David French and Bill Kristol: The Age Thing

Welcome to the

Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. Let me tell you about today’s show. This is my last, Bulwark podcast, but we’re gonna go out The way we came in, we’re gonna be joined by David French from the New York Times, long time friend of the podcast to talk about the Supreme Court decision yesterday. But I wanted to start off by kind of bookending Secret Podcast because I remember a cold dark day.

In December two thousand eighteen when Bill Crystal and I sat down and did the very first bulwark podcast. In fact, We did the Bulwark podcast before it was the bulwark podcast. This is the way it sounded. Good morning. I’m Charlie Sykes and to what is eventually going to be the Bulwark podcast, and we’re gonna be launching it after the holidays.

But Bill Chris and I thought that, well, we have some things to talk about today. So here’s a special pre Christmas edition. You can sort of think of it as a sample. So, Bill, here we are.

Good to be here with you, Charlie Sykes. I’m looking forward to when we pick up after the after the in the new year doing this regularly.

Okay. Well, we we figured it’s the winter solstice. What else are we gonna do? It’s the, you know, it’s the

darkest, the darkest day of the year. How appropriate is that?

How appropriate is it that it’s still kind of whether the darkest days of the year. Bill, welcome back on the podcast. My first Bulwark podcast, my last bulwark podcast with you.

It’s great to be with you and an honor to be both from the first and the last. It was just so people understand, that was the Monday, I believe, December twenty first. The weekly standard had been murdered on Friday before, you had come to town for that event. We had the whole staff meeting there. And and then we just thought, you know what?

The bulwark had been we started a couple months before in a very bare bone skeleton thing. We thought, you know what, let’s see if there is a market for country as you called yourself at the time, a country and conservative, a never trump ex Republican kind of republican or ex Republican type of enterprise, but we were very uncertain weren’t we that this thing would actually go anywhere. We did it because we’re still there. Sarah Longwell conference room. We said, well, why not?

Right? We have a audio equipment to do a a bare bones podcast, but I it’s really amazing what you’ve done over the last God, how long is it? Five plus years? I mean

And, you know, when you think about what the Bulwark has become, you know, I you and I were sitting there. It was just a few days after the murder of the weekly standard. And it was still kind of stunning that that had happened. And originally, it was like, hey, you know, how do you keep the band together? And so I think the original plan was maybe, you know, hang on for for three months.

You know, Sarah was trying to pull together the money. And here we are, in twenty twenty four. So, it has been a wild and very, very interesting ride, Bill.

It has been, you know, and there we were in twenty nineteen, at the end of twenty eighteen, looked like Trump was in charge of the Republican party, looked like he beat the nominee again, looked like the Republicans on the hill were going south, looked like the country was being increasingly deluged with authoritarian, you know, BS and having its institutions undermined, right, and left and things have really changed a lot in the last five plus years. Right, Charlie?

Yeah. I know. That’s that’s the funny thing I said. We we have I was listening to to more of it and we were talking about, you know, fire hose news and all the things that were going on that particular week and why we why you and I had to do kind of an emergency Secret Podcast. And it’s like, k.

Fast forward, five years, six years. And it, you know, every week has been that way. So by the way, I just want people to know that starting Monday, morning shots is going to be taken over by you and Andrew Eger, who was also one of the original Bulwark guys has been working at the dispatch coming back home to the Bulwark. So so congratulations on having to get up at five o’clock every morning, Bill, and turning out a newsletter.

I’m looking forward to doing it at least for this year, and and I’m looking forward to Andrew doing the bulk of the work that you did.

It’s gonna be great. Together, we’ll

we’ll hopefully be able to somewhat make up for your compared to what you did individually. I mean, both the assembling of all the links that were so useful. And so, you know, important to be able to see every morning plus the actual, you know, interesting, perceptive witty commentary on it. So we will do our best together to fill your shoes.

I think it’s gonna be well worth it. And so people Make sure you watch your your inbox on Monday morning for Bill and Andrew. And I have to say that looking back on the five years or so, you know, I’ve been doing the daily stuff. I don’t think there was a single morning when I got up and I thought, geez, there’s nothing to write about today. I mean, there isn’t and, certainly, that’s not gonna be the case in twenty twenty four.

And, of course, on Monday, this podcast, will continue, of course. And Tim Miller will be taking over as as the host of that. So so make sure that you listen in. I’m sure that Tim’s gonna do a a great job. But since I have you here, Bill, would you like to do a little bit of, rank punditry?

What we do, Charlie, you know, that’s like asking, I don’t know what what’s what’s the right metaphor for this? Asking a gorilla if it like a banana or something. Right? You know?

Well, that wouldn’t be the analogy that I was gonna go for. But, okay. So, you know, there’s been so much that’s happened this week. Actually, you know, Friday podcasts are always interesting to do. Because you go, did was that this week?

It seems so long ago. I mean, when you had the major case impeachment, you know, earlier in the week, the, DC court of appeals comes down with this immunity ruling. Then you have this gigantic, argument in front of the US Supreme Court about the fourteenth amendment. And here we are on Friday, and all of that has happened. And then we also had that special council report.

So I wanna ask you about that because It’s one of those things that, you know, people may not wanna talk about it, but it’s out there. This special counsel named her, a Republican, a Trump appointee, decides he’s not gonna charge Joe Biden with any crime for having the the documents, but that’s not what people are really talking about. They’re talking about the language in that report. That calls into question, you know, whether Joe Biden is there, and we’ve got a memory. And I think the Biden White House gets how potentially damaging this is because Biden was he was pissed.

He comes out last night, has a press conference, and here’s a little bit of of his reaction to this.

Special Council acknowledged I cooperated completely. I did not throw up any roadblocks. I sought no delays. In fact, I was so determined to give the special counsel what he needed. I went forward with a five hour in person, five hour in person interview over two days.

On October the eighth and ninth of last year, even though Israel had just been attacked by Hamas on the seventh and I was very occupied. Was in the middle of handling an international crisis. I was especially pleased to see special counsel make clear the stark distinction and difference between this case and Mr. Trump’s case. Special Counsel wrote and I quote Several material distinctions between Mr.

Trump’s case and Mr. Biden’s are clear, continuing to quote most notably, after giving multiple chances to return classified documents to avoid prosecution, Mr. Trump allegedly did the opposite. According to the indictment, he not only refused to return the documents for many months. He also obstructed justice by enlisting others destroy evidence and then to lie about it.

In contrast, I wanted to say Mr. Biden turned in classified documents, to the National Archives and Department of Justice, consented to the search of multiple locations including his home sat for voluntary interview. And in other ways cooperate with the investigation end of quote.

Okay. But here’s the part where he’s clearly ticked off because having gone through all of that, then he has to address the the language about him being a little shaky in his memory.

In addition, I know there’s some attention paid to some language in the report about my recollection of events. There’s even reference that I don’t remember when my son died. How in the hell dare he raise that? Frankly, when I was asked the question I thought to myself, wasn’t any of their damn business?

Alright, Bill. What’s your take? How much damage has this done to Joe Biden and how is he and how is he handling it?

I mean, I would say that, first of all, I I’ve been concerned about this for quite a while. You have I think the way that I was even more on the extreme side of concern, and James Carville and others, really worried about this that he is old. The individual laughs of memory. I don’t think are decisive. You know, you can get in a country’s name wrong, or we all make, those those really slip ups, obviously, they’re not affecting governing.

They’re not even affecting communications that much. He corrects them typically pretty quickly. Mhmm. It’s more that he’s eighty one. He’ll be eighty two if reelected.

He’ll be that would imply he’s present till he’s eighty six. And as James Carver put it, you don’t you don’t get better in those years. You’re right. Hopefully, you stabilize, and you’re just fine. But, you know, that’s that’s a hope.

I saw a clip of him in twenty twenty one at early in his presidency the other day. He he was pretty different. I gotta say. Just that doesn’t mean that he’s not capable of being a perfectly good president. It’s just he was different.

There’s clear aging. And there’s gonna be aging. I mean, that’s the trouble with it. Right? And I think people and that’s why the polls showed that two thirds of Americans, maybe seventy percent, and a majority of Democrats a year ago did not want him to to run for reelection and thought he could well be too old for a second term.

So for me, that’s really the key. The special counsels report, obviously, brought it back to the to the forefront. I think we’ll have a little bit of silly debate about your memory for a day or two. And then Mhmm.

Then

it still is what it is. And I I was always on the side of let’s have a vigorous front. Let’s have a one terve successful presidency, he did what he did, transitional figure. I have a lively primary, probably would turn out okay, I think, and have a next generation Democratic candidate candidate I suppose it’s too late for that though. I don’t know if you could imagine triggering primaries and writing candidates, but I I remain very worried about just as a matter of electability, And, secondarily, as a matter of what an actual second term would look like in terms of his governance.

And thirdly, the fact that his vice president is not, you know, just fairly or unfairly isn’t terribly well thought of or terribly popular. People don’t have great confidence. I mean, making it ninety four. You and I are old. Let’s remember this.

Know, he he had some real problems. He kinda lost track of things in that one debate. I remember that. And and and He was

a young pup back then,

a was seventy three, if I’m not mistaken. Yeah. So eight years younger than the Biden, and the Georgia h w Bush was vice president, and people didn’t love Bush the time, and he was young.

But you

know what? No one was worried. Right? Bush, George Schultz, Jim Baker, you know, if Reagan failed a little bit, they were there, and so it would be fine. I don’t feel like the Biden team, people don’t have that kind of confidence.

So with more rests on him, and that he is eighty one years old?

Well, and the language that that was used in this. And, again, there’s a lot of controversy about whether or not the special counsel gratuitously threw it in, you know, was it necessary? Do you know what to write? Mister Biden’s memory was significantly limited limited precision and recall that Biden would likely present himself to a jury as during our interview of him as a sympathetic, well meaning elderly man with a poor memory. And then he goes on in his interview with our off mister Biden’s memory was worse.

He did not remember when he was vice president for getting on the first day of the interview when his term ended. If it was twenty thirteen, when did I stop being vice president? Forgeting on the second day of the interview when his term began. He did not remember even within several years when his son Bo died. Probably unnecessary, but, you know, the damage is is real, and and you have that sense.

And I guess you know, if anybody thought that this was not gonna be front and center, just look at the way this has become a major talking point on the right.

Well, on your point about the sudden remarks by the president and press conference at seven forty five. Mhmm. Whatever was last night. They they don’t do that very often. They haven’t done it very often.

I don’t think he’s at a press conference of that sort. In four or five months, maybe. So that shows the White House who’s really alarmed. Yes.

Exactly. I

mean, they could easily have taken the view. Maybe they should have that, okay, look, it’s a hit. It’s a it’s a print story if I can use it old fashioned term. There’s no audio or video on it. There’s a report from her.

He, you know, and we’re just gonna say this is gratuitous and and inaccurate. And roll out six people who’ve been in meetings with Biden recently and say he’s totally fine, and that’s that. Instead they were worried enough where he was personally maybe worried and angry enough He insisted on doing this thing that I think was not wise. I mean, he didn’t look great. We decided to slip up about, Egypt to Mexico.

And it just is it elevates it. I mean, how can you not cover the neck? It says Biden supporters say, well, why is the press obsessing about this? The president of the United States had a specially called house within press conference at seven forty five PM on a weekend, you know, on Thursday night. You can’t really blame the media for spending the next day talking about it.

Well, and on the the headlines are, you know, Biden angrily responds. Well, I’m gonna be very interested in following all of your takes as I have been for many, many years now. Congratulations to you and to, Andrew. I’ve tried to keep the chair warm for you and for Tim on the podcast. And, it has been a great run, Bill, and You know, we’re still gonna be in the fight together, so I appreciate it all.

Totally. And then, congratulations to you, and we will be in the fight. And I’ll see you in a couple of weeks here for that conference. You’re you’re on that panel. The.

Absolutely. I will

I will see you then. Principal’s first. Principal’s first.

So that’s a so yeah. So that’s a good group, and that’s a little bit of an off spring, you might say of what we were trying to do too.

So Very much so.

Feel quite good about the fact that we have the bulwark, but also other institutions that have grown up in this space. And so gives us a little bit of hope occasionally for the for the country. Right?

Alright. Bill Crystal, thank you so much for joining me again on the podcast. My first and my last. Thanks Charlie. Coming up.

David French from the New York Times. Well, because this is my last Bulwark podcast as the host. We wanna end on a high note and how much higher can we get than going to our good friend, David French, New York Times columnist, long time friend of the podcast. David, good to talk with you today.

Charlie, I cannot tell you how honored I am that I’m Your last guess? I’m seriously touched, Charlie. I’m serious. I’m very honored to be here. Thank you.

Well, we have a lot to talk about. We have a lot of ground to cover today. I was just talking to Bill about, the whole Joe Biden special counsel age thing, and I’m gonna get to that in a moment. But at first, Let’s just talk a little bit about what happened in the in the Supreme Court yesterday, rather extraordinary hearing. I know that you have been arguing that in fact, the fourteenth amendment should be used to disqualify Donald Trump from running, but it seemed pretty obvious.

I think the consensus is that that is not going to be the decision of the court. In fact, the court might actually rule unanimously against the disqualification or maybe eight one. So I’m interested to get your take on this. So the way the court is handling it and the decision that, seems inevitable now.

I think it’s gonna be a grave mistake, Charlie. I’m not gonna sit here and be one of these folks who says, well, the Supreme Court’s illegitimate, or it’s not operating in good faith or anything like that. Courts make decisions that I disagree with all the time. Mhmm. But I disagree with this and I think it’s a very profound mistake.

And honestly, Charlie, I think I’m gonna write this when the actual opinion comes down, if it comes down as we expect, it could be a mistake more consequential in some ways than the failure to convict Trump after January sixth. And the reason is that the actual effect of the decision will be very much the same as the effect of acquitting him from the impeachment charge, which the effect will be to allow him to be president again. So it’s a very similar effect in one sense. But here’s the way it would be worse. It would set a legal precedent that undermines force and effect of section three of the fourteenth amendment going forward.

So an impeachment decision doesn’t have precedential effect in the way a court decision has. Appachement’s a political process. They can choose to follow precedent or not follow precedent.

Right.

And sure, the Supreme Court obviously has demonstrated that it will reject precedent, but it also tends to follow it. That’s the general tendency of the Supreme Court is it tends to follow it, and certainly the lower courts are bound to follow it. And so My real concern is that the Supreme Court is gonna issue a decision here that doesn’t just grant Trump access to the presidency again but also creates a precedent undermining section three of the fourteenth amendment, which I think of as a sort of a fundamental basic safeguard that any nation should uphold against, you know, insurrectionists and those who would attack its own system violently. So I’m very concerned about it.

K. But it obviously matters greatly, you know, what the grounds the court uses to keep telling them on the ballot, I could certainly imagine very, very narrow grounds that they could do that would not create a really negative precedent? What do you think?

Here’s the trouble, Charlie. On the grounds that I think they’re gonna go, it’s not that narrow. So I think essentially what you were looking at and what you were seeing broadcast in the actual oral argument was they were leaning towards some sort of rule that is essentially saying, the states just can’t do this, that there’s gonna have to be some sort of congressional action. And that would essentially eviscerate the amendment. Right.

Because if you’re gonna say you need to have some congressional action to make this amendment enforceable. And there’s no congressional action making the amendment enforceable, then does the amendment Is it a dead letter in many ways? And then here’s the other thing, Charlie, that’ll I have not seen people focus in on because One of the key arguments here was only Congress can do this. That this is not something that the secretary of state can do. Well, When does Congress have an opportunity other than passing legislation to weigh in on qualifications for the presidency?

At events like January sixth, So is this empowering in a weird way with this decision? And again, it’s speculation based on the oral argument that is always dangerous But if you go the direction the oral arguments seem to be going, the argument would be, well, this is all Congress, which renders it a dead letter in the absence of legislation or congress sitting to judge qualifications. And when does it do that? When it’s counting electoral college votes. And so there has been electoral college act reform, but qualifications for the presidency are still qualification for the presidency.

And so Great. Charlie, I am very concerned that what we’re going to deal with here is a decision that would feel stabilizing in the moment to a lot of people, but could be ultimately more destabilizing.

Well, and as you pointed out, nobody at the court even disputed that Trump was an insurrectionist. So we’re not going to see a court decision that says, yes, the fourteenth amendment applies, but it doesn’t apply to Donald Trump because he is not an insurrectionist. That was not really at issue at all in the arguments yesterday.

No. Not really at all in the arguments. And that was quite telling, in fact, because going into the arguments, I I was asked about this by a number of folks. And I said, you’re gonna know where they’re leaning based on the subject of the questions. If they’re really leaning in on Did he engage in an insurrection, or did he provide aid or comfort to enemies of the constitution?

If they’re really leaning in on that, that means they’re really leaning on Hey, maybe this guy needs to be disqualified. If they’re leaning in on, why did Colorado do this? Yeah. Or what kind of due process should occur before this happens, then they’re really looking at a way out of this that is related to process without adjudicating the substance.

Yeah. Exactly. Okay. So there’s so much stuff that’s been going on this week in Congress. We had a vote yesterday in the Senate with a finely voted aid to Ukraine.

We don’t know what’s gonna happen in the house. It’s one of those, you know, glass half full things. Know, some people were saying, well, seventeen Republicans joined with Democrats and voting for u Ukraine. My reaction, I don’t know what yours was with only seventeen. This is what the Republican Party has become.

Yeah. And when I come back to that, I thought it was just extraordinary that you had Tucker Carlson in Moss out interviewing Vladimir Putin yesterday, this sort of, you know, kiss fest. We have a little bit of sound bite for this. I don’t know how much of it you caught. I mean, it’s not riveting television.

I mean, trust me on all this. You know, especially watching Vladimir Putin just roll over and talk over Tucker and tucker taking it. I mean, it was Yeah. It was a a self owned for the ages, but, here’s just a little clip of Tuck across.

With the backing of CIA, of course. The organization you wanted to join back in the day as I understand. We should thank god they didn’t let you in. Oh, no. It is a serious organization.

I understand.

Okay. So wow. It went like that

a lot. So Here’s a a video clip on what used to be known as Twitter by Ron, Philipkowski. He says, this is a hilarious shit show. Putin is now twenty eight minutes into his history lesson. This is the third time Tucker tries to interrupt, and Putin mocks Tucker For just being an entertainer and not a serious journalist, Tucker tries to fake laughter off while Putin emasculates him.

Chevs kiss. Yeah. Just a great moment.

Yeah. Putin is exerting dominance here. Putin’s exerting dominance over Tucker. And The thing is, Charlie, it won’t really matter the tuckerites. It just won’t matter.

I mean, look, if if advanced sing testicle tanning did not undermine this guy standing with his core fans, then a little light humiliation by Vladimir Putin isn’t gonna do the trick.

Okay. But the reason is the larger question though, and you wrote about this. Why why Maga loves Russia and hates Ukraine? You know, we’ve seen it develop in real time, you know, for some of us with a little bit of historical perspective, it is still stunning and amazing. So Yeah.

Give me your take. Why has the right decided they love Vladimir Putin and hate voter Merritt Zelensky and Ukraine, what is this about, David? Help me get my head there.

This is a fascinating issue. So Let me just take one segment of people and put them to one side. There is a segment of people who, what you would call traditional paleo conservatives on the right, who They don’t like foreign aid. They don’t like foreign military entanglements. I’m not talking about those guys.

Those guys have had an argument about foreign policy in America for a long time. What I’m talking about is the pop culture right. The pop culture right that has the entertainment wing. Yeah. Yes.

That has this visceral reaction against Ukraine. You know, a Candace Owens saying she wants to punch him. I mean, people saying he dresses like was it Tucker Carlson who said dresses like a strip club manager or Donald Trump junior hurling these vicious personal insults? Where does that come from? Where does all of that angst and anger?

Good question.

And when you dive into the Magolor here, Charlie, it’s sort of like, you know, there’s the Marvel extended universe and the DC extended universe. Well, there’s a mega extended universe. And when you dive into the mega extended universe, you realize There are people on the right who live in an upside down reality. And in this upside down reality, they believe that Ukraine interfered in the twenty sixteen election and sort of engineered the whole thing to blame it on Russia. So remember first impeachment, Donald Trump, talked about this crowdstrike server that he was looking for.

I remember this.

It’s a batshit crazy conspiracy theory. I mean, this is in category of the Italian space satellites changing votes. And I remember that. You’re saying that the tale of that has gotten us where we are today.

It’s one piece of it.

Oh, man.

It’s one piece of it. So the tail of it is that’s the hostility to towards Ukraine. And then it’s same time going all the way back until years before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there were a number of people on the right who said, Essentially Putin is the Christian leader against secular wokeness in the west. And there’s all kinds of commentary out there like that or that even if, hey, I don’t love Vladimir Putin, but he’s making the right case against the West. After the invasion, even after the brutality, you know, Jordan Peterson was talking about is the culture war in the west so threatening to Vladimir Putin that he would think he would need to invade a neighboring country to keep it at bay.

So Vladimir Putin as defender of Christian civilization against the Woke West, and then you lay on top of that, Charlie Sykes whole weird masculinity thing on the right. Yeah. And I don’t know if you remember this, but right before the invasion, you had people on the right, including Ted Cruz sharing these videos.

Oh, I do. Yeah.

Yeah. Online about Look at this Russian military recruitment ad versus this American military recruitment ad. We are woken and emasculated. Look how tough they are. And so they had this narrative that the toughness of Russia was clearly superior to the weakness of the West and then Russia invades and it stopped cold.

Just stopped cold in the quote weak woke west actually turns out to have a lot of courage and resolve. And so it disrupts this whole narrative about the west that was emerging on the right. So you have Ukraine is a villain, Vladimir Putin is a, in some ways, admirable figure taking on the Wequoque west, and then the whole war not going according to the script that they’d laid out in their mind, And all of that adds together to this really visceral anti Ukraine stance that as I wrote in my piece, it’s not that Ronald Reagan is turning over in his grave, the man’s probably trying to lurch out of his tomb and come after the GOP saying, what are you doing?

Well, this is also this pattern that we’ve been just discussing, you know, at some length where, you know, initially after the invasion, the pro Russian facts was relatively small in the Republican Party, and it looked like maybe the center would hold. And as we see as we’re speaking today, it looks like that there’s a real possibility that this country could abandon Ukraine because of Republican elected officials.

It’s remarkable who

are just not sent the way it has in infected. So you know, looking back on this, and again, we don’t have I’m asking you to speculate a little bit because, you know, from the very beginning, there’s been this question, what is going on between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin? You know, on the right, it’s the Russia hoax, you know, like, nothing to see here. And yet, you know, Donald Trump is not you know, reluctant to rip and criticize domestic enemies. I struggle to come up with anytime when he has said anything critical of Latin and his admiration for Putin, his unwillingness to cross Putin is extraordinary and consistent.

So looking back on all of this, What does the meta take? What is the Trump Putin thing about? And where does it come from?

Well, I think a couple of things. One, Trump obviously admires Strongman. Yeah. It’s not just Putin. It’s Xi.

I mean, he repeatedly praises, you know, Chinese leader, North Korean leader, Russian leader, like all of these authoritarian strong men, he consistently expresses admiration. And I think he sees himself in them in some ways, or the what he could be if he’s were not so constrained.

What he wants to be.

Right. Now Yeah. The other factor here, Charlie, and this is what’s really dark. So that’s dark enough, like having a past president in the United States and potential future president who actually admires authoritarian dictators is dark. Yeah.

But let’s get darker. Okay. Charlie, I can always go darker in this era. But the the darker thing is you’ve heard the old phrase, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And so, traditionally, in the US, how that has manifested itself is that we may have a lot of domestic differences, but we will unite against a four info.

Right. Now we might disagree about how to fight the foreign foe, but we agree it’s a foreign foe. Right? And so we can and have demonstrated repeatedly in the past that we’ll put aside differences domestically to take on the international threat. Trump’s And Magga’s enemy of my enemy as my friend analysis is different.

They will set aside foreign differences to take on the domestic foe. Right. So go back to the admiration for Vladimir Putin. That admiration for Vladimir Putin because he was taking on their domestic political opponents. Right?

And so There is an admiration for Putin because he was taking on the shared enemy as they see it, which is the left the Republican establishment, etcetera. And that’s why I say this is really dark. The toxic polarization that Maga feels towards fellow Americans is so great that some of them will wrap their arms around a Russian dictator and endorse his critiques of American society to advance their own domestic agenda.

You know, a lot of stuff with it we talk about is performative, but this is really substantive. You know, as as you wrote, you note that America has made catastrophic foreign policy mistakes in the past, but never in our lifetime, have we been on the verge of a mistake so profound and catastrophic that was the direct result of theories and ideas that were so shallow, stupid, and frankly bizarre. The thing is it is the alignment of the stupid, the crazy, and the catastrophic all at once. Yeah. And we can’t escape that reality.

It’s not like we can change the channel and, you know, just not pay attention because the consequences of a Russian victory in Ukraine because of American Republican betrayal of Ukraine is very, very hard to to quantify.

Yeah. In in some ways, Charlie, a defeat of Ukraine now in some ways would be worse than a defeat of Ukraine in the initial attack.

Yeah.

Because even in even in the initial attack, even supporters of Ukraine, were shocked at the tenacity of Ukrainian resistance because there was a lot of hype about the Russian military before the invasion. Boy. And it wasn’t just amongst Magga. A lot of thoughtful observers of the Russian military thought it had really modernized and and become a far more professional force. And, yeah, it had compared to previous years, but it wasn’t as competent and professional as a lot of international observers thought.

So if there had been an initial invasion that had gone the way international observers thought it would go. It would have been a catastrophe. No question about it. It would have been a catastrophe, but it wouldn’t have been a catastrophe of the west more broadly. It would have been a catastrophe for Ukraine, but it wouldn’t have demonstrated a failure of will in the west.

Here, if Russia is able to impose upon Ukraine a favorable settlement to the war, it will have been the result not of a catastrophic failure amongst Russia’s real enemy, the west, the west, not Ukraine. So Ukraine would have fought courageously and would have given it’s all, and we would have abandoned them. And that from a geopolitical standpoint is far worse. So Putin would both accomplish subjugating Ukraine and accomplish the complete undermining of American credibility in national security, totally undermined it. And that’s a worse outcome than him succeeding in that initial Creeg, although it obviously will come at a very, very, very high cost to Russia, but Putin doesn’t care about his people’s lives.

Well, that’s why twenty twenty four feels like it is going to be a pivotal year in American political history, but also in world history. You don’t always know at the beginning of the year something’s going to be pivotal. You’re a student of history. I keep trying to come up with the analogy that and again, there’s a cliche. This is the most important election of our lifetime.

But I’m trying to imagine historically, in terms of its significance, the twenty twenty four election is the most fraught since when? What year would you go back to?

That is a if any. That’s a great question. I mean, if you look back at history at the super consequential American elections. Yeah. This is gonna be up there.

I mean, obviously eighteen sixty with Lincoln.

That’s the one I was gonna come up with. Yeah.

Enormously consequential. I also think people sleep on the consequences of the election of eighteen seventy six. And the conflict that played out over who was gonna win that because the consequence of that election was the compromise of eighteen seventy seven, which abandoned the south to Jim Crow and segregation, that was hugely consequential. For a century, a century long abandonment of black Americans, hugely consequential. I would say it’s in that Bulwark.

And the reason why I say that is after what we saw on January sixth, I I’ve never said these words before Charlie Sykes I am not one hundred percent certain that if Donald Trump wins the presidency that the United States will survive, as an intact nation. I think ninety nine percent, ninety nine point nine. I don’t wanna be, like, some doomsayer who says America will fade or collapse or whatever if Trump is elected. That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is he is so volatile that he raises risks that we have not seen in American politics.

And how do we know that? Because we have a memory, Charlie, of what we just saw I mean, this is a man who triggered the storming of the United States capital. And so this idea that he’s well, no. He’s stable enough to rein himself in when it really matters. That’s shot.

That’s gone. That’s no there’s no argument for that anymore.

And there’s there’s no argument for the fact that, well, the Republican grown ups will, you know, they’ll be the guardrails on him because I think we We’ve gotten a answer on that. Okay. So I talked about this with Bill, given the stakes in the twenty twenty four election, we have to talk about it. I know a lot of our listeners really hate talking about the the Biden Age issue.

Oh, boy.

But, look, guys, you know, this is the wrinkly gray elephant in the room here. So give me your take on on what we saw play out yesterday. We had the special council report which said, you know, no criminal charges against, Joe Biden because of the the document made a very clear distinction between the way Biden handled the documents and Trump and all of that But what everybody’s talking about is focusing on is this I suppose you could argue somewhat gratuitous, commentary about Joe Biden’s memory and his age. And, of course, it’s placed Joe Biden’s memory and his age front and center in the campaign. Joe Biden goes out angrily, very angry last night.

So give me your take. How bad is this? What should we make of this, David? Where do you come down? I I we don’t we don’t where Bill came down.

Where do you come

It’s bad. It’s bad. Now it’s not is Trump better than Biden bad. Biden is clearly better than Trump. Clearly.

But it is bad in the sense of can he serve capably for the next four years bad, which is bad. That’s a serious question, Charlie Sykes here’s the thing that gets me. Don’t blame the special counsel for this. Look, this is where partisanship leads us. The special counsel was evaluating a crime that one of the elements of the crime is Will Saletan or intent the state of mind is relevant to the legal analysis.

Mhmm.

And one reason why he felt like he would not charge Joe Biden was the state of mind. And you have to explain that to people. Now if this was something that had come out of nowhere, where Biden is sharp and quick, and quick witted. And then you have this. And then he comes out and he gives a press conference where he’s on top of his game.

You would think, what’s the special counsel doing? Right? But this comes on the heels of in the last week, he’d confuse two European leaders for their deceased predecessors. And then he comes out very, very angry about the report and then confuses the president of Egypt and the president of Mexico. And I know there are legions of listeners who are saying, but Donald Trump confused Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi.

Yeah. Right.

Yes.

Right.

He is corrupt and he is confused. No question, but the question you have here is that a lot of Americans, especially those people who don’t pay really close attention to politics. You can’t yell at them so much that they’ll forget about things like age. Because, you know, why? They all have experience with it.

Whether they’re aging themselves or their parents or their grandparents, And here’s one thing that every American knows. It doesn’t get better. It doesn’t get better. It’s not like at eighty three. You’re better than you were at eighty one.

So there’s two questions and then obviously related. Number one is, you know, can you serve for another four years as president? More immediate question is, much political damage has this caused to him? I mean, if Donald Trump is elected president of the United States, in November. Are we gonna look back on this week and say this was kind of the decisive, not turning point, but an inflection point where people just decided you know, that now you have this special counsel who’s underlining these, you know, preexisting concerns.

I mean, how badly hurt is Joe Biden, and is there anything that anyone can do about it? I mean, it it doesn’t seem like Democrats are in the mood to, like, move on. I mean, it’s going to be Biden. It’s going to be Biden and Trump. Yeah.

I think our former, colleague, Steve Hayes said it’s gonna be the twenty fifth Amendment election. It’s gonna be Trump versus Biden And it’s gonna be, no, your guys more senior. Oh, your guys decompensating. No. It’s your guys.

I prefer civility over psychosis. I mean, We’re stuck with it. Right? You know?

I mean, we probably are stuck with it because it all depends on Joe Biden. Joe Biden has to decide that he’s going to step aside, and nobody can make him step aside. Nobody’s gonna trigger the twenty fifth amendment. There’s not grounds for triggering the twenty fifth amendment. Yeah.

And so he has to decide, and Charlie Sykes, here’s the other thing. We all know what it is like to have really hard conversations. With people who are entering the twilight of their career. And often the last person to recognize that they’re entering the twilight of their career, is the person. So they have to reach a point where they understand, okay.

I understand my best day were behind me, but I also note that I’m now reaching a point where I don’t have confidence I can do the job, so I should voluntarily step away That is one of the hardest and most delicate conversations you can have with somebody who’s retiring from, say, being an insurance agent, much less all the pride and all of the power that comes along with the presidency of the United States of America.

And what’s even more difficult though is that a lot of Democrats who might be willing to have that conversation are thinking, there’s not a plan b that’s better. Right. There’s nobody that we have that would be more likely to beat Donald Trump. So it kind of feels we’re on this glide path is that Nobody wants to have that conversation, but also they’re not sure they want it because they don’t necessarily think that Kamala Harris is more electable. And once you get past her, Who are we talking about?

You know, Gavin Newsom? So they they don’t really have a plan b, do they, David?

Gavin Newsom has a plan b. I mean, he’s been running his little shadow campaign for a while where he could, like, just jump right in.

I’m here. I’m ready. I’m ready. I’m ready. Yeah.

Yeah. He’s he’s out there. He’s warming up in the bullpen. He’s Mariano Rivera waiting for the music. But here’s the thing is you hit the nail on the head and that the alternative, at least in the short term, to Biden, is actually kind of Democratic party chaos because you would have Kamala jumping in huge arguments about her, just huge arguments.

She is not incredibly popular even with Democrats. So nobody would clear the field for her. Gavin Newsom would probably come in. You’d have governors of Michigan, maybe Colorado come in. You would have a very compressed, super intense, Primary, while the Republicans will have already picked their man, are just sort of watching the Democrats consume each other, And that’s very dangerous.

Look, primary challenges when your party isn’t the incumbent or primaries fought over when your party is the incumbent tend to weaken the incumbent party. And Yeah. And so it’s just a giant problem. And the way through Charlie, there is a way through. I saw Dan Ffeiffer say this.

It’s Biden’s gotta get out there. He’s gotta say yes to the Super Bowl interview. He’s gotta get out there. And here’s the thing that I would ask listeners who are matted us about talking about this. In your heart of hearts, when you hear, Biden’s gotta get out there.

Are you encouraged or worried? And I would bet you a lot of folks when I say Biden’s gotta get out there and gotta nail these interviews, and he’s gotta nail these speeches and appearances. A lot of folks who are actually mad at us for talking about this would be very worried about that approach. And my question to you is if you’re worried about the approach, don’t be mad at the messenger. Don’t be mad at the messenger.

This is a serious issue.

Well, since this is my last Bulwark podcast, you know, I’ve been thinking a lot about the trajectory of conservatism and and the never Trump movement. And you wrote a piece a few weeks ago. I’ve lost track of time here that never Trumpers never had a chance. Yeah. And I keep going back over that saying, you know, What if this would have happened?

What if so and so would have taken a stand? I I asked the question in a conversation today with Mona Charen, you know, the never Trump movement you know, has been a success in many ways in creating, you know, cross partisan alliances, and Donald Trump is not the president right now. But in terms of its ability to influence the Republican Party, I don’t think there’s any question that it turned out to be a lot worse after the twenty sixteen election. So give me your take on that. Was there any world in which never Trump was going to succeed in rescuing the Republican Party after twenty sixteen?

No. No. No. No. No.

Charlie. So this is yeah. So this is one thing that I think there should be greater awareness of this. And that is if you’re talking about politics where, let’s say, you lost by five points, three points, one point. It’s very legitimate.

Five points might be on the outer bounds. But if it was a close race, it is very legitimate. To sit there and say, what could we have done differently? Look, if if you had the twenty sixteen race, Hillary and Trump, there are seventeen different things that you and I could identify that if they swung this way or that way, the election could have come out differently. That is not the case when you’re never greater than within twenty five or thirty points.

Like, what is the tactic that closes the thirty point gap? Right? You know, look, I thought Ron DeSantis ran a terrible campaign, but all of these DeSantis post mortems in a way I think are misleading people. Because they’re saying, well, if he had just tweaked this or tweaked that, he coulda won. No.

If he tweaked this or tweaked that, he coulda lost by twenty points instead of forty or twenty five points instead of thirty five. There was never a huge constituency in the GOP for the Never Trump message. Never. Now it might have been that there was a constituency earlier in twenty fifteen for rejecting Trump, but never for never. Trump.

Never for saying he is out of bounds. That argument we were never gonna win in hindsight.

Well, especially when that meant that you needed to support Democrats And I think that people sometimes underestimate how difficult it is in Republican conservative circles to say not only do you reject trump as a but now you must affirmatively vote for somebody who you’ve opposed your entire career. I mean, on paper. Right? I mean, you and I have done it. We’ve done it, but I don’t think it’s shocking that that’s been difficult to scale that up.

That people’s partisan tribal loyalties are just, you know, much stickier than I think people sometimes acknowledge.

Yes. Yes. A hundred percent. And that’s why, you know, the Republican voters against Trump strategy was so smart to say we’re not asking you to vote for Biden not asking you to cross the aisle to vote for Biden. We’re just asking you not to vote for Donald Trump.

You know, for democratic, my democratic friends who say, How dare you be so partisan that you had never crossed the aisle to vote for a Democrat. I say to them in response under what circumstances would you vote for pro life Republican.

Mhmm.

And the folks who are honest with themselves say, oh, I’m not sure when I would vote for a pro life Republican. So You know, there’s a need for a measure of humility on this when we’re scolding people for not crossing partisan lines that we’ve never had to cross ourselves and don’t know if we would. Right? So it was going to be a challenge to get people to cross the partisan lines. For sure, I expected that.

What I did not expect was the deep, deep, intense loyalty for Donald Trump against all other Republicans. Including Republicans who were demonstrably more conservative and demonstrably had higher character.

No. And I think that that’s, that has played out really quite dramatically. Okay. So in the in the few minutes that we have left, I wanna strike out a little bit of a personal note because David, I I have fought many times over the last, several months that I wanted to reach out to you for advice and counsel and to go back. And by the way, for people who don’t know, when David and I kind of go way back.

And I am still very, very grateful for when we were in Austin, Texas for the Texas Tribune Festival. I was there with my French grandson Elliot. And you were so gracious in sitting down with him and letting him interview you. You have a special place in in our household. But, you know, every time I thought about it, you know, things that I wanted to bring up, I tried to put it in the context of And this is this is hard for me.

I and and I think it’s hard for a lot of people because I think about you and your wife Nancy all the time. And whatever problems that we are experiencing in our lives, compared to what you and Nancy are facing, and the courage you’re doing it. And I just, you know, first of all, I just want you to know that I think about you all the time. And I am moved by her courage and her optimism. And your piece that you wrote about, the power of community was was really moving.

And I have to admit that I I struggle with community and how to express these things. But how are you doing?

You know, Charlie, in the piece, that I wrote, I shared the Swedish proverb that I think is just beautiful. And it really is kind of a mission statement for friendship, and it is shared joy is double joy and shared sorrow is half sorrow. And I have never understood the truth of that more. I’ve always used it because I think it’s a beautiful statement and it has resonated as true. But only in the last several months has it really hit home at this gut level because when we initially found out Nancy’s diagnosis and It’s a it’s a very aggressive form of cancer, but she has a a lot of hope for a good outcome.

But it’s it’s a very scary time. And In that short period of time when we kept the diagnosis to ourselves, it was terrifying and debilitating. In many ways. And then when we shared, when we began to share, and people began to add absolutely pour out love and concern and compassion. Mhmm.

That is what made everything so much more bearable And I could watch the love of others really energize Nancy, my wife. I could see it. I just say that to encourage people to reach out to those folks in your community that you know are suffering, it really matters. It really mat even if it’s just a note, this is I’m thinking about you, love you, you know, much less an concrete offer of help. All of it is valuable, all of it.

And and it’s really convicted me, Charlie. I’ve had to look and ask myself in my life, have I been that kind of person? Because I’m so overwhelmed by the reaction Mhmm. Of others to us. It’s been convicting to me, and it’s made me re sort of redouble my own commitment to be that kind of person.

Well, and again, I I I think what you underlined there was just the power of community and not trying to do everything on your own. And I think that, you know, whether we’re talking about this or we’re talking about other other things, You know, that community is absolutely essential to stay strong, to stay spiritually connected. And, so I wanna thank you for that peace. Because it it is a real challenge. And, tell Nancy to keep up putting those pictures out there because, it’s like just when I when I thumbs up every one of them.

And David Thank you for coming on the podcast for our final podcast before we we go dark here. Of course, you know, Tim Miller’s gonna be here on on Monday, but This is going to be my sign off. And I have to I have to say that one of the great experiences of my life has been able to every single morning to get up and talk to, the smartest, most interesting people I know and to have these kinds of conversations. And then I think that has been a real privilege and a real blessing, and I am very, very privileged to, have you come on this podcast and very, very grateful for all the conversations we’ve had over the years.

And we’ll keep having conversations, Charlie.

We will.

Thank you for your work. God bless you and your future endeavors. And As I said at the outset, I’m honored that I’m your last guest, and I’ve truly treasure and value our friendship. And I look forward to seeing what you do next and helping in any way that I can.

Okay. Well, we’ll see you around the around the corner. Thank you, David. And some final words as I head out the door. Look, I am extremely grateful for the opportunity that Sarah Longwell and Bill Crystal gave me when we founded the bulwark in this extraordinary community.

I mean, working alongside folks like JBL and Mona Charen, AB Stoddard, Will Salatin, Cathy Young, Jim Swift, Adam Kiper, Sunny Bunch, Barry Rubin Tim, Ben Parker, Joe Pertacone. This has been one of the most. Rewarding professional experiences of my life. And I’m really grateful for all of you for joining us in the wilderness, and A special shout out to our brilliant art director, Hannah Yost, who got up very early every single morning to make the bulwark the best looking political site you’re going to find. And to the very best podcast team in the business, the absolutely incomparable Katie Cooper who prepped and produced our daily show.

And to our engineer, Jason Brown, who always made a sound a lot better than we actually deserved. We could not have done that without that team. An extra special shout out to my brilliant wife. JF Rearden who’s taking time out from writing her novels, writing her books of essays, her children’s books about dogs, ta copy edit, Mornings every single morning. And again, to the entire bulwark community, to all of the brave contrarian conservatives, the Never trumpers, the people who’ve been willing to reach across the aisle.

A reminder, you are not the crazy ones. And that’s it for me.