Tom Nichols: A 2016 Flashback?

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two. Welcome to the Bullwirt podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. It is Monday. Hard to unpack all the things that we have to talk about today, whether we’re talking about special councils.

Elon Musk continuing to try to should post his way past his forty four billion dollar fiasco or the former guy’s momentum in his campaign so far. So joined this morning by Tom Nichols Professor Emeritus at the Naval College is now a staff writer at the Atlantic and author of the Peasefield newsletter and the Atlantic Daily newsletter. Wow. So professor, we’ll come back on. Hey, Charlie.

Good to be back. Okay. So most important question first. Are you staying on Twitter? Not creating other accounts or anything?

No. And and, you know, I wish people would stop sending me messages saying, is it time to go? Should we leave? Is it over? You know, it’s not nothing is over until we decide it is.

Like, when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor, you know, I’m just too old and too cranky to go figure how to use Mastodon or anything else. I haven’t to be honest, you know, I was talking with our friend Molly John Fast about this, and I said, you know, my DMs aren’t open, and I don’t get notifications from people who don’t follow me. So my Twitter experience hasn’t changed at all as far as I can tell. You know, the site still works, messages still get posted, people still talk to me. So You know, the fact that it’s owned by a, you know, twelve year old, yeah, there’s some weird stuff that if you follow him and others, you’re gonna see.

But I just I think Twitter’s gonna be around no matter what and what our musk owns it or not. You know, it’s kind of a reminder, you

know, it was very fashionable to bitch about what a hell’s tape it is because it is. On the other hand, it is marvelously useful as news feed. It’s very easy to use and I was struck by how easy it was to use only in retrospect having, like, fuddled around with Mastodon for a few minutes. I I I do have a Mass on account. I have no idea how to use it.

I’m figuring that everybody will upgrade the capabilities over time. We’ll make it a little bit easier to do. So Somebody

in Silicon Valley is gonna say, either either we’re gonna have to make Twitter work or we’ll make something work that’s just like Twitter, But the idea that Twitter is just gonna, like, you know, the lights will go out forever and they won’t ever die. Just I think people I I said the other day, this is like the this is the new moving to Canada argument. Well, you know, if Musk’s take silver, I’m I’m go yeah. Like, if Trump wins, I’m going to Canada. No.

No. You’re not gonna move to Canada. Gonna stay. And I’ll just add one other thing, Charlie. The same people who say, I will stay and I will fight.

I fight for democracy. I will fight Trump. I will fight the say, oh, I have to leave Twitter. Well, no, if you care that much, stick around, make your points, speak your mind, and don’t be run off by the fact that, you know, again, the new owner is, you know, this kind of prepubescent weirdo. And I think you also made

the point, there’s no rational basis were thinking that Elon Musk is just going to trash his forty four billion dollar investment as in completely shut it down, turn the lights off. Right. Even though it’s very clear that he has no idea what he’s doing, just throwing stuff up against the wall, he has no concept whatsoever. I mean, he really he does have the feeling of this the the ax a dental owner who suddenly realizes that, you know, that dream you have where you show up at the last day of class and you realize you haven’t been there all class, you know, all all all year long, and you didn’t study. And

you’re not wearing pants. Yeah. And

you’re not wearing pants. That’s Elon Musk. Elon Musk is, like, showing up and going Well, I was actually supposed to know what I was doing

here. No. I I have

to take a calculus exam in my underwear. What am I doing here? Okay. Now, you you may disagree with this this take that I have over the weekend. There was the big event for the Republican Jewish coalition out in Las Vegas, and it was it was this parade of possible presidential one of these.

And okay. And I’m not trying to get ahead of myself and I’m not engaging in irrational exuberance, so that’s not where I’m going here. But I thought the most remarkable thing about it was that it was this parade of candidates. And that it really underlined the fact that less than a week after, you know, the former president of the United States formally announces his campaign for reelection. Nobody got out of the way.

He did not clear the field. They did not defer to him. There has not been a rush of endorsements. Now I still think that he is the dominant, overwhelmingly dominant figure in the Republican Party but I’m struck by the fact that something’s happening this year that would have been actually unthinkable a couple of years ago. What do you think?

Well, the field is not cleared. That’s true, Charlie. But on the other hand, they still treat him like a a balrog or a mythical demon that, you know, to to that that they don’t wanna invoke his name, leading, you know, Christie to say, say his name. Say his name. Right?

You

know, you’re gonna oppose this, say his name. And, yeah, Christie doesn’t say his name. Well, hold on. Wait. Wait.

Wait. Here’s Chris Christie. Let’s go to the tape.

We keep losing and losing and losing. And the fact of the matter is the reason we’re losing is because Donald Trump — Yep. — has put himself in his the name before everybody Alright.

Point taken.

Mhmm. Let him rest at the meantime.

And I understand and believe in so many of the policies that were able to be accomplished during those four years. Mhmm. I’m warned what more could have been done And let’s remember this. Everything that has happened in the last two years is because we lost that election.

Alright. Well, my apologies to the governor. I had forgotten that he said because Trump put himself first. But Oh, and by the way, the other person really hasn’t got out of the way just so we can point out as future vice presidential nominee, only stefanek. Yeah.

You know, who got I heard that sigh all the way over here, Charlie. You know, made sure to get out in front of the endorsing Trump train for twenty four. But I think while this could be a healthy development in the Republican Party, I’m actually pretty I’m still pretty pessimistic about it. For one thing, The first time Trump makes a good showing. If he does not, you know, this is I’m reliving twenty sixteen in a way.

Yeah. Where everybody dismissed him and said, the guy’s a psycho and you know, don’t worry about him. And then he starts pulling in some numbers and everybody gets out of the way. I mean, you remember, this is how the never Trump folks you know, people argued with us about being never Trump. They’re like, well, don’t worry about it.

You know,

he’s not gonna get a seven. Yeah.

He’s not gonna get more than ten point oh, he won’t get more than fifteen. Well, he’s got thirty percent, so we can’t push him out of the way. Now with all that said, I also think that a lot of people are tired of Donald Trump in the party and outside the party. I think that there are people in the party who are ambitious and are not gonna take Walden told to sit down and wait their turn for another four years. But the people that keep getting left out of this, and this is where I think Christie and and Larry Hogan and others are wrong.

They keep saying all of our problems are about Donald Trump. My answer is no. All of your problems are about a base that loves Donald Trump. Yeah. The voters are the problem here for the Republicans.

Their base loves him they would take him back in a minute. And, you know, Chris Christie thundering about how Trump is the source of all evil, The primary is Raw Hub tomorrow, Trump would win it by a landslide, and Chris Christie would be in single digits. So let’s not hit ourselves. If all these people if all

these people stay in, he can win with thirty five percent of the vote as he did back in

Tuesday. Last time Well,

here’s part of the problem, though, this critique, which is very, very widespread that Donald Trump is a loser and that we ought to turn the page because he is a loser. But you’ll notice that people won’t go beyond that. It is sort of a content free content free critique And of course, we saw this with my good friend, Paul Ryan, who who came out this weekend declared himself, not a never romper, but a never again trumper. So let’s play the the first sound by where, you know, he talks about his relationship and he he declares why he is a never again trumper. I

I was not an ever chumper. You weren’t doing speaker. I mean, I was I I govern with them. And I’m very proud of those days. I’m proud of the accomplishments of the tax reform, the deregulation of criminal justice reform.

I’m really excited about the judges we got on the bench, not just the supreme court, but throughout the judiciary but I am a never again romper. Why? Because I want to win. And we lose with Trump. It was really clear to us in eighteen, in twenty and now in twenty twenty two.

See,

here’s the problem first, you know, Tom, is is that if you’re not willing to say, I’m a never again romper because the man is not fit to be president of the United States. If you’re not willing to make any sort of a constitutional or moral case, you know, that he is a moral failure in Clinton. Then, you know, then all you have is, you know, the winner loser type thing. So — Right. — Jonathan Karl asks them the existential question.

And and listen to how lying in punts. But but

if I’m saying if he wins the general election, if he becomes president again, I mean, the way Liz Cheney has put it, it’s like an existential the rest of the country. I just

don’t think he’s gonna I don’t think that’s gonna happen. I don’t think he’ll win. I think he’ll be because that’s suburban voter. You think he’s more popular since the twentieth, unless she would swing buttered America or West. No evidence of that at all.

Jesus dumping craced on a Pogo stick two things strike me about this. Is number one, it’s it’s kind of hard to say you’re never again trumper. At the same time, you’re saying I’m so proud of that first term. You rewrite the history that that’s the somehow this was a very, very successful first term first term. And then you go into complete denial about the danger of the second term.

And this does have that twenty sixteen vibe of, well, we don’t need to worry about that. That’s just calm down, Charlie. Just calm down, Tom. This is just not gonna happen. We don’t actually need to do anything.

And, you know, it is kind of a PTSD from twenty sixteen. This really shows you the the utter moral power dis of the anti anti trumpers. The people who, you know, as you say, said, come down, Charlie, you know. This isn’t gonna happen. It’s not a big deal on you know, it’s better than any Democrat, Charlie.

It’s better than Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden. And I’m not saying it’s like the people will begin every sense. No. I’m not in favor of Trump, but, you know, Joe Biden’s a socialist or Hillary Clinton’s a crook. And so, therefore and they won’t take that next step.

You and I have both had these arguments with our anti anti Trump friends or former friends where we’ve said, and therefore what? You are willing to put the nuclear codes the national security in the United States in the hands of a deranged sociopath who is vastly more dangerous than any mainstream Democratic candidate who could possibly win that office? Well, you know, so the same people who say Trump could never win. Let’s not think about it. Make that argument by saying But, you know, if you don’t do it, you’re gonna get president Ocasio Cortez because that could happen.

That’s likely. You know,

they

tend on the Republican side, they dismiss likely thing, and they say because the least likely thing in the Democratic Party could happen. And it’s especially galling when the Democrats nominated Joe Biden who is as centrist, so centrist that his own left wing came after him. The guy that in twenty sixteen and no one will admit it now, Charlie, but you know that a lot of our former, you know, colleagues said, well, you know, if they would just run Joe Biden, I could vote for him over Trump. But they won’t. And then when they did, they said, well, I still can’t because I’m an opportunistic, careerist, a moral, you know, black hole when it comes to any kind of moral or political reasoning.

And I wanna say one other thing about why this is happening in the GOP and the never Trump position. I think that all of these calls to get Trump out of the way. And also, with Krishnanu, up in New Hampshire saying we have to stop nominating crazy people. Right? Yeah.

I think it validates or or vindicates the never Trump position of you have to deprive the Republican party of oxygen until it until the pain gets so deep down to the grassroots that everybody starts calling

for change, including the donors. There’s obviously some donor critique going on here. So I don’t disagree with your critique about where we’re at, but why were all of those candidates still on the stage. Okay? So Donald Trump, I mean, you and I remember a couple of years ago that if Donald Trump made an announcement, everybody would would rush to bow the needle and tug the forelock, and this is not happening.

So why why has the field not clear. Why did no one differed again?

They smell blood in the water. Okay.

What do they think is going to happen? And I

don’t think it’s because they think Trump’s gonna be indicted or fraudmarched or, you know, per walked. I I think they smell blood in the water, but that

that’s something’s coming

up. Trump’s well, but also the Trump’s out of tricks. You know, and I think that there is an opportunity there. I also think that some of them are counting on the Iran Iraq War of Trump versus DeSantis. And if DeSantis knocks out Trump, great.

But I don’t think DeSantis solves the problem that the Republican Party is a Trumpified violent movement. So they may be sitting back the way a lot of Republicans sat back in twenty sixteen waiting for the fracture side of warfare to subside. But they’re wait they’re waiting for something. They’re they’re waiting for, what, a health event, a a legal event, just just something I mean, or that first outing where Trump just flames up, it’ll be really crucial. They’re waiting for some early electoral event or straw poll or primary or caucus something that says, where, you know, Trump places forth, and then the Jackal pack can be announced.

Right. My concern is that he’s gonna place first and everybody’s gonna say, alright. Well, I gotta get out of the way again.

Well, you’re right. Because once he places first, then that whole well, he’s a loser thing just goes away and you have nothing behind it. So what about that announcement speech last week, one week ago? You you wrote about it. I mean, this was a I don’t know.

It’s now tedious say that it was low energy, but I mean, it was appallingly bad. How bad was it Fox News cut away from it? What did you think about? You’re

a former speech writer? I wrote speeches for a senator at the state level for my state house guy back in the day. First of all, Let’s get that out of the way about speech writing. If this was Miller, it sounded like Miller. Steven Miller.

Yeah. It sounded like Steven Miller. But who knows? Trump’s speech writers are always writing for themselves. They’re trying to show their air condition and their high flying.

They don’t wanna have their Ted Sorenson moment. And they don’t realize Trump doesn’t speak that way. He’s not capable of it. And so you get that weird thing where prompt reads the teleprompter because he never reads ahead of time because his his reading skills are pretty limited. And so he reads it, and you can him getting bored with it while he’s looking at it.

And then he stops and he he goes away from the teleprompter and he starts to rip in the accordion and start to go and the little finger, you know, starts popping in the ear. You know, it was just a bad speech in its content. And then when he starts to riff, that’s where the I think he started to see the real exhaustion. It almost was like he he just didn’t have the energy to keep, you know, and and I won the election and the rush a hoax and the I mean, I think everybody’s bored with it. And and I think this but I still think the speech itself is gonna be less important than the first time he heads out into some he he needs a foil to play off of.

He wants to get into some group. Of Republicans where, you know, he can call Chris Christie fat or Ron DeSantis stupid or, you know, whoever he’s gonna go after here. So I’m I’m not writing him off because of that speech. Yeah. But if it turns out that he’s shooting blanks, that people will go, yeah, you know, making

fun of Rhonda Santos. Kinda like Rhonda Santos. You know, we don’t think it’s funny. The whole young king thing fell kind of flat. If

he starts to realize

that his schtick isn’t working anymore. Now, you made an interesting point. You wrote that we actually should welcome Trump’s candidacy even if he wins again and brings dangerous people with him. So,

what? Yeah. I mean, I think we need, you know, one of my favorite movies is LA confidential and there’s a great line where the corrupt captain says to the corrupt officer. We must have a clarification session one of these days. And I And I think, you know, this is going to be the clarification.

Tau, you know, oh, Trump’s not really that popular anymore, and the base will abandon him and there are better candidates. Really? Well, let’s find out. Because otherwise, Trump by the way, the other thing that that speech proved once again or showed us once again is such a weird guy. I mean, he’s just such a weirdo.

And so you know, this is really the acid test now to say, is he really no longer popular? Are other Republican candidates willing to call him out and start healing the damage in the Republican Party by saying no. We are not the party of election denial. We are not the party of militia kooks. We are not the party of whacked out conspiracy theorists.

We’re not the party of, you know and the problem is they are. They are. Right. That’s the problem, Charlie, and so that I’m I’m waiting to see what happens the first time somebody takes on Trump and says, you need to leave this party. And the people who are supporting you because of all this craziness need to kinda get right with God here and sort of come back to reality.

I don’t think that’s I I’m not convinced that’s I hope it happens. Yeah. I really hope it happens. But I think Trump’s candidacy is gonna have a forcing function to make Republicans decide who they are, and I think it’s gonna force the rest of us to decide who we are. You wrote,

we discovered or rediscovered in our elections last week that American democracy has great regenerative power, but the elections of twenty twenty two only suppressed a fever. The people of the United States until now I’ve been reluctant to lance the boy or cleanse the wound and just get it over with. And you point out that if he just slunk off into the night his

supporters, would

never have to come to grips with what they and he have done to this country. And if he stays in exile in Florida, the Trumpist would cultivate a modern stab in the back theory, which I think they will no matter what actually happens, you know. That’s already underway.

And then,

of course, Republican enablers would try to pretend they never liked him, you know, you won’t believe how fast that never happened. Sort of thing. Yep. And I agree with you also that, you know, to think that he’s irrelevant, you know, the people who who complain, like, why are you even writing about him? We should not give him oxygen now.

Yeah. Ignoring him works so well back in twenty sixteen. So Oh

my god. Can I just say

that, please? Yeah. I

I have blocked people on Twitter but early who say, why are you giving them oxygen? Why are you amplifying them? Why are you covering these press conferences? And I wrote about it. I wrote about it in USA today, back when I was a column is there, and I’ve written about it since.

Or I’ve said, you do this partly because there needs to be a record, and partly to just keep putting it out there and hanging it around the necks of Republicans who keep saying, well, I didn’t hear that or I I don’t I don’t follow the tweets or I didn’t see that press conference. I have a good friend whose mom was a total Trumper out in the Midwest. And, you know, classic Trump kind of profile. Right? You know, Charlene, it’s your old state.

You you know this. Right? Evangelical, all about abortion, you know, pastor loves Trump, so she loves Trump. And every time this woman was her kids would say mom, how can you not you know, didn’t you oh, I don’t watch those things. I don’t see that.

I didn’t hear that. I don’t know that he said that. And I think that ignoring him means that he gets his message to the faithful in the way he wants to get it to them Well, all of the normals out there, all the people who don’t and, you know, I should say, we always call the normals or the people who don’t pay attention to politics twenty four seven or like normal people shouldn’t that all the normies out there are like, well, I guess he can’t be that bad. I didn’t really hear any of this stuff either and people seemed like If you put this stuff out there, every time he tweets and you put it through a bullhorn, you you’re sending that message to independents to Republican moderates, you’re you’re riling up Democrats. I actually think covering him and doing blow by blows on his speeches and pressers I don’t make one last case for this and then shut up about it.

When he was doing those COVID press conferences every day, remember those? He was dying now. His staff finally begged him to stop doing them. And just ask yourself, if if free media and a lot of exposure is good for Trump, Why were his own people tackling him around the legs to try to stop him from going on TV every day? It’s

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zero. Okay. Two

points here. We gotta mention this whole thing with Paul Ryan finally coming on saying he’s never again Trump or he’s probably not irrelevant to point out that he is a member of the Fox Board. And he could have said this earlier, but he waited basically until the Murdoch Empire turned hard against Trump. Now, maybe he’s responsible for that. I don’t know.

But to your point now, there’s going to be a spotlight shining on Trump. And that there will be people within that sort of right wing bubble who watch Fox News who may see this, who are going to be opposed to different points of view about Donald Trump, which is healthy. The second is the reports are, and I I think they’re they’re accurate. The the DeSantis’ strategy at this point is, and maybe the above the candidates as well, is to kind of sit back, don’t get into the race four months. Let the spotlight be on Donald Trump.

Let him fly his freak flag — Mhmm. — while the spotlight is on him and let people, you know, have a chance to think about why they’re so tired of him. And I think that that is sound. I don’t know what the disastrous self owned would be that would turn his base against and maybe nothing. But I guess I still struck by the fact that there’s a there’s a piece in the hill that did a survey of Republican senators and found only one Republican senator Tommy Tuberville, willing to endorse Trump at this point, not even Lindsey Graham.

And you can tell the donor community is just fully sick of him. But, you know, we’ll we’ll see where this goes. So the one thing that that the Trump would love to cling to, to rally his base back to him, to get the get the band back together again is the special counsel appointment. My initial reaction last week when I heard that the America only was appointing special counsel was I was disappointed. I felt he was hunting.

It annoyed me no end that he was doing it in response to Trump’s gambit of of announcing. You know, Trump was hoping that if I if I if I jump into this race, I will preempt the Department of Justice. And sure enough, he did have an effect on him. I’m less disappointed today than I was on Friday. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think it was probably the right decision.

And All indications are that it’s not going to slow down the investigation that you have kind of a pulse of the wall prosecutor. So what do you think, Tom? Yeah.

You know, I I went through the exact same thought process you did where I was, you know, disappointed, and I thought Garland was punting. And then I realized that being the author of a book called The death of expertise. I am not a lawyer. I am not a justice department official. I am not Merrick Garland.

You know? And it occurred to me that they might be professionals who know what they’re doing. And so, you know, with the appointment of a special prosecutor. I I wonder if now Trump has to live with this forever. Because, you know, that’s part of what happens with these kinds of investigations.

They just go on until these bulldogs find a bone. And so I like you, I kind of got off my uncharacteristically for me, I sort of was up there in the rafters with resistance, Twitter, and you know, who who who who who amumping about, you know, who should have been donated a minute. And I’m like, you know, I have exactly zero years of law school, and maybe the attorney general in the United States might know a little bit more about this than me. And so, you know, maybe I ought to calm down. And then thinking more about it and listening to people actually know something about this, pointing out that there is an alternate version of this in which Garland has now well and truly screwed Trump for years to come.

Because, you know, getting a special council like this is like trying to get gum off

your

shoe. But I also, you know, internally, I still have that kind of disappointed feeling, you know, Jill Lawrence at USA Today made a great point. She said, our political and legal institutions just can’t cope with the guy — Right. — Trump.

Yeah. And

I think she’s right. I think there’s just a part of me that just never that I expect all kind I’m gonna see Steve Bannon in an orange jump soon. We saw Paul Manafort in an orange jumpsuit. A lot of guys are gonna go to jail. It feels like Trump just one of those guys and then just Karma is not

gonna catch up with him in this life. It feels like that. What I wonder about though is this swarm of charges and indictments. Whether or not it’s just it’s just the sheer weight. You have what’s going on in Georgia.

We have a report today in the New York Times, the Manhattan DA. Is looking once again at possibly charging him. This this Jack Smith, it’s an it’s an interesting choice. Because and I have to say the one thing that I thought was the most positive is that, you know, unlike Robert Mueller or Merrick Garland, he’s not one of those I’m gonna be misunderstood here. Let me be really careful here.

He

is not

one of the older generation of institutionalists who as a class, I think, are engaging asymmetrical warfare with Donald Trump. I think that they’re they’re particularly ill suited for dealing with somebody who is so much of a sociopath as as as Donald Trump. Jack Smith isn’t of that cut. That’s not the cut of his job. He actually is used to dealing with with war criminals.

And other and other misgrants and is kind of known for moving fast and hard and breaking things. So I guess I’m glad to see somebody who is a little bit more huggacious. I mean, in retrospect, Robert Mueller was maybe not the right guy to go up against Donald Trump. Maybe Merrick Garland is not the right guy. One indicator here is that Trump seems to be panicking.

He’s lashing out. Yeah. He’s lashing

out. He’s trying to square the guy, and you can always tell the level of a threat against Trump by the kind of, you know, sweaty idiotic lashing out he does. So maybe Trump’s more worried about this than than I am. I always just assume that Trump has this kind of dis disposable ring of buffer goons that are just kind of set up to go to jail almost like a, you know, in case of indictment, break glass, and you pull out Allen Weiselberg or somebody and and just stick them in the joint. But I I hope you’re right.

I mean, I hope this is different. Time. So we

haven’t gotten around to speaking about how absolutely pathetic Mike Pence was this weekend. And I and I say that as, you know, speaking of, you know, going through various stages of denial. There was really a part of me that that kind of wanted Mike Pence to step up to the moment and say, you know, that that he was the defender of democracy on January sixth. Maybe he was the hero that that, you know, we we didn’t initially want, but we we deserve the opposite. He’s never gonna do it, Charlie.

He’s never going to do it. I mean, when he’s essentially now saying that he’s troubled by the appointment of the special prosecutor. You know, the easiest thing to say is, let’s let the justice system run its course. Right? But no, he wants to straddle the line and it’s gonna he’s gonna end up with, like, seven percent of the vote.

Listen, six months from now. Six months from now, we’re gonna have a picture

of Mike Pence vacuuming a red carpet like Carrying Lake. You know, he he gets really close to it and then he but then he’s all about the oh, you know, but I so much respect. Like like with Paul Ryan, and by the way, that Paul Ryan clip you played. It’s an involuntary cringe mechanism. Yep.

To listen to all. So proud of all the things we did. Well, you know, except the violent attempt to overthrow the government in the United States. But, hey, by god. And, you know, here’s a guy whose life was in danger.

Who looks at a secret service agent and says, I’m not getting in that car. And now has to talk about how troubled he is and, you know, the Trump Pence administration. You’re right. It would be what what a great moment and also I think what a moment where Mike Pence could live according to his I believe sincere Christian principles to stand up and say, this man is a violent menace to our society and to our way of life, and to the constitution of the United States, and as a Christian, as an American, as a citizen, as a father, as a grandfather, I can’t you know, I have to speak the truth. And instead, we get this opportunism and ambition turns all these people into lumps of jelly.

And the extraordinary thing about it is, this could have been the defining moment

of his life that really would have solidified his place in history. You could have

just let

me what is if he would have leaned into it and yet he appears intent on undermining it and hedging it and fudging it and walking away from it. And of course, the people who you know, Trump supporters are never going to forgive him for it, and the people who, you know, perhaps admired his his willingness decision on the moment. Or is one moment or gonna remember well, he had one moment. Right. He’s not Margaret Chase Smith.

He’s not going to, you know, be this giant of the senate, of the of the vice presidency. Now he’s gonna put it

aside. You nailed it. Charlie, when you said, it could have been the most important moment of his career, but more

importantly, it

could have been a defining moment in American history. It would have been one of the most important things since the founding of this country if the vice president of the United States stepped forward and said my conscience compels me to tell you that the president of the United States betrayed his oath. He betrayed the constitution. He betrayed you. He betrayed me.

And he put all of us in mortal peril, and he didn’t do it. There could have been a movie about it. Oh, there have been leaking it. My parents And and people would have people

would have had goosebumps when who would who would who would play him? Yeah. Well,

that’s not that’s not gonna happen. And now No. It’s

not gonna happen now.

Now now his when he his IMDB, you know, when they do make the movie about this, will be ineffectual vice president with white hair, you know, played by stunt guy number four. Alright. Because he has relegated himself to being a footnote because of this. And it was absolutely right. I genuinely felt bad for him.

For a moment. Watching him do that, I thought you had a chance to recover everything you ever believed in along with your manhood and your pride here. And and you and you blew it.

You threw it away. So what do you make of Kevin McCarthy’s first week as speaker designate? It’s interesting how he’s he’s really leaned at the are going to be the vengeance caucus. We’re going to strip committees from Adam Schiff, Elon, Omar, Eric Swalwell. And then, of course, you have Jim Jordan coming forward with the twenty four seven hundred Biden investigation.

So how is how do you think it’s going to play out for Kevin McCarthy? Because I I have to admit there’s part of me that is kind of relishing watching him flail around with that razor thin majority. I mean, look, Nancy Pelosi also had a very, very small majority, but you know what? Kevin McCarthy is no Nancy Pelosi.

No. No Nancy Pelosi. Exactly. You know, when you said, what do you think of Kevin McCarthy’s first weeks. Yeah.

And I thought, oh, I’m sorry. Is Kevin is Kevin McCarthy still in politics these days? Because all I see is Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Green and Mark POBURNED AND, YOU KNOW, THE USUAL KOOK CAUCUS OUT THERE AND THIS

IS GOING TO BE THE MARJARY TAILOR GREEN CAUCUS WHETHER WHETHER MCCARTHY ONCE IT’S NOT. SHE IS she is going to be the face of the Republican majority in a way that AOC was not the face of the Democratic majority. And just think

of how amazing it is, of how weak the institutions of the Republican Party have become because this goes back to what we were talking about earlier, Charlie, about, well, let’s say Trump’s defeat and then DeSantis takes over. That doesn’t fix anything. I mean, Marjorie Taylor Green is a congressperson that a better speaker of the house would have flick off his lapel like a dangerous flake. Mhmm. I mean, he would have crushed her like a grape early in her career.

And instead because none of these guys really I I shouldn’t say they don’t know where their bases. It’s because they know where their bases and they’re terrified of their primary voters. And they don’t wanna go back home and deal with them, that they sort of throw up their hands and go, okay, well, whatever, you know. And I think that’s just pathetic.

Well, on the math, it’s just horrible. They hold him hostage. But, you know, here’s an undercover story that I think that people are now just starting to notice, which is that There’s another group in McCarthy’s caucus. Remember, he has no give. He has no he has no margin for error here.

They know the nut case caucus when they make a demand he’s he’s going to have to give in. On the other hand, there are the so called crossover members. These are the more moderate Republicans who actually were elected in districts that Joe Biden won, and they are not going to be that anxious. To go complete hair on fire crazy. And so he’s going to have to pay attention to them.

Now how many are there? You know, a dozen to dozen of those? So this is why there’s almost no prospect that Kevin McCarthy can be a successful speaker because you can’t square this circle you cannot give Lauren Colbert and Marjorie Keller Green what they want. At the same time, you have all of these vulnerable sort of centrist candidates who have to win in pro Biden districts. We’re going, no, we don’t want to go off the cliff with you.

What does Kevin McCarthy

do? Well, one of the things that I’ve been kind of looking forward to is what happens if Kevin McCarthy doesn’t have the votes to become speaker? Now he does at at this point. I don’t know why. Does he have does he have two hundred eighteen?

Well, nominal, two hundred eighteen. Yeah. I guess nominally he’s got you know, the commitments in his pocket for now. But the first time something really important happens and he becomes, you know, John Behner, saying, what my god. What have I inherited here?

Or or that he just has to that he just can’t sustain himself. You asked earlier how does it send for him? I think not well. You know, I think he may finally get the gavel. And for him, of course, part of the problem is all of these people are just want their merit badge.

They don’t care about what’s good for the country. So maybe for Kevin McCarthy, it’s enough for him to say, fine. I did two years. I get to hang that on my wall. And then I leave politics I go sit on.

I I do the Orion thing. I just say screw it. I go sit on boards and I make money. But I actually am not that worried about this margin in the house, especially because the Senate is gonna act the way the Senate is supposed to act, which is that you’re not gonna get things through a Democratic senate. And and I think that, you know, that to me was the thing I was waiting for.

I didn’t really care about Mcarthy in the house as much as I did to see which way the senate was gonna go. No. I mean, if

you had to ask Joe Biden, would you rather have the senator to the house or no question about it? No

question about I

mean, especially with all of the appointments and the judges, etcetera. So you I wanna ask you about one thing, though. You you you will you actually had an untypical for you moment of a billions after the election when you said the November’s been a good month for democracy. But You also point out that this year’s midterms was less a ringing victory triumph than that America’s Dunkirk. An improvised but crucial escape from disaster.

So tell me about that analogy. Did you think of the election as

Dunkirk? You had to know that any temporary moment of optimism was immediately I was gonna crush that and snuff it out and make sure that no one felt any joy. I thought of it as Dunkirk in this in that and I I say in the piece. Look, I don’t like World War two metaphors. Nothing we do is as big as defeating the Axis, and sometimes it’s overblown.

But I I wanted to get across the idea of if this one battle had gone wrong, everything else goes wrong down the line. You know, if the British had been destroyed at Dunkirk, they really are facing, you know, the need to surrender to Nazi Germany, you know, d day never happens, I mean, a lot of things that that miracle at Dunkirk sets the stage for the survival of Britain for the years to come ahead. And in the same way, I argued that twenty twenty two, and I do a little thought experiment. Imagine that twenty twenty two goes a different way. And that in twenty twenty four, you have a tight election and governor Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania and governor Karine Lake in Arizona, and governor Tudor Dixon in Michigan, and Governor Tim Michael in Wisconsin all start getting on the phone with each other and saying, you know what?

We’re not gonna certify any democratic electors right now. We’re gonna let

this

thing go into chaos for weeks. We’re gonna you know, our us and our weirdo secretaries of state, Mark Finchim and Christine Karamo, and all the rest of these election deniers. Could have thrown the United States into violent chaos in twenty twenty four. None of that is going to happen. That doesn’t mean twenty twenty four is a cake block.

It doesn’t mean that, you know, the democrats should sit back and say, you know, we fix democracy. But the necessary precondition for anything like a fair fight in twenty twenty four was that all of these election denying wounds had to be defeated now and they were. And I think that’s actually accurate because I think we had weeks of anticipating

that this could have happened. And what it meant for twenty twenty four. In fact, watching what’s going on in Arizona right now, where Again, Katie Hobbs is going to be the next governor. Carrie Lake was defeated. But giving us a taste of what election denialism might look like, you have state representatives who are saying that they’re gonna refuse to vote on anything unless they regrown the election.

But the the chairman of the Maricopa County Board has gone into hiding because of threats against his life, the, you know, the potential for violence. This is an indication of what these folks had in mind for Absolutely.

And why the danger hasn’t passed? This is like Russia in the nineties, you know, with this kind of insane arguing and violence and weird coalitions popping up here and there. But but as you say, Charlie, this was the plan for twenty twenty four. It’s it’s this on a much grander scale. And we and we escaped that with a a really by the skin of our teeth because turnout wasn’t great.

But, you know, I mean, I just don’t understand what it’s gonna take for Democrats to finally understand that they are they are a numerical majority and can swing a lot of elections, but they but be that as it may. We we got those candidates. We you know, those candidates were defeated. You know, the voters got together and got the good candidates off the beach. And so we lived to to fight another day at the ballot box.

Tom

Nichols, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast. It’s always fun. Thanks for having me, Charlie. The Bulwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio production by Jonathan Seres. I’m Charlie Sykes.

Thank you for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast. We’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll do this all over again.

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