The Bulwark Podcast - Bonus Episode: South Carolina Circus Special

Episode Date: February 24, 2024

Tim is joined by John Heilemann, Jennifer Palmieri, and Mark McKinnon, his former colleagues from "The Circus," for a South Carolina primary preview. Plus, the prospects for a post-Trump GOP, and some advice for the Biden campaign: Normalize his gaffes.

Welcome to a bonus weekend. It's South Carolina Primary Edition of the Bulldog Podcast. I'm Tim Miller. I gathered the whole circus crew for the occasion. mcat mckinnon was media advisor to w and mccain john heilman national affairs analyst for nbc news author of game change and double down some other mysterious pursuits y'all bring on the clown so good to see you bring on the clowns most of them within the bounds of the law most we are taping this on friday afternoon so there's one one potential problem with that is that the south carolina primary hasn't happened yet and And some of our good listeners might listen on Sunday or Monday. But the good news is, I think we all know what's going to happen. Haley's going to get schlonged by about somewhere between 20 and 45 points. So before... Can we not say schlonged in this context when it's Donald Trump and Nikki Haley? I think Barack Obama got in trouble for that once. Okay. Right? I apologize.

Well, Nikki Haley is going to get beaten decisively between 20 and 45 points, I think. We can all stipulate that before the convo, right? Memcat, do you want to offer a? Yeah. Listen, I always thought that there should be something called the Al Gore rule, which is if you run for president, you should have to win your home state, although Donald Trump changed that equation. But yeah, and this is just a testament to just how much the Republican primary

has changed that she can't win in her home state. Can I just say one thing, though, about this? There's a data point that I just want to inject in this, which is I looked at this today. Please. Donald Trump has not had lower than a 20-point lead in South Carolina in the past year. There's literally not a poll in one year in which he hasn't been.

At least he's been between a 20 to 40-point lead for a whole year. There was one poll back in January of 2023 where he only had a 17-point lead. Every other poll, he's been between 20 and 40. He's got plenty of time. No better time than now. No better time than present. Okay. Given that, I thought it would be fun to – I gave you homework.

I assume Heilman didn't do it, but we're going to start with him first. I did it. You did? You did great. And the homework was if we had a circus this week, what would the show be called? And do you have a theme song for it? You get bonus grade points if you had a theme song. I have a theme and a song, and they're the same.

What is it? Caroline In My Mind, James Taylor. Okay. It's a different Carolina. Is that right? Where was James Taylor singing about? North Carolina. North Carolina.

Anyway, I didn't know about the song. I got to do some thinking about that. Okay, you can go last. You have time to think about it. Heilman? Thank you. I think that Jen Palmieri will definitely remember this. Mark McKinnon will definitely remember this. You, Tim, as a student of history may remember this, although you're too young to have experienced it. But at the end of the 1996 presidential campaign, when Bill Clinton, with all of his problems, was spanking

Bob Dole, there got to be a period in the last week or so when Dole was just so... There were two things about the end of that campaign that were great. One was at the end of the day at five o'clock, whenever you were out of the road, Dole would cut his speech off at a certain moment. And because of the time that they had for the curfew at National Airport, he would go, I'm sorry, this speech is now over. National, here we come. And he'd run to the bus because he was just like, I'm done with that. Done with this shit. I'm not going to have to stay in this, in this place. I am. The other thing was he would, he would just burst out. He had these outbursts, uh, all the time. He would say, where is the

outrage? Where is the outrage? Where is the outrage would be my episode title. Because if you, if you think about what's the things that Trump has done and said in any other era in the south carolina primary you know south carolina that is dominated by veterans and and you know has been the idea that you know but donald trump's sucking up to vladimir putin not saying boo about about navalny's uh assassination trashing nicki hilly's husband who's an actively deployed military person there'll be out i mean you know he he has just been getting helped by a spy apparently a russian spy has been a non-stop uh uh flood of of of self aggrandizing putin stroking gibberish uh and and and perfidy and yet no one gives a fuck in south carolina it doesn't give a fuck nothing's changing in that race. She's hitting him harder and trying to gin up the outrage and is getting nowhere.

There's no traction for it whatsoever. And so that's Where's the Outrage would be my episode title. And my theme song for it would be, Tim, this is right for you, for reasons you'll understand in a moment, would be a classic song about the Pet Shop Boys called Being Boring, which pretty much describes the entire Republican primary. I could give that half season, our overarching theme song. So boring. Could you imagine doing this show every week?

What are you going to talk about? It's the most flaccid, lifeless, sad, deflated presidential campaign I've ever seen, covered, or hoped to ever witness again in my life. It is fair, though. Just before I get to you, Jen, it is like the, where's the outrage is fair. And this is a very bulwarky pick.

So it also fits for this podcast. Where's the outrage? Because, because it's, it is hard to really kind of imagine that everyone has just gotten in line. And when I think about that episode title, I would point it more towards, you know, the kind of Republican establishment figures that just gave in right this time,

you know, you have that you're Tim Scott, and you can remember the South Carolina primary of 16. We have Marco and Haley and Scott all campaigning together. I mean, they could have at least tried to try, you know, in the last week, Mike Gallagher just quit Congress. I mean, like the times of people that should be outraged, or just either giving in or giving up. It's pretty, it's pretty remarkable. By the way, I have a real, I have a real vision of that primary and the spectacularly visual evening when Haley endorsed Rubio there. And it was so cinematic and they both look so young and energetic. And I just thought, man, if this is the face of the Republican Party. Before his ears got so big.

Every single major Republican elected official in South Carolina, except I think one congressman, right, is backing Trump. Yeah, Ralph Norman, who's an insurrectionist. Who's an insurrectionist, yeah, who somehow is still with Haley. I don't really understand that. That's one of the great mysteries of our time. But it's amazing that the whole South Carolina political establishment is just behind Trump. And it does. And they don't. I mean, I'm standing out there by the USS Yorktown looking at, I'm thinking about all

the events I've been to with Republican candidates on that. And all of them, because it's all about the military there. It's all veterans, active duty military. And John Kerry. That's where John Kerry announced his presence. He did. That's exactly right. But Republicans just always go there.

Like every Republican, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul announced his campaign there. Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, they all do events go there. Like every Republican, Ted Cruz, uh, uh, Rand Paul announced this campaign. They're a new Gingrich, Rick Santorum. They all do events out there. It's like the most trafficked venue in the state for this good reason. It's the, one of the most great, one of the most military states in the, in the country. And, and Trump has just been like, just shitting on the military in every way imaginable. And no one cares. No, I mean, except for the people who already cared, the

people who were already against Trump, they're, they're all outraged, but you know, it's not, yeah, but I mean, 30% of the elected cares. It's not nothing. 30% of them are probably going to like, I mean, those people that had already decided that those are the people who are going to be, who are going to be against Trump. The anti-Trump part of the party is, is outraged, but no one else is no one, no persuadable, but it's not moving any votes around. Right. Again, to the point of his giant lead in that state. He's done the things that would normally be catastrophic in South Carolina. And there's no, even a flutter in the numbers, you know?

All right, Jen. I saw you scroll on your Spotify. Did you come up with something? Yeah. So my title, so I think what's important this week is that it did, it felt like this is the week that Russia really broke through, right? It came full circle from 2016 where the House leadership, the big four, right? The Senate Majority Leader, Senate Minority Leader, House Speaker, and House Minority Leader were all briefed on Russia interfering in the election prior to Labor Day.

The administration wanted to make it public. Mitch McConnell said no. To this week, where you have Navalny killed, you have the Smirnoff. House Republicans have now gone from being skeptical about intelligence from eight years ago to now passing on Russian intelligence to try to impeach the sitting president of the United States. So my title is going to be Smirnoff Smash, which is their new vodka seltzer. passing on Russian intelligence to try to impeach the sitting president of the United States. So my title is going to be Shmirnoff Smash, which is their new vodka seltzer. And my song, which, as you know, I just came up with because I just, you know, scrolled now,

is Sweet Tea, keeping with the beverage theme, which is a Craven Mellon song. And they, unlike James Taylor, are from South Carolina. Ooh. It's pretty good. That was pretty for like that is pretty good yeah um great that's a great that's a great on the fly poll wow nick finch jen's impressed that is good the russian thing is i m can't where have you lost the ability to be outraged i'm tying their last two questions together like it is the smirnoff thing has had me in a state

all week. I mean, it's pretty insane that the House Republicans are literally passing along fake Russian disinfo. Where are you at on that? Well, I'm in full Bob Dole mode. He's bloody outraged. I am outraged. It's incredible. But on the topic of South Carolina, man, I just talk about a river of memories, you know, for all of us. I know. Yeah. Just epic campaigns that were so significant and determinative and, you know, comebacks, you know, rallies. And this thing is just kind of petering out in a way that kind of,

you know, flushes all those memories. It goes to the being boring that, that Howman said. So which side were you at on, on O.O. McCain and Bush? I mean, this, that is the prime. He was involved in the, in the destruction of John McCain's political career. Do you remember the drunk debates? The debates where people were drinking? Yeah, because South Carolina used to be

used to be able to get used to a drink when they had those debates at Myrtle Beach the Republican crowds would always be drunk as fuck and they'd be like screaming there was no

restraint on the audience there was a the one in in 2012 the Gingrich one where CNN asked about his extramarital affairs in 2012

that was like everyone was drunk there in Charleston and the Myrtle Beach debates were always like everyone was drunk there in Charleston. And the Myrtle Beach debates were always like everyone was rowdy and shit-faced at those debates. Those were really fun. I was screaming. Both of my two presidential campaigns

ended in South Carolina, Palmetto State, which would have been your good Jason Isbell alternative pick for you, Jen. But yeah, I got to have it. Oh, how did I not think of that? I know. I assumed it was going to be. Palmetto Rose.

I assumed we were going to have Palmetto Rose. I'm going to see him tomorrow night at Radio City Music Hall. Here's the thing, though, that I just had to spend a week there. This goes to MCAT's point, which is, and it's true, obviously, on the Democratic side, too. You go through Iowa nice, and then you have this New Hampshire. They're basically kind of like gloves off states. They don't really get, they're not down're they're basically kind of like gloves off states they don't really get you know they're not down and dirty right and the thing about south carolina in both the democrat and republican side is you would get down there and it was always a brawl they let

the dogs off the chains yeah yeah right like the big red dogs off the leash right and it was like you know dirty politics and democrats and republicans alike a lot of like nastiness and the mailing the mailers on the car windows yeah the radio the radio ads and uh and it was like it was it was appalling sometimes but always like electric and fun you know like there was just a lot of energy there you know and and they were also often in the republican side decisive but you know somebody pointed out south carolina primary invented in 1980 everybody who has everybody but newtrich, who's won the primary, has gone on to win the nomination.

So it's like, in some ways, the decisive primary for Republican side. And being there for five days this week, I couldn't believe that anything could be more desultory than Iowa and New Hampshire this year. But it was like low-energy Jeb had taken over the state. There's no Trump lawn signs like even the trump fans like he does one event a week so yeah they all show up they'll do a giant rally tonight and a bunch of people show up it looked like energy but he's not been in the state all week

i mean he's about he flew in for the laura thing it's the only other event he's done all week so it's like even the energy of the trump people in 16 and in 20 it's just not there it's like there's this this kind of acquiescent quality to the whole thing where there's just no energy anywhere. It's like, you know, yeah, there's a bunch of Nikki Haley ads on the air, but no one gives a shit. Everyone is just basically like, we know what's going to happen here, you know? And I think broadly, that's how the country is about the whole race, which is sort of like, yeah, we don't love the idea of Biden and Trump. It's a rerun we don't want to see. Yeah. And it's, and I think it's overstated.

You know, the thing that gets missed, a lot of people say the Democrats aren't super psyched about Biden. And there obviously are a lot of questions about Biden among a lot of voters. But I just, even on the Trump side, you know, he's got his hardcore base. They're really nuts. But there's a big chunk of the Republican Party that's sort of like, yeah, he seems inevitable. I like him better than Biden, but they're not like really, you know, they're not anti,

but they're not really pro. You know, there's at least a third of the parties like that. And man, it just makes for a really dissolute kind of like, you know, everyone's just sort of shrugging their shoulders and walking around, which is not a lot of fun. Did you make it to the Meatball Ron event in South Carolina while you were down there? Wait, did he go? He had one sad event in South Carolina this week. It was kind of like trying to stay in the mix.

Who was he campaigning for? Neither of them. It was like an issue-based, you know, one of those groups, I think, that had invited him to an event. But when he was still in the race, he decided to go anyway. I want you to say this phrase again. Did I go to a meatball wrong issues-based event where he was campaigning for no one? He went there to talk about issues. It seems like you were bored.

It seems like you were bored. Maybe that sounded entertaining. He got caught on a phone call that got leaked out that he, once again, was trashing Trump. Yeah, there was a Zoom call with his delegates where he said he didn't want to be VP. The most heated exchange of the whole week has been like loss of EDA, Trump's campaign manager tweet, yeah. Dunking on Ron DeSantis, who's not

even in the race on Twitter. That shows you how, how weak it's been. What was like the Haley event like though, John? I mean, he says quiet, like what, who are there? Like when you're talking to people, is it Democrats that are there? Like like who's there i'll say something that like not not that many democrats you know what it is is it it reminded me it's like a little bit like john john huntsman grab honest to god honestly god like we're doing your great it's like my people by the way i was with you at that last south carolina wind down i was there you know it's upscale. You know, she's got in that, in the low country and along the coast where she's going to overperform

relative to the rest of the state, you know, and where a lot of her money, there's a bunch of, she got a bunch of wealthy backers down there who are still going to keep funding the campaign going forward. There's a little more enthusiasm for her there, but you know, the events are basically,

you know, a couple hundred people, you know, if she gets 500, it's a big event. And they're, it's, they're not, it's not like couple hundred people, you know, if she gets 500, it's a big event. And they're, it's, they're not, it's not like they're lifeless and dead, but they're, they're very, they're very dockers and polo shirt, kind of like that, that sort of, you know, that, that kind of, of, of the part of South Carolina, South Carolina is a very diverse income wise, culturally and economically very kind of diverse state. You can run all kinds of all kinds of, there's redneck parts of that state

and there's very upscale parts of that state, investment bankers. And she's got the upscale. That's her thing. She's living in the space where like the Bill Bradley voter of the Republican party. That's like, those are the kinds of people who are there and they're perfectly pleasant, but they all know they're kind of there to show her support but they they know as well everybody else that she doesn't have a chance and do you have like a virtue they're like yeah they're like we're here to support nikki because we think it's important she's in this race but they're not like nobody's deluded that they think she's gonna win i didn't get to give you guys my title do you want it oh you can see what you think okay um i i've been thinking

about i came up with a pun i know howman likes puns which was last rights and my last rights of this was i tried to make it about broader and it's about nikki of course but i really think that like the nikki haley bush party has been on in hospice for kind of a while now but like she was the best next representative of it, really, that could potentially be up and coming. And for her to go to her home state and lose by whatever, 25 points,

it's maybe the official end. We can do a time of death for the Bush party at 2024? Jimmy Carter's been in hospice for a year. Give her a little more time. What do we think? McKinnon, Jen, is it a death of that party or could it come back? Can we put the gravestone on it? Well, I'm all for her plugging away.

Just as long as she's got money and putting gas in the tank, just fly the flag. Just say we're still here. I mean, I know we're on an island and there's a few survivors left, but it's important to send the message. And our friend James Carville, as you recall in the last episode of our last show, said the era of strategic certainty is over. And that may be the only true thing about this election. And who knows what the hell is going to happen? I just think being the last person standing and even if you've got 13 delegates, who knows? Jen, is it dead? Is it R-I-G-H-T or R-I-T-E-S?

Because R-I-G-H-T or R-I-T-E-S? Because R-I-G-H-T. Could be either. Yeah, that also with the nearby state of Alabama. That's the whole thing with puns is that you can spell them either way. That's where our editors do the backup and do it over again. Yeah, Divya could decide. Oh, yeah. Divya would, yeah, she would have the cursor back up with that.

I feel like it's been gone for a while. It's just going to morph into something else right it's just like so i don't know that it's the end of anything because it's i feel that that that 30 percent hasn't know where to go i think it is good that she's staying in even if she stays in all the way to the convention just because having a republican make those arguments against trump is like really helpful even with just riling up Democrats or, or, or independence. I just,

yeah, I just not sure what those people are going to become. What are you, Tim? You're one of those people. What are you? It's over. I mean,

it's over for me. Are you, are you a Democrat now? No. I mean, so the only Republican I voted for since 2016 is a guy named Stephen Wagspack who ran in Louisiana in the first in the first round who had no chance to win. Does he have a monocle? Exactly. I voted for one hopeless

man with a monocle in the first round. So you tell me what I am. I mean, am I a Democrat? I don't know. If I lived in Maryland, there are a handful of states left where I might have voted for a Republican. But I think that and I think that a lot of these people are your Brian Kemp, some of them are swing voters or your Kemp Warnock voter, but some of them are practically Democrats now, functionally Democrats. Here's an interesting little data point, which, and you think about, you know, the party and who's part of it and what is it in the future. And I've been looking, thinking about Gen Z voters for a little project I'm thinking about. And, was thinking about, obviously, the Biden Gen Z voters and the split and the Democratic Party and all that. And I thought about Trump's Gen Z voters.

But I was trying to think about anti-Trump Gen Z voters. There's no anti-Trump Gen Z voters. If you're Gen Z, you're either Trump or you're not. Yeah, exactly. If you're a Gen Z Republican, you're Trump. They don't know any other party. They don't know any other party. They don't know any other party. Yeah.

Let me ask you this question, Tim. Here's the counter thing on Haley, which was part of the reason I put this in this piece I did for Morning Joe today because Dick Harpoolian, who's a Democrat, but was smart about race and there is a chunk of the party that's still in either hostile to Trump or kind of indifferent. And people, you know, people's actual political commitments are way overstated by all of us. Like, you know, there's these stories about the anti-Trump college voters who, you know, got upset about the insurrection and now they're back with Trump. It's like people, like most people in America don't give a fuck about politics enough. And they, they, they could change a lot over the course of the next eight years once Trump

is gone. And his kind of thesis was if, if she's right, that he's going to lose when it's over, she's going to have been out there, gone to a lot of States, been out on the stump in a lot of places. She's always been good at raising money.

This gets, this gets to a question, which I'm trying to get to, which is not his thing is like, Trump is gone now. The party's up for grabs. There's going to be a bunch of people contesting for leadership of it and what it actually is. And I think his point was not, well, Nikki Haley is obviously going to be the next standard bearer. Her point was more kind of like, it puts her in the conversation around where does the party go? And she's going to be a familiar face. Who's going to be able to say, I told you so. And like, I was right.

You were wrong. He fucked us again. We lost again. And, and, and I guess my, what that is premised on is this notion that, that after Trump, that there will be a big conversation about the future of what was once you guys were both attached to the Republican party. Do you think that's true? Or do you think after Trump, the Trumpism just marches on? I, I, you know, I'm inviting you to speculate, you know, I don't like speculation, but I'll invite you both to speculate because that's an interesting question to me. Yeah. I think MCAT will maybe be more optimistic than me as is his nature. So we'll see if not, but I'll go first. I just think if you said to me, hi, I'm John Heilman from the future. I've, I've, I've come in a time machine and, and it's 2032 and the Republican nominee in 2032 is one of these three people, Nikki Haley,

Matt Gates, or Tucker Carlson. I'll tell you that Nikki would be by far my third choice in that draft on the most likely person for it to be. Is that just gut or is that based on a, is that just gut or based on a, an assessment of? No, it's based on, no, it's, it's, it's based on assessment of what MCAT was talking about, about Gen Z and younger voters and assessment about who has checked into the party versus who has checked out. I mean, I think Dick Harpoolian is talking to a lot of people who are not really representative of what the real party voter is. Yeah, they're older people who are kind of vestigial Republicans. They're still part of their identity. But if you've in the last 10 years, if you said, oh, I'm a Republican now, you like Trump or something like it, right? Maybe it'll be a softer version.

Maybe it won't be quite as crazy or quite as deranged or orange or whatever. But you want something kind of like it. You don't want Nikki. You were a Democrat when the Nikki type of Republicans were in charge. And then if you're the type of person that likes Nikki, many of them, we, when you talk about how people don't have these political attachments as strong as we think, I think that's true.

And I think there are a lot of people just looking at my friend group from high school who all voted for W and all voted for Biden with one or two exceptions who don't listen to the fucking Bulwark podcast, even though I begged them to none of them, like none of them had big identity crises about this. They just, they were for George W. Bush and they were for Romney. And then one day they're like, guess not. I guess I'm for Joe Biden now. And, and there are a lot of those folks out there too. So the makeup of the party, I think, has just changed too permanently for her. I would love to be wrong.

I've been wrong a lot, but that's just how I would project it. MCAT, do you have any more optimistic outlook? I've got a rosier version. It doesn't surprise you. I think that there is a real chance that Trump loses, and then he will have lost in 20, 22, 24. 18. Don't, 24. 18. Don't forget 18. 18.

And lost the House, the Senate, and the presidency for the first time in 100 years since Grover Cleveland. And that's something they might start to finally get a clue that maybe this formula isn't working. I also don't think that, I mean, I think Bannon is, you know, I think he's right about a lot about just kind of being a movement and it could move on past Trump. But I also think that Trump is such a unique singular figure that I don't think anybody else can be able to carry that standard forward. And I've always thought the party's going to have to be burned down and resurrected from the ashes. And the question is, what comes up from that?

And Nikki Haley at that point will have, you know, some really good notches in her belt. You know, she will have, you know, gone through this process as the second person standing and raised a ton of money, run a pretty good campaign, gained a lot of credibility. And despite what Don Lemon says, she will not be way past her prime. She'll be 53 next. Don catching strays. But the thing is that the person who finishes second always thinks that they can be the next person who finishes first, and they're not. They're just the person who came in second the last time around. It's funny. It used to be in the Republican Party.

It used to be. That used to be true. It's just Trump just blew all that up, right? I mean, Romney and Romney. Was that true for Romney? I guess it was true for Romney. It was true for Romney. That's true.

You're right. You're right. If he loses, and I think, you know, Republicans, among the messages at the beginning is that maybe we should nominate a woman, and Nikki's been through this drill, and she's a proven warrior. Yeah, but it's like if they're going to reject Trump, it's like, I think you're going to have to have somebody who had no connection to him. You know, she was his ambassador to the UN.

She propped him up. She propped him up when he needed it. I think bring on, I don't know, David Holt from Oklahoma City or somebody. All right. That's my boy, David Holt. Is that right? All right. You're really pandering. You're pandering to the Bulwark crowd now. Oh, I did not know that. David Holt's the last remaining Bulwark Republican, the Oklahoma City mayor. He seems good. He's like a problem solver, getting stuff done. By the way, she still says she's going to pardon him. She still says she's going to pardon him if she were president. Yeah.

I need to get Jen's opinion about the Biden discourse, but I have one more thing about Haley first before we lose everybody. You said on Morning Joe that you, I think someone told me this, so I haven't actually seen it. So it could, this is a game of telephone. Something about Nikki, maybe third party, maybe that there could be a no labels-y thing. There's some buzz about that. What's your, what was that? What was the context of that? I said that there was, I think what I said was that there was, that there had been the way that she's handled that there's been speculation about it and that's true. And so like the, there's been a, way that she's handled that, there's been speculation about it, and that's true. And so there's been, I don't believe that that's true, but there has been

speculation about it. And there's speculation because she's been asked about it, and she keeps saying very self-consciously, I'm not thinking about that right now. I've given no thought to that. What I'm pursuing right now is the Republican nomination, which is the kind of thing that people say when they want to leave the door open to it. Right. I would say, you know, that if you believe Nikki Haley is, is, and I say this Jen, not in a loaded gender way, I think,

as you know, I think most politicians are highly ambitious creatures, but she's very ambitious. And a lot of people think she's calculating. And part of the reason she's been ideologically. So all over the place is because she's constantly tacking from one thing to another in terms of what her perceived advantages at that moment, that, is at that moment, that you look at no labels and you say, the no labels candidate is not going to be president in 2024. It's not going to win. And the no labels candidate is not going to

become the Republican candidate if they become first in our labels candidate. And so there's no way if you think you want to be the leader of the Republican party in some reconstituted thing, if that's what you're playing the long game, or if you're playing the short game and you want to be president, being the no labels candidate is not the way to do that. And so it's, it's not, I think where she ends up, there is one alternative view of this,

which is that being the no labels candidate, if you decided that what you want to do is make money and like corporate boards was your play, you're going to leave politics to the end of this, like going to do the no labels thing would be a great credential to go and be, to connect to a lot of rich donors. Again, I'm just saying, I'm saying very people, people look at her financial motivations. That's another prison that you get from the South Carolina people. They're like very financially motivated. If she decided that what she wanted was a pathway to corporate boards, that would open up that.

Basically, I'm giving up politics. I'm just going to do this because that is obviously what a lot of the No Labels support comes from, that kind of crowd, the crowd and the people who have a lot of connections to corporate boards. I don't think that's what she's doing, but I'll give you the whole discussion around Nikki and No Labels. Kat, what do you think? I think it's unlikely that she would go that route. With the exception that if she made a calculation that there really was no

future beyond Trump, but that Trump is the future of the Republican party, whether he wins or loses that, and that she's, that she's, you know, she burned her ship on the shore and she can't go back and that there's no route forward in the Republican Party, I think she'd look at it and it would make sense.

And by the way, I think a Haley-led third-party ticket could be trouble. I mean, I think it would be competitive. I will say that if you listen to the speech she gave when she said she wasn't going to drop out, if you listen to what she actually said, if you were the Martian from the future or whatever, Tim, and you just landed and you said, okay, what is this person angling for? Her denunciation of Trump and Biden is equal. I mean, she is a no labels message right now, which is the country doesn't want either one

of these people. Biden's too far to the left. Trump's too far to the right. They're totally divisive. We need to have unity. I mean, she's giving a speech that a no-labels candidate could give if you just listen to the speech itself on the substance. So I think that's part of what's fueled some people's thinking about this, is that she is in the no-labels slot. That's the message she's running on right now, even though she's trying to say she's a Republican. I'm surprised nobody's pulled it. I'm surprised nobody pulled it. And as M-Cat knows, we've gone round and round on this because I I'm pretty, I've been hostile to no labels.

I think most of the candidates have been floated. I look at them and say, and these people are mostly going to take from Biden. The Haley case is interesting in that, you know, if you think about it, she has a third of the party, you know, 30% of the vote, you know, probably five to 10% of those people max are gettable for Biden. And then there's another 20% that are more rank and file traditional Republicans. She might, I guess all I'm saying is, I know, I don't know. She might hurt Biden too, but I think it'd be a more interesting than the other names out there as far as conceivably pulling from Trump. Most of the no labels people are people who would hurt Biden unequivocally.

And she was one who you'd have to at least think it through. It's not obvious that she might, you know, she could conceivably take away more Republican votes than Democrat votes. That's right. That makes sense to me. I wonder if the Biden and Trump people are pulling it. I bet they are. If you're listening and you have that, leak it to us. To their credit, I will just say here, candidly, that as you know, and I say repeatedly, I have no official role in the labels and haven't in a long time.

But I do call and talk to them occasionally. And I asked that question. Well, have you polled Nikki Haley? And to their credit, we don't poll. That's not, you know, we don't do that. That's not the word. Okay. We're not going there. This we're not going to decide themselves this

podcast is not going to end up in a doj report five people are going to decide themselves and you think that's worse than the system that produces the two geriatrics i don't know jen uh if we had this show last week you know i think that the golden goose would have been jen and nezra klein sitting down i don't know in brooklyn somewhere i don't know i think that the golden goose would have been jen and ezra klein sitting down i don't know in brooklyn somewhere i don't know i'm trying to picture this like you know what what how do you think that conversation play would have played out where what do you feel about it oh boy oh boy oh boy also i don't know if you know do you know that i said i wrote a response a very polite response to ezra klein i did i wrote a i vote i wrote a very polite response to Ezra Klein. I did. I wrote a very polite response.

I mean, it is. And I have to say, I think Ezra Klein really helped. He helped Democrats. He helped Biden. Because it's just, you know, if you talk to someone who, for five seconds, who had ever worked on a presidential campaign, you would understand why it is bonkers to think that like the great move now when you have $130 million that a presidential campaign is sitting on and or in building organizations in battleground states that you should wait until the middle of August, like put the $130 million aside, not build any kind of coordinated organization, and then like hope that

you're divided, that after your sitting president admits defeat by resigning or saying he's not going to run, that you can resurrect some kind of strong campaign to take on Donald Trump with 11 weeks to go. It's just ridiculous. Lincoln. It worked for Lincoln. Bill Kristol pointed that out this week. Abe Lincoln. Especially since the record of broker conventions producing successful nominees is like somebody please point to the last time that's happened. Jamal Bowman charging the stage with some pro-Hamas protesters is going to be while Josh Shapiro tries to take the nomination from the first black vice president. That's all going to go real great. That's going to be a wonderful scene. And another police riot in Grand Park. Yeah,

that'll be great. Yeah. So I think, so it has helped. And then the other thing I feel like in the last 10 days since the Her report, now the Her report, you know, some people were like, oh, this is good. They got the Biden campaign, got their crucible over early. It's like, well, no, that just showed you like how bad it's going to get when his vulnerability around his age comes into like the crosshairs, right? It's tough. But at least they like got through that. And I think they are definitely, he is out more. He's also more relevant right now because he's in an actual fight with Trump. So you see more of him. I think seeing more of him, even when he screws up is important because we understand like, oh, he knows what's going on. He talks to the press most days. He does Q&As

with the press on most days. This doesn't necessarily get covered. So I think it feels a little, it feels stabilized. Jennifer, I'll just say completely anecdotally that just in the last week or two, I feel like I've heard and seen Biden more. A lot. In a good way. It's just like, oh. Right. And it wasn't some very, it was just like something sort of normal. It's like, oh, he's normal and he can do that.

Yeah, he does. He walks up and talks to the press on most days. And I think partly it's he's getting covered more because it's like Russia and Ukraine and seeing Navalny's widow. The joke's about his sex life. That was good. The joke's about his sex life. All three of you guys know what it's like because you've all been involved in managing campaigns and dealing with communications. If somebody says to you something that I think in this case is unequivocally true, but if you heard this and you were running the communications operation for Joe Biden, you would be like, oh. The reality is you've got to normalize his mistakes.

They have to become run of the mill. The only way for this to work, he's going to be making mistakes. He's going to be looking old. He's going to be doing shit. He's going to mix stuff up. He's going to make mistakes for the rest of the campaign. You have to make it like he makes them every day and people see it and it's fine. It's still okay. That's a really good point. Because it becomes isolated things where every time he makes a mistake, people can focus on it. I would like flood the zone with Biden.

I'd like be like, get it. It's a huge risky thing to do. But like the only way you can survive this is to make it so that when he makes the mistakes, people shrug as opposed to normalize the parking. Oh, bad Joe. Things are still, it's Joe. He does that. Yeah. the mistakes, people shrug as opposed to... Oh, that Joe. Oh, it's Joe. Yeah. Grandpa Joe, it's fine. But the ship of state's still floating, and

the economy's still getting better, and we're still... He's still holding NATO together and dealing with Gaza and Israel. He falls down the stairs, but he still knows who to call at NATO. We're putting sanctions on Putin, and he's meeting with Navalny's widow, and he's doing all that stuff, and so he fucks some shit up every day. Like, big deal.

Move on. He'll be more like Trump then, where people just write off all of Trump's lunacy because it's all so normalized. You got to get there and it's going to be painful. There is an asymmetry in the attacks, though. Trump on Truth Today had a little meme up there where it's like Biden is shuffling and then he goes into that you know, that old folks home commercial, visiting angels. You know that one? I don't know about that. Trump is posting this on his social media.

Biden's campaign, like, you know, has just the decorum to not do that, right? So that I worry about. I don't know if people are ready for that. Like, just the low blow TikTok Biden attacks are going to be just off the charts. I mean, they're brutal. I mean, if you look on TikTok, you can look at Biden. They're brutal. They're already out there.

Somebody said to me they went and spent some time where they just went and just went on TikTok and searched for Biden content just to do the deep dive of just like what's out there and like what are young people seeing if they live on TikTok? And this person who was like a generally like not a anti-Biden, this is a curious person who wondered why is there this youth, the Gen Z problem? Like just like, well, let's go look at TikTok and really dive in there. Spend a week on TikTok and just look for all the Biden content you could, not political content from campaigns or operatives, but just the normal shit that people are making. And he's like, it is fucking merciless. It's a merciless- Well, and it's a lot of Gaza. Yes. But yeah, yes. But it's like there's nothing positive. I mean, it's a nonstop flood of mockery and criticism. And again, I'm not pointing at any finger. I'm just raising the fact that that's out

there. It's not like it's not already there. People are seeing a lot of stuff that's negative about Biden. It's the biggest thing, like the people that are outside of the campaign that raise money and worry about what's happening on the outside. This is the biggest hole that everybody obsesses over is what do you do about TikTok? Okay. One rapid fire, then a final circus question. My rapid fire right now, today, percent chance, Joe biden donald trump other are taking the oath of office next january we have to do percentages too we can't just say biden percent i'll get i can go first i'm like 57 biden 42 trump one other wow i'm 53 biden that's very bullish That's really bullish on Biden.

You're lower than 53? Yeah, I'm 53, Biden. I think that the... I'm like 49, 46. 49, 46, 5. Because one of them could die. Yeah, I'm with John. I'm 48, 46.

6. Well, we're not going to have Being Boring Then in the Fall. No. We're not gonna have being boring then in the fall no so we can have a much better epic we're not gonna have a much better episode theme song in the fall if we uh if we come back everybody says this and they're covering the primary or being out there in the world you're like but the stakes are so high and people are like yeah i know the stakes are high but right now we're we're going through this part which is like the annoying you know trump will get his get to 12 15 you know in the middle of March. And by the time we get to the fall,

the stakes, even though people are not psyched about the choice. And a lot of people are like not loving the, the two nominees, the stakes will kick in at that point. I think it will suddenly be able to start to feel more urgent, a lot more urgent. The song is not sweet.

Caroline. Not sweet. Caroline circus, circus things. I want one thing for something you miss being out there or a memory something people should search for on youtube a favorite circus moment you know here's here's one small thing that i would search for on youtube that i think that the biden campaign should look for uh should use as an ad okay i'm ready our israel gaza episode where he went to israel and at the beginning uh divya chungi who uh was the head editor of the show uh her team did this cold

open that was biden through the years and i think it started with like him meeting um jesus no it's moses jesus no um indira gandhi moses you know as a young senator meeting indira gandhi in israel and it like went through the entire you know for his 50-year career through a foreign policy lens and all the world leaders he's met with and all the situations he's been in and then when you arrive to the present you you're like, of course, he's the guy. And that was so that was winter of. No, that was most recently. That was fall of 2023, the Kremlin watching John take on a KGB super operative. And just, I mean, seeing the best of their craft going at it. Juxtaposed with being in a county fair in Marjorie Taylor Greene's district watching something being shot out of a cannon. Did you see the January 6th pinball? We also missed CPAC.

I had some CPAC clips we didn't get to. But that could have also been in this week's episode. There was a January 6th pinball at We also missed CPAC. I had some CPAC clips we didn't get to, but that could have also been in this week's episode. There was a January 6th pinball at CPAC this week. I heard. You know, it's devolving. Heilman, last thoughts, memories, words of wisdom? I miss Jen's dark and foreboding apocalyptic view of the world, which always reminds me that there's someone

who thinks things are more fucked even than me. Tim, I miss your fashion sense. The pearls, having a routine access to pearls on boys. The pearl necklaces are, your pearl necklaces are top of the line. And the common thing to say would be to say that you miss MCAT's hats, but I don't miss MCAT's hats.

I miss MCAT's hat boxes. No one knows what it's like to be on the road with Mark McKinnon where all these hats have to be carried around in their own pieces of suitcase. Each one has its individual suitcase. That was like MCAT goes to Moscow and I'm like, all of the overhead bins are filled with these Stetson hat boxes. I'm like, it's the craziest thing I've ever seen. But I do miss that. Speaking of CPAC, I just have to do a shout out for No Peace Bitch. No

Peace Bitch. Megan McCain. I'm doing her podcast next week. Oh my God. She's like, getting some revenge from Carrie, on behalf of Tim Miller and Carrie Lake. Oh my God.

Maybe that should have been the episode title. No peace, bitches. Guys, Jen Palmieri, Mark McKinnon, John Howland, thank you for doing this. I hope to see you guys this summer and the fall. And we'll talk to y'all soon.

Bye. Bye. All metal rose in the East Sea vent All stitched pillow with a headrest went He said his camp was his only friend Left hand jumping the trees in the wind Thought he had the red lights memorized Thank you. He looked in my eyes and he told me He said There's more that I'll wage to get up every day It's a five-plus glass boat, it's as heavy as in May

It's the women I love and the law that I hate The Lord let me die in the eye of nine spades The Bulldog Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.