The Bulwark Podcast XX
[0] Welcome to the Bull Work podcast.
[1] It is Monday.
[2] I am Charlie Sykes.
[3] He is Will Salatan.
[4] And of course, we're both taking a break from watching the Queen's funeral.
[5] My wife's been up since I think 3 .30 watching the Queen's funeral.
[6] It is interesting.
[7] I don't know, Will.
[8] Anyway, first of all, happy Monday, Will.
[9] Thank you, Charlie.
[10] It is this bizarre kind of split screen where you're watching all of this dignity and tradition in Britain.
[11] I'm not necessarily a royalist, but watching all that.
[12] And the split screen of American Democratic.
[13] carnage in meltdown.
[14] It's just like, I, you know, no, I'm not going to suggest that we rethink that whole independence thing.
[15] But the experiment's not looking great today, is all I can say.
[16] You know, it's really funny because last night, I finally, you know, I do everything years late.
[17] I just finally got to see Hamilton the show.
[18] And so there's all this stuff in there obviously about King George taunting America saying you'll be back, which is newly irrelevant.
[19] No, well, hey, Congratulations, catching up on Hamilton.
[20] I think that's a, I think it's a great show.
[21] Okay, so I know the people would like to start off on a Monday, you know, with the porridge, but I think we have to give them the, we have to give them the spinach today a little bit.
[22] Actually, it's more like an emetic.
[23] No, stop me if you've heard this before, but Donald Trump's rally over the weekend was just pure undiluted craziness.
[24] And I write this morning, you know, this storm is coming for people who are, like, oh, you know, how bad could it be?
[25] Or, you know, he's done all the damage you could possibly do, right?
[26] Or if we could just, if we just ignored his mean tweet.
[27] So here you have Trump retruthing.
[28] He doesn't retweet because he's not on Twitter.
[29] He retruths an image of himself with this QAnon slogan, the storm is coming, with a picture of himself, actually wearing a Q button.
[30] Now, I know that people will say, okay, he's just trolling us and all of that.
[31] But then there's the rallies and the fingers.
[32] salutes and the music.
[33] The AP story captures this.
[34] After winking at Q &On for years, Donald Trump is overtly embracing the baseless conspiracy theory.
[35] Even as the number of frightening real -world events linked to it grows, New York Times tweeted out, Donald Trump appeared to more fully embrace Q &ON on Saturday playing a song at a rally in Ohio that prompted attendees to respond with a salute in reference to the cult -light conspiracy theories theme song.
[36] And I can't really even capture the weirdness of this that Donald Trump is now having the somber music as he narrates his themes.
[37] I mean, you heard this, right?
[38] I mean, where he's, he's clearly reading his speech, but now he has, he has like a background music.
[39] It's like a soundtrack.
[40] He runs his own soundtrack during the rally.
[41] And I have to give people just a little taste of this, okay?
[42] A taste of the weirdness.
[43] And, you know, there should be no doubt about it.
[44] This guy's running for president again.
[45] Republicans are probably going to nominate him again.
[46] So that's why the storm is coming.
[47] So this is Donald Trump with his own personal soundtrack from Saturday night.
[48] We are a nation that allowed Russia to devastate a country, Ukraine, killing hundreds of thousands of people.
[49] And it will only get worse.
[50] It would never have happened with me. as your commander -in -chief, and for four long years, it didn't happen.
[51] And China with Taiwan is next.
[52] We are a nation that has weaponized its law enforcement against the opposing political party like never, ever before.
[53] We've got a federal bureau of investigation that won't allow bad election -changing facts to be presented to the public where Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation when they knew it wasn't and a Department of Justice that refuses to investigate egregious acts of voting irregularities and fraud and we have a president who is cognitively impaired and in no condition to lead our country which may end up in World War 3 We are a nation that no longer has a free press and has no fair press any longer.
[54] Fake news is all you get and they are truly the enemy of the people.
[55] We are a nation where free speech is no longer allowed, where crime is rampant like never before, where the economy has been collapsing, where more people died of COVID in 2021 than in 2020.
[56] We are a nation that is allowing Iran to build a massive nuclear weapon and China to use the trillions of dollars it has taken from us to build a military to rival our own.
[57] And just two years ago, we had Iran, China, Russia, North Korea, and all of the rest in check.
[58] They weren't going to do a thing against us.
[59] and everyone knows it they respected the United States and they respected America Jesus, Marion Joseph and the weed donkey can we just move this thing along before it drives us all around the bloody band So Will, I turn to you to explain what the fuck is with the music Charlie, can we get that music for the podcast?
[60] I'd like to have that playing in the background while I'm saying something completely.
[61] World War III.
[62] Can I play this on my own household?
[63] My wife and I are working out the grocery list.
[64] Can we play that?
[65] I mean, he's got it playing over every single thing he's saying, most of which is ridiculous.
[66] I mean, it's not, he's not using it for dramatic effect.
[67] It's just constantly there.
[68] It's bizarre.
[69] It's completely bizarre.
[70] He's fallen into his own TV commercial.
[71] It's like everything's like TV show.
[72] And it's like, okay, so I'm going to run an ad that will make people nostalgic for the good old days and weep for the terrible fate that has befallen America and I'm going to use this theme from some hallmark movie that Melania was watching the other night and it's going to make it so much better.
[73] I just, okay, I'm sorry.
[74] Yeah, so there's the drama and the ego, right, and that ridiculous pomp, but also sort of, has it been resolved yet whether this is literally QAnon on music or just, I mean, in any event, what I would just tell people who only hear the audio is while this music is playing during the rally, the people in the audience are all raising their fingers in the Q &N salute.
[75] I mean, just lots of people in the crowd with the salute.
[76] So they clearly, I think this is Q &N music.
[77] In any event, it's unmistakable.
[78] If you are working for Trump, if you're Trump, do you look out in the crowd?
[79] You can see that everybody is hearing this as a Q &ON signal.
[80] So it's the music, but it's also the signal to the crazies that Trump sympathizes with the Well, and of course this is all going to get worse.
[81] I mean, the one symbol is that what is that slogan?
[82] You know, where we go one, we go all.
[83] Yeah, exactly, where we go.
[84] And they hold up one.
[85] Where we go all.
[86] So this comes a week after the former president offered his not very veiled warning against indicting him.
[87] He said, I don't think the people of the United States would stand for it.
[88] I think if it happened, I think you'd have problems in this country, the likes of which perhaps we've never seen before.
[89] I don't think the people of the United States would stand for it.
[90] I heard a lot of people, you know, triggered by this saying, well, he's trying to incite violence.
[91] I think, yes, there's no question about that there is that element.
[92] But it's also, again, it's this attempt at intimidation, this sort of low -level mafioso, nice democracy you got there, be a pity if anything happened to it.
[93] And that's the way, you know, Maga World sees it, right?
[94] I mean, and they've sort of picked this up.
[95] I mean, the former acting attorney general under Trump, this guy named Matthew Whitaker, is on, newsmax saying that there would be mass chaos and anarchy if they applied the rule of law to his former boss.
[96] So, I mean, this comes as, as Trump is ratcheting up the threats of violence.
[97] Yeah.
[98] And in Trump's case, it's different from anyone else.
[99] And the reason is that January 6th happened.
[100] So, you know, for any other politician to be talking about, oh, there'll be violence in the streets or, you know, if there will be a mass uprising or people won't stand for it, you might look at that and say, hey, be careful because if you talk that way, there might be actual violence.
[101] In Trump's case, you don't have to, you can skip that step because there already was actual violence incited by the president.
[102] And it's hilarious to hear Republican politicians deny that Trump intended the incitement when not only did he intended in the first place, but having witnessed it, having lived through it and not done anything about it when it happened on January 6th, he now goes out and repeats similar language, which he knows will trigger the same reaction.
[103] I mean, will it also, we have to put this a little bit of context.
[104] I mean, this also comes at the same time we're getting these reports from around the country.
[105] You know, the support for false election claims runs very, very deep in the 2022 GOP field.
[106] Nearly one in three Republican candidates for statewide office to play a role in overseeing certifying or defending elections supported overturning the results of the 2020 election.
[107] One in three Republican candidates.
[108] And then the New York Times goes around.
[109] They ask candidates who are on the ballot, would you accept?
[110] the result of the election.
[111] And according to the New York Times, six Trump -backed Republican nominees for governor in the Senate in battleground states would not commit to accepting this year's election results.
[112] So, I mean, this has gone way beyond Donald Trump.
[113] And I guess we're finding out what the downside of humoring him was, right?
[114] Remember people were suggesting that, hey, you know, what's the harm and just humoring him for a little while?
[115] Well, I think we're living in that world right now.
[116] Yeah.
[117] And a lot of these, politicians who are humoring him and who are parroting some of his, you know, BS about the election, they think that they can say this stuff, it is innocuous, he will gradually go away, they will, in the meantime, have appeased him.
[118] Charlie, he's not going away.
[119] And this rally was different from all prior rallies, in my opinion, because Trump said several times during this rally, something he has not said, to my knowledge, before at a rally, which is he was focusing again and again and again on his standing in the polls.
[120] Yeah.
[121] Not just relevant, not just relative to Joe Biden, but relative to other Republicans who might run for president.
[122] So he talks about being up 18 points on Biden.
[123] And then he talks about how I'm leading all the Republicans.
[124] He says the Republicans are not doing well, meaning the Republicans who might run for president.
[125] And he says this usual thing about it, we may have to run again and stay tuned.
[126] But that is different.
[127] Yeah.
[128] And of course, the Republican Party wants to keep Trump out of it.
[129] They're going to send these signals to the election deniers and his supporters and hope to get them out to the polls.
[130] But they don't want Trump to announce a president before the election because obviously that'll scare the dickens out of Democrats and independents will show up to vote for the Democrats.
[131] But I view this rally as Trump essentially signaling that his campaign has begun.
[132] He's not explicitly saying it.
[133] But when he talks about his standing in the primary, he's signaling that he's going.
[134] And if you are a voter out there who thinks you can stay home and don't have to worry about Donald Trump, you've just had your notice that you need to get out now.
[135] Well, I also think that there's, you know, it should be obvious by now that Republican officials are not going to stand up against Trump.
[136] They're not going to block Trump.
[137] They will rally around him no matter what he says.
[138] And you can see this in what's happening at the state level.
[139] You have Kerry Lake, who is an absolute nut job lunatic election -inier candidate running for governor in Arizona.
[140] And I see now the Virginia governor, Glenn Yonkin, is hitting the trail for Republican candidates.
[141] And he's going to be headlining one of the events in Arizona, you know, Doug Ducey, who's been a Trump skeptical Republican.
[142] He's on board.
[143] Other Republicans rallying around Doug Mastrian.
[144] I mean, when it comes right down to it, the incredible gravitational pull of party loyalty is so intense.
[145] And Trump is watching this.
[146] And, you know, we've asked that stupid question, you know, over.
[147] and over again.
[148] It's not a stupid question, but it feels now, in retrospect, you know, what's the red line?
[149] What will cause people to break with them?
[150] And the answer is absolutely nothing.
[151] And you're seeing this at the state level where no matter how bizarre the conduct of the candidates is, the Republican Party still rallies around him.
[152] They are still rallying around Herschel Walker.
[153] They are still rallying around, you know, people like Blake Masters.
[154] That is such a great point.
[155] It's like, I don't know how to describe this.
[156] There's sort of first -order Trump.
[157] There's Trump himself denying the 2020 election.
[158] Then there's this sort of first -order denialism coming from people like Kerry Lake.
[159] And I think, you know, Tudor Dixon is one of the same people, right?
[160] Right.
[161] In Michigan.
[162] Spread in Michigan, spreading this stuff.
[163] Now we have this category of people who are sort of second -order deny.
[164] They're not actually themselves denying the election.
[165] This is Glenn Yonkin, Ron DeSantis.
[166] But they're out there.
[167] They've already committed to campaign for the Kerry Lakes and the Tudor Dixons and the Doug Mastrianos.
[168] And, you know, I don't know exactly how we should view this, except it is a form of cowardice and it is a form of promoting and condoning and continuing the spread of this nonsense and this craziness inside the party.
[169] Okay.
[170] One more little tidbit from the Trump rally over the weekend, which was in Ohio, where obviously he is boosting the candidacy of his endorsed candidate for Senate, J .D. Vance.
[171] There was this extraordinary moment where the former president of the United States, gives a shout out to this grown -ass man, J .D. Vans, who used to have his own career.
[172] It was a best -selling author.
[173] And this is what Donald Trump had to say.
[174] J .D. is kissing my ass.
[175] He wants myself.
[176] I'm sorry.
[177] You know, the humiliation is the point.
[178] I mean, I suppose if you're J .D. Vance and you signed up to be the next Lindsey Graham, right?
[179] This is what you expect.
[180] But here you have him say, J .D. Vance is kissing my ass.
[181] He just relishes in it.
[182] says it.
[183] It's just that the, you know, and J .D. is what?
[184] It's sitting there duck in his head going, yeah, that's right.
[185] I used to have some pride.
[186] I used to have some dignity.
[187] Yeah, but I want to be a senator more than I want to have any pride or have any dignity.
[188] Yeah, poor J .D. Oh, you know, it's really so sad.
[189] I mean, everybody who signs up with Trump at this point, they know what they're getting into.
[190] This is not a marriage.
[191] This is a dominant, submissive relationship.
[192] Not that there's anything wrong with that.
[193] It is kind of a kink.
[194] It is.
[195] You know, It is.
[196] Yeah.
[197] And so Trump gets off on this.
[198] First of all, it's now a filter.
[199] So the people who are sucking up to Trump like Nikki Haley, you're already signaling to everyone that you're a coward.
[200] I mean, it's not just about Trump at this point.
[201] You're signaling that you'll set aside principles.
[202] You have no backbone.
[203] You'll degrade yourself.
[204] And you want the degradation.
[205] You're going to get this JD Vance treatment.
[206] But, you know, the other thing is on Trump's side, this is just more of signal that it's all about him, right?
[207] It's not about the party.
[208] It's not he's sucking up all the money.
[209] He's out degrading the candidates at that rally.
[210] He's again bashing Mitch McConnell.
[211] He's campaigning for J .D. Vance.
[212] And in the course of the rally, telling J .D. Vance at the microphone, you know, I want you to stick it to Mitch McConnell.
[213] So he's destroying the part.
[214] Well, he's not destroying.
[215] He's tearing at the party, even as he's pretending to support it.
[216] So I want to come back to Lindsey Graham in just a moment and get your thoughts about, because I know you've been working on a piece on Lindsey Graham.
[217] You've written extensively about abortion.
[218] And of course, Lindsey stepped in it last week.
[219] But let's take a moment to focus on the would -be successors to Donald Trump, the whole Ron DeSantis stunt with sending some of the asylum seekers to Martha's Vineyard.
[220] I go back and forth on Maureen Dowd.
[221] But she had a great column over the weekend.
[222] She said Donald Trump will be remembered for many things.
[223] He injected obscenities into the New York Times's White House coverage.
[224] He turned conspiracy theory into Republican Orthodoxy.
[225] And he cut out the middleman on ugliness, happily doing the political wet work himself.
[226] And then he goes on to say, you know, it used to be that you'd have a hit man like Lee Atwater who would do the, you know, the dirty tricks.
[227] Trump dispensed with the idea that the candidate was above at all.
[228] He was excited to show that he was beneath it all, the naked id of the Republican Party.
[229] And his soulless followers like Rhonda Santis and Greg Abbott.
[230] are happy to mud wrestle and perform this all as well.
[231] So, I know there's been a lot of discussion about what Durandis did.
[232] I think it's safe to say, though, that Republicans and the conservative media is all in behind his, let's expose the hypocrisy of the liberal elites.
[233] Let's stick it to the blue states.
[234] This is just an epic troll.
[235] They love this, even though, and I want to come back to this, these are not illegal immigrants.
[236] They are asylum seekers.
[237] But I thought an immigration lawyer named Rachel Self, who's representing some of these folks, really put this in some context.
[238] Let's play a little soundbite from, this is immigration lawyer Rachel's self from Martha's Vineyard talking about what Ron DeSantis did with this group of 50 migrants who he put on an airplane and dropped off in Martha's Vineyard last week.
[239] Accounts from the migrants who arrived last night make it clear that they were lied to again.
[240] and again and fraudulently induced to board the planes.
[241] They were told there was a surprise present for them and that there would be jobs and housing awaiting for them when they arrived.
[242] This was obviously a sadistic lie.
[243] Not only did those responsible for this stunt know that there was no housing and no employment awaiting the migrants, they also very intentionally chose not to call ahead to any single office authority on Martha's Vineyard so that even the most basic human needs arrangements could be made.
[244] Ensuring that no help awaited the migrants at all was the entire point.
[245] So, Will, a sadistic lie.
[246] I think that cuts through a lot of this.
[247] Okay, this topic to me is enormously complicated.
[248] Parts of it are not complicated, but as a whole, it is complicated.
[249] I am extremely sympathetic, actually, to the concern that propelled this.
[250] That is to say, we do have unsecured border.
[251] We do have like 2 million people coming across it on an annual basis.
[252] It is out of control.
[253] Liberals generally are outside of these states, are not paying attention to it.
[254] And there is every reason for the governors and the people of these states to say, hey, we need to share this burden.
[255] And some of the burden is being shared already.
[256] Having said that, they have a well -founded concern about redistributing the burden.
[257] This is not the way to do it.
[258] And furthermore, the way in which Abbott and DeSantis have done this is deeply, deeply immoral.
[259] It is a kind of human trafficking for the reason that this lawyer illuminated.
[260] They lied to these people.
[261] They treated them the way the coyotes treated them.
[262] They told them something was waiting for them that wasn't.
[263] In some cases, they put them on buses with not enough food, with no access to medical care.
[264] Some of them were COVID positive.
[265] But this is endangered the people.
[266] When coyotes do this, we call it human trafficking.
[267] So while I agree with him about the underlying problem, I am deeply disturbed about the way that this was done.
[268] Well, I agree with you on this.
[269] And again, bear with me for a second here.
[270] People need to understand why this has been effective as a PR stunt because it does highlight a legitimate concern.
[271] It is a legitimate concern to talk about the border.
[272] it is a legitimate concern to talk about the question of who should have to share in the burden of handling these people.
[273] I would point out, though, that it is crucial to note, and not enough people have made this point.
[274] My understanding, tell me if I'm wrong about this, is these are not illegal immigrants.
[275] These are asylum seekers, which means they are here legally.
[276] They are people who presented themselves at the border, have not had their asylum request denied.
[277] These were people fleeing a communistic government, if not a communist government in Venezuela.
[278] But again, there is a legitimate issue here.
[279] But you're right.
[280] I mean, there's something deeply immoral about using human beings, actual human beings, including children as props.
[281] But it is precisely the immorality that seems to have excited so many Republicans, including many conservative who are anti -Trump, who nevertheless think of this is, ooh, this is a coup.
[282] Ooh, this is a great PR.
[283] because it's all about the winning.
[284] It's all about the narrative.
[285] It's all about the LOLs.
[286] And so Ronda Santos knows exactly what he's doing and he's decided that I will allow no one to be more cruel than I in order to be the very clear era parent, if anything, happens to the Orange God King.
[287] Yeah, yeah.
[288] And to your point, first of all, Charlie, about the illegal immigrants, it is true.
[289] These people are asylum seekers.
[290] In fact, I believe it would be a violation of the law for Abbott and DeSantis to go get people who are illegally here and ship them within the United States, knowing that they are illegal.
[291] So they had to be asylum seekers legally.
[292] As to the larger point, this issue is one of those places where we are seeing the void that is created by the absence of a serious conservative party, right?
[293] You can imagine a serious Republican party saying, you know what, the liberals are not taking border security seriously enough.
[294] this, all this burden is falling on those border communities.
[295] We have to redistribute it, right?
[296] And then they might go about it in a more sensible way.
[297] First of all, you would tell the communities where you would consult the places you're sending it to.
[298] You would work this out with the federal government instead of just dumping these people in a place like out in front of the vice president's residence, which is what they did, a place where obviously that is no good for the humans that you just put on the buses.
[299] But a serious Republican Party would do that.
[300] Instead, we get this stuff that is designed to own the libs.
[301] And the people who suffer for it are the migrants themselves who are being sent to a place where they don't, in fact, have food, clothing, shelter waiting for them.
[302] Okay, so let's switch gears a bit because I want to spend a little bit of time talking about the abortion issue and what happened last week.
[303] Earlier in the week, it looked like Republicans, it had finally dawned on Republicans that the abortion issue was not working well for them.
[304] There was a Fox News poll showing that virtually two to one that American voters disapproved of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, and there's a lot of data, a lot of reports, a lot of anecdotal reports suggesting that this issue was hurting Republicans with Republican voters, with independent voters, and that it was mobilizing Democratic voters.
[305] It certainly seemed as if the mood had changed on Capitol Hill not to push ahead with a national ban not to try to nationalize the abortion issue.
[306] And then your good friend Lindsey Graham steps up to the podium and proposes, wait, no, no, I propose a nationwide 15 -week ban with exceptions for rape incest and the health of the mother.
[307] And almost every other Republican regarded that as kind of this massive turd in the punch bowl.
[308] So what was Graham trying to do, do you think?
[309] What was he thinking?
[310] Charlie, if all other explanations fail, I'm going to go with sincerity.
[311] I think Lindsey Graham believes that, you know, we need to save the babies from his point of view, and he's going to save them any way he can.
[312] And he's not going to do what is the politically sensible.
[313] He does think that he has a sensible political strategy.
[314] He doesn't.
[315] But to his credit, he says, I'm not going to worry about the electoral consequences.
[316] This is an important cause.
[317] And, you know, this is why we're elected.
[318] to do the things we believe are important.
[319] So I think that's what's going on in his head.
[320] I don't disagree with that, but also it seemed to me that one of his calculations certainly might have been that he saw the way that Republicans were increasingly being seen as extremists on this issue.
[321] And state after state, they're passing these close to absolute bans of West Virginia being the latest, some of them being at conception or six weeks, and that he might have thought that he was presenting a more moderate alternative, because as you and I have discussed, 15 -week bans poll much, much, much better than the absolute bans.
[322] And also, he wanted to include the exceptions.
[323] So as part of his thinking, was it that I'm actually going to try to come up with a national moderate alternative to what's been happening at the state level?
[324] Yes, yes.
[325] The answer, Charlie, is you've exactly described what he's trying to do.
[326] Lindsey Graham thinks.
[327] He thinks that what he's setting up is a contrast between a democratic position of abortion up till the ninth month, whatever, which is not true.
[328] But let's say 24 weeks, the row standard, okay, the third trimester, versus his standard of 15 weeks.
[329] He thinks the debate is between 15 weeks and 24 or whatever weeks.
[330] That is a misunderstanding of the many, many complexities of this issue.
[331] He's introduced into it.
[332] You know, what he's done is he's federalized the pro -life position in a way that Mike Pence was already doing, but this sort of underscores it.
[333] And the Democrats are all over it.
[334] They love for this to be federalized on the right because then they can be the party that says, you know, we're for your local control.
[335] Okay, so let's talk about this, the state's rights issue, because this seemed to be a flip -flop on Lindsey Graham's part.
[336] And he was confronted about this last week, and I wanted to play a clip of this as he tries to explain, know, what his position used to be and whether or not he's changed his position.
[337] So this is a little bit more extended clip of Lindsey Graham defending himself against charges that he had reversed himself from his previous position that this should be a state's rights issue.
[338] Let me get you to this.
[339] This is what you said back in June.
[340] This is around the time that the Supreme Court was getting ready to overturn Roe v. Wade, which you guys had argued for to send it back to the states.
[341] Here's what you said.
[342] There's nothing in the Constitution that creates a right to abortion as a constitutional principle.
[343] This was judge made out of cloth law.
[344] Now, what this court has done is taken us back to pre -1973, where each state can decide through their elected officials when life begins and how to treat life.
[345] You've got to explain the pivot.
[346] Okay, number one, if you know anything about me, Shannon, for 20 years, I've been supporting federal legislation banning late -term abortions.
[347] But you said there are states to make these decisions.
[348] The states, here's what Dobbs says.
[349] Elected officials, can make the decision.
[350] State or federal.
[351] I'm not inconsistent.
[352] In 2020, I had a bill on the floor of the United States Senate right across the Capitol that banned abortion at 20 weeks because the baby can feel pain.
[353] I had 51 Republicans voting with me and two Democrats to suggest that I'm new to the game.
[354] Opposing late -term abortion is ridiculous.
[355] No one's suggesting that.
[356] Listen, I was the author of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act that made it a crime to hurt a baby if you attack the mother.
[357] You'd be charged with two crimes.
[358] If you attack a mother and you hurt the baby, it passed 72 votes in the United States Senate.
[359] I never suggested there's no place for the unborn in Washington, D .C. If you tell the pro -life movement that we're out of business in the nation's capital that we can't set some minimum national standard to prevent Chinese abortion policy in Maryland or California, they'll be revolt by the pro -life community.
[360] The people are with me. What am I saying?
[361] I will not sit on the sideline.
[362] and watch this nation become China when it comes to aborting babies up to the moment of birth.
[363] I reject that.
[364] I will continue to introduce legislation at the national level, setting a minimum standard at 15 weeks, no abortion except for life, rape, save the life for the mother of rape incest.
[365] Yes.
[366] Okay, so, Will, break that down for me. Okay, this clip that we just played is just crystallizes so many problems for the Republican Party that Lindsay Graham is introducing into this issue.
[367] First of all, the party's position about Roe versus Wade and after the fall of Roe versus Wade was we're the state's rights party.
[368] We're the party that lets you, it's essentially a pro -choice argument, Charlie.
[369] It's a your state can choose how to regulate abortion.
[370] Lindsay Graham's taking that away.
[371] He's saying, you know what, Dobbs, the overturning of Roe was not about state's rights.
[372] It was about taking this away from judges and giving it to as he puts it in that, quote, elected officials.
[373] In other words, politicians, you and I both know, Charlie.
[374] telling voters that we want politicians to decide how your life has lived.
[375] Certainly federal politicians, it's a losing position, right?
[376] And he says, I support federal legislation.
[377] Second thing he says in that quote, he says, he talks about this bill he had in 2020 that was a 20 -week ban.
[378] So now he's got a 15 -week ban.
[379] So the signal is, we're not stopping at 15 weeks.
[380] I was at 20, then I'm at 15, we got states where we're pushing 8, we're going to go to zero.
[381] So the whole slippery slope comes into play.
[382] Third thing, he says about a minimum, he says this will be a minimum national standard.
[383] Another signal that they want to go further.
[384] They're just starting at 15 weeks for now.
[385] And the fourth thing is, I don't think he said it in that clip, in this interview, he talks about the 14th Amendment.
[386] The 14th Amendment is the basis that pro -lifers have for saying unborn babies are human beings.
[387] They are persons and they have to be protected like other persons.
[388] That principle, 14th Amendment, does not allow for stopping at 15 weeks.
[389] If you are a 14th Amendment pro -lifer, as Lindsay Graham is, that is a signal that you want to ban all abortions starting at conception.
[390] So how is this playing out right now on Capitol Hill?
[391] I was struck by the fact that Senator Mike Rounds, who is a Republican from, is it South Dakota?
[392] Yep.
[393] I'm always going to get the Dakota's wrong.
[394] I apologize in advance.
[395] I don't mean to offend you, Dakota, and listeners and everything.
[396] But, yeah, from South Dakota.
[397] He was asked yesterday, so what do you think, and again, Rounds is very, very conservative, very, very pro -life, he was at, well, what do you think about Lindsey Graham's idea to have this national ban?
[398] Here's what Mike Rounds had to say.
[399] Do you support the bill?
[400] No, I think right now we should allow the states to explore the different possibilities about the appropriate way.
[401] But at this point, to have Congress step back in and to tell all of the states that we know better than them how to handle this is probably not the right direction to go.
[402] Hmm.
[403] Hmm.
[404] So pretty much dead on arrival at the moment?
[405] What do you think?
[406] Yeah, that's the message.
[407] I mean, during this interview, Shannon Bream said to Lindsay Graham, you don't have the votes.
[408] You can't pass this.
[409] And the reason is Mitch McConnell already said last week, you know, my members don't want a federal solution.
[410] Because Charlie, you and I both know that the one thing that all politicians can agree on about abortion, certainly on the pro -life side, is that they largely don't want to touch it.
[411] They don't want to be responsible for this issue.
[412] They'd rather punt it to somebody else.
[413] So the senators want this to be handled at the state level so that they don't have to handle it.
[414] And what Lindsey Graham is saying is, no, you are going to have to handle it.
[415] And Charlie, in this interview, he not only said that, he was talking on Fox News to pro -life citizens and saying, don't accept this from these Republican senators, hold their feet to the fire.
[416] So in an election year, he is telling the people who are most exercised about this issue to put more pressure on the Republican Party to take what is, according to polls, an unpopular position.
[417] Well, I still think that if, in fact, Republicans were to get control of the Senate and of the House, that they would vote on a ban like this and they would pass something like this.
[418] The big question on my mind is how divided will pro -lifers be about this?
[419] Graham in that soundbody is actually talking about the possibility of a pro -life revolt that he feels that pro -lifers are feeling this incredible momentum.
[420] Would they even be willing to accept a 15 -week ban?
[421] I'm not sure they are.
[422] I'm not sure that you would get the militant pro -lifers to accept a 15 -week banned with exceptions for rape incest and the health of the mother or the life of the mother at this point.
[423] And you're seeing that kind of split at the state level already, aren't we?
[424] Yeah.
[425] Well, in Graham's case, in his defense politically, there, you know, he did a press conference last week about this bill.
[426] And the pro -life organizations were there with him.
[427] And they signed on to it because pro -lifers have generally been sensible about, you know, let's have some legislation that we can pass.
[428] And as you point out, 15 weeks is a popular enough position that if they could just make the issue about the 15 weeks that would work.
[429] So the pro -life groups are there with him.
[430] The pro -life voters may be not so, but Charlie, I think the big problem is not the pro -life groups and whether they will tolerate this.
[431] It is the pro -choice voters.
[432] And it's the signal that Graham is sending because you're coming up on the election.
[433] And if you are a Republican politician, you want all the voters who are unhappy with inflation and crime and all these other issues to come out and vote against the Democrats.
[434] And you want all of the voters who are afraid of abortion bans to stay home.
[435] And what Lindsay Graham is doing with this is telling all those voters, we are gunning for you, we are coming for you, and that if you want to stop this, if you want to protect abortion rights, even if you want to protect your own state's right to decide what your abortion laws will be, you're going to have to come out to the polls and stop me and McConnell and the other Republicans from banning it federally.
[436] Yes, I think that's the way it's been playing out around the country.
[437] There's no question about it.
[438] So why did Lindsay Graham decide to take the lead?
[439] And why was he the only senator at the that press conference.
[440] It's a good question.
[441] I didn't think to ask that at the time when you only have one senator doing it.
[442] There have been other press conferences where Graham has done abortion bills with multiple senators.
[443] They didn't show up on this occasion.
[444] The simplest answer would be that Mitch McConnell already said that Republican senators have conferred about this, decided they don't want to do it.
[445] So there's a split emerging between Graham and McConnell.
[446] And you and I know that there's been a split between Graham and McConnell over Trump himself, right?
[447] McConnell trying to maintain more distance and Graham putting the heat on him to how, as Graham puts it, a better working relationship with Trump.
[448] And now Graham is adding to that pressure on McConnell and his colleagues to be more extreme on abortion, to be to federalize the issue.
[449] So yeah, I think the simplest answer is it's not smart to do this.
[450] And so Lindsay Graham's doing it because he believes in it.
[451] All right.
[452] So let me tell you something I've been thinking about.
[453] I wanted to get your your take on it as well.
[454] After the last couple of election cycles in which we've seen the polling failures, I guess I'm inclined to not obsess over, you know, daily tracking polls to take all the polls that I'm seeing with a grain of salt.
[455] And I say this is somebody that normally at this point during the election cycle would be, including in my newsletter, the latest NBC poll, or the latest New York Times, Sienna poll, or the latest Emerson poll, or Trafalgar poll, or echelon poll or whatever, and yet I'm now so skeptical of the polling that I'm kind of pulling back a little bit, sort of like, you know, thinking that the healthiest patients are not the ones who sit and look at the heart rate monitor every single day.
[456] So tell me how you are thinking about the polls right now.
[457] I mean, I think it's safe to discount the summer polls to also take the polls of registered voters with a grain of salt.
[458] Now we're moving into a period.
[459] We're getting closer to the election.
[460] We're also seeing polls that are higher quality, that focus on likely voters as opposed to all adults and everything like this.
[461] So how are you looking at the polls these days?
[462] Well, first of all, I just want to point out that all the polls are moving.
[463] And you just named some of them, including the Fox News poll, which is a very good poll.
[464] All the polls have been moving in the direction of Biden and the Democrats.
[465] Not enough, but they've been moving in that direction.
[466] So I think there's some consensus in that, including some of the polls that are designed to overcome bias.
[467] The example would be, let's take your state, let's take Wisconsin.
[468] So I was looking at polling in Wisconsin over the last week or two.
[469] Things can get a lot worse for Mandela Barnes, the Democratic nominee, but he will.
[470] So you have faith, and Charlie, since you know the state, I defer to you on this.
[471] However, I looked at the polls in Wisconsin, and I'm like, really, man, Barnes is up in all the polls?
[472] Do I trust that?
[473] And then I noticed that one of them was the Trafalgar poll, which is a poll, you know, by a guy who's like, he was the guy who said, don't trust the other polls.
[474] My poll is designed to take account of Trump voters who are not showing up in the other polls, right?
[475] And his poll also showed Barnes up.
[476] So I took that as a sign that some polls can be relied on.
[477] And when there's a consensus of all the polls, yeah, I guess I'm willing to take a seriously.
[478] Well, except that Johnson's ahead in the Marquette University Law Poll, which is considered the most reliable poll in Wisconsin.
[479] Right, the most, right, he's now moved ahead.
[480] And I agree with you that I think, but as an index, I think the polls, first of all, they're useful to us, right, in discerning movement.
[481] I think everyone can agree the movement has been in the Democratic direction.
[482] And then the question is how many, you know, Trump voters are still not showing up.
[483] And the other thing, Charlie, is polling error varies from election to election and pollsters try to compensate in between by changing the way they do their samples and they're waiting and all that stuff.
[484] So I think every cycle we have to look backward and see, you know, what we got right or wrong.
[485] It's entirely possible that there is polling error this year and that it's going in the other direction.
[486] So sort of a counterweight to that is Josh Crashauer and Axios is reporting this morning Democrats' midterm reality check.
[487] And he's pointing out, you know, after Democrats surge in political momentum over the the summer.
[488] There are new signs indicating the midterm environment is tilting back in the GOP's direction.
[489] It matters because Republicans are not likely to ride an historic wave to power, but they are well positioned to comfortably win back the House comfortably and are on a sure footing than just weeks ago to net the one seat necessary to capture a narrow Senate majority.
[490] And he's looking at things like, you know, inflation is not slowing down.
[491] Biden's student loan forgiveness plan is actually opposed by a lot of Democrats, especially in swing states.
[492] Republicans hold momentum in several key Senate races.
[493] He says, this is Crash Hour, most notably in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Georgia.
[494] Now, I'm very skeptical about Georgia, and I still think that Dr. Oz is going to, you know, underperform.
[495] But clearly, they're getting a little bit more footing, you know, in Pennsylvania.
[496] Oz is pressuring John Federman to debate.
[497] And, of course, there are questions about Federman's health.
[498] I have to tell you that here in Wisconsin, you have this market university law poll suggesting that this massive ad blitz painting Mandela Barnes is soft on crime is working.
[499] Johnson has closed a seven -point deficit within a month, but we'll see how that plays out.
[500] I guess that's why you know, you would think that by this point you'd have a much clearer view of all of it, but I just have a lot of questions about these various cross currents.
[501] I saw that political playbook suggested that, Instead of a wave, you might have waves, differing waves in different parts of the country with different segments of the electorate.
[502] But it's very confusing for me at this point.
[503] Yeah, I don't believe in waves, plural elections.
[504] Either there's a wave or there isn't.
[505] And if there's a diversity of results, that's not a wave.
[506] But it can still benefit the Republican Party.
[507] I think there are cases like in Wisconsin where you can argue that there is an underlying vulnerability, say, Mandela Barnes, that has not yet been exploited.
[508] And now they're exploiting it.
[509] and now we'll see the real terrain materialize after that.
[510] So I don't think that's true in a state like Pennsylvania.
[511] It might be true in Georgia because of the electorate, but we saw that Biden won that state, and so Georgia isn't what we used to think.
[512] To me, the million dollar question is, to what extent can the Republican Party nationalize these races?
[513] Right.
[514] If there's a bad environment, generally people unhappy with inflation, unhappy with the economy, can they do that?
[515] Because, you know, the candidates obviously are bad on the Republican side.
[516] They're just not.
[517] They could have found much better candidates if they were a sainer party running against a relatively unpopular administration.
[518] So if they can nationalize it, yes, there will be a wave.
[519] But I'm not so sure, especially in those Senate races, I got to disagree with Josh here.
[520] I'm not so sure that in a Senate race, the national mood is strong enough to overcome the really, really poor quality of some of these candidates like Herschel Walker.
[521] And also there is going back to where we started, the Trump factor.
[522] If Democrats want to nationalize this campaign, they can use Trump as a rallying cry.
[523] Because normally, the party in power would be a referendum on their president.
[524] This may be different.
[525] And every once in a while, there are different midterm elections.
[526] And they're very rarely seen in advance.
[527] You know, for example, in 2002, Republicans, you know, were expected to lose seats.
[528] they picked up seats because of the fallout from 9 -11.
[529] 1998 was supposed to be a disastrous year for the Democrats with all of Bill Clinton's problems, and they did relatively well as part of a backlash.
[530] So, you know, every once in a while, the conventional wisdom has some catch -up to do after the results are in.
[531] Then we'll see.
[532] Yeah, yeah.
[533] And as to, you know, waves that didn't happen, I think you're making a really good point about the years when the wave didn't materialize and it should have.
[534] let's go back for a second to Georgia, the Georgia runoffs in 2021 right before January 6th.
[535] Normally, what should happen is Joe Biden is coming in.
[536] The Democratic Party is coming in.
[537] They have the presidency.
[538] They will have the presidency.
[539] You should be able, as the Republican Party, to run as the out party, what they're doing now in the midterms, right?
[540] And win, especially in a state like Georgia.
[541] What happened was Donald Trump made himself the story for those weeks, denying the election, threatening to stay and all that stuff.
[542] And so I think that undercut the Republican Party's attempt to run as the out.
[543] party and they lost those two seats.
[544] Charlie, that could happen again on a larger scale in this election.
[545] Trump signals that he's running again.
[546] Democrats are scared of him.
[547] They turn out to vote like they did in Georgia.
[548] Yeah.
[549] I mean, I think that certainly, that is certainly possible.
[550] And again, as Mitch McConnell has pointed out, candidate quality actually matters.
[551] Anything else you're keeping an eye on this week?
[552] Well, I wanted to just add something about that.
[553] You know, Joe O'Day, the Republican nominee for Senate in Colorado, was on one of the Sunday shows.
[554] I can't even remember which one.
[555] And here's a guy who is not a Trumper, right, who's trying to model how Republicans could run and win the center of the electorate.
[556] And he's being asked questions about Trump.
[557] They're playing clips of Trump saying crazy stuff about pardoning the January 6th defendants and that kind of thing.
[558] And he's having to answer questions about this.
[559] To me, that is an illustration of what a burden Trump is still to his party as they're trying to, you know, as they're trying to win these seats in the midterms.
[560] Well, and also the fact that a lot of these candidates continue to feel that they are held hostage by the most extreme elements of the party.
[561] And, you know, again, I think that Ron Johnson is likely to win, but I wrote a piece over the weekend about his very strange, in elegant flip -flop on gay marriage.
[562] legalized same -sex marriage is overwhelmingly popular here in Wisconsin.
[563] 72 % of the voters are in favor of it, including 58 % of Republicans.
[564] Even Republicans are okay with legalized same -sex marriage.
[565] And you hear you have Ron Johnson in a general election pivoting, flip -flopping to come out against gay marriage because he doesn't want to antagonize this very loud extreme element of the social conservatives.
[566] That's pretty much the opposite of what you know.
[567] normally see in a political season where candidates try to move toward the center in the general election or certainly if they're going to flip -flop flip -flop from unpopular positions to popular positions and johnson's doing the opposite but again this is part of the dynamic everyone's afraid of moving too far off that rabid base and so you're seeing it again and again by the way ronda santis was in my home state of wisconsin uh last night campaigning for republicans he said you if tim michael sharon wisconsin is elected wisconsin will follow the florida model i'm not sure that's the aspiration of most wisconsinites but in attendance at at the uh at the rally michael gableman the former supreme court justice who has been fired by fellow republicans after conducting this bogus election denying you know clown carven investigation the guy is completely discredited he's gone completely Trumpist, you know, decertified the election, and the assembly speaker actually canned him because of this.
[568] And yet he's still showing up as a fixture at Republican rallies.
[569] So they're not able to police the, you know, far reaches of the party in any way.
[570] Yeah, the politicians, Republican politicians, are playing to their, what they think of as their base, which is the Trump base.
[571] So they think that they can't go too far in this direction.
[572] They won't actually get punished for it.
[573] And they're not going to change until that happens.
[574] What you said about Johnson and same -sex marriage is really interesting to me because that is an issue where Republican politicians, you know, you get this mindset as a politician.
[575] This issue is a winner.
[576] This issue is a loser.
[577] My party likes this issue.
[578] They hate that issue.
[579] And sometimes you're just behind the times.
[580] And if you look at, I did this piece in the bulwark last week.
[581] If you look at polling on same -sex marriage, that is now, by many indices, support for same -sex marriage is now a majority or a plurality position within the Republican.
[582] party.
[583] I mean, the Republican electorate itself has sort of said, you know what, this isn't hurting anybody.
[584] Maybe I don't, I wouldn't do it, but, you know, it's fine.
[585] And it's just not like abortion.
[586] And politicians like Johnson, who are think that they are gaining, even within their party, by taking a stand against same -sex marriage, are making a political mistake in addition to a moral mistake.
[587] Will, always good to talk with you.
[588] I know you'll be off next Monday, so we'll talk again in about two weeks, okay?
[589] Great.
[590] Thanks, Charlie.
[591] The Bullwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio production by Jonathan Siri.
[592] I'm Charlie Sykes.
[593] Thank you for listening to today's Bullwork podcast, and we'll be back tomorrow and do this all over again.