The Bulwark Podcast - A.B. Stoddard: A Pointless Exercise?

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

At Wednesday's debate, Ramaswamy touched all the MAGA erogenous zones, Haley had a great night while Tim Scott did not, and DeSantis seemed to shrink even more. But as the debate audience made clear, no one can say bad things about the No. 1 guy's crimes. A.B. Stoddard joins Charlie Sykes.

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Are they suggesting you can just put a bucket under a leak in your ceiling? That's not good enough. Your Toronto apartment should be safe and well-maintained. If it isn't and your landlord isn't responding to maintenance requests, RentSafeTO can help. Learn more at toronto.ca slash RentSafeTO. Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast, the morning after, the morning after the debate. I mean, there's so much to talk about. I mean, on Earth 2.0, we'd be talking about Donald Trump's fourth perp walk. We'd be talking about the tragedy and farce of Rudy Giuliani's mugshot, another

assassination of a political enemy by Vladimir Putin. But we have to talk about what happened in my hometown last night, the first Republican debate. And so I am joined by my good friend, A.B. Stoddard. A.B., did you stay up late last night? Way too late. Yeah. It was not my choice.

So in terms of questionable life choices, I stayed up for the whole thing. And then, of course, made notes for, made notes for all of my hot takes. But I'd also agreed to do Morning Joe at 5 a.m. my time. So, ooh, a little bit painful. So should we just start with our hot takes on all of this? What surprised you? Did anything surprise you about the Trump-less debate in Milwaukee last night? A lot surprised me. First of all, I feel like the audience was some kind of setup.

Why did we have big applause for Governor Burgum? Why did we have applause for moderation on abortion? Big applause for Pence following the Constitution, although everyone is, you know, we're assuming super Trumpy. Huge applause when he called, Mike Pence called Vladimir Putin a dictator and a murderer. Huge applause for support of Ukraine, but also applauding Vivek right when he was. It was quite a roller coaster. rollercoaster. And then, of course, the surprises of kind of that Ron DeSantis had such high stakes and then sort of by doing no harm went nowhere, right? He kind of disappears. He did. Nikki Haley has a great night. Tim Scott has a bad night. It was just bizarre across so many levels.

I agree. I was surprised by a couple of things. Number one, I was surprised by how well Nikki Haley did. She wasn't even on my radar screen. I thought she overperformed. We can talk about her a lot more later. I thought Mike Pence overperformed as well. This was not the debate that Ron DeSantis needed or wanted. I mean, you know, he starts off just sort of shouty and nervous and awkward and, you know, dodging questions. Pretty much forgettable. We have a series of soundbites from the debate last night. I didn't even bother to pull a Ron DeSantis soundbite. I'm just up front there. Tim Scott, I think, was the biggest loser of the night because he spoke for only about eight completely forgettable minutes. He had a real opening, I think, to establish himself. I think

people were looking, you know, there's that second look from the normie donor class, you know, who possibly can step up to be the alternative to Trump and, you know, a lot of interest in Tim Scott. I don't think he did it. Ron DeSantis did not have a disastrous night, but he didn't reset it. But I think Nikki Haley is the candidate who's going to get the second look. Okay, but this was the Vivek show, right? I mean, New York Times headline, Ramaswamy seizes spotlight, comes in hot. They call it the Ramaswamy show. He seems to have won the Elon Musk primary. Elon Musk was very, very impressed with him. I wrote in my newsletter this morning, Vivek is a good debater, at least in the short term, which makes him even

more dangerous because he's a clownish, shallow, shameless, pandering demagogue. But he has the pulse of MAGA. He speaks fluent MAGA. He touched all of the MAGA erogenous zones. So people should not be surprised when he surges in the polls. I mean, he's going to get a bump. I will actually now be surprised if he is not in second place. So he was, he was kind of the rockstar of the night until he was thoroughly gutted by Nikki Haley. I mean, she just ripped him apart and you could see, you're talking about the roller coaster, they're cheering, they're going along with him. And then when she starts going after him on his surrender tour, his sucking up to Vladimir Putin, wanting to give Ukraine to Russia, wanting to give Taiwan to the red Chinese, cutting aid to Israel, the crowd turned. I thought

it was palpable turn. That was so interesting about the crowd. It was like Fox faked us out. It was so interesting. And also, like you said, she wasn't on your radar screen, right? All of a sudden, maybe a lot of women in that crowd have, you know, loved the Barbie movie. There was all of a sudden some girl power vibe going on. She would talk every time she spoke, even before she took command of the debate, Charlie, she had huge applause. So it is interesting, right? as we look at her kind of coming back into the conversation, I think Vivek, his star, you know, continues to rise. But at the same time, that doesn't really mean anything, right?

He just is going to get a cabinet position in a Trump administration. I think what we're looking at is, do donors wake up this morning and say, everyone should drop out except for Nikki Haley. She is the alternative to Trump. I mean, because otherwise, I don't see a point in any of this. I woke up this morning with such an existential bewilderment. We're going to do this again on September 27th and then again in October. Trump-less debates where he's minimum 30 points ahead of everybody. And what are they doing on stage? I don't think Mike Pence continues to be funded and returns. What is the point of donating to Chris Christie anymore? So Vivek's big show doesn't really matter.

If you look at what the point of this is, it's a primary without Trump that Trump is going to win. We're almost five months away from the voting, and he's already won the nomination. Why are these debates happening? Who will continue to get money? And if you step back, it's such a pointless exercise. Here's kind of a random thought. And all of my thoughts here are tentative, and I'm prepared to back off of them. Because, of course, I've written a lot of negative things about Nikki Haley. I am not in the Nikki Haley fan club. I actually wrote a long piece called, you know, The Unbearable Lightness of Nikki. So I was surprised yesterday. But in terms of Mike Pence, I just

said the contrast between Mike Pence and Vivek, just for a moment, you go back into the before times, Mike Pence sort of like reminds us of what Republicans used to think they looked for in a presidential candidate, you know, a former vice president who looked presidential, right? That this was at one time, the Republicans would look at a Mike Pence and say, that's what we like. And yet he's clearly like last decade's news. And what they really like is they like that sweet, sweet, you know, crack high that they get from Vivek with all of his memes and all of his, you know, the kind of, you know, shallow pandering that goes on. So there's just an indication of how the party has changed that,

you know, somebody like a Mike Pence is so old news and all of the legs are tingling over Vivek. Okay, so let's just start with some of the key soundbites, because what I tuned in for last night, I'll be honest with you, was to hear some of the stuff that Chris Christie had to say. One of the weird things about the debate, of course, was that Donald Trump wasn't even mentioned for the first hour. And it was like, hey, guys, you understand that tomorrow he's going to be arraigned. He's going to have his mugshot taken. He's going to be arrested and released on bail. And you went through an hour of that debate without anyone even mentioning it. Well, it finally comes up and Chris Christie, of course, prosecutes his

case. And here is Chris Christie talking about we can't normalize this. And of course, he got loudly booed, but you knew that he would and he knew that he was going to get booed. So let's play cut number five. Someone's got to stop normalizing this conduct. OK, now and now, whether or not whether or not you believe that the criminal charges are right or wrong, the conduct is beneath the office of President of the United States. And, you know, this is the great thing about this country. Booing is allowed, but it doesn't change the truth. It doesn't change the truth. Oh, it doesn't change the truth oh wait it doesn't change the truth boo

i mean charlie that was so surreal at one point brett had to turn to the audience and like beg them to be quiet so that christy could finish i mean this is to watch someone stand up there and say that and have an audience basically say in response, we want crimes. Like you were saying about Mike Pence. I mean, just in such a short time, you know, the party that would honor a Bob Dole, that would revere a Ronald Reagan, that would respect a Mitt Romney, this kind of thing, not only is it long gone and they revere the punky teenager Vivek taking all the cheap shots all night, that they couldn't even swallow Chris Christie saying that. Who didn't, by the way, and I expected him to, turn to the others on the stage and sort of try to, you know, provoke them, but that the audience couldn't, can't tolerate that

when he's describing, at the very least, you know, that this is unfitting of a president. I mean, that can no longer be tolerated. This is so completely deranged. Well, they also asked a good question. Actually, it was one of the questions that I suggested yesterday. I didn't think they were necessarily going to ask it, but they asked the question of everybody, did Mike Pence do the right thing on January 6th? Rhonda Sandis completely dodged the question. I mean, it was cringeworthy. Tim Scott said absolutely yes, but then he pivoted to an attack on the weaponization, so his answer was forgettable. But I thought this was one of Chris Christie's better moments, where he's standing next to

Mike Pence, but they're both money. Here is Chris Christie talking about Mike Pence doing the right thing on January 6th. Mike Pence stood for the Constitution, and he deserves not grudging credit. He deserves our thanks as Americans for putting his oath of office and the Constitution of the United States before personal, political, and unfair pressure. And the argument that we need to have in this party before we can move on to the issues that Ron talked about is we have to dispense with the person who said that we need to suspend the Constitution to put forward his political career. Mike Pence said no, and he deserves credit for it. OK. Hmm. Now here's Pence, who also again, this is I always find it interesting which Mike Pence shows up.

Is it going to be the you know, the Pence who who kind of, you know of wants to straddle the line on all of this? And he also insisted on being able to address the question of what actually happened on January 6th. The reason I'm playing this is it's one thing for you and I to be talking about. It's one thing for bulwark readers to talk about this or the folks on Morning Joe to talk about this. But this is on Fox News. This is to a crowd of Republicans and millions of Republican primary voters. And this is Mike Pence talking about what Donald Trump wanted him to do on January 6th. But the American people deserve to know that the president asked me in his request that I reject or return votes unilaterally, power that no vice president

in American history had ever exercised or taken, he asked me to put him over the Constitution. And I chose the Constitution, and I always will. At least he wasn't booed for that. There were some jeers, though. And so fascinating. I mean, I thought that was very powerful, what Chris Christie said about Mike Pence, and it was met with some initial applause before it was then, you know, met with jeers. I think it's really important that the audience be reminded. I'm glad that Martha and Brett asked the question. I was disappointed, as for our conversation last week, that they did not ask the candidates if Biden was a fairly and duly elected president.

I actually did think they were going to ask that question. Yeah, I was stunned that they didn't. You know, I said to you last week, I think that Mike Pence is sort of seeking his dignified end, and I thought he did a great job last night, but not the dog food that the dogs want to eat if it's a flat or a squeal a wobble or peel your dreads worn down or you need a new wheel wherever you go you can get a pro my tread experts ensure each winter trip is a safe one for your

family enjoy them for years with a michelin x-icece Snow Tire. Get a $50 prepaid MasterCard with select Michelin tires. Find a Michelin TreadExperts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there, treadexperts.ca. Okay, let's talk about the most embarrassing, pathetic moment of the entire evening, though. I need to take a deep breath here. This is when they did ask for the show of hands of how many of the eight candidates on the stage would still support Donald Trump for the presidency, even if he was convicted of a crime, not accused of a crime, not indicted for a crime. They were being asked,

would you support a convicted felon for president of the United States? That was pathetic because six of the eight raised their hands. The only ones who didn't were Asa Hutchinson and Chris Christie. But what made it even more pathetic was the fact that Ron DeSantis had to look right and left to see what everybody else was doing before he raised his hand. Did you see that? Yeah, it was torture. And then because I guess, you know, this is what we deserve to have our souls crushed. Here's Mike Pence after all this, raising his freaking hand. And you can see it was reluctant, but it was like, hey man, I just have to go along. If everybody else is raising their hand, I have to raise my hand. I mean, pathetic on so many different levels. So much for the party of law and order. So much for the party of law and order. The party of law and order is long gone. And I too was sort of at the

last second holding out hope that Mike Pence would not. And then he would present a caveat such as we, just like the grand jury did, will have the evidence that was not in the indictments laid out for us over the course of the next year. And we will all make our decision at that point about the guilt or innocence of the former president. I mean, there's a way to get around that. But the hands went up so fast, including Nikki Haley's. I mean, so quickly. I just found it just so stunning. And you're you did not know that Ron DeSantis was the second poller and supposed to be the alternative to Trump. You would never have known who he was. No, no way. What his strengths were. He was such an other guy. He felt like he was shrinking the whole time.

Yeah. That's the thing is he didn't look presidential and he didn't look like number two presidential. No. Which is quite an accomplishment. If you are one of the donors that is not in touch with the base that still believes you can stop Trump, and I think that's impossible. But if you're one of those donors who thinks that this must be done, I do think there's a real threat to DeSantis today that they wake up and get on a conference call and say she's the only one that can take Trump on. Well, I mean, yeah, 24 hours ago, I think the conversation was,

can we get Glenn Youngkin, the governor of Virginia, to jump in? Now I think it's different. Okay, so let's talk about Nikki Haley, because what Christy said was predictable. I was watching for that. Nikki Haley surprised me pretty much right out of the box with the question about spending of all things. And she was, took a very contrarian approach because, you know, the Fox folks, for some reason, started off talking about a country song. I mean, what the hell? I mean, you know, they're so on brand for Fox News. They start with a question about a country song, you know, the Richmond, North of Richmond, you know, whatever. And they end with a question about UFOs, you know. They gave them softball questions. I mean, the ultimate softball, like, you know, high lob, let's talk about excessive spending and fiscal, you know, let's pretend that people care about deficits and things like that. But Nikki Haley, this was the moment where, you know,

I was, like, you know, making notes, and they sort of, like, stopped doing what I was doing, going, what is she doing here? Okay, so this is what she said about spending. Well, I don't care about polls. What I care about the fact is that no one is telling the American people the truth. The truth is that Biden didn't do this to us. Our Republicans did this to us too. When they passed that $2.2 trillion COVID stimulus bill, they left us with 90 million people on Medicaid, 42 million people on food stamps.

No one has told you how to fix it. I'll tell you how to fix it. They need to stop the spending. They need to stop the borrowing. They need to eliminate the earmarks that Republicans brought back in. And they need to make sure they understand these are taxpayer dollars. It's not their dollars. And while they're all saying this, you have Ron DeSantis.

You've got Tim Scott. You've got Mike Pence. They all voted to raise the debt. And Donald Trump added eight trillion to our debt. And our kids are never going to forgive us for this. And so at the end of the day, you look at the 2024 budget. Republicans asked for seven point four billion in earmarks. Democrats asked for two point eight billion. So you tell me who are the big spenders. I think it's time for an accountant in the White House. Okay. So that was the first indication that she had really come to play, that she called everybody out by name and said Donald Trump

added $8 trillion to our debt. So for those of us who suspected that perhaps she was yearning to be Trump's VP, that was done. Okay, so that's the first question. Then her answer to the question about did Mike Pence do the right thing, she also goes after Donald Trump. So let's play Nikki Haley, her answer to the question about did Pence do the right thing on January 6th. I do think that Vice President Pence did the right thing. And I do think that we need to give him credit for that. But what I will also tell you is, look, I mean,

when it comes to whether President Trump should serve or not, I trust the American people. Let them vote. Let them decide. But what they will tell you is that it is time for a new generational conservative leader.

We have to look at the fact that three quarters of Americans don't want a rematch between Trump and Biden. And we have to face the fact that Trump is the most disliked politician in America. We can't win a general election that way. So she was really one of the few people to raise the question of electability. I'm not sure that actually works with the MAGA crowd, but she was willing to call out Donald Trump saying, look, we need to move past this guy. Where has this Nikki Haley been, AB?

This is what's interesting. I've always thought of her as substantive and very polished and prepared. She very much prepares. But last night I thought maybe, you know, she seems like a very strategic thinker. She planned that attack because it would contrast her with the other people on stage. So she attacks three of the candidates on the stage in her answer, but she also attacks Trump. And she's speaking to fiscal conservatives who are left in the donor base, but not the real voting base. Again, two different planets, right? And then, just like you, I was stunned that, because I thought all along she was running for vice president, that she said he was the most

disliked politician in America and can't win a general election. I mean, in essence, that's what she said. And again, it's is she telling the donor base, DeSantis is not ready for this. He doesn't want it badly enough. He can't do it. He won't pull it off. But I'm ready to take on Trump and not run for VP. So that really surprised me as well. It was like sort of a quasi announcement that I am actually running for president. So I'm launching my presidential candidacy here tonight. I have seen some people describing this debate as boring. I usually find debates boring. I'm kind of anti-watching debates. In fact, as I sat down last night and opened my bottle of Jameson, I was thinking, why am I doing this? Why am I subjecting myself to all of this? And I was thinking, why am I doing this? Why am I subjecting myself to all of this? And I was thinking I was only going to watch the first hour, but I watched,

I watched the full thing. And by the end, I did not think it was boring. And I want to play, and this is a little bit of an extended clip, because I think the meatiest part of the night, you can tell me whether you disagree, was the back and forth about Ukraine. You had real division on this. You had Vivek, who is taking the, I am Trumpier than Trump on being an isolationist. I'm not just willing to abandon Ukraine. I'm willing to abandon Taiwan. And you know what? Since we're doing this, we'll abandon Israel too. And he's been kind of rolling along and they called him out on it. I thought Christie was strong on this. I thought Pence was strong on this. But it was Nikki Haley, who I think left his quivering intestines lying there on the stage in Milwaukee. So let's just play this kind of a mashup of the candidates

going back and forth on Ukraine, because this is a really a substantive, bright dividing line in the Republican Party right now. And it played out on that stage last night. Let's play. I think that this is disastrous, that we are protecting against an invasion across somebody else's border when we should use those same military resources to prevent across the invasion of our own southern border here in the United States of America. We are driving Russia further into China's hands. The Russia-China alliance is the single greatest threat we face. I did go to Ukraine and I went to Ukraine because I wanted to see for myself what Vladimir Putin's army was doing to the free Ukrainian people. And let me tell you, I want you all to look around this arena tonight and imagine that every one of these seats was filled. And if every one of them was filled,

there would still be 2,500 more children outside to make over 20,000 who have been abducted, stolen, ripped from their mothers and fathers and brought back to Russia to be programmed to fight their own families. This is the Vladimir Putin who Donald Trump called brilliant and a genius. If we don't stand up against this type of autocratic killing in the world,

we will be next. We're going to take back Putin. We're going to take back Putin. Anybody that thinks that we can't solve the problems here in the United States and be the leader of the free world has a pretty small view of the greatest nation on Earth. That is incorrect. We can do both, Vivek. We've done both.

We've been the leader of the free world and the arsenal of democracy for years. The Reagan doctrine years ago made it clear. We said if you're willing to fight the communists on your soil, we'll give you the means to fight them there so our troops don't have to fight them. Vivek, if we do the giveaway that you want to give to Putin to give him his land, it's not going to be too long before he rolls across a NATO border and frankly our men and women of our armed forces are going to have to go and fight him. First of all, the American president needs to have moral clarity. They need to know the difference between right and wrong. They need to know the difference between good and evil. When you look at the situation with Russia and Ukraine,

here you have a pro-American country that was invaded by a thug. So when you want to talk about what has been given to Ukraine, less than three.5% of our defense budget has been given to Ukraine. If you look at the percentages per GDP, 11 of the European countries have given more than the U.S. But what's really important is go back to when China and Russia held hands, shook hands before the Olympics and named themselves unlimited partners. A win for Russia is a win for China. We have to know that Ukraine is the first line of defense for us. And the problem that Vivek doesn't understand is he wants to hand Ukraine to Russia. He wants to let China eat Taiwan. He wants to go and stop funding Israel. You don't do that to friends. What you do instead is you

have the backs of your friends. Ukraine is a front line of defense. Putin has said if Russia, once Russia takes Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics are next. So you have no foreign policy experience. And it shows. And you know what? It shows. The foreign policy experience that you already have.

Please call 911 because I want to report a homicide. I have to admit, I took pleasure in her pounding Vivek at that point. And I was very encouraged, Charlie, by the majority response for support of Ukraine. Again, very, very difficult to assess applause from the audience. But at times it was very pro-Ukraine. And it's a very interesting moment in the party because it doesn't seem the Republicans are going to reject increased funding and support for Ukraine. But, of course, as you know, the beating heart of MAGA is against any further support. So it's a real tension in the race. And it was fascinating to hear their hearty, heartfelt support. That raises the interesting question of which audience are we talking about?

It did feel as the mood shifted that they were cheering Vivek and he was doing all this stuff. And then she laid out the facts and the arguments and people remember maybe what Republicans used to be like, what it used to be to have principles, what it used to be to recognize the difference between good and evil, what it meant to be the leader of the free world. And there was that shift. But I think in, you know, in candor, Vivek is probably closer to the sentiment of the GOP primary voter. You know, his position probably is closer to what the average Iowa caucus goer wants. But Nikki certainly is speaking to a very considerable constituency as well. They're not necessarily the same constituencies. So again, we don't know how it plays out. You know, one of the things that we've learned over the years,

and, you know, somebody was making this point last night, you know, you remember back in 2015 and 2016, how after every single debate, all the smart people, all the pundits, including us probably, thought, okay, Donald Trump did just terribly. And there's no way that he goes on after that performance. I mean, people are going to watch that and they're going to, and what happens is he kept getting stronger and stronger and stronger. So the way that we saw the debate and the way the voters saw it was very different. My gut instinct was that, and Mona Churin, I think, wrote this last night, was that, you know, the fact that she is completely repelled and offended by Vivek probably suggests that, you know, he's exactly where the Republican primary base is going right now, because we're out of step with those folks. So I don't know how that's going to play out. You know, Vivek is getting, you know, is doing the victory laps and everything. I'm looking at this and going, Nikki Haley just destroyed him. And right now, you know,

the foreign policy conscience of the Republican Party, to the extent that it still has one. You know, win or lose. Congratulations for her. I just wish she'd been around. I wish she had done this. David Frum had a great tweet. Said Nikki Haley unleashed the tiger within. Tough, smart, impressive.

If she could be every day the person she was tonight, never Trump Republicans would have a leader. Unfortunately, there are all those other days. Right. I can't trust her to be consistent. I'll believe it if I see it, but only if and when I see it. We're all Tread Experts. Ensure each winter trip is a safe one for your family. Enjoy them for years with a Michelin X-Ice snow tire. Get a $50 prepaid MasterCard with select Michelin tires. Find a Michelin Tread Experts dealer near you at TreadExperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TreadExperts.ca So I will confess that I paid very little attention to Donald Trump's counter-programming

with Tucker Carlson, the disgraced, fired former Fox News host who is now apparently, the word is that he's streaming on Twitter X. What did Trump say? So it was an interesting conversation. Once again, I didn't watch it all, but I can reliably report to you that Trump had free reign without a lot of tough questions. My shocked face. To go on about when water pressure isn't good in the bathrooms and the shower heads and the washing machines. He's very into- You have to flush it twice. Yeah, he really likes to talk about Biden at the beach. He doesn't understand why there's all these photographs of Biden at the beach. And he says that it looks like Biden's walking on toothpicks in the grass. It was sort of vintage Trump. But there was an interesting

exchange where Tucker and the audience, you know, will love this. The Tucker audience said that he'd been impeached twice and then indicted four times. And there's been an escalation in this Trump worry that they are going to try to kill him next. Oh. Which Trump responded to by saying that there is a lot of passion and a lot of hatred. And I think he called the Democrats animals. So that was interesting. Good red meat for the crowd. And then there was a discussion of Jeffrey Epstein, and Tucker wanted to know whether Trump believed that he had committed suicide. So it went off the rails in that direction. But Charlie, I'm sorry to tell you, Trump did have to return to January 6th and the celebration of it as a picnic of civic passion. He said, January 6th was an interesting

day because they don't report it properly. People in that crowd said it was the most beautiful day they ever experienced. There was love and unity. I have never seen such spirit and such passion and such love. Except for all the dead people and the dead and beaten cops. Yeah. I've never seen simultaneously and from the same people such hatred at what they've done to our country. So he is staying on this platform. And I would like people to be asked about this at the next debate that Trump doesn't show up to. But I doubt it'll happen. No, I don't think he's going to show up. I don't think he has, after last night, he has no reason really to show up. But yes, the retconning of January 6th is proceeding apace. I

mean, I think there were some of us that predicted that there would be this attempt to, you know, do this revisionist history. But I think we underestimated the degree to which Donald Trump would embrace January 6th as really as this patriotic moment. I mean, he's meeting with some of the insurrectionists. He's clearly signaled he will pardon them. He's raising money for them. He's singing songs with them. There's nothing subtle about it. Okay, so there's a couple of other things that, again, happened last night that I think are significant, but they kind of get lost. Ron DeSantis did actually say one kind of interesting thing where he basically vowed the military would take out Mexican cartels. So you do have a leading candidate for president or a trailing candidate for president suggesting going to war with Mexico.

And it's kind of like in the undercard. I don't know. It's like, no, we're not going to send special forces into Mexico. It's just that's probably not going to be happening. I don't know. I think that that's also a new sort of wish list item in the magosphere. I do. Sick as that sounds.

Well, it's part of this campaign for brutality, right? You know, how many people can we kill? In terms of substance, the debate about abortion was surprisingly interesting. The real difference of opinion about whether or not this should be a state's issue or whether it should be a federal issue. And I was struck by, and again, this is, you know, perhaps not scientific, but the crowd, you know, which was clearly pro-life, seemed receptive when Governor Burgum, you know, said, no, Congress shouldn't pass this. We don't need more federal legislation. This ought to be passed by the states. I mean, there's a real difference of opinion there between the people who think that, you know, it's a fundamental, you know, national issue and those who say, hey, for 50 years, we've been saying it should be a

state's issue. There was no position that seemed to be the third rail for Republican primary voters. What was your take on that? I thought it was absolutely fascinating because Nikki Haley, as I noted before, had come with a strategic response to swing voters on abortion. And she had thought it out. It was very deep and detailed. And she had a wobbly period, as she often does, on this issue several months ago. She took some lashing from the Susan B. Anthony crowd. All of the pro-life leaders, as we've discussed, Charlie, have been very resolute in their principles until they

realized mid-spring that Donald Trump is likely to be the nominee, and they will let him dictate whatever the policy is going to be. But I was surprised by the enthusiastic applause that Nikki Haley got to her kind of moderate response. And it was so interesting to see Tim Scott jump to align himself with Pence on the need for a federal ban. Then Burgum say, no, the federal government is in our lives too much. Look, we know this issue divides the party, but it's not really an interesting primary contest issue. Again, if there's not a competitive primary contest in the end, you know, Donald Trump will get to pick whatever week he wants to land on. I think he'll leave it to the states and be against a federal ban, even though he's being pushed by the movement to back a federal ban.

He'll be wishy washy and try not to saddle himself with that for the general election. So in the end, I think it probably doesn't matter. But a fascinating back and forth last night on it. A little bit of a side note here, a little schadenfreude. I'm looking at the Daily Beast. Don Jr. Do you know that Don Jr. and Marjorie Taylor Greene were both here in Milwaukee? We are so lucky. Here's the headline.

Don Jr. and MTG rage after Fox boxes them out from post-debate spin room. Subhead throwing a tantrum. Donald Trump Jr. and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene raged Wednesday night at Fox News after they were denied entry to the network's post-debate spin room where candidates and their teams gathered to talk to the press. Earlier reports had already indicated that Trump allies would be prevented from entering considering that he was not appearing at the debate himself, a fact that was ultimately confirmed when Donald Jr. went to enter on Wednesday night. It shouldn't surprise us, and it's also why Trump was 100% right not to do this debate he raged as he slammed Fox for flipping on the decision to let him in. Fox won't let me into the spin room, he huffed.

Also blacklisted, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who fumed on her Rumble channel that she was censored when she and others, including Matt Gaetz, who apparently was also here, were blocked out despite being surrogates for Trump and members of Congress. Greene couldn't continue her interview until she ranted to her boyfriend, Brian Glenn, about the decision live on air. I'm sorry to come in hot. I just can't believe this happened, she said. So yeah, Fox News security blocked Don Jr. from going into the spin room. I'm sorry, I'm enjoying this way too much. I was really confused by a lot of the Trump surrogate operation, because I heard on CNN yesterday that the Trump team had broken Fox down and that they would be allowed, after all, to indeed have their surrogates in the spin room, which I thought was a mistake. I thought that Fox's initial policy was the right one because he wasn't debating.

Then I thought that Matt Gaetz did end up in the spin room. I might be wrong about that. And I also don't know if you saw that a bunch of correspondents and reporters were at a watering hole with Team Trump. They paid for their own drinks. I did see that. But there's just a lot of new rules being written. I know that Don Jr. had a good seat in one of the front rows with his girlfriend. So I'm sorry he couldn't get out there spinning, even though he has this big YouTube channel show. Look, we know that the RNC is compromised by Trump and his family, and that that was never even, like even, it's like not even an open secret, right? The other candidates are at a disadvantage because of that. I'm really glad that MTG and

Don Jr. were not allowed by Fox in the spin room. But I think that going forward, everyone should accept that this is a rigged system in favor of Donald Trump. Yeah, I think there's no question about that. Okay, so before we are done, I would be remiss if we did not talk about, because I'm looking right now at the mugshot of America's mayor, Rudy Giuliani. We have to talk about this. Rudy Giuliani. And I'm torn between thinking that this is like a Shakespearean Greek tragedy versus a clown car farce. And maybe it's both tragedy and farce at the same time. Because it's not just that he's fallen so far and so spectacularly. It is because he has gone from such a position of prominence to such a position of derision.

What do you make of this? Is it King Lear or is it Billy Madison? What are we talking about here? I'm with you. I think it's a very sort of absurd combination of clown show farce and Shakespearean tragedy. I have so many thoughts on this. King Lear in a Clown Car. There were fundraisers held for Rudy Giuliani by Republican parents in the living room of the apartment that I grew up in. I grew up in Rudy Giuliani's New York. He cleaned up the city. He was so revered. That's before 9-11. Then his post 9-11 height that you and I've talked about before, right? He could have had an thought when he planned a two-month, eight-week-long coup with Trump, that he would

be paid a sum total of $800,000 by Trump. He has begged for the fees. Trump will not pay him. At some point, the PAC agreed. They broke down and gave him some of it. But as of yesterday, he was landing in Georgia without Georgia counsel. It's the most pitiful, pathetic. And of course, he, you know, doesn't really get depressed by it. He continues to do his streaming shows and his Twitter announcements about how he's so grateful for everyone's support while he sends out the GoFundMe address. But I love that no one in MAGA world is upset that Donald Trump, after decades of friendships with this man, refused to honor his handshake agreement and pay for Rudy. So he has been met with this undignified end where he's trying to sell his

apartment and he's begging for counsel. This is so disgusting. But so on brand. It's so on brand, but no one will blame Donald Trump. No, because it's baked in that he's going to stiff you. The loyalty only goes one way, that he will screw over even his loyalist supporters and that any promise of payment take with a grain of salt. I did hear that he's going to have a fundraiser, that he agreed to have a fundraiser for him, which of course, if you're a billionaire and this guy is your own personal lawyer, you would think you would do a little bit more than have a bake sale on his behalf. Apparently, they're going to have a dinner at Bedminster or something like that.

Yeah, he'll show up at the fundraiser, Charlie, but he did not pay him the lawyer fees for the eight weeks of coup plotting. See, the other part, though, that I always, I do wrestle with this, is the capacity for self-humiliation that people like Rudy Giuliani have. No, I mean, it's one thing, I mean, you think you'd have a certain sense of dignity,

which apparently is naive on my part, but it is this rolling, you know, serial humiliations. It's, you know, it's the, you know, it's the hair dye, you know, dripping down your face. It's showing up at Four Seasons landscaping. It's saying the stupidest, dumb things. It's going out to, you know, public hearings and farting in front of the microphone. It's the sexual harassment lawsuits where, I mean, he comes off as like the ultimate predatory lecher. I mean, it's like one thing after another, you know, like Trump, you need to keep a running scorecard of all of the things that he's done, but they're all humiliating and embarrassing. He's losing his law licenses. Now he is an accused felon. Oh my God. It is remarkable.

And the human drama there, you know, this is something that someone is going to be, you know, trying to capture. And I think it's beyond the ability of political pundits to capture the drama, tragedy, farce, whatever that's going on here. I'm not sure whether we need Shakespeare or P.G. Woodhouse. It is baffling. A.B. Stoddard, thank you so much for joining me on The Morning After. You said you woke up, what was your phrase, you said with certain existential angst about what's going on with the debates. What was the phrase used? You woke up with? Existential bewilderment because we've never been in this place before. And I just, I guess there will be another debate on September 27th, Charlie, but isn't it surreal to imagine who's going to be there? And really, what's the

point? They're going to hold these debates without the presumptive nominee. It's all so bizarre. I got to write this down. Existential bewilderment. Because when I woke up, you woke up with existential bewilderment. I woke up thinking that I had existential bewilderment, but I was just hungover. So I just have to remember the phrase that in September, when I wake up again, hungover, I will say to my wife, no, no, no, just please keep it down. Don't let the dogs bark. I'm suffering from existential bewilderment. Charlie, I just want to pat you on the back from

here for staying up for the debate, doing Morning Joe, writing your newsletter, and talking with me. Well, this is the highlight of my day, though, talking with you. You're still so able. I hope you get a nap. But it was great to be with you. It is on the schedule. And thank you all for listening to today's Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow, and we'll do this all over again. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown. We'll see you next time. Enjoy them for years with the Michelin X-Ice Snow Tire. Get a $50 prepaid MasterCard with select Michelin tires. Find a Michelin TreadExperts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there.

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