The Bulwark Podcast - Mark Leibovich: DeSantis Is Not the Savior

Episode Date: December 7, 2022

Republicans are big mad about Herschel's loss, but they won't name the guy who got this production off the ground. Meanwhile, low-energy Trump is plotting how to take out the charmless but ruthless DeSantis. Mark Leibovich joins Charlie Sykes on today's podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is my honor to utter the four most powerful words ever spoken in a democracy. The people have spoken. Oh my! I think it is fair to say that there is no joy in Mudville this morning, or at least among Republicans or the pundit class. I think that Laura Ingram on Fox News last night sort of summed up the mood on the right. We don't change anything. We have the same people in place in leadership, same people in place. Apparently at the RNC, that's not perhaps that's not changing. We just keep doing the same thing over and over again. I'm pissed tonight, frankly. Go ahead.

Yeah, it's really offensive. I'm mad. For Republican voters, for Republican donors. Yeah. How did this happen? So joining me on the podcast today, Mark Leibovich, staff writer at The Atlantic. His latest book is Thank You for Your Servitude, Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission. And Mark's also the former chief national correspondent for the New York Times Magazine.

And his other books include the classic This Town. So Mark, Laura Ingraham and Molly Hemingway. How did this happen? Why does this keep happening to us? We have no idea. I mean, there are two layers to that, right? It is classic Casablanca i am shocked shocked now of course the text there is that like there's gambling going on here the text here is that wow laura ingram is pissed and basically what she doesn't lay it out in that clip but the context was she is pissed at ronald mcdaniel actually has reacquired the romney in her name yeah now that

she is going to be scapegoated for this so uh yeah no they're pissed at the rnc pissed at mitch mcconnell so the subtext of course is the ongoing silence among the real powers that be like laura ingram to ignore the real culprit of all this, who, of course, is Donald Trump, who I imagine is not the person that Laura Ingraham is pissed at, or at least would ever say as much about last night. No, the Republican elites are, of course, searching their souls, right? As soon as they find them. I guess the real question is, will they learn the lesson from all of this? I'm getting ahead of myself here a little bit. I mean, the lesson seems to be pretty obvious, you know, that Donald Trump is toxic, that crazy can win Republican primaries, but it is death in a general election. I think we've demonstrated this. But the pattern is extraordinary. Your colleague, Ron Brownstein, sort of sums it up and just put us in context. With Warnock's victory over Herschel Walker, Democrats have defeated every GOP Senate and gubernatorial candidate endorsed

by Donald Trump this year in the five states that flipped from supporting him in 2016 to backing Joe in 2020, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona. I mean, the scope of the losing is pretty extraordinary. I think this is Peter Baker in the New York Times. The defeat of Mr. Walker, who was handpicked by Mr. Trump, culminated a disastrous year for the former president, who set himself up as a Republican kingmaker only to watch his Senate candidates in Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire, as well as his picks for governor in Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Georgia go on to defeat in primaries or in last month's general election. Yes, but by all means, let's blame Ronald McDaniel for all of this. So is it possible, I just want to throw this up against the wall, bounce this off you. Is it just possible that it's dawning on Republicans that Kanye, Elon, Trump, Herschel

is not a winning formula? I think it's certainly dawned on them. I think it is sort of self-evident. But again, the conversation we're having now is, of course, a variant of the conversation that has been playing out pretty much since November of 2020, certainly the Georgia runoff of 2021, January 6th, which was the next day, and, you know, go down the list, right? So, yeah, we're having another version of this conversation today, but ultimately, Laura Ingraham is the norm here. It is the same avoidant strain, and what we're talking about is a weakness of character. The fact that even, like, the John Cornons, the John Thunes, who in recent days have been sort of seen as critical to Donald Trump, who have sort of, you know, they've played footsie around the issue of his blowing up the Constitution remarks and so forth. I mean, it's the same mealy-mouthed stuff. And yes, Donald Trump is on an extremely pronounced losing streak, as many have pointed out, and it's very obvious, and he'll probably have a bit of a quiet period

over the next few months. And, you know, the amnesia will settle in again. And I mean, who knows? But look, until I see a change of actual fortitude and character among Republicans, I don't think this is going away. I think avoidance remains the M.O. here, and people remain terrified of him and his voters. No, I was thinking this morning that, you know, you look at the elites, the donor class, the elected officials, the punditocracy, and they are just as disillusioned and as opposed to Donald Trump right now as they were in December of 2015. No question. Which is your point. I mean, we have seen this before. And every once in a while, I'll hear somebody talk about, well, the Republican Party will decide to do this or we'll take this.

There is no Republican Party, is there? I mean, these elites, the intellectual base, they are not the Republican Party. The Republican Party is the base. And that base are the ones that want more Trump and gave us Kerry Lake and Doug Mastriano and Tim Michaels and Tudor Dixon and Blake Masters and Dr. Oz and all that. And Herschel freaking Walker. So before we get into Trump a moment, the thing about Herschel Walker, and I have mixed feelings about all this, I'm relieved that he's not going to the Senate. It is still stunning to me that this was even remotely close. You've watched politics for a long time. Maybe you'll remind me of something. I cannot remember someone who was so manifestly unfit for office, just a truly terrible candidate. Can you think of somebody who was worse than Herschel Walker in terms of just

like, are you serious? You want to put this guy in the United States Senate? Let's think about that. Well, I mean, there are a couple of categories. I mean, Tommy Tuberville, a little different. I mean, but same basic lineage, you know, sort of completely ill-equipped football background South, but no, not really.

Although I would argue also that Carrie Lake in a very different flavor of manifestly unfit. Dan Baldock, you know, Doug Mastriano. I mean, yeah, they didn't go off on werewolves and what was the other thing? Whatever. Werewolves and vampires. Right. But I mean, again, the flavors of manifest unfitness go pretty deep here, right? And I mean, you could argue that Donald Trump is, if you want to deconstruct his public

statements, actually, in some ways, is as much of a blithering idiot as Herschel Walker is, you know, with similar malignancies, but on a greater scale. So, I mean, it's a big philosophical argument. But yes, the point is extremely unfit for the U.S. Senate, one would think. And here we are. Well, I think your point about Donald Trump is important here because in many ways, what happened down in Georgia is a preview of 2024. I've written that. And by that, I mean, if people are under the impression that Republicans will not completely coalesce around Donald Trump with all of his baggage, with all of the crimes, with all the corruption.

Look, this party came together. They were united behind Herschel Walker. The party was united. They coalesced. They held their nose. They didn't care about the abortions or the gun to the head or the line. None of that, because it became the binary choice and it was better Herschel Walker than apparently the evil, dangerous, satanic Raphael Warnock. If you're willing to rally around Herschel Walker, in what alternative universe do you think that they would

not rally around Donald Trump, no matter what happens? I guess that's what I'm thinking. Yeah, no, you're right. mean georgia maybe has some pretty specific baggage around the loss of the two senate seats um around his thing with kemp you know maybe that peels off a few percentage points to trump personally that walker actually wound up getting i mean he came really close i know he had two three points probably in the final i don't know maybe up to four but it's pretty close. And Kerry Lake got really close and they all got pretty close sort of in the scheme of things, except for, you know, in a few of the races, like Pennsylvania governor, things like that. So yeah, we're still talking

about a jump ball sort of adjacent set of elections. And look, this is a scarier thought. I mean, when Trump is on the ballot, Republicans tend to come out more and they overperform. You know, people don't talk about this, but they overperformed basically in the Senate in 2020 until Trump coughed up the two Georgia races. They certainly overperformed in the House. And that's, because of inertia might sort of drive them towards. So just one note before we get back to Trump, I do think it's important to point out that the Warnock campaign had a very specific strategy.

They reached out to independents and soft Republican voters. They did not take their base for granted. I mean, they clearly did not abandon the base, but they did not adopt the theory that the way to get elected is just to go hard left, go for the base, turn them out, don't worry about swing voters, because if they had done that, they probably would have ended up like Stacey Abrams in Georgia. So they actually had a very, very good campaign and a very sound strategy. And other Democrats need to learn the lesson of what worked for Warnock as well as Republicans. Yeah, I very much agree.

Exactly. I very, very much agree with you. And I think, look, I think other Democrats have learned that. I mean, I think Fetterman, you know, I mean, there are variations to this. I mean, Fetterman had more of a rural strategy and he wanted to sort of drive down the margins a little bit among, you know, rock-rip, you know, conservative Republican areas of Pennsylvania. He was successful there. I think Biden himself had a fairly, in 2020, I mean, he didn't blow off the centrist Republican moderates. I mean, I think bringing America together, I think unity, you know, and that gets people roll their eyes at

that, you know, left and right. But I think that that is still an extremely important message in close elections where, you know, there might not be a lot of voters up for grabs, but those who are just love that talk. I wrote about Ron DeSantis last week. We can talk about that. Right. But I think if you sort of look at some of the good, really good moments, if you can point to some that like Warnock had in his race, I mean, he did this thing with Ted Cruz,

right? Part of a highway plan that they worked together. He worked with Rubio. I mean, again, you can roll your eyes six ways to Sunday about Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, but it's an important message again for, you know, maybe suburban Republicans, suburban Democrats, whatever, to hear that this actually took place, that this maybe not that scary liberal up here who's actually worked and has a personal relationship with, you know, scary conservative X from Texas or Y from Florida. So DeSantis, I thought one of his better moments over the last few years,

and again, this may make me sound a little Pollyannish, but, you know, he had some moments with Biden around that building that collapsed in, I guess, Fort Lauderdale around the hurricane a couple months ago. They worked together. They had some, you know, whether it's a photo op or what. I mean, I think voters love that stuff. I think they do. I think it's powerful. Well, and Warnock was stressing the theme of character, which was obvious here, but also competence that lets get things done. And I was listening to some of the, you know, the split ticket voters who voted for the things, will actually want to do the job as opposed to whatever the hell Herschel Walker would have done had he gone to Washington. Right. No, I think, again, that is an important message. And again, it's very easy in this environment to just turn up your nose at that. But I hope they will keep doing that. I hope Biden will keep doing that. I hope DeSantis, you know, will do that occasionally. I just, you know, it's funny. I,

this is, I've just kind of popped into my mind, but over the last year and a half, you know, the Reagan library does all these speeches with basically every kind of would be Republican leader besides Trump has spoken there. And Paul Ryan spoke there and Pence spoke there and Liz Cheney and Christie. I mean, I've either been to them or I've watched video of them for various reasons. And in a very traditional kind of mainstream Republican crowd, I mean, they still actually dress like they did in the Reagan days. I mean, a lot of them are over 70 and they show up and the biggest nodding always comes when they do the sort of requisite. I mean, we're all Americans here, right? You know, we all have Democratic friends.

You know, this might be one of the sort of capitals of conservatism, you know, here in Simi Valley. But we're all Americans here. And I think it's important to hear that. So that will end the Pollyannish session of the day for us, Charlie. Well, wasn't that the theme that Barack Obama really, really catapulted Barack Obama into the national spotlight when he spoke at the Democratic convention? Was that 2004? I know I've lost track of it. It was. We're not blue states and red states. And people went, okay, all right, we really like that. And again, you do feel like, you know,

am I being naive to say these things? But I think that does land with a lot of voters. And I want to talk about Ron DeSantis because right now, throughout the Republican Party, he is the savior at the moment. He's the great white hope. And he's one of the, he's the great white hope because every single day, something bad is happening with Donald Trump. And I mean, thinking about just the last 24 hours for Donald Trump, kind of, I mean, I don't know what kind of a day you had yesterday, but it was a hell of a lot better than Donald Trump had. That's true. Yeah. Trump's family real estate business convicted on Tuesday of tax fraud and other financial crimes, conviction on all 17 counts. Same thing yesterday, the new special counsel,

Jack Smith, is sending grand jury subpoenas to local officials in Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Don't know where that's going. Also, yesterday, chairman of the House January 6th Committee says the panel is going to make criminal referrals, which we kind of expected. And in the House of Representatives, I mean, this GOP conference, I mean, they have all the knives out. This is from Politico. It adds up to a very unmarried GOP conference wracked by anger and worry about a 2024 backlash against their internal squabbles. Court of Appeals dominated by conservative judges slam dunked Trump's bid for a special master in Mar-a-Lago. Two of his top lawyers for the Trump White House are test of the Constitution, and he's faced with a backlash. And so he lies about lying. And people on the inside are saying this campaign is just – it's nonexistent. I love this line from CNN, the CNN article.

So far, since he announced that he was running for president, he's gone down from his bedroom, made an announcement, gone back up to his bedroom, and hasn't been seen since, except to have dinner with a white supremacist. Yeah.

By the way, if all, first of all, if only there was a newsletter to codify. I know. I'm sorry. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, first of all, if only there was a newsletter to codify. I know. I'm sorry. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's a joy. You know, it's quite a lineup there. You know, the follow up is, so who's the overwhelming front runner to be the Republican nominee?

Exactly. Or where does this leave us? Well, this is where I wanted to go, because we can set aside what the hell is happening with Trump, because you can just sense, you know, all of those lonely eyes looking down to Florida and saying, please, Rhonda, Santa, save us from this. And you poured a little bit of ice water on the tingles running up the legs of Republicans. So tell me, Ron DeSantis looks great on paper, right? He has great sound bites, but you basically asked the question, what happens when we get to know him a little better and see him up close and personal? So tell me about that. Yeah. I mean, I had suspected, I mean, based on everything I had heard about Ron DeSantis over the last really year and a half, I didn't really know much about him when he was a backbencher congressman. And then he kind of, in this incredibly undignified way, gets Trump's endorsement in 2018, upsets Adam Putnam, who was the overwhelming frontrunner to be the Republican nominee for governor of Florida. And he does it by basically sucking up to Trump in this incredible, probably the most obsequious, you know, Trump ad ever, which is saying the wall with his kids.

Yeah, just look it up. Everybody look it up. I can't even do it justice now. So next thing you know, he's governor of Florida. And people are looking to him, but certainly Republicans falling in love with de facto next big thing. Presumptive nominee, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, you know, the presumed front runner, right? Rick Perry was supposedly the 800 pound gorilla. Fred Thompson, right. There are a lot of much awaited figures who come along. And then as soon as, you know, they make their debuts, it's like, oh, is that all there is? Peggy Lee's song plays in the background and fade to black. Right. So Ron DeSantis is not someone, he's an empty vessel right now. He is not Trump. And he has the sheen of a lot of press coverage, a big and decisive victory in Florida a couple months ago, and or last month, I guess, and is now the next big thing. And he just hasn't come out in public. And the point I made is, and the people have made over and over to me and to others, is that this is an extremely awkward guy. He is not someone who necessarily wears well. He is someone who does not think on his feet. He is someone who is fairly easily rattled in debate situations. And if we've sort

of seen one thing with Trump, I mean, if he has, I don't know if it's a superpower, but he's certainly a TV presence who can make other people who are not comfortable in their skin look really, really bad. I mean, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, you know, go down the list, right, from 2016. I think DeSantis fits into the same category, and I don't think it's a good matchup for him against Trump, and we'll see. But color me underwhelmed. But you walk through the case for Ron DeSantis that he, you know, why he is the GOP's hottest molecule. I mean, he's full MAGA without the drama. He's terrorizing all the right targets. He's Trump with a brain, right? He plays well, you know, as the owner of

the libs, somebody who is, you know, a heartthrob of Fox News. And as you write, he's fashioned a kind of GOP utopia in the Sunshine State. Florida is where woke goes to die. And he won this huge victory. So really what's not to like if you're a Republican and you're worried about, you don't want to go squishy, right? The Republican base doesn't want to go squishy, but it also wants somebody that can win big. And so DeSantis checks all those boxes, but reading between the lines, he's got this serious asshole problem, doesn't he? He does. And look, I mean, look, Trump, okay, Trump may be, you know, the Uber asshole, right? But he, people who know him, people who like him, and there are still some people left who swear devotion to him, who spend time around him.

You know, when I wrote about him, I, you know, it's been a few years, but I mean, you can see where the charm offensive comes in. I mean, he's, he's sort of a trip to be around in some ways. He can turn it on, you know, and I think DeSantis, even people who know him swear some kind of allegiance to him, just sort of like, I mean, he's not an easy guy to be with. He doesn't... Standoffish, no eye contact guy. He's standoffish, no eye contact. Yes. He is his, as I think I wrote, his move away from this vehicle vibes are...

That's right. Enter a charm offensive unarmed. Which, look, does count for a lot, right? I mean, running for president is an incredibly intimate thing. I mean, it might not be intimate in that, you know, you're probably not going to meet most of your voters, but, you know, being on TV, being in everyone's face for a sustained period of time is an incredibly taxing thing

for any relationship. And, you know, I think that tends to be extremely destructive to people who, you know, are not necessarily winning in their personality to begin with. So your description is consistent with everything that that I have heard about him, particularly from people who served with him in the House. But I guess the big question I have is and you quote, you know, Carlos Curbelo, you know know, former Republican Congressman from Florida, you know, rolling out the usual big time cliche, would you want to have a beer with him, which we've been throwing around since the Clinton era. And obviously, you wouldn't want to have a beer. But I guess that here's, here's the the more meta question. Yeah. Do voters want a nice guy anymore? Do they want a nice guy? Or maybe they've developed a taste for

assholes. You wrote the Republican party has shown a persistent tolerance, even inclination for churlish bastards. And as long as that's the case, maybe you don't need to be a nice guy. And if the argument is he's too much of a jerk, people go, yeah, well, that's why we like Trump because he hits the right people. He's going to punch him in the face. I want, I jerk, people go, yeah, well, that's why we like Trump because he hits the right people. He's going to punch him in the face. I want, I want, you know, this guy, I want a jerk. I want the asshole. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think, yeah, the nice guy, the jerk sort of paradigm is, I don't think that's, we're talking about that to some degree, but I think the larger point is, is DeSantis the kind of leader that people want, whether he's nice or not? I mean, I think he operates in an echo chamber right

now, right? I mean, people in Florida seem to really like him. People on Fox seem to really like him. People, you know, in the Trump or Trump adjacent parts of the Republican Party that still are dominant seem to like him. But I mean, I think he has all the right enemies. I don't think charm is really that important ultimately, but think about it though. I mean, every recent president at least has some claim to charm. I mean, again, even Trump, I mean, Trump was a very compelling figure for people to watch for a while. I mean, I guess it remains to be seen whether the shelf life will go into its eighth year next year, right? Or I think we have a few months to go. But, you know, Obama, I mean, Biden seen as a kind of a nice guy.

Bush was seen as a nice guy. Clinton. I mean, go down the list. So, you know, DeSantis would be a real crotchety figure. No, Democrats are susceptible to that, too. I mean, Bernie Sanders was not seen as like the nuts guy. And I've often wondered sort of, this is kind of a thought exercise. I mean, if Democrats had a Trump, someone who was like using rhetoric against certain Republican targets, the way Trump does Democratic targets, I mean, would that have an appeal? I'm pretty sure it would. But no, I just think that DeSantis is an extremely imperfect and at best untested vehicle for an experiment like this. I have a hard time gaming out what it will be like if he runs against Trump. And my colleague, Jonathan Last, has written about this pretty extensively. And I think he kind of nails it,

that if Republicans want the toughest, meanest bastard, there's no way that DeSantis is going to be able to be crazier than Donald Trump. But also right now, I think his strategy, I actually get his strategy, and I think it's kind of smart, is to say nothing, just step back, let Donald Trump set himself on fire. He's digging a hole, et cetera. And so strategic silence makes sense, but I can't figure out how that is sustainable, that if you get into the race, you're running against Donald Trump, at some point, you are going to have to say stuff, right? You are going to have to say whether or not, you know, how you feel about January 6, though, what is your response to the federal indictment? Do you also favor

the summary execution of drug dealers? I mean, are you in favor of that? I mean, I think it's going to be much more difficult than people understand for DeSantis to navigate what an actual clash with Donald Trump will be like and feel like. Right. I mean, you're right. I mean, time right now, I mean, he's in a great place, right? He can wait. He can enjoy the holidays. You can probably find some new Martha's Vineyard kind of stunts to play early next year or something. But you're right. I mean, eventually he's going to have to come out and play and figure out how to attack Trump. I mean, look, I think the continued silence around Trump and, you know, what he stands for and what he is now going through is a massively big missed opportunity for Republicans right now. I think if some senator or some governor wanted to make a name for his or herself, I mean, I think there is such a case to be made about Trump's one lost record now, certainly, which is very safe, right?

It's very safe for Republicans to say, oh, he's a loser. Look, we keep losing elections. I mean, that makes, you know, that means you don't have to reckon with his character, with his statements about the Constitution, dining with white supremacists and what have you. But no, you're right. I mean, I think DeSantis, I have no conception of him as someone who can take a fight to a big target. And I think, you know, right now the safest, easiest targets are things like refugees, you know, transgender teens. I mean, things like that, right? I mean, easy Republican based targets, but you know, does he know how to like go up against the guy that he

was completely sucking up to and like the most, you know, cring how to like go up against the guy that he was completely sucking up to in like the most you know cringy kind of way a couple years ago no i i see no evidence of that no he's really adept at punching down whether he can punch up we don't know uh so you talk about that debate performance with charlie christ and i i would admit look i am the worst person to evaluate debates i just i i don't know because I'm always thinking, you know, what he should say, what you shouldn't say. I thought he was stiff. I thought he was unlikable, but I, I guess I was not as critical as other people, but, but you really thought that was an indication of the kinds of weaknesses that Donald Trump will just, will exploit and just pummel the shit out of him on i mean you quote this this uh

lobbyist of from tallahassee was it mac stefanovic yes who says that trump would gut de santis with a dull deer antler trump would club de santis like a baby seal yes big into violent animal metaphors if you want a violent animal metaphor he's your go-to guy okay so what makes you think that though i mean or him what it makes you think because desantis does come off as got that kind of you know macho i'm gonna punch you in the nose vibe yeah but you know what it's empty i mean charlie chris you know he's a seasoned debater former governor who's been around a long time you know so he tries to pin down desantis are you going to serve out your term or not? So he's essentially saying, are you going to run for president or not? And DeSantis could have finessed that in a million different ways. He said, look, I am focused on this election.

We'll talk about, I mean, look, everyone knows how you duck a question like that. DeSantis just went completely silent. It was a, I wouldn't say it's a deer in the headlights look, because DeSantis always kind of, he just sort of had this, I'm not talking kind of, it was a, I wouldn't say it's a deer in the headlights look because DeSantis always kind of, he just sort of had this, I'm not talking kind of, it was a weird moment. It was an uncomfortable moment. And it was an, it was emblematic of the kind of unnecessary freeze that someone who doesn't really know what to say in a moment, doesn't really carry off that well, you know, could face on a much larger scale in a much harder race. So, I mean, DeSantis probably calculated that he wasn't going to lose to Charlie Crist. He could probably suffer the silence for a few seconds, you know,

maybe take whatever hit, you know, he got, and it's not going to cost him the election, which of course it didn't. So I, but I do think it was a window into an extremely unnecessary, awkward moment that he, you know, needs to either work on or, or doesn't have a gift for, which I don't know, again, maybe this is just me being a theater critic here and maybe this won't amount to much, but I, to me, a lot of people mentioned that as a moment that was telling and that actually could foreshadow a less than stellar performance as a presidential candidate. And this brings back to something we were talking about before that you mentioned before is that incredible leap that you have to make from being a successful state level politician into the national scene. And obviously, political history is just littered with folks who look really strong and impressive and just were not ready for prime time. And that's a cliche now.

But the reality is that you can be a very successful governor of Texas like Rick Perry and look like a complete idiot when you're running for president. Or, you know, look what happened to Wisconsin Scott Walker, who was, you know, the flavor of the week and then just absolutely vanished when people heard his one stump speech for the 15th time. Right. So but as you point out in your piece, DeSantis isn't completely defenseless. Trump tried to take some shots at him, calling him Ron DeSantimonious. And that didn't land, did it? And in fact, you did see what DeSantis has going for him is that there are a lot of people in the MAGA base that don't want to see Donald Trump attack him. I mean, how does that play? I say that trying to remember 2015 and 2016. My sense is that DeSantis has deeper roots into Trump's own base than any of the opponents from 2016 do. So how does that play? What is the backlash

potential for Trump going after him? Yeah, I mean, first of all, this is not midseason Trump. I mean, if there is such a thing as midseason Trump going forward, I mean, I guess we'll see. It isn't this. I mean, DeSantis, I mean, kind of low energy, I hate to say it. I mean, between the announcement for his presidential campaign and his sort of early offensive against Ron DeSantis, I mean, it doesn't look like his heart's really in it just yet. I mean, I think he's clearly ceding whatever, you know, he's upset that Ron DeSantis is disloyal and getting all this attention. But again, I don't see this as damaging to DeSantis at all. And DeSantis, what's not defenseless about DeSantis is he's completely shameless. I mean, anyone who would cut the ad that DeSantis did to win Trump's endorsement in 2018, I mean,

that speaks to a level of shamelessness that can, I guess, serve you well in a race. Well, it's a superpower, right? I mean, we found out it's a superpower for Donald Trump. It certainly is. And look, I mean, I think that there, I mean, there, there's any number of people who might run for president and the Republican side, you know, Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley. I mean, they all have exhibited, again, different levels of, of shamelessness in order to sort of maintain what they see as viability here. So yeah, I mean, DeSantis is a ruthless character. I mean, to do what he did, you know, just sort of the rounding up of a bunch of refugees in Texas. I mean, that whole story, again, it played great on Fox News, played great with the base. It was like, oh, look what he's done. He's really, you know, this is a can-do kind of guy. It's, I would say it's cruel. It doesn't look good. And it also is sort of an example of something that politically doesn't wear terribly well when you sort of start asking the questions,

is this the kind of thing our tax money should be paying for? Is there legal liability? I mean, the thing kind of fell apart and it didn't wear particularly well. So once you have that initial instinct, I mean, you know, time doesn't stop. I mean, these things do happen. And, but I also think that he has proven himself to be a ruthless politician, someone who doesn't care about refugees, someone who is willing to hurt a lot of people, even, you know, corporations actually like Disney that, you know, to some degree are sacred cows, you know, in a free enterprise, you know, based Republican party. So to me, that shows a certain, you know, again, I guess, superpower. I hate to sort of keep throwing that word around, but no, but he's willing to do what

it takes. There's no question. Well, but also these are vulnerabilities. His attack on Disney was really extraordinary. And I actually, I had a mini debate with Rich Lowry from National Review. I mean, National Review becoming the DeSantis fanzine now. But his argument was, well, you know, I mean, Trump is terrible, but how can you possibly object to Ron DeSantis? He's basically a garden variety Republican. And I thought, wait, he's a garden variety Republican who is willing to use the power of the state to punish private companies for saying things he disagrees with. I mean, this was extraordinary picking fights with the cruise lines and everything. So, I mean, I remember when Republicans actually had some respect for private property, the independence of these entities. And so Ron DeSantis is in many

ways an outlier there. Now, maybe this authoritarianism appeals to the base. I don't know how it plays nationally. So let me ask you this. As I'm trying to game this out, Ron DeSantis is sitting down there saying nothing about anything involving Trump, right? He's not going to comment on the neo-Nazi dinner, which is interesting. He's not going to comment on the terminate the constitution, you know, because he figures there's no upside for me. Some point though, he's going to announce, well, first of all, before I get ahead of myself, do you think he's actually going to pull the trigger on this? I mean, he's a young man. He doesn't have to run. Yeah, he doesn't. I mean, I think, you know, the indications are that he thinks this is his moment.

His wife thinks this is their moment. He'll probably do it. Although I also think, again, as part of the sort of shamelessness thing, I mean, he could very well calculate that, yeah, he doesn't want to do this. You know, Trump probably won't be viable in another four years. Maybe I'll just go all in with Trump. Hope Trump picks me as his vice president or his running mate. And I'll just set myself up in four years. Yeah. I mean, it sounds bleak, but I mean, Trump would probably benefit to some degree. I don't know, but I can see him going that way too. But no, I think I'm assuming he will run. I'm just guessing that his phone is ringing off the hook. Boy, that's an old analogy, isn't it? It sure is.

Wow, I need to update that. Let's say that his DMs are just on fire from donors and Republicans all around the country saying, look, are you looking at what's happening to Donald Trump? You have got to run. You have to do this. This is the moment right now to do this. So the question is, so he announces.

At some point, he can't stay silent. I'm guessing that his announcement will be about the future and will not mention Trump by name at all, will not be a full frontal, but at some point he's going to have to say something. How will he do that? Well, if you look at, I mean, right now, again, the safe stuff and he's gone there already is, is one loss. It's like, look, you want electability, you know, we can't win with Trump. We've proven it. And he didn't say this, but I mean, the subtext is look at the score, but he actually did say, look at the scoreboard from last November. Look how I did, you know, Look how everyone else did.

And you don't have to fill in the gaps there. Everyone knows what he's talking about. So, yeah, Trump is extremely vulnerable on the one last question at this point, the electability question. And to some degree, I remember thinking about this. When Biden ran in 2019, he, he started running and he was running essentially on electability, right? I mean, that was always the number one democratic issue through the Trump years. We just want someone who can win. And you can get a long way by saying, look, we have to start winning elections and I'm the guy. And you can make a very clear and safe case

that Trump is not the guy anymore. And that's pretty clear. Again, it's safe because you don't have to really attack Trump. You know, you get that remove of just, look, this is just about the pragmatic thought. Doesn't he have to have something more than that, though? I mean, that gets blown away the first time he loses in a primary or a caucus, or there's a poll showing that Trump could beat Biden, right? I mean, it's gone and there's no substance to it. Yeah. I think the way you expand out from that, and I've actually thought a lot about this, is you kind of expand the one loss critique to Trump's presidency itself. You can say, look, they got slaughtered in 2018, lost the White House in 2020, lost the Senate in 2021, lost again in the 2022 midterms.

I mean, you can start with that, but you can say, look, Donald Trump didn't win as president. I mean, think about his top three or four campaign promises in 2016. I'm going to build a wall. He didn't build a wall. I'm going to end Obamacare. It's going to be so easy. You didn't do that. You know, you didn't give us infrastructure. You didn't drain, I mean, go down the list. So one loss can go beyond just elections. And there are ways to remind Republican voters, even ones who voted twice for Trump, that the Trump years were exhausting. They were not terribly productive and they were a massive underachievement given the three chambers that Republicans had in 2016 and what Trump, you know, could have done. I mean, the guy had a very losing presidency in some ways, and Republicans probably won't have that chance again in a long, long time.

So to me, that's a very big sort of one loss based policy-ish critique that DeSantis could unfurl in a very compelling way. So I'm guessing that that would be sort of, after one loss in elections, that would probably be 1A in where the critique will sort of go. Well, also, and he could be the unindicted candidate who could serve for eight years rather than just for four. I don't know whether that's really occurred to a lot of the Republican primary voters yet, but eight years is a lot better than an Republican caucus there? Because Donald Trump has waged complete, total scorched earth war against Mitch McConnell. Now, Mitch McConnell is not the majority leader, but he is still there. He's made no secret of the fact of what he thinks of Donald Trump. So how does this play out, do you think?

You know, I think McConnell is going to be in his current job for as long as he wants to. And he might not want to be very much longer. I mean, look, he's got he was reelected in 2020. So he's there till about 2026. So he's got a few more years. He's going to be what is he like? He's got to be around 80, right? He'll be in his 80s. And they're likely to get the majority back in two years. They're extremely likely, I think, to get the majority back. And so, yeah, I mean, McConnell plays a very, very long game. And, you know, yes, Trump is vocal, but Trump doesn't have any power in the Senate Republican caucus beyond, you know, maybe 10 people. And I mean, you know, the Rand Pauls, the Ted Cruz's, the Tommy Tuberville's, the Josh Hawley's, I mean, you know, that there's going to be that kind of Senate version of the

Freedom Caucus I read somewhere today. There's, I guess there is some, they're trying to, yeah, there's some kind of collating, right, but they're not going to grow. I mean, we're still, this is still like 40 votes for Mitch McConnell, you know, pretty safely. And I would imagine if he wants, I mean, again, looking into the future, if he wants to be reelected, the voters of Kentucky, I'm sure, will probably reelect him. And even six years out, I'm guessing if there is a Senate sort of Trump-flecked version of the Freedom Caucus in the Senate, I'm guessing, what, would they have 20, maybe 25 at that point? And McConnell could probably squeak by.

So I see McConnell as pretty invulnerable, to be honest with you. Okay, but so I'm trying to imagine the McConnell household, and he's sitting with Elaine, and they're having a little bit of bourbon. And Mitch is going, you know what? I had that fucker. I could have done away. I could have taken him out. And I didn't. So he knows that, right? He knows he was one inch away from just ending Donald Trump.

Do you think that's part of his, you know, thinking that he plays the long game, right? And revenge is a dish served cold. I just wonder what he can do to Donald Trump. I don't know what he can do. He has no clout with the base, right? He has no, you know, he'll be the rhino in chief for the Laura Ingrams of the world. But if I'm Donald Trump, I have to be thinking that to have the leading Republican in the United States Senate who hates my guts, that there might be a downside to that. I don't know. You would to that. I don't know.

You would think, but I don't know. I don't think McConnell had a lot of great choices. I think he made a terrible choice just on principle and character, but maybe again, that's just me being naive here. But I think he maybe thinks and probably was right that he took maybe the second worst of a really, really bad set of options. But I don't know. I mean, it might have been cathartic. I mean, you know, maybe Trump would be more toothless if he couldn't run for president. But I'm guessing that he'd still have 25, 30 percent of people who, you know, if you wanted to challenge that, he'd send it to court. I don't know. I mean, you can imagine any number of Trumpian scenarios. I can imagine them all.

Yep. We can. You know, why waste our time on this? It's a beautiful, actually, it's a rainy day. So actually, can we just end on a more positive note here? Because we grasp for good news and feel like there's, I don't want to let it become exuberant here, but there's been a bit of good news. Time magazine announced this morning they've chosen President Zelensky as their person of the year, which I guess it's such an obvious choice. I think it's good. It's an excellent decision on their part, in part because any other decision would have been horrifically awful. Yeah. I mean, this was a runner-up, but decision would have been horrifically awful. Yeah. I mean, this was a runner up, but that would have been.

Well, then they had Elon Musk last year. Oh, shit. Yeah. Right. No, I mean, good. I mean, good for Time Magazine. I mean, good for Zola. Here is why that is good.

Right. And it goes to a pet issue of I know both of ours. Right. And, you know, maybe it's self-serving in my case because I kind of wrote a whole book about it. But basically, it goes to character. It goes to resistance. It goes to the idea that Republicans in America today have basically not offered resistance, with some exceptions, right?

But they have completely waved the white flag at Donald Trump for seven and possibly, you know, who knows, much longer years running. Vladimir Zelensky and the Ukrainian resistance generally is an example of what a character sort of nation-saving resistance looked like. And you've seen flavors of that in other countries, whether it's the conservatives in England sort of turning against Boris Johnson. I mean, that's a few presidents ago. But, you know, you saw it there. You see it in states like, you know, Brad Raffensperger and Brian Kemp and the sort of ongoing sort of, you know, portraits of that, Liz Cheney. I mean, throughout America.

But again, I mean, Zelensky is kind of the towering example of that, who is a really inspiring example of someone who just met a moment and who continues to fight and is not looking, what was his great line about how, I don't need a ride, I need a... I don't need ammunition. No, I'd write that. I don't need ammunition, I don't need a ride. I mean, what's happening in Ukraine is like, again, let's not try to sugarcoat it.

This is catastrophic on a daily level, and it's hideous, and you can't ever forget that. But look, I am, again, maybe romantic enough to be inspired by this example, and I think it's great that it's being celebrated and should continue to be inspired by this example. And I think it's great that it's being celebrated and should continue to be. And of course, the contrast between President Zelensky and President Trump could not be starker, especially when Trump is like, I'm the strong man. I want greatness and everything. You put these two men side by side as they were when he was trying to extort him. And it is remarkable. And of course, MAGA is all in hatred of Vladimir Zelensky. But again, a clarifying moment. Mark Leibovich, thank you so much for

coming back on the podcast. Mark is a staff writer at The Atlantic. His latest book is Thank You for Your Servitude, Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission. And he is the author of a must-read piece in the Atlantic, sort of getting to know the real Ron DeSantis and how he'll wear upon closer inspection. Mark, thanks so much for joining me today. Charlie, great to be here. I'll come back anytime and love what you do. So thanks and happy, well, happy holidays, I guess, right? And to you as well, to you and your family as well. And thank you all for listening to today's Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow, and we'll do this all over again.