The Bulwark Podcast - A.B. Stoddard: Normalizing Trump Again

Episode Date: May 2, 2023

For the first time since 2016, Trump will be back on CNN for a live event. It's a huge gift to Trump. Will the media once again center their campaign coverage on him—to the disadvantage of the Biden? Plus, McCarthy's new tone on Ukraine. A.B. Stoddard joins Charlie Sykes today. To continue the conversation go to https://bulwarkpodcast.thebulwark.com/. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is an ad by BetterHelp Online Therapy. October is the season for wearing masks and costumes, but some of us feel like we wear a mask and hide more often than we want to. At work, in social settings, around our family. Therapy can help you learn to accept all parts of yourself, so you can stop hiding and take off the mask. Because masks should be for Halloween fun, not for your emotions. Whether you're navigating workplace stresses,

complex relationships, or family dynamics, therapy is a great tool for facing your fears and finding a way to overcome them. If you're thinking of starting therapy but you're afraid of what you might uncover, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, dot com. Landlord telling you to just put on another sweater when your apartment is below 21 degrees? 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. I'm Charlie Sykes. It is May 2nd, 2023. And like everybody else, I'm asking, why is this stuff happening to us? What's going on here? The Hollywood writers have gone on strike. We have another big bank that failed, but it was swallowed up by JPMorgan Chase. So we're kind of back to the too big to fail thing, right? Vice Media is filing for bankruptcy, becomes the latest media company to collapse. And we found out yesterday that we're

a little bit closer to the brink than we thought. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warning that we might only have till June 1st to raise the debt limit and avoid a catastrophic default. I mean, really, what could possibly go wrong? So joining me to look at this beautiful early May, A.B. Stoddard, our good friend, associate editor and columnist at Real Clear Politics. A.B., so why is this happening to us? What I love about this writer's strike is that given the fact that a bunch of artificial intelligence experts are now trying to say, oh, but wait, just like, you know, Republicans have done with Trump. And, you know, as you mentioned, we're maybe on the precipice of a crisis that could end to devolve in a volatile economy with all the other things that we have going on.

Top of the list, of course, is that Trump looks like the inevitable nominee and could win the presidency. I didn't even get to that part. Right. I mean, I think in the middle of that, I think what we need the most is Hollywood writers. So it's a little painful to imagine that we won't have the soothing balm of what we need, which is distraction and entertainment. I agree with all of that.

However, I don't know how many cable channels you have. Now I just have like two years worth of shows I need to catch up on. I don't know. Well, there's that. There's that. And it's tough being a screenwriter these days because reality is often just way more absurd.

I mean, they have to be sitting around going, I was going to make up a character like Marjorie Deller Green, but nobody would have believed it. It just didn't seem plausible. I mean, it's like, it's got to have a little bit of reality. I should also mention that Gordon Lightfoot died at the age of 84. I was a big Gordon Lightfoot fan. I'm noticing that people are actually surprised to learn

that the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald took place in 1975. That it's actually that recent. It was a big deal here in Wisconsin. I mean, we actually remember it. It's such a favorite song. I mean, it's such a treasure. But I do like seeing something tweeted about by both John Cornyn and Joe Scarborough on the same morning. Gives me the warm and fuzzies.

So speaking of warm and fuzzies, I want you to explain what is happening with Kevin McCarthy. I describe this as the, even a blind squirrel finds a nut edition of morning shots this morning. Kevin McCarthy, who has not been this giant colossus of consistency or political courage, goes to Jerusalem, speaks before the Knesset. I mean,

he takes his usual partisan shots at Joe Biden. But then there's this rather extraordinary moment where a Russian reporter who has probably been watching a lot of Tucker Carlson reruns and heard Kevin McCarthy when he said that he wasn't supportive any longer of a blank check for Ukraine. This Russian reporter asked McCarthy a question in this post-speech press conference. Let's play it. We know that you don't support the current unlimited and uncontrolled supplies of weaponry and aid to Ukraine. So can you comment, is it possible if in the near future the U.S. policy regarding sending weaponry to Ukraine will change? I'm not sure. The sound here is not good. Did he say, I don't support aid to Ukraine? No, I vote for aid for Ukraine. I support aid for Ukraine. I do not support what your

country has done to Ukraine. i do not support your killing of the children either and i think for one standpoint you should pull out and i don't think it's right and we will continue to support because the rest of the world sees it just as it is damn ab what do you think i think i've said something not nice several times on this podcast, which is that Kevin McCarthy's kind of dumb politically. He's excellent at the care and feeding of his membership, which has led to some success. He's now the Speaker of the House and third in line from the presidency. And I feel that this brewing confidence, he's feeling it. You know, he's gotten a bill through the House. No one said it could

happen to present to the president about the debt ceiling. He's over in Israel and he's feeling his statesman thoughts. And I thought it was obviously amazing and the right thing to say. And he did not back to Hal at the end and say, but there's no blank check. Not yet. Right. I was going to say that's probably likely once Marge gets him on, you know, line one. But so what I thought was so interesting was the timing of this with the reporting from Semaphore that Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch had in the last few months spoken to President Zelensky and that it wasn't right by the time that Tucker was fired, but they were speaking to him about the war in Ukraine. Exactly. And this is the semaphore scoop. Fox News Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch held a previously unreported call with Ukrainian

President Volodymyr Zelensky this spring in which the two discussed the war and the anniversary of the deaths of Fox News journalists last March. The Ukrainian president had a similar conversation with Lachlan Murdoch on March 15th, which Zelensky noted in a little noted aside during a national broadcast. The conversations came weeks before the Murdochs fired their biggest star and most outspoken critic of American support for Ukraine, Tucker Carlson. I don't know whether this is connected or not, whether you connect the dots, but, you know, the timing's interesting, right? I thought the timing was fascinating. I think that, you know, there is a case to be made

that donors are pulling back from Ron DeSantis because they thought he was going to help the party get rid of Trump and that they worried about his Ukraine comments and his equivocating. And so I think there is a connection to be drawn between not only the small donors still drive the power, give the power, but that there is still an establishment of the party. There's still a critical mass of Republicans who want to get rid of Trump. And along with going too far on government overreach in the case of Disney, along with extremism on abortion without exceptions, comes this Ukraine issue. And it's been in the background, but that was no small thing for the speaker to say. No, it was no small thing.

And actually, you got me thinking about this a little bit. So, you know, I asked in my newsletter, you know, did McCarthy take the new tone because he had a flash of conscience? Did he always think this? Did he just felt he couldn't say it? I mean, that's number one. Number two, he actually had a genuine change of heart. He's decided that he is going to stand, you know, with the freedom fighters against Vladimir Putin. Or number three, he no longer has to worry about being dragged by, you know, a pro-Putin shill like Tucker Carlson. You've raised the fourth, which is that there's an element of the donor class, the Republican donor class, that actually does take this issue seriously. And if you have Murdoch and the donor class lining up, that's a critical mass. Now,

the question is whether this implicit repudiation of the Republican surrender caucus is going to hold after Marge calls him into the principal's office. We'll just have to see. But kudos in the short run. Exactly. We'll take it, is my initial response. And I do expect him to cower in fear in a few days when he gets back. But again, it's so interesting because it's illustrative of the tension that even though, Charlie, the polls show Republicans are with Marge, the base has moved off into a majority opposing continuation of support for Ukraine and a minority supporting it. What is interesting is that the party, after all these years in the case of Ukraine, at least a segment of it in the remaining elites and establishment is still trying to lead the voters instead of being led by them. And on this issue,

of course, they will be led by them, but they're at least trying at this moment to lead. And this is in the context, of course, of the return of Donald Trump, who is about to become, as you wrote, ubiquitous. His hold on the party is pretty evident, and we know where he comes down. However extreme Marjorie Taylor Greene is, she's hardly as extreme as Donald Trump, who cannot hide his admiration for Vladimir Putin. We know exactly where Trump comes down on all of this. So let's talk about what you described as our wretched groundhog day. You had a column last week over at RealClearPolitics after Joe Biden announced that he's running again, and you opened with the line, the dreaded rematch of Joe Biden versus Donald Trump now seems like it will only be halted by some unforeseen drama and not by Ron DeSantis. Discuss. Yeah. I think, you know, everyone in our world, Charlie knows that I was hardest hit by the

announcement that Joe Biden was running again, because I was so convinced that he would, you know, come to Jesus or that he already had. I think it's not going to go well. And that's, you know, that's unfortunate. But for all the reasons I've laid out so many times in the last year, but the idea that he thinks he can run, hold the coalition together with all the reasons I've laid out so many times in the last year, but the idea that he thinks he can run, hold the coalition together with all the apathy throughout all the different parts of the coalition and all the problems he'll face with Kamala Harris and his age, and that Trump seems so inevitable now is just so hard to swallow. Obviously, most Americans agree with us, but because we follow it at a granular level,

it's all the more painful because we see clearly that Trump, if nominated, could win. And I outlined that in the piece that there's several thousands of Americans only who decide these elections, 7,000 in three states in 2016, 44,000 in four states in 2020, really don't follow the news. They're living their life. They're not politically addicted. It really turns them off. They don't want to know much about it. And I think they will look at these two if nominated. And that's where our peril lies. And just say, look, you know, Joe Biden looks like he needs to go home and be with his grandkids. He looks much older. At least Trump's done the job before, and gas and eggs cost less than. And like, you know,

like, oh, well. And so it's just really hard for me to believe that there's this slam dunk, you know, that Trump is so beatable, and of course, he's going to lose. And even if Joe Biden wins, people don't want Kamala Harris to succeed him in the middle of his term. So it is, it's really depressing. So but the, it's really depressing. So, but the smart kids have been telling us, A.B. I know. Okay. Joe Biden is old. Get over it. We're going to have to get over it. Suck it up. This is it. This is the game we're playing.

Right. Right? Right. I've always prefaced this or provided caveats that it's not that Joe Biden is not worth voting for, obviously. I don't want anyone to vote for Donald Trump and bring him back into office. It's an existential threat. It's terrifying. And I have friends who are already telling me, you know, that they're going to move to other countries. And I don't know what I'll do because I'll be in Gitmo with you. But anyway, it's not like a joke, right? Obviously, we need Biden to prevail. And if Biden could make it through the term, that would be great. It's just a risk that I believe is not worth taking.

Yes, Joe Biden must be supported. And we must really hope that he makes it to 86. But it's a risk. Well, and I think it's pretty clear what the Republican strategy is going to be. And I wrote about this, that Nikki Haley's comments, you know, that Joe Biden's going to die in the next five years, that that was not a gaffe, that was not a one-off. They are going, and I'm quoting one of my colleagues, they're going to run against dead Joe Biden, live Kamala Harris. As cynical a strategy as that is, I can't say that that's stupid. So they want to focus on Joe Biden's age and his potential mortality and the prospect that

a vote for Joe Biden is a vote for Kamala Harris. That is not easily finesseable. I'm not sure that Joe Biden doubling down on, you know, I'm probably not going to die, but, you know, everything is in great hands because I have a Kamala Harris here. I mean, if you're talking about who's old and who's going to die and whether or not you get Kamala, then you basically have conceded the Republican talking point. Then you're discussing it exactly in the terms they want to be discussing it. Exactly. And that's another point I made in the piece, which is that nobody has to like it. But when Trump starts running around saying in a few months, Sleepy Joe's going to be in the hospital, we're going to get stuck with Kamala. Like that's cruel and it's crude, but no American of any political stripe is going to be

happy with that because she's uniquely unpopular across, you know, everyone in the political spectrum. And there's a real lack of faith that she can handle the job. And the White House's plan, as you've discussed with others, you know, obviously they're going to try to pump her up, right? Let's try to say she's ready. Let's let her show up at more appearances. Let's let her handle the abortion issue and try to drive voter energy. Let's continuously say that any skepticism of her is completely sexist and racist. But no one's buying that. So they're in a quandary, as you say,

Charlie, the more that they put her front and center in a bid to try to neutralize the age issue, the more they're kind of really shining a light on the liability. 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 thebulwark.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 Bullwork Plus membership free for the next 30 days? To claim this offer, go to thebullwork.com slash charlie. That's thebullwork.com forward slash charlie. I'm going to get through this together. I promise. So would you indulge a digression that will annoy like at least half the people listening to this? Yes. Would you just indulge a digression? Yes.

Because if you can hear, I'm debating whether or not this is too irrelevant to bring up. But a year ago, because I keep track of these things on my phone. So a year ago, I was visiting Washington, D.C. for I'm sure it was a bulwark event. And I tried to check into a hotel in downtown Washington, and they didn't have a room ready. And it was getting really, really late. And so I actually went up to the desk and said, hey, I have to go to this meeting. I have to do a podcast. Is there any place I can go? And the manager, may God bless him, comes out and says, okay, we don't actually have a room ready for you, but we have this special suite. And the suite was the Veep suite.

And everything in this room was from the TV show Veep. All kinds of pictures of Julia Dreyfuss. I mean, and all the stuff, the fake books she had written, pictures on the wall of her being the Veep and everything. I mean, it was this delightful room. It was really one of my high points. Because, and this will not come as a surprise to you, I love the show Veep.

I thought it was absolutely outstanding. In fact, I like Veep so much that I've even watched the British predecessor show, which it was based on, which I highly recommend. In any case, have you seen these video montages where they have Selina Meyer, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus, as the fictional vice president, next to actual Kamala Harris? I actually can't take that. It's kind of painful. She's got a problem. And the problem is that once people get that in their heads, that she's kind of Selina Meyer, it's really hard to pump that up. Takeaway from this is that there actually is a hotel in Washington that has a Veep suite. And I was there for it. So, okay. So, this is, you know, I followed you

closely on Twitter all these years. Were you allowed to talk about this? Did you tell us people in the publics or no? How did I miss this? I have no idea. It's amazing. Oh, so cool. Yeah, you know. I mean, I'm not one of these media people who

goes to the White House Correspondents' Dinner and tweets pictures of myself in black tie, that sort of thing, because I don't go. So I never get invited to these things. But you could have tweeted a picture of yourself in your PJs in the Veep suite. I would have appreciated that. I do have pictures from the suite, but not in pajamas. No, there are no pajama pictures. Okay, so.

All right, well, I can't believe I missed it. The digression is over here. So your piece about the wretched Groundhog Day points out, I mean, DeSantis, I've always thought, you and I have discussed this, that DeSantis was, that balloon was way overinflated. But, oh, my God, his mistakes have solidified Trump's frontrunner status, even though he looked like he was this formidable candidate, popular, aggressive, 44-year-old governor. So what has happened to Ron DeSantis and where does that put Republicans who were very, very confident that he was going to be their kryptonite? What's so interesting is we've gone through different stages and there are still these, I don't know if I should call them the declingers or the defluffers, there are still people trying to make Ron DeSantis happen, as you've seen. Eric Erickson is out with a piece saying it's all the media's

fault. They're bashing him because they're just mad that he kickstates away from the media. So they're just mean and they're going to actually cooperate with Trump in just trying to bury Ron DeSantis so Trump can be the nominee because that's better or something like that. And then you have, I see some tweets from different lobbyists and stuff, people still trying to say like, hey, we could give this a shot. Mark Penn has a piece in the Wall Street Journal today talking about how there's still hope for him to turn things around because there's plenty of moderate Republicans who are pro-Ukraine and other things, want to focus on the economy and not so much woke stuff, want to focus on immigration and inflation, and that they could be decisive

in the coalition and help keep Trump back. And of course, you had that Frank Luntz piece from weeks ago, which was just unbelievable about how to, quote, make Trump go away. So there's still, even after he has, like a skunk, sprayed his fear, you know, we can all smell it no matter what state we're in. Even before his crazy man video from Japan, where it looks like it's a deepfake, and he's on some kind of crazy, you know, I don't know, drug. Even before the most recent cringeworthy things, people were just saying, look, this guy is clearly, he didn't really have a long-term plan. He really didn't have a strategy. He's afraid. He didn't think it through. And so what I'm so interested in is that the fact that there are people that still believe it can happen, even as donors are pulling away and

saying, look, I got to keep my power dry. This guy's not showing me what I would need at this point, a plan to take down Trump. He's not showing me that he can go the distance and be the nominee. And as you've pointed out, and I've pointed out, Charlie, even if you're beating him in the polls and you start beating him in Iowa and other states, how do you become the nominee and then win the general if he's going to boycott the election? So we just are beginning to see that he is a little bit of the Wizard of Oz behind the screen here. And I'm going to be fascinated with the announcement of the exploratory committees coming so soon. And he's going to not back down. That's the name of the committee, right? Don't back down or something like that.

Right. He is still, and he's just made it in this commercial where he's like, I never back down. I'm just fascinated to see how he's going to try to project strength and turn things around. To me, and I'm no political strategist, the only thing he could do right now is do kind of a towel throwing in speech or interview where he purposely, obviously takes a sharp turn and tries to speak general election language. And that would soothe the donors, something on abortion or Ukraine or the economy and sort of away from the dizzy stuff. But it just seems really on life support right now. So you mentioned this Frank Lund's column in the Sunday New York Times earlier last month, and he had a formula for how to make Trump go away. He wants Trumpism without Trump, and he advised challengers to be, what, humble, make it about the grandchildren, emphasize.

You support Trump's agenda, but with civility and decency. Do I detect a little bit of skepticism about that advice, the Lentzian advice? Where were they in 2015? So eight years later, we're being told by Frank Lentz, who is a pollster and a focus group maestro, super good friends and ally of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, is writing in the New York Times outlining what I guess Ron DeSantis thought he could do, right? Which is to be like a fighter and an accomplished guy. Ron delivers. He wins. He can also make the liberals cry, but he gets stuff done. And he's not a whiner. And he's going to be civil, I guess, enough.

But Luntz goes on about character and how presidents should be models for their grandchildren. They threw that out eight years ago. And I listen to that. Yeah, we had that argument, yeah. That, to me me was another just a flailing around grasping. I thought it was completely ludicrous. And I was surprised it didn't get more attention for how insane it was. But they just don't know what to say. They're out of things to say about how they move on from Trump, right? They're kind of half in the bag

of accepting it. And then these disustainers or these defluffers who are the declingers that are still hoping Ron can pull it off or trying to explain paths out. If he just turns around and pivots on like inflation and being a family man. Sure, that'll do it. Now we wake up and Trump set to cruise in these early states. He's getting these endorsements. The poll numbers are very strong. He's back on Fox News, right? And give me your sense, though, of the way the media is handling him. Because, you know, by the way, I just cringe when you talk about, you know, eight years ago, we've been doing this for eight years. And I think one of the questions that's been out there, has the Republican Party figured out how to handle

Donald Trump? No. Okay, second question, has the media figured out how to handle Donald Trump? And I think we're getting our answer now. I know that you're working on a piece about how Trump is being normalized. He's back on Fox. He's getting regular interviews. And then we found out yesterday CNN is. CNN town hall for the twice impeached, defeated, now indicted former president who tried to overthrow the government. But he's newsworthy. Yeah. Yeah. Got to give him the town hall, right?

They wooed him in negotiations to rebuild the relationship. He hasn't been on CNN since 2016. And it's going to be a Q&A town hall with undecided Republican voters, I think, at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire. So to me, I'm sure they're going to do their due diligence and have some kind of plan about fact checking or something. But it's going to be an exchange with voters. It's not just Caitlin Collins talking to him the whole time. So I don't know what the plan is. It is an incredible gift to Trump.

And he will, because he's back on Fox News after a soft ban and Mark Levin is now, Mark Levin, you know, months ago was pro-DeSantis. And every time Trump would pick on DeSantis, you know, Mark Levin would be offended and say this isn't helpful, you know, and would tweet about it. You know, they've all come back around, they've given in, and they're going to give him regular air on Fox. And then this idea that he's going to be on CNN, it not only obviously helps him against Ron DeSantis in the meantime, because Ron DeSantis is too scared. And as some of four notes today, the other candidates in the field are too scared to go beyond Fox. They only show up on Fox. So it makes Trump look really tough. But it just obviously the most important thing is that it's going to be a huge advantage for Trump. If the mainstream media affords him this stage and Joe Biden continues to avoid extemporaneous comments, town hall situations where he has to just quickly answer a voter, lengthy press conferences, whatever. It's going to make a huge contrast that's going to favor Trump.

And that contrast has been obvious for the entire term, where Joe Biden clearly does not stand astride the republic in the way that other presidents have. You know, some of us wanted this. We wanted a president who wasn't constantly in our face. We wanted to be able to go through news cycles without thinking about or listening to the president. Well, we got it. We got it good and hard. And as a result, you know, you have a much lower profile president of the United States. And your point here, which I think is really interesting, is if Donald Trump is ubiquitous, if he is everywhere all the time and the media is

going to normalize him and Biden avoids the cameras whenever possible and doesn't speak extemporaneously at all, well, that's going to characterize the political environment of 2024 and not in a good way. Right, because what the electorate at this point is used to is that Trump lies. It's his style. He's an entertainer. he uses his allies say in precise language he's a bluster grabs women by the right isn't it funny like we're used to it he gets so he always gets to be that person where when joe biden goes off on one of his fantasy tales about corn pop or whatever it is going to be fact-checked and it's going to be mocked on right-wing media as, you know, that he has dementia and he doesn't know where he is.

And Joe Biden does avoid access to the press and free-flowing conversations and getting away from the teleprompter for this reason, because he wants his messages to be tightly calibrated and his staff don't want any mistakes. And so, and he's getting older and it's not good for him. And so because Trump has been gone, Charlie, for a few years, the average voter, and I'll mention them again, who's not paying attention to all this stuff, is kind of desensitized. They've kind of forgotten January 6th or they didn't really pay a lot of attention to it. And so this idea that he's like kind of a de facto in the primary, at least, right? In the Republican primary, he's a de facto incumbent. And then you bring him to the general election and he's, you know,

he's going to be a more present ex-president maybe than the current president. And that is a very bad formula for Biden. Well, and then this goes back to how does the media cover him? I'm working through my reaction to what CNN has done, which just feels like it is a throwback. And I understand the argument that, well, look, he's the leading Republican candidate for president. He's one of the most prominent individuals. He's going to be a big ratings win for CNN. And this is what news channels do, right, is they cover guys versus the fact that he's Donald freaking Trump. And we are faced with something that is absolutely unprecedented. And it's one thing for the average disconnected voter to forget about January 6th or forget about all of his lies or to ignore his

insanity or the fact that he actually called for terminating the Constitution or, you know, his kissy face with the white nationalists. But the media has a different role here. And I continue to think that they just have not figured out how to handle this. That's what I assume. And maybe we'll be surprised next week and Caitlin Collins, after each undecided voter asks their questions, will say, I want to remind the audience that this insurrectionist, twice impeached liar, who basically, you know, gave classified information to the Russian ambassador in the Oval Office and took the side of Vladimir Putin over the director of national intelligence is now going to answer a question about blah, blah, blah. I don't,

we don't know how it's going to be handled. So I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt in advance until I see how they handle this. But this becomes the norm where he is just our regular nominee in waiting over here and we have to give him all of this air. They're going to get him elected. We've moved from the wish-gassing people who say, well, there's no way that he'll ever get the nomination to now people saying, well, there's no way that he can win the general election. And as you point out, you know, these poll numbers do have some relevance here. I mean, Biden, you know, does have a higher approval rating than Trump, but, you know, the Washington Post found that across national polls

in 2022, 2023, only 38% of Democrats wanted Biden to be the nominee again, compared to 73% of Republicans in Trump's first term. I mean, this is a problem. People may not want to hear this, but Trump can win this election. If you've been in a grocery store and seen prices, if there is a banking crisis, if we have, you know, more banks fail, if, in fact, the Republicans do, in fact, you know, push this country over the debt limit, if there is a health crisis, there are so many things that can go wrong. And it feels like, I mean, you know, we're all locked into all of this, but at the same time, it's like we're sleepwalking into the same old thing. Do you know what I'm saying? I mean, it's like where half of us are like horrified. We're watching this. We're hanging on everything.

And on the other hand, it's like watching the country just sort of drift into this moment. Yeah, because we are watching it and we're kind of powerless to do anything about it. And so we're hoping once again that Republican elites will take this seriously and not go snooze on the couch and think someone else will take care of them, which is what they've done for eight years. And we can sound the alarm among people who are informed about this and care, but those voters, as I said, who are decisive, who swing elections, who are not partisans, and they're not tribal, they, as you mentioned, life is changing really fast and things cost a lot of money. And it's costing more, and they're really anxious. And again, this sort of prevalence of, you know, Trump being out there saying we had a good economy back then.

He's up by a little bit, half a point in our RCP average of polls over Joe Biden right now. And as you point out, so many things could actually really hinder Biden even more. If you look at the weakness that Biden has across the coalition, it's terrible. The apathy among, you know, Black voters who didn't get police reform or voting rights legislation that who said, you've told me to show up for elections all these years and the Democratic Party has not delivered. That's real feeling and it's growing. So the Latino performance among Republicans, that's durable. Among Asian Americans, that also was, those were good numbers for Republicans in 2022 without Trump. And obviously on the economy, Democrats are way weaker than Republicans.

But just in the Democratic coalition, there's so many weaknesses. They're worried about small donor apathy also. So they're trying to rattle the cages with the big donors and get them excited again. And it's hard to see that who holds the coalition together through what you're describing, a potential recession and everything else. Also, I would mention Ukraine. Even if Ron DeSantis were to be the nominee next summer, Charlie, and he had run on, you know, you know, of course, we oppose the invasion of Ukraine. If that war is a mess, he'll hang it over Biden's neck. No, I think that's true. So let me push back a little bit, find the silver lining.

So let me quote you to you. Okay. What Democrats are counting on, which may save them, is that Trump is a turnout engine for their side. So you're talking about disillusionment, a little bit of apathy. I think some of that has to do with the fact that people in the Democratic coalition have not completely gotten their heads around that it's going to be freaking Donald Trump again, that he's going to be on the ballot and that nothing will stir up the base as much as Donald Trump. So after defeats, the party suffered in 2018, 2020, 2021, all of these areas. They don't need to be told a fifth time unless fate intervenes that Trump is likely a far riskier bet for them than Biden is for the Democrats. And Republican officials and donors agree with this. I mean, Republican officials know after all of those defeats how risky Trump is. And what we have seen is just off the charts turnout among Democratic constituencies like here in Wisconsin, that Supreme Court election. I mean, it's not a presidential election, but they've figured out a formula to do something

that we've talked about for years, but I've never actually seen, that they turned out young voters. The abortion issue is not going away. And so you have Donald Trump on the ballot, you have abortion on the ballot. And so right now there might be a little bit of sleepiness going on among Democrats, but there'll be plenty of time for them to wake up. Agreed, which is why I wrote that. I do think that, you know, Republicans are really worried. And you saw Andy McCarthy out again saying this. I mean, a lot of them will just are saying flatly over and over again, Trump's going to lose. Trump's going to lose. And what I mentioned about the base is that the base is disenchanted. I don't know how they feel next year. Is the former Republicans, suburban women, independent, kind of newly Democrat, anti-Trump voters are definitely going to turn out.

So maybe not black and Latino in numbers that the Democrats hope for. And then I think young people will actually turn out not because of Donald Trump, but because of guns and abortion. And in the past, they haven't. That's right. And actually, their numbers, Charlie, in the midterms were lower than 2018. They turned out more in the midterm of 2018 than this midterm. But substantively, those two issues are really, really energizing them, and they've had it. And I do think in a presidential cycle that we're going to finally see a real arrival of the youth vote because of those two policy issues,

guns and abortion. And again, this is one of those things where it scrambles the electorate. And we've watched the way the electorate changes so dramatically. I mean, from, you know, 2000, think about the last 23 years, what we've seen happening. We have, you know, blue areas become red areas, you know, red areas become purple areas, some red areas become intensely red areas. You have the collapse of white working class, non-college educated voters among Democrats, but then you've had this amazing surge that has sort of disconnected voting patterns from economic status and more closely aligned educational status. If in fact you start having a big youth turnout,

that's not nothing, right? Right. I think that they're mad at Joe Biden on climate. They think he's ancient. They're not as mad at Trump as we are, or not as horrified, but they are so motivated on abortion and mass shootings. If Biden wins, I believe that would be, you know,

what clinched it for him. You know, the young voters, Gen Z is the most pro-choice generation ever. They're likely by the mid 2030s to make up 30% of the electorate. And they voted in the midterms 28 points for Democrats. So if they show up, it's over. But I think if they show up, it's not because of Trump. And it's because they've swallowed their anger on climate and their disappointment. And it's because of abortion on guns. Well, Trump is going to be part of that formula. And I'm thinking of the Electoral College map, because of course, we have to. And we haven't talked about just the crazy extremist factor and what's happening in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. I mean, if the election is decided by those states,

Democrats have an advantage mainly because the Republicans are aggressively losing their minds. I mean, these were competitive states. Look what's happened in Michigan, in Wisconsin. I mean, I actually think that Joe Biden has to be considered the small favorite, again, in Wisconsin. You know, Trump and the Republicans continue to hemorrhage voters in the suburbs, particularly among suburban women. And that's happening in Pennsylvania as well. Can't speak to what's happening down in Arizona because they appear to be completely in the process, the Republicans there, of completely losing their minds. Georgia, the fact that Georgia now has two Democratic senators is still, I think, underappreciated in terms of how mind-blowing that is.

It's true. I worry about Nevada, Georgia, and Arizona. But I do think that the midterms did show that the blue wall is really a problem for Republicans again. So nationally, economy was 31, the top issue, 31%. Abortion nationally was at 27%, four points behind the economy. In Pennsylvania, abortion was the number one issue. You've got a really impressive new governor there, a second term nominated by a landslide

Democratic governor in Michigan, Wisconsin. You know it better than I do. I'm still like, huh. But when you look at the Evers numbers compared to Mandela Barnes, we think, you know what? It was all about Mandela Barnes. And Ron Johnson is just lucky, right? Maybe it's a better state for Biden. But I agree with you on Michigan and Pennsylvania. It's the staying home voters, the ones who hate Trump but are like, I don't know, man, Joe Biden, I just can't do it again.

And they stay home in those key states. It's a little worrisome. And we cannot pretend that that's not going to be a huge issue. I mean, the age issue is, it's a narrative that has taken hold. And it's not a completely, you know, fake narrative. I was impressed with him over the weekend, you know, at the correspondence dinner, you know, that if all you saw were little tidbits on YouTube, you think that the guy, you know, can't put together two coherent sentences. And he's actually, he can exceed expectations, but there's a real risk because none of us are getting any younger.

That's the problem, you know, including Donald Trump, by the way, whose age needs to be, I think, highlighted a lot more aggressively by the Democrats right now, if they want to talk about age at all. Right, because he would be entering the presidency at the age that Biden did, right? 76? He's not a spring chicken. I did think that the White House, whatever writer they found was not on strike, and I thought Biden's bits were awesome. Very funny. The Marjorie Taylor Greene line was just such good, clean fun, but it was so wonderful.

You know, he said, I hope everyone has a good time tonight. And I want them to stay safe, be festive. But if you find yourself confused or disoriented, you're either drunk or you're Marjorie Taylor Greene. I mean, that was world class. It was so funny. And it wasn't below the belt or anything. It was just, it was really good writing. And I do agree that he can definitely perform and exceed expectations. But last night on CNN, Aaron Burnett showed a clip of Joe Biden in a town hall with her in 2019. And he was just visibly so much different. So, yes, you think, what is it going to be like next fall? It's May 2nd, next fall for Joe Biden. We don't know. We don't know.

I mean, he caught a real break in some ways in retrospect during 2020 with the COVID lockdown that he was basically able to stay home. He won't have that ability. But I think that most people, most people, I mean, who knows? To go back to the title of your column, our wretched groundhog day, I think people are going to go through the various stages of recognition. I think that for a lot of people, they just cannot believe we're going to do this again. It's just like, because it's unthinkable, it can't happen. Well, it is going to happen. And then I think there's

going to be that sense of deflation, like, oh my God, we are going to go through this dreaded rematch again. Shoot know, shoot me now. But then again, you know, I think that there will be the, but this is what we got. In my next year, there's going to be a very, very clear sense of what the stakes are going to be. Although, what a tragedy for the nation that we have, you know, these two extremely elderly men holding the banner

when the stakes are so incredibly high. One of them is like legitimately batshit, not just a criminal, but like he's also batshit. And an overt fascist. I mean, he's made no secret of what he will do when he gets back into power. I mean, this is the thing. There's no subtlety here. Right. I know I'm one of your darker guests, so I want to like get back to something positive, which is that, and I'm glad you're doing this pod on Thursdays, which I think is awesome, to really kind of keep track of what we're going to be going through with the future cases.

And there'll be one, at least one more, but potentially three more. Just so mind-numbing. I mean, it's astounding. And I do think that that will trickle out into the public. I mean, those will be far more serious. I do think that will have an effect, whether it will go back and change the minds of the Sarah Longwell focus group double Trumpers who are like, oh, he's too much baggage. We need to find a winner. And now they're sort of coming back around to him and thinking he's really strong. Maybe that sours them. We don't really know.

I don't know that it'll help RhondaSantis, who I think is a mess, but I think with the middle of the electorate, it could do more damage to Trump. Well, I agree. And I think it is the cumulative effect of all of it. But the reason why I wanted to have a designated show is because, you know, the danger is that we become numb to it all, that it becomes the background noise. And, you know, you and I do this every single day for a living. And yet it's still we need to step back and go, okay, can you remind me what's going on in this case or that case? And of course, this is also the need to push back against, you know, the irrational exuberance that sometimes breaks out about small developments that might seem really, really big that in fact

are not really central or core to what's going on here. So, you know, this is going to be the big story of 2023. You know, the election will be 2024, but the biggest story of 2023 will be the multiple felony indictments of the former president of the United States. And I'm leaving aside the civil trial and the fact that this federal jury is going to come back sometime relatively soon about, you know, the E. Jean Carroll, you know, rape allegations and who knows how that plays at all. It is that whole weight of them when you put them all together. But the problem is that we have many of these voters who live in a world where they can pretend none of this exists. They will know nothing about it.

And this is the world we live in. Yeah, that's true. And so we don't yet know how much gets filtered out. And maybe we will just be literally sobbing in a few months over that fact. But in the meantime, what I'm thinking is the average Joe gets an alert on his phone, learns new things from the Mar-a-Lago doc or the January 6th cases, more people indicted in Georgia than we even thought. We learn new details that are pretty dramatic and they pile up to be kind of really interesting, you know. I mean, that I think could produce, like you said, a cumulative effect or a good amount of weight that makes him seem like a lost cause to the middle of the

electorate. We will find out the answer to all of these questions. A.B. Stoddard, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks as always, Charlie. Great to be with you. And A.B. Stoddard is Associate Editor and Columnist at Real Clear Politics. 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. This is an ad by BetterHelp Online Therapy. October is the season for wearing masks and costumes, but some of us feel like we wear a mask and hide more often than we want to.

At work, in social settings, around our family. Therapy can help you learn to accept all parts of yourself, so you can stop hiding and take off the mask. Because masks should be for Halloween fun, not for your emotions. Whether you're navigating workplace stresses, complex relationships, or family dynamics, therapy is a great tool for facing your fears and finding a way to overcome them. If you're thinking of starting therapy but you're afraid of what you might uncover, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited

to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist, and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P, dot com.