The Bulwark Podcast XX
[0] All right.
[1] Hello and welcome to the Bullard podcast.
[2] I'm your host, Tim Miller.
[3] We have 217 days to the 2024 election.
[4] It's Monday.
[5] I'm back with Bill Crystal.
[6] Bill, how you doing?
[7] Fine, Tim.
[8] How are you?
[9] I'm doing quite well.
[10] And I'm excited.
[11] We have to start with the most important news of the day, which isn't about politics.
[12] We have, what I expect will be the most watched women's college basketball game in history tonight, a rematch of last year's national championship, Caitlin Clark's, Iowa Hawkeyes, against the LSU Tigers who were demeaned as dirty debutants in the L .A. Times who were assaulted by a profile writer who didn't understand Kim Mulkey's resilience in the Washington Post.
[13] I like, you can't bad.
[14] That's just a joke.
[15] We've been, you know, kind of turned this into, you know, goodness versus darkness, you know, in the evil empire, the LSU Tigers defending their title.
[16] Should be a marvelous basketball game tonight.
[17] Are you excited?
[18] I'm not really.
[19] Many people in the bulwark are.
[20] The bulwark is divided, a house divided against itself.
[21] You and your family there, rooting for the tigers and Andrew Eger and his family.
[22] I think his wife went to Iowa.
[23] He told me he was dressing the little, the toddlers of and the infant up in Hawkeyes gear.
[24] So, you guys can hash it out tomorrow.
[25] I think it may be a special three or four hour podcast, don't you think?
[26] A special three or four hour breakdown of the elite eight match tonight, probably.
[27] It's at seven in the east if you're looking for when to tune in.
[28] I will say it's interesting how the, you know, kind of the narrative and stereotypes of the teams are reflected in the Bullwork House divided.
[29] You know, people say the Iowa team is like milk and cookies, you know, America's girls.
[30] That's kind of Andrew Eger.
[31] You know, the LSU team was slandered as dirty debutants.
[32] I think I fit that role pretty nicely.
[33] So it is nice that even internally we're living to type.
[34] So we're pulling for Angel Reese and Flage Johnson tonight.
[35] And I hope everybody enjoys take a break from politics.
[36] Enjoy that basketball game here on Monday night.
[37] I think it's wonderful for the, for the sport.
[38] and I'm excited.
[39] I got to have my little girl out in LSU gear tonight.
[40] I watched Duke last night out of loyalty to our daughter who, and son of the law who went there and I'm like the only person outside of Durham who actually moots for Duke out of that family loyalty.
[41] It was tough.
[42] It was a tough loss.
[43] After getting there, it's a four -seed and having a kind of clear path, right?
[44] Four -seat playing at 11.
[45] That doesn't happen that often.
[46] They probably lost at North Carolina State.
[47] And it was a tough loss.
[48] I also like that Jared McCain on Duke who paints his nails.
[49] He's got a good TikTok feed.
[50] I know we're not supposed to be on TikTok, but if you are secretly on TikTok.
[51] You should check out Jared McCain's TikTok.
[52] Okay, let's get to business.
[53] Well, this isn't really business, actually.
[54] We're going to slowly get into real business.
[55] We'll go, we'll begin with sports, and then we'll go to the politics, the WWE element of politics, and we'll get into actual policy.
[56] There was a kerfuffle over the weekend about Easter and about which candidate for president is more faithful, more reverent, takes Easter more seriously.
[57] It seems like it would be an easy call between the weekly church going Catholic.
[58] and the guy who's cheated on all his wives and likes to play golf on Sundays, but not in conservative media.
[59] In conservative media, they were trying to spin it the other way and say that it was Joe Biden who was sacrilegious because the White House put out a statement acknowledging the transgender day of visibility, which has been on March 31st.
[60] They've put out a statement every March 31st.
[61] It's just Easter changes.
[62] I know that, you know, the Eastern Catholic Christians don't really, Catholics don't really realize that the Easter does change days.
[63] So they did turn Easter into transgender day of visibility.
[64] It just happened to land on Easter this year.
[65] Also, there was another controversy.
[66] The White House Easter egg roll.
[67] They said they can't put any religious iconography.
[68] The children cannot draw any religious iconography on the eggs.
[69] This does seem stupid to me. I concur that that seems very stupid.
[70] But here's the thing.
[71] That's been the rule for 45 years since 1976, including all the Easter egg rolls that Donald Trump was in there.
[72] None of the facts, though, got in the way of, you know, basically a full outreach cycle, governors, Governor Mississippi, Tate Reeves, Fox News.
[73] This was Wall to Wall and Fox News, tan suit level coverage of these outrages on Fox News.
[74] How do you assess this bill and how do you even deal with nonsense like this?
[75] It is hard to know.
[76] Just one of the little factoid, you went forward to feel stupid even talking, you know, in a way addressing it, but whatever.
[77] I mean, Joe Biden put out on Easter or for Easter this year, as he has, I gather the last past couple years, quite a religious statement about the meaning of Easter.
[78] I mean, he is a serious Catholic, and he talks about the resurrection and Jesus's sacrifice, which is entitled to do, certainly, and did.
[79] So the idea that Donald Trump takes the meeting of Easter more seriously than Joe Biden is obviously on its face ludicrous.
[80] The other thing that struck me about just kind of following it a bit this weekend is back in the old days, i .e. 10 years ago, like Fox News might have made something of this, and Rush Limbaugh, talk radio.
[81] It's kind of a talk radio thing, right?
[82] A few backbench members of Congress, the Marchy -tail of Greens of that day would have maybe said something.
[83] The idea that actual semi -serious politicians and semi -serious positions, you know, leadership roles in the House, governors of states, would be addressing this, pretending that it's a real thing.
[84] That's the real collapse of the Trump era.
[85] And of course, one shouldn't be surprised because Trump is in charge of the Republican Party and the three -time nominee, so why shouldn't everyone follow down his path?
[86] But the degree to which everyone is just following down his path is, I don't know, it's not striking anymore, but it is noteworthy, I think.
[87] It is noteworthy.
[88] And Mike Johnson Speaker of the House, but everybody did.
[89] Governors, I thought, you know, Jonathan Martin pointed this out this morning.
[90] You're talking about backbenchers of the House.
[91] Even as recently as like three years ago, the idea that governors would engage in this kind of thing.
[92] Like, the governorships were sort of a, the National Governors Association, which is a bipartisan group, you know, still kind of existed as a pretty useful bipartisan organization where they, you know, trade best practices, et cetera, et cetera.
[93] And this stuff is now trickling down everywhere.
[94] to your point on Joe Biden's statement, let's just read it together.
[95] Jill and I send our warmest wishes to Christians around the world celebrating the power of hope and the promise of Christ's resurrection this Easter Sunday.
[96] As we gather with loved ones who remember Jesus's sacrifice, we pray for one another and cherish the blessing of the dawn of new possibilities.
[97] I want to read Donald Trump's statement in a second.
[98] It's a little different.
[99] I had an event over the weekend.
[100] I was moderating a panel with Reverend William Barber.
[101] And one of the things I was asking him was, I do think that sometimes that the Democrats could, you know, wear their religiosity on their sleeve.
[102] And we talked about, you wrote, I think, well about Joe Lieberman over the weekend in his Jewish faith.
[103] Biden does this kind of.
[104] And I do wonder if there is an opening here just, you know, to kind of counter what I think is a wrong conventional wisdom that Democrats aren't comfortable talking about faith and religion as a kind of.
[105] contrast with Donald Trump in an election year, not saying that the Democrats should start grifting and selling Bibles, et cetera.
[106] But is there a way to kind of swing the pendulum back a little bit about this?
[107] Is this something that Democrats should be just thinking about, at least for Democrats for whom it's a genuine and authentic belief?
[108] Yeah, I think so.
[109] As you say, Joe Biden is fairly upfront.
[110] I wouldn't say he's not gratuitous in it, but he's a genuine church -going Catholic.
[111] And obviously, it's very important to him, clearly.
[112] And maybe people should talk about that more in those communities.
[113] There are also chances if one wants to get a little more, God forbid, Machiavellian or, you know, on the level of operatives as opposed to the earnest politicians.
[114] That statement was it Johnson, Speaker Johnson's statement, to distinguish Catholics and Christians?
[115] I believe that was actually Trump's spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt, a failed congressional candidate.
[116] So, okay, speaking for Trump, though.
[117] So that's an old -fashioned Protestant view that, you know, we're the Christians and the Catholics are not really good Christians because they follow the Pope and Roman, all this stuff.
[118] I don't know.
[119] It feels like that's a relic of.
[120] that in there, but maybe a bit of a dog whistle to parts of the sort of extreme versions of the Evangelical, a little even more fundamentalist, right?
[121] And someone, I wouldn't, the campaign shouldn't do this, but some Biden supporter out there somewhere should start causing trouble among Catholics that, you know, these people don't think you're real Christians.
[122] Biden clearly thinks Biden addresses all of us Christians at one point at one of his statements or we Christians, you know.
[123] So he thinks Catholics are Christians.
[124] He does.
[125] Andrew Bates of the White House did put out a statement about that.
[126] I think that not Biden and not Biden's team, really.
[127] But sometimes other Democrats, I feel like, seem a little uncertain, uncomfortable with religiosity and overt displays of it.
[128] And I don't know.
[129] Yeah, I mean, I think maybe some ads of Biden and church probably wouldn't hurt either.
[130] Okay, just one more thing on the Easter statement.
[131] Just as a reminder, for folks, it's Monday, you know, they might never have been paying attention.
[132] I just, one more time, Joe Biden's statement, as we gather with loved ones, we remember Jesus's sacrifice.
[133] That was a sentence for Joe Biden.
[134] And here is his opponent, happy Easter to all, including crooked and corrupt prosecutors and judges that are doing everything possible to interfere with the presidential election and put me in prison, including those many people that I completely and totally despise because they want to destroy America, a now failing nation, like deranged Jack Smith, who is evil and sick, Mrs. Fanny, Fawney, Wade, it goes on.
[135] speaking of deranged like what in the fuck i guess what in the fuck is my question bill it's a question that answers itself i like the fact that me is in the sort of third line of the statement that's that somehow says it all too right i mean let's forget about all that jesus stuff i'm not going to give you a lot commentary on second corinthians speaking of people who sacrificed on easter weekend let's talk about me let's make this let's make easter about me what about the failing nation element, he just tosses that in there, too.
[136] You know, in the old days, it was really bad politically to be on the talking down America side of things.
[137] I believe we Republicans, when we were Republicans, did a fair amount of attacking Democrats for that.
[138] And the Jane Kirkpatrick and the 84 speech at the Reagan convention way back when they always blame America first.
[139] Now, it's totally standard that you think conservative MAGA talking point, that America is a total disaster made more so by Biden, but kind of a disaster anyway, because of all these trends.
[140] that they hate.
[141] And that's why they root for, you know, for Russia against America, I guess.
[142] Yeah.
[143] All right.
[144] Well, in summation, the Donald Trump Easter experience was hating America, separating Christians and Catholics and selling a grifty Bible to help for his legal troubles.
[145] And Joe Biden's Easter was attending Mass and sending out a respectful statement about the sacrifice of Christ.
[146] Okay, moving on.
[147] All right, y 'all.
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[149] I am like, you know, the boomers that still wore the bell bottoms and still wear the flower stuff and it was like part of their identity.
[150] This was me with skinny jeans.
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[152] I came out of the closet with a pair of skinny jeans.
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