The Bulwark Podcast - Mallory McMorrow and Bill Kristol: Imagining a World Where Trump Is Irrelevant

Episode Date: October 21, 2024

Remember those few weeks when Trump ceded the stage to Kamala and didn't do any campaigning? How glorious it was not to have to talk about him. Meanwhile, Kamala, Liz, and Sarah work to seal the deal with undecided voters, Moldova rejects the vote-buying oligarchs, and Lindsey, you're wrong: It's Trump, not Kamala, who's the most radical candidate in modern American history. Mallory McMorrow was recorded live at our Bulwark event in Detroit, and Bill Kristol joined Tim Miller for a recap of the weekend's political news. show notes: Gifted link to John Heilemann's interview with David Plouffe

All right. Hey everybody. So much going on. I just want to tell you about our schedule and make sure you know where you can find all of the amazing content here as we reach the last two weeks of the campaign. Today on this podcast, it's Monday, so I'll have Bill Kristol. I'm back in New Orleans right now. That is in segment two.

Segment one was live from Detroit on Saturday with state Senator Mallory McMorrow. She is just an uplifting shot of energy, which I think maybe I needed. So if you need that too, that's segment one. If you just want Bill, go ahead and fast forward through and we're doing our usual Monday jig in segment two. All right. By the time you listen to this, my colleague Sarah Long will already have moderated an

event in Pennsylvania with Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney. That happens Monday around lunchtime. We live stream that on the Bulwark YouTube. So if you haven't seen it yet and you want to watch it, you can go to the Bulwark YouTube. Me and JVL provide some analysis. Sarah does a town hall interview with the vice president and Liz Cheney. Super exciting. We're super proud of Sarah.

So go check that out. Other stuff, we had multiple live events, as you know, in Philly, Pittsburgh and Detroit. There was a kind of dark next level, the opposite of the Mallory interview in Pittsburgh that I'm sorry for the people that came out in Pittsburgh, but they seem to enjoy it. I apologize for taking you down to the ninth circle of hell before Sarah built everybody back up, but you can get that on the next level feed.

And hopefully then we'll be back to our normal schedule here coming tomorrow. So there you go. That's the plan. Up next, Michigan State Center, Mallory McMorrah. Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller, and I'm here today with Michigan State Senator Mallory McMorrah. Hi, Tim. All right. So, I want to start here.

I don't know about the rest of y'all, but I'm feeling a little uptight on Saturday night in Detroit Rock City, and I'm hoping that you can chill me out a little bit. How are you feeling? Y'all, I feel so good right now. Do you feel good? No, but thank God you do.

So good. Do you want to hear why? Please. Okay, so I am supporting 13 state house candidates No, but thank God you did. So good. Do you want to hear why? Please. Okay. So I am supporting 13 state House candidates across the state in some of our most marginal districts and some of you may not know, I flipped a Republican district to get elected in 2018. What's happening to that guy now?

What's that? What's happening to that guy now? The district that? What's happening to that guy now? The district you took. You know, he's hanging out. Retired. He's good. I represent him well. OK.

Yes, you do. That's true. That's a good point. But I got to tell you, so we have been out downriver. We've been out in Macomb County, and we are talking to independents, Republican, Republican leaning. People are excited. And when people shut off

the conversation, it's not in a rude way. It's not like, please get off my doorstep. It's, hey, guess what? I already voted, and I voted for Kamala Harris, and for Democrats all the way down the ticket because I'm sick of this shit. Let's move on. Okay.

So you're saying we're gonna win. We're gonna win if we keep working our asses off for the next 17 days. Okay, that's a good place to start. Now we can get into the details. So, you know, I've never been to Detroit. Can you believe that? Welcome.

I've never been to Detroit before. I was here all afternoon. I was walking around by the Shinola Hotel, and you know, we had a coffee at Madcap and it was great. There was no Venezuelan migrant mobs. Didn't see anyone stealing any pets or anything. If the whole country turned out like Detroit, I think it'd be fun.

It would be pretty good. It would be good. I'm kidding. I've been to a lot worse places. We drove past Toledo on the way here, for example. I can do it. I'm sorry. Are you from Toledo?

Sorry. I usually pick on Dayton, but that's a college thing. You flipped the Republican district. You talked about that. You know, Sarah was just up here talking about the RVAT folks. Let's talk about that demo. It's an important demo for, I think, Kamala this year, like getting to people

that maybe had voted for Mitt Romney in 2012. Boo, or Sir John McCain, Les Boo. How did that work for you? Talk about your experience and how you talked to those kind of voters successfully. So look, I ran for the first time in 2018 in an Oakland County district that included places like Bloomfield Hills, Mitt Romney's hometown,

Rochester, Rochester Hills. I talked to a lot of people who had never voted for a Democrat and also weren't sure they had ever met a Democrat before. But in a place like Oakland County and I think like a lot of Michigan, you know, when I was knocking doors for the first time, I had a backpack on and a baseball hat, and I looked like a 12-year-old knocking on their door. But a lot of people said, why did you come back to Michigan?

And what can we do to bring my daughter back? And this is gonna sound controversial, so bear with me. But if you are a sane, rational, normal person with a personality and you can convince people that you are going to act in the best interest of most people, it's a pretty compelling argument. Really? Yeah, really.

It's always mostly that they were just kind of like living vicariously through you. They were hoping that their daughter was gonna be like Valerie. There was a woman on the phone with her daughter who moved to Chicago and she paused the conversation and handed me the cell phone and said, can you please get her to move back?

I hope she did. It's great. I think that part of what you're talking about is just being basically effective and competent, right? Like how do you balance this question of maintaining your values with reaching out to people that come from a different side? I mean you hear sometimes on the internet,

you shouldn't be on the internet, but when you are there, you hear sometimes from lefty folks like why is Kamala having Liz Cheney around so much? It's like does that mean that the warmongers, see, she's worried about that. Does that mean the warmongers are being charged? How do you balance that? How do you say that the Liz Cheneys are welcome,

but we're still maintaining our values? Like, how do you deal with that? So here's the thing, I think if you don't do that, if you don't reach out to as many people as possible, you're not true to American values. We are not, thank you. We are not Democrats versus Republicans. I mean, one of the biggest challenges that I have

every time I'm on TV and I'm talking about something and it irks me is that it says Mallory McMorrow D. And I feel like you see that visual and you're immediately making judgments. When at the end of the day, and I knocked on one door in Rochester, and I will never forget this, I had a high school volunteer with me,

and we didn't have any data, and the data said that these were probably lean, dem voters, and I knocked on the door, and that was very clear, almost immediately they were not. She came to the door, and she told me, her son worked for the Border Patrol Agency, not the Canadian one by the way, the other southern border, that she had a bunch of guns in her pickup truck, that she and her husband used to

be union members but that Democrats had looked down on them for so long. There was a long conversation and it sounded especially to this high schooler, this poor girl, she was looking at me like, Mallory, I think we have to leave, this is not going well. But eventually, I sat there long enough where this woman said, my daughter-in-law is a teacher and her job is so hard. There are too many kids in her classroom,

she doesn't have enough resources, she spends $500 a year on supplies for her classroom. And I said to this woman, there are probably a lot of issues that we disagree on. I'm going to be honest with you. But I care a lot about education, and I care a lot about making your daughter-in-law's life easier. And this woman said to me, and I tell people all the time, she said, you sat here for 45

minutes, which my team was angry about because I was not knocking enough doors. But she said, you listened to us and you didn't judge us and if you had just come here with your literature that said Democrat on it in big letters, I would have just put it in the garbage. But she said, I trust you and you can count on two votes from our house and you can put a yard sign in our front yard, which made that yard the most confusing yard in Rochester. It was like Bill Schuette, John James and yard the most confusing yard in Rochester.

It was like Bill Schuette, John James, and me. It didn't make sense. But this touched on something that I think is universal, is people want to feel heard, they want to feel understood, and most people understand we are not going to agree on everything, and that's okay, because we are Americans and we are Michiganders and we agree on that much.

Which is why Kamala Harris, reaching out to Liz Cheney, doing events together, reaching out to most people to say, in the future, that Kamala Harris is laying out in this vision, you belong here. And think about that contrast versus what Donald Trump is laying out. Yeah. I would rather that one. Yeah, it's hard to think about somebody thinking, looking at Donald Trump and thinking he cares

about me. I don't. He's really thinking about me and my concerns. I don't think he cares about any of us. Yeah, he's mostly thinking about himself and Arnold Palmer's penis these days, it seems like. And Hannibal Lecter. And Hannibal Lecter.

Yeah. Yeah, I don't think he's thinkinger. And Hannibal Lecter. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think he's thinking about that lady's daughter-in-law. Have you called her back about this cycle? Do we know? Have we found that house again? Can you start driving around the neighborhood, be like, I think it was that house.

Yeah. I should. You should. We'll figure that's a homework assignment for you. Yeah, homework. I want to talk about one thing I think, and we talk about it some, but I feel a little remiss in the Borg podcast.

It's probably because of my background and views. Well, one thing I think, and we talk about it some, but I feel a little remiss in the Borg Podcast, it's probably because of my background and views, but like the just critical nature of abortion here in this state and how the Democrats have really across the so-called Blue Wall states, like in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and here, since jobs, had such success. So talk about the issue broadly

and why it's been so important, but also how you're kinda communicating to the kind of me's, like the, I'm not Catholic anymore, but the Catholics in Michigan who are like, eh, I'm pro-life-ish, but I don't know about this crazy shit that's happening. Like how do you communicate to them about the importance of this issue right now?

Yeah, so I was raised Catholic, proud graduate of the University of Notre Dame, and what was interesting, hell yeah, go Irish. Okay, rank your top three favorite saints. This is a football school, Marcus Freeman, we're in the football era, it's hot coach time. Catholic saints, I got mad at Kamala because she did the, this Al Smith dinner was so stupid.

It's like all these rich people in their white ties sitting around laughing at Donald Trump's terrible jokes. It's like, it's sick. It was gross. There's a lot about the Catholic church that needs to evolve and we need a lot more. She sent a funny video though in Kamala with Mary Catherine from SNL,

but then she quoted the Bible. And I was like, look out. That's not what we do. We don't do that. It's not what we do. All right, all right. We do rosaries, we do Mary, we do saints. Yep, and then we complain. And then we complain what we do. All right, all right. We do rosaries, we do Mary, we do saints. Yep, and then we complain.

And then we complain, and we drink. And we drink, yeah. Okay, so there's a little bit of a miss on that, but otherwise it was good. Nine out of 10. Anyway, I'm sorry, continue. So it was good to do that. Okay, so what's interesting about the Dobbs decision

is I think for the longest time, as somebody who was raised Catholic and heard the worst versions, I remember going to CCD and I came home one day, I had to be like eight, and I told my mom, Mom, did you know that they kill babies with coat hangers? And my mom was like, oh no, that's not okay. We need to actually have a conversation about this.

But before the Dobbs decision, I feel like both Democrats and Republicans could run on rhetoric. You could either be baby killers or abortion on demand. And there was no middle ground. Because there was always a backstop. And then daubs happened and there was no longer a backstop. So you could no longer run in rhetoric.

And then we finally, all across the state, talked to people who said, I may not personally believe in this, but I had an ectopic pregnancy, or I had a miscarriage that didn't fully pass, or my daughter did, or I know somebody did, and we were finally having the real nuanced, frankly heartbreaking conversations

about how hard it is to get pregnant, stay pregnant safely, and the desire to know that if it goes wrong, which happens far more often than anybody talks about, that you have access to that care. I shared on the Senate floor, my daughter is now three and a half. I had an IUD placed after I gave birth and that punctured through my uterus.

One in five million chance, by the way, so I don't know if I should play the lottery or what, but I had to have that surgically removed. And my OB told me, you know, if we hadn't been trained on common abortion procedures, we might not be able to know how to remove this and you could have died. Sharing that type of story with people opens their eyes

to say, yeah, no, I don't want that to be illegal. And that is why you saw in this state, Prop 3, which was the proposition to guarantee abortion access. It collected more signatures than any other ballot initiative in state history. That's a big message. That's a big message. It is a big message. And there just is no message to that middle from the other side.

Can you explain to me how the Republicans got so crazy here? I mean, you had John Engler and Spence Abraham. I'm sure people in here had some problems with some of them, but like, even Peter Meijer, though he's got some issues. I mispronounced his name on purpose. It's all freaks now. What is happening? What is happening? Yeah, I think it's the dog that caught the car, and it's really hard to come back from

that. We had, in one of my first years in office, there was legislation from the Republican side, when Republicans were still in the majority to ban D&Es, which is the most common procedure for later terminations. And I took constituents of mine who they had gotten married, they got pregnant, they had a healthy pregnancy. At the 20-week scan, they found out the collagen wasn't developing, so no bones were developing. So their doctor advised them to consider a termination because if it survived to birth, would very likely only live a day or two, and those few days on Earth would be nothing but pain.

Like a sneeze could break a rib. So this couple decided to pursue a termination, and then all of a sudden found themselves having a really hard time getting a doctor who would schedule the procedures because the doctors were afraid of getting sued and getting put in jail. So I took them to Lansing,

they met with some of our Republican colleagues and I remember one of my colleagues pulling me aside on the floor and saying, how frequently do you think this happens? And I said, well that's kind of the point, that we don't know. So you're legislating something arbitrary that is gonna put this couple in a position

where she might no longer be able to conceive, ever, and that shouldn't be our job. And then she voted for the legislation anyway. So it's this very hard, like you hear them grappling with it, and you're're almost there and then you're just like, well, Donald Trump and God told me to save babies. So that's what I'm doing. I don't know. Like it's this very extremist, very black and white view. And I don't know how we break out of that except that this version, and I'm very intentional to say this version

of the Republican party has to lose. Crushed. Crushed. Not just lose. To shake it back to a place where we can be normal again. Yeah. Strong agree. Strong agree. While we're doing this, just really quick, on other local races for people to pay attention to in Michigan, I get this question a lot from listeners,

like, you know, who could I donate to to or what are the very close races is that what are you monitoring either at the state or congressional level? So I am somebody I believe that state level races are the most important level of government that nobody ever invests in. Good example is when there was a campaign to take out Mitch McConnell, Amy McGrath was running, everybody remembers this, many of you may have donated to that race. Donors donated $96 million to Amy McGrath to try to defeat Mitch McConnell.

Nice person. Yeah, yeah, totally great. Same result with $900,000 though. The budget for the DLCC, which is the state legislative version of like the D-triple-C and the DSCC, their budget for the entire country for that entire cycle was $50 million. That's every state, every single state legislative race

combined, $50 million versus $96 million for one race. So I am focused on the state house here in Michigan. I have a pack called The More Perfect Michigan. We're supporting 13 state house candidates statewide. These are races that are won with thousands of dollars not millions and I have been out on doors all over the state for them and they're super important. There was one really terrible Republican running for Congress you're telling me about. Who is that? Oh my goodness. So my friend Curtis Hurtel is running, all right, is running to replace

Alyssa Slotkin in her congressional seat. He is running against Tom Barrett. Tom Barrett positions himself as a normal Republican because he was a veteran. You may see some billboards if you drive down 96. I worked with Tom Barrett for four years. I'm gonna share one story. During COVID, there were some pretty aggressive shutdowns in the state, and Tom Barrett came to the microphone and he said that there was one restaurant owner in his district that was arrested because all he was doing was trying to stay open

to provide meals for the homeless. Sounds nice. The entire story was made up. There was video of it. This person was arrested because the police showed up and he fought them. He was drunk. He punched a cop.

Mm. Well, I'm sorry. This is the Back the Blue Party. That can't be, I don't believe that that story could be possible. They've never attacked any police before? Yeah, no, never. Definitely not on some time in early January.

In the Capitol. Yeah, no. It's an interesting. OK. There was another thing we were talking about that goes against my nature. But you've won more races than me. So we might listen to your advice on this.

We were having a beer earlier, and you're like, I think as a closing message, we should talk about Trump less. That's true. Now that's challenging for me. I know, I know. Cause I fucking, ugh, I've got a lot to say about him. But I want to hear your pitch for how come look and close by bringing back a little bit of joy

and positivity to the campaign. Okay, so my closing pitch is that, Michiganders, we're all Michiganders in this room, we have been through some stuff the past few years. We have been through a pandemic, we have been through the trial run insurrection when Arm Gunman came into our state capitol, and we're above my head by the way, and then January 6 was taken out, and there was a glorious few weeks when Kamala became the candidate and then the nominee, where we did not talk about Donald Trump, and he weirdly decided not to campaign.

I remember he gave an interview and he was like, well, I'm just waiting until they have their convention. And I was like, oh, that's nice, he's tired. My closing pitch is, wasn't that a nice place to live? God, that would be nice. Let's just imagine that. And I think the more we talk about him, we know who Donald Trump is.

He's defined, we know he's going to do all kinds of crazy stuff. Now it's like the gloves are off and he's just doing rage baiting things like this rally at Madison Square Garden. Is it just like a Nazi rally in 1939? Maybe, but that's what he wants you to talk about. He did a rally in Detroit, is it where they sent

a bunch of protesters to try to throw out the votes of one of the largest majority black cities in the country? Maybe, but that's what he wants you to talk about. Let's not talk about it. What should we talk about instead? The world that we can live in where Donald Trump is irrelevant. Yeah. The world that we can live in where Donald Trump is irrelevant.

I'm just thinking about it. Just imagine it. It's so nice. It's so nice. What would we talk about then though? Football, tacos. I love tacos. I don't know. Remember when you promised us a taco truck on every corner? Mm. Still waiting. If only, if only we could have that taco truck on every corner, okay. Got one more thing to talk to you about.

I'm in Detroit now and I'm going to see all of the key areas, like I went to the chapel where Eminem had his rap battle with Papa Doc. Oh yeah, yeah. Iconic. And I'm just wondering, do we feel like we're doing well in that demo? Is everybody at the rap battle? Are we going to be getting the votes that we need, do you think?

Yeah, look, I mean if the rap battle, and this isn't even a rap battle, but if it's the white boy from Detroit battle and it's Eminem versus Kid Rock, we're winning. I agree with that. I agree with that. What about the rappers that went to Cranbrook? Oh, that's a private school. All right, that's a private school.

Is that in your district? Do we have any Cranbrook people here? Oh. Yeah. Sad. Um, Mallory McMurray, final call to arms to people. Give us a final rallying cry. Final call, we got 17 days,

none of this happens without action, so sign up for one voter contact shift. Just one, find a local party, find a candidate you like. Talk to five people in your life. I know these are conversations you don't want to have because we are tired of having these conversations at Thanksgiving. You know you have these people in your life. I know these are conversations you don't want to have because we are tired of having these conversations at Thanksgiving. You know you have these people in their life,

they need to vote and get off the sidelines and get it done. Thank you so much. This is so delightful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Y'all, I was never really a mushroom man growing up.

Um, well get your head out of the gutter, but you know what I mean. I didn't like to eat the portabellas or whatever. And um, sometimes taste buds change. I became a grownup. My child likes mushrooms, so I started cooking them for her. And it turns out I love mushrooms. So I was excited when we had this new sponsor for the podcast, Mudwater. Mudwater is a coffee alternative filled with chai, lion's mane, reishi, mushrooms, tumeric,

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That was my Saturday night in Detroit with Mallory McMorrow. I was feeling a little uptight, but she is a spitfire. We needed that. We need a little positive energy. I'm sorry to miss you there, Bill, but I think maybe Mallory was a little bit more yin to your yang, which was needed, I think, for our crew. I'm sure she was both yin and yang or whatever that means. I've never been quite clear on what that was. But anyway, I had to leave. Yes. I had to leave the excellent bulwark swing states tour after Thursday

night in Philadelphia, where I thought it was terrific. So I missed Pittsburgh and Detroit. So how are those? Yeah. Uh, Pittsburgh was kind of emo. Pittsburgh was a little emo and it was maybe my fault, but I'm pissed. I mean, it's the same thing, you know, it's just like, it's hard for me to get past. It's not so much pessimism about Kamala's chances, though I wish we were in better shape,

as it is just despair over the fact that like, we have to sweat this out after everything. And so I maybe got a little bit too into the despair side of things. We rebalanced it in Detroit, you know, towards, you know, the creed of core, the call to action. But it was great. You know, I that my family came to both of those people got to meet everybody, the art, the crowd was great. And I love Detroit, by the way, Donald Trump says, it's a bad thing that America is becoming Detroit, if only America became Detroit, Detroit's awesome.

You know, I told Susan when I got back from that, we're at a family wedding this weekend. So when I got back from Philly on Friday, that it was really, you It's not quite invigorating, I guess is the word I'm looking for. I mean, people were really excited to be there, excited to see people like themselves, awful lot of ex Republicans, some normal Democrats, I would say who like the bulwark too. And a nice mix of people, people feeling self-consciously that they're a part of something bigger than any one campaign for one person. I thought that was interesting how much people really have sort of have that sense.

Maybe everyone has that sense this year because so much is at stake. But certainly if you're not a traditional down the line Democrat, you more likely have that sense, right? And so, yeah, sorry to Miss Pittsburgh and Detroit both. No, it was wonderful. I totally agree with that sense of invigoration. Is that a word? Of being invigorated.

Yeah, invigorated. Yeah, yeah. We also have other news today, other Bullwork News. Our colleague, our publisher, our leader, Sarah Longwell is in Pennsylvania. So by the time this is out, Sarah will already have hosted a town hall with Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney, trying to reach these remaining, you know, hangers-on Nikki Haley type voters. Our old colleague Charlie Sykes is doing a similar conversation with Kamala in Wisconsin.

So I think it speaks to how focused the campaign is on all that. I want to get into that a little bit at the end of the pod. But it's also just, it's pretty great for Sarah and it's pretty great that they're doing this, I think. And that I think that their eyes on the ball of one of essentially two key groups of people they got to speak to the last few weeks. Yeah, I was advocating within the bulwark in Slack that we put up giant billboards, Sarah Longwell,

Chester County, Pennsylvania, also whatever, know, also whatever, Kamala Harris, Liz Cheney. Perry County, I think. I think she was Perry County. Is it Perry County, wherever it is. But we should, yeah, they, but they didn't, my colleagues didn't go along with that. So, Kamala and Liz are getting equal billing with Sarah, which I think is fine. I mean, give them a little bump up and recognition.

Yeah, for now, I think it's fair. All right, give them a little bump up and recognition. Yeah, for now, I think it's fair. All right, let's get down to business. Somebody else had less kind things to say about Liz Cheney. I think Judge Liz Cheney a little more maybe harshly than Sarah Longwell and we have at the bulwark. I want to listen to the Republican vice presidential nominee for some reason ranting about Liz Cheney over the weekend. And what they will tell you to a person is that Liz Cheney is motivated by an obsessive hatred of the people who cost her her Wyoming congressional seat.

She is not motivated by a love of this country. She's a resentful, petty, small person. And if Kamala Harris wants to parade her around, she's welcome to. Projection much? Resentful, petty, small. That describes JD about as well as I think any three adjectives could. I don't know, what say you? Can you psychoanalyze JD Vance there for me?

Too unpleasant to do so at any great length, but I could briefly. But the first point, obviously it's not worth even rebounding, but just to be simple about it, Liz Cheney broke with Trump obviously before January 6th, but let's just say over January 6th, she broke with him what she saw, definitively with him what she saw what he was trying to do after the election. So that was January 6th, 2021. She knew very well it could cost her her congressional seat, and it did in 2022.

The idea that she's motivated by resentment and losing the congressional seat is just, I mean, it's leaving everything else aside that's unfair and stupid about it. It's literally incoherent. I mean, she was fighting Trump for a year and a half before she lost her congressional seat. And by the way, she spent most of her time in the J-6 committee, like versus the primary, right? Like if she had actually cared about her congressional seat that much, she could have done, she would

have had a very different approach, I guess. Let's put it that way. I guess it's revealing if you want to get in the psychoanalytic business, you know, that JD Vance can't imagine on the other hand, anyone being willing to sacrifice the number three spot in the House Republicans, a very bright future, the congressional seat, which is still has bright future in my view, but let's say more straightforwardly bright future in the Republican party. JD Vance can't imagine anyone being willing to sacrifice that for a matter of principle

or honor or the good of the country. The other point, I think I make this point in morning shots this morning, that JD Vance of course was a Never Trumper, sort of, in 2016, 2017. And I do think the ex Never Trumper's have a particular bile and sort of resentment and envy maybe even of the people who just were Never Trumpers and stayed with it. I mean, the two people who were most vitriolic over the weekend about JD Vance's case, Liz Cheney, the other one was Lindsey Graham about any Republican who was supporting Harris. They kind of pretend they can't even imagine how it could be the case, Whereas they were examples of this case, you know, seven or eight years ago.

It does. It's like this, you have to do this performative anger, right, to like overcompensate for your failings, right? Like it's, you can't just be like, they're wrong, right? Like, you have to convince yourself that they are morally bad, right? That we are morally bad to compensate for your own kind of deep down knowing sense that you've made a moral sacrifice, right, that we are morally bad to compensate for your own kind of deep down gnawing sense that you've made a moral sacrifice, right? They have to even the score in their head.

I felt this way about my exchange with Lindsay. I was going to do it later, but now that you mentioned it, let's actually just listen to Lindsay on Meet the Press and really get our hackles up this morning. Terris residing in our backyard. It was their decision to stop energy production, making us more energy independent. It was their decision to abandon Israel at their time and need when it came to weapons. Senator, U.S. is making more energy than anything.

So no, I think these generals are wrong. But they worked for Donald Trump. You know what? I know, but... But they worked for President Trump. These are former Trump administration officials. To every Republican supporting her, what the hell are you doing? You're supporting the most radical nominee in the history of American politics, the Green New Deal, Medicare for All. I mean, I want to play a little longer clip than just the what the hell are you doing

so you can just see how shallow this argument is, right? That it's like to demonstrate that she's radical, it has to be, she's for the Green New Deal and Medicare for All, which she's not campaigning on and has no chance to pass even in the rosiest possible outcome for the Democrats in the Senate this year. You have to argue that they abandoned Israel in the time of need, right? At a moment where the New York Times is reporting about all of the intelligence support we've been providing Israel. I like the argument is so shallow that they have to convince themselves of that

to make this just like fake anger over the top, kind of judgmental argument to offset the fact that like they obviously know better because they told us that they know better. They told us in JD Vance case, the God wants better of us, so they know better. So this is how they last show. Yeah, totally. She was Kamala Harris as part of an administration that rejected the Green

New Deal, that rejected Medicare for All, and that stood by Israel. More than two things I might have done a little differently, but you know, 95% stood by Israel. So this is the Lisa Lindsey Graham's examples of how radical Kamala Harris is. And incidentally, if you really wanted to say someone was the most radical candidate in modern American history, that would be Donald Trump. If you take radical in the sense of not left or right, but just challenging the constitutional order, the norms and the institutions, the consensus that's guided American politics more or less for 70, 80 years in foreign policy, certainly, but let's say at home too in the last 50, 60 years, that's Trump.

I mean, they're proud of being radical, incidentally. Trump and Heritage Foundation and JD Vance, they're not interested in just tweaking the system or improving it a bit or continuing some reforms or correcting some previous reforms. There, they want to overthrow it all. What was the book, the Heritage Guys book that Vance wrote the preface for? Then they pulled it back because it was too controversial. Burn it all down. Trump is the radical.

I'm just literally, analytically, empirically, Trump is the radical. And now Lindsey Graham is pretending that, oh, Kamala Harris, unbelievable radical, prosecutor in California and vice president to Joe Biden. Yeah. Yeah. Give me a break. The other thing just that's maybe only matters to you and me, Bill, but it's just worth sitting on for a second because we get this like, oh, you've changed so much.

You've gone so far, you know, to the left. Like these issues that he's talking about, if anyone has changed, not just their character and their moral outlook, but their actual policy views and what they think are radical, it's Lindsey Graham. I mean, Lindsey Graham and John McCain were at the hip in that 2008 campaign, which included, among other policy planks, a belief that we should have some kind of cap and trade deal to deal with climate. A belief that climate change was a problem. A belief that we need immigration reform, we need legalization for DREAMers.

And yeah, we need to secure the border too, but some kind of comprehensive immigration reform. A belief that America needs to be strong in the world stage and counter Russia and counter dictators. If you just think about that McCain campaign in 2008, like those are kind of the core issue, like at least the most defining issues. They might not have been the issues that were the top of his list because, you know, there were the ways he was kind of distinguishing himself from the other Republicans in the primary.

And so, like he's a band adult, though. He's for a candidate now that wants mass deportations, like we've never seen before, and that doesn't believe climate change is real, and wants to hand over Eastern Europe to Putin. And he doesn't seem to have any reflection on that at all. Yeah, you have to pretend that just doesn't exist. Trump's not going to do all the things he and J.D. Vance have said they're going to do. No, I'm angry.

We've worked that out. I mean, I would say Vance is, I don't know which is more contemptible. Vance is an opportunist who saw his chance as a young man, it's the way he saw his chance years ago and now he continues to be opportunistic. I think he's a more simple case in a certain way. Lindsey Graham is a pretty interesting and complicated case because I worked very closely with him and quite closely with him. In the 2000s, we were both for the Iraq war.

We did a lot on the foreign policy front together. I was close to McCain. Lindsey was really McCain's top kind of deputy, you might say, in the Senate and a very good tactician on a lot of this stuff. And then as late as 2016, he was not just like JD Vance, you know, who had written a book and was on a couple of talk shows saying,

I don't like Trump. He was running against Trump JD Vance, you know, I've written a book. It was on a couple of talk shows saying I don't like Trump. He was running against Trump and denouncing Trump in the most, as strongly as Jeb Bush and everyone else. And calling me to try to strategize on how we can defeat Trump and talking where he was sounding like deranged. The degree of flipping here and then lashing out that is, yeah, that is set needs a psychoanalyst. Yeah, it does. We'll find the one last thing then on psychoanalysis, because we were at,

at our field event, we were at the same hotel that where I encountered Lindsay a couple of weeks ago during the debate. I was just reflecting back on it. It was interesting. Like when he first sees me and I first go up to him, I said something first time I said something kind of teasing, joking about, um, how Trump's performance was so bad, like he's always welcome back on, on side or something like that. And he immediately like blows his top and goes straight to,

how do you sleep at night? To me, there's something to be said for that. Right. I'm like, how do I sleep? And I have a user. What do you mean? But like the fact that you feel like you have to go to that place, right. To me, tells me that you might be having some problems sleeping at night.

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I mean, he's totally off the handle that his rallies we discussed at the Detroit event, the 12 minute excursion conversations about Arnold Palmer's oversized three wood. And you know, he can't help talking about how he's not having cognitive decline and he's not actually almost 80. He said that at one point. In addition to that, he's been lashing out at Kamala Harris in more overt ways. I just want to play one clip from his rally over the weekend. And this one, Kamala is further left than them. So you have to tell Kamala Harris that you've had enough, that you just can't take it anymore.

We can't stand you. You're a shit vice president. The worst. You're the worst vice president. Kamala, you're fired. Get the hell out of here. You're fired. I mean, I don't mind cussing.

We do some cussing on this podcast, but, you know, it's totally deranged behavior for a presidential candidate two weeks out. Yeah, and of course what's distressing is the cheering that greets the vulgarity, the bullying. The more vehemently bullying the vulgarity is, as opposed to just maybe cavalier, kind of more like the Harold Palmer thing, which whatever it's like. Not what a presidential candidate should be saying,

but that is locker room talk, if you, you know, to use the phrase that he used about the excess Hollywood tape, they like the bullying, they like the pseudo strongman. That's depressing. Yeah. And it's, it's the asymmetry of it. You know what I mean? I just look back on the deplorables comment and all of the fake, like the histrionics and the fainting couch,

hours upon hours of Fox News coverage of all this. It's just like there's no even attempt, right, to try to try to treat this as if, you know, like it's fair play, like as if we're calling a fair game here, right? Like Donald Trump gets an excuse to do whatever he wants. He can just curse and demean and lie and do conspiracy theories. And if Kamala Harris says like one thing that's a little bit harsh, it's like, what happened to the Joy campaign?

You know? And the whole thing is preposterous. He did something smart. We can just say it. The McDonald's thing was smart. It was fake. It was totally fake. There was a practice procession with the cars that were in the drive-through.

We did a practice run going through the drive-through before he got in there. And then on the video, they all come up and they're not professional actors. Their acting is very poor where they pretend to be surprised to see him. So it was fake, but it was a good photo op. So I think we can acknowledge that though. I don't know, you might've won the day with a very viral tweet discussing how

it's a great sign for the Biden economy that felons are now getting hired at McDonald's. Yeah, the fakeness of it is more than the normal. Normally felons are now getting hired at McDonald's. The fakeness of it is more than the normal. Normally these things are sort of fake, of course. The advance team is there and they kind of say, look, the vice president or former president of the Trump will come here and buy a doughnut and you can give them one of these. They kind of arrange it.

They'll stock a few people in there. But this was totally fake. This was not an open McDonald's, right? If I'm not mistaken. No, it was a closed McDonald's. Like, yeah, so when I would bring Jeb to a place, for example, just to give people context, we'd go to a coffee shop and we'd tell 10 of our supporters, like, will you go to this coffee shop?

Jeb's going to be there. But like strangers could also be there. You know what I mean? So like there was, so it was quasi-fake, right? A quasi-fake photo op versus like a literal studio set to McDonald's. I think the McDonald's thing is interesting though. I mean, this does fit with Arnold Palmer leaving aside the vulgarity at the end, which is he is a salesman, he is a con man, he's marketed himself to middle America forever, 40 or 50

years. And so he's not stupid in that way, right? Who does he want to be associated with in people's mind? Arnold Palmer, golfer who, if you're a little older than I am, if you're Trump's age actually, but certainly even my age, you know, the greatest kind of iconic golfer and also a real gentleman actually, and kind of had a very good post-golfing career

is my sense, you know, and of course he invented the, you know, the- His daughter actually put out a statement about how he's a gentleman and would have hated Donald Trump. Yeah, and he invented this, you know, drink or whatever, you know, it's iced tea, or does it lemonade and iced tea? So Palmer, and then McDonald's, right? The kind of iconic American fast food institution.

So in that respect, Trump does have a certain kind of weird, not weird, it's just that's what he's been doing for 50 years, you know, instinct that kind of, you know, I'm in touch with you guys in middle America. You watched Arnold Palmer on TV, you watched ads with him later on, you've been to McDonald's a million times. I'm kind of a McDonald's type guy.

He's so much smarter than a DeSantis type, right? Trump is, he's a more effective Democrat. I mean, they're out of date, is your point. They're out of date cultural touchstones, but they are kind of whatever, middle American cultural touchstones from 30 years ago. That's true. He does have a good instinct for that.

The only other thing I think that is worth saying about the McDonald's again is just, this is all projection. What has underlined all this was that like there's this conspiracy that Kamala never actually worked at McDonald's, right? It's like that is what they're doing. So literally it's like we're accusing Kamala of being fake and saying that she worked at McDonald's when she was a teen. And in order to do so, we're going to do a fake McDonald's stop. I like that the, that is very kind of upside down element, but right of it on, on brand for, you know, the Trump university guy.

I want to get now into the nitty gritty of where, of where we're at. We've, we've had our fun. It's a super close race. I had sent you this morning. There was a good conversation with my friend, John Hileman, formerly of the circus, now at Puck, who had a lengthy discussion with David Plouffe, who's come in to become his advisor and he is the even keeled, measured, Zen-like, whatever word you want to use, not me, not rain cloudy, bedwetting person inside the Harris campaign.

I'll put a link in the show notes. And it's kind of worth reading all of this if you want to dork out to see what the Harris team's POV is on the campaign. But the most interesting takeaway, I think at the top level, and we can dig in, is that they have seen the race as being basically static for a little over a month,

which is something Axelrod said on this podcast about a week ago too. And that the movement in the public polls towards Harris after the debate and then towards Trump in the last week, like they don't see, like they think that's kind of like a phantom movement based on crappy public polls. And that what they've seen is a very, very tight race that's close in all seven swing states and their premise as they think about the strategy and who they need to turn out for the last two weeks. So what do you think about the top level and then we'll kind of get down at each element?

I think plus telling the truth here, I mean, there could have been a tiny movement, half a point one way after the debate, half point back the other, even though that's such a tiny movement, it's basically a phantom movement. And it's, well, it takes just a couple of polls being slightly off on where the other and every poll is going to be off a little to create that sort of illusion of movement. We've all seen this so many times in campaigns, right? It's not a real movement. A real movement would be, you know, from zero.

Well, the real movement was the movement from when she took over to when she established a tiny, small lead in the national popular vote. And more to the point, since that's what Plouffe's totally focused on in the swing states, pulled even in the swing states. And so she was down, he said six or seven, I was struck by that. Biden was down when he got out in the swing states and she just made it an even race in the swing states. That's the real movement.

Then there's been noise for the last month and a lot of, you know, tiny little tiny oscillations. And here we are with two weeks left. Yeah. The other thing that jumped out to me, cause people always ask this, right? Like who are the voters that we're talking about? Are they even real? Et cetera. And this is how Plath assesses it. There's 4% of the electorate, which in the one hand is really small, but it's like kind of a lot of people, you know, it's 150 million people. Six, seven million. Yeah, yeah, yeah, quite a lot of voters, 4% who are still trying to decide between the two candidates.

And then there's another group of people that are different, like they're different for each campaign who haven't firmly decided yet whether or not they're going to vote. And those are the people that you got to get off the couch. For Trump, obviously that's going to be mostly white, non-college working class voters. And for Harris, a lot of younger voters, voters of color, et cetera. So like those are essentially the groups. And PLUF, based on the event today with Liz Cheney and Sarah Long Longwell and just kind of based on their ads and based on their behavior and based on what he said there's no reason to think he's lying thinks that a big portion of

that 4% are you know college-educated Nikki Haley type Republicans to use that as a shorthand. I think you and I have had versions of this division too that people talk about the swing voters or the undecided voters but it's pretty obvious when you just think about it for a minute, there's the sort of swingish engaged voters who are traditional Republicans, hard time voting for a Democrat that want to vote for Trump. Plot says that's 4%. He knows better than I, that sounds about right.

1% might not vote. So if you can get two out of the three remaining percent to be for you, you pick up your net a percent. That's pretty good in Pennsylvania. That's the ball game. That's a winner, winner chicken dinner. That's pretty good in Pennsylvania. That's the ball game. That's a winner, winner chicken dinner. So that's important.

And that is very much the Liz, Janey, Sarah, well, Charlie Sykes, people who know who they are and respect them. Now I do think the Republicans for Harris events, including the one on Thursday, also can have an effect on that second group of less engaged voters who are weakly for Harris or weakly for Trump.

Because if you're a weak, I don't know, Trump voter, you haven't followed things very closely, but a whole bunch of Republicans suddenly are coming out against them and maybe it does give you pause, right? And if you're a weak Harris voter, you're reassured, even though you're not a Republican perhaps, oh yeah, well, look, they're even there for her. The groups are different. I'm not sure the strategies for getting to the groups are entirely different. I mean, they're different in terms of turnout and targeting, and you have to make calls

into Bucks County instead of into Philadelphia and so forth. It's the city itself. But I think that the messages aren't that different. And for me, the core message has to be now, never Trump. Both of these sets of voters, they like Harris well enough. That was the accomplisher of the Harris campaign in the first what, six, seven, eight weeks. Now they just need to really be alarmed at the idea of four more years for Trump. And that is the closing Kamala message, I think, unhinged, unbalanced, unchecked, and

then there are different examples you can give of that. I think that's a good message. I hope she really hammers it hard. I hope all the outside groups hammer it hard too. I knew the outside, in my opinion, Democratic super PACs are still running slightly gauzy ads. I guess it's okay on healthcare at all. I just can't believe they're moving that many voters at this point. But I think that's very important. And then I'd say Dobbs. I mean, I do think the actual one

issue that some chunk of these less, well, both categories, again, of voters could really be engaged on is the Dobs decision and its implications and what four more years of Trump would mean for personal freedoms, especially for women. Yeah. Let's actually put in that unhinged, unchecked ad that you referenced for people who aren't in swing states, want to hear what Kamala's up to. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message.

Donald Trump makes a lot of promises, but we can be sure of one thing. If he wins, he'll ignore all checks that reign in a president's power. It's all in Trump's Project 2025 agenda. What does that mean for you? Higher cost on groceries, cuts to Social Security and Medicare, more tax breaks for billionaires, and a national abortion ban putting women's health at risk. A second Trump term, more unhinged, unstable, and unchecked. I agree. I think that alarming people about Trump, I think that's a good ad, alarming people about Trump is right for both of that, for that 4% group,

but also for the, on the couch group, think about younger voters, right? I think about, you know, there's a good New York Times story this morning, good and also maddening, you know, where they're talking to like a 22-year-old in Arizona. It's like, I don't know, if the mail-in ballot shows up at my house, I guess I'll vote. In the time that you talk to this New York Times reporter, you could have voted, but okay. But I just think that particularly for that younger demo, I do think there's a category of people that, to use the word I hate, Trump has been normalized because he's been around their whole life and like a little bit of a kick in the ass about scaring them, which also could be about dobs, also could be about the authoritarian, could be about any, you

know, whole suite of issues. Just be like, just go do it. Like, go do it. Go vote against it. Like risk is too high. I think that that is a key message that works for both groups and should be what she's focused on. I do think just to be completist, there is one other group of

persuadables, which is kind of the young that we've talked about, like young men of color that I think are in that 4% too, along with the college, you know, Wall Street Journal, Nikki Haley voter. And so I think maybe the strategy for them is a little bit different. And I do think the Trump campaign, Trump himself has gone insane and his performance is a sign of that we should be deeply concerned, even more concerned than we would be baseline if he gets back in. But the campaign team itself has been laser focused on reaching those voters.

And I do think that the Harris campaign could, you know, in addition to meeting with Sarah Longwell and Liz Cheney, that should be another part of their agenda item is like, is getting into venues to speak to those young voters. I know Tim Walz did a rich eyes of interview over the weekend, like more is more on that front, I think as well. So that basically sums up the the playing field at this point anything else from you on that bill? No, I agree with that. Yeah, we close with some good news when any times the Russians lose that's a win for me It's a little country called Moldova. Have you been to Moldova? I have not you know, I've met this a wonderful Woman who's prime minister. I'm it's a tiny is it, three, four million people, something like that?

Bordering on Russia. It's very small. Yeah. Small country bordering on Russia. Free and democratic and pro-Western. Yes. And there was a kind of a join the EU referendum and the Russians were deeply involved in it. There was a rich oligarch type that was leading the campaign to oppose it. People are getting, there was a lot of walking around money.

I guess we can tie this back to American politics as there was a lot of Elon Musk style tactics happening in the final days there where they're handing out cash to Moldovans telling them to vote down the referendum to join the EU. But narrowly, which might be another parallel with what's happening here, narrowly, the Moldovans decided to become aligned with the EU and maintain their status, the free and democratic country, not within the reach of the Russian influence. And so good on you, Moldova. I don't know, Bill, if you have any closing thoughts on that.

I am no expert on Moldova, but I just would emphasize, this is not risk-free for the 55% or everybody who voted that way and the government, which is Russia is sitting right in their border and they are a tiny little country, really without a military almost or the police force kind of. And Russia can already do a huge amount as they have been doing in the kind of more Elon Musk way, but they can also just do a lot by pure, you know, invasion and brute force as they did to Georgia and Ukraine. So this is a pretty courageous, I mean, that's one reason I think the referendum was so close. I think people just are scared about their future if they go this way, but to their credit,

they chose to go this way. May we have the Moldovan courage here in America over the final two weeks. Thank you to Bill Crystal. Make sure to check out the Longwell, Chaney, Harris, Town Hall on our YouTube feed when you get the chance and we'll be back here for another edition of the Bulldog podcast tomorrow. See you all then. Peace. I hear my song and the walls come through Cut the throne, number one I got to do I got to get up, everybody's gonna lose their teeth Get down, everybody's gonna leave their seat You gotta lose your mind in Detroit, Rock City Get up, everybody's gonna move their feet Get down, everybody's gonna leave their seat

Get in lane, I just can't wait Get up, I know I gotta hit the road First I drink, then I smoke Get up, love, and you know I gotta hit the road First night drink, then I smoke Start the car, and I try to make the midnight show Get up, everybody's gonna leave their seat Get down, everybody's gonna leave their seat The Bulldog Podcast is produced by Katy Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brepp.