The Bulwark Podcast - Fred Trump and Will Saletan: An Alpha Emerges

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

Sure sounds like kind words and affection were in short supply in the Trump household in Queens. Perhaps if Donald had been hugged a little more, America would have been spared a lot of trouble—and Trump wouldn't have told his nephew that he wanted his disabled son to die. Meanwhile, Kamala and her team feel like they're in to win it: She's tacking to the center on the border, needling Trump, and projecting strength. Fred Trump and Will Saletan join Tim Miller. show notes: Fred's book, “All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got This Way" Will's recent piece on Trump's threats Will's video take on Trump's threats Tim's playlist 

Hey everybody, a little housekeeping real quick, especially for the newbies. Remember on Wednesday, over on the Next Level feed, it is me and JVL and Sarah doing, you know, your more pure punditry, your straight politics into the veins. I've been also popping off some videos up on YouTube during the day. Our YouTube page has really taken off. Make sure you've subscribed to The Bulwark on YouTube. Reminder about Dallas, September 5th. We will be there with adam kinzinger and all

your other favorites the bulwark.com slash events lastly i've been starting to get questions again about that outro music which you know i just take a lot of pride and i love you know the little easter eggs i'm leaving for you guys and the music on the way out so if you want that playlist it's on spotify we try to remember to put it in the show notes on Fridays, but we'll put it in the show notes today for folks that are looking for it. And up next, we've got a big show today, PAC show. First, the first Trump on this podcast ever, Fred Trump, the third, Donald's nephew, has a new book out, has some pretty, pretty dark stories, frankly, that I think it's worth listening to. And then on the back end, Will Salatan to discuss the news of the day. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. Another day and more good news for the forces of freedom

and democracy. Ismail Hanyai, political leader of Hamas, was killed by Israel in Tehran yesterday, days after the military leader of Hezbollah was taken out in Lebanon. And here at home, Kamala Harris was greeted by crazed fans at a rally in Georgia as her campaign momentum continues unabated. More on that with Will Salatan in segment two. But first, my guest today is fred trump the son of the late fred trump jr and nephew of the disgraced former president his brand new memoir all in the family the trumps and how we got this way was released on tuesday hey fred i believe you're the first trump to grace the never trump bulwark podcast. So welcome to the lion's den. How are

you doing? Thanks. I don't feel like it's the lion's den. I feel welcome. Okay, good, good, good. Well, I have to start though by asking, I mean, my burning question about all this has just got to be why now you've written this book. I think you're aware that your uncle ran for president twice already. So there were plenty of opportunities to speak out about his behavior and about your family. Just wondering why you decided to do it in this moment. There are a few reasons. Number one, we actually didn't just start now or think about this book. And we've been advocating on behalf of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities for years. When Donald was

inaugurated just a few months later, my wife, Lisa, and I spent time down in Washington with various cabinet members, secretaries, an organization we've been involved with for a long time. To answer your question more directly, it really was, we were waiting for William, who is now 25, to be settled in a group home. We didn't want to get involved in writing a book because we knew what the repercussions would be. So that's really the reason why we waited. You could have done some interviews or something though, you know, I could have leaked this. You could have leaked some of the good juicy stuff to me. I don't know. you did i guess for listeners who haven't read the book you did you said you did vote for both hillary and biden and so you know had opposed your uncle in both campaigns but you know there were opportunities to speak out right yes there were and uh personally i have i didn't feel like at that point it was

the right time to get fully involved in the public in doing so. But now is the time it is. As you may know, I have not just said I will be voting for Kamala Harris, but I will be campaigning for her if asked, because I believe her policies are conducive to what I think is important for the future of this country. I do want to talk about your son, William. You have three children. William's the youngest, as you mentioned, was dealing with medical issues and disabilities. I want to kind of talk about him and the relationship with Donald and all the drama surrounding that. But if you don't mind, I want to go back to childhood first. Can we start at childhood? My childhood? Yeah, well, yeah, sure. Or maybe your father and uncle's childhood as well. Let's even go further than your childhood back.

Your father, for people who don't know, Fred Trump Jr. died after a bout with alcoholism when you were young, you were in your teens. And I don't know, I feel like this one of the skeleton keys to the former president, your uncle, both in kind of why he's so dangerous, but you know maybe why he's not as dangerous as some people imagine in certain ways is just kind of the the lack of love from your grandfather in the family the daddy issues maybe the the lack of empathy in the in the home and i just kind of wonder that's just me armchair psychologizing from new orleans so you lived it all in queens i'm wondering how you what you think about all that i guess you'd call me an armchair psychologizing from New Orleans. So you lived it all in Queens. I'm wondering how you, what you think about all that. I guess you'd call me an armchair psychologist too.

Sure. Childhood was, was interesting. Yes. We, we lived in a family that was dominated at the time by my grandfather, not a very loving environment. To give you an insight as best I can tell. And again, I'm, I'm one of the only people that was there during Donald's formative years and kept a relationship through my childhood, during his business career, during his political run. I know Donald. Back in those days, my father was expected to become the heir apparent to my grandfather. My dad didn't want anything to do with that. He didn't. He had a passion for flying and he wanted to be an airline pilot. And he did. And during that time, he was basically

belittled by my grandfather and by Donald. And the interesting part about that is my dad, Donald's older brother, gave Donald a pathway to be the heir apparent. Dad didn't want anything to do with it. Knowing that, Donald still beat him down. And that's tragic. So the cruelty does exist in the family. And you're seeing that through Donald's political career. My other side of that coin always is like donald while he is he's not very empathetic it would be the understatement of the year i'm reading some of your stories about you know how he would storm off if you know your dad threw mashed potatoes at him things things like this he also like deeply wants to be loved, right? He wants the attention.

He wants the adulation. And I do think in some ways, maybe that's, he doesn't want to be hated, right? And I think that's an important thing to understanding him, even though, you know, maybe his actions don't always lead to that. As you were speaking, I was going to use the word adulation. Yeah. And I was speaking to someone today, and what's happening now with Kamala Harris in the spotlight, it drives them crazy.

Yes. It absolutely drives them crazy. I mean, he didn't coin the phrase, but any press is good press. Yeah. And he's lived that for as long as I've known him, and that's a long time yeah it's interesting so you said that you knew him during the forward of years your dad was older so you guys are only like what 18 years apart or something like that 17 16 years apart one of the interesting

little anecdotes i got from the book that i don't maybe people have talked about this unfortunately i know way more about your uncle than i wish i did i wish i could kind of take a lot of that yeah i wish i could use that part of my brain to like learn a language or do something useful um but unfortunately i know a lot about him one thing that i surprised me about your book was you were talking about during your childhood when you go back to your grandfather's house and donald and his late brother robert were still living there. And I was like doing the math. And I'm like, he was in his mid-20s? He was like living at home still, like after college? Well, for a short while.

But then he did move into the city after a while. But remember, back in those days, he was working in my grandfather's company in Brooklyn. So to live in Queens made it considerably more easy. And many times, many times, I witnessed they would drive together. Into work. Into work in Brooklyn, yeah. Yeah. I understand how that maybe makes sense and makes convenience, but it speaks to the nepotism element of it, even a little more significantly. When it was like after college, he goes into the

family business. He lives at home. He's commuting with his father into the office i didn't think a lot about donald in his 20s i guess but um it was something that stood out and so you know your dad then talk about kind of the the initial sort of falling out you get older you go you go off to school you know your dad is struggling with alcoholism and what was kind of happening in the family? Unfortunately, dad's last number of years, and he was sick much of his adult life, you know, 30s on. But in the last five years of his life, he was in and out of hospital a lot. And he died pretty much alone. I mean, you've read the book, you know, the scene when he basically is taken to Queens Hospital alone in an ambulance. That unfortunately sums up the story of his end and how my family treated him, even in his near demise and his demise.

Very sad. It's not long after that, that kind of the seeds of the conflict conflict between you and your sister Mary you know with the family happens when I guess Donald's having financial trouble I like that you call him Donald Donald's having financial trouble in the 80s and that is when you know he comes up with this idea to restructure his father's your grandfather's will to cut you guys out. Talk about that a little bit. Yeah, it's a tough story. And as you know, Donald was my trustee during those times. After my father passed away, Donald was my trustee, which I take to mean he is there to protect me. Right. And when William was born a day after or so, he started having seizures, hundreds of

seizures a day. All the while this plan had been hashed and was ready to be implemented. And sure enough, a couple of weeks after William got home, we got the notice that we were out. And I wasn't going to let that happen. And certainly Mary wasn't. If there's one thing Mary is, is she is tenacious and she's going to fight. And she fought as hard as I did, if not more. We were very vulnerable, Lisa and I, at that point, as you can imagine. So you have a late father, you have a young family, your youngest child is in the hospital having seizures, having health problems. And you get a letter from Donaldald's lawyer that says you're out

right you're out of will and then it is not long after that that there's you know some back and forth on this and as a power play they they take away the health insurance that's correct yeah i mean that's that's insane like do you ever call during that period? I mean, he's your trustee. He's your uncle. Your child is in the hospital with a scary illness. Yeah, we didn't know if William was going to live or die. And that's, again, that's just a cold, hard, horrible fact. Yeah.

He was in a neonatal intensive care unit at Sinai for three weeks. Now, all my aunts and uncles live within a half a mile care unit at Sinai for three weeks. Now, all my aunts and uncles live within a half a mile radius of Mount Sinai. None of them, none of them came to visit. In fact, one night, I remember my grandmother, and we tried to keep this hidden from her, but once we realized the extent, we had to let her know. And she said, a couple of weeks in, I have a relative from Scotland, and why don't you go out to dinner with them and just try to relax and have a nice night? So Lisa and I go into a restaurant to meet these folks. And who's sitting there?

Donald and Melania. And we're probably 15 feet away from them walking to our table. And he shouts out, hey, I hear your kid is sick. That was it. None of my aunts or uncles had ever met William. Ever. How long after that he was born was that? That was probably about two weeks or so.

Because, again, we were at Sinai for three weeks. So somewhere between two to three weeks. Sure. And then the months after, like when was, so now you're kind of embroiled in this legal battle where you guys are challenging the will that he cut you out of because he was going bankrupt. Yes. And they cut off the health insurance for your youngest child.

And then he met the child when? Like a year later, two years later, five, never? About a year later. Yeah. After we settled, and I have to say this, we settled for the guy who says he never settles. Well, maybe then I'm the champ here and Mary. And I have to give credit to Mary. She realized our situation and she wanted to go further.

So I do appreciate that. You didn't get a cookie bouquet. You didn't get, you know, and he has assistance. At this point, he's on his third wife. So he's got assistance. He's got money. You didn't get, you know, didn't send send something over to the hospital absolutely nothing we just got a lot of legal notices uh tim that's pretty shitty to be an

understatement and in the book it seems like you don't really even reconnect with him until around the gulf then yeah about a year after we we settled, Donald had invited me to become a member at the club in Westchester. And I said, the only way I'll do that is if we play a round of golf together, which he accepted. We played a round of golf. It was nice. I always had a good relationship with Donald. I do want to say that. And at the end of the match we got together just the two of us and he said we're done right and i knew exactly what he meant it wasn't we're done no more relationship it was we're done with the animosity right and i said yes and he actually hugged me which uh he would hug me when i was four or five years old but this this was i know it was it was

genuine it was genuine. It was. He probably could have used a few more hugs, it seems like. It might have saved us some problems down the line. You're going back to the armchair psychologist, I say. Yeah. So, okay. So, he hugged you.

And then he comes to visit William? Or you have, you know, I guess the family does do a, you know, kind of a medical fund at some point once all that is resolved. You write about an exchange where you talk about how it was a gene issue. The disability was genetic. And Donald, how does Donald react to that? He said almost immediately, my wife, we had gone up to see Donald in his office. And my wife, Lisa, mentioned that he had a KCNQ2 genetic mutation. He goes, not, not from our genes, not the Trump genes. We're Tim, if you don't mind, let me just go back real quick about that fund. Please. That fund is to help with William's

medical expenses, all therapeutic, which insurance doesn't cover, necessary for him to have the healthiest life possible. That fund wouldn't have been necessary. I wouldn't have had to go to my aunts and uncles each year or so to ask for it to be replenished if that lawsuit didn't come. If they hadn't screwed around with my rightful inheritance, I would have taken the money that was due me from my grandfather's will, and I would have done what I would have done with it to make sure. So I just want to make sure people understand that. That's a fair point. On the other hand, Fred, you just got to think about it from Donald's perspective. I mean, that money had other uses. He had to pay off the various women he was having

affairs with, you know, there are other maybe more higher and better purposes of that money than your son's medical care do you ever consider that uh he was in deep financial straits uh not to minimize it he was on the balls of his ass at that time oh god did he ever sell his penthouse apartment or you know stop riding in limos or get rid of the plane or anything? Did he ever suffer any consequences, personal consequences? Stop going to fancy dinners? No. I mean, the banks did put him on a leash back then, which must have been pretty humiliating to him,

sort of an allowance, if you will. I want to go back to William. So not our genes. I want to go fast forward to then when he becomes president. But in that intervening period, he's a reality show host. You know, he's got time. Was he checking in, you know, coming to visit his nephew, offering any care, trying to make his life any better, more comfortable, anything like that besides the the money in the fund which again was rightfully mine there was no visits or checking in about william at all so then he gets elected as i mentioned you said you'd voted for hillary but you do go down a couple times once i believe for your aunt's birthday party that's held in the lighthouse and then another time to advocate for why don't you just talk about the advocacy meeting that you held in the oval office that birthday was for

marianne's 80th and elizabeth's 75th got it so donald offered to host it down in washington it was a nice evening the next morning lisa and i and the group that we were helping had a meeting with Ben Carson. I will say he was the secretary of housing at the time. Was it about housing? Well, housing is a major issue with the complex disability community. So we figured that was a good start. Ivanka was great in setting that up, my cousin Ivanka. And we did throughout the years he was in office, met with Alex Azar and various other parts of the executive branch. And it was great culminating.

The administration, yeah. Yeah, in the administration, I'm sorry. Culminating in a meeting, first of all, in the cabinet room with Azar and Brett Schroer, who you'll remember from COVID, who was on the screen every day, and a few other governmental officials and me. I remember saying, listen, folks, I'm the least important person in this meeting. You're the folks that have been doing this and they're geniuses. It ended positively. Then we were ushered into Donald's office, the Oval Office, and we had a good 45-minute conversation. And we all dispersed.

I was called back in a minute later. Donald greets me with his usual, hey, pal, how's it going? And we spoke for a couple of seconds. And he goes, you know, those people, those expenses, they should just die. It's a pretty rough thing to wrap your head around when you hear that. Yeah, it's reminiscent kind of of the suckers and losers comment. You know, there's like there's really a through line that the people that, you know, have challenges or make sacrifices. It's like something that he he really struggles to comprehend. It seems like. Well, it goes back to that he he really struggles to comprehend it seems like

right well it goes back to that that comment you made about the genes it's you know okay these people are lesser than me so they really don't don't count there's a race element to that too i wish i had it in front of me but maggie haverman's book about your uncle she talks about you know there's one point he was dating a mixed race woman in between the various wives and uh and and he's talking about that as well like that she got this gene from the white side and this gene from the black side he's he's very he's very wrapped up on all that it seems like yeah yeah i want to kind of close the loop on donald by talking about i guess is it your last meeting with him when you go back to, again, ask for additional help for the medical fund?

I forget if it was at Trump Tower or Bedminster. Yeah, it was actually a phone call, if you're talking about the fund, when I said, you know, Donald, it's running down. And he comes back with, your son doesn't recognize you. Let him die and move down to Florida. And again, you know, it's hard to explain that in any rational way, how somebody could say that. I wanted to make a joke in my head, like, okay, you want me to move to Florida? Are you trying to sell me a house in your Mar-a-Lago or something? But it was just much more devastating than that. I mean, imagine hearing that from William's great uncle. It's still, you know, when I tell, and obviously,

I've been telling this story, and it was an impactful part in the book, but it was real. And again, this is somebody who never met William, who doesn't understand that the love that William inspires. And I say William is the most courageous and inspirational person I've ever met. Yeah. So he's never met his nephew's son. And when you call him to ask for a little assistance, given his medical challenges, his response is let him die and move to Florida. Yeah. Was that when he was president still, or was that in the post-presidency? No, that was post-presidency. Have you spoken to him or anybody else in the family since he suggested that you let your son die? I reached out to Eric

and said, I just want to let you know he said this. I saw Donald one time at the Bedminster course and it was cordial and that was it. I have not spoken to Donald since then. So it's been a number of years now. Well, do you have any positive stories about him before we get to William? Because that seems like somebody with a pretty dark heart to me. Donald was the first person to teach me how to play golf. We have that in common. And we've done it throughout the years. And there were good BS sessions.

I saw him in a way that most people don't. Just relaxed, calm. Those days, I think, are gone. I don't know if I'd like to play golf. Well, forget about now. But even in the past couple of years, he has ramped up his ways. Well, before I lose you, tell us about William. How's he doing? What's his life like? No, I thank you for asking because it is so important to us. Medically, William is doing fine right now. The struggle that Lisa and I have and millions of people, let's be clear that the IDD, Intellectual and Developmental

Disability Committee, is millions and millions of people, which is why I have a national platform right now and I'm going to use it. We struggle to put together a meaningful day program for him and people like William, who is wheelchair bound, needs assistance with pretty much everything he does. So what we're really aiming for is to bring together the three things that we think as a base are important. Better funding for caregivers, better training for caregivers. Let's get the housing situation. One size does not fit all

for the disability community. There are different things that we need to wrap our heads around and get that right. Third is prevention. And I think this will make sense to the folks on the right, or what the folks on the right used to be. Prevention equals efficiency. Efficiency means lower cost, better services. That's where we need to get to. And as I've been saying, there are a lot of partisan issues right now. Women's right to choose the environment, guns. Advocacy for the disabled community has to be a bipartisan. I can't imagine why it wouldn't be a bipartisan issue. It's something that needs to be addressed. So many lives could be impacted for the positive. For instance, if you don't mind, Tim, William uses a device that is an eye gaze.

So he can, and we're not there yet because it takes special training to do this, but he can say, if he had the ability to point to a card that says I'm thirsty or I'm hungry, just imagine the world that would open up to him instead of having to depend on people trying to figure out what he's looking for. Just imagine that life opening up a bit. That's what our aim is. My old boss, Jeb, was always just such a huge advocate in this space because he was like, you know, everybody needs to have an opportunity to live a life of purpose and meaning, you know. His father pushed through the ADA and it still needs work, but boy, what a step forward that was.

Well, that should be a conservative pro-life principle, unfortunately. Doesn't seem like it's one for your uncle. Well, I should be a conservative pro-life principle, unfortunately. Doesn't seem like it's one for your uncle. Well, I'm glad that William is getting the love that maybe your uncle could have used. Not only getting the love, he's giving the love. Great. Giving love. That's great. Well, give him and other kids a hug for us. Thank you for coming on the podcast. The book is All in the Family, the Trumps and and how we got this way. Fred, thanks for telling your story. And we hope to stay in touch. And hopefully I'll get you on my podcast when it's up and running. All in the Family, more to the story.

All right. You know where to find me. Up next, our friend Will Salatin. See you, Fred. all right we are back fan favorite will salatam so many ponies out there we don't even need you to find the pony in the pile of shit out there right now. I mean, terrorists are getting killed. Complementum, the coconut moment, you know, we're just, we're drowning in ponies. We're drowning in them. We got to work on the metaphor. We're not drowning in the pony. But you know, it's been like a whole pony week. It's been pony month. Yeah. Pink pony month. All right. I want to talk about Harris.

Last night, she was in Atlanta. Over on YouTube, I analyzed her immigration ad, which was just everything we've been asking for, you know, talking about her commitment to securing the border while blaming Trump for killing that border bill. Also threw in a little shot about how she likes to arrest gang members while Trump is trying to evade jail. I like that contrast quite a bit. But let's listen together to Harris last night in Atlanta talking about immigration. Donald Trump, on the other hand, has been talking a big game about securing our border, but he does not walk the walk or as my friend Quavo would say he does not walk it like he talks it you a big Migos fan Will? So look, our administration worked on the most significant border security bill in decades.

Some of the most conservative Republicans in Washington, D.C. supported the bill. Even the border patrol endorsed it. It was all set to pass. But at the last minute, Trump directed his allies in the Senate to vote it down. Right. He tanked, tanked the bipartisan deal because he thought it would help him win an election. Which goes to show Donald Trump does not care about border security. He only cares about himself. And when I am president, I will work to actually solve the problem. So here is my pledge to you.

So nice. As president, I will bring back the border security bill that Donald Trump killed, and I will sign it into law and show Donald Trump what real leadership looks like. We're quoting Migos. We're securing the border. We're trashing Donald Trump for only caring about himself. This is politics, Will. This is politics. So, Tim, I'm really, really confused. I'm really confused to have, is this what it sounds like to have a messenger who actually knows how to deliver a message? Because I haven't heard this for at least a year, a couple of years. Eight, maybe. So, first of all, can I take a victory lap for this? Not many people know this. You folks out

there, Tim and I, pundits, campaigns listen to everything we say, and they do exactly what we write, what we tell them on our podcast. And we've been telling Kamala, get out in front, get on the Lankford immigration bill, because this is your weakest issue. Get out there and own it, claim it, say you're going to sign it, and hit Trump for having killed it, right? And that's exactly what she's doing. She totally listened to us. So of course, she's done the right thing here. This is a great comeback for her. And it is her toughest issue. Because not only is she answering the question about herself, which is, you know, I've been a

prosecutor, I've worked on this issue. I am trying to do the right thing, although it's a difficult issue. She's also hitting Trump and she's hitting him where it hurts, which is this larger theme that she gets to there when she says he only cares about himself. He deliberately killed this bill. This may be a Republican issue, immigration, but Donald Trump doesn't care about solving any of the issues, not crime, not immigration. He only cares about winning. And that's why he killed a bill that would have solved the issue or done something to help solve the issue in order to help himself get elected. And that is going to resonate because it does connect with the real central flaw of Donald

Trump. Yes, exactly right. It addresses the issue. Look, you're not going to win everybody over. People whose immigrations are number one issue aren't going to vote for kamala harris but you are mitigating your weakness but it also is layering up into that key message that was i look the team previewed that that's what they said the campaign message was going to be we care about you he cares about himself you know it just was never executed. That is executed. Here's another thing I like about it. Well, I think Kamala wants to win. She can smell it.

She can smell victory. You know, there are these moments where it's like, what could you do on immigration? You could, you could try to appease all, all the stakeholders in the coalition. You could feel like you need to be very defensive about the record, about what was happening in 2022.

Here's somebody from the left. Here's a, here's a comment by one of the lefties who's upset about this this is terrible you're raising the salience of your worst issue muddling the threat you claim to believe trump represents tethering yourself to an objective awful policy package no no actually she's saying i don't need to listen to the activist lefty whiners maybe when i get in there sure are there ways to make the bill better sure policy wise sure but if you're when you're trying to win a campaign this seems like the way to do it to folks on the left about immigration look this is a real problem this is not like a fake thing where you need to triangulate to score some points about like school uniform this is not school universe this is a real thing like it's a good border school is like completely out of control such a 90s throwback sorry

no it's great though i love it though that's great you're right it is not that it's a real problem but there are these little phony dick morris issues that's another call back to the 90s right where you're just like it's a symbolic this is a real thing and wake up people because in other western democracies immigration has become a huge issue helping the right and it's a symbolic, this is a real thing. And wake up people, because in other Western democracies, immigration has become a huge issue helping the right. And it's helping the right because like, there is a giant international business now in trafficking people across borders, because we have a great deal come to the United States. It's a great place to work, we have a great economy. And, and we have to like manage immigration. And if the Democrats don't do

it, the right will. And so she's got to take this issue away from him. She's got to show that she is serious about controlling it. So I just think the left is wrong. And even if you don't agree with me about that, the overriding priority is to keep this authoritarian out of the White House. And she needs to do exactly what she's doing. Amen. There's one other thing that made me smell out that she's feeling herself. She's feeling the victory. She has her eyes on the prize.

There was one word that was not mentioned, kind of a proper noun. It was a name that wasn't mentioned in the speech yesterday in Atlanta, 20-minute speech. You know what it was? Wasn't LeBron James. Was there another name you could think of that might not have been mentioned? Tell me. Joe Biden. Oh, wow. Joe Biden.

Not even mentioned in the speech. And you know what? It's because we're not going back. Well, we're not going back. And my mother had this line of a meaning to use on this podcast. She always would say to us as kids at the end of vacation, she'd when it's over it's over it's time to go back to life sometimes you have moments in life for things but when they're over they're over and you just have to embrace it and accept it and uh for kamala like the biden slash harris administration when it's over it's over it's time to move forward to a future of a harris slash whoever administration and that is smart politics might hurt somebody's feelings a little bit but i also saw the convention lineup is out has leaked and uh well not the full convention lineup but the

big names president biden day one again exactly right could have had him on the last day and opening for maybe he'll you know come out briefly but his speech day one it's like then we're moving forward right i mean like is this not just it's it's a little ruthless but it's ruthless in the way that that you want that's like the stakes are high we want to fucking win if that means we got attacked to the center of on immigration and release some baggage from the last administration, then we're going to do that. Right. But the Biden thing, Tim, she's got to do this. She's got to be the alpha. She is being the alpha. Look, you and I are sitting here talking about the strategy of it, where she positions herself. But for people who did not see what she did in Atlanta and what she's done at

all her events since Biden dropped out, what really comes across is her poise. I mean, she's been the number two. And if you and I think back over previous vice presidents, I cannot think of one who emerged so quickly from the shadow of her boss or his boss in those cases with this kind of poise and confidence she's projecting alpha and that's absolutely essential because you and i can sit here and talk all we want about issues but a lot of people look at that person and we're kind of chimps that's what we are we're like are you ready to take over the tribe here and she's showing that she has that she's showing she is the number one exactly think about how this this problem dogged hw bush and gore for example you know and think about gore into the i feel like

you know i was just a nerd a nerdy college kid or high school kid following this stuff but i i even remember kind of this discussion of should he separate from him or should he embrace him and like that stuff like held over the whole campaign you know and and she seems to have already turned the page on that in nine days speaking of alpha i'll reconsider to meet me on the debate stage. got something to say. Say it to my face. Crowd seemed to like that one. Yeah. Again, I love this. Back to the alpha theme. For her purposes, it's really important that she did this. Because she is a woman, trust me, I've been looking at focus groups for the last couple of weeks. There is a lot of anxiety about whether a woman is quote, you know, sort of up to the job. And there's a stereotype about women that they're not strong. This woman is projecting strength.

She is projecting that she is in charge and she is not afraid, not afraid of anyone, certainly not afraid of Trump, but she's also, Tim, she's also connecting to Trump's weakness because he's a fake alpha, right? And we all saw when Trump was in Helsinki what he does when he's next to a real alpha. He just bowed down to Vladimir Putin. And Kamala Harris is basically saying to him, I am a real alpha. And she's betting that in the face of a real alpha, he is going to chicken out.

And the fact that he has pulled out, at least so far far from debating her just lends more credence to that case. So, if she can add the sort of I'm more of an alpha than he is to the issue set that she has, I think that's a winning combination. This is why he has to debate her, right? This is why there's no way he actually ducks it, right? I think so. If he thinks it's going to hurt him, he won't do it because that's his overriding objective. We also have VP pick imminent. They've announced that they're planning a joint campaign swing next week, Kamala Harris and her vice presidential selection. So we know it's going to be coming sometime between now and I guess Tuesday of next week. There's an Axios report out this morning, which maybe we can take take or leave that Wall Street, there's some circulation among the Paris donors, that if you

you know, are working financial services, you should be donating now because there's a law that bars you from donating to a sitting governor, a corruption law. Maybe that's just a CYA thing. Maybe that's some inside info, insider trading, if you will. And there's been increased buzz around Bashir potentially online. And of course, around Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, the swing kicks off in Philadelphia. So you can take that for what it's worth. Any thoughts about the imminent VP choice? I mean, I'm a hardcore Mayor Pete fan. I'm bracing myself to lose this one just because there's these governors. And, you know, the hard thing for her, Tim, is she's got to make this decision so fast in a context that may change. Does she need

Pennsylvania's electoral votes bad enough that Shapiro has it in the bag? That's question number one. She may make that bet and later regret it that she could have chosen based on other criteria. So I don't envy her this choice. Yeah, I don't either. I think if we're reading things correctly, that these guys, that Kamala Harris and her team feel like they're in it to win it. They're smelling the White House.

They are pivoting on some key issues to the center. They're doing what needs to be done about turning the page from President Biden. To me, that ethos leads you to a Shapiro pick, right? Because it's like we're trying to maximize our chances. Nobody can see the future. Nobody can see a crystal ball. But it's just like in a key state you have a governor sitting governor with a 61 approval rating to me that feels like where they're going but i i wouldn't bet my life on it or anything yeah i i don't know and let hats off by the way to the tim waltz fan club i don't know how these guys managed to generate a boom for the governor of minnesota a state that Democrats pretty much have in the bag. But hey, congratulations. You know, the vibe of somebody that looks like,

you know, he can fix a carburetor. There's something to be said for that. Josh Shapiro doesn't look like he can fix a carburetor. So there is something to be said for that with Tim Walsh. I want to talk about a recent article you wrote that was very Salitanian, which was titled, Here are the Trump threats that should actually scare you. And it was, you know, a slight dismissal of some of these like social media fad, pearl clutching things, where Trump says something, and he's kind of joking, kind of not joking. And you instead said, let's keep our eye on the ball and focus on the real threats here. So why don't you run through what you had in mind? Okay, so there's two parts

to this. There's the part everybody hates, and then there's the part that everybody agrees with. And by that, by everybody... Let's do the part everybody hates first. The part everybody hates is, look, every once in a while, those of us in the anti-Trump coalition hear Donald Trump say something something and we're like, holy shit, he's like threatening to end democracy again, right? And like, sometimes we're just wrong. This wasn't one of those moments. Look, there's been hundreds of these statements from Trump. Can we please not seize on the wrong ones? Here's the one that's got me. He was at Turning Point, what was it, Friday. And he said, you know, Christians, you won't have to vote again if you vote this time right and people took this as the you know he's saying there won't be

any more elections because he'll end them because he's a dictator he said this several times he said this several times and he and then on laura ingram on monday he repeated it can i just quote the version from laura ingram please yeah okay listen to this and tell me whether he is saying that elections are going to end or whether he is saying that elections are going to end or whether he is saying, if you vote for me, I will solve the country's problems. So you won't need to come out and vote again. He says, don't worry about the future. You have to vote on November 5th. After that, you don't have to worry about voting anymore. I don't care because the country will be fixed and we won't even need your vote anymore. I don't care because the country will be fixed and we won't even need your vote

anymore. To me, it's like an open and shut case. He's saying, I will solve these problems, you Christians who support me, so you can go back to not voting like, as he says, they haven't been in the past. He's talking to his own supporters. That also has its own problems, like logical problems, such as you are already president once. So why didn't that work the first time? If you can fix everything in four years, what happened? What happened the first time? happens to this country after I get elected. All I care about is me. Come out and vote for me. You don't have to vote ever again. It is his narcissism. It is not a threat to democracy. The other half of what I was saying in the piece is there's all this really bad shit that Trump is saying, and we're not talking about that. We're talking about this thing instead.

So in that same speech to turning point, he said, as soon as I take the oath of office, I will stop the Biden-Harris administration's weaponization of law enforcement against Americans of faith and against, frankly, their political opponent, singular, me, him. He's saying as soon as he takes the oath of office, he is going to end the prosecutions of himself. He's going to tell the Justice Department to drop those cases. He also said he's going to tell the Justice Department to drop those cases. He also said he's going to, you know, get the January 6th perps out of jail. He's going to pardon them. Like that is the threat. Okay. He is an authoritarian threat. Let's talk about that stuff and not the one we're misinterpreting. Concur. Anything other Project 2025 threats

from kind of the wise will perspective? What are things that are people, there's plenty that people are on hair on fire about, but what piques your interest the most? About the Project 2025 stuff? I mean, I just think it's hilarious that the Trump campaign, so they finally canned the guy who, or I don't know, how are we supposed to say this? He voluntarily left the guy at Heritage who did Project 2025. And the Trump campaign puts out a statement about this, saying two things. Number one, we had nothing to do with Project 2025. We have no influence over these people. And then the other thing that they said was, this is from Susie Wiles and Chris, they said, also, let this be a warning, basically, to anyone who claims to represent our campaign.

Meaning, we did this. We had nothing to do with this. We have no responsibility. And we made sure this guy got canned. Which means they own it. Which means they controlled this the whole freaking time. Yeah. Nice try, Chris and Susie.

But unfortunately, you chose a VP who wrote the the forward to kevin roberts's book about project 2025 like literally jd vance like kevin roberts is the head of heritage foundation the mastermind behind project 2025 has a new book coming out who wrote the forward jd vance okay so you can't you can't do this all right it's not working we're going to end with people on bad news because we can't just be too happy but but really quick any any quick thoughts on the uptick in attacks from israel and they've now carried out a successful it seems like attack both in tehran and in lebanon which has its own potential risks of course of escalation but uh you know on the on the other side of the ledger leaders of both hamas and hezbollah taken out, which seems like unadulterated good news. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that. Tim, I get to be the lib on this one. I'm excited.

Okay, great. Not unadulterated good news. Not unadulterated good news from my point of view. So, first of all, the guy that they killed was the political guy at Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh. He's the guy who was actually like in negotiating about you know the and the ceasefire and hostage release and all that stuff so i'd be happier if they kill the military guy like i mean we still don't know whether they got the guy we kill all of them i know it's like a republican thing we just kill that guy and that guy and that guy but tim this is like this is like al-qaeda number three. We keep killing the guy and there's always another one. It's been this way with Hamas.

They killed the Sheikh back 20 years ago. They keep killing Hamas guys and they keep, we're not going to kill our way out of the problem. But to me, the million dollar question is, what does Israel want? Did Israel do this because they want to reestablish deterrence because Hezbollah just killed a bunch of Israelis on the north, right? We're sending a message to Iran, get your proxies out of here.

Did they do it because they want to score a big win so Netanyahu can say, we killed the Hamas guy, we're getting out of Gaza. That would be great, in my opinion. The third option is the scary one, which is that they need to keep killing people because the Israeli right-wing coalition, Netanyahu's coalition, needs to keep some kind of war going or they're going to fall. The government's going to fall. They need to keep the state of war. That's the one I'm worried about. I hope that Israel will say, we got the biggest of the bad guys. Now let's cut a deal and get out. All right. I appreciate your check on my exuberance there. Okay. And to end with the other sort of sad news with all this progress on the democracy side, our friend of the pod, Stephen Richer, there's primary in Arizona last night. A couple results of note, Carrie Lake

won the Senate primary against Mark Lamb, who's a sheriff, who really wouldn't have been much better, but maybe just who have had the same policies as Kerry, but is not as just palpably crazy. And so probably good news for the DSCC there and for Ruben Gallego in the Senate race. On the bad news side, in a congressional seat, Abe Hamadeh won. There's kind of like an Iran-Iraq war situation there between Abe Hamadeiday and uh and blake masters both election deniers who had lost in the last cycle in some ways abe acted more irresponsibly in claiming that it was stolen from him than blake did so i guess a modest point to blake on that on the other hand blake ran probably the most disgusting racist campaign that i've ever seen against abe maybe not ever seen but an extremely blatantly racist

ad like with pictures of abe trying to make him into a terrorist because his last name is hamaday so it was kind of like an epoxy on both your houses situation but abe hamaday wins bad news blake masters loses good news and then the saddest news is our friend stephen richard the recorder who just acted so honorably in the face of disgusting, vile threats from Carrie Lake, from her supporters about their imagined election fraud. He was primaried for he's up for reelection for a quarter, was primaried from the right and lost his primary last night. So cheers to Stephen for being a great American. And it's unfortunate for the state of our politics that, you know, people are still getting run out of office for simply doing the right thing. I don't know if

you have any thoughts on that, Will. Yeah, it's just sad. I mean, what you've just captured is two perfect bookends of what's wrong with the Republican Party. You got these whack jobs. So, you got like two deniers running against each other in the race, in the congressional race. You got Carrie Lake winning her primary. The Republican Party has normalized the election denial. There's no price to be paid in the party. And meanwhile, they've excommunicated or you're the Catholic, right? So, is it, what's the word?

Anathematized? They've anathematized telling the truth about elections, which is what Stephen Richard did. That is no longer acceptable in the Republican Party. Well, Stephen, as a Catholic, I absolve you. All right, you're full absolution. I can go out, live your life, make money, maybe run as a Democrat next time. Who knows? I don't know. Life could be better for Stephen Richard. And the water is warm over here. As former Republicans, we'll probably have him on the podcast in the coming weeks to talk about what's going on down in Arizona. We're sending him a lot of love. Thank you to Will Salatan, a man who walks it like he talks it,

or talks it like he walks it, both ways. We'll be back tomorrow with another doubleheader. Thanks to Fred Trump as well. We'll see you all tomorrow. Peace. Walk it, walk it like I talk it Walk it like I talk it Take my shoes and walk a mile, something that you can't do Big talks of the town, big boy gang moves I like to walk around with my chain loose

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