The Bulwark Podcast - Bob Woodward: The Threat Is High

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

Since the release of Woodward's "War," Gen. James Mattis has reached out to the journalist to endorse the book's warnings about Trump, and to urge that they not be downplayed. Plus, Kamala's counseling of Zelensky before the invasion of Ukraine, and how Russia really was on the nuclear brink and the Biden team pulled out all the stops to get them to step back. Bob Woodward joins Tim Miller. show notes Bob Woodward's book, "War" 

This is an ad by BetterHelp Online Therapy. October is the season for wearing masks and costumes, but some of us feel like we wear a mask and hide more often than we want to, at work, in social settings, around our family. Therapy can help you learn to accept all parts of yourself so you can stop hiding and take off the mask, because masks should be for Halloween fun, not for

your emotions. Therapy is a great tool for facing your fears and finding ways to overcome them. If you're thinking of starting therapy but you're afraid of what you might uncover, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month.

That's BetterHelp.com. This message comes from BetterHelp. Can you think of a time when you didn't feel like you could be yourself? Like you were hiding behind a mask. 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. Take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your

first month. That's betterhelp.com. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. I'm just honored to be here today with investigative journalist and author of the latest book, War, which was released this week. He shared in two Pulitzer prizes for his work at the Washington Post, one for coverage of the Watergate scandal, of course, and the other for the 9-11 attacks, it's Bob Woodward. Bob, welcome to the Bullwork Podcast. Thank you. I want to spend most of this discussion talking about your reporting about Donald Trump. We are the Never Trumper podcast, of course, but first I want to get into a couple of the items of the Ukraine because you really have some astonishing new revelations about the

Biden administration's work there. One in particular, there have been critics of the Biden administration from the right, including some on this podcast, who argued that they let the Putin nuclear threat deter them from pushing for more aggressive action from Ukraine. And your reporting shed some light on why that may have been and just how serious the nuclear threat actually was. So I'd love to hear you talk about that. Yes, I think if you look at what is really important that's going on, it is what I call the silent shadow of nuclear weapons.

And it gets to the point where there are threats, ah, we're going to use tactical nuclear weapons. And so that's something that the Biden administration needs to deal with a way of deterring it and stopping it. Big deal. If in the White House, they very much know that if any kind of tactical or any nuclear weapon is used while Biden's president, that not only stains the presidency, but it will define it. So they do everything they can to stop it. You know, the book shows on multiple parts just how good the intelligence actually was

about the coming Putin invasion. And I think that also weighs on their judgment, right? On the nuclear weapon question, because they consider it to be about a 50-50 proposition you report at one point that Putin's thinking about using it. Yes, at one point, it went through kind of a five, these are intelligence assessments, which are the best they have, it started with a 5% likelihood and finally became a 50%. And in the White House, in the National Security Council, they realized that 50% reduces it to a coin flip. The idea that tactical nuclear weapons could be used in this war was quite frankly frightening.

And the Deputy National Security Advisor, John Finer, in kind of assessing the emotional level of what they were dealing with and the strategic level realized that this is what it must have been like in 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis. Yeah. I mean, there was discussion and scuttlebutt about this, obviously, in the news and in the daily kind of coverage of events. How close they felt like it was, I think, was not really appreciated broadly. You tell one story in particular about Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's conversation with his

counterpart on this question. Why don't you talk about that a little bit? Yes. I mean, what Lloyd Austin does is calls. I think this is in 2022 when the worries were greatest and calls his counterpart, the defense minister in Russia, Shogun, and says, we know you are contemplating the use of a tactical nuclear weapon, don't do it. And in the book I have the verbatim and you see the intensity and actually the sophistication of the argument of why not to do this. And that it will change the world and the risk is much greater than was publicly known. Yeah. People should go check it out.

The transcript you have of the Austin exchanges really could have been out of the movie Air Force One or something. It was a very theatrical. I think I have it here because what's important about this, it was confrontational. So Austin, Secretary of Defense, who kind of in the book, we learn much more about him. And Austin says to Shogu, we know you're contemplating the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, and goes through the information and consequences. Shogu says, because he looks at this as it is a threat, I don't take kindly to being threatened. Austin says, Mr. Minister, I am the leader of the most powerful military in the history of the world. I don't make threats. That's about as steamy as it can get in terms of these high level communications and the stakes and risks.

No doubt. There's one other critique of the Biden administration that you get from the hawkish part of the right, not the Trumpish part of the right, that may have seemed to have a little bit more salience, I think, than the nuclear critique. And that was that the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal did impact Putin's thinking about invading Ukraine. And it seems like your reporting indicates that that was probably true. Yes. And it's very obvious because it shows a weakness, a lack coordination and just a national embarrassment for the country and for the Biden administration.

Yeah. One other issue from this Ukraine period I wanted to talk to you about a little bit before we get to Donald was the vice president's role in warning Zelensky before the invasion. And again, this has been reported on and you know, always in these situations, it's kind of hard to tell is the PR team puffing up the principal, how much really happened, how intimately was she involved. And the color that you provide, I think shows, it's quite striking, frankly, about how, about the vice president's role in warning Zelensky about the coming invasion.

I'd like to hear you talk a little bit about that. role in warning Zelensky about the coming invasion. I'd like to hear you talk a little bit about that. Yeah. What I get have first-hand witnesses or notes or documents, because you're right, things can be puffed up. I think this was a case where it was not puffed up. Do I have the transcript of that or some of it where she goes and sees Zelensky and tells him, you know, you may not survive, prepare. I mean, this is the leader of Ukraine, Zelensky, a Churchillian figure now and the vice president says you know it is really pushing it and you can see this is not just a pro forma paint-by-numbers exchange because

Zelinsky finally looked at Harris directly and said what do you want me to do he's acknowledging maybe I'm going to have to act. Right. We have it. We have it. I just wanted to acknowledge the Harris exchange. Um, I want to move on. Obviously we've gotten the most attention on the Trump section of the book.

And I want to start with the Trump Putin relationship, which you write about a lot. And the thing that's gotten the most attention, I think is the potential that they have still been talking in the post presidency. You report that there's a staffer who says that they've talked up to seven times, that staffer was outside the room at one point or shooshed out of the room, shooed out of the room rather. I guess I wonder, you've dealt with these guys so much.

What is your sense of that? Like is your sense of that, that it's really happening or could they be lying about it? What do you think? Well, of course they could be lying. Uh, they are willing to lie all the time. So we have that problem. Uh, but Trump asked about it and said, oh, I don't comment on things like that, which is kind of strange.

He comments on anything he wants to comment on, and then goes further and says, if I did it, that would be a good thing, which is a kind of acknowledgement. I feel and conclude from my reporting that there obviously is some sort of relationship between Trump and Putin. It's easy to lose sight of this. What Putin's done in his invasion of Ukraine. This is what Hitler did in the thirties with Poland. I mean, it really is raw effort at territorial conquest of taking over this country.

And it's done in a very savage way. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed. And if you dig into this, what's the rationale as far as Putin's concern, Ukraine does not exist. It belongs to him and belongs to Russia. And there is no ambiguity about that. I think one of the important points, and I'm sorry to keep going to the documentation, but the documentation is what this is about.

And for Trump to say, as he did yesterday, if I did it, it's a smart thing. Now, I have in the book a direct quote from CIA Director Bill Burns telling what the CIA assessment is of what Putin does. Quote, Putin manipulates, he's professionally trained to do that. Putin's got a plan as he did when Trump was in office at playing Trump. This is all orchestrated by Putin in Putin and Russian interests. What is really important to understand, Trump's willingness to be manipulated and controlled by Putin is staggering. Again, Putin is the Hitler of our century. He is the one who has invaded another country, tried to take it over. Currently is not going as well as it should because it turns out that Ukraine occupies,

I think, latest 93 villages in Russia. So Putin's ambition is overextended here or at great risk. Yeah. The other person you quote on this topic of their relationship, Trump and Putin, in the book is Dan Coats, Trump's own director of national intelligence who called the relationship an enigma and he said, is it blackmail?

He wondered if it was blackmail. I don't understand how his own director of national intelligence would not know what was happening in the relationship. Well, Coates, who for two and a half years was Trump's director of national intelligence, all the intelligence agencies, including the CIA, sees this. They don't have all the information, But it sees it, you know, this is so strange. It is so subservient on Trump's part. He actually asks when I discussed this with Coates several months ago, he said, is this blackmail?

Other words, is Trump being blackmailed? I mean, that is wild. I don't think that has really sunk in for the public yet that his own director of national intelligence suspects he might be getting blackmailed. It's not a Democrat. It's not, this is not some crazy liberal commentator.

It's his own director of national intelligence that suspects that. Yes. And one of the very important elements in all of this is to understand how good our intelligence is. As I report in the book, at one point, the United States has a human source in the Kremlin that the electronic and technical intelligence is never perfect, but it's much greater. So when they get into seeing a war plans, they, it's not something that's just partial.

It's a complete lay down. Yeah. It also sheds into a different light. The question about the classified documents. I know you're not, you're reporting, not speculating, but again, he's maybe having these calls, he has these classified documents and his own director of national intelligence is worried

that there might be a blackmail situation. At minimum, I think it raises additional questions about that. Yes. Everything Trump does, he swims in questions and doubt. So if you pull back and try to think, who is he? He was president. I spent the year 2020, his last year of his presidency,

talking to, I think I interviewed him 19 times for nine hours. This is the year of COVID. And when it's all laid out, it's frightening. Trump was warned when there was one COVID case in the United States by his own national security advisor, Robert O'Brien, coming in saying, this is from our intelligence, this is coming to the United States, and it is going to overwhelm the country and 650,000 people will likely die. And Trump had this kind of extraordinary warning. And this goes to a characteristic of Trump which is really important I think sometimes not fully understood. He does

not even understand his own interests as president carrying out the responsibility. You get this kind of warning and you, it's not hard. Just go to the public and you say, I've got this warning comes from very good sources, we're going to take it seriously. We're going to plan. I once asked him, what's the job of the president? He said to protect the public. I'm going to protect the public.

protect the public. I'm going to protect the public." Instead, that whole year, he waffled and dodged. One of the most remarkable interviews I had with him that year was July 20th, 2020. Turned out to be the last interview. And all year I'm learning from the doctors how bad the coronavirus is. The numbers in the country are piling up and on July 20th I said, Mr. President, 140,000 people have died from this virus already. All he had to do was warn the public and he keeps saying, no, no, it's going to go away. It's going to be fine. As I had asked before, but I ask again, what's the plan? What are you going to do? And this is one of those interviews with a sitting president where you, your head kind of spins and he said, Oh, don't worry. I'll have a plan in 106 days.

What 106 days? I realized election that's election day. Yeah. He's worried about the election in 106 days. And psychiatrists will be able to have a field day with this. Why would somebody with his extraordinary authority as president not act, not plan, somehow got this idea that this is going to go away and that he can have a plan in 106 days. This is like somebody sitting in their house and there's a fire and somebody suggests,

well, we better call 911, but let's wait 106 days. That's right. That's wild. Inconceivable, irresponsible. Yeah. Have you thought about a gift for yourself this year? One that has the power to help you grow, learn, and become a better version of you?

Give yourself the gift of language by getting Babbel. Speak like a whole new you with Babbel, the language learning app that gets you talking. With quick 10-minute lessons handcrafted by over 200 language experts, Babbel gets you talking a new language in just three weeks. And because talking is the key to really knowing a language, Babbel is designed for real conversation. Wasting hundreds on private tutors is the old way of learning languages. Babbel's tips and tools are inspired by the real life stuff you'll actually need when talking. With a focus on conversation, you'll be ready to talk wherever you go. I just got to be honest with you. Things pretty busy around here. You can learn a language

in three weeks, but we're three weeks from the election. And so learning a language isn't at the top of my priority list, but I'm looking ahead to 2025. I'm looking ahead to it. And I already did some test drives with Babel. And I think that it is going to be the year for me because either I'll be fleeing the country. Not really. That's a joke. Or Kamala Harris will win. And you know, the podcast will be able to actually go on a vacation. We might go to a foreign country. I don't want to feel good and confident when I'm ordering at the restaurant. Or maybe we go to France and I can try to keep up the speed with my six-year-old daughter on her learning French. In order to do that, I am going to be turning to Babbel.

Want more proof that Babbel gets you talking? Studies from Yale, Michigan State University and other leading universities continue to prove Babbel works. One study found that using Babbel for 15 hours is equivalent to a full semester at college. So here's a special holiday deal for our listeners. Right now, get up to 60% off your Babbel subscription, but only for our listeners at Babbel.com slash Bulwark. Get up to 60% off at Babbel.com slash Bulwark spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash bulwark.

Rules and restrictions may apply. And he has this combination of just recklessness, irresponsibility, and malice, you know, and then takes us to the other kind of reveal from the book about Millie. You paint this picture of being at a reception at the Willard, been to many of those informal receptions, and he comes up to you and talks about how Trump is fascist. General Milley, who's the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, number one military man. So this is in 2023. That has to be jarring for you. On the one hand, it is clearly a very dramatic scene in the book. On the other hand, I guess my question is, if he believes what he's saying to you about the

danger and how big of a fascity is to the core, why is he saying this at the Willard at a reception? Doesn't it require more from people like that? Mattis was also at this reception, apparently. Yes, but obviously there are levels of alarm and this was a much higher and it literally said, we got to talk. He says, I had talked, reminded me, didn't need to, that we had talked about Trump's mental decline. But here General Milley says, no, Trump is the most dangerous person in the world. He is an absolute fascist for a military general to make this assessment of the

commander in chief is all the alarm bells going off. Yeah. And you say that Mattis is also at this same reception. Mattis and a separate part in the book talks about his fear of Trump's recklessness. Again, we're back to the nuclear question with nuclear issues with North Korea and kind of his brinksmanship before the love letters started with him and Kim Jong-un. So I just wonder, have you had additional conversations with Mattis about it beyond what is in the book

or do you have anything to share about your conversations that are in the book with the former defense secretary? Well, I, a couple of days ago got an email from General Mattis saying he thinks the book is important. He believes it's true. It was the strongest endorsement. Maybe I'll put it on the back of the paperback because general Mattis is somebody, a general became

defense secretary, somebody as respected in the military national security world as anyone. Yeah. Did you take that as endorsement of kind of the warnings about Trump in the book? Yes. Oh, certainly. And an endorsement of this process of trying to explicitly say, let's make sure we don't try to downplay the threat because the threat is high.

And of course now Trump has the Republican nomination. Yeah, more than that. We were talking about the nuclear coin flip earlier. We have an electoral coin flip here. Before I let you go, we have to put this in the context of Nixon, of course, given your background. So I just had two questions for you about that. One about the Trump and Nixon comparison.

You write that Trump is far worse than Nixon. He's the most reckless and impulsive president of American history. I just would be interested in your sense about the similarities or differences between the two men. Nixon, of course, got caught and eventually resigned when all of his crimes were exposed. And Nixon has disappeared into history by history and by the public that he disgraced the presidency, he disgraced himself, he broke the law. The reason Trump is worse, Nixon resigned, didn't run again,

went around the country and the world giving speeches, but was never a political possibility. Now Trump is more than a political possibility. He is running again, He is seeking the same office and trying to summarize what's the problem with Trump. Other than these details, he lacks two things, which we see time and time again. He doesn't have a plan. It is very, well, I think I'll say this today. I'll say that tomorrow. There's no kind of, I'm trying to talk about what I would do, what the plan would be. You just not have a team.

I know from having editors and people I work with, you do all of these things as a team. Trump has no team. You certainly can't do national security alone. And that's what he does. He just looks at the things he says each day. There's no real kind of goal. It's just this came into my mind and you cannot run. I've written about 10 presidents over the last 52 years. The presidency is an office with extraordinary power, but you can't do it alone. Look at Joe Biden's, you know, who's done some,

I think important things, made some mistakes and indeed, but Biden has a national security team. See this in the book operating. Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor, Bill Burns, the CIA director, Tony Blinken, the secretary of state, the top cabinet officer, Lloyd Austin, the defense secretary. You see these people working together as a team with a common purpose. And tell me who's in Trump's team. He does not have one.

People might appear, but then disappear. Yeah, that's a good insight. All right, my final question, since this is, you know, we're the home of the never Trumpers, the few who resisted and left the party over him. The parallels, it's just so astonishing. And it was before my time, but like, if you look back at the number of Republicans that spoke out against Nixon, I just would like to hear you kind of reflect on that and how different it was kind of following your revelations. There was maybe a little bit of a lag, but eventually many Republicans did the right thing, really, following the Nixon revelations. We didn't see that this time. So I'd just love to hear you.

It's amplified in the case of Nixon by Barry Goldwater. Nixon met with the Republican leaders and Barry Goldwater, the conscience of the conservatives, the Republican senator. His colleagues in the meeting with Nixon said, we asked Barry to speak for us and Barry in the Oval Office with Nixon said, because Nixon asked what support do I have? And Goldwater says, Mr. President, I've counted you have five votes if there is an impeachment trial. And that's not enough. And, uh, that means, uh, you're going and Nixon did resign.

Now we see in the Republican party, this avalanche of support and backing for Trump. If only we'd had Barry Goldwater instead of Mitch McConnell, we might not be in a coin flip situation. Um. Thank you so much to Bob Woodward. Everybody go buy the book. It is war. It was a real honor to have you on the Bulwark podcast. For everybody else, stick around.

I'm going to give a little analysis of Kamala's interview on Fox last night. Thanks so much, Bob. Thank you. This is an ad by BetterHelp Online Therapy. October is the season for wearing masks and costumes, but some of us feel like we wear a mask and hide more often than we want to. At work, in social settings, around our family. Therapy can help you learn to accept all parts of yourself, so you can stop hiding and take

off the mask. Because masks should be for Halloween fun, not for your emotions. Whether you're navigating workplace stresses, complex relationships, or family dynamics, therapy is a great tool for facing your fears and finding a way to overcome them. If you're thinking of starting therapy but you're afraid of what you might uncover, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get

matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com. All right. What a great conversation with Bob Woodward. Uh, was a real honor and treat for me, uh, to be able to have that exchange with him.

But also wanted to talk to you guys about a couple of high profile interviews. Last night, Kamala Harris talking to Brett Baer on Fox and, uh, Donald Trump's town hall on Univision. And a few things that really jumped out at me that I felt like we needed to go over. Starting with Fox, what was so strong about this interview for Kamala Harris was her ability to parry back at Bret Baer. I felt like when she was in a fighting stance during this interview, it led to her best

moments and I wanted to pull out one in particular. It's going to be a long clip, but it's worth watching this whole exchange in the way that Brett tries this gross gotcha on Kamala Harris about how, what, that she's down talking Trump voters or something, but based on no evidence. He tries to bait her into a deplorables moment. Rather than getting baited into the deplorables moment, Kamala Harris just totally turns the tables on him and finishes with a righteous, righteous screed about how Fox has treated Donald Trump and how the American people should really be looking at this campaign. So I want to play the full clip of a multi-part back and forth between Brett Baer and Kamala Harris. If he's as bad as you say that half of this country

is now supporting this person who could be the 47th president of the United States, why is that happening? This is an election for president of the United States. It's not supposed to be easy. I know but it's not supposed to be it is not supposed to be a cakewalk for anyone. So are they misguided, the 50%? Are they stupid? Oh God, I would never say that about the American people and in fact if you listen to Donald Trump, if you watch any of his rallies, he's the one who tends to demean and belittle and diminish the American people, he's the one who tends to demean and belittle and diminish the American people.

He's the one who talks about an enemy within, an enemy within, talking about the American people, suggesting he would turn the American military on the American people. We asked that question to the former president today. Harris Faulkner had a town hall hall and this is how he responded. I heard about that. They were saying I was like threatening. I'm not threatening anybody. They're the ones doing the threatening. They do phony investigations. I've been investigated more than Alphonse Capone. He was the greatest... Oh my goodness. No, it's true.

We've got a question. No, but think of it. It's called weaponization of government. It's a terrible thing. So... No, it's true. We've been thinking it's called weaponization of government. It's a terrible thing. So right I'm sorry and with all due respect that clip was not What he has been saying about the enemy within that he has repeated When he's speaking about the American people that's not what you just showed. He was asked That's not what you just showed in all fairness and respect to you. No, no, no, I'm telling you that was the question that we asked him. He didn't show that and here's the bottom line. He has repeated it many times and you and I both know that.

And you and I both know that he has talked about turning the American military on the American people. He has talked about going after people who are engaged in peaceful protest. He has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him. This is a democracy. And in a democracy, the President of the United States in the United States of America should be willing to be able to handle criticism without saying he'd lock people up for doing it. And this is what is at stake, which is why you have someone like the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff saying what Mark Milley has said about Donald Trump being a

threat to the United States of America. He's quoted in the Bob Woodward book that way, yes. This is really where she shines because what you had there was Brett trying to make this about one thing. This is classic media training Kamala is saying no. Mm-hmm. We're gonna make this about the real thing not what you want to talk about We are gonna talk about how Donald Trump wants to turn the military against the American people We're gonna talk about how you you're saying that I'm down talking, the Trump voters? No. It's my opponent that is talking about the enemy within using despicable language about our fellow Americans that would have been unimaginable from any major party nominee

during my lifetime or my parents' lifetime. I guess maybe not going back to Nixon at least, having just talked to Woodward, but in the post-Nixon era, unimaginable. and even Nixon wouldn't have done this in public, right? Nixon, this was more of his private behavior. To publicly talk about the enemy within and say that the American people are worse than Putin who's kidnapping children in Ukraine, worse than she who's running a Uyghur genocide, I mean, it is just appalling language by Donald Trump. And Kamala Harris gets right into that.

So then she expands on the point. The attack is not just about language, right? The attack is about what he plans to do and what Mark Milley, as we just talked about with Woodward, has said he's worried about. Trump's own chairman of the Joint Chiefs is worried about his fascistic tendencies, his willingness to target the American people using the military. So she gets

into the substance of the threat as well and then most deliciously just totally exposes Fox. You know, while Brett like has this clip ready of Donald Trump doing this typical toss salad nonsense talk, trying to wiggle out of his own rhetoric. Even Brett has to smirk. If you're watching this on YouTube, you can see even Brett has to smirk when she calls him on this because he knows he got got. Because it's like, you can't do this and say, oh, Kamala Harris, you're saying he uses the

enemy within, but here's what he said on this softball interview we gave him six hours ago that was much less salacious. It's like, no, no, he said it over and over again. Several times he's made explicitly clear he's talking about the American people, not about migrants, not about foreign threats. He's talking about American citizens that he disagrees with politically. His rhetoric and his plans on that are unacceptable. So that was the highlight for me of the Fox interview. On balance, on net, some of the K-Hive people got a little mad at me

on Twitter for saying this. I thought it was like net-net neutral. I don't, you know, hopefully there were some Brett Baer viewing Nikki Haley voters that she reassured and there are other parts of that interview. I think particularly, obviously, we knew this was going to happen. Fox spends like the first almost half of the interview about immigration. Her answers to immigration are fine.

They're totally acceptable. She had no gaffes, no like, oh my gosh, this is terrible moments. But you know, if you're sitting there watching it and immigration is your top issue, you know, I mean, she's not telling you what you want to hear. And there are times, you know, her, you know There are times, she gets into talking point mode. You're in Fox, you got to get into talking point mode. But again, if you're looking for some kind of reassurance for your Nikki Haley voter, there are a few topics where maybe she didn't give you what you were looking for.

She's got a big coalition she's trying to hold together, so that's understandable. On balance, hopefully there was some reassurance of some Nikki Haley voters, maybe I think a slight positive, maybe it was a little unfair to say on net net it was neutral, but you know, this was not a game changer. You know, like Mark Caputo tweeted earlier, do you remember that big story from politics last week? And even I was like, what's he talking about? And he was like making a point about how a lot of this stuff just kind of washes away.

You know, if you look at the polls, things have been very static in this race for six weeks now. And so I don't expect that this Fox interview is going to change the static nature of this race. So that's kind of what I meant about it being that net neutral. But that said, Unbound is good for her to go in there. I think it puts more pressure on Trump also, which is useful in the last three weeks, Trump's been staying cocooned in his safe spaces, canceling all challenging interviews.

I think if you're making this case that he's too risky, that he's sundowning, that he's losing his marbles, that he wants to turn the military on people, do you really want a dementia-riddled old man with an itchy trigger finger in this job for four years? It helps to, I think, make the contrast that she's capable of doing this, he's not. So I was happy that she did it. And I guess my only other comment is, I do wish they'd be a little bit more aggressive about calling Trump's bluff about a Fox debate.

I know there are competing views on this, but my view is kinda like, I'd rather debate Trump than Brett Baer. I think Trump's an easier opponent than Brett Baer. So I think that's at least worth considering here for the final stretch. Lastly, I did a short on this over on YouTube and I'll be talking about today, I think later with Nicole Wallace as well. But Trump once did something he did at the debate that I feel like I have an ear for and I want to keep pointing out, which is he

was talking in this Univision town hall about, he gets questioned by a former Republican, great question by the way, about January 6th and Mike Pence and his lack of support for Trump and how that makes this former Republican uneasy. And so he asked Trump that about January 6th and Trump then gets into his shtick about January 6th and starts talking about Ashley Babbitt. and then he says, they say all these things about the people that were there peacefully and patriotic that day, but like, we didn't have any guns, they had guns.

And then he says, we again. Actually, I'll just play a little clip from it. Nothing done wrong, at all nothing done wrong. And action was taken, strong action. Ashley Babbitt was killed. Nobody was killed. Uh, there were no guns down there. We didn't have guns.

The others had guns, but we didn't have guns. And when I say we, these are people that walk down. All right. So there it is. We, we, he did the scissor bait. He did it again in this Univision town hall. And I think it's important to just drill down on this. This is how Trump thinks about January 6th.

The we is the people attacking the cops. The they that had the guns are the Capitol police defending the Capitol. And I just think that should be very chilling for anybody that knows Trump is bad, but is on the fence about voting for him because of their vestigial status as a Republican or policies or whatever. It's like, do you really want to put a man in the White House who considers the we, the people charging the Capitol and the they, the people defending the Capitol? It's something to really sit with.

Anyway, thank you to Bob Woodward. Tomorrow's pod, we are live in Philly tonight. I've got George Conway. I've got Sarah Matthews. We've got the Bulwark team. We'll have the best of it for you tomorrow. And come on out and see us if you're near Philly on Thursday night, Pittsburgh, Friday night, Detroit on Saturday night. We'll be live streaming Philly on YouTube this evening, Thursday night, so make sure to check that out as well. We'll see you all back here soon. Peace. I hardly slept the night you welled

Our secret safe and still well kept Where even Richard Nixon has got soul Even Richard Nixon has got his soul. Hospitals have made him cry, but there's always a freeway in his eye. This beach just got too crowded for a stroll Roads stretch out like healthy veins And wild gift horses strain the reins Where even Richard Nixon has got soul