The Bulwark Podcast - Bill Kristol and Joe Perticone: The Quitters

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

Mike Gallagher is following Ken Buck out the House door, as they both abandon their jobs, their voters, and any sense of public service. Plus, MTG threatens Mike Johnson, Lisa Murkowski signals she may leave the GOP, and Lil Marco auditions for the VEEP stakes. Kristol and Perticone join Tim Miller today.

If it's a flat or a squeal, a wobble or peel, your tread's worn down or you need a new wheel, wherever you go, you can get it from our Tread Experts. Ensure each winter trip is a safe one for your family. Enjoy them for years with the Michelin X-Ice Snow Tire. Get a $50 prepaid MasterCard with select Michelin tires. Find a Michelin Tread Experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there at treadexperts dealer near you at TreadExperts.ca slash locations. Landlord telling you to just put on another sweater when your apartment is below 21 degrees?

Are they suggesting you can just put a bucket under a leak in your ceiling? That's not good enough. Your Toronto apartment should be safe and well-maintained. If it isn't and your landlord isn't responding to maintenance requests, RentSafeTO can help. Learn more at toronto.ca slash RentSafeTO. Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. We have a monster show today. There's just so much happening. There's so much actually happening that we are saving the discussion of Rana Romney Romney until tomorrow. We have a banger planned for tomorrow

too. So don't worry, you'll get your Rana Romney fix in then. And also, if you haven't read Morning Shots this morning, Andrew Edgar has a nice little riff on that. What else is in the news? Well, New York Times has a headline, Trump will face his greatest fears as two legal threats coincide today. He's going to be in a Manhattan courtroom on the Stormy Daniels case. And this morning, we had an announcement that he has to post a $175 million bond in the next 10 days to get an appeal on the Trump business fraud case. Trump does have some good news today. He won his country club golf tournament. I don't know if you guys saw that.

He won both the senior and the regular division. Unclear, you know, how much ball kicking was happening there. And then we've got Lisa Murkowski maybe leaving the GOP. Little Marco auditioning for Veep. Candace committed her 57th strike for anti-Semitic blood libel. And 57 strikes, you're out with Ben Shapiro. So she's been canceled by the Daily Wire. But before we get to any of that, the Republican House of Representatives is a shit show once again,

which is why I've asked Hill correspondent Joe Perticone to join me and Bill. Hey, gentlemen. How's it going? Good, Tim. Nothing to talk about today. You know, not much in the news. We're speechless. We're speechless. Joe's going to explain the entire Hill, the House Republicans and everything within

about 52 minutes, and then that'll be good. Okay, we need that. If you haven't signed up for Joe's newsletter, by the way, press pass, go to the bulwark.com. This is the way to get real talk on what's happening in the Hill. Joe does not give you spin from House leadership. He does not blow smoke up your ass about things that might happen. In fact, Joe messaged me the other day saying that he is, quote, bearish on anything being accomplished in the 118th Congress. So that's a note of optimism for you. And so this is the man to bring in. Marjorie Taylor Greene has, on Friday, after we taped, filed a motion to vacate. And so Mike Johnson, the clock is ticking. Mike Johnson versus the head of Cabbage. Why don't you explain to us what is happening among the House crazies?

Joe Pertico. So that rule still exists that allows a single member to file a motion where the whole chamber will vote to kick out the Speaker. That still exists from when McCarthy was kicked out as speaker. Marjorie Taylor Greene Friday filed a resolution to motion to vacate. However, she didn't actually because she didn't file it privileged. If it was privileged, it would have triggered a vote within two legislative days. They're taking two weeks off, so it'd be two weeks plus two days that's not

happening because she didn't file it privileged what are they doing over the next two weeks i'm sorry to interrupt but just a quick aside i mean not much is happening right now and we have multiple wars happening the they keep claiming we're being invaded on the border you'd think that if we were actually being invaded they probably wouldn't want to take a two-week vacation they do some fundraisers um they they hit the trail Is it August? No, it's March. We're just taking two weeks off in March. Spring break? Yeah. Some of them stick around DC. For example, a couple of Easters ago, former Congresswoman Diane Black, I saw her at mass on Easter. And then I saw her get up and leave halfway through. And then she posted a photo from the Trump hotel, you know, so everyone's kind of doing their own thing for two weeks.

Got it. Okay. All right. Okay. So we're on a two week break. She's filed the motion to vacate, but it's not privileged. So what does that mean? So it's not privileged, which means it's just kind of sitting there. There's no requirement to vote on it. If it's privileged, it has to be voted on whether leadership likes or not. And if it's not privilege, it's up to leadership to bring it to the floor. So they're not going to do that. She does this though, is a kind of veiled threat of, I will make it privilege and we'll have this vote. And you'll have to defend yourself either with support from Democrats or with everybody in attendance. And she keeps saying, we want these things to, from what I can see,

no one is with her. No one's like the eight Republicans that kicked out McCarthy, like, don't want to do that with her. So she probably just wants some kind of concession, which is most likely to not allow a vote on any Ukraineraine funding which has been slowly getting momentum but i still don't think like she'll probably get her wish so it's kind of like a jewish space laser of damocles hanging over mike johnson's head yeah that's what she's trying to do do you like that bill it's less of a threat though because she doesn't have anyone with her on this. Um, she's not even fully doing it by making it privileged.

And I don't think there's an appetite to kick out Johnson the way there was with McCarthy from either side. Right. And this is the other thing is that the Democrats were chomping at the bit to get rid of McCarthy and to be helpful. Right. Cause they're like the way what he did was so gross. And I heard from multiple Democrats in Congress that they just felt so mad at him for the way he rehabbed Trump after January 6th, that they were like,

we're not going to lift a finger to help you. But like now, because of Ukraine, because of some issues, and you already saw Tom Suozzi, for example, and some others speak out and say, okay, like if Mike comes to the table, we'll deal. The question is, is there enough pressure on him to actually deal? So that is where you're more bearish. I want to get Bill after this, but you're actually on the hill. But so like, is Mike Johnson, does he want to deal with the Democrats on Ukraine? I am of the belief that Ukraine funding is this cycle's Scalia seat in that it won't be decided until after there's an election one way or another, because if they were going to strike some kind of deal, they would have done it already.

There's already a standalone aid package that's passed the Senate that also like knifes progressives because it has so much Israel funding in it, but they don't want to do that. I don't think anyone other than Democrats and like a few hawks maybe in the Republican side want to do it, but they're not taking any action to do it. There's the two discharge petitions, one of which includes border funding, and it has like a dozen and a half signatures right now. This is actually important. I want to get to Bill's thought on this in a second, but let's just explain for people. So the two discharge petitions, the discharge petition allows members to bring something to the floor

that is not brought by the leadership, the speaker, right? Okay, so there are two out there. One is kind of a quasi mirror of the Senate deal that had border funding in it, but it also includes like less monetary aid to Ukraine. It's just more military aid. And then the other one is just a straight aid discharge petition, right? The other one is just like a copy of what passed the Senate,

which is just straight up Israel, Taiwan, Ukraine funding, $88 billion, I think. So who is for which? Why are there two? So there's like 180-ish Democrats on the straight up foreign aid funding. And then Ken Buck signed it on his way out the door. So that signature still holds even though he's resigned because a discharge petition requires of all of the seats. So it has to be 218 no matter what, even if 218 isn't technically the majority in the house right now. So that signature still holds. He's the only Republican on it. But then you have this Fitzpatrick one where all of like the moderate Republicans have signed onto it, like Mike Lawler. There's some air quotes there for people that are just doing this on audio.

Yeah. Like the so-called moderate members, they have signed onto this. And I think that the existence of the Fitzpatrick one, which has far less chance of passing because it has a border component, because it hasn't even gone through the Senate yet, it gives these so-called moderate Republicans an out. Because they can sign that one without having to sign the existing one that most Democrats and Ken Buck signed. That's why I think neither goes anywhere. All right. Happy warrior, Bill Kristol. Do you have any more positive thoughts? And you are talking to people in this space that are, I think, maybe a little more hopeful that some deal could be reached on the Ukraine funding. Where are you on that?

Yeah, well, the people who follow Ukraine closely are very hopeful and very exercised that some deal will be reached, which is so important to get the funding. But every time I talk to Joe, he brings me back to earth and explains that it's, as you say, it's probably less likely to happen than I hope it would. And sometimes talk myself into thinking it would. It is so unbelievably, if I could just editorialize for 20 seconds, so unbelievably irresponsible not to pass it. I mean, if you believe in it, and it's unbelievably irresponsible, and there are some Republicans who believe in it. And some senior Republicans, chairman of House Foreign Relations and so forth, and also younger ones who genuinely care about defending freedom and defeating Putin.

And the idea that they're sort of paralyzed, they can't sign the Democratic discharge petition. A few of them will sign Fitzpatrick's, but then that's not going to get to 218, that they can't actually sit down and work it out. Marjorie Taylor Greene gets to threaten Mike Johnson. They don't seem to be able to exercise any leverage, the Republicans who do care about Ukraine, on Speaker Johnson. Maybe they will. Maybe this gives them a chance. Maybe they go to the Democrats and say, look, we will, and the Democrats go to Johnson and say, we're not going to save you if there are two or three votes, which is all it would take, right, to vacate the chair, unless you bring Ukraine to the floor. Isn't it two now? This is going to be one when Gallagher's gone.

Yeah, okay. We're going to get to Gallagher in a second. I'm with you. It is extremely irresponsible. It's insane frankly and not only are there supposedly some republicans that believe in it but we had a guest last week that was sharing with me that there were some republicans who want to go even further than joe biden and wanted to fly to ukraine more and so why aren't those people doing anything where are they if they exist okay joe one more on just the fundamentals here so we also have the shutdown hanging over all this which is a separate budget thing from Ukraine. And NTG's stated complaints were

more about that, right? Were more about the budget deal than about Ukraine. So is it possible that the budget deal will also... I think that's well on its way, actually, to finally being resolved. You do. Six months out from the end of the fiscal year. But Marjorie Taylor Greene had all these kind of random complaints about the budget deal. It has gender studies. It has woke components. Things that no one actually cares about. But then I think her big issue is

doing something going forward. Because once the budget's done, like Johnson has said, we have to get our budget done. And once we do that, we can address other issues. The next hot issue coming up has to be Ukraine funding. And if she can get that secure that they're not going to do it, then that's her win. All right.

So now we have to talk about the other thing hanging over all this. If anybody's been monitoring my ex, I've had a lot of thoughts over the weekend about Mike Gallagher. It was my friend's 40th birthday. I bumped into a couple of Bulwark fans in Palm Springs, and I may have had a cocktail or two. I was getting a little loose. I have a lot of thoughts about Mike Gallagher, but I want to start first with Joe and Bill. So, Joe, so Gallagher and Buck are gone. Explain to me how their colleagues are just not consumed with contempt for this choice to just quit. And it's like, it's one thing if

you're taking if you get promoted, you become the, you know, Commerce Secretary or something, or even, even the Ben Sasse thing was a little eye rolly, but it's like you get to be the head of a university. Like these guys are quitting for no reason. But Ken Buck doesn't have a job ostensibly. And Mike Gallagher is going to take a job for a lobbyist, a government contractor. Gallagher too is like typifies the whole great resignation situation because he is entering his prime. He was just handed a chairmanship of a committee that he wanted to create, that it was his pet project.

And then halfway through, he was like, I hate my life so much. I need to get out of here. And so I don't think there's contempt. There's jealousy. A lot of members wish they could do this, but a lot of members can't envision a life outside of Congress. And being a member of Congress is central to their identity. And it became clear for Gallagher that, you know, there's better things in life. And that might be taking a job at a large software company. A large software company is one way to put it. And it's like,

literally, they were trying to do the wall. I mean, it's Peter Thiel's gross government contracting company that was working on the wall. So like, not exactly, you know, just like some neutral software company. But, like, Bill, this is not normal, right? I mean, you've been around the block a little bit more. There are at least three that I can think of with McCarthy, McCarthy, Gallagher, and Buck. And then who is the guy, Joe, that left to, like, head up Youngstown State? Bill Johnson. Yeah, Bill Johnson.

At least that's a job. At least he took a job. Kevin McCarthy doesn't have a job. He's doing nothing. This is not normal, right? To just leave Congress to do nothing? I mean, Palantir, to be fair, does a lot of things in addition to the wall. A lot of it defense and intelligence community related, which I suppose Gallagher cares about

and knows about. But having said that, I don't mean to defend him at all. It used to be that you didn't really quit in the middle of a term because you thought it was wrong to quit in the middle of the term. You know, you told the voters you wanted a two-year term. And unless you had an illness or really, as you say, a cabinet secretary type appointment or something kind of extraordinary, you served out your term. Now, you had announced now that you, as Gallagher did, that he wouldn't run for re-election. You'd let him open up the field so people could run to succeed him. You'd do it in an orderly way. You'd let your colleagues plan for succession in terms of committees,

but you would announce that you were retiring at the end of the term. This notion that you just walk away from something where it used to be considered kind of an honor if your fellow citizens selected you to be one of 435 representatives in the House, and your flip side of that honor was to hopefully be a good representative and behave decently, not appointed that, but at least serve out your term. And now that's just gone. So it's just part of the general, if I could just sound like a crotchety person who has been around the block, it's just part of the total decline of any sense of public service. I really can't, I find it kind of extraordinary, actually.

And Joe, several, there were some liberals that were messaging me saying that actually what Mike Gallagher is doing is a five-dimensional chess effort to hurt Mike Johnson, that he's leaving because he knows that it's going to be painful and that he's actually, he's a secret, he's doing us a secret service by leaving. You can tell that by the tone of my voice that I reject this, but maybe you have some sources. Is Mike Gallagher a secret resistance hero for his resignation? No. No? Whenever there's the idea of some scheme or some...

If it would work in an Aaron Sorkin script, it's not real. It's not real at all. It's like Mike Gallagher probably just hated his day-to- script. It's not real. It's not real at all. It's like, Mike Gallagher probably just hated his day to day. It sucks. This is the worst majority ever. They don't do anything. They just pass CRs and fight. And he was just like, this is not worth it. Get out of there. You know what's amazing? If I could just say, he was head, as you said, Joe, of this one committee that was set up for him. He was made chairman at a young age of this China committee. It did actual serious work. It had hearings that actually people thought were reputable, serious hearings about foreign policy. It got the TikTok bill passed with a huge

bipartisan majority, which is probably a good thing, and in any case is a real thing. It's a serious beginning of getting serious about Chinese information operations in the U.S. I would have thought there would be more they could do over the next six months just on that committee alone. So all this talk about how horrible it is to serve in the House, what does that mean, incidentally? This is where I'm now like Tim, and I'm following his lead, and he'll now go into much greater detail on this. All this, oh, it's such a terrible life. What is so terrible? It's frustrating a little bit. You go vote a few times. You work three days a week. You have a two-week vacation now. You have to do a couple of

fundraisers, which you don't have to do if you're retiring anyway. It's like the hardest thing in the world to serve out your whole term. It's really pathetic. I think that when you're in the majority, it's supposed to be really fun because you're supposed to be rifling off pet projects but the majority's so slim and they've been so busy with trying to fund the government just passing crs every like few weeks just like one more cr bro like please we'll get it done this time and like that's not enjoyable like they're not actually legislating i don't know know. Matt Gaetz seems like he's having fun. Yeah. I don't understand why there isn't, why nobody's like, well, hey, maybe I could be a normie

Matt Gaetz. Maybe I could have fun. Maybe I could go out there and just be a troublemaker on behalf of Ukraine funding and on behalf of this TikTok bill. And I can go do interviews and I can go poke people and maybe I'll make a deal with the Democrats. Like, why doesn't anybody try that? That sounds okay. Is it that horrible? Or I'll ask Joe too, or you could go the upscale version, which is what people used to do when

they were in the minority or in a majority where they didn't have much to do at times. Go give five serious speeches on U.S. foreign policy in the 21st century to the Council on Foreign Relations and the Chicago, you know, Council and do all that kind of high tone stuff that people used to like to do if they got elected to Congress and were somewhat serious people and tell yourself, maybe with some truth even, that I'm helping shape the debate in America here, no matter who the next president is about what American foreign policy needs to look like in this new era. But no, and you get much more attention if you're still a member of Congress when you do that, I think. But no, that's, I guess it's just so unpleasant for him to have to

stay late on the House floor once every two weeks and deal with his colleagues who he dislikes so much. Well, I have a final rant on this, but any final takes on this, Joe? It basically is a sign that MAGA has taken over. Oh, yeah. The hallmark dysfunction of how MAGA operates, that's the norm in the House. I saw an article this morning and it was about how when Trump becomes president again, there's Republicans are in Congress are already planning to take action. No, they're not. They can't tie their own shoes. They're not, they can't plan a day in advance of anything. So I can't envision a scenario where, you know, they're going to get their act together. If all the, all of the things that will happen in a potential Trump second term will come from the executive.

It is just so unbelievably pathetic. Here's the thing for the Tim rant segment. When he resigned, you know what he did? He sent a book about life after public service to his colleagues that included like stories from seven presidents and what they did after they left the presidency. And he signed it Semper Fi. I'm just like, are we fucking serious right now? Like you're sending this letter, like lecturing people about how there is life after public service with an ending note that you will always be faithful. Are you always faithful? You're quitting your job. You're quitting

your job in the middle of the year. Like there are so many people in Wisconsin who have actual hard jobs that voted for him, that put him in there ostensibly that liked Mike Gallagher, that wanted him to vote for their interests. Maybe some of those people don't have the same interests as I do, but they asked for him to be a public servant. And like there was a while, at least not really that long ago, Bill, like even in. And like there was a while, at least not really that long ago, Bill, like even in my day, where there was a sense that there was this obligation to the job that there was honor and service conservatism. That was basically the thesis of the 2008 campaign that John McCain ran. And it's pretty hard to imagine John McCain, just think

about John McCain, quitting Congress, quitting the Senate to be like, yeah, you know, I'm going to go become a contractor for Boeing. I want to go be a Boeing analyst because I'm annoyed that Harry Reid or Mitch McConnell won't bring up my campaign finance reform bill. And it's preposterous. It would be a preposterous thing to think. And there was a reason why it would be preposterous, because it would be considered shameful. And the thing that bugs me about the Mike Gallagher thing is that everybody wants to excuse make for him. Everybody wants to be like, oh, you know, it is miserable to be even the media, even the left, like it is miserable to be in the Republican conference. Like it's hard to blame these guys that are running for the exits. It's like, it doesn't have to be that miserable.

I don't know. And I guess Mitt's running for the exits, but Mitt sat for a long time. He's serving out his term. He did the right thing. He voted more conservative probably than I would on certain things. But then he spoke out at times when, you know, George Santos or Donald Trump did horrible things. That's an option. That is an option to just do your job, do the right thing, and whatever, take some tomatoes, have to sit alone at the lunch table. Is this really that onerous of a call? And you mentioned the Palantir thing. We should also probably mention that, by the way, Palantir was lobbying for the TikTok ban beforehand. So he gets through a bill that's probably the right bill, by the way. He immediately

quits and goes to work for a lobbyist. And he does so in a way, and now he's quitting. He does so in a way so that they can't replace his seat. And again, some of the liberals on the left, some people are like, this is great news that he's resigning when somebody can't replace his seat. And it's kind of to me, it's kind of like, really, can we just for a bigger picture? Is that really good? Like, he's just going to leave the people of his district high and dry, and everything's going to be okay.

He's going to get invited to the Council on Foreign Relations. He's going to get invited to the Trump White House or the Biden White House. He's going to get invited on Meet the Press. He got invited on this podcast. He hasn't taken me up on it yet. And like, there's no shame associated with this. I don't know. I feel like a man that like just by every account knows

better, says that he knows better, and just walks away when the other option is still available, that he could stay in Congress, he could work with Hakeem Jeffries, he could work with Brian Fitzpatrick, he could try to get this stuff done, he could do the hard work, like that option was still available. And instead, he just quits to go take a cushy job for a fucking defense contractor. I think it is extremely, extremely gross. And just as a final reminder, I want to take us to break me and Bill come back on the other side. I want to just play a little audio from our friend Mike Gallagher on January 6. This is the cost of countenancing an effort by Congress to overturn the election and telling thousands of people that there is a legitimate shot of overturning the election

today. Even though you know that is not true. We have got to stop this. Mr. President, you have got to stop this. You are the only person who can call this off. Actually, Donald Trump wasn't the only person that could do the right thing. Mike Gallagher could have done the right thing too, but he decided not to after he was sheltered in place, scared in his Capitol office. So thanks for nothing, Mike Gallagher. Thanks for everything, Joe Pertico. And sign up for the Press Pass newsletter. We're back on the other side of the bill. Well, after listening to a podcast about Donald Trump, we all need some self-care. And so in that spirit, today's sponsor, One Skin, is here to help you simplify your skin care regimen.

Founded by four PhDs dedicated to skin longevity, One Skin proves you don't need a complicated routine to achieve better skin. Their topical supplements make it easy to help your skin stay younger and healthier without all the extra steps. The secret? One Skin's proprietary OS1 peptide. It's the first ingredient scientifically proven to reduce the buildup of senescent cells, those notorious zombie cells that contribute to skin aging. Fewer zombie cells means healthier, younger looking skin with fewer lines and wrinkles, reduced age spots, and a stronger natural barrier, something that's especially important this time of year. I got to tell you, I send a message to all of my straight guy friends. You got to do skincare. Okay. You got to moisturize. It's very important. One skin is

exactly why, you know, the gays, we're looking younger. Okay. That's why we're looking fresh. That's why our skin is shining. And one skin is the product I'm using to keep me young. One skin is more than skincare. It's about skin longevity, targeting the root causes of aging to help you look and feel your best at every age. Get started today with 15% off using code BULWORK at OneSkin.co. That's OneSkin.co. That's 15% off OneSkin.co with code BULWORK. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. It's time to expect more from your skincare routine. Invest in the health of your skin with OneSkin.

All right, I'm back with Bill Kristol. Mike Gallagher, not man enough. I wanted to move on, but you reminded me in the break that I forgot something. A week after that eloquent statement imploring Trump, you're the person who can call this off. He voted not to impeach Trump in the House with some ridiculous both sides statement about how, well, what Trump did was wrong. But frankly, for four years, everyone's been doing everything wrong. Both sides have been wrong, and I can't vote to impeach. Mitt Romney, whom you mentioned, voted to convict Trump twice. He's serving out his term. Whatever one's quarrels with some of

what Mitt might have done, he has behaved honorably. Liz Cheney followed up the logic of her actions and did unpopular things and got crushed in a primary. And she didn't quit early. You know what? Liz Cheney actually served out her term, God forbid, you know, and tried to be a good representative till the end and tried to educate the American public about January 6th till the end. And people were mean to her during that time, too. Yes., her life probably wasn't very pleasant sitting around the house with the House Republican Conference, right? But well, yeah, so I'm totally with you. All right. Well, if Mike Gallagher wants to defend himself, Semper Fi, he's always welcome on the Borg podcast. All right. Where do we go from here, Bill? My blood pressure is high. Let's just keep it up. Let's keep it up.

We had a vice presidential audition on the Sunday shows this weekend. Let's take a listen to Little Marco. But you said it would be an honor to be offered a spot on his ticket, really? Yeah, I think anyone who's offered the opportunity to serve this country as vice president should be honored by the opportunity to do it if you're in public service. I'm in the Senate because I want to serve the country. Being vice president is an important way to serve the country. But I've also been clear, I've never talked to Donald Trump. I've never talked to anybody on his team or family or inner circle about vice president. That's a decision he's going to make. He has plenty of really good people to pick from. I mean, the reason I ask is, I mean,

look what happened to the last guy. I mean, a mob stormed the Capitol, literally calling to hang Mike Pence. And Trump defended those chants of hang Mike Pence. I will tell you this, that when Donald Trump was president of the United States, this country was safer. It was more prosperous. Okay, I can't. I don't want to listen to fucking Marcos bullshit. I can't. Let's turn it off. It'd be an honor. That was John Carl, by the way, interviewing him, reminding him the last vice presidential there was a threatened hanging. What do you think, Bill? That was your man. I think I did vote for him here in Virginia in 2016. Your man, Jeff, was out of the race by then. Oh, my God. Hearing it really is,

I hadn't heard it. I just skimmed the transcript or whatever. It's really horrible. I mean, a normal person, if I could say, would say what Mike Pence has mentioned. Incidentally, I respect what Mike Pence did on January 6th, right? Doesn't Marco agree that Mike Pence should not have overturned the election? But no, he wants to be VP. And that's what public service means, sucking up to Donald Trump. Yeah, it's unbelievable. There was the audio of Marco that Carl played in a different clip back when he was like, Marco, you called him a con man. You called him a con man. And Marco's like, oh, that's just campaign rhetoric. It's like, is that just campaign rhetoric to say that you're to go from being like, hey, everyone that is voting for this man, you're being conned to just going on to TV

now and saying, I am volunteering to be conned. I'm raising my hand to be part of the con, actually. Yeah, they're really bad. I mean, in Morning Shots this morning, you know, Andrew Egger and I write our little parts separately, and they're slightly different from each other. And I'm curious what you think on this. I mean, I think they're flip sides of a similar point. But Andrew's on Romney McDaniel, which I think you'll discuss tomorrow.

And he sort of says she rationalized her actions. She was able to sleep at night because she was taking one for the team, right? He makes fun of that some, but he also, he seems to assume that she really did have trouble sleeping at night. And I guess my little piece sort of goes in the other direction and says we're sort of beyond that and i i'm unwilling to give any of them the benefit of the doubt now that they're having difficulty sleeping at night or anything maybe mitch mcconnell is i don't know he seems like he's a little more serious but all the rest of them so that's just my question for you does marco go back and say oh god i hated having to do that but i guess you know i still think I'm there as VP, I could do some good. Or he just goes back and just that's

okay. I did what I had to do. And now what's the next step I could do to get this job, right? Oh, yes. I'm, I'm adamant about this now. Because it's been nine years, right? And this was related to what I wrote about in the book in my interviews. And much of what people told me in the interviews was like exactly what you'd expect right the one thing that actually surprised me when and it was only in the off the record ones was when and i wasn't talking to actual politicians i was talking to their advisors when they would say to me you know we just feel like that we've been given no choice but to do this because the media is so mean to us because they're never trumpers because my wife's friend calls me a racist now because i supported them and like like they all are so put upon they all are so victimized they all feel like such

victims they've they've donned the cap of victimization and that builds over time and they surround themselves in a little net of people that also feel the same way that feel like victims. And they only consume information that points out all the ways that their critics are disingenuous. And it grows and it grows and the resentment grows. And I just I think every sign I see of Marco Rubio is a man that has decided that the real bad people out there are the media that are asking him hard questions about his moral failings. Like, I think that that's what Marco has, I think, genuinely decided, that the bad people are those that are out to get him, and that he's on the side of the

righteous, and that Trump might have some failings and some flaws, but like, net, net, you know, there'll be tax cuts, and Trump will do what he wants on Venezuela. And like, that's what matters. I think that's Marco's genuine view. Even if you got him just rip shit wasted, I'm pretty sure that's what he would say. Yeah. And he's a allegedly a Ukraine hawk. And it's always, of course, very strong on that, on that kind of Bush McCain foreign policy and still sort of says he is sometimes, except it's no problem at all to serve Donald Trump, who's totally on the opposite side of totally on the opposite side of that on whether it's important foreign policy issue of our day. And that's the one that I really can't decide whether they've rationalized it. I can't decide if they believe the talking

point because their talking point on this is like, well, when Trump was actually, and if you look at the actual policy, right, like Trump was kind of tough on Russia, his words and Helsinki and the tweets, But like, obviously, we all know that, well, that's because there was a lot of the old bipartisan establishment was still doing his foreign policy, right? Like the actual nuts and bolts of it. And that's not going to be true the next time. So like, does Marco know that? Or has he convinced himself of it? That's the one I don't know whether he's bullshitting, whether he's convinced himself that like the Trump policies were really what mattered, not the bleats. The sophisticated sort of outside types who want jobs in the next Trump administration to be, you know, assistant secretary of state and so forth. There's a new book out,

the Trump Reagan synthesis and foreign policy. You saw that and Peter Berkowitz had a column about it. You know, I believe we had a good, we had a good piece. I tried to listen to a podcast with these two jokers and I only made it like eight minutes. I was like, I can't do it. Well, Gabe Schoenfeld had a good piece of the bulwark friday i think i'm ripping it apart but i mean that's sort of how they if you're on the on the more on the you know council on foreign relations side of things or maybe not council on foreign relations but some think tank where you want to get a job you rationalize it by inventing this mythical trump reagan synthesis which does seem to ignore the fact that trump is hard over against helping ukraine which would be the single

most reagan i think you could do. So I don't quite know how they, but I don't have the patience to read that stuff. So I don't even know how they try to rationalize that. But the psychological question, which you and Jerry, yeah, we've all talked about a lot. And so Andrew has this excellent piece on Rana. From my point of view, a tad too nice to her, but maybe he's right to do that for now in the sense of assuming that she's taking her a little more, a little literally when she says that now she can say what she meant before she sort of had to suck it up and not say what she meant whereas does she even think about that i don't know i think andrew is right

and i said a segment in the book about the people that rationalize based on team players i think that it's true that rana like if rana could have said whatever she wanted on january 6th she would have said this is bad and she did say that for one day. And so I think probably, if she could have kept saying that she would have, but the second it became politically untenable, obviously, she flipped and she said exactly the opposite thing. And so, you know, I'm sure that there's some things that they think that Trump doesn't think that they're hedging on. But in the grand scheme, the point is, like, do they feel bad about it? Do they recognize the risk? Do they recognize the moral failings? Do they recognize the ethical? I don't think so. Okay, one person does. Lisa Murkowski. Let's just kind of take a deep breath and get some, that's not perfect,

but a little bit of reality injected into the podcast. Lisa Murkowski. I wish that as Republicans, we had a nominee that I could get behind. I certainly can't get behind Donald Trump. Are you considering being an independent at this point? Oh, I think I'm very independent minded. Officially, though. Officially, though. I just regret that our party is seemingly becoming a party of Donald Trump. You becoming an independent caucus of Republicans. Is that something you're open to?

I am navigating my way through some very interesting political times. Let's just leave it at that. OK, not as forceful as you would have wanted. But all right. Signs of life there. Actually, before I take us to the dark place, Bill, do you have any thoughts on Lisa Murkowski? Yeah, no, I'm so annoyed at them all that I probably am slightly not, you know, it's much better what she said than obviously what 95% of her colleagues have said, which is

she's saying she won't support Trump, which is not a little thing. And it allows probably some number of voters out there to sort of know of her, not just in Alaska and say, okay, you know, it's okay to be a traditional Republican and not support Trump. So just like with Mike Pence and with others, Romney, I think it's very good for each one, any Republican who's an elected official. And gathering them all together, I do think, you know, packaging it in an ads in the fall, et cetera, that will be good. I mean, I would be happier if she also internally had really moved beyond a little bit this, I'm sort of an independent minded Republican stuff. If Trump wins Lisa Murkowski and Susan

Collins should caucus with the Democrats to prevent the Republicans from controlling this edit. That for me would be a serious thing to prevent genuine damage to this country. Have they? I mean, that's a question for you, Tim. I mean, do you think they've even thought about that? Is that like, am I so far out there that this is like beyond? We are so diluted together, though. Like, we're just still on the same wavelength, because that was literally going to be my question to you. But I decided, I was like, let's talk in reality first before I get to fantasy West Wing, you

know, dark world where Donald Trump is president again. I don't know that it has crossed their mind, but I do think, and I've got some Lisa Murkowski people in my life, and for people that have Susan Collins people in their lives, I think starting to plant that seed is maybe not a bad thing. Because I think that if you look at reality, if the election in the fall just like kind of held to form, right? Like Trump wins a narrow, which Trump winning narrowly wouldn't hold the form, but if the Senate held the form, right? Trump wins narrowly, and Republicans only pick up Senate seats in the red states, West Virginia, Ohio, and Montana, where the Democrats have incumbents, they would have 52, right, senators. And so I guess actually two flipping wouldn't solve it,

right? Because it would still... The tester would have to hang on in Montana. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it would still hang on. Or Sherrod Vann in Ohio. But I think that's possible. You could go to 51. I think we're into pretty fantasy territory here. But they should, the ladies should start thinking. I don't think that they've started thinking about it,

but they should one day. I'm not loosing with the football here. I don't have hope, but you know, maybe one day, Susan Collins will prove me wrong. All right, on the news of the day. So Trump is in the courtroom. I don't know if we've actually talked about this. I have kind of convinced myself that the Stormy Daniels case can harm Trump some. Sarah is on the opposite side of that. Where do you fall down? They're in court

today on Monday. They're trying to delay the trial. It was set for April. It was set for March, actually, but they delayed it till April. And now they're trying to delay it again. Where do you stand on kind of the existence of this trial and its political implications, if any? I've been very dubious that it could hurt Trump. But I also think, you know what, we don't know. Things are very unpredictable in this kind of era. Who knows what someone will say on the stand that Trump will react to and will get huge

national coverage. And suddenly, some number of people will have to face up to things that they didn't before. I used to be a little more like, I wish this weren't happening. And now I'm sort of, look, if it's going to happen, let's have it happen effectively. And in a way that would damage Trump. But I'll just maybe I just say one more thing, which I was talking with someone on Friday, smart guy who said, you know, I wonder if does anyone know about the E. Jean Carroll, you know, case? And I my impression is many people do not know about it. And his question was, what if people knew about that?

I mean, he really was found liable for sexual assault in a civil case, granted, but still, the judge said it was the equivalent of rape. Would some number of voters kind of go, my God, I didn't really think it was that bad. I knew he boasted on that Access Hollywood tape, but he actually did what he boasted about, and then some. And it was a good point. I hadn't really thought about it. And I've sort of been a skeptic that any of this stuff would matter. And you know, the kind of personal stuff that's been litigated so many times, obviously. But I guess it made me think, I don't know, we don't

know what affects different voters. I don't feel I know, Sarah probably knows much more than I do. But I don't feel I know what affects different voters. So I'm sort of neutral on the Brad case. I guess this is kind of like a known unknown to do our rummy, but I've always been of the view that it should be publicized more. I think that essentially what happened was the Access Hollywood tape comes out in fall of 2016, and then the Comey letter happens, right? And then Trump wins. And like this kind of conventional wisdom just congealed among the media, among Democrats, among Republicans, that voters did not care about Trump's comments on the Access Hollywood tape. And like, maybe that's true, but maybe it's not, right? Like Trump's numbers didn't go down right after that, and they went back up.

And so the kind of result of that conventional wisdom congealing is that as new things popped up, even in the early Trump administration, this was I would I would call and rant at White House reporters or friends of mine that I was like, you know, there were new developments that there was a because Trump had like 20 something accusers. Summer Zervos is one example. I remember the Summer Zervos story. There were some developments early in 2017. And he wouldn't get asked about it, like they wouldn't ask about it, you know, because everybody had just kind of decided, well, whatever they did, people don't care about this. So we're going to move on. It's old news. It's like, it's I don't know that it's

old news, necessarily. I mean, I think that people know he was a cad. But if the details of these 20 some odd cases, and that's gene carroll one obviously being prime uh you know given recent developments if there was a real concerted effort to remind and publicize people about that over the summer and the fall might there not be some people that get i just think that to say we know for sure that people don't care about that because of access hollywood is a fallacy like i think that we actually saw after access hollywood his numbers move but they just move back the other way as the news environment changed and and there were a lot of other i mean there was certainly sexism involved in hillary and there are a lot

of factors at play here it wasn't like that was the only factor in the fall of 2016 so anyway the other trump news item he needs to come up with some cash he He's got to pay his bond. Meanwhile, JVL had a triad last week that everybody should listen to if you care about like the Trump social media company and the SPAC that funded it and the merger with the SPAC. It's pretty technical, but it's also just a wild story and totally worth your time. But the interesting element I want to pull up from that is this guy, Jeff Yass, who is an investor in ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok. He was the guy that met with Trump and has put money into a pro-Trump super PAC and by all accounts got Trump to change his mind on the TikTok ban.

Now the report is that his, out of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal this morning, is that he also has invested in this merger, this merged company that has now taken control of Truth Social and Trump's various social media properties. So this is all as swampy as it gets, right? Like Trump needs an injection of cash, both personally and for his campaign. There's this billionaire guy that is in cahoots with the Chinese spyware app that is giving him money. Like there's so much more evidence here than anything that people have put forth in the Hunter Biden case, for example. I guess to ask you, is there hope that this will matter? It's kind of silly, but like this is

something worth hitting him on, right? I mean, you know, the drain the swamp thing is a central part of his case here. Yeah, that whole SPAC thing, if that's how you say it, is so corrupt. I mean, it's literally corrupt, but it's so corrupt in spirit. People are basically buying out, you know, saving Trump from the judgment that he owed. And God knows what they expect in return in a Trump second term, right? I mean, one can only imagine. And I guess this is my point. This is what drove me a little crazy over the weekend. I wrote my little thing this morning. I mean, it's all happening in broad daylight. This isn't like SEC records and stuff. The swamp metaphor in a way is a little misleading because now we're out of the swamp. I used to say, it's going to take us a while to go down the path of Orban's Hungary because we're a very different country, courts, rule of law, and institutions, and blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't know. We're getting there pretty fast. It is all happening in broad daylight. And the corruption is beyond anything that one could have imagined, honestly, I would say, personally. I think it is.

I guess there's always some corruption, LBJ, Nixon, B.B. Rebozo. But, I mean, we're at a level now. Agnew was taking some cash, you know, some paper bag cash, but it wasn't like millions. $10,000, if I'm not mistaken, was it that or something? And he was forced to resign as vice president after they won a landslide victory that was a little bit more the rule of law so I mean uh Trump is a real threat to the rule of law just as a candidate let alone even as a second term president and he's getting away with a ton of stuff and I don't know that he could be prosecuted for all of it you go a little crazy I guess trying to call him on all of this but and he has been

prosecuted for a few things but the degree to which we're further down the road than I would have hoped, God knows, in terms of undercutting and undermining the rule of law is really what's striking to me. And incidentally, I don't know if you talked about this Friday, that piece in the New York Times on the Justice Department and Merrick Garland and the slowness with which they got the investigation going. That's another case where I also thought at the time, oh, look, it's good to have someone cautious in there and we have to reestablish normalcy. But I think I was just wrong. That gave him a year where they didn't investigate anything. They had this silly theory that they had to get the little fish to turn on the big fish, which was ludicrous in this case, right? It was all out in the open. It was all in the open. That's the thing. It was all in the open open it was all in the open that's the thing it was all in the open and and it's all in broad daylight and now he's still 50 50 to be the next president all right we should end with that because it's a good final ramp but anytime david balsax does something

really stupid i want to bring it up this was the ron desantis uh supporter who does the all-in podcast he's a reactionary right-wing tech guy so there's a terror attack in Moscow 137 people died ISIS takes credit for it there's video of it we have the four ISIS guys four of them have been apprehended we don't have them the Russians have them but they've been apprehended in Russia and here's uh here's David Balzac's tweet about this if the Ukrainian government was behind the terrorist attack as looks increasingly likely the U..s must renounce it also become complicit it's got 2.3 million views on elon's site the seriousness of all this stuff seems to be really lost on these right you know like this is like my big takeaway from all this is it's just like now we just get to say whatever the

hell we want and support donald trump we have an idiot reality TV host that is going to be the president of the United States. And anything that we can do to troll the people that are actually serious and actually trying to solve problems is a win. And I can just go out there and throw out stuff like this and hope that there's going to be no repercussions. When there could be real repercussions for this kind of loose talk. Yeah, and I think of it this way, maybe. In 2016, Paul Manafort had to conceal the fact that he was colluding with Putin and with the Russians and helping Trump. Now it's all again, just as you know, this guy is perfectly happy tweeting away his pro Putin anti-Ukraine lie

defamation of, you know, the Ukraine was from behind this and he tweets it and 2.3 million people follow it. And no one on the right feels like, oh, I better condemn that. Mike Gallagher isn't really worried about how could he say that, you know? Has Ron DeSantis said anything about that? You know, again, it's like, oh, well, does Ron DeSantis condemn every supporter? I don't know. He announced his campaign on a Twitter space with this guy and Elon Musk. And Elon Musk is out there, you know, tweeting right replacement theory stuff.

And this guy's tweeting conspiracies. At some point, Ron DeSantis might want to say, hey, just for the record, I appreciated some of these guys' support, but some of these things they're saying is really crazy, and we need to be more responsible. That's what the governor of a major state might say in these situations. But no. Okay.

Well, real men of courage, David Sachs, Mike Gallagher. We'll be back next week with more from Phil Crystal. We are both aghast today. We have a banger coming for you tomorrow, so please make sure to check back on the podcast. We appreciate you all very much. Bill, thanks for doing it. Thanks, Tim.

We'll see you back here tomorrow for another edition of the Bored Podcast. Peace. Peace. Peace. Listen girl, who do you think I am? Don't you know that he was my man But I chose to let him go So why do you look like I still care about him? Looking at me like I'm hurt When I'm the one who said I didn't want it to work

Don't you forget I had him first But you think he was talking to me He wasn't mad enough on me If you don't know, now here's your chance I've already had your man Do you wonder just where he's been and where And I'd be worried about him next Now this time you know the truth

I think he's just a man for you Oh, what are you thinking? Do you know my life's like this? I think he's just a man for you Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend

Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend

Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend

Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend

Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend

Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend

Girlfriend Girlfriend Girlfriend The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.