? They ran eight points ahead of about the national average in 2024. So in a way, you'd expect

Speaker 2 this to be a D plus 8-ish type state, probably.

Speaker 2 And that's probably what both of them could well be, I think. So Democrats shouldn't get too excited, enthusiastic if Spanberger and Sherrow win, and the Democrats have a good night.

Speaker 2 On the other hand, as you say, if Trump were really strong, they would put him into a state. He only lost by six and turn out those voters, right?

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Speaker 5 Now to the topic everybody's been waiting for. Woke Bill Crystal.

Speaker 5 There's some hand-wringing over Woke Bill Crystal. He was at Claremont.
He was talking to some students. They asked him about the New York mayor's race.

Speaker 5 You, I think, pretty aptly observed that it would be absurd to be for Andrew Cuomo in this race, considering he's one of the worst Democratic governors and he's a sex pest.

Speaker 5 It's like there's no good alternative to him. That there was no good alternative put up to Cuomo by the centrists or by the business community as an indictment upon them.

Speaker 5 And, you know, now they're going to have to get stuck with Zoran and see what happens. And that seems totally fine for New York City.

Speaker 5 I want to contrast that, Woke Bill Crystal, with the Democrats 2016 nominee, Hillary Clinton, talking about the New York mayor's race on a live taping of the podcast, Unholy. Hopefully we can.

Speaker 5 If you had a vote in this city, would you vote for Zoran Mamtan?

Speaker 6 You know what? I don't vote in this city.

Speaker 6 I'm not involved in it. I have not

Speaker 6 been at all

Speaker 6 even asked to be involved in it, and I have not chosen to be involved in it.

Speaker 6 I will be there the day after, and everybody else should be too, no matter what happens.

Speaker 5 What is that? What does that mean? This is why the Democrats are so fucking bad. What is that? What is that answer? Just do what you do.
Just be like, look, we've got Democrats.

Speaker 5 We've got people in all these states up and down the mountain. Albion Girl Spamberger is great.
Mikey Sheryl is great.

Speaker 5 Zoran Mondani's a little to the left of me, but clearly he's superior to the disgraced sex pest and the man in the beret. So I'm for all of them.

Speaker 5 Why would, you know, the fact that she can't say that is really, I don't know. It's just such a bad answer.

Speaker 2 I guess she is kind of former, yes, presidential candidate and so forth, unlike me, who doesn't have to have an opinion about all these things. You think she might.
She's a major Democrat.

Speaker 2 But that's been true of a lot of them, right? Schumer. I mean, a lot of them have refused to endorse them.
Some have actually endorsed Cuomo, which I look, they're free to do.

Speaker 2 When I answered the Claremont kids, I said something like, you know, I don't live there. I haven't, you know, been involved at all.
I really haven't been.

Speaker 2 Just like me and Hillary Clinton were similar in that respect. You know, I have been involved a little in Virginia, where I live, for Spanberger.

Speaker 2 And I said, I wouldn't have voted for Mohdani in the first round. I wouldn't have ranked him probably.
But here, this is a choice. And I would be inclined to vote for Mamdani.
It was pretty wild.

Speaker 2 I think you can have plenty of reservations about him and still say, or you can say, no, I'm just staying out of it. I don't know who I'd vote for.
That's a perfectly reasonable answer.

Speaker 2 I have friends who are voting for all three. I have friends voting for Mdani, people I kind of respect their political judgment and agree with them on a lot of things.

Speaker 2 I have people I agree with a lot who are sucking it up and voting for Cuomo. They think it's important.
It'd be better for the city.

Speaker 2 I actually ran into some people who were voting for Sleewa because they can't quite vote for Mamdadi. They can't stand Cuomo.
And Slee was running a kind of entertaining campaign.

Speaker 2 And someone asked me actually, is that okay if I do that? I said, hey, it's fine. You know what? It's a free country.
It's a secret ballot. Pat Moynihan, yeah.

Speaker 2 And after the 76th election, I knew how much Pat liked Gerald Ford, who had appointed him ambassador to the UN. And he respected him personally.
He just thought he was a really decent person.

Speaker 2 And of course, Moynihan had served in the Dixon administration as a counselor and then ambassador to India. So someone asked Moynihan, who do you vote for?

Speaker 2 I mean, of course, he supported Carter. He was a Democratic Senate candidate in 76, and Carter was the presidential candidate.

Speaker 2 But someone in a semi-private setting said, well, who'd you really vote for, Pat?

Speaker 2 And Moynihan said, you know, the Australian ballot, the secret ballot was a very important innovation in democracy, in the history of modern democracy.

Speaker 2 And Moynihan gave like this 10-minute discourse on when the Australian ballot was introduced in the U.S., which I think is like the mid-19th century.

Speaker 2 I think they had open elect before that, you like stood in the public and said who you were for, you know what I mean? And it was very amusing and he never said who he voted for.

Speaker 2 So people are entitled to do that. They can just say it's a secret ballot.
But I agree. Hillary's sure.
Yes, just answer it, right, and get it off your chest.

Speaker 5 People are entitled to do that. People are entitled to do that.
All I'm saying is that the answer that you gave to Clarify Kids is totally normal. It's right.

Speaker 5 It's just like, I don't, wasn't this supposed to guy, wasn't my first choice? I would have, I would have, I wouldn't, I think you said, I wouldn't have even ranked him.

Speaker 5 I would have ranked the other center-left candidates. There were a bunch of other candidates.
They didn't happen.

Speaker 5 These guys decide to put all their eggs behind Cuomo, who's a ridiculous choice on personal and policy levels. He was a terrible governor.
He seems like a bad person.

Speaker 5 He seems like he's running a terrible campaign. Like, what do you want? And so, like, the idea that the democratic leadership can't just say that, I find totally crazy.

Speaker 5 When it's like, this is going to backfire on them. I guess my point.

Speaker 5 Like, even if you're of the view that the Zoron wing is like a little dangerous, like you're a little concerned about it, you want to limit their power.

Speaker 5 You want to control, you're concerned about controlling power for the whatever, center left, like more, you know, active wing when it comes to, you know, more strong military, whatever, however you want to frame it.

Speaker 5 Like you want to, you want to kind of sideline the Zoron wing, the DSA wing a little bit. You're concerned they're getting too much power.

Speaker 5 Even from that perspective, the right thing to do is say, I'm for him. Good luck.
We'll see how it goes. I've got some concerns.
I've been hearing some good things.

Speaker 5 I hope he pivots to the middle. I've heard him say a lot of good things recently.
It seems like he's pivoting more towards the center. We'll see.
I support him. I want the best for New York City.

Speaker 5 I also am enthusiastically behind Mikey Sherlin and Abigail Spanbucker. Nobody would be upset about that.
But what you're doing is you're fucking radicalizing people. I'm seeing it online.

Speaker 5 The people who are not even DSA, they're kind of soft Zoron supporters. They're more progressive and they're excited about him because he's young.

Speaker 5 And they now see the entire Democratic leadership, Schumer, Jeffries, Hillary, Kamala, not be able to answer the question. And it makes them all be like, fuck you, Democratic establishment.

Speaker 5 I'm going to go in for the craziest left-winger possible, just as a statement that you guys are all cowards.

Speaker 5 And so they are creating the environment that they're trying to avoid with their weak need answers on this. Like, just have some backbone.
Anyway, that's my rant on this.

Speaker 2 And also, I mean, they, I think they're inviting some on the left to not support a moderate Democrat who wins a primary, or or in the case of Spanberger, for example, in effect was strong enough to shoo away.

Speaker 2 There would have been progressive challenges to her. She is not where the entire Virginia Democratic Party is, which has its progressives, obviously.

Speaker 2 But they've rallied to Spanberger, so far as I can tell, and there hasn't been a huge amount of lamenting that our people didn't run or didn't win, or we have an ex-CIA person as our nominee and stuff.

Speaker 2 One does have to play it both ways. There have to be some limits, obviously.
You can imagine certain people being nominated who we wouldn't. One would just say, I can't support it.
Fine.

Speaker 2 And if that's a matter of conscience, you can't support it. Say that.

Speaker 2 But don't, yeah, the ducking is a little bit much.

Speaker 2 I wonder if, do you think what Hillary meant by the day after is that she's alluding to the fact that Trump's threatening to cut off funds to New York if Mamdani wins and maybe set in the National Guard?

Speaker 2 And she's saying we all have to rally to New York City the day after to defend it against Trump. If she's saying that, I agree with that.
And I think that's actually an important thing.

Speaker 2 But again, the people who are being so standoffish for Mamdon, so hostile to Mamdani, are making it harder to say the day after, okay, he's kept Jessica Tish, or something he does as police commissioner who the business community likes very much, who's a real centrist.

Speaker 2 And it's not right. The president does not have the right to unilaterally cut off funds, which isn't like the results of a local election, you know.
And

Speaker 2 we need to rally to New York with all the demagoguing Trumpetist people are going to do about Mamdani, including, I do think they'll use it, they'll, they'll find some excuse to send in the National Guard and do all kinds of other things.

Speaker 2 So of course they will. Do you think Hillary was alluding to that with that day after fact?

Speaker 5 I don't. I can't.

Speaker 2 It was mysterious kind of comment.

Speaker 5 Yeah, like her little word-salad answer. I just can't get inside her head.
It's also like, you knew you were going to get asked about this. I have an answer.
Maybe she did. And

Speaker 5 I don't know. Anyway.
Maybe. People should be there.
Yeah, for sure. In the day after, I guess, whatever that means.
I don't know.

Speaker 5 I can't endorse it. It was a good thing to say because I don't understand what she meant.
Maybe that's what she meant. If so,

Speaker 5 if she's still as a spokesperson, you can email me and I'll clarify people on the podcast tomorrow.

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Speaker 5 All right, we need to laugh about one last thing: laugh or cry or be scared, all maybe, I guess, related to this mayor's race. New York Post article

Speaker 5 that House Republicans are exploring ways to prevent Zoran Mamdani from being sworn in as mayor if he wins on Tuesday. You might wonder,

Speaker 5 what could they be thinking of? How could they do that? What would be the rationale for trying to prevent Zoran in their expanding efforts to turn us into an authoritarian autocracy.

Speaker 5 Here's what they're going to cite:

Speaker 5 the U.S. Constitution's insurrection clause.

Speaker 5 The post-Civil War 14th Amendment to the Constitution barring from office anyone who is engaged in insurrection or rebellion or has given aid or comfort to the enemies of the nation.

Speaker 5 I can think of somebody that is engaged in insurrection, that there was an attempt to bar them from the ballot because they actually engaged in insurrection.

Speaker 5 And all of the right-wingers said that this was an outrageous affront and anti-democracy.

Speaker 5 And that was Donald Trump was the person that engaged in, that did an insurrection, attempted an actual insurrection and rebellion against the country.

Speaker 5 He's the president now, but the House Republicans are saying Mandani's statements calling to resist ICE

Speaker 5 could violate the prohibition.

Speaker 5 And you have to laugh. And it's just like, are you fucking kidding? The 14th Amendment is what you're going to use.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that is kind of wonderful, right?

Speaker 2 The thing they all said, and the Supreme Court said, it doesn't bar Trump from, didn't bar Trump from a federal ballot, which he actually, you know, which was the whole point of it, incidentally, basically, to keep them out of federal office mostly.

Speaker 2 And anyway, it's ludicrous in eight different levels, of course. And

Speaker 2 I guess they think it's a good issue for them to just highlight Mondani and make him the face of the Democratic Party. And a lot of the Democratic centrists are all worried about that.

Speaker 2 And I've argued with some of them. And after I was quoted with the Claremont thing, you know, how could he even be saying this? You know what?

Speaker 2 If you don't want Mondani to be the face of the Democratic Party, make Spanberger and Cheryl and Jason Crowe and 5 million other friends of ours the face of the Democratic Party and do a better job of that.

Speaker 2 You know, that's how you get a face. You don't, you don't complain.
What you could chop down Mom Dondi's publicity a little bit. I mean, he's going to get a lot of attention.
He'll win the election.

Speaker 2 Two months later, he'll be mayor of New York. Even a week or two later, it'll all be about the challenges he faces in New York.
And he'll be mayor.

Speaker 2 And then he'll do a good job or a bad job or a mediocre job. You can criticize him on this issue or that one.
And this is your point from 10 minutes ago.

Speaker 2 They're creating more of an issue here than they would otherwise, right? With all the hand-wringing and lamenting about it. And they're playing into the Republicans' hands as this idiotic.

Speaker 2 Now we're going to have some Democrat somewhere, some moderate Democrat who's so concerned about the left. It's such a danger.
It's so horrible. First, they were saying Latinx.

Speaker 2 Now the one liberal city is going to have a very liberal and anti-Israel, unfortunately, mayor. And it's so horrible that we have to really, you can't criticize the Republic.

Speaker 2 You got to understand where the Republicans are coming from, Tim. This is kind of, you know, their reaction.

Speaker 2 Wokeness is just like, you know, we have Trump because, you know, some college professors did some bad things on campus. Now we're going to have this insane thing because this guy wins it after what?

Speaker 2 A million people vote for him tomorrow, incidentally, right?

Speaker 5 I also want to throw. I agree with all that.
I also want to throw out a good background on the Republicans, though, because I don't know. I mean, he's happy.
Are you ready for this hot take?

Speaker 5 He's a better face for the Democratic Party than Hillary.

Speaker 5 He's at least appealing. There are people that have been not engaged in politics who like him.
And so, I don't know. He's not appealing to the median voter

Speaker 5 in fucking Pennsylvania. I don't know.
Some people are excited and engaged. There's something to that.

Speaker 5 He's certainly more appealing than fucking Mike Johnson or whoever these people are that are trying to keep him off the ballot.

Speaker 5 The good thing about it is that the Republicans are at least unapologetic about their anti-democratic efforts.

Speaker 5 Not Democratic Party, but anti-democracy efforts. We can just see it.
Like any time, any election they don't like, they're going to try to stop. And that's a good thing to know.

Speaker 2 But that is an important point. If I could just take 12 seconds on that.
I mean, yeah, that they're so disregard the will of the actual voters. I mean, he's going to win tomorrow, presumably.

Speaker 2 And I don't quite know the numbers if I get him something close to a million votes or three quarters of a million votes. And

Speaker 2 they're just going to, what, throw that that, but that shows their deep contempt for democracy. And it fits in with the redistricting.
It fits in with the voter suppression.

Speaker 2 It fits in with all the talk about 26 and 28. And makes me more worried that they will be considered.
I mean, who knows how many House Republicans are signed on to this idiotic thing, but

Speaker 2 there will not be no support in the Republican Party for Trump's efforts efforts to put a major thumb in the scale in 26 and really distort the elections in 2028, don't you think?

Speaker 2 I mean, that's not just a Trump thing is what I'm saying. It's now a Republican Party thing.

Speaker 5 For sure. I think for sure in 2026.
And what exactly it looks like, like what the extent of it is, you know, all that is TBT. But

Speaker 5 I keep saying, like, look, they've laid out their playbook. And there's nothing that's ridiculous.
Like, he's going to be seated. And like, this is just stupid New York Times rage bait.

Speaker 5 They're not going to be able to use the insurrection clause from keeping him in.

Speaker 5 But like the fact that that's where their mind is is important because that to me, I think has always been, that's been my top concern about next year is they'll try to do some hinky stuff before the election, whatever that looks like.

Speaker 5 Obviously they're doing the redistricting. Who knows what else they'll try to do as far as voter suppression is concerned.
But

Speaker 5 that stuff a lot of times backfires more than it actually works. But if the Democrats win, particularly if it's close, they're going to do this shit.
Oh, I can't seat this person.

Speaker 5 The mail-in ballots, this clause, and some fucking thing. You know what I mean? Whatever pretextual reason they come up with, that is coming next year.

Speaker 5 And I mean, unless Democrats won by like 30 seats or something. But I think that if it's at all close, that's what's coming.

Speaker 2 And the failure to see Crijalva is really of a piece for that. Unprecedented.
I mean, more than a month after she wins the election, she's certified.

Speaker 2 And Mike Johnson's using this fake excuse that they're not in session when he's sworn in other people in the pro former sessions. So again, it's just, it's a minor thing.

Speaker 2 I mean, it would be the 218th signature on the Epstein discharge petition, obviously, but otherwise there's no votes, so it doesn't matter in some sense that much, except the voters don't have a member of Congress to call up and get their, you know, some help on something.

Speaker 2 But the voters of that district.

Speaker 5 Meaningful now, because there's a lot of services that are being launched.

Speaker 2 Right, no, but so it isn't nothing. But mostly it's, again, an indication of how far they're willing to go.

Speaker 2 2026 could be rough in a lot of ways.

Speaker 2 It's hard to run a democracy when one of the two parties isn't really committed to democracy.

Speaker 5 Indeed, it is. Indeed, it is, Bill Crystal.
Tomorrow night, everybody, we are going to be live on YouTube. I think it's at 8 Eastern that you got Sam Stein and friends with Bill.

Speaker 5 I'm going to pop on with Sarah and JVL, I think around 9.15 or 9.30. So go to the Bulwark YouTube page, subscribe to us then.
And

Speaker 5 that will be tomorrow night, Tuesday night, November 4th. We've got a great podcast lined up for you for Election Day tomorrow as well.
It'll be a little doubleheader.

Speaker 5 So we'll see you all back back there tomorrow morning. Bill, thanks as always.

Speaker 2 My pleasure.

Speaker 5 All right, everybody else. See you on Election Day.
Peace.

Speaker 5 Fall back, can I still call?

Speaker 5 Will Will you wait for

Speaker 5 me now?

Speaker 5 We got the brackets, that fight to use it. Got everything in music, just choose it.
I won't just be up up there on the street.

Speaker 5 Don't

Speaker 5 call

Speaker 5 that

Speaker 5 way.

Speaker 5 I

Speaker 5 wait for

Speaker 5 you,

Speaker 5 And I'm dying by your friends

Speaker 5 And it's been at your door

Speaker 5 whipping for you

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 5 long,

Speaker 5 my friend

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 I can say

Speaker 5 that I will for you

Speaker 5 Yeah, dance, jump out of bed and do a vest.

Speaker 5 Like

Speaker 5 you

Speaker 5 okay,

Speaker 5 I've been all around this town. Everybody's singing the same song for ten years.

Speaker 5 I'll wait for

Speaker 5 you

Speaker 5 will

Speaker 5 wait for

Speaker 5 me

Speaker 5 through

Speaker 5 if they sacrifice their life. And they're lying about those.

Speaker 5 I'm never saying to be down and fail again.

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 5 love

Speaker 5 my

Speaker 5 emerald sorry and brave.

Speaker 5 The Bullard Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

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