The Bulwark Podcast - Benjy Sarlin: Wake up to Reality

Episode Date: January 24, 2024

As we pivot from primary season to the general election, Biden is telling Democrats to accept that Trump will be the nominee. Meanwhile, the ex-POTUS is doing 'peak Trump'—talking about Jan 6, his legal cases, and calling E. Jean Carroll a liar. Semafor's Benjy Sarlin joins Charlie Sykes

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Kind of an early night, wasn't it, Benji? Yeah, I mean, the call was within minutes from the Associated Press. The networks weren't that far off. It wasn't like the same kind of blowout margin of Iowa where, you know, Trump was winning by like 30. But it was clear that Nikki Haley wasn't getting what she needed within the first literally five minutes of returns. So, yeah, in that sense, early night, I was, Charlie, we were just talking. I was prepared to be up till, you know, two, three in the morning, you know, pouring over exit polls and county numbers and got a great night of sleep. Yeah. I mean, spoiler alert here, this is pretty much the end of the primary season. We're now pivoting to the general election. Now, you know, Nikki Haley put on a brave face that she's not leaving the race, but she's about to crash into the wall in Nevada and in South Carolina. So I suppose if we were calling the NFL game, it's like 56 to three, and we're in garbage time right now. So a lot of the punditing that pretends that there's still a Republican primary, you know, feels like will be another mixed metaphor, like riding a bicycle as

slowly as possible without falling off. But I mean, this thing is done, isn't it? I mean, it's cooked, it's baked, put a fork in it. Whenever I've been asked about, like, does anyone have a chance to beat Trump? I've given the same answer for months, which is, well, Nikki Haley looks pretty competitive in New Hampshire. If she can get it down to a one-on-one race, which she did, you know, and bring in a bunch of independents and beat him there, then that might provide a shock to the system that gives her a bunch of attention, bust of momentum. And so based on that standard that I myself have been saying for months, yeah, she fell short. Now, I was just on a call with her super PAC, SFA. Their case is still that like, look, she might be down 30 in the polls in South Carolina, but it is still her state.

It is now finally a one-on-one race, which it's only been for days. She's not pulling her punches against Trump. I mean, she's throwing her best material out now. That was apparent in her non-concession speech yesterday, which really angered Trump. And so their idea is at least you give it another month to see if there's any appetite for a true one-on-one. But it's going to be extremely difficult because there's just no sign of weakness in South Carolina. It's an especially strong state for Trump. It has been from the start. Unlike New Hampshire, we've never talked about it as especially competitive. There's not the same pool, like large pool of independents, at least effectively, you know, who actively participate in these primaries and are true, you know, Trump

skeptics the way they are in New Hampshire. It's just going to be very difficult. So I don't want to just prematurely say like, it's over, get out of here, Nikki Haley. But yeah, I mean, we're in a scenario that no one plausibly argued as recently as a week ago was one that ended in a Haley victory. There's two really interesting narratives that I think came out of last night, and they're pretty obvious. I want to get to those in just a moment. One, Donald Trump's obvious dominance among Republican voters, but also the obvious evidence of weakness among moderate and independent voters, which is going to become more and more significant. Before we do that, though, can we just talk about what happened last night?

Because maybe we've gotten numb to all of this, but the New York Times described Trump's victory speech as a crude, bitter victory speech. He attacked Nikki Haley as delusional for saying that she was still in the race. And then he has this weird kind of veiled, mobster-like threat. Let me just play that little soundbite from Donald Trump's typically ungracious victory speech. And just a little note to Nikki, she's not going to win. But if she did, she would be under investigation by those people in 15 minutes. And I could tell you five reasons why already. Not big reasons, a little stuff that she doesn't want to talk about, but she will be under investigation within minutes. And so would Ron have been. But he decided to get out. He

decided to get out. Okay, so I mean, it's obviously making reference to the fact that Democrats will investigate anybody. But but then he throws in that for like, you know, five little things that she just doesn't want to talk about. I mean, what's going on here? I mean, other than the sort of, you know, John Gotti, like, hey, Nikki, it would be a pity if anything were to happen to you. I mean, this is what Trump always does, right? I mean, we go back to the famous Ted Cruz moment when he threatened to spill the beans on his wife. There's always some veiled thing. Ah, there's something he doesn't talk about, going to have a big problem. So you could write thousands of words about that one passage and the many aspects of Trump and the way he

operates and what happened in this primary just off that passage. So one is yes, like Trump is completely shameless and unconstrained about just making things up or alluding to things about his opponent. I mean, it's months ago and he dropped it. But do you remember early on briefly when DeSantis looks slightly competitive? Yeah. Like, yeah, Trump was like throwing out like rumor references and alluding to like hidden gay sex scandals that were going to come out.

Yes. And, you know, he dropped it pretty early because DeSantis quickly stopped being competitive. So he didn't even really feel the need to do more than just like mock his height. This is what he always does. But the other thing that I thought was interesting is Trump was making a substantive point here that his rivals really failed to rebut this entire race. And I think explains a lot of what happened and the kind of box he put them in, which is Trump's argument was, you have to vote for me because the deep state is indicting me to stop me from, you know, fighting on your behalf and with all this partisan lawfare. And none of this is about me or the details of my cases. It's about this

conspiracy that stole the last election and is trying to stop me from winning this one. And because that conspiracy is the problem, the same thing will happen to Nikki Haley. The same thing would have happened to Tim Scott. The same thing would have happened to Ron DeSantis. Nikki Haley has gone pretty hard at Trump lately. She has never, ever rebutted that. Never. DeSantis didn't come within a million miles of it. Her whole campaign line was chaos follows Trump, but she would not quite explain why chaos follows Trump. She would not quite say, yes, Trump has a bunch of legal problems because he's personally corrupt, gets into weird sex stuff and has a shady business. And we knew this before he was even involved in politics when he had the same problems. And lo and behold, you know,

that's what's happening now. And she never quite, she never brought herself to make that case. Rhonda Sand has actively avoided it. You know, he alluded for one little bit when that first indictment was coming that like, hey, maybe don't, you know, get involved with a porn star and pay hush money. He just like indirectly. And then he backed off immediately. Like never back down fast enough. Never back down.

Look pretty silly as a slogan in that moment. And he never came back to it. Even in his final days, when he was like making this electability case that you can't elect Trump because the whole election will be about January six legal issues, you know, courtroom dates. This was his words. Like Ron DeSantis was saying that, but even as he was saying it, he was qualifying it. But these charges are all, you know, partisan, cooked up nonsense. And even the juries will be partisan, cooked up nonsense. Even if he's convicted by a jury, don't trust it because they're in D.C. and New York. If you accept the premise that Trump is the victim of some deep state conspiracy that stole the last election and is going to steal this one, I mean, I don't even know why you're bothering running against him at that point. This is so key. I mean, you've just nailed this big unknown, unknown of this campaign. I mean, here's a no. The no is that when the indictments rolled around, Republicans rallied around Donald Trump, his rise can be traced to the indictments. But the counter narrative is that all of the people allegedly running against

Donald Trump then embraced Donald Trump's narrative. Now, so the unknown unknown is, what if they would have said, no, I'm sorry, this is disqualifying. I'm sorry, you cannot have a presidential nominee who behaves in this particular way. Now, Chris Christie said that sort of thing. Clearly, Ron DeSantis thought that this would be disqualifying if he said it. And I think it was Chris Christie who said the key moment in this campaign took place here in my hometown in Milwaukee during the debate, when all the candidates were asked, would you still support Donald Trump for the presidency if he was a convicted felon? Do you remember that? And all the hands went up and they all said yes. And at that moment, when they're all saying he didn't

really do anything wrong, I don't think it's disqualifying to be a felon and I will pardon him. They provided the ultimate cover for Donald Trump. This was the people who were running against him. So what a shock that Republican voters would have accepted that Trumpian narrative. So the unknown unknown is what if, what if they would have said, I'm sorry, this party, the party of Lincoln, you know, the party of Dwight Eisenhower cannot be run by somebody who is under multiple felony indictments. You know, this conduct is disqualified.

What would have happened? Would, would they have been exiled? Would they have been Liz Cheney? What do you think Benji? I mean, the answer is probably. So I want to be clear here. The reason they did not do that is because they would have been booed in that debate. And all the research they had was telling them this is a dead end. They didn't imagine that. There's a reason they didn't do it. But if you don't have some kind of, yeah, I said it moment where you start inserting some kind of counter narrative, the inevitable happens. It just completely runs over you. Like you have no possible rebuttal when these indictments, which by the way, everyone knew were coming. You might not have known in like, say November, 2022, the exact combination of which ones was going to happen in which circumstances.

I think a lot of people were surprised, for example, like the degree to which Jack Smith went hard on January 6th and election interference. But you knew he had this open and shut classified documents case hanging over him that seemed incredibly troubling at the minimum, even if he wasn't. You knew the New York stuff. You knew his business was already facing all this stuff. I think E.G. Carroll's defamation case had even started at that point.

We were getting close to a jury verdict. You knew there were going to be legal issues throughout. And I do wonder, like, I've been thinking a lot about whether Trump was inevitable. Yeah. And that's why so many of these guys got in the race, right? Yeah. This is what they were expecting. I mean, I've said this before and people have kind of looked at me funny and said, no, Ron DeSantis, I think is as shocked as anyone that Republican voters just, you know, rallied around Trump. I think he was just assuming I will, you know, check all the MAGA boxes. Then once the indictments come down, Republicans will look for an exit ramp. I'm going to be right there. They thought that in fact,

Republican voters would turn against him, right? I mean, so they all made that miscalculation. Yeah. I mean, at a minimum, they didn't assume that he would get this guaranteed surge. Even though at the time it happened, by the way, I mean, commentators were used to Trump. I mean, like, it was actually not such a shock that his poll numbers went up. You saw if you like, I was going back and reading like the columns from like back with that first indictment. Like, yeah, a lot of people were predicting that would happen. But again, you got to be prepared for it.

There was a sense that maybe he would, quote unquote, collapse under his weight as like further and further indictments came like, oh, well, the Manhattan one, that one, like even a lot of Trump critics don't like, but the other ones will do it. But yeah, it just didn't come. I mean, the scenario I always wonder about is, by the time the Manhattan indictment came, like Trump had largely recovered. It had been months since that low point in the midterms had been four months his polling had largely recovered um he was already on an upward trajectory de santis was already starting to stumble and run into you know some problems and questions about his political abilities he had chosen not to engage trump for months but i wonder what would have happened if he had started laying the groundwork for that attack like in november when he could have gotten some buy-in from other republicans well there's timing but there's also and I've been thinking a lot about this lately, the herd mentality in politics, you know, collective action. So we're seeing the herd mentality right now that everybody is like, okay, look, everybody else is doing it. We got to get

on board. But the alternative to that would have been early on. And I don't know whether I'm talking about 2015, 2016, or whether we're talking about 2021, but watching Republicans, you can tell that they're kind of always looking over at their shoulders. You know, that moment when they raised their hands on the stage in Milwaukee, remember how Rhonda Santus kind of looked to see whether other people were raising their hands. If at some point, any point, there would have been this collective action of not just Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney over here and Mitt Romney over here, but if a lot of Republicans who had credibility joined hands and said, I'm sorry, this is too much. We have to move on. I don't know whether that would have changed it, but it was never tried. What we do know is the individual voices speaking out, it was easy to pick them off.

It's easy to pick off a Jeff Flake. It's easy to pick off Liz Cheney. But if there had been a critical mass, because you're seeing right now the power of the critical mass, right, that everybody has decided that, you know what, you don't want to be the last person. All the cool kids are going into the gymnasium. We have to follow them in there, right? Yeah. You only get these rare moments where Trump looks weak enough that you could potentially flip some Republicans against him at once. And what usually happens is everyone kind of looks

at each other, like you said, and just a handful of people. It's only been just like two or three moments throughout his political career at this point, right? Like one of them was obviously January 6th. Like it was a serious question whether he would be impeached for a brief moment and a serious question whether Mitch McConnell would lead the effort, you know, and whether there would be a sustained opposition to him, even if impeachment failed, you know, even within a week after January 6th, like you'd missed that moment. And already he was recovering through predictable means. And in this case, you had another moment, like they were gifted, I think kind of improbably another moment after the midterms, which is for whatever reason, for like a brief moment, Republican rank and file voters seem to think maybe something is wrong here.

Maybe we misread something. What else have we been lied to? If it turns out there wasn't a red wave and you know, this wasn't just me speculating, like there were lots of polls showing DeSantis leading. People were ready. Like DeSantis was leading in New Hampshire by the gold standard poll there as of January of last year, one year ago from like today. It's insane to imagine now. He dropped out before, but he was pulling at like four or 5% and some when he dropped out. There was a brief moment where there was at least a sign that they were willing to listen. And also separately, that some Republicans were willing to come out and join them. So like, I look back at some of the quotes from this period, it was fascinating. I was digging through some of the things senators were saying then. So this is an interesting thing. Not a single senator endorsed DeSantis

during this entire race. Not a single one endorsed Haley either. Hardly anybody in Washington endorsed Nikki either. There were some for Scott, who they all liked. He was their colleague, but it was not a single one. I was reading about Cynthia Lummis from Wyoming. She was giving quotes then, like Ron DeSantis is the leader of our party now, when she was asked about her endorsement. Okay, DeSantis announces six months later, did Cynthia Lummis endorse him? No, because by then he looked like a loser and everyone was like, why stick my neck out when I'm just going to get killed on a loss of cause. Similarly with Fox News, right? We reported that Trump was so-called soft banned from Fox News for like, you know, basically through the midterms.

And Ron DeSantis was like, one of the reasons people thought he was plausible is like, wow, look, conservative media is lining up behind this guy. Once he like gives a signal, they're all going to charge with him. Right. But you had a brief fleeting moment. It was gone within a, you know, a month or two. And then by the time you announced that it's like, maybe not, you know, it's, they were already trying to get back on Trump's good side. You only get these little moments. If you go individually, you always get mowed down. Ron DeSantis made so many mistakes. It's hard to pick out one miscalculation, you know, I mean, all of them. But I do think it's interesting that, you know, in terms of the timing, that rather than leap in to the presidential race, sort of at the moment when people were ready for him, he made the

calculation, no, I'm going to go do some legislating. I'm going to spend my time doing government stuff because he thought that's what the MAGA base wanted. You mentioned Tim Scott in passing. Before we get to sort of the bigger picture number crunching, which I want to do with you, and also what's going on with the business community right now, because I was listening to an interview this morning that I wanted to share with you. But Tim Scott, who was widely liked, and again, for five minutes, people thought, huh, he's a kind of a plausible guy. He's dropped out of the race, endorsed Donald Trump in the most slavish way possible. He puts the cringe in cringeworthy. And last night he was there standing behind

Donald Trump. And, you know, Donald Trump is insulting and threatening Nikki Haley. Just a reminder to everybody, Tim Scott is a United States senator because Nikki Haley appointed him to that position. He was subsequently elected, but he owes her his seat in the United States Senate. He's a fellow South Carolina Republican. But listen to this, this sort of typical Trump, the fact that he just enjoys humiliating his opponents, but he also kind of has a kink about humiliating the people who have come to his side. So let's play this little soundbite. Did you ever think that she actually appointed you, Tim? And think of it, appointed, and you're the senator of his state and she endorsed me you must really hate her

no it's uh it's a shame it's a shame oh i just love you no that's that's why he's a great politician okay i don't want to say anything bad about chris christie but it's like he's a great politician. Okay, I don't want to say anything bad about Chris Christie, but it's like he's the 2024 Chris Christie without the self-respect. You know, it's like, okay, so that picture of Chris Christie, you know, doing the shine box thing from 2016 became kind of iconic. And Tim Scott saying, I can top that. So what did you make of that exchange? Donald Trump saying, you must really hate her. And then Scott just slurping it up like,

no, I just love you, big man, daddy. It's all recognizable. Trump, he doesn't just want endorsements. He wants surrenders. He loves humiliating people after they endorse him. It's not a two-way deal. It's a one-way agreement. I remember when he chose Mike Pence as his running mate. And, you know, reportedly, like at the time, he was like, not happy choosing Mike Pence. You know, he wanted someone who ironically, Chris Christie then was seen as like, more loyal and more his type. And he spent like, this is Mike Pence, the greatest day of his life, right? He is like, you know, the pinnacle of his very, very long rise in Republican politics. He's going to be VP, his family's all there, everything. And Trump just like ranted for like 30 minutes about whatever before even letting Pence speak. And as part of it, very notable, he started

bragging about how he beat Ted Cruz, even though Mike Pence endorsed him and how Mike Pence gave a weak endorsement. And it wasn't like a good one and like really wanted me to win. And it was just like and saying terrible things about Ted Cruz along the way. You know, it's like it's the same thing. It's not just enough to be in his endorsement or even agree to be his running mate. He will humiliate you immediately. It's very important to him. Well, this is the price. You know, you see it in people like Lee Stefanik, who I think like Tim Scott wants to be VP.

By the way, do you agree? I mean, this is part of this audition. And if you're auditioning to be Trump's VP, you have to go beyond groveling. I mean, you have to go for the straight snivel. But that's what's happening here, right? At the very least this time, I think it raises the stakes because like a lot of the appeal of Mike Pence as a VP then was that he was not seen as especially Trumpy. Then it was that like, okay, Trump's weak flank then was, ironically now because they're his biggest supporters, was like religious conservatives. And especially people who doubted him on abortion say, which is much less an issue now for him after he appointed a bunch of judges and has an administration.

And also the evangelical movement has changed in certain ways to accommodate his personal style. Yeah, this time around, this is after, you know, a bunch of supporters tried to hang Mike Pence that he is now, you know, it was like Mike Pence, the joke about him before January 6th was that he was incredibly loyal and would never say a bad word about Trump or break from him on anything. So someone who is more dependable than even that. And obviously you see the way it's being done. Elise Stefanik in her case is, you know, referring to January 6th prisoners as hostages was like the thing that really... Hostages. It's interesting you see that and you go, oh, someone must be running for vice president. But it's a big competition. It's the reason why, for example, I mean like Marjorie Taylor green has talked openly about wanting to be considered as a running mate. For example, it's a very open campaign. Is it possible to be too crazy for Trump? What do you think? I mean, if you were ranking them, do you have a short list? I think it depends what he wants. I mean,

like an obvious one is Tim Scott, you know, in many ways. Trump has noticeably not said anything bad about Tim Scott this whole time. I think he loved that he was in the race just strategically. But also Tim Scott did not say much bad about, you know, he mostly avoided dinging Trump during his presidency. You know, he had some appeal to the middle. That's like a rare combination of traits. Our own reporter, Shelby Talcott, reported early on that Trump had instructed his campaign not to attack Tim Scott. You know, like, don't get into it. That's one option if you want to do, say, an outreach play. But if you want, say, a loyalist play, yeah, his long option is there, too. You know, there's Stefanik. There's Byron Donalds in the House is another one who's considered, you know, very MAGA in a lot of ways. And also as a bonus, you know, chose him over DeSantis, which was like an early big domino to fall endorsement wise, that signaled kind of where the winds were blowing with endorsements in a lot of ways.

And then there's, you know, some of the governors, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, former press secretary, she was a little slow to endorse Trump this time, but still someone who served him well. It's like, it's hard to say. He has a lot of ways he can go. There's somebody in my comment section who said, hey, you know, don't sleep on Alina Haba. You know, I mean, this is the, you know, somebody who he thinks looks good and maybe a terrible lawyer, but might be good on TV. Okay, I'm kidding about that. Okay, so I mean, obviously, I think it almost goes without saying that Nikki Haley is not running for VP. There's no chance, zero chance of that. So why do you think she's in the race

still? I mean, is this just sort of saving face? How long does it go? As I mentioned, I was just on a call with like her super PAC, you know, a long-term advisor, Mark Harris was on there. He was trying to very much address the idea that like speculation about what this means for like Nikki Haley's future. Like what if she's compromising being running mate or a cabinet or a 2028 run? Like the case he's making is that like, look, drop your cynicism. She thinks she's the best presidential candidate. She's in this for that. Okay. You know, sure. I'd say we all have some reason to doubt that. Namely, the time she warned that Trump was

like the worst disaster that ever happened, and then joined his cabinet. And then the other time she warned Trump was the worst disaster that ever happened, and then said she wouldn't run against him and then ran again. I'm like, it's like, I'm not going to get on my high horse here and like, talk about how, you know, we have no reason to doubt Nikki Haley's, you know, calculations and intentions. Part of the way she's got this far is that she is a very good strategic politician in many ways, you know, and it's very good at tactical, you know, calculations. But, you know, Trump only takes, Josh Barrows' quote from 2016, I was like, Trump only takes the dignity of people who give it willingly. And people talk about like how humiliating it might be to lose in South Carolina. I disagree. I don't think the

idea is like her career would suffer because she lost to Trump, who was dominant there. I mean, I think it's fine to say, like, rationalize it away, being like, look, the party wasn't ready. I did my best. And she would be fine. There's a million things she could do after that. So it's kind of up to her. I don't know if she would say yes to a VP offer or not, but she's doing her best to look like someone who would not entertain it now. Okay, so let's talk about, obviously we're pivoting pretty decisively shortly from the primary season to the general election. And as I mentioned at the top here, there's two narratives. I mean, number one, both in Iowa and in New Hampshire, we were reminded about how completely Donald Trump dominates Republican

voters. He's got loyal, he's got enthusiastic supporters. The entire Republican infrastructure, such as it is, you know, has lined up behind him. That's not breaking story. But there are a lot of little warning signs in Iowa and in New Hampshire and in polls elsewhere, which is that we know the story about the hardcore MAGA base, but there's also indications that he's got a real problem with the independent, moderate voters and soft Republican voters who he lost in 2020, who are not coming back to him and who could be decisive in the general election. So let's talk about that because it almost feels like it's old news to say, yeah, okay, the Republican Party is Donald Trump's. All right,

well, now we're talking about a general election. Joe Biden has been very, very weak. There's been a lot of pearl clutching about, you know, his age and about his bad poll numbers. The economy seems to be turning around. And there's a lot of evidence, both anecdotal, but also from the polling data, that there's a pretty substantial body of absolute. I will never, ever vote for Donald Trump among independents, moderates and Republicans. So give me your thought about this sort of, you know, changing narrative as we begin to focus on, you know, the weaknesses that Donald Trump has at the moment when he looks so dominant. Clearly, this is going to be kind of his high watermark, but there's a lot of evidence of weaknesses, aren't there? Well, it depends on how you look at it. I can see multiple ways. One way to look at it is that problem is totally overblown. Trump is leading Biden in polls now.

He's significantly improved on his performance since 2020. I mean, if anything, the, you know, the shock there that Democrats are dealing with is that they assumed a lot of those independents and Democratic-leaning voters were, you know, forever gone. And that's after January 6th, you know, that happened after the 2020 election. Which is kind of mind-blowing. And after the midterms, where Trumpy candidates got killed everywhere, you know, so it's like, yes, it's driving them kind of crazy on the Democratic side to see that. So that's one reason I would it's driving them kind of crazy on the Democratic side to see that. So that's one reason I would not read too much into his performance with this or that voter in Iowa or New Hampshire. Now, the reason you might consider otherwise, yeah, independents seemed like

they could not wait to vote against Trump in New Hampshire. And that's a state that often has kind of like true independents compared to, compared to independence and name only, you know, unaffiliated voters, as they're called there. An interesting thing is that, you know, Trump has looked very strong in some states he lost in some recent polls. That's not been true in New Hampshire. There was a poll just this week that had him down seven to Biden. It looking just like 2020, basically, based on exactly what you named. And, you know, I've seen some people suggest one way to look at is like maybe New Hampshire is just kind of unique. Another way is that unlike the rest of the country that has not been thinking about Trump, that has not been assuming he's the nominee even, you know,

at the margins, you know, a lot of people are still really waking up to the idea that he's actually going to be officially the nominee. In New Hampshire, because it's the first in the nation state, they're well aware of Trump. They've been hearing from him. They've been seeing him talk about all the things you've been talking about every week, and they are reverting to 2020 form, and independents are remembering, ooh, I don't like that, and even some Republicans at the margins. So you might look at that and think, well, that is a warning sign for Trump, possibly, that, yeah, he may look improved in know, improved in, say, Georgia or

Arizona or Michigan or wherever now, but that's before there's been a whole high profile campaign where people are seeing Trump's speeches, you know, seeing people react to his Truth Social posts every day, seeing a billion dollars of advertising reminding them about things they don't like about Trump. Maybe it'll look more like that. But the truth is, we just don't know. I mean, like we're 10 months out, polls are not very predictive, partly for this reason. And I would say at best, it is ambiguous right now whether Trump should be encouraged or discouraged by these results. Well, I mean, obviously going to be encouraged in the short term. I mean, the Biden folks, of course, are also noting that it seems like a lot

of voters are in denial about whether or not it's going to be Trump versus Biden. I mean, that's the conversation that I have all the time. People saying, oh, it's not going to be those two, right? I mean, it's something's going to happen. It's, you know, we're not going to have to do this. So there has been a slowness to walk into that binary choice that we're going to face. And the Biden people think that that's wheat in the field for them to go and harvest. Yeah. And you notice Biden had a statement out last night, just straight up saying Trump is going to be the nominee. Like that was Biden's response to the results. Like, and what he's saying is exactly what you're saying. The message to Democrats is like, wake up. This is, this is actually happening. There is no outside force. There is no, you know,

ballot lawsuit or court case or sudden surge from another candidate that is going to keep Trump from being the nominee. You guys have to wake up to the reality. And not only that, you see what he's talking about while he's winning. He's winning while being at peak Trump. He's talking about January 6th stuff more than ever. He's talking about his legal issues more than ever. His literal closing message, if you went by his social media posts, was like, stuff more than ever. He's talking about his legal issues more than ever. I mean, like his

literal closing message, if you went by his social media posts, was like, E. Jean Carroll is a liar. Like that was his closing message in New Hampshire and Iowa as well. So like reminding people that you are getting like full unfettered Trump who, if anything is on tilt, assuming everything people told him, you know, he couldn't do after 2020 was wrong, and now leaning into it. We've yet to see what happens. And we've really yet to see what happens when there's money behind it. So the one last thing I'll add on that, the midterms. The Democratic story that they'll tell the groups that actually work to elect Democrats in the midterms where Democrats had such a good year is that, look, what happened is that in the

battleground places where we spent a lot of money reminding people of the choice, Democrats did quite well. Democrats got killed in all the other places. Like, you know, the red wave was in like New York, you know, in places that are like relatively safe Democratic, where they don't have to worry about like MAGA and especially don't have to worry about abortion issues to the same degree. And also candidates got more flat-footed because many of them didn't think until very late in the race that they would even have a competitive race.

There, it was a disaster. If only they'd done a little bit of oppo research on George Santos. Exactly, like something like that. And also there was an added thing there, like redistricting made it very confusing in New York. But in general, like that is, the places the red wave actually did happen were places where they did not have this infrastructure in place to make that contrast early and really hammer it home. So their argument is that it would be very weird if the message of don't elect this person because they're like Donald Trump worked in every swing state in 2022, but not when literally Donald Trump was on the ballot. And, you know, we'll find

out. But that is the case they're making, that you have to wait until they see the actual campaign. Okay, so I know that we live in a world in which politics is not about the economy stupid anymore, but the economy is not nothing. And it's been a huge sort of albatross around Joe Biden's neck. There's always been a lag time between when things get better and when people think they're getting better. And I think it's been very, very frustrating for Democrats, very energizing for Republicans. But I'm looking at this Catherine Rampell column in the Washington Post, which I'm sure you've seen, is saying, you know, the economy is getting better and people are seeing it at just the right time. So again, we don't know how this plays out.

Last week, Dow Jones ends at 38,000, above 38,000 for the first time. Pretty good. You're starting to see more important, I think, consumer confidence begin ticking up. The number of Americans who think that we're in a recession is dropping. So the perception is catching up with some of the numbers. How does that play anymore? I mean, we're not the 1990s anymore, and I completely understand that. But this was one of the big headwinds for Joe Biden. Now, how do you see it? What should we be looking at? Well, there's been a big debate the whole last year, basically, about why the

so-called vibes have been disconnected from, you know, the economic data, like rapidly improving inflation picture, you know, you know, China like growth, you know, in the last quarter of 5%, you know, this Fed getting increasingly confident that we're in a soft landing, where we get the benefits of getting rid of inflation without the bitter medicine of a recession. Certainly consumers have been spending as if they think it's a good economy. Whatever they tell a pollster, they are not acting like people who are scared they're about to lose their job or worried about their savings the same way. So some of what Biden was doing with all the Bidenomic stuff last year that was really kind of pilloried within the party as kind of out of touch. Terrible, right? And it wasn't as much about then. It was about laying the groundwork for a time more like now. They were betting that they may not see it yet, but a year from now,

the economy is going to be discussed as a positive for Biden. And we want to lay the groundwork for explaining that and taking credit for it. So we'll see if that happens, but that is the bet. It is very future oriented. It's not about just convincing them in real time. That said, I'm not sure how much the economy is what the election is about. Things have changed a lot in the Trump era. I don't think the last several elections have been too economy focused. I mean, we were in the middle of an economic catastrophe during COVID in 2020, but I don't see that often discussed as an economy election.

I don't really think that's what the difference was or what the main issue was. You look at the midterms, that was a case where economic perceptions were catastrophic and also inflation was at its peak. And objectively, there was all sorts of disastrous stuff going on. And there was a lot less certainty about whether the economy would pull out of this situation without, say, an extremely deep recession. And what happened? The Democrats had a great midterms, like historically good midterms for an incumbent, especially with that approval rating. So one thing I would ask is just how much this election is going to even be about that versus a referendum on Trump and Biden. We don't

really know yet, but at the very least, it is very clear that from, you know, measures like consumer sentiment, you know, there are even, by the way, you know, statistics that track how positive the news is on the economy that are now flipping upward. You know, when people say the vibes versus economic statistics, there are economic statistics for vibes, and they are also trending upwards. It certainly would help Biden, obviously, if the perception that the economy is improved took hold. The line that I kept hearing over and over again was, well, look at my 401k. Well, I mean, look at your 401k right now. It's actually pretty good. I want to ask you about something else. I was listening to Andrew Ross Sorkin, who is on Morning Joe today, and they

were asking him about the new attitude among the Wall Street elites who appear to be like kind of capitulating to Donald Trump. They sort of, maybe it's not so bad. You know, the folks in Davos who think that he's going to be elected and they can live with it because they don't really see that much of a difference between Trump and Biden, at least in terms of the economy. And a lot of these are the same guys who signed those big open letters. Remember those big full page newspaper ads about democracy and everything a few years ago. But now we're basically saying, you know, if we speak out about any of this, we don't know what a second Trump term might mean for us. We don't know how he might retaliate against us.

So there is a certain intimidation. There's a certain acquiescence. Does this matter at all? Because there was a moment at which, you know, economic elites were saying, no, Donald Trump is, he may give us our tax cuts, but, you know, X, Y, and Z make him disqualified. They appear to be making their peace with him. Does that matter? It's hard to say. I mean, our editor, Ben Smith, was also at Davos, and he had a funny piece last week about how it's indeed exactly what you're talking about.

There seems to just be total resignation. They assume Trump would win. But as he mentions, they're famously terrible pundits. Like the conventional wisdom there is as bad as anywhere. Like they always are continuously getting everything wrong. What was the headline? Something like,

why do they always sound so dumb or something? Yeah. It's like, I think he, I think he headlined it in our newsletter or something like good news for Joe Biden or something like that. It's like, it's the parody version of them is not too far off.

So there is that. But yeah, I mean, I think there has been an entrenchment in the business community in a lot of ways from the kind of more activist approach of trying to win over, you know, more progressive, younger voters, and especially employees, you know, because remember, like, we talk about the college non-college divide, which we just saw again in this New Hampshire primary, right? Listen, there ain't a lot of non-college divide, which we just saw again in this New Hampshire primary, right? Listen, there ain't a lot of non-college people working at those institutions, all right? There's a reason that they are trying to win over their employees and look good for their

investors by adopting at least the language of some of these more progressive things. But there's been a backlash to that, too, entirely separate from Trump, right? That's more of Ron DeSantis' field. They've made, you know, DEI a dirty word. They had, you know, there's just like every day there's another story of conservatives mounting some kind of backlash to some kind of involvement in politics or especially social issues from companies. So it wouldn't surprise me if there's a broader retrenchment in general from wanting to speak out about this stuff, but I'm also not sure how much it actually matters in the actual race. But how much is this is just really raw and maybe rational fear that if they

get on the wrong side of a Trump administration that has made it clear that retribution is at the heart of the agenda and you have an executive in charge of the vast regulatory apparatus of the federal government, unplug Donald Trump going after with a long enemies list could do real damage to these folks. I mean, and that seems to be at least part of the thinking here. Yeah, I mean, it wouldn't shock me one of the most under discussed parts of Trump, because no one felt like defending Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, can fend for himself. But a lot of the most shocking things he did was just openly threatening Bezos because of Washington Post coverage, because of a paper he owns.

If that wasn't 270 on the list of Trump controversies that had a bunch of finger pointing about democratic norms, it would have gotten more attention, of course. But yeah, it's not an unreasonable concern. I mean, Trump takes names, he holds grudges. And also similarly, while he does hold grudges, we saw with Tim Scott, right? There's nothing he loves more than hearing someone who did, you know, criticize him, turn around and praise him and say they've changed their mind and they love him now and they'll work with him. And you know, I was wrong. So it's, there certainly are opportunities if you want to take him to repair those relationships, as long as you're willing to, you know, give up some dignity in the process. Well, I think it was always naive to think that big business would

somehow be the moral conscience of American society or culture. I think that there was rather naive to think that that was ever going to take place. Benji Starlin is Washington Post chief at Semaphore, previously covered elections for NBC News. You can read his work at Semaphore. Benji, thank you so much for coming on the morning after the New Hampshire primary. It was great. Thank you. Charlie, thanks so much for having me. I had a great time. And thank you all for listening to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow and we'll do this all over again. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.