Bill Kristol and Sarah Longwell: Is the Wishcasting Over?

Hello, and welcome to the Bulwark podcast we have emerged from our government imposed darkness and made it to daylight savings time. I’m so excited about that. We’ve got Bill Crystal here, Bill. How you doing?

I’m fine, but you’re pro daylight savings time

for permanent daylight savings. Permanent doing savings, I want to be able to take my child to the park after school. It is it is very confusing to me that anybody would not be for this because they want it to be light at six thirty in the morning for some reason. I don’t understand these people, and I’m happy that we’ve successfully once again, just ripped the shackles of their daylight oppression.

I’m for having one thing through the year. I’m I’m very much against having an hour stolen from us. Unaccountably, and you wake up Sunday morning and suddenly it’s so my god. It’s so late.

Yeah. I’m with you. Permanent daylight savings time forever. Folks stick around to the end. We’ve got Sarah Longwell here.

We’re gonna talk a little bit about her focus groups and, and we’re doing our first mailbag segments. You’re not gonna wanna miss that. Okay, Bill. Before we get to, buying an ad and a her testimony and Orban and a rant that I have, well, there’s some audio from the weekend of the sender from Alabama, Katie Brit, that I’d like us to listen to together.

First and foremost, I’m a mom, And like any mom, I’m going to do a pivot out of nowhere into a shockingly violent story about trafficking. And rest assured every detail about it is real, except the year where it took place and who was president when it happened.

This is Scarlet Johansson. It’s Saturday night live doing her Katie Brit. I spent a lot of time with this with Will over the weekend, but at that point, we hadn’t gotten. There was an independent journalist, former AP reporter, kind of tracked down the most shocking element of her rebuttal was kind of the fake crying that she was doing when talking about a real story that everyone should have sympathy for about a rape victim, but the problem was she was heavily implying this was happening because of the Biden border policies, and the event happened in two thousand and four. During the Bush administration.

In Mexico.

In Mexico.

Five hundred miles from the border. I mean, terrible, of course, but I’m not a huge S and L family sales, but it was excellent to skip with Katie Britt, and my only thought about is, wasn’t she supposed to be the Normandy Republican, the Sound choice for VP, the chamber of commerce favorite, the former, Shelby chief of staff.

Yeah.

I mean, it shows how crazy these, I mean, living inside scratch, I had some, but the actual speech she gave in the attempt to be, hyperbolic and, you know, I don’t know what you call that even though, you know, this is a ridiculous emoting and performative stuff. It it was sort of a nice snapshot of a sampleishment Republicanism in the age of trouble.

Yeah. And it’s a snapshot, I think of how uncomfortable they are still. Right. Like, they’re all faking it. Right.

I think it is a parable or it’s just a a microcosm, I guess, of a broader trend, which is all these guys don’t don’t really know what they’re supposed to do to appeal to Maga World. And so they’re faking it. And so she was just faking it in the most ostentatious way possible. One thing I was thinking about before I went to bed last night, And Bill, I always want your historical perspective. So I rewatched Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindles speeches, which were markedly better than the Katie Brit speech, honestly.

If you, like, just watch them all back to back. I was worried I had recency bias. Then that made me think, is this the worst political speech of all time? And because, like, When I think about the things that have been terrible, like, the Mark Sanford press conference or the Gary Heartpress like, I think, like, they’re always, like, press conferences or debates, Admiral, Stockdale. I couldn’t think of, like, a set speech where you nobody’s questioning you.

You get to prepare. It’s on your own terms and you still face plant. That epically. So I didn’t prepare you for this, but anyway, I just wanna leave that little mark.

Yeah. I wouldn’t quarrel with the worst. And, you know, just one tiny it says that she wrote this personally, or she and her very small Senate staff who aren’t used to the national pressure had to do this. This was done for her by the entire Republican establishment by the senatorial committee by the RNC. She would have had access to Mitch McConnell’s stat.

You know, I I know how these, you know, too, how these spots is to see.

Well, specifically, the two people that we’re coaching are were the RNC, the my former colleagues of the RNC, Katie Walsh, Mike Shields, who were, you know, at the top of the RNC establishment. Right? So it wasn’t as if, like, it’s some random Alabama yokels or something. Right. You know?

Okay. That’s enough for Katie Brett. Wanna get your take on the Biden speech because I haven’t heard it, I guess. But, before that, I kinda wanna combine these things. I thought it was interesting, right, coming off of the state of the union.

Divided campaign, which is much more flushed with cash than the Trump campaign, put out an ad that tried to, I think, define the choice here of this election, and and I’m interested in your take on it. Let’s listen to the first real by now of the general election given.

Look, I’m not a young guy. That’s no secret. But here’s the deal. I understand how to get things done for the American people. I led the country through the COVID crisis Today, we have the strongest economy in the world.

I passed the law that lowers prescription drug prices. CapSense is under thirty five dollars a month for seniors. For four years, Donald Trump tried to pass an infrastructure law, and he failed. I got it done. Now we’re rebuilding America.

I’ve passed the biggest law in history to combat climate change because our future depends on it. Donald Trump took away the freedom woman choose. I’m determined to make grove weigh the law of the land again. Donald Trump believes the job of the president is to take care of Donald Trump I believe the job the president’s to fight for you, the American people, and that’s what I’m doing. I’m Joe Biden, and I approve this message.

Can we do one more take?

Look, I’m very young, energetic and handsome. What time am I doing this for?

It’s like he’s reading JBL, I think, whoever script wrote that, or maybe that’s just the obvious thing to do, address the age stuff head on, make a joke about it, contrast about Donald Trump caring about himself versus Joe Biden actually getting things done. What’s your take on on that attempt to address the Biden vulnerabilities?

Yeah. I think it’s good, and it was a very it was a good speech. I’m happy the campaign is revved up. And I don’t know whether it will change the dynamics politically of the race. That’s what I I just have no confidence in my judgment on that.

You know, I could like it, invite supporters could like it. The Haley voters get moved back to to Biden or back to Biden. The younger voters get reminded of what’s at stake. I do think ultimately, obviously, they just have to keep hammering away at what’s at stake. It’s not a choice of gee Jonathan Last incumbent or the current incumbent.

It’s kind of a tough call on their policies. And, you know, it can’t be that. It’s gotta be the existential threat of Trump to democracy at home and to freedom and democracy abroad. I thought there were two good pieces of the bulwark this morning. People should read by Tracinski and, Gabe Schoenfeld on on at home and abroad.

So what really is at stake

I hear you on feeling uncertain. One of my friends made a funny joke on tech with a text chain going during the Katie Brit speech. You know, we’re all making fun of it. And then after twenty five minutes. Somebody replies to the text chain.

It’s like, are we sure that this is bad, right, as bad as we think? Right? Like, if we if we just totally lost our ability to judge what a bag of people like. And, and I was like, no. I’m pretty I’m pretty sure this is really bad.

Actually, I’m I’m almost certain that this is horrible, but I I hear you on who knows, you know, how much this will break through, and and we don’t have any quantitative data to demonstrate it. But I I think that clearly just the vibe shift from Democratic world and Biden world is real. Like, whether that trickles down at all and because some of the biden number problems, not not enough to win. Right? But when you’re looking at, like, the times poll where he’s down five, for example, some of that is just kinda cleaning up people that are democrats.

Who are concerned either about age or Gaza are still kind of hoping that there’s gonna be another option getting in the race. Right? And so you would think that a week like this might at least help on the margins, like, start that process.

Which would be good. It would have its own effect in terms of, you know, reassuring and cheering up. And and stopping people like me from carping that maybe does a better Democratic candidate and next generation and all that.

They stopped as a recline. As as her client has been bullied. He already did a comm doing EMEA Kolpa. I mean, this is a this is a weak need liberal pundit class.

The argument of I think of clients, as I recall, and certainly mine was always that there was a risk that he isn’t wouldn’t be a good candidate in twenty twenty four. It wasn’t that he’s senile or that he is he and his staff are incompetent of governing the nation for the next nine months or maybe even for the next five years. So the one speech and one ad, obviously, don’t really answer that at its March. And let’s see. But look, it’s encouraging.

I was chewed up. I watched the speech and, and chewed up by that. I didn’t watch Katie Brits response, so I didn’t have the real time experience. If that will be great when polls come out Wednesday and Katie Brit’s fave on fave is, you know, thirty two fave, twenty one on fave. People thought the speech was very moving, you know, higher ratings for a BP, she would bring over some swing voters as a BP choice.

That’s gonna be the moment where we all go into total one hundred percent despair.

I don’t think that’s gonna happen. I think that for all of Donald Trump’s flaws, one thing that he has is a casting ability. And I think that he wants that casting audition and said, no. Thank you, ma’am. I guess really quick one more thing on the age question and and Biden vigor.

The other side of that coin is this week with the her testimony. You know, thoughts about what to watch for there or, you know, concerns, opportunities what you think Democrats should do?

I mean, it’s testifying tomorrow. There’s a special counsel here who had the report that talks about Biden’s age a bit. You know, there’s been an attempt by Democrats and maybe true to some degree to say he’s pretty conservative. So Trump appointee is just the US attorney the other, he was supported in that by the Democratic senators from Delaware, and his reputation’s pretty good. I don’t know.

I think if her seems like a reasonable guy, it’ll give credibility to that report. If he seems part of it, it won’t. It’s probably smarter than Biden people that you think to schedule the state of the union, the one, March seventh, they got past March fifth, The race was ended, time for refocus, they did a good job, and I wonder if the after effect of it is to minimize the likely effect or importance really of of hers testimony. So they got a good a good week here from March fifth, I would say, to hopefully, through tomorrow,

Yeah. I do think that that was smart, and it was notable. There wasn’t kind of a lot of commentary on that, but it was later than usual. Actually. Yeah.

And so, I think that was intentional and smart. As far as audience is concerned, it was huge audience, actually. It was another thing that we’ve learned since Friday. I think five million more people just on a TV audience than than last year. And so, obviously, there’s interest.

We’re in we’re in an election year. I think we all kind of sense that, but I think that clearly that was a smart strategic move. The bias towards news, which I always complain about, is always the new part. Right? And this has been a frustrating thing during the entire era, but it might work to Biden’s favor here.

It’s like, is her gonna be able to say anything that’s new? Frankly, is it possible that maybe some of the the new parts of his testimony are him caveatting some of the stuff that he said, you know, in the written reports. I don’t know. I I I guess potentially, you know, if he is the conservative rat fucker that some of the Democrats are accusing of Bing. Maybe he’ll he’ll drop some new anecdotes or something, but I don’t know.

It’s it doesn’t seem like the type of thing that offers a lot of kind of new fodder. I guess we’ll we’ll have him speaking about it on video. So, you know, you could run that on fox. But besides that,

Yeah. No. I think that’s right. Yeah. Just one last thing on the kind of March fifth more.

I mean, when Haley was in the race, it was actually for for flaws, kind of reminder that what a next generation candidate would be like. I do wonder if maybe what the Biden campaign has been counting on is happening it out to some degree, which is people are beginning to focus on, okay. This is very, very most likely the choice. And let’s stop all the, you know, Bill Crystal Wishcasting about next generation, and really get serious about the fact that it’s Biden and Trump. But I feel like the last week has been a pretty good beginning.

If if I were in the Biden camp it up at hope and maybe think that finally we’re getting what we need, which is the real focus on Biden versus Trump instead of lots of complaints about the incumbent. It’s been a little more of a choice and a little less of a referendum as the political pros say.

I’ve said from the start amidst all of your You know, Patty cake that I was gonna wait until April twentieth, four twenty to start panicking for this very reason. I want Haley to be out, and I want that to sink in. You know, and I think that takes time and there’s a polo lag. You know, if we get towards late April and until we’re still down five, you know, I’m gonna have a brown paper bag, to me for every episode of the podcast, but, we’ll see.

Sosniq says Memorial Day or July fourth, that that’s when the impressions sink in traditionally if you look at incumbents, hard to move people after that. After that, it’s the noise of the conventions. It’s debates, non debates. It’s the day to day of the campaign, but it’s sort of that becomes the story. And that’s unpredictable, of course.

But the actual judgment of Biden he thinks by Memorial Day or or maybe July fourth gets fairly settled. Yeah.

Alright, Doug. I think that’s a democratic pollster. We maybe need a little segment here with any little music for this. Occasionally, I have a rant that I don’t have another place to get it out And so we’re gonna do a little thing where I rant, and you just kind of get to respond to my rant, if that’s okay. And this is not a traditional interview, usually an interview or the you are asking to interviewee the question, but I’m, you know, I’m I’m changing the conventions here for this podcast.

Okay? Fine. And my rant is about the brouhaha over Joe Biden saying the word illegal during the state of the union? What happened for those that kind of missed this? Was Marjorie Taylor Green is sort of dressed like a kind of like a racist Charlie Sykes in the crowd, and I stole that joke for someone else.

And she is shouting at him about Lake and Riley, who’d been killed by an illegal immigrant, and, she’s shouting the audience and Biden acknowledges her and holds up the pin, the Lake and Riley pin that she had given him. As you walk down the aisle, and then he acknowledges the family. And throughout all this green is shouting from the audience, killed by an illegal, by an illegal, by an Will Saletan Biden, off the cuff retorts to her. Yeah. By an illegal.

That’s right. But how many thousands of people are killed by legals to her parents, I say my heart goes out to you? So kind of an awkward exchange. Right? But all in all, it, like, it seems like Biden is the winner of this exchange.

Like, MTG thinks she has a Gotcha. Biden slaps her down. Like, he’s responding to her use of the word illegal by trying to make a point that She is the one that is politicizing this that she keeps bringing up this one murder despite the fact that there’s a lots of crime that’s happening and and, you know, that happens. And oftentimes, if you look at immigrants, they they tend to commit these crimes at a at a lower rate. Right?

So this is the point he’s trying to make. Obviously, if you’re in a Lincoln Douglas debate, not being shouted down by a crazy person in the audience, maybe you say it more deeply. Despite all that, after this great state of the union, where Biden’s showing vigor, where even Bill Crystal is starting to come around, The Democrats it’s Democrats that are complaining. Here’s the headline. Progressive, few met Biden, business insider, lucky, cash growth, treated about how this was incendiary and wrong.

Senator Alex Padilla, Democratic Center of California, said the president’s ad lib was deeply disappointing. Are you kidding me, Bill? I’m deeply disappointed and Alec Pedia? Like, what does this person do? I never see this fucking guy’s name.

He’s not doing anything. He’s not doing anything to help the Biden campaign. And, like, he pops his head up to wag his finger at Joe Biden? Like, in the context of the speech, does anybody actually think that he was trying to be offensive? Like, obviously not Like, does anybody think that Joe Biden was in this exchange, the one that was not being, you know, on the side of of immigrants and not being on the side of migrants.

Like, of course, I it’s Marjorie Taylor Green. It is shouting and being an insane person. Like, why are you waving your finger at Biden? Like, to what end? So, like, what is the end?

I get it. If you’re a Democrat and you’re mad about it and over Gaza, over a policy, and you’re trying to get them to change the policy. Okay. I’m not saying that you can’t criticize Joe Biden. Like, that’s totally appropriate.

We do it here. Obviously, you wanna add advocate for policies. This, like, supposed gaffe isn’t gonna change anything. It’s not gonna change anybody’s life to make him apologize. It’s not gonna change his worldview.

He uses the word undocumented, almost of the time. It’s not gonna, like, change the policies or the treatment of anybody. It’s gonna do nothing these liberals are just shouting do better at him to try to berate him and, like, the net result of this Is Biden apologizing? What should’ve been a friendly interview with Jonathan Last Park? You have thought it would’ve been a friendly interview.

So now he’s gotta apologize. All the news is about how he apologized about this. Everyone in my MAGa Twitter feed is dunking on him. And, like, the people that criticize it for this, the Alex Padias of the world, what did they get? Like, at best they achieved nothing.

At worst, they gave a news cycle to the person that is planning mass deportation camps. Like, that’s what you did. Like, you gave an assist to the person that is planning nasty deportation camps and the divine’s opponent to no end. You know, if they were bullying Biden or pushing it because they wanted to change some feature of the of the asylum policy and make it more humane, like, okay. At least that would have an impact on people’s lives.

They’re just doing random fucking speech codes just to give an assist to Donald Trump in, like, virtue signal from California. You do better, Alex Padilla. Like, with friends like these bill, like, what are we gonna do here? Am I overstating this? Am I letting myself get a little too riled up about this?

But this seems like a really stupid cell phone by the Democrats.

No. It’s an excellent rant, and I would just make one last approach. He is a democratic senator. You know, we are independent people. And and and other level of commentators are independent people.

And they get to say, I think that’s unfortunate or I think in the future, people should say x y or z, and they get to of course criticize the administration as they choose as we choose. As you say, if a democratic senator wants to pro if he wants to propose amendments, and they did, I’d maybe vote against that immigration compromise. That’s legit, I think. And if he wants to say we should do this on Title forty two, that’s legit. But, yeah, it’s just a performative He’s an elected official who’s supposed to support the the nominee of his party and is not on something serious, not on something where he thinks he’s gonna help him politically on something where he’s been trying to get through to the White House for two months privately, and they finally won’t they won’t take his call, and he has to say something just gratuitously, what courting the favor of what?

I mean, who exactly anyway.

Activist, liberal progressive activist. Why? It’s not he’s not up for an election. He’s not in the middle of the election. He’s just finger wagging Joe Biden.

You know, it’s like, oh, eighty one year old man up there on stage, like, dealing with a heckler. It’s like, I’d like to see Ospidea go

Making the right point. Decency of ninety nine point nine percent of immigrants, documented or undocumented and making it a substantive point to the degree. It was substantive that, you know, what, you’re just exploiting this horrible murder and what and what about the I mean, so yes. I I agree. It wasn’t as even if Biden was going the wrong direct.

It’s one thing If you don’t like Biden’s being too nice to this in Yahoo in the past, you criticize that. Okay. That’s a substantive thing, and you could change the policy. This is him Doing the right thing. He’s fighting Margery Taylor Green.

Right?

I think he’s fighting Margery Taylor Green. And also, by the way, just as one more aside, the guy was a murderer. Okay. So it’s like we’re gonna do, like, if we’re gonna do the o, mister president, you should do better and be nicer. Like, maybe find an example where the person that is supposedly offended here isn’t someone that killed a innocent college student who is just out for a run.

So, anyway, screw you progressives for trying to you know, unnecessarily snatch defeat from the jaws of victory on this one. Okay. While we’re ranting, before I lose you, I’d like to rant about Victor Orban. Well, no. I guess I’d like to rant about Donald Trump and his treatment of Victorabad, who’s at Marilago this weekend and was given a king’s welcome at the president’s Elba of cougars and attendants.

We’re very excited to see him. And let’s, let’s take a listen to what the former president said about the Hungarian auto

There’s nobody that’s better smarter or a better leader than Victor or Bob. He’s fantastic as you know, the prime minister party, and does a great job. He’s a non controversial figure because he said this is the way it’s gonna be, and that’s the end of it. He’s the boss. And he does a great leader, fantastic leader in Europe and all over the world.

Fantastic leader, a little cheery house band in the background. Bill?

It made me feel kinda sick. I mean, I met some of the liberals in in Hungary who were trying to resist Orban. It’s not like resisting Putin. I don’t, you know, they’re free to do that. But, of course, the Orban’s taking up control of huge numbers of businesses, media, the universities in that kind of more insidious authoritarian way would be more of a model for Trump incidentally.

So, you know, we’re not gonna all be locked up on January twenty first, twenty twenty five, but the kind of way which she would pressure people through the justice department. DOD and all this kind of stuff is, in fact, or von Nesc, if that’s a word. And so, but to see an American president praising that, former president, a predecessor, as Biden likes to say, but the nominee of one of our two major parties, yeah, really, I can’t even quite think of an example like that. You know, there were other nominees in my youth who were Democrats that we thought were kind of not sufficiently militant in standing up to the Soviet Union and made but but did weeds that anyone ever invite someone, you know, in an election year to be lauded at his own home, I guess you could call it, whatever, at his own place, his own elbow, who’s explicitly a critic as an ire of, you know, liberal democracy and explicitly embraces illiberal democracy.

Yeah. And I guess somebody could say, well, you know, we’ve had bilaterals with she or things like that. I I we criticized on this podcast that kind of treatment of she’s welcome in California for example. But again, I that is even still different, right, that it’s like, okay. You’re trying to, you know, figure out you know, how to do bilateral relations, you know, with another country, another leader.

Like, that is a category difference from really, like, campaign surrogacy is what this is. And just, like, lavishing praise, unqualified praise on somebody that has crackdown on speech rights that has crackdown on lgbtq, crackdown on immigrants, and all the things that Trump is planning on doing. And and on top of that, you know, there was an Orban interview. I saw it was in Hungarian so we’re not gonna play it. Around the time of the visit where, you know, he talks about how Trump is gonna just stop funding the Ukrainian resistance and how he’s and that is a good thing.

And so, you know, it’s almost like sort of it was praising Orban, but also Putin by extension.

This isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s happening when there was important foreign policy issue facing us as you create in Russia. Orban has been the most conspicuous defender Putin in the European Union to praise Orban, is in that respect, at this moment, is to attack Ukraine and to praise Putin. And to and so about said, Trump seems to have said privately. I don’t worry.

I’m cutting off all the aid to Ukraine. So that is what it’s take. You know, I did this conversation with Tim Snyder, the great Yale. Historia.

It’s really good. I listened to it over the weekend. Folks and listen to it.

Thank you, of Ukraine, Russia, Eastern Europe. I said, so they went out to Ukraine issues so important. He said it really is the litmus test because It’s not just about foreign policy. It tells you what you think about the world and about America at this point. And for Trump to be with Orban and, therefore, with Putin, For me, that says it all.

Yeah. We’ll put that in the show notes. It’s a crystal conversation with Tim Snyder. You you folks should listen to it. Okay.

Lastly, I got a kind of a cryptic message from you that was intriguing. Over the weekend. You said, you’d like to talk about my encouraging two days at a Liberty Fund Conference. I don’t when I hear the Lord’s Liberty Fund, my Spidey sense starts to get up. That maybe that might be a cryptic Magga group.

So tell us what was encouraging about, your time with with some of these conservative academics.

It was a small kind of academic seminar. It was on liberalism, and there were lots of it was mostly younger people. I sort of I was kind of a co organizer. They asked me to do it, so I tried to get people in there twenties, thirties, early forties, and, some academics, some other types, and public intellectuals, I guess you called them these days. And, and so forth.

We read Orwell and, a lot of, you know, sort of stuff from, Michael Walls on being a liberal and to hitchens actually. Liberalism could have a comeback. Good liberalism. Hubert Humphrey liberalism, anti fascist, anti communist pro summarized, but doesn’t have a heart attack when eighty one year old man says the word illegal, you know, that kind of liberalism, you know. I mean, that I was encouraged by the discussion.

Well, that is encouraging. Do you have any other positive notes to leave us on? The other notes of optimism?

Baseball season begins in two weeks, and spring training is chugging ahead. And I in the morning shift this morning, I do I it was sweet, on a on a flag going back to give a speech, this ten year old boy, who was going with his family. And that he said, are you going to spring training too? And I, you know, maybe think, you know, it’d be better to be going to spring training than giving my speech there at some hotel.

Liberalism is not dead. Baseball not dead. I’m a little skeptical on both of those points, but that will be for another conversation next week. Thank you, Bill Crystal. On the other side, we’ve got Sarah Longwell.

With a focus group update, and we’re taking your questions in the Bulwark mailbag. Alright. I’m back with my friend, Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark, Sarah Longwell have you on, a because you have multiple other podcasts. I wanna make sure people know about. George Conway explains it all to Sarah Longwell.

Publishes kind of periodically. Do you have a schedule?

That’s every week. Do you

have a schedule? Do you have a day where we know what the concern is about?

Well, we try to do it when there’s good legal news to talk about, but it’s like Thursday ish.

Thursday ish. Okay. And then every Saturday, you have the focus group podcast, which is so so good. And, in particular, I wanted to talk briefly about this week’s which was a little bit alarming, but in a good way, kind of a wake up call, you know, comes like smelling salt kind of alarming where you had Ashley Allison Jonathan Last who was on to discuss focus groups you did with black voters who had voted for Hillary and Biden, but we’re now thinking about Donald Trump a little bit. Can we just listen to a little bit and I’ll get you on the other side?

I think he just has an more of an ability to jump start the economy. Inject energy into the economy, and that’s really what a lot of us boiled down to for me.

With him and, Putin from Russia, they had some kind of rapport. And so that sort of keeps us alive without getting bombs, you know, thrown on our country. So it seems like I don’t know. Maybe a gangster knows another gangster and they have respect for one another. But it seems like he was able to get along with them people a little better.

It didn’t matter what he did. They were just gonna bash him anyway. At least It seemed like maybe three fourths of the media. Of course, he had Fox on his side, but it seemed like three to fours of the media was bashing the guy, them, like, That’s unheard of for somebody to get bashed that hard, and he’s the president of the United States. So that maybe put a red flag in my head that maybe he’s on to something.

Know who in government is not committing fraud, who’s not being crooked, who’s not doing us right. I I don’t really don’t know. I don’t know why he’s the only one that’s actually being held accountable.

Wuff. Okay. Again, just one focus group, but, you know, we’re seeing in the numbers, some bleed among black voters. I thought it was nice that you had Ashley on kind of talk through it. What would you guys come away with?

Well, I mean, first of all, I really wanted to do this group because we keep seeing it in the numbers. People are kind of freaking out about it while also denying that it’s real. Right? They’re like, this isn’t possible. And I wanna be like, I I’m sure it is possible because if there’s one thing I know from doing focus groups, all of these years, it’s that the things that we self soothe with are often wrong.

And that if you go kinda find these voters and ask them, you’re gonna hear stuff. Yeah. It’s gonna make your toes curl, but it’s gonna be like what is actually going on. I love Ashley. She’s a friend of mine, and she did like a valiant pushback.

She was a little bit like JBL is where he wants to he wants to sort of reason with all the voters. Like, let me tell you what I would say. Yeah. Let me tell you what I would say back to them if you put me in the room, put me in the room. Let me convince them why they’re wrong.

But to me, the most interesting thing was how much they just sounded like Like, there was nothing different about what the black voters were saying about why they liked Trump than just other trump voters of why they like them. It’s all the same thing. It’s like, I think you’d be better for the economy. Americans wanna be rich. Just tell you, like, Americans?

All of them. They wanna be rich. And they see Donald Trump as rich. And so when they say we need a businessman running the economy, What they mean is I saw this guy on TV being a businessman. I know he’s got a gold toilet, and I don’t necessarily want a gold toilet, but I want more money.

I think he’ll help me get more money because he’s figured out how to get more money for himself. And, you know, when Trump says things like, well, because I have a mug shot, I think that’s gonna help me with black voters. You and I hear that and go, well, that’s really racist.

It does.

Boy, that’s gotta turn off Bulwark voters. Of course, it is. But there are plenty of black voters who do not hear they and they may not even hear that sort of statement explicitly. What they do here is this idea of and this is the again, same with white voters. This this guy, look how much he has to put up with.

I know what it feels like to have either trumped up charges or grievances on this thing. It’s so frustrating because Trump his grievances are all about himself. Sanki shares your grievance regular voter, but still they find they find like a connection there on the grievance side. And then there’s just some straight up, like, anti vaccine. Nobody said deep state, but there was, like, he’s the only one who talks about how they’re out to get us.

You know, the anti institutions And I hear that across all the focus groups of people who like Trump. So it just doesn’t surprise me, right, that Bulwark voters

Or some subsegment of it.

Yeah. I’m very careful in the podcast to keep pointing out that this does not reflect a majority of black voters. In fact, it reflects a small percentage, but black voters are so reliable for Democrats. Hispanics have been so much more reliable for Democrats that bleeding, going from, you know, losing ten percent of black voters to twenty percent of black voters, especially in states like Georgia, disaster.

Okay. Well, were there any green shoots, things that that, issues feeling like that, you know, Democrats can use to talk about them?

Well, we did a another group of swing voters right after the state of the union, the day after.

Okay.

I would

say only about half the group had actually watched the whole thing, but then the other half I’d like, you know, seen the vibes the day after.

Yeah. And Ron DeSantis with the memes?

Yeah. That’s right. And they were like, okay. Okay. There’s a guy I could I could be into.

There’s sort of a Twitter esque fight right now of will that matter do voters care? They had heard about the Katie Brit stuff too. They were just like, She is so weird. Everyone just got this is so weird. Someone said stepford wife.

One person said, I think she’s trying to, you know, deflect from the IVF ruling in in Alabama, and they were universally going for Biden, which I, you know, anybody who’s been listening to my podcast knows we’ve been seeing some backsliding from these swing voters, but I think that Joe Biden turning the vibes around is really important. And they seem to be getting it. They seem to be there. Yeah.

Good news to swing voters. Okay. If you’re not listening to the focus group podcast last this week, If you can’t handle the black voters against Joe Biden. Last week, they had John Fabrow and talking about California. Every week, it’s a different group of voters super interesting.

I love that I’m a focus groupie. Okay. Final segment of the day, we’re trying it. This is new. Sarah, you’re here.

We’re doing it live. First mailbag segment. Remember, if you have a question for the mailbag, email Bulwark podcast at the bulwark dot com. We received an overwhelming amount of mail. So I think it is awesome how engaged of an audience we have.

So I don’t know how we’re gonna try to do this often.

You’ve got a big show here, Timmy, you know? Got it.

Yeah. It’s awesome. It’s and and they care. They’re not just half listening, you know, they’re not just cooking and halfway. They’re listening, and they wanna feedback on things.

So we’re starting with two. And since I have you, the first one I know is Sarah Longwell got multiple questions like this. It is very similar to the questions that I got when I was on a panel in Aspen. So I’m a little concerned about how many Aspen listeners we have. But this question is from Bianca.

In San Diego. She asks, what if there were a Cheney Haley no labels ticket designed to split the trump vote? And also found a new conservative party. Sarah, doesn’t that sound wonderful?

Guys. Guys. Guys. Listen. The people who would vote for Liz Cheney and the people who would vote for Nikki Haley are people that we need to vote for Joe Biden.

To win this election, you are not building a Pro Joe Biden coalition. You are building an anti trump coalition. And literally, Anything that splits the anti Trump coalition is bad for Biden. Hear me on this, please. Conservatives swing voters.

There is like nine to ten percent of the country, and there’s even like soft Democrats. They will pull from Biden. Trump has a, like, fixed ceiling and floor, and there’s, like, two points in between there. You cannot take You cannot take away anybody from the anti Trump coalition. I’m sorry.

If they wanna start a new conservative movement, they should, and they should tell people to vote for Biden in this election.

Agree. And by the way, I think that there are conceivably states or senate or random races where something like this could work. Alright? It is not in the presidential election. I’m sorry, Bianca, and I did this a little bit during the live DC show where the weirdness of Trump some I can understand why people logically would think, okay.

Trump is so hated that it’s the perfect time for a third party, but it wrong because there’s no elastic in his support as you just mentioned. Right? And and if there would be room, I think, for a Cheney Haley, the labels ticket, if it was, like, Mike Johnson versus Rashida to leave. Right? It was two people on ideological opposite ends of the polls, then there’s a lot of room in the middle.

That’s not really what’s happening. Joe Biden’s running kind of from the center left. Trump is running as a authoritarian heterodox, Weirddell, who’s, like, off the left right continuum. It doesn’t work. There’s no room for it.

I’m sorry. I know it would sound nice to some people. It’s not gonna happen.

And god knows, I would vote for that like my dream ticket you’re talking about, but I’m just telling you that’s not gonna work.

Sorry, Bianca. Okay. Question two of the mail bank. This is from the life advice category. I love the people that came at me with life advice.

Some people was joking. I’m dead serious. You know, why not do a little life coaching here at the ballpark? Okay. This is Cindy in DC.

Cindy will retire from a thirty year professor gig at the end of June. Which is sooner than she wanna do to health issues. She plans to stay in DC because her doctor and friends are here, but as an object of Maga Nightmare, single educated white female with savings and no kids, Good on you, Cindy. I can live almost anywhere. The threat of another trader Trump Crap storm has her pondering a summer move to Door County with Conson, a fifty fifty county and a fifty fifty state where my vote could make a difference.

Ydoor County. She visited last summer to gather information about some ancestors. It was beautiful in cooler than DC in the summer, although there were some gigantic trump flags. Is she crazy to consider renting out her DC house volunteering for the Wisconsin dems, registering to vote in Door County for the fall election. She’d be grateful for any insights.

What life might be like is an East Coast volunteer in a Midwestern locale. How miserable could she be could I make enough difference to counterbalance the potential nastiness? What should I seek to do for maximum impact? I know what I think, Sarah, do you wanna hear my answer first, or do you wanna go

You go ahead. I’ll let you do it.

Okay. I think that you should consider it. Cindy, life is short. I love it. I just I love the a a mindset of the attitude.

You were only here for a certain amount of time. It’s a good life experience. We obviously made a recent move. Oh, Calabrio, one thing. I’m a little concerned about the loneliness quotient.

We have listeners, though. We have listeners in Wisconsin to the Bulwark podcast. Door County for people who don’t know is like on the little What do you call it? It’s like a little finger that sticks out on the east side of, Wisconsin into the lakes. And so it’s from kind of green gray.

You go up this little finger. Is really beautiful. I’ve never been there. I’ve heard it’s really beautiful, but I know, for example, Mark Becker, big fan of ours. It was the Green Bay whatever county that is, Republican share for a while, then he did the right thing.

He was a Republican voter against Trump last time. He’s written for the Bulwark. We can ask Mark. I just wanna make sure you can have some friends. I think otherwise, the experience will be great.

People are nice. You get surprised by how nice people are. You can get a little community of people door knocking. I don’t know if I’d wanna live in Door County. No pun intended there, forever.

But to move six months, have a life experience. I don’t know. Seems pretty good to me. And I and I like the mindset regardless. Let’s say you, Sarah.

I love the mindset. And I gotta tell you, we hear from a lot of people being like, what can I do? And honestly, what I wanna say to everybody is like, move to Montana. Like, it’s beautiful there. And honestly, if a hundred thousand that you moved, Like, you could it could become a blue state and you could take it over.

You could get two senate seats, governorship. I think this idea of people going to swing states is amazing and one of the biggest sacrifices somebody can make for democracy. Here’s the thing on the loneliness, I think. Is that, you know, You could start a blog and encourage other people to move. You could start a whole movement, a community of people who move for democracy and go to places like, in swing states.

And my guess is is that you will find a democratic community there that is so excited to have you. Ben Wickler, who runs the Democrats, The party chair there is like a super good guy that would, I’m sure, like, get you hooked up with all the other volunteers. I think it could be like a, yeah, once in a lifetime, awesome experience.

Move to door county. And if it’s terrible, don’t blame us. Okay? I’m just like, you know, but we’re doing we can. This is our first life advice question, and we might improve over time.

But, I’m feeling pretty good at it off the bat. Okay, Sarah. Any final thoughts for people before you get hear any other big focus group takeaways from your post date of the union focus group?

I don’t know that I’ve got any other ones other than, hey, guys. If you’d have a zip in your step right now, we’ll we’ll skip after that, keep it going because it’s gonna be a long slog and there’s gonna be ups and downs, but just should remember that there’s gonna be ups. And when there’s ups, remember to push, lean into him.

That’s great advice. Alright. Let’s get your feedback on the first mail bag. Remember to email your questions, Secret Podcast at the Bulwark dot com. We’ll be back here tomorrow with Evan Osnos, who wrote the great New Yorker profile about Joe Biden.

I’m excited about that.

I’m in there. I’m in that profile. Are you?

I didn’t make it that far. It’s really long. So, you must be quoted in the back half. I’m gonna be reading the rest of it later today. I’ll let you know what I think about your quotes.

Sarah Longwell. I’ll be sure on the Bulwark. We’ll see you back here tomorrow. Peace.

Bye, guys. I have the key to escape reality, and you may see me tonight with an smile. It don’t cost very much, but it lasts a long while. Won’t you please tell the saying, I didn’t kill anyone. No.

I’m just trying to have me some fun. The last time I checked my bankroll, it was getting bent. Sometimes it seems like the bottom is the only place I’ve been. Chase the rainbow down a one way street. Dig in.

And all my friends turned out to be insurance. Salesmen, I’ve been fortunate, I have the key to escape reality. Full smile. It don’t cost very much, but it lasts a long while, won’t you please tell the band. I didn’t kill anyone.

No. I’m just trying to add me some fun. Well done. I know fine. My sister’s enough.

The Secret Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.