Will Saletan: A Tribute to Ukraine

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Welcome

to the Bulwark Podcast. I’m Charlie Sykes. I’ve taken some time off this summer. I wouldn’t turn it over. The Monday podcast to Will Salitan and Amanda Carpenter.

You know, we once again thank you for filling in, but we are back. It is after Labor Day, it is after the anniversary of nine eleven, and so feels like we are reengaging with the dysfunctional world Donald Trump is mysteriously in Washington, D. C. This morning. We’re not gonna spend any time speculating about what that’s with what that is about.

Maggie Abrams’ new book is leaking out suggesting that Trump told folks that he would not be leaving the White House. He was just gonna he was just going to stay there. Meanwhile, Republicans appear to be getting a little bit of cold feet on pushing anti abortion measures. There is a new poll out showing that maybe the talk about semi fascism is not necessarily overblown. And of course, we have this lightening counter offensive in Ukraine.

So first of all, welcome back, Will, or I guess, you know, hey, it’s good to be back with you, Will. You missed it. Right?

We totally missed you. You know you know what we in your absence, we had a terrible, terrible shortage of exposives. We I don’t think Amanda and I used a single exposive in the entire time. But now we got you

back. Is this the new normal? Are you

are you saying that that is what I bring to the table here? That and a thousand other things. By the way, congratulations. I saw the photos of your beautiful new grandchild and you were at a family wedding. It sounds like you you had a wonderful and eventful summer.

We

did. It was a wonderful and eventful summer, and and I had very high hopes for how the summer would play out. And they they actually, weirdly enough, exceeded all my expectations. So it was really wonderful. And new grand baby is doing great.

French grand kids are back in Angola and starting school today. So they actually missed a little bit of school, but I think their trip to Washington, D. C. And to Mequan, Wisconsin was was was educational. And and, of course, married off another son.

So so, Will, where should we start? How can we, you know, start anywhere else? Than what is going on with Ukraine? And could we have a little bit of a flashback to Tucker Carlson? I am not sure whether Fox News actually markets, Tucker is always right t shirts, but perhaps they might wanna, you know, place a call to their marketing department because, you know, as we watch Ukraine push back a defeated Russian army, you know, throughout southern and and in eastern Ukraine.

Let’s take a moment TO REMEMBER TUCKER CARLSON’S ANNALISES OF THE WAR? Reporter: ALJOE BIDEN IS CALLING FOR AN UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER FROM VLADIMIR PUTIN. Here’s the weird thing. By any actual reality based measure, Vladimir Putin is not losing the war in Ukraine. He is winning the war in Ukraine.

Who? And Joe Biden looks at that and says, we won’t stop until you profit an unconditional surrender. Mhmm. He’s the weak. This isn’t bad policy.

This is nuts. This is just nuts, so will.

Thoughts about Tucker’s powers of prognostication? You know, first of all, one of the it’s hard to convey this clip. First, this is two weeks ago. This is just, like, a week before this latest offensive. Which makes it better.

Right? And speaking of offensive, Carlson has this wonderful way of projecting certainty about things, about which he knows nothing. And in this

kind of brand,

it it is. It is. Like, people who watch doctor Carlson what they’re getting is is this absolute confidence, the other side are idiots. Here’s the absolute truth, you know. And it’s very rare that you get this moment when.

The total BS. I got you know, Charlie, I’m gonna have to get back in the exporter of habit. This total bullshit that Carlson has been peddling about Ukraine gets falsified immediately, like, within a week. So what he’s spreading, the idea that Russia is inevitably gonna win this war and that the West needs to just accept that. Is obviously propaganda.

And the propaganda has a purpose. It is to demoralize the west and and to, you know, help his buddies in in Russia. Right? He’s the the Chinese or the real enemy. Therefore, we should knuckle under in Ukraine.

So it was very important to break that myth. To break the myth of the inevitability of Russian victory, and the Ukrainians have done that. They have taken back over a thousand square miles of their country in like a week. It’s an amazing pace. And it’s important both because the Ukrainians are showing the world what they can do when they get the weapons.

So now they can say, give us more weapons. And because it shows that the Russian army is fundamentally fragile and weak.

You’re absolutely right. And, you know, I mean, I I I try to avoid irrational exuberance or as, you know, wish casting, tease an overused of the phrase. But This certainly, you know, smells and tastes like victory. And again, there’s important caveats. This is not going to bring an end of the war.

This is going to continue to to go on. But a week ago, we were talking about what a long slog it was, and now we have this lightning offensive, which is one of the most dramatic offensive, counter since we’ve seen since World War two. But also, this was a very skillful campaign that was designed and executed. I mean, it it maximized the impact of these weapon systems, but also their tactics, their morale, the aggressiveness, and as you point out, the credible effectiveness of the Russian army on display right now. And you can tell how bad it is because the Russian media is in doom and gloom and finger pointing, and you can tell that there’s a lot of anxiety.

I I I find these clips from Russian state television to be quite remarkable. The palpable sense of alarm. I mean, they’re they’re not pretending that it’s not happening that but they’re they’re trying to find a way to spin it and it is not a pretty situation. No. For the Russians,

it’s not. And and, Charlie, I can’t speak for you or anyone else, but I have to express some guilt about this. I had stopped paying attention to Ukraine. Right? It it was it looked like it was a stalemate or the Russians were taking the Dunbar, and it just looked like nothing was happening.

And I moved on to other things. So, you know, in the absence of American interest in this war and western interest in this war, you could end up with a void in which we stopped supporting the Ukrainian. So we stop sending weapons and we’re like, oh, well, we lost that one. And it’s attributed to the Ukrainians that in this lightning attack, they’ve proven that they can do something with the weapons and they’ve sort of revived interest in the west that we need to help them. I’m reminded I was watching the US open this weekend and I sorry for the sports analogy, but when a player, you know, plays a good point in tennis, part of what they do in New York and the US open is get the crowd into it.

Hey, hey, you know, and that helps them. So this is not the greatest analogy in the world, but the Ukrainians needed to do something to show the west, hey, we are a worthwhile investment, you know, help us. And in this case, if they don’t need us to need applause, they need they need arms, So I’m glad that we have supplied them with arms in the absence of American attention and we desperately need to supply them with more. You’re

right in terms of just the the narrative. Because up until this weekend, really, you know, the focus had been on the looming energy crisis in Europe as a result of of Russian cut off. Of of energy supplies and the, you know, the phrases that double letter Putin is weaponizing winter and, you know, there’s increasing alarm in this country about bill What is the political fallout going to be in Europe as we go into the winter? The good news is that public opinion polls continue to show strong port for Ukraine even in places like like Germany, so that that is positive. But the other, you know, big question is how long will American resolve last?

We have people like Ohio Senate Kennedy J. D. Vance, and it’s worth reminding us that he said, you know, quite frankly, I just don’t care what happens to Ukraine. We know what the buzz is in Mago World. And in Vladimir Putin’s calculation, he is thinking that if he waits this out, he will see European resolve begin to waiver and perhaps United States government shifting, because does anyone actually think that a restored Donald Trump would have the same sort of aggressive support for Ukraine that we saw from Joe

Biden? Yeah. Trump is a problem. The current Republican party is a problem. The Republican party which historically stood for, you know, strong national defense and an active role for America and the world, has lately just been talking about the economy.

And the economy is an appropriate concern, but when you hear Kevin McCarthy and these other Republicans just talking about the high gas prices and not talking about defending the Ukrainians, they are basically helping Putin in his campaign to make you know, Americans sick of the gas prices and just can we get this over with? If we would just reopen the world to Russian oil, that would help, you know, the Europeans. It would help the Americans. It would help our pocketbooks. It would just screw the Ukrainian.

So it was very important for the Ukrainians. To do a blitzkrieg, to do something to demonstrate that the the war is worth the sacrifice. And Vladimir Putin’s were response to all of

these defeats, of course, was more terror. They attacked power stations, other infrastructure yesterday, and they were, you know, widespread outages across Ukraine. And I I thought that the president Zelensky’s response was was telling. I mean, this this guy was not a flash in the pan. He continues to be able to rally his country and the world.

And he he saw his statement. He goes, and this year’s a rough translation of it. You know, addressing himself to the Russians. Do you still think we are one people? Do you still think you can scare us, break us, force us to make concessions?

Don’t you really get it Don’t you understand who we are, what we stand for, what we are about? Read my lips. Without gas or without you. Without you. Without light or without you, without you, without water, or without you, without you, and it goes on, cold, hunger, darkness, and thirst are not as frightening and deadly for us as your friendship and brotherhood.

But history will put everything in place. So once again, you see that that the fiance of what’s happening. Look, I mean, before we get too far ahead, I mean, admiral Stavritas tweeted out this morning, and we’ve had him as as a guest on on the show. First of all, I said, you know, the Ukrainian offensive is accelerating. Russian morale is weakened.

Putin will have a hard time reestablishing dominance. Is this a pivot in the war quite possibly. But then he says, look, despite all of our enthusiasm, we need to remember, Putin still has a lot of cards to play, chemical weapons, amphibious, salt, attacks on critical infrastructure like water, assistance from other pariah states like North Korea, this one is far from over. So, again, Ukraine is winning this this war. It is having a tremendous worldwide impact, including sort of the refutation of, you know, this this sort of growing belief that the future belonged to the authoritarians, the democracies were too weak.

So all of that is is good, but this thing’s not over yet.

No. No. Look, Stavory, this is obviously right. The Russians are stronger in in aggregate. But, Charlie, who was stronger between the United States of America and Afghanistan?

I mean, here’s what I think. Empires are strong, superpowers strong but over time defense wins. If you are defending your own country — Mhmm. — you you just care more than the other guy. And I think that statement that you read from Zelensky is beautiful and a part of what it expresses is, look, this is our own land, this is our own country, these are our people.

You can take away our gas, you can take away electricity, but we will we’re not gonna leave. We got nowhere to go. So the Russians can go. They can go home. The Ukrainians can’t.

So the Ukrainians have more resolve. And one of the fascinating indices from this lightning attack from the the Ukrainians is not just the amount of territory. As DeVries points out, it’s accelerating. It’s moving incredibly fast and it’s moving incredibly fast. Because the Russians are not particularly fighting, they’re fleeing, and they’re leaving they’re leaving behind lots and lots of equipment.

And all of this is a sign that of a low morale on the Russian side, which means even if they have numbers, that those numbers, if they’re not backed by the will to fight because it’s not their country, they’re

gonna lose. No. That’s exactly Right? And and and you could get a sense that this the collapse of morale is cascading. Is that I I heard somebody.

I can’t remember who it was, who said, you know, fleeing soldiers, there’s a there’s a multiplying effectiveness that that they spread panic. They spread demoralization with them. And right now, I think and I don’t know whether this was tongue and cheek or not. You know, the the number one supplier of tanks to the Ukrainian army the Russians. They’re just they’re just leaving this behind.

Okay. So we have a lot of other things to talk about. Let me take a deep breath here. Okay. So yesterday was the twenty first anniversary of nine eleven, and I I and I’m gonna bounce this off because this is a completely subjective reaction.

I have continued to marvel at the persistence and the endurance of the feelings about nine eleven, and I still have I mean, I I still am riveted by it and thinking back and flashing back to it. But I will tell you this, that yesterday, and maybe this is just personal. For the first time, this was for the first time in two decades, I had a feeling that, you know, it feels like a long time ago right now. It now for the first time feels like we are have moved so far beyond the moment of nine eleven, the politics of nine eleven. That sense of unity we had after nine eleven.

The way that nine eleven shaped our politics and our entire culture for it felt like for more than a decade, but that that era seems to me passed. I and I never actually felt that way. And and and I’m I’m not proud of this and I’m not pushing you. Because I’m I’m very much in the never forget, you know, school of thought about all. We never forget this.

We always acknowledge this. But for the first time, it felt like very much something from the past rather than something that is shaping us at the moment. Maybe because I don’t know what do you think? Well, maybe because it has been succeeded by our own crises. It has been succeeded by other things.

We have other obsessions. We have other threats. We have other concerns. And I’m not trying to diminish it, but I I I have not felt that way before yesterday. What do you

think? I don’t think you should feel bad about this at all. I think it is natural. And in part, it’s a sign of success. I mean, we have much less of that kind of radical Islamic terrorism than we than we did and we’ve done a better job of preventing it.

But, Charlie, if you put this in the context of history, when nine eleven became the overwhelming story in America that we’ve been we’ve been attacked, it replaced previous attacks. It replaced Pearl Harbor. Mhmm. And it’s no worse today to say nine eleven is in the past than it was on nine eleven to say Pearl Harbor is in the past. So you’re right.

Subsequent events have replaced it, and that is totally natural. That’s how history works. So one thing that I came

across yesterday, and I tweeted it out was something that I have to admit that I had never seen before. Look, Alex Jones has been around for a long time, and he and he has made a career out of spewing toxic bullshit. But I have to admit that this one was a little bit startling. This is a sound bite. From, and I didn’t even know what show he was doing.

This is a this is an Alex Jones who actually has hair and weighed about fifty pounds less than he does right now, but this is September twelfth two thousand one. You can remember what you were thinking and doing the day after nine eleven. I think we all can remember what we were thinking and feeling back then. This is a it’s about a forty nine second sound bite from Alex Jones. The day after the attack on the World Trade Center in the Pentagon, blaming Israel.

Because here’s a reminder for the conspiracy theorists It’s always about the Jews and it was for Alex Jones the day after nine eleven.

Let’s play it. Israel calls The Palestinians Goiem or cattle or dogs or subhuman. They keep them on concentration camps. I got video of them taking Palestinian women’s tomatoes they grow and breaking their water containers and stealing. That that’s why you have this crap.

And our children are gonna die. We’re gonna get nukes because of this. Iran’s got the nukes now. Syria, we’re gonna have nuclear war. Because Israel likes to go around bombing everybody.

I’m sorry. It’s just the facts.

Just the fan.

And Israel absolutely is beside itself a joy right now. They are talking about how they’re gonna blow everything up, how they’re gonna attack everybody, and guess he’s gonna get bombed because

of it. So Will, what do you think? It’s

grotesque as most of what Alex Jones says is, I’m kind of fascinated not so much by the anti Israel angle, which is gross. But by this idea that the terrorists are the ones who impose the consequences. This is the root of which this. So the Israelis pissed off the terrorists and the terrorists attacked us. So we have to appease the terrorists.

This mentality is still happening today. It’s not happening in the context. Of, you know, Islamic terrorism. It’s happening in the context of Russia. Like, what did we do to piss off Putin?

You know, what could we do to have a better relation with Russia so that it won’t go around attacking countries. So we’re seeing the same mentality in the right wing of America, and it always has to be stood up against. See,

my main reaction was, okay. So Alex Jones is who he is. And we’ve said this over and over again, you know, the the obsession that spiracy theorists have with the Jews and the, you know, protocols of the elders of Zion and all of that. But the really grotesque thing is not just Alex Jones blaming Israel for nine eleven the day after as opposed to, you know, venting his anger al Qaeda and Saudi Arabia, etcetera. It’s the fact that Alex Jones remained a player in the right wing media.

That that Alex Jones played a role in the rise of Donald Trump. That that that that Alex Jones still was able to not only is quote unquote survive this kind of vile antisemitism and and conspiracy mongering, and then, you know, going through everything he did in Sandy Hook, but that he was able to get millions of people to follow him and that the that right wing America and the right wing media was willing to tolerate him for so many years. I mean, you look at that back then and you go, okay, this guy is in that job. He’s a fringe character. He just made himself more fringe.

He really has, you know, disgraced himself. And yet, he was just getting started. I mean, you you think about now in retrospect of twenty one years, and you realize how dangerous Alex Jones would be, but but I have to tell you no one could ever imagine that Alex Jones would be as influential, that he would be embraced by a future public anomaly for president and president of the United States. And the people like Tucker Carlson would actually, you know, snicker and, you know, say how much more credible Alex Jones is than other outlets. You know, his survival is is really stunning.

It is. And, you know, Charlie, you brought up not just

the this crazy rant about Israel, but Sandy Hook, which is the more recent version of the same thing. Wait. And it it kind of it does illustrate that public figures just don’t pay the price that they used to pay for saying crazy deranged things. And I it does make me wonder whether this is a consequence of a shift in our culture where instead of following public figures because of what they stand for, what they represent, what they say, your people are following them because of their enemies. Who are they?

Who are these people against? So you can say crazy stuff about Israel or about Sandy Hook, but as long as you hate the left, I’m with you.

No. I think that is that is very much the root cause of all of this. So fast forward a little bit. So while I was gone, Joe Biden gives the speech about the, you know, megafascism and semi fascism and, you know, there’s a lot hand ringing you about whether he should have done that or whether that was too partisan. But you highlighted this morning what I who’s just a truly extraordinary result from the new Axios Ipsos poll where forty two percent of Republicans Agree that and people need to listen to the language here.

Agree that strong, unelected, unelected leaders. Are better than weak elected ones. And forty two percent of Democrats agree that president should be able to remove judges who just whose decisions go against the national interest. So talk to me about what that poll tells you And then I I see that you’re getting a lot of blowback from progressive Twitter followers who are saying that, well, this is both sides, you know, only one side is engaged in authoritarianism. So what does it tell you that forty two percent of Americans like the idea of a strong unelected leaders and forty two set of Democrats think the president should build a fire judges who make decisions they don’t

like. It’s fascinating. I mean, it’s horrifying and it’s fascinating. So just I want to be clear because I quoted what what, you know, what was on the the poll graphic in Axios. Here are the exact statements.

Quote, it is better to have a strong unelected leader than a weak leader who is elected by the people. Forty two percent of Republicans. Agreed with that statement. Thirty one percent of Democrats, bad, but not as bad. On the other side, the president, quote, the president of the United States should be empowered to remove judges when their decisions go against the national interest.

Forty two percent of Democrats agreed with that statement. Twenty nine percent of Republicans. Okay. Both statements are really dangerous. It’s bad that Republicans agreed with the first.

It’s bad that Democrats agreed with the second. But it really dismayed me the response that I got on Twitter from people who I otherwise respect on the left who were basically like, oh, you’re both sidesing this. The real problem is on the right. That’s where the fascists are. People The reason that posters collect this kind of data is to send you a message about reality.

And the reality they’re showing you is This problem is not exclusive to the right. It’s different, but it’s not like people on the left are all wonderful civil libertarians. Clearly, there is an appetite for tossing aside the judiciary when the judiciary stands in the way of what progressives think is the right policy. That is really dangerous and progressive progressive elites. Progressive intellectuals need to pay attention to that and acknowledge it.

I agree with you. I

mean, obviously, there’s a little asymmetry here because no one actually thinks that Joe Biden is gonna try to fire any federal judges. That’s just simply not going to happen the other hand, you have Donald Trump giving speeches at his rallies. When he goes out of his way to praise dictators like president Xi. His admiration for authoritarians like Victor Orban and Vladimir Putin is no secret and it’s not a one off. He really has a, you know, fundamental admiration for people who are unelected and and and rule with an iron fist.

I mean, this is this whole iron fist thing. Which clearly resonates with him and with millions of his of his supporters. So now we’re finding out, by the way, that from Maggie Abrams’ book that he was telling people that he was just simply not going to leave with the presidency. Again, part of this is not surprising at all. Right?

Because we this is the whole January six thing, what was that early about. But I don’t know how you feel about it. It’s still shocking to hear that this report that I’m just not going to leave you know, Maggie Hickman’s new book reveals that Trump was vowing to stay in the White House. So, what do you make of that, Will? Well,

among other things, it helps me make sense of why Trump took all those boxes to Mar a Lago. Why did Trump have the presidential records? It’s It’s because this guy thought that the presidency still belonged to him. So he didn’t wanna leave. Right?

I’m not gonna leave. They can’t make me. Eventually he does leave. He gets on the plane and he goes. But he’s like, well, I’m just gonna take my stuff with me.

And by my stuff, he clearly thought that included presidential documents, top secret classified documents. I think it’s a very simple explanation for what happened with those records. It is that Trump he didn’t wanna leave. If he had to leave, he was gonna take the stuff with him. The government comes and says, hey, you gotta give us that stuff back, that’s dangerous classified documents.

And he just drags his feet. Like, hey, it’s my stuff. I’m gonna make it your problem. How are you gonna get it from me? Then they have to send agents in to get it from him because he doesn’t cough this stuff up, and he lies about it.

And then he screams that this is an attack by the government. To recover its stuff, our stuff, the American people stuff. Trump thinks he’s a monarch. He thinks he’s, like, not just the Queen of England who didn’t have real power, but, like, an autocrat. And this this whole thing about not leaving the White House just underscores that.

So here’s something that I don’t fully understand. I should understand this by now. But explain this to me. This seems like a very, very clear cut case without clear partisan lines. There’s not a liberal versus conservative position here.

There’s not a Democrat versus Republican fundamental issue here because up until five minutes ago, Republicans seem to care. Remember when they pretended to care about? Classified information, the things things like this. And yet here we have Marco Rubio who was once the future of the Republican Party. And is apparently in a somewhat, like, tighter than expected race for reelection in Florida.

Spending a lot of political capital and a lot of time carrying water for this particular action. It’s not I wanna separate this from supporting Trump policies or supporting Trump in some vague general way to satisfy the Republican base. No. He is specifically doubling down on trying to rationalize Trump taking these classified top super secret documents and stuffing them in a closet somewhere in Mar a Lago. So here’s Marco Rubio.

This is really at his core storage argument that they’re making. Right? There are there are documents there. They don’t deny that he should have asked to those documents, but they deny that they were not properly stored. I don’t think a fight over storage of documents is worthy of what they’ve done.

Okay. What the hell? Could you explain why why does Marco Rubio feel the need to defend this particular conduct? I mean, he could be about anything. You’d be talking about inflation.

You’d be talking about crime. You could be talking about the border. You could be talking about almost anything. What is Marco Rubio’s obsession with this particular issue? Well, it’s

particularly bizarre because Rubio is the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. This is the kind of thing he is exactly not supposed to be deciding taking political position on. I think, Charlie, the it’s just as simple as cowardice. Marco Rubio is a coward. It’s been quite clear about that from twenty sixteen when he knuckled under the Trump.

And Why didn’t he just run away from the issue then? If he’s a coward, run away. Run away. Don’t talk about it. Because Trump wants Republicans to defend him.

And there’s just tremendous pressure within the party to defend whatever Donald Trump’s latest crazy thing is. And this is clearly one of them. And it’s the ideas that Trump is a victim and the government is jackbooted thugs. So that’s what he’s doing. It’s insane.

It’s insane that Rubio calls this a storage issue and makes light of it. I mean, what was Hillary Clinton doing with her server, but storing stuff in a place that shouldn’t be stored? And and honestly, you know, somebody comes to your house and, like, steals your car and you find it in their driveway. Is that a storage issue that they stored your car in their driveway? No.

It’s a theft issue. And that’s exactly what’s going on with the records at Maranago. Howard Bauchner:

So speaking of kings and queens, you know, you you you mentioned that and Donald Trump actually was joking apparently. I mean, that he had said that China’s president was king because he was he was president for life and everything. And he and he keeps bringing up this thing, you know, kings, but the contrast between Donald Trump and actual kings is pretty interesting. Did you read Andrew Sullivan’s newsletter at all by any chance? I I missed this.

Okay. So it’s and and again, I I I think that, you know, Andrew is going through some things, but he nails this. So well. He says it was a coincidence that the Crown, the Netflix show, debuted on US television in November two thousand sixteen, America just elected a new president, bullish, unstable, indifferent to rules, contemptuous of the law with a long history of sexual assault, fraud and deception. There was no impulse he did not indulge, no cruelty he did not entertain, no tradition he wasn’t willing to trash.

At the same time, I found myself watching the life of an entirely different head of state, a young, somewhat shy woman suddenly elevated to immense responsibilities and duties in her twenties, end in by protocol, rigid eyed by discipline. The new president could barely get through the day without some provocation in sole threat or lie. Elizabeth Windsor, was tasked as a twenty something with a job that required her to say it would do nothing that could be miss misconstrued, controversial, or even interestingly human for the rest of her life. The immense difficulty of this is proven by the failure of almost every other member of her family, including her husband to pull it off. Then he talks about this.

But, you know, it is this interesting moment where the world is looking at Queen Elizabeth who in so many ways, is just the opposite of our modern political culture. And we’re taking this moment to sort of say, okay, you know, what made her special? You know, her sense of duty, her sense of dignity, her graciousness, her personal sacrifice, her willingness to put the country before any other agenda. And the entire world is going, this is wonderful. These values are worth cherishing at the same time that politically it’s rushing to embrace people who reject every single one of

those

values. I guess this is just the paradox of human nature. We have, you know, we we have the the brights. We have the the the bright side. We have the dark side.

And it’s weird. I mean, Andrew has written Andrew Sullivan has written brilliantly about virtue for decades. It is a subject that he cares deeply about. And it’s very important to have virtuous leaders. But, Charlie, I’m gonna argue the pessimistic side of this question.

There

are two ways

to have a good government. One is to have a virtuous leader like Elizabeth. Wasn’t actually didn’t actually have power. The other is to have checks and balances, which is the American founder system. Right?

We we wanna be a government of laws, not of men. Because what if the men are bad? And, Charlie, I got to admit, I didn’t take this that seriously until we had a genuinely really bad man as president. Right. You you brought up earlier in the conversation, the excellent point about, you know, no one expects Joe Biden to go around firing judges.

But I don’t wanna count on that. Right? When Obama said I have a pen and a phone, I gotta say as a liberal, I was like, you go guy, And then Trump came into power and I saw what you can do with a pen and a phone and a will to just over just trample everything. And now, I do not wanna count on virtue. I want to make sure we have checks and balances in a system to protect us from bad men when bad men get elected.

And

I think that the the founders thought that they had created those checks and balances. And what’s been happening now is to realize that, no, they actually were excessively optimistic about human honor because they assumed that they were getting an honorable person in those roles and that the system would always vet people to make sure that that only honorable people roast into positions of of power. And obviously, that has been flawed. Okay. So let’s talk about some other issues that are breaking right now, including one that’s very, very, very much in your wheelhouse.

I’m looking at the Washington Post Health two zero two newsletter this morning, pointing out that on Capitol Hill and in state legislature, some Republican lawmakers are backing off aggressive efforts to advance certain hard line anti abortion measures. In Congress efforts to pursue a strict nationwide abortion ban have quietly fizzled. There had been some momentum behind pressing for a law banning abortion. After fetal cardiac activity is detected. Meanwhile, efforts to pass near total abortion men’s in two states devolved into GOP infighting.

Lawmakers in South Carolina disagreed over whether they include exceptions for rape and incest, a debate that’s put the GOP under an uncomfortable spotlight in the post rural America in West Virginia. There was an intra party battle over whether to remove criminal penalties for doctors This comes as Republicans are reckoning with a growing backlash to the supreme court’s ruling. So Let’s talk about this because and I’m sorry to use this cliche, but, you know, the dog caught the bus and is suddenly realizing that it really wasn’t prepared. That for Republican politicians, it was very easy to be pro life when you didn’t have to be specific or or in an era in which nothing you actually said or did would fundamentally make a difference. And now they’re confronted with reality.

So You’ve written about this. You’ve written a whole book about this. Will, what’s going on right now? Well,

I completely agree with you. The Republican position under Rovi Wade has been performative. Been performative because everybody knew Roe was there and none of this mattered. And you could vote for a pro life politician no matter what the details were about their position. Because, hey, you’re just expressing your you know, pro life sympathies, your sentiment.

It’s not about sentiment anymore. It’s about what the law will actually do. And as you’re pointing out, when you get into the nitty gritty of the law, People get really uncomfortable. Okay, I don’t like abortion, but God, do I want to throw doctors in jail? I mean, what was the what exactly was the doctor deciding?

Was it the next topic? Pregnancy, was the fetus about to die? Was they, you know, it gets really complicated, really fast and those that gets unpopular. So Charlie, those states that you just name, South Carolina, West Virginia, those are very conservative states. Those are very pro life states.

And it just illustrates how even in places where sympathies run toward against abortion, when we start talking about the details of the law, the pro life

consensus in those states breaks down. It does. And there’s also the, I would say, the blast radius of that decision, and we’re gonna see it playing out in in the in the Senate in the next couple of weeks, the vote on same sex marriage codification. This is the critical week for the bill being put together by, you know, Wisconsin senator Tammy Baldwin senator Susan Collins. And at first, I almost passed over this because I figured it was the usual suspects, the story about four hundred former and current Republican officials signing a letter, backing the bill, part of this campaign led by Ken Mailman who people will remember manage George w Bush’s two thousand four reelection campaign and was in fact RNC chairman for a while.

You know, Milmo’s come out as gay. And he spent years working to convince fellow Republicans to support gay marriage, and so they they’ve come up with this list. And again, I said, my initial reaction was okay, I I guess I’m gonna know all the names on this list. No, there’s not gonna be any surprise, but listen to this. Among the signatories to this letter urging the senate to pass legislation codifying Same sex marriage.

Massachusetts governor, Charlie Baker, not a surprise. Doctor Oz, the Republican Senate nominee in Pennsylvania, Joe O’Dea, the Republican senate nominee in Colorado, former first lady Barbara Bush, the National Association of Manufacturers president and CEO, Jay Timmons, and more than two dozen former Republican senators, representatives, governors, and cabinet members which would again suggest that on this issue, it is the Republicans that are being splanter rather than the democrats. Which is kind of a reversal on some of what we’ve seen on these cultural war issues in the past. Yes. And it’s a reversal

from what was it fifteen years ago or eighteen years ago when George w Bush Barbara Bush’s son was running for reelection using gay marriage to split the democrats. Right? So this split now goes the other way. And, Charlie, I’ve been looking over the last few days at polling on this question. It’s not just Republican elites who have defected, who have gone over to the evil side of same sex marriage, which happens to be the right side.

It is the the Republican electorate as a whole is moving in that direction by in by some indices on some questions, it is now a majority position inside the Republican Party, inside the Republican electorate to support same sex marriage. So These politicians on the right who are still dragging their feet and acting like, you know, the party is with them when they stand against same sex marriage are behind the times.

You know, I’m I’m interested to see what Donald Trump says or does about this. Because when he ran in twenty sixteen, you might recall he he did not come out against gay rights. Or against gay marriage, at least if I’m remembering this correctly. But also, what we’ve learned since then, of course, is that Donald Trump never allows any daylight to appear between himself and the most extreme right wing of of his party. So what position is he going to take on this?

Or has he? Well, I don’t miss you. No. No. I think

what’s happened, Charlie, is that the right wing position on sexuality has moved away from homosexuality, and it’s moved over to trans. Right? Yes. Right. So Trump’s position is, like, this trans swimmer who’s, like, competing against women is, you know, become a ridiculous sports argument and it’s just moved away.

From homosexuality, which I think, you know, like the Russian army fleeing from Kharkiv, the Republicans are fleeing from the issue of same sex marriage. Well,

except that not all of Lamar, and this vote in the Senate is gonna force them to take a position on on homosexuality and gay marriage you see some of the dynamic with with people like Ron Johnson who initially said, I yeah. I see no reason why I wouldn’t vote to codify this. Because, I mean, this is the law of the land. Right? Now under pressure from social conservatives here in in Wisconsin, he’s flip flopped on the issue and he’s going to vote against it.

Which, by the way, there’s a certain irony here because conservative Republicans have always argued that major changes like this should be enacted by congress rather than by the courts. And unless he has fundamental objections to it, conummification by legislation would seem to be consistent with conservative use of the constitutional balance of powers. Yeah.

And it’s an interesting comparison with Roe v. Wade, where there were a lot of conservatives who said they were against abortion, but were happy that they didn’t have to face the issue. They would just say, oh, the court controls it. Here in the case of

Yeah. Yeah. So in

the case of same sex marriage, we’re kind of in a similar position where there are a lot of Republican elected officials would much rather have the Oberga felt decision stand and protect them from this issue than to actually have to face the consequences.

Another story is that that I wanna catch up with you on and I haven’t written about it much or or talked about it, but it’s truly extraordinary. In Alaska, Sarah Palin defeated in her bid for Congress, indicating that Sarah Palin, who was one such a dominant figure. Actually and then now we’re getting new analyses. You correct me if I’m wrong about this. New analyses making it very, very clear that Sarah Palin has caused the Republicans a seat in congress, which again, you know, it’s always hard to extrapolate from special election and from one with ranked choice voting.

But just a reminder that these kinds of, you know, toxic celebrity politics that play well in a primary, don’t play that well in a general election, and Republicans are jeopardizing their electoral chances in a general election. So your thoughts about the fall at least the temporary fall of Sarah

Palin because she’s still on the ballot in November. So this is a come up against to Sarah Palin, but I’m actually much more interested in what this means for the whole nature of our politics in general. Yeah. This ranked choice voting in Alaska you open the primary, you have ranked choice voting, which basically means that it now matters how many people hit you. Right?

You you if you You don’t have to be the first choice at everybody if you can be the second choice of enough people. So you get now candidates who are in the middle of the spectrum. Who are broadly acceptable, you know, more broadly acceptable than someone who could win a traditional Republican primary who’s just crazy on the right. And now in a ranked show in the way the ranked choice works is the candidate that Sarah Palin beat Nick Begich was more broadly acceptable, a Republican. He would have won this race.

That’s what these data show. Sarah Palin, because she had fewer people who supported her as a whole, lost the race. And what this says to me is and what it says to the Republican Party and I hope Democrats and everyone is nominate candidates get behind candidates who are more broadly acceptable. Don’t go for someone who just satisfies your base. And in a ranked choice system, that will increase the chances that your party wins the election.

You would think that that would

be perfectly obvious. So one last thing. The controversy continues over Democrats’ propping up with sort of a wink, wink, propping up the most extreme election denying Republicans in primaries under the assumption that if those candidates win the nomination, they are unelectable and general election. So we saw that in Pennsylvania with Doug Mastriano, who is I just wanna remind people, I mean, if the guy’s nuts, he’s crazy, but he is competitive in those in those races. And yesterday, a vice president, Kamala Harris, was on with Chuck Todd.

And and Chuck Todd is grilling her, is trying to pin her down on, what do you think of the tactic of Democrats? Boosting the electoral prospects of these election deniers. And, of course, this is relevant today because there’s a primary in New Hampshire tomorrow for senate. In which one of the more extreme election deniers has a good chance of winning the Republican nomination. Democrats hope that means that It takes New Hampshire off the table, but nothing is certain these days.

So this is the exchange between Chuck Todd and the vice president yesterday morning unmet the press. When you

see the Democratic Party and some parts of the Party funding ads to promote some of these election deniers primaries, whether it’s Michigan, the high profile race there, Illinois, Colorado, New Hampshire. It

looks like a

cynical, you know, a little bit cynical. And the president went out of his way to say, there there are good Republicans here. Should you

leave the good Republicans

alone in a primary? Should is the is the Democratic Party making a mistake here by by, you know, those people could win if you’re not careful. I mean, listen,

I’m not gonna tell people how to run their campaigns. You know, I I ran in terms of statewide office. Would you

have done this? Would you have

done this? Is this on your Is

this on your I’m

not gonna tell people how to run their campaigns, Chuck. I ran for statewide for attorney general reelection, won both times for senate, won that race, and I know that it is best to to to let a candidate along with their their advisors. Let them make the decision based on what they believe is in the best interest of their state.

Well, well, this is classic Kamala

Harris.

I I know exactly what’s going on. Yeah. What’s going on in her mind is, this is a dangerous question. I’m not sure. I’m gonna cross pressured.

I’m gonna try to say nothing. So in saying nothing, she actually said something, which is that she’s she’s okay with it. She doesn’t save. So she’s gonna defer to the candidate. This is where a little bit of moral clarity would be useful.

Yes. Standup. Be like Liz Cheney. Say, it’s wrong. I’m against it.

I’m willing to sec you know, I’m willing to sacrifice politically in order to prevent this. I am a negativeist. I believe in preventing the worst outcomes. The worst outcome is for election deniers to take over important offices in this country. You have two shots at these people.

Is in the Republican primary and the next is in the general election. Do not in the Republican primary. Try to help these people get through the first hurdle. Right? Stop them there if you can.

Then if they get through it, then you face them in a general election. As one of the idiotic democrats who who believed that it was great when Donald Trump won the twenty sixteen presidential nomination because that meant Hillary Clinton had it in the bag I have a message to all of you. Do not play with this fire. Well, I I agree with

you completely. And what’s interesting is that as as Joe Biden seems to be moving toward more more full throated clarity on these issues. You have this sort of the usual mumbo jumbo from Kamala who I’m sorry. I And I know I’m opening up a can of whiplash here but on myself, but she’s just not very good at this because you’re you’re right on number one, no a little bit of moral clarity would have been really helpful here. And then number two, she clearly wasn’t prepared for the question.

Yeah. And it was the most obvious question. Everyone’s been getting the talking point You know?

Yeah. And look, I actually like Kamala Harris. I think that Kamala Harris when she lets herself go is a terrific speaker. I think the problem is that she is just so afraid. And sometimes when you are trying to quote play it safe, you do the wrong thing, the morally wrong thing.

If she would just speak what what she believes, I believe that she thinks it is dangerous to do so. And a a lot of Democrats think that it is dangerous to do so. Some are

are some are saying so, and some are ducking the question. And that’s just wrong. So what else you want? Are you watching this week? Like, you I I I confess I took my eye off the ball in Ukraine.

I am gonna be paying a great deal of attention to it. And I will also confessed that I’m gonna be spending a lot of time just watching the the pomp and pageantry that’s going on in in Great Britain because It is historic and you and I have never seen this in

a lifetime. So I’m I I will indulge a little bit about hemophilia. I and weirdly maybe not weirdly, I’ve just I have no feelings at all about the queen. I she seems to be a lovely person, you know, seen that, you know, a a model of virtue as Andrew Sullivan wrote. I don’t have any of this longing of other people to have some, you know, hereditary monarchy representing our national consensus.

So you know, if you are British or if you love the Queen God bless you and I am sorry that that we lost her and I’m glad that she was a good person, but I’m really grateful live in a country where we don’t live that way. And our country, fractures as it is, has a better ways to solve these problems than to defer to a royal family. Okay. Now, since you are

a resident expert on Lindsey Gramma, I wanted to ask you about this. A week ago, our colleague, Amanda Carpenter, did a fantastic podcast about Donald Trump’s promise to pardon the January sixth the riders and insurrectionists. And if people have not listened to it, you need to go back because it is she brings the receipts and it is chilling stuff. So the Hill is reporting this morning that GOP senators led by of all people Lindsey Graham slammed Trump January six pardon promise, former president Trump’s promise to grant pardons to rioters who storm the capital on January six two thousand twenty one is running into strong opposition from senate Republicans, senator Lindsey Graham, one of Trump’s closest allies told the Hill that granting pardons to the January six protesters is a bad idea. Quote, pardons are given to people who admit misconduct, rehabilitate themselves, they are not supposed to be used for other purposes.

As he’s been paying attention. Other Republican senators are joining Graham in criticizing Trump’s promised department of the protesters as inappropriate and then Kevin Kramer of North Dakota. I don’t think potential candidates should hold pardons out as a promise. It is somewhat problematic, weasel word. For me, on a moral and an ethical level, Senator Mike Rounds, South Dakota said he wouldn’t support granting pardons.

If he were elected, he would have a constitutional ability to do it. I would disagree with it. So talking about this. Lindsay Graham, who has, shall we say, swallowed a great deal drawing a line at these pardon promises? What does that tell

you? First of all, I think there’s a misconception about Lindsay Graham and a lot of people like him. The idea is that they will do anything Trump says, and it’s not quite that simple. Graham has always opposed from the minute that Trump initially talked about pardons, which was before he left office. He was talking about pardoning the January sixth people.

Before we even got to January twentieth. And Lindsey Graham said, don’t do that. Another Republican said, don’t do that. And you can maybe there was some morality involved in it, but a lot of it, Charlie, was a political strategy. These people, including Graham, wanted to protect Trump politically, and they wanted to bring him back and have it run-in for president again in twenty twenty four.

So this is all part of a campaign to make sure that they can keep Trump separate from the January sixth people. Because the story on the right about January sixth is, oh, these bad people broke into the capital. But Trump, you know, it wasn’t his idea. It wasn’t it wasn’t what he wanted. And what these Republican elected officials want to is break with Trump himself.

No. They acknowledge. They won’t acknowledge what you obviously know, which is that the reason why Donald Trump keeps talking about pardoning the people who broke into the capital is that he supported breaking into the capital and he still supports it. Is there

any doubt in your mind that in in Trump two point o that he would in fact pardon the rioters? No. No. Because he can do it by himself. Exactly.

Without check, without balance. Exactly. The pardons are number one on the list of things that the founders

allowed into the constitution on the premise that presidents weren’t the worst people in the world. Now that we had a president who was one of the worst people in the world and could have it again, it’s super clear that a unilateral pardon power is extremely dangerous. No.

There’s no doubt in my mind that he would do it, that he would do it early. And if if the if the case that Lindsay Graham and others are making is that we need to protect Trump from doing something that would hurt him politically. He he won’t give a shit anymore. I mean, he’ll be president. He will never face the voters again.

There is no limitation on his pardon pardon abilities. And I remember, you know, this this seems to have come as surprise to some people. I was actually on an MSNBC panel, and I can’t remember exactly who it was. But this was right at the end of the presidency when he was dropping all of these pardons of the various gifters and crooks around him, you know, including Steve Bannon. And the person who was on with me was saying, well, I think this is going to be reviewed afterwards.

I think that there’s going to be a department of justice review. And I said, I’m sorry to tell you because I’m not a lawyer here. I’m not the constitutional expert, but my understanding is there is no review of a president’s pardon. It is close to absolute. There is no check on it.

I understand that people will write in and say, well, you know, if it was done in return for a bribe or some some other sort of thing. But I agree with you, as much as I hesitate to talk about flaws in the constitution. This was one. And and at time it was debated. There were people like George Mason, I believe, who were pointing out the real danger of giving this kind of royal power to the president.

And people decided they were gonna go with a more optimistic view. But here we’re at and there’s not the slightest doubt in my mind that Trump would do exactly what he is promising to do with the pardons and, frankly, with firing of any government official who shows any independence or any lack of direct loyalty to him personally. He fully intend to do that. And I do think that he’ll have a lot of support in the Republican Party, which will not be in a mood to resist him. If he is returned to office?

Yeah. And it’s bizarre that

Graham and others are pleading with Trump not to do this. I mean, you don’t plead with someone who has demonstrated over five or six years that he is an authoritarian. You don’t say, hey, don’t do that authoritarian thing. What you do, first of all, is make sure the authoritarian is never in power again. And secondly, you change the institutions.

We clearly need institutional changes because Trump is not the last guy who’s gonna get close to this office, unfortunately. Who might do this sort of thing. Now that he’s paved the way, I think others will try to follow, and we absolutely need to change the system to prevent that.

Okay. So this

is a crucial point. I’m sorry. We we say this to the very, very end of it. This is a crucial point that there will be others and they will be emboldened to take these kinds of actions, which is why I think it is so risky not to hold Donald Trump legally accountable. I missed it.

We’ve had this debate here internally in the bulwark about whether it is risky to charge the president. Now, of course, there’s tremendous risks in charging a former president, but I think that the precedent created by saying, you know what, presidents, even presidents who have lied to the public, who have betrayed their oath, who orchestrated an attempted coup should not be holy holy cow. That would be the deadliest precedent going forward because fifty years from now, thirty years from now, we might have a president who is looking at this going, you know, under normal circumstances, I would not be able to get away with this. But with my pardon power and with the presidents establish that you can’t charge a sitting president or a former president, basically fuck it. I’m gonna do what I want.

And who’s gonna tell me now? Okay,

I will argue the other side of this question. I agree with you that Trump committed crimes and that he should be prosecuted for them, but I don’t think it’s necessary. To prosecute him in order to prevent a a repeat of this. Mhmm. I think it is okay.

I think it is much more important to say Let’s look let’s go through. Let’s itemize the stuff that Donald Trump did that undermined and endangered the American system of government that broke laws. And let’s Trump proof our government. So the pardon power. Change the pardon power.

It should no longer be unilateral. The electoral Wait. Wait.

Wait. Wait. Wait. How do you change the pardon power? I’m just telling you that this is the this is the The will salatine if we if we could have a ham sandwich if we just had some ham and some bread.

You you couldn’t Charlie, you couldn’t even prosecute him for the pardons. I know that, but I mean, all the I’m and I’m not talking about prosecuting him for the pardons, but you’re suggesting that in order to change the partner, you have to

change the constitution, which is not going to be happening. I’m just telling you what we should do. We we we need to change we need to fix holes in

our system, loopholes that are based on the premise diversity. I agree with you, but also the way that you do that is by enforcing the laws that you have now and not create more loopholes like the former president cannot be prosecuted. That’s the ultimate loophole.

Right. Well, that that is obviously, we should prosecute someone when they violate the law even if they’re a former president. But I I was just gonna say, not just pardons, the electoral account act reform. That is the legal issue. We we are making a change.

That one doesn’t require a change in the constitution, but the act was premised on the president not being a not authoritarian. The declassification, the rules around declassification. Clearly, it’s extremely dangerous to have a present, have as much power over declassification. As he presently has. So we have to figure out some way to distribute power over that, obviously, a limited extent, to prevent abuse of that.

And there we can just go down the list So my argument to you is great to prosecute Trump. He deserves it, but short of that, there are a lot of changes we can make in the system to prevent the next authoritarian from doing what Trump did. Why I agree? But I do

think that also the rule of law does not exist if the rule of law is not enforced. And so we can have all those laws, but unless we’re willing to pull the trigger to enforce those laws, it’s a pointless exercise. I agree with you. And by the way, I would add to your list of of pieces of legislation that ought to be considered is strengthening civil service protections. You know, we either believe in that or we don’t.

Because I think this is going to be a big issue for Republicans in twenty twenty four that they will be all in. In having the president fire thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of government employees at will. This was something that we thought we had resolved back in the 1880s, but apparently not. And perhaps this would be a good moment to make it, you know, absolutely clear that the president does not have the unilateral power to fire all of these z’s. But again, if we don’t take action now, this will be the precedent.

If you don’t charge Donald Trump for x, how can you charge president whatever thirty years from now, for whatever it is that that he does. And I think that that’s crucial. And again, I My caveat here is, of course, you let the evidence has to be strong, the law has to be clear, the Department of Justice has to be absolutely confident that they can win a conviction But if they do, I don’t think that they they can afford the blank at this point. But I agree with you about all the other stuff to try to Trump proof the constitution. And

I’ll agree with you about enforcement because as conservatives have long argued, if you don’t stand behind it, if you don’t put the force of government behind it, all of the moral pleading in the world won’t make a difference. Okay.

So let’s let’s end at this moment of radical agreement, mister Salatin, and we will do this next week too. Deal? Deal. The Bulwark podcast is produced by Kitty Cooper with audio production by Jonathan Seary. I’m Charlie Sykes.

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

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