The Bulwark: Live from New Orleans

[0] It's October 26, 2023.

[1] I'm Charlie Sykes.

[2] Welcome to the Bullwark podcast.

[3] We're going to be doing something a little bit different today.

[4] We've been on COVID lockdown here in Wisconsin.

[5] But the rest of the Bullwark team was down on the big easy last night for a wide -ranging discussion of everything from our fifth string speaker, Mike Johnson, to Joe Biden, Israel, any Semitism on the left.

[6] So today's podcast is going to be a replay of last night's conversation.

[7] Hey, a quick reminder.

[8] If you want to come to one of our bulwark events, the next one is scheduled in Washington, D .C. on November 16th.

[9] I'm going to be joined by special guest, Brian Stelter, and the rest of the bulwark crew will also be on hand to have a wide -ranging conversation, again, on the 2024 election and the news of the day.

[10] If you'd like to join us in Washington, D .C. on November 16th, just go to the bulwark website for more information.

[11] In the meantime, enjoy this conversation.

[12] from last night in New Orleans.

[13] Hey, everybody.

[14] How are y 'all doing?

[15] New Orleans, Louisiana, not too bad, right?

[16] Pretty good, French quarter.

[17] How many locals we got here tonight?

[18] We got some locals.

[19] We got back there.

[20] Team Sarah.

[21] Team Sarah.

[22] We have some focused groupies in the crowd.

[23] Any focused groupies?

[24] A couple.

[25] Right up front.

[26] Thank you.

[27] Hope someone's wearing the t -shirt My lady's right there All right We got Sarah Long Islander That's Sunny Bunch You might know him He's as a Bullard And at the end we have Mona Sharon So there's this thing about Monachair We're not We're not gonna age anybody But it's interesting fact When Montcharon How many New York Times Best Sellers do you have?

[28] Two That's more than anybody else On the stage So I'm just saying Hypothetically Should another book of mine come out, it's very important that everybody in here so that I can get to even here at the bulwark.

[29] All right.

[30] Boy, you have an interesting day today, huh?

[31] Mike Johnson, we have a speaker.

[32] I guess we have some fresh things for everybody to talk about.

[33] I'm interested in everybody's opinion, but I want to, how do you people, does anybody here that really knows Mike Johnson?

[34] Do we have any like, oh, yeah, we got a couple?

[35] We got a couple.

[36] Okay.

[37] I'm finding you after for the opo.

[38] Here's the thing about Mike Johnson.

[39] He is a rabid evangelical conservative, very similar to maybe your old boss, Rick Santorum.

[40] Thank you for that.

[41] I remember you like to ring out that.

[42] I appreciate that.

[43] So he had some very Rick Santormy qualities.

[44] He was one of the most active supporters of the Stop the Steel effort, including something that our friends at Republican Accountability Pack uncovered today, which was his, he was even pushing the Dominion voting machine.

[45] He was.

[46] Conspiracy, among other things.

[47] But he just, I stole a line from you today.

[48] Do you know?

[49] Have you heard it?

[50] No. So he, like, he is, he's kind of like Patrick McKenry in the streets, but Jim Jordan and the sheets, you know?

[51] I sold out from Sarah.

[52] So he looks nice.

[53] You know, like he looks like he just wants to, like, he looks like he drinks milk with a straw and, like, goes to church and gets there early.

[54] and sits in the first row of the pew and, like, it was the speech debate captain.

[55] So, like, was it just meant to be, do you think, for Mike Johnson?

[56] Do you think he is, like, representing what the Republican Party is now?

[57] Or, how do you think we ended up here?

[58] Okay, here's what happened.

[59] And actually, it's really important that people understand this because this is what's happening more broadly.

[60] Why is he the speaker right now?

[61] Because people were exhausted.

[62] They were tired of fighting over this.

[63] And so they grabbed a backbencher that they thought they could bring to consensus.

[64] And sometimes I say this at the end of every show, but I'm going to say it at the beginning this time, that it is a reason why eternal vigilance on democracy is so important because when you are tired is when terrible things happen and you let people through, right?

[65] I don't know you're off in a reason, it doesn't seem to anybody knows who this guy was or realizes he was a congressman.

[66] But it doesn't matter who he is, actually.

[67] because what it tells us isn't that much about him.

[68] It tells us about the rest of them.

[69] And we were having a little bit of a love fest over Ken Buck last week, right?

[70] Because Ken Buck...

[71] Seems like Ken Buck means a therapist.

[72] Well, Ken Buck was all over the TVs telling us about how you cannot support somebody who was out there saying that the election was rigged that was endorsing January 6th.

[73] And this guy was like the person behind the scenes.

[74] He is the, yeah, the clean -cut Jim Jordan who was organizing the whole thing.

[75] He organized the Ken Paxton, you know, the Texas AG letter where they were going to try to, you know, throw out the votes of a bunch of people in the state.

[76] So it showed us again who these guys are and the fact that like, while we all thought there was a brief moment last week that the center was holding, it caved the second they thought they had.

[77] It also shows it was just personal about Jim Jordan.

[78] Like it was about Jim Jordan.

[79] It wasn't about January 6th.

[80] It wasn't about the principled stand.

[81] Mona, what do you, like, where should, people in the crowd panic level be about Mike Johnson?

[82] Like what is your assessment?

[83] Is it like this is kind of a guy that was faking it, get along, or is this like the real kind of danger?

[84] Yeah, so there are two ways to look at this, as I see it.

[85] On the one hand, it would have been 10 years ago, inconceivable that somebody who tried to steal an election and who was an election denier would have been anywhere near the speaker's gavel.

[86] And the fact that now, this was the bare minimum, this was the entrance exam that you had to pass to get the job, is to say the 2020 election was stolen, Donald Trump has given me his little pat on the shoulder, I'm okay, and that's the only way that you can get to be speaker in this Republican House.

[87] All right, that is pretty grim.

[88] The other side of this, though, is that he has just inherited the worst job in the world.

[89] And so the caucus has not changed.

[90] They settled on this guy because they couldn't bear the humiliation of dragging this on any longer.

[91] Sarah's right.

[92] They're tired.

[93] They're exhausted.

[94] And the country was getting exhausted.

[95] And they were worried that maybe the voters might just like suddenly notice that they can't govern.

[96] They didn't notice.

[97] Really?

[98] Have you done groups?

[99] Nobody noticed?

[100] Well, I love...

[101] I'm sorry.

[102] Nobody noticed?

[103] There's like something going on out of there.

[104] And since 23 days, they didn't notice a little.

[105] They don't know what the Speaker of the House does.

[106] Has anyone ever noticed the House?

[107] No. So PJ O 'Rourke had a great line.

[108] He said, the Republicans of the Party who say that government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it.

[109] Sunny, I have one, I think that there is, I think there are a lot of medium -term things to be low -level concerned about when it comes to Mike Johnson, we can talk about.

[110] I think there's one acute short -term concern, which is Ukraine.

[111] So he voted against both of the last funding efforts.

[112] There was some talk today that, I'll believe when I see it, but there's some talk today that they came to some sort of back deal agreement on the CR to avoid the shutdown fight, so he doesn't like become speaker, and then it's like, hey, shut down fight.

[113] So it seems like they're going to solve that, but Ukraine wasn't part of that talk.

[114] Biden is out there, I think, smartly offered and said, hey, we're going to give $100 billion, some to Ukraine, some to Israel, some to the border.

[115] There are a couple other things in there.

[116] Are there enough of your people left?

[117] Are there enough free beacon neocons left to pressure this guy just to at least get us through one more cycle of Ukraine?

[118] Or how worried are you?

[119] I'm pretty worried.

[120] I don't see, look, you mentioned that there was some chatter about him saying, well, you know, Russia is a real threat.

[121] And there's this weird thing going on right now where some of these guys are like, yeah, you know, at least Ukraine makes sense because of Russia.

[122] You know, we don't want to be involved with the Israel, Gaza stuff at all.

[123] Like, we don't want any part of that.

[124] But, you know, the Ukraine.

[125] So, like, there's almost a, the two sides are, one side is playing both of these conflicts against each other, which is terribly disappointing to me. Like, as you say, I am one of the last unrepentant neocons.

[126] I just want to arm all of them to fight all of their wars.

[127] You know, that would be, that would be the preferred outcome here.

[128] But I don't know.

[129] Should we be throwing them some weapons, too?

[130] I don't know which side of it was supposed to be on.

[131] Yeah, I got to read up on that one, but possibly.

[132] The one good thing I have, Sonny, which you'll appreciate, is I saw one good fact about Mike Johnson today.

[133] I consumed a lot of information about Mike Johnson, and I saw a single good fact that I liked, and that was from a MAGA person tweeted unhappily that he receives a lot of money from Raytheon and Northrop Gromond.

[134] And I was like, okay.

[135] We can work with this.

[136] Maybe the military industrial complex can come through for Ukraine one more time.

[137] I don't know.

[138] I'll balance that by saying that I saw Matt Gates' appearance on Stephen Bannon's show where he's like, this is a win for us.

[139] This is a win for us.

[140] And anyone who doesn't see it as a win for us, the MAGA crowd is just, they don't know what they're looking at.

[141] I'll take Matt Gates at his word.

[142] Isn't it so annoying that Matt Gates has been right a lot lately?

[143] Matt Gates was out there talking about how the impeachment thing was a sham and how Kevin McCarthy's an empty suit and how the MAGAs have taken over the house.

[144] Like, God, that fucking big forehead has a couple of good points in it.

[145] It's a little frustrating.

[146] I mean, Matt can tell you what's happening in the house.

[147] Matt needs sucks, but he wants to be ascendant.

[148] Right, he really sucks.

[149] But he does want everybody to understand that they are ascendant in the house, that they are ascendant as a political force, and he's just correct about that.

[150] I think people were overreading the rejection of Jim Jordan as a rejection of MAGA and, like, well, Trump, you know, doesn't have the juice.

[151] And, like, Trump went and made sure he proved he had the juice by emmer lasting four hours and then getting a bona fide election denier to run the House.

[152] I will say on the upside, there's a lot of – the downsides are very real if, like, we don't pass Ukraine funding.

[153] We don't do the things that we need to do.

[154] The upside is I was one thing – the one good thing about Jim Jordan was that it was at least truth in advertising, right?

[155] It was like, this is who the party is.

[156] This is who's running it now.

[157] We don't have Kevin McCarthy with his haircut, making people, you know, the wolf and sheep's clothing, putting a nice face on the election denialism and everything else.

[158] And so this guy, this is who they are.

[159] This is who they wanted.

[160] And like, now we'll have him to run in every swing district in Congress in 2024.

[161] I think that's true.

[162] Isn't this, but I'm curious what the voters think of this because on the one hand he's he nobody knows who he is he's not nancy pelosi you can't be like look at this guy on the other hand can't can't democrats say like this guy wants to ban abortion at the federal level this guy wants to and you know ukraine funding etc i mean like isn't he extreme he wants to overturn gay marriage like isn't he extreme enough that they can just pin all of that on yeah that's my point my point is is it's true and advertising he can they can and they don't know who he is now uh they will they'll know who he is Don't Shreveport my house district.

[163] That seems like that could be a winning message.

[164] I've run so many ads micro -targeted at you.

[165] Yeah, don't.

[166] Like, Mona, do you think there's something too about?

[167] Well, yeah.

[168] So there was a debate that we all participated in.

[169] Tim, you did an interview with somebody, I'm forgetting who, but discussing whether people should have worked for Trump in order to keep the country from going off the road.

[170] Yeah, me and Steve Hayes.

[171] Thank you.

[172] Should you, you know, work for Trump to keep the country at least somewhat between the 50 -yard lines?

[173] And Tim was saying, no, because you gave it cover and you made it seem more normal than it really was.

[174] And it would have been better to just let Trump, you know, appoint his lunatics.

[175] And then the, you know, the country would have been in real trouble, but at least the voters would have seen the reality who Trump was.

[176] some people said now you know when it comes to national security when it comes to the defense department that's just too big a risk to take but when it comes to somebody like the speaker of the house who does not have his finger on the button at least i mean he is two steps away from it but but for now he doesn't have his finger on luckily Kamala's still young yeah yeah well luckily for some of us i guess i won't speak for everybody but but in this case it really does seem like it's fine that this will allow voters to make an evaluation about the party because the window dressing which was Kevin McCarthy is gone and you know it's not quite Jim Jordan so Adam Kinsinger said something funny he said Johnson is is Jim Jordan in drag Kinsinger was working that line hard I got that text too Okay, Kensinger is trying to be serious, Congress guys, trying to work the line into the podcast space via text message.

[177] Hey, folks, this is Charlie Sykes, host of the Bullwork podcast.

[178] We created the Bullwork to provide a platform for pro -democracy voices on the center right and the center left for people who are tired of tribalism and who value truth and vigorous yet civil debate about politics and a lot more.

[179] And every day, we remind you, folks, you are not the crazy ones.

[180] So why not head over to thebullwork .com and take a look around.

[181] Every day, we produce newsletters and podcasts that will help you make sense of our politics and keep your sanity intact.

[182] To get a daily dose of sanity in your inbox, why not try a bulwark plus membership free for the next 30 days?

[183] To claim this offer, go to thebowork .com slash Charlie.

[184] That's thebillwork .com forward slash Charlie.

[185] We're going to get through this together, I promise.

[186] I have one more strategic question about Mike Johnson that I'm going to get to with another special guest we have coming at the end.

[187] So I want to move on from Mike Johnson really quick and just have one moment of Schadenfreude about Tom Emmer before we get to Israel.

[188] JVL wrote today about the Unic Republicans.

[189] I don't know if you saw this about how Tom Emmer got his balls cut off by Donald Trump and then just did, and then said, thank you, sir.

[190] I appreciate it.

[191] Like, this has been the thing that is, I know I wrote a book about this, I'm supposed to know, and I'm supposed to be the one that the accident, but it's the thing that's most flummoxed me. It's like, doesn't one of these people just want to say, fuck you, man?

[192] Like, no, like, no, I will not do this.

[193] I really, we spent three weeks with this, and can any of the three of you open question explain to me why not a single one of the two, 120 of them said, this was my moment, I am going to go stand up and do the right thing, and I'm going to try to create a consensus government with Hakeem Jeffries, and I'm not going to let Donald Trump make fun of me, and I'm going to call him a crazy, racist lunatic, and at the end of this, Walter Isaacson's going to make sure I get some board seats from Aspen Institute donors.

[194] Like, that seems like a logical thing, but not nobody.

[195] Why?

[196] Because they like being in government.

[197] They like being in the house.

[198] Really?

[199] They don't want to have people sending them death threats because they've betrayed Donald Trump.

[200] I mean, like, I can think of a lot of reasons why, because they're cowards, I don't know.

[201] Really?

[202] Yeah.

[203] Also, for a lot of these people, I'm sorry to say, they are too dumb to make a good private sector salary.

[204] And so this is as good as it gets for them.

[205] And they'll hold on with their white knuckle grip.

[206] I just want to sometimes, I just sometimes fantasize Sarah.

[207] I just like, I wish, you know, back to the future was real.

[208] And I want to get in the thing and fly back to 2013 and go to Tom Emmer's house in Minnesota and meet his wife with their probably Dom sub material that they have, whatever he gets into.

[209] Come on.

[210] Come on.

[211] Come on.

[212] We're in New Orleans.

[213] We're in the French Quarter.

[214] And I want to say to, there's a very interesting shop right around the corner.

[215] I want to take you to.

[216] They sell some very interesting goods right around the corner.

[217] if anybody's interested.

[218] And I just want to read Tom Emmer Donald Trump's tweet.

[219] And I just want to be like, this is what is going to happen.

[220] You are going to be in Congress and you are going to support a coup.

[221] You're going to support the game show host to become an autocrat and running the country without a democracy.

[222] And he's going to create a social media thing where he calls you a rhino wimp and you are going to say thank you.

[223] And I just want to tell him that.

[224] I'd be like, 10 years from now, this is what's going to happen.

[225] And I think that all these guys would be like, no way.

[226] Of course they would.

[227] Never.

[228] I would never do that.

[229] But so, what does Liz tell you?

[230] You and Liz hang out, don't you?

[231] Cheney?

[232] Yeah.

[233] What does she say?

[234] Why only Liz?

[235] Well, also, Adam.

[236] Look, here's the thing.

[237] Hold on.

[238] It's not just the people who are in Congress.

[239] We've been asking ourselves this question forever.

[240] I was just talking about this with some people.

[241] Behind closed doors, they all say Donald Trump is a psychopath.

[242] Obviously.

[243] They know.

[244] It's not like...

[245] Obviously.

[246] Right?

[247] They are afraid of the threats, but a lot of it is that in the early days, people did stick their heads up.

[248] I don't know if you guys even can remember back to...

[249] Remember who Jeff Flake is?

[250] He's got a great life.

[251] He's an ambassador to Turkey.

[252] That's fine, that's fine, but no, no, no. Do you remember?

[253] He stood up.

[254] Sure.

[255] And he got, but he's done.

[256] He's done in the party.

[257] It's all over.

[258] He's ambassador to Turkey.

[259] That's all.

[260] Awesome.

[261] I'm available.

[262] I don't know if there are any Joe Biden people out here?

[263] Whatever.

[264] Actually, I don't want to, the answer is they're cowards.

[265] I don't know.

[266] I don't want to sit up here and make excuses for them.

[267] It's very strange.

[268] Actually, the important part is not why they don't speak up now.

[269] Actually, it leads me to a different point, which is this.

[270] Yeah, I know.

[271] Sarah's stronger than me. Yeah.

[272] Not kidding.

[273] That is real true.

[274] Do you guys know Tim and I used to travel together and we used to have to share hotel rooms as we work for like...

[275] Very uncomfortable.

[276] Yeah.

[277] Yeah.

[278] One time he left me at a gay bar in Minnesota by myself, because he just left with somebody and didn't tell me. My husband's because I'm in a covenant marriage.

[279] Like, like, like, like, Johnson.

[280] Yeah.

[281] Anyway, you had something else trying to say.

[282] Here's the different point.

[283] The point is actually, it is the point about speaking up, which is we're about to go into I hate to tell you this, but it is going to be Joe Biden versus Donald Trump.

[284] That's the election we're facing.

[285] That's what's going to happen in 2024.

[286] And maybe RFK Jr. I don't know.

[287] And the test for everybody this time around, Millie and Kelly and Mattis, all of these guys sat there in the administration.

[288] They've all been talking in background on books.

[289] They've all watched the coup happen.

[290] People are either going to say something, now or they will regret it for the rest of their lives and we will all pay the price because the only people that can really make a difference now is like and that is like the thing that we have to demand it's not to can't go back to the future we can't demand now that they speak up because like it's the last time it's really going to matter and like that pressure we have to be putting them on them and we should call them cowards if they don't Sarah you you're the expert on this but don't you think we should wait till September of 24, then run a whole series of ads.

[291] If they do it now, it'll be forgotten by then.

[292] We need to hold our fire on that.

[293] Okay, so that's a strategic question.

[294] I'm actually trying to pose like a moral question, a question of what is the right thing to do and are people going to understand?

[295] So, because actually I've already heard there are people, maybe former presidents, or people are already posing the question to them.

[296] Will you say something going into 2024?

[297] And they're should find that unacceptable.

[298] Absolutely.

[299] What, no, Sonny's going to say something to make me mad.

[300] Can I, can I ask one, can I ask one strategic question?

[301] Would, would that even work or would it backfire?

[302] No, it becomes, then it becomes, look at the Uniparty coming out against Donald Trump.

[303] This is our guy.

[304] They're attacking him.

[305] These are all traitors.

[306] They're traitors to Donald Trump.

[307] What are, you know, why would we listen to these people?

[308] They took his money.

[309] They took his jobs.

[310] They, like, I have about as much faith in the voters as JVL does.

[311] Okay, guys, just doing this whole thing, since you're going to stand in for JVL.

[312] I need to stand up.

[313] I'm just, I'm staying in my chair.

[314] I'm cool, I'm cool.

[315] Taste a little bit.

[316] No, no, I'm fine.

[317] How do people in the room feel about democracy?

[318] Do we love democracy?

[319] Who think is part of democracy?

[320] Who's doing the democracy?

[321] We are.

[322] The voters are doing the democracy.

[323] So we can't just say...

[324] The people on Bourbon Street.

[325] Yeah, all of them.

[326] The people in Mandeville.

[327] All of them.

[328] All of them.

[329] All of them.

[330] Homa.

[331] They're voting.

[332] I don't know what that means, but yeah.

[333] Johnny, it's not good.

[334] It's not good.

[335] They're voting in Homa.

[336] And so we better figure out how we are going to persuade enough of those people that Donald Trump is a sufficient enough danger, which he absolutely is.

[337] It is not like 2020, where we didn't know.

[338] know what he was going to do.

[339] We do know now that he'll pull us out of NATO and he will abandon Ukraine.

[340] We do know now that there will be no guardrails.

[341] None of these people will work for him.

[342] Mattis won't work for him again.

[343] You know who's going to run DOJ?

[344] Rudy Giuliani.

[345] Pardon Rudy Giuliani.

[346] You know who's going to run the State Department?

[347] Mike Flynn.

[348] Like, just sit with it for a second and let it consume you.

[349] They make Mike get states.

[350] Let's not give it to Mike Quinn yet, okay?

[351] Biggs out there.

[352] All right.

[353] So our only, the main option, right, is to persuade a small slice of voters who will be up for grabs and a bunch of people in their military uniforms all saying together.

[354] I agree.

[355] They can come a little bit later.

[356] My fear is that they're going to do one Atlantic profile or one interview and they're going to sign one letter with 20 people and they're going to say, I did my duty.

[357] I said it.

[358] I said it out loud.

[359] That's not enough.

[360] Like, we've got to tell this story over and over again.

[361] We've got to make sure voters hear it because I just, I want people to start getting attuned to the level of catastrophe.

[362] Can we show them?

[363] Yeah.

[364] I hope you'll indulge me. I want to make a pedantic point.

[365] Oh, no. I love pedantic.

[366] I'm against democracy, but I am for liberal democracy.

[367] Okay?

[368] So democracy is what they had in and have in Hungary, where the majority gets to take away the rights of the minority, you know, 51%.

[369] So, you know, your religion doesn't get protected, your free speech doesn't get protected, because the majority has decided it wants its way.

[370] So we don't have that.

[371] We have a liberal democracy where the rights of minorities are protected and where we have rule of law and where we have limitations on government.

[372] That's what I'm for.

[373] Thank you very much.

[374] I like liberal democracy, too.

[375] I've been trying to take back liberal.

[376] I don't, Sonny Clocheris.

[377] I've been trying to take back liberal for our people, you know, because the lefties, they want progressive.

[378] I'm like, let them have it.

[379] Like, I'm going to be like the British liberals.

[380] You know, that's nice.

[381] You know, but that's, you know, it's kind of the same.

[382] In Australia, the Aussies, the liberals.

[383] Anyway, for another day.

[384] I want to show them, I want to go back to Mark Millie and these guys.

[385] Mark Millie's been good.

[386] I want to go back to Mattis and these fellas Condi and the people that have liked been hanging out with Walter and Aspen and not really doing a whole lot.

[387] No offense, Walter.

[388] What I'm wondering is, can we show them, Charlie?

[389] Charlie did a good YouTube video the other day.

[390] Charlie's not here.

[391] He's going to listen to this, actually.

[392] Could everybody say hi to Charlie really quick?

[393] Hey, Charlie!

[394] We miss you.

[395] Charlie did a good YouTube video the other day, and it showed Brian Stelter telling Jenna Ellis.

[396] It was like, you were going to regret this someday.

[397] He said in 10 to 20 years.

[398] I know, he said 10 to 20 years.

[399] I was like, you're going to regret this.

[400] I just watched it, and I was like, who was a lot sooner than that.

[401] Yeah, you're going to have done this several years.

[402] And then the next video is her crying in court, which I did enjoy.

[403] And watch a few times.

[404] You'll be shocked to hear that JVL was not satisfied, but the tears.

[405] He wanted more pain.

[406] When I was talking about how much I enjoyed that, he was like, not enough pain for her.

[407] But anyway, classic JVL.

[408] But can we not show that video to these guys and just be like, here's where.

[409] You're going to be crying in the camps in three years if you don't talk now.

[410] Like, this is your moment to avoid regretting it.

[411] Like, what knobs and levers can we pull to, like, get them out of the Stanford Ivory Tower?

[412] I don't think weeped it.

[413] Jack Smith seems like he's on that.

[414] Jackis?

[415] Yeah.

[416] I don't know that we can do anything about it, but he seems to be grinding them.

[417] Here's what I picture.

[418] In a few months, Sarah Longwell is going to place some calls, and they are going to take your calls.

[419] We're talking about Mattis and all the people who were in the Trump White House.

[420] And you're going to say, we want you to cut some ads.

[421] And all together if possible, but individually, if necessary.

[422] And you're going to look into the camera and you're going to say, I sat with Donald Trump.

[423] I served him.

[424] I was not anti -Trump at first.

[425] But because of what I saw, he can never hold that office again.

[426] And Sarah's going to make that happen.

[427] I really believe that, actually.

[428] Thank you.

[429] Future me sounds awesome.

[430] I'm going to start carrying around a paper bag for the next year.

[431] It's kind of crazy that we're at this level of where we're relying on Jim Mattis to get a TV ad to save us from a Donald Trump autocracy.

[432] It's a little bit too tenuous for my taste, I guess.

[433] Wish we're in a different place.

[434] I want to go on to another tenuous situation.

[435] We're just doing uplifting talk here.

[436] French Quarter.

[437] Nothing but positivity here.

[438] Joe Biden was talking about Israel today.

[439] So I went to GW, as much as I own, as much as I rep LSU.

[440] I actually graduated from GW.

[441] We can talk about that after.

[442] But there were not, there's not some great stuff happening my alma mater this week.

[443] And it's one thing to be like, oh, some college students signed a letter.

[444] It's like another thing when some college students are like praising our Hamas martyrs on the side of the library at campus.

[445] Projecting it on the library.

[446] That's not good, to say the least.

[447] And some of the numbers about young people have been bad.

[448] And what Rashida Talib has done has been bad.

[449] And we can talk about all that.

[450] But I just want to start with, Joe Biden has been, like, quite good on this.

[451] Like, quite, quite, quite good.

[452] And today, and today, he was asked about, yesterday, Yesterday, KJP gave a very bad answer about anti -Semitism.

[453] But today, the actual president was asked about the deaths in Palestine, a legitimate question.

[454] And he expressed empathy about the deaths, but also at the same time said, I also don't believe the information that Hamas is putting out.

[455] And a lot of lefty folks were like really pissed about this.

[456] And I thought it was like, people are always like, where is Joe Biden's sister soldier moment?

[457] And I was like, Joe Biden standing in front of the White House and saying, I do not believe the Hamas numbers based on the, based on the intel we have, is causing him some trouble.

[458] And so, anyway, I guess my first question for Mona is how you assess how he's been doing, and then I want to talk about the politics.

[459] Okay, so Biden has been magnificent.

[460] The last two weeks have been the best of his presidency.

[461] I mean, he has inhabited the office in a way that he has not been able to do until now.

[462] And it's been really terrific.

[463] Now, here's the thing.

[464] On the left, it's a different problem.

[465] So we've talked a lot at the bulwark.

[466] We focus on the problem of the authoritarianism and radicalism that is filtering up from the grassroots.

[467] And it comes from the people.

[468] Now, they are fed a lot of crap by the conservative media.

[469] So that's part, but it has created a problem of the grassroots that then the politicians and the elites, I'm talking about the right, politicians and elites have responded to this.

[470] They feel like in order to make their constituents happy, they have to get more and more authoritarian and crazy.

[471] On the left, it's quite different.

[472] On the left, it's not bubbling up from the bottom.

[473] You, you know, stop your average Democrat on the street and say, what do you think about the Israel -Palestine thing?

[474] and they're going to say, well, I mean, of course, Israel has a right to defend herself.

[475] And I really feel for the Palestinians, it's an awful thing.

[476] They're not going to be saying, go Hamas, okay?

[477] But the elites on the left are really corrupted.

[478] And they are the ones who are cheerleading for mass murder and not seeming to get that, you know, that they've got a moral screw loose if they can see what Hamas did two weeks ago and not respond with moral revulsion.

[479] Yeah, so here's my question.

[480] Either one of you can take this or both.

[481] I really, I don't mean to be a Joe Biden fan girl on this.

[482] And all of us have, like, we're pretty harsh about the Afghanistan.

[483] So I've not been 100 % with him on foreign policy stuff all the time.

[484] But shouldn't Biden be getting more credit for this because of what Mona is talking about, right?

[485] It would be easy to stand with Israel if everyone in his coalition was lockstep.

[486] with him.

[487] But because this is the one issue where there are people that disagree with them, some people with good faith disagree, some people have some kind of crazy views disagree, like shouldn't he be getting more credit with center, center right folks because he's been so stalwart on this?

[488] Well, this is, look, like you, I was a little bit worried after Afghanistan, you know, but this is the perfect opportunity for Biden to make the case.

[489] you know, the Republicans have embraced their crazies.

[490] They've embraced their crazies.

[491] I represent the middle 60 % of the country, the 60 % that tells the pollsters, yeah, we support Israel's right to exist and defend itself.

[492] And yeah, I think you're totally right.

[493] I mean, like Mona, I have been shocked and vaguely appalled by a lot of the talk, but it's also been revelatory in a very real way because like when academics say things like well what did you think decolonization was going to look like like yeah i knew what it was going to look like in the context of israel it was going to look like this that's horrible that's why i don't support it and that's why joe biden doesn't support it and that's like it's it's the best case for joe biden is here is a guy who is maintaining the united states's role in the national order or the international order and he's doing a great job at it so isn't this isn't this what like so like it's not just Biden actually.

[494] It's Dan Goldman who I had on the podcast Sunday.

[495] My buddy Peter Hamby wrote an article who had Alyssa Slokkin and Jake Auchincloss and Richie Torres.

[496] Aren't they doing all the things that all of the anti -anty Trump or never Trump Republicans asked Republican leaders to do?

[497] Like saying to the people in their own side who they think are being extreme, like you're being extreme and crazy?

[498] Aren't they all doing that?

[499] I think so.

[500] I think it's it's kidding.

[501] Yeah, maybe not all.

[502] But also, like, I want to say two things.

[503] One, the situation in Israel is complicated.

[504] Condeming Hamas is not.

[505] It's like a very simple thing.

[506] People should be able to condemn terrorists.

[507] And I think that Joe Biden...

[508] I got just really quick.

[509] I'm sorry.

[510] I got a tweet today that was like, you centrist think that it's so...

[511] You're being so logical by opposing Hamas terrorism.

[512] And I was like, yeah.

[513] It's really hard to oppose Hamas, think, has not been that great and also not want Palestinian kids to die.

[514] That is like, ooh, we're scary centrist, watch out.

[515] Watch out.

[516] Anyway, sorry, go ahead.

[517] From a political standpoint, look, I don't know, I don't know if Joe Biden's going to get credit, or maybe he'll start to get some grudging credit along the way.

[518] This is one of those situations where, like, it doesn't matter, really, if he's getting credit right now.

[519] What he should do is Joe Biden clearly believes right now, what he's saying.

[520] It is his finest moment because he has moral clarity at the moment.

[521] He's speaking from his heart every time he does it.

[522] He's speaking like a normal person that is empathetic.

[523] And as a result, it will transcend some of the age concerns.

[524] He will look like a leader.

[525] It will either give him that.

[526] If it doesn't, nothing else will.

[527] Like this is, this is his best opportunity to show that he still has the ability to lead this country, to be a good commander in chief.

[528] I thought that oval office speech was the best thing I've ever seen from him, and I hope he continues to behave this way, and, like, here's the thing.

[529] He should just do the right thing and, like, let what happens happen, because he knows it's the right thing, and he believes in it.

[530] So that was a really nice talk, really nice, but it was a long way of saying, you know, I'm saying there's a chance.

[531] You don't think the voters are going to care about this.

[532] You don't think that they're going to give me credit.

[533] I mean, I will just tell you that, like, this is not great.

[534] We've asked of the voters lately, both about Israel and about Ukraine for a long time, like, even swing voters, like, they just really have internalized this idea that, like, we shouldn't do anything abroad, that we have lots of problems here, we should take care of our own border, we should spend money here.

[535] This is the argument Republicans have been pumping into the ecosystem now for a long time, and frankly, it wasn't just, this was also something that you heard a lot of Democrats say back in the day, back when I wasn't, you, I was a much less big fan of them.

[536] All right.

[537] We got a special guest coming up here in a minute, but I want to play my favorite game.

[538] Is everybody ready?

[539] Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.

[540] It's president or jail.

[541] Okay.

[542] We go around, and everybody tells us, how likely you think it is going to be that two years from now, when we gather here in the free city of New Orleans, that Donald Trump will be either president.

[543] I'm going to get you time to think about this by asking the question in the longest way possible.

[544] You'll either be president.

[545] You'll either be in jail or neither, none of the above.

[546] And I'm going to lump in being on house arrests and Mar -a -Lago with the Cougars as being part of jail.

[547] So jail or housewife as president or neither.

[548] My current spot is 45 % president.

[549] No, no, 45 % president, 40 % neither, 15 % jail.

[550] Moving down the panel.

[551] I'll swap your top two.

[552] So 45 % neither, 40 % president, 15 % jail.

[553] Ooh, all right, little jail, hope.

[554] What about president from jail?

[555] Oh, president from jail?

[556] That's a possibility.

[557] I think it happened.

[558] I keep wondering, if he goes to jail, what does the Secret Service do exactly?

[559] Do they, you know, do they say, like, don't mess with him to the guy who's got, you know, tattoos all over his body and, you know, no teeth?

[560] I don't know.

[561] Okay, well, okay.

[562] So before we get to that, this leads to a follow question, though, are we, is your hope at least on the way up, and all these flips in Georgia, we've got to get Fonnie Willis some love, right?

[563] Like, it's feeling real?

[564] Is there, is anyone else feeling a little more?

[565] Are you feeling a little more hope, anyone on the Mona?

[566] So, look, this was not a great week for defendant Trump.

[567] I mean, you've got, you know, all of these flippers, and you have to love Trump who keeps saying, you know, I know about flippers, you know, like as if he's a mafia down, but whatever.

[568] And then we only have ABC reporting that Mark Meadows has a deal with Jack Smith.

[569] So it hasn't been picked up by anybody else, so we'll hold our fire on that one.

[570] But it looks...

[571] Mattis doesn't really seem like he's made a stirring stuff to me. Yeah, no. He cries a lot.

[572] I mean, nothing.

[573] I'm crying.

[574] I was just going to say, like, let's take it easy on Men who cried.

[575] I mean, but he cries a lot.

[576] You and JV