The Bulwark Podcast - A.B. Stoddard: Governing Is for Wimps

Episode Date: July 5, 2023

House Republicans are racing to the crazy again as they try to nail down who they're going to impeach. Plus, gaming out why Biden gets so little credit for the economy, and the GOP presidential debate stage may end up quite small. A.B. Stoddard joins guest host Mona Charen. show notes: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2023/07/05/no_matter_who_shows_the_debates_will_bolster_trump_149457.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com. Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm Mona Charan, host of another Bulwark Podcast called Beg to Differ, and I'm sitting in for Charlie Sykes today. To comb through the events on this Wednesday, I'm delighted to be joined by associate editor and columnist at Real Clear Politics, A.B. Stoddard. Good morning, A.B. Good morning, Mona. It's great to be with you. Thanks so much. So I hope you had a great July 4th. Unfortunately for too many Americans, it was, I mean, it's not enough to say marred. I mean, it was destroyed by gunfire in mass shootings in three or four different cities in Fort Worth, in Washington, DC, Baltimore,

Philadelphia. In Philadelphia, five people were killed by a gunman who was wearing a bulletproof vest. The victims included a two-year-old boy and a 13-year-old boy. That just seems to be part of the American holiday scene these days, something that we should never, never, never get used to. And so without dwelling on this too much, A.B., I just think we should pause for a second to have a word about the political implications, because the Democratic Party seems a little bit, in my judgment, and I'd be curious what you think, they seem a little too reluctant to seize on this issue of safety, of gun violence, as something that they can succeed with. I mean, they're snakebit. They tried to make gun control

an issue back in the 90s and early 2000s, and it didn't work for them. And they seem afraid of it, but it feels to me as if when you look at polling and when you look at the nature of these mass shootings, that there's much more of an openness now to measures that would at least restrict certain kinds of guns. What do you think? Right. Well, I want to give credit to the president who does come out each time after sometimes bunches, collections of mass shootings in the same time period and call upon Congress to act. But you're right, there was a trajectory of hesitance during the height of the power of the NRA in the 90s and the early 2000s from Democrats to take this issue on. That has changed a lot, but not enough, in that it is a galvanizing issue, particularly among young people. So young people, I always say

they don't wake up every morning worried about Donald Trump being president in January of 2025 and collapsing our constitutional order and ending our democracy the way that you and I are. They don't worry about our system. But on substance, mass shootings, abortion, and climate are the top three most urgent things that they want someone to address and that they're furious at the grownups in charge all these years for refusing to do anything about. So it is an energizing issue. But I did watch after Parkland. I did not see a lot of voter registration in material numbers in Florida, et cetera. So I have watched the party, while there has definitely been more money, mom's demand, the help of Mike Bloomberg,

there's definitely been more action and more energy. It really has yet to make a material difference in the Democrats' electoral prospects. The way that we have on the right single issue activists voting on guns and abortion, this is never translated on the left. So it'll be interesting to see if next year, because of the energy around Roe and the way that that organized a lot of people for the midterms, for young voters, if they don't have an opening to try to make a push as well on mass shootings and the fact that the Congress refuses to deal with it. But they are definitely behind this effort. And I think it's something that I agree with you, it should be talked about every single day.

Yeah, it's so beyond depressing that we are seeming to be comfortable living like this or dying like this, as the case may be. All right, well, let's move on because it's July, A.B., and that means we are just a little more than a month away from the first Republican debate. So you have some predictions, I guess, about what will happen at this Republican debate. Who will show up? Who won't show up? What difference will it make? Tell us about that. Yeah, well, I think that for so long, we've been thinking, oh, it'll be so interesting when, you know, Donald Trump gets up there and has to answer for trying to steal an election. But I don't think he's going to show up,

and I don't think it's going to harm him. And I think that the way that the criteria of the Republican National Committee has set up, which is as an institution largely compromised and not truly neutral, it's been a pro-Trump organization now throughout his presidency and beyond, paying his legal bills until recently, using his likeness for mailers and emails to fundraise. They have set up a criteria that is not only difficult in terms of asking each candidate to come up with 40,000 individual donations, but it has to be spread 200 of them at least across 20 distinct states. And it all has to happen by August 21. And then you have to have post-July showings of 1% or more in national and early state polling. But, and this is really

important, those polls have to have a sample size where there is at least 800 primary, likely primary voters. And a lot of these polls have smaller samples. They might be national polls. They might be early state polls. But their samples of, quote, likely primary voters are in the 300, 400 count. So if you're Mike Pence, Mona, and you're the former vice president of the United States, and yes, we laugh that he has no constituency, but he still can light up a dinner somewhere and collect a big check, you know, from an event. But he's kind of, since he got into the race June 7th, scrambling to come up with 40,000 donors, 200 of which are across 20 separate states. And then this polling issue is going to be a situation. So I think while

we all thought it was going to be 2016, oh, it's too bad all these people are running against Trump, but at least there's a bunch of gutsy people in there like Vivek Ramaswamy, who will just like perform and shake it up. And I'm sure he has some surprises in store. And you're going to have these anti-Trumpers like Asa Hutchinson and Will Hurd and Chris Christie. They'll gang up on Ron DeSantis for sure. It looks like Ron DeSantis now is getting cold feet and might not show up from reporting that we have in Real Clear Politics. So if Trump doesn't show and then DeSantis doesn't show, and maybe some of these lower tier candidates can't even get on the stage, not a lot of people are going to watch it. And

Trump can have his own event and cry like a baby on the sidelines about how it wasn't fair. And he's not going to lose any support over that. Okay. So what about the argument that Chris Christie makes that Trump won't be able to resist? Let's say he doesn't show up for the first one and he gets attacked by Christie or someone else on that stage. Of course, it would have to be Christie because it doesn't look like Asa Hutchinson

is going to be able to make it to the stage, right? Or Will Hurd. So Christie's probably the one with the best shot. But also Christie says, if he skips the first debate, his ego just won't allow him to skip the second one. He'll be fuming. He'll want to get back in there and throw punches.

What do you think? I see his point. I take his point. But I quoted Chris Christie in my piece today about how the first debate is likely to kind of break this field down instead of jump-starting campaigns. It's likely to end them if they can't get on the debate stage or they get there and they don't have a breakout moment that people notice and they can't fundraise off that they're not going to be able to fundraise much after the first debate anyway. So I think the second debate will be much smaller. I think the first one will be too small.

And Chris Christie makes that point. I think that Donald Trump could end up showing up at the second debate, like he says, but by then the damage is done. I see one scenario, which is in mid-August, he gets indicted by Fannie Willis in Georgia and wants to go on stage and attack her as a racist. And at the last minute, he signs the pledge that is required to get on the August 23 stage in Milwaukee. And that's a big controversial issue because he didn't sign one in 2016 and he doesn't care. And if he signed one, everyone knows he wouldn't honor it. So I think Christie's pretty

open that he's going to sign the pledge to get on the debate stage, hoping he gets a chance to go at Donald Trump, either in person or not. And he's basically saying the pledge is bogus and he doesn't have to honor it. So maybe Donald Trump shows up the first one. I think if he shows up at the second one, it doesn't much matter. His lead is so dominant at this point. The only movement I see in the race is Christie weakening DeSantis, and I don't see anyone in a position to take Trump on. So are you saying that the Republican Party will then sleepwalk into renominating Trump? There will be basically no debates going into the primaries? If you look at the polling, the primary electorate is embracing Trump as the nominee. And remember, a lot of them believe he won last time.

So yeah, I think he's inevitable as a nominee. Don't know if they'll have some dog and pony shows to make everyone feel good. Maybe the RNC wants to, I don't know, look neutral. And so they'll hold some of these events. But the criteria is so difficult for the first one. And that's much more important than the second one in terms of winnowing the field. Again, I don't know if Ron DeSantis doesn't show up and give himself a fighting chance against Trump. I mean, he's still the second polling leader, as weak as he is. So it's really hard for me to see the dynamics where Vivek Ramaswamy can get on both debate stages and sort of upends the dynamic and becomes the alternative to Donald Trump.

I don't know what your thoughts are, but I truly think that you have an anti-Trump contingent, you have a going for broke, you know, Vivek Zon. He is very interesting to people. And then you have Ron DeSantis, who has the best shot at this, and he's not giving it his shot. He's terrified. I do think the South Carolina candidates are just running for vice president, and they're never going to take Trump on. Yeah, I do agree with that. It's funny, the South Carolina candidates. It's still a long way to January. Many more indictments to come. As you say, you know, one can easily imagine Trump being supercharged by the next indictment, especially if it comes from, let's face it, an African-American

prosecutor in Georgia, right? I mean, he will be able to use that in all of his nefarious ways to gin up his base and his cult. Hey, folks, this is Charlie Sykes, host of the Bulwark podcast. We created the Bulwark to provide a platform for pro-democracy voices on the center right and the center left, for people who are tired of tribalism and who value truth and vigorous yet civil debate about politics and a lot more. And every day we remind you folks, you are not the crazy ones. So why not head over to thebullwork.com and take a look around. Every day we produce newsletters and podcasts that will help you make sense of our politics and keep your sanity intact. To get a daily dose of sanity in your inbox, why not try a Bulwark

Plus membership free for the next 30 days? To claim this offer, go to thebulwark.com slash charlie. That's thebulwark.com forward slash charlie. We're going to get through this together, I promise. Let's turn to what is going on with the GOP in the House of Representatives. So when they first took control of the Congress, of course, they were expecting to have a huge red wave. They didn't. They've only got a five seat margin. So their wings have been clipped considerably. But there's now all this talk about division within the GOP over how much to try to impeach Biden and various Biden officials. They're not just talking about impeaching Mayorkas for the border, and by the way, not that he's committed any high crimes or

misdemeanors, but just that they don't like the border, but also impeaching the attorney general, Merrick Garland. Yeah, I had predicted more than a year ago that if the Republicans took control, there would be a demand from the base to impeach Joe Biden for any various reason that could be found. And what's so interesting is that this date in July, the New York Times just quoted a congressman saying, yeah, I've heard what they're talking about, my colleagues with these investigations, but I don't know basically what the high crime and misdemeanor would be. So I will give Kevin McCarthy credit for keeping the crazy down in his first few months as speaker and cutting a bipartisan deal to avoid debt default. But he is paying the price for that now. And so he has talked up impeaching Merrick Garland. I think he does that to avoid, you know, impeachment articles

against Joe Biden. But the basic line from Republican leaders to the rank and file is you guys have to come up with evidence and you have to explain, you know, what makes those high crimes and misdemeanors before we get into this game. They have to pick, you know, what makes those high crimes and misdemeanors before we get into this game. They have to pick, you know, which scalp they want. Is it going to be just Mayorkas? Is that going to be enough? Are they going to be sated by just the Homeland Security Secretary or are they going to want a bigger scalp? So this is this sort of complicated bubbling to a boil period before what is likely to be a government shutdown at

the end of September, also a result of the fact that McCarthy governed within the math and rules and within a political reality in May to come to that deal. And so they are going to protest all the spending that McCarthy tries to approve with the Senate in September. They might be different people. You might have Lauren Boebert of the Freedom Caucus more obsessed with impeachment than she is with spending. Maybe Chip Roy is more obsessed with spending. But you have a bunch of people who are going to cause him a great amount of difficulty. So in the end, maybe it's just Alexander Mayorkas. Maybe it's not Joe Biden. The committees have not come up in their investigations with any evidence that Joe Biden has done anything wrong.

They're working furiously on his son, of course. But there is an effort and the leadership has made it clear to the media that they are trying to contain this and that there isn't anything specific that they can impeach Joe Biden for now. A visitor from Mars could look at this and say, oh, okay. So the GOP skated too close to actually governing and did not actually call into question the full faith and credit of the American dollar in the last crisis. And so, because they actually came close to being responsible and governing, they are now racing as fast as they can toward the crazy again. And you've got Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has pledged that they should defund the special counsel, Jack Smith. And you have this talk of impeaching everybody.

You have this talk of limiting funding for the Department of Justice and the FBI. It is like the party cannot bear to get the reputation as people who could actually govern. They have to be seen as radicals who want to burn everything down. What do you think? That's exactly right. Nihilism is the goal and destruction and disruption. And that is why they use the term uniparty, which is a very online term. But for those who are not familiar, uniparty means they made a deal that was fine with the Senate Republicans, because the Senate Republicans are just the same as Joe Biden and the Democrats, because they're willing to, you know, agree to these spending caps that

are, you know, not low enough or agree to basically govern at all, didn't want to try to act responsibly. Even now on the question of government funding and the end of the fiscal year, Susan Collins, who is ranking with Patty Murray on appropriations. They've put out a letter, a statement together saying that they want to do the best they can to pass 12 appropriations bills

to follow the process and get everything done on time and avoid a government shutdown. Those are fighting words. That is unacceptable that Susan Collins co-signed a statement like that. So governing is for wimps and for sellouts. And that's what McCarthy is going to be paying for these next months.

But they won't pay a price for it with voters. And that is deeply worrying. All right. Another thing that happened over the July 4th holiday, most people were, you know, having picnics and watching fireworks, but not a federal judge appointed by Donald Trump in Louisiana, who issued a temporary restraining order saying that the Biden administration cannot have contact with social media platforms on any subjects pending further action. So this was a case, you know, that alleges as a, you know, vast conspiracy between the Biden administration and various tech platforms to suppress the speech of conservatives and other, you know, dissenters. And it was brought by people who had sort of

wacky views about the coronavirus and other things. One of the plaintiffs is the head of Gateway Pundit, which is a well-known misinformation, disinformation site online. But here's what this judge said. He said, quote, if the allegations made by plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech

in United States history, unquote. Now, you know, we had the Alien and Sedition Act, we had the Palmer Raids, we've had a lot of attacks on free speech in the country. But you know, this guy obviously seems very ideological, very Trumpy, very MAGA. It's worrying because look, government officials can talk to anybody they want. They have free speech rights as well, right? I mean, it would be a different thing if the government were not permitting social media platforms to publish certain things, but to alert them and say, this is misinformation, or this is potentially criminal behavior, or this is possible terrorist action, or this is from a foreign government, whatever.

Although I think they did carve out those particular things. But there are many times where governments speak to publishers. They are fully within their rights. I mean, how many times have governments marched into the offices of the New York Times and the Washington Post and said, please don't publish the story that you have planned to publish? And sometimes the papers have complied and sometimes they haven't. It's not illegal.

It's not suppressing speech for the government to ask, right? This is disturbing on so many levels. I mean, what you're describing is, because he is, appears to be this ideologue, you know, he'll want to block these kinds of exchanges and these interactions now. But if Trump is pressing it again, he's going to be allowed to interfere in the private market and threaten companies, you know, willy nilly all day long. That will be no problem. It'll be free speech then. Yeah. But on another level, you know, willy-nilly all day long. That will be no problem. It'll be free speech then. Yeah. But on another level, you know, we are, since 2016, have been inundated with

targeted misinformation and disinformation campaigns from our foreign adversaries. And look, the Saudis and the Russians are going to work really hard to elect Donald Trump, really hard. Everybody knows that the Trump campaign is counting on it. And if you combine the health and science and medical misinformation, when all those conspiracies that are so dangerous, that were coming at us at a time, you know, in a global pandemic, when the government was trying to help us made a bunch of of mistakes along the way for sure, but was definitely trying to, you know, to minimize death. And then this combination, like you said, of a terrorist or security threat, let alone the poison that will affect our elections, you know, saying that the Biden administration is censoring free speech, trying to deal with these companies who I believe have been extremely irresponsible.

It's really troubling. And I think that, you know, these companies learned how the Russians used Facebook and other places during the 2016 election. And seven years later, that's just growing and amplified. And it's no longer a concern. They don't consider themselves governors of these platforms where they should be accountable for the danger of misinformation whatsoever. And so we're heading into a really crazy place between Elon and judges like this guy in Louisiana. By the way, some of the things that were alleged in this suit happened during the Trump administration, not during the Biden years. Look, hopefully the circuit judges will slap this down because it's

a huge overreach. And in fact, it violates the First Amendment in the other direction, because it violates the First Amendment rights of the government. So we'll see how that all plays out. Let's talk a little bit, A.B., about Bidenomics, because you are a close observer of political messaging. Let's look at how the president is doing, I mean, just in terms of the economy. So he gets the lowest ratings for his handling of the economy. And yet, inflation has been steadily falling. Gas prices, which are a big part of people's perceptions of inflation, are down. Unemployment is down. Employment is at record levels not seen in 50 years.

We have not had the much-anticipated recession. There is no huge new border crisis post the abandonment of Title 42. The murder rate is falling. the stock market is doing well, and yet the president is not getting credit for it. Now, they're rolling out this thing, they're going to call it Bidenomics, and they're going to try to take some credit. But what's your sense of A, why the president is getting so little credit, and B, what he can do to turn that narrative around, if anything? Well, it is true that he's getting no credit. And I thought that it was really stunning to see David Brooks wrote last week about the misery index being so low under Biden at 7.7,

the combination of unemployment and inflation. Biden 7.7, Obama 9.5, gets reelected anyway. George W., 9, three years created more than 13 million jobs, which is seven times the amount of all of the new jobs created under the last three Republican administrations combined. You know, find me an American that knows that. Astounding. Yeah. And so if you look at also what they're going to be rolling out this week, they're going all around the country and it's him and it's not just him and the vice president, cabinet secretaries with this push, you know, that you mentioned on Bidenomics. They're trying to hype the new jobs and the investment in manufacturing from the Infrastructure Act, the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.

A lot of new money invested in a lot of communities where non-college workers in Republican districts will have new opportunities. This is the kind of thing that should make the local news, that should break through the noise, that should have communities talking about things feeling better. But the perception of Joe Biden, he takes office after Trump, after these unsettling years, we're still in a pandemic. We have this chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, and we head into inflation. And now you have the onset of artificial intelligence, which is all the conversation. No one was talking about it at Christmas, Mona, but all of a sudden, right? Every single day, we have to hear about it and think

about how it's going to ruin our lives. That's brand new. And then you have these prices that people have never seen in their lifetime, and they believe they're permanent. So even if they see eggs are a little bit down, gas is a little bit down, they've priced it in as permanent. And they think it's going to really impact their future. And so we have 74% wrong track number for Biden. Unemployment is supposed to be the only number that matters. And he has a great one. But instead, he has a terrible wrong track. And it's this big perception that we're in this state of kind of permanent turmoil, that things are changing too fast, that things cost too much, and that people just believe the economy won't strengthen. The recession is

always around the corner. And we might hear on the radio that it's not coming for now, but people are kind of preparing for doom. And then if you think also about how people get their information, I think it gets worse every year, the poison that they're inhaling on social media. And I just think that to break through will be extremely difficult for him. He's not a great messenger. Kamala Harris is not a great messenger. Pete Buttigieg is. But to try to make people feel these new jobs, these new investments in manufacturing in their area, it's going to be very difficult for Joe Biden to break through, even if inflation continues to lessen and lighten. Because I think the only thing that

voters would respond to at this point is some kind of dramatic reversal of the trends. And I don't know if we'll see that before election day. So maybe, puzzle this out with me, maybe I'm just not seeing things clearly, but there is such a widespread perception that Joe Biden is senile. I mean, I hear this all the time, and not just from Republicans, I hear it from Democrats. And I am not seeing that. When I see Biden, yes, he seems old. Obviously, the guy is in his 80s, and he looks it and sounds it. But he does not sound senile to me. And many occasions, he has demonstrated that he's not. And I just wonder, are people getting curated little clips on Facebook? Where is this coming from? Or am I out of touch? curated little clips on Facebook? Like, where is this coming from? Or am I out of touch? What's going on here? Well, I think it's a combination.

I mean, I think the right started from day one to try to change the subject of January 6th investigations by saying that Joe Biden wasn't up to the task and he was out of it and he doesn't hold enough press conferences. So we've been hearing that since the spring of 21. Yeah. That he lost a step. He sleeps in a freezer every night. We don't see him for weeks. And of course, on Facebook, they're always saying that he's dead and there's a body double and all that kind of stuff, that there's a chip in his ear because he can't talk on his own. So the right has been stirring this up from inaugnauguration Day. Then we've seen him age in the presidency, which we saw happen to Barack Obama and George W. Bush and anyone who has a job.

It ages you. And I think it ages you faster if you go into the job at 78 or whatever it was. So that's a huge challenge is that perception that people are losing faith that he needs too many naps and isn't up to it, that will worsen with each six-month period. And the fact that the election is so far away is a huge problem, as I've said a thousand times, for Joe Biden, because people don't approve of Kamala Harris. Her approval is lower than the president's. And so when Republicans say you're not going to get four years of Joe Biden, you're not voting for that and you're not going to get four years of Joe Biden. You're not voting for that, and you're not going to get it. That's a huge political problem for the Democrats.

So the fact that he doesn't do a lot of extemporaneous back and forth with reporters, he will occasionally do a little in the driveway. But the fact that he doesn't like to be in the East Room having press conferences, and they they control his appearances and he often walks in the wrong direction and of course falls down makes it easier for people to say he's not up to the job. When physically it looks like he's tired and aging, it's really easy to make the leap that he's not copious. I don't think that that's from what I hear from inside, you know, and around, that's not the problem. But the fatigue is an issue, you know, that as you get older, you just, whatever, you need to just have reading time, you need to have, you know, time on phone calls with world leaders that are meetings about war and peace, where you have to be much more on than

reading your briefing time, right? Phone calls to sort of maybe people on the Hill, not as high pressure as dealing with a phone call to, you know, a German ally, right? So there are varying degrees of things which require his energy. I don't know, A.B. I mean, his predecessor basically sat in his bathrobe until 11 a.m., you know, tweeting and watching television. So I'm not sure that the job actually requires quite as much energy as we used to think. But never mind that. Go on. No, I agree with you. And it is frustrating because I think Trump is a lazy

ass. And it's true. That's how he spent his time. But he would also dash into, you know, a cabinet meeting and make, invite all the media in and start screaming and barking. And he provides some kind of optic of energy that people have latched onto. And of course, his supporters translate into power and strength. But the average American thinks he just has more pep in his step than Biden. So there is varying degrees of energy required for Biden's tasks in a given day or week. And they calibrate that carefully. And so it's going to be very hard to shake as he looks more tired, the perception among Americans that he's probably mentally lost a step and can't do the job the way he promised to do. All right, A.B., you know that all of the foregoing

is not what's going to be playing nonstop on Fox and other outlets, right? I mean, the biggest story that we haven't touched on yet is going to be, of course, cocaine found in the White House. And I have to ask you, what the hell? I am asking you what the hell? This is really strange and pretty bad. Yeah. They had to evacuate the White House briefly when they found a white powder. Because they thought it was like anthrax. Yeah, exactly. This is a problem and, you know, I don't want staffers doing drugs in the White House and I really hope that Hunter Biden has not fallen off the wagon. So I don't know what to say about that. We'll have to learn more when we get it, but that's not good. All right, A.B. Well, despite everything, we soldier on and we hope for better news and we will continue reading you in Real Clear Politics. And thank you so much for joining me on this July 5th.

Always a pleasure to be with you, Mona. Thank you for having me. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper. The sound engineer is Jason Brown. And we will return tomorrow and do this all over again.