The Bulwark Podcast - Amanda Carpenter: A Life or Death Bet

Episode Date: July 12, 2024

Not having dementia is not enough to change the dynamic. Biden needs a proactive message against Trump. Meanwhile, you don't have to play 'Connect the Dots' to see the overlap between Project 2025 and Trump—and members of the media claiming he has a 'new tone' are like frogs in boiling water. Plus, more from the mailbag. Amanda Carpenter is back with Tim Miller for the weekend pod. show notes: Tim's playlist The Authoritarian Playbook for 2025

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I'm your host, Tim Miller, and thank God I've got Amanda Carpenter here today. I'm going to need her. She's a writer and editor at Protect Democracy, a cross-partisan group dedicated to defeating the authoritarian threat. She used to be my colleague here at the Bulwark. She's also the co-author of Protect Democracy's report, The Authoritarian Playbook for 2025, that looks at Project 2025. So we're going to talk about that quite a bit. But you know, I think we got to talk about the press conference first. How you doing, Amanda? I'm doing pretty well. I think it's more important to see how you're doing this morning after watching the press conference. Not great. I have to say, I know that this is supposed to be the place where we kind of remind

each other that we're not the crazy ones, to borrow a phrase, but I feel like I'm losing my fucking mind. Just with the response to that press conference last night, I feel like i'm losing my fucking mind um just with the response to that press conference last night i feel like i'm losing my mind and you know so maybe you can be in my bulwark my anchor that brings me back to sanity today so let's just start first with uh what were your big picture impressions well you know listening to it without getting into all the questions about his. No need to do the figure skating judging side of things. Just fundamentally, how do you think his message was?

I really felt appreciative for this position that he has taken on Ukraine. And he's saying all the right things. Like, it's hard to listen to, but like, he is saying all the right things. And so what I wish were happening is that other Democrats would show the appreciation for how he's steered the ship thus far when it comes to standing up for democracy. He's saying all the things that we talk about constantly about how Trump represents an authoritarian threat and he's bringing together their allies. And so without thinking too much about the big question i had a lot of appreciation well that's good so i'm happy and so i want you to keep trying i want you to help me feel appreciation i know that this is supposed to be a situation where i interview you but since we're old pals i feel like i want to walk you through this yeah i

want to hear where you're at and figure out where we are going from here. Yeah, on this topic, I got to vent a little bit because maybe some of the listeners didn't punish themselves for the press conference last night. I just want to pull one clip from it. Are you thinking that way about how the next two weeks go? Will that affect your decision? Or are you fully determined on running in November as the party's nominee? I'm determined on running, but I think it's important that I lay fears by letting them see me out there. Let me see them out. For the longest time it was, Biden's not prepared to sit with us unscripted. Biden's not prepared in any way. And so what I'm doing is that i've been doing i think we've done over 20 major events from wisconsin to north carolina to anyway to demonstrate that i'm going out in the areas where we think we can win we can persuade people to move our way or people already there

oh okay um it's just i just need you to sit there and just smile at me for a second. Try to send me calming energy while I give my views on this. Because there are other clips, though I think that's pretty representative of the kind of pacing and tone that he had. And messaging and thought fragments and the anyways. And, you know, we had Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC last night saying, you've never seen a more masterful televised presidential press conference on foreign policy than President Biden gave tonight. I'm like, what are we grading this on? The stakes here are that we need somebody that can beat Trump. So if you're going to grade this on, did Joe Biden seem like he had dementia

last night? I would say, oh, no. It was true that he answered foreign policy questions with some depth. He demonstrated that he knew the players, that he understood kind of how the map works together and how China and Russia play off off each other it was pretty good it was fine i was i don't think it was the most masterful thing i've ever heard about foreign policy i don't know that it was more masterful than what you hear on shield of the republic here on the bulwark every weekend um it was fine or what george hw bush or others would say about foreign policy it was it was okay so that's what we're grading him on like does he seem like he has dementia like it seems like no right and i think i mean that's good uh there grading him on. Does he seem like he has dementia? It seems like no.

And I think that's good. There's some people out there I think were worried that he couldn't do the job of president right now. There were some rumors, some gossip mongering out there about him, that they're at the Weekend at Bernie's thing. It's not Weekend at Bernie's. So that's good. But is that really what we're grading him on right now?

What we need is somebody that can beat Trump. And that audio that I just played, it's not coherent. Like it is, he doesn't have a message. He can't speak clearly and enunciate the stakes and the contrast and why he would be better and why Donald Trump would be worse. You know, we've done some media training in our days, right, Amanda? Some normals might say to me, well, Tim, he wasn't asked about that. It's like, that's the first thing you train the candidate to do,

right? Like you get asked by a reporter, your campaign sucks, the polls suck. You satisfy that question and then you steer it to why actually what's more important here is that Donald Trump fucking sucks and he wants to be an autocrat and I'm the one standing in his way and I'm going to take it to him and the American people deserve somebody better than Donald Trump. I feel like he doesn't do that. Yeah. Right. Here's the problem about the situation that we are all in. It's not just that Joe Biden finds himself in. The fact that we are judging his potential candidacy on one press conference is kind of bananas. Additionally, we are being told that that was a masterful performance. Like even if it was, accept that idea. That doesn't make the bad performance go

away. And so if people want to go forward with this, you have to be willing to accept his worst, right? Because that will probably happen again. And what was weird this morning is that I heard Ron Klain on Morning Joe promise, use the word, I promised he will be better at the next debate. There won't be a repeat performance of the first one. Factually, that is not a promise that anyone can make for Biden. That is not a promise that Biden can make for Biden, because if he was going to show up better, he would have the first time. And so, if you're going to go forward, don't have this fanciful idea that everything will be perfect from now on, right? That's the first problem. The second problem is that the damage is done.

The polling is the polling. A press conference isn't going to change the polling that came about from the first bad debate. And so this kind of waffling and promising things will get better, I think isn't being realistic with people. And I love Ron Klain. And I love his passion. And he's fighting for his guy. And I think that he actually was a good influence on Biden in the first administration in a lot of ways, you know, based on my understanding of getting him to focus more on inflation and on pocketbook issues, in addition to the democracy questions. I love Ron Klain. This is not like a personal attack on him. But it's like, not only can he not make that promise that Joe Biden will be better in September, but it's like unfair to

all of us. It's unfair to the American people given the stakes to like pretend you can make that promise, right? Because that's where we're going. We're making a life or death bet on 81 year old Joe Biden doing better next time. When the pressure is going to be higher than the pressure that any politician has ever had in any debate really honestly in american history i mean maybe the 1960 debate but going back to the televised debates i going back to kennedy nixon like there will not be a higher stakes debate than that than the one in september and it's like you promise that he's going to be better okay but like i didn't see last night somebody that was demonstrating that they can go toe-to-toe

to Trump and make strong arguments. He had one good moment, I thought, during the press conference. One. The very end, an hour in. By the way, he said that his vice president is Trump and that Zelensky is Putin. I don't even really care about those two gaffes, but it's worth mentioning that on TikTok, those have millions of views right now. And his long answer to David Sanger about the Russo-Sino relationship is not going to have the same amount of reach. So it's just worth being honest with ourselves

about that. Actually, let's just listen to what I thought was Joe Biden's best moment from the press conference last night. Control guns, not girls. I mean, the idea we're sitting around this, where Kamala's so good as well, we're sitting around more children are killed by the bullet than any other cause of death. The United States of America, what the hell are we doing? What are we doing? We've got a candidate saying, promise nra don't worry i'm not going to do anything i'm not going to do anything you got a supreme court that is what you might call the most conservative court in american history this is ridiculous there's so much we can do still

and i'm determined to get it done okay i was angry was angry. Joe Barnett saying they want to control girls, not guns. Right. Like, and, and that's a good message. Is it his core message of this campaign? I try.

Wouldn't, wouldn't be the one that I would pick, but at least you saw vigor and energy. And it's like, these fuckers want to let, you know, schools get shot up. And meanwhile,

they want to control the choices of young women that were raped by their uncle. All right, that's a good contrast. And he delivered it okay. You know, there needs to be so much more of that if you're going to try to win people back. I just didn't see somebody that was up for that. So anyway, do you have any other final thoughts on that? Not final thoughts, but more questions for you.

Like, I understand that you don't think Joe Biden is fit, but procedurally, like, how do you want this to be unwound? Because there's going to be many more discussions about this over the weekend. You know, this is essentially a make or break time for him. So if you were advocating that Biden be replaced, what is your ideal process for doing so? There's a competitive thing.

There's like maybe, you know a head of this virtual roll call they're going to have that the delegates all get on board behind someone else. What is your ideal scenario? And I think we need to walk through those in order to make an informed decision to take a position to promote. That's all. Yeah. All right. Just to be clear, I think that he's fit to be the president right now. There is a category of people, I think even Democrat Marie Glusenkamp Perez, who I like, I had her on the podcast a while back, said that she thinks he should step down as president. I think that was going overkill. I think that's kind of based on these anonymous source stories. I don't know. The man did not look like somebody last night that

couldn't be the president right now. I mean, he managed the NATO meeting. You know, the other leaders clearly have some worries about Trump and worries about whether he's fit for this campaign. Okay. So in your world, like what does he say to say, okay, I am withdrawing my candidacy for president, but I intend to fulfill my term because X, Y. What is the story that he tells people to make this okay? And so it's not some big cover-up conspiracy. I know it's tough. And I think it's particularly tough because of the messaging that they've put on this right now, that the people want him and the elites are trying to push him out, which is just not true. There was a poll that came out, I don't have it in front of me, so I forget if it was Pew or YouGov.

They're asking people, do you want both candidates to drop out one or the other? And, you know, all the Democrats want Trump to drop out, same. But there were more Republicans that wanted Biden to stay in than Democrats. It's like this notion that like grassroots Democrats really want Biden to stay in is just belied by the data. So anyway, what I would like to see in my imaginary world is Joe Biden to say, hey, look, I said I was going to pass the torch. I've heard from the Democratic base. I've heard from the American people. There are concerns that I'm going to be able to do this job in four years. I'm confident that I can do this job right now. You saw it with NATO. You've seen me act. But I think it is time for the Democratic Party to go another direction.

And then the question is, does he then endorse the vice president or leave it open for a short process where the delegates decide? I'm open to either of those. I think we've seen the vice president in the last week, and she was on fire last night. And Kamala Harris was really good in driving the negative contrast measures in prosecuting the case against Project 2025 in Greensboro yesterday. Joe Biden, I don't think, mentioned Project 2025 during the press conference. I don't know that he ever, he mentioned it once in a video they put out on social media, but I don't think he ever has mentioned it extemporaneously.

I think that she would be better. I don't think any of these options are a slam dunk. I think that there are worries about Kamala in the blue wall. If the Democrats need to win, these older white voters is putting in a black woman the best option. Maybe not. I get that concern. That sucks that that is a consideration. But then I think that there should be a process. And the delegates would decide we did this for all of our history up until 1968 this is how parties chose their not chose their nominees so i got anyway i don't know what your take on what what a process would look like if you did decide to stop yeah there's essentially three different options right so the first option is sort of what you outlined and that biden withdraws his candidacy and everyone coalesces behind harris Harris without sort of a question. And they go into the convention intending to nominate her. And it's a very smooth, controlled process.

That is the first option. The second option is sort of the open convention where 4,000 delegates vote and it goes back and forth. Who knows who's going to run for it? There's lots of potential for chaos. And then the third option, which is not the best one at all, is that Biden is nominated. He does lock this up, does have some kind of event, and he has to be withdrawn from the ballot after the convention, which gets very complicated for ballot access reasons. But we can go through the mechanics of

all these options. But the most important thing to know is that this thing has to be locked by the end of August. After the end of August, there's essentially no going back because once the nomination is made, the states start printing ballots. That becomes very difficult, if not impossible, to unwind and would most certainly be open to some kind of legal challenge. The Heritage Foundation has already said they intend to challenge it. So you're just opening up Pandora's box of options. So what that means practically is that the party has to get behind a strategy like in the next few weeks. And there's been some discussion of a virtual roll call even before. Yeah. So there's this idea, there is a virtual roll call vote that has been set up to address ballot issues that no longer exist in Ohio anymore. And so they're going to get on a call.

And so if you were looking for this smooth control option, theoretically, there could be a vote by the delegates to nominate someone else ahead of the actual convention. And that can be all smooth, controlled, easy, if that switch was going to be made. But just one thing that I learned looking into this is that if there is a switch that has to be made after the convention, let's say they do this virtual roll call vote and Biden locks it up and then they actually nominate him earlier. Let's say he has a medical event sometime after he is formally nominated. At that point, there is... Hyperventilating over here.

Keep going. At that point, there's no potential for any kind of new primary. There's not even potential for delegates to vote. At that point, the DNC chair consults Democratic leadership and they select a nominee. And his name is still on the ballot that is the weirdest thing there are these folks that want to tamp down this discussion of of what an open convention would look like online and there are all these viral you know posts going around about how you know if if they removed biden now there would be all these ballot access issues

which is totally wrong which is like the opposite of what is true right all these ballot access issues, which is totally wrong, which is like the opposite of what is true, right? Like the ballot access doesn't become an issue until after the convention. Or the roll call vote, he's formally nominated. It gets a little tricky, but yeah. Yeah. So to me, it's like, if you're worried about ballot access issues, you shouldn't be because there isn't really anything to be concerned about as things stand. Like the only potential risk, if you're just doing a risk assessment, is that Biden has a health event between August and November. I don't think that that's what's happening.

And look, anybody can, any of us can have a health event at any time. He's 81. He's a higher risk for it. If Democrats that are deciding what to do about this, leading Democrats, you know, your Chucks and Nancys are basing this on whether they think he has dementia, then he's going to be the nominee because like he seems perfectly, he seems like an elderly man that, you know, still has control of his faculties. But the question is, is that the best path given the fact that 70, 80% of the country thinks that he's too old to be president? It seems like no to me.

Yeah. Just as a side note, I wish Nancy Pelosi would speak a little bit more about her decision to step down from the speakership in light of this. I mean, like she made a very responsible, good decision to step down, no longer be speaker, pass the torch down. It was very effective. Everybody got on board. It was a smooth transition. It seemed to be working really well. Maybe that strategy, method, her decision-making behind that should be discussed a little bit more. Yeah, we're in your hands, Nancy. And I think that she could make a compelling case to him for it, having just done it. Ugh, I just, I had to get that off my chest.

I'm sorry, Amanda. No, no, it's okay. No, but here's my thing. If we're going to be talking about this, as many Democrats are, I just want people to be very informed about how this looks and how it goes down and how time really is of the essence. And you almost have a gift that the RNC will be happening next week and all the attention will be on Donald Trump and who he selects as VP. That buys the Democrats some time to really think about the options and make the

most responsible decision they can and really get on board with it. Because again, this thing is locked in August and there's no going back. I think it should be a sign that it's not the best path. If every interview, everyone has to watch with bated breath, like maybe we could find an nominee that that wasn't the case for. And you know the thing that really sucks for Joe Biden, though, is that he has always had verbal flubs throughout his career. And I'm not talking about the stutter.

He misspeaks. He's goofy. It's you guys and corn pop and all this stuff. And now every time he mentions corn pop, people are going to think he's hallucinating. So it's just, it's bad. The corn pop story, I think, was true. I love corn pop. I love folksy Joe Biden.

I want to see folksy Joe Biden. He feels defensive and angry, it's bad. The corn pop story I think was true. I love corn pop. I love folksy Joe Biden. I want to see folksy Joe Biden. He feels defensive and angry, not folksy. Like I don't mind the verbal flubs. As I said, the, yeah, you know, we all cringed when he said vice president Trump, but I do that. Like on this podcast, sometimes I say Trump when I mean Biden. I think whoever was on the podcast yesterday, I can remember who was on the podcast yesterday. So, you know, you see how these things go.

David French or Ezra, one of them said Trump when they met Biden in the last couple of days. Like that just happens, right? So that's not my problem. Like my problem is that he has to be able to win people back that have decided that he's too old. He has to be able to make a case against Donald Trump and remind people what they don't like about Donald Trump. Because right now all the polls show that voters remember Trump more fondly than Biden. So he's got to change the dynamic. And so just like not having dementia is not enough to change the dynamic. I need more. I need a message. I would like to see a proactive message. 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. Therapy is a great tool for facing your fears and finding ways 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. Okay, some of the people that are mad some of the democrats that are mad about the media and us and everybody that is talking too much about joe biden is like why don't you talk more about about donald trump's flaws in this and and some of that is kind of

eye-rolly because you know this podcast was literally talking about every day for like literally a decade all i've done is talk about okay but there is one element of that criticism that i agree with and that is this donald trump has not done a press conference i literally can't remember i think it was january was the last one that he did um he doesn't gaggle he doesn't take hard questions from people you know so we're all watching joe biden go through all that last night. And I do think that the media, who I'm talking about when I'm talking about the media right now, is not the commentariat and the pundits that everybody likes to make fun of. It is like the actual reporters that are on

this campaign beat. I think that there should be a bigger drumbeat going after Trump about this. What's your take on how Trump has kind of avoided scrutiny during this? I mean, I have a different gripe. It's not that I want him to be doing like press conferences and sit down interviews with people. It's the idea that he gives rallies all the time. He talks about specific positions. He's crazy. He makes crazy promises.

And it's like people just like we don't cover those anymore. We don't listen to them anymore. And the big thing, you know, Axios this week, it's new tone season, right? Everybody's like, Oh, he'll present a new tone at the RNC convention. They're going to have the sanitized version. It's like, what are you talking about? He says crazy stuff at his rallies every week. He was in Doral, Florida, I think on Tuesday talking about how he's going to investigate this and that, and, you know, promising to do the biggest deportation raid in history, you know, all the greatest hits. He's saying it all the time. And then when it comes to like all this Project 2025 stuff, which I've been looking into for a long

time, it's radical, it's crazy, it's off the chain, yes to all that. But you don't have to play connect the dots between the Trump campaign and Project 2025 and make like this map of like Carrie Matheson, like staking it out and see what how Heritage is going to program him is because he has told us over and over specifically, like you don't have to go through every plank of their 900 page document to see what he's going to do because he has it on his own campaign website. It's called Agenda 47. It's right there. And so I don't understand why people haven't given his own words the scrutiny that everyone now wants to give Project 2025 and say, you know, Russ Votes

doing this plank or that and who's running the Republican platform. It doesn't matter. The Republican platform does not matter. They don't even, they didn't even have won the last election. What he has said he is going to do, that's the plan. That's the mandate. That's the promise for the second term. And so that's my rant about that. Yeah, it does drive me crazy. I did the YouTube video on this week about if you watch the Durrell speech, there are these kind of two Trumps, right? Like there is a Trump that has kind of a savvy anti-Biden message over the course of the 90 minutes. That is what I think that the Biden team could use. But then there's like all of the, you know, insane stuff that he's doing.

Like he shouted out Laura Loomer from the stage. Laura Loomer. Like somebody that is an unapologetic Islamophobe. Somebody that has said that she wants a white ethnostate. She got a shout out from the guy leading to be the next president. I mean, could you just, it's just, that is my media. That is the media charisma I think is fair coming from left. That's sort of the problem though, right?

Like he, his speeches are long. Like I've listened to a lot of them. I've transcribed them. I've clip noted. They are a beast to go through. and i think he just wears people down they're like oh there he goes again and they kind of tune in see what's new at the top of the speech and then just kind of give a pass to the laura loomer stuff which is just it's just bad which is insane and i'm not i'm not worn down i'm not worn down i might feel like i'm the crazy one today but i'm not worn down because it's just like if jeb you know if one of your candidates had shouted out an unapologetic white nationalist who advances conspiracy theories about how school shootings are false flags

from stage like that would have derailed our campaign for weeks it's all any reporter would have asked us about and like trump is getting away with that stuff and he shouldn't and and the fact i do think that a lot of the media is worn down and they shouldn't be and he also like his social media feed just i just pulled it up crazy nancy pelosi is more of a cognitive mess than sleepy crooked joe she also suffers from trump derangement syndrome she's a total nut job i get just it goes on and on i mean it's just like this is not a new tone. There's no new tone. He hasn't calmed down. You guys are just like frogs boiling in water. Okay?

Please stop. Is it the reason that he's not on Twitter? We've all done this. But is the reason they don't pay attention to it now is because it's just not in their phone 24-7? Does it not exist because it's not on Twitter? Is that really the mechanism for driving? It's not hard to download Truth Social. Yeah. If you're a reporter or a pundit, it's not hard to download truth social yeah if you're a reporter or a pun it's not hard to download it and just i know it's not pleasant to have it on

your phone i don't like having on my phone but you just scroll once a day see what he says it's crazy it's not like you have to do investigative reporting to do it one more thing about trump because it just sunk in somebody posted this that he's about to get intelligence briefings like starting next week maybe maybe in two weeks oh so weird that he just met with orban who just met with putin that's weird okay yeah how are we here that the man that attempted a coup and is under federal investigation is going to get top secret intelligence briefings how are we here amanda that's the question does that coincide with his intelligence briefing coming up the russian stooge in Hungary is doing a thumbs

up picture with Trump. Like there should be a five alarm fire around this. And there also should be a Democratic candidate. I'm doing Joe Biden's whisper now. And there also should be a Democratic candidate that can carry that message. Yes to that. But that doesn't impede other Democrats from doing it. There's nothing stopping other people from booking themselves on Fox News and going to town. I do hope that the RNC convention next week will focus people's minds a little bit on some of this stuff. You can do both. We can do two things. We can be worried about Joe Biden and talk about how fucking insane it is that an insurrectionist is going to start getting top secret classified briefings again. All right, on the Project 2025 part, I agree with you about using things out of Trump's own mouth.

And that's why I thought that Vaughn Hilliard, who is doing a good job actually on the Trump beat, unlike some of the others, he went back and rewatched a Trump speech from 2022. And I want to play a little bit from it. Our country is going to hell. The critical job of institutions such as Heritage is to lay the groundwork. And Heritage does such an incredible job at that.

This is a great group, and they're going to lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do and what your movement will do when the American people give us a colossal mandate to save America. And that's coming. That's coming. They're going to lay the groundwork and the detailed plans. Pretty straightforward. Pretty straightforward. And then like I was saying before, and then if you look at his speeches, there was a time through the, I believe the fall of 2022, right?

When he launched, when he was really trying to win over people and show that he could be like disciplined on policy. Right. Like this is how a lot of this came together. There was a lot of things happening that led to Project 2025. Number one, you had a lot of former Trump staffers who are out of work at Heritage at all these conservative think tank type groups trying to figure out, given the fact, they all know, they all admit to themselves that the first days of the first Trump term were pretty much a disaster. They didn't expect to win. They came in, they didn't have a game plan. And so given how things ended, they needed a way to get everyone back on the same page to say,

okay, if he's going to be the nominee again, let's get a plan together. And Trump was willing to adopt it because he was still trying to campaign to get the Republican nomination again. And so this is why he was doing events like this. This is why there's so much overlap between, again, what he has specifically promised and the planks in that plant like the specific ways he has pledged to um like when it comes to the department of education investigate schools and teachers who use dei that is straight out of the heritage playbook but credit it to trump like he's the one who said it he's the one who's promising to do it no i think using his own was an important part of this the other who said it. He's the one who's promising to do it. No, I think using his own words is an important part of this. The other thing,

since we last spoke on the podcast, we're talking about Project 2025, was before the SCOTUS ruling. And so to me, I really thought that, you know, obviously everybody was focused on the immunity rulings impact on his trials and his current trials. And that's serious. And of course, I hope he's held accountable. And I'm concerned about that. But we talked about this a little bit with David French yesterday, and I want to get your view on it. To me, like the most ominous part about the immunity ruling is how it ties in to all this stuff that you've been talking about, and that we've been talking about about Agenda 47 and Project 2025, which is that we don't know exactly which one of these terrible planks terrible

like authoritarian you know uh executive power planks the new schedule f staffers will try to implement but if they try to do extra legal stuff if they try to do stuff that is outside the bounds of the federal government targeting local schools targeting migrants migrants, you know, going outside the letter of the law. Now, I think that they will all feel even more empowered to do so because Trump has immunity for official acts. So, you know, even if somebody came after them, he could pardon them. Right. So when you talk to people about Project 2025 and Trump's promises, people accept that these plans exist. They accept that Trump wants to do it. But I've seen polling that shows they don't believe he is capable of doing it. Right.

Like that's that's the check. They think, oh, yeah, he wants to do that. He didn't do it the first time around, so he won't do it the second time around. Like you saw this essentially like represented by the op-ed that Jared Golden wrote. He essentially, democracy will be fine if Trump wins because the institutions will hold. Well, you have to walk through this. And what people should think about Trump's second term promises as is a systematic plan to gut checks and balances. That is what Project 2025 is really all about.

That is his philosophy. That is what Project 2025 is really all about. That is his philosophy. That is what everything coalesces behind. And so the fact that he won the immunity ruling should really wake people up to that strategy because they didn't just invent it out of thin air. Donald Trump went to the Supreme Court, asked for complete immunity to shield himself from criminal accountability for January 6th, and they granted it to him. That is a major guardrail that has been blown. The courts, you cannot expect that to hold in a second term. And so then people say like, okay, well, Republicans in Congress, you and I know that is not going to be a check on his executive power.

That is a joke. That is a joke. They purged anyone who voiced any kind of challenge to his authority. So any checks coming from Congress are not going to happen. And just to put a finer point on that, why I think another layer of why some of the Democratic senators are still concerned and weren't out of swage by the press conference last night, is that to your point on this check, the Senate map this year, potentially, you know, the Republicans could pick up like five, six seats if they if they have a landslide this year, and there are a lot of potential seats in play. And so, yeah, the idea that the Congress will check him is like absurd and laughable on its face. It's particularly absurd

if you think about a worst case scenario where the Republicans have 56 senators. Correct. Yeah. And so the idea that the system held in his first term isn't exactly true. Our institutions are much weaker as a result of the damage that he's already done as represented to his victory for immunity at the Supreme Court and the way he has purged any Republican dissenters from the Republican Party. And I think that needs to be a core part of explaining the message about the danger of Donald Trump's second term. Yeah. I think that in addition to that, I want to talk about one other, you know, kind of element

that shows you just like how far through the looking glass we are. You referenced this a little bit earlier with regards to kind of how heritage is out there saying that they're going to sue or whatever if the Democrats try to take Biden off the ticket. But Biden's not off the ticket. There's probably going to be ridiculous legal challenges to the fact that it's even being discussed. This is going to happen. The idea that they have to have a real valid claim to bring something to court is not true. It's going to be reckless and frivolous litigation. Okay. So to that point, our friends at the Heritage Foundation that are behind Project 2025, here's a quote from Mike Howell, who's the executive director of their ominously titled

Oversight Project in today's Washington Post. As things stand right now, there's a 0% chance of a free and fair election. I'm formally accusing the Biden administration of creating the conditions that most reasonable policymakers and officials cannot in good conscience certify an election. That's what they're saying right now. Yeah. Anyway, i think that there are two parts to this like hey i'd like to just talk about like what is coming especially by the way if the whole biden case is that they're gonna squeak out this blue wall thing especially if he wins 270 to 267 you know what is coming during that interregnum from these guys but all right, if that is the mindset they have now, that they're not accepting our existing laws and norms, what does that tell us about the kinds of Mike Howells that

are going to be in the Trump administration? So take either of those, but we should go over both. Yeah, let's call this what it is. What they are is formalizing Donald Trump's January 6th strategy ahead of the 2024 election. Because that's what January 6 was about, stopping the certification of Joe Biden as president. So what they're saying is that they intend to do that again, somehow, somewhere. There probably needs to be a lot of education about the obligation that election officials have to certify election results. I mean, this is the Mike Pence question. Once again, what do you do once you have the results? Do you certify? Mike Pence said yes.

Is every election official in swing states prepared to say yes, like Mike Pence did? That's the option they're exploring. They're preemptively testing that. I just want to put a final point on something you said, that the January 6th strategy is ongoing. Because you do hear this from some, you know trump apologists of course but even from regular people sometimes it's like okay i mean january 6th all right like i think it's one day things got out of hand you know is that really the thing to vote on this november is that really you know

the one main thing and i think that it's important to point out that like january 6th is ongoing right like it is not just it was not just one, it was not just one day. It was not just one riot. Like the entire Trump campaign right now is premised on making permanent their January 6th posture. He wants to let out of jail everybody that assaulted the Capitol police that day. You know, his henchmen at the Heritage Foundation are planning, you know, a how to prevent elections from being certified if they don't go their way going forward in 2024 and beyond. Like that's their plan to continue doing January 6th until they work. And can we just talk about how remarkable this is? I mean,

I wake up every day still probably thinking about the fact that all the people around Trump who have been charged with criminality. I mean, Steve Bannon's in jail. Like, can we? Steve Bannon is in jail. Let's talk about that for a second. What do you think he's doing right now? Eating some gruel? But yet the Heritage Foundation, all these supposedly smarty tardies are adopting the strategy that landed Steve Bannon in jail.

Right? Like, that is remarkable. They are unchastened by it. Is that going to be part of the coverage of the RNC next week? Or is everybody going to accept these nice scripted speeches about how Joe Biden is old and pretend like none of this is happening? They're unchastened by it for good reason. Because now they think they have cover to do it.

Right? Like, they tried it. It didn't work. They do. It didn't work. But do. It didn't work. But it didn't work. But instead of what any normal fucking country would have done, any normal party, any normal responsible people, they would have said, whoa, this went too far enough.

We are going to impeach and convict Donald Trump. We're going to hold accountable the people that organized this. We're going to hold accountable the people that organize this we're going to hold accountable the people that attacked police officers and we're going to move on to a new you know to find new leadership in the party like that's what a normal freaking party would have done but instead they've re-nominated the guy that instigated it and they've instituted a legal regime that gives carte blanche to him to pardon and protect anybody that tries future January 6th. Yep. And because they know if it works, they'll get off scot-free. The pardon power will be there for them. Well, that's a little uplifting note for everybody. We have

had this surge in interest in Pride 2025. You've been on it. Is there anything else you think people are missing when they're talking about it or any, you know, kind of stronger arguments that could be made? I mean, just the main idea behind it all. Again, there's something in it for everybody if you want to get wound up. But again, I just people need to pay attention to what Donald Trump is saying, because this game about people are playing about how Trump is trying to diss himself and whether they're a mesh. Quit.

Just stop that. Listen to what he says. Take it seriously. are playing about how Trump is trying to diss himself and whether they're a mesh. Quit. Just stop that. Listen to what he says. Take it seriously. Look at all the people that are going to enable his agenda. Donald Trump has his plans. All Project 2025 is, is the instructions to make his rhetoric a reality for everyone else. That is all it is. And so going into the convention next week, I think reporters should be more focused on these are all the people who are going to enable the most extreme parts of Trump's second term agenda. These are the people who will make it come true because it will happen the second time. The second time will be worse if he comes to power because look at all the people

that are on board with his plans and his ongoing January 6th strategy. Among those people might be his right-hand man. J.D. Vance is the favorite. All the chattering class, the buzz thinks it's J.D. He is Donald Trump Jr.'s choice. I forget who reported it. Somebody noticed in the schedule for next week's convention, Don Jr. has the speaking slot right in front of the vice presidential nominee which itself is creepy and weird and like third world okay but whatever um we'll put that aside um you know scrolling around for some jd vance stuff um because i uh you know the vance people were pushing back on some of these old clips of his saying they were taken out of context. And I went back and found some of them and they were not taken out of context and played

some of the clips. And while I was doing that, I found this ad from a group that is trying to derail JD Vance's Veep thing. I'm not going to shout them out because they are far right weirdos. But I do think it's a compelling compendium. So let's listen to this ad first because i want to i just can we just cleanse a little bit can we like clean you know just do a little mouthwash from that last segment and just make fun of jd vance for a second before we get to the seriousness of it well i mean

he's pretty gross he is disgusting so let's let's listen to this ad that they had put up in 2016 jd vance tweeted quote what percentage of the American population has at real Donald Trump sexually assaulted? He even said on live television that he believes Jessica Leeds fake rape allegations and that Trump is a liar. Well, this is sort of a he said, she said, right? And at the end of the day, do you believe Donald Trump who always tells the truth? Just kidding. Or do you believe that woman on that tape? The elites were right about Donald Trump, right? I'm a never Trump guy. I never liked him.

Is this who we want for vice president? I think what Trump is not just doing, I mean, certainly he's exploiting some of the racism that's there, but he's also exploiting people's fears and pointing it in a direction that maybe they wouldn't go on their own. So I think it's both that Trump is drawing on something, but more importantly, I think that he's leading people in a very dark direction. And that's ultimately what worries me the most. Yeah. The last one was a separate interview with Mehdi Hassan back in 2016. So this guy is begging and bootlicking to be the VP for somebody that he thinks is a lying rapist that is taking America to a dark place? He changed his mind.

He just changed his mind? I mean, he's already done all the work. I mean, Donald Trump loves a convert. I mean, does he believe it? It doesn't matter who J.D. Vance was or what he really thinks in his heart. We know what he wants to be. He wants to be Trump's VP. He wants to enable the worst parts of his agenda. He's on board for all of it. And so this idea, you know, we're going

to get another round of interviews like, can he get his swing voters in Pennsylvania? And can he moderate Trump's agenda? No, no, no, and no. The only reason he's being talked about, the only reason he's getting the job is because he's on board with the worst elements of it. And he wants to be his top loyalist in chief, his right-hand man. So, like, I don't know. I don't know how it's going to be anybody but J.D. Vance. I never thought anyone else was really in contention, to be honest. I hear you and, like, how many times they've gone round and round and all these people and how they've, you know, embarrassed and shamed themselves and changed their mind.

But it is kind of funny that people just accept that, that like that is his answer. It's like, well, I just changed my mind about him. I saw him in 2017 and it seemed better. And it was like, I changed my mind on things. I honor people who change their mind on things. I think that's, you know, a sign of a grown adult. But like, it's one thing to be like, well,

I used to not like mushrooms and now I do. Or one thing like, oh, I used to think this policy was good mushrooms i like i like to eat dirt right like i used to think this policy was bad and then i spoke to experts or saw how it worked in the real world and i realized oh that is actually good you know it's like no i used to think this guy was a fucking rapist and possibly hitler and then he was the heroine of the masses leading people to a dark place. And now I think he's actually wonderful. That's just hard. That's hard to square. I know. I guess when I see J.D. Vance, I just see somebody who grew a beard and decided, I'm going to cave to everything to stay in power. And it's just so totally, completely emblematic of

how people gain standing in today's Republican Party. That's all it is to me. Maybe the evil energy is in the beard follicles. I don't exactly know how that would work. All right. I want to move to our mailbag, take people to the mailbag through the weekend. I have a related question for the mailbag, so I want to end with JD. Oh, by the way, for normies you uh send in mailbag

questions at bulwark podcast at the bulwark.com christina's been an instagram og of mine so you know she she submitted this on instagram so i'll we'll allow it we'll make an exception in this case sure it says is there an heir apparent to trump's grip on the party who possesses his same unique charisma and can command the same loyalty and wield the same fear among elected representatives? Or will his core disengage once he's no longer president? I know we aren't going back to the old Republican Party, but will the post-Trump MAGA party splinter without his leadership? I think that's an interesting question, particularly in the context of Vance. Do you see Vance as a credible heir apparent? I mean, maybe. I mean, we don't know how he performs on the national stage until he's there.

Does he grow into a louder voice for Trump or does he adopt a softer, just guy in the room tone like Mike Pence did? I actually don't know how he would grow into that role. It'll be interesting to watch, but I think he's going to want to be an attack doc. Will he be successful at it? I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm of two minds. One, there is no heir apparent to Trump from a cult of personality thing, right? I've said this before, but there's not going to be people storming the Capitol waving flags

with J.D. Fance's bearded face on it, you know, like that. So at some level level getting rid of trump and replacing him with anybody will be better because just like the weirdest cult elements would will be gone will be cleaved off now there's a lot of bad stuff can still happen outside of the weirdest cult elements um so the question is can jd kind of consolidate the rest of that and i think maybe i don't know i think he's decently talented you know he obviously has been talented enough to apparently be on the cusp of having somebody that he thought was hitler choose him to be his number two in command um so you know he can be convincing i i thought it was interesting um and this ties into

that ad that i played i want to get back to your question um i noticed that several people in like the mega est of mega world that you would think would be for jd are trying to undermine them and i was like wondering why that was and they think he's like nicki haley because he's a convert well there's that that's a little bit there's a little bit of mistrust but i think the more important thing is they're not ready to anoint an heir apparent you know and they're worried that it's kind of like the kamala thing a little bit with biden where you see in this situation where it's like it's tough to get around a vp that seems like the heir apparent right and to repeat because some people on the internet or like want to act like i'm not coconut curious i'm coconut curious i think it'd

be fine for it to be Kamala. But- Whoa, whoa, whoa. What is coconut curious? Oh yeah, that's what the Kamala, the new emoji for the K-Hive is the coconut because Kamala has the line that she likes to say about how you didn't just fall out of a coconut tree. You exist in the context of everything

that came before you. Okay, I've literally not encountered this whatsoever. You haven't encountered the coconut tree clip? Google the coconut tree clip out of this. It will be the one thing that bring before you okay i i've literally not encountered this whatsoever you haven't you haven't encountered the coconut tree clip google the coconut tree clip out of this it will be the one thing to bring you joy today uh google com with falling out of the coconut tree anyway circling back my point in that was if you pick somebody that seems like they're probably their apparent then it's hard to make them not be it right if you pick you know dick cheney right like then then it's it's kind of easier to get around i like dick cheney is never going to be president so anyway i think that's interesting there's some

maga world that are worried about him as their parent all right rest of the mailbag uh morgan asks about my tough questioning on why dean phillips and you know whether i look back on the interview and disagree with that and i do i do i do i yeah i apologize to dean phillips there's a no labels ticket now i do not wish there was no labels ticket that was still a stupid idea i do apologize to dean phillips i said this on the john lovett podcast um which morgan must not listen to that closely hey morgan uh but i've had several people send this to me and i want to reiterate it but that said and but dean did it all wrong so there was a part of that interview where i'm like

basically coaching him it felt like a hard interview but it was more like dean why don't you do it more like this why don't you do it more like that and he kept being like oh yeah that's a good point tim it got a little uncomfortable at one point so anyway i don't regret criticizing him about his strategy but i do regret not taking more seriously his warnings. Okay, Amanda. Jonathan asks, if Trump wins, what's next? Everything I've seen is, well, we're going into the camps. But if it really is a toss-up, shouldn't we be planning for the bad outcome to prevent the camps? Good question from Jonathan. That's a Protect Democracy question, I think.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, a part of the work at Protect Democracy is looking at all scenarios, of course. And we have a series of recommendations in the end of the authoritarian playbook, but essentially what it comes down to is that you have to keep, no matter what happens, you have to keep the pro-democracy coalition together. And that will deal a lot with in the early days of trying to keep all the

good gaze, good guys on the plane, so to speak. Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I'm just like off today. That's good. We do need the good guys and the good guys on the playing field. Keep the good guys on the field. But having infrastructure and support for people wherever they are, election officials, people inside the government, other nonprofits, colleges, wherever the threats are, we have to be ready to stand together and support them. That will require a lot of money. That will require possible legal support. There's a lot of things, security support. There's a lot of coordination that

honestly needs to be, is happening, needs to be happening now to prepare for that. And so everyone should just get to know their neighbors. Yes, I would add to that. There have been some disappointing, obviously, rulings at the top court. But Biden has appointed a lot of judges. And while the institutions were weakened during Trump's first term, the courts held in a lot of ways. And so lawyers, this is another Protect Democracy project, we're going to be bringing the lawyers in, all right? We have an army of lawyers. If Trump can stall, you know, we can stall and run out the clock on various things as well. And I think that there are going to be some big fights and there are a lot of good judges

that have been appointed over the past three and a half years. One important thing is outreach to military members and the importance of individuals keeping their oath, people who may be faced with carrying out unconstitutional, unlawful orders. There's a lot of thought leadership that needs to go into that, looking at National Guard deployment issues, possibly what could happen in regards to immigration. So things like that. I mean, there's complicated situations that will come up, but it does not mean that we will not have options. And people can't make good decisions for themselves in their own capacity. Indeed, support, protect democracy. Okay, this is for me. Emily asks, how do I signal

I'm no longer riding with Biden? I feel like I have for me. Emily asks, how do I signal I'm no longer riding with Biden? I feel like I have no power. There are no more primaries. I'm ready to join the chorus of voices ordering Biden to step aside, but I don't know how to do that. Jim asked the same question. Is there anything voters can do to pressure Joe Biden to drop out? Obviously, not all listeners are going to agree with this, but if you are of that view, talk to your congressman. They're out of session now next week. It's insane that congresspeople work like this, but it's true. There was a congresswoman, I forget who it was, who said that like someone in a grocery store came out to her and said that they're sticking with Biden and

they want the, and they use that anecdote as evidence for why they, why they're sticking with Biden. So look at their schedule. They're out of session now. They're coming back to the district, find where they're going to be. Go see them. Tell them in person. If you can't do that, call their office. Write them an email. Write them a note.

I just want to emphasize how true that actually is because Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are constantly polling their own caucuses. And they will be important, influential decision makers if a change needs to be made. So that is absolutely true. And it does have sway and influence right now. Final mailbag question is from me to Amanda. I learned yesterday on text message that if things went astray for you, I said that I was thinking about becoming a high school social studies teacher because I'm so sick. Yeah. And I said, you'd be a great one, but you should not be doing that. You should be doing this. Thank you. Well, I'm going to keep doing this, but I'm just, I'm eyeing high schools for possible high schools for a

social teacher, social studies teacher job if this goes south. But you mentioned on that text that you would want to be a school bus driver because that's what the cool moms did when you were growing up. Yeah. And I just would like to hear more about that i don't i just had a lot of cool moms that were bus drivers uh growing up like it was always a lot of fun like the pretty moms who wore cute lipstick um i don't know like they just i always enjoyed talking to them they always made the bus ride fun i knew who they were it just i don't know they just were like the cool ladies to me this feels like like a John Hughes movie to me. I've never heard of hot moms driving buses.

School buses and being cool. I don't know. I just always kind of looked up to them. They seemed like they were the sports moms too, generally. I don't know. I just liked them. It seemed fun. And like, just go pick up kids and talk to them

when they're getting their day started and listen. I like to listen to kid talk too. Like my son plays fortnite sometimes he has a headset on and so he chatters and i love to like eavesdrop on it so it would just be a lot of fun to listen to the kid chatter i don't know any child would be lucky to have you as your bus as their bus driver but i think you should also stay with what you're doing to protect democracy even though you're always welcome back here if you change your mind um all right i wanted to say uh ezra klein at the end of that podcast on wednesday gave a book rec um he said the name of the book rec wrong so now everybody's questioning ezra's mental acuity the actual book is called health and safety a breakdown by emily witt but here's the bad news it's not published

till september 17th i and ezra is just showing off his coastal elite access to the publishers you know that he pre-read a book before it's even out in the public i asked him for a suggestion of a book that could distract me from the horribles uh over the weekend so i don't have one of those um for you but ezra recommended health and safety i guess i'll give you one i really liked home going recently i read by i'm to butcher her name probably, but Yaa Gyasi, I believe is how you pronounce her name. So you can read that one this weekend.

On September 17th, you can read Health and Safety, A Breakdown, as recommended by Ezra Klein. Amanda, thank you so much. Any final words of wisdom or a cheer or uplift? No, I'm eager to see what song you pick for the end of the show today. We'll take you out with something peppy.

Everybody, we'll be back here on Monday. It probably won't be that peppy because we have Bill Kristol. We all love Bill Kristol. Bill Kristol will be back on Monday. And then for the Republican convention all week, I'm bringing all your favorite Never Trumpers in. We are going to be dialed in on what these freaks are saying in Milwaukee on this podcast and on YouTube.

Check us all out then. Amanda Carpenter, thank you so much. Owe you a debt of gratitude for letting me rant at in Milwaukee on this podcast and on YouTube. Check us all out then. Amanda Carpenter. Thank you so much. Oh, you're dead of gratitude for letting me rant at the beginning of this podcast. And we'll be seeing you again soon. Thanks.

Peace. Take it easy. For there is nothing that we can do. Take it easy. Blame it on me or blame it on you. It's as if I'm scared. It's as if I'm terrified. It's as if I'm scared.

It's as if I'm playing with fire. I'm scared. It's as if I'm scared. It's as if I'm playing with fire. Scared. It's as if I'm terrified. Are you scared? Are we playing with fire? Relax. There is an answer to the darkest times.

It's clear. We don't understand it, but the last thing on my mind is to leave.