Karen Tumulty: The World’s Biggest Victim

Welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. I am in Wisconsin, and our guest today, Karen Tumbley from the Washington Post is in Iowa. First of all, Good morning, Karen.

Good morning.

So I know we were supposed to be talking about politics, but could we talk about the weather? Because the weather seems to be kind of a factor. I don’t know about you, but We’re in the middle of a blizzard here, maybe nine to twelve inches. So I’m sorry I didn’t get dressed up, but but my life is gonna be snow blowing for the next I don’t know, forty eight hours. So what is happening in Iowa right now?

I mean, what are we looking at here? Polar vortex in the middle of the Iowa caucus?

Exactly. I mean, at this point, weather and politics are inseparable in Iowa. I am looking out the window of my Telroom in downtown Des Moines where the snow is coming down at one inch an hour, and there may be more of it over the weekend. Nikki Haley has already canceled all of her events today and is gonna do tele town halls. Ron DeSantis.

I think we’re waiting for a call in a bit on whether he’s gonna cancel, but this is life threatening, Charlie Sykes

see here that the National Weather Service is predicting life threatening cold with wind chills as low as minus forty five degrees early next week during the Iowa caucuses. This becomes relevant. Generally, when we have a blizzard of this sort, you know, the you know, we call that in Wisconsin?

January.

Friday. Yeah. This does seem to be somewhat worse than than usual. Let’s deal with some cosmic questions before we get into the horse race stuff. Why every four years do we talk ourselves into thinking that Iowa is really, really important other than the fact that it goes first?

I mean, I I guess the reason I’m asking you this is every four years, we do a lot of heavy breathing. We spend so much time talking about Caucus stories, polling, and everything. And then every four years, we find out that actually Iowa is not that important. I mean, four years ago, it was a complete fiasco. So give me some sense about the the obsession with Iowa.

The Democrats aren’t even doing Iowa this year. I mean, they said screw that after after what happened last year. So Why do we think that Iowa is so important?

Well, it is first. I mean, you know, and and it’s the first time you have something besides a pulse or telling you how the race is going. And I do think just the u very unique nature of the caucuses and the history of them is, you know, it’s wonderful. It’s so, you know, I think that’s what draws us back over and over again.

And Is it?

It is well. It’s I’m telling you, it’s not at the moment. It’s not the weather. Yeah. And the the other thing think that it is important is it’s the first test of organization that you see out of any of these campaigns.

But as a predictor of how the race is gonna end up, it’s not good, not only not predicting the next president, but you know, Barack Obama being a big exception, but it’s not even good at predicting who the nominee is gonna be.

Yeah. I guess that’s that’s one of the reasons why I’m I’ve always been a little bit of a of a skeptic, and we’re gonna see what what’s gonna happen. We’re gonna get to this a little bit later, you know, what the expectations are for next week and how that plays out going forward, you know, the the Nikki surge and and all of that. But before we we do that, I I I wanna talk about something that I wrote about in my newsletter this morning, and I’m trying to pull back the the lens just a little bit. I find it really amazing in the last week.

Two things have happened. Donald Trump has ranted and raved almost on a daily basis, And virtually every day, he tops himself on outrageousness, whether he’s talking about how he would do a better job negotiating the civil war than Abraham Lincoln his theory about magnets in water, dubbing the the the riders who attacked the Capitol and beat up police officers as hostages going to the courtroom in New York and staging that weird bizarre temper tantrum, his lawyers in court, and then he is endorsed this as well, essentially saying that the president should be, you know, immune from criminal prosecution, even if he ordered the assassination of political foes if he wasn’t convicted in an impeachment. So we have all of these reminders of who and what Donald Trump is and what he will do. And yet, this has also been the week where it feels like All of the Normandy Republicans have decided they look at this and they go, yeah, he’s our guy. I mean, we’ve seen this over the last eight years.

Right? The establishment caving in But they’re not even waiting it for it to be a binary choice between Trump and the Democrat. So part of this isn’t new. Right? This has been the story of the last seven, eight years.

But one after another, you have governors. You have senators. You have Republican, you know, congressman who are going. Yeah. I’m I’m all in with Donald Trump.

With all of what that means.

And what I find more dispiriting, even than that he says it, is how quickly the foot soldiers pick up the language. And Yes. When you have Elise Stephan sitting there, on meet the press and using the word hostages to describe people who came in and tore up the capital and tried to steal an election and who are now facing prosecution for it as hostages. I mean, if he says it, it is not only him. You know, he’s Trump being trump.

This is like, okay. And now the whole party needs to to not only accept this, but get in line behind it.

This is the extraordinary thing about it. It’s not just that Donald Trump says these things. It’s the way that he transforms the party and the way in which he transforms the culture that when you say that I’m all one hundred percent behind Donald Trump, you’re not just endorsing a candidate. You’re also really embracing so many of, you know, aspects of this agenda. You have to look the other way about the big lie, either accept the big lie or not think it’s a big deal.

Is this internalization of this. This is old, but I think that we need to retain our capacity to be stunned by some of it. Republicans are not even waiting for him to lock up the nomination. I understand I don’t accept, but I understand stand the rationalization that when it’s a binary choice as it was in twenty sixteen, between Trump and Hillary Clinton, that you’re gonna go with all the crap. But we’re eight years on, we know so much more about Donald Trump.

And there are alternatives. This is not a binary choice. So Just talking a little bit about this dynamic that Ron DeSantis is still in the race. Why the rush to grapple? Why the rush to embrace so many things that these people know in their hearts is wrong.

I just think that he killed Reaganism and has replaced it with this. And I also think that these candidates are not really trying to differentiate themselves from him. You hear Nikki Haley say, well, fair or not. Chaos follows him. And you’re like, what?

It’s like he has nothing to do with this. And Yep. They have both said they would pardon him. What kind of choice, are they truly offering people, except you either get trump or you get a continuation of trumpism?

And I do think that one just one mark of all of this, and I wanna talk about Chris Christie for a moment, but he really highlighted, you know, his red line, what he said, talked about that moment in Milwaukee where, all the candidates were asked, would you support Donald Trump as the Republican nominee if he was a convicted felon And pretty much everybody’s hand went up. Right? His hand hand didn’t. And I used the phrase, you know, five minutes ago, but now it’s much further ago, but It doesn’t seem that long ago. No political party would have supported a convicted felon.

So it’s not just that they’re supporting Donald Trump and all of the other baggage and everything. They are explicitly saying that if Donald Trump shows up in Milwaukee for the Republican National Convention and accepts the nomination, and he is a convicted felon. And he’s wearing the ankle bracelet that they’re all in for him. I mean, this is really this is a transformation of American politics and of a political party that used to be for law and order.

But I think that Trump, by his decision, to show up in these courtrooms, and to say he will continue to show up in courtrooms that it’s become a campaign tool for him. Yeah. It has become a test of loyalty for him. And I think he thinks that these prosecutions are ultimately I mean, they will flat out tell you that’s gonna play in his favor. That the new narrative is he’s a victim.

He’s hostage.

I get that, but why does John Barrasso buy that? Why would Chris Sununu, the governor of New Hampshire who is not a Trump fan? Why would they accept the, yes, I’m gonna support a convicted felon to be president of the United. I mean, I understand Trump’s mentality at this point. I’m just trying to focus on what other people look at that and go, Yeah.

I’m gonna go along with that.

Because it keeps working for him, and they are more afraid of him than they even the critics of him are more afraid of him and his slice of the electorate then they, you know, care about the norms of our society and our justice system and our traditions in this country.

This is why and I think you and I share this. This is why I was disappointed by Chris Christie dropping out because I look, I I know all about Chris Christie’s baggage. I’m gonna leave that aside for a moment. I think in the campaign, he was a magnificent beast. And he was the only guy basically standing there going, guys, are we really gonna do this?

Are we really going to go along with, you know, putting this man back in the Oval Office? So, you know, I wrote a piece last week which obviously had no influence whatsoever. I’m used to that, saying, hey, hang in there. Chris, I think you were sort of on that bandwagon as well. You wanted him to stay in

Oh, very much so. Yeah. I wrote that in December as well.

So give me your thoughts about his decision to drop out.

Not only had it become clear to him that he didn’t have a path to victory here. But it was also becoming clear

Yeah.

That if Nikki Haley didn’t manage to rise and become a true challenge to Donald Trump that Chris Christie was likely to get the blame for this. And I think he didn’t wanna be ultimately seen as a spoiler. I personally don’t think that would have been a fair characterization But all of those people who had been telling him for months that he needs to get out would have blamed him for something that would not, at least in my opinion, have been fairly placed on him.

The horse race punditry, obviously. I mean, the conventional wisdom here is that this benefits, Nikki Haley. There was some speculation that he might endorse Nikki Haley. He clearly is not, and I don’t think he will endorse Nikki Haley?

No. He has nothing but contempt for Nikki Haley.

Okay. Well, and that came out in that hot mic episode where he not only has contempt for her, but he thinks she’s gonna get smoke that she’s not up to this. And yet he still cleared the way for her.

I think he was more concerned and I think legitimately so that people were somehow gonna blame him because he had what, twelve percent or something. And he was not an insignificant actor in New Hampshire.

And I think he was an important voice. I think he played a very, very important role because, you know, as he said, And usually what candidates say about themselves is not necessarily the truth, but I think he was right when he said he was the only candidate who was willing to tell the truth about Donald Trump. He was willing to say, you know, how, you know, talk about his his his character. And coming from Chris Christie, it had to have an effect on some folks. I mean, look, he became incredibly disliked because as he said during that hot mic, people didn’t wanna hear it.

But it is important for people who have been around conservative politics, republican politics, like Chris Christie to say these things. So I guess the question is now, Karen, What does he do now? He’s not gonna endorse her. And he says he will do everything possible to prevent Donald Trump from being red light. What does he do now?

Do you think?

You know, I don’t know where he takes this. I can’t imagine Chris Christie showing up at the Democratic convention and speaking.

Casting?

I just honestly don’t know where he takes this, except I think we’re gonna see a whole lot more of him on television. Making the case that he has been making both on television and on the debate stage. If Donald Trump goes down to defeat in November. I mean, Chris Christie may have a very important role in sort of trying to put together what’s left of the Republican Party and the Conservative Coalition.

It’s kinda burned a lot of the votes, though.

Yeah.

So people like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger have already sort of crossed that Rubicon and said that they would vote for Joe Biden in it was a bindary choice. They’ve created a little bit of permission, but you don’t necessarily see Christie doing the same thing.

I find that hard to imagine.

I do too.

He still has the Republican Bonafides.

What about no labels? Is he gonna play, footsie with them?

I cannot imagine. I mean, that is just, I think, that no labels, if they do end up putting forward a ticket is just gonna do such damage to Joe Biden. I just don’t see how you can read that any other way.

Let’s talk a little bit about Nikki Haley because as you mentioned, obviously, Chris Christie has been watching her up close and At least at the moment we wake up today, and there’s a Washington Post poll showing that she’s moved into second place in Iowa. She’s clearly surging. Surging with my quotation marks here. I’m doing the air quotes in New Hampshire. And yet, Chris Christie is looking at her and going, you know, This is the unbearable lightness of Nikki.

There’s a great piece in the Atlantic by Mark Lieovic.

Yes. I read it on the plane. It’s great. Well, any points out that,

you know, she really kinda looks good. She has a good campaign. Your first take is that, okay, you know, this is this is a serious person. She did well in the debate. But then he says, what exactly is she saying?

Basically, if you begin really listening, there’s a lot of gobbledy gook there. So Chris Christie made the judgment that she is just not up to this. She’s going to get smoked. What’s going on there? Because she started strong.

And my sense is that even though she’s doing well in the polls right now, that there’s not as much there as we thought there was that maybe she’s not the one we’ve been waiting for. What do you think?

You know, I’ve read Mark Levy’s piece, and I thought it was just so on target. You do listen to how she answers a typical voters question, and you it’s just a whole bunch of phrases put together into an easy to swallow gel cap, then you realize they they don’t add up to anything. I think she started out with all the benefits that come from being underestimated. But once you are in the hunt, once you are running second, you lose those and people do start listening to you in a different way. And, I mean, I thought her her whole answer about the civil war, which I think was a big wake up for a lot of people.

Was not only horrifying because, you know, she didn’t mention slavery. It was horrifying to just listen to all these sort of random phrases about freedom and government and, you know, she just has a bunch of sort of phrases that roll around and and just come out.

It is like this sort of this word salad that you can tell that she’s been prepped with all the talking points. I have confessed that I did not watch either the faux debate between her end to Sandicy of the night or the faux town hall on on Fox. Did you watch either one of them or both of them?

I was flipping back and forth between the channels. And one thing it was clear to me and something that the Trump people have been telling me is that they, here in Iowa, are benefiting so much from the fact that Haley and DeSantis are attacking each other.

Well, no kidding.

And this allows Trump. I mean, his ads are have generally been I mean, he’s been critical of Haley, but in general, his ads have been about taking on Biden, you know, moving on.

Yeah. He’s moving on.

And all of this has worked at least so far to his advantage.

My takeaway having looked at some of the highlights, though, and And going back to your point about the way Nikki talks in terms of these sort of pre canned things, that washing her Ron DeSantis seems like looking at politicians from the before times where you look at them and you realize this is why people don’t like politicians. And the contrast with Trump, whatever you can say about him is kind of, you know, unplugged, and he’s unpredictable. And he has moments when he’s entertaining. He’s not entertaining to me, but I think he’s entertaining to the base. Whereas you have these two stiff radically preprogrammed politicians.

And you’re going, same old same old same old. Here’s the talking point. You know, press this button and you get this. As opposed to any sort of authenticity. And I hate using, you know, pre canned words like that, but I just think that the contrast you know, in case you were wondering why they’re not making more headway against Trump.

I think it was kind of on display that night. What do you think?

Yeah. I think so. I think so. And, you know, Haley kept talking about her her website about documenting DeSantis’ lies those of us old enough to remember how Jerry Brown would give you his eight hundred number in every single answer in a debate. That’s what that was reminding me of.

You know, I’ve got one point here, and I’m gonna hammer it home no matter what the question is. By the way, that’s another thing about her is that, you know, very often and again, she’s done really well in the debate stage. But what you see more on the trail is how often the answers don’t fit the questions?

Well, you know, I mean, she decides she’s gonna answer what she wants to answer. So what do you think? What is Ron DeSantis running for? What is Nikki Haley wearing for? And I was basically wanna start with Nikki Haley because One of my colleagues is speculating that she’s auditioning to be VP.

With deep respect, I think that that’s nonsense, there’s no way that Nikki Haley is going to be the VP. She wouldn’t be saying the things she is saying now if she wanted to be VP. Trump is never going to take a chance on anyone whose loyalty is not absolutely carved in granite. If he learned one lesson from his first presidency, it it is that number one, The vice president is the only member of his cabinet he can’t fire. And number two, that unless somebody is absolutely even more slavishly loyal than Mike Pence, it’s risky.

So there’s no way that he is going to name any one other than somebody who is smaller than him and utterly dependent on him and utterly slavishly loyal. Your thoughts about the Nikki for VP speculation.

I would agree with you everything you just said, and I would add one more thing. Is that there is no way he is going to name someone who has star power of their own. Exactly.

Right. Yes. Or was any sort of independent base

at all?

Or who is capable of any sort of independent thought or who might have an a separate agenda. Because the moment in theory, the moment they were to become elected, he becomes a lame duck president And, you know, the vice presidency could, in theory, become a power center, which is why he’s gonna want somebody small and somebody dependable.

I can’t imagine who he would pick at this point, but it is not gonna be anybody And by the way, you often see this even in functional white houses, Clinton Gore, or when the vice president has their own presidential ambitions. There is tension. There is, you know, rivalry. There is suspicion. I mean, if you take all of that and add it to the chaos, you would already see in a Trump White House, even trump would be able to figure out pretty quickly that this, you know, would be damaging for for reasons that go beyond, you know, trump himself.

Okay. What about Elise Defonic? She Willie wants the job. She desperately wants to I mean, the fact her meet the press performance, I think, was a and illustration. Mister Trump, I will say anything.

I will defend anything that you say here. I will use the word hostages. I will go along with it, but Is she too undependable? What do you think?

She would be a pretty strong personality to have in there. And, again, you would have to be wondering what she is viewing as her next move.

Yeah. No. I think she might be a little bit too untrustworthy. So Rhonda Sanders, Ron DeSantis is not running for VP. I don’t think he’s got any shot at that whatsoever.

What is he running for? Is he trying to maintain his viability for twenty twenty eight because that seems far more plausible to me.

He’s gotta, like, not be facing reality to even be in this race if you’re Ron DeSantis at this point. But, yeah, he’s a young man If he’s smart, he’s trying to figure out what his exit looks like and what kind of credibility he leaves this race with I went to an event for him last night. They have put together a pretty impressive organization. He has checked every single box that you were supposed to check-in the Iowa caucuses. He’s been to those ninety nine counties.

He’s got the governor’s endorsement. He’s got the evangelical endorsement And here he is playing by exactly, you know, what was the twenty twelve play book, and he didn’t get him anywhere.

Why didn’t it work? Because you make a really great point. You go down and, you know, if this was, you know, a year and a half ago, we go through what will it take to win? What does he need to do? And he has gone through.

The playbook is perfectly attuned to Iowa. So if he finishes third, what went wrong? What did he misread?

Trump has broken all the rules. And by the way, the other thing that I think should not be underestimated is that this Trump operation as much as it sounds like Trump himself is running off the rails more often than not, he has a much more professional political operation. Than he has ever had before. This isn’t twenty sixteen when he and Corey Lewandowski and Hope Hicks are kinda living off the land until he gets the nomination. And this isn’t twenty twenty when he just surrounded Eastern incumbent president and just surrounds himself with a bunch of grifters.

I mean, these people have built a really impressive operation here in in Iowa, he believed in seltzer’s polls, where he is way ahead is in first time caucus goers. Who are younger, who are people who weren’t necessarily involved in politics, and his operation has already looking ahead. I mean, they have reengineered the delegate selection rules in just about every state across the country in Trump’s favor. There’s not a lot of backbiting in this team. There is not a lot of leaking out of this team.

I don’t know how they take this operation, and then pivoted to a general election operation, but this operation has been incredibly impressive.

And

that, by the way, goes back to something that happened in twenty sixteen, which is that his operation was just a disaster to the point where Ivanka Trump shows up at a caucus in Des Moines And she gets on her phone and she goes, daddy, there’s nobody here to speak for you. Nobody to stand up and give a speech on his behalf, and Trump apparently brings that up constantly that that better not happen again.

So going back to Ron DeSantis, he’s got a good campaign that didn’t has not gotten any traction. Trump is doing a much better job. So when we write our obituaries, for Ron DeSantis campaign probably next week, you know, there’s certainly obvious points, number one, and wanna get your take on this, Ron DeSantis was just a bad candidate who utterly misread the Republican electorate. Let’s start there.

If you look at his polling numbers, because don’t forget right after the twenty twenty two midterms that were such a disaster where all of Trump endorsed candidates go down in flames with the exception of here and there are JD Vance. Actually, Ron DeSantis was ahead of Trump in a number of polls Yeah. But where where Rhonda Sanders began to crater was with the first trump indictment. All of a sudden, that fills up the airwaves. That is when Trump suddenly discovers there’s a political advantage in playing the victim.

And DeSantis and all of these other candidates had to look sort of stand behind him and support him in this. Even if he’d been a good candidate, which he was not, that I think was the point of no return for him.

What if other Republicans at that point, including Ron DeSantis, had not gone along with Trump’s defense? What if they had pushed back and said, you know, this is the moment where he needs these are serious charges. We need to take them seriously. This party cannot nominate a convicted felon. Would that have made a difference?

Because in many ways, they legitimized and normalized Trump’s defense, didn’t they? If he had gone the other way, would it have made a difference, would it have worked?

I think at a minimum, maybe if he had he and the other ones who were not named Chris Christie would have said, you know, we’ve gotta let the legal process play out here. You know? Yeah. We’ve gotta withhold judgment. You know, I mean, the fact that Trump turned his mugshot into, you know, a big money razor for the campaign.

The other thing too was if you just look in, again, at blocking an tackling. I think it was a strategic mistake for DeSantis to turn over so much of his operation to a super pack. It was a strategic mistake the way he spent money. I mean, he was hemorrhaging money on things like private jets. Yeah.

He made a lot of mistakes. He is not the most appealing candidate.

No.

But I do think there was probably no way for him to dig out once Trump got indicted?

Well, especially the way that he and other Republicans handled all of that. The other thing about Ron DeSantis is the Rhonda Santis was under the impression that if he moved to the right on policy issues, that he could kneel down the Maga based could be, you know, trumpism without Trump when, in fact, I think that was also a miscalculation because what Republican voters wanted was they wanted the fights, they wanted Trump, they wanted the show, and Ron DeSantis was giving them maybe what they wanted, but he was dull as shit.

Last night, I think he must have gone on about deI for about five minutes. We’re coming up on ten o’clock on a week night, and it’s, you know, almost an hour into he’s been speaking, and Yeah. There isn’t much of a show to this. Plus, it’s not only the show that the Trump base likes. I think they find in each other a kind of sense of community that somehow, Trump has managed to create.

Okay. I stumbled across something that I had not seen before. You probably are more clued in than I am on all of this, but I can’t believe that I never knew that there was such a thing as manga romance novels. Have you ever seen these?

Nope. Oh. Now my book club hadn’t hadn’t read any of those yet.

Okay. I will send you something about the When you talk about a sense of unity, whatever you think, it’s way worse than you thought. Okay. So let’s do a little horse race punditry on Iowa. Let’s go back to where we started.

The weather. The weather is going to be a factor because you have to show up. You have to show up in person. You have to get in your car. You have to go someplace.

You have to go into some ill lit basement of a bar. And stand around. If it’s minus forty five and there’s, you know, all of this snow, that’s going to have an effect. Who benefits, who’s hurt? How do you think this will affect the outcome of the Iowa caucus.

Well and by the way, you often have to drag your kids out into that. There are two schools of out on this. One is that the megabase is the most dedicated. They are the most do or die. They’ll show up no matter what.

The other one is there gonna be enough people out there going, the guy’s at thirty points ahead in the pulse. He doesn’t need me. I’ll I’ll watch it at home. My gut’s telling me it’s the former. I think they’ll show up.

And I think they’re excited in a way that maybe the other candidates bases are. I mean, they’ve been attached to him for longer.

Okay. So there’s two ways of looking at these results, of course. Number one is just the raw numbers who wins, who loses. But, of course, that’s not the way things really play out. There’s also the expectation game.

How does the expectation game play out do you think, Karen?

I agree. Who comes in second versus who comes in third is is certainly gonna be, you know, talked about. But Trump is running against Trump’s expectations. And right now, I think the over under is fifty percent, which is incredibly high. The biggest margin that any candidate has ever had in a contested Republican caucus was Bob dole in nineteen ninety six, and it was twelve percentage points and change.

You know, Trump is thirty percentage points. In all these polls going in. So even if he, like, busts every historical record, he’s also gonna be running against his own poll numbers and showing that those poll numbers are actually real.

So what’s the headline? You know, Trump wins, but if Nikki Haley comes within twenty points, does she become the story? I mean, can you become the story even though you lose pretty badly?

If he gets somewhere in, say, the low forties. Yeah. Nikki Haley or whoever’s number two, We haven’t mentioned Vivek, Romaswamy. Anyway, but whoever’s number two, that is gonna become the more powerful narrative, I think, going into New Hampshire, and she needs that.

Okay. Should we mention Vivec? Because I I I kinda make it effort not

to mention.

So what what he’s still in the race? He’s still, like, what what happened there? Where’s he going?

He’s still having events. I I must admit I haven’t made it to any of them yet, and, you know, it’s snowing.

Okay. I I think we’ve spent enough time on on Vive. Okay. So before we wrap up, meanwhile, back in Washington, The Republican Congressional meltdown continues. I mean, this is just like, oh my god.

The script writers would have, you know, we’re in season two of all of this. And You have the new fifth string speaker hanging on by a thread, the right wing Freedom caucus in revolt again against him, Everybody’s scrambling to prevent a government shutdown. Do you think we’re gonna have a government shutdown? Because Mike Johnson can’t control his own caucus. What do you think?

What happens next week?

I think in the end, the Democrats are gonna have to come up with the votes again.

Okay. Then does Johnson survive that because that’s what killed Kevin McCarthy, wasn’t it?

As much as they love to, like, rattle their swords. Do they really wanna go through another three weeks of this, and then they end up, you know, they’re gonna have to go to Chad the intern.

Yeah. Chad the intern. We’re very, very close to Chad the intern. But when you say, do they wanna go through this, It only takes five or six of them. Actually, it only takes three these days.

Right? If, you know, frankly, you know, half a dozen of them wanna go through this, they’ll go through this. Right?

But how badly do they want? We’re in an election year now.

We’re not dealing with rational actors all the time though, Arway.

That’s true. That’s true. Maybe I’m giving them too much credit.

But it does feel like we are going through the same sort of same old same old and, you know, This is how the McCarthy’s speakership came to an end. This was the beginning. You vote down a rule. They’re starting to vote down rules. They’re yelling at each other, screaming at each other on the house floor.

And what is the margin now? Is it two votes? Is it one vote? Is it three votes?

I think we’re three.

When you say that Mike Johnson’s hanging by a thread, it’s

Exactly. And,

you know,

we’re one person slipping on the ice and breaking a lag or something away from

Yeah. You have one congressman who eats bad fish, and you have speaker, akeem Jeffries. I mean, that’s just it feels that tenuous. And We’re laughing about this. Unfortunately, there are, you know, big things at stake, including whether or not we’re going to ever pass that Ukraine bill, wherever we’re going to be able do anything about the border, whether or not we’re going to give aid, Israel, all of that stuff.

And meanwhile, the theater of Hunter Biden was the most dramatic moment on Capitol Hill, wasn’t it?

Yeah. And that but apparently, that came as a surprise to a lot of people at the White House too. I don’t know that this was necessarily the the best move on on Hunter’s part.

See, I agree with you. I was I was listening to a, illegal analyst, yesterday saying that he first of all, they didn’t give dad a heads up that he was doing it, which is probably prudent because you wanna preserve deniability and that you know, by showing up, Hunter made it less likely he would be held, you know, charged with, you know, contempt of Congress for not, you know, going into the closed session. But I tend to agree with you. It’s a I don’t see that Hunter Biden is a particularly useful asset. For the Democrats were for Biden.

I mean, there’s a little bit of theater there. I thought Republicans are behaving badly, but the less hunter Biden, the better, at least that’s my take on it.

Yeah. I think so too, especially since there’s such an imperative now for people to be focusing on Biden and what he wants to present to the public as what he has achieved as, you know, that he’s on top of the three or four gigantic international crises going on. There’s just so much else he wants to and needs to be talking about right now.

No. Completely agree. Karen Tumbley. Thank you so much for joining me. Karen Tumbley is the associate editor and columnist for the Washington Post.

Joining us from Frigid, frozen, Iowa. Try to stay warm this weekend, Karen.

Oh, you too. With you and your snowblower,

My only concern is whether or not my snowblower is big enough to handle this. I have a pretty big snowblower, but when you get to nine to twelve inches, it becomes a little problematic. We’ll let people know on on Monday how that works out. And thank you all for listening to this weekend Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes.

We will be back on Monday. And we’ll do this all over again. Secret Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper, and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.