The Bulwark Podcast - Adam Schiff and Michael Steele: A Stabilizing Force

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

Tim Walz is a great foil for Kamala's West Coast vibe: He looks like he'll fix your car, then grab an Arby's sandwich before he goes duck hunting. And he's a perfect contrast to JD Vance, the callus-free faux hillbilly who went to Yale. Michael Steele weighs in on the veep pick. Then Rep. Adam Schiff joins Tim Miller to discuss decision to call on Biden to step aside, and "The Biggest Loser: Donald Trump." 

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. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We've got Adam Schiff coming in a little bit, but first, my man, the chairman, former RNC chair and Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele, co-host of MSNBC's The Weekend and host of the Michael Steele Podcast, which is now here on The Bulwark.

One more thing. If you want to see Michael and other MSNBC hosts in person, they got a live event in New York, September 7th at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Tickets are available now. What's up, Chairman? How you doing, man? I'm good, man. It's good to be in your house. How you doing, bro?

It's good to have you. And we're pumped to have the michael steel podcast and the bulwark such a blessing network yeah it's so good and and it's we're crushing on you too it's just the people the people are coming you know we're we're putting out the honey and and the bees are coming you know they're coming they're circling us they're buzzing uh we are taping this mere minutes after kamala harris has announced she's chosen Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her VP pick. So, you know, that's going to marinate over the week. We'll have different thoughts. But I just want to kind of start here and just see what your initial thoughts are on the choice.

Look, you know, it's a very interesting dynamic in a vice presidential selection process where there really was no such thing as a bad pick for her, unlike what we saw play out on the Republican side, where there were good choices and bad choices that could be made. I think for the vice president, knowing her as I've gotten to know her over the years, and certainly knowing what this process requires, I think of all the folks at the table, this is the guy that she connected with the best, a little bit closer to the earth. He's a Minnesotan in so many ways on so many levels, a hunter, grassroots kind of guy. Yes, he's got progressive views on some issues, but okay, so what? That gets washed out in the wash, as they say. At the end of the day, she's going to be

making the calls on what policies are advocated by the administration. But she, I think, found somebody who can go out and take the fight directly to Donald Trump and J.D. Vance and make the case. I mean, remember, this is the guy who, just in the course of a conversation, branded the entire Republican ticket and the MAGA party as weirdos. And that branding is stuck. Oh, chairman, you got to give Tim Walz credit for that. You know, we got to give George W. Bush something. He was dropping that shit back in 2016.

Fair point. Well, let's just say he learned from the best. Okay. But I think it's a good pick for her. And I think it'll work. Yeah. Is there going to be noise about the summer of 2020 and the riots and the burnt buildings under his watch? Sure. But I suspect that that's something they've accounted for in this choice, unlike accounting for, you know, cat ladies by the Trump team, which is a lot easier thing to account for in that

selection. But clearly they didn't. All right. I want to go through each of those things one by one, kind of his personality fit first, then we'll get into the ideology and maybe some of the baggage. The dude is affable. I do think there's a lot that comes to that, right? If you're Kamala Harris, this has been a whirlwind process. And you got this guy coming in that's just cheery.

It's happy. I think that that matters. And I think the other part of his personality, you know, I wrote on, in some ways, there's this parallel to the Obama Biden pick for me, where it's like, you got the top of the ticket. I'm interested in your take on this. You got, you got somebody breaking a barrier at the top of the ticket. First black candidate, you know, with Obama, now first black woman, also of South Asian descent. And it's like, you know, we got to win over these white voters. Who is like the guy that looks the most like he eats at Arby's and knows how to fix my car, you know, and can like talk to folks down home. And I think that like he,

I think that psychologically, that was appealing for them. I agree. And look, you've got this sort of West Coast vibe about her, which obviously that's where she's from, that doesn't necessarily translate across the country as you head towards the East Coast. And so you do need that sort of stabilizing force, which Joe Biden was for Barack Obama, as know, as they as Republicans like to say back in the Barack Hussein Obama. And so you do look for the stabilizers in the relationship, just as Dick Cheney was a stabilizer for for George Bush, you know, Al Gore for Bill Clinton. You know, a lot of times the conversation around a VP pick is, you know, demographically and geographically, what do they bring to the ticket? But at the end of the day, it's who stabilizes the ticket.

And that is something I think is going to be a very important skill set for Kamala as this campaign unfolds over the next 90 plus days. So, yeah, I think that's smart. I think it will play out well for her. It doesn't avoid the traps and the pitfalls that lie ahead. But I think having that RB sandwich and then going shooting, do a little duck hunting or just go hanging out on the back porch, I think he kind of stabilizes that aspect of Americana for her. Yeah, he represented some people. And I know this says district in the house was southern rural Minnesota. Yeah, kind of like the Iowa border, right? Rochester down to a lot of the rural areas was a swing district. It's a Republican that represents seat. Now, the last time he ran there, he only ran one by 2500 votes experience in the army, did veterans was the football coach.

Here's one other thing I think that they're going to try to play up. Let's take a listen to this pro tip from Tim Walls during his last campaign. Hey, everybody. Tim here. 11 days till the election, but that's my pro tip of the day out on the road. I got to show you this. This right here is the headlight harness on a 2014 Ford Edge. Ford, this is unacceptable. It burned out hot on the connector. So for $799 at Napa Auto Parts here in the city, you can replace this. Just clip off the back, use some shrink wrap connectors on there, tape it back together and put it back in.

It's about a five minute fix and you're back on the road safe and sound. So pro tip of the day. Second one is get out and vote. You spend a lot of time at Napa auto parts, Jeremy. I love that. That actually happened to me. I get it. Totally. I totally appreciate that pro tip. Dude, I mean, who has that conversation so seamlessly and so effectively? And voters looking at that and authentically connecting to it. The talent

is clearly there as a politician, but I think the skill set to translate that for everyday voters, the choice is going to be made between Pennsylvania and Minnesota, Michigan, and places in the Midwest. At the end of the day, if you're not going with Josh Shapiro, all right, because he's going to deliver you Pennsylvania, who else can deliver you Pennsylvania? This guy, Tim Walz, will translate in Western Pennsylvania, and he will translate well in Western Pennsylvania, largely because of the thing you noted about his congressional district, its association and closeness to the people in Iowa and other parts of the Midwest that identify with that pro tip. And so, yeah, I love it. And Kamala Harris is not

going to have grease under her fingernails, nor should she, but her VP can. And he does. And I think that that's something that a lot of folks, particularly who are more Trump adjacent, not all in on MAGA, really suspicious about a second term, really bothered by the idea of Joe Biden at the top of the ticket, maybe a little question about Kamala may feel a little bit better knowing that she's got someone who's grounded around her, who can keep her oriented and focused on what's happening in real America, where they have to be concerned about that pro tip versus other parts of the country. You mentioned Shapiro. So let's just talk about, I think, a fair worry that some people have about this choice. Walls ran in Minnesota in the midterm.

Steve Kornacki has a good analysis of this. He didn't actually really overperform that much in rural Minnesota. So again, he represented the district, so he had some experience there. But if you look at his governor race numbers, he didn't overperform in those districts as much as Josh Shapiro did. So that could have been a bunch about Josh Shapiro's opponent, campaign style, national campaigns are different than state campaigns. The word that kept coming up with some people who had concerns

about this ticket for me, the phrase, it was missed opportunity. Do you feel that way? Like there's a, if Pennsylvania is really the key state here, Shapiro had proven it,

walls, the vibes seem good. It seems like it could be good, but like Shapiro did it already. What do you feel about that notion of a missed opportunity yeah I don't think it's a missed opportunity I think that's an overstatement and I you know I noted in a tweet this morning shortly after the pick you know that the the Josh Shapiro hand-wringing has already begun all the

little nervous Nellies about Josh Shapiro would have been the first ones critical of Josh Shapiro as a pick. No, Chairman. I'm sorry, Chairman. I'm sorry. The Wall Street Journal editorial board and these guys weren't going to flip sides if she picked Josh Shapiro? All the money guys are sitting there going, oh, we like him until they don't like him. Right. And so, look, the reality of it is, no, I don't think that that is as dispositive of anything more than anything else.

In other words, I look at this selection and I boil down to two questions. If you don't do Shapiro in Pennsylvania, then who gets you Pennsylvania? That's the bottom line, because Pennsylvania is still in play regardless. And so for whatever reasons and factors, and we know what a lot of them are, and look, this crazy coming out of J.D. Vance's mouth this morning about Democrats being anti-Semitic, which is why they didn't pick Josh Shapiro. Well, then why didn't Donald Trump pick a Jew? Have the Republicans picked any Jewish people ever to be on the team? No, no. They picked no.

Okay, so let's not go down that road. The reality of it is there's a political calculation involved here. What do you give up if you pick Josh Shapiro? What other noise do you create for yourself that you have now had quieted down that you don't need to come back up from young voters out there that you're going to need in this coalition that you have to build? You don't need to have this fight in Michigan where you're already down, where you were down double digits in a state you should have been up double digits. So there are balances in the equation here that have to be accounted for. And it doesn't fit everybody's political recipe. This pick with Walls is the closest to filling all those little

buckets that you need to get something in as part of your recipe to winning. He will help you in Pennsylvania. He will not hurt you. He's not Josh Shapiro, not like the guy who actually owns the home court, but he can play on that court just as effectively when necessary, as well as I think in other places in that sort of seven-bucket battleground state regime. So I'm not worried about that. I think this calculation was a smart one in terms of ultimately, what do we need to get this ticket across the line? And it's got to pull at the heartstrings of middle America. And as you started off the conversation, Tim, this guy is likable. He's likable. And he may help Kamala in areas where

she's less likable. And I think that that in the main, as someone who has done a few campaigns over the years and worked with a few candidates and have had to match up people in races, I think this is going to work. Now, I'm happy to come back on in November and eat my words, but I think this is going to work. I have ability in being a good pair matter matter i kind of thought that she was going to do that she was going to pick bashir because they kind of knew each other but walls has better candidate skills and bashir okay we but we do real talk here i know you do so let's just do here's the little nagging concern the little guy in the back of my head that's like maybe this pick was about affability maybe it was about the you know fixing car parts you know

rural minnesota that maybe it was like that they knew that it would look good at the convention. It will tell on his story, football coach, military, all that. Maybe the left bullied her, though. Just maybe. Is it possible? Because there was a really aggressive campaign coming from the left taking on Shapiro and Shapiro alone. Not Pete, who the left tried to take on in 2020, not Markelly. It was a targeted effort by people, activists, and a small number of politicians in the party.

Is there just any reason to be worried you think that she got a little... No, are these the same people that took out Joe Biden? No, different people. Totally different people. Yeah, maybe different, but the same. The influence and the consequence was the same in that regard. I don't think that in the main, that was the ultimate effect on this choice, was that there's somehow this progressive cabal led by Bernie Sanders or, you know, from the Republican perspective, George Soros, who is the demigod of evil for everything inside the Democratic Party. I don't buy that from the folks I've talked to and what I know inside the various tents that are camped outside the campaign, that that played the way a lot of folks would like to write the narrative politically. There

were other decisions and other aspects of this decision which were much more problematic than a progressive assault on Josh Shapiro relative to Gaza and Palestine. It was a factor. There's no doubt about that. It is a consideration among other considerations. But there's a totality of the narrative that you're going to roll out, and then there's the consequence of that narrative when people start picking it apart and chewing on it. And then you ask yourself, which one do you choke on as the candidate in the campaign? And you will choke less on this narrative than you will on some others. And so I think that at the end of the day. This pick for me, Tim, shows a level of wisdom that oftentimes gets lost when crunched up against other political realities and people panic and they overreact,

in some cases underreact. I think that there was some wisdom here. And why I say that? Because a lot of the headlines this morning also betray the fact that he was not who they thought would be the guy. You had a lot of conversation, obviously, about Shapiro, a lot of conversation about Mark Kelly, some about Bashir, whom I liked as well. Waltz was just in the background. It says a lot to me that someone had the wisdom, and I will give that credit to the vice president as we should, because it was her pick, to look at this through a different lens and come to a different decision than what the insiders who always know so much more about what you should do than you do. All right. I want to do just two other things on

walls really quick, just on ideology. He was in the middle of the caucus when he was in the House. As governor, though, he's had a pretty progressive record. Universal free school meals, legal weed, carbon free electricity by 2040, 12 weeks paid family leave, 12 weeks paid sick leave. And none of this stuff is socialism, but he went through a progressive tick list since he's been governor. But I want to listen. Here's Nancy Pelosi on Morning Joe this morning talking about her view of his ideology. Tim Walz is wonderful. And she had many good choices among the six and certainly among the two. I'm a big fan of Governor Shapiro. Tim Walz, I know very well. He served in the House. To characterize him as left is so unreal. It's just not what the question is. He's right down the middle. He's a heartland of America Democrat. And he was the chair of our

Veterans Affairs Committee. And I don't want anybody to forget that because he made tremendous, tremendous gains for our veterans. Working with our folks on the Appropriations Committee and with the Speaker, we made more progress than had ever been made in the history of our country since the GI Bill under his leadership. 25 years in the National Guard, longest serving non-commissioned officer ever served in the Congress of the United States. So he brings the security credential, he brings the rural credential, and he will do well in rural America. And Vince, I can tell you, are you worried about the progressive record as governor? I'm not. I think the progressives are aligned with this choice. I don't think that they're

going to be outdone by it. And I don't think the fact that you support weed is a progressive issue. I'm sorry. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of half this stuff I agree with. I'm just saying he took through, I didn't even make it through all of it. You know, a lot of progressive agenda items. Yeah, but I know a whole lot of conservatives who smoke weed. So, okay, there's that. So, the reality of it is, I mean, that, you know, we want to term certain issues a certain way, and he's going to have to address that. And I'm sure he's prepared to do that and has already started to do so in some of his early responses from weeks ago when his name popped up. You know, his Jake Tapper conversation is a good example of his sort of, oh, yeah, feeding kids lunch is, yeah, that's progressive. I mean, we sound stupid sometimes when we play this stuff back and start trying to put it in a bucket. I think conservative kids like to eat school lunch and breakfast too. So, you know, cause their mamas and daddies are in hard times, but that's what I think is going to be interesting, Tim, is that how much does this

ticket reshape the way we talk about some of these issues with a guy like him in the conversation? And that's what I'm looking to see play out. I mean, you and I have been in enough rooms along the spectrum of Republicans to know what's bullshit and what isn't, right? And appreciate the sort of finer edges of how people live out their lives. Now, I think some of that conversation between the two vice presidential campaigns, right? For example, the hillbilly versus the T-150 guy. I love the J.D. Vance.

I feel I've failed as a podcast host by not bringing up the J.D. Vance contrast is so delicious. It's my favorite part of the pick. It's like this fake hillbilly who was a VC and went to Yale and lived outside of Dayton, really, when he grew up. And he doesn't have a single callus on his hands against Tim Walls. That's going to be delicious. It's going to be delicious. And you're just going to be, you're going to be all over that conversation. And I think that that's what's going to be fun

and interesting about how both of these campaigns prosecute their narratives to the middle of the country, because that's where this election is going to be won. And it's going to be won among 50 to 60,000 Americans who happened to decide the last week of the campaign who they're going to vote for. Are you worried about the Minnesota, the 2020 riot stuff coming up? That's my other worry. I only worry about stuff when I worry about how people going to talk about it. And I'm not sure yet. I have not heard the governor address that in this context. I've heard him address it in the context as governor during the time, which may or may not, you know, cut the mustard. But as a vice

presidential candidate, it'll be interesting to hear how they have that conversation. It will have to be addressed. You know, big parts of downtown burned under his watch. And so he's got to have a response to that because, you know, you've got folks out here already saying, you know, with images of buildings on fire, this is what, you know, Harris-Waltz wants to bring to every city in America. Well, okay, that and, you know, a bucket of spit can put out the fire, right? I don't know. What are you telling me? So the reality of it is, yes, that is a concern. But again, I cannot help but think, Tim, that you know that going into this and you don't have a response ready, you're not prepared to address that as a campaign or as a candidate, either presidential or vice presidential, then why did you pick him? If you know that that's going to be part of the conversation, if you were that deaf,

dumb, and blind to it, then that says more about the choice than the actual choice. So I think that they're going to be ready for that. We know it's coming. It already is. I'm only curiously nervous because I have not seen it addressed in this new capacity yet. So we'll see how they roll that out. He did activate 7,000 troops in the Minnesota National Guard, the largest deployment of the state's forces since World War II. So he did something. He did something.

We're not going back. That's the thing that mostly worries me. We're not going back. That's what she said. So I don't want to just get bogged down in that. That worries me. Okay, final Tim Walz fact. Then I got one Trump thing for you.

I'll let you go. Are you ready for this fast fact what's that just brace yourself okay tim wallace is younger than brad pitt damn damn well it says a lot about hollywood makeup yeah i don't know he's not doing that moisturizing that you and me are doing i don't think i'm in minnesota he's got to find that moisturizer all right last thing i got to do this before we go i'm surprising you with this yesterday uh donald trump did an interview a live stream with this guy aiden ross who if you don't know god bless you uh he's 23 years old he's a mega live streamer most of his audience are teenage boys we're gonna have to have a longer conversation about this, Chairman, at another date.

We've got to first prioritize this election, then we've got to start talking about what's happening with the teen boys out there. But I'm not going to play a clip from the interview with Trump because it was so boring, but just to get a sense for the idiocracy that we're heading to, this is Aiden Ross earlier this year responding on his live stream to somebody calling him a fascist. What does a fascist mean? It means you are a far right authorization on you. The U.S. Ultra, ultra, ultra, oh my God. Ultra analyst, analyst, political ideology movement characterized by dictator leadership, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression, suppression of opposition.

So I don't know what that means, right? I swear to God. I don't know what the fuck a fascism is. I don't know what the fuck that is. Benito Mazzulli and Javionte Genital and Jason Stanley. Who the fuck are these people, bro? Never heard of my fucking life.

Oh my God. That person got an exclusive interview with Donald Trump yesterday. Yeah, so we just you just played that clip and you're good. I mean, you don't. Seriously? Okay. First off.

Damn, you dumb, bro. 23? Seriously. Woo! I do a Google, all right? He was trying. No, but start with Google pronunciations. Just start there.

Just put the word in and have it say it back to you. So you know, Mussolini, not muscle, whatever you were trying to say. Dude, seriously. And Donald Trump, see, but that tells you everything you need to know right there, the unseriousness of a guy like Donald Trump. It's all about the theatrics, the people who pour love onto him, no matter how damn dumb they are, because they obviously can't be smarter than him. Boy, we're in a dark place. Hector Mountain Dew Camacho is going to be the

president soon. I don't know, man. We got to be these guys. That guy's going to be the secretary of the treasury in 2028 if we don't get our shit together, chairman. Tim with the mic drop. All right. Michael Steele. Go check out his podcast on the Bulwark Network. We're crushing it right now. We're so happy to have him in the family. Watch the weekend.

Go see him live if you want to be in New York on September 7th. Up next, Adam Schiff. I appreciate you, sir. We'll see you soon. Love you, brother. Take care now. Hey, everybody. I taped this interview with Congressman Schiff on Monday evening. I think he dropped a little hint about who he thought the VP might be if you listen closely to his answer on Tim Walls, but we get into a bunch of other interesting issues and topics including our love of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the machinations that she may or may not have been engaging in behind the scenes. So it is a good one.

Here he is, Congressman from Greater Los Angeles. He's also the Democratic Senate candidate in California. He's running against 1970s baseball player Steve Garvey. And of course, you may remember that he was the lead impeachment manager during Donald Trump's first impeachment. Congressman Adam Schiff, enjoy. How you doing, Congressman? I'm good. Great to be back with you. I'm just so excited to have you. I want to just put my cards on the table here at the start. You know, that's important as an interviewer. We have some policy disagreements, of course, but there were two times this year where you really impressed me. The first was when you

spoke out against the anti-Semitic protests of the Gaza war while in a Democratic primary, jungle primary in California, that you still won or finished in the top two. And then just recently, right when the pressure on President Biden's step aside was easing following the failed assassination attempt on Trump, you were the first after that to speak out and you took heat for that. So that's two times you've been taking heat from the home team when I think you're on the right side of it. So I just want to talk about both of those. Why did you feel good about speaking out about some of the troubling aspects of the protest during that primary? Well, I feel a personal obligation to

speak out whenever I see anti-Semitism rear its ugly head. And all too often, we have seen this dramatic explosion of anti-Semitism at home and around the world. Just the latest demonstration, I don't know if you saw this, Tim, but somebody painted the statue of Anne Frank, painted her hands red as if she had blood on her hands over a war that was decades after she perished during the Holocaust. She had no connection to the Israeli government, obviously, no connection to Bibi Netanyahu, no connection to anything having to do with the war, but she was a Jew. And that was all the connection that was necessary. Hard for me to see that as anything other than anti-Semitism. And so, you know, whether it's acts like that desegregation of cemeteries, whether it's kind of pro Hamas language on some of the college campuses, the intimidation of Jewish students, I'm going to speak out. And I have, I'll continue to and feel very strongly about it.

And I think really falls on all of us in the Jewish community, outside the Jewish community to condemn that kind of hate and really all forms of hate. Obviously, I completely agree with that. And I think for me, the lesson and it ties to, you know, kind of the pushback following, you know, the comments about President Biden, which were, I think, clear-eyed about the challenge that the Democrats were facing at the time, came from these loudest possible voices. And I just kind of wonder, like, as a member, as a representative, how do you balance, you know, like taking feedback from constituents versus trying to weed out, you know, whether

there's just one group that's very loud on social media or just kind of very loud and they're protesting at events? Well, you know, you mentioned a couple of the statements that may have gone against the grain with some of the members of the party. The other being about Joe Biden. Let me start with Joe Biden's approach to this war, which I think laudably was to try to figure out what's the right answer here? What's the right thing the United States should do? What should we say? How do we defend Israel? How do we do everything we can to bring about a resolution of this war that leads to a regional lasting peace? He did not approach this, has not approached this from the point of view of what's the politics of this? How do I deal with the politics of this? And then I'll adapt the policy approach I take to the politics. And we started by asking what's the right answer here? What should I be doing? And he did it. You know, he went to the Middle East during the first week of the war,

when it was widely believed that Israel had bombed a hospital in Gaza, when of course, it turned out to be Islamic Jihad that had bombed the hospital. But a lot of presidents, other presidents would have canceled the trip. Arab leaders were already pulling out of it. But he didn't. And, you know, my approach, honestly, has been much the same. And that is, you know, this is an issue of life and death. This is an issue of a horrible act of terrorism and hate against the people of Israel, a war that was not chosen by Israel. And we have a duty to defend our ally in a democracy. But I approach this with compassion towards innocent Palestinians that are caught in the conflict. I don't think it's incompatible with human nature to be concerned about any loss of innocent life.

But, you know, continue to try to figure out, OK, what's the right thing? I'll deal with the consequences later. Moving to the other case I was referencing, Ike, that had to be tough on you. What made you decide to speak publicly? And I know that your view, you know, in those days leading up to President Biden making the decision that he was going to step aside was pretty prevalent in private among Democrats. But, you know, there was a period where folks were cautious. They didn't, I don't know, they didn't want blowback, maybe. They didn't want to offend the president, conscious. They didn't want blowback, maybe.

They didn't want to offend the president, maybe. They didn't want to offend their own supporters. What was that decision process like for you to decide to say, hey, I think we need to do what's best here for the party in the country? Well, it was really hard, and it was hard because I have such enormous respect for President Biden. I think he's been one of the most incredible presidents of my lifetime. What he's achieved in one term rivals what any have achieved in two. But I was increasingly

worried that he was not going to be able to prosecute the case against Donald Trump with the vigor necessary to succeed. And after having worked so hard to hold Trump accountable for his many abuses of power, his criminality and corruption, you know, if I felt I was doing anything less than doing everything possible to keep him out of the Oval Office again, I think I would look back with regret that I should have said something, I should have done something that I could see, you know, a potentially terrible election outcome on the horizon. So I began by appearing on Meet the Press and urging the president to talk to people outside

of his circle that he respects and admires, talk to pollsters that are not his own, make an informed judgment, and that I was confident that when he did that, he would do what he always did, which is make the decision in the best interest of the country. And that ultimately was exactly what he did. And it's an extraordinary thing that he did. And I want to point out too, just how extraordinary it is by contrast with what we have seen so often in the Congress in the last eight or 10 years, and that is the utter capitulation of principle, of oath of office, of public interest in the service of ambition. J.D. Vance, kind of front and center, exhibit A, someone who called Trump

a potential Hitler, unfit for office, a cultural opioid, decided to join the unfit ticket. You know, Vance is so exemplary of the phenomena we see all the time now, which is this craven capitulation to this most unethical of former presidents. And what Joe Biden did, that selfless act, is in such sharp contrast that it really, I think, just burnishes Joe Biden's legacy even more. Totally agree with all that. Totally agree with the contrast. But, you know, just between you and me and our listeners, does Nancy Pelosi, do we need to send her a Jenny's ice cream or anything? Does she need to get a bonus medal or anything? Well, I have to tell you that I enjoyed reading all the commentary while this was going on, in which some pundits or other insiders said that Adam Schiff's lips may be moving, but it's Nancy Pelosi's voice. Or my favorite, which was that

I was deployed by Nancy Pelosi like a drone, like an armed drone. I told the speaker thereafter, I don't know how I feel about being referred to as a drone. But if I was going to be a drone for anyone, I would be a drone for you. The reality is, in terms of my own role in this, I made an independent judgment about it. I actually didn't speak to the speaker before I issued the statement I did. And I will leave it to the speaker to discuss her private discussions with the president or other members. I can tell you that I was hearing from a lot of my colleagues who are in tough races, tough Senate races, tough House races, who felt being pulled down by the weight of gravity. And I also felt that I could speak out about this when a lot of

my colleagues either couldn't or wouldn't. And so that I could be a voice for those in the party that thought that passing the torch would just burnish the president's legacy even further. And now seeing this outpouring of enthusiasm, excitement, surrounding Kamala's campaign is really just wonderful and exciting to see. I assume you've got to know the vice president quite a bit. I mean, obviously, both California, both have been there for a while. Is there something about her campaign or, you know, about that she brings that is unique, that, you know, has impressed you over the years or something you're most excited about thinking about Kamala at the top of the ticket? You know, I think she really brings that kind of energy, new ideas, new thinking of another generation into this race.

And it has completely flipped the script in so many ways on Trump and the Trump campaign. He is the old throwback in this race. He's the one who wants to move the country back. He's the one who can't relate to, you know, sort of anyone under 70. And I think her experience as a prosecutor, as our attorney general, is quite relevant to a lot of the public safety concerns that people have. Her job as a senator, and she and I interacted most over intelligence community issues when she was on Senate Intel and I was chairing House Intel. So I've had a chance to see her up close and personal, to see the way her mind works, to see her devotion to our national security and to our public safety. And so I'm excited. I'm not surprised at what a great campaign she is already running. And most particularly, I've always felt this election was going to be decided

by young people in one of two ways, young people turning out to vote or young people staying home. And now I think young people suddenly find they have a reason to turn out and a reason to be interested in what's more. Some even have a reason to think politics is cool, which we haven't seen really since the Obama years. So really, I think she brings so much to the table. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned her experience on the Intelligence Committee. I think that's maybe where she's the most underrated right now about how serious she's been on a lot of foreign policy issues. Maybe hasn't gotten as much credit for that. We're doing Veep stuff right now. So we're taping this Monday evening. This will air Tuesday afternoon. So my guess is that we'll know who the

VP is by the time that this podcast airs. So I'm just wondering and looking at the two people who, according to reporting, maybe this is wrong. There have been head fakes before in Veepstakes, but assuming it's Governor Walls of Minnesota or Governor Shapiro of Pennsylvania, just wondering what you think either of them would bring to the ticket. Well, first of all, since this is likely to air after the choice has been made, let me just say I knew it. I knew it. I totally knew it, but I just couldn't say it. I think they both bring incredible strengths. I was just on a Zoom with Tim Walls, and I was really impressed.

And this sort of goes to, I think, the heart of his strength with how he responded on the issue of abortion and reproductive freedom, which I think a lot of men in discussing, it doesn't come naturally to them. Sometimes it seems forced. But here was Tim, and I think it was in reference to this issue, saying, you know, here in Minnesota, and I won't do it as well as Tim did. But here in Minnesota, you know, we have a saying, mind your own damn business. You know, this is not something that the state or politicians or government should be involved in deciding. This is, you know, what a woman should be deciding. And it was just so authentic and so relatable and comfortable. And I think he brings that kind of Midwestern character that has enamored him of Minnesotans, but also people throughout the Midwest, that would be a great asset on the ticket.

Josh Shapiro brings other tremendous strengths. Obviously, super popular governor of maybe the most important state among the battleground states, Pennsylvania. He's been a successful governor with a divided legislature. He's got a razor sharp intellect. He's great on the stump. So, I mean, even if he delivered nothing more pennsylvania that's worth the price of admission so he's a great choice and i like them both i think you can't go wrong there and i love how there was already this tremendous momentum behind the vice president and now with this announcement there's going to be a new jolt of energy and momentum leading up to the convention. There's some on the left that are saying Shapiro would be a divisive pick. I got into a little

exchange, a well-intentioned exchange with Mehdi Hassan about this earlier today, saying he's concerned that it would be divisive, that there'd be backlash against Josh Shapiro because some of his statements about Gaza. I disagree with that. I don't think it'd be particularly divisive, but I'm not a Democrat. I'm a former Republican. You're a Democrat. What say you? Are you concerned at all about, you know, potential brush blowback among maybe some of those young voters you mentioned earlier if Shapiro's the pick? I'm really not concerned about it. And I think some of those that are saying it would be divisive are saying they're going to make it divisive. It won't be divisive unless people choose to do so. And that would be so self-destructive.

I think given that we have such a profound opportunity with this new top of the ticket to really move the country forward. And this is such an incredibly, incredibly existential election. We need to be all together on this. And what's more, Josh Shapiro's positions on the war in Gaza are really no rather than going after any other choices. And it's hard for me to attribute that to things apart from his being Jewish and being held to a double standard. You know, I think among the Jewish members of Congress, I can probably speak, I think, for most of my colleagues who feel that on many occasions, we've been held to a very different standard, subject to that old stereotype of dual loyalty and that kind of thing. And given the similarity in positions between Josh Shapiro and the other candidates or potential candidates for vice president, I think these

attacks on him are wholly unwarranted and are applying that pernicious double standard. All right. I want to hit on a couple of policy issues before I lose you. Just before we get on today, there were attacks on the U.S. Al-Assad airbase in Iraq. I think there's some assumptions that those are Iranian proxy attacks. But at this moment, the intelligence is not out on that. I'm curious your thoughts on whether the Biden administration has taken a tough enough line on Iran and the unrest that we're seeing and the threats that we're seeing from Iran over the last few weeks. I think the president has handled this about as well as you can handle it because on the one hand, you want to do everything to deter Iran. You want to respond to any kind of attack or provocation. You want to support Israel and have Israel's back.

But you also want to take every step you can to avoid this becoming a regional conflagration. That's not in anyone's interest, not in the United States' interest. It's certainly not in Israel's interest. If Iran, Hezbollah open up a northern front in the north of Israel, that's going to be cataclysmic. Israel is already stretched thin, arguably to the breaking point, dealing with this incredibly difficult urban tunnel warfare in Gaza. To have a full-fledged conflict with Hezbollah, which has much more precision weapons, let alone

with Iran, is something to be avoided. So it's a, you know, it's a difficult line to walk. And I think the administration has done it about as well as you can possibly do it. We will have to respond to this attack on our people. We're going to defend our people. I don't know enough, except the public reports at this point to have a sense of was this ordered by Iran? Is this an Iranian proxy sort of acting on its own? I think there is an interest in Iran and also not escalating to a full out war with Israel. But I'm going to await further information before I make any judgment about it yeah listen do you give that answer i i just i'm always slapping myself i just can't help but do the george w bush iran pronunciation of iran and you know uh it's just i'm a i'm a 2000s you know what can i say it's uh i i just asked for the mercy of the court on that one i look back uh almost fondly to those days of nuclear strategery. My favorite was when Will Ferrell reprised his role as George W. Bush during, I think, the first few months of the Trump presidency, and he walks onto the set of Saturday Night Live,

and the first thing he says is, So, how do you like me now? Those days do look quaint compared to the present. Okay, I'm losing you in three minutes. So just rapid fire. You took a shot at J.D. Vance and the Republicans on this child tax credit this week. Just what a disaster from these guys to claim that they are the ones fighting for these families and attacking childless cat ladies, and they can't extend the child tax credit. It's so true. I mean, when we double the size of the tax credit, we lifted 40% of the kids in the country who were in poverty out of poverty.

The Republicans wouldn't let us extend it, and millions fell right back into poverty. That's just heartless and cruel. And, you know, it should tell us something. Some of the solutions to poverty are not rocket science, but they are policy decisions that we're making or not making. And Vance and the Republicans are making the wrong decisions. Every time I have a California person on, I got to ask them, why can't California build more houses? You know, this is a Democrat only state. This is your guys' mess. You're running for Senate.

What's the problem? Well, you're absolutely right. And this is the top issue of my Senate campaign. And that is I'm out there making the case that we need to build hundreds of thousands of new units every year. In terms of what the federal role can be, we can vastly expand the low-income housing tax credit. But at the state and local level, we're going to have to make it easier to build. We're going to have to get to yes faster. We're going to have to bring the cost down. And bringing the cost down means bringing the timeline shorter. And I want to see the federal government do everything it can to incentivize local government to make

these approvals or make these decisions in much more rapid order, because it's, you know, for some cities, costing a million dollars a door to build affordable housing. And we're never going to solve the problem if we're spending a million dollars a door to build housing. Amen to that. All right, Donald Trump's called you out of nicknames. Do you got one name for him before I let you go? Well, after November, more appropriately than ever, biggest loser. All right. Thank you to Congressman Adam Schiff running for Senate in California. Check out his campaign website. Support him if you're out there in California. We appreciate you coming on the podcast. We'll talk to you soon, sir. Talk to you soon.

Thanks so much to Congressman Adam Schiff and the chairman, Michael Steele. Make sure you've subscribed to the Michael Steele podcast on your app of choice. We'll be back here tomorrow for more walls analysis and a deep dive into Donald Trump's time in exile in Mar-a-Lago. We'll see you all then. Peace. Thank you. The roots had the marvel of the proof being you'll find it's glowing Stoning up the clues it had it's sudden blue growths through by show Settle past the patience where wishes and your will are spilling pictures Water's running through the valley Where we go to write description

The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brough.