The Bulwark Podcast - Bill Kristol: A Shot of Hopium

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

Voters who backed Haley in South Carolina are not buying the American carnage message, and may represent a kind of gettable voter in swing states. Plus, the shamelessness of Stefanik, the enduring racism of Trump, and a defense of Archie Bunker. Kristol is back with Tim Miller.

Hello and welcome to Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Monday. I'm here with Bill Kristol, fresh off the Principal's First Summit in DC, which looked really kind of full and wonderful. I was unable to attend. I was at my Mimi's funeral in St. Louis, which was appropriate and a wonderful send-off for her. But tell me what I missed, William. Well, my condolences, obviously, for your grandmother, and I'm glad she had an appropriate send-off at an advanced age. Is that right, I think? Very advanced, 99. Almost made it to the century, but it was pretty good. Still good, yeah. It was great. I mean, there were 600-plus people there, twice what they'd been before last year,

which itself was probably twice the year before. High spirits, intelligent discussion, I've got to say, in the hallways and on the panels. A terrific panel with Sarah, JVL, and EB, which was really excellent. And I think you can watch online at our website, right? Yeah, you can catch it on our YouTube, on the Next Level podcast feed so that was

excellent i had the first panel with uh frank fukuyama and matt connedy and quinn hillier and that was actually very good also it was a generally high quality discussion and i'd say what was impressive was people were not there was not a lot of happy talk but there was not a lot of doom talk either you know fatalism and people were sober about the challenges ahead. And I thought that was refreshing in this era where when people tend to oscillate between, you know, rah-rah, pretending everything's going to be great. Hopium, I guess, is the word Simon Rosenberg uses on the one hand, and sort of, oh my God, we're totally doomed on the other. And there wasn't much of that. So it was fun. And the party, the reception that we hosted, the Bulwark hosted Friday night, the happy hour at Hill Country, was really fun and terrific.

And it wasn't quite as lively as if you had been there, Tim, but it was still okay. Yeah. You know, I was planning on bringing some drag queens and really spicing it up, but it looked fun anyway. The best thing about this reception, you know, it's a nice barbecue place. They have a branch in New York and D.C. and I guess other places by now, too. And it is originally from Texas, if I'm not mistaken. But, of course, one thing about having a reception at a barbecue place, and the point wasn't the food, and it was perfectly good food, actually,

and just a bit more snacks and sliders and stuff, is that everyone from Texas, North Carolina, St. Louis, every place that's like barbecue, this is like a thing, right, had to tell you, it's really nice that you're having this reception here. Of course, the barbecue is just not really, I mean, honestly. Yeah, right. It's not Memphis. It's not Memphis. It's not Memphis, right? This is a decent, I mean, it's okay for DC, but so we had to have a little more, a few more barbecue discussions than necessary, but otherwise it was fine. Sometimes we don't have a blending between, let's say those of us in the principled never Trump space that are pretty pessimistic about the future

of the conservative movement, and then those who fit more in the, you know, stalwart in the maintaining of the conservative movement. I like having that mingling. And I want to do more of that on this podcast as well in the coming weeks and invite some of those folks on and kind of maybe hash out some of our differences. It's nice to hash out differences with people that you're directionally on the same side as but have maybe maybe differences in the particulars. So Bill, we have to obviously do a deep, deep dive on South Carolina. You and I are both in a state about John Thune. We'll get to him and Elise Stefanik, and I will continue my one-man quest to keep the Alexander Smirnoff story in the news. But before we do that, I want to have just one

little palate cleanser for you, if that's okay. Great. Jonathan Turley, this is your era, right? You and Jonathan have been in green rooms together over the years, I would assume. Trump super lawyer. Here he is in the Hill this weekend. He has a column about a recent discovery, the criminal history of the great,great-grandfather of Joe Biden, who must literally be Methuselah. It turns out that evasion of accountability may be something of a family trait acquired through generations of natural selection. This is based on the 19th trial of Moses Robinette. No one fucks with a Biden. That's apparently the takeaway from that. How?

How are we here? This is the highest legal mind of Trumpism right now. Jonathan Turley, GW. He's teaching at my alma mater. What is happening? A distinguished guest on Fox News all the time. I've been very concerned about the great-grandfather of Joe Biden, actually. I think it's a real...

I think we need to do better vetting on the great-grandfather. Is it great-great-grandfather or great-great-great-great-great-grandfather of all of our candidates and also the great-great- grandmothers, which we can't be sexist about this. It's just farcical. It is slightly revealing in the gaslighting that you think, the sort of reversing of reality, as it were. So Trump, who has been indicted for 91 counts in four different criminal cases for the first time, first time any presidential candidates, I believe, had that distinction and that honor. His supporters are now accusing Joe Biden of being a criminal because or being having criminal, I guess, biological criminal susceptibilities

to give him his great, great grandfather. Well, Turley, after being just absolutely roasted over the over this column reverts to the I was just makinggreat-grandfather. Well, Turley, after being just absolutely roasted over this column, reverts to the, oh, I was just making, it was just a little joke. Just a little humor. Unclear what the humor is. Is that right? I haven't seen that. Unclear what the little humor is.

Okay, on to real business. South Carolina, Nikki Haley exceeded my expectations slightly, I guess, a 20-point loss, which I thought was the high end of her range, 59-39 basically with some straggler points for people still voting for Meatball Ron, and Vivek even got a couple votes. There are basically two ways to look at this. I want to dig into the numbers with you, but you see this in the commentariat over the weekend. This really isn't that good for Trump at all to lose 39% in the primary, and if Biden had lost 39% in the primary,

you know, the New York Times would be running a front page banner about demanding that he resign. Then there's the other side of it, which is, again, unprecedented performance. No one has ever won the first two, more or less the first three primaries in the Republican side. Trump did so only losing five counties over three states, including the home state of his toughest competitor. So where do you fall on that continuum? Yeah, I think I fall on both sides of that continuum. If there's a fork in the road, it was Yogi Berra. If there's a fork in the road, take it.

So, I mean, on the one hand, Trump has won the first three primaries. Let's just put Nevada aside, which is somewhat confusing as a caucus and some sort of optional primary too. By what? She's beat Nikki, let's say by 30, and then by 10, and then by 20, roughly. Those are pretty good victories. You and I have been in some campaigns, you'd be very happy to have a winning streak like that. And Trump is going to be the nominee. And you know, he's not going to lose many if any, I think he might have a run here in Virginia, Vermont could lose two or three states on Super Tuesday conceivably. But you know'll win the bulk of them and the bulk of delegates. And I think he's on course to

clinch the nomination on the 12th with Georgia, or maybe if not quite on the 12th, on the 19th, when there are a bunch of primaries. So that's less than about the way. So cruising to the nomination, you can say, well, of course he was the incumbent, blah, blah, blah. But it wasn't always that obvious that this would be the case, right, a year ago with DeSantis and stuff. So pretty impressive. And bad news for the country that he's so prohibitively dominating these Republican primaries and Republican voters in these primaries.

I mean, Haley's obviously getting the Democrats, a few that cross over, and then a whole bunch of independents. She's winning by decent margins. The real Republican vote is more like 75-25, it looks like, or 70-30. So that's not good about the Republican Party. One thing we should say is Michigan, which is tomorrow. So in New Hampshire and South Carolina, Haley spent a lot of money and a lot of time. And so it'd be interesting to see sort of what happens in Michigan, where neither said they're both, she's going there today. I think she is there today, but neither spent much money or time. And see if it feels like that would be a little more of a, like an x ray into like, where is the Republican primary electorate? You know, is Haley overperforming a little in New Hampshire and South Carolina? Or is there really a 35 40% resistance? Or is the real resistance more like 30% or 27% among Republican primary voters, which was enough to, you know, elect Biden, but barely. People who are glorying in the fact that he's only at 59, or it was only at 55 in New Hampshire, I think are being a little, that's a little too much happy talk. But the people who

are giving up on the fact that there's no resistance, who are saying that, you know, there's no resistance to speak of in the Republican Party. That's too pessimistic. I agree. Michigan won't give us the pure x-ray that I'm looking for, because like New Hampshire and South Carolina, it is open, right? So people can vote. I think we'll learn more, obviously. We'll learn everything on Super Tuesday when you have a bunch of different states and you can kind of see how it looks demographically, what happens in states that have closed primaries, what happens in different regions. But a couple of the things that I just wanted to flag from South Carolina, having a couple of days to sit with it, Trump won 70%. So this is to your point, it was 70% of ours to Haley's 29 among registered, there aren't registered Republicans in South Carolina,

among self-identified Republicans in South Carolina. So again, 30 is not nothing. And I think it's an interesting group to work from in a general election. But it was really, it's a 40 point victory if you're just looking at Republicans, you know, give or take exit polls, margin of error. Among very conservatives, 84. Among people with no college degree, 73% for Trump. Among white evangelical Protestants, 72%. We talked to Rob Reiner about that on Friday's pod. We can get into that a little bit more, what that says about that being Trump's strongest group at this point. The one stat going the other way that I thought was interesting. Among people who think the economy is doing either excellent or good, this was a big minority of the people that voted, but it was a significant chunk, about a fifth. Haley won 88 to 11. 88 to 11. She won 82% of the vote among people who thought that

Biden won legitimately. And to me, like that is the real kind of green shoot. Those numbers are the green shoot, which is now some percentage of these people are Democrats that crossed over, some of them are Democrat leading independents, you know, it was about a third of the primary was independents and Democrats that voted in this primary. So you can kind of get get a little bit too inside your navel on the math of the crosstabs. But directionally speaking, that she would win overwhelming numbers among people who, you know, are not buying the economic calamity, American carnage message, are not buying the Trump, woe is me, 2020 message, I think presents at least a very significant group of people to message to, and maybe in the hopes that Biden

can do better than that 10% next time. No, I think that's interesting. I hadn't noticed that number. And it's consistent with a very good piece by Arne Miskin, if you've seen the Fox News pollster, an honest one, I mean, an analyst, that the economy getting better hasn't really showed up in Biden's approval yet. But there are beginning to be indications that it might be trickling over. And he does think that if the economy gets better, that could be, we're not talking about Reagan 20-point victories here, but two points moving to Biden from those swingish voters by November. But that means a lot depends on the economy and also the sense of chaos around the world. That the real world, this could be a close enough election that actually the real world events determine it as much as campaign tactics and so forth.

The thing that strikes me, though, I've got to say, talking to people who were there in South Carolina and also even at the principal's first actually conference, for me, voting for Haley is a vote against Trump and ultimately, you know, an acquiescence, let's put it that way, acceptance of Biden, if not enthusiastic in those cases. That's not where the Haley voters are now. They might be persuaded to get there, but there is real resistance to Biden. And I think much more than honestly, DC Democrats want to sort of accept or acknowledge. And it raises questions about third parties and so forth. And the willingness of that, the resistance to Trump is greater than the acceptance of Biden at this point. It's always going to be somewhat greater, obviously,

among Republican leaders. But it's the gap there is pretty great. So I mean, it feels to me like if I were the Biden campaign, I'd be just all over the place, talking to Haley voters. And I wouldn't say they're quite doing that. That might be something we can have a chat about later this week on this podcast with some folks from Biden world. But I agree with you. To me, it does not say, oh, okay, let's start celebrating and dancing in the streets. All this huge percentage of people went against Trump and in the end are going to be Biden voters. To me though, the economic number says these are people that are in the reality-based community, right? Like the people that voted for Haley are messageable. I think you're absolutely right that many of them right now are not saying that they're for Biden. You can see this in polling data. But it feels to me like that means they're gettable, right? Like if they are open to receiving

the information that the economy is not that bad, and they are open to receiving the information that Donald Trump perpetrated a lie about the 2020 election, and it was a lie that underpinned what happened on January 6th. Like those are two facts that means like this is a person that we can talk to and try to persuade, right? And like that is not necessarily a closed out voter, particularly in swing states. And I think a lot of people in places where they feel like their vote doesn't count, they probably will, you know, register a protest vote. But in swing states, I do think that that version is gettable. And, you know, Will Stansel quoted my item on the South Carolina exits. And he said that, you know, he thinks what it means is that voters are basing

their views, not on what is actually happening in the economy, I think there's a little bit of that, but on their informational universes, right? Like voters that are getting information from mainstream sources know that the economy is improving, and they know that Trump is a mendacious liar, right? Summing up his point. And those that are not getting that information aren't, but the people that are not getting that information are not really in the gettable universe for Biden anyway. Yeah, interesting. I talked to a couple of reporters here in South Carolina and they have been at the Haley speeches and watched the Haley ads more than I have. And they were struck

by this. The democracy issue was not brought up by Haley, unlike with Chris Christie or some or Liz Cheney type Republicans. Whether that was wise or not, maybe she would have done better if she'd brought it up, but clearly they decided or she just didn't want to or whatever for whatever reason

she didn't on the one hand. Secondly, she really went after Trump's character and that that seemed to resonate. He's just a bad guy. And, you know, it's not even quite the big lie. It's just that he attacks the

military. And of course, that for her was particularly important because of her husband. And that seemed to get some pickup, at least in speeches, people, you know, sort of resonated to that. Now, that is a case where you just don't know in the general whether they decide, okay, I don't like his character, but he still was a better president. And third, the foreign policy stuff, I know everyone says, you know, one vote on foreign policy, but the NATO, Ukraine stuff, actually, that was kind of key to her message that last week. And it seems to have picked up some support or some resonated some. So who knows which of those will end up being more important. And this can be tested, obviously, over the next few months. Yeah. And those end up being the key voters. So that's the question about what's next.

I mean, the South Carolina thing, the other stat that is just worth noting, I got the circus guys back together for a weekend podcast that we got into a lot of stuff beyond South Carolina. So it's worth listening to if you missed it. And, you know, Heilman has been down there and he's talking about how sleepy it was. But even still, big turnout. The total vote turnout in the South Carolina primary, Trump got far more votes than anyone has ever gotten. Now, part of that is because it's a two-person race, but people did go and certain percentage of people did cross over. I mean, like, you know, not a huge percent by, Haley did not get McCain 2000 levels of independent Democrats, but she still got, you know, about 30% of the total. And in raw numbers, you know, at that point, you're talking about, oh, it's always dangerous to do quick math on air, but a couple hundred thousand people that were not registered Republicans

that turned out to vote in South Carolina. Again, sometimes you can mix up, and I made this error analyzing Arizona in the midterms. Sometimes you can mix up, like, in 2016, the energy felt so great on both sides, right? And so you're feeling like this turnout is going to be there. Sometimes like people turn out to vote who are kind of sick of this, right? And like signs do not mean voting. Turning out to rallies is not necessarily, you know, you can over assess, right? Like how much all that means.

And I think we've seen now a couple of times that there are a significant number of people that are happy to try and vote both for and against Trump that are kind of sick of the rigor moral. Yeah. I think you said 2016 when you met 2020, but about enthusiasm on both sides, right? 2016 was not really. Yeah, no, I was actually, I actually meant 2016 because like the Trump events were so bad. Oh, fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But 2020 is kind of COVID. One other point, I think one number to watch in these polls, Doug Sosnick, the political director in the Clinton White House and a very smart Democratic strategist. Biden was ahead until about October, November, and he thought Biden was in decent shape. And then I think it was the NBC poll in October was the first one to ask this question that he saw. Who do you think was a

better president? Whose presidency do you think produced better results? And suddenly Trump was like plus 10 over Biden. And again, it gets to the point that you've made, JVL's made, somebody's like, you know, there's two incumbents. They're not really judging a promise versus a reality. They're judging as they see it, two realities. One of them might be, you know, they might not have a correct understanding of either reality, but that's what they think they're judging. And that number has stuck. And, you know, gee, if Trump has a 10% margin on his presidency delivered better results for me or for the country than Biden's presidency, that's a problem. I think that will be something to watch, which gets back to your point about the economy. If the decent economy, the good economy starts to trickle in and suddenly that gap closes, I think that's good

for Biden. If Trump just stays 10% ahead on the kind of evaluate the two presidencies criterion, that's bad. Okay. I'm going grocery shopping after this and I'm keeping a paper bag next to my desk for these podcasts. I can just breathe into it when you bring up stats like that. Eggs, the price of eggs is way down. Did you see that on Twitter?

That was poor Peter Baker of the New York Times. Did you see that? No. I guess he said casually, I mean, I forgot. That was something to be on cable about a weekend, that voters just are still holding inflation against Biden and the price of eggs. He mentioned literally that as the example. And apparently the price, I wouldn't have known to see that, honestly, but the price

of eggs is now, you know, has plummeted. I mean, it's down like, you know, 72% or 40%. It's, you know, from where it was, because it was a kind of very weird thing, the eggs thing. I think there was an actual disease or something. So it's like, he's getting just roasted for like, give a look at the prices when you go to the supermarket, Peter. I think Susan is doing the shopping, that family. Let's get, let's let Peter off the hook. You know, you have to split up the duties in a household. You know, Peter, I'm sure he's doing plenty of work as well.

I will tell you the crawfish index here in Louisiana is a big problem. Paid $12.50 a pound for crawfish this weekend. And people are apoplectic about that. Not that Louisiana is a swing state. And I'm not sure that crawfish prices are going to, you know, adhere to swing voter totals in the upper Midwest. But just something to keep an eye on. Okay, I want to talk about Haley. And what now? Because I was thinking about it this weekend. And

what she has here is what I described as a vampire campaign. Like she is dead, effectively, like the campaign is dead, but she is able to like exist among the living, right and suck the blood from the wounds of one of the two candidates that are likely to win. The big question is, is she going to suck the blood from the right candidate? I think that is the big unknown. I mean, I think there's a lot of encouragement. Some people want Haley to keep going. Obviously, it seems like she's going to keep going through Super Tuesday. There's one thing that is certainly not true. There's some people out there that are like, she's doing this to strengthen her 2028 hand.

That is not true. That is insane. If anything, she's weakening her 2028 hand. The best thing she could have done to strengthen her 2028 hand would have been to endorse Trump immediately like Ron DeSantis did after Iowa, maybe with a little more verve. And so that is not the reason. So is she contemplating the third party? No labels thing.

We talked about that a little bit over the weekend. Is she just having fun out there? You know, Amy Stoddard at the principles first has the hopium that she's going to actually not endorse Trump and can be useful in carrying this anti, even an epoxy bolt to your house's message is useful, though not as useful as endorsing Biden through November. So what say you about the Haley vampire candidacy? I mean, we don't know. And I suspect she doesn't know. Her rhetoric in the last week was pretty tough. I mean, it would be a little hard to just revert to that. Of course, I'm endorsing Trump, you know, after saying that he's really unfit, unacceptable, would damage in fundamental ways the US position in the world. I mean, maybe you can still say Biden's even worse, but I don't know. That rhetoric struck me as the rhetoric of someone backing away from her previous hand raising and saying that she would endorse Trump. Now, whether it's backing away to a very grudging and latent endorsement, okay, I support Republicans and that's it, she goes away for three months, four months, or really backing away. I'm just staying out of it. I don't know. I do feel much better that some people were worried

that helping Haley, and I've been trying to in some modest ways, it would be counterproductive. It would be an on-ramp for people to get back to Trump. I don't buy that. I think it's more of an off-ramp. How much of an off-ramp? We don't know. And an off-ramp to where? We don't know. And I do think she's, that rhetoric was, it was Ron Brownstead who tweeted this, that you listen to Haley's concession speech on Saturday night, he thought, ooh, that sounds a little bit like it could be laying the predicate for third party. Biden and Trump are unacceptable. They're way too old. We need next generation. And I don't know. I know I've been very hostile to no labels and to third parties, but I don't know.

Would a Haley third party candidacy take more from Biden or from Trump? She's pretty conservative. Biden could get his voters back at the end by saying, look, she's very strongly pro-life. She was even pro that IPF thing. It seemed like that decision. That's the kind of judge she's going to appoint. You kind of backed off that a little bit. She did, but you can't risk Haley.

I feel like that would get some of the swingish voters back to Biden, whereas Haley's a comfortable resting ground for Trump nervous, but often acquiescent Republicans. This will be tested. We'll see polls, I bet, in the next couple of days, testing the three-way with Haley. But I'm less confident than I used to be that all third party candidates are necessarily bad for Biden. We hashed this around with the circus crew over the weekend, and I've modulated. I was where you were just on first blush. But just looking at these exits, and as you just think about who Haley does well with, college educated, urban suburban, it feels like the demo of a Biden voter, right? Like, thinks the economy is good, thinks 2020 wasn't stolen, it feels like the demo of a Biden voter, right? Like thinks the economy's good.

Thinks 2020 wasn't stolen. Doesn't like Trump. Again, not every single person. I'm not saying she takes 100% from Biden, but just that part of it is the part that makes me think that, I don't know, maybe unbalanced Biden. It depends where you think those voters go. And I think in 2024, I mean, I was just thinking of literally my neighbors here in Northern Virginia who are really that demo, you know? And I feel, I don't talk to that much

about politics, but my vague sense is they were for Biden in 2020. No problem. No question. He was fine. He was, thank God he was a moderate Democrat. He was fine. He's a little old, but he was okay. And anyway, it was COVID, so he didn't get out much. And Trump was unacceptable. Those people have talked themselves back into being somewhat Trump accepting and pretty hostile to Biden. And maybe giving them Haley to go to is better than forcing them to Trump. It's a choice between Trump and Biden. Our mantra, I think, has always been in the Democrats' mantra, and it's correct in 2020, you've got to force the vote. You've got to get the people who dislike them both,

who disapprove of them both, to vote because they will end up voting for Biden. That was true when Trump was the incumbent. I'm a little worried that it isn't as true today. And that's the question, right? Whether it's backsliding or whether this realignment is continuing. Because here's one example of it. Maybe the McLean of South Carolina, Keowah Island. It's, I guess, McLean with a B. This is like the Haley, Haley, Haley base. Could you get a more Haley base than Keowa Island outside of Charleston, South Carolina? High, 96% white. Everybody has a college degree.

2012, Romney by 46. Saddam Hussein numbers for Romney and Keowa Island. 2016, Trump by 31. 2020, Trump by only five. And so the question is, if Haley gets out of the way, is that kind of just core demo now moving to Biden next time? Or is it backsliding, like you say? And I think that's really the big fighting ground in this election. Okay. I want to talk about Donald Trump for a minute and his actual behavior. I do feel like we get into this fallacy where it's like you just analyze and microanalyze every utterance of Nikki Haley and Joe Biden.

And like Donald Trump is out there just being an absolutely insane madman constantly and just spewing total nonsense. And it's just, you know, it gets lost in the fire hose of shit. And so I want to play a couple of clips about Donald Trump talking about black people, a group that he is, his team is bullish on. They think they're going to do better with black men this election cycle. Let's hear Donald Trump talking about racism. These lights are so bright in my eyes that I can't see too many people out there. But I can only see the black ones. I can't see any white ones, you see.

That's how far I've come. That's how far I've come. That's a long, that's a long way, isn't it? And then I got indicted a second time, and a third time, and a fourth time. And a lot of people said that that's why the black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against. And they actually viewed me as I'm being discriminated against. It's been pretty amazing.

Well, you know, that's how far he's come, Bill. Archie Bunker has come all the way around, where he only, he doesn't even see color. He only sees black now here's the thing some of those occasionally you see these clips there's always just like jonathan turley there's the revert to well this is humor this is just humor he's having good fun the people like that everybody likes that why don't we play the next clip which i think is uh clearly not humor which is donald trump talking about the January 6th hostage. You heard the J6 hostages, didn't you? You heard that. And I will tell you, there's never been in the history of our country a group of people treated the way they've been treated. There's

never been anything like it. Carpenters, mechanics, lawyers, firemen, policemen, military people. They went to protest a rigged election, and they've been sentenced to years in prison. So black people like him because he's been indicted. And also, the January 6th hostages have been treated worse than anyone in America's history. Worse than slaves, worse than Black people during the civil rights era, worse than Rosa Parks, worse than the Japanese interned. No one has been treated worse than the people that stormed the Capitol. What do you think about that, Bill? How do you think that lands with our McLean neighbor voter and the Black voters that Trump's

trying to win over? You know, I hate, I don't like saying this, but I just think that Borscht Belch humor sort of shtick helps them a lot with those voters. They just, I hate, I don't like saying this, but I just think that Borscht Belt humor sort of shtick helps them a lot with those voters. They just, it lets them discount it all. He's a loud mouth and sometimes he's funny and sometimes he's offensive, but come on, he's not doing any of that. I do think bringing home what he would do in his second term is really important. I mean, the real threats, obviously to the rule of law and to having a functioning U.S. government and a million other things, and to the world with Ukraine and NATO. I don't know. I've lost confidence in the ability to highlight truly disgusting, often, clips of him saying things,

and that that's going to move voters. There, maybe I'm just too pessimistic. I don't know. I will play the optimist. I like when I get to be optimist. I got to tell you, I don't know. I think that this January 6th hostages thing is going to really backfire. And I understand why people are hesitant of that. I understand your point of view, but you can mash up that clip. And I know we have some democratic strategists that listen to this podcast. I'm thinking about black radio and you can mash up this clip or tv in atlanta suburbs and it's just like you know because they aren't seeing this so people are not seeing donald trump say this like unless they're political obsessives and you have images of the people storming the capitol confederate flag beating black police officers these are the people that have been treated worse than anybody

pairing that with i don't, maybe the hoses, you know, on the bridge in the civil rights era or whatever. I knew there are a million horrors and horrific moments in our history of the way that black folks have been treated in this country that you could hearken back to. I guess the question is, there's only so many times, there's only so many ads you can run. There are a million ads you can run against Donald Trump. But man, I don't know. I think that this is a big vulnerability for him in the contrast there. Yeah. And I would say just one thing based on the ads that Sarah and I ran, the Republican voters against Trump ran in 2020. The way to make the message come home, I think, is to put the police

officers on the ads and to send them to the communities and send others, even maybe the more political side, the Liz Cheney's and Adam Kinzinger's of the world to the suburban, you know, Republican-ish voters, the Biden people are going to think, you know, what we need to do is really have Biden say all these things. And that's fine if he says them, but that, I think he's not the best messenger. It needs to be, that's the one lesson I really learned in 2020. People don't trust politicians. They don't trust slickly produced ads, but if it's real people saying look this i was there and this is this is the kind of behavior trump is excusing encouraging yeah well excusing and encouraging and indeed causing right our favorite topics dealer's choice we've got john

thune and elise stefanik we're gonna have an eight minute hate here about john thune and elise stefanik who do you want to take first, Bill? I mean, I wrote about Thune in the Morning Shots newsletter. All right, let me just read out for John Thune people this morning. We'll start with John Thune. He endorsed Donald Trump officially. John Thune, here's what he said after January 6th. What former President Trump did to undermine faith in our election system

and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power is inexcusable. With regards to the indictments against him, he said that laws were broken. That's kind of a Rumsfeldian mistakes were made there, passive voice, but it was still an acknowledgement. So in Thune's position, Trump's behavior was inexcusable and law-breaking, and yet better than Nikki Haley. Not just better than Joe Biden. Not just better than Joe Biden. Better than Nikki Haley.

That's such an important point. I mean, and let's do it on Saturday night after South Carolina. I had a phone call with Trump, and he really, I'm really pleased that he'll be the nominee, and we're all going to work together. I mean, that's what he said, right? I mean, he did it because he's Barrasso and Cornyn and his two establishment competitors to replace McConnell. They'll be a Trumpy competitor too, I suppose.

Had endorsed Trump a month ago and he was kind of late to that parade and trying to desperately get Trump not to come down against him, I suppose, in the race. But it's just so depressing. I mean, he's a decent person. I mean, I think a genuinely nice man who knows better isn't simply, he's been good on some issues, Ukraine and others, but there he is, right? And again, it's one thing to wait till after Super Tuesday, one thing to wait till the majority of the delegates, one thing to wait till your own state votes. That's the sort of slightly more excusable, to use that term, you know, moment to get on that train. Not that I'm excusing it in any case but one could say at least it's understandable but doing it after nicki haley gets 40 of the vote in south carolina

after it could really help from his from thun's point of view the future of the republican party and of the conservative movement if if haley does better in michigan and better on super tuesday he claims to care a lot about ukraine Has he gotten any kind of commitment from Trump that he's going to be at all helpful in getting that bill to the floor of the House? I mean, it's just such a pathetic collapse. Not new for us to see that. Not new, but this is where I will also part ways with you. Is he a decent person? Are we sure? Here's something about John Thune for people that don't know. He got elected again in 2022. He does not face the voters again until 2028. He can sit in that Senate seat for South Dakota for another four years. Who the hell knows what will happen in that time? Like who the hell could predict? He is the safest person in all politics. It takes

no courage. So you say, okay, well, but he wants to be Senate Majority Leader. Why? To do what? To actually exert any authority? We haven't seen it so far to date. He wants to be Senate Majority Leader and get just slapped around by Donald Trump? I mean, one thing if you said, okay, this guy's a really savvy guy, that John Thune is a killer. And he's going to do this because he wants to get in there just in case Trump wins. And so in 2025, Thune can really, you know, crack down on him on Ukraine funding or making sure that no insurrectionists get appointed to the cabinet or any of that. Does anybody believe that he would do any of that? mean sure one maybe one little thing on the like but but with any sort of fervor like does he seem like he's up for that

fight like why do you want this job you want this job because what you hope actually is the joe biden ones that's what john thune wants drop my phone i'm so mad john thune is hoping that that he can endorse donald trump and get all the political benefit of that without suffering any of the consequences, and that Joe Biden wins re-election, and that he can trick enough of his colleagues into supporting him to become majority leaders or minority leader. It'll probably be majority leader. So he can be majority leader and work in a normal kind of adversarial way with Joe Biden. And that is like really hollow, really hollow and shameful. My hate fire is burning a little harder than you this morning.

You kind of got it all out with the pen in the pen in the morning shots. I did. That was impressive. I'm with you. But that was good. That was good. Elise Stefanik, my hate is just bubbling. Did you watch her CPAC speech?

Have you watched her CPAC speech? Bill, I swear to God. I can't. You're tougher. You're younger than I am. You have more resistance. You can suffer through these things. I might give you a heart attack right now. Please, I'm just asking the authorities. If I kill Bill Crystal right now with this audio clip, this was

an accidental homicide. I have to be a parent. I cannot go to jail over this. Can we please play Elise Stefanik at CPAC? It's one I witness every single day when I defend President Trump from the deep state. And that is the way Democrats attack our democracy. We saw it with the Russia collusion hoax. Obama spied and then lied. We saw it with how they unconstitutionally rigged the 2020 election. We saw it when the deep state colluded with big tech and used taxpayer dollars to censor the accurate Hunter Biden laptop story. And we see it today

as unelected liberals try to unconstitutionally remove Trump from the ballot. Fuck you, Elise Stefanik. Everything was wrong in that until the last, I guess, the last line that there are a couple people trying to remove Donald Trump from the ballot for attempting an insurrection. Bill, what do you think about that VP audition from Earth 2? I mean, once you start down that path, why not? Once you're somewhat shameless, you just go be totally 100% shameless. Do you think it works, Tim, the VP audition? I think it might. I mean, I think that more important than her shamelessness

is, and again, don't get mad at me about this. This is not my opinion. This is just I'm projecting what is happening in Donald Trump's warped Archie Bunker brain. She's gotten a little bit of a glow up. You know, you can see she's taking much more care of her appearance, which I think is a bigger tell about her desires, frankly, even than her than her rhetoric, because Donald Trump does want somebody that looks the part, want somebody that looks the part, going to be compete with katie britt on that front and so she's gotta be more shameless in her rhetoric to match it and i think trump loves that this is what i'm saying there's an interesting little factoid it was uh maria bart romo was on fox and she's interviewing somebody that is some advisor of trump yeah i can't keep them all straight and she was like every time i talk to, I'm like, what are you doing to try to secure the election better this time than last time?

He doesn't have any answers. He doesn't have any answers. The reason why he doesn't have any answers is because he knows it was bullshit. He knows he's bullshit. It's a show. Like Maria has bought Trump's whole farcical. Trump doesn't need to come up with any policy solutions to solve something that he knows that he made up. Okay. And so Trump, when you're a liar

like that, and you've like created this whole false alternative reality, I think about how satisfying it must be to have a Harvard educated, you know, Congress mainstream Republican go up on stage, and not only participate in your live, it can like add new layers to it and be like, Ooh, it's really the Democrats that are, that are, you know, undermining democracy, and Obama was spying on him and like all this just total nonsense. So I think that flatters him about as much as you could flatter him, I guess, maybe besides like complimenting his sexual prowess or something like that. Plus, I think he loves the mainstream people who started off opposed to him, or at least not for him, who've caved and fully caved, right? That's more of a triumph. He's a bully, and he likes the

people he's bullied into submission a little more than the people who were with him actually, you know, from the beginning or just naturally because they're from a different state or something and elise is the you know the paul worked very closely worked in the bush white house paul ryan staff worked for the foreign policy initiative which i chaired for a year or two which was very worked on the autopsy with me yeah with you on the autopsy right in 2013 right 2013 14 yeah i mean she was totally on the if i can put it that way, the other side. And so the capitulation, the submission is more satisfying for Trump. I agree with that. And you saw it with Lindsey Graham. Yeah, I should have had that audio pulled up.

Did you see that at the South Carolina victory speech? He loves to humiliate Lindsey. He kind of does this pretend on being nice. Oh, like lindsey you know he doesn't have to mention lindsey on the speech he's like oh anytime i need to get in good with the democrats i just call lindsey because he's such a liberal and oh we love lindsey because he does that and the crowd's booing lindsey like trump loves that right it's the i've got i've won him over and i get to humiliate him you know just one last thing archie bunker you've mentioned a couple times it's a little unfair to archie bunker archie bunker is the whole point of the show is I mean I'm old enough to remember watching it I mean he seems like a bigot he is a bigot you know that's how he's brought up and

that's what he is but he learns not to be less bigoted in a funny way that's kind of the point the education of Archie Bunker is the dramatic narrative the arc of the show and Norman Lear famously didn't realize Archie Bunker was going to be like a popular character as people like that kind of Queens, you know, you know, we snatch of reality. But then I also like the fact that he at the end of the day, at the end of each most episodes, at least sort of backs off his learns a bit of a lesson that he shouldn't quite have these vulgar views as much as he does. Anyway, so I feel like you're just a little, little unfair to Archie. I apologize. Trump really is bad. As you said to me earlier. Are we sure John Thune has good character?

If only Donald Trump were Archie Bunker, the country would be in better shape. But he's not, of course. He's a true demagogue who surrounded himself by authoritarians and really is willing to play that out. A couple of good articles the last few weeks on that and what the heritage plans would really do to the intelligence community, to the Justice Department, to defense. Topic for another day, but it's alarming. Yeah, no, this will be a topic that we spend a lot, a lot, a lot of time on once Trump has officially won this nomination here in a couple of weeks. But that is exactly right and a good correction. Okay, my final thought before I let you go, I'm giving everybody constant updates on what's happening with Alexander Smirnoff. He has been re-arrested by a different judge in California because the government won appeal where they were making the case that there's a fear that

he would flee given his associations with foreign intelligence agencies, Russians, Israelis. Flashback that I'd missed. Jason Smith, who's a committee chair in the House, had sent a tweet a couple of months ago saying, smoking gun, the D-1023 form showing proof that Joe and Hunter Biden were involved in the $5 million bribery scheme with a Burisma executive has been released. There we go.

Yet another Republican that's even not in the Jim Comer world that's kind of supposedly, I think he's the appropriations chair. So presumably somebody is supposed to be responsible talking about this be a smoking gun. Bill, I know your obsession with this is maybe not at my levels, though I'm trying to win everyone over on this. My final question for you is, I think another thing besides the stakes of the election that is really important over the next few months is monitoring the foreign interference side of things. And I do think that it's getting lost a little bit. I think that people are tired of it.

I did my night party on this last week. People are like, nine years of Russia, Russia, Russia. How can I still care about this? I think that there's a little bit of weariness with that. But, man, my alarm bells are pretty high on interference for in this year. I just wanted your two cents on that. No, you're totally right. There was interference in 2016. The Mueller report lays it out clearly. The Senate Intelligence Committee, which I think at the time was Marco Rubio was the Republican

chair, acting chair of the committee, lays it out in the report in 2018, 2019, something like that. The Russia hoax was not a hoax but trump has gaslit that one right i mean people do they're either tired i mean it is what people say and uh about how authoritarian lies work they don't really convince you of the opposite they make it such a confusing mix of everything i mean this is what bannon says right flood the zone with shit i mean and and then who knows, but it's, I'm tired of it. And it wasn't quite what they said. And they never really, you know, the Mueller thing didn't prove anything.

And so it's all fake. The degree of success he's had in that, when it was absolutely 100% clear on the surface public that Trump encouraged Russia to collude, to interfere in the election, that Russia did, that they released the stuff on, you know, the day of the tape, the Bush tape, you know, that they released the emails that afternoon, right? I mean, to try to step on that story. I mean, it's just 100% clear that there was Russia collusion. And there's going to be, I worry very much, it's going to be again, and I worry, incidentally, that Putin says, you know, I kind of just prefer Biden, this ludicrous. And I don't know if he has some control over events in the world. And why doesn't he do stuff in October that makes Biden's efforts look less successful,

at least temporarily, right? So they can be both collusion, but actually doing things, right? I mean, yeah, worry about that colluding with, you know, some of the, you know, OPEC countries, there's a lot of potential foreign damage that could be done in the coming year okay plenty of time to talk about that bill crystal i hope you had a wonderful weekend we'll be seeing you next week and we'll be back here tomorrow do this all over again peace y'all i hate to give the satisfaction asking how you're doing now How's the castle built off people you pretend to care about? Just what you wanted

Look at you, cool guy, you got it I see the parties and the diamonds Sometimes when I close my eyes Six months of torture, you sold Some forbidden paradise, I loved you truly You gotta laugh at the stupidity Cause I've made some real big mistakes But you make the worst one look fine

I should've known it was strange You only come out at night I used to think I was smart But you made me look so naive The way you saw me for parts You sunk your teeth into me Oh, bloodsucker, fame fucker Bleeding me dry like a goddamn vampire.