The Bulwark Podcast - Mark McKinnon: Taking Back the Freedom Agenda

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

While Republicans paint a vision of America as a dystopian hellscape, Kamala is helping herself to the sunny optimism of Reagan and the Bushes. Plus, Taylor is breaking MAGA's brains and driving up voter registrations, Sarah Palin is no longer the worst VP candidate, and Laura Loomer is even too crazy for MTG. Mark McKinnon joins Tim Miller.

Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. I'm pumped to be back with my partner in crime, Mark McKinnon. He was a media advisor for both Democratic and Republican campaigns, including W, McCain, and Richards. And he's co-creator and executive producer of a little show called The Circus you might have heard of. Hey, MC's going on man hello felma louise here good to see you again my old pal yeah long time no see the last two months it's just a crime that we weren't able to be out there oh my god i mean it's just insane it's it's just ridiculous that we're not on the air right now uh i mean this is more circusy than anything we ever covered and, and would be epic,

but we can talk about it. Unbelievable. I did, I did my best without the cameras to do circus type behavior in the spin room the other night. And we can always count on you. I want to talk about the debate. I buzzed you.

We had the little hurricane in New Orleans. My schedule got, you know, mixed around and I needed a, I needed a pinch header. so thank you for pinch hitting. I texted you right after I saw this tweet. Bob Shrum, a former Democratic strategist, had sent this. He wrote, I coached a lot of presidential and other candidate debates.

Harris had one of the very best debates ever, JFK, 60, Reagan, 80 level. You replied, as have I, and worked against Bob, and I 100% agree. Really? That good? Reagan 80 for you? Yeah, really that good for a bunch of reasons. First of all, Bob Shrum is one of the best in the business ever, and I watched him and also worked against him. He was a big Kennedy guy and prepped for Gore. So he's a Hall of Famer and doesn't say that casually. But you think about the stakes that were at play here. And what's important to remember here is that people are not just, I mean, people are natural born communicators. People are not natural born presidential debaters. It takes a goddamn lot of work and a lot of preparation if you're actually

going to excel at this. And, you know, you can try and wing it like Trump did and see what happened. But also George W. Bush winged it and his reelect. Obama winged it and his reelect. They didn't take it seriously. And they got their asses handed to them. And it's a very particular kind of preparation that it takes. I mean, you have to understand what a split screen means. And she did that exceptionally well. I mean, in that

debate, she looked like she was on the beach in the sun. Trump looked like he was in a hailstorm freezing his ass. He looked miserable. This debate, there was so much at stake, mostly for her. Trump was not going to move the dial one way or the other much. People have fixed opinions. But a lot of people don't know her. They were kind of open to whether or not they might consider her. Listen, I mean, there's sort of just the sound test. Turn the sound off. What did it look like? She looked relaxed, in control, calm, presidential. For people who just turned in, they say, yeah, I could see her in the oval. She checked off the things she needed to do. She introduced herself, told her backstory, did a bunch of policy stuff, checked those boxes. But the thing that was incredible and puts her in the Hall of Fame category with 80 and 60 is that she trolled him

like I've never seen before, like nobody's ever done. And not only trolled him, but here's an interesting aspect of the trolling. She not only trolled him and just went right to his deepest psyche, which is so smart. You think about the debate prep and they go, what's the thing he's most proud of? Like, you know, Wharton School, crowd size, and just go right at what he thinks his strengths are and that'll take him off the chain. And it fucking did. But she also did it. The times that she trolled you go back

and look at it she did it when she was being sort of attacked on her weak points like when she got pinned on immigration she counter punched on the trolling so she took it right off her weak spot and went right to his which was incredible i was talking with somebody on our team about that and actually like they had a planned because i also called it a crowd size joke yesterday but it wasn't really it was even deeper than that it was like you're a bad entertainer joke it's like people leave early they get bored like people are walking out on you like people are ready to turn the page which is even kind of a deeper cut but they had like planned that around something later in the debate where she was going to do it and like the immigration question comes up and she gives her answer and then she's just like you know i'm just going to

throw the yeah i'm going to throw the, you're boring people thing on the end of this to, to kind of get you to change the subject. I, that was not the plan according to the debate prep team. And it was like John on the fly by her really well done. And that, that shows incredible ability and performance. That's just, just not a natural thing. And, you know, people say, well, you know, it's a debate. And what does that have to do with being president? Presidents, you know, thrown into a situation where a camera's on, suddenly you have 30 seconds to answer a question.

That's true. But what presidents do have to do is prepare, prepare for foreign leaders meetings, prepare for crises. And this showed that she has the discipline to prepare and act like a president, which is, I mean, think how much was on her shoulder. I'm talking about Tension City as she looks so fucking relaxed. And then one other thing I just want to do a shout out. This is such inside baseball stuff, Tim, but it's important to give a shout out.

You know, I was around the edges of a lot of prep, but I was a shallow media guy. There was always somebody in the room who was actually really organized, really like going through the list. The binder. Yeah, I had the binders. And that's Karen Dunn. And I've worked with her, and she is – talk about Hall of Fame. And here's an interesting data point that I learned, and I won't out where it came from, but it's a reliable source, that she did all this.

At the same time, she's one of the most powerful lawyers at one of the most powerful law firms in the country. And they have, according to my source, they were opening a trial for one of the biggest firms in the country this same week. So she was doing both. So like Ann Richards, backwards and in high heels. Unbelievable, Karen Dunn. For Vanity Fair, you wrote a piece of advice for Harris going into the debate.

I just thought it'd be fun to go back through those. You gave 10 pieces of advice, but here were your top eight. One, confidence is key. Check. Two, tomorrow is better than yesterday. Check. Three, you can be both the incumbent and the change candidate. Yep. Four, pronouncements that separate from Biden are encouraged. She literally said, I'm not Joe Biden, in kind of a funny way at one point. Five, drive home freedom message. Six, bait Trump and switch. Seven, almost ignore him from time to time. I don't know if she hit that one. Eight, laugh. All of them. I mean, she did everything. Yeah, what I said was it takes extraordinary preparation, and politics is about performance, especially at this level,

and to do what she did requires extraordinary preparation. And she just was a pro. She's like a professional athlete, you know, and she just she prepared. She had the muscles right. She had the playbook down and she went out and executed. Let's talk about that. So you interviewed her for the circus. You've covered her.

I mean, look, during the troubles, as I like to call them, after the Biden debate, you know, the whispered thing in DC from Democrats was, we don't know if she's up for it. Like, she's been shaky. I was always a little more bullish on her than kind of what people were saying to me privately. But I was also concerned, you know, like she hadn't had a ton of reps. We'd seen her at times be in her head a little bit in some of these interviews. I mean, did you see this coming,

like this level of Hall of Fame baseball, whatever you call it? Did you see any of that when you were covering her, spending time, or have you been surprised as well? Well, listen, I think she exceeded everybody's expectations. Nobody expected that level of performance, you know, for something that was so critical. I did think that she, you know, her stock was undervalued. And I interviewed her for the circus.

And I always felt that she had, that she was a natural, not only a natural, but that she was a performer, that she could, when the lights go on, she hits a switch. And like Ann Richards or others, she could turn it on with a flick of a switch. She was just relaxed. It was fun being around her. She was sort of playful and she had to laugh and just kind of an ease about her. She wasn't uptight. She wasn't like, oh God, I'm in an interview and what should I say? And so Vice President Steve McCain always said, you know, you get kept in the dark and get fed scraps. So there's always a bit of that that,

you know, I think is unfair. And I think there was a bit of misogyny always going on as well, too. But she worked that to her advantage. You know, everybody underestimated her. And the best thing in the world to go into a debate is to be underestimated and overperform, which is exactly what she did. Let's talk about the substance of it a little bit. You've spent most of your career talking to the big middle folks. She ran pretty far to the left in 2019 and has been trying hard to pivot to the middle. How do you feel about the efficacy of that pivot and, you know, the Republicans' efforts to kind of brand her as on the far left? Pretty good. I mean, the one thing that I'd say about her and Trump, the one that she shares with Trump, I don't think at her core she's ideological. I think she's practical. You know, I think she's kind of navigated the water. She came up to California.

She kind of did what she had to do, but she's never been pinned ideological, despite Bernie Sanders. I think, thank you, Bernie. Well, I mean, in 2019, it was wrong, but it was the practical conventional wisdom among Democrats. 100%. Oh, this is the moment. That's the progressive left, you know, is ascendant and, you know, the racial justice. That was the conventional, and it turned out to be wrong, Biden was the primary, but that's what the smart people thought. I think she was just, she was acting practically. And one thing that I'll say that I think is really

important is that I, and I know you know this, I learned a lot more from losing campaigns than winning campaigns. And I think she did too. And the thing about her is if you've watched her over time, she's gotten better and better and better and better and better. She's grown. And you can just see it. She's like, you know, she played in the minors. She, you know, she got her batting practice down. And now she's fucking, she's slamming them, man.

And it's because she's done this a lot. And she's gotten really good at it. And so for people who turn on the television and look at it, they go, yeah, it looks like she knows what she's doing. It looks like she's presidential. And by the way, I think it's a big strategic mistake for the Republicans and Trump to call her a flip-flopper because that's basically saying, oh, she's moving to where most Americans are. It would be much better to just say she's still a fucking liberal because that's what people don't want. Yeah. And I think that she maybe still has some work to do on that on the economic side of things but i don't on the foreign policy stuff to me like flying colors i felt that i've said

this a couple times like when i we had a little briefing with her privately a couple earlier this year and that was the thing i took away from that was that like she has been doing the homework on foreign policy stuff and taking it very seriously. And she has had a familiarity with it. And the themes that she was sounding are themes that, I don't know, 2004, 2008 MCAT could have written for her and some of the stuff. I mean, she was sounding very, you know, in the bipartisan tradition of the country as far as national security. Yeah. And it also sounded like it wasn't talking points. It felt like it was sort of coming from a core of experience. And that's the thing that you get from being a vice president. You're behind the scenes a lot, but you're absorbing

a lot as well. And by the way, on that front, whatever you think of Joe Biden, that's something he did exceptionally well. You mentioned that you said in the airport, you're in the airport, you do, you're kind of like a Thomas Friedman in a cowboy hat, you know, kind of getting information from regular people. So you've got some Ukrainian folks. And she was so strong in Ukraine strong. I liked how she tied it to Poland. Oh, so smart. Yeah. Talk about what the substance of her kind of conversation on Ukraine policy and then the conversation you had in the airport. Well, I mean, this is something that I didn't even notice until I saw somebody remark on it later. But she, when she was talking about Ukraine, she talked about sort of a, you know, the Polish component of that history, and the conflict that relates to I don't

know what the numbers are, like 50,000 people who Polish people who live in Pennsylvania, that it's going to have a direct impact on and and relevance to and that's boy that's talk about a smart you know game playing where you know the the david plus you're looking at the demographics you're looking at the demographics don't talk about 5 000 things talk about the five that matter that get us elected yeah so that that was super smart and then my my my freedman uh focus group was i just was in dca airport and a woman walked up to me who's from Ukraine, you know, it was really sweet, but she said, you know, I just wanted to tell you that, you know, first of all,

becoming from Ukraine, I really love what Harris had to say, but more importantly, she said, I have a daughter who is in college in, in Illinois. And she said that she's that she and her sorority sisters, none of whom had voted before, all watched the debate, and every single one of them was now registered and voting for Kamala Harris. That's a ridiculously fine point anecdote, but I'm hearing more and more and more of that. And I think the thing that's maybe overlooked in this election and undervalued at this point

is we talk a lot about undecided voters. I don't think there's a lot of those. There may be a lot of unregistered voters who are registering. And you think about the Taylor Swift impact and stuff like that. Those kind of things could make a difference. She's breaking some brains out there on the internet. I have a little montage for you from Dave Rubin, Russian stooge, big influencer, millions of followers on YouTube, apparently was taking Russian money unwittingly,

and Megyn Kelly, Rich Lowry, talking about Taylor Swift. Let's listen to that. Elon Musk, who they hate, he saw that and he wrote this, fine, Taylor, you win. I will give you a child and guard your cats with my life. So he's mocking. He's exposing the ridiculousness. Right. It's like Taylor Swift. You are a young, pretty girl. Do you know what the gang members from Venezuela do to young, pretty girls? It ain't pretty. I'm allowed to criticize Taylor Swift and I don't give a who gets upset. This is disgusting. She wants to vote Harris-Waltz. This is disgusting. If she wants to vote Harris Walsh, she can do it all she wants. But to say the reason she's doing it is because of Tim Walsh's

stance on LGBTQ, F-U, Taylor Swift. And Emily, this is unbelievable. The left is losing its mind. She signed it Taylor Swift, childless Cat Lady. The anger. Where does all this anger come from? Elon wants to father her children. Dave Rubin's fantasizing about her getting raped by Venezuelan migrants. Megyn Kelly's F-wording her. I've lost the plot a little bit. Yeah, Tim, there's a Cajun expression that you'll hear from James Carville, hit dogs bark.

Those dogs are hit, man. I mean, it's ridiculous. Are you kidding? Megyn Kelly, she's saying, fuck you, because some celebrity endorsed a candidate? Come on. I mean, you didn't say that about Hulk Hogan, for God's sake. And I just think it testifies to, it really hit a nerve. And you talk about the value of celebrity endorsements. Taylor Swift, here's my idea for Taylor. She goes to the swing states, does concerts that are free for unregistered voters. And if you're unregistered, you get in free and you have to register at the concert. I don't know.

Get in for free? I don't know. She has a pretty fancy setup there, Mark. I don't know if we're subsidizing that level of free tickets. I think she can afford it. I think she can afford it. I think she can afford it. I mean, I think there's no bad ideas in a brainstorm. We're going to start playing with that.

But I'm with you. More voter regs. Well, she's already, I think, just in her little link that she put out, she's already registered almost a half a million new voters. Yeah, crazy. You know, you just think about the college dynamic, North Carolina, and then obviously the big state schools up in the Midwest. There's a non-trivial amount of people that can get engaged for something like this.

I do agree with that. I think that that's obviously the bigger impact than her convincing people. I want to go back to the foreign policy thing with Ukraine, though. I'm asking everybody this. It's my obsession. So I've got to ask you, because you know this world, the folks that you worked with in W world that are on the nat sex side of things what more do these people want from her you know the condies the bob gates is the w himself

why haven't more of them spoken out on behalf of kamala do you think well um i i think it's a remarkable number who have and all those dominoes are falling. And there's like a new one every day. And there's 50 days left. And I'm still holding out hope my boss will come out. I mean, we know how he thinks. He knows what he thinks about this weird shit. And know how strongly they feel about, you know, what's happened to foreign policy and how, you know, what Trump has done to the America First notion and standing up strong

against Russia and all of that. So, you know, that Condi Rice is just gritting her teeth every day as a, you know, as a Russian expert of all Russian experts watching this. So, yes, I agree. And, and, but like I said, you know, Alberto Gonzalez came out today or yesterday, and there's like a new one every day. That's true. You're always more of the glass half full guy than me. This is the Thelma and Louise balance. You know, I'm always like, I want all of them. Like every last one until the last dog dies, I'm going to be shouting at the moon. It is the foreign policy thing that is the most striking, right?

Because I just think that like, it would have been understandable if you're a national security conservative that doesn't like Trump trump that like doesn't really know what her foreign policy is going to be right like you don't know who's going to be around her you're a little worried she's california liberal who knows right um you read something on fox somewhere when you're still watching brett bayer that is her dad was a marxist right like you just you got you got some little concerns in your head but since she's been out there like the last seven weeks on foreign policy in particular, I mean, she has just been right down the middle,

like not missing a beat on any of that stuff. Yeah, no equivocation, hard as a hammer, tough as steel. Again, it's not like talking quits. It's something that's coming from her core, and it doesn't feel like something she just sort of recently adopted for the campaign. The only substantive complaint I've heard from anyone on foreign policy is from the left on israel stuff you know the left was hoping that i think that she was going to be was going to tamp down some of the

or at least leave the door open maybe more to some more distancing from israel and she she hasn't done it yeah yeah and i think she's navigated that one pretty adroitly as well were you surprised by dick jamie kind of yeah yeah i well. Were you surprised by Dick Cheney? Kind of, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm not surprised by Liz, of course, but Dick, yeah, yeah. I mean, Cheney's are all in. Can you get your Adman hat on for me? You had your Taylor Swift idea while we're brainstorming.

I like Dick Cheney and AOC in a joint ad. Sitting in a living room like the one you're in right now. Maybe a cultural we disagree cultural exchange you know he's giving her some elk or some like some meat from wyoming and you know she's cooking up some beans and rice or something for him you know i don't know that get them in the kitchen little cooking show oh i can't do better than that yeah we're working on it you know those podcast ads that sound like a robot reading a script well here's me the robot reading for the perfect gene including

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Okay, Laura Loomer is like the most outrageous sort of QAnon conspiracy theorist out there. So far out there that she's getting attacked by Marjorie Taylor Greene as being out of the mainstream. Too crazy for MTG. Yes, exactly. It's kind of a delicious Twitter fight for the real sickos out there. You want to go and look at the MTG Laura Loomer Twitter fight's it's kind of like a let them fight meme in a big way a beautiful thing so yeah you you know eric erickson who's a you know you know a well-known journalist on on the right who's no harris fan and his tweet yesterday was you know okay you stupid

motherfuckers you know you realize that by stupid motherfuckers, you know, you realize that by putting out this ridiculous shit, you just threw out the bait and made, you know, the guy who should be the next president look like a complete idiot. And I responded to that to say, yeah, and you know, stupid motherfucker number one is JD Vance, because he's the guy that was out there promoting it. And the thing to me that's worse than, or the worst thing about all of that is that when asked about it, they double down and make it worse by saying, when people say, what's your evidence? They say, well, we heard it from a constituent. So just like the steal the vote stuff back in 21. Well, I don't have any evidence, but people are telling me.

So therefore, I'm reporting it. And rather than doing what elected leaders do is find the facts and then tell your constituents, they're letting their constituents just feed off conspiracy horse shit. And then they're repeating it and amplifying it. Just think about the J.D. Vance pick also for a minute. Oh, God. I love that. I mean, just, you know, Trump's body language on Vance now. It's so good. How do you get in a situation if you are Susie Miles, our friend, friendish, and Chris Lasavita and Trump, and you're going down the list and you're like, we are going to pick a VP that is actually putting even more conspiratorial material into the campaign than Trump. It's like, how could you find a person?

It's like Trump is the conspiracy monger in chief. And here we got one where our VP candidate is actually, instead of kind of reining him in or being the bumpers on the bowling lane for him, trying to keep him in the middle, he's accelerating it. You know who's loving this? Sarah Palin. Oh, my God my god yeah no longer the worst pick yeah i mean it's incredible you think i mean the first first job of a vp pick is to do no harm and he's doing harm like every fucking day every day i think they can't like each other like he can't like does trump want to hang out with him i mean as i said the body language of trump is like every time he gets asked about jd vance it's like i don't talk to jd vance or that you

know he doesn't share my you know everything is like clear like he's you know he's on the phone with juniors saying what in the fuck what did you why did you insist on this guy john juniors in the dog house trump's gonna be sending some haitian immigrants after him pretty soon there's a lot to laugh about about this but, but there are two serious elements I want to talk about because the whole thing is outrageous. I usually am not one to pick on people for not being swift on their feet

in interviews and on TV panels. We've all been there. Sometimes you get put into a tight spot, but I'm making an exception in this case. I want to play for you an exchange between Ana Navarro and Scott Jennings, two former colleagues of mine on CNN yesterday. When he said that, he wasn't being sarcastic. He wasn't being hyperbolic. He was amplifying a conspiracy theory that I think you would agree puts a target on the backs of Haitian immigrants and that it is based on racism.

Would you agree on that? Anti-black racism would be more pointed. Do you think that if there were 20,000 Scandinavians that had been sent to Springfield, people would be saying that they're eating cats and dogs and geese? I'm not going to answer for him, for his memes, or anything else. No, no, but I'm asking you, do you think that conspiracy is based on racism? I mean, it's an NECM, yes or no?

Because I'm not going to answer. I don't know. That was a long pause, Scott. Because I don't know the answer. And I'm not going to sit here and answer for somebody. I don't talk to Donald Trump about what the motivations are. And I don't answer to you either. But Scott, what is the answer for you?

But the bottom line is... I'm just trying to is the answer for you? But the bottom line is. I'm trying to give you a thoughtful answer. Boy. Yeah, that was a long pause there. Our podcast listeners thought that that was the Sopranos episode. I just went to black there for a second. Where'd Scott go? The audio speaks for itself with Scott.

But that is the thing. Anna does hit on the point. This is not just a crazy QAnon conspiracy like JFK Jr.'s alive. It is a racist conspiracy that targets a specific group of people because they're black. And that's just it. 100%. And again, you think about the Republican Party and, you know, and what a 180 this is from John McCain and George W. Bush. I mean, the reason that I crossed the bridge to join George W. Bush was because of compassionate conservatism and his embrace of immigrants and our neighbors to the South. And you remember John McCain famously in his debate saying, no, Obama is not

an other. He is one of us and to do anything other is, you know, un-American. And it's just, it's the worst, worst kind of appeal to nativist racism that you can imagine. And the darkest part of this, this one's going to be tough. This is tough for me. I almost cried. I'm on a little bit of sleep at this point. I've only had three hours, I think the last two nights between the debate and I came down to DC and called a little concert last night. I probably shouldn't have done that. I probably should have got a good night's sleep, but you know, life is for the living, right? We'll sleep more dead, as Tim Wall said. So maybe I'm just a little vulnerable, but here we go. The thing that started all the stupid

cat conspiracy, for people who have not been following this closely, is in this town of Springfield, there has been an influx of Haitian immigrants. It's not clear to me, actually. Some of them are immigrants. Some of them are Haitian Americans. Some of them are like migrants who are not yet citizens, and some are citizens. And there's one incident where there's a bus driver that was haitian that was didn't have a license to drive the bus shouldn't have been driving the bus and there's a car accident and a kid died in the car accident aiden clark 11 year old kid and that is like what was the impetus for all of this in like the crazy right-wing fever swamps right and you know this this it goes from you whatever, we shouldn't be having these migrants in, this kid

died to, you know, and then, you know, it gets expanded, expanded, expanded to eventually at the point where the presidential candidate is talking about how Haitians eat dogs on, on international debate. But the father of the kid, Aiden Clark's dad, said this to the newspaper yesterday. I now wish that my son Aiden was killed by a 60-year-old white man. I bet you never thought anyone would say something so blunt, but if that guy killed my 11-year-old son, the incessant group of hate-spewing people would leave us alone. The last thing that we need is to have the worst day of our lives

violently and constantly shoved in our faces, but even that's not good enough for them. They take it one step further. They make it seem that our wonderful aidan appreciates your hate and that we should follow their hate that's that's incredible i'm tearing up too and i've had a full night's sleep yeah i mean what what a presumption of grace on his part too i mean to to to extend and reflect that that idea really powerful yeah and that's what it is.

I mean, it's just like, that's what all of this fundamentally is, right? It's like Springfield is an actual community where this is happening. I saw another interview with like a manufacturing job, a manager of a manufacturing plant. And he's like, I don't know, man, the Haitian immigrants are showing up to work on time.

They're like doing, they're doing their job. They're not complaining to me. You know what I mean? Like, you know, when you have a big influx of any group of people you know there's going to be challenges and like dealing with disruptions but like that's what this fundamentally is like this american story of like people in a community trying to navigate this and it's being perverted into this like just totally blatant racist bullshit and it's so un-American. I mean, Steve Ratner did a great thing this morning on Morning Joe. I'm just showing the data on what's the real story

with immigrants and crime statistics. And as it turns out, it's way under the actual population and they're much more law abiding. And it's just to take advantage of that for political gain, it's so contrary to the ideals of this country. Y'all, I've just been a longtime reader of the Washington Post. I've told you about this before, but I just think back to my dorm, being a dorky freshman coming to GW because I like politics and getting so excited because they had that Washington Post for free sitting there in the lobby of Lafayette Hall. And I've been reading it ever since. We've been having Washington Post reporters on this podcast and it continues to be a valuable resource for me. So that's why I'm so excited that this podcast is sponsored by the Washington Post.

Right now, you go to washingtonpost.com slash thebullwork and you can subscribe for just 50 cents per week for your first year. If you listen to this podcast, you know the great work the Washington Post does on topics from Capitol Hill to Carol Lenning doing secret service to Isaac Arnsdorf doing politics. In fact, I was just reading Isaac's story this morning, which I really appreciated about Trump beginning to stoke suspicions, quote unquote, about the assassination attempt and how it's raising fears among people in law enforcement that it might end up stoking more violence. This was like one random aside of the debate. And, you know, it gets lost sometimes in the coverage when Trump does this kind of stuff. But our man Isaac was right on it

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to subscribe for just 50 cents per week for your first year speaking about the ideals of this country you did it new york tv man you know how to transition for me you don't even know it's coming i got chip roy for you on the house floor yesterday. Let's take a listen to this. What the hell are we trying to defend? What is left of the United States to defend? What? A school where I can't send my child to pray to God without spending $20,000 a year on top of the taxes I pay? A school that my friend sends her sixth grader to with a trans music teacher asking her

kid to do some dance in class? Yes, true story. What the hell is left to defend about America? What? A kid was asked to dance in a class? There is a queer arts teacher? Oh, wait, this is just happening now. There's never in history before been LGBT drama club teachers before. I would have been more surprised if it was a straight arts teacher asking him to do the Pledge of Allegiance. I mean, I just don't even know how you get to a place like this, where you're like, what the hell is left to defend about this country? I mean, this is where this total inversion in this race, which is what I actually want to talk to you about.

The clip is embarrassing. It's fun to make fun of Chip Roy. But this inversion where the Republicans are now the ones that are like, this country fucking sucks. This country sucks. There's nothing to defend about it. We're no better than any other country. We're killers too.

And it's now the Democrat. It's Kamala Harris. It's like, no, actually. A hundred percent. And that she is stolen back. The freedom agenda is so brilliant. And George Bush used to say, people don't follow a leader who says,

the future's all fucked up, follow me. And Reagan knew that. Bushes knew that. And just to have this dystopian, you know, we're a horrible place, and it's all fucked up. And, you know, this dystopian vision of America, you know, that's one of the great things about Harris is that she is, I think she understands that. And she has made it all about, you know, a bright future looking forward and not a backward dystopian hellscape that people like Chip Roy are trying to paint. Yeah. And the other thing is that she has done is she's not gone down that also that path that sometimes people in love do. And look, there's reasons to criticize America.

I'm not saying that America should never be criticized, but of, you know, just focusing overwhelmingly on the historical discrimination in the country, right? It's something that as a woman, as a black woman, as an immigrant, I mean, like there's plenty of material to work with. She could have talked about historical discrimination in her convention speech or the debate or whatever. And it's just, she doesn't. It's the opposite. Well, yeah. I mean, does she ever talk about the discrimination that she's faced never never i've never heard her talk about that in the debate another moment that really struck me was when the moderator asked trump about his turn but heard his turn black comment and she responds by kind of going through his history of racism and like the next sentence right after she kind of lists off central park five and birtherism etc etc you know you could imagine then going from there to being offended to talk about how

offensive that is personally i'm sure shit donald trump and republicans talk about their imaginary grievances and offenses all the time but but she didn't she goes to talk about how that's not what america wants right america doesn't want to be divided. You know, she goes, you've done racist stuff and you're dividing us and people don't want it. People don't deserve it. I thought I very deft of a way to handle that. Yeah. And I think that really resonated with people. And I think we'll continue to do. And again, I just think that she's it's just an example of somebody who has gotten really good at her craft has learned over time and you know just we've seen a lot of candidates over time and

it's just you know you think about again sort of the pressure pit that she's been put in she's in a microwave turned up to 11 and she's handling it really well what's left to defend in this country mark everything's going to shit art teachers asking us to dance my god shit transgender teachers transgender teachers are out there you know there's just might as well just throw this whole fucking experiment to shit you know thomas jefferson's rolling over in his grave um all right man before i lose you anything what what next 50 50 plus days what's your sense of the state of play? You occasionally have a little contrarian POV on kind of the handicapping. So where's your head up?

I kind of look for data points that aren't the usual data points. And I just have this notion that one thing we do in politics is we look at it through a mirror instead of a periscope. And first of all, how many people do you know that actually get, you know, pick up a phone to answer a telephone poll? Almost nobody. So you know, you know, who is it that they're actually talking to? So you got to have some level of cynicism about anything you read about the data and polling. And we've seen the problems in recent years. But I think the smart thing is that the Harris campaign is running like they're 10 points behind, running like they're an an underdog which is the only way to run you run scared or unopposed and they know the historical time set on popular vote and the electoral college and the challenges all

there and so i worry about despite all the energy and excitement about everything i i think there's a huge challenge particularly in pennsylvania i was a josh shapiro guy and and I just thought, you know, it's a very political thing for me. It's like you win Pennsylvania, you win. That guy may give you a.1 bump, but that could be it. But I am encouraged by, again, the anecdotal stuff I hear that I think that in places like North Carolina, where they have a horrible Republican nominee for governor, who's not exciting any Republican voters. And I'm hearing – Well, except for the guys in the back of the dirty video shop eating pizza, eating their dominoes while they do the glory holes. And the people concerned about the trans dancing going on.

Yeah, he's exciting a couple folks, right? A couple folks are getting excited. If I had to handicap it now i think that harris is going to win and i think it's because of new unregistered voters that have come out of the scene you know again sort of anecdotally you just think about this has got the feeling of a movement thing something exciting something historic and if you're a young person or sort of a low information voter you just kind of see it going on around you to say wow something's happened i kind of want to be part of this you know there's just that factor going on.

And I think that's where she could make a play and pick up North Carolina and or Arizona and Georgia, which would make up for losing Pennsylvania. Harris wins. There's your contrary view. You think Harris could lose Pennsylvania and still win? Yes, I do. I think she's going to win North Carolina and or Georgia and Arizona. There you go. Mark McKinnon. You you heard it here thank you for pinch hitting today they can cancel

the circus but there's no race in us i need to give a special thanks to uh bulwark super fans russ and andre for taking care of me last night a little serendipitous bonus night in dc everything's good we got power just got a text while we're live we got power some of the plants maybe a little worse from the wear at our house in New Orleans, but everybody's safe and sound. I appreciate y'all's concern. I'll be back tomorrow for a weekend edition of the Bulwark Podcast. See y'all then.

Peace. I think my teeth are falling out Like in a dream of mine But I haven't slept for days And you're on my mind And then I watch as the memory passes See your face through these dark sunglasses And what I once knew now is just ashes

Once knew how to be with that But there's no escaping, no escaping, no escaping love And I feel like taking, feel like taking, feel like taking drugs. When the salvation, salvation, salvation's done. There's still no erasing, no erasing us. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper

with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.