The Bulwark Podcast - Amanda Carpenter: Is Trump Depressed?

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

He lost, he's low on campaign cash, and he's juggling criminal court dates. Are the bad things he says about America a projection of how he feels about himself? Plus, Candace's crazy new crazy conspiracy, MAGA nuts in swing states, and the most alarming threat from a Trump 2.0. Amanda joins Tim for the weekend pod. show notes https://www.authoritarianplaybook2025.org/

Happy Friday. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark podcast. I'm Tim Miller. I'm just delighted to have my friend and yours back on the pod, writer and editor at Protect Democracy. She might have been here at the Bulwark for a little while. She's the co-author of a recent report called The Authoritarian Playbook for 2025, How an Authoritarian President Will Dismantle Our Democracy and What We Can Do to Protect It. I'm obviously talking about Amanda Carpenter. Hey, girl. Hey, Tim. I tried to pay respects to you. It's not quite a pearl necklace. It's kind of half and half, but I was like, I'm going to wear that for Tim. I like that. I appreciate it. I'm just happy to see you. I've missed you.

And this is going to be a nice little Friday. We have some deep thoughts to get to. Among the reasons you're here, besides my just burning desire to spend more time with you, was I received a piece of feedback from a listener who said that I'm not scared enough about the downfall of our democracy and that I need to be educated by Amanda about the scale of the threat. And so I want to get into that. I want to get into nerdy stuff, fusion voting and Project 2025 and the debate that you had with some gnome from Heritage. I want to get to all of that. But it's the weekend, Pod, so I kind of just, can we just have a little fun at the top? Please. I am ready. It's so beautiful. It's going to be a great weekend. I'm taking the kids this weekend. There's a goat farm nearby. And going to be a great weekend. I'm taking the kids this weekend.

There's a goat farm nearby. And this time of year, they let the kids in to just go play with the baby goats. Do you want to know how many they have right now that we're going to go snuggle with? I'm excited to hear. 65. 65 goats. Baby goats. That is actually like a nightmare for me.

65 baby goats. That is very creepy. Please send me a picture. They'll like chew your hair. Yeah, that is. I'm happy for you and for your children. But for me, that seems very creepy. It's nightmare fuel.

That is totally nightmare fuel. Luckily, I'm abandoning New Orleans this weekend. It is St. Patrick's Day. And New Orleans goes crazy for St. Patrick's Day, which I call straight pride. When do they not go crazy? That's true. But that's a good point. It was Mardi Gras last week.

You just change out the beads for green beads. Green. Yeah, the garish green. It's just not my color. So anyway, I'm going to be with my brothers this weekend enjoying that. All right. So I want to start here. A competitor.

You know, when you look at the Apple podcast charts, there's another podcast. It's always right around us with the Bollard podcast. Sometimes we're a little ahead. Sometimes she is. And I think from time to time, it's good to monitor what your competitors are saying, you know, see what else is out there in the ecosystem. I'm afraid for where this is going. I do want to share.

There have been two episodes this week of the Candace Owens podcast, and it's been... There it is. Boy, there's been some very interesting breaking news that they've been focused on. And Jason, could you play for us a little bit from that? Crazy, crazy, crazy. Stop everything. Pay attention. If you're driving, pull over. Just kidding. You don't have to pull over. You can keep driving, but you just prepare yourself for what is happening right now in France. The first lady, Brigitte Macron, was actually born Jean-Michel. So Brigitte is actually John Michael.

John Michael lived as a man for 30 years. Show us the birth certificate, Amanda. Show us the first lady of France's birth certificate. This is the blonde lady that wears all the cute suits. The 70-year-old blonde, the older woman. That Melania was friends with, right? certificate this is the blonde lady that wears all the cute suits the 70 year old blonde the older woman that melania was like friends with right yeah well maybe who knows do we have we seen pictures of melania as a child have we seen melania lately i mean forget kate middleton where's melania have we seen kate mill are you up to speed on kate middleton do you yeah i mean i

just i don't like the royals i think it's all kind of dumb anyway so i mean i heard you the other day yeah she's probably just having some cosmetic surgery that's my guess okay i don't have any theories i got i got in trouble for that one too so i mean hey there's a lot happening in the world ukraine has been invaded there's a war in gaza you know we have we're on the precipice of losing our democracy in america you know their interest rates are high there's a lot to talk about let's talk about on a news podcast but candace is candace wants to do a dick check on the prime minister of france's wife that's what that's what she's talking about against those kind of tests right i thought so too okay

then you don't want that happening in schools they'd be grooming okay how did she get on this how did she get on this it's been there are a lot of pictures if you want to go down well i'm saying you watch the show or listen to the show two episodes there have been two episodes of it i've listened to both this week it was the lead item on two straight episodes it's a convoluted theory. Her children are actually her children, but it was from when she was a man and then she pretended somebody was her brother and then had them killed by the French Secret Service.

It's complicated. Who knows? She's just asking questions. Closer to home. I've got a couple stories for you. Okay. CNN has a breaking one. Michelle Morrow, do you know her?

She's a Republican nominee for superintendent of North Carolina's public schools. Do I need to know her? You do. Because if you're in North Carolina, this could be the person running your public school's $11 billion budget. She has called for the execution of many prominent Democrats. Many. She believes in QAnon. She believes that Barack Obama is a Muslim. I mean, there's kind of a big gap between calling for the death of people, questioning somebody's religion.

Yeah. She's a superintendent? She wants to be the superintendent. She wants to be in charge of an $11 billion budget. She won a competitive primary. It was one of those Republican primaries where there was like a quasi-normal person and then somebody who was talking about how Jim Carrey is on adrenochrome. And that person won wanted a landslide

and so yeah she wants to head the republican schools between her and Mark Robinson on the top of the ticket who is a holocaust denier etc you would think as a West Virginian I'm a Louisiana and like you would think our friends in our region in North Carolina would say this is too much for us, right? This is why I believe in private school. School choice. School choice. Okay. You got to escape. The crazy can come from all sides in public school. That is a nice pitch for school choice. I'm a one-man band here in Louisiana. Just at every crawfish boil I go to, I'm debunking moms who are concerned that

they're kitty litter and dog bowls in the local schools in Louisiana. So I'm doing my best. But yeah, school choice, there's something to it. Okay. Over in Arizona, how do you think things are going over there for Republican candidates? Katie Hobbs, the Democratic governor of Arizona, wanted to put forth a bill to protect access to birth control in the state. Every single Republican voted against that. Senator Sonny Borelli, the number two Republican in the state Senate, gave his reason for not wanting to protect access to birth control. Bayer Company invented aspirin.

He said, put it between your knees. This has come up before. Was it a surrogate from Mitt Romney in 2012? Do you remember this? It was the same line. Was that a Todd Akin thing? I don't know. But for some reason, this idea keeps coming up that aspirin somehow works to prevent pregnancy.

And oh, by the way, there's no other reason a woman would need birth control. I mean, it is a medicine for you. Foster Freeze. I'm Googling this live. We would need birth control. I mean, it is a medicine for use a lot of times. Foster Freeze. Yes, that's the guy. I'm Googling this live. Foster Freeze, who was a big donor to Rick Santorum and then Romney. Yeah, in my day, gals put aspirin between their knees for contraception. I guess this is a popular.

I've never heard one woman ever say this. Okay. So Republican men are still going with that. Cool. Cool. So that's Arizona and North Carolina. Those are two swing states. Down in Florida, not a swing state anymore, but we've got some good news.

Peter Navarro, our old friend Peter Navarro, you remember him? I do. He's going to prison. Sometimes somebody has to, is seeing the consequences of their actions. So that's good. We're going to get to some bad news about the state of our country, but that's good. Peter Navarro has to go. And I believe it might be the prison that epstein was in the low security one in south florida but not the one where he died first you know i don't ever want to cheer

saying someone jail is frightening prison is frightening i really i don't wish it on anyone but this was coming like this was coming was coming. You were belligerent. You didn't testify to Congress. You talked about it in every forum possible. I mean, all you had to do is cooperate on some level. Mark Meadows didn't go cooperate with the January 6th committee, but he turned over some text.

He kind of worked with them. Peter Navarro just had to do something. And I cannot believe anyone would go to prison, A, for Trump, and B, to not cooperate with Congress, even a little tiny bit when you blab your mouth on every Steve Bannon war room podcast. Like, you're giving the information out there. It's out there. They all have it. You just had to go tell the committee some of it, but he'd rather go to jail so it's sad for him it completely could have been avoided i don't want to see people go to prison it's a horrible miserable place but

that's what happens sad for him it's happy for me uh i'm just looking at that march 19th tuesday it's gonna mark out a little happy hour you know kind of taking that video is that bad this kind of reminds me this wasn't on my show, but on the things I've been dying to talk to you about, it didn't even occur to me right this second that this would be one of them. On the next level this week, Sarah was also saying that she was starting to get uncomfortable with the dunking on Katie Britt and the schadenfreude that was going her direction. And I'm like, I can't get enough.

I'm just drinking it up. I'm kind of sad that the memes are going away. How did you react to the Katie Britt speech? Well, number one, I still can't bring myself to watch the whole thing because it's so cringy. Like, I don't like cringe humor. I just feel bad. It makes me feel like it makes my skin crawl. So you were watching it live and stopped watching it or you weren't watching it and you've only seen clips?

I weren't watching. I started watching clips. I'm like, I can't do this. I know where this is going. Like, I kind of read it. I know what she does. I've seen pieces of it, but no, I actually don't feel bad for her because she let this happen to herself. Like you made the point, this was a set piece and I'm sorry, you're a US Senator. You have to say no when people ask you to do stupid things. And this was clearly, clearly stupid. Like you did a

test run, you must have seen yourself, you entrusted people who did not have your best interests in mind. Sometimes you have to say no. And she didn't. So you get it. And you did it all as kind of a Donald Trump audition. You did it kind of as a Donald Trump audition. So that's a little extra market against. Yeah. And it's like, you know, I'm sure she was flattered. I do think it's hard when you're asked to do the Republican response. How do you say no? Like, no, I don't want to do it. You kind of have to take that opportunity.

But to be scripted in that weird, weird way, if she just would have done a town hall with like a couple people, that would have been fine. Yeah. Can I just say to anyone who wants to ask me for free advice on this? Hopefully, the Democrats won't be doing a response next time, but maybe in five years. I don't think Republicans are taking my advice anymore. But just go for a C.

There's nothing wrong with doing a C plus. A gentleman's, a gentle lady's C. Gentle lady's C. Put on a suit or a woman's pantsuit and be in a room with like wood and books and just do eight minutes and pick three things that you think the president's bad on that are substantive and talk about why they're wrong. And then say, that's it for me.

That's all right. That's great. That'd be, that'd be just fine. I think that's all folks people go for. I got to tell you, man, I think that you,

um, I got to give you homework. I think after the goats, I think you got to get a glass of wine and watch it all because I'm telling you, you're not, you're not getting the scale of the cringe by just saying clips. Cause it isn't,

she takes you on an emotional journey. There's ups and there's downs. There's crying. There's anchor. There's fake smiles. There's, but the thing I really, it is the kind of nice of vacation of the Republican woman and MAGA,

which you guys kind of talked on, but that, that is what really grosses me out. Like this is, this is your idea of what, how Republican suburban moms think like, this is how we talk to them. It is ridiculous. It is just so the trad wife thing. It's the trad wife thing, right? So many nods to the trad wife thing, which is, it's getting so much bigger in such creepy ways. Do you remember when Carrie Lake, she did a response a while ago, or she put on a picture of her vacuuming a rug for Donald Trump? Yes. It reminded me of that. And I was like, this is a nod to like, I am subservient. I'm the nice woman. I'm, you know, i will represent your values blah blah blah but at the end of the day i'm a housewife forgotten about that that was so gross did you see this week by the

way tulsi says we have so much to catch up on this is also not my show but i'm just like i just have so we just gotta run through this is the catch-up hour um yeah we're just gossiping tulsi did don jr's podcast and she is kind of clamoring for the VP slot. Do you think there's any chance? Because I don't think it's going to be. Carrie Lake's running for Senate. But when you're talking about her, I'd forgotten about that gross thing where she's vacuuming. Yeah, yeah.

But Tulsi, I just kind of looked at that and I was like, hmm, I might take a flyer on Tulsi as a Trump pick. Yeah, I mean, I know he needs to pick a woman. I don't think he'll pick a woman. I don't think he can actually pull the trigger on that because he'd ultimately be seating a very important position to I just don't think he would elevate a woman in that manner. But would he give Chelsea a tryout? Like, this is going to be the biggest tryout beauty pageant for a VP over the next six months that we've ever seen. And I actually believe the vice Republican debate will be more important than the presidential debate, even if we have one. Like the one they're holding on Fox, like, you know, as they all go do the rounds with Hannity, you know? No, but when there's a face-off between whoever Trump picks, and that person goes after Kamala Harris. I think that is where MAGA is going to put all their fire and just have somebody just attack and smear her in probably pretty gross and disgusting ways all the way

leading up to that. And so whoever is most willing to do that, I think who's Trump is going to pick. I got to tell you, I feel pretty good about Kamala in that situation. There's nobody that has been floated that I think could really run circles around her. And the expectations for her are so low right now because, you know, the RNC puts out every clip possible that makes her look like Veep. I think she'd go in with really low expectations. And she's pretty good at that part of things. But you think about it, Elise, like J.D. Vance, Tulsi, Kristi Noem, none of these people are Lincoln-Douglas debaters. No, and she's good in a debate.

Some of her appearances can be like a little too jokey, doesn't really have the gravitas at times. But in a debate, she's performed. I mean, I remember her going after Biden. Right. That was pretty good. So, yeah, I also agree she's underestimated. But I do think, I'm not sure we're going to have a presidential debate, but that'll be the one that goes on. All right, before we get to the Trump of it all, I have one more. Well, I guess this is the Trump

of it all, but I have one more story. I refuse. The New York Times can put this on B14. But I refuse to let the Alexander Smirnoff story go. We'll be giving every minute update you'll be getting here on the Bullwark podcast. If you've missed this, this is the FBI informant that had claimed that Joe Biden was taking $5 million from Hunter Biden. Turns out that he completely fabricated that. It also turns out that he was having contact with Russian security operatives. Surprise! Yeah, surprise, shock, the Russians are involved. He was having contact with Russian security operatives. Surprise. Yeah. Surprise. Shock.

The Russians are involved. And now we have news out today that he took $600,000 in 2020, the same year that he began lying to the FBI about Biden from some associates of, can you guess who? Tell me. Donald Trump. Weird. Donald Trump. of can you guess who tell me donald trump weird donald trump shahal khan and farouk arjomand uh there are people who have worked with trump on various international real estate businesses maybe just a quinky dink i don't know maybe just a coincidence

do we know what the fbi was paying him for why why we're i mean i know they talked to unsavory figures but that's the thing that i'm just they didn't know this a couple weeks ago we had thrush going thrush the times on this podcast who gave a very straightforward just the facts man and that was good story yeah and like my take listening to him which makes sense is that this guy you know oftentimes the fbi is dealing with people that are that are unsavory and that have contacts with other criminals because that's what the whole point is right they're informants and i think that this guy that have contacts with other criminals because that's what the whole point is, right? They're informants. And I think that this guy did have contacts with Russian operatives

and provided good information at times. But they had to check it and sift through it. Yeah. It seems like he also had intel from Israeli sources also, according to reports. And so it seems like the guy had some good information at some point and then started providing bad information. And the question that is the guy had some good information at some point, and then started providing bad information. And the question that is out there is basically, okay, did he start doing

that because he got red pilled? And he thought that I wanted to help Donald Trump. And you know, he was listening to the Candace Owens podcast? Or did he start doing it because the Russians were feeding it to him? Or did he start doing it because some Trump operatives were paying him? Or a little bit from column A, column B and column C? And I think that's kind of the big question out there. But given the fact that it was Republicans on the Hill, Chuck Grassley in particular, and Comer, who are pushing this uncritically, whether it was a Trump op or a Russian op is pretty relevant to the scale of the scandal. You know, I have something in terms of the people that do investigations on the Republican side on the Hill. I feel like James Comer has got more attention

because all of his stuff is pretty much falling apart. But Chuck Grassley in the Senate, if you look at the statements that he's made about the deep state and everything after January 6th, he is so far out there and he doesn't get the scrutiny that these other guys do. And it's kind of amazing to me because here and there, I've had to dip into his stuff and looking at the statements that were,

he went and testified to the House Weaponization Committee at one point. In his testimony, it's kind of rare for a senator to go over there, number one. But he's a lot further out there than people give him credit for and by the way he's also extremely old yep and so when you talk about this imbalance right and it's like oh joe biden

senile joe biden is being pushed around by the extremes of his party because he's a doddering old man and it's like oh really is he i mean he's kind of actually stiff arming the extremes of his party on israel and g Gaza and on several other issues, policing. And, you know, he seems in interviews and in this lengthy five-hour interview, the transcript with her, he seems coherent. He's telling old stories. And meanwhile, you have the committee chair, or I guess minority now, but the leading ranking member on these committees in the Senate, Charles Grass grassley who's also old as balls he's the one who's actually it seems like crazy extremists inside the party have gotten inside

his old man brain because ikea is incoherent at times and he's advancing as extreme of conspiracy theories about the bidens as anybody in congress i I mean, like Chuck Grassley's material, this is a great point, Amanda. It's like indistinguishable from what you would see on like Newsmax or worse, Real America's Voice type stuff. Yeah, and I don't want to take guesses, but as these members get older, I do think younger staffers get more leash

to just write the statement, teed up for him. And I'm not excusing him for any responsibility for what he read and testified to. But older people in general have a very hard time distinguishing between what is a real news source and what's Breitbart, because it kind of looks the same and someone gives it to them. And it's a huge problem that we've talked about before. But that ecosystem pipeline to Congress and Chuck Grassley's office is real. Yeah, everything is projection. You know, Joe Biden is old and doddering. He's getting pushed around by his young staff members that are way too progressive. It's like, I don't know, maybe on some things on the margins, but you know who that's really happening

to? Chuck Grassley, it seems like. Big time. Okay, let's talk about donald trump no we don't like him very much um before we get into the autocracy and the project 25 i just want to talk about his campaign rhetoric a little bit there's one one clip from donald trump recently that i think is worth listening to our nation is failing we're a nation that is in serious decline. We've never had a situation like this where we're not respected. We're laughed at. We're considered almost a joke. It's just like, it sounds like Michael Moore shit. I mean, it sounds worse than Michael Moore stuff.

It sounds like Glenn Greenwald. It's just like these far, far leftists that hate America from a different era. And it's like he doesn't like us. He doesn't like the country. There are plenty of things to criticize Biden about. It's pretty alarming to me. The autocratic stuff is extremely alarming. But just as like a societal fact, it's alarming to me that this type of message is resonating with people.

Yes. I'm just kind of thinking. It's like the random conversations I've had with people. Yes. I'm just kind of thinking it's like the random conversations I've had with people. Like you kind of, you know, like when you're somewhere and you start to talk to another parent and something comes up and they'll just kind of say like, everything's in the crapper, right? This is, this is just how it is. America isn't what it was. And you kind of just know where this is going. It's like, what are you talking about? You're sitting there with your kids. It's a beautiful day. You have a nice car. Like, is it really that bad? But yeah, it does bum me out big time.

But the thing with Trump, he equates people being mean to him and making jokes and laughing about him towards America. And that just isn't true. I'm not going to deny he's in bad shape right now. It kind of sucks to be Donald Trump. You lost. You don't have any money to fund your next campaign. You're not getting the support you once enjoyed. Many court dates.

Yeah. If you think about people when they enjoy a really high degree of success, whether you're president, whether you're an Olympic athlete, once you don't have that, it's pretty easy to fall into depression. You think Donald Trump is depressed? I do a little bit. I think it's really hard to fall into depression. You think Donald Trump is depressed? I do a little bit. I think it's really hard to deal with losing things. Yeah, I know he's not going to therapy. I don't feel bad for him.

But I think this is what leads to saying things like this. And I think it's going to get really dark for him in the fall of this year when the polls turn against him and he realizes he's about to lose it all. He'll never be as rich as he was. He's not going to come back to the presidency. And that's where I think you're going to hear a lot, a lot, lot more of that. And that warms my heart, Amanda. Hey, I bring the optimism here. I hope you're right about that. I do. I really do believe this. My optimism is more on, and this is now a transition to democracy. optimism is just more about like america has proven very resilient and it's been extremely depressing don't get me wrong that so many people have gone along with this con man but like our economy is extremely resilient like we are living in times that would just be unimaginably wonderful

for like 99.9 percent of humans in the history of the earth right now. And there's a lot of goodness that's happening. I've read, I tried to like twice a year, I write an article about like, I went to a Beyonce concert and guess what? It's great. There's people of all races and genders there. Nobody wants to read these articles, but it's like, everyone's happy. And the tickets are kind of expensive, but the stadium's full anyway and it's just like is this really are we really in the great depression are we really laughed at i don't know millions of people are trying to get here that's why we have our border problem i don't know so i just encourage listeners sometimes it's easy to do the negative but it's like

we could all pump america up a little bit more these days yeah you know on the political side i know it's going to be a close election. I know, you know, the stakes are high, obviously. But I always keep coming to the fact because I just believe it. And it's true. This coalition that is made up of never Trumpers, moderate Republicans, some Democrats that are willing to, you know, go vote for Nikki Haley in a primary, that is a really important coalition that never existed before. And it grows by the day as people realize that democracy threatened, they have to do something about it. And so if you look at the results from 16 to 18 to 20 to 22, and I hope 24, I think there's so much good news there while I'm still worried. Listen, I am still worried. I would not be in the line of work I am in if I was not worried and dedicated to this cause. But I just see lots of new things happening. The MAGA coalition, the party, they're purging people every day, kicking them out, saying you're not welcome. Great. Those people should go somewhere else, join somebody new.

Like, I think there's just a lot of opportunity here. So. All right. Thus ends the sunshine pumping portion of the Tim and Amanda podcast. It's been really great. Okay. But you had a debate that is going to air later today on PBS. Yes, it was with a gentleman from the Heritage Foundation, who's definitely not a deplorable, Mike Gonzalez. Mike Gonzalez. Yeah. So this was organized by Margaret Hoover, friend of the pod, who does the show Firing the Line on PBS. Margaret's great. Her husband's running for Congress now, John Evelyn, who used to be at CNN. And she came to me with this idea, essentially saying, I'm going to do these events on campuses. And we have an event I'd like to do at Hofstra. And I've been looking at Heritage Project 2025.

And I saw the authoritarian 2025 playbook that Protect Democracy put out. And these seem like they're in contrast with each other, right? Like Project 2025 is promoting this view of a Trump second term. And you are essentially outlying why this would dismantle democracy. Would you be willing to have a debate kind of discussion about it? And at first, you know, I've been trying to be very careful about who I share platforms with. That's something I'm spending a lot of time thinking about these days. Yeah. You know, since 2016, 2020, I've kind of come to the realization that I cannot sit with somebody who worked in a personal capacity for Donald Trump. I won't have a good discussion because I'll be, I won't be able

to be polite. I won't be able to present myself in the way that I want to present myself. And also no election deniers. And so I was like, Mark, if you can find somebody at Heritage that meets those, I'm game. And Mike Gonzalez, I know from previous dates, he's a former Wall Street Journal reporter and actually been very encouraging to me. Like when I worked at Human Events and Washington Times, just here and there, just kind of like in the kind of publication space. So I knew him and I thought, okay, we can have this discussion. Now, keep in mind, he's written a book since about how Black Lives Matter is the real insurrection.

But he's not an election denier. A whole book about that? That feels more like a tweet than a book. Yeah. I did read it. I don't know. How do you churn out enough chapters on that topic? Well, yeah.

Essentially, the argument was it was more wide-ranging and had more organization and funding. Therefore, it's a real insurrection. And so my answer to that was like, okay, charge them. The rioters. The rioters. And, you know, there's a little difference between what they were doing and stopping the peaceful transfer of power and the president. Yeah, there's a lot of differences.

I don't like remember, for example, Joe Biden being like, break into that 7-Eleven. This would be a difference. I don't remember that. That was something that we could debate. So Margaret organized it, and it was really, it was very cathartic. I think it's good. It's going to start airing today. Check your local listings and throughout the weekend.

But I have not been able to have a discussion with someone who is really involved in laying the foundation for a Trump second term and be able to bring this to them. You know, like we talked to Bulwark, I talked to MSNBC, I talked to CNN, but actually talking to someone who is doing this and spending a lot of money to do all the things I'm writing about, that was good. And we need to have more spaces to do that. So I'm very thankful for Margaret for organizing it, but also handling it in the right way. And so what now hearing from him, what is your sense for, did it change your views on how dangerous it is? Or what are the change reviews on what the most alarming elements of the project

are? Well, I've read the whole report. Yeah, I knew going into it, what I came away with is that they're so far in the bubble, they're not actually challenged by anyone, especially from a conservative perspective on what they are doing. I essentially went into the event making arguments about expansive executive power and abuse. And honestly, he was not prepared to have that discussion. It was like he had never thought about it. They haven't even thought about it. They're just children. Actually, just for listeners who aren't, because you and I both read the Project 2025 thing and lived in it. But for folks who haven't, just what are some of the top line elements that are some of the most alarming kind of proposals that they have? Well, the overarching view essentially is that when Donald Trump says,

I have Article II power to do whatever I want, they're essentially laying a foundation so that he can do that by dismissing the idea that there should be any kind of independence at a place like the Department of Justice. And so you said the president should be able to put his hands in every agency and tell them exactly what to do. And they should say, aye, aye, sir. And forget about their oath of the Constitution. Whatever the president says, they should do. Because he was elected by the people and he has a mandate and he should get to do it. Go arrest the enemies of the people, release all the hostages, so-called hostages, etc. Exactly. I mean, forget the idea that Congress is also elected by people and makes laws. They kind of like, they don't really pay attention to that.

So they are going to harness the power of the federal government to enact the president's agenda. That's basically the big idea. And the justification for this that sort of undergirds this, why they have to do things like schedule left and fire people and put in their appointees all over the place and expand the number of appointees that they can have is that there's this deep state bureaucracy that really runs Washington and undermines the president's agenda. And so they need this clean out and then to install people that will do whatever the president says. And this is all based on the idea that somehow President Trump was stymied in his first term. And so this is a part of the discussion that I really pushed. And he didn't have an answer for it, quite frankly.

That I said, if you look at the places where you are most upset that Donald Trump was stopped, right? The things that got him impeached, like holding up funding for Ukraine. That wasn't the deep state that stopped him. Congress said, where the hell is the money that we sent to Ukraine? It was actually the president getting in the middle of that. And it was Congress that held the hearings. That was money that they lawfully passed that the president overrode because you wanted to squeeze Ukraine to smear Joe Biden. That was not the deep state stopping Donald Trump. If you look at the other things that they're so mad about, the deep state stopping was in the aftermath of the election. And this is the best example. It was not the

deep state that said, we are not going to investigate these election conspiracies. That was Republican appointees at the highest levels of the Department of Justice. It was people like Bill Barr, Donahue, all those guys who said Bill Barr did resign. The people that said we will resign at the end of this if you go forward in doing this. Not the deep state. John Bolton is not the deep state. John Kelly, not the deep state. I'm like, these are people that Donald Trump put in charge.

And so the idea that you want to pretend there's this deep state conspiracy when it was actually Republicans who are exercising some degree of obligation to their constitutional oath, like it's just, it's a myth. And so he was like, and Margaret kind of asked, well, what do you have to say about that? And he was just kind of like, I guess I'd have to look into it. I mean, I think that the real, that if he was smarter, like the real answer would be, look at the one agency that we did this right in and it would be DHS, right? Because, you know, and if you look at the child separation, look at how Stephen Miller just bullied Kirsten Nielsen to doing what they wanted and advancing their just cruel

and extra legal or maybe extra legal or maybe to put it kindly, stretching the boundaries of the law policies about how to handle the border. Like that is the model that they want to take and move to all the other agencies, basically. They have little Stephen Miller, little Hitlers in all of these little agencies. Yeah, but this is another example where it wasn't a deep state that stopped him. Donald Trump went to border officials and essentially was like can't you just shoot them yeah right i mean there were several news stories about can you can you just shoot them and they said no again highest levels of dhs that said no but this is the whole justification of installing stephen millers and i think this is something that people, that it's hard for people to really wrap their heads around, especially sometimes even Democrats and even media folks that I talk to.

It's like, because to them, they're like, the people around Donald Trump last time were terrible. You know, they're incompetent and they weren't. And it's just like, yeah, yeah. But there are a couple layers of hell down that we can go here. And I think that these Project 2025 guys are very focused on finding the most sociopathic, unqualified people possible to try to execute his whims. Being incompetent has not stopped people from gaining power and doing bad things in the past. Right? It's not even a good argument.

If they get installed and they have the green light to? Like, that's just, it's not even a good argument. If they get installed, and they have the green light to do it, they're going to. And so the things I'm really most animated about, proposed by both Donald Trump and Project 2025. So in the report that we did, I really tried to look at the intersection of what Donald Trump has promised to do as president, what plans are being supported by groups like the Heritage Foundation, and what powers he will actually have to do it. And it turns out, when you're president, if there's not people there to tell you no, you're going to have free reign to do quite a bit. And so the plans that they have for both the Department of Homeland Security in terms of ballooning resources at the Center for Border Patrol.

I mean, heritage is a big idea. And Donald Trump's essentially just flood resources into that. And so, like, these are the guys that are going to go out to do the camps. The camps, the deportation camps. Coupled with action through DOD and invoking the Insurrection Act and this idea that there's an invasion at the border and we need warlike powers and we're going to do Alien Enemies Act. That stuff is, it's scary.

They have deliberate plans to do it. And legally, it's very gray and complex. And so Stephen Miller has competently said to the New York Times that we're just going to do this and flood the zone essentially and let the law catch up later because they're going to detain and deport people and don't think that there's not going to be mix-ups. They were talking about people who are suspected illegal immigrants. This is not going to be a clean, you know, perfect process. It's going to be messy and chaotic and they know if they just go fast, the lawyers are going to take months and years to catch up, just like they have with all Donald Trump's other alleged crimes,

you know, being prosecuted now. It's a big government bureaucracy. Guess what? We used to be small government conservatives, right? There's a reason why we didn't like big government bureaucracy programs, because there are going to be fuck-ups, okay? And like that will also include a big government bureaucracy deportation plan. Let me tell you, we saw it with the first Muslim ban band it's like the one thing i feel like i'm the only

one that ever screams it's like they put american green card holders in cells in airports for hours and sure they fixed it eventually but it's like that is not american that is that is about as un-american as you can get people that were legal american residents because of their nation of origin were in cells in airports for many hours because they were just like, fuck it. They were not crossing their T's and dotting their I's when they started to implement it. And that will be the same thing on the deportation camps. And on that point, the Muslim ban was an explicit promise Donald Trump made while campaigning for president the first time that people dismiss. And it was that promise where we got that stupid quote about take him seriously,

but not literally that was mouthed by Peter Thiel in an interview saying why he supported Trump. He said, Oh, well, he's not going to do that. Jeb Bush said he's not going to do that. A lot of people said he's not going to do it and he did. He's going to do that. So I don't know why people say, well, he's not confident enough to do this the second time. He can, he can. We're aligned on that worse. And I'm, I'm equally alarmed as you. So here's the thing that I think somebody took issue with, and I'm just interested

in your take on, I meant it in a way that was like, I'm scared about this. But, but what I said was that despite all of my hair on fire panic about Donald Trump, which is like at 86 and a half on a scale of one to 10, I haven't fully bought the like, this will be the last election thing. I think that we would be able to resist him and fight him again. I think that there's like a 5% chance. That's what I keep saying. I think there's a 5% chance that ifald trump wins and that this is the last election and i think that that is an unacceptably high percent ever since like the civil war we've never had that percent chance that the democracy would end if one person won even as a one percent chance if you want to tell me it's a 19 chance i'll listen

to you if you want to tell me it's a two percent chance i'd listen to you but that all of those are too high of numbers for me you're now deeper in this fight than me, though. Like as far as talking to the lawyers, making these plans, you know, your work at Protect Democracy with E! This is something I know that Ian Bassin thinks about a lot, who heads up that organization. So how do you handicap that threat and like what's being done about it and what the threat level is. I wouldn't put it in a percentage, but it's sort of like the storm warnings that you get. What's the difference between a watch and a warning? The one that's more serious is like the ingredients are there, right? If you have the ingredients set for the end of the elections, the ingredients are there because Donald Trump

has cozied up to dictators. He wants to emulate them. He jokes an awful lot about wouldn't it be nice and I would call the election now if you could. He puts it in the air. And I would not put that necessarily on the ingredient table if it wasn't for what he did after the 2020 election. I mean, what he did in trying to lean on the Justice Department to seize the voting

machines with Michael Flynn. I mean, serious talks in the Oval Office where he wanted them to do a sham investigation for the purpose of maybe rerunning the election or declaring him the winner. All the calls to Georgia, the fake elector scheme. I mean, all these different schemes that he had, those were all for the purpose of overturning the election. And so I don't know how you can dismiss that. And if he comes into power again, he has people who are willing to do that kind of stuff. Yes, that is taking your vote away. I mean, you had Republican Attorney General's petitioning to the Supreme Court to cancel votes and swing states that Joe

Biden won. I don't think it gets any more legally serious and determined than that. And so I take it extremely seriously. I know it's hard for people to wrap their heads around that elections could really end here. Are elections going to be canceled? No. But what we know from how modern authoritarians come to power, it's not with the military and they shut things down. You still have elections. You just have no chance of winning them. Right? Like, it's kind of funny. I've been looking a lot at Viktor Orban and Hungary and all the, you know, the loving embrace that Donald Trump and Heritage continue to give them. And I listening to um some younger women on

some heritage podcast and they're talking about how great you know all these conservatives end up going to hungary talk about how great it is they don't see anything bad while they're actually you know they're on and a visit from extended by a grocery store yeah but it's like tucker carlson had a great trip yes you were there to see putin they made sure you had a great time i'm sure victor orban does the same thing but he's been in power he came in 2010 he's 14 years now he's going for his fifth election he keeps winning and the woman was like he keeps winning i mean they must just they just love him he keeps winning by all these large margins we wish we could have a leader like that it's like yes because one of the first things he did when he came back in power the second time, because he learned when he came

back the second time how he needed to consolidate and wield power to his advantage. They shifted, you know, all kinds of voting systems within the country to privilege his party. And took control of media outlets and corporate, you know. Yeah. And we don't have the exact same thing here, but there are moves that Donald Trump can make and has shown a willingness to make that, you know, we should all be very worried about and take seriously. I'm taking it very seriously. I'm glad that you're out there on the fight, though.

I wish, you know, we were around a little bit more, but we're going to keep on bringing you back. You're not going anywhere. That's Amanda Carpenter. She is at Protect Democracy, co-author of a recent report to the authoritarian playbook for 2025 go check that out my play out song for you amanda is not going to be very subtle my message to you so when it downloads you're gonna have to check it out time out go ahead i do like the music at the end i'm not very cultured but i listen to you every day when i'm on my runs usually and so you can play it a little bit longer

because then I don't have to find a new podcast. So if you want to put a couple songs at the end, I'm cool with that too. I appreciate that. People can get the playlist on Spotify. We'll put it in the show notes. And I've got a special one for you today. Amanda Carpenter.

I hope to see you soon. Okay, bye. When I had you to myself, I didn't want you around. Those pretty faces always make you stand out in a crowd. But someone kicked you from the bunch when you left was all it took. Now it's much too late for me to take a second look. Oh baby give me one more chance Oh to keep that feeling back in your heart Oh darling I was blind, let you go But now since I see you it is all Without you now Ooh ooh baby Yeah, yeah, yeah Na, na, na, na

Trying to live without your love Is one of those things that's nice Let me show you, girl That I don't offer lies Every street you walk by They just hang on the ground Following the girl I can even hold her up

Let me tell you now Oh baby, all I need is one more chance Won't you please let me Back in your heart Oh darling, I was blind to let you go But now, yes't have you anymore Uh huh Ba ba ba ba ba

Ba ba ba ba ba Uh huh Ba ba ba ba ba All I need Ba ba ba ba ba All I want Ba ba ba ba ba All I want, all I need Just one more chance, just one more chance

Baby, baby, baby Forget what I can do Oh baby, I was blind to let you know But now since I see you in his arms The Board Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brell.