The Bulwark: Live from New Orleans

It’s October twenty sixth two thousand twenty three. I’m Charlie Sykes. Welcome to the Bulwark podcast. We’re gonna be doing something a little bit different today. We’ve been on COVID lockdown here in Wisconsin, but the rest of the Bulwark team was down in the big easy last night for a wide ranging discussion of everything from our fifth string speaker, Mike Johnson, to Joe Biden, Israel, Any Semitism on the left So today’s podcast is going to be a replay of last night’s conversation.

Hey, a quick reminder, if you wanna come to one of our Bulwark events The next one is scheduled in Washington, DC on November sixteenth. I’m gonna be joined by special guest Brian Stelter and the rest of the Bulwark crew will also be on hand to have, a wide ranging conversation, again, on the twenty twenty four election and the news of the day. If you’d like to join us in Washington, DC on November sixteen, just go to the Bulwark website for more information. In the meantime, enjoy this conversation from last night in New Orleans. Everybody.

How y’all doing? New Orleans, Louisiana, not too bad, right? Pretty good. Press quarter. Many locals we got here tonight?

We got some locals about that.

What’s up? Well, my people back there.

Team Sarah, team Sarah, We have some focus groupies in the crowd. Any focus groupies?

We were fun. I hope I try. Thank you. If someone’s wearing the t shirt.

Well, ladies right there. Alright. We got Sarah along with you, you know, that’s that’s Sunny Bunch. You might know him. And at the end, we have, Mona Charen.

So there’s a thing. What about Mona Charen? We’re not We’re not gonna age anybody, but it’s interesting. Interesting fact I wanna

share it.

How many New York Times best sellers do you have?

Two. That’s more than anybody else on

the stage.

So I’m just saying hypothetically should another book of mine come out. It’s very important. Everybody in here is so that I can get to even here at the at the Bulwark. Alright. Boy, Yeah.

An interesting day today. Mike Johnson, we have a speaker. I guess we have some fresh things for everybody to talk about. I’m interested in everybody’s opinion, but I wanna do people, is there he had, like, really knows Mike Johnson? Do we have any, like, oh, yeah.

We got a couple. We got a couple. Okay. We’re I gotta

put us

on finding you after for theapo. Here’s the thing about Mike Johnson. He is a, a rabid evangelical conservative. Very similar to maybe, your old boss, Rick Santoram. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

So he has some very Rick Santoram y qualities. He was the, like, one of the most, active supporters of the stop, the steel effort. Including something that our friends with Republican accountability pack uncovered today, which was, his, he’s even pushing the Dominican voting machine.

He was?

Conpiracy? Among among other things, but he just I stole a line from you today. Do you know? Have you heard it? Yeah?

No. So he like he is kind of like Patrick McHenry in the streets, but Jim Jordan in the sheets, you know, that sold out from Sarah Longwell looked night. You know, like, he looks like he just wants to, like, he, like, he looks like he drinks milk with a straw and, like, goes to church and gets there early and sits in the first throw the pew, and, like, it was the speech debate captain. So I I was was this was it just meant to be, do you think, for for Mike Johnson, do you think he is like representing what the Republican party is now? Or what how do you think we ended up here?

Okay. Here’s what happened. And actually, it’s really important that people understand this because this is what’s happening more broadly. Why is he the speaker right now? Because people were exhausted.

They were tired of fighting over this, and so they grabbed a back venture that they thought they could bring the consensus And I sometimes I say this at the end of every show, but I’m gonna say it at the beginning this time that the it is a reason why eternal vigilance on democracy is so important because when you are tired is when terrible things happen and you let people through. Right? And even though you’re often using it, it doesn’t sound like anybody knows who this guy was or realizes he was a, you know, congressman, but it doesn’t matter who he is, actually. Because what it tells us isn’t that much about him. It tells us about the rest of them.

And we were having a little bit of a love fest over Ken Buck last week. Right? Because Ken Buck

Seems like Ken Buck means a therapist.

Ken Well, Ken Buck was all over the TVs telling us about how you cannot support somebody who was out there saying that the election was rigged, that was endorsing January sixth. And this guy was like the person behind the scenes. He is the, yeah, the clean-cut Jim Jordan who was organizing the whole thing. He organized the Ken paxton, you know, the Texas AG letter where they were gonna try to, you know, throw out the votes of a bunch of people in the states. So, show this again who these guys are and the fact that, like, well, we all thought there was a brief moment last week that the center was holding.

It caved the second day thought they had it. It also shows it was just personal about Jim Jordan. Like, it was about Jim Jordan. It wasn’t about January sixth. It wasn’t about the Yeah.

Mona, what do you like? Where should, people in the crowd panic level be about Mike Johnson? Like, what what is what is your assessment to say, like, this is kind of a guy that was going faking it, going, get along, or is this, like, the real, the real kind of danger?

Yeah. So there are two ways to look at this as as I see it. On the one hand, it would have been ten years ago, inconceivable that somebody who tried to steal an election and who was an election denier, would have been anywhere near the speaker’s gavel.

And the fact that now, you this

was the bare minimum. This was the the entrance exam that you had to pass to get the job is to say the twenty twenty election was stolen Donald Trump has given me his little pat on the shoulder. I’m okay. And that’s the only way that you can get to be speaker in this Republican house. Alright.

That is pretty grim. The other side of this, though, is that he has just inherited the worst job in the world. And so the the the caucus has not changed. They settled on the sky because they couldn’t bear the humiliation of dragging this on any longer. Sarah’s right.

They’re tired. They’re exhausted. And the country was getting exhausted, and they were worried that maybe the voters might just, like, suddenly notice that they can’t govern. I I love They didn’t notice. I yeah.

Really? Have you done groups? Nobody noticed?

Well, I love I might peeing so hard.

Will everybody notice? Yeah. It’s like something wrong. It’s in

twenty three days. They have didn’t notice Don’t

know what the speaker of the house does?

Has anyone ever noticed the house?

No. So so PJ O’Rourke had a great line. He said, The Republicans are the party who say that government doesn’t Bulwark, and then they get elected and proven. So

sunny. I, I have one I think that there is I think that there are a lot of medium term things to be low level concerned about when it comes to Mike Johnson, we can talk about. I think there’s one acute short term concern, which is Ukraine. So he, like, he voted against both of the last funding efforts. There was some talk today that well, I believe when I see it, but there’s some talk today that they came to some sort of back door back deal agreement on the CR to avoid the shutdown fight he doesn’t like become speaker, and then it’s like, Hey, shutdown fight.

So seems like they’re gonna solve that, but Ukraine wasn’t part of that talk. Biden is out there. I think smartly offered and said, Hey, we’re gonna give a hundred billion, some to Ukraine, some to Israel, some to the border. There are a couple other things in there. I do you are are are there enough of your people left Are there enough free beacon neocons left to pressure this guy just to, like, just to at least get us through one more cycle of Ukraine or how how worried are you?

I I’m I’m pretty worried. I don’t I don’t see look, you mentioned that there was some chatter about him saying, well, you know, rush is a real threat. And there’s this weird thing going on right now where some of these guys are like, yeah, you know, at least Ukraine makes sense. Because of Russia, you know, we don’t wanna be involved with the Israel Gaza stuff at all. Like, we don’t want any part of that.

But, you know, the Ukraine so, like, there’s there’s almost a the two sides are One side is playing both of these conflicts against each other, which is terribly disappointing to me. Like, as you say, I am one of the last unrepent neo I just wanna arm arm all of them to to fight all of the wars. You know, that would be that would be the preferred outcome here. So We’re an eyeser by John.

Would you be throwing them some weapons too? Or which I don’t

know which side of the system. Yeah. I I gotta I gotta read up on that one. That one, but possibly.

The one good thing I have, Sonny, which you’ll appreciate, is I saw one good fact about Mike Johnson today. I re I consumed a lot of information about Mike Johnson. And I saw a single good fact that I that I liked, and that was from, a mega person tweeted unhappily. That he receives a lot of money from Raytheon and Northrop Grumman. And I was like, Okay.

Maybe the military industrial complex can come through for Ukraine. One more time.

I don’t know. I I’ll balance that by saying that saw Matt Gates’s appearance on, Steven Bannon’s show where he’s like, this is a win for us. This is a win for us, and anyone who doesn’t see it as a win for us, the Magga, crowd is just they don’t know what they’re looking at. I’ll take Matt Gates at his word. The Isn’t it so

annoying that Matt Gates has been right a lot lately. Matt Gates was out there talking about how the impeachment thing was Cham, and how Kevin McCarthy’s an empty suit and how the Magas have taken over the house. Like, god, that fucking big forehead has a couple of good points in it. Well, Matt.

I mean, that can tell you what’s happening in the house. Metgeat sucks, but he wants to be a sentence. Right? He really sucks. But he does want everybody to understand that they are a scented, that they are ascendant in the house, that they are ascendant as a political force, and he’s just correct about that.

I think people were over reading the rejection of Jim Jordan as a rejection of Mega and, like, well, Trump, you know, doesn’t have the juice. And, like, Trump went and made sure he proved he had the juice by everlasting four hours and then getting a bonafide election denier to run the house. I will say on the the upside, there’s a lot of the downsides are very real if, like, we don’t pass crane funding. We don’t do the things that we need to do. The upside is I was one thing the one good thing about Jim Jordan was that it was at least truth in advertising.

Right? It was like, this is who the party is. This is who’s running it now. We don’t have, Kevin McCarthy with his haircut, making people the wolf in sheep’s clothing make putting a nice face on the election denialism and everything else. And so this guy, this is who they are, this is who they wanted.

And, like, now we’ll have him to run-in every swing district, in Congress in twenty twenty four. That’s true.

Well, I isn’t this, but I I’m curious what the voters think of this because on the one hand, he’s he nobody knows who he is. He’s not Nancy Pelosi. You can’t be like, look at this guy. On the other hand, can’t can’t Democrats say, like, this guy wants to ban abortion at the federal level. This guy wants to end, you know, Ukraine funding, etcetera, etcetera.

I mean, like, isn’t he extreme he wants to overturn gay marriage? Like, isn’t he extreme enough that they can just pin all of that on Yeah.

That’s my point. My point is is that if you can advertise it, he can they can and they don’t know who he is now. They will. They’ll know who he is.

Don’t shreveport my house to strict. That seems like that could be a winning message. I’ve heard

so many ads micro targeted at you.

Like, Mona, do you think there’s something to that?

Well, yeah. So so there was a debate that we all participated in. Tim, you did an interview, with, somebody I’m forgetting who, but discussing, whether people should have worked for Trump. In order to keep the country from going off the road. Yeah, me and Steve.

Steve. Thank you. Should you, you know, work for Trump to keep the country at least somewhat between the fifty yard lines. And, and Tim was saying no because you gave it cover, and you made it seem more normal than it really was, and it would have been better to just let Trump, you know, appoint his lunatics. And then the you know, the country would have been in real trouble, but at least the voters would have seen the reality of who Trump was.

Some people said, nah, you know, when it comes to national security, when comes to the defense department, that’s just too big a risk to take. But when it comes to somebody like the speaker of the house, who does not have his finger on the button. At least, I mean, he is two steps away from it, but but for now, he doesn’t have his finger.

Luckily convales still young.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, luckily for some

of us.

I guess I guess I won’t speak for everybody.

But it but in this case, it really does seem like it’s fine, you know, that that this will allow voters to make an evaluation about the party because the, you know, the window dressing, which was Kevin McCarthy, is is gone. And, you know, it’s not quite Jim Jordan. So Adam Kinzinger said something funny. He said, Johnson

is is, is Jim Jordan in Drag.

Kenzinger was working that

Bulwark. I got that text too. Okay. Kensinger is trying to be serious guy. Congress guy is trying to work the line into the pocket.

Oh, it’s a good place. Via text message.

Hey, folks. This is Charlie Sykes, host of the Bulwark podcast. We created the bulwark to provide a platform for pro democracy voices on the center right and the center left for people who are tired of tribalism and who value truth and vigorous yet civil debate about politics and a lot more. And every day, we remind you folks.

You are not the crazy ones.

So why not head over to the Bullworth dot com and take a look around. Every day, we produce newsletters and podcasts that will help you make sense of our politics and keep your sanity intact. To get a daily dose of sanity in your inbox, why not try a bulwark plus membership free for the next thirty days to claim this offer go to the bulwark dot com slash Charlie Sykes. That’s the bulwark dot com forward slash Charlie Sykes gonna get through this together. I promise.

I have one more strategic question about Mike Johnson that I’m going to get to with another special guest we have coming at the end. So I I want to I wanna move on for Mike Johnson really quick and just have one moment of shot in Florida about Tom Emmer before we got to Israel. JBL wrote today about the UNich Republicans. I don’t know if you saw this, and how, Tom Emer got his balls cut off by Donald Trump and then just didn’t then said thank you, sir. I appreciate it.

Like, This has been the thing that is I I know I wrote a book about this. I’m supposed to know, and I’m supposed to be the one that the actor, like, but it’s the thing that’s most flummoxed me. It’s like, Doesn’t one of these people just wanna say, fuck you, man? Like, no. Like, no.

I will not do this. I do I really we spent three weeks with this. And is that do can any of the three of you open question explain to me why not a single one of the two hundred and twenty of them said, this was my moment. I am gonna go stand up and do the right thing, and I’m gonna try to create a consensus government with Kaukeem Jeffries, and I’m not gonna let Donald Trump make fun of me. And I’m gonna call him a crazy racist lunatic.

And at the end of this, Walter Isaacson’s gonna make sure I get some board seats from Aspen Institute donors. Like, that seems that one that seems like a logical thing, but not nobody. Why?

Just they like being in government. They like being in the house.

They don’t they

don’t wanna have people sending them death

threats because they’ve betrayed Donald Trump I mean, like, I I can think of a lot of reasons why, because they’re towered zone.

Really? Yeah. Also for a lot of these people, I’m sorry to say, They are too dumb to make a good private sector salary.

Alright. True. So this is as good as it gets for them.

And, they’ll hold on with their white knuckle grip.

I just wanna some I just sometimes fantasize Sarah. I just, like, I wish you know, back to the future was real. And I wanna get in the thing and fly back to twenty thirteen and go to Tom Emmer’s house and in Minnesota and meet his wife with their probably dumb

sub material that they have whenever he gets into. And just I

wanna say it. Hold on.

Why are

you, or let’s run the French court? And I wanna say to there’s a there’s a very interesting shop right around the corner.

I’ll tell you.

I’m willing to take you to. Very they’ve sell some very interesting goods right around the corner if anybody’s interested. And I just wanna I just wanna read Tom Emer, Donald Trump’s tweet. And I wanna and I just wanna be like, this is what is gonna happen. You are going to be in Congress, and you are going to support a coup you wanna support the game show host to become an autocrat, and and running the country without our democracy, and he’s gonna create a social media thing where he calls you a rhino wimp, and you are gonna say thank you.

And I just wanna tell him that and be

like, This ten years from now, this is what’s gonna happen. And and I think that all these guys would be, like, in that way.

Of course, they would.

Never. I would never do that. But so why what does Liz tell you? You and Liz, hang out. Don’t you?

Chaney? Yeah. Yeah.

What did she say? Why why only Liz?

We’ll also add them. Look, here’s here’s the thing. Hold on. Just it’s not just the people who are in Congress. We’ve been asking ourselves this question forever.

I was just talking about this with some people. Behind closed doors, they all say Donald

Trump is a psychopath. Obviously.

They know. It’s not like Obviously. Right? They are afraid of the threats, but a lot of it is that in the early days, people did stick their heads up. I don’t know if you guys even can remember back.

Remember who Jeff Flake is? You’ve got a great life. You have an embarrassment. That’s funny. It’s fine.

But no. No. Do you remember? But he stood up. Sure.

And he got but he’s He’s done. He’s done at the party. It’s all over.

He’s their ambassador to Turkey. That’s awesome. I’m available. I don’t know if there are any Joe Biden if he’s on there.

Whatever. Actually, I don’t wanna know what the answer is their cowards. I don’t wanna, like, sit up here and make

excuses for that it’s very strange.

It actually, the important part is not why they don’t speak up now. Actually, it may leave me to a different point, which is this. Yeah. I know.

Sarah’s stronger than me. Yeah. I’m not kidding.

That is real true. You guys know Tim and I used to travel together, but you just have to share hotel rooms

because we work for, like

Very uncomfortable.

One time he left me at a gay bar in Minnesota by myself because he just left with somebody and didn’t tell me. He’s like My

husband’s because I’m in a covenant marriage. Like, but like like, Justin. Anyway, you’d just be a different thing.

Here’s the different point. We’ve the point is actually, it is the it is the point about speaking up, which is we are about to go into I hate to tell you this, but it is going to be Joe Biden versus Donald Trump. Okay. That’s the election we’re facing. That’s what’s gonna happen in twenty twenty four.

And maybe Rf k junior. I don’t know.

And the test

for everybody this time around, Millie and Kelly and Mattis, all of these guys sat there in the administration. They’ve all been talking background on books. They’ve all watched the coup happen. People are either going to say something now, or they will regret it for the rest of their lives, and we will all pay the price because the only people that can really make a difference now is like and that is like the thing that we have to demand. It’s not to we can’t go back to the future.

We can demand now that they speak up because, like, it’s the last time it’s really gonna matter. And, like, that pressure, we have to be putting them on them, and we should call them cowards if they don’t.

Sarah, you you’re the expert on this, but don’t you think we should wait till September of twenty twenty four, then run a whole series of ads If they do it now, it’s it’ll be forgotten by then. We need to hold our fire on that.

Okay. So that’s a that’s a strategic question. I’m I’m actually trying to pose like a moral question. A question of what is the right thing to do? And are people going to understand?

So because, actually, I’ve already heard there are people, maybe former presidents, where people are already posing the question to them. Will you say something going into twenty twenty four? And they’re saying no. And we should find that unacceptable.

Absolutely.

What now? Sunny’s gonna say something to make

me mad.

I can I can I ask one can I ask one strategic question? Would would that even Bulwark, or would it backfire? Because that becomes Then it becomes, look at the uni party coming out against Donald Trump. This is our guy. They’re attacking him.

These are all traitors. They’re traitors to Donald Trump. What are, you know, why would we listen to these people? They took his money. They took his jobs.

They like, I I have have about as much faith in the voters as JBL does. Yes.

Okay, guys. Just on this whole thing, since you’re gonna stand in for JBL,

I need to stand up.

Yeah.

I’m just I’m not staying in my chair. I’m standing up. I’m cool. I’m cool.

Hey, sorta bad. No.

No. I’m fine. How do people in the room feel about democracy? Do we love democracy? Who do you think is part of democracy?

Who’s doing the democracy?

We are.

The voters are doing the democracy. So we can’t just People

on bourbon Street.

Yeah. All of them.

The people in Manderville. All of them. The people in Shreveport.

That’s right.

All of them.

Yeah.

Homa. They’re voting.

I don’t know what that means, but yeah.

So it’s not good. It’s not good. They’re both in Homa.

And so we better figure out how we are going to persuade enough of those people that Donald Trump is a sufficient enough danger, which he absolutely is. It is not like twenty twenty, where we didn’t know what he was going to do. We do know now. That he’ll pull us out of NATO and he will abandon Ukraine. We do know now that there will be no guardrails.

None of these people will work for him. Mattis won’t work for him again. You know who’s gonna run DOJ? Rudy Giuliani. Pardon Rudy Giuliani.

You know who’s gonna run, the state department? Mike Flynn. Like, just sit with it for a second and let it consume you.

They make they make Mike get date. Let’s let’s not give it to Mike Quinn yet. Okay. That makes out there.

Alright. So our only the main option, right, is to persuade a small slice of voters who will be up for grabs and a bunch of people in their military uniforms all saying together. I agree. They can come a little bit later. My fear is is that they’re gonna do one Atlantic profile or one interview, and they’re gonna say they’re gonna sign one letter with twenty people And they’re gonna say, I did my duty.

I said it. I said it out loud. That’s not enough. Like, we’ve gotta tell this story over and over again. We gotta make sure voters hear it because I just I want people to start getting attuned to the level of catastrophe.

Can we show them? Yeah.

Help you’ll indulge me. I wanna make a pedantic point.

Oh, no.

I love that.

I’m against democracy, but I am for liberal democracy.

Okay? So democracy is what they had in and

have in Hungary where the majority gets to take away the rights of the minority, you know, fifty one percent. So you know, your religion doesn’t get protected. Your free speech doesn’t get protected because the majority has decided it wants its way. So we don’t have that. We have a liberal democracy where the rights of minorities are protected and where we have rule of law and where we have limitations on government.

That’s what I’m for. Thank you very much.

Same. Same.

I like liberal democracy too. I’ve been trying to take back liberal. I don’t know. Sunny cliche, I’ve been trying to take back liberal for our people, you know, because the lefties they want progressive. I can, like, let them have a Like, live, like, I’m gonna be like the British Liberals.

You know, that’s nice. We have the, you know, but but but that’s, you know, it’s kind of the same in Australia. The Austin is the Liberal. Anyway, for another day. I wanna show them, I wanna go back to Mark Millian, these, guys.

Mark Millie’s been good. I wanna go back to, Mattis, and these fell Kandi and our and the people that have, like, been hanging out with Walter and Aspen and not really doing a whole lot. No offense Walter. May, and what I’m wondering is can we show them Charlie Sykes? Charlie got a good YouTube video the other other day.

Charlie Sykes here. He’s gonna listen to this, actually. Could everybody say hi to Charlie really quick? Hey, Charlie. We missed you.

Trying to get a good YouTube video the other day, and it showed, Brian Stelter telling Jenna Ellis, she it was like, you are gonna regret this someday.

He said in ten to twenty years. Yeah.

I know. He said ten to twenty years. I was like, you’re gonna regret this.

I just

watched it. I was like, it was a lot sooner than Yeah. You’re

And then the next video is her crying in court, which I did enjoy. And watched a few times. So you’ll be shocked to hear that JBL is not satisfied, but the tears, he wanted more he wanted more pain. When me and me, when I was talking about how much I enjoyed that, he was like, nah, not enough pain for her, but anyway, classic JBL, but, Can we not show that video to these guys and just be like, here’s where you’re you’re gonna be you’re gonna be crying in the camps in three years if you don’t talk now? Like, this is your moment to avoid regretting it.

Like, what what what knobs and levers can we pull to, like, get them out of the Stanford ivory tower.

I was like weaved at Jack Smith seems like he’s on that.

Jack is? Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know that we

can do anything about it, but he seems

to have everything. Here’s what I picture. In a few months, Sarah Longwell is gonna place some calls, and they are gonna take your calls. We’re talking about Mattis, and all the people who were in the Trump just got quiet out. And they’re good.

And you’re gonna say, we want you to cut some ads. And altogether, if possible, but individually, if necessary, and you’re gonna look into the camera, and you’re gonna say I sat with Donald Trump. I served him. I was not anti Trump at first, but because of what I saw, he can never hold that office again. Sara’s gonna make that happen.

I really I really believe that, actually. Yeah.

Thank you.

I I said future meat sounds awesome.

I gotta start carrying around a paper bag for the next year. It says it’s kind of crazy that we’re at this, like, level of, going where we’re relying on Jim Mara to cut a TV ad to save us from, Donald Trump autocracy is a little bit little bit, too tenuous for for my taste, I guess. Wish we’re in a different place. I wanna go into another ten US situation. We’re just doing uplifting talk here in the French court.

Nothing but positivity here. Joe Biden was talking about Israel today. So I went to GW as much as I own, as much as I rep LSU. I actually I actually graduated from GW. You can talk that after.

But, they were not there was not some great stuff happening, my alma mater, this week. And, it’s one thing to be like, oh, some college students signed a letter. It’s like another thing when some college, students are like praising our Hamas Margers

on the side of

the library at campus. That’s not. Projecting it on the side. That’s not good. To say the least.

And, and some of the numbers about young people have been bad and that’s what Rashida to leave has done has been bad, and we can talk about all that. But I I just wanna start with, like, Joe Biden has been, like, quite good on this. Like, quite quite quite quite good. And today, and today, he was asked about, yesterday, KGP gave very, very bad answer about antisemitism. But today, the actual president was asked about the, deaths in in in Palestine, legitimate question, and and he was expressed empathy about the deaths, but also at the same time said I don’t I actually don’t believe the information that Hamas is putting out.

And a lot of lefty folks were, like, really pissed about this. And I I thought it was, like, I I people are always like, where is Joe Biden’s sister soljamo? Where and I was like, Joe Biden standing in front of the white house and saying, I do not believe the the Hamas numbers. Based on the voice on the intel we have, like, it’s causing him some trouble. And so, I Anyway, I I guess my my first question for Mona is is how you assess, how he’s been doing, and then I wanna talk about the politics

of it. Okay. So, Biden has been magnificent. The last the last two weeks have been the best of his presidency. I mean, he has inhabited the office in a way that he has not been able to do until now, and it’s been really, terrific.

Now here’s the thing. On the left, it’s it’s a different, prop. So we’ve talked a lot at the Bulwark. We, you know, focus on the problem of the, authoritarianism and radicalism that is filtering up from the grassroots. And It comes from the people.

Now, they are fed a lot of crap by, you know, the, conservative media. So that’s part. But it has created a problem of the grassroots that then the politicians

I’m really talking about

the right.

I’m talking about the right. Politicians and elites have responded to this. They feel like in order to make their, constituents happy, they have to get more and more authoritarian and crazy. On the left, it’s quite different. On the left, it’s not bubbling up from the bottom.

You, you know, stop your average democrat on the street and say, what do you think about the Israel Palestine thing? And they’re gonna say, well, I mean, of course, Israel has a right to defend herself, and I really feel for the Palestinians. It’s an awful thing. They’re not gonna be saying go, Hamas, okay, but the elites on the left. Are really corrupted.

And they are the ones who are cheerleading for mass murder and not seeming to get that, you know, you that that they’re they’ve got a moral screw loose if they can see what Hamas did two weeks ago and not respond with moral revulsion.

Yeah. So here’s my question. Either one, you can take this, or both. I don’t I I really I don’t I don’t need to be a Joe Biden fan girl on this. Like, we, and all of us have, like, we’re pretty harsh about the Afghan So I I’ve not been a hundred percent with him on foreign policy stuff all the time, but I shouldn’t I’m be getting more credit for this because of what Moon is talking Right?

It would be easy to stand with Israel if everyone in his coalition was locked up with him. But because this is the one issue where there are people that that disagree with him. Some some people good faith disagree. Some people have some, like, kind of crazy views disagree. Like, shouldn’t he be getting more credit with center center right folks because he’s been so stalwart on this.

Well, this is I look, like like you, I was a little bit worried after Afghanistan, you know, and and but this is the perfect opportunity for Biden to make the case you know, the Republicans have embraced their crazies. They’ve embraced their crazies. I represent the middle sixty percent of country, the the sixty percent that tells the pollsters, yeah, we support Israel’s right to exist and defend itself. And, and yeah, I think you’re totally right. Mean, like, I I like Mona, I’m, I I have been shocked and vaguely uphold by a lot of the talk, but it’s also been revelatory in a very real way because, like, when academics say things like, well, what did you think decolonization was gonna look like?

Like, yeah, I I knew what it was gonna look like in the context of Israel. It was gonna look like this, and that’s horrible. And that’s why I don’t support it.

And

that’s why Joe Biden doesn’t support it. And that’s like, it’s it’s the best case for Joe Biden is here is a guy who is maintaining the United States’ role in the national order. The international order. And you’re doing a great job at it.

Sir, isn’t this isn’t this what, like, so, like, it’s not just Biden, actually. It’s damn manual item on the podcast Sunday, my buddy, Peter Hamby wrote an article that had Melissa Slachian and Jake Ochtenklaus and Ritchie Torres. Like, aren’t they doing all the things that that all of the anti anti trump or never Trump Republicans asked Republican leaders to do, like, saying to the people on their own side who they think are being like, you’re being extreme and crazy. Aren’t they all doing that?

I think so. I think it’s,

maybe not all.

Yeah. Maybe not all, but also, like, I Will Saletan things. One, the situation in Israel is complicated. Condemic hamas is not It’s like a very simple thing. People should be able to condemn terrorists.

And, I think that Joe Biden.

I got just really quick. I’m sorry. I got a tweet today that was, like, you centrists think that it’s so you’re being you’re, you know, like, that you’re being so logical by posing hamas terrorism. And I was like, yeah. It’s really hard to oppose hamas.

Think BB has not been that great. And also not want Palestinian kids to die. That is like, oh, we’re scary centrist. Watch out. Watch out.

Anyway, sorry. Go on.

From a political standpoint, look, I I don’t know I don’t know if Joe Biden’s gonna get credit, or maybe he’ll start to get some grudging credit along the way. This is one of those situations where, like, it doesn’t matter, really, if he’s getting credit right now. What he should do is Joe Biden clearly believes right now in what he’s saying. It is his finest moment because he has moral clarity at the moment. He’s speaking from his heart every time he does it, he’s speaking like a normal person that is empathetic.

And as a result, it will transcend some of the age concerns. He will look like a leader That will either it will either give him that. If it doesn’t, nothing else will. Like, this is this is this is his best opportunity to show that He still has the ability to lead this country to be a good commander in chief. About that Oval Office speech, was the best thing I’ve ever seen from him.

And I hope he continues to behave this way and, like, here’s the thing. He should just do the right thing and, like, let what happens happen because he knows it’s the right thing and he believes in it.

Yeah. So you’re that was a really nice talk. Really nice. But it was a long time.

Thank you. I’m

saying there’s a chance.

You

don’t think the voters are gonna care about this. You don’t think that they’re gonna I

mean, I will just tell you that, like, this is it’s not great. That when the we’ve asked of the voters lately, both about Israel and for about Ukraine for a long time, like, even swing voters, like, they just really have internalized this idea that, like, we shouldn’t do anything abroad that we, that we, we have lots of problems here. We should take care of our own border. We should spend money in here. This is the this is the argument Republicans have been pumping into the ecosystem now for a long time.

And frankly, it wasn’t This was also something that you heard a lot of Democrats say back in the day back when I wasn’t you’d I was a much less big fan of them.

Alright. We got a special guest coming up here in a minute, but, I wanna play at my favorite game. Is everybody ready? It’s president or jail. Okay.

We go around, and everybody tells us how likely you think it is gonna be that would two years from now when we gather here in the free city of New Orleans, that’s Donald Trump will be either president I get you trying to think about this by asking a question the longest way possible. You’ll either be president, you’ll either be in jail or neither. None of the above. And I’m gonna lump in being on house arrests and Marla Logan with the cougars as being part of jail. So, so jail or counsel as president or neither.

My current my current, spot is forty five percent president. No. No. Forty five percent president. Forty percent neither, fifteen percent jail.

Moving down the moving down the moving down the panel.

Sarah? I’ll I’ll swap your top too.

So forty five percent neither. Forty percent president, fifteen percent jail. Oh, alright. Little jail, hope.

What about president from jail?

That’s a possibility. Not gonna happen. I keep

wondering if he goes to jail, What does the Secret Podcast do exactly? It molded me. Do they, you

know, do they say,

like, don’t mess with him to the guy who’s got, you know, tattoos all over his body and, you know, no teeth. I don’t know.

Yeah, but

I’m all okay. So before we before we get to that expresses, if we need to have a follow-up question, though, are we is is your hope at least on the way up? And all these flips in Georgia, we gotta give Bonnie with some love. Right? Like, it’s good.

It’s feeling real. Is there is anyone else feeling a little more? Are you feeling a little more? Hope anyone under the phone?

So, look, this was not a great week for defendant Trump.

Right. I

mean, you’ve got, you know, all of these flippers And, you got to love Trump who keeps saying, you know, I know about flippers, you know, like, as if he’s a mafia down, but whatever. And then and then we only have ABC reporting that, that Mark Meadows,

has a

deal with Jack Smith. So it hasn’t been picked up by anybody else. So we’ll hold our fire on that one.

That doesn’t really seem like he’s made a stern stuff. To me.

Yeah. No.

He cries a lot.

No. It’s

I mean, nothing I can’t cry out.

I was

just gonna say, like, let’s take it easy on men who cry. I said a lot. Oh, you and JBL are like, I always cry.

I like

to cry, but I, you know.

Listen, if you work if you work for Donald Trump, you’d have more reasons to cry.

That’s true. Yeah. That’s true. When Donald Trump went into the hospital, I was crying tears of joy, and Mark Meadows was crying tears of sadness. So that’s like a little different.

But look, one thing that people

have to bear in mind, unfortunately, is that our

legal is designed for delay, and Trump is a past master at delay. That Mar a Lago case with his little Cutey judge that loves him is not gonna go to trial for ages, you know, maybe not even before the election. She’s gonna find every reason to delay. So that one, which is cut and dried. It’s the Marilago documents case.

That’s not gonna do anything. Certainly not before the election. Maybe not ever. I don’t know. You’ll see.

And the, the Georgia one, he’s not gonna go to jail for that. So I just think if he’s con the the thing we have to focus on is not whether he’s gonna be in jail. It’s whether he’s gonna be a convicted felon because that is a possibility, and that would be enough. I believe for a goodly number of Republican voters to say, yeah, he was a great president, but I can’t vote for a felon.

A good define a goodly number.

Two percent. Two percent.

One percent. Three.

Which would be enough. That’s good. That’s a that’s

a one

percent. Oh,

you wouldn’t

be enough.

I think

I Okay. We’re gonna need about six percent. Can I just say though really quickly? The chances, like, the scenarios that you can come up with, and it just so happens as at a meeting where people were doing some scenario things. He could be a convicted felon.

He could be even maybe,

have to go to jail.

And he could still become president, pardon himself and like walk away from all of it.

Alright. Well, I think we can all agree on one thing. Hopefully he dies before all that happens. Okay. Let’s We have one final guest.

And I I I was hoping that everybody could do me a favor. In our last guest, it is his Forty ninth birthday. And it says, forty ninth birthday. May fifty ninth. I’m sorry.

My years are going wrong. Fifty ninth birthday. And he’s coming on stage. You might have heard his name is James Carville. And, so how can we get all how can

we get all singing a little happy birthday as he comes out to

visit ready. One, two, three.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday.

To you.