The Bulwark Podcast - Charlie and Will Monday: Vivek’s BS

Episode Date: August 28, 2023

The new hotness, Ramaswamy, is serving up a load of bull. Plus, the risks of our political gerontocracy, the mug shot heard 'round the world, and of course, most GOP presidential candidates would vote for a convicted felon before Biden. Will Saletan is back with Charlie Sykes for Charlie and Will Monday.

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family enjoy them for years with the michin X-Ice Snow Tire. Get a $50 prepaid MasterCard with select Michelin tires. Find a Michelin TreadExperts dealer near you at TreadExperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TreadExperts.ca Happy Monday and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. It is August 28th, 2023. We are almost to the end of August. And this feels like old times again because Will Salatin is back for Charlie and Will Monday.

First of all, happy Monday, Will. Thanks, Charlie. It's great to be back. Although I was away at the beach and that was a welcome break. And then, damn it, reality intrudes again. You're just upset about missing the mugshot? I'm upset about the Republican National Committee scheduling their debate during my vacation week, which I planned a year ago. So here we are. Okay, you have to pace yourself. This is going to be a long slog for the next year and a half. So here we are. Okay. You have to pace yourself. This is going to be a long slog for the

next year and a half. So you missed that, but trust me, there's going to be more, you know, coming up. Hey, by the way, just thank you so much. And I just want to join my voice to the chorus of people who are saying how outstanding your long form podcast series about, about Lindsey Graham was. I mean, first of all, I mean, you know, most important, you gave me every Monday in the summer off. It was just a great job. And I really appreciate you doing that and filling in and helping the podcast even look better. So I appreciate that very much. It was great work. Well, thank you very much. And thanks to Lindsay for being so morally decrepit that you warranted that length of treatment. So speaking of morally decrepit, I mean, it's like you keep kind of filling up our dance card of that. And my Morning Shots newsletter, which I would encourage people to, you know,

if you are not a member of Bulwark Plus to consider it, I devote to a flood of BS. We know this, right? I mean, I wrote that it's, you know, it's almost feels like piling on, you know, to note that we live in the age of bullshit. But I meant it in the technical sense that Harry Frankfurt meant it when he wrote his magisterial classic on bullshit. Now, before you think I'm just, I mean, this is a renowned moral philosopher, Princeton professor, you know, who said one of the most salient features of our culture is there's so much bullshit. Yeah, no kidding. And he wrote that before Trump. And he actually thought that bullshit was a greater enemy of truth than lies because,

you know, at least liars kind of know there's truth and they're challenging it. But bullshitters just don't know or care about the truth and they ignore or reject the distinction between truth and falsity altogether. Which brings me to Vivek Ramaswamy, who is the new rock star of MAGA. And he did a, we could talk about him at the debate because this was his breakout moment of the debate, right? He's now, you know,

touching all the, and I've said this like a, but I like the line. So I'm going to say it again. I'll touch all the, the erogenous zones of, of MAGA. And he did a tour of the Sunday shows yesterday.

Will, I know you watched them all and left a trail of bullshit wherever he went. Where do you want to start? Do you want to start with the there's no such thing as white supremacy? It's all the media's fault about the Jacksonville racist mass shooting or or what he would have done had he been vice president in place of Mike Pence on January 6th. The coin flip there. Can we go to the Pence thing? I want to go. OK, let's do that. OK. OK. So Vivek is on January 6th. The coin flip there. Can we go to the Pence thing? I want to go off of it. Let's do that.

Okay. So, Vivek is on Meet the Press. And this is just really kind of extraordinary. You know, to his credit, Chuck Todd is pressing him on the question of what would you have done as Mike Pence? Would you have certified the election? And Ramaswamy confirms that he would have overturned the election. This is what he said that he would have done.

What I would have said is this is a moment for a true national consensus where there's two elements of what's required for a functioning democracy in America. One is secure elections, and the second is a peaceful transfer of power. When those things come into conflict, that's an opportunity for heroism. Here's what I would have said. We need single-day voting on Election Day. We need paper ballots and we need government-issued ID matching the voter file. And if we achieve that,

then we have achieved victory. And we should not have any further complaint about election integrity. So I would have driven it through the Senate. So what would you have done with Mike Pence? You would have not certified the election? In my capacity as President of the Senate, I would have led certified the election. So in my capacity as president of the Senate, I would have led through that level of reform. Then on that condition, certified the

election results, served it up to the president, President Trump, then to sign that into law. And on January 7th, declared the reelection campaign pursuant to a free and fair election. What the hell? This is absolutely amazing. And when I heard this, I was like, why is Twitter? Why is Threads? Why is not the political world completely up in arms over this? Here's what the operative phrase in what Vivek Ramaswamy has specified, including one day voting, meaning no more, not just absentee voting by day, no more early voting at all. So we're going to constrict the franchise. We're going to do it, in fact, without regard to election security, because believe me, when you go in to vote early, you're doing exactly the same thing, whatever. You're taking him seriously. He is just throwing complete bullshit up against the wall. It's just like, he's just, it's like this word salad of like, yes, I would hold the, I would hold the presidency hostage until these magical things happen and

something, something, something, then the next day, and there's like unicorns falling out of the sky. I mean, it's just, what the hell is going on there? I mean, he's, you know, he knows that, that the mega base likes ideas, you know, single day voting. They like paper ballots. I like the government and they like all that stuff. So he's, he, again, he's, he's giving them the dopamine hits, but it literally makes no sense whatsoever when he says that he would have demanded this in return for certifying the election. I mean, this is what, you know, Harry Frankfurt called just bullshit. It's just, he knows it's impossible, that it makes no sense whatsoever, but he doesn't care, right? Because

the actual connection with reality is irrelevant, right? He doesn't have to connect with reality, as long as he just sort of spews these things out there. Okay, I'm going to take the other side of this one. So I would love to... He doesn't have to connect with reality as long as he just sort of spews these things out there. Okay, I'm going to take the other side of this one. So I would love to take the Charlie Sykes version of this and just laugh at the guy. And believe me, he's ridiculous. But when people show you or tell you who they are, believe them. Vivek Ramaswamy, like Donald Trump, is an authoritarian. He's making it really clear.

He's saying he'd fire, what, 75% of the federal workforce. He would prosecute Joe Biden and Hunter Biden. He would pardon Donald Trump. But not Joe Biden. No, no, no pardons for Biden. But I'm going to take this guy seriously because Donald Trump came into power and a lot of people thought he was a buffoon and he is and was, but he then proceeded to try to block the peaceful transfer of power and discuss using the military to overturn the election. He was for real. We should have taken him seriously. I'm going to take this guy seriously. Okay, fair. my power on that day as president of the Senate was essentially ceremonial. The instructions of the constitution were to open the votes no more. Vivek Ramaswamy is saying, no, no, no, no. If I get in that position, I'm going to claim that I have the authority to block the certification until we get some satisfactory election reforms that make help Republicans win elections. And if I don't get that, I'm not going to certify the election. This is two weeks before the so-called

peaceful transfer of power is supposed to happen. If Congress doesn't do what Ramaswamy wants, right, he doesn't accept the certification. Charlie, then where are we? The Supreme Court has two weeks to step in and save democracy. What happens? There's something ridiculous about Vivek Ramaswamy, but also menacing. And I think that's part of the, you know, the toggling back and forth in this culture that, you know, the clown with a flamethrower actually still has a flamethrower. He's still a clown, but he can still burn you down. So in addition to this crazy lunatic idea that he's throwing out there, I mean, look, he's just a deeply unserious guy. I mean, that's the thing about Vivek.

And as I wrote in my newsletter, you know that he knows that this is rank bullshit because he wrote a book about it. I mean, Chuck Todd actually says throughout your entire book, you mock the entire January 6th thing. You absolutely criticize Donald Trump for being a sore loser. You write about it in a way of making your point you think we've become a nation of victims, by the way, interesting title there. And he wrote, the Republican Party seems to be moving toward the position that any races it wins are legitimate and any it loses are stolen. It's just the preferred conservative brand of victimhood, a knee-jerk kind of sore losing more common to playgrounds than great republics. This is Vivek five minutes ago writing about this.

So he knows as he's spewing this stuff out, what complete crap it is. Okay. So he's not done with this parade of BS. And this is not funny at all. He goes on CNN as well. And he's asked about the racist mass murder in Jacksonville, where the shooter actually had these racist manifestos, made it very, very clear who he was, what he was about, wanted people to know that he was a racist. I mean, there's nothing subtle about this at all. And so he's asked about this, and he blames the media and the establishment and universities and politicians, okay, not white supremacy. He blames this

racialized culture and mental health deficiencies for this slaying. This guy, by the way, wanted to go into a historical black college called Edward Waters University, and they didn't let him in, thank God. But there's nothing subtle about this guy. The manifesto, he had a swastika on his AR-15, in case anybody had any doubt. And this is what Vivek Ramaswamy said. Let's play that cut. I've never once encountered that yet. I'm sure the, I'm sure the boogeyman white supremacist exists somewhere in America. I've just never met him. Never seen one. Never met one in my life, right? Maybe I'll meet a, maybe I'll meet a unicorn sooner. And maybe those exist too.

Okay. Unicorns. There's no white. What is this white supremacy thing? He says this the day after a white supremacist with a swastika on his AR-15 kills people. And it's like, hey, you know, maybe I'll meet a unicorn. What a fucking dweeb. Timing a little bit straightened out. So he says that this is on Sunday, he's doing this interview on CNN, but they're playing back a clip that he just had in Iowa on Friday. So just to be fair to Vivek, that's a day before the Jacksonville shooting. But the Jacksonville shooting is just the latest in the long line of these. I believe the stat I saw in the New York Times was that there had been an increase in hate crimes overall by 11% since 2020. And of course, the most prevalent of those, 31% of those were anti-Black incidents. The point is, there are lots of anti-Black racist

incidents going on, of which this shooting is just the latest. And throughout this period, Vivek Ramaswamy is telling this crowd in Iowa, you know, I haven't seen it. I haven't witnessed one of these white supremacists. So he then describes it as what, Charlie? A unicorn? Okay. You and I know I'm the pony guy. I will always find a pony. I'm not going to find any unicorns. And the reason is unicorns don't exist. And that is why Vivek Ramaswamy used the metaphor of a unicorn. It is a thing that literally is not real, does not happen. To say that about anti-Black or any kind of racism in this country is just so callous, false. He's a hollow, shallow person to speak that way. There's this thing where various politicians, and he's not the first one to do this,

decides that he's going to sound like what he thinks a right-wing person would sound like. He actually, Mitt Romney did a little bit of that. You know that Donald Trump does that all the time. I think Rhonda Sanders does this, where they'll say things that they sort of think that they're mirroring, you know, folks out there. So there are ways of talking, you know, from a conservative point of view, talking about race and racism, you know, saying that, okay, you know, you may think that perhaps the claims are exaggerated or that we have moved past it or that racism in our country is real, but it's not as dominant as some other people say. You could say that sort of thing. But Vivek Ramaswamy can't come up with a nuanced answer.

He knows that he needs to hit all the red buttons. And so it's not that we've overcome racism or it has been exaggerated or whatever. It's that it doesn't exist. It's a unicorn, right? It's like, there are no white supremacists. Don't believe what you see. Don't believe what you hear. Ignore all of the evidence that this is a real problem. Don't even pretend to care about that. And this is one of the reasons why he's the new hotness right now, which is pathetic. Right. His shtick is exactly what you said. It's to take sort of the core of a conservative idea or an argument against the liberal or progressive point of view, and then just exaggerate it tenfold, right? He's going to be more Trumpy than anyone else. He's going to be more defiant of reality than anyone else. And what happened in this case is he's sort of cracking a joke about how it's not real. And then reality intrudes on him. And that is kind of the essence of Ramaswami. And I can only hope, Charlie, that what will happen each time reality intrudes on his

naive or deceptive statements about racism, about Ukraine. I can only hope that what happens is people look at that and realize what a huckster he is. But I have to warn, of course, that in the case of Donald Trump, that didn't happen. I think I said before, I think he's going to burn really, really hot and brightly, but doesn't have a lot of lasting power. But then we thought that about Donald Trump as well. But he is in so many ways, the successor of Donald Trump, and really does seem to understand what the political culture has become in a way that Donald Trump with his reptilian instinct understood how politics had changed back in 2015. He saw something, he understood the entertainment value of politics. Vivek Ramaswamy has, I think, understanding, you know,

the complete, you know, bullshittery of our politics and is embracing it. Okay, so speaking of which, I want to get back to the presidential candidates in a moment. You saw what Tucker Carlson said over the weekend. He went to Hungary and he's, you know, giving them, you know, he's lavishing, you know, the fascist, dejection, Hungarian hosts with praise. But he said, they, they, they hate Hungary because it's a Christian country. And that is why they also hate Russia, by the way. The reason why people are mad at Russia isn't because they're killing children, bombing civilians, invading foreign countries, assassinating critics. It's because they're Christian. I mean, what would Jesus do? Well, you know, commit war crimes, right? You know, he would do that. I mean, the thing about

Tucker Carlson is Tucker Carlson does know the difference between truth and falsehood. He just doesn't care. I mean, he knows. I mean, this notion that Russia and Hungary are these deeply Christian countries is absurd. Even TwitterX readers provided the context. Just 16% of Russians say that religion is very important to them. Just 7% of Russians attend worship services weekly. Meanwhile, less than 19% of Hungarians say that religion is very important to them, and less than 19% attend worship service weekly. And then, of course, there's this awkward, you know, reality. A few years ago, Russia actually criminalized missionary work and, you know, evangelizing outside of the church.

I mean, people have landed in jail in Russia for merely talking about their Christian faith in public. And Tucker Carlson presumably at some level knows this, but he thinks that his listeners are so stupid or maybe he just thinks they don't care. You know what I'm saying? This is his shtick now, just throwing this stuff out. And it's deeply revealing about Carlson and people like him. So this gets at one of the essential frauds of the so-called America first movement, right? It's supposed to appeal to your sense of patriotism, but these people like Carlson are not America first. And the comment that you were just quoting illustrates that. It's Russia first and Hungary first, when, in the opinion of Carlson, the Russians and the Hungarians represent some kind of folk or some kind of belief system that America no longer does. In other words,

America changes. America has kept its values. America has kept its institutions. It has kept its freedoms, but it has changed demographically. It's not as white as it used to be. So what do people like Tucker Carlson do? They abandon their faith in America. They now reject the new America and they turn to places like Hungary and Russia. And so this just lays bare who these people really are. They don't care about America. They're not patriots. They believe in some kind of nationalism, a white nationalism, or a Christian nationalism, or as you point out, a fake Christian nationalism. But they're just as happy to have that in another country rather than in America, including authoritarian countries.

Hey folks, this is Charlie Sykes, host of the Bulwark podcast. We created the Bulwark to provide a platform for pro-democracy voices on the center right and the center left for people who are tired of tribalism and who value truth and vigorous yet civil debate about politics and a lot more. And every day we remind you folks, you are not the crazy ones. So why not head over to thebullwork.com and take a look around? Every day we produce newsletters and podcasts that will help you make sense of our politics and keep your sanity intact. To get a daily dose of sanity in your inbox, why not try a Bullwork Plus membership free for the next 30 days? To claim this offer, go to thebullwork.com slash charlie. That's thebullwork.com forward slash charlie. We're going to get through this together. I promise.

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Now is the time, and Don Valley North Lexus is the place. See website for details. Expect excellence. A proud member of Wayne's Auto Group. Let's go back to what I thought was the most extraordinary moment of the debate where the candidates were asked, would you still support Donald Trump if he was a convicted felon? Okay. They didn't ask him, would you support Donald Trump if he's the nominee? It was very specifically, you know, would you support Donald Trump for the presidency of the United States after he had been charged, tried and found guilty by a jury of his peers? And six of the eight candidates raised their hand that they would support. I mean, I still think, and I've said this several times, well, I do think that

we need to pause here and think about the party that used to claim that it was the party of law and order saying that a felony conviction does not disqualify them. Because you and I both know five minutes ago, this was the easiest question in the world. But this came up over the weekend on the Sunday shows. And I regret to tell you that Vice President Mike Pence, who showed, you know, flashes of independence and conscience, was asked about this. Let's play Mike Pence giving his answer. You were one of six candidates on the stage who said that you would support Mr. Trump even if he is convicted of a felony. Why do you feel that way, especially since you also said on the stage that you felt

that he asked you to put him before the Constitution? Why should someone like that be president? Well, look, I signed a pledge to be on that stage to say that I support the Republican nominee. I remain confident, more confident after Wednesday night, that the Republican nominee will not be the former president, that we're going to give the American people a standard bearer for the GOP that's going to be able to lead us to victory against Joe Biden and the radical left. But so, you know, I raise my hand just to say that I'll support the Republican nominee because, Nancy, I could never support Joe Biden. Okay.

Well. Okay. I hardly know where to begin with this. So like everyone else who saw this debate, this was the outstanding moment when they raised their hands. And you realize that this is a deranged party. Now, I have issues. I have issues with the left. I have issues with the left wing of the Democratic Party.

They are problematic and they make some mistakes and they go overboard, but they're not deranged in the way that the current Republican Party is. I'm sorry, a man convicted of a felony, you would support him as the nominee. Okay, this is just an index of how disease, and of course, we know, Charlie, that the two candidates who did not raise their hands have no chance of getting the nomination, right? It's going to either be the felon or people who said they would vote for the felon. And here's Pence giving his excuse. And his excuse is, I had to sign the pledge because the Republican National Committee required it. Okay, that's just more evidence of the insanity. The Republican National Committee- Which Trump has not signed, by the way.

Right, Trump hasn't signed it. But the official head organization in charge of the Republican Party said, you have to make this pledge. And all the candidates understood it to mean even if the guy is convicted of a felony, that's how diseased the party is. And then at the end, of course, Pence reaches for the rationale of, oh, I could never support Joe Biden. And this is also the excuse that Nikki Haley came up with. She was asked why she raised her hand. So it's really, is Joe Biden that bad? Is Kamala Harris so bad that you would literally vote for a guy convicted of one, two, I don't know how many felonies he's going to be convicted of by the time this is over? Well, the answer apparently is they think so. And I said last weekend, I've been thinking about this all weekend, because it wasn't that long ago that if somebody was actually convicted of a felony, they wouldn't serve on a town council, a county board, a state legislature. There's no way that anyone would support a candidate for governor. The Republican Party would rise up and demand resignations or would walk away from the candidate.

And that was an easy choice. It wasn't difficult. I mean, if you were convicted of these things, if a federal judge said you were a rapist, it would be a kind of a closed issue, right? And this gives you an indication of how far things have come. Let's play Nikki Haley, because of course, she had her breakout moment. I perhaps was a little bit more bullish on her performance than others. But then again, there she was on the Sunday morning talk shows saying the same thing here. Let's play Nikki. You raised her hand when you were asked, would you support him if he were convicted on those felony charges? I just simply asked you, why? Why would you vote for a convicted

felon to be president of the United States? Excellent question. Because I am not comfortable with the president Kamala Harris becoming president. I think we would be in a far worse situation. Okay. This has become a consistent theme now of Nikki, that she's not really running against Joe Biden. It's Joe Biden dead, Kamala Harris alive, right? I mean, that's her strategy, the fact that she answered it that particular way. Right, right. And I just want to pause here to say, George Stephanopoulos, just the best interviewer on these hard questions. He's willing to spend the whole interview on it. He'll ask you the tough question you need to be asked. If you dodge it, he will not move on. He will stick to it and calmly, he doesn't get upset.

He just repeats the question because you have, and that's what happened in this interview. Nikki Haley had no good answer to why she raised her hand because you and I both know, Charlie, the reason she raised her hand was she was afraid that if she didn't, she had no shot to win the Republican primary for president. And she's not wrong about that, though, right? Right. It goes to the derangement of the party that you have to make this insane pledge. Yeah. Okay. So we had to at least close this segment by mentioning that magnificent beast, Chris Christie, at least, was willing to push back on this. This is Chris Christie talking about voting for convicted felons. I think the most lasting moment of the debate from

Wednesday night, Nancy, is when you had six of the eight candidates on that stage raise their hand and say they would support a convicted felon for President of the United States. I think our standard should be higher. I think the President of the United States should be a role model for our children and grandchildren. Just radical. And that position, the idea that the president should be a role model was absolute orthodoxy just a few years ago, right? Now it essentially says, if you believe that, you're going to get less than 10% of the vote. You'll probably get less than 5% of the vote. I can see why you love Chris Christie, Charlie. Magnificent beast. There's two guys on stage, Christie and Hutchinson, who didn't take this pledge.

And for a person who is conservative like you, you have this completely deranged party. Your choices are the left or the Democratic Party or this completely deranged Trump cult, right? And every once in a while, somebody raises their hand who has no shot like Christie and just speaks the truth. Like, you know what? I disagree with Biden on the border. I disagree with him on spending. I disagree with him on foreign policy. I disagree with all those things. But I also don't believe that a felon should be president of the United States. And it's just amazing how few people are available, how few candidates are available to vote for who will say that. I think we talked about this on a previous podcast, but the way that Rhonda said this had to look around to see if people were raising their hands first.

Such a tell. So, okay, give me your take on the debate. It's been a long time now, but you were on vacation. You were probably watching it in your hotel room in Key West or whatever, right? I did watch the debate. Oh, you did? I had to watch it. Okay.

So I'm going to give you, here's my pony. I promised you a pony. Here's my pony. Okay. I'm sitting there and I'm watching all of these candidates, these governors, senators, former vice presidents attacking Vivek Ramaswamy. I'm watching Mike Pence, the most recent vice president of the United States, who in a fairly close election just lost, right? And this guy,

who's been a congressman, governor, vice president, he is spending his whole debate attacking another candidate who has no experience at all. And I'm like, why are you all you serious people attacking this guy? And then it hits me. It hits me. Remember what Chris Christie says about 2016, Charlie. He says, all of us thought there was an establishment lane, all of us, governors, senators, whatnot. We were going to attack each other. And then the winner of that was going to face off against Donald Trump. And by the time we realized what was going on, it was over and Trump had wrapped it up. Charlie, they're not making that mistake this time. They recognize the new Trump in Vivek Ramaswamy, and they're going after him now at the debate. He's sitting there. He craps all over Fox news. He craps all over the Republican national committee.

He craps all over his opponents. He craps all over the Republican electorate and they all love him and they're all going to support him. I mean, that's the amazing thing. He knows that, you know, the harder he slaps these guys, the more they're going to say,

may I have another one, sir? You know, the harder he slaps these guys, the more they're going to say, may I have another one, sir? You know, and this whole thing about supporting him, even if he's a convicted felon. I mean, if there was any moment, you know, that illustrated how much enthrall this party was to all of him. So I'm going to concede that about Trump. But there is a scenario here which we also need to avoid. That is, suppose Donald Trump does get convicted of one of these felonies or many of them. And suppose that does affect the willingness of enough Republican voters to nominate him. And supposing instead they turn to Ramaswamy, who at this point,

Charlie, is looking like the backup Trump, like he's the guy that they would turn to. Okay, we can't have Trump. Trump's too toxic or whatever. We're going to find the next best thing. We're going to nominate this guy. It is important, I would argue, to take down this guy now, to expose him for the fraud he is now in the hope that somebody better can emerge as an alternative in the event that Donald Trump is not the nominee because we could live in a world where Donald Trump does get convicted and everybody thinks we're safe. And then it turns out they just nominate the next Trump. That is possible. All right. So we talked about the debate. Let's talk about the mugshot. That was the other big issue. The mugshot heard around the world, which I have to say, interestingly enough, that that mugshot

has sort of become both MAGA porn and Never Trump porn at the same time. And I say this, look, I mean, you know, full disclosure, we're actually at the ballpark. I am totally in favor of this. Tim Miller and I talked about this on Friday's podcast. We're selling mugs saying, we told you so. We're selling mugs with the mugshot and t-shirts saying, Never Trumpers were right, because we cannot resist this moment of telling people, you know, if only you had been warned, this is what we have been telling you for all these years. And there is the mugshot. And, you know, the MAGA people think that it's the hottest thing in the world. There was some guy on Fox News, you know, titillating Laurie Ingram by saying, you know,

this is going to give Donald Trump new street cred with black voters. Black voters think he's a gangster. Again, speaking of bullshit, I mean, he doesn't know that's true. He's just throwing this stuff up. And also the assumption that the way to get to the black vote is to be indicted for, you know, serious felonies is, well, that's really on brand for Fox News. But in any case, I wanted to get your sense of the mugshot. What was your reaction to the mugshot? I had almost no reaction to the mugshot. I appear to lack the schadenfreude, right?

I keep forgetting how to pronounce this. Donald Trump is trying to destroy American institutions, the institutions of democracy, the institutions of law and order. So I'm in favor of defending, restoring, honoring those institutions, including the rule of law. And to the extent that he committed crimes, he should be convicted like anyone else. But the joy of just arresting somebody, of getting a mugshot, I'm not with that. I'm not with it, first of all, because it's not the same thing as a conviction. Tim Miller and I beg to differ.

We need to stay in the moment. I know where you're coming from here. I got the earnest will today. There's the loose will, there's the, you know, some people come back from vacation, they're all like loose and everything. And, and you're like really, really earnest. No, I'm going to take this. I get it. But the thing is that we are living in this incredible era where I think that we have to take the joy of the moment because all we have is today. Now you're saying that you're not going to be happy until there's bars in front of that mugshot. There's two things. Number one is it's premature, right?

I'm not going to believe it until. You're not going to believe what? You're not going to believe what? 91 criminal indictments. Not going to believe it's over until it's over. So you're not going to be happy about anything until January of 2025. You're my pony in the pile of shit guy. And you're saying,

I will take no pleasure in anything until it's completely over. I'm going to be dead by the time it's over. This is one of the things I learned coming to the bulwark. So I was sort of on the center left. I come over here. The never Trumpers are so into this, like, and I'm learning like the hatred inside the party is way stronger than the

hatred between the parties on this stuff. No, no, no. We're talking joy, not hatred. This is like carpe diem. We are seizing the moment. There's so much soul-crushing disappointment. There are so many betrayals and like, oh my God, this is the terrible thing. Oh my God, it's getting worse. That when you have one of these bright little rays of sunshine, you know, I'm going to run to it. See, we're kind of reversing position here. I'm usually the dark one. You're the one saying no one can be happy ever again until we do this.

Come on, I'm going to get you the t-shirt. I will buy a t-shirt for you. I love that you frame this as the little ray of sunshine, because this reminds me of Charlie. When I was a little kid, the little ray of sunshine was that you get the magnifying glass out and you want the little ray of sunshine to go through the magnifying glass and burn the leaf or burn the ant or whatever it is. It's an act of cruelty. So I'm not going to view this little ray of sunshine that's burning Donald Trump. Wait, that was, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

That was, okay, leaving aside the killing the ants, which I never did. It was one of the cool things when you had the magnifying glass and you made it into a ray that burned things. I mean, that was one of the ways that we kind of, you know, you felt a little powerful. I learned a little bit about physics there.

You were the kid going, don't do that. Yeah. Okay. I feel terrible, but I'm going to go with the earnest take here. I am genuinely afraid of that joy in another's suffering, especially when it happens inside of me or inside of the people around me. I think that's just the root of so much evil. So I don't want to take away from the fun. I'm glad you're celebrating and having a little fun, but what we should be celebrating and what we should take joy in is the revival, the reinstatement, the survival of the rule of law in this country. The fact that a guy was president of the United States, had access to the ability to protect

himself from the law, did so for four years, And now that he's out, has committed more crimes, he is being prosecuted as he should be. I'm with that. Let's make a note. People I don't want to have a beer with after indictments. Will Salvatam. Okay. Because this is going to confuse people because you're the guy.

I'm always going to find the pony inside, you know, the pile of, you know, the pile of bullshit in the driveway. And I'm telling you, this is a really, really, really big pony. Also, look, have you ever wondered, Will, how guys like Tim and I have not gone completely insane over the last seven years? I have wondered that. In part, it's because we seize upon these moments of joy. And yes, they're premature. But if we didn't seize upon the moments of joy, we would be obsessing about the moments of just incredible, just awfulness. The ratio is like 10 to 1, and you are trying to deprive me of the 1.

The bulwark's Miss Grundy. This is actually a very important social function that Charlie Sykes serves, right? Because seriously, people tune in, people download, people listen to you, in part because the madness is every bloody day, every week. It's never ending. And you really do need a sense of humor to manage the insanity. So as a listener and as a colleague, I'm grateful to you for that because you do help keep me sane. Well, yeah, but you're our designated optimist about these things, which is why.

Okay, so I may not wear the T-shirt, but I will get the mug. I'm just telling you, I'm going to get the mug. All right, so what else do you want to talk about today? Because there's so many other things, and I feel like it's been weeks since you and I have spoken about the situation. I guess I want to get your take on this. And again, I'm a little exhausted by the angle of this, which is always like, does this help Donald Trump? Does this hurt Donald Trump? What do you think about the polls? At a, at a certain point, the real answer is

that none of us know. But, you know, I do think that there's a certain Stockholm syndrome phenomenon going on with the pundit class that just sort of assumes that every terrible thing helps Donald Trump. And I'm developing a little bit of skepticism about this because I just don't think that having your mud shot taken is going to be a political asset in a general election. And I'm just not sure that the parade of trials is going to be good for Donald Trump. I mean, I understand that things can go south. I mean, look, I'm, well, I'm not arguing with you that things cannot go sideways. I mean, it's possible that there will be, you know, higher courts that will throw these charges out. You know, it's possible that there might be, you know, hung juries. I mean, all kinds

of things might, might happen that would lead to Trump's exoneration and that would, you know, make all of this look like this massive miscalculation. But right now I'm just a little skeptical of all the people who think that somehow this is an asset for Donald Trump in any way whatsoever. And the poll numbers that I'm seeing would suggest that you have a rather huge majority of independents and of American voters who look at this guy and go, yeah, he's a crook. I know we're all supposed to go to the diners in Western Pennsylvania and talk to Trump voters, you know, or have focus groups where we talk to Trump voters. But I mean, we kind of know what Trump voters think about this. You know, what about like actual real Americans who are not insane? Yeah, and I did just say that, who are looking at this and going, yeah,

why would we put a felon in the Oval Office? What do you think? First of all, I just want to point out in the polls, you're not crazy about this, Charlie. Trump really only has a grip on about a third of the Republican primary electorate, right? He can lose this nomination. Somebody just has to consolidate and move past him early enough in the process. That is a realistic scenario. I know he has a big lead now, but that can happen if there's consolidation. And what's going to happen over the course of these trials, these cases, is there's going to be more facts coming out, right? Vivek Ramaswamy said this weekend, I already know all the facts. I'm going to pardon Trump. I can tell you that now because I've read the indictments and that's the best presentation of the evidence against him. And it's not enough. First of all, it is enough. But secondly, there's going to be more. There's going to be more. This is not just a media pile on. There are prosecutors who are sitting on evidence that's going to become public during the course of these cases, the filing of briefs, the actual testimony, the trials, and that evidence is not going to look good. And we have, for example,

let's take two of the cases. In the case of the classified documents, we've already had more evidence come out than was originally in the indictment about all the mechanics that Trump went through to obstruct recovery of the documents. In the January 6th stuff, we have much more evidence than the Georgia case about the false electors scheme. There's going to be more of that so that even if you believe the election was stolen, all of the fraud that he engaged in to create these fake electors and to pawn them off on Congress, that's all going to be discussed and all the emails that went into that. And all of those facts will affect some people. And I think there are enough who are susceptible to make a difference. In addition,

you now see more and more of the Republican candidates who are running against Trump, people like Nikki Haley, talking about Trump's electability. I'm not saying you have to agree Donald Trump is a bad person, just that he's obviously facing more and more damning facts as the next year and a half goes on. We shouldn't nominate him. And again, these things are just snapshots. They may not be predictive, but there is a new Emerson College poll out of Republican primary voters showing some leakage from Donald Trump. I'm not going to become exuberant about this, but he is down to 50% of the vote. He's still way ahead of anybody else. That's a six point drop from the 56% he had in the last Emerson poll from before the debate. Emerson says it's the lowest support to date for the former president in their national polls. And again, so while there's a little bit of a polling slump for the ex-president, his opponents seem to have experienced a little

bit of a bump. Ron DeSantis is only at 12%. He had 10% before, so that's almost within the margin of error. Mike Pence moved from three all the way up to seven. Nikki Haley went from 2% to 7%. Chris Christie went from 3% to 5%. Vivek went down from 10% to 9%. So the conventional wisdom, including mine, was that Vivek was going to get a big surge out of this. So far, we're not seeing that. Now, maybe this is an outlier. Maybe we're going to see it. But I'm surprised by that.

Are you surprised by that? I am surprised because I was a victim of, I played along with the media take on the debate, which was that because Ramaswamy got all the attention, right? And because he was glib and looked like a good salesman and picked fights with everybody, that that was going to help him. It may not be the case. I mean, I want to see more polling on that.

In some ways, Charlie, that debate, I don't know why you saw it, but I could imagine Charlie Sykes watching that debate and seeing essentially the revival of Reaganism, right? These were the Reaganites, the Pence's, the Haley's. If I really squinted hard. I was drinking during that debate, but I didn't have that much to drink. They were telling the audience, if you are a conservative by any of these definitions, if you believe in, you know, a strong foreign policy and a strong military, if you believe in, you know, limited spending, if you believe in the constitution, whatnot, then, you know,

this guy isn't for you. He's, and he's against Israel and he's against that. And to the extent that Republican voters will turn against a guy and the poll may be showing that because he isn't for you. He's, and he's against Israel and he's against that. And to the extent that Republican voters will turn against a guy and the poll may be showing that because he isn't consistent with traditional Republican principles, that is a restoration of sanity on the right. And that would be a good thing. There were indications of that. The question is, does that foreshadow where the party's going? Or is that just sort of, you know, a dead cat bounce on all of this? Hey, by the way, we ought to mention, among other major political developments of the day, you saw what happened last night. Big endorsement for Vivek. I missed this.

O.J. Simpson. O.J. Simpson. This is not a parody. I am not joking. O.J. Simpson recorded a video. Looks like he's endorsing Vivek Ramaswamy. This guy really would have a chance. Perfect. I mean, you know, we're living in this simulation here. Looks like he's endorsing Vivek Ramaswamy. This guy really would have a chance. So perfect.

I mean, you know, we're living in this simulation here and it's like absolutely perfect. What more could you want than OJ Simpson saying, yeah, Vivek, he's my guy. Okay. Now, speaking of bullshit, I didn't weigh in on this on my newsletter because I don't have any way of verifying this, but Trump over the weekend, in case you missed this, claimed that he won a club championship at his golf course with a round of 67, which is eight shots better than Phil Mickelson shot on that same course two weeks ago. Sure. Maybe I'm just a little skeptical, but I'm thinking that a guy that lies about absolutely everything Joe Biden is a bullshitter about unimportant things. He tells stories about having been places he wasn't and that sort of thing.

I think this is Trump's version of it, and people find it endearing, the people who support him. So I'm going to give Trump a pass on the golf score. Okay. Endearing. See, I think there's ample evidence that you're just a kinder, gentler, nicer, better person than I am here. But I don't know. I think it makes him sound absurd. But clearly, I'm out of touch with what endears the Trump voter to him, apparently lying about golf.

Speaking of new polls, more than two-thirds of Democrats, I want to repeat this, more than two-thirds of Democrats think Joe Biden is too old to be president. I was at a wedding over the weekend, family wedding, and I cannot tell you the number of times that specific question came up. Do you think that Joe Biden, and I'll tell you what my answer was. People say, do you think Joe Biden is too old? And I say, yes, he's too old, but we're stuck with him. What do you think, Will? Yeah, I agree with that. And I got to say- Don't deny that he's too old. He's too old. Oh, I'm a too-

I've been a too old guy. I've been a Mayor Pete guy at Beffin since the last election. Joe Biden is too old. And it's not just a number. I mean, if you watch the very recent videos of Biden trying to talk to reporters, he has lost a lot in just the last couple of years. And I mean, this is what happens at the end of life. Somebody is, and I don't know how long he's actually going to live.

Oh, wow. Now you've gone dark. Sorry, he has lost a lot. And he has a lot of trouble just conducting himself. Now, again, I don't think that he is incapable of doing the job, which is to make decisions, which you have time to do as president generally, right? People present you with information. He's a wise man. He can put that together. I think he's fine mentally, but his ability to interact with other people, to hear,

to engage, to think on his feet, it has dropped a lot and everyone can see it. It's very real. If it weren't for the fact that the conservative party has gone insane, you would have to suggest electing someone else to replace him. We just, as you say, Charlie, we just haven't been presented with that alternative. What worries me is that our margin of error is so thin because the threat is so great. The stakes are so high. And so, you know, America's liberal constitutional democracy hangs by what? You know, one artery. I mean, I'm serious.

I mean, we're talking about the health of one human being. I mean, I would like to think that there's this huge institutional tradition or, you know, all of these bulwarks out there. You know, I'm haunted by what happened to Mitch McConnell. I mean, Mitch McConnell clearly had something like a stroke, you know, just like during a press conference. And in his ages showing, Jonathan Martin in Politico had a really great piece where he sat down with him, and he's been covering him for years, and he was alarmed by how impaired he was. And my take on this was, this is what we get when we have a politics dominated by the gerontocracy, because we're always just like one thing away, one incident away. And when the threat is as grave as a second Donald Trump presidency, it's going to be a long year and a half. And this is why Nikki, you know, already wants to turn the page. I mean, Nikki basically wants to bury him right now. That's why she's, she's like obsessed with this whole thing that I'm running against Kamala Harris,

you know? Right. And this is why I would appeal to anyone who recognizes the danger of Donald Trump. Do not by any means root for Donald Trump to win the Republican primary because you know you can beat him in the general. There are two things that can go wrong. A health thing, Biden could drop dead. He could have a heart incident or something. He could also just gradually fade and then people watching Joe Biden on TV deciding he can't do the job, let's turn to the felon. I mean, there are enough people who might do that. So if you have two chances to take out Donald Trump politically, one of them is in the primary, for God's sake, take that. You should be supporting Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, even Ron DeSantis, anyone other than Donald Trump,

because if Trump gets that nomination, he is one Joe Biden health incident away from returning to the presidency. I totally agree with you on all of that. And I do think there's a certain amount of cockiness. Well, we'd have a better chance against Trump than anybody else. But wait, this is where we really do need to put the country ahead of party in every respect possible, including the fact that, hey, listen, Donald Trump gets that nomination and it really does. Maybe it's not a coin flip, but, you know, if in late September, Joe Biden, you didn't have to like die or fall. I mean, what if he has, you know, 20 seconds of blankness during a live event? I mean, it doesn't have to be that much. Do you remember the way that Trump weaponized back in

2016, how Trump weaponized Hillary Clinton kind of fainting? I think she had the, you know, cold or flu and the right-wing media made it into she's dying. She's, I mean, that's it. Hillary Clinton, who's fine, her health was a major issue in right-wing media circles over nothing. So imagine if they did that with her, what they're going to do with Joe Biden. Yeah. Yeah. And it's not just the right-wing media that's going to do this. It's real. And for anyone who's looking at Joe Biden on TV and is not seeing it, I would recommend that you talk to other people because I'm watching it and this is not some fake thing about Hillary. This is a real thing about a guy who has definitely lost a step and has trouble looking coherent, looking cogent on TV.

And in a debate with Donald Trump at the end, if it's close, that's really, really dangerous. So do you think Donald Trump would debate Joe Biden? I would. Because actually, you know what? Because until you just said that, I was thinking there's no way that Donald Trump's going to show up. Donald Trump's going to not want to debate TV if these two guys are together is that the felon, the crook, the sociopath, is coherent. And the other guy, as much as I love him, looks like he just can't do the job anymore. That only works to Trump's advantage. As we close out here, the breaking news, Judge Chutkin, this is not a surprise, by the way, has rejected Trump's request for a 2026

trial date on the federal case related to the 2020 election. I mean, speaking of bullshit, I mean, that was the lawyers. Yeah, let's not have the trial until 2026. And Judge Chutkin said, yeah, no, we are not doing that. Hey, Will, it is so good to have you back on Mondays. I appreciate it very much. Missed you all summer. You too, Charlie. I missed you. All right. Thank you all for listening to today's Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow and we'll do this all over again. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.