The Bulwark Podcast - Amanda Carpenter: Welcome to Coalition Government

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

Hey, look: Republicans and Democrats are working together! Meanwhile, Trump is still trying to destroy our institutions, Bill Barr is comfortable playing Russian roulette, and Mark Esper speaks the truth. Plus, more from the mailbag. Amanda Carpenter joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod. show notes: Amanda on the pardon power Amanda's piece about Trump's attacks on the courts Bill Kristol's interview with Mark Esper The Times' Mike Bender on Trump's VP contenders Trump being scared of a bald eagle Trump claiming a protester was from ISIS Tim's playlist

Hello and welcome to the Bullard podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. I'm here today with Amanda Carpenter. She's back editor at Protect Democracy, Renaissance Woman at Protect Democracy, Everything for Democracy Saver. What's going on, Amanda? Not too much. Happy to be back. Happy Friday. How are you doing with the Daily Pods? It's been going pretty good, I think. You know, we're trying to mix it up a little bit. And I do tell you, it's like every morning. There's no doubt about that. It happens every morning. So, you know, that's a little bit of a change. Yeah, well, you have been mixing it up like the array of guests. I know it looks great on the outside. But I'm just wondering about you adjusting to Daily Grind. I listened to the commercials about you having to take things to counteract the drinks to get up in time to do the pods.

So I'm just checking on you, Tim. I do have a young child and a social life. And I will say, I was going to mention this during the, we're doing a mailbag at the end so people can stay around. I was going to mention this in the mailbag segment, but since you asked me and I've taken over the host responsibilities, you know, jazz fest is here the next two weeks and so if i'm going a little slow on fridays ask a little grace all right it's going to be a long year a tough year we got to fucking watch donald trump every day and and i live in new orleans so sometimes i'm gonna have a few cocktails but um i am gonna still effort to just

strap it on as jvl would say the chin strap we're talking about the chin strap and and get and put out a good podcast every day i'm with sarah on that one i'm with sarah on the whole concern though i appreciate your concern and and let me know if you feel like i'm falling short people i'm here for you all right while we're having fun donald trump was at trial let's i want to hear a little bit from him after the court yesterday. It's a shame. It's a shame. And I'm sitting here for days now, from morning till night, in that freezing room. Freezing.

Everybody was freezing in there. And all for this. So cold. Poor little Donnie. So cold in there. Might want to put on a sweater. What do you think? Do you feel bad? I noticed you're wearing some merch, actually. Oh, yeah.

I noticed you're wearing some Bulwark merch. Never Trump from the jump. Everybody go to thebulwark.com, click on store. You can look like Amanda. What do you think about poor, cold Donnie in trial yesterday? I was thinking of the Beyonce song, This Ain't Texas, But This Ain't Mar-a-Lago. I mean, you can't control the temperature in the courtroom. Yes, it's very difficult. But

more broadly, I understand a lot of people have hangups about how the trial is going, what's going to happen, etc. It is still extremely productive and healthy for us at this stage, even if he gets off and everything, that he has to show up. He is showing up. He does have to do as the judge says. He can't control the circumstances. Yeah. You're not in charge, big guy. Yeah, yeah. He will be judged by a jury of his peers. Those aren't his sycophants, his political appointees, his fanboys at Fox News, they're New Yorkers, right? Like, even though you're a former president, you are going to be judged by New Yorkers who were pulled

in at Ramder because those are actually your peers. And so I don't know, I get a little like gay America watching this because it shows that even though we have a lot ahead of us, the rule of law is holding. We do have systems designed to do this. I mean, we've tried mob bosses, all kinds of things before. We can do this. We can do this, people. And we're going to go through the process. And that's very, very healthy.

New Yorkers are spicy, too. The jury selection has been fun. I just, I keep coming up with that word, what's that, the cold salad, where it's all mixed together, the salmagundi. I'm like, it's like just the whole human experience. You know, you got everybody you got the deviled egg in there and you got the cold pasta and then you know, you got the guy in the t shirt that says sarcasm font. It's a weird crowd and Trump's gonna have to deal with it. On the more serious side of this or earnest, maybe less than serious.

Crystal and Edgar wrote this morning that like we're in this situation where there are more than 12 it is now settled on 12 but there were dozens of people that are trying to do their best you know that are trying to live up to the expectations of a country with a rule of law there's a judge that's trying to do that there are lawyers and there's just one asshole that's trying to break all the rules and wants to be treated differently and wants to be treated specially and that we continually have to reign him in and it's just unfortunate that that is the person that like is the former president of the united states you know yeah yeah we got some good people in there though which i like okay we'll see

we'll see how good they're oh one i want to quote your your boss i guess ian bass over there protect democracy we love to protect democracy this is what he wrote about this there isn't another defendant in the country who could thumb their nose at pre-trial conditions of release the way trump has and remain walking free not one trump has been given special treatment that no one else would get if you'd done what trump has done you'd be in jail we all know that listening to the bulwark podcast but i like that he said that so bluntly and i think that's important to continue to say, because I think there are a lot of normies out there that, you know, haven't ever been arrested, don't know how the process is supposed to work, you know, who maybe are buying his thing that he's getting treated badly when that's just not,

not right. Yeah. I mean, this has kind of been this thing too. It's like, oh, well, they're violating my constitutional rights and that I can't threaten and intimidate jurors, witnesses, prosecutors, and judges. And they're family members, right? Like that's another big aspect of this. If people want to go deeper on this, there was a really good piece in Politico from their legal affairs editor

talking about all the special treatment that he's gotten through this process. And I do think people are sort of reflexively, they don't like the idea of gag orders, because it's like, well, he should be able to defend himself. But I wrote a piece for our Protect Democracy sub stack called If You Can Keep It, subscribe to it, talking about how... Little Ben Franklin call back there. Little Ben Franklin call. Yeah, yeah. And that cute, you know, I was a little unsure about it first, but it has grown

on me. And I really do like the name, If You can keep it. But the threat that underscores not just this hush money trial, but all the trials, is how he tries to continually destabilize our institutions of accountability with threats and intimidation, right? And that spurs people violence. It's all for the purpose of obstructing legal proceedings. We saw this on January 6th. We see how he tries to undo accountability for that riot by promising pardons. And now we see how he's trying to intimidate the process in these trials. And there is a reason why not just the judge in this trial, but judges in other trials, and even Eileen Cannon has had to speak to the fact that Donald Trump's rhetoric does pose a threat to the process.

That is the reason why we have the gag orders. You are not allowed to interrupt the proceedings in this way. And that's so you can protect it. And we have to have that kind of protection because if a judge or witnesses or members of the jury are afraid to do their job, the whole institution falls apart. It is just like we kind of saw Congress fall apart in the second impeachment where members of Congress were afraid to impeach the president because of threat of violence. And so you see this coming at it from all angles. And I do think it is hard to track because we look at like, oh, okay, this is the

hush money trial. And this is the this and this is that. This is the big thing swirling around all of it about how he wants to destabilize our institutions with threats of violence. And so I just want people to keep that in their head. And that is what the gag orders are designed to protect. And that is why the gag orders must be enforced. Amen. And well, much better put than I've been putting it on here. So I'll just leave you and Ian on that one. You also, I was going to get to this later, but you mentioned the promising of the pardon. So let's just get right to it. You wrote for The Bulwark this morning with Grant Tudor, your colleague at Protect Democracy, Trump is wrong. The pardon power is not absolute.

It's interesting. A lot of what you guys are doing at Protect Democracy is kind of looking around corners, potential threats. Nobody wants to close their eyes and imagine that Donald Trump's the president again, but somebody's got to be prepping for that in case that happens. Talk to us about this element of it, because I've always thought that to me, it's underappreciated, you know, the potential danger of just the specter of pardons that Trump puts forth, you know, that would like, that makes people feel like they can act with immunity. And, you know, I think that'd be very scary in the process of people who are

bureaucrats, of course, you know, who have the power of the state behind them. It's also very scary just in the concept of like the Jan 6 folks and like that people that are doing political violence might feel like even if they don't actually, they might feel like they're going to get pardoned. So anyway, talk about the limits of the pardon power and what you the kind of work you guys are doing on that. Yeah, well, just to kind of level set, this is where we see an area of concern for a possible Trump 2.0, but just generally, as well, in the fact that people sort of implicitly accept the idea that the pardon power is unfettered.

And that is largely because presidents have policed themselves within constitutional constraints. Sure, you did see like pardons like Bill Clinton got accused of quid pro quo with Mark Rich. And then, you know, Congress did an investigation. Trump got away with a lot of pardon abuse, like he was issuing pardons for Jeanine Pirro's ex-husband. He had what I call henchmen pardons that were in the full light of day for Paul Manafort, Steve Bannon, Mike Flynn, etc. And so Paul Manafort pardons was literally treasonous. I wrote like, I think that was the headline I wrote. It was either treasonous or traitorous. There's just no way to put any, you know, better spin on it than that. It was absolutely disgusting. But it was in this that period of time where there's so much happening,

like the news cycle just moves on. Yeah, those henchmen pardons in those veins for those allies affiliated with the Russian investigation were pretty much for the purpose of obstructing justice. Like saying, don't break, you know, I don't want you to break holds wrong, and then voila, you get a pardon later. Okay. So going forward, he will be, if he's elected, even right now, he's the only person in the position to even test the idea of a self-pardon because we haven't had presidents of hues of criminality in not one, but numerous courts around the country. So we do have to think very seriously about this. And he said before, I do think it's absolute and complete essentially saying, I think I can do whatever you want. And you even see some constitutional scholars kind of like agree with him. But that is largely rested on the idea that it hasn't been tested yet. Like just because the idea hasn't been tested, or the Supreme Court hasn't like made a decision on the self-tardine doesn't mean it's unconstitutional. Somebody like

pushed back on me on Twitter about this day. It's like, listen, like, I haven't jumped off a building, but I know I can't fly. And that is because the Constitution, you can't pick and choose parts of it, right? Like you have to read it as a whole document. And you can't let the 20 word pardon clause be a free pass to run roughshod over the rest of the constitution. Like we didn't break apart from the English monarchy. So a future president can be like, oh, pardon clause. And now I can be a tyrant again and self-pardon myself and reward criminality in any way I see fit. That is not what it's for. It has constraints. And that constraint is you cannot use the pardon power to violate other clauses of the constitution. Lots of other things are read like that, like the commerce clause. Congress has the ability to regulate commerce, but they can't say like, oh, I don't

like this paper run by a black editor for these issues. Therefore, you can't ship it across state lines. That's just not how it works. And so in this paper that we published on Bulbark, which is based on a larger report that my much smarter than me, a colleague, Grant Tudor, and Justin Florence did, talks about the four constitutional constraints and the way that we see this should not be used if it ever did come up, primarily to place the president above the law, but then also to license lawbreaking, which is clearly what the January 6th pardons would do in rewarding that kind of political violence to advance the president's name. So there's ways to go deeper on that. But like this is part of getting ahead of that question.

Should it come up? We need to test the idea that it is unfettered because it absolutely is not. The court has ruled, you know, put restrictions on it in the past. Congress has investigated it. So I just want people to become familiar with the idea that it is not absolute. Yeah, that's good. The one thing that jumped out at me in the piece was it is not absolute. Yeah, that's good. The one thing that jumped out at me in the piece was, this is not untested, right? The Supreme Court has put

limits on presidential pardons before. You know, it's kind of a complicated case. There's an example that you give of where essentially it seems like Woodrow Wilson was trying to pardon a newspaper editor preemptively so that they would testify and and you know essentially that the court held that like the power of the president of the constitution does to grant pardons but you know does not also change the fifth amendment right of a witness right to not testify against i assume it was against the president in this case but um the one thing that is not tested is the self-pardon the self-pardon right yeah that's like where people are like well we don't know what would happen like you might be allowed to do it because we haven't been present due before.

No, like, let's read the Constitution as it is written. I think any reasonable person can come to the conclusion that a self-pardon to violate other clauses of the Constitution would not be constitutional. Amen. I love that. Okay, I'm glad that's getting out there into the bloodstream. We're getting wonky on Friday morning, too. We're getting wonky. We're starting with wonky, because trust me, we've got some dessert coming.

We've got some dessert. Okay, got it. Got it. Before we get to the dessert, I guess we have to compliment Mike Johnson again for the Second Straight Podcast. I'm okay with it. Will Salatin and I went deep yesterday on just, you know, kind of the Augustinian moral questions about how you deal with a sinner who does the

right thing, who comes to the Lord. So anyway, we've had a rules committee vote passed since we met yesterday, nine to three. All the Democrats voting with, I guess, a slight, a bare majority of the Republicans, three voted against the rule to advance this package of aid bills and then the weird TikTok, you know, fourth grab bag to the floor. Now that's got to pass a rules vote on the floor, but it seems like it's going to. There's some Republican Twitter back and forth this morning between the various Republicans. You love Republican on Republican infighting. It was like, I love crazy on crazy infighting, especially it was like Derek Van Orden was shouting at Matt Gaetz on Twitter. I'm like,

all right, we're in business now. So anyway, there's some frustration within the Republican conference, but it's going to come up for a vote. Hasn't happened yet. We're taping this Friday morning. But it seems like we're on path to this passing, and it's just I guess my question for you is, number one, how many cheers do we give Mike Johnson for this?

And two, is this the growing on the job everybody told us that trump was gonna do but like it turned out mike johnson did it like you know you can be irresponsible when you have a child this job is a backbench congressman but all of a sudden you're in a skiff and you're seeing video of ukraine get attacked and you get serious is that do you think what happened here i am not prepared to say that mike johnson has turned a corner and has seen the light. What I am prepared to do is say that Tim Miller was right. All right. And I've kind of been screaming this in my head as I've seen this kind of come together.

But this really nailed it for me in the Politico playbook newsletter this morning. It says, new house rules. Welcome to coalition government. Welcome to coalition government. Thank you, Amanda. Tim Miller has called that shot. I mean, it's kind of obvious, but like, this is the Tim Miller thesis coming to light because this is the obvious conclusion. It is the only way to go forward. And if Mike Johnson wants to say, well, I did it because what I saw in the skiff, even though

anybody could turn on the news and listen to any speech by Zelensky to come to that conclusion. Fair point. I guess I'll take it. But the only reasonable conclusion to come from this is that Tim Miller's right. Thank you. I'm so glad you mentioned that because for we I was just Joe Strauss, the Texas speaker who I hope listens because he should because he's just like a core bulwark Republican, ended up as a literal coalition speaker because the Republicans couldn't get their shit together in Texas. And so he won the speakership with the votes of some Republicans and some Democrats in Texas. We had an article about in the Bulwark that recruited a Texas journalist to write for us about what the model would look like for Congress.

And that would have been better, like a literal coalition government where like Brian Fitzpatrick or Don Bacon was the the speaker like these people aren't perfect but it would have been preferable to mike johnson and we would have had ukraine aid many months ago instead of now but an unofficial coalition government where the democrats kind of wink wink nod nod and say hey we'll save you mike johnson is better than the alternative you know and that's like where we're at walks like a duck talks like a duck they won't say i'm a duck but you're a duck you're a coalition it's a coalition government it's a coalition government duck that's exactly right me and gates have been going back and forth on this on twitter this morning a little bit because my point going back

was that it had kevin mccarthy that just gutless blow-dried piece of garbage. You're talking about Donald Trump's future chief of staff there, Tim Miller. Or maybe VP. He floated himself for VP in the New York Times. I don't know if you noticed that. The New York Times was doing a story on VPs. I wish I had it in front of me. Well, since RFK turned it down. RFK turned it down, so Kevin McCarthy jumped out.

Yeah, the New York Times was doing this story. Mike Bender is a great reporter. He was doing this story on categories of people that Trump's looking at for VP. And weirdly, Kevin McCarthy is on the record quoted in it. And we'll put the link in the show notes so you can see the exact quote. But his quote is like, you know, Donald Trump really needs somebody that he knows is loyal, that has experience working the halls of Congress, that can get his agenda passed. And I'm like wait wait a minute

is this kevin nominating himself for vp i think it was i mean i i guess he has experience getting fired by trump before so he's qualified for the job that's relevant on the job experience he knows how to pick out the starburst none of these people listen to me they'll be like oh you guys have tds this would never happen had kevin mccarthy just listened to us and gone to a few normal democrats and said hey guys i know you're mad at me but let's cut a deal we're gonna do this you guys get this i get this he would still be speaker and the republicans would still have a bigger majority because that motion to vacate well i was only powerful if the Democrats were going to vote against him, right? Gates only had nine people.

Well, as I remember, the Democrats were not willing to entertain that because of what he did about January 6th. And so maybe it never would have happened. But I just think if there's a hypothetical world where Kevin humbled himself. Yeah, he didn't try. Yeah, he didn't try. And he humbled himself and went to Hakeem Jeffries instead of just going on TV and dunking on Democrats and blaming Democrats and saying,

oh, the Democrats are going to put a crazier person in. Remember that argument? And we got chastised by people on right-wingers who were like, you guys are Democrats. You're going to put a crazier person in because of Kevin McCarthy because you have so much TDS. It's like, look what happened. The Democrats did it. They got rid of Kevin McCarthy, because you have so much TDS. It's like, look what happened. The Democrats did it. They got rid of Kevin McCarthy. They got a person that's maybe crazier

and is like, you know, if you're going down a checklist of views, but it's turned out to be more responsible. It's turned out to be more responsible than Kevin McCarthy. So it ends up being a good trade for everybody. Fingers crossed. It hasn't happened. You're right. You're right. We're knocking. We're knocking on wood here. Okay. Just get that money to Ukraine. Like, get it. Get it done. There's one topic I didn't prepare you for. Uh-oh. Because it just, I thought it'd be funnier to see you live.

Okay. I hope you haven't seen this. Politico was reporting on this yesterday. Olivia Beavers, good reporter. This is what's happening with the House Freedom Caucus right now because they're in such shambles house freedom caucus members are signing up to take shifts to guard the house floor in order to prevent resolutions they'd consider unsavory from slipping through that could curb their power under this new rule per to our sources this floor action response team aims to guard against a voice voter etc etc i just want to note floor action response team. That's an interesting acronym. Okay. It's the fart team. The House Freedom Caucus has created a fart team to try to stop

the Democrats and Mike Johnson for doing anything they don't like. Good. So thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, it kind of reminds me of what we would do in DeMint's office. I mean, it's sort of a function of what was called the Senate Steering Committee. But there would be somebody that would police, I don't want to say police, but monitor the phone line that bills would go to the floor at all hours on weekends and things like that to make sure that nothing would be called up for unanimous consent and be passed. That seems kind of familiar to me, although they could work on their messaging a little bit and come up with something better. You're not going to take the bait on the stink bomb,

on Paul Gosar putting a stink bomb on the House floor. You're not going to take any bait on that. You're just going to... YouTube viewers of the podcast might want to see Amanda's visual reaction, but you're being very responsible as a mother in your words. Well, I had in my head, I thought it was going to be, wasn't it the tweet from Sean Davis essentially saying like the real nuclear option is for more Republicans to resign so that the house is deadlocked and nothing can happen from here on out. And it was like,

resign your job to own the lives. Please own us. Go for that. Please do that. We would get a better coalition government in the house. I was just like, okay, do that. Please do that. We would get a better coalition government in the House. I just like, OK, do that. Please do that. Take Sean Davis's advice. That would be wonderful. Go forward. Own us. Yeah.

Sean Davis, if the exact number of Republicans resigned to make it even Republicans versus Democrats, then you can't elect a speaker. Who the fuck? These people are lunatics. OK, but please resign to own me. All right. Do we want to do happy or sad first? We're going to look at a couple of comments yesterday from former Trump cabinet officials.

Do you want happy first or sad first? I mean, just let's get the sad first so we can go on. Okay. Let's get it out of the way. Let's hear from Bill Barr. And I also know you've been asked many times, you've had your disagreements with former president. He's the presumptive nominee. We assume he will be the nominee. Will you support him in 2024? Well, I've said all along, you know, given two bad choices, I think it's my duty to pick the person I think would do the least harm to the country. And in my mind, that's I will vote the Republican ticket.

You will? I will support the Republican ticket. I think the real danger to the country, the real danger to democracy, as I say, is the progressive agenda. And while Trump, and I said, Trump may be playing Russian roulette, but continuation of the Biden administration is national suicide, in my opinion. F you, Bill Barr. I have some thoughts on Bill Barr, but Amanda, I want you to have the floor first. I mean, I guess he's consistent, right? I mean, he's kind of like maintain this.

There's this continuing idea even echoed by George Will in the Washington Post talking about how well Trump and Biden are both equally bad. And actually, you know, if you really look at it biden is kind of worse please point me to an instance where joe biden has asked the justice department to seize voting machines and rerun an election where joe biden is accused of criminality in multiple jurisdictions i just you can get away with saying this on fox i don't know is this fox daytime i don't know where it was fox daytime yeah fox sounds about right you no pushback. You have to do no serious inflection. Bill Hemmer's like, you got some disagreements. Disagreements is an interesting word for it. I mean, Bill Barr did say that he thinks that Donald Trump has a credible criminal case against him for mishandling classified information, that he lied to the country and that his lies caused the storming of a Capitol. You could call those disagreements, I guess. It seems a little bit understated

for what was his actual criticisms. I mean, I would like to see just a little bit of not even pushback, but hey, Bill Bohr, could you tell me more about how you think the progressive agenda is suicide? Like what part of it? Is it the CRT in classrooms that you don't like? Is it the book that you're afraid a

kid might read like what what part of it makes it national suicide i mean because it just sounds so specific absurd on its face i mean green new deals because some protesters accosted lisa mccarthy which was bad the other day i don't know if you saw that that was just really gross those people are disgusting i mean take a shot at that. But that's not national suicide. Yeah. How does a suicide look? Can you just paint it out?

Like, what's going to happen by 2028? Like, what's going to happen with the country? Is Antifa going to take over? I just like, what is the hypothetical? Suicide. You know, Bill Barr lives in McLean in a beautiful house. He's got a good life. His tax rates aren't really particularly high.

You know, the U.S. economy is doing better than its global competitors. There's not immigrants storming McLean right now. And like, there are problems for sure. But suicide. Although I gotta say, like, it's just, I mean, it's not funny, but he says Donald Trump is Russian roulette. Interesting choice of words there. It's roulette versus suicide.

It's also kind of like, maybe you should russian roulette if you feel that way i also russian roulette like makes it seem like it's not that serious but it's kind of like i'd like to see bill barr give russian roulette a try um and see if he actually would pull the trigger i think probably not all right tim you don't mean that you mean that metaphorically no no i think no my point is i don't want him to kill himself i think well my point is that yeah would he actually pull the trigger i think probably not right so like he's saying that he's gonna vote for donald trump and that that's russian roulette but like the metaphor doesn't really work because if i handed bill barr a gun and put a bullet in one of the chambers and spun it and then handed it to him and put it up to his head and said will you pull the trigger right now your other option is is Joe Biden being president for four years. It'd be an interesting, if Bill Barr has any friends listening, we can try it.

I'd make, it'd be great content. It is irresponsible for Bill Barr to say, because no one is playing that game. Right, exactly. That is not a good metaphor because it doesn't come even close to being analogous to the situation that we're in. If I thought that Donald Trump was Russian roulette, I would not do it because I would not play Russian roulette. I guess that's my point. I would not vote for somebody that I thought was Russian roulette because I wouldn't play Russian roulette. I want to read one more thing about Bill Barr. I think it's gotten missed because I hadn't seen it. Former Attorney General Bill Barr will help lead a new group formed by a business lobbying organization that aims to be an alternative to the U.S.

Chamber of Commerce, the massive advocacy group that has fallen out of favor with some Republicans. So I think we know what he really means here. He's got some big conservative business leaders that are unhappy that the Chamber of Commerce has not gone full MAGA. And so he's now getting paid to lead a lobbying organization that is like to the right of the Chamber of Commerce. And so he needs to represent the interests of those people.

That's what's actually happening here. Okay, so Bill Barr will play Russian roulette because he wants to form a new Chamber of Commerce. That's what brings him to the table for this game? And doesn't like some of the regulation cuts. Yeah. Doesn't sound that brilliant and smart to me for a guy who's has such a fine pedigree okay mark esper we'll start to uplift the spirits a little

bit actually maybe we'll wait for mark esper while we're down here in the muck one of the other things i wanted to talk to you about last time you're on we talked a little bit about project 2025 and kind of the broader concerns about that. I kind of want to dig into that a little bit more, just particularly with regards to kind of what you guys are preparing for and threat assessment. And we were talking about a little bit about this before. So let's talk about that, and then we'll get into Mark Esper, because I think it's very related. Just more broadly, when I look online and I see some of the chatter and what's in the air, a lot of people view Project 2025 as this existential threat. I prefer, and the approach I've taken at Protect Democracy in our report

about the authoritative playbook 2025 is not to look solely at that document produced by Heritage. What is most concerning is where that document has the Venn diagram with the Trump agenda and the middle part where the conservative movement and Republican Party is largely coalescing in authoritarian ways. Broadly, what Project 2025 is espousing through all the different policies is that they want a really powerful executive, right? They want the president to be able to enact his agenda throughout the federal government and think that Loyola should be installed at every level so that there's no one essentially that says no to the president's agenda. Like that's the thing emanating from all of this. And so whether you look at their proposals

for the Department of Justice or the Department of Education or the Health and Human Services, that is what it gets at. And there are many areas of overlap, in particular, regarding the Department of Justice, in which they think they have language in there that speaks to how a president should be able to communicate to the prosecutors and stuff. There shouldn't be firewalls of communication to protect judicial independence. They want to do away with that. And then when you see Donald Trump take that policy to the logical extension, he's talking about how, okay, I'm going to weaponize the department to go after my political enemies. So you kind of have the smarty tart heritage people talking about like, oh, on a policy level,

we think this should change. And then you have Donald Trump on the campaign trail saying, this is how I would use those changes to go after my enemies. And so the way that Donald Trump gets away with this stuff is that a bunch of people in the news look at Project 2025 and they say, oh, this is bad. This is what we need to do. And he goes, I didn't say that. Meanwhile, you know, on Agenda 47, which is his actual campaign platform, in his words, written, printed, scripted out in campaign speeches, he is telling you exactly how he will do that. And so I just like the emphasis to be on what he is promising to do, which is what we did with the authoritarian playbook 2025.org, you can go find it, it it shows how these things marry together how he would abuse his powers as president in 2025 to enact the authoritarian agenda that heritage buys into now

and is laid out in their own 900 page document so don't go through all that just read what i put together and keep in mind the big idea here is they want the president to do whatever he wants article two power whatever i want that's basically what they're saying this is the key part and and we got into this a little bit with ross on tuesday which was like you know his argument was well you guys your case against trump is resting on the theory that the people around him will be different next time and that it'll be worse next time right because i won't that it won't be the same. Yes, sir. And my point is like, well, yeah, obviously, they're saying that it will be different next time they are saying I'm not saying it's not TDS. And I think this is glad you kind of put a finer point on this, right? Because it's like, they are specifically saying,

you know, the whole objective here is to install people throughout the bureaucracy that are not going to put brakes on Trump because he had too many brakes put on him last time. That's what they're saying, right? And so there's reason to believe when you combine that with the other knowledge about the fact that he's not going to have people like Mark Esper around next time, you know, where it's pretty obvious, like the difference and the nature of the threat. Yeah, and it's kind of a one-two punch, right? Like, there's been a lot of tension on Schedule F, which was his executive order that he tried to put into place in October 2020, but didn't have time to do an action, which essentially reclassify federal employees so that he had the ability to fire more of them.

So he's already promised like, yeah, we're definitely doing that on steroids as much as we can on day one of my next administration. But you couple that with the fact that he's ousting people, number one. And then Heritage has this massive job bank to screen people for ideological purity, commitment to enacting the president's agenda first, unfailingly. And then that's who's coming in to do it. And then, you know, on a policy level, they really want these monitors essentially accountable, who answer to the president at every level. And we're not just talking Department of Justice, you're talking places like EPA, Homeland Security, every department, I mean, you saw the craziness with the weather service in his first administration, where they wanted to alter the maps potentially with the Sharpie. So it helped help him politically we saw this pushing this to some

degree with the fda with the vaccine approval and games that they played with that and so you just you don't want all this to become so so so politicized but that is the goal so that they can use leverage in any way possible and just to put this in the authoritarian context, the reason why this becomes so dangerous is that once an executive like this consolidates all this power, right? Like you have all your appointees, you're pushing your agenda, you do regulatory retaliation, all this stuff. You can't give it up. You can't allow your enemy to win because once they take that power, they're probably going to hold you accountable, right? And so that is why authoritarians never leave. That's why you see someone like Putin

who's never going to leave office. You see Orban win again and again. That's how it works. And it's so plainly obvious when you study how authoritarians come to power and how they stay there and why, whether he knows it or not, he's following that playbook.

Bill Kristol had a very long conversation with Mark Esper. So folks can listen to that over at Conversations with Bill Kristol. We'll put that link in. I Kristol had a very long conversation with Mark Esper. So folks can listen to that over at Conversations with Bill Kristol. I'll put the link in. I want to play one clip of it and talk a little bit about somebody who's, you know, maybe not getting an A plus on the report card, but doing a lot better than Bill Barr. Here's Mark Esper talking about the letter that he signed with all of the living secretaries of defense in both parties in 2020. That's kind of what brought us together together particularly as we saw things unfolded and as the election denialism continued there was a growing concern that would the military get involved and we all know now that there was that

meeting in late december with uh i think maybe it was mike flynn and others who said yeah maybe we should send the military to seize ballot boxes or to conduct another election. I can't recall the details, but it was quite alarming that, you know, the military would be put in that context. I was concerned going into the fall that the military would be used at the time of the election, you know, when the results were revealed to put down protests, to do other things. And so that became more of my concern, immediate concern at that point in time. And of course, I don't think anybody envisioned that the weeks and months after November 2020 would happen the way they did. I mean, in my lifetime, if you had told me 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago that there would be an insurrection on Capitol Hill and people would storm the Capitol and try and seize ballot boxes and threaten to hang Mike Pence, the vice president,

it would be like a bad Hollywood movie, right? But it was real. And it should be a wake-up call for all of us. It should be a wake-up call. Refreshing just to hear somebody like, I know that all this is kind of a low bar just to say the truth, but like he's saying the truth about what happened. He's doing the natural follow-up to that, which is not supporting Donald Trump, given the nature of the threat. What do you think about Mark Esper and what we've been hearing from him?

This is good. He seems primarily focused on Trump's potential abuse of the Insurrection Act, which he was on record at the time he spoke out in real time against it. He got fired for it. So that's good. I'm glad he's doing these interviews. That said, he kind of is in the news a little bit more recently for reasons I don't like.

And that's because there was a letter recently signed by another letter, not the letter he signed in 2020, a letter that was released this week from a lot of military officials to the Supreme Court explaining why Trump should not have total immunity, which is another case that Trump is taking to the Supreme Court. This is the other thing that's advancing next week, where he wants total immunity for any alleged potential crimes he committed as president. And so it was really good that those military officials, which include, I got to look on here, you know, people like Mike Hayden, etc., other retired generals, saying, like, this is dangerous for the country. And they're primarily really good messengers for this, because members of the military are in position to execute these unlawful acts, potentially, on behalf of a president. When

that example came of, well, could the president order SEAL Team 6 to execute his enemies? And they're essentially like, yeah, guess who's going to be ordered to do that in that potential scenario? So you absolutely need officials to speak out. And it's good they did so. But Mark Esper was asked about that letter last week. And he essentially said, I don't think they should be weighing in on this. I don't understand this. That's his right. That's really his opinion. But I think they should be weighing in on this. I don't understand this. That's his right, if that's really his opinion, but I think he should be pressed on it a little bit more because I think if he engaged in some more reflection and study of this issue, he could get to the right place.

And I understand it's an uncomfortable place for the chain of command to be speaking out against a president, but you're not serving him anymore. The military should not be abused in this fashion. Members of the military should be able to say so and not be put in an uncomfortable position. So I would like him to get on the right side of that issue, because if you're worried about abuse of the Insurrection Act and you're willing to speak out against that, you should be willing to take a position on why

the president shouldn't have total immunity for crimes he commits as president. I concur with that. But I guess I'll say this, if Mark Esper just has a principled view on this been inside the bill, been inside the Pentagon said that these folks doesn't believe that, you know, military officials should be speaking out, okay, well, he is a civilian. I'm glad he's speaking out now. And he's gonna have to be their megaphone this year. And I hope I'm glad he's speaking out now. And he's going to have to be their megaphone this year. And I hope I'm glad he's on conversations with Bill Kristol. I hope he supports Joe Biden for president. We'll see. I'd like to see him at the convention. And if not, I'd like to see him in some other venue, paid TV ad, something using his voice as a civilian leader of the military and somebody

that saw Donald Trump up close and personal. And he might do that. I hope he does continue to do that. Now, this is a note of encouragement on that front. Yeah, when you say speak at the convention, because I think we actually disagree on this one, and that people in his position should be platformed by the Democratic Party to advocate for Biden. I don't think that,

like, you know, people like Chris Christie, if people are not comfortable doing so, they're not Democrats, they don't even have to say I'm voting for Biden necessarily. A blanket statement saying like, I think these things are disqualifying. I don't know who's going to be on the ballot or whatever, but I am going to vote against Trump because he's disqualified. I think that would be sufficient, but maybe we disagree. I don't know if we strongly disagree and maybe I'm just in West wing world, but I'm fine with all that. It's good. Anything is better than nothing. I don't know if we strongly disagree. And maybe I'm just in West Wing world. But I'm fine with all that. It's good.

Anything is better than nothing. I just in my head, I just think about my goosebumps when I'm going to be nervous in October. October chill is going to be coming out. And it'd feel nice to see Mark Esper come out on stage in Pittsburgh and just be like, we cannot do this. I saw it up close. It's too dangerous. I'm going to vote for Dav Davis, Dave McCormick or

whatever. I don't he didn't even live in Pennsylvania. But I so he wouldn't say that. But you know, I'm still a Republican. I'm going to be for a Republican next time. But we got to be for Joe Biden, the country demands that country over party, blah, blah, blah. It just would be nice. I don't know if one person did that. It would be it would just give me the tingles. Would it actually matter? I think it would. I do think it it would matter i'm not i'm not going to malign mark asper if he doesn't do that yeah i will i will so if he says a letter to the Supreme Court by former officials was a bad idea though because i think he's wrong on that okay mark asper listen to the whole conversation with bill crystal better than nothing glad he's out there we're going to come back on the other side

we're doing a mailbag i'm keeping am Amanda. Amanda's doing the mailbag too. We'll see you in a second. All right, it's Friday. And by the way, I had a very unsubtle play out song for Amanda last time. This time I have a medley of unsubtle play out songs for her. Both of them. It's going to be our first medley. Both of them will be on the Spotify playlist, which is in the show notes every Friday.

People who ask where can I find the songs playlists is in the show notes. All right. Thank you for that. Just because I'm telling you again, I listen to you when i'm on my runs and so i let it play out all the way to the end of the songs and i really like it because i get new racks and so i like it i love that okay mailbag we'll be serious first it's kind of serious many people ask this clinton virginia martin james um aust basically a similar question i'm going to read Clint's. What about Biden promising to appoint sane Republicans to his administration? Haley back to the UN ambassador,

Liz Cheney as Secretary of Ag or Interior. Biden has common ground with some of these people, and these are unprecedented times that require whatever it takes. Several people suggested Secretary of State even for Haley and Cheney. Amanda, what say you? Yeah, well, you can't really promise positions to people during a campaign, but do it now. I would love that. I mean, I think that there's a lot of places where someone like a Cheney, etc, have experience that can be used that aren't necessarily going to interfere with his democratic agenda. I think that would be fabulous don't you because if you're gonna say like what i don't like again revisiting the whole like should republicans become democrats i don't like it when his campaign says okay hey republicans there's a place in my campaign for you

like you don't want to be used as political pawns. Like, just make room and say, hey, you're welcome here. I don't like it when he takes it to a political place when it could just be like, yeah, we're working together. If he could show here's how I can work together with Republicans. Yeah. Super, super duper. Do that. Yeah. My thought on this is I have two parts.

Number one, I don't know how much this really would help. Yeah. My thought on this is I have two parts. Number one, I don't know how much this really would help. Right. And so I hate like there was a political article in 2020, where there's like some never Trumpers are grumbling that Joe Biden hasn't promised to put a Republican in the cabinet. I think that one of the examples that are floating was Meg Whitman could be Commerce Secretary. Meg Whitman being Commerce Secretary has literally zero bearing on whether I think that Joe Biden or Donald Trump should be the president, right? And I don't think it should have bearing on anyone else's view. As a signaling thing, I think picking somebody now and just being a little bit more proactive and demonstrating that this is a big coalition, a big tent, I think that that could

be a good PR move and a good signaling move. There are a lot of candidate positions. I don't think the Secretary of State is right, by the way. I think Biden has enough problems on his left flank in Gaza right now. Anyway, I think Tony Blinken's doing a good job. And so, you know, picking a neocon to be Secretary of State is kind of a ridiculous suggestion. But I think that, you know, for one of these other positions, demonstrating that there's going to be somebody in the cabinet that is a former Republican. And Jeff Flake's already in the administration making him move him from Turkey to somewhere, you know, in the United States and do something with

that. He's just invisible. He's invisible. Invisible, right? I mean, we haven't heard anything. Like cabinet position is probably asking a lot, but there's a bazillion task forces and commissions and things like that. Get them involved.

Get them involved. Be great. More is more. Okay. Next question is from Ted. I will say we've had some good life advice questions. We've given such good life advice that somebody's moving to Door County, which we've mentioned several times.

You should have her on and let her know. Like just have her phone in, you know, make it easy. Okay. I don't understand why more after listening, just all the amazing advice we've given. We've not been flooded with life advice questions, but that's okay. We have a couple other funny questions. Anyway, Ted asked, if you were on the board of the Trump library, which, you know, would never happen. But okay, let's play along. Wait, wait, please put me on that board. It's like, sign me up. I don't think you've done any vetting, but I'm ready. What exhibit would you create to bring renewed attention to a trump event many americans have

memory hold this is fun trump library amanda what would you do yeah well i'm just trying to imagine what the trump library would look like i mean i just i see that like the gift shop at mar-a-lago um but that's not actually true because I think they're administered by the National Archives. There's a nonprofit board that's set up. And actually the Nixon Library is a really good source of information post-Watergate. They house all the transcripts

and things that have come out in other books. Like there can be really, really good sources of information. It's hard to see Trump go on that route. Yeah, I don't know how much control they have. Usually they raise money for it. And I think they have a hand in appointing the board. But after a period of time, like Q Hewitt was in charge or he had some role at the Nixon Library at some point,

which you can see how that happened. But later on, I think it becomes like kind of more serious and you can go through all the materials. They're going to have all his like social media post archives that's gonna be a trip but i am still dying to know what happened in helsinki with what he told putin and what the translator actually observed i want a helsinki like whole walk-in where you actually go through the press conference and they play the words and then you see what happened beside closed doors because i think that is really impactful in terms

of fun you'd hear the russian and then you'd hear the translator that'd be fun an audio experience yeah i want a helsinki exhibit i think a informative in terms of what's going on with ukraine b i want to know what happened and C, the rest of everything would probably be so nuts. Can you imagine like someone going into that library and just walking through like a whole wall of tweets 30 years from now? And like, just you'd be surrounded by it. He'd be like yelling at you.

There should just be like some kind of audio visual assault to recreate what it was like living through that in terms of being surrounded by Trump and not being able to get away from it. So that's my fun version. This sounds more like a haunted house than a library. A little scary. Trump and his orange makeup jumps out at you

and yells one of his tweets. Okay, that's got to be part of his makeup kit. Yeah, the makeup kit's got to be in the library. Yeah, yeah. So I want the makeup kit and one thing like where you can get ready as he does for an appearance you put on the suit his his beauty uniform that's what we call it um there's a beauty uniform where you wear the same thing every day and it's like the female version of steve's jobs turtleneck so it would be his first outfit the

suit with a long tie and the padding and the heel like whatever the hairspray that he uses the makeup that'd be good and then you can change into golf attire which is the khakis the polo shirt the red hat yeah that needs to be part of it to totally the man's ear he needs kind of a man's ear for his golf shirt a man's ear yeah yeah like the bro the seinfeld episode the male i know you don't do pop culture it's's like, it's a male bra. Oh. They call it either a bro or a manzier. Spanx for men? That's Spanx for men.

Yeah, you got to put that on. Man Spanx. I got to say, I was thinking of what called to mind to me is all the times Trump has been scared. Is this library ever going to happen? I don't know. It's kind of weird that Trump hasn't focused on it. A healthy narcissist.

Like if Trump wasn't a total sociopathic narcissist, if he was just a normal narcissist, he would have lost the election and then focused on building the biggest, gaudiest library ever, you know, with the money that he stole from people over the years. And, you know, it would be in South Florida and it would like look like the Taj Mahal and it would make me sick. But like, at least that would have been a healthy channeling of narcissism but instead of you know trying a coup and running for president again but anyway I don't think you can really make money off it that's the problem it's supposed to be run as a non-profit it's not really totally administered by you but that said since when has he been limited by norms before I want to know what you think about the campaign licensing deal where you have to kick up five percent to the big guy for every time you use his likeness on a mailer which by the way in west

virginia that is all the direct mail that i get my mailbox just stuffed full of people saying i'm a trump republican like even the billboards that you see there's a guy running for governor who's like this fighter and talks about how he's gonna to go punch people. It's got pictures of him ringside, but the billboard says Trump Republican in big letters before it even says his name down below. It's so weird. I do have more West Virginia thoughts. We'll save it for your next time that you're on. My final thing on the Trump library, I want a scared corridor because all of my favorite Trump videos are like the one, I mentioned the other day, the one where the eagle goes to bite him and he gets really scared and he and he jumps up when he's sitting at his desk okay we'll put that i have another big day for show notes we got to put the trump being scared

montage new york times article the spotify playlist the other one is when he's on stage this is one of my favorites and a protester jumps on the stage which is a little scary okay but it was just some liberal progressive you know do-gooder protester which on the stage which is a little scary okay but it was just some liberal progressive you know do-gooder protester which you shouldn't do that no okay but trump gets so freaked out he like bends down like it's like a sniper is out to get him and then they like storm him off and he runs off the next day he tries to tell people that they thought that it was they thought it was isis i thought it was like oh yeah i remember that he was like oh it was, they thought it was ISIS. They thought it was ISIS. It was like, he was like,

oh, it was ISIS coming after me. And then they tried to advance that lie that it was ISIS when it really, he just got scared by like some hippie tree hugger. Anyway, a scared Trump. That would give me a lot of joy. Amanda,

do you have any final thoughts? I'm going to close with a final question that I don't, do you have any, I assume you don't have any jazz fest wrecks. I do not. Okay. I'm going to close with some jazz fest wrecks don't do you have any i assume you don't have any jazz fest wrecks i do not okay i'm gonna close some jazz fest wrecks you just listen in and then and then we'll let everybody go all right here's the question asa is headed to new orleans good name asa hudgson are the best republican candidate for president this year low bar asa i'm headed to new orleans for the second week of jazz fest i'm curious if you have any can't miss event shows or bars uh we'll also be taking our three-year-old.

We'd love some insight as to recommendations for kids in New Orleans. All right, you guys mark this. I get a lot of New Orleans requests for grown-up recommendations for Jazz Fest. I'm an uptown man. All right, so here's your uptown life. The Maple Leaf, Tipitina's, my buddy's own Tipitina's, Rabbit Hole. That's more for hipsters. Le Bantam Roulette is a dive-year place.

Those are all uptown. Look at their schedules. You can can't go wrong same with the toulouse theater good name in the french quarter for you second week of jazz fest i took asa i took a peek of friday night there's an earth wind fire cover band at republic boyfriend she's awesome she's doing tina turner at tips there's an lcd sound system drummer at rabbit hole tank in the bank is our toulouse theater amazing all great options friday night after the shows anything with my good friend stanton moore friend of the pod stanton moore look at his schedule he's a drummer any late night brass band show the tbc brass band probably my favorite i gotta shout out bulwark superfan steve's uptown bar the kingpin do you find yourself by pertania and napoleon jefferson ish stop the kingpin for a beer tell him i sent

you and if you got the kiddos in tow creole creamery is the best ice cream in the south Find yourself by Pertania and Napoleon Jefferson-ish. Stop the kingpin for a beer. Tell them I sent you. And if you've got the kiddos in tow, Creole Creamery is the best ice cream in the south. That's around the corner. Other food, La Uzas. Am I saying that right? La Uzas. I'm struggling to learn all the New Orleans pronunciations of things. I'm just embracing being a transplant.

Their barbecue shrimp is my favorite dish in town. La Uzas. It's right by where Jazz Fest is. It's got to be a long line. It's worth it it get out there either early or just have a beer and wait inside jazz fest get the crawfish bread it's back this year kids the fest is great for kids jazz fest is great for kids come next year if you're looking for somewhere to bring your kids it's not like coachella all right you get there early make sure you got your water and your sunscreen and that they're dressed for the heat toulouse wore a black jersey last year she She was not happy. So, you know, make sure they're

dressed for the heat. My other big kid advice, the aquarium and insectarium is right by the French Quarter. So, you know, you as a parent, you can go get a little hurricane or a little hand grenade or a little adult beverage. Just walk it right over to the aquarium and insectarium. You're walking along the Mississippi River. You can look at the boats. Three-year-olds like big boats. Go in. You see the insects. They serve insect food. It's great. There's a butterfly room. You know, there's other stuff you can do for kids, but you know, you can get those if you just Google it. Insectarium, aquarium, and French quarter combo is a nice little day. Guys, those are my New Orleans recs. You're welcome. No charge. Straight from me. Thank you for listening to the Bwark Podcast. Amanda, this has been so fun.

When are you coming to New Orleans? Although, you know, I'm going to go Google what a hand grenade is because I wasn't aware that something you could drink. And I've never heard of an insectarium. An insectarium. That sounds interesting. Would your kids like it, though? I bet they would.

Yeah, they'd probably be game. But I do think you need to organize some kind of a bulwark bar crawl or family-friendly crawl event sometime. Just putting that out there. That would be a lot of fun. Let's do it. Okay. Well, you let me know when you're going to be here. We can tell people.

And I can be like the Pied Piper. We can take people around. Everybody, I want you to have a wonderful weekend. On Monday, we've got something a little bit different for you. We'll have a little bit with Bill Kristol. it's 25 year anniversary of Columbine tomorrow. I grew up right by Columbine. And so we're going to talk about that on Monday. So bear down for that. But in the meantime, I hope there's beautiful weather where you are. Enjoy your weekend. Amanda Carpenter, I love you. I appreciate you and hope to have you back again soon.

Great. Have a good weekend. We'll see you all on Monday. Peace. Touchdown. I'm so grateful. Number solo. Bitch, be thankful. They say don't let money change you.

That's how we know money ain't you. Bitch, I've been had. Bitch, it's been bad. We buy big boats. Bitch, I'm sin bad. Downright sinful. Bitch, we been full. All my dope boys. We like kinfolk, be more burnt spoon, DC glass pipe, VA scent bells, bout that trap life, blew through thousands, we made millions, cocaine soldiers, want civilians, bought hoes Hondas, took care children, lit my pastor, built out buildings, Rapped on classics, I've been brilliant

Now we blend in, we chameleons Ah! Never have I been locked up in a world of misery I need you darling to set me free Come back baby, try me one more time Oh baby, I'm about to go out of my mind, I can't, who else got the luxury to drop when he want, cause nobody else can fuck with me, what a show off, we're in risk for risk, let's have a glow off, fuck it brick for brick, let's have a blow off, if we go by connections

made, I can still climb ladders when complexions fade White on white, that's the tester Black on black, that's the Tesla See these diamonds in this watch face? All that shit came from pressure They don't miss you till you gone with the wind And they tired of dancing like a yin-yang twin You can't have the yin without the yang, my friend Real heroes just bring balance to the game I'm in yeah can't escape the scale if I tried in the state

traffic is alive push I need you darling to set me free come back baby try me one more time Oh baby, I'm about to go out of my mind I can't do without you, I'm going out of my head I can't do without you baby, without you baby I might as well be dead The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brell.