The Bulwark Podcast - A.B. Stoddard: Dark Brandon Rising

Episode Date: February 8, 2023

Biden's shrewd State of the Union address played rope-a-dope with Republicans, and he relished the scrum. Plus, Trump goes classic and pulls the groomer card on DeSantis. A.B. Stoddard joins Charlie Sykes on today's podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. It is February 8th, 2023, and I have to begin with a correction. I just simply assumed that the State of the Union address would be really, really boring and tepid. Well, as I wrote in my newsletter this morning, I stand corrected. It actually was kind of entertaining in a theater of performative jerkitude sort of way, right? I mean, I suppose if you tuned in because you had a bingo card of like major policy things I want to hear about, I want to hear about civility, unity, bipartisanship, and probably a little bit disappointing. On the other hand, if you came for the outburst, jeers, peals of mocking laughter, or as Politico reports, the boos, taunts, groans, and sarcastic chortles, as well as the profanity, the Republican heckling I thought was interesting, but probably more interesting is the way that Dark Brandon kind of played rope-a-dope. So to sort all of this out, we are joined once again by one of our favorite guests, A.B. Stoddard, Associate Editor and Columnist at Real Clear Politics. A.B., how are you?

Well, you know, Charlie, it's always great to be with you. I feel a little bit like the morning we were together after the midterms, where I'm just so stunned and surprised, just like you were. Like, I thought we were just going to be sitting here talking about the dreaded laundry list and how boring and insignificant the State of the Union address was and how much Uncle Joe has lost his step. But boy, Dark Brandon Rising, I don't know what proof his Red Bull was, but it was really amazing to see. And also a very strategic and well-constructed address. That speech was very, very shrewd in so many ways. It was. And there's a couple of things that I'm trying to figure out.

I mean, I'm a little puzzled by it because I had been solemnly assured that Marjorie Taylor Greene had matured, that she was now a very serious person, right? I don't know. Apparently, that didn't take. And you know, your point about the speech, you know, look, Joe Biden is not a great speaker. He is not a Barack Obama. He's not a great order. But what was interesting was that, you know, much of the speech was workmanlike. When it came to the heckling and the yelling and all of the groaning, he actually seemed to relish the scrum and did pretty well. And to your point, it felt like he was prepared for it.

I mean, here's David Frum in The Atlantic. He writes, the speech was strewn with traps carefully constructed to ensnare opponents. He opened with a tribute to bipartisanship, of course, but the mechanics of his address were based on shrewd and unapologetic hyper-partisanship and here's the key he anticipated negative reactions in the chamber and used them to reinforce his message that was him at his best there's a guy who i don't really know in usa today who wrote i've never seen anything like this in a state of the union speech they ran at him like a pack of lemmings. And with a wink and a grin, he politely directed them to the cliff. That's well said.

Did not know that dark Brandon had it in him. So should we play what is widely considered to be one of the highlights slash lowlights of the speech where Joe Biden, in effect, lays the trap, baits Republicans on Social Security. It runs about a minute 40, but let's wallow in this for just a moment. Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans, some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset. I'm not saying it's the majority. Let me give you, anybody who doubts it, contact my office. I'll give you a copy. I'll give you a copy of the proposal. Rick Scott.

That means Congress doesn't vote. I'm glad to see you. I tell you, I enjoy conversion. You know, it means? If Congress doesn't keep the programs the way they are, they'd go away. Other Republicans say, I'm not saying it's a majority of you. I don't even think it's even a significant. None of us.

We've never said it. It's being proposed by individuals. I'm not politely not naming them, but it's being proposed by some of you. No. Say his name. Look. Folks. No. Say his name. Look, folks, the idea is that we're not going to be

moved into being threatened to default on the debt if we don't respond. Folks. Thank you. So, folks, as we all apparently agree, Social Security and Medicare is off the books now. All right. We got unanimity. We've got unanimity. So, A.B., what do you think of that?

I mean, look, it was masterful because, as the other writers that you read point out, a lot of this was planned. The traps were intentional. But he rolled with it so well, he was enjoying himself. He said, I love conversions. And then he makes them stand for seniors. People who have to pay attention to this at the granular level know that that was in a way a cheap shot, right? Because Rick Scott's agenda that he released last year, much to the consternation of all the rest of the Senate Republicans, save for maybe Ron Johnson and Ted Cruz, about sunsetting entitlement programs and having them reauthorized every couple years. It was divisive, you know, for Republicans. It was

a stupid thing in a campaign season, but it's not the House Republican plan. So in a way, you can see why that was, right, they got really, really mad about that. But the way that he rolled with it, it was just unbelievable. And again, the speech was written, it was constructed that way. But I also appreciated the way that the language in the speech was pure Joe. I mean, it was never too grandiose, but it was very eloquent at the times it needed to be. I thought the way that he would talk about how much debt President Trump amassed in his four years, and then he'd go back to something, you know, kind of measured and non-confrontational, the rhythm of it, it was just perfect. And it made, again, it trapped Republicans into serving him. Kevin

McCarthy oftentimes didn't know, you know, what to do, how to respond. Other times he was shushing his nihilist caucus. I mean, it must have been a very tough night for Republicans. I mean, I even saw someone today who is always, always busting on Biden saying that he handled the heckling very well. It was like they ordered up hecklers. It worked so well for him. Well, you kind of bust on Biden. I mean, you're the leader of our Biden needs to retire and go to the old folks home caucus of the bulwark, aren't you?

But Charlie, remember, I always preface this. I always preface this by saying it's not that he wouldn't be worth voting for. No, no, I understand. And it has nothing to do with his, I think, extremely impressive two-year record, only two years. He should have bragged more last night. He has actually created more jobs in two years than the last three Republican administrations combined. The reason I'm pointing this out is that your praise, put this in context, is to hear this praise from you is in fact quite significant. You made an interesting point about Kevin McCarthy. I mean, Kevin McCarthy, you know, who self-gelded himself into the

speakership is reduced to this sort of pathetic spectator role. Politico's reporting, you know, Kevin McCarthy warned his colleagues ahead of the speech to behave themselves, but they ignored him. And the new speaker had to resort to shushing them repeatedly from the rostrum. And so, as John Harris writes, with the boos, taunts, groans and sarcastic chortles, the Republicans effectively turned themselves into primetime props for President Joe Biden. And now, OK, there's always the danger of forgetting the fact that we live in a split screen universe with alternative realities. So from the point of view of the Republicans who are yelling and screaming, do they wake up generally thinking that they screwed the pooch on this, or are they thinking, it's exactly what we wanted?

All of our moments went viral. It's going to play very well with the base, with the small-dollar donors. It's going to get me more hits on OAN and Newsmax and Fox News. So aren't we in a world where you can have something like that and both sides think that they look good and the other side look terrible? Do you know what I mean? I think you're probably right about that, Charlie. In general, the actual speech in the chamber, I think, was advantage Biden and they know that. You make everybody stand for Tyree Nichols' parents. Except MTG. She didn't stand up. Okay,

hideous. You talk about, you know, the importance of Made in America, including all our manufacturing materials, record job creation, as I mentioned, negotiating drug prices, the insulin stuff, the junk fees, prevention act, that stuff is enormously popular. And they had to sit there and pretend that they weren't really excited about it, let alone like... It almost sounded populist. Exactly. But I will say, they will go on, OAN, you know, and talk for days about how dare the president talk about fentanyl killing so many Americans. It's all his fault because of the border. And that will work. And obviously, we're getting to Sarah Huckabee Sanders. I thought she was a star.

What? I did. Okay, well, we'll have a discussion about all that. Before we move on to this, my colleague Amanda Carpenter in the Bulwark today, you know, provides a little bit of historic context here. Because you and I both remember back in 2009, when you had this one Republican from South Carolina, Joe Wilson, yelling at Barack Obama, you lie. And everybody was shocked back then. I mean, that was how many years ago? They were shocked. I mean, that became a day's long story. And he was actually formally reprimanded by the House. So fast forward. Now you have the

Republican House Conference with a whole contingent of Joe Wilsons. You know, boorish loudmouths, who's I'm reading from Amanda's piece, boorish loudmouths, whose lack of impulse control is only matched by their desire for attention. And, you know, really, there's no chance that any of them are going to be reprimanded for the way they behave last night. None. Zero. Just just a little bit of a footnote here. Charlie, I completely agree. The Joe Wilson event, those were the good old days. It is now not that they lack impulse control. It is the goal. It is the intention. And MTG had her white balloon taken away by Kevin McCarthy, and she still was going to get out there and go viral. So she screamed and stood and pointed and was nasty. And that's the goal. That's the goal. And it probably worked for her in her own way. Okay. So Sarah Huckabee Sanders gives the rebuttal. By the way, has anyone actually enhanced their career by giving the State of the Union rebuttal? I mean, normally what happens is you have a rising star that's put in that spot and they just humiliate themselves. The lighting's bad. Marco Rubio didn't have enough water. Somebody else, I don't even remember, started drooling. I mean, Bobby Jindal was terrible. Remember when Bobby Jindal was the

rising star? I mean, this is where careers, political careers go to die. And they threw her in there. I thought she defied the expectation. I thought that they were trying to kill her off because it is where political careers go to die. And as a result, I think she's a comer now. I think she reminded us she's a nepo baby. Yeah, that's true. Mean. Now that now that was a cheap shot. See, I don't think it's a cheap shot to point out that leading Republicans have suggested sunsetting Social Security and Medicare because they actually did. This is part of the gaslighting. And now I'm going to get all kinds of negative reaction. I'm seeing this from both sides where somebody says something that is completely

outrageous. They're called on it and people go, no, nobody ever said that. Nobody wants to defund the police. Nobody has ever said that we should, you know, sunset Social Security. No, you know what? It's real. It's a clean shot. But the Nepo baby thing was definitely a cheap shot. And I stand by it. Here's Sarah Huckabee Sanders, you know, describing normal Americans under siege by these terrible left wing culture warriors. Let's play, Sarah. And while you reap the consequences of their failures,

the Biden administration seems more interested in woke fantasies than the hard reality Americans face every day. Yeah, right. Most Americans simply want to live their lives in freedom and peace. But we are under attack in a left-wing culture war we didn't start and never wanted to fight. Uh-oh. Every day we are told we must partake in their rituals, salute their flags, and worship their false idols. All while big government colludes with big tech to strip away the most American thing there is, your freedom of speech. That's not normal.

It's crazy. And it's wrong. That's just bullshit. It's crazy. And it's wrong. Make no mistake. Republicans will not surrender this fight. We will lead with courage and do what's right, not what's politically correct or convenient. Oh, man, that's just bullshit wrapped in bullshit. I mean, first of all, we didn't want this culture war fight. You love this culture fight. You wake up every day engorged to have another fight in the culture war. Are you kidding me? 98% of the messaging right now is culture war. Listen to daddy, Mike Huckabee. When's the last time daddy talked about, I don't know, manufacturing jobs as opposed to, you know, working in woke. What I heard was just sort of one buzzword, you know, layered on another, you know, and this whole idea, you know, you are

under attack by these evil people who want you, what was that line? Want you to salute their flag, worship their false idols. And we're not going to do that because we're going to be, we're going to fight for free speech, except of course, when we're banning books or passing laws saying you can't say this or you can't teach this. I mean, OK, whatever. It just kind of what did you see that I didn't see, A.B.? OK, so she is going to gorge on all the dystopian culture war education bullshit that DeSantis is, and she's releasing a new plan today. And I agree with every single thing that you just said.

What should be acknowledged is that she, you know, we obviously, she goes in with very low expectations. She talked about cancer and patriotism and veterans and faith and resilience. It was a very well-written speech, very well-written speech. Most of them are not. And she's a woman. And I just think there are a lot of Republicans who watched it and said, after all these lunatics let us down in the midterm elections, there's an impressive person ready to take on the left. And she speaks English and

she's not Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz. And so I'm just saying, watch out. Do you remember the phrase defining deviancy down? Because you're right. If that is your standard to go, okay, so, wow, she's not George Santos. She's not Marjorie Taylor Greene. She's like, all right. But that's what we're working with. I mean, so anybody that shows up without their eyes like as pinwheels, you know, and spewing green projectile vomit suddenly is, hmm, there's a normal person. I mean, are we at that point now? Unfortunately, yes. Hey, speaking of which, I'm sorry that we've used this phrase so often, the post-shame culture and shamelessness being a superpower.

I mean, Donald Trump, I think, proved that in a certain kind of politics, shamelessness is a superpower, in which case George Sanders is in a class by himself. He's standing there shaking the hands of the senators. And that moment where Mitt Romney comes up to him and goes, hey, Senator Romney, and Romney says, you don't even belong here. But George Sanders, I'm not embarrassed. I'm going to put myself right here. I'm going to shake everybody's hand. I'm going to stand here. I'm going to greet Joe Biden because what? What is his deal? I mean, we're not in the realm of politics anymore, are we? We just need a whole panel of psychiatrists, I think. He is a mental health catastrophe. And as long as the House Republicans would want him to be the subject of headlines every single day, that's just fine

with me. But the guy obviously needs help. It's not that he's shameless like Donald Trump. He gets high on embarrassing himself. This is his fuel. He doesn't seem to be embarrassed, though. No, no, of course not. No, it's not embarrassing to him. He just, any attention is good attention. He'll get it in the worst ways. He has no problem with allegations of groping, you know, a prospective staffer. He stayed there all day across from the aisle from Sheila Jackson Lee, I guess, to make sure he was in the ass kisser seat so that he could see the president shake his hand, which he did. And Joe Biden shook his hand. The whole thing, fighting with Mitt Romney, I mean, the whole thing, I mean, I was actually surprised Mitt Romney said that to him, but good for Romney. But no, George Santos, this is what animates him, is kind of making an

ass of himself. And he loves it. And I don't think Kevin McCarthy has a problem with that. Oh, I think Kevin didn't have a great night last night. I think Kevin is sitting up there. I mean, he was, the hollowness of his speakership, I think, was on pretty dramatic display there. And especially now that we have to go into real negotiations where he has to engage in actual governing, I think it's going to be very awkward. Okay, so let's talk about the puzzling paradox that is stumping some of the punditocracy, which is that you look at the economic numbers and they're pretty good. The GDP numbers are pretty good. The unemployment rate is at the lowest since 1969, right? I mean, so you have all of these numbers that have lined up

suggesting the economy is in pretty good shape. Inflation is going down. As you pointed out, Joe Biden has had a pretty effective first two years, and yet it is not breaking through to the public. You have half the Americans in the New Gallup poll saying they're worse off than they were before. That's the highest since 2009. Biden's approval rate is stuck in the low to mid 40s, effectively unchanged. More than 60% of Americans don't think he's accomplished anything, despite all the stuff that's happened.

So how do you explain the disconnect? Well, I also wanted to add something that I stumbled on recently that was just so stunning. Way to Win, which is the Democratic poll, they did nine battleground states after the election, and they found 78% of voters in the nine battleground states could not name one thing Biden or the Democrats had done for them, including 78% of independents. This is devastating. And I think it results, Charlie, from the fact that on the economy, which as you point out, and we could go through, I have a list somewhere, the best holiday sales ever, you know, in the middle of the supply chain crisis,

record monthly job growth, most businesses ever created in a year in 2021. Literally, the best indicators for the economy that you really, in a lot of ways, minus the inflation you could ask for. It's just that it's all about prices and perception. And so for Americans, when they're paying too much for eggs and gas, they see this as a bad economy. And Navigator, which is also Democratic polling, continues. I mean, I'm sorry to laugh when I say this, but it was true last year in a campaign year, and it's true now when he's getting ready to announce his re-election, Americans believe that under Joe Biden, we are losing jobs, not gaining them. And that is because I believe that it's just their perception of the economy because of inflation

and because maybe they're not, I don't know, seeing enough hiring around them is that we're in a weak economy and it's really problematic for Biden. So why is that? Is that because Joe Biden is not a good communicator? Is it a messaging problem? Is it a media problem that the media is not focused on? And is it just the fact that, you know, people aren't really very smart? I mean, what, by the way, I'm not endorsing any

of those positions. I mean, what is the dynamic here? Because it is really stark when you have the kinds of job numbers that we've had. And yet you ask people, which way are we going? Because it is really stark when you have the kinds of job numbers that we've had, and yet you ask people, which way are we going? And it's like, it's terrible. Everything's going bad. Well, I mean, I always go back to inflation because most of us have never seen this kind of inflation in our lifetime. And most Americans believe that these price hikes are permanent, that they will not level off, and they certainly will not go down. They're taxing them into their near and long-term future. And it's really freaking them out. You've put your finger on it. I mean, I actually don't think this is as mysterious as some folks

think it is, that if you actually go out and talk to people in the real world, you're going to hear that. You're going to hear about the prices. And the fact is the inflation is something that many people have not experienced in their lifetime. And they do think that it's changing everything. They're afraid it's going to erode their retirement. They're afraid that their wages will not keep up, which is true because real wages are not keeping up. So everybody that points to these other numbers, hey, you know, raise your hand, go talk to people in the real world and they are not able to keep up. Plus, we have just emerged from a period of real chaos and anxiety. And human nature is such that you go from chaos, uncertainty, trauma, don't expect people to snap back. I think we are programmed to say, okay, the world is chaotic. I've just

come through this trauma. I need to anticipate more chaos and more trauma. And so there's a lag time. In fact, it would be more surprising if having gone through the pandemic and the crashes and all of the fears and this massive inflation that if people would right now in February of 2023 have already come around to, hey, happy days are here again.

That is just not the way people are wired. I think you're right. And I think that not only has the crisis changed our wiring, but Charlie, I don't know if it's me. I keep asking my peers and they agree. I think we've been through more change in the last seven years than we have in a really long time. And, you know, chat GPT and, you know, all these cultural changes that are happening so quickly make most of us feel that that will lead to long-term economic uncertainty, that uncertainty is just across the board now. We have to learn to accept it. And that's really hard to assuage and to mitigate against. This is, I believe, a profound point, which is the pace of change has been so rapid that people have a hard time keeping up with it.

And you do feel that it's hard to keep your balance about this. And you think about, and I don't know if I've talked about this on the podcast, but you think about the evolution of the human brain. It has not evolved as quickly in the last 2,000 years as the pace of change or technology. I mean, we're dealing with a pace of change that no other generation has really dealt with. Now, I'm not saying that things are worse now in any way. I'm just saying that things that used to take, I don't know, 500 years, then took 100 years, then the pace of change was you'd have those changes in 50 years, then 20 years, then 10 years. It feels now like we're living in a world in which the world is changing every six weeks. And we have not, human beings cannot be expected to just sort of snap around and go, okay, I'm completely okay with that.

No matter how hard you work to keep up with it, the world feels like it is a scary place that none of us really fully understand. I mean, it's hard to get your head around all the things that are happening. So no wonder people feel insecure. So what can Joe Biden do about this? I think he's got to use the bully pulpit more. And that's problematic, isn't it? Because he's not always great. He was definitely on his game last night. But of all the presidents that I can think of, I think that Biden has probably used the bully public less effectively than anyone since, who would I go back to?

Nixon? Jimmy Carter, maybe? The two of them are perfect examples. I mean, it's hard. It's your magic bullet, right? It's the thing that you have is to try to sway public opinion and perception. And you can use this powerful perch. But Joe Biden is tired, and he makes gaffes, and he's afraid to sound as old as he is. And so he does not do back and forth with reporters very often. He has not held, you know, a long press conference in many, many, many months. And before that, it was a really long

time. And he's not just, you know, in front of an audience of jeers with a teleprompter giving a huge national address every night. I mean, he just, this idea that he can just bound around Charlie in the next two years and just campaign across the country is not realistic. He doesn't do a lot of travel because I don't think he physically is up to it. We just need another whistle stop because it's really no different than 1948, right?

I mean, Harry Truman did it. Put him on a train. Send him around the country. Okay, so let's switch gears a little bit. You wrote about Mike Pompeo running for president, and we still have the other guy out there down in Mar-a-Lago. Republicans seem to be doubling down on the magical thinking that it's okay if nobody ever says anything bad about Donald Trump or that

anybody ever pushes back because somehow something, something, something, something, unicorn, something, something, something, he will go away. So the latest story, Trump, now for people who haven't caught up on this, this is going to sound crazy, okay? Because it's only February of 2023. I mean, think how long this campaign is going to last. We are not going to survive this. Donald Trump is already going heavy on that DeSantis is a pedophile stuff. I kid you not. This is Rolling Stone. Well, Trump is now suggesting Ron DeSantis is a pedophile. Actually, not technically, but Donald Trump recently has been ramping up his attacks on Ron DeSantis ahead of the 2024 Republican primary showdown. We're not going to lie. We figured it would take the former president at least a few more months before he started accusing the Florida governor

of pedophilia. Trump has been doing that, doing just that on Tuesday, though, sharing a few posts on Truth Social purporting to show DeSantis, quote, grooming high school girls with alcohol as a teacher. That's not wrong, is it? Trump wrote sarcastically. He would never do such a thing. And all you have is basically a picture of him in a kitchen with some teenage girls and they're smiling and whatever. That's sort of been around. I would think it falls a little bit short of actual pedophilia or misconduct of any kind. I mean, maybe it raises some eyebrows, but damn, maybe this thing has escalated quickly. He's desperate. And obviously he has no limits. So there's no governor on how far Donald Trump

is willing to go before he's afraid he's really upsetting other Republicans, right? There's no line for him like, well, I can't keep attacking Ronnie D until, I don't know, you know, Mitch McConnell or Ronald McDaniel or Kevin McCarthy get mad at me. That threshold doesn't exist. And I was just laughing my ass off this morning seeing Mark Levin tweet, this only helps the Democrats on their radical agenda. They must be defeated. And this is counterproductive. As if Donald Trump is going to listen to Mark Levin. Yes, or anyone. Well, speaking of post-shame, if I, okay, and I know this is absurd, okay, so if I was

Donald Trump and there were pictures of me with Epstein and there were pictures of me with Miss Teenage America fans and Playboy bunnies with my hands on there, you know what? I would probably be a little bit hesitant to put out these kinds of pictures. But the thing about Trump is he's not only shameless, I mean, he's prepared to gaslight. Yeah, sure. So, you know, I have this long track record of doing this sort of thing, but I'm going to turn, I have what, a dozen women who say that I have sexually assaulted them, but I'm going to turn, I have, what, a dozen women who say that I have sexually assaulted them, but I'm going to go there on Rhonda Sanders. So does this work, or do people just roll their eyes and say, more of this shit? But that's the Trump way. That's what he's rewired the Republican Party to do. You say what Sarah Sanders said. You say,

we didn't want this culture war after you started a culture war. And it's all, as you say, that you run on. It's all your fundraise on. It's all you talk about. And so for Donald Trump, this is classic Trump. He goes after people and says that they're doing things that he, of course, did. He doesn't care that he's done them. And when people come at him, he'll just say it's not true. And the other person is a groomer or a pedophile and a sexual assaulter. I mean, so what Ron DeSantis should say is, I'm not sure what Donald's point is, because, you know, when you're a high school teacher, you can grab them by the bleep because they'll let you do anything. Right. And then you're sort of like shrug your shoulders and say, Republicans,

you're OK with this. Right. Right. I mean, now that was a cheap shot. It's interesting because I think we find ourselves talking about how Ron DeSantis could go back and forth on this stuff. And he just tends to always, you know, as you point out, Charlie, just stay quiet. That's why I think we're all so kind of bewildered at that. No one is going after Trump, including Ron DeSantis. I mean, look, I actually do understand the argument of people like Reno Ross, Douthat and everything that, you know, that Trump wants a fight. The others don't need to give it to him. You know, you don't need to get into, you know, a mud wrestling fight with a skunk or whatever.

I get that. But you're going to get it anyway. So the question is whether or not you're going to participate and whether or not you will actually give a rationale for why it is wrong to put him back into power other than the fact that he is a loser. So speaking of rationales for that, you had an interesting piece trying to answer a question that I cannot figure out. What is Mike Pompeo up to these days? What is Pompeo actually running for? Right. So Mike Pompeo has been running for president since he and Trump left office. Just months later, he forms a PAC. He starts traveling to early states. He loses all his weight. He's out with the memoir. Check, check, check. The only thing he's doing to create his, quote,

lane in this race is attacking Nikki Haley. So he's punching down and Nikki Haley is, as we all know, running for vice president. She's not a mega star, but she is the only woman in the race and she's young-ish enough and she's Indian American and she is the absolute go-to VP pick for any Republican who wins the nomination. So she can stand there and never criticize Trump or DeSantis and just make her way, and with a halfway decent showing, be a serious contender for VP. Mike Pompeo, however, is trying to run on foreign policy and national security in a magified Republican party that doesn't give a crap about this stuff. He doesn't bash vaccines. He doesn't talk about rumors.

And he doesn't go after Trump or DeSantis. So what is he doing? As you write, he's trying to convince voters that he's macho, mad, and mean. And he goes on about the media and how reporters are hyenas and wolves. So that's always a reliable applause line. But the thing about Nikki, okay, so he won't criticize Trump. He doesn't criticize Trump now. He doesn't criticize Trump or DeSantis at all. But Nikki Haley, in the book, he accuses Haley of conspiring with Ivanka and Jared to dump Pence from the ticket in 2020. And he writes that Haley didn't do anything for Israel besides saying nice things. Is this part of a strategy or does he just have unfinished business because there

was some bureaucratic rivalry, whatever, between him and Nikki Haley? Or is Mike Pompeo, you know, the macho, mad and mean, just made uncomfortable by the fact that here you had a pretty prominent woman who was infringing on his turf. So what's the dynamic there? I mean, she also has been running for years, right? So he's known that. I don't think if she was running for president that he would be attacking her so gratuitously. It's really obnoxious the way that he talks about her in the book. And it's petty. You know, she had to respond and say, it's sad to choose gossip and lies to try to sell books. And again, if he was doing that to everybody and he was attacking DeSantis and Trump, and he was trying to be the new bulldozer, fine. But it seems so politically obtuse to me to be going after Nikki Haley,

who's not a threat. It just makes Pompeo look bad. Well, speaking of Pompeo looking bad, I don't know whether you've seen a clip of this interview he did with a British television reporter. And I'm once again reminded how the British media is much, much more aggressive than the American media. I'm going to have Mehdi Hassan on this podcast in a couple of weeks, and I really want to talk to him about that. It's a different style. They are so much better prepared, and they ask follow-up questions, and they're very, very pointed. And Pompeo goes on to tout whatever it is he's touting. And the reporter, you know, holds his feet to the fire about January 6th and whether

he should have spoken out more aggressively about it. And what's really striking is how uncomfortable Pompeo is, how thin-skinned he is. And except for sort of doing that, playing the card, pushing back on evil reporters, he looked pretty shaky. And so if your whole thing is, I am big and strong and full of macho swagger, that's not a good look. He is another one of these guys that has not actually been tested. So again, Mike Pompeo may be out a little bit over his skis at the moment. Yeah, and I know him and he is thin-skinned.

You do. And I think that, well, he doesn't want to know me anymore, but in the before times, Charlie. But I do think that he is one of those people that, A, he's not making a lane for himself. As I said, he's not distinguishing himself with something compelling to the electorate he needs to win over.

And I think that he might have a rough time in the back and forth. I mean, with Trump, and he obviously has very much tried to not piss off Trump. The book is all fluffing Trump. The only thing he's done is say something after the midterms about how we're all tired of losing. He is, like we suspect DeSantis is, someone who could not respond well to criticism and not be able to take a punch. That is a really good point. The other thing about Pompeo that I find interesting is that on paper, his credentials are pretty impressive. First in his class at West Point,

he went to Harvard Law, was on Harvard Law Review, on his resume, member of Congress, director of the CIA, and secretary of state. I mean, arguably, he has one of the most impressive resumes of anyone ever to run for president. And yet he seems intent on not running on that, but are running on, I'm as big an asshole as any of these other guys, and kind of dumbing himself down. Is that unfair? I'm like rolling out all these cheap shots. So is that a cheap shot? No, no. It's interesting because I actually make the point that I think he's running as resume man and that the voters in the Republican primary electorate hate resume man. They totally, they're so done with that. We're not going to have George H.W. Bush again. It's

not going to happen, people. So he has, as you know, you know, he served in the military. He's really had this incredible career in public service. But what he's trying to do is talk about Iran and talk about the Abraham Accords and talk about, you know, Ukraine and all these things. And those are the things that no one wants to listen to. He's not talking about library books. And I also make the point, I don't think with this crowd, I don't think he or Ron DeSantis can ever mention their Ivy League degrees. It will be trouble. No. And just like Elise Stefanik is running as far away from Harvard as fast as she possibly can. OK, so we do actually have we're on day. What is like day eight, day nine of the whole red balloon story? And we're finding out now that these balloons are not just one off. They were part of a rather concerted

intelligence-gathering effort by the People's Republic of China. Your thoughts on all of this? I mean, it's interesting that Joe Biden didn't say the word balloon last night, which kind of surprised me. You know, he dealt with it the way I expected that they would,

which is to address China and that we're standing up to them, but not talk about the balloon. And I think that they haven't handled this perfectly. I think it would have been much better if he came out right away. And I mean, I don't find myself agreeing with Marco Rubio often, but just coming out and saying before Republicans squawked on Twitter, look, this is what's going on. The Chinese have been spying on us forever in increasingly effective ways. We're aware of it. And we're going to push back on this. And we're going to take it down at the time and location of our choosing.

And that's it. And we're going to steal their stuff. Exactly. And I just think that they should have gotten ahead of it. What I respect about the Biden, it's like their strength is their weakness. They don't take the bait. They're very much like Obama. They just carry on and then put their head down and let everyone scream about them. And they just do their job and they end up being more effective than we give them credit for. But I think on this, it would have been better to get out there and own it. On the other hand, the idea of like goodnight moon and, you know, goodnight Chinese red balloon. I mean, spy balloon.

Like this is going to, sorry, the pun, blow over, Charlie. And the idea that the Republicans are going to investigate this is going to, sorry, the pun, blow over, Charlie. And the idea that the Republicans are going to investigate this, like, for weeks on end, like, this is going to end. And Blinken didn't go to China. Which is too bad. The administration's on it. You know, you can say, oh, they should have, you know, shot it down over the Aleutians, and they could have. And, you know, Senator Cornyn said that yesterday. But I don't think they mishandled it in a way that they will pay for. I just think it would have been much better for the president to have not talked about it last

night, but talked about it last week. I agree with you. And you're right, it is going to blow over, which is too bad because I could wallow in this story. I mean, I would like to have a podcast just simply devoted to the red balloon because that's how because I mean, it is such a perfect story. The one benefit I think that it gives to Biden was the fact that it revealed there's no downside, as Politico reported, there's no downside to being a China hawk these days. And so taking an aggressive posture against the Chinese is not going to hurt him. And it undermines one of the big critiques that you're going to be getting from Trump and the Republicans over the next year, that he is weak. And I think a corollary of that is that Joe Biden is already in up to his neck in Ukraine. And the worst thing that could possibly happen for Joe Biden is that they are excessively cautious, do not give the Ukrainians all of the tools they need, and that there are tremendous setbacks there. So if I was advising the administration, I would say, stick with this, the hard line on China, and just make sure that you don't shortchange the

Ukrainians in any way, because that's going to be, in terms of the drama, the question is, is Biden weak or is he strong? So he can be stronger on China, and he's got to continue to be strong in Ukraine. I completely agree with you. I think he's searched all along for a Goldilocks sweet spot with Ukraine. But for the long haul, the support really likely has to increase to make our investment worth it and to triumph, or at least make sure that Putin remains mired and suffering great losses. And so I agree with you there.

On China, what's really interesting is it's going to be to see where the Republicans go on this issue. Trump, as Politico reported, is going to run as a dove and he's going to say that every single other person, we shouldn't send another dollar to Ukraine, everyone else is a warmonger. And so if it's true that we are potentially facing a standoff with the Chinese over Taiwan, and President Biden has to deal with us next year or later this year or something, it's going to be really interesting to see where the Republicans go on that and how supportive they are of the Biden administration if tensions escalate. And also the select committee,

everyone can say Mike Gallagher is a great pick to run the select committee on China. But if Kevin McCarthy and the Republicans actually really want that committee to produce legislation, it has to be bipartisan and they have to engage the Democrats in a relationship of trust. So I'm also going to be watching that to see. I would really like that committee to come together and do something that can be, you know, signed into law, something just to bear fruit. You know, I'm going to be interested to see where the Republicans stay on their China rants, you know, in the next 18 months. A.B. Stoddard, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it very much. Thanks, Charlie. I always enjoy being with you.

And thank you all for listening to today's Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow and we will do this all over again. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown. you