Amanda Carpenter: Is Trump Depressed?

Happy Friday. Hello, and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I’m Tim Miller. I am just delighted to have my friend and yours Zach on the pod, writer and editor, protect democracy. She might have been here at the Bulwark for a little while.

She’s the co author of a recent report called the authoritarian playbook for twenty twenty five. How an authoritarian president will dismantle our democracy and what we can do to protect it. Obviously talking about Amanda Carpenter. Hey, girl.

Hey, Tim. I, tried to pay respects to you. It’s not quite a pearl necklace. It’s kinda half and half, but I was like, I’m gonna wear that for ten.

I like that. I appreciate it. I’m just happy to see you. I’ve missed you. And, I mean, this is gonna be a nice little Friday.

And we have some deep thoughts to get to. Among the reasons you’re here besides my just burning desire to spend more time with you was I received a piece of feedback from a listener who said that I am not scared enough about about the downfall of our democracy that I need to be educated by Amanda, about the scale of the threat. And so I I wanna get into that. I wanna get into nerdy stuff, fusion voting, and and project twenty twenty five. And the debate that you had was some gnome from here, to Tony it to all of that.

But it’s the weekend pod. So I kind of just Can we just have a little fun at the top?

Please. I am ready. It’s so beautiful. Like, it’s gonna be a great weekend. I’m taking the kids This weekend, there’s a goat farm nearby.

And this time of year, they let the kids into just go play with the baby goats. Do you wanna know how many they have right now that we’re gonna go snuggle with?

I’m excited to hear.

Sixty five.

Sixty five goats.

Baby goats.

That is actually like a nightmare for me. Sixty five baby goats. That is very creepy. Please send me a picture.

They’ll like chew your hair.

Yeah. That is. I’m happy for you and for your children, but for me, that seems very creepy.

It’s nightmare fuel.

That is that is totally nightmare fuel. Luckily, I’m abandoning New Orleans this weekend. It is Saint Patrick’s day. And no one goes crazy for Saint Patrick’s Day, which I call straight pride.

When do they not go crazy?

That’s true. But that’s a good point.

It was Mardiborough last week.

You just

teach out the beads for green beads.

Green. Yeah. The garish green. It’s just not my color. So, anyway, I’m gonna be with my brother weekend enjoying that.

Alright. Here’s so I wanna start here. A competitor, you know, when you look at the Apple podcast charts, there’s another podcast. It’s always right around us with the Bulwark Cast sometimes there. We’re a little ahead.

Sometimes she is. And I I think from time to time, it’s good to monitor what your competitors are saying, you know, see what else is out there. And the ecosystem.

I’m afraid for where this is going.

I do wanna share. There have been two episodes this week of the Candice Owens podcast, and it’s been

There it is.

Boy, there’s been some very interesting breaking news that they’ve been focused on. And Jason, could you could you play for us a little bit from that?

Crazy, crazy, crazy. Stop everything. Pay attention. If you’re driving, pull over,

just so

you don’t have to pull over. You can keep driving, but I’m you just prepare yourself. For what is happening right

now in France. The first lady brigitte Macron was

actually born Jean Michel. So Bridget is actually John Michael. John Michael lived as a man for thirty years.

Show us the birth certificate Amanda. Show us the first lady of France’s birth certificate.

This is the blonde lady that wears all the cute suits.

The seventy year old blonde, the older woman that that

That Melania was like friends with. Right?

Yeah. Well, maybe who knows? Do we have we seen pictures of Melania as a child?

Have we seen Melania lately at all? I mean, forget Kate Middleton. Where’s Melania?

Have we seen Kate Mill? Are you up to speed on Kate Middleton? Do you?

Yeah. I mean, I just I don’t like the royals. I think it’s all kinda dumb anyway. So, I mean, I heard you Yeah. She’s probably just having some cosmetic surgery.

That’s my guess. Okay.

I don’t have any theories. I got I got in trouble for that one too. So I mean, hey, there’s a lot happening in the world. Ukraine has been invaded. There’s a war in Gaza.

You know, we have we’re on the precipice of losing our democracy in America. You know, their interest rates are high. There’s a lot to talk about. Let’s talk about on the news podcast, but Candice is Candice wants to do a dick check on the prime minister of France’s wife. That’s what that’s what that’s what she’s talking about.

Were against those kind of tests. Right?

I thought so too.

Okay.

You don’t want that happening in schools. It’d be grooming. Okay. How

did she get on this?

How did she get on this? It’s been there are a lot of pictures. If you wanna go down there. Well,

I’m saying you watched the show or listen to show?

Two episodes. There have been two episodes of it. I’ve I’ve listened to both this week. It was the lead item on two straight episodes. It’s a convoluted theory.

Her children are actually her children, but it was from when she was a man. And and then she pretended somebody was her brother and then had them killed by the French Secret service. It’s kinda good. Who knows? She’s just asking questions.

Oh. I’m closer to home. Couple I’ve got a couple stories for you.

Okay.

CNN has a breaking one. Michelle Morrow. Do you know her? She’s a Republican nominee for superintendent of North Carolina’s Public Schools.

Do I need to know her?

You do. Because if you’re in North Carolina, this could be the person running your public school’s eleven billion dollar budget. She has called for the execution of many prominent Democrats.

Many.

She believes in QAnon. She believes that Barack Obama is a Muslim

mean, there’s kind of a big gap between, like, calling for the death of people and questioning somebody’s religion. Yeah. She’s a superintendent?

She wants to be the superintendent she wants to be in charge of eleven billion dollar budget. She won a competitive primary. It was one of those republican primaries where there was like a quasi normal person, and somebody who was talking about how Jim Carey is on Adrina Chrome, and that person wanted a landslide. And so Cool. She wants to head the Republican schools between her and Mark Robinson on the top of the ticket who is a Holocaust denier, etcetera.

That one. You would think as a West Virginia, I’m a Louisiana, like, you would think our friends in our region in North Carolina would say this is too much for us. Right?

This is why I believe in private school. Yeah. School choice. You gotta escape the the crazy can come from all sides in public school.

That is a nice pitch for school choice. I’m a one man band here in Louisiana just at every Every crawfish boy I go to, I’m debunking moms who are who are concerned that they’re a kitty litter and dog bowls in the local schools in Louisiana. So I’m doing my best. But, yeah, school choice There’s something to it. Okay.

Over in Arizona, how do you think things are going over there for Republican candidates? Katie Holmes, the governor, Democratic governor of Arizona wanted to put forth a bill. To protect access to birth control in the state. Every single republican voted against that, senator Sunny Burrelli, the number two republican in the state Senate gave his reason for, not wanting to protect access to birth control. Bayer company invented aspirin.

He said, put it between your knees.

This has come up before. Was it a surrogate from Mitt Romney in twenty twelve? Do you remember this?

It’s the same line. It’s not aiken thing.

Don’t know, but for some reason this idea keeps coming up that aspirin somehow works to prevent pregnancy in oh, by the way, there’s no other reason a woman would need birth control. I mean, it is

Foster free. Live, Foster Free. He was a big donor to, Rick Santoram, and then and then Romney. Yeah, in my day, gals, put aspirin between their knees for contraception. I guess this is a popular

I’ve never heard one woman ever say this. Okay. So Republican men are still going with that. Cool. Cool.

So that’s Arizona North Carolina. Those are two swing states. Down in Florida, not a swing state anymore, but we’ve got some good news. Peter Navarro or old friend Peter Navarro. You remember him?

I do. He’s going to prison. Sometimes somebody has to is seeing the consequences of their actions. So that’s good. We’re gonna get to some bad news about the state of our country, but good.

Peter Navarro has to go and I I believe it might be the prison that Epstein was in. The low security one in in South Florida, but not the one where he died. First You

know, I don’t ever wanna cheer saying someone. GL is frightening. Prison is frightening. I really I don’t wish it on anyone, but this was coming. Like, this was coming.

You were belligerent. You didn’t testify to Congress. You talked about it in every form possible. I mean, all you had to do is cooperate on some level. Mark Meadows didn’t go cooperate with January six committee, but he turned over some tax.

He kinda worked with them. Peter and I’ll just have to do something. And I cannot believe anyone would go to prison, a for Trump, and b to not cooperate with Congress. Even a little tiny bit when you

blab your mouth and every Steve band in war room pot

cast. Like, you’re giving the information out there. It’s out there. They all have it. You just have to go tell the committee some of it, but he’d rather go to jail.

So it’s out for him. It completely could have been avoided. I don’t wanna see people go to prison. It’s a horrible miserable place, but that’s what happens.

Sad for him. It’s happy for me. I’m just looking at that March nineteenth Tuesday. It’s gonna mark out a little happy hour. You know, kind of taking

the That juju. It’s a

Is that magic this kinda reminds me this wasn’t on my show map, but on the things I’ve been dying to talk to you about, I just it didn’t even occur to me to write this second that this would be one of them. On the next level this week, Sarah Longwell also saying that she was starting to get uncomfortable with the dunking on Katie Brit and the Shauden Freud that was going her direct and I’m like, I I can’t get enough. I’m just drinking it up. I’m kind of sad that the memes are going away. How did you react to the Katie Brit speech?

Well, number one, I still can’t bring myself to watch the whole thing because it’s so cringy. Like, I don’t like cringe humor. I just feel bad. And it makes me feel like it makes my skin crawl.

I don’t know. You were watching it live and stopped watching it, or you weren’t watching it, you’ve only seen clips.

I were watching. I started watching clips. I’m like, I can’t do this. I know where this is going. Like, kinda read it.

I know what she does. I’ve seen pieces of it, but, no, I actually don’t feel bad for her because She let this happen to herself. Like, you made the point. This was a set piece. And I’m sorry.

You’re a US senator. You have to say no when people ask you to do stupid things. And this is clearly, clearly stupid. Like, you did a test run. You must have seen yourself.

You entrusted people who did not have your best interests in mind. Sometimes you have to say no, and she didn’t. So you get it.

And you did it all as kind of a Donald Trump audition. You did it kind of as a Donald Trump edition. So that’s that’s a little extra extra market against.

And that’s like, you know, I I’m sure she was flatter. I do think it’s hard when you’re asked to do the Republican response. How do you say no? Like, no, I don’t wanna do it. You kind of have to take that opportunity, but to be scripted in that weird, weird way.

If she just would have done a town hall with, like, a couple people. That would have been fine.

Yeah. Can I just say to anyone who wants to ask me for free advice on this demo? Hopefully, hopefully, the Democrats won’t be doing a response next time, but maybe five years. I don’t think Republicans are taking my advice anymore, but just go for a c. There’s nothing wrong with doing a c plus

gentlemen’s, a gentle ladies

General ladies see. You know, put on a suit or or a woman’s pantsuit and and and be in a room with, like, wood and books and just do eight minutes and pick three things that you think the president’s bad on that are substantive and talk about why they’re wrong and then say, That’s it for me to focus. Like, that’s alright. That’s great. That’d be that’d be just fine.

I think that’s all super go for. I I gotta tell you, man, I think that you I gotta give you homework. I think after the goats, I think you gotta get a glass of wine and watch it all because I’m telling you you’re not you’re not getting the scale of the cringe by just saying clips because It isn’t she takes you on an emotional journey.

I’ve got ups,

and there’s downs, there’s crying, there’s anger, there’s fake smiles, there’s

But the thing I really it is the kind of niceification of the Republican woman in Maga, which you guys kinda talked on, but that that is what really grosses me out. Like, this is This is your idea of what how

Women should be.

Republican suburban moms think. Like, this is how we talk to them. It is ridiculous. It is just so

The trad wife thing. It’s the trad life thing. Right?

So many nods to the trad wife thing, which is It is getting so much bigger in such creepy ways. Do you remember when Carrie Lake, she did a response a while ago, or she put on a pick I’ve heard vacuuming a rug for Donald Trump?

Yes.

It reminded me of that. And I was like, this is a nod to, like, I am subservient. I’m the nice woman. I’m, you know, I will represent your values blah blah blah. But at the end of the day, I’m a housewife.

I’ve forgotten about that. That’s I’ll

do the dishes.

Did you see this week, by the way? Tulsi? This is we have so much to catch up on also not my show, but I’m just, like, I just have someone. We just gotta run through it. This is

just the ketchup power.

Yeah, we’re just gossiping. Tulsi did Don junior’s podcast. And she is kind of clamoring for the VP slot. Do you think there’s any chance? Because I don’t think it’s gonna be Charlie Sykes, starting for set up, but I the when you’re talking about her, that I’d forgotten about that gross thing where she’s vacuuming.

Yeah. Yeah. Tulsi. I just kinda looked at that and I was like, I might take a flyer on Tulsi as a Trump pick.

Yeah. I mean, I know he needs to pick a woman. I don’t think he’ll pick a woman. I don’t think he can actually pull the trigger on that because he’d ultimately be seating a, you know, very important position too. I just don’t think he would elevate a woman in that matter.

But would he give Tulsa a tryout? Like, This is going to be the biggest tryout beauty pageant for a VP over the next six months that we’ve ever seen. And I actually believe the vice Republican debate will be more important than the presidential debate even if we have one.

Like the one they’re holding on Fox Like, you know, as they all go do the rounds with Hannity. You know?

Mhmm. No. But when there’s a face off between whoever trump picks and that person goes after Kamala Harris, I think that is where Maga is gonna put all their fire and just have somebody just attack and smear her in probably pretty gross and disgusting ways all the way leading up to that. And so whoever is most willing to do that, I think whose chunk is gonna

I gotta tell you. I feel pretty good about Kamala in that situation. I there’s nobody that has been floated that I think could really run circles around her. And the expectations for her are so low right now because, you know, the r n c puts out every clip possible that makes her look like Veeep I think she’d go in with really low expectations, and she’s pretty good at that part of things. But you think about it, Elise, like JD Vance, Tulsi, the Christy Nome.

I none of these people are Lincoln Douglas debaters.

No. And then come she’s good in a debate. Some of her appearances can be, like, a little too Jobey. Doesn’t really have the gravitas at times, but in a debate, she is she’s performed. I mean, remember her going after Biden on that.

Right. That was pretty good. So, yeah, I I also agree. She’s underestimated, but I I do think I’m not sure we’re gonna have a presidential debate, but that’ll be the one that goes on.

Alright. Before we get to the trump of it, I’ll have one more. Well, I guess this is the trump of it one more story. I re I refuse. The New York Times can put this on b fourteen, but I refuse to let the Alexander smear in story go.

We’ll be give every minute update you’ll be getting here on the Bulwark Podcasts. If you’ve missed this, this is the FBI informant. That had claimed that Joe Biden was taking five million dollars from Hunter Biden. Turns out that he completely fabricated that. It also turns out that he was having contact with Russian security operatives.

Surprise.

Yeah. Surprise, shock. The Russians are involved. And now, We have news out today that he took six hundred thousand dollars in twenty twenty the same year that he began lying to the FBI of Al Biden from some associates of can you guess who? Tell me.

Donald Trump. Weird. Donald Trump. Shahul Khan and Farooq Arjmand. They’ll be able to work with Trump on various international real estate businesses Maybe just a quincy dink.

I don’t know. Maybe just a coincidence.

Do we know what the FBI was paying him for? Why? Yburg? I mean, I know they to unsavory figures, but that’s the thing that I’m just they didn’t know this.

A couple of weeks ago, thrush, going thrush the times in this podcast. We gave a very straightforward just the fax mail.

Yeah. And that was good. Story.

Yeah. And, like, might take listening to him, which makes sense. Is it this guy, you know, oftentimes the FBI is dealing with people that are that are unsavory and that have contacts with other criminals because that’s what the whole point is, right, their informants. And I I think that this guy did have contacts with Russian operatives you know, and provide a good information at times. Right?

But they had to check it and sift through it.

Yeah. It seems like he also had intel from Israeli. Sources also. So it seems like the guy had some good information at some point and then started providing bad information. And and the question that is out there is basically okay.

Did he start doing that because he got red pilled? And he thought that I wanna Donald Trump and, you know, he was listening to the Candice Owens podcast, or did he start doing it because the Russians were feeding it to him, or did he start doing it because from Trump operators were paying him? Or a little bit from column a column b and column c. And I think that’s kind of the the big question out there, but it’s given the fact that it was Republicans on the hill Chuck Grassley, in particular, and Comer, who are pushing this uncritically, whether it was a Trump op or a Russian op is pretty relevant to the scale of the scandal.

You know, add something in terms of the people that do investigations on the Republican side on the hill, I feel like James Comer has got more attention because all of his stuff is pretty much falling apart. But Chuck grassley, In the Senate, if you look at the the statements that he’s made about the deep state and everything after January sixth, He is so far out there and he doesn’t get the scrutiny that these other guys do. And it’s kind of amazing to me because here and there, I’ve had to dip into his stuff and looking at the statements that were he went and testified to the house weaponization committee at one point. In his testimony, it’s kinda weird for a senator to go over there. Number one.

But he’s he’s a lot further out there than people give him credit for.

And by the way, he’s also extremely old. Yep. And so when you talk about this imbalance, Right? And it’s like, oh, Joe Biden’s senile. Joe Biden is getting pushed around by the extremes of his party because he’s a doddering old man.

And it’s like, oh, really? Is he? I mean, he’s kind of actually stiff arming the extremes of his party on Israel and Gaza and on several other issues. Policing. And, you know, he seems in interviews, and in this lengthy five hour interview, the the transcript with her, He seems coherent.

He’s telling old stories. And meanwhile, you have the committee chair or, I guess, minority now, but the leading ranking member on these committees in the senate, Charles Grassley, who’s also old as balls. He’s the one who’s act who actually it seems like crazy extremists inside the party have gotten inside his old man brain because Ikea is incoherent at times and he’s advancing as extreme of conspiracy theories, about the bidens as anybody in Congress. I mean, like, Chuck grassley’s material, it’s a great point, man. It’s like, indistinguishable from what you would see on, like, News Max or worse, Real America’s voice

Yeah.

Type stuff.

Yeah. And I, you know, I don’t wanna take guesses, but as these members get older, I do think younger staffers get more leash to just write the statement teed up for him, and I’m not excusing him for, you know, responsibility for what he read and testified to. But older people in general have a very hard time distinguishing between what is a real news source and what’s BrightBard because it kinda looks the same and someone gives it to them, and it’s it’s a huge problem that we’ve talked about before. But that ecosystem pipeline to Congress and Chuck Graffley’s office is real.

Yeah. Everything is projection. You know, Joe Bine, is old and doddering. He’s getting pushed around by his young staff members that are way too progressive. It’s like, I don’t know, maybe on some things on the margins.

But who, you know, that’s really happening to? Chuck Crassley. It seems like.

Big time.

Okay. Let’s talk about Donald Trump. Duh. We don’t like him very much. Before we get into the autocracy in Project twenty five.

I I just wanna talk about his campaign rhetoric a little bit. There’s one one clip of from Donald Trump recently that I think is worth listening to.

Our nation is failing. We’re a nation that is in serious decline. We’ve never had a situation like this. Where we’re not respected, we’re laughed at, we’re considered almost a joke.

It’s just like it sounds like Michael Moore shit. I mean, it, like, it sounds worse than Michael Moore stuff. You know, it sounds like Glenn Greenwald. It’s just like, these far, far leftist that hate America from a different era. And it’s like he doesn’t like us.

Like, he doesn’t like the country. Like, there are plenty of things to criticize buying about It’s pretty alarming to me. Like, the the autocratic stuff is extremely alarming, but just as like a societal fact, It’s alarming me that this type of message is resonating with people.

Yes. I mean, I’m just kinda thinking. It’s like the random conversations I’ve had with people. Like, you kinda You know, like, when you’re somewhere and you start to talk to another parent and something comes up, and they’ll just kinda say, like, everything’s in the crap

Yeah.

Right. This is this is just how it is. America isn’t what it was. And you kind of just know where this is going. It’s like, what are you talking about?

You’re sitting there with your kids. It’s a beautiful day. You have a nice car, like, is it really that bad? But, yeah, it it does it does bum me out big time. But the thing with Trump, he equates people being mean to him and making jokes and laughing about him towards America.

And that just isn’t true. I’m not gonna deny. He’s in bad shape right now. It kinda sucks to be Donald Trump. You lost, you don’t have any money to fund your next campaign, you’re not getting the support you once enjoyed.

Many court dates.

Yeah. If you think about people when they enjoy a really high degree of success, whether you’re president, whether you’re an Olympic athlete, Once you don’t have that, it’s pretty easy to fall into depression.

You think Donald Trump is depressed?

I do a little bit. I think it’s really hard to deal with losing things.

Yeah. I know he’s not going to therapy.

I don’t feel bad for him, but I think this is what leads to saying things like this. And I think think it’s gonna get really dark for him in the fall of this year when the polls turn against him and he realizes He’s about to lose it all. He’ll never be as rich as he was. He’s not gonna come back to the presidency. And that’s where I I think you’re gonna hear a lot.

A lot lot more of that.

And that warms my heart, Amanda.

Hey. I bring the optimism here.

I hope you’re right about that.

I do. I really do believe this.

My optimism is moron, and this is now I will transition the democracy. My other option is just more about, like, America has proven very resilient, and it’s been extremely pressing. Don’t get me wrong that so many people have gone along with this con man. Uh-huh. But, like, our economy is extremely resilient.

Like, we are living in times that would just be unimaginably wonderful for, like, ninety nine point nine percent of humans in the history of the earth right now. And there’s a lot of goodness that’s happening. I’ve re I tried to, like, twice a year. I write an article about, like, I went to a Beyonce concert, and guess what? It’s great.

There’s people of all races and genders there. Nobody wants to read these difficult, but it’s, like, everyone’s happy and the the the tickets are kind of expensive, but the stadium’s full anyway. And it’s just, like, is this really are we really in the great impression? Are we really laughed at? I don’t know.

I millions of people are trying to get here. That’s why we have our border problem. That’s right. So I just encourage listeners. Sometimes it’s easy to do the negative, but it’s like, We could all pump America up a little bit more these days.

Yep. You know, on the political side, I know it’s gonna be a close election. I know, you know, the stakes are high, obviously. But I always keep coming to the fact because I just believe it, and it’s true, this coalition that is made up of never trumpers, moderate Republicans, some Democrats that are willing to, you know, go vote for Nikki Haley in a primary. That is a really important coalition that never existed before, and it grows by the day as people realize that democracy threaten they have to do something about it.

And so You know, if you look at the results from sixteen to eighteen to twenty to twenty two and I hope twenty four, I think there’s so much good news there while I’m still worried. Listen, I am still worried I would not be in the line of work I am in if I was not worried and dedicated to this cause. But I just see lots of new things happening, the Maga Coalition of the party. They’re purging people every day, kicking them out, saying you’re not welcome. Great.

Those people should go somewhere else. Join somebody new. Like, I think there’s just a lot of opportunity here. So

Alright. Thus ends the Sunshine Pumping portion of the Tim and Amanda Secret Podcast. It’s been really great. It’s been really good. Okay.

But you had a debate. It is going to air later today on PBS. Yes. It it was with a gentleman from the Heritage Foundation. Definitely not deplorable Mike Gonzalez.

Mike Gonzalez. Yeah. So this was organized by, Margaret Hoover

Friend of the pod.

Who does the show, firing the line, on PBS. Margaret’s great. Her husband’s running for Congressman. John Evelyn, who used to be at CNN. And she came to me with this idea, essentially saying, I’m going to do these events on campuses.

And we have an event I’d like to do at Hofstra, and I’ve been looking at Heritage Project twenty twenty five, and I saw the authoritarian twenty five playbook that Protect democracy put out. And these seem like they’re in contrast with each other. Right? Like, Project twenty twenty five is promoting this view of a Trump second term, and you are essentially outlining why this would dismantle democracy. Would you be willing to have a debate kind of discussion about it?

And at first, you know, I’m I’ve been try trying to be very careful about who I share platforms with.

That’s something I’m spending a lot of time thinking about these days. Yeah.

You know, since twenty sixteen, twenty twenty. I’ve kinda come to the realization that I cannot sit with somebody who worked in a personal capacity for Donald Trump. I won’t have a good discussion because I’ll be I won’t be able to be polite. I won’t be able to present myself in a way that I wanna present myself. And also no election deniers.

And so I was like, Mike, if you can find somebody at Heritage that meets those, I’m Gain. And Mike Gonzalez, I know from previous states, he’s a former Wall Street Journal reporter, and actually been very encouraging to me, like, when I worked at human events, and Washington times just here and there. It just kind of, like, in the kind of publication space. So I I knew him, and I thought, okay. We can have this discussion.

Now keep in mind he’s written a book since about how Black Lives Matter is the real insurrection, but he’s not an election denier.

A whole book about that, that feels more like a tweet than a book. Yeah. I know it doesn’t I I I did read it. I don’t know. How do you churn out enough chapters?

Yeah. On that topic.

Mom yeah. Essentially, the argument was it was more wide ranging and had more organization and funding, therefore, it’s a real insurrection. And so my answer to that was like, okay. Charge on.

The riders, the riders.

And, you know, there’s a little difference between what they were doing and stopping the peaceful peaceful transfer of power and a president egging that. Yeah. There’s a lot of differences.

I don’t, like, remember, for example, Joe Biden being, like, break into that seven eleven.

This would be a difference. That was something that we could debate. So Margaret organized it, and it was really it was very cathartic think it’s good. It’s gonna air start airing today, check your local listings and throughout the weekend, but I have not been able to have a discussion with someone who is really involved in laying the foundation for a Trump second term and be able to bring this to them. You know, like, we talked to Bulwark, we talked to CNN, we talked to CNN, but actually talking to someone who is doing this and spending a lot of money to do all the things I’m writing about, that was Good.

And we need to have more spaces to do that. So I’m very thankful for Margaret for organizing it, but also handling it in the right way.

And so what now hearing from him, what is your sense for? Did it change your views on how dangerous it is or what or did it change your views on what the most alarming elements of the project are.

Well, I’ve read the whole report.

Yeah.

I knew going into it. What I came away with is that they’re so far in the bubble. They’re not actually challenged by anyone, especially from a conservative perspective. On what they are doing. I essentially went into the event making arguments about expansive executive power and abuse.

And honestly, He was not prepared to have that discussion. It was like he had never thought about it. They haven’t

even thought about it. They’re just children. Actually, just for listeners who aren’t because you and I both read the project twenty twenty five thing and, like, lived in it. But for folks who haven’t, like, just what are some of the top line elements that are some of the most alarming kind of proposals that they have.

Well, the overarching view essentially is that when Donald Trump says I have article two power to do whatever I want, they’re essentially laying a foundation so that he can do that by dismissing the idea that there should be any kind of independence at a place like Department of Justice. And so you should the president should be able to put his hands in every agency and tell them exactly what to do, and they should say, I, I, sir, and forget about their oath of the constitution. Whatever the president says, they should do because he was elected by the people and he has a mandate and he should get to do it.

Go arrest the enemies of the people, release all the hostages, so called hostages, etcetera.

Exactly. I mean, forget the idea that Congress is also elected by people makes laws. It kinda, like, they don’t really pay attention to that. So they are gonna harness the power of the federal government to enact the presence of JEDA. That’s basically the big idea.

And the justification for this that sort of undergirds this, why they have to do things like schedule f and fire people and put in their appointees all over the place and expand the number of appointees that it can have is that there’s this deep state bureaucracy that really runs Washington and undermines the president’s agenda And so they need this clean out and then to install people that will do whatever the president says. And this is all based on the idea that somehow present Trump was stymied in his first term. And so this is a part of the discussion that I really push and he didn’t have an answer for it quite frankly, that I said if you look at the places where you are most upset that Donald Trump was stopped, Right? The things that got him impeach, like holding up funny for Ukraine. That wasn’t a deep state that optim, Congress said, where the hell is the money that we sent to Ukraine?

It was actually the president getting in the middle of that, and it was Congress that held the hearings. That was money that they lawfully passed. That the president overrode because you wanted to squeeze Ukraine to smear Joe Biden. That was not the deep state. Stopping Donald Trump.

Right.

If you look, the other things that they’re so mad about the deep state stopping was in the aftermath of the election. And this is the best example. It was not the deep state that said, we are not going to investigate these election conspiracies. That was Republican appointees at highest levels of the department of justice. It was people like Bill Barr, Donahue, all those guys who said Bill Barr did resign, the people that said we will resign at the end of this if you go forward in doing this.

Not the deep state. John Bolton is not the deep state.

Right.

John Kelly, not the deep state. I’m like, these are people that Donald Trump put in charge. And so the idea that you wanna pretend there’s this deep state can conspiracy when it was actually Republicans who are exercising some degree of obligation their constitutional oath. Like, it’s just it’s a myth. And so he was, like, in market, kinda asked, well, what do you have to say about that?

And he was just kinda like, I guess I’d have to look into it.

I mean, I think that the real that if if you smarter, like, the real answer would be, look at the one agency that we did this right in, and it would be DHS. Right? Because, you know, if and if you look at the child’s separation,

you look at

how Steven Miller just bullied Kirsten Nielsen to doing what they wanted and advancing their just cruel and extra legal or maybe extra legal or maybe just put a kind late stretching the boundaries of the law policies about how to handle the porter. Like, that is the model that they wanna take and move to all of the other agencies. Basically, they have little Steven Miller, little Hitler’s in all of these little agencies.

Yeah. But I I this is another example where it wasn’t a deep state that stopped him. Donald Trump went to border officials and essentially is like, can’t you just shoot them?

Right. I mean,

there’s several news stories about can you can you just shoot them? And they said, no. Again, highest levels of DHS that said no. But this is the whole justification of installing Steven Miller’s.

And I think this is something that people that it’s hard for people to really wrap heads around, especially sometimes even Democrats and even media folks that I talk to. And it’s like because to them, they’re like, the people around Donald Trump last time were terrible. You know, they’re incompetent and they weren’t that. And it’s just like, yeah. Yeah.

But there are a couple layers of hell down that we can go here. And I think that these project twenty twenty five guys are very focused on finding like the most sociopathic, unqualified people possible. To try to execute his whims.

Yeah. Being incompetent has not stopped people from gaining power and doing bad things in the past.

Right.

Right? Like, this is it it’s not even a good argument. If it if they get installed and they have the green light to do it, they’re going to. And so the things I’m really most animated about proposed by both Donald Trump and Project twenty twenty five. So in the report that we did, I really tried to look at the intersection of what Donald Trump has promise to do as president, what plans are being supported by groups like the Heritage Foundation, what powers he will actually have to do it.

And it turns out when you’re present, if there’s not people there to tell you no, you’re gonna have free reign to do quite a bit. And so the plans that they have for both the department of homeland security in terms of ballooning resources at the Center for Border Patrol. I mean, heritage is a big idea and Donald Trump is essentially just flood resources into that. And so, like, these are the guys that are gonna go out to do the camps, but that also coupled with action through DOD and invoking the insurrection Act and this idea that there’s an invasion at the border and we need war like powers and we’re gonna do alien enemies act. That stuff is It it’s scary.

They have deliberate plans to do it. And legally, it’s very gray and complex. And so Steven Miller has competently said to the New York Times that we’re just gonna do this and flood the zone essentially and let the law cut up later because they are going to detain and deport people and don’t think that there’s not gonna be mixed up. They were talking about people who are suspected illegal immigrants. This is not going to be a clean, you know, perfect process.

It’s gonna be messy and chaotic, and they know if they just go fast, The lawyers are gonna take months and years to catch up just like they have with all Donald Trump’s other alleged crimes, you know, being prosecuted now.

It’s a big government bureaucracy. Guess what? We used to be small government conservatives. Right? There’s a reason why we didn’t like big government bureaucracy programs because there are gonna be fuckups.

K? And, like, that will also include a big government bureaucracy deportation plan. Let me tell you we saw it with the first Muslim band. It’s like the one thing I feel like I’m the only one that ever screams. It’s, like, They put American green card holders in cells in airports for hours.

And sure they fixed it eventually, but it’s like, that is not American. That is, that is about as un American as you can get. People that were legal American residents because of their nation of origin were in cells in airports. For many hours because they were just like, fuck it. They were not crossing their t’s and dotting their i’s when they started to implement it.

And that will be the same thing on the deportation camps.

And on that point, the Muslim ban was an explicit promise Donald Trump made while campaigning for president the first time. That people dismissed, and it was that promise where we got that stupid quote about take him seriously, but not literally that was mouth, by Peter Teal in an interview saying why he supported Trump? He said, oh, well, he’s not gonna do that. Yeah. Judd Bush said he’s not gonna do that.

A lot of people said he’s not going to do it. And he did.

He’s gonna do that.

So I don’t know why people say, well, he’s not confident enough to do this the second time. He could. You can.

We’re aligned on networks and I’m I’m equally alarms as you. So here’s the thing that I think somebody took issue with and I’m just interested in your take on. I meant it in a way that was like, I’m scared about this, but but what I said was that despite all of my hair on fire panic about Donald Trump, which is like at eighty six and a half on a scale of one to ten. I haven’t fully bought the, like, this will be the last election thing. I think that we would be able to resist him and fight him again.

I think that there’s like a five percent chance. That’s what I keep saying. I think there’s a five percent chance that if Donald Trump wins and that this is the last election. And I think that that is an unacceptable lehigh percent ever since, like, the civil war, we’ve never had percent chance that the democracy would end. If one person one, even a one percent chance.

If you wanna tell me it’s a nineteen percent chance, I’ll listen to you. I if you wanna tell me it’s a two percent chance, I’d love to take, but that but all of those are two high numbers for me. You’re now deeper in this fight than me. Like, as far as talking to the lawyers, making these plans, you know, Bulwark at protect democracy with E. This is something I know that E invest and thinks about a lot who heads up that organization.

So How do you handicap that threat and, like, what’s being done about it and and what the what the threat level is?

I wouldn’t put it in a percentage. But it’s sort of like the store warnings that you get. What’s the difference between the watch and the warning?

Right.

The one that’s more serious is like the ingredients are there.

Yeah.

Right? If you have the ingredients set for the end of the elections, the ingredients are there because Donald Trump His cozied up to dictators. He wants to emulate them. He jokes an awful lot about wouldn’t it be nice? And I would call the election now if you could.

He puts it in the air. And I would not put that necessarily on the ingredient table if it wasn’t for what he did after the twenty twenty election. I mean, what he did in trying to lean on the justice department to seize the voting machines with Michael Flynn. I mean, serious talks in the Oval Office where he wanted them to do a sham investigation for the purpose of maybe rerunning the election or declaring him the winner, all the calls to Georgia, either the fake elector scheme. I mean, all these different schemes that he had.

Those were all for the purpose. Of overturning the election. And so I don’t know how you can dismiss that. And if he comes into power again, he has people who are willing to do that kind of stuff, yes. That is taking your vote away.

I mean, you had Republican attorney general to petitioning to the Supreme Court to cancel a a votes in swing states that Joe Biden won. Yeah. I don’t think it gets any more legally serious and determined than that. And so I I take it extremely seriously. I know it’s hard for people to wrap their heads around that elections could really end here.

Are elections going to be canceled? No. But What we know from how modern authoritarians come to power, it’s not with the military and they shut things down. You still have elections. You just have no chance of winning them.

Right? Like, it’s kinda funny. I’ve been looking a lot at Victor Orban, Hungary, and all the, you know, The loving embrace that Donald Trump and Heritage continue to give them. And I was listening to, some younger women on some Secret Podcast. And they’re just talking about how great, you know, all these concerns end up going to Hungary, talk about how great it is.

They don’t see anything bad while they’re actually, you know, they’re on, and, visit from extended by the

grocery store. Yeah. But it’s,

like, Tucker Carlson had a great trip. Yes. You were there to see Putin. They made sure you had great time. I’m sure.

Victor Raband does the same thing.

Yeah.

But he’s been in power. He came in twenty ten. He’s fourteen years now. He’s going for his fifth election. He keeps winning.

And the woman like, he keeps winning. I mean, they must just they just love him. He keeps winning by all these large margins. We wish we could have a leader like that. It’s like, yes, because One of the first things he did when he came back in power the second time, because he learned when he came back the second time how he needed to consolidate and wield power to his advantage they shifted, you know, all kinds of voting systems within the country to privilege his party.

And took control of media outlets and corporate, you

know, Yeah. And we don’t have the exact same thing here, but there are moves that Donald Trump can make and has shown a willingness to make that you know, we should all be very worried about and take seriously.

I’m taking it very seriously. I’m glad that you’re out there on the fight though I wish, you know, we were a little bit more, but we’re gonna keep on bringing you back. You’re not going anywhere. That’s Amanda Carpenter. She is at Protect Democracy, co author of a recent report to the authoritarian playbook for twenty twenty five.

Go check that out. My play out song for you, Amanda, is not going to be very subtle Who? A message to you. So when it downloads, you’re gonna have to check it out.

Time out.

Go ahead.

I do like the music at the end. I’m not very cultured, but I listen to you every day when I’m on my runs usually. And so You can play it a little bit longer because I don’t have to find a new podcast. So if you wanna put a couple songs at the end, I’m cool with that too.

But I appreciate that. People can just get the playlist on Spotify. We’ll put it in the show notes, and I’ve got a special one for you today Amanda Carpenter. Hope to see soon.

To myself.

The Bohr podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason