Tom Nichols: Jack Smith Is Not Screwing Around

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Well,

I picked a hell of a day to come back from vacation. Welcome a Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. I have been gone for about two weeks, and thanks for all the folks who are sitting in for me. And I’ve been making notes believe it or not even though I’ve been on vacation things that I wanted to talk about.

I mean, I wanted to talk about the Supreme Court. I wanted to talk about no labels. I wanna talk about Ukraine. And there were so many other issues that I wanted to talk about this morning with our guest, Tom Nichols. By the way, good morning, Tom.

Good morning, Charlie. Welcome back.

And then The news God’s dropped this bomb on us this morning. This is from the New York Times. Donald Trump says he is target in special counsel’s investigation into January six, it would be the second time. The special counsel has notified the former president that he is likely to face indictment this time in connection with the criminal investigation into the events leading up to the capital attacks. So there are so many possibilities out there.

And by the time people listen to this, they will have been subjected to hours of speculation. Here’s what we do know. There will not be an indictment before Friday because Trump has been given an invitation to testify before the grand jury. He’s not gonna do that. But he has four days.

So nothing will happen before Friday. But this is imminent. He’s going to be indicted on the January sixth Charlie Sykes his aunt Blake tweeted out this morning. It is entirely possible. By this point next month, the Trump will have been indicted four times It is also possible the Republican Party will not give a shit about this.

But again, we don’t know Tom what the charges are going to be. We don’t know kind of evidence is going to be. We don’t know whether or not Jack Smith is going to do one of these detailed talking indictments as he did with Mar a Lago. But among the candidates for criminal charges against the former president obstruction of official proceedings, conspiracy to defraud the government, fundraising fraud related charges, wire fraud related charges, Jack Smith does not need to connect Donald Trump directly to the violence, he can build the cases around all of Donald Trump’s attempts to defraud the government overturn the election. He is going to have to prove perhaps an intent in some of these cases.

My initial reaction is, thank god. They’ve finally gotten around to doing this. And thank God, it looks like Jack Smith is going big. Because if you’re gonna go after the former president of the United States, you better have something gigantic Ron DeSantis, and it’s taken a hell of a long time. But here it comes, Tom Nichols.

Yeah. And as Walter Shapiro tweeted this morning, then at this rate, with this many indictments, most Americans are gonna get a chance to serve on a jury where Trump’s involved.

I’m gonna check my mailbox.

It’s clear that Jack Smith isn’t screwing around. And as you say, that’s important because prosecuting a former president, not just for kind of petty larceny, the kind of, you know, graft and things that brought down people like spiro agnew. But really going after a president for a coup is something that until now was like, you know, mission impossible or science fiction. And and you you almost wondered at the American Justice system, you know, when all this happened, everybody kinda looked at each other and said, do we even have a toolkit for dealing with this? Like, can we actually do this?

And I think the answer from Jack Smith is, yeah, we actually you put together a grand jury and there are real charges involved with this. And let’s just add to Trump’s bad news that the Georgia Supreme Court, where Trump said throw this out, you know, this get tell Fannie weather, so not doing this, you know, and the Georgia Supreme Court said, no. We’re not doing that. We’re not throwing this

out. Unanimously. Unanimously. Right? You know, for some reason, this just seems to keep happening to Trump’s lawyers.

They they keep throwing stuff into dead courts and the courts go, yeah, no. You’re not even close. We’ll see what happens down in the Mar a Lago case. But it is interesting. Some of these motions that they’re making, and here’s the tell.

Here’s the tell, Tom. You know, we went to the Georgia Supreme Court, basically saying there should be no investigation at all of me in the Coastina, that’s crazy. You’re not even close to making a coherent argument. He’s also made the motion down in Mar a Lago. Right?

That we shouldn’t even set a trial date because, hey, I’m Donald Trump. I’m running for president, and we’ll see what happens there. But I think it’s extremely unlikely he will win that. These don’t strike me. As the kinds of motions that serious lawyers make as part of a serious defense.

But it does strike me as the kind of thing you might do. If you wanna keep throwing up, smoke and dust and

delay, because

right now, Donald Trump’s best chance to avoid being a convicted felon and staying out of jail is to be elected president of the United States next year or have another Republican be elected who will basically nullify all of the charges and convictions against them. Isn’t that the strategy at this point?

Yes. And more than that or in addition to that, it’s also a way for him to keep presenting his faithful in the Trump call with the storyline that not only am I untouchable, I should be untouchable because I’m me.

Right.

It’s not just red meat for the, you know, the rally goers. I mean, when you’ve got guys like Trump’s former lawyer, Ray, was on a segment with him on television. He said, you know, basically, you shouldn’t be able to prosecute presidents at all. And it’s like, oh, okay. Sorry.

I I didn’t realize we were back you know, divine right of kings.

Right.

But that’s part of that whole story line of because it gets people past the problem, the ugly problem that they know he’s guilty of all this. And instead, it gets them to where they need to be emotionally and and mentally of saying, It doesn’t matter. He’s Donald Trump. He’s the president. Presence can do whatever they want.

If the president does it, a certain president of our common acquaintance once said, it’s not Will Saletan know, and he really wants to establish that. If you think of America as the giant jury pool, he’s tainting the jury pool by creating this theory that There is a special carve out not just for presidents but for presidents named Donald Trump.

So some of this is the same old same old, you know, Republicans will rally around the president and everything. But I think it’s important to notice how incrementally they go further and further and further. And this is happening in real time watching Republicans figure out new ways of rationalizing Trump’s behavior, new ways of delegitimizing the rule of law. And listen to Kevin McCarthy this morning. I mean, look, we haven’t even had the charges.

Again, on earth two point o, the prudent thing to do, would be to say, well, let’s wait to see what’s in the indictment. Right? You would wait to see what what is the evidence. What are the charges? What is Jack Smith dumb?

Of course, that no longer exists.

It doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter to them. Right. But listen to Kevin McCarthy. And Kevin McCarthy has now basically bought into a, I would say, a talking point that it feels like five minutes ago you only would have heard you know, really on on some fringe media. Maybe Steve Bannon or something.

But here’s Kevin McCarthy. He’s asked about what do you think about the fact that the former president is going to be indicted. For trying to overturn the January six election.

Well, I guess under a Biden administration of Biden America, you’d expect this. If you notice recently, President Trump went up in the polls and was actually surpassing president Biden for reelection. So what do they do now? Weaponize government to go after their number one opponent. It’s time and time again.

I think the American public is tired of this. They wanna have see equal just us and the idea that they utilize this to go after those who politically disagree with him is wrong.

Okay. So there’s Kevin McCarthy. And I think what’s really interesting is it not only is he now completely channeling, you know, the I’m going up in the polls line from Donald Trump. But the whole idea that all indictments, including say the indictment of the informant in the Hunter Biden case turned out to be a Chinese spy. It’s all about retaliation.

Right? It’s all about Joe Biden going after political opponents. And once you’ve established that as kind of the go to default setting of Republican leadership, you know that there’s literally nothing that will be in that indictment that will make a difference to them.

Yeah. And, you know, when you were talking about McCarthy, there’s this weightlessness to the speaker you know, listening to this kind of childish babble. You know, well, what do you expect from the DOJ and Biden’s weaponizing? Was thinking back to, you know, thirty years ago more when I worked on the hill. And I remember, of course, I was working from Republican at the time.

But I felt like even the people we disagreed with, everybody walked around with this kind of sense of real gravity that, you know, you were doing this great thing within our majestic maybe maybe I was young and naive and impressionable. But it seemed to me that even some of the silliest members of Congress felt the weight of the constitution and their duty and, you know, just their day to day work. And I listened to this stuff and it’s like it’s like a model congress in a mediocre, you know, college somewhere.

Not college middle school.

Yeah. Okay. You know? High. But kind of not very good high school with a model congress with, you know, the guy that wants to be elected class president, you know, constantly just trying to kinda stay ahead of the pack.

You are saying we’re not dealing with serious people.

Yeah. I don’t I mean, it’s worse than on serious people.

You know where we ought to retire, grown up, because I mean, like, there are we’re not talking about grown ups anymore.

You know, I guess what I’m edging toward here is really, there’s a question of patriotism here. I mean, do these people care about their country? And the constitution. And clearly what they care about are their jobs, and television, and podcasts, and this kind of psychic gratification of just being in the game all the time. And there’s no point at which they stop and say, hey.

We’re defending a guy that went on an anti constitutional crime spree and is still doing and is vowing that if he gets reelected, he’ll do it again. Well, you

know, it’s it’s interesting because when I was making notes before this news broke, I was listening to Brian Kemp the, you know, I would say, Trump skeptical governor of Georgia who stood up Donald Trump when he tried to coerce him into overturning the election who has been, you know, outspoken in his criticism of Donald Trump. And yet, he’s sitting down with Caitlin Collins’ CNN and says, yeah, you know, if Donald Trump is the nominee, I will work to elect him president. Oh. Okay. But but I wrote down my notes to

his.

Jesus. Literally, this is putting party before country. To the point you’re making.

Literally.

Here is somebody who tried to overturn the government who was facing multiple felony indictments who is clearly an in any any respect on for office. And yet what he’s basically saying is, this may be terrible for America. This may be terrible for the country. This may be terrible for the free world. But I’m going to do it because my number one loyalty is to the Republican Party.

I mean, so we joke about the limits of party loyalty. We’re now seeing that the litmus test is you have to put the loyalty to the Republican nominee ahead of the Khan institution, ahead of basic decency, ahead of honesty, ahead of anything.

If I understand, Kemp is a particularly egregious example. Yeah. Because He knows better than most other leading Republicans. Exactly what Trump was willing to do to overturn the will of his voters the people whose rights as the chief executive of Georgia, he is required to defend under the constitution.

And he’s about to be indicted in his home state.

And to be indicted in his state, his Supreme Court has let that go forward And yet because of this, I would add to it just political cowardice about, you know, I cannot envision a career outside of politics so I can’t do anything to endanger that.

Oh, see. I’m way past giving them credit for cowardice. I mean, there’s something deeply venal about all of this.

Okay. I think those go hand in hand. Poweredly and venal and simply saying, well, this is just my default setting. Because the other thing they’ve done and you and I have talked about this, They have all internalized the dogma that any Democrat winning anything anywhere is the end of civilization as we know it. That’s the retreat position.

And even though they know better, the dogma in the Republican Party is Donald Trump, David Duke, Bonino Mussolini, one peron. Hey. As long as the guy is not a Democrat, you know, we’ll take our chances. And it’s I think it’s so they can look at themselves in the mirror and say, gosh, I’m not really this anal in Craven. I’m doing something important and big.

But they they know.

I’m gonna make just some distinctions here that some people might not like and and that even I am uncomfortable making. That there is a certain mindset was necessary to vote for Donald Trump in twenty sixteen, which I rejected. But you could at least hope that he might be something different. Right?

Right.

Right. By twenty twenty, you knew completely who he was and what he would do. Okay? But certainly, there’s the, I guess, the inertia of going along with the incumbent. But think about the mentality that it takes now to support Donald Trump for twenty twenty four.

After his shambolic term, but also after his attempt to overturn the government. To say after January sixth and everything we’ve learned about January, six. Everything he has said all of his bleeds to say now that we would support his return to the Oval Office requires I would say, a much more corrupted mentality even than the vote in twenty sixteen and twenty twenty.

It’s a moral failure. And I you know, I took a lot of flack as you did in twenty sixteen. Right? People like you and I were saying, look, we get it. But this really is a test of character.

You know? You you gotta be able to see through this guy, but okay. Fine. Even I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt for a while. I mean, I when he struck Syria, when on television, I defended him, I thought, you know, that first day of the union a little shaky, but I said, okay.

He seems like he’s, you know but as you say by twenty twenty, you know who he is. By twenty twenty one, by January seventh twenty twenty one, you know exactly who he is. Exactly. And now in twenty twenty three after two more years of this, you know, this is where I just find myself, I hate it because it’s so destructive to our sense of community and and citizenship. But somebody today who says to me, I’m gladly voting for Trump in twenty twenty four.

I feel like I’m turning them and saying, maybe you’re not a good person. Yeah. You know? And I and I don’t wanna do that because there’s people that love their families and they’re good to their kids and all that. But there’s almost like there’s this moral blind spot or this this kind of moral trap that says, I’m a good person, but I’m gonna vote for this horrendous, dangerous sociopath, simply because it’s gonna annoy other people and it’s gonna make me feel I’m part of a club and I’m gonna go wave my flags and put my trump flyers on my truck.

These are not the actions of a civic and serious people.

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So let’s talk about what this next term would be. And and why I I find what what Brian Kemp is saying so just sort of mind blowing. I mean, look, this is not a referendum. Twenty twenty four is not a referendum on Trump’s first term as president, which I think was was horrific and terrible. But, you know, people can disagree about this.

But Twenty twenty four will also be a referendum on what we want the presidency to be. So the New York Times had this story over the weekend. Which I think is very, very detailed, and also reflects exactly what Trump and the Trump has have said openly and, you know, repeatedly. Used to be the party of small government. Donald j Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if voters were turn him to the White House in twenty twenty five, reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.

You know, people go, well, that’s the New York Times. No. This is exactly what Donald Trump and his closest allies have been saying they want to do. This is literally what they’re saying. It’s almost as if, you know, the Tom Nichols of the world say, you’re, you know, an authoritarian, you know, and the Trump people are going, yeah, and your point, you can’t handle it.

That’s what we want.

You could even argue that the New York Times was soft pedaling it. That that headline was like, a new theory of government, a sweeping real, is that no. It’s an authoritarian power crab. And if the New York Times were really that, you know, woke they would have said it a lot more clearly. I mean, I I read that story and I’m like, wow.

The headline writers are really putting the brakes on this because this is not a sweeping change in the nature of presidential power. This is an authoritarian power grab. And for people listening who, you know, where some of the details are getting lost, Trump basically wants to turn the entire federal executive service into his private royal bureaucracy. He wants to completely end the idea that, you know, civil servants serve the people of the United States and the Constitution first and that they basically all serve as if they are political appointees at the pleasure of the president.

And by the way, this applies both to the justice department and to the and to the military who could possibly go wrong. That was the first paragraph of the story. Their plans to centralize more power on the Oval Office stretched far beyond the former president’s recent remarks that he would order a criminal investigation into his political rival president Biden, signaling his intent to end the post watergate norm of justice department independence from White House political control. I think that’s a given. Mister Trump and his associates have a broader goal to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates by either law or tradition with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House, according to a review of his campaign policy proposals and interviews with people close to him.

No. Okay. That’s pretty powerful stuff. And you do wonder at some point, even Kevin McCarthy, whose testicles have long since been, you know, fedex to to Marjorie Taylor Green. Would it go okay.

Wait. Article one in the constitution has something about Congress, you know? Like like, fuck no. You know? I mean, like, the senators, the congressmen going, Hey.

This was fun while it lasted, but no. We are not potted plants. And yet nothing.

Well, because Kevin McCarthy and Elise Defannack and the restaurant are like, okay. But I get to stay in Washington and eat in good restaurants. Right? I was really smart in high school, and I did good stuff in college. So I get to stay here in this good city and and, like, go out and eat in good restaurants.

I can do that. Right? You know, they will survive under Trump or anybody else because they will simply mold them selves to whatever that is. But I I think the thing that’s so incredible is when, you know, people will wear observatives. You know?

We these are Republicans acting like radical left wing totalitarians. People listening saying, say fascist. You know? No. Peronists, cardios, authoritarians, corporatists, you know, whatever it is.

But whatever this is, it’s not conservatism. This is big government, not small government.

And I think to underline that point and I keep thinking that we’re living through this simulation, you know, thinking that somebody’s going, what if we did this? How would people react? And so what if we actually had conservative Republicans who sounded like code pink loony leftist. Okay? And and then it’s like, well, you know, we have Putin’s most useful idiot down in Iowa being a person grilling all the republican candidates.

I mean, my my newsletter today, my morning shut’s newsletter is it’s getting worse, isn’t it? And in part, what I’m thinking is And then I’m trying to think about how to actually, you know, say this because we’re not post Trump and we’re not gonna be post Trump for a long time. But I think the recognition has to be that that the post Trump Trumpism is going to be even worse than everything is getting worse. So, you know, you have Christian Conservatives down in Iowa. Who wanna have a big forum for all the Republican candidates to come and kiss the ring.

Who did they pick? They picked Tucker Carlson. Who turns the entire event not into Christian values, family values, right to life, anything. No. It’s all about can we suck up to Vladimir Putin?

Can we dump on you Krain. And if you did not say exactly what Tucker Carlson wanted, you would be booed. And as the New York Times account is, Jesus is out, Vladimir v Putin is in. Great. Then you have the TP USA conference.

I mean, this is the id of the Republican party right now. I know Charlie Sykes, and I quote Nick Catagio saying, you know, you thought CPAC was bad? This new generation is even worse. And and what was the big theme? How much we hate Ukraine, how much we love Donald Trump, how it is a it is a culture personality.

So what you’re having is the radicalization, the crazification of the Republican Party, which we’ve watched over years, this is accelerating in real time. And the funny thing about Ron DeSantis is he’s been trying to trace the classification. He’s been trying to get out in front of it. It’s becoming even crazier than his ability to keep up with it. You know, even when he puts out the Westboro Baptist Church, anti gay videos, and everything.

He’s trying to be as right wing as possible, and it’s almost impossible. To keep up with the way this party is crazifying itself.

Compared to TP USA, CPAC is like, you know, the second continental congress. Exactly. Because, again, this is all part of the attention economy. Like, all of these people have figured out that being media personalities is easier than working. Especially these younger folks, you know, who have like they’ve never had a job other than being outrageous.

That’s their job. It’s like they’ve monetized being nuts. As you point out, you know, that leaves everybody scrambling. So how do I capture that instead of leading instead of saying, I’m not going there. I’m not gonna kiss that ring.

You know, maybe they fall behind in the in the primary or maybe they put themselves at danger with the base. Although, I actually think that insane Republican, a lot of Republicans who will be pissed about it will that we’ve seen it in every election. Republicans come back. Democrats come home. But the acceleration here is also turning inward on MAGaworld because they’re starting to eat themselves.

Because they can’t keep up. There was a great piece about Jim Jordan and his multiple, ish galloping, crazy speeches. And pointing out that these conspiracies are now actually starting to overlap on each other and are going to devour themselves because there is only so much anger and so much attention before they start cannibalizing each other’s theories. And I think it reinforces the idea that none of this is about getting anything done or finding the truth they don’t care. This is all performance art.

The Republicans have given up on governing, which again, as a conservative party. Right? What does it mean to be a conservative party? Small government rule of law, you know, governing Nah, Nask, we’re all that. That’s all gone.

Come on. No. Enough with the logic in the history, it is all gone. You know, it it does strike me as you’re as you’re going through all of this. I was I was reading one account of a recent TPU USA conference.

And Tom Cotton, of course, he always wants to pander. He, you know, felt the need to tell everybody in the in the crowd turn off your porn and get engaged in the world. One of the thoughts that sort of, you know, inappropriate thoughts that came to me was no, actually, that’s the analogy. For a lot of these folks, politics is porn, and porn is politics. It’s it’s something where you don’t actually have to engage any real way with other human beings, and there are no consequences to any of your decision.

And you constantly need to up the level of stimulation. Right?

And it’s all about gratification. Right.

It’s all about self gratification.

Right. There is no sense of, you know, duty or deferred gratification or, you know, community service. It’s, you know, what makes me feel good right in the moment. And also, you know, what keeps me I’m just gonna be total grumpy old man here and say, especially with a lot of these younger conservatives. It’s like, what keeps me from having to go and move out and get a straight job?

Because the Trump era has been a godsend for people whose only talent is being famous.

Well, it’s also a lifestyle and, you know, you you and I both remember back in back in the sixties, there were people who, you know, went into various, really exciting social movements and, you know, built their lives and their identity around around all of that. And they never came out. You know what I mean?

You know, interestingly, I’m I just finished reading Ron Brownstein’s book on nineteen seventy four in Los Angeles. A really interesting book. And he points out that, you know, a lot of the people who went to these radical politics were able to do that because they had the money to do it. You know, Jane Fonda. Right?

You know, it’s it’s easy to be a radical when you have that money to be able to do it. And he talks about, you know, Tom Hayden having to kinda drop out of things for a while because he’s broke. And he had to move from San Francisco, and he moves to Los Angeles, and he tries to start over again. These kids have figured out, hey. Screw all that.

Screw all the you know, the prep work and the grunt work and the, you know, the doorknob. Just say something insanely offensive and then charge your advertisers. And it works.

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So let’s go back to today’s news about the dropping indictment because I think this is the moment that that had to come. And I’m not gonna claim that I was I was pressured here, but I did circle this week on my on my calendar, figuring that that if something happened, it was probably going to happen this weekend. I really wanted to be here. Because you look back at and to your point about the criminal justice system finally getting around to being able to hold Trump accountable. I don’t know that we have the full answer to that yet because it has taken so freaking long, but it feels like we’re climbing the ladder I mean, we started off with the weakest possible case, and I’m I’m sorry for people who believed the New York case was the most important because it wasn’t.

You know, it may be laid down a marker that you could indite a former president. The Mar a Lago case considerably more serious. But if we would have come to the end of this year, with just charges and paying off porn stars and taking the classified documents and violating the s pen if that was all it was, it would have been a huge failure of the criminal justice system. It would have set a precedent. And Jack Smith, I think, has understood this in a way that I don’t maybe Rick Garland didn’t understand.

I don’t know what why it took so long. But he’s going big. All of these other cases, you know, have their importance and I hope he’s convicted of them. I’m not gonna pretend that I don’t. If the evidence is there, I hope he’s convicted of them, but this is the crucial case.

This is the big one. This is the one that will actually decide whether or not the criminal justice system, the the rule of law in this country, can stand against a president of the United States who was trying to attack the constitution. This dwarfs any case. It just dwarfs any of the charges that would have been brought in watergate. I’m sorry.

Go on.

You know, Charlie, you’re reminding me when you were saying that of a scene in one of my favorite movies, the verdict, where Paul Neumann is this, you know, broken down lawyer and he’s he looks like he’s gonna lose and his his colleague says, don’t worry. There’ll be other cases. He says there are no other cases. This is the case. He keeps repeating.

There are no other cases. This is the case. There are no other cases. But I wanna give one cheer here for Alvin Bragg, because I think you’re right that it kind of broke the ice to say, hey, I may just be a city prosecutor. But this guy broke a whole, you know, shitload of laws in my city and in my state for what I think are felonious reasons.

And I’m gonna indite the guy. He lived here. He did all these crimes here. Imagine the alternative world in which brag had declined. Trump would have said, See, everybody knows these cases are bullshit.

Everybody’s afraid of me. And then Jack Smith or Fanny Wallace would have looked like they were trying to make up for or somehow compensate, you know, for brag being intimidated out of chasing down Trump’s earlier crimes. And I think the law is the law. Trump broke those laws in New York state, and he had to be held accountable and convicted in New York state if the evidence is there. But I think that breaking that ice and saying, look, I don’t care if the guy was a former president.

He broke a whole lot of laws here in New York state, and you don’t get a pass. So I I think Alvin Bragg did something that was both legally justifiable and politically important.

In the broad sweep of American history, this is the case. This is the case. You look back off this is the case now. And it’s not gonna be about the document case. It’s not gonna be about the porn star.

It’s going to be about whether a president of the United States who tried to defraud the government, tried to obstruct an official proceeding, all of those things, can be held accountable by the criminal justice system. And I mean, this is huge. Shoot.

Georgia will be equally important.

It will also be important.

With one difference, if Smith draws a link to because in in a way, January sixth and Georgia are kind of the same case of Chief executive in the United States tries to overturn an election and thwart the will of the people. The Smith case and this is where we’ll just have to see what happens with the Charlie Sykes Smith cases and incited a seditious insurrection against the government that could have resulted in the actual murder of the officers of the government. We don’t know. Yeah. We don’t know if he’s gonna go that far.

But, I mean, clearly, to even be implicated in anything related to January six puts you in proximity. To that event.

And I I also think that the injustice would have been monumental. Had you had hundreds of people who follow Donald Trump’s lead.

And said so.

And said so, and were convicted and did jail time without the instigator ever facing any charges. The other question we don’t know is who else besides Donald Trump is the target of all of this? Because if there is a conspiracy, if there was an effort to overturn the election obstruct justice, defraud the government, etcetera. Then there are other people in and around, Donald Trump who need to be held accountable as well. And as we saw it down in Mar a Lago, there can be some surprises.

I mean, I think the thing that we’ve learned about Jack Smith is that he may have more cards than we know even though this is, you know, not an under covered story. So we are going to find this out. I do forget as I said before, I think we are climbing the ladder. We are going to find out I think the timing is concerning because it’s almost certain that it’s not going to be litigated before the election. But also, I think, Now we are getting answers to other questions and, you know, maybe not a surprise.

Because I remember when there was the the question to, you know, several months ago, well, whether public party nominates somebody who was actually indicted. And I remember saying I think Jake Sherman and I were on a show, and we both said yes. But at that point, it was like, Yeah. Think about how crazy that would be. I mean, think how crazy it will be if Donald Trump has to wear an ankle bracelet to Milwaukee when he’s re nominated, which is not impossible.

And now we know that, yes, the Republican Party can nominate somebody who’s indicted, almost certainly will And they they just seem to have locked themselves into this because it doesn’t I mean, I’m getting bored with this this commentary, but I don’t see that this is going to derail him. Until it does derail him, I think we have to assume that it doesn’t. And the Republican party is gonna go into twenty twenty four. With a man facing four separate indictments for dozens of felony charges. What world are we living in here, Tom?

And part of the treadmill that you and I always end up on, you know, part of the hamster wheel we’re in together is the problem is the base. Yeah. Because they don’t care. You know, it’s a kind of a mass psychosis among forty or fifty percent of the Republican base. And I was you’re talking about January sixth.

The other thing that happened over the weekend I was more gobsmacked than anything else. The story that I think sums up so much is the woman who must not be sentenced in Florida, the Florida school teacher, Who stands up and says, before you say anything, judge, let me just blow up the whole agreement to get some reduced time and basically tell you all that you can, you know, go f yourselves here, and the judge kinda shrugs and says,

okay.

Okay. Six years. I suppose you could say this is, like, not Right? And say, well, this woman, maybe she had issues. She’s maybe there’s an emotional problem.

But there are so many people like this who are like, yes. My life for you, I would go to jail for Donald Trump. And I’m like

She thinks she’s gonna get pardoned. See, they think that she’s going to get a pardon for all of that. So And she might. What I’m about to say may be a little bit naive, and I understand why you’re correct. We have a base problem.

However, we also have a leadership problem. And I think that what all of these Republicans are looking around for is somebody else who’s gonna stand up and provide the leadership. So for example, There have been all of these off ramps where if certain trusted voices would have said, okay. You know what? We’ve been with him up until now.

But this is too much. We cannot do this. Now you had it with Bill Barr. There was a moment there when Liz Cheney with him. It was a moment when all of these other, you know, Trump administration people broke with him, and it hasn’t made any difference whatsoever.

And and it looked like after January that you had all of these Republicans who were resigning, were saying this is it, where we are done with them. But I think it’s now naive to think that even with this indictment coming down and I’m basing this on what we heard from Kevin McCarthy, is that Republicans will take this opportunity to say, to the base. Look, we know how you feel we are with you. We hate the same people you hate, but we can’t do this. Now Ron DeSantis has a chance to do that today.

Right? He he’s he’s on I’m guessing by the time people hear this, they’ll realize, you know, that Rhonda Sanders Wiffs once again. Who knows? Okay. Again.

But if they don’t do this now, there is no off ramp. Right? If if they don’t if they don’t say, give him the gold watch but we cannot do this. I mean, we can make one more point that I made in your publication, the Atlantic. It continues to amaze me that we have saved the lowest possible standard for the presidency of the United States because there is no publicly held corporation in America.

There’s no school in America. There’s no rank in the military where you could engage in this kind of conduct and keep your job. There is no place where you could be facing these criminal charges where you would not have to step aside, step down, drop out, do something. Only for Donald Trump running for president of the United States, can you behave this way and be indicted for it, be arrested for it, face felony Charlie Sykes, and it’s still not be considered disqualifying to what ex millions of people. I’m sorry.

My rant is over.

It is a ghastly reality that the only job left that Donald Trump could get in this country. Is president of the United States.

That’s it. You’re absolutely right. No. People are they well that. No.

I mean, think about it. You you apply for a job of managers of Arby’s with that record. You think you didn’t get the job? No. Only president.

Or, you know, Donald Trump said, okay. I’m out of politics. I’m gonna be the, you know, chairman of not his company. But, you know, a publicly held company. I’m gonna be chairman of a company.

Not a prayer. No board would take him. Well, I wanna be appointed as a diplomat. Not a prayer of senate confirmation. You know, let’s try and be constructive, and I’m gonna get indulge in a moment of fantasy.

Imagine if the Republicans every Republican candidate led by Ron DeSantis. Right? Ron DeSantis steps forward

—

Mhmm. — says as the guy with the second most, you know, possible votes. He calls Christie. He calls Hutchinson. He calls Haley.

He calls Tim Scott. Whatever. They all get together They take Ronda McDaniel by the ear, and they all stand together and say, look, we’re not gonna share a stage with them. We’re not inviting them to the debates. We’re not gonna spend any money on him.

There comes a point where, you know, this is simply beyond what the Republican party is. And and while every one of us standing on the stage hopes that you pick one of us and not the guy next to me. We are all Americans first and Republican second, and Donald Trump is simply beyond the pale. And now we’re gonna have a real primary, but it’s not gonna include Donald Trump. The voters, if you feel that strongly about it, if the Republican base wants to do that, We’ve made our case.

We’ve done everything we can do. I had a fight about this with somebody back in twenty sixteen.

You gotta fight with somebody? Wow.

Yeah. I don’t wanna say who it was, Charlie. Alright. John Podor. It’s anyway, look.

And the answer was, yes, but you can’t just tell thirty percent and I said, if the party as an institution cannot preserve itself against a populist wave thirty or forty percent of its voters saying, give us barabbas, you know, or or, you know, send send out the Gimp. Then what’s the point of being a political party? And I think it would be a remarkable show of patriotism to have these people get together and say, we all disagree with such an app. This is never gonna happen. I was living in a very happy moment and you blew it up.

But, you know, you had to give me one minute of saying, boy, wouldn’t it be great if all these Republicans got together? Because this is an argument I know you made it in twenty And we

met because this is the kind of thing that When I’ve taken the with the good stuff, I will fantasize about it, but I’ve been doing it for seven years.

I know.

And now my immune system is built up and Just

kick them off the debate stage. That’s all you need to do. Kick him off the debate. Just

Yeah. Ronald McDaniel becomes

Right. Ronald McDaniel

gets mid back on the phone to okay.

If I put romney back in my name, can I be invited to?

You know, I I understand that her spine, you know, is a plastic tube full of helium plastic actually has resilience. It’s a it’s a kind of a, you know, full of helium. But at some point, what is the point of being a political party? And again, this is the David Duke moment. This is what I maybe because of, you know, age and all that stuff.

You remember this, where he’s not one of us, He’s not a Republican. And

it was an easy choice. They used to be able to do that shit.

Right. Right. And not only that, but to say, Yes. Republicans, you should vote for the Democrat.

Let me tell you two things that really worry me. Alright? And and we don’t have time to get into I am worried about the grifters from no no labels because I can certainly understand their appeal right now, you know, especially. Well, you know, should we have a third choice? And the answer is yes.

Absolutely. We should have a third choice. But this is and I’m sorry to repeat myself. People, this is a real existential threat. I mean, this is the heart attack right now.

We can have the seminar on various treatments for cancer later Okay? But right now, we’re on the pavement and this is going on. That’s worrying me. That’s number one. More.

I have to say I’m worried about the Joe Biden thing. I am worried that the Democrats have locked themselves into pushing a guy who is maybe one of the few people in American politics who might lose this election. But somebody asked me to write a piece saying, you know, making the case for why Joe Biden should drop out of the race, you know, give them the gold watch, good job, but, you know, move on, whatever. And I couldn’t do it because I can’t get by the Kamala problem. And this is where it’s it’s like your check made it.

Joe Biden is too old, I think there’s a real danger that I mean, he’s one fall away. He’s one thing away from from just absolute disaster. And yet if he’s not there, I guess I don’t have enough confidence in Democrats and the progressive base not to nominate Kamala who is I’m sorry. I can’t decide whether she’s parody of being there or a veep? Well, what do you think?

One common each on the labels. First of all, let us just say with clarity. Any third party run that is not a third party run by Donald Trump, which would be I would welcome a third party run by Donald Trump which could happen, which could any third party run by any candidate against Donald Trump guarantees the election of Donald Trump. The end. So all this bullshit about we want another choice, and Americans is not binary, and I don’t have to make card choices.

That’s just rationalizing bullshit and a lot of it comes from anti anti trumpers who would be happy to see Trump come back because they’ll get policies they want without having to dirty their hands on actually being involved in him being reelected. So this whole third party ruse is a way for people to get stuff they want without having to soil themselves in the ugly business of putting Donald Trump back in power. But any third party run like that risks a very high risk of putting Donald Trump back in power. As for the the Biden problem, you know, I’m gonna push back. Yes.

He’s old. But a lot of presidents are just one fall, you know, or one trip down the stairs from their vice president. And the problem is if you looked at Joe Biden’s record in complete isolation, We have a successful foreign policy, a soft landing. We’re not even talking about that. Remember the big recession and out of control inflation?

And the economic disaster. And this morning, we’re reading reports about, yeah, basically, the economy is in really good shape. We managed you know, experts much detested though they are. Apparently have managed a soft landing in the in the economy, which nobody thought was really possible. You know, it’s a great record to run on.

Joe Biden has an excellent four year record to run on. The problem is everybody’s worried that sometime between now and twenty twenty eight, nature will take its course and Kamala Harris. The the Biden problem, I guess, is what I’m saying, Charlie, and I think you and I agree about this. The Biden problem is not a Biden problem. It’s a Harris problem.

You know, if Joe Biden were just running on his own with, you know, vice presidential candidate, I don’t know, Gretchen Whitmer. People would say, yeah. Alright. He’s old, but, you know, he’ll be fine. The problem is that the Harris pick was a problem from the beginning because she didn’t really bring that much to the twenty twenty vote.

There was a lot of baggage there. Supposedly, I seem to recall reading that Jill Biden was not a big fan of this choice. And now as you say, they’re kind of trapped in it. But I still think just based on the record alone, Joe Biden deserves reelection. Now in a better Democratic party, somebody would say, let’s do a shuffle here.

Let’s make Kamala Harris, I don’t know, secretary of state or whatever it is do the Hillary Clinton shuffle down the line. And once again, just like with Republicans banning against Trump, I’m living in a fantasy world. That made me feel good for a minute because it’s not gonna happen. You said that Biden is the one guy who could lose the Trump. I think he’s actually the one guy who can still beat Trump.

If Donald Trump is on the ballot, I’m gonna vote for Joe Biden. There’s no question about it. I don’t have to defend Joe Biden. I don’t have to say that Joe Biden is the best thing since sliced bread. I don’t have to say the people who, you know, do not applaud him or stupid.

I don’t have to make any case about him even deserving reelection. The case I have to make is America cannot take another term of Donald Trump.

Associate Path, I think, ignoramus. Right.

That disaster is so imminent. It is so real and it would be so much worse than Trump won. That frankly, I’m going to vote for him even if he is whatever. I’m not gonna even go there. And so you know what I’m saying?

It I think there’s a distinction. And I think that never Trumpers need to remember this extinction between saying, we are never Trumpers, and we will will do everything possible to keep him out of the white house without feeling the need to become fanboys for the other guy.

But I wanna amend that one bit Charlie Sykes because it’s not like, you know, when people say, well, I don’t wanna vote for Trump either, but I can’t vote for somebody as terrible as Joe Biden. The problem is you’re not voting for anybody terrible. You can say, look, is he Thomas Jefferson or George Washington? No. But he’s been a pretty good president, well within the parameters of normal, and actually a reasonably good job.

You don’t have to be a fanboy you don’t have to hang your head and say, well, he’s not great, but he’s not I think that’s the problem that a lot of these anti trumpers and cons and Republicans keep trying to back everybody into. It’s like, oh my god. You actually want me to vote for Joe Biden? Yeah. I I mean, a perfectly plausible case

just gonna I don’t wanna vote against Donald Trump. I just wanna make that clear. That that’s that is my priority. It’s voting against Donald Trump.

You know, when I voted for Hillary, you know, pinching my nose, but I did vote for her. I did it in part to throw one more vote on the popular vote tally. In my state, it didn’t matter. But, you know, Trump actually was really I’m pretty chapped about the popular vote. And I think it’s really important to send a message to say yes.

You know, this is the is the thing I would have done, but you’re absolutely right that this that you even flirt with the idea of voting for Donald Trump. At this point, or even to think about counting and saying is insane.

And I think by the way, the moral calculus is different. If you live in Wisconsin, in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, or Nevada. The moral imperative is much greater than somebody that lives in, say, Sarah Longwell. Orderlies in California because Your

vote matters.

Because your vote matters in a real way. He doesn’t we have to have you back because I have to say, I wanted to have a long discussion with you. About the US Supreme Court and the decisions and the coverage of the court is I think you and I agree and disagree on certain things. I wanted to have a really long discussion your back and forth with David Sachs on Ukraine. I wanted to talk about JD Vans in his demagoguery.

We don’t have any time we don’t have any time for all of this because once again we’re consumed by this this indictment news. So can we make a date to have you back to hash out all that other stuff?

It’s a deal Charlie.

Okay. Thank you. And thank you all for listening to today’s Bulwark podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes and yes I am back. We will be back tomorrow and we will do this all over again.

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