Tim Miller: Nazis Bad, Constitution Good

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two. Happy Friday, and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. Hey, before we we start, this is going to be my last live podcast for a little while, but do not worry because we have something very special planned. Starting on Monday, we’re going to be sharing some of the Encore best of Bulwark Podcasts. We’ll hear from Adam Kinzinger and Maggie Abramsman and Peter Baker and Susan Glasser and and a host of others.

We we thought this was a good idea. It’s not

just gonna be the best Tim podcast. I misunderstood the the pitch. I thought I was gonna be the

best Tim podcast that you’re gonna add? No. This is the best of our podcast.

Oh, okay. The best of our podcast. You know, we do this every single day, and I understand that not everybody listens every single day. And there’s just so much good content out there. So this seemed like a good opportunity to to reprise some of the conversations that we’ve had over the last year.

So, Tim, Welcome to the podcast. I wanna start with this. Okay? Let’s start with the big story of the day. Kirsten Cinema declares her independence.

We make decisions about what’s best for ourselves, our family, and our community. And so we don’t spend a lot of time thinking about is this a Republican idea or is this a democratic idea? Is this a liberal or is this conservative? That’s not how Arizona’s think. What we think about is, what’s right for my family?

What’s right for my community? What’s right for my future?

So, Tim, you’re getting to tingle up your leg listening to that? Tell

him exactly. I thought that the audio is gonna be Martina McBride or or something from It was the president’s name and independence day. Today is the day we

did. That’s good. Yeah. Well,

just first, really quick, I only get to cinema, but I just really hope you enjoy your time in France. And if you start speaking, you know, if there’s maybe some breaking news or you can do a little positive, a little fancy. And, you know, I just hope come back with a, you know, a beret and maybe cigarette smoking, pick cigarette smoking back up. You never know what could happen. Don’t

think I’m gonna pick up the cigarette smoking, but no. And the and the beret would be a would be a hard no as well. Okay.

It was something. Hopefully, you know, hopefully, you can just really embrace the culture and and the time off. And thank you. Cinema. She’s a strange bird.

Do you think? You know, you think? Oh, no. And, yeah, I guess, that’s an understatement of the year. You know, I I said this, I kind of care less about this, and I did some of the silliness around some of the legislation, particularly what ended up becoming the IRA.

But, you know, it could have some important ramifications. It seems that she’s gonna keep coxing with Democrats, but I guess not showing up to a caucus. She wants more time to hang out because the fifty one forty nine versus fifty fifty did matter. I mean, the democrats maintain there. Send a majority Big deal.

Yeah. But the the committees then become plus one

democrat instead of even. So this does not affect the balance of power in the senate at least as of right now. Right? Because, I mean, just to remind people, there are two other independents who caucus with the democrats. So Bernie Sanders is simply not a Democrat.

He is an independent Angus King from Maine is an independent. They caucus. They are part of that fifty one forty nine majority. If she continues to do that, then the committee structure doesn’t change. The majority doesn’t change.

Those that’s kind of the the let’s just start. Everybody take a deep breath about that. Yeah.

But I I think that’s a fair thing to be worried about. Right? As the thing as the thing goes on that this could be just a nudge away from that, and then eventually, you you know, she decides that it’d be good for the Democratic, you know, systems and our norms to go back to even senate committees, you know, who that all knows. Right? With Chris, So so I I think that’s something that’s a fair thing to be worried about the in that sense, fifty one forty nine and fifty fifty is is meaningfully different in a way fifty one forty nine and, like, fifty two forty eight isn’t.

So that’s just one note as we look ahead to this. I I think the other just political note is She was gonna be in a really tough spot in a primary with Ruben Gallego coming up in a Democratic primary when she’s up for reelection. Doing the Angus King thing would be a very also could be in trouble, but but, you know, changes the calculus quite a bit. Right? Because you have the Democrats like we really run.

Two quasi Democrats. Right? It’s harder to beat her in a general election, so it could be a savvy move. In that case, if the Democrats decide. You know, if she votes enough with them and continues to caucus with them,

democrats might decide this is not worth spoiling a senate see though. No. You’re right here because if she does and she didn’t say whether she’s running for reelection, although

that video that I played, no. That’s a campaign video. I there’s no question about administration. She she’s running. So if she does, that raises the possibility of this fractured field, you know, could divide Democratic and independent vote.

So a lot of people are going, oh my god. This is how we get senator Carrie Lake.

Right. Yeah. And so you end you might end up with a McMullen situation to just people are less excited about where instead of doing the McMullen deal with the Democrat and the

independent, increasing your odds, you do it out of reluctance because it’s the only option. But that required Democrats to stand down —

Yeah. — like they did in Utah. I

can’t quite see the Democrats in Arizona standing down. It’s hard to imagine. Yeah. It depends on on our behavior. And and the content, I think, is really real.

Just one

observation I have. So when I was writing, about the Arizona governor’s race. One of those articles that I wrote ahead of the election, a couple of friends in Arizona had flagged for me that cinema had had not actually endorsed hops, you know, and hadn’t even said she was gonna support her. Yeah. She had a couple of them just not really joking.

They’ve been kind of gallows humorous that she might even be voting for Carrie Lake, who knows. Right? And so I emailed her team and was just like,

hey,

who

sent him a voting for in the governor’s race. And they wouldn’t tell me — Weird. — and then the spokesperson called and we had a very it was an interesting conversation just because it was off the record, but but just the spirit of it, was you could sense that there is just a lot of bitterness and it’s a two way street. And I think that some of cinema’s complaints about the Democrats are legitimate. You’ve covered a couple of them in your newsletter this morning you know, I think

that people are very harsh on her within the party. Yeah. The following her in the bathrooms and harassing and berating and censoring her, maybe it was not a move of real political genius after all. But what do I know? Exactly.

Yeah. And and I think that she gets a lot of heat from inside the tent. Some of it’s deserved. Some of it’s you know, maybe a little overheated. Some of it’s may maybe has a tinder sexism.

But you could sense you know, this phone call is kind of like me calling me. Eight days before, you know, Jeb lost. This person was beaten down and angry and annoyed and flust shirt. And I mean, they, you know, they felt like they’re getting it from all sides in a real way. And so I think that that shed a little bit of light on this.

To underline the point here,

you know, her standing with the fellow Democrats, there was this with data for progress poll out earlier this year, that showed her with a minus fifty seven approval rating among Democratic primary voters. She had a nineteen percent favorable rating, seventy six percent unfavorable rating. So the reality is that Democrats had basically washed their hands of her. She was going to get absolutely shel acted a Democratic primary. So you can understand why she might feel the way she felt.

Okay? You had another point though.

Yeah. Yeah. So now my last thing on her and and here’s where I think that she brings it on herself. To a certain degree. Despite the fact that I agree, you know, I should be chasing people into bathrooms and, you know, some of the mocking of her for her outfits and stuff is weird and inappropriate.

And It’s still, like, not really clear why she, you know, is does not feel comfortable on the Democratic coalition. I mean, She’s like a thorn in the side of the Democrats just like instinctually. She’s like

she’s like a human cactus that just likes to poke people. For no real reason. It’s not like there’s this ideological kind of like a Democratic lesbian version of John McCain,

though. For

like yeah. But

Arizona’s got a little bit of a history of independence who were prickly and managed to take off that

part. And McCain is prickly and was sometimes impulsive. But, like, McCain’s ideology was coherent. Right? I mean, he was a, you know, kind of, globalist, what you would call globalist now, like kind of NeoCon that was nontraditional, you know, when it came to, you know, some of the economic policies and was for reforms.

In campaign finance in areas like this. Right? So I everybody kinda knew what they were signing up for that, you know, John McCain was gonna be for every war that people wanted too. And so if there’s disagreements within the party, you knew what side he’d be on, you knew that he’d wanna help free people and refugees and a side lease everywhere, and that there’s gonna be some people in the party that wanted us not let anybody in. You knew that he’d always want people to to let people in.

You know, you knew he’d be for, you know, campaign finance reforms that would side him with Democrats more times did not. Right? Like, from time to time, like, he I think that he voted against the Bush tax cuts just because he was annoyed at George W Bush one time. Right? So occasion he would act like cinema.

Right? But but mostly, he had a coherent ideology that you knew what you were getting from him and his opposition to the party was ideological and you felt like it was largely principle. I can’t tell you what Christian Cinema’s ideological objections are to the party really. I she like, her objection on the last inflation reduction act was, like, she wanted to not increase taxes on the hedge fund guys, and she used to be a member of the green party. And she feels very passionate about the filibuster for some reason.

Weird. Yeah. And, like, this is the thing. If you

take out all of her weird Thought in the side stuff. She was with the Democrats on the infrastructure thing. She voted with by ninety percent of the time If it

wasn’t for her, he would not have gotten those judges through. He would

not have

gotten any of that The

gun drill she was negotiating on. So she did some good things that that is within the democratic policy rubric. So why is she always So why

is she different than Joe Manchin? I mean, you’re like a, you know, Saint Joe mansion. Why not Saint Kirsten Cinema? I mean, she doesn’t want big omnibus spending bills and I don’t know. I don’t know.

But the the hedge fund thing I

I can’t explain. I I don’t know. Joe mentioned as a pretty clear ideological framework, though. And Joe mentioned is a conservative West Virginia Democrat. Like, he he’s four.

This is like the John McCain thing, and he’s not gonna be four things that hurt the coal industry and the and other fossil fuels. Right? I he’s not gonna be for big spending bills. He is on guns, you know, gonna be want to cut a middle ground. Right?

He’s not gonna be first all weapons bands. We might for background checks. Right? Because he’s from West Virginia. I like, that makes sense.

Right? Like, it makes sense politically in a state that Joe Biden got, like, eight percent of the vote, and and it makes sense, Ideologically. Kirsten syndrome is from everyone as Democrats in her state now. You know, I mean, she says that, like, Arizona’s, we like her independence. I guess that’s kind of true, but Mark Kelly won by five points.

Katie Hobbs won despite my critiques of her shit. I am. It’s more about the tone it

seems like because as you point out her voting record is pretty consistent. But I do think that the blowback that she got, the fact that she was declared a heretic,

I think that ran pretty deep. For sure. And I think that there is obviously some internal resentment. And so that was, to me, like, is my point, like, from when I was talking to a spokesperson, that makes sense to me. Right?

Like, that there’s some resentment that she has attacked too harshly for some kind of minor crimes against the tribe. But the other part of it, which is, like, why she’s always being such a thorn in their side? You know, it would make more sense to me if she had something that was a little bit more coherent as far as, like, this is Christian cinema. I’m with the Democrats on eighty five percent of the things. Hear the ten percent of things that I feel really passionately about that I’m out of step with the party on.

All the voters know it. I know it. You can either welcome me into the caucus or not. I just think that people would be fine with that. They’re like, that’s not what it is.

It’s just like out of the blue on Tuesday morning. Like, is Kristen Cinema gonna try to be the chart in the punch bowl today over something random? Like, because she he’s upset. I think that is what kind of led to a lot of this attention. Well,

I saw somebody on Twitter refer to this as as creating a Sophie’s choice for Democrats now because they really have to make some tough decisions, especially because the map in twenty twenty four is brutal for Democrats. They’ll be defending all sorts of seats. Doesn’t mean that they can’t do it, but it’s gonna be a very, very tough Senate map, and they cannot afford to lose that Arizona senate seat. So we’ll see you know, I like I like actually, while I win this for for some time, I devoted pretty much my full morning shots today to to the whole Pearson Cinema thing is, including a, you know, I know people love the, you know, I told you so warnings, you know, from the past. But you know what?

Here’s the thing, Tim. We do this on Fridays. And this has been the case since two thousand seventeen that by the time you get to Friday, you forget the massively big stories from Monday. You know what I mean? It’s I wanna get to the Brittany Greiner story.

I wanna get to Hershel Walker. I wanna get to all of this stuff. I wanna get to the fact that the, you know, Congress has just gotten, you know, final passage to this, to the, you know, respect from Heritage Bill, which is a truly epic moment in terms of, you know, the long term shift in politics. I wanna talk about that too. But before we do this, can we just rewind the tape to the beginning of the week where we were still going, wait, did the former president of the United States actually call for terminating the constitution.

I mean, it’s one of those things where every once in a while, can we just slow it down a little bit to to meditate on the fact that the former president of the United States says that he wanted to be reinstalled in office. And if that took throwing out all the laws, rules, and even the articles of the constitution he was down with that. You have a fantastic, not my party. Where you deal with this. And I just wanna play the end of it because I think you ask a really interesting question.

So Tim, I’m gonna play Tim for you. Growing up, a lot of

Republican nerds like me carried around our little pocket constitutions. Like a lot of GOP politicians still do. The likely incoming Republican speaker Kevin McCarthy had said even plans to have a performative reading of the document on the House floor next month. How does that square with refusing to condemn the man who wants to terminate

it. And have them both,

honey. The best thing that McCarthy and the Republicans could do, both for the country and for their own political ability in twenty twenty four would be to begin that reading with a universal condemnation of Trump’s assault on the document that they claim to care so much about. You know, that’s never going to happen. Otherwise, they’ll sink to new lows

by continuing to chain themselves to their shipwreck shit out. King oh, shit. Now I wanna hear from y’all. Trump isn’t going anywhere. The party wants to uncheck cool this

show from covering him for a while. Would you guys rather than keep Tomahawk dunking on Trump every time he ups the ante with his bullshit? Or put him on ice for a bit. So the twenty twenty four campaign really heats up. Let me

know by

swiping up and taking the poll and we’ll see you next week for more not

my party. Okay. So I wanna be first out of the box here, Kim. I wanna wipe up and say keep the Tomahawk dunking coming because I think we’ve gone through the What happens when you ignore the guy? Yeah.

What do you think people are gonna say? What is what is your audience of of InFuego seventeen to twenty four year olds who watch you on Snapchat? What are they gonna say, do you think? I’m

fascinated to find out actually. I’ve had one person DM me privately on Instagram and say that they that they couldn’t figure out how to do the poll thing and so that the to count their vote as a yes or as a team. So it’s not all the old people who can’t figure out the technologies. Had I known you’re gonna ask that I would ask Drew for where the poll stands today before I got on the podcast? I don’t know.

I’ll tweet out an update or something for for listeners, but I really don’t know. And and I was genuinely torn. And this is why I put that in there because I was like, I don’t wanna do another episode out on Trump this week. There was so much stuff that that was happening. To to your point, some of the stuff was new.

I know. You know, I take these things and Tuesdays that come out on Thursdays. And so most of the time that works and sometimes I’m just like, okay, I wish I would have known Brittany Grindr was gonna happen or this is gonna happen this week. No. No.

No. This was the

this is still the big story of the week. Him. This

still is the big story. Like, yeah, you’re right. I wish she goes to show you how crazy and how

much how how much news we’ve had is like, I was like, I wonder what he’s gonna ask me about that up about Monday. I didn’t even know where you were going with us when you started the wind up. And so I no. Yes. A former president saying you want to terminate the constitution is unprecedented.

This is a point that I made earlier in that episode. Yeah. It’s both of the teens. Yeah. The teens to realize that, like, this is not something you know, you could go back to, you know, the Japanese internment or something of civil war.

But, like, in the post world war two era, there is nothing even in the ballpark of this. Like, a a a president, a former, there’s not a senator, there’s not a congressman, there’s not a governor, said that we should terminate the constitution, and this is a singular person. It was, well, I guess, now there’s a congressman since Paul goes, sorry, George. But there’s this thing that he deleted tweak. There’s a singular person who has proposed this.

And so you can’t just sweep it under the rug. And so I don’t I think that we should probably keep covering him. You’re you’re going to France. So you get this like, you know, we’re through the election cycle. Maybe I can just take two months off of this asshole and deal with them back in February again, but you know, this was so bad.

I felt like we had to do it this week. And I understand why. I wrote a book about why, but, like, it does feel like that he has given these guys such an opportunity. To just be like, you know, I’m against Nazis and for the constitution, and Rhonda Santa seems fine. Let’s just move on.

Right? Like, and and the fact that people can’t do that still. They’ll allude to it. Liebovich was good on this in the podcast on Wednesday. Mitt Romney, they’ll say it.

But everybody else, you know, they might dance around it. They’ll say it without saying his name. But it’s just like, Why can’t people just say that? Like, why can’t Tucker Carlson and Lauren Ingram and Sean Andrews be like, nope, guys, Nazi’s bad, Constitution good. Let’s I’m done with this guy forever.

Like fuck yeah. Well,

exactly in the video you say, you think this would be a layup for my former conservative pals. I mean, is it that hard to say having dinner with not season proposing we show the constitution is a deal break. It

doesn’t feel

like

It is so people. This is it. You get your get out of jail card. It’s right here. And it’s like, no.

No.

And even the national review guys, even the guys that wanna get rid of them, you know, and and they seem to be the most on the front edge of this. So I hate to keep picking on them on on trying to move the party off of Trump. But even those guys were like, yeah, DeSantis, it wouldn’t be strategic for him to weigh it. Like, are we really? Are we sure about that?

Like, have we polled the Republican primary voters? Like, are they really gonna be mad around DeSantis if he’s if he’s just like, you know, I don’t think we should hang out with Nazis, and I I think we should keep the constitution in place. Like, is that sentence really gonna hurt their scientist in the primary. It’s possible that it does, but I don’t know that we know for sure one last comment on on all of this. You

know, almost all of the commentary now is like, well, does this help you or hurt you in twenty twenty four? Is this politically good? Or is this politically bad. What will this mean for suburban swing voters? At some point, one of the reasons why you denounced Nazis and shredding the constitution is because you actually believe in something you have principles.

There’s a vestige of conscience deep inside there somewhere. Right? You take an oath to uphold the constitution. So, yes, I understand that In our political environment, everything is about does this help you or does this hurt you. Well, you know, really is it naive now?

Is it, like, just, you know, totally nerdy to say, well, it’s also because it’s the right thing to do. You know what

I’m saying? I did. Yeah. And also, I’m just I’m just floating out there the possibility that in this case, it might be the right thing to do and not hurt you. You know, I mean, I I get that on that that people been burned on this one with Trump,

but he feels pretty weak right now and this stuff is is is way out there. Yeah. Exact and and by the way speaking of what kind of a week

it has been, Again, this is Friday. I believe it was Tuesday that the Trump organization was found guilty of seventeen felonies and it probably wouldn’t make a top ten list of the big stories of the week. So just just mentioning

that. This episode

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So let’s

talk about Hershel Walker just a little bit. I have to say that I’m already fatigued from the midterm elections. But I doing away one point here. And JBL made this point on the live stream last night. And I thought it was really interesting.

He read from Hershel Walker’s Concessions speech. First of all, it’s interesting that he gave a Concessions speech that even some of the hardcore mega people actually gave concession speeches, which we no longer take for granted, And he made the point doesn’t the fact that even Doug Mostriano and Hershel Walker conceded that they lost the elections doesn’t that really sort of highlight what outliers people like Kerry Lake and Donald Trump are? Doesn’t it underline the fact that Donald Trump and his refusal to recognize the outcome of the election is really kind of a uniquely toxic figure. Just kind of a reminder that, you know, even in this bizarre era, that this election denialism, you know, it’s it’s not universal. I I don’t wanna give too much credit to Hershel Walker for all of this.

But, you know, by the standards of of our particular era, it was a gracious concession speech and kinda reminds you, how bizarre and unique the Kerry Lakes and Donald Trump’s

are? It

does. And I’ll just be a Bulwark fanboy for a second. Be like, those Thursday night live streams are good. You got Christmas time. You got a good time for Bulwark plus signing up for.

You know, board questions. It’s a it’s the marius gift of the year. Not always the the marius diecast evenings, but, you know, over the aggregate, we people marry. Yes. Donald

Trump

is an outlier. He is uniquely, personally deranged. And this is like the George Conway, like, you know, I I’m not a psychiatrist, but Donald Trump is psychotic type of thing. Yes. And that is a category difference.

And I think that it’s just important to recognize that. And it was it’s a a schick that I’ve had for a while now, but it’s like, it’s really hard to imagine people storming the capital, waving Ted Cruz, Iran DeSantis flags. Right? It’s really hard to imagine that. And it was always really hard to imagine people storming the capital waving Doug Mastriano flags.

Now that doesn’t mean that they’re a footsy with the big line and their accommodation of the big line wasn’t problematic. It was. And and you could have one off crazy people that get radicalized by a lot of things. But the scale and the scope of this lie, like, it really takes people who are personally deranged to be able to do that. And I guess, Carrie Lake was the winner of the derangement category of of our midterm candidates.

And Mark Finchham, maybe also in Arizona. But I think that that’s important to recognize and it’s important to just acknowledge there was a ton of great news about democracy in

these midterms and Hershel Walker’s defeat and concession is the latest example of it. Okay. Let’s have some ranked punditry here. Looking at the at the results, it Georgia is fascinating

because every other Republican won and won relatively comfortably. So there’s kind of a debate going on. About what happened among Republicans. It seems pretty obvious to me, and I wanna get your take on all of this. You know, what was really decisive here was that soft Republicans broke against him that there are Republicans who will vote for every other candidate But when it comes to Trump and or somebody as Trumpy and bizarre as Hershel Walker, they just won’t go along.

You know, as I I said on the previous podcast, I wish there was a name for those kinds of Republicans. Like, you know, maybe we should work on coming up with that, never something. I don’t know whatever. So your thoughts on all of this because once again, soft Republicans, I think, who are willing to split their ticket turn out to be absolutely decisive in in these elections. Yeah.

And this is persuasion matters. I Yeah. This was this was politics one zero one up to, like, I mean, ten, fifteen years ago. And then something happened with the Bush reelecting o four and then Obama in o eight that made people think that all that mattered in politics was turning out the base. And this idea, like, has snowballed down a mountain to such a degree that the Donald Trump voters thought that Doug Mastriano and Donald Trump was gonna be the only thing that mattered.

And you still see it on the democratic side. And unfortunately, for democrats, you saw them in Georgia with Stacey Abrams. And and I just think that this Georgia is a laboratory for this. This does not take away anything from the work that Stacey Abrams did to register people and to register black voters and register young voters in Florida, which were part of the you know, part of the recipe for giving Democrats to win Georgia now in two straight election cycles, but it was only part of the recipe. You know, a a red state doesn’t turn blue just by turning out more young voters, the math doesn’t work like that.

You have to persuade people you gotta bring folks over. And and I think that on the Democratic side, particularly in the Trump era, I kind of understand why, frankly. Is it’s it’s you look at Republicans and you’re like, if you voted for Donald Trump, you must be a horrible person. Right? Like, you must be so un ungettable and irredeemable that we can’t even care about you anymore.

And, like, humans are just more complicated than that’s not true. And there are some irredeemable Trump voters. And there were some people that held their nose for Donald Trump and didn’t pay attention that closely to all of its gasps that are Fox News watchers that weren’t told about some of his, you know, negative comments and were made to believe really crazy things about Hillary Clinton and her kill list or whatever. And so they they held their nose and voted for him. But they were gettable.

They were still gettable with the right kind of persuasion campaign. And and if you look at MACOM as a really great article in New York Times about this, turn out the cycle in the midterm, despite democrats surprisingly good cycle, it was a normal midterm cycle. The Republican turnout in enthusiasm was higher. Republicans did turn out more across the country. It just was a certain percentage of Republicans wouldn’t vote for the biggest lunatics on the on the ballot and good news for Democrats.

Republicans dominated a lot of big lunatics. And so that worked out for them. Mhmm. And so when I wrote that article and I went down to Georgia, that my biggest surprising takeaway from interviewing people who said that they were Kemp or NOK voters was I expected them to be negative on Hershel All. Right?

For them to just be like, hey, Brian Kemp’s done a fine job. He’s a fine governor, but Hershel’s a lunatic I can’t vote for. Person after person in those interviews said to me, Yeah. Kemp, I think, has done a pretty good job, but I don’t know. Stacy feels like she’s gone a little too woke too far left.

I and this is all I’m not endorsing all these views. I’m just just saying what these voters were saying. Meanwhile, Raphael Warnox, like his ads are really good, and apparently, he’s worked with Tommy Tuberville on stuff. That takes balls to do that. And he’s a pastor, and he’s a dad, and I don’t know, he just seems really relatable to me, and I can trust him.

Like, it was as much about Warnecke as it was about Walker — Very good. — for these people. WarnerTC ran a very smart intentional campaign. They didn’t do interviews with national press. He didn’t do big magazines.

He didn’t engage on, like, random, you know, culture war fights except for the ones he really cared about. Like, jobs and voting rights. But he didn’t, like, weigh in on every round of senators or Donald Trump, you know, thing. Right? He he smartly positioned himself as somebody.

That these Atlanta, Republican, red dogs, or or even Republicans could get comfortable with him. And it worked, and he ends up winning by I think eleven points when the final tally has come in, eleven points better on the margin than than Abrams did. And that is at a ton. That is one out of ten years —

Yeah. —

switched. And that I I think is a testament, not just how partly to how crazy Walker was, partly to the fact that Brian Kemp showed just the tiny eye out of courage standing up to Trump that also partly because of the fact that Warrnock actually believed in persuasion. And and if you look at his campaigns post mortem interviews, that’s that’s what they all said.

This is an excellent point. And this was, of course, very intentional and they they talked about it afterwards that they had the choice of going hard for just ginning up the base and decided no, we are going to engage in this politics or persuasion. We are going to reach out to independents. We are going to go for those soft Republicans. And they crafted their message in the persona of the campaign.

It was a very, very smart campaign, and one that I think has tremendous lessons going forward for the swing state. La Shapiro

in Pennsylvania. Just Exactly. Every democrat, every democrat should have to go to a school where they just listen to a presentation from Rafael Warner, and Josh Shapiro’s campaign team. Well, Mark Kelley in Arizona.

Yeah. Arizona.

Let’s raise an interesting question. Who do you think ran the best campaigns of twenty twenty two? I would love to see an article from you, by the way, on this. Who ran the best campaigns and who ran the worst campaign? Yeah.

So

well, so it’s hard to sometimes judge in a vacuum, but, I mean, Shapiro and Mastriano just really jump right out at you. Right? Mean, it’s possible you had the best campaign and the worst campaign running the same state. I just you look at margins. Right?

I mean, the difference between the Shapiro and Federman margin, very notable, right? I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but a significant difference, warnock and Kemp, a significant difference. You know, Ohio and the inverse of this. You see Hawaiian and Vance. Right?

Like, so that’s another good example. I mean, if the model was their Kemp Right? I I think for Kemp and Hawaiian, like, the model was there for Republican governors. They showed how you win in ways that Republican senate campaigns didn’t. You know, I have to shout out my friend, Adam Prish, in in Colorado to almost be more in Beaufort.

I had an amazing campaign. Nobody believed him. Literally, nobody except Bill Crystal and Bill Crystal kinda talk me into kind

of believing it. I’d have to think about it a little more, but those are some of the ones that jump out at me. Yeah. I also think that governor Whitmer’s

campaign really was was very effective. And, you know, you think about what’s happening in states like Pennsylvania and in Michigan and in Arizona and Georgia. And I think they all have road maps for what you need to do to win these these elections. And so, you know, we’ve we’ve do it in a lot of these podcasts saying, yeah, Democrats are bad at this, or Democrats can’t do this. In all of those states, they got the formula.

And I I think they hit that spot. And one thing for our

lefty listeners is sometimes I get this feedback from the lefty, so we’re like, you guys just want Democrats to run to the middle and be moderate because you’re you’re conservative. You’re moderates. Yeah. Right? I love a moderate Democrat.

Don’t get me wrong. But I think an interesting lesson from Shapiro, Whitmer, Kelly, warnock. None of them, like ran DLC nineteen ninety two, moderate, you know, let’s crime bill, like campaigns, really. You know, I mean, Shapiro In particular, I think did a nice job separating from, you know, to fund the police and some of the crazy stuff that’s happening in Philadelphia. But, you know, they mostly ran, you know, kind of middle of the road Democratic platforms.

I mean, middle of the road, like, in the middle of the Democratic coalition. And yet they did it by just choosing their spots. Yeah. Right? Like, choosing the spots where they didn’t engage, which is sometimes as as important as do engaging.

Choosing a couple of things like to fund the police, you know, to make sure to just put a a little bit of an arm away from the far left. But mostly, you’re kind of running on the Biden agenda, running on infrastructure, running on actually doing the healthcare, running on modest gun reforms, common sense gun reforms, you know, none of these folks were, like, running, like, or we’re doing with Joe Manchin or Kristen Cinema dead. Right? And it worked, you know, because there’s a way that they branded themselves and how they chose to engage. And I think that’s like an important lesson that that Democrats can learn.

That that you can do this without totally you know, what whatever. Like throwing in with the feel you might not agree with on cultural matters. Yeah. Let me just

throw out one other name as a possibility if you’re making a list of, you know, best campaigns West Moore in the new governor of of Maryland. Now, of course, that was a layup. That was a, you know, a slam dunk, but very, very impressive figure. But you know the more I think about it, The more I think that Brian Kemp’s success is underrated for sure. You know, and you you mentioned this before.

It’ll in part because Here you have a very conservative Republican who openly defied Donald Trump. I mean, who went right at him on the big lie. And not only survived, but as prospered. And I think that the conventional wisdom in the Republican Party is just baked in that if you five, you are too open in define Donald Trump, that it’s political death, that you will be destroyed. You either be destroyed in the primary or the party will be so divided that you win a general election.

And here, Brian Kemp going, I basically called him out on the big lie, and Brad Ravensburger and I are still in the office. It’s a counter narrative that other Republicans need to think about more broadly as opposed to the National Review folks to go, you know, Rhonda Sanders is just being brilliant by not

saying anything, not ever taking a stand because you cannot ever go up against Donald Trump. Yeah. For as much as you praise warnock, again, just looking at the politics of

this, for being eleven points better than Abrams. Camps eleven points better than Walker, and that’s impressive isn’t I mean, Rhonda Sandoval wasn’t running eleven points better in Rubio. Right? I mean, so just if you look at the in state, like, the performance above expectation, you know, their your little war wins above replacement if you will for politics. Like, Champ, obviously, gets it.

And the other thing that that you make a really great point on that I’ve been trying to hammer on my TV interviews is, yeah, Trump is to blame for Walker. But, like, so is Mitch McConnell and Rick Scott and the Republican establishment for you, not having the balls to try to challenge him. Okay. To put up a primary opponent, because are we sure blocker would have won a primary. I don’t think that there’s any reason to be certain of that.

Nobody thought the Brad Ravensburger was gonna win a contested secretary of state primary. Everyone thought that was big to me. No one. Yeah. That

he was

DOJ. He wins. Kemp wins against Purdue, handily. Is it not possible that somebody that was in the Camp Vane couldn’t have run against Walker who from day one you knew was a disaster? I went back and look I wrote that article, my Hersha Walker profile, in March of twenty twenty one.

And how you had to do is read that article to the Walker campaign was gonna be a nightmare in March of twenty twenty one. And so you have Gonna be that different words for men to come up with a different candidate. And that and at least attempt but they didn’t do that because they’re still were so scared to Donald Trump. They’re scared of their own voters. They’re scared of their own shadow.

None of them have any courage or have any balls. And they’ve learned all the wrong lessons from the last seven years. It was just a crucial mistake by Rick Scott and Mitch McConnell, and it’s easy for them to point the finger at Trump, but they are equally, if not more responsible. Because it’s their job actually to, like, senators. No.

That was actually one of the

big surprises of the cycle is that Mitch McConnell, who, obviously, there’s no love loss between him and Donald Trump. The fact that he rolled over on Hershel Walker, And it was like, okay. Your job is to be the grown up in the room. And clearly, you abdicated that. So yeah, he he shares the blame dramatically.

But you know, you mentioned something that again, and I’m sorry to keep coming back to the the Brian Kemp story, but the more I think about it, I think the more important this narrative is, that, you know, Brian Kemp did not go along with the big lie. Trump went all in to destroy him, to get rid of him. He got former senator David Purdue to run against him in the primary. So you have one of the biggest names in Georgia politics. Right?

Who had been a United States senator up until, like, five minutes ago. So from Trump’s point of view, he Purdue

family, Sunny Purdue, had also been out there of the

state. Prudent the absolute best strongest candidate to take out the guy who had gone full cock rhino on him. And what was the result in that primary? Was it, like, seventy thirty? It was, like, sixty three to thirty seven.

I

think I’m going from memory. Was it that Well, whatever it was, it was

a fleet blowout. It wasn’t even close. So Brian can’t manage to take out David Purdue who had been, you know, a United States senator. I mean, before Trump came along, everybody assumed that David Purdue was gonna be United States senator from Georgia forever. Right?

I mean, because of the name, because of who he was, etcetera. And two years after he’s, you know, he loses for reelection. Thanks to Donald Trump. Donald Trump tries to pump him up again and that may have been one of his most epic fails. In a year of epic fails for Donald Trump.

Okay. We gotta move on though. He

won by fifty points.

I’m sorry. I was just following this on that. Great. So what

was what was the final margin? I don’t

know. I’m just following up in

the standard time, but I think

points. Yeah. Seventy. You were right. You were closer to me seventy three twenty one.

Five sixty two thirty seven. Seventy three twenty

one.

That is insane. Crazy.

That is crazy.

So the

most interesting story of the week, I think, the release of Brittany Greiner. In exchange for the merchant of death arms dealer for Russia. So let’s talk about this because this has become something of a controversy. I think that most Americans are looking at this as a tremendous feel good story. How could you not feel the joy of watching her?

On the other hand, We have Paul Whelan who’s still sitting there, and many Republicans are, you know, using this as the talking point, this is a failure that he was not a good deal. He should have gotten both of them. So give me your take on the whole Brittany Greiner released because I know you’ve dealt with this before, and you’re not my party. I’ve

got a big rant on this one. I’m just so happy that Britney’s home. Obviously, nobody wants to, like, trade an arms dealer and do a prisoner’s off. But, you know, this isn’t like the NBA. Right?

We have two GMs acting in good faith. Right? You’re dealing with a a genocidal monster. On the other side of the table here, we Tom Nichols has a good article about this in the Atlantic where it’s like we actually still care about humans and he doesn’t. So that does give him a big advantage the negotiating table if you’re gonna grade these things such as that.

To me, this is just a human story, Britney Greiner doing hard labor in Russia. Targued because she’s a black woman, target because she’s gay, target because she’s a female athlete. That is, you know, why this happened. There’s a really great thread I’d recommend people read if they care about by a guy named Mig Greengaard. He’s a staffer for Gary Kasparoff.

And, you know, goes in a long range about this, rebutting the people, they’re like, well, you know, she did break the law with her vape and the gist of his threat is, there is no rule of law in Russia. This is not like saying you went into Alabama and you know that the laws of the state of Alabama are differently. This is a hostage taking situation. And so, like, that’s what you have to acknowledge that this was. Like, this is a hostage taking situation.

You have to deal with it as such. As far as that’s concerned, I just think that I’m happy that the administration, you know, continue to keep working on this. Originally, if you remember, some of the negotiation demands were related to the war. Right? So, like, there’s been no sacrifices, which I think would have been a red line, obviously, for the by demonstration for me personally.

Even, like, the like, you can’t do anything to hamper our efforts to stop their invasion of Ukraine and to give our full support of the Ukrainians. So there was nothing like that that was on the table. To express sympathy for the Weland family, which I totally have, I get. To say, man, I really wish that this situation was such that Whelan and Greiner would have gotten out and, like, that felt like more fair of a deal. I get that.

To, like, accused Biden of, like, leaving Whelan behind enemy lines, who was there for the last two years of Trump. Sorry, guys. This is just the nature of the the case William wasn’t on offer to attack Reiner with sexist, racist, thing that really gets my go is, like, all the people on Fox and on social media, like, mocking her for being a a w NBA player. Oh, who cares that w NBA a player. These fucking assholes that, like, pretend that they care so much about the sanctity of women’s sports every time there’s a trans athlete playing in a high school skateboarding match.

Like, that’s on Fox and Friends. Like, at the same token, you mock, like, somebody that is at the highest level of their sport in the WNBA who if insane, by the way, that she has to even compete in a Russia league to supplement her income, you know, given the level that she’s at the WMEA, like, that shit pisses me off. Just the vitreal aimed at her, you know, given just the fact that she was taken hostage by her enemy, deciding with of Russia, and like this white washing in Russia and acting like, oh, she if she just would have followed the laws and the the the fucking Putin regime, like, fuck that. That stuff really, really makes me upset. And so, you know, I think that you could have a honest, good faith critique think there are people who are like, we shouldn’t do these kinds of deals.

You know, this that’s outside of my expertise. But that that is not what you’re saying on on Fox. I

agree with most of that. I I guess my reaction is somewhat complicated because I do get both sides of this argument. I I think ultimately when it comes down to the decision that the Biden administration had to make, it was one or none. This was what was onoff. It was either going to be Brittany Greiner or it was gonna be nobody.

And so they decided that they were going to take this. Very difficult decision, I think, probably for them in terms of leaving Paul, you know, Whelan behind, but they they made the right decision. And the Whelan family agrees with that. They have been incredibly gracious about all of it. The bad faith criticism, I agree with you absolutely completely about it.

But there there are some legitimate points being made. This is negotiating with a terrorist in a hostage situation. And Vladimir Putin held her as a high profile hostage in order to get something of much much greater value and he succeeded. And so every time you do a deal like this, it is legitimate to be concerned that you are incentivizing more behavior like this. There are more Americans that are being held in captivity all around the world that we would like to to thank.

And every time something like this happens, it basically says, maybe you can get something for taking a high profile American as hostage in this particular case. And so Vladimir Putin is rewarded for some really, really bad behavior. I understand that, and I understand the frustration of people who are thinking, you know, why is he still is sitting there making that contrast? But on balance, this is a good thing that an American has been freed. It was it was hard not to feel the joy of what happened yesterday.

But I guess that this is where, you know, I’m listening to some of the the people who are for taking this and saying, okay, you know, you have a legitimate point, but that doesn’t mean that when you have a binary up or down decision like Joe Biden has that he didn’t make the right decision.

Fair enough. This is

where my jingoism comes in. I I don’t disagree with any of that. But, like, isn’t that hard choice just the burden of of being a country that cares about human rights and cares about people. You know, that’s never gonna change. Right?

Like throughout all of history, there are always gonna be despots who want to kidnap people to try to get leverage over us. And, like, they’re always gonna be able to. In a vacuum, right, you can make the argument that say, well, If we just show them that they’re not gonna get anything for this, then they’ll stop doing it. Maybe, I guess, but, like, that’s not how we act. We care about we care about human life and human rights in this country.

And that that’s why we’re, I still believe, you know, the greatest country owner. Oh, see, you know,

that’s where this asymmetry does come in. So on the one hand, you could look at the asymmetry and say, okay. So they get this merch to beth, arms dealer, we get a basketball player back that looks asymmetric. On the other hand, your point is I think completely valid, which is the asymmetry is also that we actually care about the rule of law. They don’t.

We care about human life. They don’t. And so that may make us look weak in some eyes, but it’s also who we are. So great point. This is this is good.

That was a actually better discussion than I was expecting.

So Okay. What was your expectation for my commentary, Caroline? No. No. No.

No. No. I just I just I

just I just I just I just think you sort of know peeled the onion of profundity just a little bit more than I was expecting. So no good on you. Alright. So it’s been this kind of a week that, you know, now we get to this other extraordinary story, which is extraordinary, I think, from an historical point of view, legal point of view, political point of view, and I obviously for you, a personal point of view — Yep. — the the passage of this respect for marriage bill yesterday on, you know, pretty fair bipartisan majority.

It’s so interesting to think about how the politics of this have changed since the nineteen nineties, how dramatic it it has been, and the fact that you did have a super majority in the senate. You had how how many Republicans voted for this? The phone was we lost

some and not to start up the negative. I thought that was weird. We yeah. We went from forty five down to thirty nine. To thirty

to thirty nine. But now this is now the law of the land. So talk to me about that particular piece of legislation. Talk about a legislative triumph. You know, we’ve been beating on my home state of Wisconsin for some time, but Tammy Baldwin, this is certainly one of, you know, her greatest moments as the United States senator.

And, you know, she she’s the driving force behind that. And congratulations to her. Yeah. Huge win. And another one that I guess, it depends on how you look at

it, but it worked out well. For her. I I was a little critical of her. I thought that they should’ve had this vote before the election. Well, I And they cut the deal to do it.

And and in the lane deck because a couple of Republicans were gonna find their courage again if they did at the lane deck. And, you know, my view is kind of like, well, let’s use it as political issue. They should use it as political issue. It turned out they didn’t need it. They want all their senate seats.

So the strategy worked out for Baldwin. So credit to her on that for sure. Awesome moment. You know, that again, like, the the idea that this could have happened, I just, like, think back to It wasn’t that long ago. I mean, I’m getting kind of old right now, but I’m trying to think about, like, Tim grown up in the suburbs in Denver.

You’re still pry. Think. I’m still strive. But so I’m just thinking it was more years ago than maybe it would seem now, I guess, but twenty years ago. I’m just trying to think about me myself twenty years ago thinking that that this vote could happen, that there would be thirty nine Republicans supporting it.

Inconceivable. Inconceivable to young positive attempt. And so that is amazing progress. It’s a nice for Biden. It kind of brings full circle.

You know, Biden hasn’t exactly been this on the civil rights wing of a democratic party per se from time to time on the leading edge, but he was on this. You know, he he blurts out that he’s for gay marriage on that meet the press interview. I think I have this right. I think it’s about ten years ago to the day of when the vote came down, give or take a few days. So quite a decade for Biden getting out front on this, and he deserves a ton of credit.

And so, yeah, I I mean, it’s just it makes feel good. I think that my the two things that just for context on this, they’re a little, you know, concerning. One, this repeal is basically the defense of marriage act. So for me and and Tyler and our family, we’re now safe and protected and good on congress for doing this. This means if we decide to move to a red state, our marriage will still be recognized even if that state would overturn it, that that federally, you know, with taxes and such, our marriage will still be recognized.

But it can’t do because our federal system, right, is if the Supreme Court was to try to overturn Obergafell, then in theory, a red state could ban gay marriage still. And that seems like a very far out there. Possibility to me, but that’s kind of the narrow element of what was passed, not narrow, but that’s the limits of what was passed. And then know, like I said, I thought it was kind of weird that that we lost six

Republican hours members. So for the

last month, all this progress over the two decades, and then they went forty five to thirty nine or forty seven to thirty nine Republican votes, and the Vicky Hartler speech. That was weird. I don’t know. It’s it’s something to show you, though, the the ability of the gay position here that we could watch that and laugh. Like, I would watch that and be angry or mad maybe ten years ago, but now I watched it and just like, you’re crying over the fact that with this, my marriage, just now, not gonna at risk of annulment by government a little bit.

Pretty odd situation

there. Well, I mean, you know, the the this is one where where the legislation followed public opinion, which has undergone the sea change, and just when emphasized, make a couple of pointers. Number one, there’s a piece in either the time to the post. See, I get confused on these things. Pending out the importance of this campaign by very prominent Republicans to work the Republican side of the aisle, people like Ken Millman who used to work in the Bush administration and and others who organized you know, a campaign to to encourage Republicans, you know, and and showed them the polls, you know, talk to them about, you know, where the public was on this.

You know, how they did not want to, you know, create this level of uncertainty. That would be point number one. Point number two is I think that the success of this legislation underlines the importance of the compromise that Tammy Baldwin and others made on the issue of religious freedom. And I understand this is a very, very difficult issue. You know, the the fact that you need to balance out the recognition of the rights you know, let’s also if we’re going to get this kind of legislation through, we need to acknowledge, you know, the rights of conscience that not every, you know, churches should not be compelled to necessarily change their practices.

And, you know, if in fact, they had insisted on a bill without any religious freedom, religious liberty religious conscience elements, we would not be having this discussion today. It just would not happen. And this issue would become much more toxic going forward And I think that with that compromise, you come close to diffusing the issue now. I’m not so naive to think it’s not gonna be part of the culture war. But the full on recognition of the religious conscience provisions takes a lot of the edge off that.

Yeah.

I and I don’t have opposition to this. I remember having some awkward and discussions with with the Jab prepping him for these questions back in twenty sixteen, you know, trying to navigate around the language, not awkward because he was in a bad place on up, but just, you know, figuring out how to talk about it. I actually I think there’s some progress of some of these activist groups. Like, disagree with me on this on the left. I don’t I think the productions are good.

And and I think that it’s a sign that graciousness is important. It’s sign of the progress that we have in this country that you can feel stable in this. I can’t get myself to a place where I’m upset about the lady that doesn’t wanna make a a wedding website. That’s fine for me. I I I I’m sure there’s some legal, you know, different you gotta figure out how how this works while there’s some constitutional elements to this.

Obviously, that is not the case if you know, my husband’s from Union West Virginia. Right? Like, there’s only one restaurant on Main Street. Like, if that restaurant wanted to ban a gay wedding party from happening there. Like, they should not be allowed to do that.

Right? Like, there should be reasonable restrictions on all this sort of thing. But I think that it it is a sign of the progress and and it’s an area where I I kinda feel like it’s important to have, you know, graciousness and recognition of, like, letting people have conscious objections, you know, which I think kind of ridiculous. But I’d like them to meet me and my family. I think we’re fine.

I don’t think there’s anything to be about it. I’ll I’ll also find that a lot of times it’s a little inconsistent. I noticed that these conscious objections don’t usually tend to straight people third weddings. But, okay. Well, you know, whatever, I just think that that is kind of how we live in a pluralistic society, and I think that that’s

fine. Exactly. See, I think that’s the key point. This is what it means to live in a pluralistic society. And that’s not gonna change anything anytime soon.

So let’s end on that positive node. Great. Let’s do it. Now that weirdly enough, twenty twenty two seems to be ending on kind of an up note. And what I I’m, by the way, saying that I hope I’m not jinxing it.

I hope I’m not hexing it. But I hope I’m not hexing it

because I’ve already planned my New Year’s episode for drove if not my party. And it’s I was like, we’re gonna do we’re gonna go all out. Like, I’m gonna remind the team that it’s been a good year. Like, let’s themselves. Right?

There’s been some, you know, not great stuff that on balance, a good year. I can’t wait for that kinda huggies for that sort of thing.

Right? I mean, because we we’ve been through some pretty dark periods here. I mean, we’ve had a really dark, you know, hello darkness, my old friend. But in a case, Tim, you and your family, I hope you have a wonderful holiday season, merry Christmas, and a wonderful new year. And You know, we’ve almost made it through the end of twenty twenty two, so thanks for coming along for the ride.

Enjoy France.

You’re gonna have to learn how to do is it Enjoy you? What would it be?

What is Merry Christmas and French? I will be back here by Christmas, but there may be some visits to Bordeaux Koniak and Champagne for no particular reason because that’s basically the area we’re going to be in. Ishiro, you know well. I should have had

that. Enjoy it, Charlie. It’s been

a good year. We’ll talk to you on the flip side. Okay. Thanks a lot. And thank you all for listening to this weekend’s Bulwark podcast.

I’m Charlie Sykes. Stick around for next week because I think we have some special podcasts for you that’ll remind you what an extraordinary and often mind blowing year we just had.

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