The Bulwark Podcast - David Corn: Trump Is Still a Threat

Episode Date: November 16, 2022

Trump's 2024 announcement may have been panned, but his base loves the greatest hits — millions just voted for election deniers across the country. And while the GOP underperformed in the election, the anti-reality wing will have a stronger presence in the House. David Corn joins Charlie Sykes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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If you're thinking of starting therapy but you're afraid of what you might uncover, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com. Welcome to the Bulletark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sext. Well, that did not go the way Donald Trump, I think, had anticipated that it would go. The very, very low energy announcement that is just getting trashed in the reviews. You know that it's bad when even Ivanka is bailing out. I mean, it's one thing for the Murdochs to turn against him. You know, the New York Post actually puts

the announcement at the bottom. Florida man makes announcement probably the most savage way possible. You're having other major donors who are bailing. But when Ivanka issues a statement within minutes saying, hey, I love my dad, but I am totally out of this one. You know that things are a little bit different. There's a different vibe. But it is, of course, we have to caution you, highly premature to think that this is the end of Donald Trump. So joining me to talk about all of this is David Korn, Washington Bureau Chief of Mother Jones, analyst for MSNBC, whose latest book is American Psychosis, also writes the newsletter Our Land. So first of all, welcome back to the podcast, David. I want to say great to be with you, Charlie, but given what we're talking about today,

I'll just say pleased to be here. You know, what was interesting yesterday, I was just thinking about the moment, how quickly the Civil War and the Republican Party just burst into full flame. The recriminations, the knives being out, Kevin McCarthy, who has done every possible contortion of self-humiliation, is still short of the votes to be speaker in the Senate. You have MAGA coming for Mitch McConnell. And then as I wrote in my newsletter this morning, right on cue, the symbol and the architect of all of the chaos comes out and says, hey, I would like six more years of this. And it is it is kind of a remarkable moment. You know, I this would have been a

brilliant I think you could certainly argue this would have been a brilliant, I think you could certainly argue this would have been a brilliant announcement to have made last night if the Republicans had run the table, if he'd have Kerry Lake standing by his side. But it had a very different vibe, didn't it, last night? Yeah, it kind of felt a little cheesy more cheesier than usual um there were no high profile figures with it with donald trump as he made his announcement including his family members you know it kind of looked like uh you know he's he's doing it on the side you know it wasn't very it wasn't very royal you know here he comes back into the fold, and it's like the rock star

who has been out of circuit for a couple years is now doing a comeback tour, and people are excited about that. It looked like the usual assortment of hangers-on at Mar-a-Lago, kind of the Star Wars bar scene. Roger Stone, Madison Cawthorn, My Pillow Guy, and Dick Morris. Yeah, that's it.

I mean, this isn't even – we've gone from Fox News to maybe OAN, right? It's a pale copy of what Trumpism used to be, and there was a clip going around Twitter this morning of, you know, into his second hour of talking, people were trying to leave the ballroom, but they were not allowed to for security purposes. So it felt a little bit to me like the Titanic. It's like, give me the lifeboat here. I want out. Now, you know, we can joke about this particular appearance, but I know you agree with me that there is something that's quite serious about this, that Trump incited an insurrection,

tried to kill American democracy, is sort of back in the game. And no matter what Rupert Murdoch and the others say, he still has a chance at the nomination. And if you have a chance at the nomination, you have a chance at the White House. I think that's absolutely true. And I think that that is the reality check that despite all of the recriminations, all the people bailing, Donald Trump has seen this before.

And he's quite confident that he can do a repeat of what he did in 2015 and 2016. And he's not necessarily wrong, given the dynamics. Your comment about the people leaving the ballroom, I think, is highly important because the worst thing that could happen to Donald Trump, I'm trying to think through the alternative scenarios, which we'll get to in a moment, because I agree with you that that, you know, the the default setting has to be that he's the presumptive nominee. But if he's not, if there if this is going to go sideways, you know, the the default setting has to be that he's the presumptive nominee. But if he's not,

if there if this is going to go sideways, you know, a number of things have to happen, including the fact that he is perceived as a big loser and even worse than that, as a boring loser. And there was a real boring vibe to that. And, you know, Amanda Carpenter wrote this morning in the Bulwark, bored people tried to leave before Trump was even finished speaking. Others simply turned their back to him and talked through his remarks. And keep in mind, these attendees were ostensibly among his most dedicated and connected aides and supporters. They were bored and he sounded bored. So I just I lay that out there.

Hey, before we get into this, David, though, I want to play this monologue that kind of went viral yesterday from our colleague Von Hilliard over at NBC, who was on Morning Joe and has been covering the Carrie Lake campaign. And he sort of sums it up and then sort of connects the dots to what we saw last night. And I wanted to play this because this, I think, sets the stage for the moment that we are in. This is NBC's Vaughn Hilliard yesterday on Morning Joe. Covered Carrie Lake for the better part of the last year and a half here. And I think it was perhaps fitting to be here across from Mar-a-Lago today. I finally flew yesterday from Arizona here. And essentially, though, I felt like it was covering Donald Trump's campaign of 2024, but in Arizona over the last year. She predicated her campaign on trying to sell the big lie and trying to sell the conspiracy theories. When she wonders how she

lost this race, look at it. This is the third election cycle in a row in which Arizonans rejected Trumpism. In the final week of her campaign, who did she campaign alongside? She campaigned alongside Steve Bannon. She campaigned alongside one of the chief promoters of Pizzagate. She campaigned alongside an individual who promoted the notion of the war on white people. She campaigned alongside State Senator Wendy Rogers, who just earlier this year was here in Florida speaking at a white nationalist conference, somebody who frequently spews anti-Semitism. This is an individual who just last week called her Democratic opponent a pervert. This is an individual who suggested there should be perp

walks for elections officials, criminal charges against individuals who oversaw COVID response in 2020 in Arizona. This is an individual who's celebrating putting a dagger into the, quote, the McCain machine. She asserted that Cindy McCain wants to end America. She called Mike Lindell one of the great patriots of our time. She said Dinesh D'Souza is one of the greatest patriots in America. She suggested Paul Gosar was the kind of lawmaker our founding fathers envisioned. She called the media the right hand of the devil, the scourge of the earth. If that doesn't sound like Donald Trump, I don't know what does. And ultimately, the big question was, was she going to be able to make

that sell here? And the answer is no, according to Arizona voters. And when you look at that slate of election deniers, from Tudor Dixon to Tim Michaels to Jim Marchand to Nevada, to Mark Fincham. She was the latest one to fall, essentially making it a clean sweep of those not only election, I are gubernatorial candidates and secretary of state candidates. And now Donald Trump is going to go and try to run on the very message that all these folks lost on. So, David Korn, that really sums it up that Donald Trump is going to run on the issues and the attitude and the vibe of all these candidates that were just swept away. That's the important context about where we are right now. this note of caution to any triumphalism that a pro-Democrat, small d, Democrat, American might be feeling. I'm looking at the results right now. Carrie Lake,

who was just accurately described as a bonkers conspiracy theorist who campaigned with the most extreme, crazy folks in Trump world, got 49.66% of the vote. 1,259,688 Arizonans said, yeah, I want that. Only 50.34% of the Arizona electorate rejected that or voted in favor of Katie Hobbs. So yes, she lost. This is less a overwhelming rejection of Trumpism than, you know, we might see in this binary win lose fashion. So, you know, I imagine Trump looking at this says, well, she was a woman who couldn't do the job. I can. And, you know, I can get from 49.66% to 50.01% when she couldn't. Now, I'm not saying he can, but I'm saying, you know, even though all the election deniers lost statewide races, whether it was the secretary of State or Governor, some of the main Senate races as well, they all got in the mid to high 40% range. That means that

tens of millions of Americans still are okay with the big lie, with the January 6th insurrection, with the way Trump handled COVID and all the other mishigas, as we say. So that goes back to the issue that people are taking on this morning, which is Trump coming back and does he have a chance? And I think this indicates, yeah, he has a hell of a chance because these people are Republicans. And if they vote for Kerry Lake, they're certainly going to vote for Donald Trump. And he doesn't need to get non-Republican votes to win the primary. Maybe in a few places he needs some independence. But if he's thinking just about winning the nomination, the fact that Kerry Lake did so well, that the Secretary of State came within a point or two of winning,

that's, you know, him. It's like, well, I got millions of people buying this BS, and they're going to vote for me again. So in some ways, it's great that there was this outright rejection. We can be thankful as we sit down for Turkey next week. But there are tens of millions who are still within this Trump fever. Well, and I think you're making an important point here that right now he's going to be focused

on getting the nomination. And having 40% or even 38% of the electorate may be enough for him. It was in 2016 if the race is fractured, if there's a bunch of candidates in the race. And look, you and I are both old enough that we have seen this movie before, I feel, multiple times. I mean, we remember Access Hollywood. We remember the reaction the day after that. We remember what

it was like after January 6th. And as you said, you wrote yesterday, you know, the GOP effort to separate themselves from Trump after January 6th was about as long lived as the life of a fruit fly. And I guess the question we have to ask ourselves is, why do we think this is different, particularly when Donald Trump will make it absolutely clear that he will burn down the House if he doesn't get this nomination? And the first thing we need to know, Charlie, will anyone take him on? You know, Ron DeSantis does well in polls, but he hasn't announced yet. I mean, it's a major decision for him to decide whether to go up against this thresher of Donald Trump, who will do everything possible to destroy him, to burn him down, and to burn down the GOP if he feels he's

losing ground himself. It's great to talk about a lot of this stuff, but until we know that there's a single other candidate in the race, Donald Trump is the leader and the presumed nominee. And I'm not counting Larry Hogan. I'm not counting Liz Cheney, bless her for the work she's done the last year or two, but she can't win Republican primary. She couldn't win the Republican primary in her home state, you know, and that's kind of a badge of honor for her. You know, who's going to take him on? You know, who is Rupert Murdoch talking to now and encouraging to get in the race and promising that, you know, don't worry about Trump.

I'll take care of him. And is that even possible? Yeah. It ends up being, I mean, this is still, it is still a democracy to a certain extent, and it will be up to the Republican voters, you know, to decide. Now, Rupert Murdoch might be able to guide them or push them in one direction or another, but ultimately it's the base that has been radicalized by the Republicans that still believe Barack Obama was born in Kenya, that still believe that the Democrats are involved

with sex trafficking rings, that still believe that January 6th was no big deal, still believe the big lie. I mean, those are, if not majority positions, gigantic pluralities within the Republican base. So, and those are the people who are going to pick the nominee. Well, I think that's inarguable. I agree with your analysis, but let me play devil's advocate here, the alternative, because over the last six years, one of the things we've learned is that we need to ask ourselves, well, what if we're wrong? What if this time is in fact different? I kind of explore this during my newsletter today. So in order for Trump to lose in this primary, you have to have a lot of things that would happen. Number one, what you mentioned, it's got to be a one-on-one. It can't be, you know, a six candidate race. So that's number one.

And Republicans have proven themselves incapable of doing that so far. But also, you have to have the message that it is time to turn the page, you know, that perhaps we have a younger, smarter race-baiting demagogue with authoritarian impulses and a desire to fight culture wars who can replace him. Those were your words, by the way. You know, we got the guy who can do this, who can be, you know, in office for eight years, who is not going to lose. So you have to have the turn the page thing. You have to have donors flee. You have to have, you know, the MAGA media begin to splinter. Maybe a little bit of that is happening. And I think what's going to be interesting to see is how the base responds to this, this sense that that Donald Trump, you know, they may love him, but he can't win

and that it's gotten old. So one of the big tests is gonna come when and if, I'm assuming when, he is indicted. The conventional wisdom is, and I share this, by the way, that the base will rally around him. There'll be a backlash, a pro-Trump backlash within the MAGA base.

But that may also add to doubts about his electability. If a guy like Ron DeSantis can say, look, I give you everything that you would get with Trump, but I'm not under indictment. I'm not 77 years old. Whether or not that will make a difference. I also think it's interesting now, the timing here, because Trump figured that he could get out in front of everybody. He preempted the Department of Justice, he preempted Sanders. But now there are going to be several months where the target's on his back. He will be out there alone. And so he's going to be spinning stuff about the 2020 election. He's going to be flinging out his insults against Ron DeSantis. And Ron DeSantis can sit back and go, OK, this guy, you know, he's flailing. He's fearful. He's,

you know, living in the past. It'll be interesting to see how the next three or four months plays out. Well, I think you're right about that. But I do think, you know, Trump, you know, he has the right instincts when it comes to self-victimization and connecting with the grievances and resentments and fears and paranoia of the base, the Republican electorate. call for Fox and for other Republicans about whether or not to accept those indictments as legitimate or whether they're part of the deep state Biden and Tifa communist plot against Trump. I mean, Trump has always portrayed the attacks on him as the attacks on you, meaning his voters, right? So the Justice Department is coming after me because they don't like you. And it's, you know, it's very clever on his part. And it creates this feeling of community. They're attacking all of us. So when this happens, if he comes to be indicted,

or if Fox or someone turns on him, he will then say to the voters, they're coming at me because of you and they hate you and try to rally people against them. And part of his argument has been that they robbed you of me in the 2020 election. So if someone comes along and even if they say, I think this prosecution is rigged and fixed and illegitimate, but we need somebody else, that person is automatically placed on the other side, you know, the anti-Trump side. Oh, they're not supporting the Justice Department prosecution or the Fox attack, whatever it might be, but they're part of that. And so, you know, what's the saying? Don't go against the king unless you can kill the king. So trying to thread the needle here

and not be portrayed as being part of the liberal anti-Trump effort while criticizing or attacking Trump, that is a really hard two-step for any Republican out there. I don't know how DeSantis or someone else pulls that off. And, you know, David Frum, our colleague, has a piece out in The Atlantic today that basically makes this point and says that the only way the Republicans can defeat Trump, if that's what they want to do, is to hammer him. You can't finesse it. You can't wait for it to happen with the Justice Department. You have to say what he did was wrong

and what he would do as president would be wrong. You can't say he had great policies, but now it's not time for him. Or, you know, maybe we don't want a president who might have a fight with the Justice Department. You have to come out and, you know, as you and others have done. And I don't think that can happen on the Republican side. Right? Yeah. He's right about the analysis that you have to go at him. But and you are right that it's very hard to imagine even a Ron DeSantis going at him because that risks then breaking up his cred with the MAGA base to go after the Orange God King. What I think they're hoping for, and what they've always hoped for, is that something will come along. Yes.

A meteor, a stroke, a Big Mac. If we just don't say anything, this will sort itself out. Right. And artery. Right. This is not going to happen. This will not save them. But I don't think that they have realized that because no one has the stomach for that or so far, no one has the stomach for that. Now, you do have people like Chris Christie who are hammering him, but Chris Christie is never going to get this nomination. That's just not going to happen. And you know that most of these others are not going to be able to do anything about it. To your point about the way this will play out, it's interesting watching National Review once again. There's a moment of deja vu for us all.

The editors go, no, absolutely not. We will never go along with Donald Trump. The gentry conservatives making it clear that they are just not going to tolerate this before. Well, of course, they did that before making their peace. And I think that Donald Trump instinctively understands that that once he breaks them, they will come back to him. So I was watching, you know, Mark Tyson, who inexplicably has a column in The Washington Post. He's a Republican hack. And he was on Fox News saying what a disaster the election was and how we need to move on from Donald Trump. I know that Donald Trump is politically toxic. And yet then he goes on to say, now, I want to make it clear, I'm not never Trump because I think he was wonderful on vaccines. I think he was fantastic on the Middle Eastern Accords.

And he praises him. And Donald Trump looks at him and goes, I'm not afraid of him because you know what? When push comes to shove, he's coming back. He's going to, he will support me in a general election. All of them will eventually decide, well, okay, we've had our differences with Donald Trump, but these Democrats are just, you know, so communistic and atheistic and dangerous that we can't possibly not vote once again for Donald Trump. He understands that. That is the pattern that has been established. And if you say that Trump was a decent president, then why would you not want him back?

I mean, if you believe the guff that Trump said at his announcement last night, that there was the best economy ever. He handled COVID perfectly. Everywhere around the world, the United States was respected. And in the last year and a half, the country has completely turned into a hellscape. Then, of course, you'd want him back. The issue is going to be if anyone takes him on without taking him on, there's no internal logic to their argument. Well, except the sense that he can't win if they convince themselves, well, he's wonderful, but we need to give him a gold watch

because he can't win. But I don't think you can sell that to the Trump voters. You can try to make that argument. I think he will push aside that argument pretty easily and say this is a false argument being used by people who don't like Trump, don't like Trump, you know, and I've been out there fighting for you. I'm trying to save, still trying to save the 2020 election for you. And I don't think that the conspiratorial base, which I think is the largest

part of the base now, will be persuaded by establishment Republicans that the reason they shouldn't vote for Trump is because he's not likely to win against the about-to-drop-dead, Antifa-connected Joe Biden. I think that's fair. I think part of the hope that we're going to see again is that now that he's in the race over the next few months, that somehow that he will discredit himself so thoroughly

or disqualify himself. It's like, guys, have you been paying attention to the people who believe, well, let's show him, you know, let's give him a platform because people will see how crazy he is and they'll turn against him. Okay. David, you're laughing because like we live through this, right? I know we were talking earlier. We've lived through this for the last, you know, seven years now,

which is longer than the World War II or World War I of the Civil War. And even before Access Hollywood, I'll tell you this story. You remember when he first announced in 2015 in June, whenever it was, and literally within seconds, he was attacking John McCain. Yeah. Right? And everybody out there in the Republican universe was going, oh, tut, tut, tut. You can't do this. This shows he's not serious and that he's not going anywhere. We don't have to worry about this guy. I remember going on hardball with Chris Matthews.

I said, Chris, I don't think these people understand the Republican base doesn't like John McCain. And the fact that Trump is punching him in the nose is going to actually make him attractive to these people. They're angry. They want to see someone hit the Republican establishment. And I was later told by one of Trump's advisors that they were giddy watching cable coverage of people believing that Trump had made a mistake. They believe this was completely right on. It was part of his brand and it would show whether or not he actually had a lane forward. And this guy said to me, you know, you and a few others, you know, made the point that we were afraid would be made. You know, we were happy to have

this seen as a tactical error. We wanted the Republican establishment to think that. So I'm glad that no one listened to you, is kind of what the message was. So, you know, McCain, Access Hollywood, Helsinki, you know, siding with Putin and inciting a riot. So, I mean, you know, talk about magical thinking on the part of Republicans. But let me ask you this, because I don't know what I think. Does DeSantis have the cojones or the desire or even just, you know, does he think it's a good move to get into a caged match with Trump? See, no one knows the answer to that question. I know that there are people around him who are telling him that he can handle it. But the question is, does he have a

glass jaw? You know, does he have the cojones to go up against? No one knows that. I mean, until you've done it, you can't imagine it, apparently. I mean, look at the reputations and the political futures that, you know, were absolutely utterly trashed back in 2016. Look what Donald Trump reduced them all to. So the question that Ron DeSantis has to ask himself is, at his age, does he want to go through that? Does he want to go through that kind of a meat grinder? And no one knows the answer to that. And he can wait four years.

He can wait eight years. Yeah. Well, the way American politics is going, he can wait another 40 years, right? Yes. Yeah. Well, the way American politics is going, he can wait another 40 years, right? Yes. Yes. So one of the funny things I heard yesterday was, and I'm not going to name the person because I'm not trying to diss anyone, but in the wake of the election, the fact that election denial and relitigating 2020 was not what voters were responding to. Would Donald Trump, you know, change his message? Would he not go there? And the point was made that, well, you know, the the grownups, the serious people on on his staff are telling him, yeah, let's move on from 2020. Let's not

talk about 2020. Let's not engage in election denialism. And I'm thinking what over the last six years makes you think that, number one, he has the discipline to not talk about it, or that that would really be a problem for him? And then here, let me just play a little soundbite from last night, which was a very buttoned up speech, very much a teleprompter speech. This was Donald Trump at his most reined in, most boring, most sober. But there was this moment as well. Including the raid of a very beautiful house that sits right here. The raid of Mar-a-Lago, think of it. And I say, why didn't you raid Bush's place? Why didn't you raid Clinton? 32,000 emails. Why didn't you raid Clinton's place? Why didn't you do

Obama, who took a lot of things with him? He's not going to be able to help himself, is he? And it probably won't make a difference. Yeah, I don't think he will. He can help himself. I mean, there wasn't a lot of election denialism last night. So on the Trump scale, he seemed to help himself by not going too deeply into that. But I saw a poll, I don't know, was it a YouGov poll in the last day or two, you know, that showed DeSantis going from, I'm making up these numbers, you can find it online, from like 29 to 35% in terms of presidential preference amongst Republicans.

And Trump went from 48 to 47 or 47 to 48. I think that's the morning console poll, yeah. Yeah, it was just like a straight line, right? No real change. And those are the people who want the greatest hits. They want lock her up, right? They want, you know, the election was stolen. They want COVID was fine.

And so even if he descends or, you know, gets off script and gets into that stuff, as he does at his rallies all the time, I don't see that as a turnoff within the Republican primary, which is the only thing that DeSantis or Nikki Haley have to worry about now. And I keep going back to this issue. What's their line of attack on him? You can't go to a tiger, a wounded tiger, and say, well, you know, Mr. Tiger, you've had your run. We love you. You're one of our favorite tigers. But now we need to move on to a different tiger. That doesn't work with a wounded, angry tiger. Who's also hungry. And who's hungry. We add that to the mix.

You know, in some instances, parties have been able to push aside, you know, a candidate that they think may not be right or maybe past his or her prime. It didn't happen with Biden. Biden went all the way. And there was no party, right? I mean, that's what I'm saying.

There is no party. There is no, people tend to think, I was just speaking in LA and people come up and go, well, the Democrats should do this or the Republicans should do that. I go, who are you talking about? I don't think they're conspiratorial about it, but they believe the Republican national committee or the Democratic national committee, that these committees can get together and can make decisions about strategy, messaging and candidates. And it really doesn't work that way. No, it does not work that way at all. Now, you're right that, you know, being buttoned up and, you know, helped him a little bit last night. But I also think that there's going to be a backlash.

And again, those of us who've been in tension for some time know this pattern. Jonah Goldberg actually, I think, nailed it. He says, here's my prediction. Trump will be pissed by all of the reviews saying that his speech was boring and it will leak sometime today or tomorrow that he's mad at the advisors who counseled dullness. And he will then attempt to do something more outlandish, entertaining to get more attention. This is always the pattern that they'll be like, one day, well, he'll be quote unquote presidential and then he'll be ticked about that and he'll lash out in some sort of a way.

So start the clock running because Donald Trump knows he can't be a loser and he can't be boring. So he's going to have to do something. Who the hell knows what? And the thing is, the more he does that, the more whoever decides to run against him will have to say, that's bad. That's wrong.

That's not what we want in a president. That's not accurate. That's not fair. It's not good for democracy. Whatever the criticism is, it's going to be like if DeSantis gets in the race or anybody else, every time Trump does that, they're going to come to that candidate and ask for a response. And if you don't say anything, you look weak.

If you don't slam it down hard somehow, you look like you're acquiescing to him. So Donald Trump, as we saw in 2015 and 2016, can really dictate the terms of the debate because he's willing to be outrageous. And if he says one racist thing that doesn't get enough attention, he'll say something more racist or more outlandish. You know, that will keep coming back to any competition he has. And it will put them in a jam because some, maybe many Republican voters will be in sync with what Trump is saying, right? And to distance themselves from it will not help with the votes. And if you don't do it, you look like you're just, you know, holding his coat

again, which is what all these other guys did in 2015. I mean, it's a dynamic that's really hard to get out of. And, you know, that's in 2015, no one wanted to go first because they knew they would, you know, suffer the consequences. And everybody kept waiting for someone else to do it. So this is what I was spinning up in my mind as I was listening to you, trying to imagine the scenario of somebody going at him.

And, you know, I was thinking, so someone like a Ron DeSantis or a Glenn Youngkin, the next time that Donald Trump engages in an anti-Chinese slur like Coco Chow or Youngkin or makes an anti-Semitic comment to call him out and saying we can't do this sort of thing, this would be the kind of attack. And then, of course, a flashback to 2015, 2016, when Paul Ryan stood up and said that it was textbook racism for Donald Trump to go after a Mexican judge. That was the beginning of the end for Paul Ryan, not for Donald Trump. So we've already seen what you just described. No matter what Trump says, if any of his rivals call him out for racism, for sexism, for, you know, just offensive speech, he will then use that against them and it will hurt them while not eroding any of his support with the base. and that's the thing I'm trying to imagine what would he say that would create an opening for a

rival to attack him that would not hurt the rival I can't I actually I'm I'm having a hard time here let me give Ron DeSantis some advice which I'm a bit loathe to do the best thing I think for Ron DeSantis if he decides to run and I have no, I wouldn't even bet on it because I have no foundation for trying to predict what he will do here. But if he were to run, the best thing for him would be for Liz Cheney to run. Yeah. Because Liz Cheney would take a brick bat to Trump every day and Trump would probably take the bait and DeSantis could try. I'm not sure he could succeed, but he could try to say, I'm not talking about Trump. I'm not talking about Liz Cheney. They can fight it out. I want to talk about the future of America. I'm not sure that's going to

win him the nomination, but it could be a way, if someone else is taking on Trump, it could be a way for him to not be seen as abdicating that responsibility, basically letting someone else do that, who can't win and knows she can't win, and will do it just for the pure pleasure of doing it. All right, so David, let's talk about Kevin McCarthy and Congress. We still don't know what the margin is going to be. Kevin McCarthy, he was reelected as the party leader yesterday, but there were 31 votes against him. He's going to need virtually all of those to be elected speaker in January. That takes 218 votes. So first of all, just talk to me

about Kevin McCarthy and whether or not you think he's going to be the speaker. I don't know is the real answer here because I don't know how committed those 31 votes against him are. It's easier for a Republican to vote against him within the caucus when they know he's going to win than to be one of one, two, three, or a handful of Republicans who deny him the speakership when the ultimate vote counts, right? If he needs 218 votes to be speaker, if there are 220 Republicans at the end of the day in the House, then, you know, three of them could get together and deny him the speakership. That would be a major deal. And at the same time, those voters, those three members of the Republican caucus might try to leverage their votes to get something out of him, which is already a process that's underway.

So I don't know. He hasn't been a strong leader. He has tried to move the party away from Trump after the January 6th riot and then saw that he couldn't and quickly started kissing Trump's tuchus. So he's been back and forth and flip-flops on numerous issues and such. I mean, I know this is his dream job, but it could well turn into a nightmare. This is the worst job ever. Yeah, and the fact that there aren't real serious challenges to him out there, that is other people who want the job, who might be able to take it from him, shows you something. I'm thinking that there's no lack of ambition amongst members of Congress. So my guess is that

several of other leading possible Republican speakers are happy to let Kevin McCarthy take the first crack at it and be there in the wings waiting to pounce when things go awry. I think that's a good take. You make another point, though. You pointed out that the anti-reality wing of the Republican Party obviously will have a stronger presence in this next Congress. This was the first election since, you know, Trump's brown shirts attacked Congress and the House Republicans were telling themselves before the election they would pay no next Congress. This was the first election since, you know, Trump's brown shirts attacked Congress and the House Republicans were telling themselves before the election they would pay no, no price for the attack on the Capitol or for the big line. So they did underperform. But you're right. The GOP's narrow victory is still a crisis for the nation. So what does a two, three, four vote Republican majority look like? What are you

concerned about over the next year? I mean, there were, I think, about 139 House Republicans who voted against certifying the 2020 election. And as things stand at the moment, the number may go up. There are about 150 members of the new Republican Congress coming in who are designated, considered election deniers. So the crazy wing or component, it's not even a wing, it's a majority, the crazy block within the House Republican caucus has expanded. And these are people who want investigations of the 2020 election, of the deep state, of the Justice Department, of the raid at Mar-a-Lago, and also of Hunter Biden and Hunter Biden and Hunter Biden, and maybe even investigations of Clinton and the emails and Benghazi. So there's going to be a lot of chaos. And in a caucus that small, you know, with such a small majority, you know, if someone says, I want to investigate Barack Obama's birth certificate.

And Kevin McCarthy says, no, that will make us look bad. And he goes, well, I got three votes with me and we'll vote against you as speaker or we'll call, you know, another vote. McCarthy may have to give these folks their day. I mean, we see in general House Republicans over the last few years have not been interested in legislation. They've been interested in shitposting and trolling and owning the libs and getting on social media. That's, you know, people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, a rather ignorant conspiratorialist who seems to be one of the leaders of the Republican Party without doing anything, without really doing anything. And so she was kicked off the committees by the Democrats.

Kevin McCarthy has said she will come back on. She's angling for a spot on the oversight committee, which would be doing a lot of these investigations. And she could end up with, you know, a sub chairing a subcommittee of that, of the oversight committee. I think count on that. And while election denialism was rejected in a lot of places, there will be a hotbed of extremism coming out of one half of Congress. You know, I think this relates to it. You know, you mentioned that these folks have not been interested in substance or in policy. And I think that it's always interesting to see how a political

party reacts to setbacks. And it's interesting that there's no discussion now about a change in direction of the party that would address the questions of extremism or the fact that they don't have policy answers for the things that they talk about all the time, because that almost feels like it's irrelevant, doesn't it? You know, to the extent that there is a debate about policy, you have people like Rick Scott saying we should have been more extreme. We should have been more oppositional. You have people like Ben Shapiro saying you don't even know anyone that votes to codify same sex marriage should be expelled from the Republican Party. All of those things doubling down on the things that didn't work. 2012 Reince Priebus autopsy, which turned out to be complete bullshit. But, you know, a sense of like, OK, what do we need to do to actually win elections? You know, if anything, MAGA is arguing

that we just need more of that. We need more of that Kerry Lake juice sort of thing. And I kind of wonder where this is going. Does anybody think that this majority is going to be chastened or moderate? It just hasn't been paying any attention whatsoever. That's right. And as you reference your fellow Wisconsinite, Rents Previs, after the party lost in 2012, said we need a recalibration. And he put out a report. It was called the autopsy Report, 100 pages long, in which he said the Republicans need to be seen as less extreme and more amenable to the interests and the desires of women voters and people of color and be less harsh in our rhetoric and more big-tenty even on issues where we might disagree. And what came after that? Trumpism, you know, in continuation of the Tea Party, just a double down, a triple down on extremism.

And you're going to see that in the House. You know, we see some bit of a leadership battle in the Senate between Rick Scott and Mitch McConnell. I don't think that's going to amount to much. But when people talk about Ron DeSantis being the successor to Donald Trump, it's not because he will lead the party in a different direction. He's been just as extreme as Donald Trump, you know, sending immigrants to Martha's Vineyard, arresting Black voters, I think a poor record on COVID and, you know, fighting culture wars and creating moral panics. So it's not about directing the party differently. It's about a different drum major for the same parade of extremism. But that may be the only way to break Donald Trump, given the toxicity of the Republican base. And I think you made this point before. The Republicans

are not going to turn to Larry Hogan or Paul Ryan or Liz Cheney, unfortunately. They're going to turn to somebody who gives them that same dopamine hit of, you know, cruelty and extremism they get from Donald Trump. I think that's exactly right. I'm often asked, you know, what's the future of all this? And I think in some ways it could burn out over a long stretch of time. It also could be that demographically, this is an older group of Americans. They will start dying off or becoming less involved. I mean, we did go through the fever of McCarthyism in the 1950s. It lasted several years. And then in some ways it continued on in different forms.

But it helped Republicans get elected in the early 50s, but wasn't as much use to them in later years. So it is possible for the spasms of extreme politics to lessen. I don't think they're going to go away. I don't think the 30% of the population that's there, that's in this category now is going to be persuaded to reconsider their views and come to the realization that there is not a secret cabal of baby eaters running the country and the world. But I think, you know, the strategy, I think, for, again, pro-Democrats, small-D Democrats, has to be to try to contain that section of the population and mobilize anybody else who's, you know, who has some concern about the future of democracy and decency and

reasonable debate in this country, whatever policy differences we might have, to band together. You know, Donald Trump's return might make that a bit easier. Well, he'll focus the mind. So let me ask you this question, and I don't know the answer to it, because there was a lot of talk about, you know, that finally, speaking of demographics, that young voters had turned out in big numbers. Did they? Every cycle, there's all this speculation, well, if young people turn out, and then of course they don't. But did they this time? Do you have an indication? The initial exit polls say so, but one thing we've learned about exit polls is you need to wait until they do the more extensive calculations and look at. What I find interesting, and I'm happy to see them do this,

that a lot of MAGA Republicans, you know, the Charlie Kirks of the world and Steve Bannon's are out there saying that real problem is that young single women voted for Democrats and they depict them as young, bitter, angry, single women like they're because they're not married. Cat owning skanks. Yeah, that's a winning message. And it's like, well, you told them that they can't control their own bodies. And, you know, listen, most people I know enjoy sex. When we talk about abortion, we never talk about sex. The reason people get abortions

is because they engage in sex for non-procreative reasons, and they like doing that. And you're coming along saying, no, you can't. You're also telling men, if this happens, you're going to be on the hook. So it's in some ways a bit of a war on sex. And so if you're young and single and you want to do that and you want to have control of your body to come along and say, you're just a bitter skank is not a winning message. And I'm saying, you know, Democrats should be saying, keep up with that. Keep doing that. Blame these young women that they're stupid. They don't understand things. And they're just driven by all the worst

emotion. Those emotional women, that's great. But I've been shocked, not that shocked, mildly surprised that this is where so much of MAGA land is landing. And so the numbers are really high. And if the more sophisticated exit polls or analyses show that that's the case and that's the case with young people, it is a big problem for Republicans Existing, of preexisting academic research

showing that you point out that people like sex. I think that's pretty clear. So, so the anti-sex anti-young woman party. Yeah. Good luck. Go for that. I mean, it goes to the larger point though, that you raised earlier, Charlie, which is, are there any lessons or will there be any lessons learned by Republican influencers, you know, whether they're elected or out there banging the drum, the right-wing media. And so far, I don't see that with the exception of Fox just calculating that Trump probably can't win in the long run. So they want to push, and this is Rupert Murdoch, they want to push the Santas. I mean, it's pretty, pretty, pretty amazing

that when Trump announces, the New York Post says, Florida man announces in one line at the bottom of the front page, below a story about crime. And that only happens, that only happens if one of the Murdochs tells the Post,

this is how we want you to play this. I mean, you don't need to watch Succession to know this. Yes. I think that's a lock-solid observation. David Korn, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast. David is the DC Bureau Chief for Mother Jones. His latest book is American Psychosis. You're going to need to update that, by the way. Also writes the newsletter Our Land,

to which you should subscribe. David, thanks for coming back. It's always great to talk with you, Charlie. Thanks. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio production by Jonathan Siri. I'm Charlie Sykes. Thank you for listening to today's Bulwark Podcast. And we'll be back tomorrow to do this all over again.