How Should DeSantis Approach the Debate? (The Secret Podcast PREVIEW)

Hey, there. It’s J VL. On the Secret Show today, Sarah Longwell was out and I was joined by our old friend, Amanda Carpenter. We talked about the Georgia indictment. We talked about Mark Meadows.

We talked about the Republican debate that’s coming up and the Ron DeSantis strategy. We talked about a bunch of stuff that Amanda has been doing. Here’s the show. So, a lot has happened since last we spoke publicly. We we speak privately all the time.

We have the Georgia indictment. And, you the the thing I most wanna hear from you is about Mark Meadows because you had been on the Mark Meadows train for, like, two years writing piece after piece for us about, like, hey, this guy is wicked exposed. And when you pull up the indictment of which he is one of the named and indicted co conspirators, He is all over. You know, act six, honor about the twenty first day of November twenty twenty, Mark Randall Meadows sent a text message to US rep Scott Perry from Pennsylvania and said, can you send me the number for the speaker and the leader of the PA legislature? Potis wants to chat with him.

This was an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. No shit. Right? This is

He was, like, his unofficial he was really, you know, he was White House chief of staff, but I think we should refer to him as conspiracy coordinator.

It’s yeah. So this is, you know, the one of the I forget which one of the ones. One of the, White House lawyers the day after the insurrection, maybe it was Hershman, said something to I think it was John Eastman. But, basically, it was the equivalent of, you know, you better go get a fucking lawyer because you people are all going to jail.

Yeah. The best advice you’ll ever get. Get a effing g d lawyer.

And, this is, you know, Yes. This is what all these people were doing. They were they and it was obvious at the time, and they thought that they could just say stuff that this was all, you know, Nobody could touch them, and it was just free speech, man, just say whatever you want. And there’d be no consequences for anything.

What’s kinda funny? So right now Meadows is trying to get his case moved into federal court, which, you know, he’s still gonna even if he was successful in that, he’s still gonna be tried under federal procedures. It doesn’t make any of this really go away. But his his defense sorta seems to be, I was just doing my job. I was just sort of carrying out orders from President Trump.

Like, obviously, there’s issues with that, which you know, I don’t think of. But, actually, That was not your job. Your job as White House chief of staff is not to work the campaign side directly from the White House. And to fly around on behalf of the president to try to overturn a election. That is not your job.

You are paid by the taxpayers. To essentially be a functionary in the White House and make paper flow around and keep the president on his schedule and give him advice. It is not to coordinate with Sydney Powell to cease voting machines and to make special secret trips to Pennsylvania and Georgia to try to get the legislature to flip the election. None of this stuff is in your purview. But that’s the best he’s got?

Yeah. There is the this weirdness of Meadows seeing the role of the government as perpetuating Donald Trump’s reign rather than have a again, it’s a conflation of the state and trump, right, the the view that which is something that most politicians go to very great pains keep their campaign arm separate from their governing arm. Right? This is why they have two different Twitter accounts. Right?

You have the senator Twitter account, and then the senator’s campaign, Twitter account when he’s running for president or whatever.

You you don’t do the, nominating convention in the White House lawn. That used to not be a thing.

As a, for instance. So and as you said, early on, Meadows does not have access to the same sorts of resources? The Trump has, right, and is he gonna roll

You know, it’s, you know, that is all speculation. I don’t know for sure. He cooperated with the January six federal investigation, prosecution by Jack Smith, but he’s getting caught up here because he didn’t think he really maybe had exposure. But again, he was coordinating everything. It doesn’t really matter The crimes were committed in Georgia.

He flew down there, tried to get access to a room where an audit was being conducted. And the Georgia officials were like, you can’t come in here, and he’s sitting there looking through the glass window because it it would not let him physically enter because you can’t do that. Like, maybe it up. Should have been a clue. So, of course, you should be tried in Fulton County.

But I How how how long can he go on this? Like, okay. I don’t know. He’s working with, conservative partner Institute, which has you know, some money. It’s that’s run by a bunch of dement staffers I used to work with.

Clayton Mitchell’s in there. Maybe maybe they can help with his legal defense, But how far does he wanna go? And for what? I mean, this is going to take years to get through.

Nice. It’s not like Trump is gonna run cover for him. I mean, that’s the other thing. Right? Like, the the the it’s not like, well, if I hang tough for the boss, then the big guy will take care of me.

That is not how these things tend to work.

It’s not even that. It’s not even that, oh, can Trump save me a later? What is Trump’s strategy for beating any of this? He was gonna maybe hold a press conference on Monday to claiming exoneration, but apparently he’s standing down on that now. It’s like, you can’t even look to Trump for advice and how to beat this thing.

There’s no, you know, lawyer coordination about how they’re gonna mount a joint defense. There are And what is Trump doing? He’s got nothing. No lawyers will work for him now.

He’s running for president. I mean, this is

Yeah. That is the plan.

Yeah. But I’ve really truthfully, I think that is the whole plan, run for president. And if you win If he wins, he can make everything go away.

Well, let’s talk about this for a second. If he wins you know, the idea that it yes. When he’s in the office, we can talk about self pardons and like all that. But let’s just assume it all goes away because I think you’re right on that. He has the power of the executive branch The day after he wins the election, the world changes.

Right? Before he even gets into office. Yes. Because that second If the election is legitimately called for him because I think you and I both agree, he can win legitimately.

A hundred percent.

All these investigations go to a he is vindicated. All of these bad actors are vindicated. It will have meant it will mean that Everything he has done until this moment is okay. The conspiracies, the smears, the defamation. There will be a new way of life in America.

That moment, the election is called for it. Yes. You don’t have to wait for everything bad to happen. It changes then.

And and if he doesn’t win, I think he I think he could blackmail America into having Biden pardon him?

Tell me more about the blackmail aspect because I can see Biden doing it. I think you know, there would

not too. I’m people get very mad at me for saying this. I think it is I I don’t have a firm opinion on this. I I can see it both ways. I think there’s a case for Biden pardoning him.

I think there’s a case for Biden not pardoning him. I also think that it is not out of the realm of possibility that the the position of the trumpers becomes alright. Fine. You won. You pardon us, or we’re gonna set the whole world on fire.

And that’s I

don’t think that threat will be believable at that point because well, number one, I don’t think we’re gonna have convictions. By election day. So this whole talk of part, I mean, this is gonna go on for such a long time. Yeah. But let’s just say, you know, let’s stay on the subject of pardons because it is interesting.

I’m firmly against the idea. I just wanna state that from the outset. But I think the only world where Avon becomes an acceptable topic to debate is if it came with very tough conditions. You know, you essentially have to admit guilt. You essentially have to like, pay fine.

I don’t know what this looks like. Like, I’m not a lawyer. I’m not speaking for PD clearly or anything like that. Like, fines admission of guilt, be accepting a bar from public office. Like, it has to be very tough.

If you don’t get pardoned if you don’t accept responsibility and go away, and I don’t know how legally you would impose that.

Yeah. I think I think that’s all correct. Like, it would it would have to be we’ll pardon you and we’ll make this stuff go away, and you’ve gotta go to your island of Elba. Right. Like Napoleon and what But,

like, here here’s the problem. How trump says okay. Signs his name to it. He I can’t believe anything he says. He doesn’t keep any promises.

No. And so how do you enforce that? Is it for the, like, seize his assets? I don’t know.

That’s not true. Tell you, I don’t want pardoned. I don’t want anybody below Trump pardoning. Like, I am open to the idea of pardoning Trump. I’m not convinced of it.

I I think there’s a very good case we made for not pardoning him no matter what. I I want every single person below the elected office of of president, foreign president, to go to fucking jail.

I was listening to you. Start on this the other day, and I wanted to hear a lot more because I I well, number one, I don’t agree with the idea of parting trump and nobody else. They all, you know, when one goes, they go all. What’s the thing that they love? You know what I mean?

I I thought of that when, the Georgia indictment came out. It was like, oh, so many so many indictments, so many co conspirators. I was like, What is it? When we go one, we go all, and Fannie Wallace says, yeah, that’s right. Here you go.

But, yeah, okay. Number one, separating Trump from everybody else. I think that’s problematic because he should not be above the law. That said, I do want to talk more about the middlemen because I think, you know, you look at the Watergate history. They kinda the people that, you know, all the presents men They kinda got to be built up into something bigger than they were.

Like, Gordon Liddy was a clown. Right? Most of these guys were clowns. They fumbled the burglary. They were doing weird stuff putting on disguises to raid, the Ellis office in California.

Like, it was stupid.

Yeah.

But it kinda got built up into this thing like, oh, they were the plumbers breaking in. And there was kind of, I think mystique around it. When there should not have been. And I don’t want these people to develop that kind of intrigue in sort of dark arts sort of what Roger Stone does. Like, I’m the dirty trickster.

Like, no, you guys are clowns. What you did was stupid and dumb, and you caused a lot of damage, And now you have to pay for it. And so it’s more of like the president’s middlemen. I was I was just just when you were talking the other day, I was thinking about how to How to brand it, so to speak?

Well, but but think about it this way. After Watergate, You have a good twenty five year run-in Republican politics at the very, very top, you know, the White House level. Where whether you like these people or not, almost all of them, not all of them. There are exceptions. Wind up being pretty cautious.

Right? The the Oliver North are the exception. Right? Oliver North is essentially Gordon Liddy is essential. Right?

Like, a weirdo figure who thinks he could just do anything that But for the most part, you get guys like James Baker and Don Regan and George H w Bush and his people, you know, and again, there are, you know, I I would say that Scooter Libby is a different class of then, like, the Gordon Liddy types. Right? He he was not a a boy scout and he wound up in trouble. But the point is you did not wind up with people in the executive branch who just thought they could do anything with impunity because they had seen these other guys go to prison. And that’s what I want again.

I want the next Republican administration because there’s gonna be another Republican administration. I want the people who get appointed to these jobs to think to themselves Now I I mean, I I could go to jail if I really fuck up.

Yeah. Yeah. That’s right. And then, like, let’s be clear. When you go to the White House, you do signs, like, agree to all kinds of ethics standards where that is supposed to be made clear to you.

There are things you can do and cannot do, oh, like, with classified information. Like, those people knew you can’t just box up a bunch of stuff and send it down to Mar a Lago. You you knew that. It wasn’t like, oh, I made a mistake. You knew that.

I mean, people are there to make it very clear to you what the standards and procedures are. You can’t just steal stuff from the White House. You can’t accept. Guess blah blah blah blah blah. So, yeah, there there should be consequences.

Absolutely. But this is broader than White House aid. I mean, you’re talking about, in your newsletter, you brought up the truth vote people. Those people were not captured. They had no kind of government role.

Yeah.

But they need to pay. There was no one telling them, oh, you shouldn’t do this. Although, I mean, I guess some of them are lawyers, but I mean, I guess it’s it’s broader. The problem is broader than who will staff the next administration because there’s this larger network that feeds into Republican politics that I think is totally different, unique from the progressive and democratic movements that don’t it’s not even they don’t even have any respect for the rules. They don’t they there’s a universe of people there that don’t know the rules.

Or how they should act. They think everything is just a free for all.

Right. They

think it’s

on Twitter.

Yeah. Everything is Twitter. There’s no such thing as defamation because everything is free speech. And they’re learning the hard way. I mean, Janesh to Susa is being sued by all kinds of people.

Some of them PD is involved with those lawsuits. Gateway pundit is going into court. Like, the long arm of justice is coming after them. And I do think there’s a number of people that are just caught by surprise. Like, oh, we’ve always operated this way.

Well, this time it caused real harm, in when people can prove those harms, you will pay damages.

So Alex Jones. Right? This is it is important that all of these people have the law dropped on their head. In the same way that the Dominion case against Fox was very important. Right?

And you say, it’s not just the government people. It’s this entire conservative, like, crazy world. That has just operated as if, like, you know, it’s all a big joke. We’re gonna trigger the lips, and we’re just gonna say stuff, and you can’t stop us. Right?

You know, like, well, what are you gonna do snowflakes? Well, you know, there are some things that you can do, and there are other things you can’t. Like, when you file a formal complaint, with the Georgia State election board. You are signing a document saying that all the things I’m alleging in this complaint are true to the best of my knowledge. Right?

And then when the board comes and says, we can’t find any evidence of this, you claimed you had it. Please turn it over. You can’t just say, oh, you know what? We’re just gonna take that back. Don’t don’t worry about that.

And god bless the Georgia State election board for saying, you know, uh-uh, no. No. We’re gonna keep pushing on this. And This we need this. We the all of America needs this, and we need this as far top to bottom as possible.

The exception of Trump who we may have to pardon so that we don’t yep. Whatever.

Yeah. We let him go through the trial and everything. Here’s the other thing. No discussion of pardon until the trial happens. I mean, this preemptive pardon movement that’s coming from the Republicans running against him is just I I laugh about it.

It’s like, oh, we wanna pardon him. You haven’t even read the indictment. Pardon him from what? You haven’t read a single piece of paper about the case. It was oh, well, I think he’s innocent.

No. No. No. We’re gonna make you sit through the trial. Even if that’s your posture now, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Vivek.

No. We’re gonna make you sit through the trial and go through all the things that he did to try to overturn the election. All the people that he pressured What is the word that keeps getting used in the indictment? I really like it. I’m importuned.

What I wrote it down?

Yeah. I think it’s importuned.

Yeah. It’s It’s such a weird word, but it just means like the persistent harassment. I love that word because it wasn’t just oh, Donald Trump called you up and asked, read the if you read the indictment, I kinda knew this to the reporting, but he was in their faces Jonathan Last, like, calling them badgering them, pressuring them saying, oh, well, you’re gonna be in trouble. You know, you you’re breaking the law essentially if you don’t do this. I mean, that is another level that’s not just, oh, we had a meeting about it and debated some ideas with our lawyers.

No. You were bringing the hammer on these guys in a secret shadow pressure campaign, and have you dead to rights on that. But I am kinda fascinated on, like, the idea of, like, nothing matters and we can play dress up with these ideas with the false electors. It’s I was listening to one of the lawyers defending the false electors on some, you know, I kinda go through the stream of Secret Podcast. Just people are saying, and their main defense was essentially well, they just had a meeting and debated these ideas about having an alternate slate of electors.

Like, they did in Hawaii, and this is fine. It’s totally fine. We just needed this as a backup plan. It’s like, that is not what you did. You submitted false documents to the government and said, you know, in accordance of these laws, we are these official people.

You put it on paper. You send it to the national archives. You realize if anybody else sent, you know, if you send a fraudulent document to the government for your passport or whatever, taxes. IRS is coming down on your ass. Yeah.

But you can have this broad campaign of people saying that they will do this for the purpose of overturning election. I mean, what if I did this to obtain snap benefits or, government college loan illegally? Donald Trump was doing it to stay commander in chief. You know, people go to jail for, like, little tiny frauds to get benefits. Donald Trump was trying to get the biggest it in America to run the country, be in charge of the army.

It’s just like it is Amazing to me. That’s the biggest. You talk about welfare fraud. That’s the biggest fraud welfare fraud I’ve ever seen.

Oh, I’ve missed all caps Amanda so much. Okay. So you touched on this a moment ago, the other Republicans. We got the the debate is coming up next week. I believe that Trump is going to surrender himself on the morning of the debate.

Sure. And then hold a rally the night of the debate. That’s that’s my I it just seems like the most, That’s how his reptile brain works. And I think it’s right, actually, from a comms perspective. I think that’s the right thing to do, for for him.

I mean, not the right moral thing to do. The the right thing to do is to plead guilty, throw himself on the mercy of the court and and recuse himself, recuse himself from all public.

How can we maximize this for the opportunity?

So what do you what do you think about, I just wanna put a quarter the machine for the debate next week. We got Usim Ron DeSantis’ strategy, which, by the way, could that be a head fake?

I don’t think so because he does need that kind of instruction, and it’s gotta be shorting his robot brain out now that his instructions have been revealed to the public. It’s gonna be

This is an elaborate double blind where they they need to lower expectations for him. And so one way to lower expectations for him is to leak to the times, their stupid debate ideas so that when DeSantis turns out okay, if DeSantis can turn out, okay, at the debate. I’m not convinced he can. The that, again, this seems to me to be a actually, a particularly canny way to lower expectations Ron DeSantis?

I might be able to entertain that argument if I hadn’t seen the DeSantis campaign roll out on Twitter would be on. Fair. Very fair. He’s a you blew your own campaign announcement. I mean, it takes a special level of incompetence to be able to do that.

So I think this is totally the the pack who thinks they’re actually running everything from everything I observed thought they could maybe post this online for someone to take a look at and take it down. I think it’s just dumb. But we’ll see. I mean, if he comes out with some amazing strategy on Wednesday and maybe actually blows the roof off the place, Well, what would

you if you were so if you were staffing him and you were you were running his campaign, what would you tell god’s fighter to do? Did you tell him governor, never back down?

No. I mean, he’s, like, it’s not even what I can tell. We can tell him to do. The whole position that he’s a it as being the defender of Trump but wanting to be the vehicle to move on from Trump is incompatible. It it doesn’t work.

You can’t be both of these things at once. And so, we control a little bit more on how I think you could pivot, but the main thing, you know, I’m watching the debate coverage and the arguments that people are making, And I think a lot of it misses the best argument because what people are saying now is, like, there’s this sort of taunting as, like, well, he should show up and he’s weak he doesn’t, he’s weak and he’s weak. I don’t know why they’ve all decided to use that word. I don’t think voters believe Trump is weak. Link.

The people, like, that is that is not what they, like, is it it’s just not true. He’s a lot of things. Week is not one of them when it comes to public appearance. Let’s just put that out there. But this idea that he he believes he can skip the debate because he’s leading in the polls.

Right. Like, he doesn’t have to. He said this openly. That is such a display of contempt that he has. For his own voters.

Like, he is he doesn’t believe he has to subject himself to the democratic process of actually earning votes anymore. He he truly believes he’s an entitled to it. He’s like, these Republicans support me, I have enough. I don’t have to earn any more votes. Like, the contempt that he has For the democratic process is demonstrated all over the place at every opportunity.

And this is just another example of I don’t have to show up. I have enough votes. I don’t have to explain myself to anyone. I don’t have to subject myself to any kind of questioning or scrutiny that I don’t want because I have enough votes and I believe I should be president again and you guys can all just go.

And also simultaneously, another reason I’m not showing up is because the Fox people are so unfair to me. And everything is so unfair and everybody’s out to get me. So he he he has it both ways. It’s — But I don’t. — it rebates plus the strength.

Right?

But I if he actually had to earn votes, I think he would show up.

Yeah. I agree.

You know, he only does it if he has to. But he because he did he’s made the calculation that this isn’t good for me, I don’t have to do it. I don’t have to play by these rules anymore. And that is the philosophy that I think we’re going to see converge, you know, through the campaign and into the courtroom. Right.

This just contempt that he has for our political in legal processes. He’s campaigning on it. Like, that is what is he’s staking his twenty twenty four campaign on contempt for legal and political processes. And framing it that way of saying, he’s not here because he doesn’t think he has to earn your vote anymore. He doesn’t have to show up.

He’s going to you know, say that he had right to overturn the, like, blah blah blah blah blah. I don’t think it even, like, I don’t expect Republican candidates to make that argument, but Maybe they should because there’s a lot of Republican voters that will influence the general election that are just simply not going to vote for an indicted president. There was some polling that came earlier this week. It was from a Democratic strategist, but I think it’s going the right direction that said, I think twenty four percent of Republican voters, Republicans will not will not vote for Trump if he’s indicted, and this is still going through. Why would you not?

Like, if you wanna make no. But if you wanna make an electability argument, which Ron DeSantis theoretically is doing. That’s pretty much the best card that he has to play. Mhmm. Donald Trump isn’t electable.

Why wouldn’t you point to these indictments? And say, listen, he’s gonna be in a courtroom more than he will be on the campaign trail. He’s not going to be available. To campaign in a general election, and he’s not here now to speak with you. But Ron DeSantis can’t use the indictments again Trump because as the memo said and everything he said so far, he wants to defend Trump from the indictments.

And so he’s taken away, I think the best card that he could play.

Alright. Let me tell you what I would what I would tell the governor if I was if I was running his campaign, I would say you get up on that stage and you go hard ass motherfucker Right at Chris Christie. Hey again. It’s JBL. The conversation goes on from there.

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