Tim Miller: Trump Keeps Telling Us

[0] Welcome to The Bull Work Podcast.

[1] I'm Charlie Sykes.

[2] It is Friday, and we are back with Tim Miller.

[3] Tim, how have you been?

[4] Charlie, it's been too long, man. We have so much to cover.

[5] Stuff has happened.

[6] You had COVID in the house.

[7] You know, we missed you.

[8] You could have used a purple drink.

[9] I promised you.

[10] In New Orleans, you could have used a purple drink.

[11] So do it a, you know, a rain check.

[12] Well, you think about it's been like, you know, a couple of weeks, all the things that have happened.

[13] We have a new speaker.

[14] We have a couple of new wars.

[15] We have a new slug.

[16] lap fight going on in Congress.

[17] We can talk about all of that.

[18] I want you to explain some things to me. I want you to explain Ken Buck to me. I want to talk about the Nikki Haley surge.

[19] I want to talk about you and Steve Schmidt and this whole Dean Phillips campaign.

[20] Are you up for that?

[21] We're going to do that?

[22] Yeah, let's do it all.

[23] Oh, and Tommy Tuberville.

[24] And whether you agree with me or not that Tommy Tuberville is the Senate's dumbest member.

[25] I understand that's a controversial position.

[26] competitive category.

[27] It was interesting watching the other night where finally after nine months the other Republicans called bullshit on M4 holding up all of those promotions for no particular substantive reason.

[28] And it was not just the substance, it was also the tone.

[29] They were exasperated and disgusted with the guy and it's like they've been holding it in, right?

[30] Yeah.

[31] They know how stupid Tommy Tuberville is, but also how reckless and dangerous and demagogic is.

[32] And finally it just poured out of them.

[33] It reminded me of how pissed the closet normal's House Republicans were at Matt Gates.

[34] Yes.

[35] Same thing happened, right, during the McCarthy thing, where Garrett Graves from up here in Baton Rouge is up, you know, who's an establishment guy that went along with Trump.

[36] And he's up there going, Matt Gates is the worst.

[37] He's the worst person.

[38] He's a grifter.

[39] And it's just like all these guys just have had to push it down for like seven years now, right?

[40] They can't say it about Trump.

[41] They can't say it.

[42] They've been seconded down for a very long time now.

[43] It can whisper it in the Capitol Hill Club basement.

[44] But finally, when they let it out, you know, it's like the hot steam popping out of their ears.

[45] And Matt Gates and Tommy Toberville, I guess, are safe spaces.

[46] They feel like they can express their real feelings in a way that it won't cost them a primary.

[47] And so you get to see the true face of what these guys think about the monster that they have created and enabled the past decade.

[48] Again and again and again, you know, they create the monster of Marjorie Taylor Green.

[49] and they were amazed that she's turned on them or you've gone along with Tommy Tuberville and you realize, hey, there's actual consequences to attacking the military.

[50] It was a little bit, look, the word ironic is overused, but I'll use it anyway here, that they were willing to go along with Tommy Tuberville kneecapping the U .S. military up until the moment where the commandant of the Marine Corps has a heart attack because they're making him do two jobs and there's a war in the Middle East where obviously U .S. military is going to be affected in some way.

[51] So it actually took a war and the heart attack from the top Marine for people to say, hey, maybe this Tommy Tuberville holiday from reality is not a good idea.

[52] Yeah, I mean, you would have thought on the merits, at least the vestigial neocons, right, the vestigial strong national security types, so the Tom Cotton's and Lindsay's, and finally they broke with Dan Sullivan, I guess took the lead out of Alaska.

[53] I will say, I'm hoping that the Democrats use this to play hardball on this.

[54] I've seen the last couple weeks.

[55] I feel like the Democrats are wimping out.

[56] They went down on the George Santos thing.

[57] Several of them went along with this.

[58] I know we can talk about the Mike Johnson, Israel funding tied to IRS gambit, and even a couple of them went along with that.

[59] I would love to see a little more hardball out of them.

[60] And hopefully this could be an example.

[61] I mean, the Republicans, Dan Sullivan and Lindsey Graham just gave them free ad material for next fall.

[62] Oh, absolutely.

[63] It's Republicans on the Senate floor that are saying our party is hampering military readiness.

[64] And that's a useful material.

[65] Oh, yeah.

[66] I mean, when he was talking about how the Chinese generals and admirals must be, you know, pinching themselves.

[67] How could they possibly be so lucky?

[68] What a great gift to Ji and Vladimir Putin.

[69] This is coming from Republican senators on the floor talking about another Republican senator.

[70] So.

[71] Yeah, it's like, just really quick, these swing voters like in Georgia, right?

[72] Who are the people we're talking about?

[73] The suburban, white, college -educated dads, right?

[74] Like, these are national security types, Wanastrong military, the Brian Kemp, Raphael Warnock voter, right?

[75] Like that demo that's going to be 13 in 2024, this is really effective grist, I would think, for motivating that audience.

[76] There's so much we have to talk about.

[77] I'm going to double back and talk about Congress, and I want you to explain a lot of this stuff to me. But this is one of those moments where I go, okay, we have been talking about Donald Trump for so long that there comes a point where you go.

[78] Can we talk about anything other than Donald Trump?

[79] I mean, look, you and I both feel this way, right?

[80] You kind of get numbed.

[81] You kind of get bored by it, and it's like...

[82] I literally quit reading a book last week because Donald Trump turned out to be a character, and I was like, nope, can't do it.

[83] It was going in the trash.

[84] I need a break from this guy.

[85] Well, because you were reading it for leisure time, right?

[86] And it's like, suddenly this other world comes in, you know?

[87] I guess I'm going to do that a little bit because Donald Trump went down to Houston, Texas, to have a rally, and he did something that he's done before.

[88] And I just think it's worth paying attention.

[89] to what he's actually saying because this is not the first time that he has played the January 6th prisoner anthem or that he has praised the insurrectionist.

[90] This is not the first time.

[91] In fact, as I wrote in morning shots, this is not a gaff.

[92] This has become a foundational theme of his re -election campaign.

[93] This is a guy that started his reelection campaign in Waco, Texas.

[94] We can You can get to that in a moment because there's a great quote from Steve Bannon about all this.

[95] But I want you to listen to this.

[96] This is Donald Trump comes out on the stage and they start playing this.

[97] You have to know, these are the January 6th day.

[98] The prisoners, they're singing it over a phone, I guess.

[99] Well, thank you very much.

[100] And you know what that was?

[101] That was, I call them the J6 hostages, not prisoners.

[102] I call them the hostages, what's happened.

[103] and it's a shame and you know they did that and they asked me whether or not I would partake and do the beautiful words and I said yes I would and you saw the spirit the spirit was incredible and when that came out it went to the number one song it was beating everybody it beat Taylor Swift it beat Molly Cyrus who was number one and two they were number one and two we knocked them off for a long time that song was out there from A long time.

[104] Then, of course, they had a problem with the Internet, right?

[105] He's the guy that couldn't identify Alexander Hamilton in the lineup, but he knows Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus.

[106] Look, here's the thing.

[107] I don't know whether you've read.

[108] Jonathan Carl has a new book in me on it.

[109] It's excerpted in the Atlantic.

[110] And he talks about that first rally where Donald Trump goes down to Waco, the scene of the Branch Davidian anti -government fiasco.

[111] And he gives this speech.

[112] And afterwards, he asked Steve Bannon, well, was this a coincidence that you're down in Waco?

[113] and Bennett is like strutting and saying, yeah, we're all Trump Davidians now.

[114] And that was the first time that he rolled out this anthem from the January 6th protesters.

[115] I mean, Tim, do I have to remind people, we're talking about people who attacked the Capitol, who beat up cops, who tried to overthrow the government.

[116] Their crimes were so serious that they are locked up in jail.

[117] Donald Trump is not just saying, I think they're being treated unfairly.

[118] He's actually promoting their song and referring to them.

[119] I hope he just didn't have breakfast or lunch or dinner.

[120] Hostages.

[121] There, by the way, are real hostages in the world, in Gaza, in Israel.

[122] This guy, this fucker.

[123] Yeah, is referring to the people who, yeah, beating up the cops, not as prisoners, but as hostage.

[124] You know what he's going to, he's going to pardon them all.

[125] Yeah, of course he'd pardon them.

[126] You know, the hostages thing, this is pretty obvious on the nose, but it's just worth saying explicitly, he's doing this to parallel Biden and the Democrats to Hamas.

[127] That's what he's doing, right?

[128] He's like Biden and the Democrats are holding these people hostages.

[129] They are Hamas and, you know, the January 6ers are the innocent or Israelis who were terrorized by Hamas.

[130] I know you're trying to make this family podcast now, but there's nothing else to do except for to cuss at it.

[131] He's a piece of shit.

[132] and, you know, he picked up the endorsement of Rick Scott this week on the hails of this.

[133] You know, there was a lot of highfalutin rhetoric from some of these guys like Mitch McConnell after January 6th, you know, even the ones that didn't vote to convict.

[134] And these people are absent and they want to pretend like this isn't happening.

[135] They're doing the hostage strategy, head in the ground, pretend like downtown doesn't exist.

[136] He exists on this other plane of existence.

[137] He has his own social media feed.

[138] He has his own media network that people watch these things, RBSN and bands, There's this whole alternate world over here that not everybody, but much of the Republican Party wants to just pretend like doesn't exist.

[139] And the stuff that's happening in that other world is deeply scary.

[140] It's deeply radicalizing.

[141] You know, we've been doing some midweek YouTube videos if you guys miss us on Friday.

[142] But it was something that I was talking about this week on YouTube.

[143] It was just like, the media has to talk about this.

[144] And everyone's tired about it.

[145] We're tired.

[146] You're tired.

[147] I'm tired.

[148] Everyone's tired.

[149] I get it.

[150] But he's out there glorifying insurrectionist.

[151] the nurse.

[152] In addition to all of his like weird gaffes that he's been making, confusing World War II and confusing Obama with Biden and all this stuff.

[153] Nobody talks about it.

[154] It's not on the nightly news of Lester Holt.

[155] It's not on the day of show.

[156] It's on MS.

[157] It's on certain places.

[158] Because the news is about something that's new, right?

[159] And all of the crazy is not new.

[160] The fact that he's a seditionist, the fact that he's all of this stuff.

[161] Come on.

[162] We've reported that.

[163] Like, wait, maybe the standard for news shouldn't be just novelty.

[164] It should be he's actually an insurrection.

[165] who's talking about suspending the Constitution.

[166] Yeah, could you imagine if, like, other people, like, what are the equivalents to this?

[167] Some pro -crypto candidate sings a song to SBF or Joe Biden sings a song to the, you know, Jesse Smollett song.

[168] Like, if any other politician was out there doing a sing -along with people who are in prison for attacking cops.

[169] Law and Order.

[170] Back the Blue.

[171] Yeah, back the blue.

[172] The real Law and Order candidate.

[173] But it would be wall -to -wall, but he gets treated differently and he shouldn't be.

[174] This is like on par with as the top of the most outrageous shit he's ever done.

[175] Okay.

[176] For the people who say, I'm so sick of hearing his voice, there's another little dazzling detail in Jonathan Carle's new book that he got from Steve Bannon.

[177] I mean, it's very clear that one of the themes of the Trump campaign, if it's not the only theme of the Trump campaign, is I am your retribution.

[178] This is the revenge campaign.

[179] I'm going to do to you, what you did to me and all of this.

[180] He really unveiled that retribution theme during that weird Waco rally where he, He was singing with the January 6th insurrection.

[181] So John then Carl talks about, this is in the Atlantic, but I excerpted into my morning shots.

[182] Johnlin Carl goes up to Steve Bannon afterwards, and he's talking about this speech.

[183] He writes, when I spoke with Bannon a few days later, he wouldn't stop touting Trump's performance, referring to it as his come -retribution speech.

[184] Come -retribution?

[185] Come -retribution.

[186] That's the phrase that ban used.

[187] Carl writes, what I didn't realize.

[188] I'm sorry to interrupt and be a child, but I was hearing the word, and next to come retribution is just making me uncomfortable, but okay, let's continue.

[189] I'm sorry to interrupt.

[190] You're going to hear it several times here.

[191] Okay.

[192] I'm going to try to brace myself.

[193] Carl writes, what I didn't realize was that the phrase come retribution, the phrase the phrase the ban used, Carl writes, what I didn't realize was, come retribution was the code word the Confederate Secret Service used for the plot to take hostage and eventually assassinate Abraham Lincoln.

[194] The use of the key phrase come retribution suggests the Confederate government had made a bitter decision to repay some of the misery that had been inflicted on the South, historians right.

[195] Bitterness may well have been directed toward persons hell to be particularly responsible for that misery, and Abraham Lincoln certainly headed the list.

[196] In case you're wondering, well, okay, but Bannon didn't mean that when he kept using come retribution.

[197] Carl writes, Steve Bannon actually recommended that I read that book, erasing any doubt, that he was intentionally using the Confederate code words to describe Trump's speech.

[198] So Trump's speech, was not an over -call for the assassination of his political opponents, but it did advocate their destruction by other means.

[199] Success is, quote, within our reach, but only if we have the courage to complete the job, gut the deep state, reclaim our democracy, and banish the tyrants and Marxists into political exile forever, Trump declared, this is the turning point.

[200] Come retribution, this is not a gap.

[201] I can't imagine any punishment worse than being a very.

[202] victim of Steve Bannon's comb retribution.

[203] But, boy, I look, it's a...

[204] Can I move on from that, yeah.

[205] Yeah, the eventual image is tough for me, but I'm doing my best.

[206] Look, I think that the underlying thing here, I mean, Beannon is so just, you know, with all of his like historical self -important references, you know, some of the stuff is over the top.

[207] But I think that the important element to this is that, like, you don't have to have read the 1988 book about Confederate retribution to get the message if you're a ranking file.

[208] MAGA person, right?

[209] If you're a MAGA that is radicalized and you are listening to Donald Trump, sing with prisoners about how they are hostages and how he's going to let them free once he takes over, and we've done this on this podcast before, but it's not a long step logically, especially for somebody who's got a screw loose and has got a lot of weaponry.

[210] It's not a far logical step to think, okay, well, I can go take my retribution and this guy will take care of me on the back end when he wins.

[211] Well, and this is what Carl is writing about, and it turns out that John McClure, wrote a book about the Branch Devidian siege and assault back in the 1990s and how this became the theme for the right.

[212] This was government overreach.

[213] 50 people died as a result of all of this.

[214] Timothy McVeigh used what happened in Waco, Texas with the Branch DeBidians as one of the pretext for blowing up the Oklahoma City Federal Building and one of the worst domestic terrorist attacks ever.

[215] So this is not a random moment.

[216] This is reaching back into sort of these visceral anti -government war with the government motif.

[217] And Carl's entire point is that, again, this was not unintentional.

[218] That's why Steve Bannon says were Trump Dividians.

[219] The implications of that are, even for us, I think, it's a little hard to get your head around because you can't talk about this and separate it from violence.

[220] Right.

[221] And certain people hear that key, right, in their ear, right, if they're schooled in this stuff.

[222] If you ever read a very popular memoir, educated about this woman who's like Loram and family, her father's radicalized, right?

[223] And she's just living out and it's been a while since I read it, I think Idaho.

[224] The people that are on these message boards that are listening to stuff that have read about the Branch Divideons, that have read about McVeigh, that have read about all of the one -off folks out of Montana and Idaho that had other little smaller government skirmishes, they're picking up what you're putting down on this imagery.

[225] And it's not subtle, right, at all.

[226] And so that is at the heart of the threat, and there's no one in that world that is speaking out about this.

[227] There's nobody that has any trust with that group that is trying to turn down the temperature.

[228] Well, and it's hard to imagine who that would be.

[229] Okay, so I wanted to dive deep into the craziness that's going on in the rest of our politics, putting it in this context.

[230] The problem of talking about the craziness in the House of Representatives or the Senate or any place else, is that everything is under this cloud of the craziness of Donald Trump.

[231] And so there is that alpha craziness that kind of smothers all the others.

[232] So you can talk about, hey, isn't it crazy?

[233] What's going on in the House?

[234] Well, yeah, but you just got done talking about the former president of the United States, who is the alpha male apex predator of the Republican Party.

[235] But let's do it anyway, okay?

[236] Yeah, okay.

[237] This Mike Johnson thing gets more interesting all the time.

[238] I still think it's extraordinary that every single Republican voted for him despite his record.

[239] I don't know about you.

[240] I had to Google him.

[241] I never heard of the guy before.

[242] He's never been vetted.

[243] A really brief anecdote for you getting into this.

[244] The only reason I'd heard of him, because he's relatively new even here in Louisiana.

[245] But when I wrote, I went to the Louisiana Republican Convention.

[246] Oh, yeah.

[247] And he piqued my interest there because, as I wrote in the article, the crowd is insane.

[248] I just think it's important for, you know, liberal listeners, right, to distinguish.

[249] You can go to Republican Party functions, and it still kind of feels like the old days sometimes, just like it's the gray hairs.

[250] It's the same party chairs.

[251] And they like Trump now.

[252] So they've gotten a little weirder.

[253] But like the general feel is the same.

[254] That was not true in Lafayette.

[255] The crowd was crazy.

[256] Like they were super Trumpy and they were only cheering for the most insane things, the election fraud, the vaccines, all the conspiracy stuff.

[257] And then Mike Johnson goes to speak.

[258] We've all seen him speak by now.

[259] It's a little kind of howdy -duty kind of like Mr. Rogers milk drinking vibe.

[260] But people are really into it.

[261] Bill Cassidy is getting booed there.

[262] And people are into it.

[263] And he's using very religious language and iconography.

[264] He's also using MAGA, very comfortably speaking and kind of MAGA election fraud stuff.

[265] But then he also talks about like swamp maintenance or whatever.

[266] You know what I mean?

[267] A couple of like logistical things of actual governance.

[268] And people are into it.

[269] And I watched that and I was like, man, this guy exemplifies this sort of.

[270] in MAGA establishment thing, where he's been able to blend at least coming off as someone that can handle basic competence stuff, unlike Louis Gomer, while also being, you know, very radical in his rhetoric.

[271] Right.

[272] I just kind of filed that away.

[273] And so when his name popped up again on that list on Monday, I was like, huh, it's not like I predicted him coming, but I sense that he had, it's been tough to find people that can do that bridge, you know, and he's bridged it for now.

[274] We'll see how long he can.

[275] I mean, usually you have a chance for people to get to know who you are before you become second in line to the presidency, now it's been reversed.

[276] It occurs to me. One of the things we've talked about, and both of us have written about, is the danger that when you keep saying, hey, these guys are whack -a -doodle extremists, Christian nationalists, I mean, the crazies are in charge.

[277] The problem with that is when a real extremist, a guy way out there, comes into power and you say, wait, you understand this guy's way out of the mainstream, that a lot of, including our listeners, will go, well, yeah, I mean, they're all like that.

[278] But wait, wait, this guy, Mike Johnson.

[279] I mean, not only was he a full -throated election denialist, he actually wanted to get his colleagues to sign under that letter asking the Supreme Court to throw out tens of millions of votes.

[280] So, I mean, this is at the far edge.

[281] Okay, others went along with that.

[282] We're now finding out that this is a guy, and I am not mocking his Christian faith, I am specifically talking about the specific brand and taste of it, where he apparently thinks there was no such thing as evolution that men and dinosaurs were coterminous.

[283] They were around at the same time.

[284] The Earth is 6 ,000 years old.

[285] He is into the most extreme anti -gay ideology out there.

[286] He believes the Roman Empire fell because of homosexuality.

[287] He's been involved in transition.

[288] We can do everything, Charlie.

[289] We got so much power of the gays.

[290] It's unbelievable.

[291] Taking down empires.

[292] It's one thing to talk about, because we've had these debates about, well, you know, there's a lot of hate and there's a lot of anti -gay sentiment and everything.

[293] But it's like, wait, now the real guy.

[294] has come rolling into the room, and it's like all the rhetoric about, no, you understand this guy is like really, really from the woollyest part of the fever swamps to mix my metaphors.

[295] Yeah, I don't think we have.

[296] I think that it is important to talk about this distinctions and the difference.

[297] Look, there is reason for liberals to look at the Republicans and think they're all like that, because they've all gone along with it.

[298] And in some ways, right, what you go along with is who you are.

[299] In other ways, it is different.

[300] What are they going to things that motivate him?

[301] What are going to be things that put him for?

[302] Are people going to be able to slow down his more extreme views?

[303] Maybe, but we haven't heard a lot of people speaking out about it.

[304] It's pretty telling about the nature of the Republican conference that Tom Emmer, who voted for that gay marriage compromise bill, there was one Republican congressman who specifically said from Georgia, I'm like the guy's name, but he's a Republican from Georgia, he specifically said that I cannot vote for this guy because he supported gay marriage.

[305] He's got to get right with God before he can be the Speaker of the House.

[306] Okay.

[307] So that was a deal breaker for somebody that Tom Amherst for gay marriage.

[308] Mike Johnson, thinking that gay sex should be illegal, was not a deal breaker for anybody.

[309] Now, some of them might say at all, I disagree with him on that, but it wasn't a deal breaker.

[310] I do think that's telling about the nature of where the conference is, where the power is within the conference.

[311] There's just no pushback on this.

[312] I mean, it would have been easier to define Johnson, I think, in the pre -Trump era, because he just fits right in in the mold of a Santorum, of a Ken Cucanette.

[313] of an Alan Keyes, you know, at the far edge of the religious right.

[314] Rick St. Torum is Mitt Romney compared to this guy.

[315] Right, yeah.

[316] So that's what I'm saying.

[317] And the pre -Trump era would have been easy to find him because that would have been his brand, right?

[318] I would have been the most extreme Christian conservative.

[319] But now he's gone along with all the Trumpy stuff.

[320] So now we're adding that on top of it.

[321] That is a little bit harder for people who are out there out throughout.

[322] I don't underestimate the power of exhaustion that the reason why everybody rolled over was they were just tired of.

[323] not having a speaker.

[324] They were embarrassed.

[325] It was the real prospect that they might have to cut a deal with Democrats.

[326] And at a certain point, everybody just threw up their hands.

[327] But it is amazing.

[328] I want to get your take on this because you are our whisper and all of this.

[329] Even the 10 bucks of the world.

[330] There was like five minutes there.

[331] Do you remember this where it looked like the moderates or the quote unquote moderates?

[332] The normies were going to draw the line.

[333] They weren't going to go along with Jim Jordan.

[334] They stood up against Donald Trump.

[335] They stood up against the threats that seemed like there were antibodies.

[336] And then they all rolled over.

[337] Not one of them voted against this guy.

[338] So is it all exhaustion or what else does it tell you?

[339] Yeah, exhaustion is part of it.

[340] I don't know that I can be your Ken Buck Whisper.

[341] I think he needs to see a psychiatrist.

[342] It seems to me that he has got going through some things personally.

[343] Just remind people, because I mean, this is the guy who's saying that his standard was you cannot be an election denial.

[344] I will not vote for you if you do not acknowledge that Joe Biden won the election.

[345] So he votes against Steve Sclee.

[346] I think he voted against Tom Emmer.

[347] No, no. I don't know who he voted.

[348] No, he voted against Jordan.

[349] Then he gets to do the cable news rounds.

[350] He's on CNN.

[351] He's on MSNBC, talking principle.

[352] Yeah.

[353] And he's on the way out.

[354] Then he announces this last week that he's retiring because he's so sick and tired of the Republicans embracing election nihilism.

[355] This, a couple of days after he votes for this full -throated election denialist.

[356] So Ken Buck is on the way out.

[357] He doesn't have a career to say necessarily, right?

[358] He's headed to cable news commentary.

[359] And yet, but what?

[360] last important thing he does is to vote for Mike Johnson.

[361] Explain this to me. Peer pressure and psychiatric requirements, I think, is my assescent of Ken Buck.

[362] The rest of them, here's what I really think.

[363] I think that it's important to really understand the House conferences, a high school cafeteria.

[364] These are grown children who need attention.

[365] And I don't know if you saw the memo from Nancy Mace's staff.

[366] They don't want to sit alone.

[367] Yeah, they don't want to sit alone at the lunch table.

[368] You've been heard from Romney.

[369] You had a great interview with McKay conference yesterday.

[370] Like, even for somebody like Romney, sitting alone is, it wears on you.

[371] Nobody wants to be the outcast.

[372] So that's one element of the cafeteria.

[373] The other element is, these guys really hated Jim Jordan.

[374] Right.

[375] Like, at a very personal level, Jim Jordan had screwed them over for years.

[376] He had, you know, gotten in front of the TV cameras and pulled the rug out from under them.

[377] And he pretended to be more right -wing.

[378] And they were sick of them.

[379] And I think that despite the fact that Mike Johnson and Jim Jordan are pretty much indistinct, wishable policy -wise.

[380] Mike hasn't been around long enough to grind any of these people's gears.

[381] And so they just did what they've gotten accustomed to doing, which is just folding to the real power center of the party, which is the MAGA right.

[382] That's how I assess it.

[383] Some of it was they're embarrassed and tired, but others of it was the Jim Jordan thing wasn't actually based on principle.

[384] They used the rhetoric of principle, but it was really more based on personal animus.

[385] Yeah.

[386] Okay, so I want to move on from Mike Johnson in just a moment.

[387] I actually had to stop myself.

[388] okay, is it Mike Johnson?

[389] Is it Mike Jones?

[390] Because I haven't gotten quite used to it.

[391] I had to save Nicole on live TV the other day.

[392] She looks at me and she just spaces out and she's like, what's his name again?

[393] And I was like, Mike Johnson.

[394] I do not judge anyone on all of this.

[395] Okay, so his first big thing, of course, is to link Israel aid to this slash an IRS, which was, of course, you know, a big manga talking point that we, you know, have to roll back Joe Biden's enforcement measures.

[396] Kind of blew up in his face when the CBO comes back and says, yeah, that's not actually going to save any money, it's going to actually add to the deficit.

[397] He goes ahead with it.

[398] The House did pass it.

[399] He got the votes, including Democrats.

[400] Just really quick, do we need to go to the CBO on this?

[401] I mean, it's like, hey, but what we're going to do is we're going to stop collecting taxes from tax cheats.

[402] Do we think that that's going to give us more revenue or less?

[403] Like, it didn't really take a macro -ic economist to figure that one out.

[404] But, hey, I'm sorry, condition.

[405] So I think that's dumb politics.

[406] How bad a mistake was it?

[407] He did get the votes.

[408] He did get it through the house.

[409] I was DOA.

[410] It's not going to go anywhere in the Senate.

[411] But it turned out, I think, not to be the talking point he was hoping.

[412] There's an indication that, you know, here's a guy who has been thrust into a job that perhaps he doesn't fully grasp.

[413] Yeah, he bought himself some time with it, I guess.

[414] Yeah, no, I don't think it's a good talking point.

[415] He brought a new comms director, former colleague of mine, Raj Shah, who was, went from the Trump White House to Fox.

[416] And at Fox, he was the mastermind behind helping them navigate the post -election fraud hysteria and Dominion work and how to deal with that worked out well for them.

[417] Oh yeah, a lot of emails from him.

[418] You saw in the Dominion lawsuit about how they're getting their ass handed to them by Newsmax and stuff and they need to do better to accommodate the base.

[419] That really worked out well.

[420] So Raj was just one of the many people that cost the Rupert Murdoch family almost $800 million.

[421] And Mike Johnson looked at him and he's like, you're my man for talking points.

[422] So I don't know that they've got the best and the brightest working over there as far as talking points are concerned.

[423] How do you think that happened, by the way?

[424] You would think that, you know, on Earth 2 .0, guy like that would be kind of discredited, radioactive.

[425] Did the Trump world folks call him up and say, this is the guy, we want, we want him to be your comms director, because somebody must have been his rabbi.

[426] Partially, probably, and maybe Fox.

[427] I don't know, who knows?

[428] All of these guys have built relationships with Fox because they want to get on TV, right?

[429] So I don't exactly know who his rabbi was.

[430] I'll tell you this, though, the binder full of resumes for Combs people on the Hill on the Republican side is pretty light.

[431] We've had on this podcast before, my friend Brendan Buck, who's on MS, there's Paul Ryan's guy.

[432] In a different world, you bring on somebody like that in a more senior role, and they bring on some younger people who are competent to actually do the day -to -day.

[433] Those people don't want this job.

[434] So the pool that you're picking from are like MAGA -coms people or, you know, you go to somebody like Raj who doesn't have shape.

[435] So I think that's what happens.

[436] He's got an $800 million defamation thing on his resume.

[437] long.

[438] I mean, it's not just on his resume.

[439] It was many, many hosts.

[440] I think it's easy for Rajel and they'd be like, sorry, it's Mr. Speaker.

[441] It was not my fault.

[442] That was Maria Barrett Romo's fault.

[443] Point being, I don't think it's the best in the brightest over there.

[444] And I don't think that the best in the brightest are applying.

[445] But I think the thing that he has going for him is that the Jim Jordan's already been rejected.

[446] Unless Matt Gates wants his job for himself, there's nobody like to his MAGA right who could take it.

[447] And we've already just finished discussing how the moderates aren't going to throw him over.

[448] So I think that as long as he continues to kind of hold the hard line edge on this stuff, he's going to be fine within the conference.

[449] Now, push is going to come to shove on the budget eventually.

[450] And so my guess is that he'll get a pass.

[451] Kevin McCarthy got a pass twice before they threw him over, you know, to cut the deals necessary to keep the government open.

[452] But he's in over his head.

[453] There's no doubt about that.

[454] You know, I had Adam Kinsinger on the other day, and he was describing the dynamic in a similar way is that you're sitting around the room and everybody's holding a hand grenade.

[455] The most powerful person in the room is the one who's willing to pull the pin on the hand grenade.

[456] You know, Matt Gates was willing to pull the pin.

[457] As you pointed out down in New Orleans, Tom Emmer is not going to be the guy to pull the pin on him.

[458] But the other problem, though, is that it's not just Mike Johnson is the fact that his caucus is still completely fucked up.

[459] I mean, the dysfunction was a pre -existing condition.

[460] But just like in the last couple of days, and you did a great YouTube short on all of this, you have this slap, fight going on with Marjorie Taylor Green and Chip Roy.

[461] I mean, if you had to take, you know, a couple of people from the far edges of the right of these caucus, these people hate each other.

[462] There is so much personal bitterness.

[463] I mean, they're going back and forth.

[464] You have Marjorie Taylor Green.

[465] What did she say about Lauren Bober?

[466] She's a groper.

[467] Marjorie Taylor Green hates Lauren Boberg.

[468] This is what's amazing about these personal animus is that it's not about issues.

[469] It's not about principle.

[470] But when you have that kind of a volatile situation, be surprised when things just blow up over some unpredictable shit, right?

[471] Yeah.

[472] There's the old Simpsons gag from like the 90s where it was like the Democratic Convention and it said, we hate ourselves, we can't govern.

[473] We're the signs.

[474] And it's like the Republicans have just totally embraced that ethos.

[475] They do not like each other and they are not capable of governing.

[476] They were barely capable of choosing a team captain.

[477] I mean, like think about this.

[478] It took them a month to choose a team captain.

[479] That's where they are.

[480] They finally chose one.

[481] and now the captain's going to make decisions.

[482] All of those are going to be a cluster.

[483] These people do not like each other.

[484] They're blocking each other on Twitter, Nancy Mason, and another guy from North Carolina, Murphy, she called him a pussy.

[485] He blocked her on Twitter.

[486] MTG, I do got to give her credit.

[487] She called Chip Roy, Colonel Sanders.

[488] I thought that was a good hit.

[489] When she refers to CNN wannabe Ken Buck, she doesn't care about that.

[490] And vaping, groping Lauren Bobert.

[491] Yeah, that's a deep cut.

[492] And then Chip Roy says, why don't you go chase the Jewish space lasers?

[493] I mean, how do you walk back from that shit?

[494] You know?

[495] This is not happening on the other side.

[496] So, look, these people are children.

[497] It's a cafeteria.

[498] And again, who are doing these tweets?

[499] This goes back to the question of, like, can Mike Johnson put this together?

[500] Candy coat with good talking points.

[501] I just want to shout out, Kinsinger.

[502] Kinsinger's old comms person.

[503] Morriglesby, awesome.

[504] Chaney's a guy named Jerry Adler.

[505] Both these people are out.

[506] Who are you recruiting from?

[507] You're recruiting from the people that have decided, I want to go work for Marjorie Taylor Green and Chip Roy and Nancy May. while they call each other names and fight over who can suckle on Donald Trump's toes the hardest, right?

[508] Like, the types of people that sign up for those jobs are a certain brand of person.

[509] And, like, they are not people to play well together in a group.

[510] They're not people that care deeply about policy and helping the country.

[511] And so this is what you're going to get.

[512] I just had a flash of, like, a group therapy session with Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Bobert, Nancy Mace, because they're all going through something.

[513] I mean, they're going through some stuff.

[514] And I don't think you can analyze it on a political level.

[515] There's some psychological stuff going on here.

[516] And by the way, I don't mean to pick on just women.

[517] One floor of the kooko's nest, maybe.

[518] Who's Jack Nicholson here?

[519] I don't know.

[520] Matt Gates, maybe.

[521] All right.

[522] We have so much else to talk about here.

[523] Speaking of interesting back and forth, I am way not interested in the whole Dean Phillips primary challenge to Joe Biden.

[524] There's only one element that I'm interested in.

[525] Okay.

[526] You were in Fuego on.

[527] on this.

[528] And I want to let you go on this because Dean Phillips himself poses no threat to Joe Biden.

[529] He's going to get like 7 % of the vote in some places.

[530] I don't know.

[531] It's just not going to happen.

[532] But there is that little twist, our old friend Steve Schmidt, of how do we describe Steve Schmidt?

[533] Big McCain guy, guy who gave America Sarah Palin, was on MSNBC with both you and me, big guy in the Lincoln Project until things blew up in a rather spectacular fashion.

[534] He...

[535] The main man for Howard Schultz.

[536] Okay, so you bailed me out on that one.

[537] Here's one about how deep a dive you want to go.

[538] Remember when Howard Schultz was running for president?

[539] No. But Steve Schmidt remembers because he got a lot of money from Howard Schultz, right?

[540] A lot.

[541] So this is a thing.

[542] Nothing pisses me off more than bad strategy and overt self -regard in defense of bad strategy.

[543] And as a former political professional, I still have some trade craft that I have some respect for, people that don't want to do things the right way.

[544] And this Dean Phillips thing is just doing it such the wrong way in the most grifty and obnoxious way possible.

[545] And that's the thing that piss me off about it.

[546] Not because I'm like you, I'm not really worried.

[547] It's a big threat to Joe Biden.

[548] Frankly, I've been in the Bill Crystal camp for like not recently, really, but for a long time I was and thought maybe it'd be good for Joe Biden to have somebody that ran a good faith campaign against him that was not trying to undermine him.

[549] It was not being the turn of the punch bowl, but was just offering voters a generational change option.

[550] There's much in the Joe Biden mold.

[551] I think that probably wouldn't have worked.

[552] You'd need the magic, the white whale, to do that.

[553] Probably the non -white whale, really, to do that.

[554] I would have been open to that.

[555] This is not that.

[556] This is just all about ego mania, and it is an effort that maybe Dean Phillips, I don't think Steve Schwent.

[557] Maybe Dean Phillips intends this to be a good faith effort, but it is not.

[558] Like the actual actions of it are only going to serve to harm Joe Biden.

[559] Luckily, I think they're going to be so incompetent that it won't actually do anything to harm Joe Biden in the end.

[560] But running a campaign at this late of a date where your message is that Joe Biden has dementia and that everything costs too much.

[561] That's not a helpful message to Joe Biden.

[562] And when Joe Biden is our first line of defense against the man we were just talking about earlier singing about insurrectionists, healthy criticism, helpful criticism, you know, helpful efforts to say, hey, here's something you can do better, Joe Biden, sure.

[563] But trying to undermine him for no reason except your own ego mania is crazy.

[564] And the last thing on this, just, I got called by Howard Schultz.

[565] I didn't get called by Dean Phillips.

[566] But if I did get called, I would have said the same thing to both of them, which is, A, I am not going to do anything that will help Donald Trump, period, end of story.

[567] Number two, if you have a third party or Democratic primary effort that you think might actually help the effort to defeat Donald Trump, I'm happy to give you some free advice on that, but you need to go find a fucking Democrat to help you do it.

[568] right like you do not need a former Republican is the front man about this and I've had calls from other folks that is just the only logical advice that somebody in Steve Schmidt's shoes should be able to give that is not what they did instead Steve Schmidt's out there giving press conferences for Dean Phillips that he's claiming to Tim Alberta that they're going to attack Joe Biden every day luckily it seems like it's incompetent and they haven't got off the launching pad that it's super dangerous and I felt like it was my role to just wave the flag and be like guys this is a grift.

[569] Let's not do anything to get sucked up into this in a way that might help Donald Trump.

[570] I agree with almost all of that.

[571] However, on the other hand, I do think that in a democracy, the more the merrier, you get in, you make the case.

[572] It'll be a low pressure test, I think, for Joe Biden.

[573] He's going to have to deal with those issues.

[574] This will be a way of, you know, maybe tuning up the engine.

[575] Dean Phillips is not going anywhere.

[576] But, you know, in a democratic society, we run in, but there are all the mixed motivations of the people who ought to be more behind the scenes.

[577] Let me put it that way.

[578] Okay, so you had a very, very interesting.

[579] Hey, just I just, I hold that.

[580] Just really quick, one sentence.

[581] I agree with that.

[582] I'm just saying, don't tell me you're trying to save democracy when you're actually harming the guy that's at the front line defending democracy.

[583] That's my only point.

[584] Don't piss on me and tell me it's raining, okay?

[585] If you want to get in the race, go for it.

[586] But I just, I don't like being bullshit.

[587] Okay.

[588] So you have written about these elections that are coming up that I think are not on most people's radar screen.

[589] How real is the possibility that you have this Democrat, Brandon Presley, who might win in Mississippi?

[590] I think the Kentucky race is more realistic, is sitting governor, an interesting race, Andy Bashir.

[591] He's winning in the polls, Democrat.

[592] He has done a lot of the same things as Presley, but there's been a lot of coverage of him.

[593] So I was interested in the Presley race, because Mississippi's even redder than Kentucky.

[594] Mississippi is still Mississippi.

[595] And so I think this could be a situation where just the math doesn't work out and he comes up short.

[596] Like right now, even in a good polls for him, he's at 46.

[597] Getting from 46 to 50, I think might be hard.

[598] But even if he ends up in a place where the incumbent wins this thing, 53, 47, there's a lot to learn from that because there are a lot of other red states that aren't quite as red as Mississippi.

[599] And I think that the Democrats have done a poor job recently of recruiting the types of candidates that appeal in these states, you know, that maybe are not perfect down the line on progressive values.

[600] Actually, they shouldn't be.

[601] And I think that, you know, there is a way to combine, I've always said this about Georgia.

[602] I have a lot of criticisms of Stacey Abrams, but I do give her credit on the voter reg thing.

[603] And I think if you're combining, registering voters of color with finding candidates that are heterodox, that could be a winning formula.

[604] And I think that Mississippi, that Presley has done a good job of being heterodox.

[605] I don't know that Mississippi's done as good of a job as they should on getting black voters registered.

[606] That might end up being the thing that harms them.

[607] But anyway, I find that to be interesting, and as a long -term effort, I think that there's more opportunity there for centrist candidates to do what Presley is doing in the Democratic Party for right now, maybe this will change in 10 years, that in the Republican Party where all the centrist candidates just get slaughtered in these primaries by MAGA candidates, even in blue states, as we've seen with Hogan and Baker in Massachusetts.

[608] So I'm just, I'm trying to be constructive and encourage candidates that are doing the right thing.

[609] This is constructive.

[610] Now, by the way, when you say heterodox, he takes a lot of positions that are quite socially conservative.

[611] But the point you make, though, is one of the differences between the parties is the way that the centrists are being wiped out in Republican primaries.

[612] Centrists continue to do relatively well in Democratic primaries.

[613] And I actually think that that's going to, you know, happen going forward.

[614] I mean, I was just looking at the numbers of, you know, for example, Elon Omar barely won her Democratic primary last time.

[615] Yeah.

[616] And that was before a lot of stuff happened.

[617] I think it's something to watch.

[618] Just I'm glad you mentioned that.

[619] These squad primaries are.

[620] primaries are going to be said to watch it.

[621] Again, I'm not putting a crystal ball.

[622] I'm just saying it's interesting that Jamal Bowman is getting a primary.

[623] I believe Omar's getting another one.

[624] I believe Cory Bush is.

[625] Summer Lee, I think, is getting a primary.

[626] So this is interesting.

[627] We'll see if they all face plant, maybe there's nothing here.

[628] I think that at least one difference that we know is there, is that within the Democratic coalition, the center candidates feel like they got a shot to do these primaries.

[629] Right.

[630] You're not seeing this in the Republican side.

[631] We're like Marjorie Taylor Green is getting a primary from the center.

[632] Like, that would be an absurd thing to do.

[633] Nobody would think that person wouldn't have a chance, no matter how insane she is, right?

[634] And so, in the Democratic side, there's a feeling that this is possible.

[635] We'll see how it works out in practice, but we have seen a lot of primaries.

[636] I've mentioned this before, but even in San Francisco, the recall, you don't want to just rely on this one example, but, you know, there are certain examples out there that you've seen where this has worked within the Democratic coalition because of the nature of the or moderate, conservatives, maybe the wrong word, but more small -C conservative, and now includes a lot more independent suburban types that have been gotten grossed out by Maga.

[637] And pragmatists.

[638] Yeah, exactly.

[639] As we saw in the 2020 presidential...

[640] Okay, so briefly, in the time that we have left, we haven't spent much time on the Republican primary fight, mainly because I think...

[641] Oh, good.

[642] I knew I had one more rant in me. Well, okay, I think we know where this is going, but, I mean, the storyline of the day, and, of course, there has to be a storyline of the day because otherwise political reporters and pundits get bored.

[643] right is Nikki Haley's surging Tim Miller is she I mean it looks like she's picking up endorsements money edging on the polls no indication she's going to beat Donald Trump but what do you think I just can't I look it's fine to say that Haley would be a better candidate that that she's the best hope in a really uphill battle and Mike Murphy had a thing for us which like the Sanders should drop out so at least Haley has momentum I don't necessarily disagree with that I think maybe me and Murf would have a different assessment of the likelihood of success of that but I just want to be clear That is not what I'm saying.

[644] It's fine.

[645] I think it's always good to be out on the field and try.

[646] And Haley beating Trump would obviously be great.

[647] It's worth trying.

[648] But what bothers me is the horse race industrial complex.

[649] And I also hope people can come to the bulwark for real political analysis.

[650] Here's political play.

[651] I look at that.

[652] I woke up this morning.

[653] And I was like, am I still dreaming?

[654] The subject line in my inbox, Haley's moment.

[655] Yep.

[656] And then it begins with every four years that happens.

[657] A Canada gets some surge of momentum and is treated to a few weeks of the spotlight.

[658] For a short period, it feels like the end.

[659] might actually take this top spot, but then there's a crash and burn, and the spotlight inevitably cycles over to one of their competitors.

[660] I was like, oh, okay, Playbooks finally got it right.

[661] This might be something that happens to Haley.

[662] But then they go, yet, every once in a while, the momentum sustains, it feels real.

[663] That's where former Gov, Nikki Haley is right now.

[664] That's not a little premature.

[665] What are you talking about?

[666] The examples they gave of the people that didn't sustain, Herman Kane, Newt, Gingrich, Perry, Michelle Bachman, all these people got up into the 24.

[667] 30 % range in national polls.

[668] There was real reason for them to have the spotlight.

[669] Herman Kane was winning for a little while in the primary.

[670] Nikki Haley isn't winning.

[671] She's losing by 40 points to Donald Trump.

[672] Even in this Iowa poll where she gained 10 points, no, okay, great.

[673] She's game 10 to 1.

[674] She's up at 16.

[675] That's worth noting.

[676] She's losing to Trump by, I got to do math in my head here.

[677] It's so many I've got to like count on my fingers, 27.

[678] And the DeSanta's voters, when you ask them with their second.

[679] choice is more than like Trump than Haley.

[680] So if you added that in, Haley's down by like 30 points to Trump in Iowa, which should be his weak state.

[681] So the idea that her momentum feels real, hope, fine, hope is fine.

[682] Look, I'm not a Nikki Haley fan.

[683] I have written about her.

[684] But in terms of, you look at the field, if you close your eyes and you hope for a unicorn hard enough, you can imagine that she becomes the oldest.

[685] I mean, Sandus is just blown up on the launch pad, you know, multiple times.

[686] So she's the one.

[687] Can you see his line about wearing a boot on his head?

[688] It's getting really bad.

[689] He has the best people working for him, right?

[690] I mean, you can tell his comms, folks, they sat around that room on the whiteboard.

[691] What do we say?

[692] Okay, we will eat our hat.

[693] No. Anybody else got any ideas?

[694] No, Ron should say, the governor should say, I will put a boot on my head.

[695] If Donald Trump debates.

[696] If Donald Trump shows up, I will put a boot.

[697] on my end.

[698] Yeah, that feels like it might have come from Casey.

[699] Or maybe Ron himself.

[700] He's not that good.

[701] But yeah, okay, no, I hear you on the unicorn and on the hope.

[702] It's Politico, though.

[703] They are supposed to be offering you insider political news that gives you a peek behind the curtain about what's really happening.

[704] And they're totally wrong.

[705] And so it's like, okay, have hope for Nikki Haley.

[706] I don't want to take anyone's hope away.

[707] No. You know, hope, I love people.

[708] I love hope.

[709] You know, hope dies last.

[710] Hope will kill you.

[711] But don't fucking gas like me. Don't write me a memo about how Nikki Haley has real momentum, and Newt Gingrich didn't.

[712] Newt Gingrich almost won that primary.

[713] I'm a no on Nikki Haley momentum from an objective standpoint.

[714] I'm a yes from Ferry's unicorn standpoint.

[715] If you want to have a purple drink and dream a little dream about Nikki, that's cool with me. Well, again, I'm not a Nikki fan necessarily.

[716] I'm like all kinds of stuff about her, you know, the incredible lightness of Nikki Haley and the way that she went back and forth.

[717] She couldn't decide what she wanted to be.

[718] However, if we were to wake up tomorrow in a world in which Nikki Haley was the nominee instead of Donald Trump, leaving aside the partisan horse race, it would be a fundamentally better world.

[719] It would be so much better.

[720] And don't DM me about how she put a position on this or position of this.

[721] If we didn't have to deal with Donald Trump, that's why I keep invoking the unicorn.

[722] Because how do you get to that?

[723] You get to unicorn something, something, something, meteor, Donald Trump dies of the big man. Because I don't see how it happens otherwise.

[724] I could open a bar.

[725] I could start writing about other stuff, you know.

[726] I could start exploring new interests if that world happened.

[727] See, Tim, you've just given away, you've given away a huge secret here.

[728] I'm not even sure we should publish this because I think people say, oh, you never Trumpers.

[729] You love Trump.

[730] Trump is, you know, is the wind beneath your wings.

[731] And the real, the real truth is that, no, we want to be done.

[732] And we feel like.

[733] I have a lot of other interests that I'd like to explore.

[734] We feel like we are chained to this rock, glass to the mast of all of this.

[735] If Donald Trump were to go, we could move on into the sunny uplands of the future of our lives, right?

[736] That's great.

[737] And my little brain, I just, I've areas of my brain that I can't even explore, you know, because they've been locked in an orange dungeon for eight years.

[738] That is so, you know what?

[739] That is exactly.

[740] It's so funny you should say that because I think, so this is our therapy session.

[741] It's like, just imagine what your life would be like.

[742] Maybe that would be the thing to do sometimes to sit around and go, okay, now close your eyes and just imagine, we're not making a prediction, but what would your life be like if you never had to think or write about Donald Trump?

[743] See, the problem is, you know, that's never going to happen.

[744] is that is that it's it's never going to be that moment where the sun rises the leaves are green the birds are chirping and the name trump will never have to leave your lips again because there's always eric and ivanka and don junior and that vast ecosystem the tall one barrens all right so i was hoping to end this go into the weekend with a little bit of a dollop of hope but here we are i'm sorry okay i'm to go off into my happy place, and I'm going to imagine that, a world without Trump, just for like five minutes.

[745] Just think about that.

[746] It sounds good.

[747] I'll join you there for five minutes.

[748] Then I'm going to distract myself, turn to LSU, Alabama this weekend.

[749] Go Tigers.

[750] Hey, you know what I'm doing tonight?

[751] I'm going to Milwaukee Bucks game, Bucks versus the Knicks down at Pfizer with my French grandson, who this will be his first American basketball game, his first NBA game.

[752] So I'm taking That is huge.

[753] Tell him to send me a text.

[754] I want an update.

[755] Janus, Dame, the little pick and roll.

[756] Oh, that's going to be good.

[757] He's going to be wearing the Janus jersey.

[758] Little French guy.

[759] We're wearing the Janus jersey.

[760] Okay, Tim, we'll talk in a couple of weeks.

[761] All right.

[762] All right.

[763] We'll see you, Charlie.

[764] And thank you all for listening to this weekend's Bullwork podcast.

[765] I'm Charlie Sykes.

[766] We will be back on Monday, and we'll do this all over again.

[767] The Bullwork podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.