The Bulwark Podcast - David Axelrod: Change Agent

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

Voters have a real hunger for something beyond the constant state of pugilism and the weaponizing of every problem. In her closing arguments, Kamala needs to zero in on making Trump the incumbent and herself the person who can turn the page. Plus, MAGA's perpetual dumping on America, Obama's 2004 convention speech, and staying Zen while debating on CNN.  David Axelrod joins Tim Miller. show notes: Tim debating Dan Crenshaw David's nonprofit supporting epilepsy research 

landlord telling you to just put on another sweater when your apartment is below 21 degrees? Are they suggesting you can just put a bucket under a leak in your ceiling? That's not good enough. Your Toronto apartment should be safe and well-maintained. If it isn't and your landlord isn't responding to maintenance requests, RentSafeTO can help. Learn more at toronto.ca slash rentsafeTO. Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. I'm delighted to be here with a first-time guest on the daily. It's Chief Strategist for Barack Obama's presidential campaigns. He's the founder of the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics.

You might see him on CNN. And he's the host of two podcasts, The Competitor, Hacks on Tap, and The Axe Files with David Axelrod. Hey, David. How you doing, man? The Bulwark podcast has no competitors. You know that. We love hacks. You've been cheating on me with Sarah Longwell and Bill Kristol for a while now.

So it's about time we get a little FaceTime, I figure. Yes, yeah. They are brilliant. The whole operation is great. And happy to be with you as well. Much appreciated. So we've got a lot of seriousness to discuss. We've got some bedwetting to discuss.

But I figure we'd start with some laughs, if that's okay, at Trump's expense. I enjoy that. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. It is. But I've got to find pleasure somewhere these days. Okay. All right. Go ahead. Knock yourself out. The former president went on the flagrant podcast with a comedian named Andrew Schultz. There was some laughing. I think it was kind of in the at, not with variety, but let's listen to a couple of my favorite highlights. I have a hard time doing it to them because I'm basically a truthful person. But frankly, Dwight Eisenhower was sort of a moderate, General Eisenhower.

Did you know that they had 8% generals, president of the United States, 8% were generals, 92% were politicians, and then you had Trump? See, that's a weave. You know, we go off and just reset. I like that. Because now I'm like, where are we weaving to? I'm into this. No, no, think of it. Because we're talking about generals, and then you get back on to the general.

There you go. Because what I was going to say is that eisenhower i like the play-by-play for the week no it's good though isn't it great we're going to mention eisenhower and then i say he was a general eight percent generals 92 and now you go back okay it's part of the weave yeah then you go back yeah no you gotta keep it all together you gotta be sharp if you're not sharp you gotta be sharp think of it you gotta be sharp. If you're not sharp, you're dead. You got to be sharp. Think of it. Think of it. You got to be sharp, Axe. How sharp did that sound to you?

And if you're not sharp, you're dead. If you're not sharp, you're dead. So we better be sharp because I don't want to be dead. You're feeling sharp. The mental acuity there, how are we feeling on the mental acuity scale for the 78-year- old wannabe president again? You know, I mean, the truth of the matter is I went back and looked, you know, when I was getting ready for his debate with Biden, I went back and looked at the 2016 debate and it was pretty striking, you know, he was different. I mean, there's always been this sort of strange turns, but they generally go in a direction.

And, you know, he is not what he was then. These rallies are mind boggling when you listen to them, these two hours of stand up that he does, because it's just like words flow. You know, when the first Mayor Daley was mayor of Chicago, he's famous for his malapropisms. And his press secretary once screamed at the reporters who were covering him and said, don't print what he said, print what he meant. And Mike Royko once said about the old Mayor Daley that he never exits the same sentence he enters. But that's sort of become the norm here trump starts a sentence i guess that has double meaning these days but trump starts a sentence and he you never know where he's gonna wind up yeah i didn't i didn't pull this clip

but there's audio from the uh rally last night the pennsylvania rally which i suffered through a prime example this is like he starts talking about the hurricane and it's in north carolina and then he goes to like but then fema didn't come which is a lie so he starts with a lie and then he then he builds on the lie by saying but it shouldn't have been a problem because there's so many military bases in north carolina there should have already been people on the ground and then that takes him to by the way we should give fort bragg its confederate name back and then he does a long people on the ground. And then that takes him to, by the way, we should give Fort Bragg its Confederate name back. And then he does a long aside on the Confederate and the Wokes and changing names.

And it's like, so you start on this extremely serious topic, and you just advance a total conspiracy about it, and then get derailed into talking about Confederate names. Yeah, but, you know, Tim, let me just say, just stepping back, going back to that example about Mayor Daley, people actually did know what he meant. And in some ways, when Trump talks to his base, they somehow know what he means. I mean, he's communicating things that may not be linear, but they're visceral. And, you know, we shouldn't underestimate the power of that. The stuff he's done on the hurricane is abysmal, just as the kind of victimization of Springfield, Ohio was abysmal and so on. But they're, you know, all for a purpose. I'm always reminding myself of what Alyssa Farrah Griffin, my colleague over at CNN said, who worked for him

in communications. She said he once told her, he wanted her to say something. She said, well, that's not true. He said, if you say it enough, they'll believe it. The George Costanza. Yeah, that's his, I think it's more Roy Cohn. More Roy Cohn. but you know that's how he operates and you know the essence of trump is that his father told him when he was a kid that he reportedly that there are two kinds of people in the world there are killers and there are losers and you got to be a killer you can't be a loser and the subtext of that is the world is the hunger games. The world's a jungle.

The strong take what they want. The weak fall away. And rules and laws and norms and institutions, those are for suckers. So just do whatever you have to do. And that's sort of the way he's lived his life. And now the whole country's being tugged along with him. But that's a hell of a way for a president of the United States to think. Yeah, that fundamentally is just not how government works, right?

This is why he, I think, is so uniquely dangerous, even against some of these other guys. On the hurricane point, I was watching this morning before we started taping DeSantis' press conference, kind of updating people on Milton. And obviously there's some terrible damage that's being done that seems not to be as bad as kind of what people had feared, the worst fears and expectations. And DeSantis is giving a very kind of meticulous rundown of like, here's what we know. Here's what happens. Here's the areas where things are worse.

Here's what we're sending resources. DeSantis meets with Biden yesterday. And like all this stuff that is just for everything that there is to hate about DeSantis, and there's plenty, like it's just within the normal bounds of what a politician is supposed to do when there's a crisis, when there's a tragedy. Like Trump is just fundamentally incapable of it. Because if you have that killers or losers mindset, there's no room there for, well, we got to work with the other guys on this one to actually solve a problem. I think, Tim, what you're saying right there is potentially why he still may lose this election. that struck me about that vice presidential debate, which was wholly unremarkable in many ways, was the degree to which there was a dial group that a super PAC did of this debate. And after they had a discussion and in that group, this was swing voters who are normally pretty ornery group

at this stage in an election. And they were like rapturous. That was the greatest debate we've seen. They were courteous. They were civil. Too civil for my taste. I was out of step with the swing voters on this one. I was like, rip his face off, Tim. No, no, I know. I know. There was a lot of that. I've heard a lot of that. My point is this, though. I think there's a hunger out there for something else. There is an understanding that if you are in a constant state of pugilism and you are going to demonize your opponents at every turn and you're trying to weaponize every problem, that you're not going to solve anything. You're not going to get anything done. You know, if I were her, I would be leaning into more of that. I think that's a real tangible vulnerability. I mean, Trump has a lot of vulnerabilities and I think it's frustrating

to a lot of people who understand them or feel them that he's not getting held more accountable for them, not the least of which is fundamentally trying to overturn a free and fair election. But this one, I think, has a practical, tangible application, which is, you know, all that stuff that you think we need to get done, we're never going to get it done with this guy, because he's so consumed by himself and so consumed by his battles, most of which are completely unnecessary, that he's not going to be able to do this. That's the turn the page. That's what makes him the incumbent in this race. And if this race is about turning the page on Biden and his policies, And remember, we're in an environment in which 25, 28% of people say we're on the right track. Whether that's fair or not, that's the reality.

Normally, the incumbent party loses that election. So she has to make change from that, from that element of Trump, I think a focus of her closing arguments. Is that your top advice for her? And if you, if they, I mean, I'm sure, I know that you're talking to your old buddy Plouffe and some of those folks, but, and I'm sure they're, you know, taking some of the things that, that you guys have been discussing in private, but is there something that they haven't done at this point that you would like to see more of over the last four weeks? I don't talk to them that much because I know what it's like to be on the inside and have, you know, old duffers outside telling you what to do.

So sometimes it's nice to be here from outside the bunker though. We learned earlier this summer, there are some problems in the bunker sometimes. Well, I agree, but that's entirely up to them to decide what they need. And I think when you look at the rollout from the moment she announced she was running to, you know, the sort of lightning strike to seize the nomination, her appearances after the rallies, the convention, which was a remarkable thing, having turned that around in weeks from a Biden convention to a Harris convention, and then the debate. And then for 10 days after the debate, I think she benefited from the aftermath of that debate as social media carried the message of what

happened that night. But things kind of have stalled out now. you know you need a closing act in this drama and you have to think hard about what that closing argument is that's number one number two is i agree with the strategy to get her out obviously she needs to be disciplined it's hard she needs to be disciplined and organic in these appearances you know which is a hard thing to ask of people. Great advice, boss. Yeah. You've got to be authentic and guarded. Yeah.

Just spin this plate and rub your belly on roller skates. You've got to be charming and strong. Amen. Running for president is hard. Yeah. But, you know, you need to internalize your message and you need to react in organic ways when you're talking to folks. But, you know, one of the things that says to me that she hasn't entirely internalized the strategic elements of the campaign and where it's at is the answer on the view about what she would do differently from Biden. They're like, you're a professional, Tim. There are many, many ways she could have answered that question

without looking like she was running away from Biden. But the answer she gave was uniquely bad. So, you know, there is that. You know, she needs to be internalized what the strategic imperatives are, but more interaction with actual people i think i've seen some footage of her talking to just people who come up to her people who have problems people and her whole being sort of changes and it's really i think impactful so i'm saying more of that you know but messaging wise, I think you do Trump's sort of unremitting

sort of self-consumption, you know, or self-absorption, you know, it's all about him all the time. So, I mean, I'd be stressing those things. It seems like the change thing is what you're really concerned about, like making sure she's positioned as the change person, which she was doing well at the very beginning. Yes. I turn the page on all of this politics, this brain-dead politics that doesn't let us get things done. And, you know, honestly, on that Biden answer, the thing I would have said is, look, I'm grateful to have served him. I'm grateful to have had the opportunity. I'm proud of him. And, you know, obviously I'm running for president because I have my own ideas about where we should go from here.

We'll build on some of the things he's done. We'll do some things differently. But one thing I admire that I do want to emulate is he understood that if you're going to get stuff done, you got to be able to work with people. We got an infrastructure bill because Republicans and Democrats were willing to work together. The president being part of that process. We didn't get that under Donald Trump. There's a reason for that. We got this done. You know, we got that done.

And then I guess the last element, Tim, is part of that mix is, you know, Trump does, he offers himself as a tribune of the forgotten middle class, but he governs in a very traditional way. And I mean, Republicans have a different view on this, but his one major achievement was that big tax cut that skewed in one direction. He wants to do away with the Affordable Care Act. There are a lot of things that he would do that don't square with the idea that he's a tribune of the working man. The advice you have there, I don't know if you've been talking to our buddy Jaymar to Politico, but it is kind of in line. Jaymar this morning has a piece that says that she should be embracing the probability that she has a GOP Senate, vow compromise, taking temps down, getting shit done. I mean,

that's kind of insidery to care about the Senate. But it is like, when I talk to my on the fence, the small group of swing voters that are the former Republicans, college educated, don't like Trump, are worried about Kamala, that the real Kamala might be too far left. I look at them and say, look, the Senate is gone, right? I mean, the Montana Senate polls has New York Times has she plus eight, Remington, she plus eight, Fabrizio, she plus six, public opinion, she plus six. And so if the Democrats can't win Montana, they can't win the Senate. And if they can't win the Senate, they can't do any of the socialist stuff you're scared of. So can you use that to pivot to the center? And what they should be worried about is that if Trump wins and manages to carry the House with him and the Senate, you know,

where's the guardrails? None. Supreme Court, 6-3 Supreme Court, three Trump appointees. Yeah. And I would expect that he might get a chance to make other appointments because I think there'll be a couple of them who may quit and give him the opportunity to do that. It still would be the same configuration, but you'd have a new generation of some of the same. So I think that now they have to sharpen their closing argument and it has to be consistent and it has to be carried in media. And I'm sure they're thinking about that. Where are you at on the bedwetting scale here? It's just as far as things are going. I mean, let me look down.

Yeah. Are you in a puddle right now? It's all dry here. It's all dry. Okay. That's not true over here in New Orleans. I'm in a puddle and it isn't a storm for once. It's my own.

Yeah. It's my own migrating. Let me just say we are ill, sir. I think the vibe right now isn't great. There's concern. But partly we have this plethora of polls and they all say something slightly different. So, you know, if she's two points up in one poll in a state and another poll comes out and says she's a point down, that is around a bedwetting and so on. I'm not minimizing the fact that I do think she stalled out about 10 days after the debate. I kind of think the war was a circuit breaker there and kind of because I don't think that's, you know, people started thinking about the commander in chief thing.

And there were some other things. And I have to say that the Trump campaign has been very, very, while he's undisciplined, they're very disciplined in their media is designed to cast her as, A, a continuation of Biden's economics, and B, an exotic left-wing radical. Worse than exotic, really. Right. Queer, loving, non-binary, loving radical is going to change your kid's gender. They have been burning that message in, and I think that's had some impact as well. So, you know, is it right to be concerned? It's right to be concerned. This is a very, very close race though. I mean, the reality of the race is you're

talking about virtual ties in almost all the battleground states. Now, the question that plays in people's minds is, does Trump produce what he has in the past, which is, you know, hidden vote that comes out at the end? So is a tie actually a win for him? That's, I think, what a lot of Republicans assume. I think a lot of Democrats fear it. I don't know. I mean, polling has been refined. His number generally is around where his number has been in the final analysis. So it makes me think that polling has refined itself. I don't think there are shy Trump voters out there anymore. Trump voters are anything but shy. You know, I was with Rove last night, and he argues that there may be shy anti-Trump voters.

Rove might be a shy Harris voter. You might have been with a shy Harris voter. He did not reveal that to me. But he won't come on the podcast, which makes me think he might be a shy. He doesn't want to admit that he's not a shy Harris voter because he knows where I'm going if I get him on. Maybe he's a shy bulwark listener. Yeah. Hey, Carl. But I mean, my point is, you know, we don't really know, but it would be more comfortable. You know, Biden had a big lead at this point in polling. He ended up winning by 44,000 votes over three states. Hillary had a big lead at this moment, and she ended up losing the

battleground states by narrow margins. So forging a bit of a lead would give people comfort and everybody would dry out, you know. But I don't know that we're going to have that. There's some scuttle out there that like the Dem private numbers are actually worse than the public numbers. Do you hear that? You know, I'll tell you something. I think that there are all kinds of numbers out there. I mean, I've been watching one set of numbers, just a rolling track that for months, I think they reflect what I said, which is she was making steady progress until about 10 days after the debate, and it kind of leveled off. But it leveled off

in a place where everything's sort of tied. There's no steep decline. The day before Joe Biden dropped out, Trump was headed to a landslide. That's not where we are right now. This is a very winnable race, but I think that she's going to have to do a little bit more to make the sale and events are going to have an impact on it. I think that minor changes in the environment can make a difference in this race. So it's fine to be concerned. It's a mistake to be fatalistic about this. I don't think this race is over by any stretch of the imagination. No, I'm not fatalistic.

I'm just breathing into a paper bag. Concerned is where I am. Hey, y'all. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty busy to be doing all this grocery shopping and cooking and prep that I need to do these days. And with HelloFresh, I get farm fresh pre-portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to my doorstep. You skip trips to the grocery store and count on HelloFresh to make home cooking easy fun and affordable. That's why it's America's number one meal kit. Make this fall the tastiest season yet with farm fresh produce and easy

autumn inspired recipes delivered right to your door with HelloFresh. HelloFresh delivers all the pre-portioned ingredients you'll need to make easy homemade meals. The proteins, the veggies, the sauces, the spices, and more arrive in your box along with simple instructions that walk you through each step in the cooking process. Choose meals that match you and your family's lifestyle, and wholesome quick and easy vegetarian you'll always find something to love from hello fresh over here at our house i bet people don't know this about me i'm the cooker i'm the cooker and i use that word very in specific i didn't say i'm the chef all right i'm not a i'm not a fancy chef okay but i'm doing i'm preparing not maybe that

much we definitely you know, do some, do some DoorDash also. We go down to Ferret Street and eat out. But when we're cooking, you're looking at them. And as you can tell, we're in the busy season. We're doing politics. So having HelloFresh send us some pre-packaged meals with all the ingredients there, easy instructions. I can do it while I'm prepping for the podcast, listening to David Axelrod's Dan Crenshaw interview, getting a little riled up about that. Don't need to chop up and do all the other stuff that it takes more time than I have these days. So, get 10 free meals at HelloFresh.com slash free the bulwark applied across seven boxes new subscribers

only varies by plan that's 10 free hellofresh meals just by going to hellofresh.com slash free the bulwark and get america's number one meal kit i want to get your take on this because sometimes i feel like i worry that we're biased at the Bulwark in analysis of kind of wanting Dems to reach out to our people because we know our people. And the Harris campaign has really been doing a lot. She's got a new ad out that I saw you tweeted the other day that is like directly aimed at our folks. 100 Republicans who worked in national security for Presidents Reagan, both Bushes, and for President Trump, now endorsing Harris for president. She came up as a prosecutor, an attorney general, into the Senate. She has the kind of character that's going to be necessary in the presidency. Vice President Harris is standing in the breach

at a critical moment in our nation's history. We have a shared commitment as Americans to do what's right for this country. This year, I am proudly casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. Former generals, secretaries of defense, secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, CIA Directors, and National Security Council Leaders, under Democratic and Republican Presidents, Republican Members of Congress, and even former Trump Administration officials agree, there's only one candidate fit to lead our nation, and that's Kamala Harris. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message. There was a Wisconsin Marquette poll that jumped out at me.

It said a large majority of undecided voters in the state describe themselves as moderates. In partisan terms, Republicans and Republican-leading independents make up the single biggest group, about half the undecideds, followed by pure independents, 40%, and Democrats and Democratic-leading independents, only 10%. To me, that must be what they're seeing, right? Like, that's why there's so much Liz Cheney, because I hear, you know, from my lefty friends, like, maybe a little dial back to Liz Cheney a little bit. Where do you fall on that? I think there's that. I think they're trying to create a permission structure for these, you know,

Haley Republicans. But I also think that ad, it came after that war erupted. And I do think that it was a direct answer to the whole commander in chief thing and strength thing. You know, it featured Stan McChrystal, who was the commander in Afghanistan and played a big role in Iraq. So I think it was on a macro level meant to deal with that issue on a micro level you know i think to reach out to those republican leaning independents for whom national security is a big issue and liz cheney does speak to those people coalitions are are a bitch man they're hard to manage can i say that these days i yeah you can say certainly on the bulwark podcast maybe not on crooked media i don't

know the staffer they might have different staffers over their different concerns we can say certainly on the bulwark podcast maybe not on crooked media i don't know the staff they might have different staffers over their different concerns we can say it's a bitch over here okay charles franklin is the pollster's name i was thinking about i want to shout him out he does good work i just want to verbalize the worry that people have which is not my worry i think this is correct i think that what the harris team is doing is correct and i think that they're looking at data and and the data is just that like high income high education former republicans are like the people left on the tree that they can still squeeze the juice that's left to squeeze but some people say it's like it feels hillary-ish you know that hillary-ish try hillary tried this and they lost listen i think their biggest problem

tim is not that i think their biggest problem is they're still lagging a bit among African-Americans, and there's a concern about that, both those numbers in turn. So that's unlike, so why so much less change? Are there other stuff? Should she be doing other, is there other type of messaging that might appeal to that demo? demo well there there's no question although i mean i don't think the voters who are hanging out and not just black voters or hispanic voters but younger voters and some other kind of working class voters i don't think they're watching tv ads particularly i don't think they're i mean they're probably getting a lot more on social media tv ads are for the 65 year old former republican types that are still watching terrestrial cable. Yeah, I mean, I think that there's some of that. They're doing, I'm sure, a lot of stuff to micro-target those.

And frankly, President Obama getting out there today in Pittsburgh, and this will be the start of a campaign presence for him. He can be very helpful with some of the voters who they need to consolidate here, but who are much more influenced, by the way, by economic issues than by these issues. So don't assume that their whole messaging is aimed at you. Well, they don't need to aim it at me. I'm one over. But my people, my people writ large. Your people, yeah. You're responsible for them.

I know, and we're doing everything. We're out there. This is a good plug, Axe. We've got a bus tour next week. We're doing Philly, Pittsburgh, Detroit. We've got all the Never Trumper stars. Go to theblork.com slash events. Come hang out with us. George Conway will be out there. We got some regular Pennsylvanian and Michigan former

Republicans voting for Kamala. So it'll be a good little circuit. You mentioned your former boss is out today. We got you here. So I want to do a little, you know, looking back. But before we get to that, there's one more clip from that podcast i want to play that i think is interesting thinking in the context of of your former boss let's listen to to trump talking about what he thinks about america my legacy to be is the same as the term mega make america great again i'm going to make this country great again it's not a great country right now it's loaded loaded up. It's always a great country. It's a great country. See, that's why I disagree.

It's always a great country. Okay, but... Good on that comedian. It's always a great country. Yeah. And then you hear Trump under his breath if you couldn't hear it. That's where I disagree. Yeah. Could you imagine what would have happened if your former boss had done that? Well, that was a big meme, right, about him that he, you know, not only was he not an American, but he hated America. You heard that

a lot from Rush Limbaugh and others, including, you know, Trump obviously was a propagator of the whole birther thing. Yeah, listen, I said this to a group last night. My father was a refugee from Eastern Europe, Jewish refugee, and suffered terrible violence and deprivations and so on. And he and his family struggled to get here when he was a child. And one generation later, I was the senior advisor to the President of the United States. You know, this isn't a perfect country, but this is a great country. We should always want to make it greater. We should always strive to make it more perfect. But the freedom that we have here, the opportunities, we should work to broaden, certainly. Why is it that people all over the world want to come here? You know, I know that

Trump thinks that's bad. I think it's good. I think it's good that this is a it that people all over the world want to come here? You know, I know that Trump thinks that's bad. I think it's good. I think it's good that this is a country that people look up to, that people want to come to, that people want to come and contribute to. You know, I'd like to think my family was one of those families that came here and contributed to this country. So I would think people should find that deeply, deeply offensive. I mean, the truth of the matter is Donald Trump thinks that no country is great that he isn't president

of. And that's how he judges whether a country is great. Instantly, instantly, instantly, if he were to get elected again on January 21st, America would be great again in his telling. This is bigger than Donald F and Trump. I think one of the things that should concern people is that kind of perverse worldview. But Josh Shapiro's line about why don't they stop shit-talking America, it really speaks to a larger thing, which is there is nothing, no principle, no value that Trump is unwilling to subjugate for his own political needs. He wants to, you know, weaponize every problem. The fact that they didn't pass that immigration bill last year because he said no we want the issue was a parable about who he is sorry you got you set me off there no let's do it i love setting you off and because it sets

me off like i watch this it makes me very upset and listen do you talk about your your father's story and it is the fundamentalist american story and that's why donald trump is fundamentally un-american i think my favorite line of obama's was in the unlikely story that is america there's nothing false about hope i find myself saying that sometimes sometimes tongue-in-cheek but but also sometimes earnestly yeah i'll tell you something when when when he got the call to give the convention speech in 2004 the keynote address he hung up the phone and he said, I know what I want to say. And I said, well, what is it that you want to say? He said, I want to talk about my story as part of the larger American story. And he did. And it's

something that he believed. He carried that in his heart. And in that sense, he was the most American of presidents because he believed in the greatness of America, even as he recognized where America had fallen short and where we could do better. Did you have a favorite Obama line? And did you write it? Your favorite one you didn't write? No. The thing about that particular speech is that he did write that speech. I think it's the greatest speech he ever gave. And he's given a lot of good speeches.

And we had a lot leading the speechwriters meeting, because it was the greatest writers room you could ever imagine. But he was the best speechwriter in the group. And that speech was pure Obama. And I used to say to the speechwriters, that's the founding document. You know, if you find yourself getting lost, go back and read that because that's what this is all about. So I don't know. There are so many lines that I loved and appreciated. But, you know, the line that gave me chills in some ways was and the purest joy that I experienced in that whole journey with Obama politically, I mean, passing the Affordable Care Act to me was personal because I have a child with chronic illness. But politically, the most joyful experience was the Iowa caucuses in 2008.

And when he came out on that stage and they said this day would never come. It just sent chills down my spine because it meant so much about our country. You know, here he had won the caucuses in a state that was overwhelmingly white and they had embraced him. It was so moving to me. That whole night was so moving to me. That whole night was so moving to me. But, you know, we could do a whole show on him and his rhetoric. Let's do that, hopefully, next year, if Trump loses. The bulwark may be out of business. The bulwark, you may be broadcasting from Toronto.

Well, then we'd have nothing but time. And I'm going south, baby. I'm going south. I'm not going up to the cold. Stuart Stevens offered me his place in Quebec City. And I was like, no, Quebec City for me. I'm going to be down in Montevideo or something. I'm hiding out.

I have a little bone to pick with you. One serious note on this. Just listen to this. You're getting me emotional. Thinking about Obama. Thinking about what he meant to the american story and then thinking about trump and how how just fundamentally at odds he is with it and how fucking cruel he was and how just negligent he was in his attacks on obama and in the way that he was president the way that he acted as

president i feel like sometimes we're the most pissed than ever trumpers at the people that go around to go along with them and sometimes i i don't know i'm like on the i don't know how you do it on the cnn panel sometimes i'm looking at you and i just want to grab scott jennings by his lapel throw him throw him down throw down and i do feel like you have a little bit more of a zen to you a little more of a calm can you explain that to me why you don't have rage why you don't have my rage you know you you're not the first person i i know uh i remember david from was at my institute of politics at the university of chicago where you should come sometime i walked into the conference room and the first thing he said to me is why are you so calm yeah calm? You can hear I'm not calm in the

sense that I love this country for what it truly is. And I think there's so much at stake. But I also think that one thing that's at stake is our ability to talk to each other. And the truth of the matter is Scott Jennings is a really good friend of mine. You know, I don't agree with him. And I think he's playing a particular role right now that... It's pernicious? A pernicious role? Well, I mean, certainly, he's playing a partisan role at a time when, you know, I think it's, you have to stretch yourself to do that and feel good about it. But I know him as a human being. I know what he is as a father. I know his whole story. I know

how he treats people. I hear a lot about him. But my view is I want to have conversations with people. So when I challenge him, it's in the spirit of, I'm not trying to impeach you as a human being. I'm not trying to impeach you as an American, but I'm going to challenge what you say. The thing about Trump, there is something called Trump derangement syndrome, but it's an understandable thing because he ratchets things up so high that we respond to his outrage with our outrage and we ratchet it up to the point where we're in our silos and they're in their silos. But isn't our outrage righteous though? Isn't there a difference between righteous outrage and fake bullshit outrage? Yes. The outrage we have is about fake bullshit outrage. But the point is, Tim, we can, and it goes to our earlier discussion,

I kind of try and look for the best in people and, you know, and I, you know, try and relate to that and try and work through differences. And I don't know how we survive, honestly, as a democracy. I mean, obviously, we can't survive as a democracy if we look away from gross trespasses of democracy. Let's just stipulate that point. And I understand the outrage about people who know better who are willing to look aside at the and I think that's what you're speaking about. But it's also true. I mean, I have conversations with people who are voting for Trump and I have conversations with people who are voting for Harris. I live sometimes in the rural Midwest. I've got neighbors who are good neighbors and

good people who are voting for Trump for a variety of reasons, mostly because they don't think they count. And he's like a big middle finger to the people they think are disdainful of them. Totally. He's not disdainful of them at all. He cares about them very deeply. Average rural Illinois people. Yeah. Well, of course. But what he is is a big middle finger to the people who they think disdain them. I think we have to find our way back to a point where we can have good faith differences. Listen, you come from a different partisan tradition than I do. We could probably find things that we disagree on, but I don't demean you for it. The hard part is this issue of democracy. And I think

that is where I choose to plant my flag when we have these arguments on television and so on, which is, you know, when you, Scott talked about Waltz being deceptive because he was in Hong Kong or China two months after he said he was. You can't compare that to a guy saying that the election was stolen and turning a whole country upside down. That's not an honest debate. And I call him on it. And you know that because we saw him on TV that night. I mean, he sounded like me. You know, everyone sounded like everyone. I don't mean to keep picking on Scott. Everyone. They all sounded like me. Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Scott Jennings, they all sounded like me and you. Everybody did for three days.

So it's not like they didn't know. Yeah, no, and I don't think he would say, if he were here, he would not say, well, I've changed my mind on that. The question is, is that or is that not? No, but you've changed your mind on how important it is. Is that not a serious enough offense that it makes one unacceptable in a position of responsibility in this country? You know, I think, yes, Scott needs to explain why he thinks no. But I'm just, you know, I don't know if I've explained myself sufficiently to your satisfaction. Well, no, no, no, you can't. I mean, Sarahah we do this

we i'm sorry we're going over but this is important stuff we um we struggle with this because like deep we deeply care about norms and and conversation and want the country to be fixed and want us to be able to to argue i argue about policy disagreements so like that is intention though with are also like just deep-seated rage at people that are trying to tear the country down that know better or that the people that know better who are going along yeah who are going along with their fellow travelers let me yes and they're doing it and they're doing it for personal political reasons. Very petty reasons. Survival. Survival in the environment he's created.

And I'm sure if you look at history at some – Yeah, but everybody survives. That's kind of a cop-out though. Anybody that has achieved success in Republican politics who wanted to walk away could go work for a company, could go to – Right, I agree with you. Nobody's putting their food on their table. Nobody's not surviving. Survival in the game. I had this discussion with Adam Kinzinger,

who I really respect. He's on my side of this. Kinzinger, he might be the only one madder than me. He's like full of rage at these. Oh, no, no. And you know what? He deserves to be because he was willing to say there are bigger things in life than having a title. I asked him about voting against the first impeachment. He

said, that was the worst vote I ever cast. I said, why did you cast it? He said, because it's hard to walk away from the tribe. And he said, and a lot of my colleagues, he said, this is their identity. Being a member of Congress, being a member of the Senate, this is their identity. Being a member of Congress, being a member of the Senate, this is their identity. It's not, to me, it's a job. To them, it's their identity, and they can't imagine themselves not in those jobs. He wasn't justifying it. I think he's a guy, you know, he's a career military guy. He's a guy who takes his oath seriously. I honor him. I'm proud to call him my friend. And I understand, you know, his feelings. But what he described is what it is.

I'm not excusing it. I think that, you know, history is going to be very tough on people who, you know, knew better and went along. But that describes 90% of the current Republican Party leadership. All right. Well, at some level, I admire it. And I need to find your Zen. So, if you have any yoga or CBD gummy advice, I will take it. I will say I debated Dan Crenshaw. I'll also be practicing Zen in Toronto. Okay, great. I should shout out the ax files podcast you do very interesting long-form conversations with people that said i listened to your dan crenshaw podcast

to prep for a debate i had with dan crenshaw that we'll put in the show notes for people that missed it it wasn't that helpful because because you're zen you're zen versus my rage like maybe it should have been more helpful actually maybe i should have taken a little bit more from your style. But it's just, it's hard for me internally. My goal in that podcast, there is a ton of forums in which you can get very intense debates. My goal in that podcast is to, I want people to leave the podcast more aware of who someone is. I want them to learn about who people are, their stories, and so on. And I think in that podcast, if you listen to that podcast,

there are places where his discomfort or his inability to sort of square the circle were evident. And people will draw their own conclusions. So my mission on that podcast is a little different. No, you succeeded in your mission. It just didn't help your mission. I was looking for a little gotchas, you know. I was looking for a little gotchas coming to give them a little twist the knife, verbally, rhetorically, but we had a spirited exchange, I would say.

Last thing, you don't have the stash anymore. You shaved it for epilepsy. Right. This is what you mentioned earlier, your daughter. So it's a two-part question. Yeah, my daughter, yeah. Is the stash ever coming back? And do you want to give to our listeners an organization that you raised money for and we can put the link in so you can promote it? Yes. That's so good of you to ask. No, it will never come back and I'll tell you why. I mean,

there's a long story as to how this happened, but we did this thing after the election of 2012 on Morning Joe called Slash the Stash. By the way, one of the first big contributions came from Donald Trump because I said on the show- If he watches a lot of cable. He watches Morning Joe, that's for sure. I said, I know you're watching. You said you'd give us $5 million if the president would present his birth certificate. He presented his birth certificate. You never gave us the $5 million. I said, you can at least send me $100,000. And he did send me $100,000 from the now defunct foundation. So it probably wasn't his money, but I still appreciated it. And then I was

able to call Mark Cuban and say, Donald Trump just gave me $100,000. You can't let him out, do you? So he sent $200,000. We ended up raising $1.2 million. I shaved the mustache off. We walk away from this. I did it on national TV. And my wife says to me, hey, leave that thing off. I always hated it anyway. This was after 33 years of marriage, Kim. So it's like, what else is she not telling me? But yes, the organization is cureepilepsy.org. It started at our kitchen table because our daughter was in agony and we couldn't find any answers. And it became the largest private funder of epilepsy research in the world. And, you know, we're looking for innovative research that will find cures so that people don't have to put up with the kinds of side effects that you would get from some of these very difficult drugs you have to take to subdue

seizures if you have intractable epilepsy or surgeries or other treatments. So please, if you're inclined, please send a few bucks to cureepilepsy.org. One in 26 Americans will have epilepsy in their lifetime, and a third of them will have intractable epilepsy. So this is not a small problem, and we welcome all the help we can in solving it. Thank you for your advocacy and your calm and your insight david axelrod uh we'll do this again from i guess you'll be in toronto i'll be a montevideo and uh you know what i'm not i'm not getting run out of my country i'll tell

you neither i'm effing staying i'm effing staying we'll see you val back here tomorrow for the friday edition of the Lord Podcast. Peace. We cryin' goodbye, we got dinosaurs, dude The design's one-two-one-two I done read books by Sun Tzu Learned from beautiful women who roll my joints too The opposite of humble and my swag on Kung Fu No admission for the cool, just kickin' and come through Hurry up, we got liquor to run through Bills to inhale, lies to not tell She told me let her go and then I can exhale

I left her with a pound of drool in her next tail Take it easy, easy, easy, easy The Bullwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.