It’s Not That Hard Nikki (The Secret Podcast PREVIEW)

Hello. Everyone. Welcome to the Secret Podcast, a special bonus edition we didn’t expect to do. An emergency secret podcast. I’m Tim Miller in for JBL.

What’s along well. Sarah, how was the Christmas holiday for you?

It was it was good. It was alright. I think we can banter about Christmas at the You know, JBL and I learned it a long time ago that you saved the banter for the back. She go right into the politics, which is why we, I I convened this extra special secret podcast because I got I got too many Nikki Haley takes to sit on.

No banter. You have Nikki Haley takes to sit on and the people. From my, threads and Twitter comments section are interested to hear Sarah Longwell’s take on Nikki Haley. I received several apps Sarah Longwell hardest hit.

I got some of those too.

And so, given that that you were the one that was hardest. Well, actually, let me just for people who have missed it. If you have better things to do over the holiday, let me let me explain what happened and then Sarah will have you, give your initial takes. Last night in New Hampshire, Berlin, New Hampshire, they pronounce it, Berlin, not Berlin. Somebody’s done several New Hampshire primaries.

I’ve got that down. A just a flinty, New England with the accent. I’m not gonna do the accent. Ask Nikki Haley a simple question. What was the cause of the United States civil war?

Haley begins, deflecting with a little joke. It says, well, don’t come with an easy question or anything. And then she says, I mean, I think the cause of the civil war was basically how government was going to run the freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do. What do you think the cause of the civil war was? You know, classic, town hall moved there to stall, ask, good push back at the questioner?

And he correctly responded. I’m not ready for president.

I wanted to hear your view. And then he does not let her off the hook. I mean, he just goes right back at her. I wanna hear your view. Haley.

I mean, I think it always comes down to the role of government. We need to have capitalism. We need to have economic freedom. We need to make sure that we do all things, so individuals have liberties so that they have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do or be anything they want to be without government getting in the way. Back to the fella.

Thank you. And the year twenty twenty three is astonishing to me that you’d answer that question without mentioning the word slavery. Nikki, what do you want me to say about slavery? Next question. Kind of a miss South Carolina rebuilds for those elder millennials.

Sarah Longwell floor.

Okay. I’m just gonna start with the fact that Nikki Haley just could have had this is an easy question, right? Some people are like, well, this is a gotcha question. It’s only a gotcha question in the sense that this human asking the question clearly understands that he wants to know where this Republican candidate sits on the question of discussing slavery, which is only German because the Republican Party and and a Republican primary, it is now not an easy thing to answer a forthright question on slavery because you may have to say something like the self was in the wrong or, you know, keeping human beings as chattel was a dark time in America’s past, that that now has some, you know, some systemic, what would it be aftershocks that run through

You start to sound woke. There’s systemic

Well, that’s the problem, right, is that, like, she’s she doesn’t wanna go down that path. Right? So so she’s She’s she views it as a Gotcha question. When, of course, there are a bunch of easy ways to answer this question, because it’s an easy question. One is, you just do what the thing you ever see that thing on the Simpsons where a boo

is taking

he’s taking his citizenship test. And he gets asked what was the cause of the civil war, and he goes into the sort of the big, broad geopolitical, like, and the guy doing the interview like, just say slavery. He’s like, yes, same, slavery. Right. Right.

Yeah.

Approved. I proved. You’re a citizen.

If she just said slavery, one word answer, next question, what accounted, what it worked. Or if she had said, I’m so glad you asked, because let me tell you who a great Republican was. A man named Abraham Lincoln, who won the civil war and who who started the Republican Party, which was started in part out of the abolitionist movement. Like, there’s a million ways to answer this question well. And even in ways that, like, Lionize the Republican Party, make her look smart, but she is so afraid of the Republican base.

So afraid because she’s from South Carolina she knows there’s a contingent that does not want to hear that slavery was bad. And uh-uh moral evil. And so she dodges and obfuscates also in her word salad there are a great many things to pick apart. I love when she just says I like capitalism.

I like capitalism. Sure. That’s safe.

Are we is in the context of the question? Who’s what’s the capitalism we like here? Is it the buying and selling of humans? Because we don’t like that capitalism, Nikki. And is the government interference you’re talking about?

Is that the people who were intervening on behalf slaves or when she was talking about people should be free, did she mean that slavery was a moral ill? Couldn’t tell? Could you tell?

Yeah. Or the anti capitalist, in this case, the, pre civil, the pre civil war south because you don’t hear that. That could almost sound like a woke criticism now. All of a sudden, it’s hard to say, like, where where her capitalism was. It’s It’s funny.

As I was listening to you talk, there was a third answer she could have given, actually, that she shied away from. And I think that also speaks to the state of the Republican Party because it’s similar to how Donald Trump can’t talk about the best thing that he did when he was president, the vaccines.

The vaccine.

If you hear talking about the best thing she did when she was younger. She’s moved the Confederate flag. And she doesn’t, I mean, you know, I’ve went to see several of her events. Every once in a while will come up and she’ll kind of like downplay it and talk about it more like how, you know, how she navigated a crisis really more than like the moral in you know, that that there was a moral imperative to do this.

Because it was after it was after a shooting.

Yeah. It was after a dome roof shooting.

Yeah. Yeah. At at the end of the annual

at the Bulwark church. Yeah.

Yeah.

And, and so she could say that. You know, she could even start this question with, you know, you know, a joke, maybe in New Hampshire, you know, this this question might seem a little more cut and try, you know, down in South Carolina. There are a lot of people with strong feelings about this, and I’ve had to navigate that. Right? And after the shooting, you know, we had we had a big debate over the Confederate flag, and that’s all related to, you know, what the root causes were of the civil war and you know, what whether there was any value in in in, you know, the in our heritage.

And I had and I did have to navigate that. Understand that there are people with strong feelings. But, like, the reality is, looking back, like, slavery was a crucial part. You know what I mean? And that’s why I took this flag down.

And that’s why and I showed that I could unite the state and and, you know, we peep we can still respect what, you know, the culture of of our state without offending people. Right? Like, you could go with a real kinda softy compassionate conservative kind of old school answer. Right? I I I just the idea that that doesn’t even cross her mind

Well, that’s not even an old school answer. Speaks to the

state of the party. Yeah. But

that’s not even an old school answer. That is a Mickey specific leadership answer where she could have at talked about it as a human Right? And that would take something that has just been totally absent in this Republican primary, which is political talent. Right? A politically talented person who’s capable of being a human and having political positions would be able to mine their personal experience to uncover the complicated role of somebody in politics and how they’ve navigated it in the past to their benefit and to end up at the in in the morally correct place.

It would also be politically talented for her to understand where the hell she is, which is in New Hampshire, which is part of the union, and where she is vying not for Trump’s devoted base, but where she is vying for the votes of soft GOP, right leaning independence, and Indian independence, New Hampshire independence, because those are the people that are making up her margins right now. In New Hampshire, which is the one state that she has to win or come in a very close second to have any path to the nomination. Yeah. So why Tim ask I I gotta know because this is genuinely. I don’t understand it.

Why is she in that moment so why is she playing to the trump base? Like, they have the Trump people have a comfortable racist that they can go to when they want a non answer about slavery. Niki needs the other people. So what is she doing?

I mean, even even Trump might say the answer to that question slavery. You know, think about the old me, you know, the meme where it’s like the bell curve of people’s intelligence, and it’s like the stupidest people answer that question slavery. And the smartest people answer that question slavery and then it’s the people in the middle band that are like, well, you know, there was there are economic conditions in states Anyway, here’s what I think. I actually think that this is deep more deep seated than that, and it’s trauma from South Sarah Longwell, and she’s been around a lot of people for this is very sensitive. You know, and maybe if she came from a different place, it wasn’t.

Did you see this going around? This is this is not the first time she’s bought Her

two thousand ten answer? Yeah.

In two thousand ten, she somehow managed to give an even worse answer on, and it was like a patriots YouTube page when she was running governor, and this was around the same time as the flag incident. And, and I’m not gonna read the whole answer this time, but, Yeah. She ends up saying that, that the problem was that there was a question of tradition versus change. I think on the one side of the civil war that was fighting for tradition and another side that was fighting for change. And at the end of the day, what I think we need to remember is that everyone is just at the right And then and then she says, I don’t think anybody did anything out of hate.

I think that you saw passions on different sides. This was her answer in twenty ten. And it’s like, oh yeah, you know, the slave owners whipping their, you know, the the sub humans that they kept as our property didn’t do anything out of hate. Like, the whole thing is just preposterous, and here she is a decade and a half later. Still unable to answer this basic question, and I and I do think that it’s it’s a politician’s impulse to feel like, man, I know, I in her head, rather than think, oh, man, these these independents in New Hampshire and these moderate r’s or these chamber of commerce are is that to the extent that they remain that I’m gonna need to do well in this New Hampshire primary, they’re gonna be mad.

If I don’t just say the truth about what happened in the civil war. They’re okay with a little bit of wokeness if it’s woke to say that slavery caused a civil war. Not exactly Howard’s in type material there, but, instead in her head, it’s like, Oh, no. Those guys that shouted at me in South Carolina at town halls for ten years, they’re gonna be mad at me. If I if I sound too much like a Yankee right now, giving this answer.

And I think I do think that it’s probably that. Like, I don’t I, you know, I can’t fully get inside her brain, but I it’s the fact that she hasn’t dealt with an answer with this in thirteen years tells me that at some level, she knows that there’s a contingency in South Carolina that she needs that is the heritage not hate crowd, and she didn’t want to turn them off. And she didn’t have herself into Hampshire Brain. She doesn’t have herself into Hampshire Brain. She doesn’t this is also and this is where I go back to you.

I also don’t think she has a strategy for winning this

Right.

This is another part of the thing. Like, it’s not like if it was John Huntman in our campaign or, you know, Casey. People, like, we recognize we had a new hamster strategy. And so the candidate is a little bit freed to go in there and speak New Hampshire. Like, I’m gonna give you a real talk.

I I I’m gonna be heterodox at times because that’s what it’s okay here. She doesn’t she doesn’t have in her head. I do a hamster stretch. She’s she still has like, I think, a miracle lightning bolt hits Donald Trump and she’s the next person remaining strategy?

I think that is a hundred percent true. Yeah. And and, you know, the just to answer. So I think it’s fair. The people who are, like, Sarah Longwell hardest hit, because, like, I am hard hit by these when they happen.

Because

There are no normal Republicans, Sarah. When will you get it through your head, Sarah?

I know. I know. It but the thing is is okay. This is like an e this is an easy one to answer. Because there’s some people on on the Twitter’s when I was like, oh, my, you know, I was expressing my dismay at this.

And they’re like, still still want her to win, Sarah. And I’m like, yeah. Actually, yes. Like, in my fantasy world, Do I want Nikki Haley to win over Donald Trump? Yeah.

I don’t like, the guy who did the coup? I do. That is different from being like Nikki Haley, net positive human. Like, I mean, you can look at this and I don’t know if if you’ve been listening to this podcast, there is one major theme running through it. Is Orange man bad.

No. No. No. Which is that the Republican party is in really bad shape. We were all part of it.

We understand it, and we have watched I listen to to Republican voters all the time. I talk to you guys about it. Nobody is under any illusions. About what bad shape the Republican Party is in, how, how morally sort of bankrupt the bases that wants Donald Trump. You know, and we try to explain sort of what’s going on.

But Donald Trump is a unique threat. Nikki Haley is a cipher like a windsock for which way the Republican Party’s winds are blowing, she is preferable to the worst politician in our lifetime.

Human. Right? America’s worst human.

She’s preferable to America’s

worst COM.

So so that is not, that’s not my raging endorsement of Nikki Haley, but would something would it absolutely be better if she were the nominee, a hundred percent. Right?

Yeah. And I’m sure I look at it from is that they’re getting killed on this this morning too. Like, in a tweet. It’s like, dumb tongue me if you want, but Nikki Haley’d be way better than Trump. And it’s like, yeah, I don’t I I do think that sometimes our listeners you know, I mean, we have some never trump listeners, but we also have some very progressive listeners who, like, mishear.

Right? And then they’re, like, they hear us rooting for Nikki Haley, and they’re, like, Oh, man, these guys are going back. These guys are going back. And, like, what they’re they’re instead, they’re mishearing a no. I, I’ve reflected on the fundamental flaws that are happening in the party.

Like, this is an ongoing therapy session that we have every week about what happened to the Republican party. And and I’m not going back and I’m gonna vote for Joe Biden no matter who the Republicans nominate, but like for the country, for the democracy, for the state of my mental health, for everything, like having somebody, like, nobody’s gonna be waving Nikki Haley flags charging the capital sparing cops. Like, that’s not gonna happen. She doesn’t elicit that kind of support. She’s net She doesn’t is not that level of a liar and a narcissistic sociopath.

So she’s preferable. And my question back to you, Sarah Longwell like, I mean, do you feel like when you see things like this? You know, because you you kind of you vacillate a little bit with I hear Nikki say things and it’s like, oh, I remember the good parts. And then you hear this and you’re like, oh, right. There’s the fundamental bad parts.

I mean, like, how do you I’m So

I think I think that so I recognize and I think you can relate to this as a John McCain person. And even as somebody who worked for Mitt Romney, we may maybe the gay part of us. But we developed, I think, in our younger ages, an ear for somebody who didn’t quite mean it. Right?

Do you

know what? You know what I’m talking about? Maybe it’s

Yeah. I wrote about this. Yeah.

Other people, other people listening might not really know what we mean, but let me just tell you that we would look at John Kane or George w Bush, especially on on like gay stuff or other things. And we’d be like, okay. Yeah. I know that they say that, but we know they’re saying it to win a Republican primary and they don’t actually mean it. Yeah.

And I think in our younger days, we felt like that was an act of political sophistication right? And like as we’ve gotten older and I think Trump just really is kind of cracked open this particular space, which is, you know, actually saying things that you know are wrong in order to get elected in a Republican primary, but that you don’t actually like, because here’s, like, so take Nikki Haley’s, so so that word salad that she gave from from ten years ago, So she gave that to get elected. And then in office, she took down the confederate flag. Right? And I think that this is what we think of when we think of these politicians.

We think in this way of, yeah, you gotta get through this Republican primary, and then you’re gonna go and actually you’re gonna move things in a decent and, you know, and, and like, on on social issues, like, we knew the bushes were more liberal. Right? We knew John McCain, was more liberal. But we also knew he couldn’t, like, come out for gay marriage, like his wife did, and went a Republican primary. And so I think we carried that calculation pretty deep for a long time in a way that now I think that you cannot placate voters like this, like that that they’re and I think that’s actually some of the anti anti really still carry this deeply in a way that we hate because we know exactly what it is.

Right? We’re like, you cannot justify this any longer. This isn’t like some ops you get obfuscation. This isn’t like Mitt Romney being for gay marriage and then not for gay marriage to get elected and whatever. We can no longer, like, they are not good on the other side of it, or at least Trump is not.

Right? Like, Trump’s not saying this to get elected. Like, Trump’s gonna be this person the whole time and also we’re done with this mental calculation.

Right. And and I think what’s what makes us even more mad. That’s why we did the emergency secret. Right? Because it’s like, We’ve seen the negative consequences of this.

Like, it might have been defensible. It might not have been defensible. We can all everyone listening can judge our choices in two thousand eleven. Right? But, like, it was at least you know, it was at least a gray area then.

And now you look back on that and you’re like, oh, man. Look like enabling this racism and enabling this conspiracy mongering within the Republican base. Like, we’ve seen the Frankenstein monster it creates. And so, like, how can you keep doing doing that in good anyway, I’ve got an interesting side point before we get off this. Did you see what the DeSantis war room put out on this?

They criticized her. Yeah.

And so about not saying slavery.

Yeah. And they and they just posted six minutes ago. Again, it’s been twelve hours, and Nikki Hillley still hasn’t offered an explanation for her comments. What’s the hold up? What what’s happening over there in December?

This new new normie. He’s running running to Nikki’s I wanted to say left, but I just mean sane, like whatever the spectrum is of, more like up or down, not left and right. Yeah. I mean, look, he’s just looking for any reason to hit Nikki. So I guess that’s what this is about.

Maybe they have finally realized that their strategy of trying to out trump trump and and wrestle away mega voters was the wrong strategy now that everybody thinks Rhonda’s interest should basically drop out before Iowa. So I was just

trying to create it muddied the waters with his, history curriculum of talking about the benefits of slavery. It’s like, yes, Nikki Haley. Slavery caused to civil war, and it was good. Anyway, and there were

some exceptions. Got all those skills. Those skills that the workers got. Honestly, I mean, this is but, like, can you just because people are gonna be not like my my rant on us, when we were, like, in our twenties, whatever. You gotta understand that, like, Republicans today are saying way more insane things than they were twenty years ago or fifteen years ago.

Like, forget the, just, like, nobody was saying slavery might have had some upsides. Like, we never as people they and they they thought people talked to the Republicans talked about the environment. Like, the, like, the presidential candidates, it was not it was not this.