Philip Bump: A Reminder that the “Russia Hoax” Is a Hoax

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Welcome to the Bullwear podcast. I’m Shirley Sykes. It is Thursday, and we are joined by one of my favorite columnists, the Washington Post’s Philip bump national correspondent for the Post who has an upcoming book coming out out next year, the aftermath of the last days of the baby boom and the future of power in America. So as a baby boomer, you’re you’re gonna write about our last days.

That’s it. That’s it. How do we say? Get it.

It’s come to that.

It it I mean, you know, it has. I I hate to say it. But yeah. I mean, as I was writing the book, I I was always very sort of trepidation and talking to people like, okay. So the baby boom is gonna go away, and know, the people who cared the least, I I talked to the guy who who runs the cemetery in Brooklyn.

You know, if you if you wanna talk to someone who is very busy about the concept of death, that’s who you wanna talk to. But Yes. It’s it’s it’s always a little sort of awkward as as a conversation start.

So I wanna talk about obviously the political news of the day, but I have to say And I don’t have any particular insight into this except that it feels like the most depressing news of the day that we are now seeing signs of the return of polio. And it’s one of those things. Here we are in twenty twenty two with the most advanced medical system in the world with vaccines easily accessible and we’re seeing a disease that we thought had been eradicated coming back. You’re the numbers guy. I I don’t have any insight in this,

but I

guess I guess my fear is that this is one of the consequences of this new anti science, anti vaccine culture out there. And these ideas have consequences and perhaps deadly consequences. One thing to be anti COVID vaccine, which I think is stupid and deadly, but now we’re seeing polio. What do you make of this?

It seems like it’s probably a function of two things. The first is that obviously the anti vaccine movement predates COVID by a number of years. And I think that it has its roots in part in the success of vaccines. Right? I mean, people were able to sort of be blasier about vaccines.

In part because we didn’t have to worry about the diseases that the vaccines were preventing because of the vaccines. Right? And so, you know, something like polio people weren’t really that worried about it. So it’s easy to be like, I’m not gonna get my kid back to Niggans Pollio because Pollio didn’t exist to any significant degree. And so that was one of I think the reasons that the anti vaccination movement had some legs prior even to twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen.

Certainly prior to the coronavirus pandemic. And I’m very curious, and I can’t speak to this specifically, but I am curious that the reason that we’re seeing these levels of polio that are being detected, simply because now we’re paying more attention to the presence of viruses and sewage. Right? You know, so we’re seeing a lot of these analysis of sewage because we’re trying to determine what the path the coronavirus pandemic is taking. And maybe it’s simply because we’re looking more refined this, you know.

So I I don’t know how much cause there is rapastemism on this particular thing. Well,

it’s also interesting. And I think as a as a as a positive development seen the CDC acknowledging that they needed up their game that they they did not really, you know, they they were designed to deal with things like the pandemic we just went through, and they were not nimble, they were not effective, and I think it’s a positive sign that they’re willing to say, hey, we need to retool. I hope the FDA is next, but is kind of an interesting admission for a bureaucracy as entrenched as the CDC to go, okay, we screwed up. We needed to fix ourselves. I I mean, that’s that’s a positive development.

It it is. I mean, obviously, I think we we know how this song tends to go without right that someone who is new to a position comes and says everything here is broken. And all the bureaus who’ve been working there for twenty years say, okay. Let’s see how that goes. Right?

You know, and then, you know, four years, like, if things change. So, you know, I just had a burst of optimism, you know, of pessimism. We’ll see how it goes. You know, hopefully, that that the damage that was done with the CDC, both from outside and inside of the course of the past two years. Spurs on recognition that it would be fruitful to to make some changes at least.

Well, let’s let’s talk

about something you wrote this week about the political fallout from the FBI search of Donald Trump’s home in Mar a Lago. There is an emerging conventional wisdom, particularly among Republicans that this has helped Donald Trump. This has caused a rally around the flag that it may have contributed to the magnitude of Liz Cheney’s defeat. I’m hearing from Wisconsin Republicans that that, in fact, this galvanized mega support. So so talk to me a little bit about this.

You You wrote a piece yesterday morning that it took minutes, maybe seconds for a consistent Republican response to emerge when the news broke the former president’s Moralaga Resort had been searched by the FBI that this was an egregious political overreached by the administration of president Biden. So how did this play out and how is it playing out?

So it’s still fairly early. I tend to look at polls as as a guide here as you know. And so you know, we’re still just starting to see polls trickle in from the period after the Marlago search. But one thing that was interesting is I looked at a a UGov poll, which looked at Donald Trump’s favorability. And and I had expected to see his favorability jump.

Right? That that people would suddenly now look more positively at Donald Trump in the wake of this thing. Thrown, I say, people in the Republican’s office since that’s what we’re talking about here. But it didn’t it was flat. There was no change week over week in terms of how people viewed Donald’s And I thought that was interesting.

And it really made me think, okay. So what what did we see? And so I went back and I picked out okay. So we saw people like Rhonda Santos jump to Donald Trump’s defense. We saw Mike Pence jump to Donald Trump’s defense, both of which I thought were significant because these are people who wanna see in beat in twenty four.

But they didn’t when they jumped to Donald Trump’s defense, it was more of an enemy of my enemy thing. Right? It was, look at what this horrible, you know, deep state is doing in essence, you know, desantis littering in the Banana Republic as one would expect. So it wasn’t it wasn’t that they were saying Donald Trump is right here. It was they were saying the government is wrong.

Right? And so it was a defense of Donald Trump’s position, but it was not about Trump. And so it preserved some independence from Trump himself, which I think is interesting. Right? And so we see this in other ways.

It it it is essentially akin to the difference between defending Trump and defending Trumpism, which is a a divide that we’ve seen emerge a lot over the past year. You know you know, to the extent to what you’re saying, Donald Trump is right versus the things Donald Trump did and advocated is right. And that’s a line also the people are drawing. And I think that’s not what Donald Trump wants. And of course, I don’t I don’t know if he even sees it that way.

I think he sees anyone who’s on the side is right or necessarily coming to his defense. But I’m not sure that’s actually how gonna play out.

Okay. I mean, in the first few days, he was absolutely giddy. And, you know, there were his hardcore supporters demanding that that he be named the party’s nominee So what do you make of Laura Ingram than saying on a podcast that Americans might be ready to turn the page?

I think that what Rhonda Santos has done, and I’m I’m writing a little bit about this this morning. I I think what Rhonda Santos has done is he has done a very good job of cutting Donald Trump out of Trumpism. Right? He has been he has done a very good job of engaging in the cultural war fights. Not engaging in the cultural war fights, but engaging in the new cultural war fights.

The cultural war fights in the moment, not the ones that Donald Trump tends to fight which often are somewhat older. He’s done a very good job of separating himself from Trump in that regard and and positioning himself as the candidate who can be Trump without the Trump package, which is what everyone says, you know, this is this is the potential path forward for public nominee. You know, something like, I honestly, I thought less interesting than Laura Ingram’s comments in which sort of like, hey, you know, maybe turn it back to one second. Or Alex Jones is yesterday. And with Alex Jones, just essentially said, you know, I’m for the scientist because I’m anti vaccine, which is very much what the scientist has been going for.

He’s been, you know, sort of tiptoeing around being anti vaccine. And, you know, he he makes enough of a case that he can present a face to, you know, more moderate voters. That actually he that, you know, try to expand the vaccine in Florida yada yada yada. But he knows the signal he’s sending. The signal he’s sending is, I am the guy who now speaks for the fringe of the Republican Party in a way that Donald Trump can’t always do.

And I think that he is playing that fairly well, and I think that that is a significant problem for Donald Trump in twenty twenty

four?

Well, if Donald Trump announces that he that he’s running, you know, pre indictment, post indictment, whatever, How does Wanda Santos react to that? Can Wanda Santos run against a martyr Donald Trump? Is that possible in the current environment? Yeah.

I mean, that’s that’s the cat the question. Right? So we go back to how did Donald Trump react to the Mar a Lager Rig. This could have been you know, if I am a political adviser, which thank god or you know, but if I’m a flip to advisor, my instinct may have been said, just sit around with Santos. Okay.

This is it. This is the moment when you say, look, this guy has too many questions. Let’s see what this thing is, but what’s going on down the front. Right? That’s not what Santa Santa said.

Look at these, you know, government scumbags, essentially. Right? Not to not to put, you know, unflowing words in his mouth, but that was just, you know, he he he he went after he went after the FBI. And so the question is, can they and, you know, again, going back to my point, that’s a differentiation between being for Trump and being anti Trump’s enemies. Is that enough?

You know, if they’re on the debate stage, isn’t enough? They’re on the scientists to turn to Donald Trump and say, I’m mad at the FBI for investigating you instead of saying, why are you being investigating all the time? Does he make that switch at some point? Does that turn people off? And I don’t think we really know the answer to that question.

I think we there’s a lot of rumblings, a lot of hints that, yeah, you know, even Republican voters who are pro Trump are at some point gonna be like, okay, the Santos is good enough. Yeah, I’m worried about Trump winning in twenty twenty four. I’m gonna go with Sanders. We we hear a lot of those rumblings. It’s just not really manifesting in Poland yet.

So the formula is that if you’re going to displace Donald Trump and the Republican Party, you have to be Trump based. You cannot be seen as aligning yourself in any way with his enemies, which leads us to Liz Cheney. Right? I mean, that that’s that’s her, you know, cardinal cardinal sin. So speaking of hopeless causes, we’ll get to Liz Cheney in in a moment whether she’s gonna run a comikazi campaign for for president.

What do you make of what Mike Pence is doing? Because Mike Pence is sort of tiptoeing around the same question of what can you say? So he’s, of course, also criticizing the FBI rate, but he also called on his fellow Republicans to stop their attacks on the FBI and law enforcement, which again strikes me as not breaking with Trump, but just sort of like, you know, taking baby side steps. And and he also suggested somewhat more radically that he might show up and testify before the January sixth committee. So what is what is Mike Pence doing?

How is he playing his cards?

My sense is that Pence is has consultants who had the instincts that I had last week. Right? And the consultants are saying, okay. Maybe this is the moment. And look, No one in this universe has more space to be critical of Donald Trump’s, you know, approach to politics than than does Mike Pence, given what happened on January.

Six. Right? He has all the space in the world to do this. And maybe this is the part where he is starting to to to test the waters of the separation. And not simply go after the FBI for being, you know, a corrupt state institution, but instead to say, hey, maybe the FBI has some validity in what it’s doing.

Maybe the January sixth committee has some validity in what it’s doing. And maybe he’s starting to explore and just see, okay, what’s the reaction? From the base. If I start to say, you know what? Maybe Trump has a little bit of corruption to him, guys.

Let’s consider that possibility. Right? You know, how does that play for him? I mean, look, Mike Pence is not, I think, as gifted a a a politician as he a lot of his all I seem to think. So I’m not sure.

But, you know, that that may be what it’s doing. And and I do wanna I do wanna point something out. You you raise this you know, I I mentioned this and you just mentioned this. The distinction between Trump and Trumpism. I think one of the the the signal factor, and I say this all the time, and I and I and I’ll continue to say, reason that Donald Trump won in twenty sixteen is because he was a guy who was willing to say that what the fringe was talking about and that the establishment wouldn’t talk about because it was ridiculous.

He was willing to Trump was willing to be the voice of the French. He was willing to pair it back to the base. What’s what they were hearing in Bright Park and what they’re hearing on Fox News in a way that the establishment wouldn’t. Right? And that has been his success ever since.

He’s been he’s been engaging and rallying the the far right of the Republican Party that didn’t feel like they had a voice justifiably in politics. And that’s what DeSantis is doing as well. He’s really playing to that same bar right, and he is In the same way that Donald Trump was bright part to the establishment’s Fox News in twenty sixteen. Now, bright part is, you know, almost establishment desk to some extent. And Rhonda Santos is is info wars.

Right? I mean, so it is it is this constant, okay, I’m gonna engage where the where this this most fervent element of the base is. And we call that Trumpism. But it’s, you know, really just the French and engaging the French has proven to be a successful strategy for winning elections. And I think that’s what the

I think that is exactly correct. And I think that’s an exactly correct analysis, which then also raises the question. I mean, because very clearly, the fringes now become the main between the dominant force and the Republican Party. So what happened to, for lack of a better term, normal Republicans, the the Republicans who went along with with Mago World, but but are not really part of the fringe. I I mean, how do you read this this long march of Trump as candidates who have been winning in the primaries and the app solute decimation of of Liz Cheney would certainly suggest that that the anti Trump forces in the Republican Party have been humbled, routed, and defeated completely.

But there still are people out there who are willing to make the bargain whatever trivia you wanna say, but but not necessarily the the the bright bar, Alex Jones, Fox News, fire breathers. Right. Where are they at the moment?

It seems to me, and this is this is something that I’ve been sort of noodling over the past couple of days, but it seems to me that there is a deal that was made during Trump’s presidency that is well articulated, I think, holds sort of more broadly. And that is things are pretty good for me and therefore I’m less concerned about these outsider perimeter elements that are getting abused or hassle.

I can tune that out. Yeah.

Exactly. Exactly. Like, things are going well for me. Like, I get it. I wish you wouldn’t say those things, but I’m not affected by that.

I’m not gonna worry. About. I’m not gonna worry about what’s happening with trans people. I’m not gonna worry about how it’s happening with, you know, gay teachers in Florida. I’m not gonna worry about what’s happening.

You know, with police stops. I’m not, you know, there are all these things that don’t affect me. And this is why, you know, going back to last week, this is why I thought it was fascinating. That the immediate response, what happened to Mar a Lago was to fund the FBI. Because all of a sudden, that in the combination of, you know, increasing funding for the IRS, all of a sudden, these were law enforcement people who were targeting things that actually affected Republican voters.

Right? So, you know, when, Margaret Killead Greens says, defund the F guy, when they’re talking about how the IRS all the all of a sudden, they’re calling to say, wait wait wait a minute. Wait, you know, you know, we’re concerned about how law enforcement is gonna be applied against us. And we don’t like that, which is, of course, the exact argument of the black lives matter movement. Black lives matter movement was black people saying, look, we don’t like how law enforcement is being applied to us here.

And because it didn’t affect a lot of those republican voters. So, like, you know, what what are you talking about? We can’t be fun to police. Yada. Yada.

Yada. Then all of a sudden you get this IRS funding, particularly, and the secondarily, this the FBI in Marlboro. That that’s what I’m talking about. Right? So when we talked about someone like Rhonda Santos and all of these things he does to appeal to the French, and target these communities that are very small parts of the population.

Don’t touch a lot of people in his core base. It’s easy for them to say, you know what? I like the restaurants are open. I like that my kids don’t have for a masses school. You know, I don’t love this stuff about what’s happening with trans people and, you know, some of his more fun.

I don’t like Christina Pouchaw or whatever it happens to be. But things are going pretty well for me, and, you know, I think it serves the second terms of cover. That’s how it works.

So let’s go to those two issues because there’s kind of a split screen there. The defund, the FBI, and the attack on the eighty thousand plus alleged IRS agents that are gonna be hired. Defund the FBI seems to be just a gov smackingly stupid counterproductive issue for Republicans. On the other hand, going after the IRS, seems like it would very much appeal to Republican voters. Right.

How are Republicans reacting to defund the FBI, which seems like a caricature of their reaction to defund the police. No.

You’re absolutely right. I mean, it’s not as though Kevin McCarthy standing up saying we gotta pull all FBI funding. And so, you know, there’s not gonna pass a bill that does that. It is absolutely a rhetorical device. You know, my point was that it spoke to how this was now seen as a threat to a group of people who otherwise wasn’t threatened by law enforcement.

Right? So so that’s that’s what I’m trying to Deepgram, the FBI is not real. It is Marjorie Taylor Green doing her Marjorie Taylor Green thing and trying to get attention and Lauren Brokers and so on and so forth. Yes, that is true. It is, however, also true with a lot of Republicans’ views though the FBI has been unfairly targeting Republicans and down from.

You know, they’re hearing that literally every night on Tucker Carlson show, you know, there there there there is a real antipathy, if not intelligence toward the FBI, obviously. IRS isn’t that different. Yeah. You get a lot of voices. We’re like, why do why does the IRS need all these people?

No one wants to be audited. Right? Like, I get it. Like, I don’t wanna be audited. Like I understand that, there has, of course, been also a lot of misinformation about what those people are gonna be doing.

This the time frame over which they’ll be hired. It got inflated with this job posting someone dug up in which you know, the IRS is hiring police officers because they have a law enforcement arm. And all of a sudden, that became, you know, oh, now they’re hiring eighty seven thousand people with guns. It’s like, well, that’s not actually what’s happening. Right?

So there is this conflation of misinformation as well, which I think doesn’t help anything. But yeah, I mean, obviously, Republicans think that’s a better issue to run on because they keep mentioning like, you know, what about these auditors? And, you know, the to the extent to which that pans out as true remains to be seen. But I understand why that is a is it. A robust political plan.

This may seem like a slight digression here, but I thought it was very interesting that Dan Crenshaw, who is pretty Trumpist, we know he’s been taking shots at Marjorie Taylor Green over this defund the FBI issue. And again, this is one of the things that doesn’t show up in polling necessarily. But there are real splits. And I’m not talking about never Trump at all here. I’m talking about real splits in the Republican Party where there there you can just feel the tension’s building.

Again, I don’t know how it manifests itself. But at some point, you get the sense that if when Trump leaves when there is that one unifying, you know, demanding litmus test party line that you must adhere to. There’s going to be some pretty dramatic fissures in this party. It feels like, you know, tension’s building, building, building held down, and at some point, they’re gonna break out. And won’t necessarily be pro Trump anchored from there’s always a lot going on.

You you follow what I’m saying here. I mean, I I did and I think, you know, Dan Krenshaw versus Marjorie Taylor Green would be a pretty good example of that.

I mean, I think French house is interesting. Right? I I mean, you described it as Trump as, but I think it’s a little unfair. I mean, he’s been he’s been critical of Trump. And I think is he’s he’s almost more McCarthy’s meeting, Kevin, not Eugene.

Obviously, not Eugene. The meeting joke was who the name I failed to grasp or no no offense to our Wisconsin friends. But the point is, he is more a person who understands the value of talking the Trump language even if he doesn’t necessarily support Trump. You know, he’s a Trump versus Trump as sort of guy. You know, he is He is Trump is in the sense of Trumpism, not in the sense of Trump, if

you were. Fair.

Fair enough. Very very confident. Yeah. No. But but this goes back to the point I was making.

About how you can continue to appeal to the French and play to the French and play the culture war fights, and then still sit back and, you know, have people be like, hey, I don’t really love that, but things are going okay. That that continues to be the play just that the center has shifted. Right? And so the center in twenty fourteen was you know, you had Mitch McConnell and so on and so forth and then you had the the the fringe that was agitated and they tried to corral it and then Donald Trump brought the fringe and made that the center. But now there’s still this other French.

And so you have Frenchhall at the new center and green at the new French, whereas, you know, someone who is holding every single position that Frenchhall does and, you know, made the claims that he made would have been the French in twenty fourteen. Now he’s bore close to the center and they’re now battling this new French. And then that’s the French that the scientists is very carefully trying to appeal to with his various machinations. Well,

I want to talk about something else that you wrote about. And and one of the problems in the era that we live in is that there’s so much that you have to remember, that you have to deal with, the zone is flooded with with scandals and controversies and and and bullshit that it’s easy to lose track. So I thought I thought this was very valuable that you went back to the whole Russia hoax hoax issue that basically, you know, in in the days since the FBI searched Mar a Lago as part of that investigation, you wrote the the assertion that the Russia investigation was a hoax has emerged repeatedly, and this is really part of the template to understand how Republicans are reacting to this. They’re saying, They’re doing this again. They accused Trump of all of these terrible things that about which he was completely exonerated.

You remind us though that despite the fact that Trump has called this a hoax that there was something there. Right? Let’s realign the tape a little bit to the Russia hoax hoax thing.

I’m very glad to raise this because I think it is important for this to be combated. And I’ve grown increasingly convinced that’s important for us to combat this idea. The Russian investigation was a hoax. So yeah. So I wrote a piece yesterday that that goes through and essentially walks through three different factors.

The first is that even before the election, we knew that Russia was up to something, and we knew that there were weird ties between Donald Trump and Russia. That is established. Right? His campaign manager worked for pro Russian politicians in Ukraine. His he had an adviser who went to Moscow and gave an anti US speech that was reported at the time in July twenty sixteen.

The DNC was hacked. There was no new have been by Russians in June twenty see Michael Flynn was heading down with Putin in December twenty fifteen. There are all these things that we knew about coming into the election. There were all reasons why as the government quietly behind the scenes was learning more about what Russia was doing when they learned behind the scenes that an adviser Trump’s campaign. It told someone the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton, and then that dirt became public.

There were lots of reasons why the f that could be like, okay, something’s weird here. And that by itself that the investigation was well predicated, that there was good reason to believe that this should be investigated, that the investigation was investigated by the inspector general, and the inspector general said, yeah, this made sense to move forward on as an investigation. That by itself undercuts the entirety. Of the way that the Russia hoax, so to speak, has been used in defense of Donald Trump over the past ten days. Because the entire idea is the FBI went after him unfairly, and it’s been as repeatedly established.

They went after him completely fairly. And even if they hadn’t found a single thing, that

that

it was valid. To investigate these things based on what they knew privately and what was already known publicly. But then we go a step further, which is They found stuff. Right? They found stuff.

Oh, manafort was passing campaign data to a guy who a bipartisan senate panel said, was tied to Russian intelligence. That by itself. Right? I mean, not to mention Trump Tower meeting, not to mention Roger Stone’s weirdness of the wake police, not to mention all these other things. Yes, it is the case that Mueller and his final report said, Look man, we can’t prove collusion because here’s the standard we use, but we found evidence of these things that Bill Barr tried to whitewash away.

Right? Like, we know these things. But because the narrative is gone, oh, it’s all based on this dossier or more recently, oh, it’s all Hillary Clinton made this stuff which is just nonsense and no easily debunked. But because that’s what people hear, they hear this on Fox, and they hear it on Trump, and they hear it, they hear it, and they hear and they don’t hear this conversation. They don’t hear responsible people pushing back and saying, no, you’ve got it wrong.

This has been said stuff.

Well, again, this is the asymmetry because in order to make the case that you’re making right now, you have to go through a lot of detail. You have to remember a lot of things. There’s a certain complexity to it. It is much easier to say. They didn’t come up with anything.

It was a hoax. The Mueller report detailed, you know, it it could great length both what they found and Trump’s rather aggressive efforts to obstruct justice, which apparently worked that’s a much bigger burden. But, I mean, just the one detail that that you and I don’t wanna just rush over. The one detail, all Manafort was running the Trump campaign. He was in mid August of two thousand sixteen forced to resign from the Trump campaign because of his ties to Russia linked Ukrainian politicians, and as you point out, we knew that he had passed along polling data to someone very close to Vladimir Putin.

I mean, these things alone are mind blowing and especially given the complete denial. So in real time, we knew a lot as you point out in September of of two thousand sixteen. The Washington Post reported that Russia was trying to actively influence American politics by October. The government was was officially confirming that. That was actually part of the deluge of news, the day the access Hollywood tape broke.

We kind of got buried by that. And then, of course, we learned a lot more after that. Right? That as you point out, there’s a lot that we didn’t know by election day on two thousand and sixteen. I mean, the extent of Russian actors, you know, the what had been going on, but just briefly.

So if we were sitting here talking with Trump defenders — Sure. — and not just MAGA heads, but, you know, anti anti Trump journalists, they would say, Yeah. But the steel dossier, it was all bullshit. And, you know, it came from Hillary Clinton. So, you know, the the the fruit of the rotten tree.

Right? I mean, it’s just there’s there was nothing there. What was in retrospect, what was the role of the dossier? And what what is your take

on the dossier? It’s a good question. And you’re asking me if if I were a molly Henry when we’re having this discussion, you definitely go in a different direction. You know, part of it, you said that, you know, people have to hear about this, but and people fundamental issues people have to care. People have to care.

So whether or not they’re correct in their assessments of these things, and a lot of people simply don’t care. They just take prompts to work for it. Right? So the seals dossier. I wrote a critical piece on the Steel dossier in twenty seventeen.

I went through it. I read each of the reports. I pointed out all the things. It didn’t really make sense and had no you know, there were not obviously proven, you know, when Michael Cohn came out and vehemently denied that he had traveled to prod like that was telling, you know, I mean, because of the event that was one of the very few reamined denials we actually saw from Tramstien. There are all these red flags about the steel dossier.

But at the end of the day, what the the the path that the steel dossier took to importance is not that it was itself important beyond influencing a lot of anti Trump people to make a lot of wild claims. In media, mostly in opinion pieces, but also, you know, just generally on social media and in public conversations. The field dossier had an important role there. But in terms of the actual investigation, it didn’t. And what what the what critics of the investigation center on is that the Steel dossier was one of the elements he used to obtain a Pfizer warrant against the Sky Carter page, who was an adviser of the Trump campaign in October of twenty six.

Right? That’s what they really sent from. And census field dossier was downstream from Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC hiring this particular law firm. She gets to the lane for an air ago, Hillary Clinton started the Russian probe. But we know it’s not the case that the Russian probe has started by this field last year.

We know what it was started by. We know that the probe was already underway by the time the FBI actually got the details of the Steel dossier. Most of the Steel dossier hadn’t even been written by the time that the actual Russia probe was underway. Carter Page, you know, with someone who was already on, better law enforcement’s radar screen for having been potentially recruited as a Russian spy several years. Prior, he actually sat down with guy for an for an interview at about the same time he ended up joining Donald Trump’s campaign.

You know, one of the things that I elevate in the piece yesterday’s trade out who is, you know, obviously, someone who’s broadly critical of Democrats now talking head on Fox News said at the time, look, without the dossier, they’re still the Russia probe. They use their words because the Russian railroad already started by the time the dossier came came to attention. But the entire point here is that it all gets synthesized down the dossier. Not because the dossier was important, but because by focusing on the dossier, they can distract from Russia from. That’s why the dossier is important to people who are critical of the Russian probe.

Because it gives them a way to be point critical of the Russian probe, and that’s it.

And they’ve clearly weaponized this. Oh, okay. So let’s just talk about what’s happening in politics right now. And I’m not asking for a prediction because we both know how fraud predictions are. Actually, for some reason, I was flashing back on some of the things that I said and wrote back in twenty sixteen about the impossibility of Donald Trump being elected.

So we’ve all, you know, hard won, modestly there. Sure. Sure. But I’m I’m looking at the most recent generic gold. I think morning consoles came out with another a poll that’s consistent with a lot of what we’ve been seeing that would suggest on the generic ballot that Democrats have recovered some of their deficit may even be leading on the generic ballot, which does not mean that they’re going to win the election, does not mean they’re gonna retain control of the house.

But what do you sense is going on right now? I mean, how much of this is is, you know, wish casting, you know, vibe type, you know, pondetry versus a real shift in public opinion and mood over the last couple of months. What do you what do you sense? How do you evaluate this?

Yeah. This is a difficult question, and I evaluate it in a couple of ways. The the first is that, yes, I think that there has been something that has changed, particularly since the job’s decision of returning the world. Right? I I think that there has been a real energy that has emerged on the left that wasn’t there.

I think that, you know, I don’t think the passage of the Inflationary Reduction Act is something that people are really, you know, sort of getting hands around really said about, but I think that it shows that at least Biden’s doing something which gives people who are sort of like about Biden a reason to be like, okay, you know what, things aren’t as bad as I thought. So I I think there has been a shift in that sense. The polling’s fascinating because what we’re seeing right now is this really weird divergence. And an unusually large divergence, not unusual they were diverged, but unusually large divergence between how people look at Biden and how people look at Democrats. And so Democrats are running by heathen, as you said, with Republicans in the generic ballot, where Biden is deeply unpopular.

And normally, a deeply unpopular president means in the midterm election, that his party gets routed. Right? We saw that in twenty eighteen. In twenty eighteen, there was a similar weird divide between how people felt about the economy and how people felt about Trump. And the economy, by the the the metric of the economy, it seemed like the Republicans probably knew okay in twenty eighteen.

By the metric of popularity of the president, it seemed like they’re in New Jersey horribly, and they ended up doing horribly. But the generic ballot that year was also very strongly anti Republican. Now the divergence is on generic ballot which says five thirty eight’s point out is obviously a good measure. Of how voting is gonna go since it directly measures voting as opposed to sort of the more abstract presidential popularity. But one of the things we’ve seen is the past four mid term cycles is that when things have shifted, you know, that the generic ballot has been a good indicator.

When the democrats are up a lot, they tend to win in two thousand six, twenty eighteen. But when it’s close, it tends to shift hard against the democrats at the end, which happened in twenty fourteen and happened in Twenty ten? Yeah. Of course. Twenty ten.

Right. Yeah. I mean, twenty ten for God’s sake. Right. So we’re talking about sample size of four.

So I don’t wanna extrapolate too far outward from here. But I do think there’s reason to think that as this gets closer to November, historical patterns suggest that this is going to start going worse for Democrats. The only thing I will say though is I think that the Democratic Party has done a good job of inculcating the sense that this is not simply an election of, you know, between Democrats and Republicans vying for who gets to have policy decisions that that they’re making. Right? That it is an election which is centered more on the actual viability of the United States.

Right, as an entity. And I think Democrats have done a good job of that. I think you hear a lot of Democrats who are saying, look, you know, do I love Biden? No, I don’t. But I think it’s really important to keep Republicans out power.

And I think that that is something that, you know, has been accentuated by the genre. Six hearings, I think that that’s something that’s been, you know, accentuated by by and obviously focus on it. And so that may mean that a lot of Democrats who don’t love Biden, who don’t think things are going well, come to the polls anyway, simply because they don’t wanna have Republicans control the house.

I’m skeptical of of late summer polls, you know, particularly here in the state of Wisconsin, we had a poll out yesterday. There was kind of eye opening, you know, take it with with a grain of salt. But the one trend that I think is is interesting is the disappearance of the enthusiasm gap. Earlier this year, there was kind of a massive gap between the enthusiasm of Republicans to go to the polls and the kind of mayor response by Democrats. According to this market university law poll, Democrats are now as engaged and as enthusiastic as Republicans, which in a state like Wisconsin makes a big difference.

And so the more attention on Donald Trump may galvanize Republican voters, but it also seemed to have the effect of galvanizing Democratic voters. Are you seeing the same thing? Yeah.

I mean, I think that Democrats would love to have this but there would be a referendum on Trump. And to the extent that they can have that be the case, I think they’d be very enthusiastic about that. You know, I think we also have to get back to one of the most interesting questions in polling, which is how dependent are polling errors on dom dropping on ballot? Right? So we know that there were polliners.

We know that polls have consistently undercounted, particularly the number of white tobacco college degrees. And underestimated how much they’re gonna turn out to vote in twenty sixteen. That’s why people assume that pill replacement would win in twenty twenty. That’s why people assume that Biden would have an easier victory than he did. But in twenty eighteen, there wasn’t an error.

In twenty eighteen, the polls nailed the generic ballot results. Trump wasn’t on the ballot. Right? And the people who came out to vote were people energized against Trump. And a lot of the special elections we’ve seen like with last year in Virginia and New Jersey, We saw a lot of people who were nonetheless motivated to come out.

So they were still Trump, voters who were motivated to come out even though Trump wasn’t on the ballot. But then, yes, I’m not like Kansas. You know, people were very motivated to come out and some focus support of access to abortion in that state on that on the constitutional referendum. So the question I think is, that the Wisconsin poll, I think, depends heavily on that issue. On the issue of whether or not Trumpian voters come out to the polls in November.

Yes. And I think that that is when we talk about what happened with Mar a Lago, I think that you know, to the extent that something that happens three months before the election has much of an effect, we’ll we’ll see. But if they can preserve that sense on the right that they need that it’s important to go to the polls to defend Trump and defend Trumpism. And energized Trump voters in that way, then I’m a little more worried about the accuracy polls and capturing what’s gonna happen.

There’s also a long history of Republicans I’m sure there’s two of Democrats as well, but I’ve been focused more on the Republicans of of Republicans blowing very winnable races by being reckless or being stream. And I I was struck by another result from this Wisconsin poll when they asked people, should abortion be legal in cases of incest or rape and the numbers are? Not surprising, but there’s still kind of eye popping. Eighty eight percent say, yeah, there should be an exception for rape and incest among Republicans. Seventy nine percent.

Yes. Among independents, eighty seven percent, won an exception for rape and incest, the Republican candidate for governor. This is gonna be a very close race. Has said that the state’s eighteen forty nine ban on abortion that does not include exceptions for rape or incest is an exact mirror of his position So I don’t know, Philip. That seems like it might be a problem for Republicans in states like Wisconsin.

Yeah. No. No. I think you’re right. I mean, I think that pulling has repeatedly shown even before dobs, you know, going back decades, polling has shown that when you ask people should a woman have the right to an abortion for any reason?

That it’s about half and half, fifty fifty, you know, Republicans less likely to say that’s the case. You don’t that’s more likely when you ask about a specific situation like that, life of the mother, investment rate, then people are, overall, and then they say, yes, then abortion should be legal in those under the circumstances. To the extent that Wisconsin Democrats can make that an issue in a race. I think it benefits them. Right?

And I think the odds that you hear a lot of campaigning for the growing candidates saying, you know, let’s let’s wind back the clock. I don’t think that’s likely to happen because I think we’re gonna recognize that’s problematic as well. And, you know, who knows, positions may moderate between now and election day. But, yeah, this is this is the bet that a lot of democrats are hoping pays off. That if they can make this also about abortion access, particularly at the state level where people have control over what happens.

Now the dobs has been affected. You know, I think that Democrats see that as a winning issue. And therefore, I think you’re probably not gonna hear a lot about it from the right.

So Liz Cheney, let’s talk about this for a moment. She lost by nearly forty points. And actually, I think it was worse than that. I mean, it’s it’s worse than it looks because there were Democratic crossovers in Wyoming, so you wonder what was the margin among actual Republicans which would again be a pretty good indication of the fact that that an anti Trump Republican like Liz Cheney has no constituency really or very minimal constituency in her own party. And yet, she’s made no secret with her defiant concession space that she’s thinking of running for president, which — Right.

— on by some analysis is a ludicrous idea. Right? I mean, there’s no chance that she is going to win nationally against Donald Trump when she can barely muster, you know, thirty percent of Republican votes in in her home state of of Wyoming. And yet, she seems to understand that. She seems to think though that I can draw this red line.

So what do you think about Liz Cheney twenty twenty four, which is on one level crazy on another level, going to be really Quite a show. I mean, it’s gonna be a hell of a ride. Right? I mean, we’re

gonna end in a kamikazia attack. It ends badly, but It is not boring. Right? No. This is true.

So here’s the challenge. I get where those changes coming from. And all things being equal, you know, the idea of Liz Cheney being on the debate stage of Donald Trump would be fascinating. But Liz Cheney is almost certainly not gonna be on the debate stays with Donald Trump because all things are not equal. Right?

Look what happened in twenty twenty. Right? The Republican party went out of its way to clear the path for Donald Trump. I’m not saying they’re gonna do that again because now now they actually have domestic con dimension. But there was they went out of their way to downplay those sorts of fishers.

The party is not gonna the Republican party is not gonna wanna that because they may have DeSantis and, you know, they they may set up the whatever bar it happens to be. So you have, you know, DeSantis up there and a pants up there and you have Trump up there and you have, you know, even Nikki Haley, you have Ted Cruz, you have a a group of candidates, but not someone who’s throwing bombs at the party. Right? And Fox News, you know, NewsMax, One America, whoever happens to be, their coverage is going to be different. Of an outsider, Liz Cheney, look how corrupt and damaged the Republican party has been by embracing Trump.

That’s not something that they’re gonna elevate either. And so the question for me is less the political path than it is the communications path. How does this change even get a message out besides being on Twitter? And having it amplified by people who are skeptical of Donald Trump and who are mostly talking themselves anyway instead of the actual Trump supports. How does that happen?

I don’t know. And I think there are public parties who can do everything in power to make sure it doesn’t. Well,

I

completely agree that I did my my newsletter today saying, you know, predictions are scary, but there is absolutely no way the RNC will ever allow. That Liz Cheney to be on a a debate stake with Donald Trump, and Ron Brownstein has a great piece in the Atlantic where he talks about this. She will have a platform though because she does have high name recognition. And I think that the reason she would run for president is so that she would continue to have that platform and that microphone And I am thinking about what happened in twenty twenty, where the RNC was so blatant in clearing the way for Trump. They canceled primaries.

They canceled caucuses. They they didn’t even have a platform. And when Joe Wall should bill well, you know, God bless them. You know, complained about it. They barely got any audience whatsoever.

I think it would be different with Liz Cheney when they won’t let Liz Cheney on the ballot or they won’t Liz Cheney because she won’t go quietly, and she will have a bigger platform. And I don’t know this will make a difference in Republican primaries, but as a kamikazi attack to damage Donald Trump’s selectability in the general election, it could be a factor. I mean, and that’s the thing that that’s the big question. Your colleague, Gerren Blake, went through all the reasons why if this is not gonna happen, she cannot possibly win. But she could draw blood.

And I think Trump world knows that. Yes.

I mean, look, going back to your point about all of us being very cautious in making hard and fast predictions. Yeah, if you could. You’re you’re right. But I I would also say this. Lusgenie has a big platform now.

She has a big platform now in the house. She has a big platform now because she was running for real action. She has a big platform now because of the committee. But in two years time — Right. — you know, Is that the case, I guess, not two years, one and a half years time?

You know, in one and a half years time, she, like, well, she’ll be a former politician. Right? Who knows what she’s gonna be doing? What what what does that platform look like? I I I’m not sure.

You know, I think she’ll probably still have a bigger audience than well did in twenty twenty. But, you know, I think that estimating what her platform looks like in eighteen months based on where she is now, I think, is probably a little risky.

Well, I think it’s a good point to make her quickly our memories fade and how quickly things change and how long a year and a half is. Okay. Philip, boom, thank you so much for joining me today. Philip Bump is a national correspondent for the Washington Post. Thank you for coming back on the podcast.

Appreciate it very much. Of

course. What was that

mean? The Bulwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio production by Jonathan Seres. I’m Charlie Sykes. Thank you for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast. We’ll be back tomorrow and do this all over again.

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