The Bulwark Podcast - Bill Kristol: Trump's Just A Huckster at Heart

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

Melania is selling Christmas ornaments, while Trump is offering up 99.9% silver coins—the vibe feels more like a going out of business sale than heading back to the White House. But then again, a new bearish NYT poll is worrisome, especially after a bullish one from NBC on Sunday. Plus, Kamala gets a chance to call Trump a ‘chicken’ for ducking a second debate, and the post-modern relativism of Republicans. Bill Kristol joins Tim Miller.

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You tell me, Tim. Good to see you. Well, I was looking at the draft. I sneak in a little behind the scenes for you. On Mondays, I sneak in at the back end of the Substack to see what you're going to write for your morning missive, because we tape this in the mornings, often before it's actually been published to the public. But it will be by the time you're listening to this.

And it was titled Sunday Sunshine, Monday Clouds. It references the fact that yesterday there were some national polls. NBC had Kamala Harris plus five. CBS had her plus four. This morning, we have Nate Cohn and his needle triggering us once again. He has a battery of Sunbelt state polls showing Kamala Harris losing to Donald Trump by five in Arizona, four in Georgia, and two in North Carolina. Why don't we start with the clouds and get to the sunshine? I mean, you could make a case that she may be behind in those three Sunbelt swing states, but she can still win the upper Midwest and win the

presidency, maybe by one electoral college vote. Yeah, that's another topic we're going to get to today on the cloudy side, which is that Nebraska electoral vote. I would say being down four, who knows? Again, these polls all have a margin of error. That's why we have their samples. They're 800 people or 600 people. It's crazy to kind of get into one or two point differences on them. But all three of them, these are independent.

I mean, separate polls, obviously, of three states. So they're all directionally in the same direction. It's not a very good way of saying it, but you know what I mean? Isn't great. North Carolina is actually only down two, maybe a little Robinson effect there, but Georgia four, Arizona five, I don't know. Those are states that Biden obviously just to be clear, one by one point each, Georgia and Arizona. So that would show real slippage from Biden's numbers, at least in the Sun Belt. Yeah, they are three separate polls. But in one way, they're the same as they're based on the same assumptions. And Nate Cohn and the New York Times polling team, which is legit, has had a more bearish,

you know, kind of built in assumptions on the nature of the electorate than many of the other big pollsters that are out there. It's good to have that check, right? You know, people say the polls are all wrong, polls are all wrong. Like, it's not really right. It was like the assumptions about the electorate have been wrong in the past when the polls have missed. And that was true in 2016. And so, you know, it's good to see the different kind of points of view. It is hard to square, like somebody's wrong, right? I mean, like, there is margin of error.

But Kamala Harris is not going to win the national vote by five and lose Arizona by five. Like, I find that very challenging to believe that Arizona will be 10 points behind the national mood, especially after what we saw in 2022. We have actual elections that we can baseline this against. So at this point, you know, neither of us are going to be the experts in grading and assessing the various assumptions made. But there is a fundamental conflict between the Sunday polls and the Monday polls. Yeah, I mean, the truth, of course, could be probably somewhere between and that's, you know, you're just getting polls

that are slightly at the edges of the normal polling error or variance. But the one thing I would say, just a sort of technical thing, what's kind of interesting, I think one reason I think they're having, it's genuinely difficult to know who the electorate is, is because the electorate changed so much between 2016 and 2020. 2016 was a relatively mediocre turnout election, a lot of unhappiness with Hillary and Trump as the alternatives. And some of that turnout was wasted on third and fourth party voters, right? So in terms of the two party matchup, it was even somewhat lower turnout. 2020, huge surge of turnout on both sides. Trump says over and over again, right, that he got, what is it, 7 million more votes, I think, than any previous, than he

got last time, the time before. Millions more. Yeah. And of course, Biden got another 7 million more than Trump or whatever those numbers are exactly. So they both had a huge surge of turnout. So you don't know, is the 2024 electorate the 2020 electorate? Are people as revved up? Or is it more like lapsing back towards 2016? The off-year elections give you some clue, pretty big surge in turnout in both 18 and 22.

So maybe you could model the 2020 electorate. the off-year elections give you some clue pretty big surge and turnout in both 18 and 22 so maybe you could model the 2020 election i'm sure some of what's going on in these different polls is just i mean some of it's always the case how do you model you know is there a young voters really going to turn out to vote if they see if they say they're likely to vote etc etc but this i think makes it particularly challenging yeah people don't quite appreciate, I mean, just how many people voted in 2020, which ultimately helped Biden, obviously. And so I do think any signs, and I think there are some of the signs that I do think are a little encouraging. It doesn't feel to me like a low turnout election. People are certainly turning up at rallies and volunteering and stuff, right?

It doesn't. I mean, COVID is the other outlier about 2020, right? States did make it easier to vote. Donald Trump and his people act like that's part of a big conspiracy, but it was just related to the global health emergency that we were dealing with at the time. vote you know because they just you know had to they had work and they had to take their kids to school like they just didn't have time because there was too much too much happening some people just don't vote out of like just the mundane version of i just didn't make time for it people had a lot more time in 2020 you know to go to the drop box or whatever so like there's that that element in addition to kind of the raised interest with the george floyd murder and you know the other associated sociological issues that were

happening and cultural issues at the time and so it is hard to measure that the kind of the good news for the democrats is that their coalition since 2016 has been very resilient and reliable in showing up right like when you say the 18 turnout numbers are up the 22 numbers are up that's true about like the 19 and the 21 and like the weird elections that you you have you know because a politician dies and you have a special election or a politician quits their job and decides to you know be a be a kind of moderately corrupt president of a florida. And so you have to have someone else fill that fulfill their term, right?

Like this is like, I mean, all of those elections that there's been surge and turnout, usually helping the Democrats too. And so, I mean, we'll come to get the 81 million that Joe Biden got. That feels like a high watermark,

but it does feel like at least on the democratic side, that part is, has tended to be pretty resilient. Yeah, and I'd add two more points if we're on the sunny side of things, which we should be, and I am a little bit, actually, truly, even after this little roller coaster of the last 48 hours. First of all, post-Dobbs, post the Supreme Court Dobbs decision, Democrats have just done well and outperformed, and the people who are motivated by that are going to be disproportionately Harris voters. And I, at one one point thought they might be less motivated if

the issue settled down. And if people are reassured in some of these swing states that their abortion rights are going to be protected, maybe they won't vote as much as they did for Whitmer in 2022 or Shapiro in Pennsylvania and so forth. But actually in Arizona and Nevada, abortion is on the ballot. The stories from Georgia are really horrible. And Kamala Harris actually did a very good job highlighting that one story from Friday. So that's already three swing states. And I think if you're in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, you're at least, the issue is more front and center, I would say, than even in those states than I thought it might be a year ago. And I think Harris could do a little more to point out to the next president. It's not just about Dobbs and the current state of abortion law. The next president will make a

whole bunch of, well, probably one or two Supreme Court appointments and a whole bunch of lower federal court appointments that will further affect personal freedoms and personal freedoms to particularly affect women in all kinds of ways. So I think Dobbs is a bit of a wild card that I think helps Harris may not be fully captured in the polls. The only thing I'd say is these polls, they're very intelligent people doing them. They're serious meat organizations. They're not cooked or they're not, you know, jimmied in some way. They're not making idiotic mistakes that people on Twitter seem to think pollsters have never thought of again, you know, thought of before. Having said that, I do think the NBC poll, I give a little

more weight to because it's, it's McInturff. It's public opinion strategies. What would you say? Probably the most well-established Republican firm in polling and a serious one. And Hart, Peter Hart's no longer with us, but it's Jeff Yang, I guess, runs it now. So that's serious Democratic firm. And they get together, they do this poll for NBC News and the Wall Street Journal. And so it's not, you have people who really have done serious polling and serious races for a long, long time. And I kind of think if they're, I very much respect the people who do the polling at these other places too, for networks and for the New York Times, the Washington Post, but I sort of trust McInturff and Yang. I would think they

are being pretty sophisticated and pretty, I don't know, subtle almost in the kinds of screens they're using to try to get the figure out who's going to vote. And as you know, people that have clients also like campaign clients, like they have, they want it to be right. Like they're trying to get it right. Like this, there's another conspiracy out there that some of these pollsters, like the corporate pollsters, they want it to be close because it gets some more clicks so they want that like you know heart and pos have actual interest in trying to you know do the best survey research to understand the electorate as best they can for their client interests like they're not this is not clickbait like these are two established

firms something else with the nbc poll i wanted to talk about because it was just fun. They just tested the favorability of various individuals and topics, you would call it. I just got a kick out of this. The most popular thing that they tested in the NBC poll, number one was capitalism, plus 26, more favorable than unfavorable. Number two was Tim Walz. God bless America. Number three was Taylor Swift. Tim Walz is plus seven. Taylor Swift is plus six. Capitalism, plus 26. bit unfavorable number two was tim walsh god bless america number three is taylor swift tim walsh is plus seven taylor swift is plus six capitalism plus 26 the bottom two socialism

minus 37 tough break for socialism and uh project 2025 minus 53 four percent of respondents had a positive view of project 2025 57 had a negative view. This is one of the all-time self-owns by the Heritage Foundation to put together this project to try to put some kind of intellectual sheen on Trumpism. And intellectual Trumpism is coming in at 16 points less popular than socialism. You know, it is amazing. It's not clear that everyone knows what's really in Project 2025, but I think you're right. They think it is. It's Trumpism without, hey, I can't believe I'm saying this, whatever is charming or

attractive or sellable in Trump, which unfortunately there is a fair amount. I just see this from the data, right? I mean, 45% of the people keep voting for him. So he's a pretty good con man, a pretty good show man, a pretty good demagogue, all those good salesmen, all those things. This is sort of all that stripped away. And it's just the kind of ugly core of it. And I think there's a lesson there.

I mean, Carville mentioned this a few months ago. You know, MAGA tests way below Trump. And it probably is true that, I don't care how you do this politically, but the Democrats and others should focus a little more on attacking the whole thing, so to speak. People have such a high willingness now just to dismiss anything Trump says. That's him. That's Trump being Trump. It's peculiar.

It's weird. But getting it sort of beneath the Trump level, the advance in that respect, I think, is a vulnerability for Trump and Robinson and the whole package of MAGA craziness and ugliness, I think might be a little more of a focus of the Harris campaign than Trump personally. I should say one other thing about that poll. Kamala Harris was plus three favorability, 48 fave, 45 unfave, and Trump was minus 13, 40 fave, 53 unfave. And there are two things worth noting about that. A, it's going to be very incumbent on Donald Trump to get the votes of people that don't like him personally, whereas that's not going to be so much of a problem for Harris. So that's another positive note.

And the other thing I just think is worth noting, even if the NBC poll is a little bit bullish on Democrats, and the reality is those numbers are a little bit lower, the efficacy of the vast right-wing conspiracy conspiracy is what we couldn't call it the media machine the fox donald trump kind of maga messaging effort seems to be waning right if like if tim walls and they went all in on walls on the stolen valor and all that nonsense still plus seven kamala harris since she's taken over has had the largest increase in favorability that these two pollsters have seen since Bush after 9-11, since the rally around the flag, a plus 16. A little bit of the magic of the

MAGA smear campaign seems to be wearing off too. That's just another kind of observation, just looking purely at the favorability. Yeah, I mean, hopefully this isn't the high watermarks I was reading for Harris's favorability and how the MAGA smears start to knock it down some, but even if they knock it down some, she has such a lean on Trump favorability. And I've, I think this is true, but I can't,

I've not done any like actual research to prove it. I think fav, unfa, favorable and unfavorability is a pretty good, that's kind of a leading indicator of where the ballot is going to end up. Ballot tests in a weird way. The actual Trump Harris thing can sometimes be like a lag sort of people's views a little bit. They say what they've been meaning to say for a year, but if they're going to change their mind, they're going to change

their mind, or if they're undecided or just leaning, they're going to move in the direction of favorability. I mean, it's very hard for me to see, like you're uncertain who you're going to vote for, and the guy who you view unfavorably, Trump, you're going to decide to go for him in the last few weeks, as opposed to the person you view favorably i just think that it is an advantage to have that favorable number higher it is in the case for trump if you just look at again even if these numbers are off like the the delta you can you can learn a lot from like what the delta is trump is going to need so the the same nbc poll had him at 50 of people who say that they trust him more on the economy like that that was the one attribute where he was beating Harris by a significant

amount besides immigration. And so your case for Trump is that there is some percentage of people on this poll. It's about 10% of the electorate that trust him more on the economy, but don't like him. Right. And so over the next, you know,

six weeks, like those are the people he's got to win. And you know, you can get some percentage of that, but like there is a tough sell is a tough sell it is a tough sell when it's that big of a that big of a gap do you ever open your closet and think why did i buy that or gosh there's not anything in here that i want to wear it's certainly something that i'm feeling especially since i'm on youtube every day and having to look at my outfits. But ever since I started shopping with Quince, I'm seeing more hits that I'll be wearing season after season.

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That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash the bulwark to get free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash the bulwark. We spent a lot of time on mark robinson on friday and i gotta say bill i would be pretty uncomfortable reading some of the material he was putting on nude africa with you so if you don't mind um i might just kind of skip over some of those you want to do that with ab stoddard i think yeah man it makes me a little uncomfortable frankly okay yeah so we'll just skip over his peccadillo's we'll say that we're gonna have ab on later this week and she's on with a special guest so i'm really looking forward to that and we can we can dig deep into the mark robinson nude africa archive with her instead we'll just

talk about the politics of it and uh there's an interesting dichotomy i noticed yesterday that uh several of Mark Robinson's staff members, including his campaign manager, his deputy campaign manager, and a couple other prominent staff members quit. They resigned the campaign. I guess they were so shocked that when they signed up to work for Holocaust Denier, it turns out he says weird things on message boards about Hitler, how he sees himself as kind of a Hitler figure. Then J.D. Vance, I just thought interest is interesting the contrast between how the staff respond to the story versus how the vice presidential nominee jd vance responded let's listen to jd vance

when asked about the mark robinson story do you believe him that those were not his posts i i don't not believe him i don't believe him i just think that you have to let these things sometimes play out in the court of public opinion i love the the postmodernism of J.D. Vance. It's like there's truth, there's not truth. Who can say? All that matters is what people's opinions end up being after we feed them propaganda. No, he learned a lot at Yale Law School, it turned out. It's just that it was used for the sake of quasi-fascism instead of, you know, left-wing, you know,

critical legal theory or something. I mean, it is kind of amazing. The court of public opinion, well, either he did post these things or he didn't, right? And I think we know the answer to that, honestly. Actually, the median person's opinion about whether he posted them is not actually relevant to the situation. Cotton was also doing this over the weekend on TV, where there's something about the trump era guys where they're so uncomfortable yeah they've decided that the only way to handle dealing with trump is that you can never give an inch right and and jake tapper was doing an interview with cotton where jake is just like will you just say that that trump's set line where he said it

will be the jews fault if I lose is like bad and wrong. And that he shouldn't say that. And like Tom Cotton, like wouldn't do it. Like you wouldn't just, you wouldn't say, well, you know,

you could imagine him answering and saying, well, Trump's broader point about how Kamala's worse on Israel. I agree with, he shouldn't have phrased it that way. Like you could give that kind of answer, but Cotton wouldn't do it. Same thing with J.D.

Banser. You could just say, yeah, I think it is. if it is true, which it seems like it is, that the gubernatorial nominee in North Carolina was saying he was a black Nazi, that's bad, and we should condemn that. We'll see how the facts go. It's not hard to do that.

These guys just absolutely refuse to. I think didn't Cotton say, well, Trump has been saying this for a while or something. So it's this kind of, as you say, postmodern relativist, either who's to say the public will have its own opinions or he's been saying it a long time. What is that? It could be a Holocaust denier for 20 years. Oh, well, then it's not interesting. I mean, I don't know. It's not very interesting, but it is.

I think you're right. That's the dodge they make. But they can't give an inch on actually the substance they can't even say that yes it's unfortunate that our nominee said this or they can even continue to support him right this is terrible but you know what at the end of the day the policies will be better whatever they want to do you know but yeah they can't give an inch any other deep thoughts on the on the robinson uh situation is kind of more like what it says about the party and i talked about this a little bit with handby on friday like it does strike me just like if you wanted to be one of the people that like felt like the republican party was salvageable

and that after this election you want to kind of get back to you know quality candidates and you know people that have basic you know believe in basic conservative principles blah blah blah that like there would need to be some reflection on why the party keeps attracting people like this and there's some obvious reasons to me which is like when when you incentivize fealty to a charlatan and ability to own the libs over you know resume contributions to the community whatever ideology on some of these other issues then you're going to get people like this uh but like there doesn't seem to be any of that right like like it almost seems to be like tough brit you know this is another bad break another candidate quality issue why does this

keep happening to us like there's no conversation among the quote unquote, responsible Republicans about like, what, how does it seem to be that we keep getting the black Nazis and the George Santos's and the Herschel and the Carrie Lakes? There doesn't seem to be any reckoning. Yeah. And that if Trump wins, I mean, some of the ones who are somewhat anti-Trump, but not where we are, we'll say privately, at least, well, maybe Trump will lose. And then Trump won't have the clout to make the Mark Robinsons, the lieutenant governor and the governor candidate in a major state. So that's a I don't think that's quite right. That's, you know, that assumes that the problem just goes away if Trump loses by five points or something in November.

But still, at least it's a sort of a excuse for them to kind of have hope for the future. But the ones who are endorsing Trump, they can't say that. They're for Trump winning, right? And if Trump wins, can I just make the most obvious point to make? He'll be much, much stronger than he was as a defeated ex-president over the last three or four years, even though he was amazingly strong in the Republican Party. So it's going to be like Mark Robinson's on steroids. It's not like he's, you know, anyone he taps will just get the nominee. They won't even oppose the Trump-supported candidates in 2026. I just need to, I just need to know if Mark Robinson is Martin Luther King on steroids. It's a really dark thing to think about what Mark Robinson on steroids would look like. Yeah, maybe that's what made me think of

that metaphor or whatever. The other thing that just occurred to me as you were talking, he is the actual sitting lieutenant governor of North Carolina. Yes. Cuomo was accused of various things as governor of New York. And I mean, he was guilty of certain, let's just stipulate of certain things. It didn't go to court, I guess, but, and resigned. And other people have done that, right? I mean, God forbid anyone might suggest that maybe the guy should not actually be the lieutenant governor of a major state with all this stuff coming out. He could just step down. That's a great point. Nothing.

Not only is nobody calling him to resign, there's no pressure. There's no conversation about whether he should resign. I mean, the bar is so low for the Republicans that even outsiders, like even the media is not like maybe should there be like they're not even asking republican politicians should mark robinson resign and that gap between how democrats acted in the cuomo situation as you mentioned or al franken or whatever like where the crimes are like not really anywhere in the ballpark of the disgusting material that was on nude africa that mark robinson was writing and his public comments for that matter and they're just like well this is just it like you know this is just kind of maga now and i mean i guess you could say lieutenant governor's not that important of a job but you're next in line to be governor right like something could happen to roy cooper

and like this total freak show that you would not put in charge of a gas station could be running the state you would think that i don't know is there one republic is richard burr is there one republican in north carolina that's not concerned about that at all i guess no that's the answer i guess it's a rhetorical question okay well that's that's depressing let's stick with depressing then i'm a little concerned about the nebraska situation so uh there's nebraska too second congressional district and nebraska and maine both allot their electoral votes both by the winner of the state but then also one vote second congressional district. And Nebraska and Maine both allot their electoral votes, both by the winner of the state, but then also one vote per congressional district. And Nebraska has this district in Omaha that is represented by Don Bacon. It's a little scandal

of his own, by the way. We'll get to that in a second, who's this moderate Republican. So it's a very swingy district, but Biden won it, Obama won it, and Kamala Harris is kind of assumed to be the favorite in that district. And it ends up being very important because if she wins just the blue wall states, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, but not the Sunbelt states, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, then that takes us to a 269-269 tie unless she also gets the one electoral vote in the Nebraska 2 in the Omaha congressional district and you know if it's 269 269 this thing gets thrown to the house and you know Mike Johnson's the speaker of the house and we could get into how the house situation would work but it would not be good for the Democrats

and Nebraska is now at the last second having conversations about changing the rules so that they their state gives winner taketake-all to take this electoral vote away from potentially Kamala Harris. Now, Maine has the inverse situation where there's one Trump district, but our colleague Sam Stein called the Maine Speaker of the House, and they're like, it's too late to change. So, if Nebraska changes, Maine doesn't have time to, you know, kind of do an even-Steven situation. And Lindsey Graham was on the Sunday shows this weekend arguing for this change. Let's listen.

If they change the law in Nebraska, it won't be on the phone in the middle of the night. It will be through a democratic process. The entire federal delegation of Nebraska, House members and two senators, want this change. To my friends in Nebraska, that one electoral vote could be the difference between Harris being president or not, and she's a disaster for Nebraska and the world. I hear you calling it a coup. Of course, Democrats have the right to change. She was at the top of the ticket. So does Nebraska.

Very quickly, before we get to the Middle East, what do you think the chances are? What's the over-under that this change actually happens in Nebraska? 50-50, down to two people. So, Bill, I mean, A, F Lindsey Graham. down to two people so bill i mean a f lindsey graham it's just like unbelievable just like the just machiavellian shamefulness for him and supporting donald trump but uh there's mixed reports on like how realistic this is um i don't want to pretend to be an expert on what's happening on the on the machinations of the nebraska legislature uh but i mean it's pretty alarming and worth monitoring yeah changing the rules on

September 23rd about how electoral votes are going to be allocated when it's been set for several cycles. That's the way Nebraska has chosen to do it. It's a unicameral legislature, huge Republican majority. There are some Republicans holding out against the change, I understand, who are sort of decent, responsible Republicans who say this is not the right thing to do but there's a lot of pressure being put on them i think trump has called into the state a couple of the republicans and as you say lindsey graham on tv and stuff so i mean i guess there's just no reason to think better of lindsey graham at this point than that i mean like i think they're just going to try to change the rules at the last second to try to sneak donald trump in and it's an insane position to hold it is insane it's more insane even than the

kind of jimmying of state registration and purging of voters for files i've got to say i'm not entirely with the left on some of these things they overstate occasionally you know just a normal kind of procedural thing that the state does to clean up its roles. And they think it's, you know, voter suppression. But there's enough going on in some of these states that, you know, they're playing hardball, needless to say, the Trump Republicans, they're playing hardball in terms of voter suppression, where they can get away with it. And they're certainly signaling, incidentally, total attempt to overturn the results if they're close in the states themselves by pressuring election commissioners and county people in other offices who are involved in the electoral process. County boards, yeah.

And it really could be a shameless effort. This is really a close election like we've been talking about. And it's 270, 268 or something. And therefore, 2020 never quite got to the fever pitch. It might have gotten to the got to a pretty horrible fever pitch, obviously, on January 6th, because they would have had to flip, what, three states, basically, right, two or three states. So it was too hard, you know, if it's literally one district or one state, which it could well be, right, Pennsylvania or anything, which has come in late and is a 20,000 vote margin or something like that i mean the degree of post-november 5th pressure lying violence i worry it really could be very bad it's a nightmare scenario somebody i forget who i was talking to someone at the trip fest or whatever where we were recently and they're like what are you worried about i'm like that's what i'm worried about one state if it's a one state situation and there's

close in one state where it flips and if there's a florida 2000 situation or even if it's a one-state situation and there's close in one state where it flips, and if there's a Florida 2000 situation, or even if it's not quite as close as that was, but like, you know, that there's one state least in Pennsylvania and you have a democratic governor and, uh, but even still, I do think that just the violence, the extra legal efforts, it is the thing to be the most alarmed about besides Trump actually winning, of course, but, uh, as far as, you know, potential redux of what we saw in 2020. This message comes from better help. Can you think of a time when you didn't feel like you could be yourself? Like you were hiding behind a mask at work and social settings around your family? BetterHelp online therapy is convenient, flexible, and can help you learn to be your authentic self. So you can stop hiding. Because masks should be for Halloween fun, not for your emotions.

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to maintenance requests, RentSafeTO can help. Learn more at toronto.ca slash RentSafeTO. All right, one more topic here, and then we got a fun closer. The debates. I gotta say, I think I'm wrong on this one i i assumed donald trump was going to debate her again and i based that almost solely on like pride and ego and machismo and like how can you be the tough guy and get absolutely dominated by kamala harris

in a debate and then shirk shrink away from doing a rematch when there's an offer on the table, especially when you're losing in the national polls. Despite all of our conversations at the beginning, if you'd rather be somebody, you'd rather become LaHarris right now, you want an opportunity to try to mix it back up. And so I just assumed that he would kind of whine and complain and work the refs and then do it again.

But he seemed very adamant over the weekend that he's not. He thinks that he won the debate and that they've been very unfair to him and blah, blah, blah. So I don't know. Where do you land on this? So you've been right. And I was, I think, wrong a little bit about that Trump might skip, well, certainly was wrong that he might skip the June 27th debate, you know, wishes he had. And then certainly went ahead with the first scheduled debate with Harris and didn't end up, you know, making, having a heart attack about a heart attack about the rules and all that. I guess he prevailed kind of on the rules side of it.

But yeah, will he actually pass? I sort of agree with you in the sense that once he made the challenge, which I think was smart of her to do. I'll come back to that in a second. Yeah, a little hard for Trump to duck it. Now, I guess if he were ahead or something, he might duck it. But he's probably going to be even or slightly behind. It's very late, pretty late, October 23rd. I mean, like, so 30, 40% of the vote could have been cast at that point, early voting and by mail. But still a lot of vote out there. A lot of vote for him. The Republican vote votes later, right? So, I mean, I think a lot of vote he'll want to turn out for himself, I should think. I think it's smart of her to make the challenge in this respect. It gets the debate issue back on the table. We can now have a debate about the debates on and off for the next two, three,

four weeks. She can say that he's scared to debate her again, which is a good, I mean, it reminds everyone of the debate, which is good. And so the topic of debates is good for Harris at this point. And if he looks a little chicken, that's also good for her. So do you agree with that? I mean, I don't know what happens to the actual debate, incidentally, but I think the issue of the debate is good for her. Yeah, for sure. And I was impressed. I think I've said this before, but it's worth just reiterating, because having been in these rooms, like I kind of understand how these decisions get made. And that debate ended, and she was offstage for like five minutes before they had put out that they're ready for the second debate. They're excited to do it, and they hope Donald Trump will

meet them. And my initial reaction to that was kind of like, wow, that's bold. You would think in that moment, you're riding high off this debate, you assume that the vice president approved that. So somebody had to talk to her about that after the debate, or I guess maybe before, but you'd assume after to make sure. And you know, the easy thing to do at that moment is to say, like, well, let's just kind of see how the polls turn out. Let's see what how Trump behaves. Let's decide in a week or so. But like, they were just like, no, she crushed him. We're going to be alpha, we're going to position ourselves as position ourselves as the alpha here and we're gonna say immediately we want to do another debate and i do think this is a good issue for her i think it was a bold and smart thing to do and kind of reinforces this like what was her biggest challenge in the debate right like part of it was

introducing herself making sure people who didn't know a lot about her could hear more where she stood on issues but it was almost more about is she up for this is she tough enough if she had commander and chief can you she stand up to this guy like as sarah said like trump is this putin stand-in kind of like can she stand up to the big bad wolf you know and and can we trust that she can and i think that this issue sort of reinforces that like kind of puffs her up a little bit it's like yeah like not yeah not only can she but he is scared of her so i think in that sense they should keep banging the drum yeah i i very much agree i don't know they can some point they could even do ads i mean it's a little far off so let's see what happens but

it's a good thing to i mean we'll have the vance debate i guess the vance walls debate october 1st i don't know how much of an effect that will have they don't normally have much effect vp debates but this is an unusual year advance is an unusual they're both unusually interesting in a certain way vp candidates and there's such a contrast i mean uh it's going to be kind of interesting actually i think people will watch so that's october 1st so then they can have three weeks of debating whether to have another presidential debate. One thing I forgot, I referenced this, and so I need to be a good host and follow back up of the Don Bacon story before we get to end with a little comedy. It's important because it's the Nebraska 2 District, but it's also important because it is reinforcing the theme that we talk about a lot on this podcast, maybe which separates us from some of the other never-Trumpers

who are maybe a little bit more bullish about what could happen with the GOP if Donald Trump loses this time. Don Bacon is like the stand in good Republican. He is not MAGA. He has done what we were saying earlier in the podcast, like the Tom Cotton should have done when he goes on CNN. And sometimes he's like Donald Trump shouldn't have done that. You know, he does the bare minimum, right? He hasn't didn't really vote. He hasn't really demonstrated with his voting that he would hold Trump accountable in any meaningful way. He didn't vote to impeach. But, you know, compared to Matt Gaetz,

compared to the worst of the worst, he's held up as the example of what a Republican could look like. He represents that Nebraska 2 district. A story in ProPublico this morning has one of his staff members, a former staff member, blowing the whistle on the fact that bacon helped a staffer at trump's social media company truth social jumped the line to get a difficult to obtain foreign worker visa to bring a company executive to the united states this is just so funny on couple counts like that like don bacon is like doing favors for donald trump's social media company which is just like gross in its own right but

you can imagine why right if you want this you want this cover from mega like oh yeah sure i'll do some favors for you over here and just that on the topic that it is bringing in a foreign worker for the american first company is also enjoyable. So we continue to be disappointed. I made an oblique reference to Ben Sasse also at the beginning by the quote, unquote, good Republicans when they have opportunities to, you know, try to do the right thing. The theme of the Lindsey Graham and the Don Bacon is hard to ignore. Who called them all the Vichy Republicans six, seven years ago? Was it George Will? You, I thought.

Me? You, I thought. I credit you with Vichy Republicans six, seven years ago. Was it George Will? You, I thought. Me? You, I thought. I credit you with Vichy Republicans. You stole it? I think I stole it from George Will. It was borrowed. Of course, appropriate. I'm sure attribution, at least the first time.

I love the George Will. At least the first time. The next hundred times I said it, I didn't bother the attribution. But as long as you have one, you get away with it. I think it was George Will. I somehow love that. I don't know. It seems so apt, the Vichy Republicans, right?

And, you know, the pretense of independence, which they maintained for a couple of years. And then the Germans just came in and said, well, thank you. That was you were not even interested in the pretense anymore. But the good Republicans are not good. I enjoyed the actual an actual good Republican, Stephen Richer, our friend who lost his primary, who is the recorder, Maricopa County recorder, who did the right thing in the 2020 election. He had a funny tweet over the weekend, which was looking at the college-educated Republican number and how Trump is getting schlonged by 18 points or something among college-educated white voters.

And Richard's like, you know, maybe there's something to the fact that the Republicans have tanked among college-educated voters when they switched from being the party of George Will to the party of cat turd. Say what you want about George Will. There's a little, maybe a little something to that. And George Will's done, is saying the right thing at a column recently about how, well, maybe not fully the right thing, depending on where you sit, but he at least has gone so far as to say that the optimal outcome is a Kamala Harris presidency with the Republican Senate, which is better than maybe some of his competitor columnists, which is a topic we're going to get to in more depth on tomorrow's podcast. I do need to end you with this, though, about the state of the party. Donald Trump was, I have to say, he's been busy.

Okay. I mean, he's not, he's not taking any breaks from, you know, his various endeavors. And he put out a new video yesterday I would like to end with. Hello, everyone. I have something incredible to share today. We are announcing the launch of Trump Coins, a true symbol of American greatness. Trump Coins are designed by me and minted right here in the USA. This beautiful limited edition coin commemorates our movement,

our fight for freedom, prosperity, and putting America first. We always put America first. It's more than just a collector's item. It's a testament to the resilience and strength of the American people, our American patriots that we love so much. This coin is composed of 99.9% pure silver with a beautiful proof finish, and it's really something very special.

Bill? Yes, when you started to play the audio, when you hear Trump, and especially when he's in that kind of huckster mode, which is, but a little bit mailing it in, right? He's reading, so it's not quite like him on the stump it just sounds so much like jl coven do you ever listen to him the guy who imitates trump does a very good job of it and i really thought for a minute this is jl coven this can't be trump

you know huckstering a silver coin 99.9 silver exactly i mean uh six weeks out from from the presidential election which is kind of important for the country. I mean, yes, you say he's got a lot of time and energy. I mean, it's impressive that he has time to just... Just selling NFTs, Melania selling Christmas ornaments. And it does, like, it feels a little bit like a going out of business sale happening over there. I mean, like, if you're just judging based on the actions,

it doesn't seem like a confident, you know, the actions of confident cotton artists, right? Like if they really felt like they're about to be heading into the presidency and all the power associated with that and all of the foreign money that Jared Kushner would be getting, you know, if he was president again, like all the oil money, like, would you really be selling ornaments and coins and NFTs? Or maybe this is just at the heart. He's a huckster and it doesn't matter when lose or draw. Would you really be selling ornaments and coins and NFTs? Or maybe this is just at the heart, he's a huckster, and it doesn't matter. Win, lose, or draw. Yeah, I mean, I was going to say, I think you make a good point. I sort of agree with it. Yeah, in a way, rationally, if you think you're going to win, you're going to make so much more money selling the presidency than you're going to make selling these individual coins for $100.

But he is such a huckster, and he can't stop himself, right? And he just thinks certainly in MAGA world, suck a word every day. And I haven't taken quite milk them quite for every cent of disposable income they have. And we shouldn't laugh at him. Some of the people buying these coins, I mean, are, you know, don't have that much money, right? They're like some, and it's terrible. I mean, it really is terrible to exploit them. I always thought that. That's why I thought the Trump University stuff that you were involved in trying to make that case in 2016 would have an effect. It was so shameless

that it was so taking advantage of people who didn't know anything and it didn't really understand. And, you know, we're sending in quite a bit of money in that case for some worthless to quote degree from quote Trump University. I guess the public's just fine with just unabashed con man hucksterism thank you for ending though on a quick point because this is an obsession of mine like they're fucking over the people that the forgotten man like over and over again this is happening like they're stealing their money like he's a supposed billionaire like jd vance like pretending to care about them they've convinced them of this lie about the

election that some of them have ruined their lives over some of them are in jail like you know they're like oh free the hostages like they're in jail because of your lies like you it's your fault that they're there they wouldn't be there if you had just conceded like some of them died because they didn't take the vaccine that wasn't so much trump as some of the other people in mega world but including jd who went along with all this like fake you know vax hoax stuff and they're literally pocketing their cash and like they do not care about these people at all for one second and uh the coin is just kind of the silliest latest example of that um thank you to bill crystal as always he'll be back next monday we've got a good one tomorrow that i'm very much looking

forward to i guess i've not yet had on the podcast uh two actually back to back tomorrow and wednesday we've got two new guests i'm very much looking forward to so make sure to subscribe to the feed tell your friends and we'll see y'all back here do it all over again tomorrow peace The whole world keeps turning. I went out in the storm. I felt the house burning. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, And the kiss on my lips starts to feel unfamiliar The part in your eyes, my skin all turns silver Tell a classic story Smothered underneath the melody I'll portray the ocean

Carving you can walk all over me The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.