The Bulwark Podcast - Joe Klein & John Ellis: A Torrent of Stupid

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

MAGA has put Taylor at the top of its enemies list, Greg Abbott is inviting another Jan 6 at the border, and GOP governors have come out for just ignoring the Supreme Court. Plus, the potential tech disruptors in the election will set your hair on fire. Joe Klein and John Ellis join Charlie Sykes. show notes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/night-owls/id1724583637 https://josephklein.substack.com/ https://substack.com/@newsitems

This is an ad by BetterHelp Online Therapy. October is the season for wearing masks and costumes, but some of us feel like we wear a mask and hide more often than we want to, at work, in social settings, around our family. Therapy can help you learn to accept all parts of yourself, so you can stop hiding and take off the mask. Because masks should be for Halloween fun, not for your emotions. Therapy is a great tool for facing your fears and finding ways to overcome them.

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 dot com. This message comes from BetterHelp.

Can you think of a time when you didn't feel like you could be yourself? Like you were hiding behind a mask? BetterHelp Online Therapy is convenient, flexible, and can help you learn to be your authentic self so you can stop hiding. Because masks should be for Halloween fun, not for your emotions. 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 Bulwark Podcast.

I'm Charlie Sykes. I have been looking forward to this podcast for a very, very long time. Two very, very special guests. Joe Klein, longtime journalist, author of seven books, including Primary Colors, now writes Sanity Clause on Substack and co-hosts a new political podcast, Night Owls, and his partner, John Ellis, the other co-host of Night Owls. Ellis is a veteran journalist as well. He's covered politics at NBC, the Boston Globe, Fox News, other outlets. He writes two newsletters on Substack, news items and political items. Gentlemen, welcome to the podcast. Good to be here, Charlie.

Thank you very much for having us. I have a slightly embarrassing story, Joe. I started reading your newsletter, and I was sitting around. I was actually reading a passage to my wife and she says, is that the Joe Klein? And I had to say, I have to check. But it was the Joe Klein. And it is actually one of my guilty pleasures. I have to say, I really enjoy the Substack.

I really enjoy your newsletter, you know, every every week.. And vice versa, Charlie, you do it every day. And you've been having a lot of fun with it recently. I think that you're moving into the fun period of your career because things are so absurd out there. There is that to say, but you're going to hear the word, you know, hamster wheel of crazy and the need to get off the hamster wheel of crazy soon. This is one of the dilemmas, right? That you can get caught up in doing it every single day. And there's always more material. Of course, you know, you have to feed the beast all the time. On the other hand, I do wonder whether, you know, standing right in front of the fire hose of stupid and crazy is really the best way to cover or understand the times that we live in. Do you understand what I'm saying? Sometimes it is just so overwhelming

that I think a little bit of perspective is helpful, but we've never been through times like this before. So I'm not sure what the answer is. Well, all you have to do every once in a while is think of things like Gaza for me or artificial intelligence for John. It sobers you up right away. I mean, I've been obsessed with Israel for my entire career. For 30 years there, I was there every year. And so it's hard to get that out of my mind. Although I got to say, you know, Travis Kelsey and his girlfriend can do that pretty quickly. Having mentioned that, a serious podcast, gentlemen, would be talking about Gaza, would be talking about Iran. You've been to Iran, Joe. We'd be talking about the crisis on the border of the economy. But, of course, here we are, and we have to talk about this. I have to admit that even amid the torrent of stupid, watching MAGA and Donald Trump lose their minds over Taylor Swift. In my newsletter, I highlighted that story in

Rolling Stone where they said that Donald Trump is about to launch a holy war against Taylor Swift. I mean, you have to step back, I think, for a moment and go, this is really, really stupid. A rational politician would go, I have more important things to do, but they are obsessed with Taylor Swift. So gentlemen, give me your take on what is happening on the right, that right now the new hotness is spreading conspiracy theories, drawing up an enemies list where Taylor Swift is at the top of the list. What is going on? Joe, just, you want to take a crack at this for us? Well, they're at war against the culture is the serious answer. But next thing you know, they'll be going after Disney. Wouldn't that be wild?

Yeah, the next thing. I think you said it in your column today. They keep on picking 80-20 issues where they're on the side of the 20. I mean, we live in a culture supremacist movement at its base, is very uncomfortable with a cosmopolitan culture of the sort that we now have in this country. Of course, Democrats on the other side are uncomfortable with it as well. I mean, they're uncomfortable with the fact that Black people are actually concerned about crime and immigration and things like that. So I'm an equal opportunity slagger. You're giving me too serious an answer here. So I'm an equal opportunity slagger. You're giving me too serious an answer here. So I'm going to try with John here on Taylor Swift is a pop star.

She's dating an NFL player. She shows up to support her boyfriend and it is absolute hair on fire meltdown. You know that this is a psy-op or that Vivek Ramaswamy is tweeting about it. Former Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is tweeting about it. I understand all the things that you're saying, Joe. It's just that this obsession and the decision, apparently, that they're going to escalate the culture war, they're going to dial it up to 11 and go after Taylor Swift. This tells us something about the time we live in. So, John, your take on this? I mean, I agree with Joe. I think, you know, we all know that this is an NFL conspiracy that will lead to Taylor's endorsement of Biden at halftime. I think there are a couple of things going on. One is the crazy, I remember Dick

Werthlin, who was the pollster for Ronald Reagan, we were looking at sort of what the Reagan coalition looked like. And he said, and then you have this 8% that's just completely insane. And we now have like 16 or 20% that's completely insane. And of course, the media gives that part of the Trump coalition all the coverage. So it seems much more crazy than it probably is. Well, except that Donald Trump himself is leading that coalition. And it's Donald Trump himself who is obsessed that possibly Taylor Swift is more popular than him. I think part of this is just the obsession with the culture war is, you know, the people, all the incentive structure on the right, right media right now is to talk about stuff like this. You know, the Ben Shapiros of the world, you know, the Fox News know that people don't want to talk about, well, they don't want to talk about necessarily talk about Gaza.

They don't want to talk about, you know, big issues. They don't want to talk about certainly talk about the deficit or what's happening with the GDP or the rate of inflation now that it's going down. So you have, you know, Ben Shapiro trashing Barbie, Ben Shapiro, you know, going after whatever cultural icon. And also, I guess there is this sort of obsession that, you know, to say that we're running against a Democratic Party that's filled with elite celebrities. It is an 80-20 issue. The NFL is wildly popular. She is wildly popular. The Republican Party has a problem with women, and their solution is apparently, hey guys, let's pick a fight with Taylor Swift. I mean, I think that's one of the key points here. If you look at Trump and suburban women in the election day voter poll of 2020,

suburban women went for Biden 59-40, so six to four, essentially. So you attack Barbie, which is a hugely popular movie amongst women. Then you attack Taylor Swift, who is hugely popular among women. And you think to yourself, if the Trump campaign thinks that this is going to work, then they're even crazier than we think they are. I think you have to go to what you can't say in politics these days. And the most important thing you can't say, if you're a Democrat or a Republican, is that things are pretty damn good in this country right now. The economy is good. We're safe and secure and have the most powerful military in the world. We have, over the last 50 years, assimilated Latinos into our culture, women,

gay people in the blink of an eye. It's amazing what we've accomplished, but you're not allowed to say that in politics. It's no longer mourning in America. That has no credibility. The only thing that has credibility is that, as Dick Gebhardt once said, it's near midnight in America and it's getting darker every minute. Speaking of getting darker every minute, as we are recording this, we're waiting on the judge's ruling, Judge Ngorun's ruling in the New York fraud case where Donald Trump could be on the hook for more hundreds of millions of dollars, may be told that he cannot run the Trump organization.

This comes a week after he lost the $83 million judgment in another court case. And we're finding out from the New York Times this morning that Trump spent $50 million, mainly in donor money, you know, the, you know, the, the grandmas from Kansas city who are writing him checks, he's been $50 million on legal bills. I don't know about you guys, but if I had $50 million to spend on legal bills, I'd hire smarter lawyers. You've all been beating on Alina Haba, but seriously, guys, they have $50 million. You would if you could hire better lawyers, but a lot of those better lawyers have taken a pass. In large part because they're fair lawyers. In large part because they're not certain they'll be paid. I've known Trump for about 40 years. I started covering him when he was a developer

and all the other developers thought he was a showboat clown. But there was in the legal community at that point something called the Trump premium, which was if you signed on to represent Trump, you charged about 25% more than you would any other candidate, knowing that you wouldn't get paid on the back end. So that's why it's kind of hard for him to find first-rate legal talent. Well, and you've rolled in a few more things, too. Number one, you don't get paid. Number two, you might get disbarred. Number three, you might get indicted. So you can understand why, I don't know. Folks at Sullivan and Cromwell are thinking, hey, we're going to pass on that. Let's talk about some of the most recent things you wrote on Substack, because I

think it's also important to note that, Joe, you've been a little bit critical of some elements of the Democratic Party and have expressed some skepticism about Joe Biden. So let's talk about the one that you published yesterday. This week, very big moment for Joe Biden. So let's talk about the one that you published yesterday. This week, very big moment for Joe Biden, maybe the most difficult of his presidency, and the two big decisions he has to make, one on the southern border, the second against Iran. So we're going from Taylor Swift now to the big stuff. So let's talk about what's going on on the border because I'm, by the way, totally fascinated by it because, as you noted, Trump's an idiot savant when it comes to self-promotion, and he has made the border his issue, except this week he's standing up there saying, yeah, if you want to blame me for blowing up the whole deal,

I'm willing to take it. So talk to me a little bit about the decisions that Joe Biden has to make on the southern border, and then we'll get to Iran. Trump, I think, is assuming incompetence on the part of the Democrats when it comes to the border. And that's a pretty safe assumption. Biden has a real opportunity now to reverse things on Trump because of what you just said. But he has to take action. The president has the ability to declare a state of emergency, send troops to the border, announce a temporary pause in granting refugee status, especially from people coming from Venezuela. And also, he has the opportunity to send a very tough message to Mexico saying, you know, 100,000 people died of fentanyl overdoses in our country in the last year that we have

records for, which is 2022. And we're not going to allow you to continue to send that stuff over. You know, we'll help you out. But if you don't want our help, we'll do it alone. So I think that this is a moment that requires dramatic action from Biden. And also the dramatic action would have the ancillary effect of showing people that he is not just a cadaver who stumbles across the South Lawn of the White House trying to get to the helicopter every day. It is worth pausing on why Donald Trump is tanking this deal. I mean, the obvious one is that he'd rather have an issue than a solution. I don't think that deal rocket science. But also you point out, you know, that Trump is opposing the deal for all the wrong reasons. I

mean, he does want to let Vladimir Putin swallow Ukraine. I mean, he obviously does want to use it as a bludgeon against Biden. But as you point out, even though Trump has all of this confidence in his ability to sell and demagogue everything, he is continuing to alienate suburban Republicans and Democrats who actually might want to see this fixed. So it always feels like we spent the last eight years saying, well, this is going to backfire against Trump. Well, this is going to hurt him. And then somehow, Svengali-like, using his reptilian instinct, he gets out of it. So ultimately, how do you think this plays out? Does this work for him? Or is he right in calculating that if there is chaos and violence

at the border, that people will blame the incumbent Democratic president? Well, John has the demographics on this. I mean, I think it's only a slice of people that he has to alienate in order to lose this election. And they tend to be people who really want to see the border situation solved. But I'll defer to John. Okay, John, how does this play? When we think about the 2024 election, we talk about it as a national election and so on and so forth. And what it is actually is six or seven states, which were very close the last time, which will be very close this time, and probably as few as two million or three million people in those six or seven states will decide who is the president, who's elected president in the electoral college. So if we

look at that group of people, so-called persuadables or swing voters, and we say, how will they react to the border issue? They have to date insisted that we secure the borders. So that's worked in Trump's favor. If Eagle Pass turns into, you know, some kind of violent riot or, you know, sort of mini civil war, if you will, between the Texas law enforcement and federal people, then my view of that is that that may be an Oklahoma City moment. And I think that Clinton, you know, that was the turning point of the Clinton administration from my point of view. And I think it's a real opportunity. Joe wrote a really good piece about it, the opportunity for Biden. But the thing that may make it an even greater opportunity for Biden is that these people who are descending on Eagle Pass, it turns into a violent riot. And it looks

like January 6th and everybody says says this chaos has got to stop. You can get started on your resolutions with Factor so that you're ready for the new year. Factor's ready to eat meal deliveries, takes the stress out of meal planning and sets you up for success in the new year. Skip the grocery stores, the prep work and cooking fatigue. Instead, get chef crafted, dietitapproved meals delivered right to your door. With over 35 meals to choose from every week, including options like keto, calorie smart, vegan plus, veggie and more, plus over 55 weekly add-ons, and you'll have a ton of nutritious and flavorful options to kickstart your resolutions. Forget frantic lunch preps and rushed dinners.

Factor's two-minute meals are your secret weapon in the new year. Fuel up fast with restaurant-quality meals, all delivered right to your door. You know, when they said these were two-minute meals, I was a little bit skeptical about that. But then when we got the delivery, you know, sure enough, you take it out and, you know, you open it up. You will be eating that meal in two minutes. That is absolutely fantastic. Factor now offers loads of snack options like breakfast, smoothies, juices, snacks, and more to keep me going no matter what's on the schedule.

Skip the overpriced takeout trap. Factor is cheaper and way more delicious than takeout. Get chef-crafted, restaurant-quality meals delivered right to your door. Need a special occasion meal? Gourmet Plus is the perfect solution if you're looking for fast, upscale options done easily. When things get hectic, Factor's flexible. Change your order up every week with plans from 4 to 18 meals per week, or you can pause or reschedule your deliveries anytime. Stress less over meal times in the new year. Factor's no prep, no mess meals, free up time. Otherwise, you'd spend shopping, cooking, and cleanup. No more wasting time in the kitchen.

Not only does Factor offer fast, simple solutions when I'm too busy to cook, they can also help me stay on top of my goals. With offerings like Protein Plus and Keto, I can stay on track. So head to factormeals.com slash thebullwork50 and use code thebullwork50 to get 50% off. That's code thebullwork50 at factormeals.com slash thebullwork50 to get 50% off. I've wondered over the last couple of days why this is not a bigger story that you have Governor Abbott down in Texas appearing to sort of embrace the nullification and secession approach to dealing

with the federal government. And I understand that it's hard to pay attention to everything at the same time, but what you just put your finger on, I mean, how dangerous this is. There's been sort of this vague talk about, well, are we going to have a new civil war? Is there going to be secession? What if a state basically says we're going to ignore the federal government or ignore the courts? And now suddenly, this is like bubbling up. And it's not just a one off. You have Governor Abbott there. You have other governor, Republican governors who appear to be aligning with him. I mean, how dangerous a moment is this? You actually went there, you know, talking about, well, what happens if you actually have some kind of exchange of fire between federal agents and, you know, some of

these militia groups or state officials? Is that what you're talking about, John? I mean, actual bloodshed on the border, Americans on Americans? It's just so volatile. If you're calling, which Abbott is, sort of calling for people to come to Eagle Pass and protect the border from these federal agents against a Supreme Court ruling that says the feds have every right to do what they're going to do, you're attracting a group of people who, A, are going to be heavily armed, B, look a lot like proud boys, and so on and so forth. This is the action that they want. And Joe and I were talking about this yesterday. It's weird that it's not getting much greater coverage because the possibility for it to go completely off the rails.

I mean, think about just even if there are a thousand people there that come, you know, militias and crazy right-wing people, gun nuts and so on and so forth. It only takes three or four people, you know, to go off the rails with AK-47s and AR-15s and suddenly you're at Waco again. The thing that I'm obsessing over is we had Ruby Ridge, we had Waco, we had January 6th, and there are big movies in these crazy right-wing movies. And they become legends for decades. Yeah, I mean, it's a huge thing. And so if this becomes another Ruby Ridge, if the clarion call goes out, this is Waco again, and you've got to be there, you know, bring your guns, so on and so forth, then what would be a border dispute between the feds and the state suddenly becomes something much more crazy. And that would work to Biden's

advantage, I think, enormously. Okay, well, it would be a disaster for the country. I mean, so Joe, your thoughts? Yeah, I'm obsessed with a different aspect of this. What we're talking about, just to frame it again, is the Texas National Guard at the behest of their governor, Greg Abbott, running razor wire in the Rio Grande. The Supreme Court ruled that the governor of Texas doesn't have the authority to do that, only the federal government. Now, Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, has chosen to ignore the Supreme Court. Now, presidents have done this in the past. Joe Biden confederalized the Texas National Guard. Dwight Eisenhower did it with the Arkansas National Guard back during the attempts to desegregate the schools in Little Rock. But what if Biden acts

and the Texas National Guard refuses to obey orders from the president of the United States. We are getting very close to the bright line of real chaos in this country. And I would think that Biden would have to take the same position as Abraham Lincoln, which is, this is one union, and we're not going to let you go off the way South Carolina wanted to go off at the beginning of the Civil War. You are raising my blood pressure, Joe. But I did highlight this one, a couple of passages from your newsletter. This is not the first time you've done this. You wrote, what happens when the Supreme Court rules that Trump doesn't have the power, as his lawyers affirm, to send SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political opponent and has to fake the charges that Jack Smith has brought against him? If Greg Abbott can ignore the Supreme Court, why can't Trump? Why can't he just refuse to stand trial? What happens then?

What I'm saying is this. The rule of law is on very tenuous ground in our country right now, and it is up to Joe Biden to enforce it. Donald Trump, who has tried to destroy the credibility of every government institution that has opposed him, may soon try to destroy the credibility of a Supreme Court that he created. And then we get to your point, what does happen if Biden moves to federalize the Texas National Guard? So all of these things are sort of like out there as wild speculation, but it feels like they could become real just very, very, very quickly. And this is the failure of imagination that I think led to January 6th. Nobody thought that this would happen.

Nobody thought that he would try to actually overthrow the counting of the vote. So you wrote something kind of interesting, John. Do you think that Greg Abbott, that he actually is angling for a spot on Trump's ticket? Because that would ramp everything up. I mean, imagine if some of this stuff, you know, you start to have this kind of a face-off and Donald Trump names Greg Abbott to be his VP nominee. Do you think that's a possibility, John? I do. When McCain was the nominee, he felt that he had to placate the right. And so he nominated Sarah Palin. And so you have this candidate in the center, and you go to the right on the Republican side and cover off the base. Here, we don't know,

but we assume that Trump is going to have to move to the center. And you have this two things going on. One, Abbott has to calculate that Trump is, you know, one or two Big Macs away from the morgue. So being the vice president may be a very good place to be. You'll definitely check the actuarial tables there. Yeah, yes, indeed. But the second thing is that Abbott is a candidate who, if he continues with this and Eagle Pass becomes Waco, etc., that will endear him to the base enormously. And Trump has to keep the base pumped up because in order for him to win in those six or seven states that will determine the outcome, he needs each and every one of his base voters in exurban and rural counties to vote. He has to get 90, 95% turnout in those counties. I'm debating whether to go here because, you know, getting inside Donald Trump's mind is

not a place I like to spend a lot of time. You know, there are ways that Donald Trump thinks, and if we're trying to figure out, you know, game out who he would want as vice president, I think there's some of the obvious ones. He doesn't want somebody with their own constituency, somebody who is not absolutely loyal, somebody who is not absolutely predictable, but also looks a certain way. So I take everything you're saying about Greg Abbott, who happens to be in a wheelchair. We know how Donald Trump feels about disabled people. He could get a, you know, cowboy style, I'm going to go to the border like Governor Kristi Noem, who could do it, who looks a lot better. If he's being rational, which is one of the largest ifs in human history, Trump would look to bolster his standing with women voters. And that's why

your idea of Kristi Noem is a good one. Another name I'm hearing is Katie Britt, the senator from Alabama, who is lower profile, but an attractive candidate, and he likes attractive candidates, and I think Karl Rove was promoting this idea recently. Alabama's not really a swing state, though. You know, the thing about it is we always use these euphemisms, so-and-so is an attractive candidate. You know, she's a pretty woman. She is good looking and understand that how Donald Trump's mind works. Sexist pig, Charlie. Well, exactly, because he is. And so and so, for example, I mean, I think that you cannot have a reasonable conversation about, say, Elise Stefanik, who is doing everything possible. I mean, that woman is so thirsty. I mean,

she has made it clear she's going to say hostages. She's going to defend poisoning the blood. She will do and say everything. She's got almost the perfect resume. And then the question is, when Donald Trump looks at her, does he think she's from central casting or does he think, eh, not really? And again, under normal circumstances, this wouldn't, you know, we shouldn't even be talking about this, but this is Donald Trump. And Donald Trump has a certain perspective about all of this. the vice president and that he can't have anyone with any vestiges of independence or character left that might defy him at any point. Also, and as I've said this before on the podcast, the moment he becomes president, he becomes at least technically, and again, technically, a lame duck. So therefore the vice president becomes an alternative center of power.

I don't think that Donald Trump wants anyone strong or unpredictable. It's going to be a very interesting choice. I really don't know. If you had to bet today, what would you say? Well, you know, the basic fact, and I keep saying this, is that America as a country has misplaced the difference between reality and reality TV. And Donald Trump lives in the world of reality TV. And for him, ratings are in some ways truer than polls because they're actually counting households that are watching him. By the way, when you were talking about getting inside of Donald Trump's mind, it's a pretty boring place because it's just me, me, me, me, me, me, me, right? I mean, he doesn't think about how this might play among people who may or may not vote for him. He just thinks about what's going to aggrandize

himself. And I think that what he'll do is pick a vice president who will bring him ratings. John? Katie Britt, I think, is a good senator from Alabama. I think it's an attractive choice. To some degree, the decision will not be made by Trump, I don't think. I think it will be made by what you might call the movement. And so that puts people like Abbott and Stefanik in play. And let's go back to your piece, Joe, about the two big decisions for Biden. Number one on the border, number two on Iran. You've been to Iran twice. You love the place. It's got a massive history. It's a culture that I think most Americans do not understand. But right now, Joe Biden is under

tremendous pressure to bomb Iran, take some military action against Iran. So tell me about the difficult choice that Joe Biden has to make right now, this week. Well, the difficult choice is whether to bomb Iran. And I would say, having been there and having, as you said, not only studied the place, but I really love the place. Ayatollah Khomeini made this decision that is kind of incomprehensible given how extreme he was, and that was to allow the women of Iran to be educated, to become doctors and lawyers and academics. And the women of Iran have led the movement against the government of Iran. And by the way, the government of Iran is a military dictatorship with the fig leaf of religious leadership. It's the

Revolutionary Guard Corps. They run the joint. They control 30% of the economy, last I checked. So Iran has a very active anti-government movement within its borders. But there is one thing that all Iranians, even those most opposed to the government, don't like, and that is Western interference. They are hypersensitive about the fact that they come from a great civilization, starting with the British, and then we interfered with their internal politics because we wanted to pump their oil. We overthrew their government in 1953. And I think that it would be a big mistake for an American president to think that just because the Iranian government is so unpopular within Iran, that we could get away with attacking Iran. So what are the options? I mean,

you were talking about, you know, raining some serious hell on the Houthis in Yemen, you know, killing a leader or two of the Iranian National Guard, maybe blow up a ship, you know, a naval asset. But you think that do not hit the homeland. Right. And there's another big factor here. And it's this. They lost nearly a million casualties in the war against Iraq in the 1980s. And you walk the streets of Tehran and you see beggars shaking uncontrollably with signs around their necks which say, chemical victim of the war. Remember, there was poison gas used in that war. The Iranians have very recent memories of Tehran being rocketed. And so they're very cautious in their response. I expected a bigger response from Iran

after Trump took out General Soleimani, who was the leader of the IRGC. But they're very cautious in that regard. Okay. They're cautious, but now they've crossed the line. Their proxies are killing Americans. That's not cautious. That's right. And the fact is that at this point, you're going to have to respond. I just wouldn't bomb Iran.

I want to switch back to some of just the politics, the horse race, because things that also made my hair tingle, listening to your podcast, John, in a recent episode, all of the potential disruptors in the general election, you know, what we might be facing. And one of my themes and one of my obsessions is that we lack imagination of how bad it can be in the future. You know, we keep focusing on other things. Well, just give me your sense. I mean, how worried are you about things like deepfake audio, deepfake video, playing a significant role in the 2024 election? How worried should we be about that? I think we should be very worried about it. There are three things. There's deepfake audio, which you can have Obama supposedly talking to somebody about how Biden is really too old to serve.

And there's no way that you can tell the difference between the real Obama and the audio fake Obama. Then you have fake video, deepfake video, which is not as advanced or as persuasive, if you will, as deepfake audio. And then finally, you have hackers who can get into voter registration roles. They can interfere with the workings of the polling places themselves. You know, they can shut down the electricity in the city of Philadelphia and the city of Detroit on election day, there is a capability out there in China, in Russia and Iran that can wreak enormous havoc on our election. I mean, if you think about the city of Philadelphia, how well protected is the city of Philadelphia against the most sophisticated hackers in the world from China? It's a no contest that Chinese hackers will win. Oh, boy. So if these forces out there, and really it's China and Russia that are the leading ones,

if they decide to shut off the electricity in the city of Detroit, Philadelphia, etc., remember, they only have to focus on six states. This all raises the question, how do you know what's true and false, which has been obviously a chronic problem, but it's about to get so much worse. So, for example, as you point out, you can have these AI generated audio. There could be AI generated videos as well. It works both ways. Number one, you know, trying to coerce an election official in Georgia, for example, into stealing some votes. Now, the easy defense is, well, that's not me. That's not my voice. That's AI. Don't believe the evidence of your eyes.

It used to be that if you actually had a videotape of something, that would be decisive. Now, not so clear. To your point about the hacking. So let's imagine it's election day and the lights go out in Philadelphia, okay? If people come out and say, this is Chinese hacking, they are trying to engage in election interference, that is either true or it is a bizarre conspiracy theory. How and when will we know?

I mean, the pollution of the debate could go on for a long time. So let's say this happens. You may not know for a very long time, right, that this in fact happened. And by then, the election will be over. So I mean, they're going to say, well, you're the tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist. And only like a month later, when you find out it's true, and Donald Trump's already back in the White House, what do you do about it? Right? The thing that people don't seem to understand or don't pay attention to maybe is the testing of all this is ongoing. The Chinese are, you know, looking at critical infrastructure and figuring out how to hack it. They're looking at, you know, Microsoft's anti-hacking software and trying to get into it and see if they can manipulate it. And they were successful in doing so. The ability of the Chinese or the Russians to actually execute turning off of power in major cities and, you know, getting into voter registration rolls. That's not like crazy. That's very possible.

And so then, as you point out, then we're in a post-fact world because there are no facts, right? Why was the city of Philadelphia shut down? Well, it's incompetent, you know, city management, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or the Chinese hacked it, but there's no, you know, there's no arbiter of the truth. And that, if you put on top of that, the likelihood, let's just say, the likelihood that Joe Biden wins those six states, Trump is not going to concede. So we have the 2020 thing all over again, but this time with a lot more factors in play. I mean, you could do five recounts or nine recounts in Arizona, you get the same result. Okay, Arizona, Biden won. But this time, if Phoenix is shut down, and you don't have to shut down, you know, the electricity or the

voting booths or something. You can shut down the water. You know, you can shut down the gas stations. I literally did not think that I could be more alarmed about this. I really, really didn't think. I really thought I was dialed up pretty much to the max. And then, John, I listened to you. But wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second. When we talk about this stuff, we have to consider who are the bad guys rooting for. We know that the Russians would love to have a Trump presidency. Yeah.

But would the Iranians want a Trump presidency? When we were on the brink of war with Iran, the State Department and the Treasury Department are still negotiating the nuclear deal with the Iranians. Do the Iranians want Donald Trump as president? Do the Chinese want Donald Trump as president? Well, yeah, they gave him an awful lot of money last time around staying in his hotels. But do they want Donald Trump? Do the Chinese want Donald Trump to be president? I would say this about that. John Bolton in his book said that Trump said in the meeting, look, we're never going to be able to defend Taiwan. It's 7,000 miles away. We'd run out of ammo in seven days. So the idea that we're going to come to the rescue of Taiwan is crazy. I think if I were in

the Chinese leadership, I might say, that guy would be better than this guy. Well, it's big risk, but from the point of view of Putin and Xi, it might be, you know, the reward might justify the risk. But okay, so deep breath here, because this is scary stuff, really scary stuff. Let me just say one thing about this, which is that the FBI and Homeland Security are taking it seriously. They have engaged the best of our private companies, Google and Microsoft and stuff. And so that it's not like our government doesn't understand what's, you know, the risk here, which is a positive thing. The NSA director and FBI Ray testified before Congress, and they were even more alarmist than I've been.

So now we've done the easy questions. I have some harder questions for you, gentlemen. So how long have you been covering politics? What was your first national convention, Joe? Let's just get the baseline here. My first national convention was 1976 on both sides. Okay. But you've been covering politics since when? Oh, since the turn of the Pleistocene era. Yeah, yeah.

That's kind of where I'm at. Okay. No, I started covering politics in Peabody, Massachusetts, and I was covering the city council there and also the zoning board. And as I recently said to John, the zoning board controlled canine control in the city of Peabody. And one of the candidates I remember saying, we're at a crossroads in the history of canine control in the city of Peabody. And I got to say, every election that I've covered since then, someone has said that we're at the crossroads of something. And the wonderful thing about America is that we haven't been. We're, you know, except now.

This is the first election where I believe we really are at a crossroads. They have canine control too. John, okay, so your first election? 1980, I was working for the NBC. See, you guys are kids. My first convention was, I was a page to the 1968 convention in Chicago. Charlie, you're holding your age well. Yeah, really well.

There's a portrait over here that's just a, and I guess what I wanted to ask you though, is what has surprised you the most about the transformation of politics from say the seventies, the eighties, the nineties? You know, there were times in the seventies and in the eighties, you're like, boy, things are really, really hot. Things are really, really divisive. And then here we are now. So maybe this is something to think about. I think what surprises me the most is the totalizing effect of politics and the blending of culture and politics and also the shocking realization that people actually don't really care whether something is true or not. People pick a tribe and then everything else is details. And what they are willing to swallow is amazing to me.

So who wants to start here? What has surprised you the most in these three, four decades? When I started out, there were three networks and three flavors of ice cream. I remember this. The biggest change in American life during my lifetime has been that this is the golden age of marketing. And marketing is fundamentally un-American. The basic American idea is that the things that we have in common are more important

than the things that divide us. The basic principle of marketing is that the things that divide us. The basic principle of marketing is that the things that divide us are the things that you sell to. And when you add in the technological advances, the fact that you now have a thousand TV channels on cable, and cable is now being supplanted by streaming, and there are even more choices. You used the word tribal before, but this has been a post-industrial retribalization of society. I mean, my dad was a member of the ESPN tribe. My daughter was a member of the MTV tribe.

I am sadly a member of the C-SPAN tribe. I think that there is very little that we do all together as a society anymore. Yeah, and I think that that's been the biggest change. Yeah, John, you want to weigh in? I mean, I think television is a huge part of the breakdown of politics. our political process continues to spend billions of dollars every cycle telling the voters that this candidate or that candidate is a criminal, is totally corrupt, is so on and so forth. So if you have, as Joe points out in the golden age of marketing, if you have four or five billion dollars being spent every two years telling people that the system is broken, it's corrupt, etc.,

you're going to end up with a political system that is in fact broken. And I think that's a big part. The other obvious one is we had politics sort of organized around the Cold War, the Cold War ends, and the post-Cold War period that we are still living in has sort of disoriented our politics. There's been a big change on our side of the equation too, the journalism side of the equation. And it started with Watergate when journalists for the first time were able to make a fortune being journalists. But the basic default position of journalism should be skepticism. And that has changed over time. And it is now cynicism. And I think that the safest story for a young political reporter to write

is one that is a negative story about a politician. So back in 2000, when I first thought of this, I conducted a thought experiment. I was working for the New Yorker. And so I did a positive story about George W. Bush. I did a positive story about John McCain, which wasn't hard because everybody was doing positive. I did a positive story about Bill Bradley's health care plan. I neglected Gore. But in each case, I was accused of being in the tank to that candidate because I had written a positive story about them. You know, you're not allowed to write positive things. And I got to tell you, I mean, my mentor was Daniel Patrick Moynihan. And so I came to this party with a positive view of politicians. But if you can't write positive things about them, you're sending a very, very stilted message to the

public. The cynicism is corrosive in a good way sometimes, but in large enough doses, you become cynical about all of the institutions. And I think that we are seeing this cynical lack of faith in all the institutions. And I guess that goes to one of the other things that I think came as the biggest shock to me, particularly like being part of that Watergate generation where you basically saw the system holding, you know, this is how the system is supposed to work. I mean, you had the crimes. People did the right thing. The institutions held everybody accountable, with the exception of the Nixon pardon. Fast forward to the last eight years, and you realize how fragile it all is, how, in fact, America is not immune from history. We've seen other republics die, how much of it is based on the honor system. And I have to also say, and I really do struggle with this because the idea of American exceptionalism was very big for me a couple of decades ago. And now I think as you

look around, you go, you know, perhaps we're not as exceptional as we thought. And that's all being tested. There's a lot of disillusionment here. And just one small note on journalism. My first really great job was as a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal in Milwaukee. Walk into that newsroom and there are 300 people there, this huge bustling operation. And to watch what's happened to America's journalism infrastructure is genuinely shocking. You go around the country, the news deserts in America or the ghost newsrooms were places that used to have 300, 400, 500 people now have 30. And the way that's changing our culture as well. And that's going to have a long-term impact. And nobody has figured out

what to do about that. Nobody. We're seeing the best of times for journalism and the worst of times, but this hollowing out of local journalism, you know, has extraordinary implications. And I think it contributes to the fact that all politics is now national. People don't know necessarily what's going on in Madison, Wisconsin, but they damn well sure know what's going on in Washington, D.C., and I'm not sure that's always healthy. I think that unless it's a statewide race, a couple of years ago, the three most popular governors in the United States were Charlie Baker in Massachusetts, Larry Hogan, and I'm forgetting the name of the Vermont governor. They were all Republicans in heavily democratic states. So all politics is not quite yet national, but we're certainly going there.

The other point I'd make, and this brings us right around to where we started, is, you know, we think things are so terrible here. The biggest issue that we're facing as a country in 2024, apparently, is immigration, which indicates the exact opposite. All of these people from all over the world want to come here. So maybe things aren't so terrible in the United States. And maybe it's about time that our political class and our journalists start pointing out the fact that things aren't so terrible in the United States. of science and technology and the potential of that science and technology to do just magnificent things to reduce the cost of health care by half, to enable, you know, people who can't hear or speak, give them voice and give them the ability to hear things. It's just absolutely amazing what's going on in that sphere. And, you know, if you read the press,

you would think that Facebook was a criminal conspiracy and that Google was, you know, the mafia. It's just like, it's just bizarre. I mean. Joe, one last question. So any more novels? This would also seem to be the golden era for the political novel, because only fiction can capture what we're going through. I'm trying to stay away from publishing because I've been told that I'm male, stale, and pale. And what you have now in publishing are baby boomer editors who are about to retire and their 27-year-old Maoist assistants. And so, you know, there is a novel that I've written about Tammany Hall in the 1890s, and I'd love to be able to get it published. I mean, the problem with writing a novel about

politics is that you can't possibly compete with what is on television every night. This is the problem because I will often watch the news and I think, you know, the story runners are really, you know, like outdoing themselves on the plot. I'm talking about the actual reality that if you actually wrote this in a novel, your 27-year-old Maoist editor would say, this is just not realistic. And plus we don't need any more books by, you know, old white guys. Gentlemen, thank you so much. Joe Klein is the legendary journalist, author of seven books, including the novel Primary Colors. He now writes Sanity Clause on Substack, co-hosts the new political podcast Night Owls with

John Ellis, who is also a veteran journalist who worked at NBC News, Boston Globe, Fox News. And he writes two letters on Substack, news items and political items. You should subscribe to all of them. Gentlemen, thank you so much. Thank you, Charlie. Thank you for having us. And thank you all for listening to today's Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow and we will do this all over again. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.