The Bulwark Podcast XX
[0] Hello and welcome to the Buller podcast.
[1] I'm your host, Tim Miller.
[2] It is Tuesday.
[3] It is summer.
[4] We're through the Memorial Day weekend.
[5] I'm delighted to be here with my pal, my former partner in crime on the circus, now chief political columnist at Puck.
[6] He's host of a new podcast coming out June 4th called Impolitic.
[7] Impolitic.
[8] Impolitic.
[9] I like that.
[10] Impolitic.
[11] It's probably impolitic.
[12] But impolitic, I kind of like saying.
[13] So I'm going to say it like that.
[14] Because you're a fancy pretentious Frenchman, Tim, deep in heart.
[15] I am a fancy boy.
[16] Anyway, John Heilman is here.
[17] He's already interrupting me. The Bill Walton of political commentary.
[18] It was appropriate that he'd be here today.
[19] We'll do a little Bill Walton remembrance at the end.
[20] John, how you doing, brother?
[21] Dude, it's awesome to see you.
[22] I don't think of you as a former partner in crime.
[23] I just think of you as a former circus partner in crime.
[24] But I think I thought we were partners in crime before you came on the circus.
[25] And I think of us as partners in crime, you know, in perpetuity.
[26] I take that at it.
[27] I take that out.
[28] We are.
[29] We will be partners in crime today.
[30] And then again in the future.
[31] They're closing arguments in the Trump Tower having right now as we tape.
[32] And so I want to get to that.
[33] But before, if you don't mind, I just want to play a little game with you.
[34] It was Memorial Day, as I mentioned.
[35] I just, I want to read a Memorial Day post from one prominent politician, see if you can guess who it wasn't.
[36] Happy, happy Memorial Day to all, including the human scum that is working so hard to destroy our once great country.
[37] And to the radical left Trump hating federal judge in New York that presided over, get this two separate trials that awarded a woman who I never met before, a quick handshake at a celebrity event doesn't count $91 million.
[38] Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[39] Any thoughts on which politician that might have been?
[40] Well, here's the, you know, it's such a gimmy.
[41] It's like a six -inch putt.
[42] You know, the truth is, Tim, that given the, what we previously thought we had reached the nadir of obeisance and up -suckery to Trump, right, in the Republican Party, we all, we thought, man, they couldn't get any worse.
[43] It's now worse than it's ever been, and it's so bad that almost, Any Republican senator could have written that tweet, like, except for some of the weird, like, linguistic curlicues.
[44] It's like, you know, the basic sentiment is what they all say every day in front of the.
[45] I watched them, you know, parade down in front of that courthouse, you know, and they're a little matching Trump maga outfits.
[46] There's like weird Trump Halloween costumes.
[47] I'm like, guys, get the orange fright wig.
[48] If you're going to wear a Trump costume, where I get a fright wig, too.
[49] It's like a leftovers thing.
[50] It's like a Trumpy leftovers.
[51] The Trumpy remnant.
[52] That's right.
[53] That's actually be really funny.
[54] We should do that.
[55] That'd be a hilarious parody series that where the, instead of the guilty remnant, it'd be the Trumpy remnant.
[56] It's funny.
[57] It's Trump.
[58] It was Trump.
[59] Where I thought you were going to go with that is, it's true.
[60] Trumpy senators could have written that.
[61] But the other thing was, even the vestigial like pushback of like, oh, I wish he wouldn't do this or oh, but the tweets.
[62] Like that doesn't happen.
[63] It's the opposite.
[64] I did see several Republican politicians and leading commentators criticize a political Memorial Day tweet, but it wasn't Trump.
[65] They were making fun of Ilhan Omar and Cory Bush because they didn't know that Memorial Day was celebrating the dead.
[66] You know, those who died, those who were memorializing, they thought it was about veterans, which is a goof.
[67] But it shows that they're able to read other.
[68] Apparently, Eric Trump doesn't know that either because he thinks that is, he thinks his family has sacrificed much for America.
[69] Like, you know, on Memorial Day.
[70] Yeah.
[71] Yeah.
[72] Eric Trump quote tweeted that, you know, we've done this before.
[73] But if this person was, I don't know, in your child's, you know, camp group and there was a group tax.
[74] and they started posting things like this about human scum on Memorial Day, you'd be like, I think we're trying to find a new camp, but some people want this guy to be president.
[75] I got a weird text yesterday.
[76] Some app that I'm on.
[77] From Mark McKinnon?
[78] No. No. I got a weird.
[79] I mean, like, I'm not on any of these, you know, like, there are all these parents now who have like, who are like on the sex of the registered sex offender thing so they can know if there's a sex offender that's moved into their school district, you know, there's that thing.
[80] I'm not on any of those.
[81] But I did get a thing yesterday saying that registered sex offender on some app of mine.
[82] I don't know where it came from.
[83] Never seen it before.
[84] And I keep thinking that I would really like an alert for like when Trump is in my in my zip code or like someone in one of those Trump outfits is there.
[85] Like some kind of like a little like Amber alert thing that would pop up and be like, you know, be aware of who's around.
[86] I would also like that.
[87] That would be problematic when I go to Baton Rouge.
[88] I think that it would just be like, yes, I was going to say.
[89] I want to get to your thoughts on the Trump trial.
[90] But I think that's interesting that it's something else happened today and that is maybe more right on your wheelhouse, which is media commentary.
[91] I noticed it this morning in every media outlet there was basically like everyone all the editors had decided this is the time to let everybody know that the Biden people are panicking.
[92] Politico full blown freak out in Biden world the post.
[93] Trump trial unremarkable for some voters.
[94] The Times our friend Jason Zengarly about how the Biden team is struggling to make the campaign about Trump.
[95] The Biden team is addressing this today with an announcement that their campaign will hold a press conference with special guests outside the Manhattan criminal courthouse.
[96] Something I've been saying they should be own for a while, something that some pearl clutches are now on Twitter saying is very deep norm -breaking.
[97] So I'm curious what your thoughts are on the political side of this and whether it is true that Trump is not being harmed by this at all?
[98] Is it an unknown unknown?
[99] We don't know because we have to wait for a verdict.
[100] Like where do you kind of sit on the political analysis before the legal?
[101] Right.
[102] This is the first real column I wrote, Puck, was about this.
[103] And look, you live outside the seller corridor, so you know what I'm about to say is true.
[104] Basically, no one gives shit about the trial, right?
[105] It has not in this, and it's in its proceeding.
[106] And I think it's totally natural.
[107] This is like Trump diddled Stormy Daniels in 2006.
[108] Wow.
[109] And the, and then he paid her off in 2016.
[110] It's a long time ago.
[111] I was straight in 2006.
[112] I mean, not literally.
[113] I was going to say, I was going to say, not really.
[114] I think I think I came out in 2007.
[115] I'm doing the quick math in my head right now.
[116] So yeah, it's been a long time.
[117] It's a long time.
[118] I was in baggie jackies in 2006.
[119] Even by my kind of, you know, Mesozoic era standards, that's a long time ago, right?
[120] And like in the world of today, it's like, it really is like a cave painting from the Paleolithic era.
[121] It's like, that's old news, right?
[122] Who is there in America who doesn't already have a pretty settled view of Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels and paying her off?
[123] Almost no one.
[124] I mean, either you think it's disgusting or you think it's whatever but irrelevant to being president, or you think he's like, you know, a lovable horn dog.
[125] Like, you know, like Bill Clinton was, you know, like, yeah, he's a rogue, he's promiscuous.
[126] I kind of like that.
[127] Or, yes, that's, yeah, you know, it's charming.
[128] The funniest thing about the whole thing is this is I think really of all of Trump's lies, he's told so many lies.
[129] But the most gratuitous and idiotic one is expecting anyone to believe that Donald Trump, the cheapest, skin flintiest, you know, Welsh, you know, Welsh.
[130] I don't like that word with Trump.
[131] I know that you're using it accurately, but skin flint.
[132] Well, whatever you want to say, someone who doesn't pay his debts.
[133] I'm not talking about the Welsh here.
[134] It's just like, you know, it's like when I say I've been gyps, I'm not really actually talking about gypsies.
[135] Like, I just, you know, whatever.
[136] But my point is, like, the idea that that guy would pay $130 ,000 to a woman who he didn't have sex with is like the literally the most ludicrous thing he's ever said.
[137] It's just kind of crazy, right?
[138] It's all priced in the stock.
[139] I think that in terms of the long run political implications of it, I don't like to be one of these people says, well, you really can't know.
[140] I mean, I think if he's acquitted or there's a hung jury, I don't think it really moves the needle much at all because all it does is rub up the Trump base more.
[141] Trump will beat his chest and talk about how he's been victimized.
[142] But those people, the people who are moved by that are already voting for Trump.
[143] They can't pull the lever more than once, right?
[144] You know, it's like they're going to pull it, what, 10 times harder?
[145] They're like, ah.
[146] You know, I think, you know, among the maybe 800 ,000 voters in the combined area of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, will probably determine the outcome of American democracy and this election.
[147] The polling that is all is not, I think, particularly reliable, and it's all over the place in this.
[148] But you see these numbers like 6%.
[149] It would have an effect on their point of view among persuadable voters, 6 % if he were convicted.
[150] It's a slightly higher number if he's convicted and put in jail.
[151] That's not going to happen before election day.
[152] He's going to appeal.
[153] He's not going to go to jail.
[154] He's not going to be in an orange jumps.
[155] He might one day be.
[156] What about an ankle bracelet?
[157] Can we get an ankle bracelet?
[158] Judge Mershan has the total power over what happened.
[159] happens to Trump is he's convicted, whether he gets like probation, house arrest, you know, all those things.
[160] So ankle bracelets, not off the cards.
[161] But six percent, people say, well, that's tiny.
[162] And I'm like, six percent in, in those three states is the ball game, you know.
[163] So I don't know.
[164] I mean, I think a conviction is the only verdict that has potential political long term salience.
[165] It's on the margins, but this election is going to be one or lost on the margins, you know.
[166] Based on assuming if everything you're saying is true, which I think of it is.
[167] Most people don't care about this.
[168] people aren't paying that close of attention, maybe a conviction will matter.
[169] Then, you know, the logical strategic follow of that is it kind of doesn't matter what Biden does.
[170] Like, does he talk about this or not?
[171] Do they have campaign press conferences or not?
[172] Do you feel like all of that panic is unnecessary bedwetting or do you think there's something they could do to increase the salience on this?
[173] Like, what's your thought from a strategic standpoint?
[174] I think in the absence of conviction, really nothing.
[175] Anything that where those guys are showing a lack of complacency are on the move, or doing something.
[176] If I was a partisan of this, and to the extent I'm a partisan for democracy, I'm one of those people, it would be good for them in a lot of ways to demonstrate to people that they have the eye of the tiger, right?
[177] If I were a political strategist, I'd be on offense all the time.
[178] Like, this is not an era that rewards being on your back foot, right?
[179] Do I think it's going to matter in the absence of a guilty verdict?
[180] No. But I do think with a guilty verdict, you could argue you're setting up something that you're going to build on later.
[181] And a guilty verdict does raise some interesting questions.
[182] And those questions, we talked about it a little bit of morning Joe this morning, where Lemire had some reporting basically that said, you know, they're going to start, at least in social media, referring to Trump as a convicted criminal, a convicted felon.
[183] And the question of what Biden will do about that is very much in play.
[184] You know, like, and I mean, we couldn't speculate on Biden's mindset about these things.
[185] But I want to believe, Tim, that there's still some small part of America where if you happen to be in the category of you're really undecided between these two candidates after everything we know about the two of them, that like being reminded, this gets to the Zengali piece, you know, this challenge of memory, which is how much the Trump amnesia factor of people who thought Trump sucked in January of 2021 and now remember the administration is having been great, people who've forgotten how bad January 6th is.
[186] We see data on this all the time, right?
[187] So one of the biggest challenges the Biden campaign has is a tactical and strategic one, reminding people, making vivid for people who are, again, in that very small subset of persuadable voters, just what it was really like when Donald Trump was president and just what he is really like.
[188] And figuring out a way to do that is not easy.
[189] That's the point of the Zengarly piece.
[190] It's fucking hard.
[191] It's not easy.
[192] And it's a weird way that his pervasiveness, his wall -to -wallness is a thing that, you know, again, for 48 .5 % of the electorate is like, you know, I'm never going to vote for that motherfucker, ever.
[193] For the ones that are still undecided, the persuadable voters, it's inured them to a lot of these memories of the shaking them by the shoulders and trying to remind them of what Trump was really like because they're, you know, obviously, they're in this weird twilight zone anyway.
[194] I think it's a huge challenge.
[195] And I think to that point that you're going to have to do everything, you know, that you can, try everything tactically.
[196] But that as a strategic thing, that seems central to me. Same.
[197] Yeah.
[198] To me, I feel like, look, his schedule's a little light.
[199] Biden schedules a little light.
[200] The aggressiveness could be turned up to 11, so to speak, on some of the mess, on some of the attacks.
[201] And so I'm happy to hear that they're doing some of this.
[202] And just for one example, you're pointing out amnesia, which I think is right.
[203] There is an amnesia about the terrible Trump stuff.
[204] But there's also new stuff.
[205] There's also stuff people don't know.
[206] Yeah.
[207] Right.
[208] Like, for example, like convicted felon Trump pairing that, I was talking, I'm quoted in the Times today.
[209] I was talking about Maggie about this.
[210] And comparing the convicted felon.
[211] Trump with Trump had two alleged murderers on stage with him in New York, Chef G. and Poppy Hollow, not, you know, Sleepy Hollow.
[212] I know, Kendrick, I don't know the deep cuts when it comes to, you know, the New York rap scene.
[213] Let's just make sure we're talking about Poppy Harlow.
[214] Poppy Harlow, not a convicted murder.
[215] Let's be clear on the podcast now.
[216] And neither is Sleepy Hollow.
[217] He's an alleged murder who's out on bail.
[218] All right.
[219] But you've got that.
[220] You have criminals all around him.
[221] You know, he pardoned multiple criminals, including Bannon, Stone, and Manafort.
[222] and all of them by reports, apparently, still talk to him.
[223] His campaign chairman from the last campaign, his campaign fixer, the chairman of the inauguration, like all of these people have been convicted, the guy that was Weisselberg, you know, the guy at Trump, the dude is surrounded by criminals.
[224] And you could put together an orange jumpsuit mashup that would be much more aggressive and I think much more compelling and maybe stick with people on, you know, some of these people who either have amnesia or don't know what they're talking about or just getting little TikTok clips, I just think that there are more compelling ways to make this point than what Biden is doing.
[225] When we're both dead and buried, Tim, the only thing that will have mine that will ever be in Bartlebees is the quote, which I'm proud of and will happily actually maybe inscribed my tombstone, although having Trump in my tombstone would be weird, but the quote that is, everything Trump does is either projection or confession.
[226] And Biden crime family is like one of the greatest examples of Trump projection, literally one of the ground.
[227] I mean, it's so out there.
[228] It's like Exhibit A, right?
[229] Trump is the ultimate ex -presidential candidate, whatever you want to call him, who really is a member of a non -blood, but a literal crime family, he's surrounded by criminals.
[230] And, you know, he does stuff like, you know, I wrote in this week's column, the one that just came out last night, about the Libertarian Convention.
[231] And, you know, he's up there on stage.
[232] The libertarians are booing him.
[233] The funniest thing over the weekend was listening to cable news, trying to debate whether, in what ways is Trump a libertarian?
[234] How could he make that claim?
[235] I'm like, do you people, have you people to know anything?
[236] Like, here's the thing.
[237] In political ideology, libertarianism and libertarianism and authoritarianism are the opposite ends of the polarity, okay?
[238] That thing couldn't be more different.
[239] But, you know, here he is up there, you know, the libertarians are, you know, obviously.
[240] Don't you mind?
[241] Can we just listen?
[242] I think some of the listeners might want to listen.
[243] If they were out at the beach on a barbecue, they might get some joy at us and booing.
[244] We're going to play it for you.
[245] That is why I'm committing to you tonight.
[246] that I will put a libertarian in my cabinet and also Libertarians in senior posts.
[247] Pretty good.
[248] Pretty good?
[249] That's pretty big.
[250] It doesn't seem like they like that deal.
[251] That's nice.
[252] The booze get louder.
[253] Only if you want to win.
[254] Okay, that's enough.
[255] Only if you want to win.
[256] We got the booze.
[257] Well, this is what he shifts start insulting them.
[258] It's like he moves from at the beginning, it's he says, I, you know, I never do I was a libertarian, but now that I've been indicted 91 times, I'm definitely a libertarian.
[259] So like, it's just the basic kind of like finding common cause pandering.
[260] Then he moves to favor trading, right?
[261] So his next move is I'll put a libertarian in my cabinet and I'll have libertarians as high advisors.
[262] He then moves to, to your point earlier, which was what triggered me here was, he says, you know, I'm going to commute the sentence.
[263] He sees all these free Ross signs.
[264] Yeah, right.
[265] Which they had, I think they had no plan to make this pledge until they saw all these signs that said Free Ross Ross being out Ross Ulbricht, the guy who started Silk Road, which is like the most notorious dark web vice market that ever existed, not just drugs, but all kinds of terrible shit.
[266] How much time did you spend on the Silk Road back in the back?
[267] I don't want to answer that question on the grounds that might incriminate me, but I will say a lot of bad shit went on Silk Road, right?
[268] The guy got caught.
[269] He's in jail for life.
[270] And Trump just like just, hey, I know I said before.
[271] or many times that I want to have death sentences for drug dealers.
[272] But this guy, commute a sentence.
[273] If you guys, if they'll help me get the libertarian endorsement, let it walk now.
[274] He was only talking about black drug dealers, Sean, Ross is white.
[275] That doesn't count.
[276] That's a high quality drug dealer.
[277] He doesn't get it.
[278] Only the best, only the best drug dealers, Tim.
[279] Only the best.
[280] I'll surround myself with all the best drug dealers.
[281] So, yeah, I mean, it was hilarious in the sense that the whole libertarian convention was such a shit show, but I got a candid to him for one thing, which is that they looked at the two interlopers, Trump, the greatest of them.
[282] Bobby Kennedy, Jr. is at least a little more a libertarian on certain things, not very many, but certain ones.
[283] But these two guys walk down there and tried to, like, you know, interpose themselves in libertarian land.
[284] And the libertarians, I will give them credit.
[285] They did exactly what they should have done, which was basically just say, fuck you, both of you, get out of here.
[286] Like, leave us alone.
[287] One thing I also think the Biden campaign is going to end up being able to use.
[288] I think maybe it was a mistake from staging.
[289] You say what you want about Trump's campaign, and it's been pretty incompetent all three times.
[290] they usually are pretty good with staging and making them look presidential and strong and et cetera have that you know have trump in the background in this case they didn't get to do the staging because it was libertarian convention and behind him it says become ungovernable with the anarchy a and that feels like that potentially could work against um in certain ways as an image i mean it is yes i mean the anarchy sign was i mean become ungovernable is an incredible slogan for a political party, even for libertarians.
[291] It's more of an anarchist kind of slogan.
[292] And they've got that anarchist A -up there behind him.
[293] I mean, if you were doing comms for the Biden campaign, that would definitely be a lot of digital, a lot of digital, a lot of digital hits.
[294] It's the funniest thing about that was him saying, make me your nominee.
[295] This says, make me your nominee.
[296] Literally, is they right there.
[297] Right there.
[298] Make me your, I want to be your nominee or at least vote for me a lot.
[299] It's the only way you're going to win.
[300] If you don't want to win, you get your 3%.
[301] And then he starts mocking them because they're, because they keep booing.
[302] So, He starts making fun of the people he's courting, which is hilarious.
[303] And then the next day when the chair rules immediately on the day of that the voting will proceed, she says, I'm sorry, Donald Trump can't be put in nomination because his campaign has failed to turn in the proper paperwork, right?
[304] Trump puts out a post on truth social that says, well, I never wanted it anyway.
[305] And, you know, I couldn't apply for it.
[306] In fact, because I'm a nominee in another party.
[307] So I never wanted it anyway.
[308] But of course, if I had wanted it, on the basis, he literally says of the incredible reception I got there.
[309] Which you just heard.
[310] You, I obviously would have won it.
[311] I mean, it's just like, it's so fucking crackers.
[312] Crackers, Tim.
[313] I got an interesting note about the libertarian thing.
[314] It seems like you spent a decent amount of time watching it this weekend, which this is an interesting judgment call on your part.
[315] Well, I was going to write about it.
[316] So I did watch it.
[317] And let's just say there's a lot of weed in my house.
[318] Well, you're on brand.
[319] One of the nominees did an edible, I guess, before he spoke and gave an incoherent.
[320] Yes, the guy who invited Milo to NYU and basically got, basically got fired from NYU, the professor dude, Rectin Wald or whatever, his name is, wrecked in something.
[321] He was supposed to be at the post -Trump press conference.
[322] They were inviting like some of the top candidates to get up on stage after Trump left.
[323] That's where the guy who won denounced Trump and said he was a war criminal and stuff.
[324] And this guy got up and was like a babbling idiot.
[325] And people were yelling at him from the crowd.
[326] How high are you?
[327] And he kept saying not high enough, which I thought was right.
[328] I could relate to that.
[329] And then the next day, he was like, yeah, I took it out of bowl.
[330] I'm a libertarian.
[331] Like, what is this?
[332] A big political scandal?
[333] It's not like I, it's not like I boinked stormy Daniels or something.
[334] I mean, what's the fucking difference?
[335] I like, I took an edible.
[336] It's a libertarian convention.
[337] Someone handed me something I ate it, all right?
[338] Someone handed me something I ate it.
[339] That's a great quote.
[340] That's a Bill Walton homage, if I've ever heard one.
[341] Totally.
[342] The serious political side of this, which I think is probably, I think probably the impact of this young man, Chase Oliver, as you wrote in your column, advertised himself as gay and armed, which is different from the weak and gay, which I've tried to self -branded as but gay and armed and he is more of this like kind of liberalitarian type and there's like pictures of him wearing a mask and hanging out with drag queens and you know he's he's liberal and various social issues and somebody messaged me and asked if this is potentially a threat to Biden a little bit and if maybe it would have been better for it to be you know a more right wing you know Rand Paul Thomas Massey type nominee to peel off from Trump does that strike you one way or the other that it's going to be meaningful at all, Jace Oliver winning the nomination?
[343] I mean, look, the guy Jorgensen, who no one paid attention to in 2020.
[344] I'm sorry.
[345] It was a woman in Jorgensen.
[346] The guy, the guy, there I sometimes refer to my women with friends as guys.
[347] Yeah, same.
[348] I say thanks, man, to people at the women at the coffee shop, and sometimes they get mad about that.
[349] So I've tried to stop.
[350] You know, she won, whatever, her 1 .5 % of the vote.
[351] But in Arizona, she took enough votes away from Trump in Arizona that you could argue that she kept Trump from winning Arizona because it was how narrow that was.
[352] You look at the high watermark for Libertarians, which is the Gary Johnson Bill Weld ticket, which is not trivial.
[353] I mean, they won four and a half percent or something, almost five percent of the vote in...
[354] It unintentionally cost Hillary the election, really.
[355] Honestly, in 2016.
[356] People thought that Trump was going to win.
[357] There was probably one percent of their four and a half percent that would have voted for Hillary, you know, because they did pull from the left, I think.
[358] It's always the confusing part because you get all these people, and this is the thing I sometimes I try to avoid arguments about this kind of thing but people are like, Jill Stein cost Hillary Clinton the presidency in 2016.
[359] I'm like Jill Stein had a quarter of the vote of Gary Johnson and Bill Weld.
[360] And of course libertarians are complicated.
[361] It's not all the Republicans.
[362] There are some people in the left who vote for libertarians, but it's like, you know, it's kind of a messy picture.
[363] There's a bunch of third party people who were problematic in a lot of ways that year.
[364] It's just impossible to really know.
[365] I think that, you know, if you think this election is going to be one or lost on the margins as I do, and if I were in the Biden campaign, I would have rather seen the edible eating, Milo hosting expert on 19th century British secularism is what I learned about him.
[366] He's written books about that.
[367] He's a former professor.
[368] That guy would have been a better choice.
[369] But I will say the main thing if I'm a Biden person that I'm psyched about is that Kennedy, who actually had spent a year talking about winning the libertarian nomination, even before he left the party and dropped his bid against Biden, he talked about it in public with Smirkanish on TV and said, you know, maybe the Libertarian Party is what I want.
[370] The Libertarian Party has ballot access in 38 states.
[371] Like, if RFK Jr. had been remotely competent and actually been in that fight, they really worked it.
[372] I mean, that's the nightmare scenario for Biden, was that RFK Jr. I know you might want to talk about debate qualifications.
[373] But like the instant pickup, he's got right now in the ballot in six states, they say they've submitted for a seventh and they have another like nine or something, maybe eight or nine on the way where they think they have the right number of signatures.
[374] They obviously have to get all those signatures.
[375] The states all decide whether those signatures are verified, et cetera, et cetera.
[376] But even then you're at 15, you know, compared to 38 with the Libertarian Party.
[377] And that's a ticket to ballot access, man. 38 states, a lot of states.
[378] And it's most of the battleground states that you get that you're on, I think maybe even all six or seven.
[379] So, you know, maybe it was always a pipe dream.
[380] Maybe RFK Jr. was never going to get the libertarian nomination.
[381] But I will say that, you know, with them privately and publicly over the course of a year and then pretended like he didn't want it, but then accepted the nomination when he got it, had his running mate, was ready to speak on Sunday.
[382] I mean, I think there was still some hope in that part of the world as bonkers as they are, then he might have been their own libertarian nominee.
[383] And I think if you're the Biden campaign, you're like, we can live with Chase Oliver, as long as it's not Bobby Kennedy Jr. Yeah, I don't know if the Bobby Kennedy campaign has a Ken Melman, David Pluff type over there running.
[384] Bobby was on Brian Tucker Cohen's YouTube over the weekend, which I watched.
[385] And he was rambling about how he doesn't want to submit the signatures they have in states until as late as possible.
[386] So the DNC rat fuckers can't do anything to disqualify them.
[387] The problem with that is that it goes in direct conflict with my next topic, which is that he needs to submit them and to get on enough state balance to be in the June debate.
[388] Here's my question for you.
[389] I wasn't in the room when the Biden campaign and the Trump campaign came to their agreement with CNN.
[390] But my understanding at least is that the Biden campaign will only do a two -person debate.
[391] So, like, does it really matter if he meets the qualification threshold?
[392] Does the Biden people look at CNN and go, hey, we said only one -on -one.
[393] We're not doing a three -person debate.
[394] Like, we'll take our business across the street.
[395] Someone will do a two -person debate.
[396] If CNN somehow just says, well, you know, Bobby Kennedy Jr. met the qualifications, we're going to get them on stage.
[397] I imagine the Biden campaign will say, okay, see you later.
[398] We'll go talk to NBC.
[399] I'm sure MSNBC will take that debate in a heartbeat with just two.
[400] yeah well this is kind of my question is what i wanted to game out a little bit with you because i don't know i was walking down to the street car this weekend thinking with my child kind of thinking about this spending too much time rattling around my brain and i'm like are we sure that maybe uh maybe the biden came in shouldn't want kennedy in the debate i do think that there's two sizes i understand your point which is right right which is you want to tamp down the kennedy number as much as possible because kennedy's core support three percent, four percent are kind of Trumpy, you know, iconoclastic type people, contrarians.
[401] Right.
[402] But then if you get it more than that, if you get up to 12, 13 percent, he's picking up, you know, probably younger voters, blackness, Latino voters that Biden need.
[403] So in some level, you want to tamp them down.
[404] At another level, could Biden maybe not benefit from like having a moment where he's like, look at these two black coats, you know, the topic of vaccines come up and Trump and Bobby are fighting out on who's more anti -vax, who's going to, you know, be stronger on.
[405] on limiting funding for schools that have measles, mumps, and rebella mandates.
[406] I don't know.
[407] Might it help Biden a little?
[408] We can agree to agree about something on this podcast, which is, I think, you can believe that Joe Biden is an 82 -year -old man and therefore not as sharp as he was at 72, 62, 52, and without saying he's infirm or senile or any of those things.
[409] I don't think he is any of those things.
[410] Agreed to agree.
[411] But I think, you know, he's 82.
[412] And if you've ever met an 82 -year -old man, what I imagine you're going to be like at 82 and I'm going to be like at 82.
[413] It's like we're not like at our absolute best prime.
[414] We're in prime debate condition.
[415] So one question is, if you ask me would a presidential candidate in their prime who was in command, but would they be able to navigate a three -person debate and make the point you're going to make, like confidently be able to use that like, yeah, more crazy on the stage, please.
[416] Like more crazy on the stage makes me look sane.
[417] they both look like they're nuts.
[418] I win.
[419] I just, you know, everything the way the Biden campaign has done this is suggestive of wanting to eliminate or reduce as much as possible variables that would be in any way tricky for Biden, right?
[420] I think the way they got this debate done on their terms was a triumph for them, but they are, you know, we're not kind of a live audience.
[421] We're going to be able to cut Trump's mic.
[422] It's like, how many variables can we tamp down?
[423] so that essentially our guy gets to speak and not be interrupted, not have an audience to deal with, and Trump will speak and then his mic will be cut in theory.
[424] Biden will speak and then his mic will be cut.
[425] That reflects a certain degree of like, man, we want to keep this thing pretty simple.
[426] Well, that's making me nervous.
[427] No, you're right.
[428] You're right.
[429] No, you're totally right.
[430] Yeah.
[431] And I don't like the mic cutting thing actually.
[432] Just that thought crossed my head.
[433] I was like, you want Trump to seem like a lunatic.
[434] Biden won the first debate last time because Trump seemed like a lunatic.
[435] There was no memorable Biden line.
[436] It wasn't like Reagan looking, you know, talking about his youth and an experience.
[437] There was no great bide moment.
[438] It was Trump looked like a lunatic.
[439] Oh, this is the time when he told him to shut up.
[440] I mean, that was like we were, you were, there was an expression of kind of like the visceral thing that a lot of people in the audience were thinking.
[441] It was like, yeah, shut up.
[442] God damn right.
[443] Shut the fuck up.
[444] Yeah.
[445] But again, that was because Trump were being a lunatic.
[446] So shouldn't you they let him be a lunatic?
[447] At some point, it's like the caution, I worry that there's a cutting off the nose despite the face element to the caution.
[448] And they got to just try to let it rip.
[449] In the world of Obama people, their view has been for a while, you've got to get Biden out a lot and essentially try to do for Biden what Trump's craziness has done for Trump, which is to say, Biden is going to stumble.
[450] He's going to have bad moments.
[451] He's going to say some dumb stuff.
[452] He's going to trip over his verbal feet.
[453] He might trip over his literal feet.
[454] But like the more people see that, the more it gets priced in the stock.
[455] And people just go, okay, that's Biden.
[456] Like, whatever.
[457] And it's really going to be painful because Biden's going to look bad.
[458] a bunch.
[459] And in the long run, getting people used to, Biden looking like, let's say, looking like an 82 -year -old man is in their long -term interest.
[460] They are not doing that.
[461] That has not been advice.
[462] As you pointed out earlier, the schedule's like not super aggressive.
[463] And they're doing the opposite of putting him in situations where it's like, yeah, this is going to be painful.
[464] You're going to make mistakes.
[465] But we got to get you, we got to let you make small mistakes over and over and over again so people stop paying attention to them so much.
[466] Biden was out this weekend.
[467] He's at West Point.
[468] I'll just put the link in the show notes, people want to watch Biden.
[469] He was totally fine.
[470] But again, are people seeing it?
[471] That's why more is more here.
[472] And it's not just the Obama folks.
[473] I want to play a clip from our mutual friend, James Carville, has similar frustrations.
[474] It's what you want about the Obama guys and James Carville, but, you know, they did successfully elect presidents, which I did not.
[475] I don't know if you recall my track record, John, of covering, but I don't have that.
[476] You're not quite in the Mount Rushmore of political strategists yet.
[477] Yeah, so podcast hosts maybe.
[478] So I want to bring in the expertise of people who have one.
[479] So here's a little bit of James Carville.
[480] And we keep wondering why these young people aren't coming home to the Democrats, why blacks are not coming home to the Democrats?
[481] Because the Democratic messaging is full of shit.
[482] That's why.
[483] And talk about cost of living.
[484] And we're going to help deal with this.
[485] And don't talk about fucking gossip and students.
[486] student loans.
[487] That's so out that the Harvard, that guy, Delavopi, is pretty good.
[488] Give him 15 issues.
[489] You know what the number 14 and 15 issue of a total?
[490] Student debt in Gaza.
[491] I forgot which audit's in.
[492] And why are we forgiven student loans for people that go to Harvard, which, according to Scott Galloway, quite accurately, is nothing but a hedge fund that has classrooms.
[493] Well, they got a $52 billion fucking surplus.
[494] Why?
[495] But, taxpayer is going to bail these people out.
[496] I've got another James clip here in a second, but I want your reaction.
[497] Wait, where's that from?
[498] Is that you?
[499] No, this is James's YouTube feed.
[500] James has an amazing YouTube feed.
[501] I'm doing my best on YouTube, but speaking of how 82 -year -old men can can make strong arguments, James Carville's beating me on YouTube.
[502] I want one more James Carville clip for you on what he means.
[503] Ask him one question.
[504] Get Key Schiller, steal Trump's medical records, from his internist and where are these medical records prove that you fair ask them and keep asking them and the same thing for the Biden campaign because you and I are not stupid we know why he stole the records right let me put it this way we have a strong suspicion is he stole the records because he had the goddamn class And look up, go to the Mayo Clinic or WebMD or whatever she, you know, get a rash and I'll look it up on the computer.
[505] Go look up how insidious a disease that secondary syphilis can be.
[506] I'm not sure he's not having sex anymore because his dick may have fallen off of all of VD as.
[507] I mean, I think James Carvel would have 400 electoral votes if he was the AD or all the nominee.
[508] Dude, the greatest thing that could ever happen would be the thing that would change my mind and would make me think I should write another book about a presidential campaign would be if the Biden campaign after, I'm imagining the scenario, a disastrous debate performance in June and there's so much panic that they decide, we got to just throw the long wall.
[509] Bring in James.
[510] Let him run the whole thing.
[511] Just let James run the whole thing.
[512] It'd be incredible.
[513] It'd be like one of the most incredible things that we would ever experience in our lifetimes.
[514] There's some absurdity in James, obviously, and, you know, there's certain things that a sitting president can't do, like talk about his opponent's dick falling off.
[515] That's probably not a winner.
[516] But his point is right, though, right?
[517] Like, Chris wrote this morning about how Biden should take some lessons from Clinton about being, you know, wrong and strong instead of, you know, weak and right.
[518] What do you think?
[519] I've always thought that that Clinton thing is true.
[520] I mean, look, there's always possibility that the whole Copernican universe of politics has now been rendered obsolete or whatever.
[521] And, that none of these things are true anymore.
[522] But I think, you know, the basic, basic Trump framing of the election is me, strong, you weak, you know.
[523] And that's just that, that is, it's the strength thing.
[524] We focus on the victimology of it, which, which plays to his base, but in this parts of the country that are going to decide the election and in those voter groups, it's Trump is basically like, I am strong, I am indomitable, I am invincible, I'm a bad motherfucker.
[525] And the detail of this is I will get inflation down because I will, because I will bend it to my will.
[526] I will beat the Chinese because I am stronger.
[527] And he points at Biden and says, you know, weak and firm incontinent.
[528] And so I think things that show strength, I like when Biden gets mad, you know, like those moments when Biden gets mad and really kind of lashes out are to me good moments.
[529] Like there's nothing worse than a docile octogenarian, you know, a quiet, meek oxygenarian.
[530] That is not the oxygenarian we want.
[531] I'd rather see an oxygenarian making mistakes, but being like Grandpa Simpson, waving his cane on the lawn and scaring the kids away and like doing that to these fucking protesters, you know, on the campuses, just like screaming at him and anybody who gets in his way.
[532] It's just, if you're going to reelect an octogenarian, you want to think the oxygenarian's full of piss and vinegar.
[533] Yeah, and that's the case against Trump.
[534] This is where I'm with James, I want to play this, right?
[535] Like making Trump into, you know, a whiny, syphilist -stricken ball sack who has to put makeup on.
[536] Siphilitic is the word you're looking for.
[537] Siphilitic, a whiny syphilitic ball sack who has to put makeup on to hide just how, like, aged and piqued his skin is.
[538] Like, that is good, right?
[539] Like, that is a good frame, you know, on Twitter, the smart sec gets, oh, the resistance, they don't know what they're doing.
[540] It's like, I don't know, man, like a campaign that was more, that's a little resistance pill talking about how Trump's Putin's bitch, it would be preferable to, you know, one that's like, well, actually, let me tell you about what might happen in 2025, democratic principles.
[541] I am inherently attracted to Michelle Obama's formulation, the when they go low, we go high.
[542] I'm inherently attracted to it.
[543] I wish for a world in which that was wise.
[544] And I think maybe when she said it, she was right.
[545] It probably was wise.
[546] Maybe then I forget what year was that she said that.
[547] Like, I thought, when they go low, we go high, you know, better angels, et cetera.
[548] That is definitely not the right strategy in 2024.
[549] We are not in a better angels moment.
[550] We are not in a they go low, we go high.
[551] You know, you're not going to win that way.
[552] Apart from everything else, it just doesn't, as your point, which I think is about the way that the media works now, going high just doesn't break through.
[553] Whatever else can be said of it, whatever other nobility it encapsulates.
[554] It doesn't break through.
[555] You know, there's so much noise and there's so much.
[556] and so much fragmentation that going high, the high, you know, the Aaron Sorkin version of the presidency or the presidential campaign is not a thing that breaks through that no one, there's just no one even hears it.
[557] Maybe it could work if you had somebody that could hit the notes also.
[558] It's just not Joe Biden, right?
[559] Like, you know, I know with Barack Obama's not coming out of the bullpen, you know?
[560] That Joe Biden in from 2020 when he threatened if, when he wanted to get in a fight with that guy and call him fatso.
[561] That guy, like, where's that Joe Biden?
[562] Yeah.
[563] I like that Joe Biden.
[564] I was like, yeah.
[565] dog face pony soldier right exactly i mean it's kind of you know you can make fun of it but at least it's like again piss vinegar mix called him fat i love the fat but i forget he's like he's like fat so he's like you're like yeah you know it's like that's like that's like that's the formula for fighting don't trump is piss vinegar mix distribute repeat you know just kind of related to the go logo high formulation one thing i just i've never asked you about that i wanted to ask you about since I had you alone on this podcast.
[566] Yeah, just just you and me. No one else will leave now.
[567] It's not about the choices in your private life.
[568] Oh, good.
[569] You know, a lot of what I, you know, wrote about and was thinking about was from like the Republican perspective of looking back and like our mistakes in 08 at 12.
[570] And your book, Game Change was like so central to that time and accompanying film.
[571] And I just wonder, I don't know, like I looked back in that period and Patelan is kind of portrayed as this clownish figure, like kind of ridiculous and a little threatening, a little risky, obviously.
[572] Nicole is concerned.
[573] She might be presidents.
[574] Like, there's a seriousness to it, but it's also clownish.
[575] And, you know, McCain is the going high figure.
[576] I just wonder, like, you look back on that now, 12 years later.
[577] I just wonder if what you think about that whole scene.
[578] You mean, the scene, the book.
[579] Do you think about it differently?
[580] I just do you think about it differently?
[581] I just think, if you, do you think about it differently?
[582] Do you think that like if you, if you were able to go back and talk to 2012, John, writing that book, do you think you would have covered it?
[583] Do you think that the media would have?
[584] I'm not looking for you to hit yourself over the head, but do you think we would have covered it differently?
[585] Do you think that it was covered right?
[586] First of all, the things about Palin that are in the book, she got caricatured as a clown for a whole lot of reasons that had nothing to do with game change and she was characterized that way long before the book came out, which was, you know, in January of 2010.
[587] And the things that we wrote about that were things that were clownish, but that were also signs of how manifestly unqualified she was to be vice president, let alone president.
[588] Those are just the facts.
[589] Like, if you laid out the facts of things that were striking to people on the campaign about things she didn't know about ways she behaved, those were things that like people were going to interpret in a certain way.
[590] You know, the movie, you know, Danny Strong, who wrote the script and that M. What Jay, you know, ended with a much more ominous tone in the movie than in the book because they, because you could see the Tea Party was now happening by the time the movie got made.
[591] The movie didn't come out until 2012.
[592] And so like, book comes out in January 2010.
[593] The movie came out in January, February 2012, and in that intervening period of 2010, 2011 was the rise of the tea party.
[594] And so you could see her as an avatar for that.
[595] So the movie had a darker cast to what Palin augured for, even though she was too much of a buffoon and too incompetent and dumb to be able to actually ride that way.
[596] But like people saw that.
[597] I don't think the book, fairly speaking, the book was not John McCain is like an avatar of like principal and going high and she was going low.
[598] I mean, that's a good point.
[599] I mean, the book, again, accurately presented McCain as being pretty craven in a lot of ways, not just in the selection of Palin, but pretty craven.
[600] That moment that he gets all the credit for, and I'm happy to give him credit for it, but, you know, the moment when he finally snapped at the end of the campaign where he took on that woman in the town hall who said that Obama was a Muslim that gets played over and over again TV, that was after a long period of time where McCain was willing to see Obama.
[601] I've got to defend McCain's honor here.
[602] There was all of the back and forth, which was right, which you wrote about it.
[603] Now there's about how some of the consultants wanted to go in harder on airs and wanted to go in higher on that stuff.
[604] I'm not saying McCain wanted to go.
[605] If he had wanted to go as far as, you know, there were a couple of ads that didn't get run that were really, really incendiary.
[606] And McCain pushed back on those.
[607] I'm not saying he was without scruples whatsoever.
[608] I'm just saying like, you know, he gave Palin a pretty, at the beginning gave her a pretty wide berth.
[609] And it took a pretty long time for him to, he's a mixed he's a mixed figure mccain often in the end ended up in the right place he was not like a prissy john huntsman figure he was not prim about his his views about negative campaigning i'd rather be strong and right in the end than prissy and wrong you know i'm saying i mean it wasn't like a little miss muffin on his tough at there he was like he was you know he was willing to he's willing to hit pretty hard you know given what we knew at the time which is all you can really judge is We couldn't know what would come after.
[610] With the benefit of hindsight, there's a million things I would go back and change and make it add all kinds of foreshadowings.
[611] But, you know, we don't have the benefit of hindsight.
[612] We were writing the book in 2009.
[613] So we have a problem with that.
[614] And as I say, I think Jay and Danny did a nice job of taking into account what Palin portended in the movie, giving it a kind of that slightly darker cast and not making her.
[615] I mean, I thought the reason that Julianne's performance was so great was that she did a really nice job of both capturing some of the ways in which Palin was just really ill -served by the whole process.
[616] I mean, on some level, she was obviously manifestly unqualified, and she was not served well by that process in some ways.
[617] Some part, a lot of some of the things that happened to her were not really her fault.
[618] On the other hand, there were other things that were totally her fault.
[619] She became a ambition monster and a really craven one along the way.
[620] I thought the movie was pretty good at that, like getting a little sense of the dark, more of the darkness than we had a picture of in the immediate aftermath of the campaign.
[621] If Palin had one good trusted advisor with her that she could have listened to, and she decided to run, she would win the nominee in 2012, right?
[622] I wrote a cover story in New York Magazine in the fall of 2010, in the fall of 2010 that was like the headline that Adam Moss put on the cover was President Palin.
[623] It was a scenario thing of, she is going to run, she is likely to be the Republican nominee, and here's how it could work out that she could end up being president, not like predicting, but sort of saying, this is the scenario by which this could happen, and how crazy it was.
[624] Obviously, it was a kind of a, you know, it was meant to be kind of a shock treatment thing.
[625] I mean, if somehow this is such a ridiculous counterfactual, but if, you know, some of the people who worked with her at the convention, if she had maintained a real relationship with, like, Tucker Eskew, Nicole, you know, I mean, again, these are all ridiculous counterfactuals.
[626] Tucker and Nicole are good people, but maybe there was somebody around who would have stuck.
[627] But remember, I mean, her performance at the convention was incredible.
[628] I mean, I don't think I've ever seen a politician who was more in the human microwave, as McKinnon would call it, of politics than that period from when she was selected to when she gave her speech in Minneapolis.
[629] I mean, she was just being vivisected before your eyes.
[630] And she got up there and gave a lights out speech at that convention.
[631] And I will give her credit for that forever.
[632] She was like, really, I mean, the pressure was on.
[633] That woman, if I were her, I would, after 48 hours, I'd been like, I'm going back to Wasilla.
[634] Like, I'm out of here.
[635] she had this charisma and she had these natural performance skills and the people who helped her in Minneapolis when she was so willing to take their help were some really talented people like Tucker and Nicole and some others and you know for obviously various reasons having to do with her personality defects she ended up basically losing all of the people that had any capacity to be the person you're talking about but yeah if she had put together a team that was as good as John Huntsman's team for instance like if she had had Rick Santorum's team forget John like Rick Santorum almost beat Mitt right Rick Santorum almost beat Mitt I was going to say team Tim Miller, John Braybender, Nick Ayers.
[636] Nick Ayers, Braybender, and me would have taken out Mitt with Parenthood, easily.
[637] Easily.
[638] Thank God that didn't happen.
[639] That's a horrible counterfactual.
[640] And then throw it Alex Conan and you guys could have made her president.
[641] Ugh, all right.
[642] That's a horrible counterfeiture.
[643] All right.
[644] I want to close with, I want to put a quarter and let you talk about Bill Walton.
[645] But I want to play one clip because Bill Walton, this was a guy who liked John Hallman.
[646] He would go there.
[647] He was not afraid.
[648] Let's listen to Bill Walton.
[649] They don't.
[650] Not even if you beat Liberty next time.
[651] if you beat liberty next time if you beat liberty next time will they rush the floor why don't we just talk about liberty since you brought it up let's move on Coloco with his second file Tiger Campbell at the line if there was ever a misapplied name all right so Tiger this is the middle of the second half and Bill Walton's like let's talk about Jerry Falwell for a second okay this man could talk about the beauty of life but also our darker angels with a plum and, man, there are very few originals.
[652] We'll miss Bill Walton.
[653] Do you have any closing thoughts for the listeners on the Big Red?
[654] So, you know, I grew up in Southern California and in the San Fernando Valley.
[655] So my dad was a huge basketball fan and it played at University of Wisconsin when he was undergrad.
[656] And I played a lot of hoops.
[657] And so we were huge Lakers fans and UCLA fans, even though we didn't go.
[658] But the cult of John Wooden was deep.
[659] I might, you know, Wooden was from Indiana.
[660] My dad was from Wisconsin.
[661] that kind of Midwestern guy who had been transplanted.
[662] And so, you know, Lou Alcinder, soon to be Kareem Edd Bill Jabbar, dominant center with UCLA in the late 60s, then goes to the Milwaukee Bucks where my dad was a huge fan.
[663] So we're like, who was going to replace Lou El Cinder in the early 70s?
[664] I was young, you know, but Bill Walton was rad.
[665] At the time, I didn't appreciate this, but later, you know, the pictures of him engaged in student protests at UCLA, things that with the beard, you know, While playing on the team.
[666] While playing on the team.
[667] A team that John Wooden, for all of his, I mean, he had many obvious attributes, incredible coach, one of the greatest coaches of the history of the game, but that was not a wooden kind of thing.
[668] And his ability to reach an accommodation with living within the wooden system, and he worshipped wooden on some level, but also really was an individualist and there were things he wouldn't compromise on.
[669] I always thought that was so admirable.
[670] And, you know, people talk about that era in sports.
[671] And, you know, Kareem, Bill Russell, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, these were all very out front, very politically active athletes at a time, Arthur Ash, but huge politically expressive, involved in the protest movements, involved in all of that stuff that was happening late 60s, early 70s.
[672] Bill Walton was in that group.
[673] He was the only white guy.
[674] He was the one white dude who was a great athlete in that era.
[675] It was really politically outspoken.
[676] willing to court controversy, willing to stick to his principles, and was a white dude fighting in a lot of cases on the side of poor African -Americans and also of racial justice and on the side of those kinds of issues.
[677] So I always thought he was great for all of that, and he was also so funny, right?
[678] I mean, the combination of his seriousness and his goofiness.
[679] And, you know, there was a thing in one of the obits that said that he talked about how when he was the sixth man on the Celtics and what is.
[680] second NBA title was the thing he was proudest of, being a sixth man, that that was the thing that meant most to him of his two NCAA championships, his two state championships in high school and his two NBA championships, the one where he was a sixth man of the Celtics.
[681] And there was a quote from Larry Bird saying that Walden was one of the greatest players that he'd ever played with when he was healthy.
[682] And their interviewer said to him, do you mean greatest centers?
[683] And he goes, no, one of the greatest players ever to walk the court.
[684] But when Larry Bird gives that kind of compliment out about somebody, it makes you sit back and go, man, If that dude hadn't, you know, his feet were so fucked up.
[685] I think in his book, he said he felt like he was basically ruined by the time he got out of, he got into high school.
[686] He was like he was never.
[687] Age 14.
[688] Yes.
[689] 14 was the first time of happened.
[690] What that guy would have been capable of if he had had good health.
[691] He's already in a pantheon of, you know, one of the 50 maybe greatest basketball players who ever played the game.
[692] But what he would have achieved had he been remotely healthy and not in constant pain.
[693] And then finally, you know, a guy who has a broadcaster.
[694] would occasionally like go on a beautiful little p .ns to his experiences of mushroom eating, acid dropping, uh, grateful dead listening.
[695] Mid game, you know, middle of the second quarter.
[696] Just just all of a sudden start talking about it.
[697] Well, you know, my experience with mushroom is always that they're pretty good.
[698] And here's how you use them.
[699] It's been like, oh, there goes Bill.
[700] I mean, the phrase American original is thrown around a lot and often not fully accurately.
[701] Bill Walton was a true American original.
[702] And I think, you know, we don't have enough people like that qualify as being, you know, that original and that surprising all the time.
[703] And I think he'll be missed a lot.
[704] I would watch random late night pack 12 games just because he was calling up just because the joy he'd bring me. He'd answer his dorm room phone and peach the president back in those days on the national championship teams.
[705] Look at his final four box scores.
[706] They're insane.
[707] It was like 21 to 22 in a final four game or something.
[708] It's unbelievable.
[709] And he score 20 points have 25 rebounds at like a 10 assists and like nine block shots.
[710] It was like he did, you know, he did fucking everything on the court when he was on the court, everything.
[711] John Howman, thank you for staying a little long with me. Talk to Bill Walton.
[712] Your new podcast launching June 4th, Impolitic.
[713] I call it Impolitic, but it's impolitic.
[714] He's a national political columnist at Puck.
[715] We'll be talking to you soon.
[716] My partner in Climb.
[717] Bill Walton, fare thee well, the rest of you.
[718] We'll see you all here tomorrow.
[719] Peace.
[720] phone except you on my hands and my knees I will roll by the water side in my time by the water side I will lay my head listen to the real but same sweet saw homes to rock my soul The Bullwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brett.