Meet Beta Ron (The Secret Podcast PREVIEW)

Hey there. It’s JVL. On the Secret Show with Sarah Longwell today, we talked about the DeSantis runaway on Ukraine. And the DeSantis big old fight with Trump. And then we talked a little bit about how this is suddenly starting to feel a lot like twenty sixteen in the conservative primary.

Here’s the show. Ron DeSantis is running.

Wait. So he He’s running.

And running. No. Well, we know he’s running. Oh, you mean he’s

running, like, from his answers? Well,

that too. Because he has done his first attempt at a pivot. So after having his his wrists ever so ever so gently tapped. Not even slabs, just tapped by conservatism, Inc. Last week over his position on Ukraine.

He went to do clean up with peers Morgan for Fox Nation and then for posting in the New York Post. Because, I guess, Rupert Murdoch’s job now is stage managing the campaign of Ron DeSantis. That seems fine. And it was it’s been widely portrayed as a a walk back. Right?

He learned his lesson. You know, we got crossways with the with the the real, but true conservatives. And, hey, you know, don’t worry. This guy is solid. You can, you know, you he he knows who the boss is.

And we’ll sell it our colleague has a fantastic piece up today on the Bulwark, where he goes through line by line, everything DeSantis has said about Ukraine. And he says, this wasn’t a walk back. He didn’t walk back anything. And in fact, in some ways, he doubled down on on his previous position. And it’s very very interesting to me for for, like, three different reasons, one of which is what it says about the DeSantis operations internal sense of their positioning in the race.

I think it signals some concern on their part. I think it signals that they are not thrilled with where they are right now. It gives us a little bit of a data point about how nimble the Santa is as a candidate. And the answer is not super nimble. And it tells us a little bit about where Republican voters really are on this stuff, I think, because his his attempt at a walk back doesn’t really walk it back.

So it’s all Anyway, all of this is super interesting to me. And I was interested as to whether or not you had thoughts.

Yeah, I got a ton of DeSantis’ thoughts in in large part because we’re getting a bunch of new information. It may not feel like it’s a lot, but it feels like a lot I I realized just how little information we had about him. You know, something I argue all the time is that, you know, that the voters have a deep relationship with Trump. Like, good, bad, ugly. They know who this guy is.

They got Ron DeSantis, right, they’ve seen them yell at some teenagers and masks. They’ve seen them fight with Disney. They’ve seen them do what they think is a good job with COVID down in his home state. But like and they seem elegant reporters, and so they think that guy’s good. They also like Trump.

Like the Venn diagram of people who like Trump and people who like DeSantis is like not quite a perfect circle, but because Trump’s got some people over here who are the always Trump or crazy people. And to say to test some people over here for whom Trump was too far, but mostly people who like Trump like Ron DeSantis and vice versa. And so we but over the last, like, two weeks, nine days, we have gotten both a glimpse into his strategy and how he’s gonna try to take on Trump, which is to basically run without any daylight between he and Trump, policy wise. He’s gonna try to be a little cute when taking his jabs at Trump, to say, pneumonia, and Hence. I don’t know the vowels, and then he’s gonna try to, you know, I don’t know.

I don’t know about porn stars and whatever. Like, that’s how he was gonna handle it. What else have we learned? We’ve also learned how Trump’s supporters are gonna handle the Santos, right, which is they’re gonna go after him, something that DeSantis has not experienced before. Right?

Yes. It’s not just taken on the lids. Now, the people who liked Trump and who are open to DeSantis, here’s the thing he’s learning. It’s a tough lesson, which is, and this was always one of the questions we were asking ourselves. Ron DeSantis criticizing Trump alienate Trump voters?

Or will Trump, you know, take its wings at DeSantis alienate you know, DeSantis voters who wanna move on from Trump and, like, really piss them off at Trump. And I think one of the things that we’ve learned and it’s probably something I think we could have guest, which is that Trump’s people are gonna be a lot more ferocious than DeSantis’ people. They’re gonna come harder, they’re gonna demand fealty, they’re gonna make people nervous. And watching the anti anti Trumpers, DeSantis stands valiantly clubbing away over the last week trying to be like, but Trump is a grifter, but Trump is inconsistent, but Trump doesn’t care about conservatism. He’s just such a reminder that It’s easy to forget the rules never applied to Trump.

All the conventional rules don’t apply to Trump. And just like they, didn’t apply to Trump, but did apply to Biden. You’re starting to see a little bit if they still don’t apply to Trump, but they do apply to DeSantis in some ways. And I can’t so now he’s now now he’s caught a little bit twisted between trying to do two things. One is, I got a chip away.

It always Trump voters. So I’m gonna be as much like Trump, but I also have to be all things to all people, which creates this sense that I’m like all over the place. And I don’t know who I am and I’m not exactly authentic and comfortable. And people are smelling that and it smells a little bit like fear. And then that’s coupled with, this is the other thing he’s never experienced.

He has gotten to just live in Florida and be running without running without giving national opinions.

And

he hasn’t had the press, so and and his and so he’s got these good poll numbers. Right? Half the polls that come out, half him leading. But now he’s dealing with a slide story. A story about Trump.

Oh, Trump is like I mean, I I’ve talked to I don’t know. Twelve reporters over the last seventy two hours. They’re all writing the same piece. It’s all about Ron DeSantis’ slide and Trump is gaining steam and why is that and what’s happening? He hasn’t quite had to deal with that before.

Now like I’ve said, I said this on the next level. It’s early, and so I think that there’s time for him to maybe find his footing, recalibrate a little bit, but I said this on TV yesterday and I really believe this to be true. I think Mona I think this was Mona’s line, but, like, There’s no way around Trump. There’s only through him. Mhmm.

And, like, if you wanna be the man, you gotta beat the man. Prejudice. The Santa is gonna have to find a way to, like, be this alpha and the the COE stuff I think we like it. I think the anti anti is like, if they think look at how smooth he is, look at how definitely he handle that. But you know what?

Trump voters hate it. They see it for what it is and their comment. For him. They got the knives out. And I think that people are remembering how hard it is to try to nail this guy’s jello to the Will Saletan,

one of the lessons of twenty sixteen was that what Republican voters want is the politics of dominance. Right? It’s just a guy who is always barreling for they want authenticity and dominance. They don’t want the right positions. They don’t want smooth.

They don’t want smart. They want the the alpha dog who never apologizes for nothing and just goes straight and who’s willing to go to eleven. And the first thing I think is like I’m sorry. DeSantis thinks he has to go out and clean up his Ukraine thing. What he should have done is gone out and said, Now, let me take this right.

You know, like, actually, I’m rooting for Putin. Yeah. No. Fuck you guys. Right?

Like, it turns out these Ukrainians are a bunch of corrupt gangsters and and anti semite Nazis and, you know, we How

did you listen to my focus group. That’s exactly what they said.

But that that would have been, you know, the dominance politics response to the Wall Street Journal cutting at him. Mhmm. And instead, what he did was the worst of both worlds, which is he went to do a cleanup, but then didn’t actually clean it up. And that’s that’s a problem, I think. Just because, again, what it tells us about him standard disclaimer.

None of us want none none of us here in this on this show want Donald Trump to be the Republican nominee.

Donald Trump is

is a very dangerous thing for the country My buddy, Chris Salissa, has a a post up today about how, like, anybody who is talking themselves into thinking that Donald Trump can’t be elected president in twenty twenty four is absolutely whistling past the graveyard. A hundred percent he could win. You know, this is and in fact his chance to win would probably be coin flip or slightly less than a coin flip.

Yeah.

Like, it’s you know, the the idea that, like, oh, well, if Trump’s the nominee, then Joe Biden has a hundred percent chance to beat him. No. Sorry. Not true. Biden might have a sixty percent chance to beat him.

But you know, maybe that depends if we’re not in a recession or not. If we are in a

recession offensive Joe Biden’s healthy or not.

Yeah. So And all of this combines with, you know, the the to have to have the poll numbers showing Trump doing pretty well against Biden, right, which knocks out another leg of the stool of DeSantis’ case for himself.

Yep.

Right? And so, Bill, we talked a lot about this last night on the the livestream, which is only for members of Bulwark Plus. Gotta join to get that. It’s good stuff. And Bill noted that there have been a couple moments recently where does Santa’s political instincts seem really, really wrong, and Trump’s have seemed very right.

And he pointed to the Silicon Valley Bank run. So DeSantis goes out and says, this is all because of the woke. Right? That’s what he blames it on. And Trump’s Trump’s line on the Silicon Valley Bank was looked at what Joe Biden is doing to our economy.

We could wind up in a great depression with runs on the banks and instability. When I was president, we had the greatest economy in the history of America.

Mhmm.

One of those is so dumb, it’s cringey, and one of those I think is pretty effective fear mongering. And, you know, I I think Trump’s instincts on that are right. And just as a political matter. Right? Yeah.

And and DeSantis’ instincts on this are wrong as a political matter. And

But can I give you another one? Yeah, please. Okay. Here’s another one. Rhonda Santos had been able to he was down there in Florida, and we were talking about this like, Ronda’s I get saying Ron DeSantis just gonna stay down there in Florida, and he’s gonna govern.

Be the governor. He’s gonna wage culture words. He’s gonna get media as, like, in Charlie Sykes gonna fight with the news and know, he’s gonna expand the don’t say gay and be the cultural work guy down there, and he’s gonna get to ride that through his legislative session. Probably into June and won’t even have to deal with Trump. And Trump’s whole deal is he wants to bait the Santa’s in.

Right? He’s trying to go to him into engaging with him. Well, this is before DeSantis has a big team, a big operation. He hasn’t necessarily consolidated his support. So, like, Ron DeSantis did get gated in.

Right? He, like, he got into it, and he didn’t quite know this was gonna happen, but, like, he got pulled into it before he was ready. And I think this was a mistake. Like, he was doing well. Why people people keep asking me why?

Why are DeSantis’ numbers sliding? And I’m like, because they’re seeing Ron DeSantis. Like, he worked better. It was always, can he live up to the hype? Because that mythology of DeSantis is better than real dude, DeSantis.

And he should have milked that longer in building his coalition, and he should have had a much bigger team around him by the time he decided to engage And he doesn’t have a foreign policy adviser. Like, he hasn’t staked out what his position is. And so now he’s seat of his pants, trying to figure it out And I think that was a mistake.

So here’s here’s another another example is the Ukraine stuff. Right? Ron DeSantis is is caught in this policy well, territorial dispute, but actually Russia has had the the southeastern regions for a long time and we shouldn’t be profitable. And Trump’s position is Joe Biden is gonna start World War three. I will stop World War three.

Mhmm. I

just think that’s a much as a as a as a matter of, like, fight making, you know, staking out a political position, I I just think that’s better and smarter. So here here’s the thing that makes me deepen my soul depressed. And what makes me deepen my soul depressed is that If DeSantis is the nominee, there will be some percentage of Trump voters who believe all of this manga stuff so completely that they will have the courage of their own convictions and not show up for DeSantis. Yeah. They won’t vote for Biden.

And if Trump is running for the third party, they’ll they’ll vote for him or if he’s not running his third party, they won’t vote. And it won’t be, you know, it won’t be fifty million people. But, you know, it could be two million people. Sure. But keep yeah.

If Donald Trump is the nominee, all of these to Santa stands who have been preaching about getting past Trump. And how of course, we have to, but the only way to beat Trump is to None of those people have the courage. None of those people are gonna go line up to vote for Biden or are gonna stay home and sit on their hands. They will all just dutifully say, yep, that about for Trump, I guess. And that asymmetry, is I mean, in in one way, that’s how that’s how Trump won in twenty sixteen in the first place because he saw that those people who are the the gatekeepers of conservatism and Republicanism were so weak and so compromised that they’d put up they’ll they’ll take anything, you know?

And he he saw that. You know, whereas people you and I, I think, thought. I don’t wanna put words in your mouth. I thought in twenty sixteen, if this guy’s the nominee, this can be a mass exit. From the Charlie Sykes.

The people in in my world who just say nope. I guess we’ve gotta be like the deal conservatives now and switch teams, you know, because this is this is an existential threat in the same way that communism and the cold war was an existential threat, and we’ve got to be on the side with something. And that I was wrong. There was like fifteen of us. You know?

And

they all went came to work for the Board. You know what? It’s funny. We don’t we like now it’s like just part of our history or whatever, but we don’t always we don’t revisit as much these days like what it was like back then. But, like, the thing what what’s crazy, I think.

And we’ve been mocking them for it, but, like, let’s go a layer deeper and think about the national review at that time. Was our was our shield. The national review was writing against Trump. They were they were making the argument in everyone we knew. Everyone we knew in our circles was against Trump.

I was working with tons of people in the primaries who all wanted every donor everybody wanted to look to see if we can open

letters and, you know

Get this guy out of here and we thought we could. And the thing that we everybody was like, once he was the nominee, which was a disaster, everybody was like, they were pulling back, but everyone is like, good. Was, you know, Hillary’s gotta just deal with this. You know, like, and this will be god, and we’ll all

Hillary will take care of this for us. He’ll take care of this son of a bitch for us.

That’s right. But

we won’t vote for Hillary. No. But And we won’t attack Hillary. We will attack Hillary endlessly. But we’re gonna all secretly hope she wins.

Yes.

Because we’re certain she will because, of course, this can’t happen. And it’s, like, So watching watching the national review and and it’s acolytes the people on Twitter. Watching them valiantly right now both criticized, like, they are exasperated. You can just they they are they cannot believe this is happening again. They are fighting valiantly for DeSantis they have been like, I think it’s like a kick in the chest when they see DeSantis.

Siding with Trump on things like Ukraine. That’s like brutal for them, but they’re like, nope. But we gotta do this, and we will and so now they’re out there slugging away at all these people on But the thing is, the people who were big Trump stands and who, by the way, their livelihoods and their all their audience and everything else was built around Trump, they’ve had like a kind of a lame couple of years. Right? It’s been a boring couple of years for them and

He has not taken care of them. He gives me a little money for himself. He’s not helping them make money anymore.

But you know what? Now they’re back in action because you know what? They got an enemy, and it’s the DeSantis people. And they are that that’s the rally around Trump effect. Like, they’re out there to make sure people stay outside, to make sure every candidate is gonna go to bat for Trump against this Soros funded DA, and they’re gonna try to enforce and impose they’re gonna make sure DeSantis stays in line and he has not dealt with this before.

Those people were on his side against the liberals down there. Now they’re against him and he’s gonna realize they’re vicious. And terrible and disgusting just like Trump. And they’re gonna do all kinds of damage to him. And this national review crowd and his anti anti is are gonna once again find themselves, like, confronting the fact, and I wonder if the confronting the fact that the voters aren’t who they think they are.

Yeah.

Well, they they

the voters are who they know that. I mean, it’s like Marco Rubio warning that if if Donald Trump is indicted and arrested that then there could be civil war. Great

reporting by Joe Perticone yesterday, by the way.

If that’s true, Senator Rubio, then doesn’t that mean that your voters are potential insurrectionists and Ron DeSantis isn’t that a problem, sir? Don’t you think that maybe you should either not be asking those voters for their votes or you should be working to counter those voters? Because that sounds to me like you’re those people you’re describing are essentially terrorists. Domestic terrorists, that’s a problem. No?

Oh, you should write that for the triad. That’s a good piece.

Maybe I will. But but the here’s the again, I don’t want this turning to airing of the grievances. I worry that this is a little bit airing of the grievances. But all all of the people in our worlds who were so anti Trump and who, you know, all that stuff that you just just talked about a minute ago. The thing that really gets me is that it is not the case, that Trump became president, and then it turned out that the fears were all overblown.

Right? There was — Right. — there was actually some of this on Reagan. Right? There was a lot in in the conservative establishment of in nineteen eighty, there was a lot in Reagan as a hothead.

He’s gonna start war war three. He’s just an actor. And when he comes president and actually the things are okay. Right? You know, he he turns out he’s he’s quite thoughtful.

He handles the economy well even if you don’t like supply side economics, see manages the confrontation with the Soviet Union in a very depth way. With Trump, he becomes president and it turns out that he is worse than all the warnings about him were.

Mhmm.

So it isn’t the case that, like, it turns out they made a bet and a bet came home for them because it was like, you know, yeah, it turns out he’s fine. Is it was worse? And they just kept going. Yeah.

I know you you you’re it’s first, probably right about that. And you could be right that, like, maybe were air engravens or never. Part of what’s happening right now, it just feels so close to what happened back then. It’s like I’m reminded of that visceral feeling of watching everybody who was who we were with, who was on our side, who was making total sense, watching them, like, make the pivot to be a zero drop. And, like, what how devastating that was?

Because suddenly, we were the only ones Still saying the thing we had all said, not only that, and this is here too. They came for us Like, while Trump was happening, we became the the, like, with me boy on this. Like, it was all the fault, all of it. And it’s, like, a little bit of that now, right, where they’re, like, well, it’ll be like, well, you guys aren’t defending Ron DeSantis hard enough. And I’m like, have you Do you What do you think of a leastiphonic coming out and saying that?

Trump’s the only way to go and that DeSantis is, you know, wrong or like or Nikki Haley saying that Ron DeSantis is a copycat. Trump and that we need somebody is not a copycat. I’m sorry, guys. You have bigger fish to fry. We are not your problem.

We will grudgingly vote in a Republican primary for DeSantis. But like but we’re still the problem. Right? Like, they will continue. And

it’s all that self residual self image, I think. Right? I think I think the reason that that the never trumpers or the problem is because if the never trumpers didn’t exist, then they wouldn’t have to feel guilty.

Yeah. Because

I’m saying, see, like, everybody. Everyday. It’s like, what is some some idiot tweeted after after Trump lost. He’s like, now it is finally possible to say that all the things, you know, were bad and to plan for a new conservative future. And my buddy, Adam White, replied to that dude and was like, it was always possible.

Hey, again, it’s JVL. The conversation goes on from there. If you wanna hear the rest of the show, head on over to Bulwark Plus and subscribe. We’d love to have you.