The Submission to Trump is Insane (Ballot Box with Bill Kristol)

Hey, everybody. It’s Tim. This is a bonus edition of the podcast. It’s something that me and Bill Crystal have been doing every Tuesday on YouTube ballot boxes, Bill and Tim. We’re putting it this in your podcast feed this week.

Please leave a comment, in the YouTube or in the Apple or spotify, podcast feed, and let us know what you think about this. Whether we should turn this into an audio feed for you guys as well. Bill and I try to spend every week getting a little more into the weeds about the politics of things, but also having a historical perspective, because I don’t know if you know this, but Bill’s kinda old. So we like to joke about that and, you know, talking about the Dan Quail years. And so I I think it is something that you guys will be enjoy enjoy and be additive.

To what you’re getting usually here on the next level. So, up next, ballot box with Bill and Tim. Let us know what you think about it. And we’ll be back here on Friday, where you will get the live show that me and Sarah and JBL are doing from San Francisco. See all that.

Hey, welcome to ballot box. I’m Tim Miller with my co host, the Great Bill Crystal. We’re doing this on Wednesday today because we kinda did a flip that reverse at the next level, reacted to Iowa on Tuesday morning. So if you wanna see my tired raw emotional response to the Republican Party submitting to Trump yet again. You can hear all of my rage and recriminations over on that feed.

Bill, you know, I think we’re gonna get a little more analytical with Bill Crystal. You don’t you don’t let your feelings get in the way

of when you’re an asshole. If you want the raw emotional rage, You want you wanna watch the next level, and and it’s great. And you should watch it because Tim is Tim is excellent at the emotional rage at the Republic party. But, yeah, here, we’re truly analytical. We have no, we have no feelings at all.

We’re not revolt and disgusted by all these conservatives and Republicans

You know, I’m still revolted and disgusted, but we can still analyze it too. So I I want, people have heard my feelings, despair, anger, what was your, response to the caucus on, Monday night? Was there anything that can be learned besides kind of the obvious, about Trump’s Trump’s hold on the party?

Mean, I think we said last week on this or I said that, it’d be great if Trump could be held below fifty percent. It’d be great if thinking could be a clear second. Trump exceeded fifty percent only by a bit, but he did. And Nicki was third. So I can lucky to pretend this was a great result.

On the other hand, he was third by two points, and Trump exceeded fifty percent by one point. Fifty there’s low turnout, fifty six thousand Iowans, voted for for Trump. I don’t wanna minimize the fact that he’s the prohibitive favorite, but I also think, you know, it is only fifty six thousand Iowa. Interesting question for me. And I don’t know if you’ve done this math, Tim.

If you sort of take the Iowa electorate who voted in terms of their social economic, you know, college is non college evangelical versus non evangelical, much smaller percentage of, independence than we’ll vote in New Hampshire. Sort of map that onto the New Hampshire electorate. I wonder what that rate is. Fifty twenty probably becomes, what do you think? Like forty, thirty, and like, the real starting point in New Hampshire is more like that.

Don’t you think?

Yeah. I mean, it’s hard to tell about the independence. So I can speak to just on the Republican side. Like, for me, for me, And again, this is not a there’s no comparison with the people of New Hampshire. The, I, you know, New Hampshire is very unique electorate.

You know, even in our in our monoculture, you know, a of all the undeclared, you still have these kind of residual northeastern moderates, you’re Charlie Sykes, Phil Scott, kind of Republicans don’t really exist that much in Iowa. So there’s not like a clear apples to apples, but I just I kind of look at Polk County. Right? Pol County is where Des Moines is. You know, this is not gonna be a ton of evangelical voters.

You know, it’s it’s gonna be the most you know, easy thing to compare. Trump gets thirty eight there. Haley twenty five. You know, and then DeSantis, how do you break down Ron DeSantis? No.

So I think that’s kind of about right. Like, before you get in the undeclared. Right? So if trump’s up thirteen among Republicans, can Nikki cut that down among undeclared, get into single digits, and and that, you know, just as as sort of, you know, back the envelope math, not not high level, analysis here. Like, I think that’s kind of where where the race.

No. That feels right. I mean, Nikki’s in a way, but starts off behind, but maybe behind by ten or eight, not by Yeah. Twenty five. But or thirty he has a new as in Iowa.

I guess I’m puzzled. What do you think of the fact that she chooses not to debate DeSantis? I guess the argument for that is you know, they just hit and attack each other and it just helps Trump, which is not crazy. And the other thing, I just feel like New Hampshire New Hampshireites, whatever they’re called, Granite Staters. I don’t even know what to write.

They like kind of debates. I mean, Reagan benefited a lot in nineteen eighty making a big deal of the fact that he was ready to debate. And, it feels something like Nicki should have taken the stance. Fine. I’ll debate everyone.

I’ll debate every night. I’ll debate anyone you want. I’m here. I’m here for you in New Hampshire. And instead, she’s sort of like, it’s what you do if you’re sitting on a lead in a way, you cancel the debates, but She’s not in the lead.

Right?

Yeah. I’m of mixed view on it. I think they’re two two minds. And, as is appropriate for ballot, you make a reference to the nineteen primary. I’ll make reference to the twenty twelve primary.

You might not recall the mano a mano, Newt gingrich first John Huntman debate in twenty twelve. Both men thought it might be an opportunity to break into the top two, you know, get a little attention to to New Hampshire voters, because, you know, Mitt Romney was not to participate in as many debates as we wanted. I didn’t end up moving the needle too much. I don’t think. So, you know, there’s, you can overstate these sorts of things.

I I I do think that New Hampshire voters want to see her. I I guess I’m gonna kind of refrain judgment. We’ll be together live next Tuesday.

I’ll

kind of refrain judgement till then to see what she does this week. She has to do something. Right? If it’s like, oh, I’m not gonna debate, and I’m just gonna do town halls where my message stays exactly the same. And I don’t take on Trump directly and I don’t make any news, then I’m gonna be kinda like, why didn’t you just debate?

Right? If there’s some other tactics at play, we’ll see. I think that probably just putting myself and not probably I’ve spoken to some of the Hayley people, like, in their head, they wanna tamp the DeSantis number down.

Ron DeSantis

isn’t even competing there, but it’s like why give DeSantis time on WMR. Now maybe the counter to that is maybe the more people see the Santa’s the less they like.

So I

don’t know if they should be that scared, but I I I kind of think that’s their strategic thinking No.

I I think it’s a defensible decision, but I very much agree Nicki needs to be running as an underdog this week, and I worry sometimes that she seems to think she’s got a strategy that allows to be almost like a front, you know, she’s got it all in place and it’s all gonna fall into her lap, and she just needs to be conscious and careful and, and, you know, reasonably impressive in certain ways, but don’t know. I feel like a little more aggressiveness by Nikki, but I think that’ll happen. I mean, she understands the situation. And, I think it could be more just a week than people think, and I think the odds of her winning or coming very close to New Hampshire aren’t, you know, it’s not quite fifty, fifty, but it’s not, it’s one in four or something. It’s not one in ten.

So I I I think It could be an interesting Tuesday night.

Yeah. It could be. And, and again, just, on the Nikki kind of strategic element of this, the things that are that are concerning, right, are, her speech and aisle. Do you want your speech and aisle? Whatever.

We we we don’t call them concession or victory. Peaches. The I

I I was too depressed. I I was depressed. I had had a drink and gone to gone to sleep. I wasn’t on MSNBC seats till two AM like you doing deep analysis. Of every county and, you know, the of every few hundred votes in Iowa.

So I had to suffer through it. You know, it it it did not not the speech of somebody that that it felt like there was a lot of urgency, you know, to your point. Right? Like, it just it was it was she was hitting her marks, You know, she’s again, she’s more talented than Ron DeSantis. She’s more normal than Trump.

But it was not like, you know, it didn’t feel like there was any emotion. You know, one thing, yeah, trump, his speech is so weird. And like low energy and and he spent twenty minutes acknowledging people, but he kind of does it as like the MC at a at a Reno you know, or, like, at a roast, like, I could, you know, so he’s, like, roast it. It’s, like, and I’d like to thank State Senator. So and so I just it was a very formal basic speech.

And it’s like, okay. And then she goes to New Hampshire and and at two AM. I was on set with David Pluff Obama’s campaign manager. And he was like apoplectic that she was not having an event when she landed in New Hampshire, you know, and this is a typical kind of David pluff type thing. And he is know, he was he’s always like, you have to be in the morning news cycle.

Like, when people wake up in New Hampshire, I could he she needs to be on the TV. Like, where is the air disease? So again, It’s a small tactical thing, but I think put all together, you’re not debating. She doesn’t do that. She gives a rote speech.

You know, there we’re now at Wednesday. It’s been, you know, it’s been thirty six hours. Like, where is the urgency? Like, she does she is behind. Right.

She’s not ahead. Like, if she’s gonna change the narrative, something has to happen besides just the Chris Christie voters all going to vote for.

Yeah. And the final point, I think the urgency is such a good good word that captures this because, look, I think that’s a nice formulation of yours. She’s more talented than DeSantis and more normal than Trump, and that goes fair amount of the way for getting her, you know, a decent chunk of votes. The urgency is both an electoral urgency. She’s got a win in New Hampshire.

And also, she has to cast the the vote as a more urgent matter about the future of the country and about Trump and about the threat of the second Trump. She doesn’t have to go all the way, but you and I and Abe’s daughter and everyone wanna go, which I think is the truth incidentally about how dangerous it is, but she has to go some of that way. Those undecided, the unaffiliated in New Hampshire, the independence, they need to come out, and and a lot of them are gonna end up phoning Democratic in November. Their Biden votes in twenty twenty, but they need to feel this is a chance to do some damage to Trump, and that’s really, it’s really urgent to do that. It’s really urgent to do that.

And that she hasn’t quite conveyed, I don’t think.

Yeah. And there’s another value to that. I I wanna get to the long term elements of this next because some of this might be academic, but, to the extent that it matters, if trouble loses somewhere, the turnout side of this is really important for her. Right? And I know that’s like a cliche, oh, it all comes in to turn out.

But if you, like, if you look at what happened in Iowa, And we don’t we won’t really know until next week. Like, is the Republican based depressed? Was it just very cold? Right? Like, we’re the can’t, you know, like, like, there’s a lot of, you know, we have one data points on this so far.

But the one data point is that that fifty six thousand fewer people voted in Iowa in twenty four than sixteen. And and and trump supposedly, like, his argument is like that he brings in new people. Well, but he’s had eight years to bring in new people and they went it went down this this time. Right? And and DeSantis spent a ton of money in turn.

So if let’s project that up to New Hampshire. If the if the total number of voters are down, right, within the Republican electorate, if she can excite enough undeclared voters who don’t love her. Let’s just be honest, right, who, like, Nikki Haley is not their cup of tea. Exactly. But if she can motivate enough of them to say, okay, Tuesday night, like, I’m gonna go out and do this because it’s important for democracy.

It’s important because Trump is such a threat. Like, it’s important that we have at least a choice that people have a choice even if, you know, it’s probably unlikely. It’s quite unlikely, extremely unlikely that she’s gonna actually win. It’s important that we have a You gotta motivate people somehow and and and that’s just seems missing six days out. But that can happen the last five days and we saw that Hillary Obama.

This is what we’re talking about with fluff. Like, o eight Hillary Obama. Like, there’s a surge of of support for Hillary in the last few days because she kind of was wearing her emotions on her sleeve and was talking about the importance of and the glass ceiling and and and like the narrative change. Like that the mar it went the other way for Marco in twenty sixteen. Right?

Like that things can happen in the last four days of the New Hampshire primary. These are super engaged. This is not like super Tuesday voters. So but she’s gotta give them something.

I totally agree. I mean, the the degree to which they’re engaged, is really extraordinary. And it’s good. I mean, it’s good for the country. And I I talked with someone who was at the Iowa caucuses working for Nicki came in from out of state is Frank Lavin whom you probably know a little bit.

When it was a former contributor and, occasionally, it was Reagan’s political director at the end of the Reagan administration, then ambassador, Singapore, big, foreign policy expert. And to his credit, he just got out of play, to the Nikki people in fact, they assigned him two precincts and he went out and worked these precincts with like a hundred people each. He didn’t, like, I don’t think people there knew that it was for Reagan’s former political director and an ambassador to Singapore and so forth.

Probably doesn’t help these days.

What’s that?

Probably doesn’t help these days. Man.

But he he was to I was texting with him and he was, you know, there he did okay. Trump won neither of his precincts. They were, I think, in the outskirts of Des Moines. But he, wait, received a rabbit’s, but, anyway, he, so he was felt okay about that, but he’s a little, you know, little down about the results. But he did say, and I don’t and this wasn’t just being hokey.

There was actually sort of moving being there in the sense that people were very decent. The thing went smoothly There was no, you know, bullshit about, oh, it was stealing votes. It’s rigged, all that. The actual local trump supporters were normal and courteous human being so far as he could tell and pleasant enough him, and, and so forth. So there’s a little bit of the kind of Iowa in New Hampshire.

There’s a kind of civic democracy that is somewhat heartening to see in this day and age.

Yeah. And I think it’s even greater in New Hampshire just having done both those states. You just said that it’s just the hips are small. It’s just small. And there’s just like a pride in it.

That is a cat a little bit of a category difference from from Iowa. So anyway, okay. We’ll see. Looking more long term, I think that we both can agree that Trump, I mean, like, this seems almost inevitable. Like, it seems almost a Right?

It’s worth fighting, but it’s almost a fait accompli. And one of the signs of that is what AB Stotted writes about this morning for the bulwark. Just an abs insane level of submission to Trump from the new mega establishment, which is a big theme of this discussion. The Ted Cruise on Fox last night, endorses Trump, at the same time that Trump says that he should have killed Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz should be shouldn’t even be in politics anymore.

Ted Ted Cruz is stuck up to him. Same same as it ever was. Vivic endorses him weird kind of an speech in New Hampshire where Trump is just like I kind of behind him, like, I want this fucking blowhard to shut up. He has this weird face on. But, but everybody, you know, Charlie Sykes about Joan Eurence, Mike Lee, does this strange O’s is a binary choice between Trump and and Biden already before anybody’s even voted.

Like it does seem like that the people who are remaining within the Republican party, who are not the small faction that are fighting this have just accepted Trump and that this is kind of inevitable and, you know, New Hampshire is maybe just a speed bump. How do you how do you assess that both analytically and emotionally? Give me both sides.

I mean, analytically, I think the polls do suggest that Nufthansa probably ends up being a speed bump, but maybe not inevitably. And I guess I’m keeping a sliver of hope alive by hoping that the voters rebel against these fairly repulsive politicians, if I could say, not to, not to cast aspersions too much on Ted Cruz and VVac, but, Ramaswamy, but on the other hand, why not? And I would be comprehensively

I think this is a safe space for a spurgeon casting. I think this is a safe space. This is a safe space for a spurgeon casting.

Good point. Thank you. I mean, AB was very good on this this morning at the in the middle Bulwark, but I mean, the the preemptive capitulation, it’s one thing I think you and I discussed this maybe a bit last Something to after the votes are cast since after Super Tuesday or after your own state votes. And you say, okay, you know what? I’ve been trying to stay out of it, but the voters in my state want Trump, so I’m I’m with them.

That’s not cap courageous. It’s not leadership, but it’s understandable. To preemptively capitulate because you read or you hear or you know that Trump will do be a little nicer to you if you affirmatively endorse him before January fifteenth as opposed to just keeping quiet. God forbid any, they should actually do what they publicly, what they say they want privately, which is to actually not have trumpest the nominee and actually act to support, Nikki Haley or, I guess, maybe just add us if we think that’s still plausible. I mean, that’s that’s even beyond the realm.

You can’t even imagine a global Republican politician doing that. The one person who supported Nikki, I think, right, in the last few days, is Larry Hogan, who’s basically not

Right.

In any more. I mean, she was stranded again. I made

a joke on the text chain. I was like Nikki’s endorsements are pretty, are are not meaningfully different from the the endorsements that Bill Crystal would have had. Had he read he read for president? At this point.

I mean, the elected officials are horrible, and they shouldn’t be let off the hook. And we already see the capitulation of the conservative leads, the articles of national review, maybe the journal’s a little slower, but they’re gonna get there too about how the it’s the Democrats fault that the Trump’s gonna win. It’s Alvin Bregg’s fault. It’s I don’t know. Whatever anyone else pro Palestinian demonstrators fault or something.

Republican primary voters have no agency, their children. They don’t like this stuff, so they gonna vote for Trump. And god forbid they should explain to them that they shouldn’t vote for trump. I’m curious this week, incidentally. I haven’t really looked at, obviously, the journal editorial page.

We’re an actual view, but will they actually tell their readers, hey, you gotta if you’re in New Hampshire, you should vote for Haley. You could stop trump. Maybe you ultimately they weren’t the scientist, but I mean, or will they just kind of go into this like, well, kind of dissatisfied with certain things Trump’s saying, but the real problem is Joe Biden, you know, I don’t think

there’s any reason to hope any of these people are gonna come out and say they support Haley. I mean, the Boston Globe will. Right? You know what I mean? Like, it’s Again, this is this is like the crazy part about this whole thing that in their little bubble in the conservative elite bubble, it’s like Oh, the Democrats secretly want Trump.

And, oh, it’s like the Democrats fault the Trump’s nominee because they did this out of the other thing. And it’s like, no, actually. It’s it’s know, it will be the Boston Globe. It will be the liberal institutions. It’s it’s Democratic donors.

It’s Jamie Diamond. It’s, you know, that’s these people, the ones that are out there saying, can we do something here? Can we can we stop it? Can we I don’t love Nikki Haley, but she’s obviously better than him. It’s it’s Democrats and never trumpers that are doing that.

And then when we do that, They say, oh, we can’t go for Haley. Look at it. She’s got she’s got liberal bill crystal on her. Like, she’s got woke bill crystal on her side. You know, so it’s a damned if you do, Dan, if you don’t, like, we can’t do anything, they’re making us do this.

But then when they then, you know, it’s like if Democrats are never trumpers help Haley, It’s oh, we can’t be with them. So we gotta be with Trump. Or, you know, if Democrats and over trumpers attack Haley, then it’s like, oh, see, they secretly want Trump. You know, like, they have no agency or ability to do anything. It’s it, like, it truly is crazy.

And so I don’t see any reason to expect anybody with any standing in the Republican infrastructure going forward past people, maybe but going forward will will do anything this week. Oh, you’re right. Funny. You know who else has their number? I was at the New York Young Republican club, as I told you.

It’s a very bad outfit watching the results. It was good. We’ll have more to talk about this, but there was just one thing that you just said that that sparked a memory from from the, gathering. It seems like twenty four twenties, mid twenties, somethings, trump types, you know, a lot of a lot of bridge and total. And I say that with affection, and that is not a not derision.

A lot of queens, you know, a lot of New York accent types. Anyway, I overheard the conversation. They’re watching Fox. They had Fox results on and one guy says to another guy. Like, all these people on Fox, they’re secretly hoping for Trump’s assassination.

Like, they’re secretly hoping that Trump gets killed because, like, they don’t want them. You can tell. You can tell, you know, in their me and following the announcements that they’re not excited like we are. And they that they can’t say it. They know they can’t say it, but they secretly want truck to die.

And it’s and that’s, like, the crazy kid is kind of right, man. I don’t I don’t know about legitimately, I don’t know if Brett there, like, really wants Trump to be assassinated, but, like, kind of, I think that they would like for him to disappear. You know, and they are right. Like, they do have their like, Trump has Trump and his people have the Republican establishments number on this. And and and it’s when it continues to work.

It’s fine. It’s great. You know, they all are just well, can, you know, are gonna succumb to him no matter

The old Republican establishment is just now the tail on the mega establishment’s dog. Right? I mean, it just kind of they they have a little bit of doubt but, they have, you know, they say to express them privately and then they go along and that’s where they’re gonna, they’re gonna, their part. So what are they? They’re not even an the whole point of an establishment.

It’s definitely not to badantic, but is that it, it defends the established order against things like Maga. And they really, you know, it’s like if they’re worse than than not having an establishment at all in a funny way. Right? They legitimize Trump while not opposing him at all effectively. So they capitulate.

You know, the worst thing is an establishment that capitulates. Right? It’s sort of the worst of both worlds.

While we are complaining about establishments, we can do a brief complaint about the Democratic establishment. Here’s a statement for the Democratic National Committee yesterday. On ASSA Hutchinson’s exit from the twenty twenty four GOP primary. Quote, this news comes as a shock to those of us who could sworn he had already dropped out. Okay.

I mean, I can see how a statement like this goes out. Some, you know, it’s a I used to be the person that wrote these statements ten years ago. Somebody is twenty eight years old. He’s trying to be funny. He’s trying to get some clips for the boss, but like, It’s a little bit business as usual, given the scale of the threat and the fact that ASSA Hudgens and voters we’re gonna kinda need to be Joe Biden voters.

And it undercuts the notion that this emergency of this is an extraordinary election where we need to refrain from that I did these things when I was even older than twenty eight years old, like, thirty five or so. I mean, yeah, we’ve refrained from the normal sniping. And welcome the Asahutists and supporters into the Biden coalition, and that I I would say they have not individuals in the democratic party have done that including Biden himself to some degree and and certainly many, you know, senators and governors, actually Chapiro and Whitmer and stuff. I wouldn’t say they have internalized as a party, the notion that they got to be more than just, you know, it it’s gotta be more than the Democratic party against Trump it’s gotta be a democratic, small d coalition against Trump, and that’s how that’s how they win. That’s how Biden wins.

Okay. Before we leave, one more question for you on Biden, I need always need to do a, how alarmed is Bulwark crystal check. A couple of pretty bad polls about the Biden approval. I mean, I I’m still I’m not I’m not gonna start menstruating my underwear until we get into March. I keep telling myself that.

I want people to I want the Trump nomination to sink in. I want a couple more months of the economic stability to sink in, but even still. You know, being down in the mid thirties in these some of these approval numbers that we’ve seen for Biden is is a little bit concerning. Where where are you at on that on that side?

And that and that George or Paul in the Atlantic Journal Constitution Constitution, which I have no reason to think wasn’t straight, you know, Paul. I mean, AGC is not pro trump. It’s forty five thirty seven in Georgia, a state that was even last time. So even if Georgia is gonna go further south, so to speak, than Michigan or Pennsylvania, that’s not that’s not encouraging. No.

I think it’s not great. And I do think just if you look around at the news, economy’s coming back. That’s the one thing that maybe people are realizing that and maybe that helps Biden. The world is getting more and more messy. I don’t think it’s Biden’s fault.

Think he’s doing pretty well and handling some of these challenges and not as aggressive not handling them as aggressively. Some of them, the luthis and stuff as he might. But what he’s not doing is explaining what he’s doing to the American public and explaining that he’s being a sort of a strong leader. And I do I very much worry about the Jimmy Carter phenomenon. I was alive during then.

You weren’t quite born, but, you know, Carter was a more of a mix that had more of a mixed record as president than the way we republicans acknowledge at the time, or then voters might have thought in nineteen eighty, but he just see it just seemed that things were out of control. Now obviously having you know, American hostages in Iran is a little different from who these, you know, firing some missiles at shipping in the, in in the Gulf, but still, I I do worry that the combination of you can’t get the aid for Ukraine through. He’s not even making the case for a publicly that much. And but who these are shoo are shooting at us, and the Middle East. Generally, it looks bad and, you know, whatever.

I mean, I just I think he needs to they need to think harder about, not just selling their economic record, but he needs to look like he’s, you know, in charge and is kind of a tough guy, honestly.

Yeah. And just a final thing on the Carter, comparison and and the and the need to guard against it. I did an interview with Josh Green a couple weeks ago. People can find on this feed. Who who wrote a book about the the the Democratic Left, the populist left, the kind of begins at the car to era.

And because that stuff is history for me, I was learning some things. Since I was reading the book, Carter really did get rolled by Congress in a bad way. And, like, in in a sense, so in a sense, the kind of image of him is being weak you know, forget, putting aside the kind of machismo manly qualities of stupid maggot left. That has been like politically weak. Right?

That he wasn’t able to get political agenda through, that there was some truth to that, right? When you, like, kind of look at it, it was kind of shocking actually how much he got pushed around to me, like, as I was kind of like reading through the details of all the stuff that I kind of only knew the top level elements of. And that has not happened to Biden. Right? Like Biden has been has been politically quite strong when you’re just looking at it in a policy and legislative sense.

Like, like, his agenda has mostly gotten done. In the face of a very narrow majority, you know, and, like, in the senate and then, and then you’re having to deal with this crazy house. And it’s been the House Republicans that have looked weak. Really? Again, just in this concept and just in the construct of like legislative, like, are you getting the agenda that you’ve promised past.

And so and like, but Biden personally does not isn’t doesn’t it doesn’t feel that way to people. Right? And so, like, to me, it’s like, how can that element be communicated? How can we like alpha dog Biden as compared to this like, totally dysfunctional house. And, like, I think that’s a big challenge for them.

And and just to accentuate that point. I mean, I don’t remember, nineteen eighty. I haven’t looked up the dates, but I think it was January nineteen eighty that we had the failed rescue Iranian hostage rescue attempt. And I remember watching the president president Carter report about on TV and just feeling sick my stomach, and it obviously was terrible news. And then his secretary of state quit, because he was against doing this.

I mean, we had that degree of chaos and of failure, right? Your own secretary of state quits in January of an election year, a respected figure, Cyrus Vance. And, and Biden is nothing like that. Whatever one thinks of the different policies and the different limitations. So that makes, I don’t know, does that make the low approval rating a little like, oh, it’s gonna fix itself because it’s not quite based in reality.

This is, I guess, JBL’s kind of basic view, or does it make it even more worrisome that in a way voted this this the perception of Biden, which has gotta be age related in part, obviously, has sunk in in a way regardless if we So that that’s in a way harder to fix. Right? If it were reality, you could fix it. You know?

Yeah. Kind of reminds me of, like, looking at my George, Jetbush, polls sometimes and it was and it’s like the things that voters hated the most about him were his name and his personality. I was like, well, can it’s pretty hard to fix that, you know. So anyway, hopefully, we’re not in that shape. Bill Crystal, we’ll be back on Tuesday night.

We’ll be in studio together. You’ll be able to see the Bulwark studios. It’s looking all snazzy. So come hang out with us. Probably around nine PM, monitor our Twitter feeds, and, and the Bulwark emails keep you up to speed and, you can, make sure to subscribe to us here on YouTube and, rate and review us if you’re listening on the podcast.

We’ll see you guys next Tuesday. Thanks, Bill.

See you next week.