The Bulwark Podcast XX
[0] Welcome to a bonus weekend.
[1] It's Southgoing, a primary edition of the Bullwark podcast.
[2] I'm Tim Miller.
[3] I gathered the whole circus crew for the occasion.
[4] We got Jen Palmeri.
[5] She was communications director for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
[6] Mark M .Cat McKinnon was media advisor to W. and McCain, John Heilman, National Affairs analyst for NBC News, author of Game Change and Double Down, some other mysterious pursuits.
[7] Y 'all, bring on the clowns.
[8] It's so good to see you.
[9] Bring on the clowns.
[10] Most of them within the bounds of the law, most.
[11] Most.
[12] We are taping this on Friday afternoon.
[13] So there's one potential problem with that is that the South Carolina primary hasn't happened yet.
[14] And some of our good listeners might listen on Sunday or Monday.
[15] But the good news is I think we all know what's going to happen.
[16] Haley's going to get schlonged by about somewhere between 20 and 45 points.
[17] So before.
[18] Can we not say schlonged in this context when it's Donald Trump and Nikki Haley?
[19] You know, I think Barack Obama got in trouble for seven months.
[20] Okay.
[21] Right?
[22] I apologize.
[23] Well, Nikki Haley's going to get beaten decisively between 20 and 45 points, I think.
[24] We can all stipulate that before the convo, right?
[25] Memcat.
[26] Do you want to offer a?
[27] Yeah.
[28] Listen, I always thought that there should be something called the Al Gore rule, which is if you run for president, you should have to win your home state, although Donald Trump changed that equation.
[29] But yeah, and this is just a testament to just how much the Republican primary has changed that she can't win in her home state.
[30] Can I just say one thing, though, about this?
[31] There was a data point that I just want to inject in this, which is I looked at this today.
[32] Donald Trump has not had lower than a 20 -point lead in South Carolina in the past year.
[33] There's like literally not a poll in one year in which he hasn't, but at least he's been between 20 and 4, a 20 to 40 point lead for a whole year.
[34] There's one poll back like in January of 20, 23, where he was, oh, they had like a 17 -point lead and every other poll he's been between 20 and 40.
[35] Yeah.
[36] Oh, she's got plenty of time.
[37] No better time than now.
[38] No better time to present.
[39] Okay.
[40] So given that, I thought it would be fun.
[41] to, I gave you homework.
[42] I assume Heilman didn't do it, but we're going to start with him first.
[43] I did it.
[44] You did?
[45] You did great.
[46] And the homework was, if we had a circus this week, what would the show be called?
[47] And do you have a theme song for it?
[48] You get bonus grade points if you had a theme song.
[49] I have a theme and a song, and they're the same.
[50] What is it?
[51] Carolina in my mind, James Taylor.
[52] Oh, boy.
[53] A little, you know, that's a different Carolina.
[54] Is that right?
[55] Where was James Taylor's singing about?
[56] North Carolina.
[57] North Carolina.
[58] But, you know.
[59] Anyway, I didn't know about the song.
[60] I got to like do some thinking about that.
[61] Okay, you can go last.
[62] You have time to think about it.
[63] Hi, O 'Lman.
[64] Thank you.
[65] I think that, that, Jen Palmary will definitely remember this.
[66] Mark McKinna will definitely remember this.
[67] You, Tim, as a student of history, may remember this, although you're too young to have experienced it.
[68] But at the end of the, of the 1996 presidential campaign, when Bill Clinton, with all of his problems, was spanking Bob Dole, There got to be a period in the last week or so when Dole was just so, there were two things about the end of that campaign that were great.
[69] One was at the end of the long, the day at like five o 'clock, whatever you were out of the road.
[70] Dole would cut his speech off at a certain moment because of the time that they would have for the curfew at National Airport and he would go, I'm sorry, the speech is now over.
[71] National, here we come.
[72] He'd run to the bus because he was like, I'm done with that, done with this shit.
[73] I'm not going to have to stay in this place I am.
[74] The other thing was he would just burst out.
[75] He had these outbursts all the time.
[76] me would say, where is the outrage?
[77] Where is the outrage?
[78] Where is the outrage?
[79] Would be my episode title, because if you think about what's the things that Trump has done and said in any other era, in a South Carolina primary, you know, South Carolina that is dominated by veterans and, you know, has been the idea that, you know, Donald Trump's sucking up to Vladimir Putin, not saying boo about, about Navalny's assassination, trashing Nikki Haley's husband who's an actively deployed military person.
[80] There would be out, I mean, you know, he is, he is, he is, just been an getting helped by a spy apparently a Russian spy has been a non -stop a flood of of of self aggrandizing Putin stroking gibberish and and and perfidy and yet no one gives a fuck in South Carolina doesn't give a fuck nothing's changing in that race she's hitting him harder and trying to gin up the outrage and is getting nowhere there's no traction for whatsoever and so that's where's the outrage would be my title would be my episode title and And my theme song for it would be, Tim, this is right for you, for reasons you'll understand in a moment, would be a classic song about the pet shop boys called Being Boring, which is pretty much just pretty much describes the entire Republican primary.
[81] I could give that, we got a half season our overarching theme song.
[82] Yeah.
[83] So boring.
[84] Could you imagine doing this show every week?
[85] What are you going to talk about?
[86] It's the most flaccid, lifeless, sad, deflated presidential campaign I've ever seen, covered or hoped to ever witness again in my life.
[87] It is fair, though.
[88] I could, just before I get to you, Jen, it is like, where is the outrage?
[89] And this is a very bulwarky pick.
[90] So it also fits for this podcast.
[91] Where is the outrage?
[92] Because it is hard to really kind of imagine that everyone has just gotten in line.
[93] And when I think about that episode title, I would point it more towards, you know, the kind of Republican establishment figures that just gave in, right, this time.
[94] You know, you have that you're Tim Scott.
[95] And you can remember the South Carolina Primary of 16.
[96] We have Marco and Haley and Scott all campaigning together.
[97] I mean, they could have at least tried to try, you know.
[98] In the last week, Mike Gallagher just quit Congress.
[99] I mean, like the times of people that should be outraged are just either giving in or giving up.
[100] It's pretty remarkable.
[101] By the way, I have a real vision of that primary and a spectacularly visual evening when Haley endorsed Rubio there.
[102] And it was so cinematic.
[103] And they both look so young and energetic.
[104] And I just thought, man, if this is the face of the Republican Party, before his ears got so big.
[105] Every single major Republican elected official in South Carolina, except I think one congressman, right, is backing Trump.
[106] Yeah, Ralph Norman, who's an insurrectionist.
[107] Who's an insurrectionist, yeah, who somehow is still with Haley.
[108] I don't really understand that.
[109] That's one of the great mysteries of our time.
[110] But it's amazing that the whole South Carolina political establishment is just behind Trump.
[111] And it does, and they don't, I mean, I'm standing out there by the USS Yorktown, looking at, I think about all the events I've been to with Republican.
[112] candidates on that.
[113] And all of them, because it's all about the military there, it's all veterans, active duty military.
[114] And John Kerry.
[115] That's where John Kerry announced his president.
[116] He did.
[117] That's exactly right.
[118] But Republicans just always go there.
[119] Like every Republican, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul announced his campaign there, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum.
[120] They all do events out there.
[121] It's like the most trafficked venue in the state for this good reason.
[122] It's one of the most great, one of the most military states in the country.
[123] And Trump has just been like just shitting on the military in every way imaginable.
[124] And no one cares.
[125] No, I mean, except for the people who already cared, the people who were already against Trump.
[126] They're all outraged, but, you know, well, it's not, yeah, but I mean, 30 % of the elected cares.
[127] It's not nothing.
[128] 30 % of the probably elected elected.
[129] I mean, those people that had already decided that those are the people who are going to be, who are going to be against Trump, the anti -Trump part of the party is, is outraged.
[130] But no one else is, no one of, no persuadable vote.
[131] It's not moving any votes around, right?
[132] Again, to the point of his giant lead in that state, he's done the things that would normally be catastrophic in South Carolina.
[133] And there's no even a flutter in the numbers, you know?
[134] All right, Jen.
[135] I saw you scroll on your Spotify.
[136] Did you come up with something?
[137] Yeah.
[138] So my title, so I think what's important this week is that it did, it felt like this is the week that Russia really broke through, right?
[139] It like came full circle from 2016 where the House leadership, the Big Four, right?
[140] The Senate Majority Leader, Senate Minority Leader, House Speaker and House minority leader were all briefed on Russia interfering in the election.
[141] Prior to Labor Day, the administration wanted to make it public.
[142] Mitch McConnell said no. To this week, where you have Navalny killed, you have the Shmirnoff.
[143] House Republicans have now gone from being skeptical about intelligence from eight years ago to now passing on Russian intelligence to try to to impeach the sitting president of the United States.
[144] So my title was going to be Shmirnoff, Schmat.
[145] which is their new vodka seltzer.
[146] And my song, which, as you know, I just came up with because I just, you know, scrolled now, is sweet tea, keeping with the beverage theme, which is a Craven Melon song.
[147] And they, unlike James Taylor, are from South Carolina.
[148] Ooh.
[149] It's pretty good.
[150] That was pretty good.
[151] That is pretty good.
[152] Great.
[153] That's a great.
[154] That's a great on the fly pole.
[155] Wow.
[156] Jen's impressed.
[157] That is good.
[158] The Russian thing is.
[159] MCAT, have you lost the ability to be outraged?
[160] I'm tying their last two questions together.
[161] Like, it is, the Smyranoff thing has had me in a state all week.
[162] I mean, it's pretty insane that the House Republicans are literally passing along fake Russian disenfell.
[163] Where are you at on that?
[164] Well, I'm in full Bob Dole mode.
[165] He's plenty outraged.
[166] I'm very embarrassed.
[167] That's incredible.
[168] But on the topic of South Carolina, man, I just talk about a river of memories.
[169] you know, for all of us, I know.
[170] Just epic campaigns that were so significant and determinative and, you know, comebacks, you know, rallies.
[171] And this thing is just kind of petering out in a way that kind of, you know, flushes all those memories.
[172] It goes to the being boring that Howman said.
[173] So which side were you at on O .O. McCain and Bush?
[174] I mean, that is the prime.
[175] He was involved in the destruction of John McCain.
[176] You're on the bad side?
[177] career.
[178] Do you remember the drunk debates?
[179] The debates for people were drinking?
[180] Yeah, but South Carolina used to be used to be able to get used to a drink when they had those debates at Myrtle Beach.
[181] The Republican crowds would always be drunk as fuck and they'd be like screaming.
[182] There was no restraint on the audience.
[183] There was a the one in 2012, the Gingrich one where CNN asked about his extramarital affairs in 2012.
[184] That was like everyone was drunk there in Charleston.
[185] And the Myrtle Beach debates were always like everyone was.
[186] Everyone was rowdy and shit -faced of those debates.
[187] Those were really fun.
[188] I was screaming.
[189] Both of my two presidential campaigns ended in South Carolina, Palmetto State, which would have been your good Jason Nisbell, alternative tech for you, Jen.
[190] But yeah, I got to have it.
[191] Oh, how did I not think of that?
[192] I assumed it was going to be.
[193] Palmetto Rose.
[194] I assumed we were going to have a...
[195] Palmetto Rose.
[196] I'm going to see him tomorrow night, Radio City Music Hall.
[197] Here's the thing, though, that I just had me spent a week there.
[198] This goes to MCAD's point, you know, which is, and it's true, obviously, of the Democratic side, too.
[199] You go through Iowa, Nice.
[200] And then you have this New Hampshire, you know, at both of the, they're basically, they're basically, they're basically kind of like gloves off states.
[201] They don't really get, you know, they're not down and dirty, right?
[202] And the thing about South Carolina and both the Democratic and Republican side is you would get down there and it was always a brawl.
[203] They let the dogs off the chains.
[204] Yeah.
[205] Yeah, right.
[206] The big red dogs off the leash, right?
[207] And it was like, you know, dirty politics and Democrats and Republicans alike, a lot of like nastiness and the mailing, the mailers on the car windows.
[208] Yeah.
[209] the radio ads and the and it was like it was it was appalling sometimes but always like electric and fun you know like there was just a lot of energy there you know and and they were also often in the republican side decisive but you know somebody pointed out south carolina primary invented in 1980 everybody who has everybody but new gingrich who's won the primary has gone on to win the nomination so it's like in some ways the decisive primary for republican side and being there for five days this week it was if i any i could I couldn't believe that anything could be more desultory than Iowa, New Hampshire this year.
[210] But it was just, it was like low energy Jeb had taken over the state.
[211] There's no Trump lawn signs.
[212] Like even the Trump fans, like he does one event a week.
[213] So yeah, they all show up.
[214] They'll do a giant rally tonight and a bunch of people show up, it look like energy.
[215] But he's not been in the state all week.
[216] I mean, he flew in for the Laura thing.
[217] It's the only other event he's done all week.
[218] So it's like even the energy of the Trump people in 16 and in 20, it's just not there.
[219] It's like there's this kind of acquiescent quality to the whole thing where there's just no energy anywhere.
[220] It's like, you know, yeah, there's a bunch of Nikihali ads on the air, but no one gives a shit.
[221] Everyone is just basically like, we know what's going to happen here, you know.
[222] And I think broadly, that's how the country is about the whole race, which is sort of like, we don't love the idea of Biden and Trump.
[223] It's a rerun we don't want to see.
[224] Yeah.
[225] And I think it's overstated, you know, the thing that gets missed.
[226] A lot of people say the Democrats aren't super psyched about Biden.
[227] And there obviously are a lot of questions about Biden among a lot of voters.
[228] But I just, even on the Trump side, you know, he's got his hardcore base that are really nuts.
[229] But there's a big chunk of Republican party that's sort of like, yeah, he seems inevitable of I like him better than Biden, but they're not like really, you know, they're not anti, but they're not really pro.
[230] You know, there's at least a third of the parties like that.
[231] And man, it just makes for a really dissolute kind of like, you know, everyone's just sort of shrugging their shoulders and walking around, which is not a lot of fun.
[232] Did you make it to the Meatball Ron event in South Carolina?
[233] Carolina while you were down there.
[234] Wait, did he go?
[235] He had one sad event in South Carolina this week.
[236] It was kind of like trying to stay in the mix, you know?
[237] Who was he campaigning for?
[238] Neither of them.
[239] It was like an issue -based, you know, one of those groups, I think, that it invited to him to an event, but when he was still in the race, he decided to go anyway.
[240] I want you to say this phrase again, did I go to a Meatball Ron issues -based event where he was campaigning for no one he went there to talk about issues.
[241] It seems like you were bored.
[242] It seems like you were bored.
[243] Maybe that sounded entertaining.
[244] We get caught on a phone call that got leaked out that he once again was trashing Trump.
[245] Yeah.
[246] Yeah, there's a Zoom call with his delegates where he said he didn't want to be VP.
[247] And then it really has been the most heated exchange of the whole week has been like Las Avita, Trump's campaign manager, tweet, yeah, dunking on Ron DeSantis, who's not even in the race on Twitter.
[248] That shows you how weak it's been.
[249] What was, like, the Haley event like, John?
[250] I mean, he says, quiet, like, who are there?
[251] Like, when you're talking to people, is it Democrats that are there?
[252] Like, who's there?
[253] I'll say something that, like, not that many Democrats.
[254] You know what it is?
[255] Is it reminded me?
[256] It's like a little bit like John Huntsman?
[257] John Huntsman crowd.
[258] Honest to God.
[259] Honestly, God, like, we're doing your great.
[260] It's like, my people.
[261] By the way, I was with you at that last South Carolina wind down.
[262] I was there.
[263] You know, it's upscale.
[264] You know, she's got in that, in the low country.
[265] and along the coast where she's going to overperform relative to the rest of the state.
[266] You know, and where a lot of, some of her money, there's a bunch of, she got a bunch of wealthy backers down there who are still going to keep funding the campaign going forward.
[267] There's a little more enthusiasm for her there.
[268] But, you know, the events are basically, you know, a couple hundred people, you know, if she gets five, a hundred, it's a big event.
[269] And they're, it's not, it's not like they're lifeless and dead, but they're, they're very, they're very dockers and, and polo shirt kind of like that, that sort of, you know, You know, that kind of the part of South Carolina, South Carolina is a very diverse income -wise, culturally and economically, very kind of diverse state.
[270] You can run all kinds of all kinds that.
[271] There's redneck parts of that state, investment bankers.
[272] And she's got the upscale.
[273] That's her thing.
[274] She's living in the space where, like the Bill Bradley voter of the Republican Party, you know, that's like those are the kind of people who are there.
[275] And they're perfectly pleasant.
[276] But they're all, they all know they're kind of there to show her support.
[277] but they know as well everybody else that she doesn't have a chance.
[278] And do you have a conversation?
[279] They're like, yeah, they're like, we're here to support Nikki because we think it's important she's in this race, but they're not like, nobody's deluded that they think she's going to win.
[280] I didn't get to give you guys my title.
[281] Do you want it?
[282] Yes.
[283] See what you think.
[284] Okay.
[285] I've been thinking about I came out with a pun.
[286] I know Howellman likes puns, which was last rights.
[287] And my last rights of this was, I tried to make it about broader, and it's about Nikki, of course.
[288] But I really think that like the Nikki Haley Bush Party has been in hospice for kind of a while now.
[289] But like she was the best next representative of it, really, like that could potentially be up and coming.
[290] And for her to go to her home state and lose by whatever, 25 points, it's maybe the official end, death.
[291] We can do a time of death for the Bush party at 2020.
[292] Jimmy Carter's been in hospice for a year.
[293] Give us, give her a little more time.
[294] You give a little more time?
[295] What do we think?
[296] McKinnon, Jen, is it a death of that party?
[297] or could it come back?
[298] Can we put the gravestone on it?
[299] Well, I'm all for her plugging away.
[300] Just as long as she's got money and putting a gas in the tank, just fly the flag, just say we're still here.
[301] I mean, I know we're on an island and there's a few survivors left, but it's important to send the message.
[302] And our friend James Carville, as you recall in the last episode of our last show, said the era of strategic certainty is over.
[303] And that may be the only true thing about this election.
[304] And who knows what the hell is going to happen?
[305] I just think being the last person standing, and even if you've got 13 delegates, who knows?
[306] Jen, is it dead?
[307] Is it R -I -G -H -T or R -I -T -E -S?
[308] Because R -I -G -H -T...
[309] Yeah, that also, with the, you know, nearby state of Alabama.
[310] That's the whole thing with puns is that you could spell them either way.
[311] That's where our editors do the backup and do it over again.
[312] Yeah, Divya could decide.
[313] Oh, yeah, I do the little curse.
[314] Divya would, yeah, she would, like, had the cursors back up with that.
[315] I feel like it's been gone for a while.
[316] It's just going to morph into something else, right?
[317] It's just like, so I don't know, of it's the end of anything because it's, I feel that that 30 % hasn't know where to go.
[318] I think it is good that she's staying in, even if she stays in all the way to the convention, just because having a Republican make those arguments against Trump is like really helpful, even with just riling up Democrats or are, uh, are independence.
[319] I just, yeah, I just not sure what those people are going to become.
[320] What are you, Tim?
[321] You're one of those people, but what are you?
[322] It's over for me. I think, I know, but are you, are you a Democrat now?
[323] No. I mean, so the only Republican I voted for since 2016 is a guy named Stephen Wags Pack, who ran in Louisiana in the first, in the first round, who had no chance to win.
[324] Does he have a monocle?
[325] Exactly.
[326] I vote for one hopeless man with a monocle in the first round.
[327] So you tell me what I am.
[328] I mean, am I a Democrat?
[329] Like, I don't know.
[330] If I lived in Maryland, there are a handful of states left where I might have voted for a Republican, but I think that, and I think that a lot of these people are your Brian Kemp.
[331] Some of them are swing voters or your Kemp -Warnock voter, but some of them are practically Democrats now, functionally Democrats.
[332] Here's an interesting little data point, which, and you think about, you know, the party and who's part of it and what is it in the future.
[333] And I've been looking, thinking about Gen Z voters for a little project I'm thinking about.
[334] And, you know, I was thinking about the, you know, obviously the Biden, Gen Z voters and in the split and the Democratic Party.
[335] and all that, and I thought about, you know, Trump's Gen Z voters, but I was trying to think about anti -Trump Gen Z voters.
[336] There's no anti -Trump Gen Z voters.
[337] If you're Gen Z, you're either Trump or you're not.
[338] Yeah, exactly.
[339] If you're a Gen Z Republican, you're Trump.
[340] They don't know any other party.
[341] They don't know any other party, yeah.
[342] Let me ask you this question, Tim.
[343] Here's the counter thing on Haley, which was part of the reason I put this in this piece I did for Morning Jod today because Dick Harpoolian, who's the Democrat, but was smart about this and just laid out a theory, right?
[344] And the theory was, you know, she stays in the race and there is a chunk of the party that's still in either hostile to Trump or kind of indifferent and people, you know, people's actual political commitments are way overstated by all of us.
[345] Like, you know, there's these stories about the anti -Trump college voters who, you know, got upset about the insurrection and now they're back with Trump.
[346] It's like people, like most people in America don't give a fuck about politics enough.
[347] And they, they could change a lot over the course the next eight years once Trump is gone.
[348] And his kind of thesis was if she's right that he's going to lose when it's over, she's going to have been out there, gone to a lot of states, been out on the stump in a lot of places.
[349] She's always been good at raising money.
[350] This gets to a question, which I'm trying to get to, which is not, his thing is like, Trump is gone now.
[351] The party's up for grabs.
[352] There's going to be, you know, a bunch of people contesting for leadership of it and what it actually is.
[353] And I think his point was not, well, Nikki, Haley's obviously going to be the next standard barrier.
[354] Her point was more kind of like it puts her in the conversation around where does the party go and she's going to be a familiar face who's going to be able to say, I told you so.
[355] And like, I was right.
[356] You were wrong.
[357] He fucked us again.
[358] We lost again.
[359] And I guess what that is premised on is this notion that after Trump, that there will be a big conversation about the future of what was once you guys were both attached to the Republican Party.
[360] Do you think that's true?
[361] Or do you think after Trump, the Trumpism just marches on, I'm inviting you to speculate.
[362] You know, I don't like speculation, but I'll invite you both to speculate because that's an interesting question to me. Yeah.
[363] I think MCAT will maybe be more optimistic than me as is his nature.
[364] So we'll see if not, but I'll go first briefly.
[365] I just think if you said to me, hi, I'm John Howlman from the future.
[366] I've come in a time machine and it's 2032.
[367] And the Republican nominee in 232 is one of these three people, Nikki Haley, Matt Gates or Tucker Carlson, I'll tell you that Nikki would be by far my third choice in that draft on the most likely person for it to be.
[368] Is that just gut or is that based on a, is that just gut or based on an assessment of?
[369] No, it's based on, no, it's, it's based on assessment of what MCAT was talking about, about Gen Z and younger voters, an assessment about who has checked into the party versus who is checked out.
[370] I mean, I think Dick Harpoolian's talking to a lot of people who are not really representative of what the real party voter is.
[371] Yeah, They're older people who are kind of vestigial Republicans that are still part of their identity.
[372] But if you've, in the last 10 years, if you've said, oh, I'm a Republican now, you like Trump or something like it, right?
[373] Maybe it'll be a softer version.
[374] Maybe it won't be quite as crazy or quite as derange or orange or whatever.
[375] But you want something kind of like it.
[376] You don't want Nikki.
[377] You were a Democrat when the Nikki type of Republicans were in charge.
[378] And then if you're the type of person that likes Nikki, many of them, when you talk about how people don't have these political attachments as strong as we think, think that's true.
[379] I think there are a lot of people just looking at my friend group from high school who all voted for W and all voted for Biden with one or two exceptions who don't listen to the fucking Bullwark podcast, even though I beg them to.
[380] None of them, like, none of them had big identity crises about this.
[381] They just, they were for George W. Bush and they were for Romney.
[382] And one day they're like, guess not.
[383] I guess I'm for Joe Biden now.
[384] And there are a lot of those folks out there, too.
[385] So the makeup of the party, I think, has just changed too permanently for her.
[386] I would love to be wrong.
[387] I've been wrong a lot, but that's just how I would project it.
[388] MCAT, do you have any more optimistic outlook?
[389] I've got a rosier version.
[390] It doesn't surprise you.
[391] I think that there is a real chance that Trump loses, and then he will have lost in 20, 22, 24.
[392] 18.
[393] Don't forget 18.
[394] 18.
[395] And lost the House, the Senate, and the presidency for the first time in a hundred years since Grover Cleveland.
[396] And that's something they might start to finally get a clue that maybe this formula isn't working.
[397] I also don't think that, I mean, I think Bannon is, you know, I think he's right about a lot about just kind of bit being a movement and it could move on past Trump.
[398] But I also think that Trump is such a unique singular figure that I don't think anybody else is going to be able to carry that standard forward.
[399] And I've always thought it's going to have, the party's going to have to be burned down and resurrected from the ashes.
[400] And the two questions is what comes up from that.
[401] And Nikki Haley at that point will have, you know, some really good notches in her in her belt you know she will have you know gone through this process as the second person standing and raised a ton of money uh run a pretty good campaign gained a lot of credibility and despite what don lemon says she will not be way past her prime she'll be 53 next don catching strays oh um you know but the thing is that the the person who finishes second all those things that they can be the next uh person who finishes first and they're not they're just the person who came in second the last time around, you know.
[402] It used to be in the Republican Party, it used to be.
[403] That used to be true.
[404] It's just, you know, Trump just blew all that up, right?
[405] I mean, you know, Romney and Romney.
[406] Was that true for Romney?
[407] I guess it was true for Romney.
[408] It was true for Romney.
[409] That's true.
[410] You're right.
[411] You're right.
[412] If he loses, and I think, you know, Republicans among the things of the messages the beginning is that maybe we should nominate a woman and Nikki's been through this drill and she's, she's a proven warrior.
[413] Yeah, but it's like, if they're going to reject Trump, it's like, I think you're going to have to have somebody who had no connection to him, you know, she was his ambassador to the UN she propped him up she propped him up when it when he needed it I think like you know bring on like I don't know like David Holt from Oklahoma City or somebody you know right that's my boy David Holt you're pandering you're pandering to the bulwark crowd now I didn't I did not know the last remaining bullwork Republican Oklahoma City mayor he seems he seems good like you know he's like a problem solver you know like getting stuff by the way she still says she's going to pardon him she still says he's going to pardon him if she gets a if she if she was if she I need to get Jen's opinion about the Biden discourse, but I have one more thing about Haley first before we lose everybody.
[414] You said on Morning Joe that you, I think, someone told me this, so I haven't actually seen it.
[415] So it could, this is a game of telephone.
[416] Something about Nikki, maybe third party, maybe that there could be a no labelsy thing.
[417] There's some buzz about that.
[418] What's your, what was that?
[419] What was the context of that?
[420] I said that there was, I think what I said was that there had been the way that she's handled that.
[421] There's been speculation about it.
[422] And that's true.
[423] And so like the there's been, I don't believe that that's true, but there has been speculation about it.
[424] And there's speculation because she's been asked about it.
[425] And she keeps saying very, very self -consciously, I'm not thinking about that right now.
[426] I've given no thought to that.
[427] When I'm pursuing right now is the Republican nomination, which is like the kind of thing that people say when they want to leave the door open to it, right?
[428] I would say, you know, that if you believe Nikki Haley is, is, and I say this, Jen, not in a, you know, loaded gender way.
[429] As you know, I think most politicians are highly ambitious creatures, but she's very ambitious that a lot of people think she's calculating.
[430] And part of the reason she's been ideologically so all over the places because she's constantly tacking from one thing to another in terms of what her perceived advantage is at that moment, that, that, you know, that you look at no labels and you say the no labels candidate is not going to be president in 2024.
[431] It's not going to win.
[432] And the no labels candidate is not going to be, then is not going to become the Republican candidate if they become first the no labels candidate.
[433] And so there's no way if you think you want to be the leader of the Republican Party in some reconstituted thing.
[434] If that's what you're playing the long game or if you're playing the short game and you want to be president, being the no labels candidate is not the way to do that.
[435] And so it's not, I think, where she ends up.
[436] There is one alternative view of this, which is that being the no labels candidate, if you decided that what you wanted to do is make money and like corporate boards was your play, you're going to leave politics to the end of this.
[437] Like going to do the no labels thing would be a great credential to go and be, to connect to a lot of rich donors.
[438] I'm again, I'm just saying, I'm saying very, people, people look at her financial motivations.
[439] That's another prison that you get from the South Carolina people.
[440] They're like, very financially motivated.
[441] If she decided that what she wanted was a pathway to corporate boards, that would open up that.
[442] Basically, I'm giving up politics.
[443] I'm just going to do this because that is obviously what, you know, a lot of the no labels support.
[444] It comes from, you know, that kind of crowd, the corporate, the crowd and the people who have a lot of connections to corporate boards.
[445] I don't think that's what she's doing.
[446] But, but I just give you the, that's the whole, that's the whole discussion around Nikki and.
[447] and no labels.
[448] Kat, what do you think?
[449] I think it's unlikely that she would go that route, with the exception that if she made a calculation that there really was no future beyond Trump, but that Trump is the future of the Republican Party, whether he wins or loses, and that she's, you know, she burned her ship on the shore and she can't go back and that there's no route forward in the Republican Party, I think it would, I think she'd look at it.
[450] And it wouldn't make sense.
[451] And by the way, I think a Haley -led third -party ticket could be trouble.
[452] I mean, I think it would be competitive.
[453] I will say that if you listened to the speech she gave when she said she wasn't going to drop out, if you listened to what she actually said, if you were the Martian from the future or whatever, Tim.
[454] And you just landed and you said, okay, what is this person angling for?
[455] Her denunciation of Trump and Biden is equal.
[456] I mean, she does, she is a no -label message right now, which is, you know, the country isn't one either one of these people.
[457] Biden's too far to the left, Trump's too far to the right, they're totally divisive.
[458] We need to have unity.
[459] I mean, she's giving a speech that a no labels candidate could give if you just listen to the speech itself on the substance.
[460] So I think that's part of what's fueled some people's thinking about this is that she is in the no labels slot.
[461] That's the message she's running on right now, even though she's trying to say she's a Republican, you know?
[462] I'm surprised nobody's pulled it.
[463] I know.
[464] And as I'm kept knows, we've gone around and round on this because I'm pretty, I've been hostile to no labels, because I think most of the candidates have been floated, I look at them and say, and these people are mostly going to take from Biden.
[465] The Haley case is interesting in that, you know, if you'd say that if you think about it, she has a third of the party, you know, 30 % of the vote, you know, probably 5 % to 10 % of those people max are getable for Biden.
[466] And then there's another 20 % that are more rank and file traditional Republicans.
[467] She might, I guess all I'm saying is unknown.
[468] I don't know.
[469] She might hurt Biden too, but I think it would be a more interesting.
[470] than the other names out there as far as conceivably pulling from Trump?
[471] Most of the no labels people are people who would hurt Biden unequivocally, and she was one who you'd have to at least think it through.
[472] It's not obvious.
[473] It's not obvious that she might, you know, she could conceivably take away more Republican votes than Democrat votes.
[474] That's right.
[475] That makes sense to me. I wonder if, I wonder if the Biden and Trump people are pulling it.
[476] I bet they are.
[477] If you're listening and you have that leak it to us.
[478] To their credit, I will just say here, candidly, that as you know, And I say, repeatedly, I have no official role of no labels and haven't in a long time.
[479] But I do call and talk to him occasionally.
[480] And I asked that question.
[481] I said, well, have you polled Nikki Haley?
[482] And to their credit, that we don't poll.
[483] That's not, you know, we don't do that.
[484] That's not more.
[485] Okay.
[486] Okay.
[487] We're not going to decide themselves.
[488] This podcast is not going to end up in a DOJ report.
[489] It's like five people are going to decide themselves.
[490] And you think that's worse in the system that produces the two geriatrics?
[491] I don't know.
[492] No, Jen.
[493] If we had this show last week, you know, I think that the golden goose would have been Jen and Ezra Klein sitting down.
[494] I don't know, in Brooklyn somewhere.
[495] I don't know.
[496] I'm trying to picture this.
[497] Like, you know, how do you think that conversation would have played out?
[498] What do you feel about it?
[499] Oh, boy.
[500] Oh, boy.
[501] Oh, boy.
[502] Also, I don't know if you know, do you know that I had said I wrote a response, a very polite response to Ezra Klein.
[503] I did.
[504] I wrote a, I wrote a very polite response for it.
[505] I mean, I mean, it is, and I have to say, I think Esther Klein really helped, he helped Democrats, he helped Biden, because it's just, you know, if you talk to someone who, for five seconds, who had ever worked on a presidential campaign, you would understand why it is bonkers to think that, like, the great move now when you have $130 million that a presidential campaign is sitting on and building organizations in battleground stays that you should wait until the middle of August, like put at the $130 million aside, not build any kind of coordinated organization, and then, like, hope that you're divided, that after your sitting president admits defeat by resigning or saying he's not going to run, that you can, you know, resurrect some kind of strong campaign to take on Donald Trump with 11 weeks to go.
[506] It's just, it's just ridiculous.
[507] Lincoln, it worked for Lincoln.
[508] Bill Crystal pointed that out this week, Abe Lincoln, Especially since the record of broker conventions producing successful nominees is, like, somebody please point to the last time that's happened.
[509] We got, like, Jamal Bowman charging the stage with some pro -Hamas protesters is going to be while Josh Shapiro tries to take the nomination from the first black vice president.
[510] That's all going to go real great.
[511] That's going to be a wonderful scene.
[512] And another police riot in Grand Park.
[513] Yeah, that'll be great.
[514] Yeah.
[515] So I think, so it has helped.
[516] And then the other thing.
[517] I feel like in the last 10 days since the Her report.
[518] Now, the Her report, you know, some people are like, oh, this is good.
[519] They got, the Biden campaign got their crucible over early.
[520] It's like, well, no, that just showed you like how bad it's going to get when his vulnerability around his age comes into like the crosshairs, right?
[521] It's tough.
[522] But at least we, they like got through that.
[523] And I think they are definitely, he is out more.
[524] He's also more relevant right now because he's in an actual fight with Trump.
[525] So you see more of him.
[526] I think seeing more of him.
[527] him, even when he screws up as important because we understand, like, oh, he knows what's going on.
[528] He, like, you know, he talks to the press most days.
[529] He does Q &A, Q &A's with the press on most days.
[530] This isn't actually necessarily get covered.
[531] So I think it feels a little, it feels stabilized.
[532] Jennifer, I'll just say completely anecdotally that just in the last week or two, I feel like I've heard and seen Biden more.
[533] A lot.
[534] Yeah.
[535] In a good way.
[536] You know, it's just like, oh, right and it wasn't you know some very it was just like something sort of normal it's like oh he's normal and he can do that yeah he does you know he walks him and talks to the press on most days and that is and i think partly it's he's getting covered more because it's like you know russia and ukraine and you know seeing nivalny's widow and jokes about a sex life that was good jokes about a sex life all three of you guys know what it's like because you've all been involved in managing campaigns and dealing with with with communications if you if somebody says to you something that I think in this case is unequivocally true.
[537] But if you heard this and you were running the communications operation for Joe Biden, you would be like, oh, uh, uh, it's like the reality is you've got to normalize his mistakes.
[538] They have to become, they have to become run of the middle.
[539] The only way for this to work, he's going to be making mistakes.
[540] He's going to be looking old.
[541] He's going to be doing shit.
[542] He's going to mix stuff up.
[543] He's going to make mistakes for the rest of the campaign.
[544] If you make it, you have to make it like he makes him every day and people see it, and it's fine.
[545] It's still okay.
[546] That's okay.
[547] Because it's a really good.
[548] isolated things where every time he makes a mistake, people can focus on it.
[549] I would, like, flood the zone with Biden.
[550] I'd like be like, get it.
[551] It's a huge risky thing to do.
[552] But like, the only way you can survive this is to make it so that when he makes the mistakes, people shrug as opposed to.
[553] Yeah.
[554] No, that's like, things are still.
[555] That Joe.
[556] Things are still.
[557] It's Joe.
[558] He does.
[559] Yeah.
[560] Yeah.
[561] He's still, but the ship of state's still floating, and, you know, the economy's still getting better, and we're still holding.
[562] He's still holding NATO to get that together and, like, dealing with Gaza and his own.
[563] He calls down the stairs, but he still knows who to call it NATO.
[564] We're putting sanctions on Putin, and he's meeting with Navalny's widow, and he's doing all that stuff.
[565] And so he fucks him shut up every day.
[566] Like, big deal.
[567] Move on.
[568] He'll be more like Trump then, where, like, people just write off all of Trump's ludicely because it's all so normalized.
[569] You got to get there, and it's going to be painful.
[570] There is an asymmetry on the attack, so Trump on Truth today had a little meme up there, where, It's like Biden is shuffling and then he goes into, you know, that old folks home commercial, visiting angels.
[571] You know that one?
[572] I'm like, Trump is posting this on his social media.
[573] Biden's campaign, like, you know, has just the decorum to not do that, right?
[574] So that, I worry about it.
[575] I don't know if people are ready for that.
[576] Like just the low blow TikTok Biden attacks are going to be just off the charts.
[577] I mean, they're going to be.
[578] They're brutal.
[579] I mean, if you look on TikTok, they're like on Biden.
[580] They're brutal.
[581] If somebody said to me they went and spent some time where they just went and just went on TikTok and searched for Biden content, just to see like what, just to do the deep dive of just like what's out there and like what are young people seeing if they live on TikTok?
[582] And this person who was like a generally like not an anti -Biden, this is a curious person who wondered why is there this youth, the Gen Z problem?
[583] Like just like, oh, let's go look at TikTok and really dive in there.
[584] spend a week on TikTok and just look for all the Biden content you could, not political content from campaigns or operatives, but just the normal shit that people are making.
[585] And he's like, it is fucking merciless.
[586] It's a merciless.
[587] Well, and it's a lot of Gaza.
[588] Yes, but it's like there's nothing positive.
[589] I mean, it's like it's a nonstop flood of mockery and criticism.
[590] And again, I'm not pointing at any finger.
[591] I'm just raising the fact that that's out there.
[592] It's not like, you know, it's not like it's not already there.
[593] You know, people are seeing a lot of stuff that's negative about Biden.
[594] It's the biggest thing, like the people that are outside of the campaign that I raise money and worry about, you know, what's happening on the outside, the biggest, this is the biggest hole that everybody obsesses over is what do you do about TikTok?
[595] Okay.
[596] One rapid fire, then a final circus question.
[597] My rapid fire right now today, percent chance, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, other are taking the oath of office next January.
[598] We have to do percentages too.
[599] We can't just say Biden.
[600] Percent.
[601] I can go first.
[602] I'm like 50.
[603] 57 Biden, 42, Trump, one other.
[604] Wow.
[605] I'm 53, Biden.
[606] That's very bullish on Biden.
[607] You're lower than 53, Wyoming?
[608] Yeah, I'm 53 Biden.
[609] I think that the...
[610] I'm like 4946, 46, 5.
[611] Yeah.
[612] Because one of them could die.
[613] Yeah, I'm with John.
[614] Yeah.
[615] I'm 48, 46.
[616] Six.
[617] Well, we're not going to have being boring then in the fall.
[618] No. So we can have a much better episode theme song in the fall if we come back.
[619] Everybody says this in the while you're covering the primary or being out there in the world, you're like, but the stakes are so high.
[620] And people are like, yeah, I know the stakes are high.
[621] But right now we're going through this part, which is like the annoying, you know, Trump will get his get to 1215, you know, in the middle of March.
[622] And by the time we get to the fall, the stakes, even though people are not psyched about the choice and a lot of people are like not loving the two nominees, the stakes will kick in at that point.
[623] I think it will suddenly be able to start to feel more urgent, a lot more urgent.
[624] The song is not sweet Caroline.
[625] It's not sweet Caroline.
[626] Circus.
[627] Circus things.
[628] I want one thing for, something you miss being out there or a memory, something people should search for on YouTube, a favorite circus moment.
[629] You know, here's one small thing that I would search for on YouTube that I think that the Biden campaign should look for, should use as an ad.
[630] Okay.
[631] I'm ready.
[632] our Israel Gaza episode where he went to Israel.
[633] And at the beginning, Divya, Chungi, who was the head editor of the show, her team did this cold open that was Biden through the years.
[634] And I think it started with, like, him meeting, you know, Jesus.
[635] Moses.
[636] Jesus, no. Indira Gandhi.
[637] Moses, you know, as a young senator, meeting Indira Gandhi and Israel.
[638] And it, like, went through the entire, you know, for those.
[639] 50 -year career through a foreign policy lens and all the world leaders he's met with and all the situations he's been in.
[640] And then when you arrive to the present, you're like, of course he's the guy.
[641] And that was, so that was winter of, no, that was most recently.
[642] That was fall of 23, the Israel episode.
[643] Look at that.
[644] I miss the extreme balance and polar opposites of being at the Kremlin, watching John take on a KGB super operatives and just, I mean, seeing the best at their craft going at it, juxtaposed with being in a county fair in Marjorie Taylor -Green's district watching something being shot out of a cannon.
[645] Did you see the January 6 pinball?
[646] We also missed CPAC.
[647] I had some CPAC clips we didn't get to, but that could have also been in this week's episode.
[648] There was a January 6th pinball at CPAC this week.
[649] I heard.
[650] You know, it's Devon.
[651] Howellman, last thoughts, memories, words of wisdom.
[652] I miss Jen's dark and foreboding apocalyptic view of the world, which always reminds me that there's someone who thinks things are more fucked even than me. Tim, I miss your fashion sense.
[653] The pearls, having a routine access to pearls on boys.
[654] The pearl necklaces are, your pearl necklaces are top of the line.
[655] And the common thing to say would be to say that you miss MCAT's hats, but I don't.
[656] to miss MCAT's hats.
[657] I miss MCAT's hat boxes.
[658] No one knows what it's like to be on the road with Mark McKinnon where all these hats have to be carried around in their own pieces of suitcase.
[659] Each one has its individual suitcase.
[660] That was like, MCAT goes to Moscow and I'm like, all of the overhead bins are filled with these Stetson hat boxes.
[661] I'm like the craziest thing I've ever seen.
[662] But I do miss that.
[663] Speaking of CPAC, it's just, I just have to do a shout out for no peace bitch.
[664] No peace bitch.
[665] Megan McCain I'm doing her podcast next week Oh my God We'll just send her our regards Getting some revenge from Carrie if we're on behalf of Tim Miller Gary Lake Oh my God Maybe that should have been the episode title No peace bitches Guys Jen Palmieri Mark McKinnon John Howlman Thank you for doing this I hope to see you guys This summer in the fall And we'll talk to you all soon Bye The Bullwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with editing by Jason Brett.