The Bulwark Podcast - Amanda Carpenter: We Are Team Karen (Pence)

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

"Mother" Pence is owed an apology. She snubbed Trump so hard and so beautifully at Jimmy Carter's funeral—and wasn't about to make nice with the man who was all-in on Jan 6 rioters trying to lynch her husband. Meanwhile, the catturd crowd is mad at Amy Coney Barrett for not falling in line, and running off to Greenland while American neighborhoods are on fire is not America First. Plus, the risks of Trump dominating the battlespace with all the stupid stuff. Amanda Carpenter joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod. show notes: Amanda's and Protect Democracy newsletter Amanda's book, "Gaslighting America" Tim's playlist charity links: LA Fire Department Foundation California Fire Foundation Los Angeles Regional Food Bank United Way "Watch Duty," the nonprofit app that's been providing invaluable, real-time fire information

Hello and welcome to the Bullock podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. A few notes. Yesterday's ad free pod got cut off at the end. So if you missed one of my favorite wines, Fred Panic Diddy's about being around people and how that helps with your sadness. You can catch up with the playlist and the show notes every Friday, the Bullwork Podcast outro song playlist, it's right here, we put it in the show notes for you

for people that ask. Also, this is a good chance to inform newbies that if you wanna go ad free, you might not even have known you could do that. You can go to thebullwork.com slash subscribe, join Bullwork Plus. You'll also get access to the secret pod and some other goodies and you don't have to, you know,

listen to me talk about all of our great sponsors who we love and appreciate. And one more thing that's shown us today, we're gonna, if you are looking for some ways to support the firefighters and the victims in California, we're gonna put some vetted links in the notes. So with that, my guest today, a writer and editor at Protect Democracy, she's co-author of The Authoritarian Playbook for 2025, prescient, how an authoritarian president will dismantle our democracy and what we can do to protect it. It's my former colleague, Amanda Carpenter. How you doing, Amanda? Hey, Tim. Happy Friday.

Is it a happy Friday? It is. You know why it's a happy Friday. Fake it till you make it. Yeah, we're going to fake it till we make it. You know why it's a happy Friday. I want to start here. I want to start with Karen Pence. That's unexpected from you, Tim. I know. But Mother, I owe you an apology. I was not really familiar with your game. She just snubbed Donald Trump. She hard snubbed Donald Trump at the Jimmy Carter funeral service at the National Cathedral yesterday. And I'm going to do something that I don't

usually do, Amanda, but in honor of Mother. You know, the Catholics, us cradle Catholics, we're not big on like quoting Bibles, we're more about the saints than we are about the Bible verses, but the evangelicals, they're very Bible-focused, as you know. And I was wondering if Karen had Ephesians 6-13 in her mind yesterday, for our struggle is not against the flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of the dark world. We'll put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you've done everything, stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes with the gospel of peace." She just turned her

cheek. That was it. She put on her breastplate of righteousness and said, I'm not going to buddy up to you, Donald, like Barack Obama is. I am going to let you know with my eyes that you are evil. And good on you, Karen Pence. What do you think about that? Am I overthinking it? That's a great Bible verse. I like that one. I like that one a lot. You know, it's remarkable. I mean, Michelle Obama notably didn't show up at all. Apparently, she told the press that she had a scheduling conflict while she was on her extended vacation in Hawaii. Pete Slauson She had to wash her hair. She was supposed to sit next to Trump. I would have also had a scheduling

conflict. It's a busy day, bed, bath and beyond. Got to go to Home Depot. We got to do some grocery shopping. I got to do some returns. We got some presents we didn't like over Christmas. I just can't make it. Yeah, but I mean, what Karen did there, I mean, it is pretty remarkable given the pressures in that room.

I mean, obviously she knew every eye was trained on her, every camera, every photographer there, and she just sat there, which is, you know, it's a small act, but that is a major act of defiance, especially given the way her husband, Mike Penn jumped up, shook his hand, you know, did the, you know, I'm a sober, responsible person thing, which you know. It was like 2017 again with him.

He did the shoulder shrug, you know, like the little tepid smile, meek smile. Yeah, there was a lot of interesting body language there. What was it with George Bush tapping Obama on the belly? It's sort of like, thanks for taking one for the team guy. But you know, I've read there's a lot of people upset that Barack Obama and others didn't have more of a Karen Pence type act of defiance against Trump. I am not sure what the right thing to do is there. I mean, are you really going to like stage a fight at Jimmy Carter's funeral? No.

I am. I am Amanda. I mean, to each their own, but me and mother, we're staging a fight at Jimmy Carter's funeral. There was one element of the Trump and Obama exchange that I think is interesting that I think is worth discussing before we get into the real news. Trump had a little presser after the funeral, the traditional post-funeral press conference, and he weighed in on the very friendly exchange with former President Obama, what looked to be very friendly. What were you talking to Barack Obama about? It did look very friendly, I must say. I didn't realize it. I didn't realize it how friendly it looked. I saw it on your wonderful network just a

little while ago before I came in and I said boy they look like two people that like each other and we probably do. We have little different philosophies right but that we probably do. I don't know, we just got along. But I got along with just about everybody. That makes me very upset, Amanda. I don't know how, how does that make you feel? Yeah, I kind of felt like you could see the conflict in Trump's mind in that clip that he knows being buddy buddy

is bad for his street cred, right, with the MAGA base. But this is actually what he wants. He wants to be in the President's Club. He wants to be the guy that is acknowledged and respected at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. And he kind of, in some of the pictures, really looked, I mean, honestly, for the first time in a long time, it looked like he was enjoying himself,

which is weird to have that amount of enjoyment at a funeral, but I do think this speaks to what really motivates Trump. Not if you're an angel of death. If you're an angel of death, funerals may be right up your alley. Here's what bugs me about it. Maybe this is a personal thing. Maybe I'm like triggered. Maybe this is Jeb PTSD because he did this shit to Jeb, right? He would insult Columba and like make racist jokes about his wife on stage and then he go backstage and be like, hey, I want to be buddy buddy with everybody. It was just like, Trump really

does not believe that words have consequences, that there are any consequences to this sort of thing. And he doesn't see why it's a big deal. It's all just a show. It's all just wrestling or the apprentice or whatever. And he perpetrated a lie about how the first black president was born in Africa for a decade. And it's like, we're just going to be like, okay, man, well, whatever, 49.9% of Americans who showed up to the polls voted for you. So now we're just going to like make jokes about it. It's cool. The Mexican jokes and the, you were born in Africa, whatever, like we're just

moving on now. In the second, if Obama was ever going to put himself in this position, but it seems like he's taken himself out of it for the indefinite time being, if Obama started giving speeches, started supporting candidates, starting becoming active in public life in a way that posed a challenge to Trump's authority and power. Trump would flip like a dime again. But the reason why I think they can be he can be buddy buddy with Obama, I'm not speaking to Obama side of it is that Obama is no longer an obstacle to

him. That isn't and that makes me upset. So that's why I'm with Karen, me and Karen Michelle. F this guy it should. It should. F this guy. No, nothing. You get no quarter. Okay. It's uncomfortable to see them all getting along together. I probably would have done what Michelle Obama did is just not go at all.

That's probably not the right thing. The right thing is probably what Karen Pence did. I mean, what do you do? Do you ask for separate seating arrangements? Sure. You know, Obama, Bush. I mean, you were a former first lady of the United States, at the Democratic president's funeral,

you could just be like, hey, I'd like to sit on the other pew. Yeah, yes. It's not like there's a law. Like, who's going to, is somebody going to come arrest me if the presidents don't sit in the president's pew? Yeah, they'll shout, sit next to all former presidents, according to you.

Anyway, these fuckers, we're the only ones that follow the rules and he gets away with it. All right, I want to do kind of related actually, an unintentionally clean transition. There are a couple of rulings yesterday, court rulings, I want to get your take on. Supreme Court five to four ruling said that Trump does not get to avoid sentencing in the New York hush money trial. This means that he will be inaugurated on January 20th as a convicted felon.

Obviously, he's not going to jail or anything. And Magga is upset at Amy Coney Barrett about this. She was one of the five that voted for it. I have a different kind of perspective. I'm curious, does this matter to you at all? One of my New Year's resolutions was I'm not going to pretend to care about things I don't care about. And it's just, it's hard for me to get my dander up about this thing.

Like he's not going to jail. This isn't real consequences. It's you know, it's in the history books, I guess. But I don't know. Can you convince me that I should care about this any more than I do? Yeah, here's my read of the situation. Number one, good ruling. Number two, bad that it's only five-four.

Number three, this is helpful in going forward if I'm looking for the silver lining and that it further draws a line between immunity for official acts, which is broad and alarming and personal acts. This is a new world that we're in. The Supreme Court has ruled that Trump and any other president has immunity for official acts. What this further clarifies is that he cannot get away with everything.

There is a line here. You can't pay a porn star to cover up information to further your campaign. That is not an official act. So now we do have some kind of line. to cover up information, to further your campaign. That is not an official act. Okay, so now we do have some kind of line. Again, I'm looking for some silver linings here. Okay, that's a good silver lining actually. I hadn't found one yet, so that is true.

Yes, and so while we are all rightly concerned about the broad immunity ruling. We also should be careful to cling to what constraints we can have and we will need to further define what can be personal acts from official acts but things to further his campaign and further his political interests I think we can feel comfortable drawing a line there and fighting for that and also we should remember that this broad immunity Does not extend to other people in the White House outside of the president who may carry out official unlawful orders Now this is somewhat nuanced because Trump does have the pardon power which we fully expect him to exercise in

pardoning January 6 rioters coming up here, but that would be another step there. And so as he goes into his second term with all of these plans to expand his power and stamp out independence at federal agencies, that immunity does not apply to everyone at the Department of Justice, to everyone at the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense. And we should be very clear about that and make that distinction known to everyone who is entering that administration. That's valuable. And obviously, as you say, the pardon thing is going to be something, a big heart on a big fight ahead of us. And that's inevitable. It's something

you guys have been talking about, you've been talking about for a while. I do wonder your take on the Kremlinology of this with Amy Coney Barrett. Like I said, Cat Turd is really upset. The Cat Turd crowd online is very upset. She's a traitor. And I sort of hope, this is going to sound weird, but I hope Cat Turd is right to be mad at Amy Coney Barrett. I hope that she is really trying to draw lines about where the appropriate legal lines are for a president that is going to act unlawfully again, certainly. I don't know though. To me, I feel like this was a freebie. It's more concerning to me that Gorsuch and Kavanaugh didn't go along with it. This was a freebie for them to just be like, it's more concerning to me that like Gorsuch and Kavanaugh didn't go along with it. Like this was a freebie for them to just be like, whatever.

Like this is, the view that all of these justices always make their decisions purely based on their interpretation of the law, then okay, that's one way to look at this. If you're the view that sometimes they're making political decisions, like every other actor and that, and Roberts and Coney Verde are like, well, you know, he's not actually going to jail and like, this isn't really that important and we can Verde are like, well, you know, he's not actually going to jail. And like, this isn't really that important. And we can throw a bone here, you know, to demonstrate some independence to give us a little bit of give us a little leeway when things get dicier, because they're about to get dicier. You know what I mean? I don't know. Maybe that's cynical. That was my read on it. But I don't know. maybe that's wrong. What do you think? I am inclined to think, and I'm saying think

because I don't have enough information to fully believe this is true. And maybe it's just kind of what I'm hoping, is that recognizing the fact that these judges are political actors, are they essentially sort of hiding behind Justice Barrett and allowing her to take the hit? I don't believe this extends really to Justice Thomas, but you know, she forecasts that she believed in drawing this distinction earlier on. And so did they just have a pretty good understanding

that Roberts and Coney Barrett will take the hit on this and they will make sure that it was a five-four decision and we can essentially vote no and get all the kudos from MAGA from it that accrues. Right? Like this is like kind of, you know, voting no is always the safest thing if you can get other people to actually do the policy work that you know is better for the country. I'm wondering if, maybe I'm hoping, if that is actually part of the dynamic on the Supreme Court. You know, there's a lot of five, four decisions that allow

people to take the easy way out. All right. Well, it's just in, as we're talking about this, Donald Trump has now been formally adjudicated as a convicted felon. So there you go. That and two bucks won't even get you a cup of coffee these days. All right. Um, we've got, uh, we've got some other news.

I mean, it's just, that it's just hard to hear. Right. It's hard to sit with this stuff and find encouragement and motivation to keep going. But that is, that is, that is what we have to do. And I want to be clear when I'm drawing these distinctions about the path that we can fight on going forward, I am certainly not happy that the path has become so narrow. But I think we should be realistic about that is what it is, and we do have some footing to go forward on. Pete Concur. One more court item to get to. A federal appeals court rejected Trump's request to

block the release of special counsel Jack Smith's final report. Judge Eileen Cannon was obviously the judge of choice there who was trying to help block it even though she didn't have any jurisdiction over the matter. This has been overturned. The report's blocked, I guess, for three more days absent further appeal. So it could be released as early as Sunday. Both JVL and Bill Kristol, I think, wrote about this this week, what the importance of releasing the report. Do you have any additional thoughts on that? No, it needs to get out. I mean, we're going through these machinations now, but I cannot imagine that a document of this significance with all the people that have access to it,

especially Biden, with the, as JVL has pointed out, he enjoys the same kind of official immunity that Donald Trump will. Bingo. Put it out. Put it out. But what? You're gonna say because Judge Eileen Cannon said no? It is absurd. Put it out. What, the marshal of Eileen Cannon's courts is gonna come and arrest Joe Biden and Mark Garland if he puts it out. Give me a break. Hopefully we'll get to see it and that will be something we'll be able to chew over next week.

There's another news item I want to pick your brain on. Then I want to get bigger, bigger picture, a little more esoteric about how we're looking at the next four years. We talked, I guess on Wednesday's pod with Liam Donovan and Brendan Boyle about the upcoming budget fights. By the way, can I just say something? Liam Donovan was so good. He was so good at explaining reconciliation. People should save that. It should be taught to incoming Hill staffers. I just, great, great guest. I really enjoyed it.

Yeah. He's annoying sometimes. So, I don't, you know, I don't love just like, I don't love just buttering him up with so many compliments, but he was very good at that specific task at which I tasked him. So I appreciated him coming out and doing it. I hope you don't say that about me on future podcasts. She's really good at this subject, but she's actually super annoying. I would never, Amanda. Your commenters can say that. We love Amanda, all caps, Amanda. So anyway, Jody Arrington, who is the budget committee chair, we're talking to Brendan

Boyle, who's a Democratic ranking member, Jody Arrington is a Republican member. It was interesting, there's a punch bowl report out from behind the scenes of the kind of negotiations that are happening over this tax bill and reconciliation and how they're going to fund everything. And I guess Arrington showed some slides to other members of some of his proposals that included increasing the corporate tax rate, which made people very upset. I guess that was the only thing that made people upset. It also included deep, deep cuts to Medicaid and other, you know, getting rid of some corporate

write-offs, some corporate taxes. The nuts of it is that Arrington, at least is acting like he cares about our debt right now. And there are some members of the House Republican Conference who have made their bones. Chip Royce, one, I think, maybe, do you ever work, were you and Chip on the same staff? Yeah, he was my Chief of staff in the cruise office. I worked very, very closely with him. So your old boss, Chip Royce, kind of the top of this, right? There are still some OGT party people in there and a handful of new people who have been

running on debt and deficit. And they have this challenge coming up this year where like if you extend the Trump tax cuts, it's gonna be four or five trillion more dollars added to the debt the way they did the budgeting with all the expirations from from the 2017 tax cuts. And so these guys, you know, if they're gonna they either got to put up or shut up on whether they care about this. And if so, there have to be offsets. The only way to do that is going to be to increase taxes. Arrington proposed a corporate tax rate or maybe not extended on rich people. I find that very hard to believe that the Republicans will do that or have these massive cuts with Medicaid being on the top of the list. And you know, you might want to mention that there are a lot of there are a lot of mega Americans that are on Medicaid, I should note. So I don't know.

I was just wondering kind of with your former Tea Party hat on like what you think about the coming fight and whether you think any of your, your former brethren will actually hold the line on this or if they end up just, you know, doing King of debt part two. Holding the line always leads to discussions of government shutdown, which we've learned many times. And, you know, Donald Trump hasn't necessarily been hurt by government shutdown. So I don't think I would rule that possibility out. That said, just for, you know, interesting political dynamics,

where's Elon Musk and Vivek when you need them, right? Like, weren't they supposed to be tasked with finding the spending cuts that we're going to need in the future? Like, this would be the time that they should be recommending them to Congress. And so if I were Chip Roy... Didn't you see that he mentioned on, he mentioned on Mark Penn's podcast. Mark Penn, I didn't even know Mark Penn had a podcast, very low rated podcast. Elon went on it, which touched something about Mark Penn.

And Elon admitted on that, that the about Mark Penn. And Elon admitted on that that the Doge is not going to be able to find the two trillion. So if the tax cut extends to four or five trillion, depending on who you talk to, and Elon is already admitting that maybe one is the most you could find for cuts for Doge, the only way to make the math work is to jack up the debt more, to raise taxes, or to have very steep cuts to entitlements. Those are the three options. My question here, if I were Chip Roy, I would be thinking about saying, well, hey, Elon Musk signed up to have spending cuts. And so I look forward to having meeting with him and

finding the biggest cuts possible to do this. Like I would try to be enlisting him into this, because the reality is they want to have this fake You know congressional committee spending commission to make cuts to programs They don't like to hurt people that challenge their interests, right? Like that's actually what Elon wants to do but bring them into the fold, right? Like you signed up for this vivi like we need this many cuts to make this work Let's let's go. You know,. The Democrats should be similarly calling on them. Where is it? Where is it?

Because we do need to find a way to get to reality earlier on. If this just becomes an endless process of kicking the can down the road, having a reconciliation bill where we don't pay for any tax cuts, which has happened numerous times before, it doesn't really get anywhere. This is the question of what actual policy wins do Republicans expect to achieve with Trump? I think that's a very big, big, big open question. What was funny to watch earlier this week, Trump went to the Hill to meet with Senate

Republicans and people talked to the press after and said, the aides, I guess they were kind of upset. Well, Donald Trump didn't give us any guidance about whether we should do one big, beautiful spending bill or a lot of different spending bills, which is the better policy and is more hard, hard to do. But it actually does result in a better process. And it's like, because he doesn't care. He doesn't care. They would love if you listen to Larry Kudlow and the others, they just want a big bill,

just like the Republicans and Tea Party people have traditionally criticized the Democrats for doing, doing a big bill where everyone has a gun to their head, where they have to absolutely pass everything in a massive, reckless, unsustainable spending bill or get nothing at all. I mean, those dynamics have not changed. They've changed in one way, actually. Their majority is even smaller. And literally it's, I mean Tom Massey who doesn't give an F. He really doesn't. If there's one person in the house that

could not care less about whether Donald Trump gets this. There's a good Massey and a bad Massey sometimes. And I feel the same way about Rand Paul. Rand Paul pushes some really great policies sometimes, like with emergency use and abuse and that kind of stuff. But then, you know, we just got to find a way to keep them on that. Like, listen, like, you believe the debt is out of control, you have to do something about it. And it is. There's 36 trillion. So that's it. I mean, like, it's, they're in a much bigger pickle than I think that a lot of people realize. And all it takes is two of them, your old buddy Chip, so you should start texting them

again and Thomas Massey, and they can cripple the whole damn thing. And if they want to. Hey, he's done it before. Chip has done it before. They've done it before. All right, guys, I got to tell you, it is chilly here in the South. We've had a, you know, cold streak. It was down to, I don't know, 41 degrees

or something yesterday, brr. And so in that kind of weather, a good hoodie is essential. And I don't know about you, but sometimes it's tough to find a hoodie that lasts season after season. And I'm happy to recommend, I think my favorite hoodie from our sponsor, American Giant. The American Giant Classic Full Zip Hoodie is made to last a lifetime. You can count on it to bring

you comfort and warmth year after year. Slate Magazine called it the greatest hoodie ever made and from cotton to zipper, it's made right here in the USA. Tyler, my husband actually had an American Giant hoodie before they were a sponsor way back and he couldn't have been more pumped when he found out that American Giant was now supporting the pod so he can get some new hoodies in, refresh it, get some different colors, get some different weights. He had the heavyweight. We tried out the lightweight. Just got one in yesterday and boy, it is cozy.

I got to tell you, I also tried out some of the pants, some little khaki chinos from American Giant. I'm not a big khaki man, but I got one of those colored chinos to kind of wear. It's probably going to be more for next fall, you know, when I want to get into Algor Earth tones. And I was pretty happy about those. I tried them on yesterday too, so go check it out.

So it's not just about the hoodies. American Giant makes staples that are anything but basic, like the premium Slub Crew T, No BS High Rise Pant, and Slim Roughneck Pant. So this season, snag the hoodie that will bring you comfort for life. The American Giant Classic Full Zip, and save 20% off your first order at american-giant.com

when you use code BULLWORK at checkout. That's 20% off your first order at american-giant.com when you use code BULLWORK at checkout. That's 20% off your first order at american-giant.com code BULLWORK. I want to talk about Greenland and some of that stuff and some of the bigger picture, but I want to put it into this context. The Gulf of Trump, Gulf of America, my Gulf of Trump idea where we kind of sell it to him in exchange for something, that hasn't really taken off yet. It's just a licensing agreement. Yeah, it's just a licensing agreement in exchange for, I don't know, there was some, my buddy

sent me a link, there's some Norwegians that think that they can, I'm going to f this up, so scientists don't get mad at me in the comments, but like you can take a ship and put bubbles into the Gulf when you see a hurricane Is coming and the bubbles would mess with the water temperature to such a degree That like it would calm the hurricane down Send it back out to sea So maybe in exchange for the Gulf of Trump we can the Norwegians can license it and we can get the bubble solution You never know. I don't know art of the deal. But all of this is under this rubric.

You posted on the blue sky. Actually, one more note of personal privilege before we get to your blue sky, skeet. People are like, why aren't you on blue sky? I'm never going to get onto blue sky minute by minute. I'm just not going to do it. But I would like to be able to at least occasionally engage, share some of my material. Here's the problem. When Blue Sky first started, like a week after it started, somebody was like, you should get on this. And so I got on and I have an account. You tagged me, apparently. It has a lot of followers. I have no idea what the password is. I've tried all of the passwords that I've always used. I'm not going to tell anybody what they are, but I've tried all of the passwords that I've always used. I'm not going to tell anybody what they are, but I've tried all of them.

I've emailed Blue Sky support a couple of times and I can't get into the account. And so if anybody works for Blue Sky and listens to this, wants to help me get into the accounts, then maybe I could engage with my 100,000 followers or whatever it is. So that's the answer for people wondering why I haven't skied it. Anyway, you were telling your, you know, do we have a term for Blue Sky fans, you know, like believers for Justin Bieber? I don't think so. Carpenters?

Anyway, we'll think about that. You were telling your carpenters that they're coming on the pod and asking them if they had any suggestions for topics. And one of them wrote, how do we spend the next four years focused on the pod and asking them what if they had any suggestions for topics and one of them wrote How do we spend the next four years focused on the real issues and not reacting to every trump troll and misdirection? You said you have a lot of thoughts on this. So I want to hear them. Yeah So this is something that i've been contemplating and I expect to launch a newsletter through protect democracy We have a free newsletter, please subscribe. It's called If You Can Keep It. But the biggest challenge we have ahead is number one,

distinguishing between what are real threats and what's just noise, right? Like, you know, I wrote a book, oh God, it was 2018, Gaslighting America, Why We Love It and Trump's Lies, and like we know, just because we've lived in Trump's America, how he deliberately manufactures chaos to create confusion, to polarize people, to give himself operating distance and create opacity between himself and

the press so that nobody can really understand what he's up to and that all accrues to his benefit. So that's like the first layer task. But the second layer task is that he's going to have immense power, he expects to use it. So how do we focus on the things that really do matter in a productive way? And so what me and my colleagues at PD have been talking about is, okay, well what is the most important thing

that we can do going forward? And we've sort of landed on the idea that it all revolves around protecting electoral competition in the future, right? Like we need the ability to compete. And I'm not talking about us as, you know, protect democracy, but the greater we, you know, of everyone who engages in politics,

how do we compete effectively in 26 and 28? That really isn't a task that should be left to the candidates at the last minute to organize campaigns per se. I think we can see that evidenced by what happened with Kamala Harris because you really need much more infrastructure at the front end. The biggest threat that Trump poses is entrenching power, expanding reach to sideline opponents, right? Like that essentially is what everything-

Orbanism. Yeah. It's preventing Orbanism. Yes, yes. The authoritarian playbook is all about sideline opponents when you look at the end game of it. And that's all for the purpose of staying in power. This is why autocrats don't leave power. this is probably one of the most you know controversial things that we talk about

that JVL talks about the idea that Trump will install himself into power and never leave and that is a very real thing. That is what autocrats do. He ran for three for president and three consecutive elections in his back now. And maybe if he doesn't stay in power, he doesn't seek a third term, the odds are that he will play as kingmaker and call the shots behind the scenes and continue to play that role. And so everything that we should be looking at should revolve around finding ways to maintain a level playing field. I think that is the biggest threat.

It's Trump entrenching power. And so we have to find ways to fight for that level playing field. So what does that practically mean? Number one, above all, it's protecting the civic space, our free speech rights, the right to report, the right to speak about things. Because if you lose that, if they're successful in suing critics like Olivia Troy to bully her into silence, if they are able to shut down Liz Cheney because of what she did to speak out against January 6, You are not going to have the ability to organize a campaign.

Well, on the inverse of that, if these tech oligarchs decide to do only promoted speech of their own stuff, right? Like, you know, I mean, because Elon pretends to be a free speech guy, meanwhile forcing people to see his propaganda in the For You page and elevating all pro-MAGA stuff and, you know, tamping down, you know, critics. And so this can take a lot of different forms, but protecting the space to speak, wherever that comes, is critical.

And next step to do that is protecting individuals and organizations who are targeted because they challenge the administration. This is where the idea of you fight to protect Liz Cheney, not because she's Liz Cheney and you like her, but because if they realize they can take her down with these meritless prosecutions and such, they're going to go after other people. You fight on the first ground. You fight to defend those first targets. And I think along the way, that can have a unifying effect that helps the organization,

that helps the campaigns, that helps the candidates refine these pro-democracy messages in a way that are relatable to the public and not just speaking about it in abstract terms. And that is how you get along to the business of winning elections and along the way, making sure that you are protecting the rights to free and fair elections because electoral competition, this doesn't just mean, Oh, we can go have a vote in November, 2028 because there's a lot of authoritarian regimes where people have the guys

of elections. They're just meaningless because the public already lost the ability to muster any meaningful opposition in the buildup to them. I'm curious then, I have a couple of specific examples I want to go through, but at the broadest level, I'm curious then as we look to like, for example, next week, we'll be having confirmation hearings. Right. So I assume, but maybe I'm wrong that you guys are going to be monitoring the ones that have the biggest potential impact on, you know, protecting the civic space

is going to be Bondi, the AG, Patel. I don't think we have a hearing date yet for Patel. Anything else that jumps out to you? Yeah. I mean, this gets into the question, which I think is important for everyone in this space so Knowing that you know if you agree with my thesis of this thesis that is developing that protecting electoral Competition all those things that go with it are the most important thing. How do you distinguish between?

What are just normal policy? disputes that are politics as usual and things that actually fundamentally threaten the future of fair and free elections and electoral competition. So let's take Cash Patel for example. It would be within the purview of a new FBI director to come in and say the presidented on stepping up drug enforcement and I have a plan to go after these drug cartels and allocate a bunch more resources to do that. Like, okay, that is a normal policy.

They are entitled to advance that. You may have political disagreements with it, but that's within the bounds of what administration is entitled to do in terms of policies. That is much different than Cash Patel coming in and saying, I have an enemy's list and I am going to essentially harass them, use taxpayer resources against them for the purposes of sidelining them as political opponents and obstacles to our power. Those are two different things.

Being able to tell the difference amid all the challenges that we have coming, I think is going to be absolutely critical in terms of maintaining a productive means of prioritizing the threats. Let's talk about what that exactly looks like in the context of, I think the questioner was probably asking, like, okay, because you get this a lot. What do we focus on? We're getting distracted. He's distracting us, right? And the most obvious distraction effort this week was Gulf of Trump, Gulf of America, we're

going to take Greenland, Canada is going to be the 51st state. He brought that up again at the press conference yesterday. I think that there are a lot of people that would say, looking at the rubric you just laid out, that that stuff is frivolous. You should ignore it. I think I have a little bit of a different view. It's also just developing. I don't know that anyone has a perfect answer to all of this, but I'm curious what your

response is under that construct. I don't know that anyone has a perfect answer to all this, but I'm curious what your response is under that construct. There's different roles for different organizations, different people, different sectors of civil society. A lot of this is silly, but yeah, like should we let this go? But okay, part of maintaining that competitive electoral profile means not waiting until 26 and 28. My sort of question, which is outside my lane at PD, is where are the platforms that the Democrats, because we only have a two-party system, we only have two options essentially in every ballot,

what are they doing to foster and cultivate talent in order to be ready for that moment? And what that should mean is where are the events and things happening where people can have answers to this and say things like, okay, you want to go to Greenland? Like show me how much is it going to cost? Like come back and put the burden, the burden of Trump was sort of something I'm thinking about.

Like put the burden back on Trump. He throws all kinds of stuff back out there and I was burden, the burden of Trump was sort of something I'm thinking about. Put the burden back on Trump. He throws all kinds of stuff back out there. I was inspired listening to you speak about this the other day. Say, okay, bring me the proposal. We have out of control deck, you can't pass a tax bill. You want to go buy Greenland? You think that's a great idea? But that isn't the ground we necessarily fight on.

But I always look back to how did the Tea Party movement gain such power? It did not happen overnight. It happened over a long period of time with all these conferences and events where people were constantly testing out messages and giving speeches and testing their appeal. And I just don't see that happening. Why can't the Democratic primary for 2028 start to begin right now? We didn't have one last time because we waited, everyone waited to the last minute. What are you waiting for, guys? Yeah, I agree with that. So here's my, here's how I

kind of divide all this to your point of there's different rules for different people in civic society. I think that your point and JVL writes about this a lot in the triad is like that protecting democracy, use a pun, but like protecting our civic space elections. Like that is the prime thing. Like that is the thing that where people need to fight, where donors and lawyers should be in the field, ensuring that people's basic rights are protected and that our constitutional republic goes forward without any, without any efforts by an aspiring autocrat to undermine it.

I totally agree. That's the prime work and objective of the next four years. Okay. But also, like the Democrats, now to your next point, have a political objective, which is to actually win some power back so they can wield power inside the government in 2026 and 2028. And here, I think, is where you get to the interesting strategic question. Because I think the person that that skated you on Blue Sky,

I think they were saying that there is this conventional wisdom that's like, Trump distracts us with this stuff. And we should focus only on the serious stuff, because that is how you win elections. And that is how, and you're, that's how you don't play his game. And I don't know, I've just, I actually had that view for a little while in the last midterm in particular, when it was successful for Democrats in the first Biden midterm. And I'm starting to change my mind on it for this reason. You know, again, we're working this out in real time. I don't, if, if anybody had the sure-proof answer to this,

Donald Trump wouldn't be being inaugurated again in a week. But I was watching, I was on my little TikTok and I was scrolling through and I stopped on one of my, one of those sports podcasts that I watch. Is this one of the bros? No, yeah. Well, I mean, they're bros, but yeah, I don't know. I don't think it's a sport. They didn't have any political gas lines called Pardon My Take. Shout out to PFT. So Pardon My Take, they were talking about Greenland. Right? Like they were talking like, you think this is a good idea? Should we buy Greenland?

Go America. Isn't that awesome? Go America. We should buy Greenland. And like, those are the people that helped Trump win. Right? Like Trump won because he gained among people that only knew about the Haitians and Greenland and the stupid stuff. They don't care about

reconciliation. They don't care that much about the intricacies of immigration policy, even though I do. They don't care about protecting civic space. You know what I mean? They're only engaging with Trump on the stupid shit that Trump puts out there. That's their whole political life, like worldview. And so that just makes me wonder if the Democrats are making a mistake by saying, okay, no, we're just going to focus on the serious stuff that really threatens people's lives. And we're going to let him do all this silly stuff and dominate the news, and dominate the battle space for the next four years, and continue to gain ground

among these folks that read the news less. And that is what makes me think, no, actually the Democrats should be playing his fucking game. And I don't exactly know what that means in the Greenland context, but like, you know, I was, what I saw in the next level is in the Harvey Weinstein context, it's like, it's like, maybe instead of focusing on whatever the Democrats should be out there and being like, not Harvey Weinstein, when I say Harvey

Weinstein, I meant Jeffrey Epstein. Sorry, sorry, I was confusing my sex pass. In the Jeffrey Epstein context, it's like, Trump, let's see it. Why haven't you released it? Oh, wait, are you the pedo? Actually, were you the person? Was it the pedo, are you the pedo actually? Were you the person? Was the pedo coming from inside the house after all? Let's see all the, you know what I mean, stuff that does break through to the broader electorate. I don't know. So what do you think about that,

which is like the counter argument to don't get distracted by the silly stuff? Here's how I see it. Protecting the civic space is a duty, as you mentioned, the lawyers and things like that. But protecting that space also means taking it up. You can maintain a level playing field, but if you don't have people on it, as active participants in the game, what is the point?

And so this is something, I'm very delighted to see that Sarah is putting a big, bad, bold goal of getting a million subscribers on the free list for Bulwark because that's sort of what it's going to take. We all know traditional media is dead, right? Cable news ratings are absolutely in the basement because nobody gets their stuff there. So go to where the audience is, take up that civic space to communicate with people. And free media is the media, it's YouTube, it's TikTok, it's all those things. And I don't know why, it's so odd to see that people are still

resisting what is so obviously happening. You always find these consultants and things like that. Well, we need new messengers, we need new messages. No, just go have conversations where people are at. Get on YouTube, and it's hard to do, and I really commend Bulwark, especially, for being so pioneering, because it is hard to do, and to show up, but a lot more people need to be

getting into the free media space and finding ways to, I mean, it's not going to be profitable to be able to pay to give people that information in that way. I do think there are bad ways to be distracted by Trump. Speaking of the failures of the establishment media. I don't, I hate being a media critic. I try to do as little media criticism on here as possible because to your point, it's increasingly pointless because it's not where people are getting their news. But I had to do it on this one on Greenland, just so people can understand the distinction I'm talking about.

I'm talking about trying to asymmetrically attack Trump by going after these things that are tabloid-y and having democratic politicians and people that oppose Trump, you know, try to use his own methods against him. I'm not talking about the mainstream media taking him seriously, before he's actually put his money where his mouth is, as you said. Amanda, the Politico headline today was on politico.com, looking for topics. Can Trump buy Greenland? Technically yes.

Here are his options. No. Good. Do the work for him. No. Don't help him. Okay? Don't help him.

All right? It's not actually the job of journalists to be like, Donald Trump farted out some stupid thing that somebody told him on the golf course. And now we're going to put a real serious context around it. There was a New York Times version of this that somebody sent me that was like, Donald Trump's strategy to buy Greenland is actually an effort to mitigate against the threat of climate change. And I'm like, what? I mean, isn't it more, it's just scouting out properties for another Trump hotel.

Like, isn't that the most probability? The biggest probability is that it looks big on a map. And he's like, that looks big and cool. And I want the big and cool thing on the map. That because of the way the cartography works. But when it comes to like having a political answer to this sort of stuff, I've got to say, watching Don Jr. go on this trip to Greenland while California is burning, California is burning

to a crisp. And we know that Donald Trump has explored the idea of withholding wildfire funding for previous California wildfires because he didn't think the voters there were sufficiently supportive. What in God's name? This is where I'm talking about, why aren't the Democrats starting to, I don't say campaign now,

but can't there be a big event to say, hey guys, do you think climate change is real now? I mean, I know this is not the exact moment to do that, but someone, isn't that like what is staring us in the face? And we don't have any answers, any solutions than maybe John Jr. wants to build a new hotel in Greenland that he can flee to? What Elon's gonna do to spaceship to Mars

and the planet burns down? This kind of seems like obvious stuff, maybe not right now because it is so horrific, but I am kind of, I am flabbergasted that there's split screen coverage of everyone losing their home and what's Trump gonna do next? Is he gonna buy Greenland?

It's just such a jarring thing where, you know, we are living in different realities and we need to fight to have some kind of shared vision of what is going on and what threatens us. Well, the way to think about it is America first. And, right, there's a way for Democrats to engage in this in the Americans first context, which is like, it's real Americans that are suffering, right? And you said that you're gaining in California and like they're real Americans in Alta Dena that voted for Donald Trump that are suffering. And you're right now angling to get new property and agreements or invade the Panama Canal. That's

not America first. One last thing with the perfect democracy had on the Elon kind of oligarch corruption part of it all. The musk of it all. Yeah, I do. I know. I can't believe it. Oh, I'm officially a podcast host.

Cut that out. I hate the other. I got sucked in by all the other podcast hosts that use that phrase. Take out the of it all. Hold me accountable for my verbal ticks. Thank you, Amanda. Don't cut it out, Katie, but just let people hear me put on my own hair shirt for using these cliched tics so I can do better next time.

I did. Elon, though, that is, to me, there's a political argument there that the Democrats could use going after these masters of the universe. But I'm interested in your view on kind of like the parallels, you know, to what we've seen, you know, in an autocratic capture in other places around the world. I mean, this feels there's been this era, you know, in the Gilded Age in America before, but in kind of the modern time in the post-World War II world, like the access that Elon has, the access that these super billionaires have to Trump feels much more like what we see in countries where we're concerned about, about the end of democracy than it feels like an American, a traditional American, you

know, kind of I scratch your back, you scratch mine kind of stuff that we've seen from both parties. Yeah. I mean, the rush of anticipatory obedience from people, I mean, Elon was obviously first in line to place all his bets on Trump and get the biggest, fattest seat at the Mar-a-Longo table possible. You see that followed with Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and others. Maybe that's just more obvious in a way than we see the other people lining up behind Trump.

Like everyone's offering to get their hand in the till and pay for his inauguration, the ridiculous $15 million defamation suit that ABC News settled while they're like, you know, laying off people left and right, no longer engaging the news gathering business. That's all happening. And yeah, that is what you see in countries where you have to essentially be in with the leader and engage in that form of corruption in order to preserve your business interests, right?

Like it is in many ways an act of self-preservation. Some people are more eager to do it than others. But aside from that, what you were talking about made me think about one of the other challenges is how do we do our job defending democracy, protecting spaces without defending or apologizing for the status quo, right? Like I think that's the trap that Harris and Biden

and others fell into. Yes. And saying that you want to protect institutions doesn't mean that they're perfect in, and Biden and others fell into. Yes. And saying that you want to protect institutions doesn't mean that they're perfect. In knowing and explaining and understanding the difference between what is real reform and what leads to ruin is complicated, but necessary.

This is tough for me in particular, because I do think the status quo is basically fine. We have problems. But this is my small C conservative. My inside is like, you guys want change, but I don't know, change might be bad. And so we should be a little more careful. But that's a political loser and people should be thoughtful about it. Yeah, not with healthcare, not with education, not with climate, not with... It's a lot of things.

In saying that everyone is fine and the economy is up, so therefore you have more money on your paychecks. It just, that doesn't translate to people without pensions, without the stock market, et cetera. Bad politics. So yeah, that's like a whole other thing. I'm aware of the ways in which some of my priors are bad politics. I've been made painfully aware of that.

You are not responsible for this. Well, excuse me. All right. Well, I'm burdening myself. So okay, I'm not unburdened by what has been. You shouldn't apologize for yourself either. I am very burdened by what has been, Amanda. To that point, final thing, because we were talking about in the green room, so we should bring it public.

Okay. We got 10 days, then he's going to be inaugurated again. That's going to be bad. I don't know. I've been thinking about it and I'm going to New York mostly so my family doesn't have to be around me. Because it's going to be healthy to hang out on the MSNBC set. Yeah. I want Tyler to be able to live in peaceful bliss and stream some stupid TV show and go to the park, whatever. Go to the crawfish royal crawfish season is back and not have me have to hear

his voice in the background. And so that's how I'm dealing with it. But I think it's going to be tough. I mean, it is such a repudiation of a lot of the good that we've believed about the country. That doesn't mean that there's no good left in the country, but it's hard to not not think about that and not be depressed or discouraged, worst than whatever the maximum

version of discouraged is. It's hard not to think about it. It will be hard not to experience that feeling next week. So anyway, I thought maybe some listeners could think could get some value in hearing how you're processing it. Yeah, I mean, it's gonna be tough, no doubt. I don't expect I'm gonna tune in to watch it live. I'll see the pictures. I do want to read the speech to see, you know, how he approaches the second term. I can already tell you it's gonna be the opposite of American Carnage. He's gonna pretend to be he's gonna pretend to be everybody's friend and pretend to unite and we're going to have to gag as people are like, well, look at this, Trump's turning over a new leaf. You might not have

to read the speech, I'm telling you what it's going to be. Yeah, this is part of it. He gets his moment. He won, he gets to have the big ceremony, he gets to march down the avenues. All the pictures will be Melania. All the media coverage is going to be glowing, right? Because they want to give him that sort of sweetener coming in. I don't think I'm going to be able to watch it. You know, people who are in the political opposition, don't let them see your tears. Don't do it. Don't do it.

Tune out. Protect your mental health. This is going to be a long slug. And you're going to have to have the energy. Don't burn it. Tune out. Protect your mental health. This is going to be a long slug. And you're going to have to have the energy. Don't burn it now. This is all, it's going to be a week of sugar cane coverage. Let it happen. You can't stop it. This is not something to stop. It's not something to fight over. There are going to be big issues down the road. You know, that's why I've worked with my colleagues to develop a framework on distinguishing what really matters and what doesn't. And him getting his in the picture in the paper with his hand over the Bible

and everyone smiling, isn't it? Good advice. It will be tough for me to follow, but listeners should follow it if they can, you know? I got to be here for the people that wanna suffer with me. But yeah, I'm with you. No sadness porn. I'll listen to you, but I'm not gonna watch the event. We'll talk about feelings, but no sadness porn here. Cause as you said, we can't stop it.

That's what we're living through. Amanda, please come back every month so we can talk through it all. It is so good to see you. And my love to the family, everybody else. We'll be back here on Monday. It's nine years since we last David Bowie. So we'll take you out with a little Bowie.

We'll be back here with Bill Kristol on Monday. See you all then, peace. ["I Do Something Very Wrong"] The pulse returns from prodigal sons With blackouts hearts with flowered mues With skull designs upon my shoes I can't give everything I can't give everything Give everything away I can't give everything away away seeing more and feeling less

saying no but meaning yes this is all I ever meant that's the message that I sent I can't give everything I can't give everything Away Away I can't give everything Away The Bulldog Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason

Breck.