A.B. Stoddard: A Pointless Exercise?
Episode Notes
Transcript
At Wednesday’s debate, Ramaswamy touched all the MAGA erogenous zones, Haley had a great night while Tim Scott did not, and DeSantis seemed to shrink even more. But as the debate audience made clear, no one can say bad things about the No. 1 guy’s crimes. A.B. Stoddard joins Charlie Sykes.
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors and omissions. Ironically, the transcription service has particular problems with the word “bulwark,” so you may see it mangled as “Bullard,” “Boulart,” or even “bull word.” Enjoy!
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Welcome to the Bulwark podcast. The morning after the morning after the debate.
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I mean, there’s so much to talk about. I mean, On Earth two point o, we’d be talking about Donald Trump’s fourth purple walk. We’d be talking about the tragedy and farce of Regiliani’s mugshot. Another assassination of a political enemy by Vladimir Putin. But we have to talk about what happened in my hometown last night, the first Republican debate.
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And so I am joined by my good friend, AB Stoddard. AB, did you stay up late last night?
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Way too late. Yeah. It was not my choice.
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So in terms of questionable life choices, I stayed up for the whole thing And then, of course, made notes for, you know, my all of my hot takes, but I’d also agreed to do morning Joe at five AM my time. So, oh, a little bit painful. So should we just start with our hot takes on on all of this? What surprised you? Did anything surprise you about the trump less debate in Milwaukee last night.
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A lot surprised me. First of all, I feel like the audience was some kind of set up. Why did we have big applause for governor Bergam Why did we have applause for moderation on abortion? Big applause for Pence following the constitution, although everyone is, you know, We’re assuming super trump y huge applause when he called Mike Pence called Vladimir Putin a dictator and a murderer. Future plots for support of Ukraine, but also applauding Vive, right, when he was
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Yeah.
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It was quite a roller coaster sure. And then, of course, the surprises of kind of that Ron DeSantis had such high stakes and then sort of by doing no harm went nowhere. Right? He kind of disappears.
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He did.
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Nikki Haley has a great night. Tim Scott has a bad night. It was just bizarre across so many levels.
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I agree. I I was surprised by a couple of things. Number one, I was surprised by how well Nikki Haley did. She wasn’t even on my radar screen. I thought she overperformed.
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We can talk about her a lot more later. I thought Mike Pence overperformed as well. This was not the debate that Ron DeSantis needed or wanted. I mean, he seemed like an afterthought. First of all, I mean, you know, he starts off just sorta shouty and nervous and awkward and, you know, dodging questions, pretty much forgettable.
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Like, we have a series sound bites from the debate last. I didn’t even bother to pull Iran de Santa’s sound bite. I’m just feeling upfront there. Tim Scott, I think, was the biggest loser of the night because, I mean, he spoke for only about eight completely forgettable minutes. He had a real opening, I think, to establish himself.
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I think there are people who are looking, you know, there’s that second look from the Normandy donor class, you know, who possibly can step up to be the the alternative to Trump and, you know, a lot of interest in Tim Scott. I don’t think he did it. Ron DeSantis did not have a disastrous night, but he didn’t reset it. But I think Nikki Haley is the candidate who’s gonna get the second look. Okay.
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But this was the Vivec show. Right? I mean, New York Times headline, Romaswamy sees a spotlight, comes in hot. They call it the Romaswamy show. He seemed to have won the Elon Musk primary.
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Elon Musk was very, very impressed with him. I wrote in my newsletter this morning. Vivec is a good debater at least in the short term. Which makes him even more dangerous because he’s a clownish shallow shameless pandering demagogue. But He has the pulse of Maga.
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He speaks fluent Maga. He touched all of the Maga erogenous zones So people should not be surprised when he surges in the polls. I mean, he’s gonna get a bump. I will actually now be surprised if he is not in second place. So he was he was kind of the rock star of the night until he was thoroughly gutted by Nikki Haley.
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I mean, she just ripped him apart. And you could see you’re talking about the roller coaster. They’re cheering that going along with him. And then when she starts going after him on on his surrender tour, his sucking up to Vladimir Putin, wanting to give Ukraine to Russia, wanting to give Taiwan to the Red Chinese cutting aid to Israel, the crowd turned. I thought it was palpable turn.
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That was so interesting about the crowd. I just I it was like Fox faked us out. It was so interesting. And also, Like you said, she wasn’t on your radar screen. Right?
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All of a sudden, maybe a lot of women in that crowd have, you know, loved the Barbie movie. There was all of a sudden some girl power vibe going on she would talk every time she spoke, even before she took command of the debate, Charlie, she had huge applause. So it is interesting. Right? As we look at her kind of coming back into the conversation, I think Vivek his star, you know, continues to rise, but I at the same time, that doesn’t really mean anything.
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Right? What is he he just is gonna get a cabinet position in a Trump administration. I think what we’re looking at is do donors wake up this morning and say, everyone to drop out except for Nikki Haley. She is the alternative to Trump. I mean, because otherwise, I don’t see a point in any of this.
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I I woke up this morning with such an existential, like, bewilderment. We’re gonna do this again on September twenty seventh and then again in October. Trumpless debates where he’s minimum thirty points ahead of everybody. And what are they doing on stage I don’t think my Pence continues to be funded and returns. What is the point of donating to Chris Christie anymore?
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So Vivak’s big show doesn’t really matter if you look at what the point is of this is. It’s a primary without Trump Trump is going to win. We’re almost five months away from the voting, and he’s already won the nomination. Why are these debates happening? Who will continue to get money?
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And if you step back, it’s such a pointless exercise.
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She’s kind of a a random thought. And all of my thoughts here are are are tentative, and I’m prepared to back them because, of course, I’ve written a lot of negative things about Nikki Haley. I am I am not in the Nikki Haley fan club. I actually wrote a a long piece called, you know, the unbearable lightness of So I was surprised yesterday. But but in terms of Mike Pence, I just the the contrast between Mike Pence and Vivay, just just for a moment.
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You go back into the before times. Mike Pence sort of, like, reminds us of what Republicans used to think they looked for in a presidential candidate, you know. No question. I’m a vice president who looked presidential. Right?
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It that this was at one time that Republicans would look at a a Mike Pence and say that what we like. And yet, he’s clearly, like, last decades news. And what they really like is they like that sweet, sweet, and no crack high that they get from Vivec with all of his memes and all of his, you know, the the kind of, you know, shallow pandering that goes on. So there’s an just an indication of how the party has changed that know, somebody like a Mike Pence is so old news, and all of the legs are tingling over VVek. Okay.
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So let let’s just start with some of the the key sound bites because what I tuned in for last night, I’ll be honest with you, was to hear some of the stuff that Chris Christie had to say. One of the weird things about the debate, of course, was that Donald Trump wasn’t even mentioned for the first hour, and it was like, hey, guys, you understand that tomorrow he’s going to be arraigned. He’s going to have his mug shot taken. He’s going to be arrested and released on bail. And you went through an hour of that debate without anyone even mentioning it.
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Well, it finally comes up And Chris Christie, of course, prosecutes his case. And here is, Chris Christie talking about we can’t normalize this. And, of course, he got loudly boot, but you knew that he would, and he knew that he was going to get boots. So let’s play cut number five.
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Someone’s got to stop normalizing this conduct. Okay? Now and now whether or not whether or not you believe that the criminal charges are right or wrong. The conduct is beneath the office of president of the United States.
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Was. And,
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you know, this is the great thing about this country. Booing is allowed, but it doesn’t change the truth. It doesn’t change the truth.
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Oh, wait. It doesn’t change the truth, boo.
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I mean, Charlie, that was so surreal. At one point, Brett had to turn at the audience and, like, beg them to be quiet so that Christie could finish. I mean, this is to watch someone stand up there and say that and have an audience basically say in response, we want crimes
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like
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you were saying about Mike Pence. I mean, just in such a short time, you know, the party that would honor a Bob dole that would revere a Ronald Reagan that would respect emit Romney.
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Yes.
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This kind of thing, and not only is it long gone, and they revere the punky teenager, Viveke, taking all the cheap shots all night, that they couldn’t even swallow Chris Charlie Sykes saying that who didn’t, by the way, and I expected him to turn to the others on the stage and sort of try to, you know, provoke them. But that the audience couldn’t can’t tolerate that. When he’s describing, at the very least, you know, that this is unfitting a of a president, I mean, that that can no longer be tolerated. It’s just so completely deranged.
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Well, they also asked a good question. Actually, it was one of the questions that I suggested yesterday. I didn’t think it would really going to ask it. But they asked the question of of everybody. Did Mike Pence do the right thing on January six?
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Ron DeSantis completely dodged the question. I mean, it was it was cringe worthy. Tim Scott said absolutely yes, but then he pivoted to an attack on the weaponization. So his answer was forgettable. But I thought this was one of Chris Christie’s better moments.
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Where he’s standing next to Mike Pence, but they’re both running. Here is Chris Christie talking about Mike Pence doing the right thing on January sixth.
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Mike Pence stood for the constitution. AND HE DESURS NOT GRUDING CRED. HE DEServes OUR THANKS AS AMERICANS FOR PUTTING HIS OTH OF OFFICE and the constitution of the United States before personal, political, and unfair pressure. And the argument that we need to have in this party before we can move on to the issues that Ron talked about is we have to dispense with the person who said that we need to suspend the constitution to put forward his political career Mike Pence said no, and he deserves credit for it.
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Okay. Now here’s Pence who also again, this is I I always find it interesting which Mike Pence shows up. Is it gonna be the, you know, the pence who who kind of, you know, wants to straddle the line on all of this? And he also, you know, insisted on being able to address the question of what actually happened on January six. And the reason I’m playing this is It’s one thing for you and I to be talking about.
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It’s one thing for, you know, bulwark readers to, to talk about this or or the folks on morning, Joe, to talk about this. But This is on Fox News. This is to a crowd of Republicans and millions of Republican primary voters. And this is Mike Pence talking about What Donald Trump wanted him to do on January sixth?
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But the American people deserve to know that the president asked me in his request that I reject or return votes unilaterally power that no vice president of American history had ever exercised or taken. He asked me to put him over the constitution. And, I chose the constitution, and I always will.
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At least he wasn’t booed for that.
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There were some jeers though, and so fascinating. I mean, I thought that was very powerful what Chris Charlie Sykes said. About Mike Pence, and it was met with some initial applause before it was then, you know, met with Cheers I think it’s really important that the audience be reminded.
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Yeah.
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I’m glad that Martha and Brett asked the question. I was disappointed, as for our conversation last week, that that they did not ask the candidates if Biden was a fairly and duly elected president,
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actually did think they were gonna ask that question. Yeah.
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That was fun, but they couldn’t. You know, I said to you last week, I think that Mike Pence is sort seeking his dignified end, and I thought he did a great job last night, but not the dog food that the dogs want to eat.
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Okay. Let’s talk about the most embarrassing pathetic moment of the entire evening now. And need to take a deep breath here. This is when they did ask for the show of hands of how many of the eight candidates on the stage would still support Donald Trump for the presidency even if he was convicted of a crime, not accused of a crime, not indicted for a crime, they were being asked, would you support a convicted felon for president of the United States? That was pathetic because of the eight raised their hands.
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The only ones who didn’t wear Acea Hutchenson and Chris Christie. But what made it even more pathetic was the fact that Ron DeSantis had to look right and left to see what everybody else was doing before he raised his hand. Did you see that?
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Yeah. It was torture.
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And then because, I guess, you know, this is what we deserve to have our souls crushed. Here’s Mike Pence after all this, raising his freaking hand. Yeah. And you could see it was reluctant, but it was like, Hey, man. I just have to go along.
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If everybody else is raising their hand, they have to raise my hand. I mean, pathetic on so many different levels. So much for the party of law and order. So much for the party of law and order.
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The party of law and order is long gone, and I who was sort of at the last second holding out hope that Mike Pence would not, and then he would present a caveat such as we Just like the grand jury did, we’ll have the evidence that was not in the indictments laid out for us over the course of the next year and we will all make our decision at that point about the guilt or innocence of the former president. I mean, there’s a way to get around that. But the hands went up so fast including Nikki Haley’s. I mean, so quickly, I just found it just so stunning. And you’re right.
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I mean, Rhonda Sanchez, Again, he he had a night where he did no harm. He did not blow up and fall down. But he’s such a coward. And if you were just sort of landing in that audience and you’re watching this, and it was like a focus group moment, you did not know that Ron DeSantis was the second polar and supposed to be the alternative trump, you would never have known who he was. No.
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No way.
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What his strengths were He was such an other guy?
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He felt like he was shrinking the whole time. Yeah. That’s the thing is he didn’t look presidential, and he didn’t look like number two presidential. No. Which is quite an accomplishment.
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If you are one of the donors that is not in touch with the base that still believes you can stop Trump, and I think that’s impossible. But if you’re one of those donors who thinks that this must be done, I do think there’s a real threat to Sanchez today that they wake up and get on a conference call and say she’s the only one. That can take Trump on?
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Well, I mean, yeah, twenty four hours ago, I think the conversation was, can we get Glenn Yonkin? Yeah. The governor of Virginia to jump in. Now I think it’s different. Okay.
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So Let’s talk about Nikki Haley because, you know, what Charlie Sykes said was was predictable. I, you know, I was watching for that. Nikki Haley surprised me. Pretty much right out of the box with the question about spending of all things. And she was took a very contrarian approach because, you know, the Fox folks, for some reason, started off talking about a country song.
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I mean, what the hell? I mean, you know, there’s someone brand for Fox News. They start with with a question about a country song, you know, the Richmond North of Richmond, you know, whatever. And they they end with a question about UFOs, you know, they gave them softball question. I mean, the the ultimate softball, like, you know, high lob, let’s talk about excessive spending in in fiscal, you know, let’s just pretend that people care about deficits and things like that.
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But Nikki Haley, this was the moment where know, I was, like, you know, making notes and and they sort of, like, stopped doing what I was doing and going, what what is she doing here? Okay. So this is what she said about spending.
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Well, I don’t care about polls. What I care about the fact is that no one is telling the American people the truth. The truth is that Biden didn’t do this to us. Our Republicans did this to us too. When they passed that two point two trillion dollar COVID stimulus bill, They left us with ninety million people on Medicaid, forty two million people on food stamps.
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No one has told you how to fix it. I’ll tell you how to fix it. They need to stop the spending, they need to stop the borrowing, they need to eliminate the earmarks that Republicans brought back in, and they need to make they understand. These are taxpayer dollars. It’s not their dollars.
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And while they’re all saying this, you have Ron to say that you’ve got ten gun. You’ve got Mike Pence. They all voted to raise the debt, and Donald Trump added eight trillion to our debt. And our kids are never gonna forgive us for this. And so at the end of the day, you look at the twenty twenty four budget, Republicans for seven point four billion in earmarks.
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Democrats asked for two point eight billion. So you tell me who are the big spenders. I think it’s time for an accountant in the White House.
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Okay. So, that was the first indication that she had really come to play. That she called everybody out by name and said Donald Trump added eight trillion dollars to our debt. So for those of us who suspected that perhaps she was, she was yearning to be Trump’s DP that was done. Okay.
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So that’s the first question. Then, her answer to the question about did Mike Pence do the right thing? She also goes after Donald Trump. So let’s play Nikki Haley her answer to the question about did Pence do the right thing on January sixth.
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I do think that vice president Pence did the right thing, and I do think that we need to give him credit for that. But what I will also tell you is, look, I when it comes to whether president Trump should serve or not, I trust the American people. Let them vote. Let them decide. But what they will tell you is that it is time for a new generational conservative leader.
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We have to look at the fact that three quarters of Skins don’t want a rematch between Trump and Biden. And we have to face the fact that Trump is the most disliked politician in America. We can’t win a general election that way. So
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she was really one of the few people to raise the question of of electability. I’m not sure that actually works with the Maga crowd, but she was willing to call out Donald Trump saying, look, we need to move past this guy. Where has this Nikki Haley been, maybe?
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This is what’s interesting. I’ve always thought of her as substantive and very polished and prepared. She very much prepares. But last night, I thought maybe she, you know, she seems like a very strategic thinker. She planned that attack because it would contrast her with the other people on stage.
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So she attacks three of the candidates on stage in her answer, but she also attacks Trump And she’s speaking to physical conservatives who are left in the donor base, but not the real voting base. Again, two different planets. Right? And then just like you, I was stunned that because I thought, all along, she was running for vice president, that she said he was the most disliked politician in America. In a general election, I mean, in essence, that’s what she said.
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And I again, it’s is she telling the donor base, Ron DeSantis is not ready for this doesn’t want it badly enough. He can’t do it. He won’t pull it off, but I’m ready to take on Trump and not run for VP. So that really surprised me as well.
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It was like sort of a quasi announcement that I am actually running for president. So I’m launching my presidential candidacy here tonight. I have seen some people describing this debate as boring. I usually find debates boring. I’m kind of anti watching debates in fact.
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As I sat down, last night and opened my, bottle of Jamieson, I was thinking, why am I doing this? Why am I subjecting myself to all of this. And I was thinking I was going to watch the first hour, but I watched I watched the full thing. And and by the end, I did not think it was boring. And I wanna play and this this is a little bit of an extended clip because I think the meatiest part of the night, you can tell me whether you disagree, was the back and forth about Ukraine.
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You had a real division on this. You had Vivec who is taking the the I am trumpier than Trump on being, you know, an isolationist. Yeah, I’m not willing to abandon Ukraine. I’m willing to abandon Taiwan. And you know what, since we’re doing this, we’ll abandon Israel too.
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And he’s been, you know, been kind of rolling along And they called him out on it. I thought that Christie was strong on this. I thought Pence was strong on this, but it was Nikki Haley who I think left his quivering intestines lying there on the stage in in Milwaukee. So let’s just play this kind of a mashup of the candidates going back and forth on Ukraine because this is a really a substantive bright dividing line in the Republican Party right now, and it played out on that stage last night. Let’s play.
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I think that this is disastrous that we are protecting against an invasion across somebody else’s border when we should use those same military resources to prevent across the invasion of our own southern border here in the United States of America. We are driving Russia further into China’s hands. The Russia China Alliance is the single greatest threat we face.
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I did go to Ukraine and I went to Ukraine because I wanted to see for myself what Vladimir Putin’s army was doing to the free Ukrainian people. And let me tell you, I want you all to look around this arena tonight. And imagine that every one of these seats was filled. And if every one of them was filled, there would still be twenty five hundred more children outside to make over twenty thousand who have been abducted. Right.
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Stolen ripped from their mothers and fathers and brought back to Russia to be programmed to fight their own families. This is the Vladimir Putin. Who Donald Trump called Brilliant and a genius. If we don’t stand up against this type of autocratic Killing. We in the world.
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We will be next. Little Martin.
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During him protect you.
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Anybody that thinks that we can’t solve the problems here in the United States and be the leader of the free world as a pretty small view of the greatest nation on earth.
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That is incorrect. We can do
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both, Kevin. We’ve done both. We’ve been the leader of the free world in the arsenal democracy for years. The Reagan years ago, made it clear. We said if you’re willing to fight the communists on your soil, we’ll give you the means to fight them there.
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So our troops don’t have to fight them. But Vic, if we do the giveaway that you wanna give to Putin to give him his land, it’s not gonna be too long for he rolls across a NATO border And frankly, our men and women of our armed forces are gonna have to go and fight him.
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First of all, the American president needs to have moral clarity. They need to know the difference between right and wrong. They need to know the difference between good and evil. Right. When you look at the situation with Russia and Ukraine, here you have a pro American country that was invaded by a thug.
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So when you wanna talk about what has been given to Ukraine, less than three and a half percent of our defense budget has been given to Ukraine. If you look at the percentages per GDP, eleven of the European countries have given more than the US. But what’s really important is go back to when China and Russia held hands shook hands before the Olympics and name themselves unlimited partners. A win for Russia is a win for China. We have to know that Ukraine is the first line of defense for us And the problem that Vivek doesn’t understand is he wants to hand Ukraine to Russia.
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He wants to let China eat Taiwan. He wants to go and stop funding Israel, you don’t do that to friends. What you do instead is you have the backs of your friends, Ukraine, it’s a front line of defense. Putin has said, if Russia once Russia takes Ukraine, Poland and the Bulwark are next, so you have no foreign policy experience, and it
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You know what? Please call nine one one because I want to report a homicide.
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I have to admit I took pleasure in her, pounding Vivec at that point. And I was very encouraged Charlie Sykes majority response for support of Ukraine. Again, very very difficult to assess applause from the audience, but at times, it was very pro Ukraine, and It’s a very interesting, moment in the party because it doesn’t seem the Republicans are going to reject increased funding and support for Ukraine. But, of course, as you know, the beating heart of Maga is against any further support. So it’s a real tension in the race, and it’s it was fascinating to hear their hearty heartfelt support.
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That is the interesting question of which audience are we talking about. It did feel as the mood shifted that they were cheering Vivek, and he was doing all this stuff. And and then she laid out the facts and the arguments, and people remember maybe what Republicans used to be like, what it used to be to have principles, what it used to be to recognize the difference between good and evil. What it meant to be the leader of the free world. And there was that shift.
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But I think in, you know, in candor, Viveke is probably closer to the sentiment of the GOP primary voter. You know, his position probably is closer to what the average Iowa caucus goer wants. But Nikki certainly is speaking to a very considerable constituency as well. They’re not necessarily the same constituencies. So again, we don’t know how it plays out.
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You know, one of the things that we’ve learned over the years, and, you know, somebody was making this point last night, You know, you remember back in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen, how after every single debate, all the smart people, all the pundits, including us, probably. Thought, okay, Donald Trump did just terribly. And there’s no way that he goes on after that performance. I mean, people are gonna watch that, and they’re gonna and what happens is you get getting stronger and stronger and stronger. So the way that we saw the debate and the way the voters saw it was very different.
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My gut instinct was that and I Monature and I think wrote wrote this last night was that, you know, the fact that she is completely repelled and offended by Viveg probably suggests that, you know, he’s exactly where the Republican primary base is going right now because we’re out of step with those folks. So I don’t know how that’s going to play out. You know, Viveca is getting, you know, doing the doing the victory laps and everything. I’m looking at this and going, Nikki Haley just destroyed him. And is right now the, you know, the foreign policy conscience of the Republican Party to the extent that it still has one.
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Know, win or lose. Congratulations for her. I just wish she’d been around. I wish she had done this. David Frome had a great tweets that Nikki Haley unleashed the tiger within tough smart, impressive.
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If she could be every day, the person that she was tonight, never Trump Republicans would have a leader. Unfortunately, there are all those other days. Right.
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I can’t trust her to be consistent. I’ll believe it if I see it, but only if and when I see it.
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So I will confess that that I paid very little attention to, Donald Trump’s counter programming with, Tucker Carlson that graced fired former Fox News host who is now apparently the word is that he’s streaming on Twitter, x, What did Trump say?
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So it was an interesting conversation. Once again, I didn’t watch it all, but I can reliably report to you that Trump had free rein without a lot of tough questions to go on about when water pressure isn’t good in the bathrooms and the shower heads and the washing machines. He’s very in
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You have to flush it twice.
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Yeah. He really likes to talk about Biden at the beach. He doesn’t understand why there’s all these photographs of Biden at the beach. And he says that it looks like Biden’s walking on toothpicks in the grass. It was sort of vintage trump, but there was an interesting exchange where Tucker and the audience, you know, will love this, the Tucker audience.
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Said that he’d been impeached twice and then indicted four times. And there’s been an escalation as John Bori that they are going to try to kill him next. Oh, which Trump responded to by saying that there is a lot of passion and a lot of hatred. And I think he called the Democrats’ animals. So that was interesting.
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Good red meat for the crowd. And then there was a discussion of Jeffrey Epstein, and Tucker wanted to know whether Trump believed that he had committed suicide. So it went off the rails in that direction. But Charlie, I’m sorry to tell you. Trump did have to return to January sixth, and the celebration of it as a picnic of civic passion.
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He said January six was an interesting day because they don’t report it properly. People in that crowd said it was the most beautiful day they ever experienced. There was love and unity. I have never seen such spirit and such passion and such love.
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Except for all the dead people and the the dead and beaten cops.
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Yeah. I’ve never seen simultaneously and from the same people such hatred at what they’ve done to our country. So he is staying on this platform, and I would like people to be asked about this at the next debate that Trump doesn’t show up to. But I doubt it’ll happen
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I don’t think he’s gonna show up. I don’t think he has after last night. He has no reason really to show up. But, yes, the retconning of January six is proceeding a pace. I mean, I I I think there were some of us that predicted that there would be this attempt to, you know, do this revision as history, but I think we underestimated the degree to which Donald Trump would embrace January sixth as really as this patriotic moment.
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I mean, he’s meeting with the with some of the insurrectionists. He’s clearly signaled. He will pardon them. He’s raising money for them. He’s singing songs with them.
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There’s nothing subtle about it. Okay. So there’s a couple of other things that, again, happened last night that I think are are significant, but they kind of get lost. Rhonda Sanders did actually say one kind of interesting thing. Where he basically vouch the military would take out Mexican cartels.
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So you do have a leading candidate for president or a trailing candidate for president, suggesting going to war with Mexico, and it’s kinda like in the undercard. But I don’t know. It’s like, no. We’re not gonna send special forces into Mexico. It’s just that’s that’s probably not going to be happening.
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I don’t know.
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I think that that’s also a new sort of wish list item, in the Magosphere. I do. Because that sounds.
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Well, it’s part of this campaign for brutality. Right? You know, how many people can we kill. In terms of substance, the debate about abortion was surprisingly interesting. The real difference of opinion about whether or not this should be a states issue or whether it should be a federal issue.
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And I was struck by, and again, this is you know, perhaps not scientific, but the crowd, you know, which was clearly pro life seemed receptive when governor Bergam, you know, said, no. That Congress shouldn’t pass this. We don’t need more federal legislation. This ought to be passed by the states. I mean, there’s a real difference of opinion there between the people who think, they know it’s a fundamental, you know, national issue.
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And those who say, hey, for fifty years, we’ve been saying it should be a states issue. There was no position that seemed to be the third rail for Republican primary voters. What was your take on that?
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I thought it was absolutely fascinating because Nikie Hillley, as I noted before, had come with a strategic response to swing voters on abortion. And she had thought it out. It was very deep and detailed. And she had a wobbly period as she often does on this issue several months ago, she took some lashing from and the Anthony crowd. All of the pro life leaders, as we’ve discussed, Charlie, have been, very resolute in their principles.
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Until they realized mid spring that Donald Trump is likely to be the nominee and they will let him dictate whatever the policy is going to be. But I was surprised by the enthusiastic applause that Nikki Haley got — Exactly.
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—
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to her kind of moderate response, and it was so interesting. To see Tim Scott jump to align himself with Pence on the need for a federal ban, then Bergam say no. The federal government is in our lives too much. Look, we know this issue divides the party, but it’s not really an interesting primary contest issue again if there’s not a competitive primary contest. In the end, you know, Donald Trump will get to pick whatever, week he wants to land on.
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I think he’ll leave it to the states and be against a federal ban, even though he’s being pushed by the movement to back a federal ban, he’ll be wishy washy and tried not to saddle himself with that for the general election. So in the end, I think it probably doesn’t matter, but a fascinating back and forth last night on it.
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A little bit of a side note here. Little shot in Freud. I’m looking at the Daily Beast. Don Junior. Do you know the Don junior and Marjorie Taylor Green?
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We’re both here in Milwaukee. We are so lucky. Here’s the headline. Don Junior and MTG, rage after Fox boxes them out from post debate spin room. Subhead throwing a tantrum.
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Donald Trump Junior and representative Marjorie Taylor Green raged Wednesday night at Fox News after they were denied entry to the network’s post debate spin room where candidates and their teams gathered to talk to the press. Earlier reports had already indicated the Trump allies would be prevented from entering, considering that he was not appearing at the debate himself. A fact that was ultimately confirmed when Donald Junior when to enter on Wednesday night. It shouldn’t surprise us, and it’s also why Trump was one hundred percent right not to do this debate. He rages the slammed fox for flipping on the decision to let him in.
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Fox won’t let me into the spin room he huffed. Also blacklisted Marjorie Taylor Green, who fumed on her rumble channel but she was censored when she and others including Matt Gates, who apparently was also here, were blocked out despite being surrogates for Trump and, members of Congress. Green couldn’t continue her interview until ranted to her boyfriend, Brian Glenn about the decision live on air. I’m sorry to come in hot. I just can’t believe this happened, she said.
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So, yeah, Fox’s new security block Don Junior from going into the spin room. Alright. I’m sorry I’m enjoying this way too much.
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I was really confused by a lot of the Trump surrogate operation because I heard on CNN yesterday that the Trump team had broken Fox down and that they would be allowed after all to indeed have their surrogates in the spring room, which I thought was a mistake. I thought that Fox’s initial policy was the right one because he wasn’t debating. Then I thought that Matt Gates did end up in the spin room I might be wrong about that. And I also don’t know if you saw that a bunch of correspondents and reporters were at a watering hole with team Trump. They paid for their own drinks.
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I did see that.
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But there’s just a lot of new rules being written. I know that Don junior had a good seat in one of the front rows with his girlfriends. So I’m sorry he couldn’t get out there spinning even though he has a big YouTube channel show. Look, we know that the RNC is compromised by Trump and his family and that that was never even, like, even it’s, like, not even an open secret. Right?
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The other candidates are at a disadvantage. Because of that, I’m really glad that MTG and Don Junior were not allowed by Fox in his bin room, but I think that, going forward everyone should accept that this is a rigged system in favor of Donald Trump.
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Yeah. I I think there’s no question about that. Okay. So before we are done, I would be remiss if we did not talk about because I’m I’m I’m looking right now at the mugshot of America’s mayor. Rudy Giuliani.
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We have to talk about this. Rudy Giuliani. And I have said this so many times, but I keep coming back to it. I mean, you told him to talk about it. Iconic figure, somebody who had a legendary career, who now, of course, is, is under arrest facing these charges.
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There is a mugshot of a man who used to be you know, one of the nation’s top prosecutor’s law and order mayor of New York City. And I’m torn between thinking that this is like a Shakespeareian Greek tragedy versus a clown car farce. And maybe it’s both tragedy and farce at the same time. Because it’s not just that he’s fallen so far and so spectacularly It is because he has gone from such a position of prominence to such a position of derision. What do you make of this?
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Is it Kinglear or is it Billy Madison? What are we talking about here?
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I’m with you. I think it’s a very, sort of, absurd combination of Crown Show Forest and Shakespeare and tragedy. I have so many thoughts on this.
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King Leerin, a clown car.
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There were fundraisers held for Rudy Giuliani by Rome Republican parents in the living room of the apartment that I grew up in. I grew up in Rudy Giuliani’s New York. He cleaned up the city. He was so revered that’s before nine eleven. Then his post nine eleven height that you and I’ve talked about before.
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Right? He could have had an airport named after him if he had died right then, but it hit me so hard just rounding the corner yesterday. And seeing it on the Kyron, I had to explain this all to one of my daughters that you just don’t understand what a human drama this is, that this man thought when he planned a two month eight week long coup with Trump, that he would be paid a sum total of eight hundred thousand dollars by Trump. He has begged for the fees. Trump will not pay him.
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At some point, the pack agreed. They broke down and gave him some of it. But as of yesterday, he was landing in Georgia without Georgia council. It’s the most pitiful pathetic And, of course, he, you know, doesn’t really get depressed by it. He continues to do his streaming shows and and his Twitter announcements about how, you know, he he’s so grateful for everyone’s support while he sends out the Gofundme address.
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But I love that no one in Mega World is upset that Donald Trump after decades of friendships with this man refused to honor his handshake agreement and pay for Rudy. So he has been met with this undignified end where he’s trying to sell his apartment and he’s begging for a council. This is so disgusting.
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But it’s so unbrand.
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It’s so unbrand. But no one will blame Donald Trump.
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No. Because it’s baked in that he’s going to stiff you. The loyalty only goes one way that he will screw over even his loyalist, supporters and that any promise of payment take with a grain of salt. I did hear that he’s gonna have a fundraiser, that he agreed to have a fundraiser for him which, of course, if you’re a billionaire and this guy is your own personal lawyer, you would think he would do a little bit more than have a bake sale on his behalf. Apparently, they’re gonna have a dinner at Redminster or something.
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Like that.
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Yeah. He’ll show up at the fundraiser Charlie Sykes he did not pay him the lawyer fees for the eight weeks of coup plotting.
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See, the other part, though, that I always I I do I do wrestle with this, is the capacity for self humiliation that people like Rudy Giuliani have not I mean, it’s one thing. I mean, you think you’d have a certain sense of dignity, which apparently is naive on my part But it is just rolling, you know, serial humiliations. It’s, you know, it’s the, you know, it’s the hair dye, you know, dripping down your face. It’s showing up at four seasons landscaping. It’s saying the stupidest dumb things.
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It’s going out to, you know, public hearings and farting in front of the microphone. It’s the sexual harassment lawsuits where, I mean, he comes off as, like, the ultimate predatory lecture. I mean, it’s like one thing after another you know, like Trump, you need to keep a running scorecard of all of the things that he’d done, but they’re all humiliating and embarrassing. He’s losing his law licenses. Now he is an accused fell.
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Oh my god. It is remarkable. And the human drama there you know, this is something that someone is going to be, you know, trying to capture. And and I and I think it’s beyond the ability of political pundits to capture the drama, tragedy, farce, whatever that’s going on here. I’m not sure whether we need Shakespeare or PG Woodhouse.
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It is baffling. A b Stodder, thank you so much for joining me on the morning after. You said you woke up. What did what was your phrase said with certain existential anxious about what’s going on with the debates? What was the phrase used?
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You woke up with? Accessential bewilderment because
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we’ve never been in this place before, and I just Yeah. I guess there will be another debate on September twenty seventh, Charlie, but isn’t it surreal to imagine?
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No. No. Please don’t
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be there. And what really, what’s the point? They’re gonna hold these debates without the presumptive nominee. It’s also bizarre.
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I gotta write this down. Exidential bewilderment. Because when I woke up, you woke up with existential bewilderment. I woke up thinking that I had existential bewilderment, but I was just hungover. So I just have to remember the phrase that in September, when I wake up again, hung over.
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I will say to my wife. No. No. No. Just please keep it down.
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Don’t let the dogs bark. I’m suffering from existential bewilderment.
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Hey, Charlie. I just wanna put you on the back from here for staying up for the debate, doing warning Joe writing your newsletter and talking with me.
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Well, this this is the highlight of my day, though, talking with you.
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You’re still so able. I I hope you get a nap. But it was great to be with you.
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It is on the schedule, and thank you all for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast on Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow. And we’ll do this all over again. The Bulwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper. And engineered and edited by Jason Brown.
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