Will Saletan: Trump Is Anti-America

Welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I’m ABy Stodder columnist The Bulwark sitting in for Charlie and Will Mondays. For Charlie Sykes. He is on a well deserved vacation, and I’m delighted to be with Will Saletan, my old friend, and colleague. And we have a mountain of news.

Actually, I was surprised how much news has happened the last few days for us to chew over and I’m not gonna get to the juice of the crack up of the DeSantis campaign or Super PAC. I’m gonna start right in on some substance because This is very seriously depressing, will. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has landed in Israel Yep. For what will be very difficult discussions. I am sure situation with the hostages.

And I wanna start because this is the Bulwark podcast after all. With a repulsive tweet from Rick Renell, who means no introduction, but to back everybody up, he was the illustrious ambassador to Germany under Donald Trump and later acting DNI in that, like, very creepy and part of the Trump administration where everyone was getting, like, mini temporary assignments to do horrible things. And he writes this morning Will secdef Lloyd Austin bring the US hostage’s home while he’s in Israel? Or is he there to tell Israel to stop looking for them? So we’re framing this discussion about the serious matter of where not only our government is positioning itself with the Israeli government will, but in terms of this supplemental funding that people keep hearing about that Congress is considering, which is security aid for Israel, security aid for Taiwan, security aid for Ukraine, lots of fighting.

They’re all different. And we see now this kind of tension within the Democratic party Will Saletan where to go with this And there’s concern about where the bombing campaign is going. So I wanna start with this sound from over the weekend from, Sarah Longwell, Senator Colin being interviewed about this topic.

We also heard him this week in a in closed event, but but say that Israel was doing indiscriminate bombing, indiscriminate bombing, and and is was risking them losing support that that’s not a phrase that I’ve heard others in administration repeat or him repeat. Is that what is Israel has been doing? Cause that I mean indiscriminate bombing, depending on how you defined him, is potentially a war crime.

Well, John, look, here’s the bottom line. We do have unacceptably high levels of civilian casualties. We see very loose rules of engagement. Way looser than anything the United States would exercise. We would not drop a two thousand pound bomb on a refugee camp to target Hamas commander, just yesterday.

Snipers fired into a church compound, killing a mom and her daughter without warning. So it is very important, because the United States is not a bystander to this. We are a big supplier, of course. So supply the military assistance, to Israel. So we are with them entirely in the objective of ending the military threat.

But again, we need to make sure that our values are reflected in this so long as we are providing, all of this equipment.

So, Will, We share this objective, but we wanna make sure that the conduct reflects our values. Can you translate this for me?

So a very complicated topic. First of all, first of all, a, b, I’m so so delighted. This is my first chance to do the Secret Podcast with you. Many times as a guest, but this time that I I get to be with you as a host. And hopefully, we’re gonna get through this show folks without any expletives with apologies to Charlie.

We’re gonna manage to do that. So let me start with the Grenell thing. Here is Loyd Austin going to Israel. And Grenell is asking whether we’re gonna stop Israel from looking for the hostages. By the way, this this tweet from Grenell Is this after Israel has actually killed three of the hostages?

I believe he does this. So maybe Lloyd Austin would be there instead of telling Israel to stop looking for the hostages, maybe tell them to stop killing the hostages. And the fact that the hostages got killed is a symptom of what Chris Van Holland is talking about in that clip when he says loose rules of engagement. That’s a very important phrase. So There’s two things in that clip that we just played.

One is Joe Biden saying that Israel is doing indiscriminate bombing. Now Biden didn’t say this on camera, but he did say it. And so what we’re seeing is an escalation from Joe Biden. Not going further away from the truth, but going toward it. He’s been very restrained.

He’s been, look, we’re gonna be good friends to Israel. We’re gonna talk behind any criticism. We’re gonna try to do backstage out in front. We’re just saying we’re friends of Israel. But he’s being increasingly explicit about saying that what Israel is doing is indiscriminate.

And When Chris Van Holland talks about dropping two thousand bombs on a refugee camp, he’s getting detailed about so this is not an just a a blind accusation. There was recently a report on CNN that there have been about thirty thousand Israeli munitions, bombs dropped in Gaza, and half of them are dumb bombs. They’re not precise. They’re going to kill civilians. So what Israel is doing is predictably going to kill a lot of civilians and it has.

And when Chris Van Holland talks about the loose rules of engagement, that is a much more serious accusation. That is saying that Israel is telling its troops to operate by rules of fire. Again, we just saw three hostages killed, supposedly, that was against the rules of engagement. But Israel is deliberately using rules that while not intended to kill civilians are much more likely to kill civilians than if you had tighter rules of engagement.

Where do you see these conversations going? What I think is interesting is there is some nervousness building among Democrats, definitely not among Republicans, about the execution of of the campaign in Hamas and the conduct and everything you just described. And so there is some talk about conditioning aid. So, apparently, Biden has called this a worthwhile idea, but it’s not embracing it. What I see is that this is going to be punted until after the holidays.

And this debate could change a lot between now and when that aid package is being voted on. So in terms of the politics of this, where do you see it going here and what do you anticipate as Biden gets more explicit and leans more into the truth and puts more pressure I’m bibi Nascanyahoo. Where do you see it going between now and let’s say like January tenth, you know, when the Congress returns on January eighth, They have nine days to pass a bunch of government funding to just fund government operations. This is a different set of money, just so that the viewers understand it’s separate and apart. It’s sort of emergency spending.

And so this whole debate is going to be in the middle of the stew of inviting over just our, you know, our annual spending, which everyone knows is a regular future of the Congress. So take us overseas, where do you see that conversation going in? Do you actually think Democrats are going to lean in to conditioning aid because they don’t like the execution of this campaign and the way it’s going in Gaza? Or do you think that Biden between now and then can put enough pressure on Netanyahu that they pull back a bit. They changed their conduct.

They tightened their rules of engagement. Where where do you see it going?

Yeah. So I think they’re connected in the sense that Biden may be more able to persuade Netanyahu and the Israelis. To tighten the rules of engagement, to change the way that they’re conducting the war, to be less dangerous to civilians. If the Democrats and Biden have behind them, the threat the implicit threat that they will make this an issue in terms of whether to continue funding Israel’s side of the war. I don’t think they really wanna do that.

There are some progressives who are willing to do that. The Democratic party as a whole and certainly Joe Biden, they don’t want there to be a big public fight over whether we’re gonna give money to Israel. First of all, as we’re gonna be discussing, there’s so many other fights going on. And the Democrats are fighting with the Republicans about the border policies, which are all part of this negotiation. That’s a fight where the Democrats need to be united.

They need to figure out a position. So I don’t think they wanna open this fight with Israel. But it is true that we are helping Israel conduct this war by funding them. There are, in fact, US laws about you know, enforcing our values when we when we give money for something like this. So there is a legitimate case to be made.

And what’s going on in Israel is Benjamin Netanyahu and Biden are at loggerheads about this. And Netanyahu is resisting the the Americans. And at some point, The Americans have to be able to have some leverage they can point to against Netanyahu and say, listen, buddy. If you don’t change what you’re doing, you guys, we’re not gonna be able to get our Congress to continue to support you. And what’s going on between Democrats and Republicans around Israel is that the Republicans have a totally carte blanche position about Israel.

Because Israel was victimized horribly on October seventh, Israel can do whatever the hell it wants.

Absolutely.

And it is. And so the Democrats are gonna be taking any position to the I don’t know what to say, not to the left of that, but inside of that in terms of drawing some boundaries on what Israel can do.

Do you think that maybe Netanyahu goes around Biden to the Republicans, or is he humbly aware of the danger of his circumstance?

I would love to believe AB that Bibi Netanyahu has ever been humbly aware of anything. Right. He’s a humility in this guy really don’t go together. Can I flag one thing about these hostages that got shot? Yeah.

Okay. So the IDF is in Gaza’s in Gaza City. And three hostages come out. They’re shirtless. They’re waving a makeshift white flag, and they get shot.

And supposedly, the soldiers shot them wasn’t supposed to shoot them. Suppose of these is against the rules of engagement. But they got shot. Two of them get shot dead. One of them goes in, comes back out and gets shot again and killed.

Okay. This scene, the only reason we know about this is that those three people were Israelis because they were hostages. And so the IDF had to account for them. Three hostages are dead. We can’t hide this.

Maybe, how many times has this happened with people in Gaza who were not Israeli hostages, who were just Palestinian civilians, because if if you have just a bunch of twenty year olds going around, which is what happens in war. They’re armed. They’re scared. They’re on high alert. And somebody comes out.

How many Palestinian civilians have died this way? And we just don’t know about it because the IDF didn’t have to account for them. So I’m very concerned about that.

Let’s move on to another deeply disturbing topic, which is Ukraine. And so when we’re looking at this battle over supplemental funding. This is as bleak as it could be. Volodymyr Zelensky comes to the US again, leaves empty handed with congressional Republicans saying enough of the blank checks, and we can’t continue to do this. And a lot of them on the on the far right really kind of trashing him.

I mean, just if you look at social media, the way that they talk about him. It’s it’s really so nakedly pro Putin. It’s amazing. It’s not just, oh, the brave people of Ukraine, can’t depend on our money forever because we’re broke. It’s it’s not at all that.

It’s just naked hostility to Ukraine. So this is in the balance, and it’s terrifying that we’re in this place where it’s definitely the last money that will go out. If trump wins, that’s the end. I don’t know where this debate is going long term, but it doesn’t look good. And just in the next, again, as I said, three weeks or so, the idea that they’re gonna be able to balance this supplemental dance.

Taiwan doesn’t seem to be, controversial, but how he gets the Israeli package right with the Ukraine funding right and gets it out the door depends on this immigration. Compromise. Well, my gut tells me that Republicans don’t want to fund Ukraine. And so the idea that they would go in and approve a border compromise that would help Joe Biden control the border, calm the border, give the public the impression that he’s tightening up restricting asylum criteria, etcetera, trying to get control of the mess, which obviously would just help Joe Biden next year politically. It just doesn’t seem feasible to me that Republicans are in this to do this, to to fund Ukraine and to actually vote on a border compromise.

What do you think they’re doing?

Alright. So I think there’s two categories of problematic Republicans. One is those who really don’t wanna fund Ukraine who think that Vladimir Zelensky is, like, some thug in track pants and, you know, they’re they’ve followed the Donald Trump pro Putin line. Right? There’s a lot of them, especially in the house.

But there’s another category of Republicans who say, Hey, I really like the Lindsey Graham camp. I really deeply support Ukraine. I I want us to fund Ukraine. But if you don’t give us exactly what we want on the border policy, we’re just not gonna fund Ukraine. So these are kind of I don’t know what you could call these people exactly.

When somebody takes the Ukraine money hostage, I think they’re kinda telling you they don’t really support Ukraine. But you can get their votes. So I think that Biden actually can put together this package. He’s gonna have to make concessions on the border a lot of which I agree with, but he’s gonna have to give Republicans a lot of what they want. And he’ll be able to get those Lindsey Graham Mitch McConnell Republicans who are sort of halfies on Ukraine.

And with their vote I mean, the Republicans are all in on on Israel as we were discussing. It’s the Democrats who are problematic there. So I actually think Biden can put this together. And that the hitch is not really gonna be Ukraine. It’s gonna be what Democrats are gonna have to give away on the border to get it done.

But I think they can put that coalition together.

Wow. Okay. So it’s gonna look like ten Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell Republicans over on the Senate side. And how’s it gonna get through the house?

Remember, if this is all in a package, then there’s cover.

Because Robert who’s have to vote for Israel.

Yeah. You wanna you wanna be you wanna be seen as voting for Israel. You wanna be seen as, you know, no, the Ukraine has become unpopular. Right? But why should we help them with their border?

Right. So they won’t tank it because of Ukraine and the border and say it’s not fair to do this to Israel?

Yeah. I think Israel gives some of them cover. Look, there are a lot of Republicans in Congress who actually know that we should be funding Ukraine. But they’ve gotten the vibe. They know which way the wind is blowing inside their party, and it’s blowing thanks to Trump and others towards isolationism.

What they need is political cover to do. They don’t need to be persuaded, those folks, that funding Ukraine is the right thing to do. But they need They need a little bit of sugar. They need something that they can point to and say, look, I voted for the package because we had to stand with our friends in Israel. And we had to get the, you know, change the border policies and we did.

And Ukraine goes along for the ride in that politically.

So this is sounding good. A deal would help Biden, obviously. Mhmm. Although, let’s be honest, Will, nothing has. And with that, I very concerned.

Apparently, the White House has said something about Trump’s fascistic language over the weekend, but let’s play that sound from Saturday of him sounding like a maniac.

Joe Biden is a threat to democracy. He’s a threat. And, you know, we’ll bring an adversary and I’ll bring it in right now. But even Vladimir Putin, has anybody ever heard of Vladimir Putin? Of rush says that Biden’s and this is a quote politically motivated persecution of his political rival is very good for Russia because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy.

So, you know, we talk about democracy But the whole world is watching the persecution of a political opponent that’s kicking his ass. It’s been an amazing thing. And they’re all laughing at us, Victor Orban, the highly respected prime minister of Hungary said, Trump is the man who can save the West and world. He said this out of in an interview too, isn’t he? Yeah.

So he seems I know that he has talked this way before, but he seems to be really loosening up. If I didn’t know, he didn’t drink, I would thought maybe he had, like, something in his milkshake from McDonald’s that night because when he’s actually naming Putin and saying, like, Putin’s a validator for him, because Putin understands and appreciates the preservation of democracy and thinks that this government investigating and indicting Donald Trump is just basically the fall of the west. So he knows the nomination fight is is over will. Why do you think it’s getting worse

Well, Donald Trump is just being who he is and who he is. So just so everybody understands who Donald Trump is. Donald Trump has always been sort of a CEO type, a narcissist, an egotist, loves power, loves the trappings of power, and he loves when he got elected president, he became a member of the country club of dictators. He loves these guys. Putin and Xi and Kim Jong Un, he he wants to be part of this country club.

These are his buddies. He would be playing golf with them. Right? And the fact that they run, you know, we always talk about how she runs China with an iron fist. Oh, yeah.

Gosh. I’d love I’d love to be doing that. And he goes around and talks about things that she does, like, executing your people with one day trials. Gosh, wouldn’t it be great if we could do that in this country? And Trump is just getting increasingly explicit about it because he hasn’t been punished by the American voters, and he may not be, which, you know, is horrifying.

But Let me set the scene for you on this speech that that Trump is giving. This is Saturday in New Hampshire. So Trump is in New Hampshire. He’s doing this rally, everyone behind Donald Trump is holding a sign. All the signs say the same thing because they’re in New Hampshire.

The signs say live free or die. Right? But liberty, New Hampshire, freedom, live free or die. Right? This entire section of the speech, Trump is doing nothing but quoting his dictator friends.

Right? He starts off with Kim Jong Un. He’s talking about he says Kim Jong Un was out of nowhere, he brings up Kim Jong Un. He was was very nice to me. We had a very good relationship.

Then he invoked Kim Jong Un, like, Kim Jong Un likes me, but he doesn’t like Joe Biden because he literally says, because Kim Jong Un doesn’t like incompetent people. So he’s using the North Korean dictator as a standard of how to run a country and saying Joe Biden doesn’t measure up to Then he gets to this Putin stuff. Right? And he’s quoting Putin, saying Putin’s line about how the prosecution of Donald Trump shows that America isn’t a real democracy there. The government is has a politically motivated prosecution of a political rival.

He’s actually quoting Putin’s indictment of America, of the American system that the American system is no better than the Russian system or anyone else’s. He’s saying that’s true. He’s saying that’s true. And elsewhere in the speech, Trump says what he often says at these rallies, we’re not a great country anymore. We’re a laughing stock.

We’re terrible. Donald Trump is anti American, and he’s anti American democracy. And that’s why he’s quoting Putin and Xi and Kim and all of these dictators to that effect.

So I’ve heard him talk about these guys, you know, frequently in Orman and gee, and and and the ruthless control and everything, but I don’t know. He just wanted to tickle Vladimir Putin, just the naming him. It was a little too much for me. And of course, when Lindsey Graham because I had to bring up Lindsey Graham with you will. Of course, when you when he was asked about this dictator talk, he says I could care less about the way he talks.

Right.

So I’m really appreciative of that, and I’m so glad John McCain is not here to know that. So

Wait. Sorry. There was one other guy that he brought up. I’ve we I forgot from the clip. Orban.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Orban. Right?

He

loves him. So he’s, like, Victor Orban, and quoting him to the if and and Trump does this all the time. Victor Orban, he’s picked the one Western leader, you know, the west European leader who is himself an authoritarian. And just so folks understand the context, last week, Victor Orban, the authoritarian leader of Hungary Vetowed, the EU’s financial aid package to Ukraine. Right.

So, Trump is working with Orban. Trump is the vehicle in the United States. To block funding to Ukraine. Orban is the vehicle for doing it in Europe. So they’re all part of the Vladimir Putin team.

And the country club of dictators, which I love. So you and I feel the same way, which is that Christie has been providing a valuable service in being the truth teller in the Republican primary. But I think we have to look at the developments from over the weekend and sort of ask you know, what’s he doing? There’s a new pullout from CBS showing Nikki Haley now at twenty nine in New Hampshire and she’s gone up from eleven percent. She’s gone up eighteen points in September, and Trump went from fifty points in September in New Hampshire in CBS pull to forty four.

So he’s seen some erosion, and she’s really made this crazy game. So currently Christie is at ten DeSantis at eleven. So if you added Christy Ron DeSantis, she best trump in New Hampshire. So this is getting everybody very excited. And CBS Face the Nation Acer, Margaret Brennan Brennan was talking to Christie about it.

And he got grumpy and was, like, fighting with her about the polls. I don’t know what he’s doing. I don’t know what his end game is, but Again, he is the only person, and we have to give him props for this who is willing to talk about this kind of language from Donald Trump and the threat of Donald Trump. So in honor of Chris Christie, we’re gonna play a little Christie rant from yesterday.

I want you to take a listen to something else that Donald Trump said about immigrants last night.

They’re poisoning the blood of our country. That’s what they’ve and they poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about. But all over the world, they’re coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world. They’re pouring into our country.

South America, Africa, Asia, immigrants poisoning the blood of our country, the words of the leading Republican presidential candidate, your response.

He’s disgusting. And what he’s doing is dog whistling to Americans who feel absolutely under stress and strain from the economy and from the conflicts around the world. And his dog whistling it to blame it on people from areas that don’t look like us. And look, Jake, the other problem with this is the Republicans who are saying this is okay. Almost a hundred members of Congress who’ve endorsed him.

Nikki Haley who this week said he is fit to be president You’re telling me that someone who says that immigrants are poisoning the blood of this country, someone who’ve who who says Vladimir Putin is a character witness is fit to be president of the United States was the right president at the right time Nikki Haley should be ashamed of herself.

What Trump says is disgusting. I’m so grateful to Chris Christie. I would like to just actually Will Saletan listen to him for the rest of twenty twenty four. Like, there’s part of me that doesn’t want him to leave the race because I want him to tell the truth. And I was very, very surprised to hear him say that Nikki Haley should be shaping himself.

Because everyone is trying to get Chris Christie to leave the race and back Nikki Haley. And I don’t know that I see an endorsement coming. What are your thoughts on on his comments?

Well, just so everybody understands where I’m coming from on this, I’m a Biden supporter. I’m gonna vote for Joe Biden. Within the Republicans, I’m a Charlie Sykes supporter. Christy is the guy telling he’s the only one left Ace Hijensen’s technically in the race become Christie is the only one left who is telling the moral truth about Donald Trump and the cult of the Republican Party. Nikki Haley is in this middle ground where she is the classic line is Nikki Haley saying rightly or wrongly chaos follows Donald Trump.

Chris Christie is telling the truth, which is rightly because Trump is causing the chaos, but Nikki Haley is leaving an opening for Trump supporters to come to her by saying, You know, it might be wrong that chaos follows Donald Trump, but we all sort of know that. Right? And this cowardice is what makes Nikki Haley more electable within the Republican Party than Chris Christie. So the reasons why I like Chris are reasons why I don’t think he can get nominated in that party. And as a realist, I want Nikki Haley to search.

Because I think Ron DeSantis has proven himself to be a total stiff. So there’s really only one candidate who could possibly, long shot take out Donald Trump in the primary, and that’s Nikki Haley. And so I feel terrible and I hate myself for saying this a b, but

No self loading will.

My moral satisfaction in hearing Chris Christie continue to speak the truth Yeah. Is not more important than consolidation behind a plausible alternative to Trump. Okay. And so I want this this poll that shows a massive increase for Haley in New Hampshire already close enough Maybe, if this happened tomorrow and Trump got forty four in New Hampshire and Italy got twenty nine, that’s already sort of Gary heart level of, you know, wow. Somebody came up and, you know, that’s already that would be portrayed by the press as a real race.

But I think she could pass him with more consolidation. And that would give the Trump alternatives at least a shot of going into Super Tuesday with an alternative.

Trump dominates in Iowa. He is going to have a great Iowa. My theory of the case is that there was a piece actually when you and I were on with Charlie and Mona at the end of last week, Charlie Sykes an NBC piece, which he’s quoted in about what a cult it is in Iowa of Trump. Obviously, it is nationally, but in Iowa, there are three Iowans on a record. They dare to go on the record to say it’s really hard to oppose Trump.

Like, you don’t wanna tell your friends and family and neighbors that you do. So given that on the ground, that tension, in Iowa caucuses, you have to physically represent your choices and you it is not a secret ballot. Right? You’re like caucusing for somebody. So Trump is gonna roll, dude.

He is going to pound in Iowa. Not only does he have the polling lead by which Like, you can’t add Nikki Christie and Ron together to get close to Trump in Iowa, but even people who wanna caucus for other people are gonna back out and wimp out. So this is the thing. That’s what happens in Iowa. And then my question to you is why would New Hampshire even matter?

New Hampshire is gonna be an open primary where Democrats and independents are gonna vote. Republicans are gonna write it off, I bet the RNC puts out a statement and says, Trump will say it’s rigged if Haley were to win it with this consolidation. Let let’s she let’s say she got the fifty and Trump came in at forty four. It’s a total outlier. Right?

Why would anyone care about New Hampshire? It’s a democrat, rigged primary. It’s not real. It’s not real Republicans. It’s just a rhino thing.

For her. And then he goes on to South Carolina and Pounds. Or I just that’s my dark view, and I invite your disagreement.

Okay. So I’m I brought out the pony. I brought out the pony because I know.

I’m glad it’s always on hand.

Here are my ponies. And again, I think Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee for president. Right. Right now. Setting that aside, the case is, first of all, that New Hampshire loves to tweak Iowa.

New Hampshire loves to go the op away has often done so in the past. Right. So I know I think I was a lost cause, and I’m gonna give just a special demerit Kim Reynolds, the governor of Iowa for endorsing Ron DeSantis, which did nothing. But, I mean, this total stiff has no shot. And every every dollar that goes into that guy, every endorsement that goes in prevents consolidation of a plausible alternative, which he is not.

Okay. So I was screwed. We get to New Hampshire. I think there’s every chance that New Hampshire says, to hell with you, especially because of all the factors you just cited AB. They, you know, there are a lot of independents.

Well, Democrats can’t technically vote you can vote as an independent and the Republican primary. Right?

Right. So they might be because Biden’s not on

the Right.

No democratic race. Exactly. Exactly. And so I think it’s quite plausible with some consolidation that Nikki Haley wins New Hampshire. At that point, we have pony number two.

Sorry. Same pony. I’ll do Oh. Pony number two is the media loves a race. The media loves a contest.

Love super ten. There’s Right.

I mean okay. But, I I wanna grant you the all the pessimism, you and JBL and Charlie Sykes, the pessimism is based on a very well founded thing, which is that the the entire Republican Party, the electorate of the Republican Party sick is just locked into a cult doesn’t seem to care about any principle that gets violated. All that matters is standing behind Donald Trump. And so just winning in that party is really, really difficult for us to anybody saying, which Nikki Haley is sort of half trying to be. So that’s all true.

But She wins New Hampshire. South Carolina’s a big problem. Big problem because the governor there, Henry Mcmaster is behind Trump. Nikie Haley losing her own state, I grant you that probably cuts her throat. Even if she does okay there, we’re going into super Tuesday in, like, a week after that.

And, like, forty seven percent of the Republican delegates will be gone after Super Tuesday. Got like, there’s no time for her to, like, put together an operation after that. AB, there has to be a whole lot of, like, half Trump is skeptical Republicans who in the space of a couple of weeks turn around and say, Yeah. You know what? Nikki Haley, and then they all vote for her.

And that has to happen in all these states or Trump runs away with the delegates.

I don’t know if that technically was a pony the second one.

I felt like I need to put the pony away after I said that because I just killed it.

This is really rough. Everyone in the Bulwark community knows how fond I am of Joe Biden, and how just depressing it is that he has been written off because of his age. And now I just feel this bleakness around him that is today is the fifty first anniversary of the death of his wife and daughter. In a car crash seven days before Christmas, and he is in Delaware at their gravesite. Last night, he and Jill were in Delaware at campaign headquarters, and a car hit one of the cars in his motorcade.

He comes out of the campaign headquarters. And a reporter asks why are you losing a Trump in the polls? And he says they’re the wrong polls. Like, well, this is getting so sad. The polls are terrible.

They continue to be terrible. There’s a Washington Post story today. Saying that Alyssa slotkin, house member who’s running for Senate in Michigan, has told the high order of Democrats that she doesn’t think she can win in her state of Biden is off the top of the ticket. There was a anecdote in this Washington post report about Biden gathering his brain trust before he left for Nantucket for Thanksgiving and basically saying, like, why aren’t the polls getting better? Like, what’s our plan?

Oh, by the way, president Obama in another bleak account in Wall Street Journal on Saturday, two days ago, December sixteen. Obama let it be known to this reporter, Danny Linsky, that, like, he is one of the people that is worried that Biden will lose. And we’ll have an autocracy. So This is so, so, so seriously bad. And my heart hurts for Joe Biden.

I love Joe Biden. I can’t believe What a good man. This man is he’s been through so much. He is managing two massively important conflicts overseas, and he’s telling his team, like, how are we gonna change these poll numbers? I mean, Will, do you have a pony?

I don’t have a pony here. So anytime Joe Biden or anyone else says they’re the wrong polls, don’t believe the polls, the polls are a snapshot. This is almost always denial. It’s unhealthy. It’s outright dangerous, obviously, to deny election results.

But when you’re denying polls, you’re in a similar sort of silo about not accepting negative back. The net the feedback here is unanimous. They’re not all skewed. All these polls are showing Biden intro. So just the the general picture of where we are All it takes to have a a second Trump presidency.

And with all of the danger that that poses to the the continued existence of American democracy, is two things. And they’re both happening. One is the Republican Party itself remains a cult after January six did not turn away turned back is rallying around him. You could live with that one if the party got punished for that in the general election, but what we simultaneously have is not just in the United States, but in a lot of western democracies, a lot of anger at at incumbents, and a lot of dissatisfaction with various economies. We have the best of the economies.

And people still feel like so those two things together are producing an autocrat in the one major political party that’s running against the incumbent and a lot of anti incumbents sentiment, those two things together can result in the autocrat getting elected again. It’s very, very plausible. So I don’t have a pony for you on the prospects, as we say, the odds of Biden. So all I can do is really talk about the stakes and why people need to focus on the autocracy as we just discussed. The alternative to the income and everybody is grumbling about is right out there saying, and you’ve written about this.

He’s making it real explicit that he is going to be an autocrat. He’s not hiding the ball. You and Iab can’t make people care about that, but we can, like, underscore that this is what’s at stake and that you, mister and missus America, you may be unhappy with inflation, which is actually coming down. You may be unhappy with the border, which is gonna get better as republicans, Democrats work out a deal. There are a lot of things you may be unhappy about.

But this thing, the fact that this guy will steamroll the constitution already said he would suspend the constitution, has already tried to overthrow the American government, tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. We’re just gonna remind you of this and get you to focus on this because this is more important than any of that other stuff. You don’t get any more elections if we lose democracy.

Exactly. I saw Joe Trippy trying to be optimistic about the gap in, economic polling versus economic reality. And that there there is a lag and that there will be improvement that is probably felt. Eleven months from now that isn’t being felt today or let’s say ten months from now or nine months from now that isn’t being felt today. What will help, you know, is interest rates people’s ability to get a mortgage that should shift in into better territory.

That’s a huge complaint. The frustration is that inflation, like, once prices go up, they don’t go down. And so I love the JBLs championing zero inflation. But the average voter consumer, you know, American taxpayer has no idea that inflation’s at zero because they still can’t believe I saw butter on sale the other day, and it was on sale for five ninety nine. I mean, it was like two dollars off.

You know, for four six of butter. And so that is just so hard to grapple with when we’re trying to convince mister and missus America. That once you lose the system, you never get it back. Inflation is the easy line no matter what.

Folks, this is why we do the bulwark. Like, I know that some listeners and people complain that we talk too much about Joe Biden’s age and the polls and all that stuff, and we’re too bleak about that stuff. People. You can go everywhere in the media. They’re all talking about this.

They’re all talking about how how much trouble Joe Biden is and how, you know, the Democrats are screwed and all That’s the media line. What’s different about us is we’re the ones talking about the stakes. We’re in here talking every day about, hey, Donald Trump is categorically different from any other bad presidential candidate you ever had. Right? He is literally going to undermine throwaway, the constitution, democracy, the rule of law.

This is a categorical difference in every day, every week. We’re out there talking about this and his latest iteration of making clear that that’s what he would do. So this is why we do what we do, and we hope that it has some effect.

I totally agree, Will. I want everyone to try to find a way to talk to the people who probably are not tuned in to the stakes and try to encourage them to to appreciate the stakes. I think that’s what we all need to do. We do it at the board, and we want our readers and our viewers to try to invest some energy in the time we have left. To convince the convinceable.

Right? I don’t think we need to worry about the people who will never who just wanna reelect Donald Trump. I think there are Americans who don’t entirely understand the gravity and the consequences of of electing Donald Trump again. And that’s our mission. That’s our mission in the next ten months.

Is to make sure that we persuade the persuadable to wake up to sense the urgency and to do what they can.

And there are enough persuadables. There are enough of them. Yes. It happened in twenty twenty. We saw it happen.

It can happen again.

That’s true. Thank god for the pony. Well, you’re delightful. It’s really been fun and thank you and thank you for joining us today. Stay here for awesome lineup of subs for Charlie all week and throughout the holiday.

He’ll, of course, be back in the dreaded twenty twenty four, which is soon upon us. And I wanna send everyone, best wishes for health, hope, and laughter in the new year and constitutional order as well. Thanks, everyone.