Bill Kristol and Joe Perticone: The Quitters

Hello, and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I’m your host, Tim Miller. We have a monster show today. There’s just so much happening. There’s so much actually happening that we are saving the discussion of Rona Romney Romney, until tomorrow.

We have a banger plan for tomorrow too. So don’t worry. You’ll get your Rona Romney fix in then And also, if you haven’t read morning shots this morning, Andrew Edgar has a nice little riff on that. What else is in the news? Well, New York Times has a headline.

Trump will face his greatest fears as two legal threats coincide today. He’s gonna be in a Manhattan courtroom on the Stormy Daniels case. And this morning, we had an announcement that he has to post a hundred and seventy five million dollar bond in the next ten days to get an appeal on the Trump business fraud case. Trump does have some good news today. He won his country club golf tournament.

I don’t know if you guys saw that. He won both the senior and the regular division, unclear, you know, how much ball kicking was happening there. And then we’ve got Lisa Murkowski, maybe leaving the g o p, little Marco auditioning for Vee. Candice, committed her fifty seventh strike for anti Semitic blood libel and fifty seven strikes you’re out with Ben Shapiro. So she’s been canceled by the daily wire.

But before we get to any of that, The Republican House of Representatives is a shit show once again, which is why I’ve asked Hill correspondent Joe Perticone to join me and Bill. Hey, gentlemen.

It going? Good Tim.

Nothing to talk about today. You know, not much. And then it’s

We’re speechless. We’re speechless. Joseph explained the entire hill, the House Republicans and everything within in about fifty two minutes, and then that’ll be good.

Okay. We need that. If you haven’t signed up for Joe’s newsletter, by the way, press pass, go to the This is the way to get real talk and what’s happening in the hell. Joe does not give you spin from house leadership. He does not blow smoke up your ass about things that might happen.

In fact, Joe messaged me the other day, saying that he is, quote, bearish on anything being accomplished in the one hundred and eighteenth Congress. So that’s a note of optimism for you. And so this is the man to bring in Marjorie Taylor Green has on Friday after we take filed a motion to vacate And so Mike Johnson, the clock is ticking. Mike Johnson burst ahead of cabbage. Why don’t you explain to us what what is happening among the house crazies?

Joe protocol.

So that rule still exists that allows a single member to file a motion where the whole chamber will vote to kick out the speaker, that still exists from when McCarthy was kicked out as speaker. Marjorie Taylor Green Friday filed a resolution to motion to vacate. However, she didn’t actually because she didn’t file it privilege. If it was privileged, it would have triggered a vote within two legislative days. They’re taking two weeks off, so it’d be two weeks plus two days.

That’s not happening because she didn’t file it privileged.

What are they doing over the next two weeks? I’m sorry to interrupt, but just a quick aside. I mean, not much is happening right now. And we have multiple wars happening. The they keep claiming we’re being invaded on the board.

You’d think that if we were actually being invaded, they probably wouldn’t wanna take a two week vacation.

They do some fundraisers. They they hit the trail.

Is it August? No. It’s March. We’re just taking two weeks off in March spring break.

Yeah. Some of them stick around DC. For example, a couple Easters ago, former congresswoman Diane Black. I saw her at Mass on Easter. And then I saw her get up and leave halfway through, and then she posted a photo from the Trump Hotel.

You know, so everyone’s kinda doing their own thing for two weeks.

Got it. Okay. Alright. Okay. So we’re on a two week break.

She’s filed the motion to vacate, but it’s not privileged. So what does that mean?

So it’s not privileged, which means it’s just kind of sitting there. There’s no requirement to vote on it. If it’s privileged, it has to be voted on whether leadership likes or not. And if it’s not privileged, it’s up to leadership to bring floor, so they’re not gonna do that. She does this though as a kind of veiled threat of I will make it privilege and we’ll have this vote and you’ll have to defend yourself either with support from Democrats or with everybody in attendance.

And she keeps saying we, we want these things to from what I can see, no one is with her. No one’s, like, the eight Republicans that kicked out McCarthy, like, don’t wanna do that with her. So she probably just wants some kind of concession, which is most likely to not allow a vote on any Ukraine funding, which has been slowly getting momentum, but I still don’t think. Like, she’ll probably get her wish.

So it’s kind of like a a Jewish space laser of Damocles hanging over, Mike Johnson’s head. Yeah. That’s what she’s trying to do. If you like that, Bill?

It’s less of a threat, though, because she doesn’t have anyone with her on this. She’s not even fully doing it by making it privileged. And I don’t think there’s an appetite to kick out Johnson the way there was with McCarthy.

From either side. Right? And this is the other thing. It’s that the Democrat were jumping at the bit to get rid of McCarthy and to be helpful. Right?

Because they’re like the way what he did was so gross. And I heard from multiple Democrats in Congress that they just felt so mad at him for the way he rehabbed Trump after January sixth that they were like, we’re not gonna lift a finger to help you. But, like, now, because of Ukraine, because of these, some issues, and you already saw Tom Swazzy, for example, and some others speak out and say, okay, like, if Mike comes to the table, we’ll deal. The question is, is there enough pressure on him to actually deal that, like, what’s your so that is where you’re more embarrassed. I wanna get Bill after this, but you’re actually on the hill.

But so, like, is Mike Johnson? Does he wanna deal with the Democrats on Ukraine?

I am of the belief that Ukraine funding is this cycle’s scalia seat in that it won’t be decided until after there’s an election one way or another. Because if they were gonna strike some kind of deal, they would have done it already. There’s already a standalone aid package that’s past the Senate that also, like, knife’s progressives because it has so much Israel funding in it. They don’t wanna do that. I don’t think anyone other than Democrats and, like, a few hawks maybe in the Republican side wanna do it, but they’re not taking any action to do it.

There’s the two discharge petitions, one of which includes border funding, and it has, like, dozen and a half signatures right now.

Is actually important. I I only get to Bill’s thought on this a second, but let’s just explain for people. So the two discharge positions, the discharge petition allows members to bring something to the floor that is not brought by the leadership, the speaker. Right? Okay.

So there are two out there. One is kind of a quasi mirror of the Senate deal that had in that had border funding in it, but it also includes like less monetary aid to Ukraine. It’s just more military aid. And then the other one is just a straight aid discharge petition. Right?

The other one is just like a copy of what passed the Senate, which is just straight up Israel, Taiwan, Ukraine funding, eighty eight billion.

And so who is for which? Why are there two?

So there’s like a hundred and eighty ish Democrats on the straight up foreign aid funding. And then Ken Buck signed it on his way out the door. So that signature still holds even though he’s resigned because a discharge petition requires of all of the seats. So it has to be two eighteen no matter what, even if two eighteen isn’t technically the majority in the house right now. So that signature still holds.

He’s the only Republican on it. Then you have this fitzpatrick one where all of, like, the moderate Republicans have signed on to it, like Mike Lawer and There’s

an air quote there for people that are just doing this on audio.

Yeah. It’s like the the so called moderate members, they have signed on to this. And I think that the existence of the Patrick One, which has far less chance of passing because it has a border component, because it hasn’t even gone through the Senate yet. It gives these so called moderate Republicans an out because they can sign that one without having having to sign the existing one that most Democrats and Ken Buck signed. That’s why I think neither goes anywhere.

Right. Happy Warrior Bill Crystal. Do you have any more positive thoughts? And you’d you’d are talking to people in this space, like, that are I think maybe a little more hopeful that some deal could be reached on on the Ukraine funding? Where are you on that?

Yeah. Well, the people who follow Ukraine closely are very hopeful and very exercise that dealby dealby reach, which is so important to get the funding. But every time I talk to Joe, he brings me back to earth and explains that it’s, as you’re saying, probably less likely to happen than I hope it would, and sometimes talk myself into thinking it would. It is so unbelievably if I could just editorialize for twenty seconds. It’s so unbelievably irresponsible not to pass it.

I mean, if you believe in it, and it’s as unbelievably irresponsible, and there are some Republicans who believe in it. And some senior republicans, chairman house foreign relations and so forth and also younger ones who were, you know, genuinely care about defending freedom and defeating Putin and the idea that they they’re sort of Sarah Longwell. They can’t sign the Democratic discharge petition. A few of them will sign if it’s Patrick’s, but then, you know, that that’s not gonna get to two eighteen, that they can’t actually sit down and work it out. Margatella Green gets to, you know, threaten Mike Johnson.

They don’t seem to be able to exercise any leverage for the Republicans who do care about Ukraine on speak to Johnson. Maybe they will. Maybe this gives them a chance. Maybe they go to the Democrats and say, look, we will, and the Democrats go to Johnson and say, we’re not gonna save you if there are two or three votes, which is all it would take, right, to vacate the the chair, unless you bring Ukraine to the floor.

This is gonna be one when Gallagher’s gone. Yeah.

Okay. We’re gonna get to Gallagher in a second. I’m with you. It is it is extremely irresponsible. It’s insane, frankly.

And Not only are there supposedly some Republicans that believe in it,

but we had a guest last

week that was sharing with me that there were some Republicans who want to go even further than Joe Biden and wanted to fly to a great more. And so, like, why aren’t those people doing anything? Where are they? If they exist, okay, Joe. One more on just the fundamentals here.

So we also have the shutdown. Hanging over all of this, which is a separate budget thing from Ukraine. And NTGs, like, stated complaints were more about that. Right? Or more about the budget deal than about Ukraine.

So is it possible that the budget deal will also

I think that’s that’s well on its way actually to finally being resolved.

You know.

Six months out from the end of the fiscal year. But, like, Marjorie Taylor Green had all these kind of random complaints about the budget deal. You know? It has gender studies. It has woke components.

Things that you know, no one actually cares about. But then, I think her big issue is is doing something going forward. Because once the budget’s done, like Johnson has said, we have to get our budget done. And once we do that, we can address other issues. The next hot issue coming up has to be Ukraine funding.

And if she can get that secure that they’re not gonna do it, then that’s her win.

Alright. So now we have to talk about the other thing hanging over all this. If anybody’s been monitoring my ex, I’ve had a lot of thoughts over the weekend about About about my calendar. It was my friend’s fortieth birthday. I bumped into a couple Bulwark fans in Palm Springs, and I may have had a cocktail or two.

I was getting a little loose. I have a lot of thoughts about Mike Gallagher, but I wanna start first with Joe and Bill. So, Joe, So Gallagher and Buck are gone. Explain to me how their colleagues are just not consumed with contempt. For this choice to just quit.

And it’s like it’s one thing if you’re taking if you get promoted, you become the, you know, commerce secretary or something or even Even the Ben SaaS thing was a little eye rolly, but, like, you get to be the head of a university. Like, these guys are quitting for no reason. I but Ken Buck doesn’t have a job extensively. And Mike Gallagher is going to take a jump for a lobbyist, a government contractor.

Gallagher too is like typifies the whole great resignation situation because he is entering his prime. He was just handed a chairmanship of a committee that he wanted to create, that it was his pet project. And then halfway through was, like, I hate my life so much. I need to get out of here. And so I don’t think there’s contempt.

There’s jealousy. A lot of members wish they could do this, but a lot of members can envision a life outside of Congress. And, you know, being a member of Congress is central to their identity. And it became clear for Gallagher that, you know, there’s better things in life, and that might be taking a job at a large software company.

I mean, a large software company is one way to put it. And it’s like, literally, they were trying to do the wall. I mean, it’s Peter Teels gross government contracting company that was working on the wall. So, like, not exactly, you know, just like some neutral software company. But, like, Bill, this is not normal.

Right? I mean, you you’ve been around the block a little bit more. There are at least three that I can think of for with McCarthy McCarthy Gallagher and Buck. And then who is the guy Joe that left to, like, head up Youngstown State.

Bill Johnson?

Yeah. Bill Johnson. At least that’s at least that’s a job. Least he took a job. Kevin McCarthy doesn’t have a job.

He’s doing nothing. This is not normal, right, to just leave Congress to do nothing?

I mean, I said, too, the palette here to be fair is does a lot of things in addition to the wall, a lot of it defense and intelligence community related, which I suppose Gallagher cares about or knows about. But having said that, I don’t need to defend them at all. It used to be that you didn’t really quit in the middle of a term, because you thought it was wrong to quit in the middle of a term. You know, you told the voters you wanted the two year term, and unless you had an illness or really, as you say, a cabinet secretary type of appointment or something kind of extraordinary. You served out your term now.

You had announced now that you, as Gallagher did, that he wouldn’t run for reelection. You’d let let her open up the field so people could rent to succeed him. You do it in an orderly way. You let your colleagues plan for succession in terms of committees, but you would announce that you were retiring at the end of term. This notion that you just walk away from something where it used to be considered kind of an honor if your fellow citizens selected you to be one or four thirty five representatives in the house and you your flip side of that honor was to hopefully be a good representative and behave decently.

I’m not appointed that, but at least serve out your term. And now that’s just gone. It’s just part of the general if I could just sound like a questioning person who’s been around the block. It’s just part of a total decline of any sense of public service. I really can’t find it kind of extraordinary, actually.

And, Joe, several there were some some liberals that were messaging me saying that’s that actually what Mike Gallagher is doing is a five dimensional chess effort to hurt Mike Johnson that he’s leaving because he knows that it’s gonna be painful and that he’s actually he’s a secret. He’s doing us a secret service by leaving. You can tell that by the tone of my voice that I reject this, but maybe you have some sources. Is Mike Gallagher a Secret Podcast hero? For his resignation?

No. No? I whenever there’s, like, the idea of some scheme or some, like, if it would work in, an Aaron Sorkin script. It’s not real. It’s not real at all.

It’s like Mike Gallagher probably just hated his day to day sucks. This is the worst majority ever. They don’t do anything. They just pass CRs and fight. And he was just like, this is not worth it.

Get out of there.

Know, what’s amazing if I could just say, he he was head as you said, Joe, of this one committee that was set up for him. He was made chairman at a young age of this China committee. It did actual serious work and had hearings that actually people thought were reputable serious hearings about foreign policy. It got the TikTok bill passed. With a huge bipartisan majority, which is probably a good thing.

And in any case, is a real thing. It’s a serious beginning of getting serious about, you know, Chinese information operations in the US. I would have thought there would be more than they could he could do over the next six months just on that committee alone. So all this about how horrible it is to serve in the house. What does that mean incidentally?

What is this has also got this is where I’m now, like, Tim, and I’m following his lead and he’ll now go into much creative details. All this Oh, it’s such a terrible life. You know? What is so terrible? It’s frustrating a little bit.

You go vote a few times. You work three days a week. You have a two week vacation now. You have to do a couple of fundraisers, which you don’t have to do if you’re retiring anyway. It’s like the hardest thing in the world to serve out your whole term.

It’s really pathetic.

I I think that when you’re in the majority, it’s supposed to be really fun because you’re supposed to be rifling off pet projects, but the majority is so slim, and they’ve been so busy with trying to fund the government just passing CRs every, like, few weeks, just like one more CR, bro. Like, please, we’ll we’ll get it done this time. And, like, that’s not enjoyable. Like, they’re not actually legislating.

I don’t know. Matt Gates seems like he’s having fun. Yeah. I don’t understand why there isn’t nobody’s like, well, hey, maybe I could be a normie Mack Gates. Maybe I could have fun.

Maybe I could, go out there and and just be a troublemaker on behalf of Ukraine funding and on behalf of this TikTok bill. And I can go do interviews, and I can go poke people, and maybe I’ll make a deal with the Democrat. Like, why doesn’t anybody try that? That sounds okay. Is it that horrible?

Or I’ll ask Joe too, or you could go the upscale version, which is what people used to do when they were in the minority or in a majority way they didn’t have should do at times. Go give five serious speeches on US foreign policy in the twenty first century to the Council on foreign relations in Chicago, you know, counsel. And do all that kind of high tone stuff that people used to like to do if they got elected to Congress and were somewhat serious people and tell yourself maybe with some truth, even that I’m helping shape the debate in America here no matter who the next president is about what American foreign policy needs to look like in this new era. But though and you get much more attention, if you’re still a member of Congress when you do that, I think. But, no, that’s I guess it’s just so unpleasant for him to have to stay late on the house floor once every two weeks and deal with his colleagues so we dislike so much.

Well, I have a final round on this, but any final takes on this, Joe, like, I it basically is a sign that Maga has taken over.

Oh, yeah. The hallmark dysfunction of, like, how Maga operates has that’s the norm in the house. I saw, an article this morning, and it was about how when Trump becomes president again, there’s Republicans are in Congress who are already planning to take No. They’re not. They can’t tie their own shoes.

They’re not they can’t plan a day in advance of anything. So I I can’t envision a scenario where you know, they’re gonna get their act together. If all the all of the things that will happen in a potential trump second term will come from the executive.

It is just so unbelievably pathetic. Here’s the thing for the Tim Rantz segment. When he resigned, you know what he did? He sent a a book about life after public service to his colleagues that included, like, stories from seven presidents and what they did after they left the presidency. And he signed it, semperfy, I’m just like, are we fucking serious right now?

Like, you’re sending this letter, like lecturing people about how there is life after public service, with a ending note that you will always be faithful. Are you always faithful? You’re quitting your job. You’re quitting your job in the middle of the year. Like, there are so many people in Wisconsin.

Who have actual hard jobs that voted for him, that put him in there ostensibly that liked Mike Gallagher that wanted him to vote for their interests. Maybe some of those people don’t have the same interests as I do, but they asked for him to be a public servant. And, like, there was a while at least not really that long ago, Bill, like, even in my day where there was a sense that there was this obligation to the job that there was honor and service conservatism. It was basically the thesis of the two thousand eight campaign that John McCain ran at. And it’s pretty hard to imagine John McCain.

Just think about John McCain. Quitting Congress, quitting the Senate, to be like, yeah, you know, I’m gonna go become a contractor for Boeing. I wanna go be a Boeing analyst because I’m annoyed that Harry Reed or Mitch McConnell won’t bring up my campaign finance reform bill. And it’s preposterous. It was it would be a preposterous thing to think.

And there was a reason why it would be preposterous because it would be considered shameful. And and I, like, the thing that bugs me about the Mike Gallagher thing is that everybody wants to excuse make for him. Everybody wants to be like, oh, you you know, it is miserable to be, even the media, even the left. Like, it is miserable to be in the Republican conference. Like, it’s hard to blame these guys that are running for the exits.

It’s like, it doesn’t have to be that miserable. I don’t know. And I guess Mitt’s running for the exits, but Mitt sat for a long time. He’s serving on his term. He did the right thing.

He voted more conservative probably than I would on certain things, but then spoke out at times when, you know, George Santos or Donald Trump did horrible things. That’s an option. That is an option to just do your job do the right thing and whatever. Take some tomatoes. I have to sit alone at the at the lunch table.

Like, is this really that onerous of a call? And you mentioned the palletier thing. We should also probably mention that, by the way, Palletier was lobbying for the TikTok ban beforehand. So he gets through a bill. That’s probably the right bill, by the way.

Like, he immediately quits and goes to work for a lobbyist. And he does so in a way, and now he’s quitting. He does so in a way so that they can’t replace his seat. And again, some of the liberals on the some of the left, some people are like, this is great news. That he’s resigning when somebody can’t replace his seat.

And I don’t know. It’s kinda to me. It’s kind of, like, really. Can we just for a bigger picture, is that really good? Like, he’s just gonna leave the people of his district high and dry, and everything’s gonna be okay.

He’s gonna get invited to the council on foreign relations. He’s gonna get invited to the Trump White House. The Biden White House, he’s gonna get Biden on meet the press. He got invited on this podcast. He hasn’t taken me up on it yet.

And, like, there’s no shame associated with this. I don’t know. I feel like a man that, like, just by every account knows better says that he knows better and just walks away when the other option is still available, but he could stay in Congress. He could work with Akim Jefferies. He could work with Brian fitzpatrick.

He could try to get this stuff done. He could do the hard work. Like, that option was still available. And instead, he just quits to go take a cushy job for a fucking defense contractor. I I think it is extremely, extremely gross.

And, just as a final reminder, I wanna not take us to break me and Bill come back on the other side. I wanna just play a little audio from our friend, Mike Gallagher, on January six.

This is the cost of sentencing an effort by Congress to overturn the election and telling thousands of people that there is a legitimate shot of overturning the election today. Even though you know that is not true. We have got to stop this. Mr. President, You have got to stop this.

You are the only person who can call this off.

Actually, Donald Trump wasn’t the only person that could do the right thing. Mike Gallagher could have done the right thing too, but he decided not not to after he was sheltered and played scared in his capital office. So thanks for nothing, Mike Gallagher. Thanks for everything, Joe Perticone. Sign up for the press passengers letter.

We’re back on the other side of the bill. Well, after listening to a podcast about Donald Trump, we all need some self care. And so, in that spirit today’s sponsor, one skin is here to help you simplify your skin care regimen founded by four PhDs dedicated to skin longevity. One skin proves you don’t need a complicated routine to achieve better skin. Their topical supplements make it easy to help your skin stay younger and healthier without all the extra steps.

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After you purchased, they’ll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you It’s time to expect more from your skin care routine, invest in the health of your skin with one skin. Alright, I’m back with Bill Crystal. Mike Gallagher not man enough. I wanted to move on, but you reminded me in the break that I forgot something.

A week after that eloquent statement imploring Trump, you’re the person who can call this off. He voted not to impeach Trump in the house with some ridiculous both sides you know, statement about how well the Trump did was wrong, but, you know, frankly, for four years, everyone’s been doing everything wrong. And both sides have been wrong, and I I can’t vote to impeach. Mitt Romney, whom you mentioned, voted to convict Trump twice. He’s serving out his term.

Whatever once Coral, so some of what Mitt might have done, he has behaved honorably Liz Cheney followed out the logic of her actions and did unpopular things and got crushed in a primary. And she didn’t quit early. You know what? Liz Cheney actually served out her term. God forbid, you know, and tried to be a good representative till the end and tried to educate the American public about January six to leave.

And people are mean to her during that time too. Yes. And her

life probably wasn’t very pleasant sitting around the house with house Republican Conference. Right? But well, yeah. So I’m I’m totally with you.

Alright. Well, if Mike Gallagher wants to defend himself, semper fi, he’s always welcome on the Secret Podcast. Alright. Where do we go from here, Bill? My blood pressure is high.

Let’s just keep it up. Let’s keep it up. We had a vice presidential audition on the Sunday shows this weekend. Let’s take a listen to Little markup.

But you said it would be an honor to be offered a spot on his ticket, really?

Yeah. I think anyone who’s offered the opportunity to serve this country as vice president should be honored by the opportunity to do it. If you’re in public service. I’m in the senate because I want to serve the country. Being vice president is an important way to serve the country, but I’ve also been clear.

I’ve never talked to Donald Trump. I’ve never talked to anybody on team or family or inner circle about vice president. That’s the decision he’s going to make. He has plenty of really good people to pick from.

I mean,

there’s really good.

I mean, look what happened to the last guy. I mean, a mob stormed to the Capitol, literally calling to hang Mike Pence. Listen. And Trump defended those chance of hang wake pets?

I will tell you this that when Donald Trump was president of the United States, this country was safer. It was more prosperous.

I can’t. I’m not gonna listen to fucking Marco’s bullshit. I can’t. Let’s turn it off. It’d be an honor as John Carl, by the way, interviewing him, reminding him the last vice presidential.

There was a threat in hanging What do you think, Bill? That was your man.

I think I did vote for him here in Virginia in twenty sixteen. Your your man your man Jeff was out of the race by then. Oh my god. It’s hearing it really is. I hadn’t heard it.

I just, you know, skinned the transcript or whatever. It’s really horrible. I mean, a normal person, if I could say, would say what Mike Pence has mentioned, incidentally, I respect what Mike Pence did on January sixth. Right? Doesn’t Marco agree that Mike Pence should not have overturned the election?

But, no, he wants to be VP, and that’s what public service means sucking up to Donald Trump.

Yeah. It’s unbelievable. There was the the audio of Marco that Carl played in a different clip back when he was like, Marco, you called him a con man. You called him a con man. And and Marco was like, oh, that’s just campaign rhetoric.

It’s like, is that just campaign rhetoric to say that you’re to go from being like, hey, everyone that is voting for this man, you’re being conned to just going on to TV now and saying, I am tiering to be conned. I’m raising my hand to be part of the con, actually.

Yeah. They’re really bad. I mean, I in morning shots this morning, you know, it’s Andrew and I brought a little parts separately, and they’re slightly different from each other. I don’t care what you think I’d be on this. I mean, I think they flip sides of a similar point, but Andrew’s on Rona, Romany McDaniel, which I think you’ll discuss tomorrow.

And And he sort of says she rationalized her actions. She was able to sleep at night because she this was taking one for the team. Right? He makes fun of that some, but he also he seems to assume that she really did trouble sleeping at night. And I guess in my little piece sort of goes in the other direction and says we’re sort of beyond that.

And I I’m I’m willing to give any of them the benefit of the doubt now that they’re having difficulty sleeping at night or anything. Maybe Rich McConnell is. I don’t know. He seems like he’s a little more serious, but all the rest of them. So it’s just my question for you.

Does Marco go back and say, god. I hated having to do that, but I guess, you know, I just still think I’m there as VP. I could do some good, or he just goes back and just that’s okay. I did what I had to do. And now what’s the next step I could do to get job.

Right?

Oh, yes. I’m I’m adamant about this now. I because it’s been nine years. Right? And this was related to what I wrote about in the book in my interviews.

And much of what people told me in the interviews was like exactly you’d expect. Right? The one thing that actually surprised me when what and it was only in the off the record ones was when and I wasn’t talking to actual politicians. So I was talking to their advisors. When they would say to me, you know, we just feel like that we’ve been given no choice but to do this because the media is so mean to us because they’re never trumpers because my wife’s friend calls me a racist now because I supported him.

And, like, like, they all are so put upon. They all are so victimized. They all feel like such victims. They’ve they’ve donned the cap of victimization. And that builds over time.

And they surround themselves in a little net of people that also feel the same way, that feel like victims, and they only consume information that points out all the ways that their critics are disingenuous, and it grows and it grows and the resentment grows. I just I think every sign I see of Marco Rubio is a man that has decided that the real bad people out there are the media that are asking him hard questions about his moral failings. Like, I think that that’s what Marco has, I think, genuinely decided. So the bad people are those that are out to get them and that He’s on the side of the righteous and that Trump might have some failings and some flaws, but like net net, you know, there’ll be tax cuts and trump will do what he wants on Venezuela. And, like, that’s what matters.

I think that’s Marco’s genuine view. Even if you got them just rip shit wasted, I’m pretty sure that’s what he would say.

Yeah. And he’s, allegedly a Ukraine hawk and was always, of course, very strong on that, that kind of bush McCain foreign policy and still sort of says he is sometimes, except it’s no problem at all to serve Donald Trump who’s totally on on the opposite side of that on where the most important foreign policy issue of of our day.

And that’s the one that I really can’t decide whether they’ve rationalized it. I can’t decide if they believe the talking point because their talking point on like, well, when Trump was actually in, if you look at the actual policy, right, like, Trump was kind of tough on Russia’s words and Helsinki and the tweets, but, like, Obviously, we all know that well, that’s because there was a lot of the old bipartisan establishment was still doing his foreign policy, right, like the actual nuts and bolts of it, and that’s not gonna be true the next time. So Like, does Marco know that, or has he convinced himself of it? That’s the one I don’t know whether he’s bullshitting, whether he’s convinced himself that I the Trump policies were really what mattered, not the bleeds.

The sophisticated sort of outside types who want jobs in the next truck administration to be, you know, assistance secretary of state and so forth. There’s a new book out, the Trump Reagan synthesis and foreign policy. But you saw that. Oh my god. And Peter Birkiewicz, Santa Cabotetti.

No. I believe me. We had a good we had a good piece.

I tried to listen to counced with these two jokers, and I I only made it, like, eight minutes. I was like, I can’t do it.

Well, Gabe Shoffel, that a good piece of the Bulwark Friday thinks that ripping it apart, but I mean, that’s sort of how they if you’re on the on the more on the, you know, counsel on foreign relations side of things or maybe not counsel foreign relations, but some think tank where you wanna get a job, you rationalize it by inventing this mythical Trump Reagan synthesis, which does seem to ignore the fact that Trump is hard over against how Ukraine, which would be the single most regulated I think you could do. So I don’t quite know how

they but

I don’t have the patience to read that stuff, so I don’t even know how they try to rationalize that. But the psychological question, which you know, you and J. V. L, we’ve all talked about a lot. And so Andrea has this excellent piece on Ronda.

From my point of view, it’s tad too nice to remember maybe he’s right to do that for the for now in the sense of assuming that she’s taking her a little more, a little literally when she says that now she can say what she meant before she sort of had to suck it up and not say what she meant to us. Does she even think about that? I don’t know.

I think Andrew is right. And I said a segment in the book about the people that rationalize based on team players. I think that it’s true that Rhonda, like, if Veronica could have said whatever she wanted, on January sixth, she would have said this is bad. And she did say that for one day. And so I think probably if she could have kept saying that, she would have But the second, it became politically untenable.

Obviously, she flipped, and then she said exactly the opposite thing. And so, you know, I’m sure that there’s some things that they think that Trump doesn’t think that they’re hedging on. But in the grand scheme, the point is, like, do they feel bad about it? Do they recognize the risk? Do they recognize the moral failings?

Do they recognize the ethical? I I don’t think so. Okay. One person does Lisa Murkowski. Let’s just kind of take a deep breath and get some not not perfect, but a little bit of reality injected into the podcast, Lisa Murkowski.

I wish that, that as Republicans. We had a we had a nominee that, I could get behind I certainly can’t get behind. Don’t travel.

Are you considering being an independent

at this point? Oh, I think I’m very independent minded.

Officially, though.

Officially, I just regret that our party is seemingly becoming a party of Donald Trump. Yeah.

You becoming an independent caucus with a public that’s something you’re open to?

I I am navigating my way through some very interesting political times. Let’s just leave it at that.

Okay. Not as forceful as you, Abe would have wanted, but, alright, signs of life there. Actually, before I take us to the dark place, they’ll want you. Do you have any thoughts on on Lisa Murkowski?

Yeah. No. I’ve I’ve so in order at the mall that I probably am slightly not you know, it’s much better what she said than obviously what ninety five percent of her colleagues have said, which is she’s saying she won’t support Trump, which is not a little thing, and it allows probably some number of voters out there to sort of know of her, not just in Alaska and say, okay, you know, it’s okay to be a traditional Republican and not support Trump. So just like with Mike Pence and with others, romney. I think it’s very good for each one.

Any Republican who’s elected official.

Gathering them all together. I do think, you know, packaging it in an ads in the fall, etcetera. That will be good.

I mean, I would be happier if she also internally had really moved beyond a little bit this. I’m sort of an independent minded republican stuff. If Trump wins, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins should call us with the Democrats to prevent the Republicans from controlling this edit. That for me would be a serious thing to prevent genuine damage to this country. Have they I mean, yeah, this is a question for you, Tim.

I mean, do you think they’ve even thought about that? Is that, like, am I so far out there that this is, like, beyond?

So diluted together, though. Like, we’re just still on the same wavelength because that was literally gonna be my question to you, but I decided I was like, let’s talk in reality first before I get to Fantasy West Wing, you know, dark, dark world where Donald Trump is president again. I don’t know that it has crossed their mind, but I do think And I’ve I’ve got some Lisa Murkowski people in my life. And for people that have Susan Collins, people in their lives, I think starting to plant that seed is maybe not a bad thing. Because I I think that if you look at reality, if the election in the fall just, like, kind of held to form Right?

And, like, Trump wins a narrow with Trump winning narrowly, wouldn’t held the form. But if the Senate held the form, right? Trump wins narrowly, and Republicans only took up senate seats in the red states, West Virginia, Ohio, and Jonathan Last, where the Democrats have incumbents, they would have fifty two. Right? Senators.

And so, I guess, actually, two flipping wouldn’t solve it, right, because it would still

The tester would have to hang out amongst them. Yeah. Yeah. We’re still hang on. So shared Vanid, Ohio, but I think that’s possible.

You could go fifty one.

I think we’re into pretty fantasy territory here, but they should the the lady should start there. I don’t think that they’ve started thinking about it, but they should. One day. I’m not losing with the football here. I don’t have hope, but, you know, maybe one day, Susan Collins, I’ll prove me wrong.

Alright. On the news of the day, so Trump is in the courtroom. I don’t know if we’ve actually talked about this. I have kind of convinced myself that the Stormy Daniels case can harm Trump some. Sarah Longwell the opposite side of that.

Where do you fall down? They’re they’re in today on Monday. They’re trying to delay the trial. It was set for April. It was set for March, actually, but they delayed it till April.

And now they’re trying to delay it again. Where do you stand on kind of the existence of this trial. And it’s political implications, if any.

I’ve been very dubious that it could hurt Trump, but I also think, you know, what? We don’t know. Things are very unpredictable in this kind of era who knows what someone will say on the stand that Trump will react to and will get huge national coverage and suddenly some number of people will have to face up to things that they didn’t before. I used to be a little more, like, I wish this weren’t happening. And now I’m sort of look if it’s gonna happen, let’s have it happen effectively and in a way that would damage Trump.

But I’ll just maybe I’ll just say one more thing which I was talking with someone on Friday, smart guy who said, you know, I wonder if does anyone know about the e Jean Carol, you know, case? And I my impression is many people do not know about it. And his question was, what if people knew about that? I mean, he really was found liable for sexual assault in a civil case granted, but still, the judge said it was the equivalent of rape. With some number of voters kinda go, my god.

I didn’t really think it was that bad. I knew he boasted on that, you know, access Hollywood tape, but he actually did what he boasted about. And then some And I it was a good point. It was sort of I hadn’t really thought about it, and I’ve sort of been a skeptic that any of the stuff would matter. And, you know, the kind of personal stuff that’s been litigated so many times, obviously.

But I I guess it made me think, I don’t know. We don’t know what affects different voters. Right? I I don’t feel I know Sarah Longwell knows much more than I do, but don’t feel I know one of exiting voters. So I’m sort of neutral on the brand case.

I guess this is kind of like a known unknown to do our Rummy, but I’ve always been of the view that, like, it should be publicized more. I think that essentially what happened was the access Hollywood tape comes out in fall of twenty sixteen. And then the Comey letter happens. Right? And then trump wins.

And, like, this kind of conventional wisdom just congealed among the media, among Democrats, among Republicans, that voters did not care about Trump’s comments on the access Hollywood tape. And, like, maybe that’s true, but maybe it’s not. Right? Like, Trump’s numbers did go down right after that, and they went back up. And so the the kind of result of that conventional wisdom can billing is that as new things popped up, even in the early trump administration, this was I would I would call and rant at White House reporters or friends of mine.

That I was like, you know, there were new developments. That there was a I mean, because Trump had, like, twenty something accusers. Some reserve hosts is one example. I remember the summer observos story There were some developments early in twenty seventeen, and he wouldn’t get asked about it. Like, they wouldn’t ask about it, you know, because everybody had just kinda decided, well, whenever, they people don’t care about we’re gonna move on.

It’s old news. It’s like, it’s I don’t know that it’s old news necessarily. I mean, I I think that people know he was a cat, but If the details of these twenty some odd cases and this Jean Carroll won, obviously, being prime, you know, given recent developments, if there was a real concerted effort to remind and publicize people about that over the summer and the fall, might there not be some people that get I just think that to say we know for sure that people don’t care about that because of access Hollywood is a fallacy. Like, I think that we actually saw after access Hollywood, his numbers move, but they just moved back the other way as the news environment changed. And and there were a lot of other I mean, there were certainly sexism involved in Hillary, and there are a lot of factors to play here.

It wasn’t like that was the only factor in the fall of twenty sixteen. So anyway, the other Trump news item He needs to come up with some cash. He’s gotta pay his bond. Meanwhile, JBL had a trial last week that everybody should listen to. If you care about, like, Trump social media company and the spec that funded it in the merger with the spec.

It’s it’s pretty technical, but it’s also just a wild story and totally worth your time. But the interesting element I wanna pull up from that is this guy, Jeff Yass, who, is an investor in ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok. He is the guy that met with Trump and has put money into a pro trump Super PAC. And by all accounts, got trumped change his mind on the TikTok ban. Now the report is that his out of the New York Times in Wall Street Journal this morning is is that he and also has invested in this merger this merged company that has now taken control of truth social and trump’s various social media properties.

So this is all as swampy as it gets. Right? Like, a Trump needs an injection of cash, both personally and for his campaign. There’s this billionaire guy that is in Kahootz with a with a Chinese spyware app that is giving him money. Like, there’s so much more evidence here than anything that people put forth in the hunter Biden case, for example.

I guess to ask you is there hope that this will matter is kind of silly, but, like, this is something worth worth hitting him on. Right? I mean, I I, you know, the drain the swamp thing is a central part of his case here.

Yeah. That whole spec thing, if that’s how you say is is so corrupt. I mean, if it’s literally corrupt, it is so corrupt in spirit, people are basically buying out, you know, saving Trump from the judgment that he owed, and god knows what they expect to return in a trump second term. Right? I mean, one can only imagine.

And guess this is my point in the this is what drove me a little crazy over the weekend away, but my little thing this morning. I mean, it’s all happening in broad daylight. This is in, like, SCC records and stuff. You know, the swamp metaphor in a way is a little misleading because now we’re out of the swamp. I used to say, you know, it’s gonna take us a while to go down the path of Orban’s Hungary because we’re very different country, courts, rule of law, institutions, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I don’t know. We’re getting there pretty fast, you know. It is all happening in broad daylight. And the corruption is beyond anything that one could have imagined, honestly. I I would say personally.

I think it is. I I guess there’s always some corrupt Lbj Nixon B. B. B. B.

Rosa, but I mean Sure. We’re at a level now.

Agua was taking some cash, you know, some paper bag cash, but it wasn’t like millions

ten thousand bucks if I’m not mistaken. Was it that or something? And he was forced to resign as vice president. After they won a landslide victory. That was just a little bit more the rule of law.

So, I mean, Trump is a real threat to the rule of law, just as a candidate, let alone even as a second term president, and he’s getting away with a ton of stuff I don’t know that he can be prosecuted for all of it. You go a little crazy. I guess trying to call him at all of this, but and he hasn’t prosecuted for a few things, but the degree to which we’re further down the road than I would have hoped to god knows in terms of undercutting and undermining the rule of law is really what striking to me. And incidentally, I don’t know if you talked about this Friday that I married that piece of the New York Times on the Justice Department of Merrick Ireland and the slowness with which they got the the investigation going. That’s another case where I also thought at the time, oh, look, it’s good to have someone cautious in there, and we have to reestablish normalcy.

But I think I was just wrong. That gave him a year where they didn’t investigate anything. They had the silly theories that they had to get the the little fish to turn on the big fish, which was ludicrous in this case.

It was all out in the open.

It was all in the open. That’s the thing. It was all in the open, and and it’s all in broad daylight. And now he’s still fifty fifty to be the next president.

Alright. We should end with that because it’s good final ramp at anytime David ball sacks does something really stupid. I wanna bring it up. This was the Ron DeSantis supporter who does the all in podcast. He’s a reactionary right wing tech guy.

So there’s a terror attack in Moscow. Hundred and thirty seven people died. Isis takes credit for it. There’s video of it. We have the four ISIS guys.

Four of them have been apprehended. We don’t have them. The Russians have them, but they’ve been apprehended in Russia. And here’s, here’s David Ball Sachs’s tweet about this the Ukrainian government was behind the terrorist attack as looks increasingly likely, the US must renounce it, also become complicit. It’s got two point three million views on Elon’s site.

The seriousness of all this stuff seems to be really lost on these. Right? You know, like, this is, like, my big takeaway from all of this is just like, now we just get to say whatever the hell we want and support Donald Trump. We have an idiot reality TV host that is gonna be the president of the United States and anything that we can do to troll the people that are actually serious and actually trying to solve problems is a win, and I can just I can just go out there and throw out stuff like this and hope to gonna be no repercussions when, like, there could be real repercussions for that. This kind of loose talk.

Yeah. And I I think we’re this way, baby. Twenty sixteen, Paul Manafort had to conceal the fact that he was colluding with Putin and with the Russians and helping Trump. Now it’s all, again, just as you know, this guy is perfectly happy tweeting away his pro putin anti Ukraine lie defamation of you, you know, the Ukraine is somewhat behind this. And he tweets it and two point three million people follow it, and no one on the right feels like, oh, I better condemn that.

Mike Gallagher isn’t really worried about how how could he say that, you know?

Has Ron DeSantis said anything about that? You know, I again, it’s like, oh, well, does Ron DeSantis to condemn every supporter? I don’t know. He announced his campaign on a Twitter space with this guy. And Elon Musk.

And the three and Elon Musk is out there, you know, tweeting right replacement theory stuff, and this guy’s tweeting conspiracies. Like, you at some point, Ron DeSantis might wanna say, hey, just for the record. Like, I appreciated some of these guys support, but some of these things are saying is really crazy, and we need to be more responsible. Like, that’s what some of the governor of a major state might say in these situations. But No.

Okay. Well, real men of courage, David Sachs, Mike Gallagher. We’ll be back next week with one from Miller Crystal. We are both a guest today. We have a banker coming for you tomorrow.

So please make sure to check back on the podcast. We appreciate you all very much, Bill. Thanks for doing it.

Thanks, Tim.

We’ll see you back here tomorrow for another the Secret Podcast, peace. Don’t The Secret Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.