The Bulwark Podcast - Bill Kristol: Weird and Extreme

Episode Date: July 29, 2024

Democrats are leaning into the 'Republicans are weird and creepy' talking point—a strategy Tim has long advocated for. JD Vance is Exhibit A for this kind of profile, which explains the rumors about Trump possibly replacing him on the ticket.  Meanwhile, Kamala may have whittled down her veep choices to Shapiro, Kelly, and Walz. Plus, if anyone is going to turn the US into Venezuela, it's Trump, the insurrectionist. Bill Kristol joins Tim Miller.

hello and welcome to the bullard podcast i'm your host tim miller it is monday july 29th we've got the venezuelan election sham donald trump zeroing in on his anti-como message the veep stakes slayer pete on fox but first i've got bill crystal and the best thing to do with bill crystal is a little gossip and is it possible there's going to be a second ticket switch in this race, Bill Kristol? I mean, no one thought the first one was possible, right? So in for a dime, in for a dollar. That's my view. And I wonder if Trump actually thinks a little that way. Like, gee, you know, they won't say he can't do that. And Biden did it. Seems to be helping them. Why should I be stuck in this kind of old-fashioned thinking that the first guy we nominate is

the guy we have to stick with? We obviously are referring to J.D. Vance. The J.D. rollout has been disastrous on style and substance. I guess there's a little, in MAGA world, some positive buzz around his remarks on Saturday in Minnesota. But even still, the degree of vulnerabilities he's brought to the table, emphasizing all of Trump's weaknesses, you know, particularly with women, they're at least thinking about it. You do, Buzz. There's at least some people in mega world that are thinking about

it. They're at least doing some due diligence, maybe looking to see if they could get rid of him. I mean, I was told over the weekend that they've asked some lawyers, not in the campaign, but close to the campaign, to make sure that he can be replaced, that he can be certainly within the next 10 days or so. It gets a little more complicated after that. Yeah, I think they're worried about him, and they're right to be worried, because a lot of these scandals, you and I have been through this a few times, it's something someone said 20 years before. They wrote a student newspaper, or they were, I don't know, drunk driving 15 years ago or something. This is not in the past. And that the nominee then has a 12 year record after that, where he's behaved, he or she's behaved responsibly, right? This is,

this is right now. He said these things three years ago. He reiterated them this year. This is what he believes. It's not even like Trump who sort of had a, I don't know what, he's a 78 year old guy and he has a certain vulgar, say the least and unseemly and bad record on respect for the opposite sex and so forth. But still he's like, people have a little discount of it. That's what 78 year old vulgar rich guys, that's kind of the way they behaved in the past. And Vance is choosing this as a young person. This is what he's embracing it. This is his thing. In fact, it's the one thing behaved in the past. And Vance is choosing this as a young person. This is what he's embracing it. This is his thing. In fact, it's the one thing anyone knows about him. He has no legislative accomplishments, obviously, right? So I think the degree to which this doesn't

go away, the degree to which this isn't a 48-hour story, the degree to which this is getting imprinted on Vance's persona, so to speak, that's very dangerous. It is dangerous for them. And of course, as you say, it complements what people think about Trump anyway. On the persona side of things, you know, we're talking about the childless cat lady clip that everybody's kind of zeroed in on. That was the interview was a couple years ago, but it was during the Trump presidency, to your point about how this stuff is present, not past. It was 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson. He's asked about it with Megan Kelly over the weekend. Let's see how deft he is in cleaning up his insult to childless cat ladies with Megan Kelly.

Obviously, it was a sarcastic comment. I've got nothing against cats. I've got nothing against dogs. I've got one dog at home and I love him, Megan. But look, this is not, people are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what i actually said and the substance of what i said megan i'm sorry it's true so i've got nothing against cats so let's just diagram that so you insult childless cat ladies and then when you're asked about it you say i've got nothing against cats so i guess he does still have something against the ladies the voters i think he assaulted them a little more, honestly, in that segment with Megyn Kelly. And then, was it last night, he was on Fox with Trey Gowdy.

And Trey Gowdy opens up with about a two-minute monologue where he personally shows real discomfort with this. Tells a little story about himself with a couple of childless ladies who we respected very much. They turned out to be nuns. It's a nice story, whatever. And Vance is coming on after this monologue. And so Gowdy opens the door for Vance to kind of walk it back again.

And again, Vance doesn't do it. And I got to think, if you're Trump watching this today, you think, geez, I mean, they tried to, we've given him two chances here on our favorite network to, almost favorite network to get to get to get out of this uh and maybe he's not getting the message and i don't know trump likes firing people right supposedly i like saying he likes to fire people while he likes doing it also if you're trump you know your your newsletter

this morning has this imaginary conversation between trump and don Jr. And if you're Trump, you kind of have this feeling of, I get to be the one that does this sort of stuff. I get to be the one that does rude and inappropriate things and then kind of makes jokes about it and insults it. That's me, but you don't really get to do it. You're here to help me. I do think there's that little bit of element in this conversation you know kind of in the behind the scenes you know a buzz about what to do about vance there's another

like tangible problem that he's brought to the ticket which is on the money side i'm sure that many of these guys will come around they've all come around a million times before but you know vance part of the argument for choosing him right as well as this was this nonsense argument that upper midwestern you know white men like him which i don't there's not really any evidence for um but the other is that like he supports you know this pivot to nationalism and populism and that's more aligned with trump and that there's this other cache of peter teal type donors and stuff that want that the party to move that way and so they'll support it. But the downside of that is the traditional Republican donors,

like the old Bush-Bomby world donors who have reluctantly held their nose for Trump, they're not excited about this. And having Vance out there hurting you with those donors and hurting you with voters, I feel like it has the possibility to resonate more with Trump when he's hearing from rich guys that are pissed about it, too. I mean, I'm told admittedly, third hand, probably second hand, third hand, something like third hand, that this happened.

But I think it sounds right. Trump apparently raised this issue when people, when Don Jr. and Tucker were pushing Vance, and he talks to all these donors all the time. That's who he has dinner with every night at Mar-a-Lago, basically. And some of these donors are kind of pro-Ukraine and, you know, and they're on board with Trump. They're not as put off as they should be, but they are concerned. And he said, I don't know, isn't Vance like sticking it to them? Shouldn't a more, I don't know, you know, like a neutral pick, Tim Scott, Burgum type, wouldn't it reassure these guys? And Trump has explicitly told, look, some of these Ken Griffin, Paul Singer type donors may shy away from Vance. They do care a little bit about NATO and Ukraine and stuff like that.

But you're going to get Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, and those guys will make it up. The money will be fine. And then Elon Musk seems to back off from this $45 million a month he's allegedly giving to a super PAC, right? And I'm told that Trump sort of has raised that with people like, well, wait a second, you told me that Musk and Thiel would replace the older donors. And Thiel, there's an article, was it over the weekend somewhere, that, well, he likes to pick up Vance, of course. He pushed for Vance. But he's not so sure he's really into giving money these days to campaigns and to super

PACs. And it's like, I hear Trump. It's like, wait a second. I mean, I'm going to have to pay a financial price for taking this guy, too. So I don't know. I mean, you know, the firing thing, you're right that Trump doesn't personally like to fire people. He's sort of chicken that way.

But the people who say, well, Trump could never admit a mistake. I don't know. Trump fired a zillion people in the first term. And he just, all he says is I got kind of deceived by the, you know, the recommendation. They turned out not to be really loyal or competent. And I'm getting rid of this guy and he never paid a price, right? He was able to turn his supporters against it. Now, maybe it's a little, it's harder, I grant, with Vance than with John Bolton or H.R. McMaster or Reince Priebus or whatever. But Trump's experience of firing people who he doesn't think are doing a good job for him

is not, oh my God, I pay a price every time I do it. It's I've gotten away with it every time I do it. Yeah. I mean, I think that as a practical matter, I mean, we're being a little cheeky here. As a practical matter, it's really tough to get rid of Vance. I mean, just the logistics of it are challenging. To your point, the environment around it, you know, it's kind of like what you're going to replace him with Doug Burgum.

At some point, there is some kind of message that's sent to Maga World. Like there is a category of vocal people that are excited about Vance and that he made this pick to kind of signal the change of the party. And then after one bad week, you're like, okay, I'm going to go back to some old stuffed shirt kind of Chamber of Commerce Republican. So I've thought about this in my fantasy world, if this could happen. Don't you think he maybe goes to a woman if he gets rid of Vance? Elise Stefanik would not be a crazy pick. She's all in on MAGA, but she doesn't have this particular problem with Vance. Elise Stefanik would not be a crazy pick. She's all in on Maga, but she's not. She doesn't have this particular problem with Vance.

Maybe Sarah Sanders. I don't know. I feel like there's a couple of picks available to her. Those both seem better, by the way. I do think just practically, I think it's very unlikely. I think the fact that the discussion is happening, it's true, and it's worth us discussing it as well and stoking the embers a little bit but

um i mean just objectively how could elise stefanik have been worse than this as a peck exactly i think that's right she's almost exactly the same age as vance right but she's been in congress longer and she's more of a bridge she's stood up under pressure pretty well right and she did a good job of that hearing with a friend running against the college presidents isn't a bad thing to do against the college campuses in September and October when they reopen. That's kind of her thing these days. Right.

So for, for me to promote Elise Devon at Kulmite, who I went to you very much disapprove of, but here we are. Right. But I'm just objectively again, I agree. It's a super long shot.

It doesn't happen very often. It happened in 1972 with Tom Eagleton, kind of unjustly, I think, but it turned out he had this electroshock, I guess, therapy for depression. Kind of an impressive guy, Eagleton. I've forgotten this when I read up on him to see. He was on the ticket for 18 days before McGovern dumped him. What day are we in right now? We're coming up on 18, right?

10 or so, right? Thursday, well, 10, 11. what day are we in right now we're like we're coming up on 18 right 10 or so right thursday well yeah it's wednesday 11 yeah um huh okay well i meant it less as a compliment to elise stefanik is more of an insult to jd vance that he clearly would be uh at this point she clearly would have been better than him but uh you know dealer's choice and how you want to you want to take that one last jd thing on the left the Democrats have coalesced around a talking point, one that I do. I can't take credit for this. I'm not patting myself on the back.

But it's a talking point that I've been promoting aggressively for years now that the Democrats should use on these guys. And let's just listen to it. Before we get to the clip, the voices you're about to hear in this mashup, it's a mashup that Jen Psaki put together, are Governor Minnesota Walz, Chris Murphy and Brian Schatz together, then Andy Beshear of Kentucky, then J.B. Pritzker, and then Kamala. Let's take a listen. Democrats have kind of organically settled on a new attack line against Donald Trump and J.D. Vance.

Basically, these guys are just plain weird. Freedom to tell your kids what they can read. That stuff is weird. They come across weird. Freedom to tell your kids what they can read. That stuff is weird. They come across weird. They seem obsessed with this. We're using this fake living room to talk to you about a super weird idea from J.D. Vance. Yeah, it's not. I mean, it's quite weird.

What was weird was him joking about racism today and then talking about Diet Mountain Dew. Who drinks Diet Mountain Dew? On the other side, they're just weird. I mean, they really are. Some of what he and his running mate are saying, well, it's just plain weird. What do you think, Bill? First of all, you're not giving yourself enough credit. And Sarah, too. You guys have been promoting this in a way for quite a while. Promoting is not even the right word. I mean, Sarah's focus groups show that our experience in 2022, we're helping the voters against Trump

experience doing stuff in Arizona and Michigan and Pennsylvania against these right-wing Trumpy candidates. We were all against them primarily because they were like Trump, threats to the constitutional order, the rule of law, they were election deniers. But I think in the actual testimonials that all these voters in those states did, what they said is they're extreme, they're strange. It was a little less, you know, they said this about the 2020 election and therefore I'm voting against them. That was part of it though. So I think it works. I think extreme needs to be combined with weird. Otherwise weird becomes one of these insults that sort of fades away after a few days. And it's like, okay, fine. He's a little weird, but now we're used to him, you know? And

there has to be substance behind it. I think the people who are saying weird because he said this is much better than just saying the word weird but weird and extreme i think works pretty well i think it really works for jd and it worked for mark kelly against blake masters i had friends doing a polling on that race and certain types of polls they ask you know do you have a favorable opinion of somebody you know what do you think about the economy? Basic questions like that. And then they have an open-ended question like, what do you think about Blake Masters? And the number of people in the open-ended, they're like, he's strange, he's weird, he's creepy. I really jumped out at the pollsters that I was talking to as like, that's not something you often see in those kind of verbatims and vance and

masters do have a similar carriage and so i think that there's something there you can overdo it of course i didn't understand what andy beshear's point there was i don't think it's that weird to diet mountain do you can drink it if you want but uh the cat lady stuff and some of the other just kind of obtuse you know far right super online weirdo meme stuff they get into i think is exploitable i want to get to trump over the weekend there was a clip that was going around that's something he says kind of a lot but it just caught on this happens with trump because very few people watch you know this full two hour speeches and so then then he he has a lot of weird shtick you know if the only thing you see is

hannibal lecter and the sharks like that's weird but that's only like 45 seconds of a speech he speaks for two hours so he's got a lot of shtick and this line that he used at the turning point believers summit this is for Christian youth in West Palm Beach, was going around social media this weekend. And let's take a listen. I don't care how, but you have to get out and vote. And again, Christians get out and vote just this time. You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what? It'll be fixed. It'll be fine. You won't have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. I love you, Christians. I'm a Christian. I love you. Get out. You got to get out and vote. In four years, you don't have to

vote again. We'll have it fixed so good you're not going to have to vote. I'm a Christian. Really? Well, Bill, what are your initial thoughts to that? You know, you said something about, you said his shtick could be a little weird. I agree with that. I also think he's, somehow the edge comes off it with Trump because he's such a shtick. I mean, that clip you played, it's so nuts, right? My beautiful Christians. He's sort of, he's a Christian.

He remembers that he's supposed to say that it makes it sound like he's talking about these oddball followers. These other people. Which is what he has in his mind, of course. And then he reminds himself, you know, real time, I'm a Christian. If I can just tie it back to the Vance. Vance has none of that schtick-like character, which I think helps Trump more than people realize. It's a little bit like a, you know, Henny Youngman. He's insulting me, but he's not really insulting me because it's a schtick, you know henny youngman it's he's insulting me

but he's not really insulting me because it's a shtick you know whereas vance is so earnest about it but yeah people are dialing in also on the you know you're not gonna have to vote anymore there's not going to be elections part of it i just wanted to focus on that element for a second because on the one hand i think trump deserves criticism for this stuff because of his own behavior in 2020 he has opened himself up to this line of criticism that, you know, people are like, maybe he means that he's going to cancel all elections. And I think that Trump intentionally plays into this. Like Trump has this part of the shtick is, you know, I'm going to say things that I know

the media and the never Trumpers are going to clutch their pearls about. And I'm going to say this stuff and it's going to clutch their pearls about and i'm going to say this stuff and and and it's going to make them seem crazy because they're going to be out there saying he wants autocracy he wants a dictatorship when all i'm saying really is that like i'm going to do things so great that you're never going to need to vote again everything's going to be fixed which is a kind of an absurd argument in itself since he's already been president and things weren't fixed but like that kind of sort of tightrope walk i'm just wondering how you think people should respond to that because on the one

hand he deserves the criticism on the other hand you don't want to play into his hands by sounding hysterical yeah i'm a little two minds about it i mean he really is a danger as an autocrat and he and he did really try to overturn the 2020 elections i'm not sure that taking an ambiguous kind of slightly goofy statement like the one he just made may not be the best way to make that point when you have January 6th right there in your face. So I guess I'm slightly of the view that this statement is more in the ridiculous, I can fix it category as opposed to the super scary, I'm going to try to overturn the next election category. But they sort of slide together, as you say. They do slide together. And I think this is why. So it's important to, I think, play them in concert with. So here he is at that event Saturday that I mentioned that Vance spoke at. They're at a hockey center in St. Cloud, Minnesota. I think this was booked back when Biden was still the nominee. And they wanted to pretend like Minnesota was in play.

Maybe Minnesota would have been in play with Biden. Not really in play anymore. Recent poll had the vice president up by six in Minnesota. I think it's the only one we've seen since she's taken over the spot as presumptive Democratic nominee. The Minnesota Post noted in the speech that he also not only was it outdated in the location where it was held, but it was outdated in the subject matter? He kept making anti-Biden points, and then he would have to remind himself that he was running against someone else. But there's one element of that speech I wanted to pull out and play for people. Let's listen.

If they don't cheat, we win this state easily. Okay? They cheat. They have no shame. They cheat. Do you understand that, you crooked people? They're the most crooked. They cheat. Do you understand that, you crooked people? They're the most crooked. They cheat. They cheated in the last election, and they're going to cheat in this election,

but we're going to get them. That's a category difference, right? Like the first one, he's trying to do the joking thing. This is real. This is demagogic, and that's angry, and that's a demagogue. And I think that it's important to show both of those clips together no i'm glad you did that i'd miss that myself not watching all two hours of his speech no that's an incitement to violence and to all kinds of things both incidentally before the election day you could argue you got to stop the cheating by having people with guns show up at the at the polling places in certain neighborhoods you know to prevent cheating and then of course after election day too if it's at all closed so yeah that is that is more more dangerously demagogic i agree it's like we're in minnesota saying they're only going to win if they cheat

republicans have won minnesota in ages which takes us to the veep stakes and one such candidate i want to focus on mayor pete and his quasi audition i think on fox over the weekend but while we're on minnesota tons of momentum forz. I'll just put my cards at the table. I like his presentation. He does talk like a normal person. I'm begging Democrats to talk like a normal person. He doesn't talk like, you know, a politician with lots of, you know, flowery phrases and, you know, kind of language. You know, he speaks like a former teacher, right? Speaking to this class. I like that. I do worry a bit about one of the vice president's vulnerabilities being sending out that tweet about trying to raise money for the bail fund for people that were

rioting in Minnesota, kind of reanimates George Floyd Floyd there's just a little bit of this we're not going back thing and do we want the person that was a governor there that was in the midst of all of those fractious battles to bring that stuff back up I haven't heard a lot of conversation around that about walls it's mostly people being like well I've never heard of this guy and he's great making fun of JD Vance on TV and like that's true. I do like that. But I worry a little bit about the George Floyd stuff. I don't know. What's your sense of walls? Yeah, the same.

I think he talks like a normal person, looks like a normal person. So far as one can tell, he is a normal person and more normal than most politicians. And he's good at the kind of normal person attack on the weirdness of Vance and Trump. So I think in that way, he would play well and goes down easy, so to speak, as a spokesperson for the ticket. He'll be an excellent surrogate if he's not vice president. Yeah, I think, A, lots of you to put out a video of Harris from 2020 urging people to give money to this bail fund in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which does seem to have bailed

out some, unfortunately, doesn't, maybe it's worth having a bail fund for poor people and so forth, but still bailed out some pretty bad criminals who committed other crimes. So a little Willie Horton-like there. And B, Minneapolis, I just went back and looked for five minutes, and I'm like, Minneapolis was in bad shape in the summer of 2020. And you have Governor Walz sort of saying we didn't handle this well at first, which is commendable candor. And I'm not sure any governor handled that tough a situation that well. And the governor doesn't have total power, there's a mayor, but it was on his watch, so to speak, that Minneapolis was one of the more, you know, more vivid examples of the demonstrations turning into riots, actually,

and genuinely getting out of control. And Wallace says that himself in this one clip, New York Times story I saw from, you know, that post-George Floyd moment. So it's not a showstopper. You know, everyone has negative things, as you and I were discussing earlier. Every vice presidential candidate, every politician has something in the negative balance sheet, so to speak. In addition to the George Floyd riots in particular, I mean, he is a liberal governor. He's a reasonable liberal governor, but a more orthodox liberal, I think it's fair to say, than most of the other VP candidates being talked about. And Harris, again, kind of rightly or wrongly is viewed as sort of on the left or center left side of the party, certainly,

let's say to the left of Biden. And it just seems basic politics that if you're slightly on the left of where the average voter you have to get is. You don't pick another candidate, a VP candidate, who's also probably a little to the left of where the average voter you have to get is. He's been a good politician in Minnesota, but that's a little to the left of the country. So again, I think Harris-Walls could be a perfectly fine ticket, but I think doesn't do quite as much for you as some of the other VP picks, I think. And a little risky because of the salience of the crime issue and the weird accident, I suppose, or whatever, of Harris having this Minnesota fund that she somehow got plugged into and then him being the governor of Minnesota at that time.

Two other things on the walls really quick for our progressive listeners will listen to this list and think, wow, these things are all great. But to your point of what his agenda has been as Minnesota governor, I'm stealing this from kyle kolinsky who tweeted it complementarily universal free school meals legal weed carbon free electricity by 2040 12 weeks paid family leave and paid sick leave that's probably part of the harris agenda either way a bunch of laws related to gun laws conversion therapy free public college under 80 000 you know 2.2 billion increase in k-12 funding sectoral union bargaining for nursing home workers i mean all that there's nothing on there that i'm like wow you're an extreme socialist right but just to the point of and maybe this is a

plus right maybe that you can argue this is a plus i just think it's worth noting that compared to the other people on the veep stakes list like he has the most i would say doctrinaire progressive record and um you know some people are going to see that as a plus i think that there's maybe an argument for trying to soften the vice president's you know public image i do want to shout out walls on one thing because i just i think this was crazy so i was learning about him you got to give him props he is a football coach and a high school teacher in rural Minnesota in 1999. He enlists as a soldier that year in the Minnesota National Guard, a student at the school where he was also teaching geography in addition to being a football coach, wanted to start a gay

straight alliance. He mentors the kid that wants to start a gay straight alliance and helps them do it. And this was rural Minnesota in 1999. This was around the time of where Democrats, Bill Clinton, was just after Bill Clinton had signed the Defense of Marriage Act and Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Here he is doing this as an enlisted soldier in the Minnesota National Guard. Here's his quote at the time. It really needed to be the football coach who was a soldier and

was straight and was married wall said in other words he'd be a symbol that disparate worlds could coexist peacefully big props for that i think it definitely shows kind of an internal strength and a moral clarity that wouldn't be too bad to have in a vice president we also have mayor pete I want to turn to. And there's another skill set that I think is worth valuing as we discuss this process. Let's take a listen to just one clip of him just absolutely eviscerating Shannon Bream on Fox News this week. He didn't keep his promise of 6% economic growth. He didn't keep his promise to drain the swamp.

He did have a pandemic to deal with. Well, but even before the pandemic- And international. Even before the pandemic, America went into a manufacturing recession, which really hurt places like where I come from in the industrial Midwest. But anyway- But

unemployment was low. My point is, he broke his promise for that kind of economic growth. He broke his promise to pass an infrastructure bill, right? He said he would do that. He failed to do it. The Biden-Harris administration got it done. He even broke his promise to pass an infrastructure bill, right? He said he would do that. He failed to do it. The Biden-Harris administration got it done.

He even broke his promise to that January 6th mob when he said, I will be at your side when you march down to the Capitol. But he actually did keep two promises. He kept his promise to destroy the right to choose in this country. And he kept his promise on tax cuts for the rich. And if you want to know what a second Trump term would be like, I would start by looking at those rare promises that he actually managed to keep. Woo dog. That's just one minute. That went on and on. Poor Shannon Bream.

Sorry, I'm stealing this for somebody who said that Pete's like a snake charmer. Shannon's doing her best to represent the Trump line and he's just bringing her along with him. What were your thoughts on that? I mean, Pete is uncommonly good, obviously, and candidate quality really matters. And certainly on Walls, I don't think either of us seen him enough to know. I mean, the candidate quality could be as high as in the best clips of him, or it could be more pretty good, you know, and that I think that would matter a lot. And I do think with Harris, too, there needs to be something that little Clintonian that plays against liberal type. Pete is fantastic, though, and he does it on Fox, right,

which has got a, I don't know if there are any actual Fox viewers or Shannon Reeb who are now going to be more open to voting for the Harris whoever ticket, but there are others who are sort of Fox adjacent who will think, you know what, he went on Fox and he held this totally composed and polite and just makes the case in such a devastating way. There are some Fox viewers, by the way. Yeah. I had breakfast with Jeb last week. He might be a swing voter. He's watching Fox. I don't, you know, so I think that there are others in that vein that are Atlanta suburbs, lifetime Republican voting men who are like looking for an excuse

to not vote for donald trump and pete goes on there and can do it i like how he you know deftly you kind of drops in a january 6th hit on a question out of nowhere but he does it in the sly way where it's trump even broke his promise to the rioters you know trump told the rioters he'd be there with them. Instead, he was sitting in the Oval Office eating hamburgers, watching it on TV. I like that. I like the, you know, manufacturing side of things. You know, it's like, oh, well, like, no, Trump got screwed over by COVID. And Pete is like, no, actually, we're in a manufacturing recession before COVID started.

And we've invested all this in red states and in our community since. He has a way of speaking the language. And I think that the clip is important, but to your point about walls, I would throw in every other candidate besides Pete in this bucket. We don't know. We don't know. They might be good. They might be not good. Even Shapiro, who I think is pretty deft and pretty good. He might turn out to be really good he might not just be okay Pete we know is going to be really freaking good and I don't know I've been you know not the biggest Pete cheerleader for this pick just because of the identity stuff and the baggage that you bring it's like oh we're gonna do a black woman and a gay man it's just is it a lot for people to swallow is it a bit too big of a spoonful in one bite but on the

other hand it's like you know that he will crush and he's already been vetted you know there's not going to be a round of oh the south bend police force like already did all that four years ago like his random controversies from his previous life the longer this has gone on the more i've been like maybe maybe she should just really think about pete look i i'm with you on that i've sort of been there from the beginning but i won't discuss it me when i say it frankly so me and maybe she's just ruling it out and maybe she's right too honestly she has a decent chance to win the election just by playing it a little safer for me it's actually also the fact that he's in the biden administration it's a slight downside you know along with the identity politics it's actually also the fact that he's in the Biden administration. It's a slight downside, you know, along with the identity politics.

It's a little two people from the Biden-Harris administration running to succeed Biden, whereas one advantage of the VP pick is it fully separates Harris, as it were, from Biden. It's now Harris X. Now, that may not be true, as Pete has his own image, you know, apart from being working for Biden, obviously. One thing, just on the candidate skill, running for president is different from running for governor. And Pete ran for president. And Pete did an excellent job. We all just take it for granted that he kind of came pretty close. He was like tied for first in Iowa, and then what, just second, I can't remember anymore, in New Hampshire. But I mean,

he was right up there in the very top tier, starting from 16th, probably, right? I mean, in that field. And that shows he did it all i mean i mean the candidate skills you have to have to do that at the presidential level and go through a zillion debates and a zillion interviews and not all friendly ones obviously and incidentally that clip that's kind of packaged it's not so great about everything harris said as she was contorting herself to try to appeal to the left in 2019. You've seen that, obviously. And that is a bit of a problem. She could walk away from most of those things.

Fracking, she's already done so. But Pete didn't do that. I mean, think about that. He went through a very kind of bad, I'm going to say, Democratic primary, bad for quite a long time until they coalesced behind Biden, where people were kind of looking foolish, mostly. And he and I would say Klobuchar, maybe, are the two who really did fine in Sanders, if you wanted that, you know what I mean? But they were the kind of the ones who I think came out of it looking maybe better than when they went in,

or as good as when they went in. So again, the degree to which the candidate skills matter, and the degree to which being tested in a way he was, he has been an even Shapiro, whom I very much respect. And the others really haven't been they just haven't run for national office am i right that he's the only one on the list who's run for a national office i guess that's true you know even as running the pete fan club over here at the bull work back in 2020 i forgot how close he got to new hampshire he only lost to bernie by 3 900 votes 1.3 he was in second place in new hampshire very close to us iowa new hampshire sweep from pete there is something to be said for it i always go back to like my very first meeting with john

huntsman god love him in 2012 you know we were kind of briefing him for what was to come on the on the media side and he said uh you know i've dealt with the utah press i dealt with the solid it's like city press they're pretty tough i've been i've been through these things to me and you know and i was like yeah i think it's gonna be a little bit different boss i think that it's a different animal you know he to his credit i forget what it was a month later a couple weeks later was like yeah okay you guys are right i need i need to run through some more paces here it's just it is different and the pennsylvania governor media environment is much closer to the utah governor media environment than it is to a vice presidential ticket presidential environment. So I think that that is a case for Pete that's worth making.

That said, the reporting, you know, who knows the credibility of all this sort of stuff. But the reporters who would be in a position to know are indicating that Shapiro and Kelly at Arizona and Walls are the top contenders at the moment. Before we move on to Kamala, anything on Kelly? No, again, I feel like I personally don't know his candidate skills well enough. Shapiro, I just would come back and maybe at the end when you're uncertain, you default to the fact that, you know what, you have to in Pennsylvania. Shapiro won it by 15 points two years ago. He has a 61% approval rating in the state.

61% approval rating. Sometimes you're deceived when you pick a candidate to win a state, it doesn't quite work out. But actually, people don't usually do it for all the talk about it. But if there's any candidate who could win that state, and presumably would do fine in the neighboring, you know, Michigan and Wisconsin, and they are the key at the end of the day, little more than the, you know, reaching for North Carolina or even Georgia and Arizona. So they're holding those which were so narrow in 2020. So I guess there's a pretty good case for defaulting to Shapiro, who has real candidate skills and who I do think helps by being a little bit against type on a couple of issues,

pro-charter schools. I was talking with someone who worked in the Obama administration, very senior. We were joking. They're like, is that really unacceptable? Obama was kind of open to charter schools and his secretary of education, Arne Duncan, was actually kind of enthusiastic about them. Are we really like, that's not permissible for a Democrat? But I guess the Gaza Israel stuff is more contentious. They're nervous about some, you know, protests at the convention. But I think, I don't think it would hurt harris and b it might even help again by being a

little looking a little distant from the campus left and so forth he's never you the fracking issue you just mentioned that i think it's worth pointing this out in both of the last two podcasts or same friday i was i was asking palmieri and um you know folks how harris should respond to this like question of her the far left position she took during that 2019 primary. And we got a little bit of a preview from it. A spokesperson for Harris put out a statement about fracking over the weekend. Trump's false claims about fracking bans are an obvious attempt to distract from his own plans to enrich oil and gas executives at the expense of the middle class. The Biden-Harris administration passed the largest ever climate change legislation and under their leadership america now has the highest ever

domestic energy production the administration created 300 000 energy jobs while trump lost nearly a million went on to just say clearly that they don't have any plans to ban fracking i kind of like that i like it i like just being like no we're not going to do it uh turning the page we'll see how she handles it in an interview setting. Trump lies a lot. I don't know. We're kind of defining lying down here. It wasn't really a lie, though. It was a plan that she had stated in the past, so the Biden-Harris administration didn't do it. But besides that, I think that's a relatively encouraging statement. Yeah, and I would almost be more direct, though, and just say, look, I was running for president. That was my view. I've now been vice president for three and a half years.

We've passed A, B, and C. I now have decided that tracking, environmentally responsible tracking, however she wants to guard it, is part of a responsible energy policy, which includes a lot of clean energy. And tracking turns out to be kind of clean energy, whatever she wants to say. In other words, use the experience of being vice president as the excuse, to be honest, of moving away from some of these 2019 positions. The encouraging thing for me is, again, we haven't seen her yet in a hostile interview setting. So TBD. But on the written statements, both on fracking and on the protests, the Gaza protests, the flag burning outside know outside of union station in dc last week

just clear statements that point to you know the more consensus position to me it is a sign that this is she's in it to win it i don't know they're not messing around there's no no need for for bsing with this and and playing you know playing patty cake with the far left activists on some of this stuff and uh you know there's already enough excitement and i think to me the excitement for her gives her the cover to put out statements like this you know like right and there is a new plot today that the excitement for the democratic ticket went from like 30 something percent who said they were excited up to 80 like the the enthusiasm gap has been narrowed to nil you know there's the tiktok memes young folks are excited

they're having all these calls with people who are excited use that right like if you have that excitement built in you know you can ride that wave and then kind of tack to appeal to some of the the more center swing voters that are necessary. One other opportunity to do this. Last night, the Venezuelan pro-government electoral council said that Maduro won re-election with 51% of the vote, despite the fact that exit polls showed his challenger, Edmundo Gonzalez, had won 65% and maduro had got just 31 so this is not just kind of a close call here where they're fudging along the lines this is a total steal government police blocked observers from ballot counting neighboring countries chile argentina colombia peru are

refusing to recognize the sham election result tony blinken says we have serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people. Bill, just any thoughts in the substance of that, but also a potential opportunity for Harris here to take a whack at the commies. Yeah, I think she needs to really denounce this maybe a little more strongly than Tony Blinken did. And she's in good company with the neighboring countries in Latin America. So she's not, you know, out in some unilateral American kind of trying to overturn an election. She's trying to uphold the voices of the people in Venezuela. Maduro has been horrible, obviously, following Chavez. And a lot of Venezuelans have come to the U.S.

This is not 10,000 miles away, right? And they're aware of what Maduro is up to, and others from Central and Latin America are as well. So I think it's a good opportunity for her to be strong, strongly denounce this exactly what we can do. I don't know. That's a complicated issue. Just quite have to get into that. But, you know, I agree. And also maybe tie it to Trump.

You know, I mean, really, Trump has this kind of Codillo-esque vibe to him. Right. And it's like, look, Trump's trying to turn us into Venezuela. Right. You know that the right is going to, I've already seen it on social media, the right is going to say that like, you know, Kamala Harris is going to turn us into a socialist country like Venezuela and blah, blah, blah, all this nonsense. But like the more realistic comparison is that Trump wants to be Maduro. Like Trump tried to do exactly what he is doing last time, you know, by declaring the,

you know, the insurrection act and just was not competent enough to do it. But who's to say that he wouldn't be able to do it next time? And so I think that there is a way to demonstrate strength on foreign policy, take a hit at the socialists and the corruption in Latin America and tie it to Trump. So, right, let's do it. Let's roll. And so maybe to Trump's buddy, Bolsonaro, who a lot of Trump's closest aides tried to help overturn that election. So you can be anti-Bolsonaro and anti-Maduro and genuinely for democracy. And in the course of that, also point out that Trump is kind of closer to those guys than he is to actually respecting and

upholding, you know, free and fair, maybe not fair entirely in this case, as Maduro is trying to make it unfair, but upholding the will of the people. I'd also mention that the state in the U.S. is the third most residents from Venezuela, immigrants from Venezuela, Georgia, an important one on the map. All right, Bill Kristol, thank you so much. We'll see you back here next Monday. Everybody else stick around. I've got another little bonus segment on the other side. all right we're back for any pardon the interruption fans tony reali had an errors and omissions segment at the end in my manifesto last week before the ab standard episode i said i'll admit to you when i screwed something up that is part of my new deal so i have a couple pieces of feedback that i would like to cover really quick. The murder of Sonia Massey was in Springfield, not Chicago. I have no idea where I got Chicago from.

I was just writing it down in my notes. Still a horrific murder, still something we should be talking about. I should have also mentioned at the time that the sheriff's deputy that killed her in her own kitchen when she was just holding a pot of boiling water has been charged with that murder. So, you know, maybe some of the political salience is different. As somebody that was born in St. Louis, I recognize that Springfield and Chicago aren't particularly close. But, you know, I do think that, you know, the criminal justice issues, as we discussed in this episode, related to Minnesota Freedom Fund, related to George Floyd, we're in Chicago. We'll be about a month following this horrible murder of an innocent black woman. All of that will be certainly in the stew up in

Chicago. A second follow-up, this was Ezra Klein's follow-up, and I'm apologizing on his behalf. My request to him was recommend a book to me that will allow me to not think about this political world for a while i need an escape he recommended health and safety by emily witt which is not out yet it's out in september you can pre-order book was great emily what writes for the new yorker she's awesome but i gotta tell you it's not an escape first third of the book's about doing drugs that was a nice escape the second part of it is about like george floyd and covid and a relationship breaking down during the trump era i'm going ezra i needed a real escape i need i need something you know i need like a book about a coming of age story in the 1700s you know i need like

you know young mozart like give me give me something totally different totally away anyway health and safety i I still recommend, but not if you're looking for an escape from politics. In quoting that same AB Standard episode, I used one of my favorite quotes from The Office Space. Let's talk about what it is that you do here, I referenced. And I said, that's from my favorite Bob from The Office. Well, as it turns out, the Bob who didn't say that line is a Bulwark superfan, and he was hurt. So I want to say, hey, Bob, we appreciate you. We honor all Bobs.

And that was a double follow-up, as I was obviously referencing office space, not the office. And I did not intend to rank the Bobs. I'm just saying our favorite Bobs. We love the Bobs. So we appreciate you. Thank you for listening. Lastly, on the internet, people are mad at me. You ready? thank you for listening lastly on the internet people are mad at me you ready people are mad

at me for saying that kamala's campaign made one mistake in her opening ad and it was featuring a kid wearing a mask and i said that having people in masks and b-roll you know kind of salts the vibes was the word that i used i said that it kind of brings people back to the covid period that they want to forget in their minds. Some people are upset at me about that because either maybe they have autoimmune disease or some other respiratory illness. Some people just like wearing the mask, want to protect themselves. And I just say to all of you, I appreciate that. You should wear your mask. If you have an autoimmune disease, I'm not saying that you should not, you know, when you're in airports

and you're in public spaces where you're wherever you want to feel safe, wherever you want to have health and safety. If you want to wear that mask, that is great. I support you. I do not want to erase you from society. I do not want to make any laws infringing on your rights. I'm not Ron DeSantis over here. But advertising is advertising. And sometimes you got to be a little strategic on all this stuff. and if kamala's messages we're not going back we're going forward we're trying to turn the chapter from this trump era and all these vicious battles that we've had these cultural fault lines that have developed you know we don't need to remind people of them and uh you know i'll tell you this if kamala was

running ads on fox news in georgia talking about how trump is bad trying to reach evangelical voters maybe talking about how trump's on his third wife how trump sexually assaulted people if they had b-roll of men kissing in that ad i'd say that's probably a mistake don't do that i like to kiss men i wish everyone liked to watch men kissing men they don't you know so sometimes you just got to make strategic choices in advertising for the best of the campaign that's what we're here to talk about i love and appreciate everybody no matter what your masking policy is well i guess i don't love and appreciate everybody i don't love and appreciate

donald trump and the donald trump family but uh you know i appreciate you if you're listening thank you for your feedback continue to send it i'm going you know, I appreciate you if you're listening. Thank you for your feedback. Continue to send it. I'm going to do my best to make sure you're just getting the straight facts here. We'll see you back here tomorrow with another edition of the Bulldog Podcast. Look forward to it. Peace. So if you would, would you walk us through a typical day for you?

Well, I generally come in at least 15 minutes late I use the side door that way lumber can't see me and after that I just sort of space out for about an hour time space out yeah I just stare at my desk but it looks like I'm working I just stare at my desk, but it looks like I'm working. Damn, it feels good to be a gangster. Getting voted into the White House. Everything looking good to the people of the world, but the Murphy family is my boss.

So every night, being a whole of favor here and there, like letting a big drug shipment through, and send them to the poor community So we can bust you know who The voters of the world keep supporting me And I promise to take you very far Others leave that'll not upset me Or I'll send a million troops to die at war To all you Republicans that helped me to win, I sincerely like to thank you because now I got the world swinging from my knees to the ground, and damn, it feels

good to be a gangster. The Bullard Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.