The Doorstep of Crisis (The Secret Podcast PREVIEW)

Hey there. It’s JBL on the Secret Show with Sarah Longwell today. We talked about a lot of stuff, and it gets pretty dark. Mostly, we talked about Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis, and then we get into Bob Kagan’s giant piece about the possible end of democracy. Yeah, buckle up.

Here’s the show.

And and then there’s this then there’s all the people on the right gas shore of you being Ron DeSantis won with both charisma and with substance. And you’re like, Did you guys watch this thing because DeSantis shouted over Newsom the whole time.

And he did that smile thing of his?

He he was he he’s on comfortable at his own skin.

He Nobody wants to spend four years licking and listening to that guy.

Nobody nobody wants to be around Like, the if you think that the having a beer thing is even remotely a litmus test, because the having a beer thing is, like, do I think that you are a human that I would be around. And the answer on DeSantis is absolutely not. I will say for me it is also, a hard noah Gavin Newsom, though. The sort of oozy Same. Talk about a guy who walked in there thinking he was gonna wipe the floor with DeSantis.

Did you get that vibe? That’s so funny. You have the same thing. I just thought he was underprepared. He showed up thinking that this was just, like, a TV hit, and he was gonna wipe of war, where as DeSantis prepped for this, like, it was the first general election presidential debate.

Totally.

Like Ron DeSantis had murder boarded this and, you know Yeah.

Pick pictures of poop and Yeah.

I mean, I I thought Newsom was was criminally underprepared.

Same. And

I’m so glad that you thought the same. Well,

and and I think a little bit, you know, part of this is sussing out, right? The people’s especially in this case, newsom, because I think we haven’t seen him the way that we’ve just been watching DeSantis put on what has been an incredibly lackluster political performance, And I think that what we were shown is, like, what a DeSantis would be if he had, like, a a real foil, I guess. I I I don’t know. And so clearly he’s better I wish he would go that hard at Trump as he went at Newsome.

Yeah. This is what Bill and I said. Yesterday last night was that what is revealing is that DeSantis can’t do any of this in a Republican primary.

Right.

Because of the bizarre For some reason, in this primary, unlike every other primary in the history of the world, you can’t criticize the guy who’s leading by fifty.

That’s right. That’s right. But but even if you could, I mean, I’m just not sure how well sort of runty McShoudy plays, in in the Republican primary. Or, I mean, I didn’t think it played last night, but at least at least what he had on his side was the idea that, like, Gavin Newsom’s the governor of California. And so, like, there is just the reflexive.

I mean, Sean Hannity was was obviously just holding and this is this was the other thing about Newsen. This was the thing I was gonna say is if you’re assessing people’s sort of political acumen, some of it is the strategy side of what they think. So Sean Hannity had clearly Sean and and Gavin clearly know each other and, like, schmooze it up. And I and so he agreed to do this debate on Fox’s turf, Hannity’s turf to Santa’s turf. Okay.

Lot of confidence can respect it. If you can bring it when it the time comes. But instead, you know, it was a two on one situation with every single thing was like, Let’s comp it became

like slanted. It was almost funny.

It was funny. I mean, nobody was pretending. Like, the idea that did Sean Hannity was being an on broker there, which he, like, at the beginning said he was gonna be, and then didn’t even feign Yeah. An attempt at it. Because all the questions were basically, like, why is cow such a shit hole.

California is a dystopian health hole governor. Can you explain why that is?

That’s right.

Governor, what are the odds that of the The tens of millions of illegal immigrants who have streamed in over our southern border, what are the odds that some of them are horrible to mess, horrible terrorists who are gonna kill the the god fearing people of Missouri. What are the odds of that governor? Governor, you can tell that Joe Biden has lost his step. Can’t you?

No. It was it was really stupid. I mean, this whole thing was really stupid. There’s a lot of people out there sort of fainting a, like, Well, it’s so good to have a real debate between, like, two people. And I’m, like, this is all about these two guys egos.

And about their it has nothing to do with giving America some sense of where the political parties are or what they stand for because it really was about It it’s like, do I want to move to California or Florida? Make your cases, governors? And then they do, and you’re like, I want to move to Montana. Who wants to live in either of these terrible places, that both of you govern? I also so I could not I still can’t.

There’s a lot of people who are, saying that it’s funny. So I I started I started being like, wait. Is he hitting him from his right? Like, Why is Newsom saying to DeSantis, you wanted amnesty. You were one of the first people to wear masks.

You closed down the beaches. And I was like, what’s happening right now?

You could see what he’s doing, but he didn’t make that. I mean, what he

Well, what did you think he was doing?

What he was trying to do was say, Once upon a time, you acted like a, like, a responsible person and you’ve now rebelled against, like, the responsible shit you did, because you’re chasing these mouth breather voters in Iowa. And

He did not do that effectively because

he did not do that effectively. He totally agree.

I was like, is he just trying to help Trump ensure that he’s Yeah. I mean, it it Did

not do that well.

No. It was poorly done. Because it sounded like a criticism. Like, he was hurling amnesty at him as though that was, like, a shot substantively. And the then that left that, like, begged to the question So does what it newsom, wait.

What do you think we are doing about it? Immigration? So you think that, like, letting people say here is bad, which, okay, that’s a legitimate position, but Is that your position? I don’t understand what’s happening right now.

Yeah. I mean, so here’s the thing. I I think had Newsom prepared. He is very good at this stuff. Like, he’s not Mayor Pete level good, but he’s in the same zip code as Mayor Pete.

Uh-huh.

And I think that had he really prepped for this and come to play, he would have done much better. He did feel like he was winging it.

He said, and he had a couple of things that I’m sorry. I I don’t mean to

interrupt. Right?

But just, like, when he was, like, Donald Trump’s more moderate than you on abortion, I’m, like, Are you making the case for Donald Trust

stop it?

What are you doing?

Yeah. It’s, it’s not it wasn’t super helpful. But that’s okay. It didn’t matter, except to underscore I said this to Bill last night too. I’ll just repeat myself for because I think our audience is bigger than the Thursday and out of dance.

What an enormous mistake it was for Rhonda Sanchez to run-in this cycle. Yeah. He had he Jonathan Last night’s performance shows that he would have been the perfect vice presidential attack dog. Right? The kind of guy who trump He said, yeah.

That’s great. He’ll go out there and be, you know, trump might not like the weird smile, but he would have showed that he could go out there and be a killer for for Trump and all that. And, of course, there’s there’s no reality in which Trump would pick him as as a VP, and all he has done is hurt himself and his future political prospects with this run for president. Yeah. Terrible, terrible mistake.

I would say, so we we often get a, you know, why do you, Tim and Sarah hate Newsom? I I don’t have often.

Oh, interesting.

And, this is just a reflect of your vestigial conservatism.

No. It’s not.

But you can do yours. Let me let me because

it’s so true.

For me, it is affect. It is so he it’s like all of the worst parts of the Clinton charm, but without any of the best parts of the Clinton charm. So that he is you can see the ambition coming off of him in waves. Uh-huh. And he is oily, and I just think, again, as political horseflesh, for me, an unappealing commodity.

Now unappealing in a different way than DeSantis. Like, DeSantis is a, like, you know, get out. I don’t don’t come near my personal space. I don’t wanna be near you. And with Newsom, it’s like, does this guy have his hand in my pocket?

Yeah. And, I Look. He’s got a fire in the belly, and that’s great. He is a good debater normally, and that’s great. And I respect those things.

I I thought I said this to Bill last night. I thought he actually did a bad job of defending California on liberal terms. Right? So we one of the things you know, what do you look at all these taxes? And one of the things Newsom, I think, should have said is, yeah.

Yeah. We do. You know what we do? We we tax people, especially people at the highest end of the

He did

do that. So that we can build infrastructure culture and support the amazing university system we have in order to attract business and create jobs. Like, this is a Yeah. Like, there is a method to all of this, and it has worked because we are the fifth largest economy lord. He did a little bit of that on education when he was like, Yeah.

We spend more per pupil because we’re doing we’re reimagining all of education. It’s a an all day, all year thing. We’re doing universal pre k and I mean, he did a little but he sort of ran away from that side. I thought he could have made a better case for just the liberal view of government, and he seemed to run away from that a little instead of Well, I

think part of it is I do think look, this is part of I I would love to tell you why I don’t like Gavin Newsom.

Please.

I mean, Gavin Newsom, just on, like, who is he really? And I think one of the big data points we have is this is a guy who was married to Kimberly Guilfoyle. Who is now dating Don junior. He’s clearly friends. Do you remember

the picture in Vanity Fair?

Yeah. But then, like, lying

on the like, a tiger skin toners on that. Disgusting. Anybody who would consent to that, I immediately say, I’m sorry. I can’t trust this. No.

No. No. No. And so I I am, yeah, I have a hard no on Newsom, but also I do think that this is one of the things where, you know, every now and then, there are things that I think you and I can’t understand very well about the Democratic party because we’ve never been of it. And then I think there are other things that you and I might see more clearly than our Democratic friends, because we’ve never been of it.

And one of the things that I will tell you is that The vastman, I don’t care the California. It may be the fifth fifth largest economy in the world. But it is not where most Americans live. It is certainly not where any of the swing states are. And the idea of being governor of California, California is a foil and an example of where Pennsylvania doesn’t want to be California.

Wisconsin doesn’t want to be California. They do not share values with California. And if you wanna win swing states, a guy who went to the French laundry drink I don’t think he realizes, like, his career was over when that happened because it it’s just the same way what’s his name and you lock down your state with your liberal elites and then you go to the French laundry, you are living. You are a living embodiment of what people think of when they think of kind of the limousine liberal set that they it’s sort of the way that Democrats, like, didn’t understand that Hillary Clinton who was obviously I mean, sometimes I watch her both now and even clips of her back when and she’s so good. She’s very good.

So good.

Would have been a pretty good president, I think.

You don’t understand America and where America lives and who they are and how much they hated the clintons and how much The people who hated her hard permeated the people who hated her just enough to discount her forever. And you can dislike that that’s the case. But it is the case. And so if you think Gavin Newsom can win Wisconsin, just cut this tape. Take it with you first, put in the time capsule.

Gavin Newsom’s not gonna win Wisconsin or, Arizona or Pennsylvania. And, like, you need the reason that I, like, Whitmer and Shapiro, and think about people, like, even, Les Moore or Let’s his name in Georgia. Help me.

Wornock.

Wornock. Like, people who win in purple places not people who live and have values that reflect deep red places. Like, we live on a razor’s edge now, a coin flip, and you need people who are come from places that can articulate a value set that comports with the people that you need to win over in these swing states.

Yeah. And here’s so here’s the thing that it worried me about last night. It was, as I was watching the reaction over on threads where you should be, of a lot of the liberal types who I follow and adore. And You know, like, like, so, like, Molly Jong. Molly Jong fast are are who who is a bosom friend of mine.

Like, Molly Jong was, like, you know, This is this is, you know, he’s destroying DeSantis. This is the stop the fight. It’s over that sort. And I looked at that and I just thought, I don’t I don’t see that at all. Yeah.

And I I think this looks like DeSantis is winning on the merits and I mean, winning in the in the most meaningless sense of the word. Right?

Right.

But what worried me is especially having just read. So I I watched the debate after having just read this Bob Gagan piece from the Washington Post. Yeah. In I I what makes me as nervous as anything else is anytime somebody says, stop your catastrophizing Look at all the special elections. We’ve beaten these guys five elections in a row.

Wait. It’s in the bag. You know, the the Biden is gonna win a comfortable victory over Trump. Don’t, you know, stop wetting the bed. And I that makes me so nervous.

And I because, again, I don’t see that in any of the data. Yeah. You know,

and Let’s let’s talk about the Cagan piece because I I read it this morning and

I’m glad you didn’t read it before bed like I did because it Give me nightmares. Yeah. Yeah.

I know. Well, why don’t you do you wanna sort of No.

You you’ve you’ve just read it. Let me

let me just say this that that I so one of the things that I recommend so I, first of all, it’s in the post. I recommend it. We recommend it. And it what it is is a piece that’s like, you guys are not thinking hard enough about what it will look like if Trump really wins, and he definitely can win. K?

That’s sort of the the thesis. And then he sort of lays out, think about, like, think it through a little bit. Like, if this happens and this happens, And and what I like what I think you be what I like about it is I think people don’t try hard enough, and he is trying hard to live in the future an American Not the distant future.

Not the distant future. Like, sixteen weeks in the future.

That’s right. And he says something, I think, to but but, actually, one of the things I wanted to I don’t know that you do this, but I do this a lot in the kind of democracy world that I live in. There are things called scenario planning exercises where people you people at a conference or something, they’ll be like, okay. Let’s think through this scenario. It’ll be like, Trump wins, but it’s by, know, trump well, you’ll have, like, one group will have a scenario.

Like, Trump wins decisively, you know, in four states. He wins Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. And then there’s another one where it’s, like, Trump wins by, you know, six or, like, three thousand votes in one state. And how do people react. And then it’s like, okay.

Joe Biden wins, but it’s only by three thousand votes in one state. You know, and so you play out these scenarios. And so I think Bob Kagan comes from a think tank world where he does this kind of scenario planning, and he’s thought about this now pretty hard. And he basically took a scenario planning and said, okay. I’m gonna lay this out for you guys.

I wanna run one of these things through because it’s not just how do it’s not just he, you know, Trump could win, and then he’ll do, you know, Schedule f and get rid of the civil service. It’s also, like, Okay. So how does the left react? And what does that look like? How does the donor class react?

And what does this look like? Like, what does it mean internationally? What does it mean? What are the checks that we used to have that we don’t have? What are the norms that are already broken?

That are no longer there to stop with sex? And so in that regard, he lays out what is an enormously bleak scenario, but not at all. And, like, the other thing he does is he’s like, if you had a fifty percent chance of a meteor hitting the earth, like, you would do something about it, or you would prepare in some way. And he’s like, and the people are acting like, well, there’s no meteor or, you know, so It’s

it’s the movie. Don’t look up. Right. That that’s where we are right now. It’s kind

of a stupid movie, but

I never saw it. But, yes, but this is, this this is what I’m writing about this morning, is that we are standing on the beach, and we can see this enormous storm on the horizon But it’s sunny right now. And so we’re just like, well, you know, like, we are in the doorstep of crisis. No.

No. No. We don’t say it well. We we sit and rear our hands and fret about the storm. But we don’t do anything about the storm.

So

The publicism. I what I meant by we is I meant the public. Like, the public isn’t even in the ring in your hands face. Right? Yeah.

Yeah. Sure.

You know, you just, like, ever just, going on. Well, I’m really mad that I can only go to Disney World twice this year. You know? Like, I don’t know, man. Like, this is this is for reals, and it’s coming.

There is no avoiding this crisis. Now we might get through the crisis when it hits, but we are in the doorstep of an existential crisis for our democracy. And I’m a little sick and fucking tired of being told. Why are you obsessing about Trump? Why can’t you talk about you know, you just you you need him more as much as the people who are in the Maga Grifter class need him.

I’m like, you know, like, we’re gonna we’re gonna make the case for Tim Scott.

Yeah. You know, and I just

I am sorry, but fuck you.

You know, it had been a while, actually, since somebody had accused me of wanting Trump, but last night when I was, you know, crap it on both these guys, but I was all, you know, hitting DeSantis for being, like, a totally wooden weirdo. There was a bunch of people being, like, Sarah Longwell needs Trump to happen. I was, like, Okay. Cool.

Great.

Great commentary.

So it’s, it’s bad. One of the one of the things Kagan says, also, is that we haven’t really grappled with what it will mean. To have Trump elected in the face of his prosecutions. Because that is a very, very clear signal that the rule of law simply does not apply to him. He will have broken the rule of law.

Right? No no matter what you know, the the the institutions in the country tried to use legal means to constrain him, and it turns out that he was able to thwart that. And he combined this with did you did you listen to Bill’s conversation with John Carl? No. So, you should do that and it’s terrifying.

And the reason it’s terrifying is because so do you do you know John Carl at all?

I’ve been on TV with him.

That’s it. So he’s a he’s a very straight shooter, traditional reporter down the middle. I’m gonna say he’s a both sides type, but I don’t mean that in, like, the negative sense of the word. Like, I mean, he is he is not, He’s not anywhere near, like, a partisan reporter.

Sure.

So he’s on with Bill, and he basically sounds like Molly Jong fast or us, right, or Ian Basin. Like, he he sounds like one of a a democracy space activist with his hair on fire. And why does John Carl sound like that? It’s because he’s just spent a year writing a book about what the next Trump term would look like. And in the course of that, he has spoken to a few hundred Republicans, many of whom worked for Trump, all of whom are telling him this is catastrophic for America.

This is what he’s going to do. He must be stopped. And again, as and John says, in the course of his interview, he said, you know, my my book reads like resistance porn. But you have to understand that ninety five percent of the sources in it are Republicans who are pro Trump and who many of whom worked for him. Yeah.

Like, this is it is not like

still pro trump?

Well, I mean, privately, They’re all anti trump. Sure. Publicly, they, you know, they’re quiet or they’ll, you know, they’ll leak something to to Jeff Bulwark or something. I mean, I And this is I would say reading that in conjunction with the Kagan piece, because the Kagan piece is like, hey. This thing is happening.

We’re heading towards that could look like a dictatorship. And Charlie Sykes, here is what here’s what a second term looks like. Based again on reporting with people and and with access to Trump. Like, he spoke to Trump, a bunch of times for the this is this is all very bad.

Yeah. I mean and this is I think part of it is it’s not it’s the It’s like the boy who cried wolf, but if there were wolves every single time. Right? Like, like, Come on. That’s a good thing

I can say.

Tell me more.

I’m trying to understand that.

It’s like I think the problem is is we’re always like, it’s very bad. And every time, it turns out to be real, and maybe even worse than we contemplated. But, like

Yes. That’s very good. Yeah.

And so when we’re still being, like, it’s gonna be very bad. Everybody’s kinda like, yeah, I know. Yeah.

You’re always telling me

it’s just bad. It’s gonna be very bad. And and I think that What I liked about the piece?

Okay. Now I now that I fully have got my head around it, that’s very good.

Thank you. I told JBL, when we were or when we were about to do our economic. It’s not coming out for two weeks. And so by then, I will be well done with COVID, but I we were gonna have our fight half my immune system tied behind my back. I also thought was funny.

That was fantastic.

Okay. Now I’m, like, all I’m, like, complimenting myself. I forget.

We are, like, the boy who cried wolf, but there were actually wolves every time.

Exactly. And so at some point, people are like, I don’t know, eat me, I guess. But I, like, it’s just like, yeah, there’s always it’s all there’s always wolves. We’re always at the precipice of democracy ending of a dictatorship. The the bud but the thing I liked about the piece was I and I Kegan’s done this a couple times.

His his these Credic cores that he puts out there, that they’re meant to, like, take you by the shoulders and shake you and be like, just stop being complacent. This is gonna be way worse than you think. Why are you just and and and so part of it to me so I was reading it and I was thinking, one of the things that’s gonna happen if Trump gets elected. This is gonna happen for me, is we’re gonna look back on the Biden years and think. There were so many things we could have done.

For example, to limit the size and scope of government. Now here, you wanna talk you wanna talk about me sounding like a conservative all of a sudden. The fact the the growth in our federal government, like the fact that it’s so big, will allow Trump to do an enormous amount of damage. You know, we have we have continued to allow for presidential powers to get out of control. Every administration has expanded those powers.

I wish we had done a lot of reining in of the federal government during these the Biden administration with the idea that

Trump wanna hear my response to this? I’m

not. But go ahead.

Hey, Sarah, do you know there’s there’s actually more of the show?

Oh, there is how much more.

There’s more so much more. All of the more it goes on for hours if people want to get the rest of the show. You you know what they have to do. Right? I think they have to go to Bulwark Plus.

Do they have to subscribe? What do they have to do? Yes. They have to pay us money. Oh, He did me and he’s manmi and go to the Bulwark dot com and subscribe.

You can remember a bulwark Plus.

All the good stuff on the other side.