Bill Kristol: A Shot of Hopium

Hello. Welcome to Board Comcast. I’m your host, Tim Miller. It is Monday. I’m here with Bill Crystal, fresh off the principal’s first.

Summit in DC, which looked really kind of full and and wonderful. I was unable to attend. I was at, my Mimi’s funeral in Saint Louis, which was appropriate and and a and a wonderful send off for her. But tell me tell me what I missed, William.

Well, my condolences, obviously, if you’re a grandmother, and I’m glad you had an appropriate send off at advanced age. Is that right? I think.

Very advanced ninety nine. Almost made it to the century, but it was pretty good.

Still good. Yeah. It was great. I mean, there were six hundred plus people there twice what they’d been before last year, which itself was probably twice the year before. High spirits, intelligent, discussion.

I’ve gotta stay in the hallways, and and on the panels, a terrific panel with Sarah Longwell, and AB, which was really excellent. And I think you can watch online at our website, or is it, Yeah. You can catch

it on our YouTube on the on the next Secret Podcast feed.

So that was excellent. I had a the first panel with, Frank Fukuyama and Matt Cunningham Hillier, and that was actually very good also. It was a generally high quality discussion. I’d say what was impressive was people were not there was not a lot of happy talk, but there was not a lot of doom talk either, you know, fatalism. And people were sober about the challenges ahead, and I thought that was refreshing in this in this era where it went to pretend to oscillate between, you know, rah rah pretending everything is gonna be great.

Hopium, I guess, is the word Simon Rosenberg uses on the one hand, and sort of, oh my god, we’re totally doomed on the other. And there wasn’t much of that. So it was it was it was fun to know the party. The that we hosted the Bulwark hosted Friday night to happy hour at, hill country was really fun and terrific. And, it wasn’t quite as lively as if you had been there, Tim, but it was still Okay.

Yeah. You know, I was planning on bringing some drag queens and really spicing it up, but, but it looked it looked fun anyway. The

best thing about this reception, you know, this it’s a nice barbecue place. It’s they have a branch from New York and DC, and I guess all other places buy it out too. And it is originally from Texas, if I’m not mistaken, but course, one thing about having a receptor to barbecue place, and the point wasn’t the food. It was perfectly good food, actually. And, you know, just a bit more like, you know, snacks and, sliders and stuff.

Is that everyone from Texas, North Carolina, Saint Louis, every place that’s like barbecue this is like a thing. Right? Had to tell you really nice that you’re having this reception. Of course, the barbecue is just not really, I mean, honestly.

Yeah. Right. It’s not Memphis.

This is not Memphis. Right? This is a d I mean, it’s okay for DC, but we had to have a little more a few more barbecue discussions than necessary, but otherwise it was fine.

Sometimes we don’t have a blending between, let’s say, those of us in the principal, never trump space that are pretty pessimistic about the future of the conservative movement. And then those who fit more in the, you know, stall work in the maintaining of the conservative movement. I like having that mingling, and I I wanna do more of that on this podcast as well in the coming weeks and and invite some of those folks on and and kinda maybe hash out some of our differences. It’s nice to hash out differences with people that you’re directionally on the same side as, but, have have maybe differences in the particulars. So Bill, I we have to obviously do a deep deep dive on South Carolina.

You and I are both in a state about John Thune. We’ll get to him and Elise Defonic. And, I I will continue my one man quest to keep the Alexander smearing off story in the news. But, before we do that, I wanna have just one little pallet cleanser for you. If that’s okay.

Great.

Jonathan Last, this is your era. Right? You and Jonathan have been in green rooms together over the years? Yeah. I would assume.

Trump’s super lawyer. Here he is, in the hill this weekend. He has a column about a recent discovery. The criminal history, of the great great grandfather of Joe Biden who must literally be methuselah. But it turns out that evasion of accountability maybe something of a family trait acquired through generations of natural selection.

This is based on the nineteenth century trial of Moses Robin no one fucks with a Biden. That’s apparently the, the takeaway from that. How? How how are we here? This is the highest legal mind of trumpism right now.

Jonathan Last, g w. He’s teaching at my alma mater. What is happening?

Distinguished guest on Fox News all the time. I’ve been very concerned about the great grandfather of Joe Biden actually. I think it’s a real I feel. I think we need to do better betting on the great grandfather. Is it great great grandfather or great

great?

Great great grandfather of all of our candidates and also the grand great great grandmother, which we can’t be sexist about this. HIS farcical. It is slightly revealing in the gas lighting that you think, it’s the sort of reversing of reality as it were. Yeah. So Trump, who has been indicted for ninety one counts in four different criminal cases for the first time, many presidential candidates.

I believe had that distinction and that honor histor borders are now accusing Joe Biden of being a criminal because or being having criminal, like, his biological criminal susceptibilities to guess of his great, great grandfather.

Well, turley, after being just absolutely roasted over the over this column, reverts to the, oh, I was just making it was just a little joke. Just a little humor. Unclear what the humor is.

Is that right? I understand.

I’m clear what little humor is. Okay. Ontereal business, South Sarah Longwell, Nikki Haley, exceeded my expectations slightly, I guess, a twenty point loss, which I thought was the high end of her range, fifty nine thirty nine, basically, with some straggler points people still voting for meatball Ron and and Vivek even got a couple votes. There are basically two ways to look at this. I wanna dig into the numbers with you, but you know, there you see this on the in the commentary it over the weekend.

There’s the this really isn’t that good for Trump at all, you know, to lose thirty nine percent in the primary. And if Biden had lost thirty nine percent in the primary, you know, the New York Times will be running a front page banner about to the demanding that he resigned. Then there’s the other side of it, which is, again, unprecedented performance. No one has ever won the first two, more or less the first three primaries in the Republican side. Trumpted, so only losing five counties over three states, including the home state of his toughest competitor.

So what where do you fall on that continuum?

I think I fall on both sides of the continuum.

I there’s a fork in the road.

It was a Yoguvera. There’s a fork in the road. Take it. You know? So I mean, on the one hand, Trump is one of the first three primaries.

Let’s just put Nevada aside. It’s just somewhat confusing as a caucus and some sort of optional primary too. By what? She’s beat Nicki, let’s say, by thirty and then by ten and then by twenty, roughly. Those are pretty good victories.

I’ve been in some campaigns. You’d be very happy to have a winning streak like that, and Trump is gonna be the nominee. And, yep, you know, he’s not gonna lose many if any I think he might have a run here in Virginia. Vermont could lose two or three days on Super Tuesday conceivably, but, you know, he’ll win the ball of them in the bulk of delegates, and I think is on course to clinch the nomination on the twelfth with Georgia or maybe on the if not quite on the twelfth on the nineteenth when they’re a bunch of primaries. So that’s less than about the way.

So cruising to the nomination, you can say well with of course, he was the incumbent, blah, blah, blah, but it wasn’t always that obvious that this would be the case, right, a a year ago with Stesantis and stuff. So pretty impressive. And, bad news for the country that he’s so prohibitively dominating these Republican primaries and a of Republican voters in these primaries I mean, Haley’s obviously getting to the Democrats, the feud that crossover. And then a whole bunch of independents, he’s she’s winning by decent margins. The real republican vote is more like seventy five twenty five, it looks like, or seventy thirty.

So that’s not good about the Republican Party.

Yep.

One thing we should look, I’d say is Michigan, which is tomorrow. So in in in New Hampshire, and South Carolina, Haley spent a lot of money, and it’s a lot of time. And so it’d be interesting to see sort of what happens in Michigan where neither had they’re both she’s going there today. I think she is there today, but neither spent much money or or time. And see if it feels like that would be a little more of a like, an x-ray into it?

Like, where is the Republican primary electorate? You know, is is is Haley over performing a little in New Hampshire in South Sarah Longwell is there really a thirty five, forty percent resistance? Or is the real resistance more like thirty percent or twenty seven percent among Republican primary voters And then on the general election point, yeah, it’s there’s resistance to Trump in the Republican Party. How much of that resistance holds in November? You know, if you assume he wins two thirds of the Haley voters, you’re down to kind of the number of twenty twenty of Trump losing eight, ten percent of of Republican leading.

Voters, which was enough to, you know, elect Biden, but barely, people who are glorying in the fact that’s that he’s only at fifty nine or was only a fifty five in New Hampshire. I think of being a little that’s a little too much happy talk. But the people who are giving up on the fact that there’s no resistance who who are saying that, you know, there’s no resistance to speak of in the Republican party. That’s too pessimistic.

I agree. Michigan won’t give us the your x-ray that I’m looking for because like New Hampshire in South Carolina, it is open. Right? So people can vote. I think we’ll learn more.

Obviously, we’ll learn everything on super day when when you have a bunch of different states, and you can kind of see how it looks demographically, what happens in states that have closed primaries, what happens in different regions, But a couple of the things that I just wanted to flag from South Carolina having a couple days to sit with it. Trump won seventy percent. So this is to your point. It was seventy percent ours to Haley’s twenty nine among registered there aren’t re registered Republicans in South Carolina, but among self identified Republicans in South Carolina. So, again, thirty is not nothing.

And I think it’s a interesting group to work from in a general election, but it was really it’s a forty point victory if you’re just looking at Republicans, you know, give or take exopposed margin of error. Among very conservatives, eighty four, among people with no college degree, seventy three percent for Trump, among white evangelical protestant seventy two percent. We talked to Rob Reiner about that on Friday’s pod. We can get into that a little bit more with that says, but how that being Trump’s strongest group at this point, the one step going the other way that I thought was interesting. Among people who think via economy is doing either excellent or good.

This was a big minority of the people that voted, but it was significant chunk about a fifth Haley won eighty eight to eleven. Eighty eight to eleven. She won eighty two percent of the vote. Among people who thought that Biden won legitimately. And to me, like, that is the real kind of a green shoot.

Those numbers of the choo, which is now some percentage of these people are Democrats across over. Some of them are democrat leading independents. You know, it was about third of the primary was independents and Democrats have voted in this primary. So you can kinda get get a little bit too inside your naval on the math of the crosstabs, but directionally speaking, that she would win overwhelming numbers among people who, you know, are not buying the economic calamity American Carriage message are not buying the Trump. Woah is me twenty twenty message.

I think presents at least a very significant group of people to message to, and maybe in the hopes that Biden can do better than that ten percent next time.

No. I think that’s interesting. I hadn’t noticed that number, and I it’s consistent. The very good piece by Arna Miskin, if you see that, who’s the Fox News pollster and an honest one, I mean, who, an analyst that the economy getting better hasn’t really showed up and by its approval yet, but there are beginning to be indications that it might be trickling over. And he does think that if the economy gets better, that could be we’re not talking about Reagan twenty point victories here, but, you know, two points moving to Biden from those swingish voters by November and so but that means a lot depends on the economy.

And a sense of chaos around the world that the real world, this could be a close enough election that actually the real world events determine it as much as, you know, campaign tactics and so forth. The thing that strikes me though, I gotta say talking to people who were there in South Carolina, and also even at the principal’s first actually conference, for me, voting for Haley is a vote against Trump and ultimately, you know, an acquiescence to put it that way, acceptance of Biden. If not, enthusiastic in those cases, That’s not where the Haley voters are now. They might be persuaded to get there, but there is real resistance to Biden. And I think much more than, honestly, DC Democrats want to sort of accept or acknowledge.

And it raises questions about third parties and so forth and the willingness of that, the the the resistance to Trump is greater than the accept Biden at this point. It’s always gonna be somewhat greater obviously in the among Republican leaders, but it’s the gap there is pretty great. So, I mean, it feels to me like if I were the Biden campaign, I’d be just all over the place Yeah. Talking to Haley voters. And I wouldn’t say they’re quite doing that.

There might be something that we can have chat about later this week on this podcast with some folks from Biden World, but, I agree with you. To me, it does not say Oh, okay. Let’s start celebrating and dancing in the streets. All this huge percentage of people went against Trump, and in the end, they’re gonna be Biden voters To me, though, the economic number says, these are people that are in the reality based community. Right?

Like, like, do the people that voted for Haley are messageable. I think you’re absolutely right that many of them right now are not saying that they’re provided. And you can see this in in polling data. But it feels to me like that means they’re getable. Right?

Like, if they are open to receiving the information that the economy is not that out, and they are open to receiving the information that Donald Trump perpetrated a lie about the twenty twenty election. And was a lie that underpinned what happened on January six. Like, those are two facts that means, like, this is a person that we can talk to and try to persuade. Right? And, like, that is not necessarily a closed out voter, particularly in swing states.

And I think there’s a lot of people in the in places where they feel like their vote doesn’t count. They will, you know, register a a protest vote. But in swing states, I do think that that version is getable. And, you know, Will Stancil quoted my item on on the South Carolina exits, and he said that, you know, he thinks what it means is that voters are basing their views, not on what is actually happening in the economy. I think there’s a little bit of but on their informational universes.

Right? Like, voters that are getting information from mainstream sources know that the economy is improving, and they know that Trump a mendacious liar, right, summing up his point. And those that are not getting that information aren’t, but the the people that are not getting that information are not really in the in the gettable universe provided

Yeah. Interesting. I talked to a couple of reporters here in South Carolina and they who have been at the Haley speeches and and watched the Haley ads more than I have. And they it was struck by this. The doc the issue isn’t was not brought up by Haley, unlike with Chris Christie or some Right.

Or List Cheney type Republicans. Whether that was wise or not, maybe she would have done better. She brought it up, but clearly they decided or she just didn’t want to or whatever for whatever reason she didn’t. The other one is. Secondly, she really went after Trump’s character and that that seemed to resonate.

He’s just a bad guy. And, you know, it’s it’s not even quite that it’s the big lie. It’s just that he’s he attacks the military, and and, of course, they had for her was particularly important because of her husband. And and that seemed to get some pickup at least in speeches, people, you know, resonated to that. Now that is a case where you just don’t know in the general whether they decide, okay, I don’t like his character, but he still was a better president.

Third, the foreign policy stuff, I know everyone says, you know, one votes on foreign policy, but the NATO Ukraine stuff actually, that was kinda key to her message those last week, and it seems to have picked up some supports or some sort of resonated some. So who knows which of those will end up being more important? And this could be tested, obviously, over the next few months.

Yeah. And those end up being the key voters. So that’s the question about what’s next. I mean, the South Carolina thing, the other stat that is just worth noting, I got circus guys back together for a weekend podcast that that we got into a lot of stuff beyond South Carolina. It’s worth listening to if you missed it.

And you know, Harlemman has been down there, and he’s talking about how sleepy it was. But even still a big turnout. The total vote turnout in the South Carolina primary, Trump got far more votes than anyone has ever gotten. Now part of that is because it’s a two person race, but people did go and and certain percentage people did crossover. I mean, like, you know, not a huge percent by Haley did not get McCain two thousand levels of independent and Democrats.

But she’s still got, you know, about thirty percent of the total and in in raw numbers, you know, at that point, you’re talking about Oh, it’s all it’s always dangerous to do quick math on air, but a couple hundred thousand people that were not registered Republicans that turned out to vote in South Carolina. So I, again, Sometimes you can mix up, and I made this error analyzing Arizona in the midterms. Sometimes you can mix up, like, in twenty sixteen, the energy felt so great on both sides. Right? And so you’re feeling like this turnout is gonna be there.

Sometimes, like, people turn out to vote who are kinda sick of this. Right? And, like, signs do not mean voting. Turning out to rallies is not necessarily. You know, you can over assess.

Right? Like, how much all that means? And I think we’ve seen now a couple times that there are a significant number of people that are happy to try and vote both for and against Trump that are kind of sick of the regular moral.

I think you you said twenty sixteen when you met twenty twenty, but, about enthusiasm on both sides, right, twenty sixteen was not really.

Well, yeah. No. I was actually I actually met

twenty sixteen.

It was like the Trump event Oh,

fair enough. Oh, fair enough. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. In twenty twenty, it was kind of COVID.

One other point, I think one number to watch in these polls, Doug Sosnick, the political director in the White House and a very smart Democratic strategist. Biden was ahead until about October, November, and he thought Biden was in decent shape. And then I think it was for NBC politics. I was the first one to ask this question or that he saw. Who do you think was a better president?

Who’s presidency do you think? Produced better results. And suddenly, Trump was, like, plus ten over biden. And, again, it gets to the point that you’ve made JVL’s made somebody talk, you know, there’s two incumbents. They’re not really judging a promise versus the reality.

They’re judging it as they see it to realities, one of them might be, you know, they might not have a correct understanding of either reality, but that’s what they think they’re judging.

Right.

And that number has stuck. And, you know, gee, if trump has a ten percent margin on his presidency delivered better results for me or for the country, then Biden’s presidency, that’s a problem. I think that will be something to watch, which gets back to your point about the economy. If the if the decent economy, the good economy starts to trickle in And suddenly, that gap closes. I think that’s good for Biden.

If Trump just stays ten percent ahead on the kind of evaluate the two presidencies criterion, that’s bad.

Okay. I’m going grocery shopping after this and I’m keeping a paper bag next to my desk for these podcasts. I can just breathe into it when you when you bring up stats like that.

I guess the price of eggs was way down. Did you see that on Twitter? That was poor Peter Baker of the New York Times. Did you see that? No.

I guess he said it casually. I mean, it’s god knows something to do on some on cable. It’s got a weekend that voters just they’re still holding inflation against Biden and the price of eggs. This is the he mentioned literally that. That’s the example.

And apparently, the price I I wouldn’t have known to see it honestly, but the price of eggs is now, you know, has plummeted. I mean, it’s down, like, you know, seventy two percent. I don’t know, forty percent. You know, detail from where it was because and it was a kind of very weird thing, the eggs thing. I think there was an actual disease or something.

So it’s like he’s getting just roasted like, do you ever look at the prices when you go to the supermarket, Peter?

I think Susan is doing the shopping that family. Let’s get let’s let Peter off the hook. You know, every you have to split up the duties in a household. You know, Peter, I’m sure he’s doing plenty of work as well. I will tell you the crawfish index here in in Louisiana is a big problem.

Paid twelve dollars fifty cents a pound for crawfish this weekend, and people are apoplectic about that. Not the Louisiana is a swing state, and I’m not sure that crawfish prices are are gonna you know, adhere to swing voter totals in the upper Midwest, but just something to keep an eye on. Okay. I wanna talk about Haley and what now. Because I was thinking about it this weekend.

And what what she has here is what I described as a vampire campaign. Like, she is dead. Effectively. Like, the campaign is dead, but she is able to, like, exist among the living. Right?

And suck the blood from the wounds, of one of the two candidates that are likely to win. The big question is, is she gonna suck the blood from the right candidate? I think that is a big unknown. I mean, I think there’s a lot of encouragement. Some people want Haley to keep going.

Obviously, it seems like she’s gonna keep going through super Tuesday. They’re one thing that is certainly not true. There’s some people out there that, like, she’s doing this to strengthen her twenty twenty eight hand. That is not true. That is insane.

If anything, she’s weakening her twenty twenty eight hand, the best thing she could have done to strengthen her twenty eight twenty eight hand would have been to endorse Trump immediately, like Ron DeSantis did after I will maybe with a little more verve And so that is not the reason. So is she contemplating the third party? No labels thing. We talked about that a little bit over the weekend. Is she just having fun out there?

You know, AB Stoddard at the principal’s first has the Hopium that she’s gonna actually not endorse Trump and can be useful in in carrying this anti even in a pox on both your houses message is is useful. Though not as useful as endorsing Biden through November. So what what say you about the Haley vampire candidacy?

I mean, we don’t know, and I don’t I suspect she doesn’t know. Her rhetoric in the last week was pretty tough. I mean, it’ll be a little hard to just revert to the of course, I’m endorsing Trump. You know, after saying that he’s really unfit, unacceptable with the damage in fundamental ways, the US position in the world. I mean, maybe you can still say Biden’s even worse, but I don’t know.

That rhetoric struck me as the rhetoric of someone backing away from the her previous hand raising and saying that she would endorse Trump. Now whether it’s backing away to a very grudging and latent, you know, endorsement. Okay. I support Republicans, and that’s it. And then she goes away for three months, you know, four months, or really backing away.

I’m just staying out of it. I don’t know. I do feel much better that some people were worried that helping Haley, and I’ve been trying to in some modest ways. It would be counterproductive. It would be an on ramp for people to get back to Trump.

I don’t buy that. I think it’s more of an off ramp how much of an off ramp we don’t know, and an off ramp to where we don’t know. And I do think she’s that rhetoric was It was Ron Brown stated tweeted this that you listened to Haley’s concession speech on Saturday night. He thought, oh, that sounds a little bit like it could be laying the predicate for third party. Biden and Trump are unacceptable.

They’re way too old. We need next generation. And I don’t know. I know I’ve been very hostile and to no to no labels and to the third parties, but I don’t know. Would a Haley third party candidacy take more from Biden or from Trump?

She’s pretty conservative. Biden could get his voters back at the end by saying, look, she’s, you know, very strongly pro life. She was even pro that IPF, you know, thing. It seemed decision. That’s the kind of judge that she’s gonna point.

You kinda

backed off that a little bit.

She did, but you can’t risk Haley. I feel like that would get some some of the swingish voters back to Biden. Whereas Haley’s a comfortable resting ground for, you know, Trump, nervous, but often acquiescent Republicans. And this will be tested. We’ll see polls, I bet, in the next couple of days.

Testing the three way with Haley, but I’m less confident than I used to be that all third party candidates are necessarily bad for bi.

We hashed this around with the circus crew over the weekend, and I I’ve modulated. I was where you were, just on first blush. But just looking at these exits, and as you just think about who Haley does well with, college educated, urban suburban, I it just it feels like the demo of a Biden voter. Right? It’s like, thinks the economy’s good.

Things twenty twenty wasn’t stolen. Doesn’t like Trump. Again, not every single person. I’m not saying she takes a hundred percent from Biden, but just that part of it is the part that makes me think that, I don’t know, maybe unbalanced by them.

It depends where you think those voters go and I think in twenty twenty four. I mean, I was just thinking of literally my neighbors here in Jager who are really that demo, you know. And I feel I don’t talk to that much about politics, but my vague sense is they were provided in twenty No problem. No question. He was fine.

He was, thank god. He was a moderate democrat. He was fine. He’s a little old, but he was okay. And, anyway, it was COVID.

So he didn’t kick out much, and Trump was unacceptable. Those people have talked themselves back into being somewhat trump accepting and pretty hostile to Biden, and maybe giving them Haley to go to is better than forcing them to Trump. It’s the truth between Trump. But it says, our our our mantra, I think, has always been at the Democrats’ mantra. And I correct.

It’s correct in twenty twenty. You gotta force the vote. You gotta get the people dislike them both. You’re just approving them both to vote because they will end up voting by. That was true when Trump was the incumbent.

I’m a little worried that it isn’t as true today.

And that’s the question, right, whether it’s back sliding or whether this realignment is continuing. Because here’s one example of it. The, maybe, the McLean of South Carolina, Kiowa Island, It’s, I guess, McLean with a beach. Yeah. Great.

This is, like, the Haley Haley Haley base, because you get a more Haley base than Q Island outside of a Charleston, South Carolina high ninety six percent white. Everybody has a college degree. Twenty twelve. Romney by forty six. Saddam Hussein Hussein numbers for Romney and Kila Island.

Twenty sixteen, Trump, by thirty one, twenty twenty, trump, by only five. And so, like, the question is if Haley gets out of the way, is that kind of just core demo now moving to Biden next time? Or does it or is it backsliding like you say? And I think that’s really the big fighting ground in in this election. Okay.

I wanna talk about Donald Trump for a minute on his actual behavior. I do feel like we get into this fallacy where it’s like, you just analyze and really analyze every utterance of Nikki Haley and Joe Biden. And, like, Donald Trump is out there just being an absolutely insane mad man constantly and just viewing total nonsense, and it’s just, you know, gets lost in the fire hose of shit. And so I wanna play a couple of clips about Donald Trump talking about Bulwark people, a group that he is, he’s that his team is bullish on. They think they’re gonna do better with Bulwark men this election cycle.

Let’s let’s hear Donald Trump talking about racism.

These lights are so bright in my eyes that I can’t see too many people out there, but I can only see the black ones. I can’t see any white ones. You see?

That’s how far I’ve come. That’s how far I’ve come. That’s a long that’s a long way, isn’t it?

And then I got indicted a second time and a third time and a fourth time. And a lot of people said that that’s why the black people like because they have been hurts so badly and discriminated against. And they actually viewed me as I’m being discriminated against. It’s it’s been pretty amazing.

Well, You know, that’s how far he’s come, Bill. Archie bunker, has come all the way around where he only he doesn’t even see color. He only sees black now. Here’s the thing. Some of those, occasionally, when you see these clips, there’s always just like Jonathan Turley, there’s a revert to what is his humor?

This is just humor. He’s having good fun. Do people like that? Everybody likes that. Why don’t we play in the next clip, which I think is, clearly not humor.

Just Donald Trump talking about about the January six hostage.

You heard the j six hostages, didn’t you? You heard that. And, I will tell you, there’s never been in the history of our country, a group of people treated the way they’ve been treated. There’s never been anything like it. Carpenters, mechanics, lawyers, firemen policemen, military people, they went to protest a rigged election And they’ve been sentenced to years in prison.

So black people like him because he’s been indicted. And also, the January six hostages have been treated worse than anyone in America’s history is worse than worse than slaves, worse than Bulwark people during the civil rights era, worse than Rosa parks, worse than you worse than the Japanese interned. No one has been treated worse than the people that stormed the capital. What do you think about that, Bill? How do you think that lands with our McLean neighbor voter and the Bulwark voters that Trump’s trying to win over?

You know, hate I don’t like saying this, but I just think that Borsch Belch humor sort of shtick helps them a lot with those voters. They just it lets them discount at all. I think he’s a loud mouth, and sometimes he’s funny and sometimes he’s offensive. But come on. He’s not doing any of that.

I do think bringing home what he would do in his second term is really important. I mean, the real threats, obviously, to the rule of law, and to always having a functioning US government and the nine other things, and to the world with Ukraine and NATO. I don’t know. I’ve lost confidence in the ability to highlight truly disgusting often, you know, clips of him saying things, and and that that’s gonna move voters. There maybe I’m just too pissed at I don’t know.

I will be play the optimist though. I like when I get to be optimist. I gotta tell you. I don’t know. I think that this January six hostage thing is gonna really backfire.

And I I understand why people are are hesitant of that. I understand your point of view, but you can mash up that clip, and I know we have some democratic strategists that listen to this podcast. I’m thinking about Black Radio, and you can mash up this clip or or TV in Atlanta suburbs and just like, you know, because they aren’t seeing this. So people are not seeing Donald Trump say this, like, unless they’re political obsessives. And you have images of the people storming the capital, confederate flag, beating Bulwark police officers.

These are the people that have been treated worse than anybody pairing that with I don’t know. Maybe the hoses, you know, on the bridge in the civil rights era or whatever, and you can hear a million horrors and horrific moments in our history of the way that black folks have been treated in this country, that you could harken back to. I guess the question is There’s only so many time. There’s only so many ads you can run. There are a million ads you can run against Donald Trump, but man, I don’t know.

I I think that this is a big vulnerability for him in the contrast there.

Yeah. And I would say just one thing based on the ads that Sarah Longwell, ran, the Republican voters against Trump ran in twenty twenty. The way to make the messers come home, I think, is to put the police off on the ads and to send them to the communities and send others, you know, even maybe on the more political side to Chaney’s and Adam Kinsinger’s of the world to the suburban, you know, of Republican voters. The Biden people are gonna think, you know, what we need to do is really have Biden say all these things. And that’s fine if he says them, but that I think he’s not the best messenger.

It needs to be that’s the one lesson I really heard in twenty twenty. People don’t trust politicians. You know, trustfully produced ads. But if it’s real people saying, look, this I was there, and this is this is the kind of behavior Trump is excusing.

Encouraging.

Yeah. Well, excusing and encouraging and indeed causing. Right? I mean,

our favorite topics dealer’s choice. We’ve got John Thune and Elise Defonic. We’re gonna have a eight minute hate here about John Thune and Elise Defonic. Who do you wanna take first, Bill?

I mean, I wrote about Thune in the morning shots newsletter. Alright.

Let me let me just read out for John Thune people this morning. We’ll start with John Thune. He endorsed Donald Trump, officially, John Thune. Here’s what he said after January six. What former president Trump did to undermine faith in our election system and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power is inexcusable with regards to the indictments against him.

He said that laws were broken. That’s kind of a rumsfeldian mistakes were made their passive voice, but it was still, still an acknowledgement. So in Dune’s position, Trump’s behavior was inexcusable and law breaking. And yet, Better than Nikki Haley. Not just better than Joe Biden.

Not just better than Joe Biden. Better than Nikki Haley.

And that’s such an important point. I mean, And let’s do it on Saturday night after South Carolina, I had a phone call with Trump, and he really, we’re he’s really, I’m really pleased that he’ll be the nominee, and we’re all gonna work together. I mean, that’s what he said. Right? I mean, he did it because he’s Barrasso and Corinne and his two establishment competitors to replace McConnell.

It’ll be a trumpy competitor. Two I suppose. Had endorsed Trump a month ago, and he was kind of late to that parade and trying to desperately get Trump not to come down against him. I suppose in the in the race. But it it’s just so depressing.

With who is a decent person, he he I mean, I think a genuinely nice man who knows better isn’t simply. He’s been good on some issues Ukraine and others, but there he is. Right? And again, it one it’s one thing to wait till after Super Tuesday. One thing to wait till the majority of the delegates wanting to wait your own state votes.

That’s the sort of slightly more excusable to use that mister, you know, moment to get on that train, not that I’m excusing it in any case, but one could say at least it’s understandable. But doing it after Nicki hardly gets forty percent of the vote in South Carolina. After it could really help from his from Thun’s point of view, the future of the Republican Party and of the conservative movement, if if Haley does better in Michigan and better on Super Tuesday. He claims to care a lot about Ukraine. Does he gotten any kind of commitment from Trump that, you know, he’s gonna be at all helpful in getting that bill to the floor of the house.

I mean, it’s just such a pathetic collapse. Not new for us to see that.

Not new. Not new. But this is where I will also part ways with you. Is he a decent person? Is he, like, are we sure?

Here’s something about John Thune for people that don’t know. He got elected again in twenty twenty two. He does not face another the voters again until twenty twenty eight. K. He can sit in that Senate seat for South Dakota.

For another four years. Who the hell knows what’ll happen in that time? Like, who the hell could predict? He is the safest person in all context. It takes no current So you say, okay.

Well, buddy wants to be sent at majority later. Why? To do what? To actually exert any authority? We haven’t seen it so far to date.

He wants to be senate majority leader and get just slapped around by Donald Trump. I mean, one thing if you said, okay. This guy is a really savvy guy. That Jonathan Last a killer, and and he’s gonna do this because he wants to get in there just in case Trump wins. And so in twenty twenty five, Doon can really, you know, crack down on them on Ukraine funding or making sure that no insurrectionists get appointed to the cabinet or any of that.

Is there does anybody believe that he would do any of that? I mean, sure, one, maybe one little thing on the like, but but with any sort of fervor, like, does he seem like he’s up for that fight? Like, why do you want this job? You want this job because what you hope actually is the Joe Biden ones. That’s what John did once.

Drop my phone. I’m so mad. John Thune is hoping that that he can endorse Donald Trump and get all the political benefit of that. Without suffering any of the consequences and that Joe Biden wins reelection and that he can trick enough of his colleagues into supporting him to become majority leaders or minority leader. It’ll probably be majority leader.

So you can be majority leader and work in a normal kind of adversarial way with Joe Biden. And that is, like, really hollow. Really hollow and shameful. My hate fire is burning a little harder than you morning. No.

You kinda got it all out with the pen and the pen in the morning shots.

I did. That was impressive. I’m with you, but that was good. That was good.

Elise Defonic, My hate is just bubbling. Did you watch her CPax speech? If you watched her CPax speech, Bill, I I swear to god. I’m like

I can’t. See, you were tougher. You’re you’re younger than I am, and you have more resist, you know, you could you can you can suffer through this. I might

give you a heart attack right now. But, please, I’m just asking the authorities if I kill Bill Crystal right now with this audio clip, this was this was an accidental homicide. I have to be a parent. I cannot go to jail. Over this.

Could we please play Elise Defonic at CPAC?

It’s one I witness every single day when I defend president Trump from the deep state. And that is the way Democrats attack our democracy. We saw it with the Russia collusion hoax obama’s spied and then lied. We saw it with how they unconstitutionally rigged the twenty twenty election. We saw it when the deep state colluded with big tech and used taxpayer dollars to censor the accurate Hunter Biden laptop story.

And we see it today as unelected liberals try to, unconstitutionally remove Trump from the ballot.

Fuck you, at least, Defonic. Everything in the everything was wrong in that until the last, I guess, the last line that there are a couple people trying to remove Donald Trump from the ballot for attempting an And, Bill, what do you think about that VP addition from from Earth two?

I mean, once you start down that path, why not what you’re somewhat shameless? You just go be totally one hundred percent shameless. Do you think it works, Tim, the VP audition?

I think it might. I mean, I think that more important then her shamelessness is, and again, don’t get mad at me about this. This is not my opinion. This is just, I’m projecting what is happening in Donald Trump’s war archie bunker brain. She’s gotten a little bit of a glow up.

You know, you can see. She’s taking much more care of her appearance, which I think is a bigger tell about her desires, frankly, even than her than her rhetoric because Donald Trump does want somebody that looks the part. Want somebody that looks the part. Gonna be tough to compete with Katie Brit on that front, and so she’s gotta be more shameless in her rhetoric. To match it.

And I think Trump loves that. This is what I’m saying. There’s an interesting little factoid. It was, Maria Bart Roma. Was on Fox, and she’s interviewing somebody that some adviser or Trump.

I yeah. I can’t keep them all straight. And, she was like, every time I talk to president Trump, I’m like, what are you doing to try to secure the election better this time than last time? He doesn’t have any answers. He doesn’t have any answers.

The reason why he doesn’t have any answers is because he knows it was bullshit because he knows he’s bullshit. He, like, it’s a it’s a show. Like, like, Maria has bought Trump’s whole farcical, not like not Trump doesn’t need to come up with any policy solutions to solve something that he knows that he made up. Okay. And so, Trump, when you’re a liar like that and you’ve, like, created this whole false alternative reality, I think about how satisfying it must be to have a Harvard educated, you know, Congress, mainstream Republican, go up on stage, and not only participate in your live, it kind of like add new layers to it and be like, oh, it’s really the Democrats that are that are, you know, undermining democracy and Obama was spying on him.

And, like, all of this just total nonsense. So I I think that flatters him about as as much as you could flatter him, I guess, maybe besides like complimenting his sexual prowess or something like that.

That’s not like he loves the mainstream people who started off opposed to him or at least not for him who’ve caved and fully caved. Right? That’s more of a triumph. He’s a bully, and he like the Right. The people he’s bullied into submission.

A little more than the people who are with him actually, you know, from the beginning or just naturally because they’re from different stage or something. And at least as the, you know, the Paul worked very closely. He worked in the Bush White House, Paul Ryan, staff, worked for the foreign policy initiative, which I shared for a year or two, which was very

Worked on the autopsy with me?

Yeah. With you, on the autopsy, right, in twenty thirteen. Right? Twenty thirteen fourteen. Yeah.

I mean, she was totally on the if I could put it that way, the other side. And so the capitulation, the submission is is more satisfying for Trump. I agree with that.

And you saw it with Lindsey Graham. Yeah. I should have had that audio pulled up. Did you see that at the after after the South Sarah Longwell, South Carolina Victor stage? He loves to humiliate Lindsey.

He kind of does this pretend oh, I’m being nice. Oh, like, Lindsey. You know, he doesn’t have to mention Lindsey on the speech. He’s like, oh, anytime I need to Getting good with the Democrats. I just call Lindsey because he’s such a liberal.

And, oh, we love Lindsey because he doesn’t have the crowds booing, Lindsey. Like, Trump loves that. Right? It’s the I’ve got I’ve won them over and I get to humiliate it.

Yeah. Just one last thing. Archie bunker, you’ve met a couple times little unfair to Archie bunker. Archie bunker is the whole point of the show is, I mean, I won’t love to remember watching it. I mean, he seems like a bigot.

He is a bigot. You know, I was brought up, and that’s what he is. But he learns not to be less bigoted in a funny way. That’s kind of the point the education of Archie bunker is the dramatic narrative of the arc of the show. And normally, they’re famously didn’t realize our chewbacca was gonna be like a popular characters.

People like that kind of Queens, you know, you know, we snatch a reality then I also like the fact that he, at the end of the day, at the end of each of most episodes, at least, sort of backs off his learn is a bit of a lesson that he shouldn’t quite have these vulgar views as much as he does. Anyway, so I I feel like you’ve just been a little a little unfair to Archie.

I apologize.

Trump really is a bad.

Is as you said to me.

We sure John, Junas, Junas, good character. If only Donald Trump or Archie bunker, would the country be in better shape, but he’s not, of course. He’s he’s a true god who’s throughout himself by authoritarians and really is willing to play that out. I I really there’s a couple of good articles the last few weeks Jonathan Last what the heritage plans would really do to the intelligence community to the justice department, to defense. Top it for another day, but I it’s alarming.

Yeah. No. This will be a topic that we spend a lot a lot a lot of time on once Trump has officially won this nomination here in a couple of weeks. But that is exact right, and a and a good correction. Okay.

My final thought before I let you go, I have to I’m giving everybody constant updates on what’s happening with Alexander Smithoff. He has been rearrested by a different judge in California because the government won appeal where they were making the case that he, there’s a fear that he would flee, given his associations with with foreign intelligence agencies, Russians, Israelis, Flashback that I’d missed. Jason Smith, who’s a committee chair in the house. I had sent a tweet a couple months ago saying smoking gun. The d ten twenty three form showing proof that Joan Hunter Biden were involved in the five million dollars bribery screen with a Burisma executive has been released.

There we go. Another yet another Republican that’s even not in the Jim Jim Comer world that’s kind of supposedly. I think he’s the appropriations chair. So presumably, somebody’s supposed to be responsible. Talking about this be a smoking gun.

Bill, I know your obsession with this is maybe not at my levels, though I’m trying to win win everyone over on this. My final question for you is, I think another thing besides the stakes of the election that that is really important over the next few months is monitoring the foreign interference side of things. And I do think that that it’s getting lost a little bit. I think that that people are tired of it. I did my now high party on this, like, last week like, nine years of Russia, Russia, Russia.

Like, like, how can I still care about this? I think that there’s a little bit of weariness with that. But, man, my alarm bells are pretty high on interference foreign in this year. I just wanted your two cents on that.

No. I’m you’re totally right. There was interference in twenty sixteen. The Waller report lays it out clearly, the Senate Intelligence Committee, which I think at the time was the Marker Mubeo was the Republican chair, acting chair of the committee, lays it out in the report in twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, something like that. The Russia hoax was not a hoax, but Trump has gas lit that one.

Right? I mean, people do they’re either tired. I mean, it is what people say in, about authoritarian lies work. They don’t really convince you of the opposite. They make it such a confusing mix of everything.

I mean, that’s what Bannon says. Right? Fun to zone with shit. I mean, and and then who knows, but it’s I’m tired of it, and it wasn’t quite what they said, and they never really, you know, the Mueller thing didn’t prove anything. And so it’s all fake.

The degree of success he’s had in that. But it was absolutely one hundred percent clear on the surface public that Trump encouraged Russia to collude to interfere in the election that Russia did, that they released the stuff on, you know, the day of the tape the bush tape, you know, that they released the emails. Right? I mean, to try to step on that story. I mean, it’s just a hundred percent clear that there was Russia collusion.

And there’s gonna be a I worry very much. It’s gonna be again, and I worry incidentally that Putin says, you know, I kinda just prefer Biden. This is ludicrous. And I don’t know if if he has some control over events in the world. And why doesn’t he do stuff in October that makes Biden’s efforts look less successful at least temporarily.

Right? So they can be both collusion, but actually doing things. Right? I mean

Yeah. Worry about that colluding with you know, some of the, you know, OPEC countries. There’s a lot of potential foreign damage that could be done in the coming year. Okay. Plenty of time to talk about that.

Bill Crystal, I hope you had a wonderful weekend. We’ll be seeing you next week, and, we’ll be back here tomorrow. Do this all over again. Peacehell.

I hate to give this satisfaction, asking how you’re doing now. How’s the castle built of people you pretend to care about, just what you want. Look at you. Cool guy. Got it.

I see the parties in a time and sometimes when I close my eyes six months of torture, soul, to some forbidden paradise, I love you truly. Gotta laugh

at the stupidity. Stop made some real big mistakes, but you may exhaust. Won’t look fine. I should have known it. A strange.

You want me to come out and night. I used to think. I was smart, but you made me so nice. The way you saw different cards. Sucker, fame, fucker.

Blittin’ knee droil. Goddamn vampire.

The Secret Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio