A.B. Stoddard: A Desperate Man

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Welcome to the Bullework Podcast Time trolley Sykes. It is Friday the end of the first week of twenty twenty three and

Damn.

A lot of stuff I did not have on my Bingo card. So happy New Year, a b Stoddard columnist, associate editor, real clear politics. Welcome back on the podcast. Navy. Happy New Year, Charlie.

It’s great to be

with you, and it’s strange to start the year stuck in Groundhog Day with Kevin McCarthy’s ego trip, but It sure is better than a real January sixth from two years ago, so

I’ll take it. It does feel like a shot in fried groundhog day. Where you experience the same emotions over and over again, which of course we’re not supposed to feel about all of this. But let’s just put Kevin McCarthy in that weird story aside for the moment. I mean, I know it’s irresistible.

But as you just pointed out, today, is the second anniversary of the attack on the capital. I mean, I think it’s amazing. I don’t know. Does it seem longer ago to you?

With things that are traumatizing when I look back on them, they feel both close and far. Yeah. And it seems like it must be must have been so much longer yet feel

so raw. Yeah. Just this morning, my wife and I were talking about, you know, where we were standing as we were watching this unfold that day, how unreal it’s seemed and how we were saying to one another, where’s the national guard? When is the army going to show up? When when are the cops going to get there?

And I remember this one moment where I saw some guys in camo gear, you know, going up the stairs. And I thought to myself, okay, well, they finally arrived. And well, it turns out those one. The whole keeper. I mean, the whole thing is so surreal.

Let’s just step back for a moment. I wrote this morning, and I know I’m gonna get some pushback on it. You know that in order to understand what’s happening today, you have to recognize that the Republican Party on display this week has been shaped, forged, crafted by what happened on January sixth. It is remarkable to think that some of the same supporters of the insurrection who wanted to hold American democracy hostage two years ago today are today holding the House of Representatives hostage, but also that some of those supporters of the insurrection are poised to become committee chairs, plumb assignments, are about to move into power. So two years on, it feels like we have this split screen where half of America is saying this is a horrible thing.

We may have criminal charges coming down soon. And yet, the party most closely associated with it seems completely unfazed by as if they have learned absolutely nothing

Well, as you said the most radicalized, the insurrectionist element of the party has been empowered. Dave now gained power. So I was just on a briefing call this morning with the poll for Salinda Lake, and she has a brand new figure that ninety percent of Americans expect political conflict this year. That is a breathtaking number. I’m assuming that means some kind of violent, semi violent conflict, not just people, fighting for committee chairmanship in negotiations about who’s gonna become speaker on the House floor.

If you think about the people who are holding the the house hostage and who, as you said, were so instrumental in the insurrection on Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. In a Paul Gossar of Arizona and others, like, Marjorie Taylor Green was without she’s on Kevin McCarthy’s side, but she’s going to be very powerful no matter who sixteen, she was at meetings at the White House about about the instruction Lauren Dobber famously tweeted today that the speaker had left the chamber as if that was some kind of message to the the the throngs of of riders. It’s really incredible. The public turned away from election denialism in the twenty twenty two elections. Though if you look at the perspective that the world has on us watching, the House of Representatives in the United States of America this week knowing that we are paralyzed.

Part of our government is paralyzed. What they realize is that those people have been empowered to hit gains power and they’re still holding us hostage and that this this arrangement is permanent. We have not expunged

shit. At least as far as the eye can see, at least at the moment, you know, and at the risk of repeating myself again and again and again, the way this is being framed sometimes, I think, is highly misleading that you you have these far right extremists who are fighting against the establishment. The reality is is that Kevin McCarthy is exactly where he is right now because of his shape shifting on the events surrounding January sixth. You know, his embrace of election denialism. The fact that he voted again certifying the election even after attack on the capital.

In fact, he signed on to that letter supporting this bizarre Texas lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to throw out the electoral vote. I mean, you know, Kevin McCarthy, as I said on on cable show earlier this week, there are no normies in all of this. There are no grown ups. It’s like which brand of extremism do you want. The notion that somehow that Jim Jordan represent something less reckless and, you know, less nihilistic than Scott Perry is somewhat naive, I think.

And so we’re gonna be living in that world for some time even after criminal charges continue to come down.

There was one time we thought at least one of them could be indicted before the close of of the hundred and seventeenth congress. Now they’re emboldened, they’re empowered, and electing Kevin McCarthy’s speaker is electing this band of of hardliners speaker. So you’re right. Everything he did in the face of January six to turn away from what he knew was right and true has empowered them and now he literally has given them the keys. So we can watch him beg for an entire week or two for a job that he will hold for an entire week only or two.

But we know where this is coming from. You know, the energy is with the hijackers. And if they get, you know, seats, they construct the rules committee. If they get more money for their investigations, more, you know, special purchase of power in the on these panels and select committees. I don’t think we can really wrap our heads around where that’s going.

Again, as you and I are talking on Friday morning, the situation seems to be fluid. There’s a deal or maybe we should call an agreement or maybe there’s not an agreement with some of the the opponents. So we we just don’t know what’s going to happen, but I wanna get your sense to somebody who’s watched Congress for a long time. These negotiations between Mcarthy and the holdouts seem like less negotiations than just this ongoing objects surrender. Where he is giving them one concession app for another.

And I guess at some point, you have to ask at what cost. He has essentially the phrase I used yesterday was self glding. He is making himself the weakest conceivable speaker. And I guess the question, AB, is that If he gives in on things like allowing any member of the caucus to move to vacate the chair, if he gives in and puts the crazies on the Rules Committee. Is there any way that this Congress will be anything other than dysfunctional?

No. And that’s why the moderate and conservative allies of Kevin McCarthy who stood by him in the leadership election, in the two months since the election, and on this very difficult week are growing very concerned about how he has disemboweled the role of the speaker or the influence and the power of the speakership, and the whole kind of structure of how the house functions. And so that’s why you’re seeing. They’re very frustrated. They’re kind of frightened about what this portends.

But they don’t have another person. So they’re behind Kevin. And I think they’re sort of secretly wishing that Kevin will climb down from this nervous breakdown that he’s having. Because they’re saying, you know, you’re giving away too much and you’re going to basically destroy our ability to govern and to get reelected. And here we are.

Over here, there’s however many of us, almost two hundred of us, and you’re giving you’re negotiating with a way your job to terrorists. Well, the bold step would be obviously six Republicans join with all of the democrats to nominate, you know, Fred Ofton or Liz Cheney, and those as speaker That’s

not going to happen.

Right. And those six Republicans would have give up their their career. They would say this is by the last two years of the house. The problem is only Brian FitzPatrick remains as someone heating votes for impeachment, but look at all the votes for impeachment. They’ve all left.

And so the moderates now are new. They’re in Biden districts, but they just won. They’re not gonna walk the plank in that way. So the only thing that they have left is the discharge petition. So you have them saying, look, Kevin, You can’t take away my committee assignment and give it to Lauren Bover.

You can’t empower them to run the house and have us, you know, just veer right into a debt default. As he’s, you know, constantly meeting with with the hardliners on the holdouts. They’re talking about this discharge petition, and it’s like you know, it’s like a bulwark. It’s it’s their last protection in the face of something really important where they would get two hundred and eighteen signatures for any house floor vote let’s say, there was a huge natural disaster. We need an emergency spending or the jet ceiling folks that they would get twenty of them to join with Democrats and they would exceed the numbers left in the House Republican conference to pass something sane on the floor and stop the world from melting down.

But it wasn’t supposed to be this way. I mean, they were voting for Kevin and supporting him so that the zookeeper would still have the keys to the zoo. And

I think this is why the question about whether or not this event is going to be politically damaging. I think that what you’re seeing right now is a preview of what you’re gonna see over the next two years. So, yes, this theater that we have right now with the popcorn and all of the shot and for like, might not be playing, you know, to the rest of the country, to the normal voters the way it plays to us, political geeks. But if this is a rehearsal, of what the debt ceiling vote is going to be. If it’s rehearsal of, you know, one shambolic vote after another, then it is going to make a difference.

It’s going to make a very, very dramatic difference. And I think this is where the anxiety comes in. You actually kind of called the shot on this, and your last piece from last year You pointed out that Republicans and the Senate were so worried about the chaotic incoming house majority that that’s one of the the main motives for them passing that massive omnibus bill. So they wouldn’t risk this kind of complete, you know, goat circus that you’re having right now. I mean, isn’t this exactly the kind of thing that Republicans and the Senate were afraid of when they voted for that one point seven trillion dollar bill is, like, don’t mess with this we don’t trust Kevin McCarthy, you know, and his band of deplorables to to get their act together.

So

one Republican, congressman, told me after the election. So in November that they were so terrified about Ukraine funding, that they basically, there there was gonna have to be a swallowing an omeibus because there was no way to take this into next year. Because then it would be a government shutdown that Kevin couldn’t get out of. And and they all knew that and they were willing to just hold their nose and do it. And that’s just so interesting about the constant references to the people who are never Kevin’s are basically saying they should let it happen.

He pretends that he opposed this massive spending bill, but really it was fine with him and he was part of the vote no. Hope, yes, crowd. And Is that true? What

do you think? Oh, I

think it’s definitely easier for Kevin McCarthy to have that omnibus pass. No question about it. There’s no question. He didn’t want that on February fifth. Look what he’s going through now.

So know that there’s no question that he was. That’s what is so frightening. Is that there’s all sorts of scenarios, national security crises, a debt default, things that we can imagine us being in paralysis over I don’t know how much of the American public is paying attention to this, Charlie. That’s what’s so interesting is, you know, you just mentioned we see it from a different vantage point and then someone like my mother sees it without understanding sort of all the inside baseball, but watching it, you know, in horror. And then I I don’t know how many Americans are taking the time out of their day this week to be following this, but it really shows right out of the bat before they even have their first confiliation on policy or substance that the Republican party is totally out of control.

And that they absolutely are hostage to their extremist. If that wasn’t clear before the election, it is so much more clear now. This

thing on this point because I I think you’re just you’re describing something that I think is really important to understand that Kevin McCarthy went along with this one point seven trillion because sort of wink wink wink wink. I’m gonna vote no but hope yes on this because he knew that if this came up under his watch that he’d be held hostage to these folks. So when the never Kevin’s say, we can’t trust Kevin McCarthy. Kevin McCarthy says one thing and does the other thing. They have a point, you know, fundamentally at the bottom of this, They don’t trust Kevin McCarthy because Kevin McCarthy is a swamp creature.

He is a creature of Washington, and this is business as usual in many ways. For someone like Kevin McCarthy to go wink wink wink. I’m going to vote no, but let’s make sure that it actually goes through because I don’t trust myself and my own colleagues not to fuck this up. There’s

no question. And you’re right. They know that at every level they’ve watched him and they understand that leadership has to clean up anyway. You know, that that he is a person who he really is the human weather fan, the cliche people are using about him that Kevin McCarthy is not politically shrewd. It’s why he backed himself into speaker’s race years ago that that he couldn’t handle because, a, there was a lot of Oppo on him and b.

He went on TV to say that they were trying to destroy Hillary Clinton with the Benghazi Committee investigation. He’s very good at the Karen Feeding, and he’s obsessive about the Karen feeding. And so he makes sure that he raises you enough money. He calls when there’s a problem in your district. He calls you before you call him.

He wants to help you. He’s meticulous about that. He learned that as a staffer and coming up in leadership. And Trey Gowdy once told me, Kevin McCarthy reaches his mother by text on her birthday before trade out he does. That is what he does.

Is he keen with political instincts? No. He completely blew all of January six as we’ve talked about, but blowing those three people off the committee after Nancy Pelosi said no to Jim Banks and no to Jim Jordan when he said, okay, fine. We won’t have anyone on your committee and denying the party and inside demand on the January sixth committee is one of the great political debocals of our lifetime. And that’s Kevin.

He’s dumb. And he’s not ideological. He has no principles. He’s just really good at the care and feeding part, and he’s raised all this money. And that’s why he got steamed in that meeting two days ago and said, I heard this.

Because he he’s worked really hard,

but he’s not that smart. He’s not that good at this. Well, no. No. No.

He’s he’s not smart. And he’s not a chess player and he’s not even very good at checkers. Let’s go back to that first failed run for speaker back in twenty fifteen after John Vayner quit. And everybody assumed that he was going to be the speaker you know, that it was as you pointed out the Apple Research. But also in twenty fifteen, Kevin McCarthy had the good judgment to know, I don’t have the votes and that if you don’t have the votes, you don’t take the votes, you step aside.

So let’s fast forward now to twenty twenty three. One of Nancy Pelosi’s famous adages was, you know, don’t have a vote unless you have the vote. Kevin McCarthy obviously doesn’t have that same philosophy. So couple of people have asked me this question, and I don’t think it’s a naive question. If you know you don’t have the votes, why do you do this?

I mean, you know, in an alternative, you know, Earth two point o where Kevin McCarthy actually has a clue, he would have whipped the votes long before we got to this week. And if he realized that he did not have the votes, he would not subject Congress and the Republican Party in Congress to this rodeo. So why is he doing this? Why is he making a different decision this year than he did back in twenty fifteen? Charlie, I really

think this just has a lot to do with Kevin McCarthy’s psyche. I mean, he he literally has sold off everything now. He has nothing left to lose. He’s lost his dignity. He’s lost his principles.

We know what he told his colleagues after January sixth about the president. He told them that he was gonna march off to Donald Trump and tell him to resign he said that the president was complicit in the insurrection and which should take responsibility for the mob. But that’s all gone now. And I don’t I think that he believed in twenty fifteen he had a future. And I believe that he truly believes this his last stand, and there’s nothing else he can do.

He’s a desperate man. I think that he he knows he’s the laughing stock of the world. Unfortunately, that’s really terrible for the country. And I think he feels that he doesn’t wanna back down. That it just all that matters is that title.

Yes. I mean,

he’s gone through all of this and, you know, he backs out now, and it’s, you know, it’s a fast track to complete obscurity, and you you always remain an escrow risk and a and a punch line. So I certainly get that. And also, there’s a little bit of a little bit. I mean, there’s been that also shift in the political culture where you never apologized, you never backed down, you always punch back, and maybe there’s some of that I guess the interesting question will be how long the rest of the conference is prepared to go along with all this. As you and I are speaking, he has not lost any of his support.

They appear to be tiny tough. There’s an agreement out there, so let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. Okay. So and admit, I am also obsessed about something else you wrote about last year. I didn’t know last year.

It hasn’t seen that long ago, does it? It was

a week ago.

That the last thing that Kevin McCarthy needed at this point was a cinematic scandal involving a new member, but that’s what he got. The George Santos story has been temporarily eclipse, but I have to admit I speaking of of Shotten Freud, and I put it in my newsletter, the picture of George Santos chatting with Marjorie Taylor Green. This ladies and gentlemen is your new Republican establishment. Look, you you point out. I mean, George Sandoz is not your garden variety liar.

And as you put out, none of this is funny. It’s sick. But a b, it’s kind of sick, funny. Funny, sick. I don’t know.

Terrible the last because last week I thought it was very disturbing.

Yeah. But

now we’re in a different realm of the absurd. And so Now, we’re literally watching I mean, it’s been an interesting week, Charlie. I think people you know, this is very inspiring, but to watch Matt Gates talk to Camilla Jypal, to watch AOC, talk to Paul Gossar, to watch Marjorie Taylor Green go greet Jesse Jackson and his wheelchair. It is kind of funny. The whole thing and Steph Gorka is wondering if he should have Donald Trump come in and negotiate a settlement.

I mean, everyone is out of their minds. So you’re right. The the George Santos scandal is now reseated because we have new something more insane that’s overtaken it. But I watched a clip the other day of Santos sort of muscling over to this intense discussion between the Matt Gates crowd and maybe some other sane Republicans. And he just sort of lurked in there.

It almost looked like it was a fake. I mean, it was just like Tired live made a cut and had George Santos just showing up like the belly. It was insane. Another video is him sitting all by himself totaling his son’s, no, go near him. And then my absolute favorite, you know, detail.

It’s like a runner also, is they keep calling his name and he doesn’t respond because it’s clearly not his

name. His real name. It’s just The thing about George Santos that is so interesting is that there’s literally nothing you can be sure about with this guy, including whether he’s George Santos. Is he gay? Is he not gay?

Not clear? Is he Jewish or Jewish ish? You know, where did he go to school? What country did he live in? How many times did his mom die?

I mean, that’s the effective con man knows when to stop. Right? George Santos is like a he is like a an overdrawn movie

character. He’s a madman. That’s the thing. He won’t answer any reporter’s questions except he talked to this reporter from Semaphor and he said he wasn’t gonna answer he he’s gonna service constituents and still every single promise he made in his campaign. I mean, that’s what he’s there to do for it, but then he offered that he’s lost six pounds just from walking since he got the job, which was two days ago.

I mean, these these liars, they live in an an alternate reality, and they do it for fun, and they cannot stop. He won’t respond to questions about life, but he didn’t ask him how much weight he’s lost since he got to Congress. But he just wanted to throw that out. The guy is just he’s on another planet.

No. He is. And and and I’m sorry to go back to this, but I I I can’t get past the fact that this stuff was sort of lying out in plain sight and nobody was able to do anything effective with it before the election. And we had a good piece in the bulwark the other day about the, you know, how this is just a kind of a dramatic example of what happens when you have the death of local news that you didn’t have anybody that followed up on this. You had one local paper that apparently nobody paid any attention to that had the goods on the guy.

And apparently, The party had the goods on the guy, but nobody in the New York media ecosystem thought it was worth doing anything about. And apparently, the Democrats didn’t wanna invest any money on any opposition.

So here

we are. And here, Kevin McCarthy is And Kevin McCarty cannot do anything about this guy because he needs his vote. Right. This is I mean, this

is really so perverse in so many ways. You’re right about local news and a tragedy and there is no scrutiny of people from the ground up where they begin their careers. And once they get away with enough, they can get get away with more. That lack of scrutiny at the start of a local level is is really dangerous. And so we have the challenge in mister Santos.

And you’re right. I don’t like the Democratic Party getting blamed because they didn’t invest enough in the app, but because the media didn’t have the resources to it. But the Republicans are willing to keep him knowing he’d run for another cycle. A total lunatic liar. It’s so depressing.

But, no, Kevin McCarthy is not gonna get rid of him because he needs his vote. And, you know, you look at someone like Roger Williams of Texas. His wife had a medical emergency. He cannot be with her because he’s trying to hold the line for Kevin McCarthy. Roger Williams, I mean, he had a staffer get shot in a shooting that almost took Steve Felise’s life, he himself was injured.

He ran to the dugout and hurt himself. His ankle was unconscious for weeks. I mean, this is what serving in Congress is all about now. And this is madness. This is madness that we’re going into a weekend.

And we’re in this untenable situation where, obviously, as we’ve said George, Santos is the least of Kevin McCarthy’s worried he’s making sure that No one with COVID leaves, no one with a funeral leaves, everyone is butt in the chair for his ego trip. If

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We’re all juggling life, a career, and trying to build a little bit of wealth. The Brown Ambition podcast with host Mandy and Tiffany a budget, Lisa, can help. It’s time for the b a, q a, a, the b a, q a, which is a, the b a, and Thank you. Ryan, I mentioned question answers. You have questions?

We have some answers. We are not your therapist. No. That’s a financial advisor. You’re turny butt.

We are two smart brown girls when it comes to money, career, business, brown ambition, listen wherever you get your podcast. Okay. So you and I have

to have an argument about something here because

there’s just too

much agreement here. I think that’s that’s our main problem here. So let me just throw this out. Let’s do a split screen. The the most obvious split screen here is that the Republicans who have just won control of Congress, you know, are kind of miserable.

The democrats who just lost control of congress are just having a ball. They are having a blast. Yeah. What should they be doing exactly what they’re doing? They’re sitting there.

They got their feedback up amazingly, remarkably. They are completely unified. They have not lost a single vote. So you’re seeing the kind of discipline and unity that we don’t usually associate with Democrats. But the other split screen is this was a hell of a good week for Joe Biden, wasn’t it?

I mean, at the very moment that the House Republicans were melting down, He is down in Kentucky with Mitch McConnell and the Republican governor of of Ohio. And having this bipartisan love fest about getting things done, he’s using this moment to go down to the border I know you’re not a fan of Biden twenty twenty four, but I think, you know, in the future, we might look back on this and trace this as kind of the boomerang week if that’s the right word I wanna use for Biden’s presidential prospects because he looks pretty good. At the same time, the Republicans seem absolutely committed to screwing themselves up. What do you think? I

couldn’t agree more on what Joe Biden’s presidency looks like in the last six months. Everything changed. Everything changed. Infrastructure, which is a huge accomplishment, was before that. But that was in a long slog of other really negative things that really tanks show Biden support.

In this state of all of these consequential bipartisan laws passing continued strength in his support for Ukraine and holding the coalition together against Vladimir Putin and then defying history in the midterms, a good enough jobs report today. And like you said, everyone he stood with yesterday, including Mitch McConnell on an event, that bridge is like a poster child for the need for infrastructure, resources. I I agree with all of that. My argument for Joe Biden stepping aside for twenty twenty four is that he will not be the Joe Biden in two years that he is today. He’s certainly won’t make it to another six.

He has not served Charlie even half

of

his term. Everyone is talking about him like he’s running up for reelection, and he’s announcing, and he’s gonna run-in June. Really? He is not one halfway through his term. He has been fatigued by it.

He’s been an enormously successful first term president and it’s time to step aside. He cannot promise this country that he can serve us till he’s eighty six. Those are just two separate things. I mean, I steadfastly believe it’s his time to serve us two more years. He’s a man who met the moment.

He saved the country from Trump. He’s never politicized, Ukraine, and the pro put and wing of the Republican Party. He he holds back on all of this stuff. He just quietly sixties, and I think it’s been remarkable. That doesn’t mean he can, two years from now, tell us he can serve another four.

And yet.

And yet. It does seem as if this is a done deal, as if he he has made the decision that he’s going to run. And if he runs, it seems highly unlikely that he’ll face any sort of a serious challenge. Right.

I think that he’ll face some challenge. I don’t know how serious it’ll be. I’d be really surprised if no one primary had him because I think that looking at the polling, the party knows that most of the voting public and most of their their own party wants him to only serve one term. And I think that he would likely pull it out anyway. Obviously, he would pull up the nomination in a primary even with a challenge.

I don’t know that he’s entirely made up his mind. They’re sure making it look that way. And I still have this strange gut instinct that he knows it’s wrong to run again. He

may know that it’s wrong to run again, but he’s stuck. He stuck in the sense that does the dynamics of American politics being what they are, that there’s really no alternative to him. So I I I don’t disagree with your critique. Just think that this is a dumb deal. I think he’s running.

I think he’s gonna get the nomination. I think that

Charlie, if he does run at any setting up the country and his party for a potential crisis, and I think it’s I mean, that is a mistake. Part of the

problem here is that you don’t know who the Republicans are gonna put up. If it’s Trump, I think it becomes an easy choice for him. On the other hand, if Trump does go away, I’m not making a prediction of just, you know, let’s just game this out. And it looks like the Republicans gonna put up a younger, more vigorous nominee, then I think that changes the the calculation. So we’re gonna have to get ahead of ourselves.

Yeah. You run Trump, Biden becomes, I think, the default nominee. Trump is out of the picture, and it looks like somebody younger, somebody more future oriented, then I think it becomes a real problem, but we’re not there

yet. So

speaking of Trump as we, of occasion, we have done on this podcast, Where do you come down on the how diminished, how pathetic did Donald Trump look this week? Question. How mad was it that he endorses McCarthy and switches not one vote, not a single one of his mama loyalist. And how bad was it when in order to show that he still loved the the Orange God King, Matt Gates, nominated Trump for speaker, and Donald Trump got one vote. Get one freaking vote.

I remember

how Julius I was when I was with you the morning after the election, and I felt like that it was very responsible for me to even try to put a sentence sort of thought together because I was so out of it. And I’m feeling that twenty twenty three is just, like, shocked and surprised me and taken me on some surreal wild ride that that I I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually really wanna thank Matt Gates for, like, the best troll so far of my ear of calling Kevin McCarthy a quarter in the speaker suite. And, Charlie, I never have said anything nice about decades. And I’m sure that’ll be the last time, but I can’t even believe that I just said that. But I wanna give him points.

Donald Trump is mad at vacates. And who is, like, a super super Trump in as we all know? Like, the Uber top Trump in of all time. He said a few weeks ago when someone asked him, well, you’re opposing McCarthy, but Trump supports McCarthy, and he said, oh, you know, all the best people. HR is not really his thing about Trump.

Right. So I think he had to grovel, so he had to nominate him — Which made

it worse. Of course. Of course. He goes,

right. So he becomes the long quote. Donald Trump is so pathetic, his true social posts go nowhere. But the one that did yesterday sounded like he drank three bottles of cough syrup. Did you see this one?

I actually think that a big Republican victory today after going through numerous roll calls that failed to produce a speaker of the house has made the position anyway, it goes on my budget.

Yeah. This is great. It’s winning. It’s it’s it’s so big. Yeah.

And you said

something about it will be bigger than the traditional way. The sentences don’t make sense. The I mean, the the commas don’t make sense. The words don’t make sense. The verbs It’s the most crazy and coherent thing you’ve ever read, and he’s just completely aware that he’s on the floor picking up the pieces.

It’s amazing. It’s a

mess. It is smudged with flop sweat. I

mean, he

he knows he pressed that red button of power and nothing happened, and they ended up laughing at him. And and look, Donald Trump I just finished writing a piece here. Donald Trump is not a complicated man. He wants the spotlight on him. He does not want to be irrelevant.

And what he really loads and fears is the possibility that he will be ignored. And this week, he was ignored. So now he’s got to sort of, you know, retro engineer this so that whatever happens gonna take credit for. Right? Whatever happens is going to be good.

Whatever happens is a win because that’s the way he is. But he just looks so much smaller. I am still stuck in the he’s leading in the polls still. He’s got that hardcore mega base. He’s got to be considered the front runner.

If he wants the nomination, he’s likely to get the nomination. And yet he keeps losing in the meeting. He lost the president. He lost the senate. You know, he around the country, you know, his candidates, you know, Kerry Lake, in Arizona, doctor Oz, in Pennsylvania, flop.

Even Fox News, you know, called him the biggest loser tonight. He tried to be head Mitch McConnell failed. You know, he railed against that omnibus bill and they ignored him. And then you have this absolutely pathetic momentum political, you know, presidential campaign, this potemkin campaign, where he doesn’t leave Mar a Lago. And you have Olivia Newsy writing that devastating piece comparing him to Norma Desmond.

You know, they’ve forgotten, ignored, aging, screen star. And so what does he do? He kinda steps out and says, I’m ready for my close-up. Mister Demile, and everyone ignored him. I mean, this was this is bad stuff for him.

Yeah.

I I agree. I think that he’s diminished. There’s no question. I think that the face is very interested in in Ron DeSantis and all that. I just don’t think Republicans can shake him and that’s why I’m holding to my thesis that he will burn it all down.

Because when he’s corner — Yeah. — and he grows

irrelevant, that’s when

he gets the most dangerous. And so he truly has nothing left to lose. I mean, Norm Eisen said this morning that he thinks that Fannie Willis is gonna indite Donald Trump by the end of this month in Georgia. And the curtain’s coming down, like, soon, and he is gonna start doing all sorts of stuff to hold on to relevance and is gonna get crazy. It doesn’t mean he can be the nominee, but boy is he gonna do everything he can.

And boy, are the House Republicans gonna help him? I mean, they’re gonna be they’re gonna be poisoned to the nominee of the Republican Party, the House Republican. So Donald Trump is gonna do what he does best, which is to destroy things. And I think he’s well aware of how completely isolated and significant he is this week. And that makes him somewhat

more dangerous to some Republicans, but as you know, I completely agree with your your thesis that he’s gonna burn everything down. He doesn’t care. And this has been the fear is one of the ways that he has held a Republican party hostage. The threat that, well, you know, I could always go a third party or I could, you know, do this or I could do that. And and therefore, they can’t quit him.

And it’s one of the reason why they’ve been so reluctant to quit him. I get the sense that the fear factor has dropped significantly there. So that that That may not be the problem. I also and maybe it’s premature to say this, but I was struck by the muted response to the January sixth committee’s criminal referral because this again was something that you have to put down as a big possibility that the base will and the Republican Party will rally around Donald Trump know, if he is charged, if he’s indicted, whatever happens, I’m not so sure that’s gonna happen anymore. I mean, they may say things, but it won’t be it’s not the same thing.

That’s interesting because what the base will be hearing on Tucker is that the government is coming after innocent people with all the tools and weapons that they have and were powerless, you know, as citizens against it. There will definitely be an anti Department of Justice. I don’t know about Georgia, but there will be if there’s a a federal indictment, there will be a huge pushback because you have to pushback against the evil Biden regime. And Biden’s a dictator and all that. So — Yeah.

— Trump’s gonna count

on

that and lean on that. I see what you’re saying about the criminal referral, but it was so symbolic and sort of meaningless. Is it about me to say that? I mean, I think it was, like, not a big deal. But I think if Garland comes out with one, I think everyone including Rhonda Santos is gonna say it’s

you know, this is an abuse of power in some way. Right. They will say that, but the question is, will they rally to Trump? Is this the rocket fuel to restart this campaign? And I I guess the know, we we talked about Joe Biden’s age.

And he say, we read Olivia Nuzzi’s piece. You just get the sense that he doesn’t have the magic, he doesn’t have the touch, he doesn’t have the instincts, he’s tired. He’s old. He’s aging. Yeah.

Yeah. And that that that a lot of the things that we had attributed to him. You know, the spell that he was able to cast, that it’s faded and that there’s that recognition. Now, it’s not fading because you know, there’s been an attack of conscience where the Republicans have rediscovered their principal. They just they hate losing.

And the the problem is is that every single week now he’s reinforced that I am a loser who’s losing it sort of, you know, vibe

Yeah. No. I I agree that he’s been reduced, and I agreed with Olivia’s friend that he is just an older man who’s lost his juice, but he’s also without his platform. And so Donald Trump, if he was president right now, if he was a nominee, if he was a candidate, If he’s on a debate stage, if he was on morning Joe like he was every single day in twenty sixteen or fifteen or whatever that was, he would be raging. And he would be on offense.

And he would be making up crap and starting fires and conspiracies, I believe. Oh, no. No.

He he he he would. And and but you just wonder whether it lands the same way or and wonder when it was it was fresh and provocative and that’s kinda funny. Yes. And now it’s crazy and cringeworthy and criminal and, like, can we move on? Can we just change the channel?

Well, that’s the

big question, Charlie. Was always always insane and cringey and criminal to us every single minute from twenty fifteen

on. But

there’s people that loved him because he was fighting us or whoever us is. The media, the whatever. Right? The Democrats, the media, the Mexicans, the Muslims, and the elites. Right?

That’s that’s right. You

know, maybe he’s not that good of

a fighter anymore. His dumb root eighteen, they always sell for that. And boy, was it old? Was old by twenty seventeen? I don’t know.

It’s just all about the base. Right? It’s not about us. And

that’s the big caveat on the, you know, Trump is losing his juice because the Republican Party is not the party you see on television. It is not the party in Washington. It is not the group of elected officials or consultants. It is the base. And as

long as

the base likes this kind of thing. Yep. But I have to say that, you know, as another leading indicator, kind of the the maga crack up that we’re seeing. I mean, the fact that they are now fighting with one another, it was one thing when everyone was all rolling in the same direction or starting fires in the same corner or whatever it is you want you. But now you have, you know, all of these little slap fights that are going on, you know, divisions within the media, you know, Tucker and Hannity are going in different directions.

You have learned covert fighting with Marjorie Taylor Green. You have, you know, Jim Jordan versus Matt Gates, there is kind of an every man for himself lack of leadership as they sort of feel flopping

and flailing around out there. It just feels different. Oh, I grief. I agree. And that’s what we talked about last time is circular fire and squad.

They really don’t know

where to land.

It’s like a musical share thing. Right? Everyone’s still fighting, but they don’t even really know who’s right or who’s gonna come out you know, on the side of the of the base. And so it is fascinating to see the fault lines and it’s very unsettled I just don’t really know where the Trump and somebody who challenges Trump. I don’t know where that go.

You know, where that fits in. Who knows if Hannity’s investment in backing Kevin McCarthy is gonna pay off or it’s better to be talked about? Right? But I just in terms of the Trump factor, I don’t know where the base is gonna land. I mean and that’s why we keep

our minds open about what what’s going to happen here. However, I’m just looking at Dana Millbank’s new column. It just came out a few minutes ago. You know, McCarthy’s fate is irrelevant. The terrorists have already won.

I would use the word crazies. And that seems to be obvious. And I need to go back to a point we made a little bit earlier. This is going to be a show that’s going to be, you know, be played on loop for, you know, month after month after month. So the Republicans are going into twenty twenty four with the prospect of having their presidential ticket headed by the the disgrace twice impeached possibly indicted, you know, one term president, Donald Trump, who will be railing at the clouds, and a House of Representatives that every week reminds us how uninterested in actually governing they are and whose, you know, most prominent faces will be people like Marjorie Taylor Green, Jim Jordan, and George Santos.

And that is the mystery, Charlie. Does Ron DeSantis is working so hard to not comment on Washington and not comment on the things that talk or in Hannity have to talk about or Jesse Waters, is the nominee of the party going to use the House Republicans as a foil to say this is crazy and unreasonable. Do they dare do that to themselves with the base in a primary contest? Interesting. I am not

a a consultant and I don’t play one on podcast either, but I don’t think this is a hard one. There’s a lot of hard things for Rhonda’s hand. That I don’t know how he’s gonna figure. I mean, at some point, he’s going to have to lead. Right?

He wants to be president, you have to lead. You have to say something about Ukraine. You have to say something about these things. Right? You can’t dodge them forever.

Right. But on that question you just raised for a and bear with me here. For a successful governor to run against the swamp and the chaos in Washington is easy. That we need somebody who’s not being in Washington. We need an outsider.

You know, I get the job done here, why can’t we do that in Washington? That’s the card that he has to play. And so the worst the chaos is in Washington, the better it is for any of these outsider candidates. And that’s the formula for Republicans to win the presidency, you know.

And that’s the tried in true formula. I’m just saying that with this new tribal period that we’re in, particularly on the Republican side, is he actually gonna be able to get away if there’s some big dust up between establishment rhino speaker because whoever’s in charge, right, is gonna be trouble who’s trying to make a deal with the democrats to try to pass an increase in the debt ceiling. Is he gonna be somewhere where he can, you know, walk a fine line and not really, this is this is the interesting question. How much more bold and empowered are those radicals gonna be a year from now? It’s just an interesting thing to think about.

Well, they will be. And and also,

there are I mean, there there are other cross currents here. Not to get too far into it, but I’m I’m just noticing and again, this is way below the radar screen, but Christy Noam, who obviously has national ambitions, the governor of South Dakota. Yeah.

I remember when she was in the house and she was quasi normal. Yeah. Exactly. Well, what there’s been

a lot of that. Well, she’s taking shots at at Rhonda Santa’s his record on abortion. I think now the abortion issue is going to be a wildcard, you know, for you know, the foreseeable future. So in Florida, they have a fifth keen weak band. Correct me if I’m wrong on the facts here.

Yes.

Fifteen. Which

is actually the most politically palatable position. But In a Republican primary, it becomes heresy because why fifteen, why not six, and the person who endorses six will be challenged, will hold it, why not you know, at birth. Why not? You know, Bandwidth can drive whatever. But I think that you’re gonna start to see fights over some of these specific issues and abortion is going to be a continuing absolute mess, I think, for the Republican Party.

And it’ll be interesting to see how Rhonda Santa’s vanishes that one. Because you can’t finesse that one. You have to put a number on it. And on every other culture war issue, Rhonda Sanchez’s default position is, I’m going to take the most extreme position in the culture war. I’m going to stake that out I’m not gonna let Donald Trump or anybody else get to the right of me.

It’ll be interesting to see whether he now does that on abortion as well. I know.

Really? Because he if he’s reading the general electorate from the midterms on on the job’s decision, he’s gotta worry about that. He’s gotta he’s gotta defend fifteen weeks to be a general election candidate. And Pence, as you said, you know, will be in there pushing everyone for a federal ban and no restrictions, you know, under any circumstances and no portions ever. And I thought it was fascinating that Trump just came out and got fed up and said they’re blaming me for the midterms and it was abortion.

It

was you pro lifers. You’re unreasonable pro lifers. How how was that going? I mean,

you know, Yeah.

Out

of the mouths of babes and bad men sometimes speak the truth, you know. It’s just so funny. It’s easier to blame Trump’s candidates in the midterms the failure to meet expectations than it is to admit that the portion is a huge problem. And so they’re not admitting it, but it is going to be a big factor in the primary context. As

you point out though, issues that work in a Republican primary will not necessarily work in a general election. And I think this is one of the more interesting and there’s so many interesting questions about Rhonda Sanders, including, you know you know, how he’s going to run against Donald Trump, what what he will look like if a he finally pulls the trigger. As I pointed out, lots of governors look right on paper until they got into the race and then doesn’t turn out that well just you know, asked, you know, president Rick Perry or, you know, president Jeb Bush. But having said all that whether or not Rhonda Santos by moving so far right on all of these hot button culture issues is actually hurting his general election prospects. Because I I guess the theory of the game is this is what I need to win the Magdebase.

But is the theory also this is what will appeal to the swing voters who will determine the winner of the twenty twenty four election. And his positions are you know, quite hardcore, and he appears to be doubling down on all of them. And I don’t see him being the guy who’s gonna bring back those suburban female voters from, you know, Pennsylvania or Michigan or Wisconsin?

I don’t either, but we don’t know who’s gonna be running against Tim, it’s gonna

be Biden. Tell me, you’re in denial. Like, maybe it’s gonna be Biden. Like, you,

Charlie. I have my doubts about whether Rhonda Sanchez will even get in. I mean, I think Rhonda Sanchez is the closet wimp, and he’s never really been tested. He has a very impressive victory margin with Democrats voting to support him and people really being pleased with his stewardship of Florida in his first term. He barely won that first term.

Amazing reelection victory. But can he take the heat in a national election and under the presidential campaign spotlight is entirely a different question. So I don’t know if he gets in. I don’t know if he gets in how well he does. And yes, I agree with you.

I don’t think he’s exactly positioning himself like a Glenn Youngkin who is much better at being greasy. About slithering back and forth, just enough culture war and then seeming like he’s saying and backing off. So it’ll be interesting We don’t know. And

we don’t know. But that’s what’s going to make twenty twenty three so interesting. Yeah. A b starter. Thank you so much for coming.

Back on the podcast, and welcome to the New Year. Happy New Year, Charlie. Great to be with you

as always. And thank you all for listening to this

weekend’s Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes, we will be back on Monday, and we’ll do this

all over again.

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