The Bulwark Podcast - Michael Steele: Trump Punked Everybody

Episode Date: March 22, 2023

Using a page from his well-worn playbook, Trump framed the narrative about the Manhattan grand jury case on his terms. Plus, the white boy frat party atmosphere at the Tucker Carlson show. Michael Steele joins Charlie Sykes today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. It is March 22nd, 2023, which may well be Indictment Day, the day in which the, for the very first time, a former president of the United States is indicted on criminal charges. We don't know, but it's already been a rather extraordinary day of bombshells. I laid them out in my Morning Shots newsletter. We have a federal judge who ruled that the special counsel had made a prima facie showing that the former president had committed criminal violations, which seems like kind of a BFD. New York Times reports Trump remains significantly disconnected from the severity of his potential legal woes and is pretending that he's actually looking forward to the perp walk, which probably won't

happen. CBS is reporting that threats of political violence are spiking. Ron DeSantis is poking the bear harder. Interesting choice of an interviewer. He sat down with Piers Morgan and upped the ante. For those of you who've been wondering, would Ron DeSantis punch back? It'd be interesting to see how Trump World handles it, because they're not handling it all that well so far. Meanwhile, over at Fox News, a producer is suing them, adding to the network's legal woes, and she is laying out these dazzling details of bigotry and sexism, basically portraying Tucker Carlson's staff as something between, you know, Mad Men, Animal House and Breitbart. That's Nick Confessori's line, really. Fox also had a pretty bad day in court yesterday. skeptical of some of the Fox arguments in that Dominion lawsuit. Does not mean that they will

win, but it was not the kind of day that if you were a lawyer, you want to have. Meanwhile, the House Republican investigative chief, Congressman James Comer, gave an absolutely gobsmacking interview to the New York Times. I don't even have the time to summarize it. Mona Cherna and I talked about it on our Just Between Us podcast. He made a series of admissions that I don't think have the effect that he perhaps imagined that they would. There's also a new poll out that has some bad news and some good news for Joe Biden. The bad news is that his approval ratings are pretty low. The good news is that everybody else's are even lower. China finds a new junior partner.

This is one of the great geopolitical ironies of our time, that Vladimir Putin launched the war in Ukraine because he wanted to flex his muscles, and instead he is now so weak that he is reliant on China as the big brother to bail him out. And National Review has an extraordinary epiphany. One of their leading columnists writes, Given a choice between advancing his own interests

and burning down the entire American conservative movement, Donald Trump would light a match. Hmm, really? If only they had been warned about this. Well, to hash out all of this, one of our favorite guests, Michael Steele, host of the Michael Steele podcast, he's also a political analyst for MSNBC, is the former chair of the Republican National Committee, and he will frequently remind us, don't blame him for that. And he was Lieutenant Governor of Maryland from 2003 to 2007. So Michael, welcome back on the podcast. Good to have you. It's good to be with you always, man. So there's so much to talk about today on what might be indictment day, but I want to talk about something I watched you do last night. You were sitting in for Chris Hayes last night on MSNBC. Yeah. And you started the show by saying that Trump punks everybody and that he had punked the whole world over the weekend.

Talk about what you meant and the lessons that we ought to draw from this. I've been losing my mind. I mean, you know, in so many respects, Trump ain't nothing but somebody off the streets, right? He's running the shell game and he's trying to get the advantage at every turn. In so many respects, Trump ain't nothing but somebody off the streets, right? He's running the shell game and he's trying to get the advantage at every turn. And he knows that if he drops a dime on anything, right, if he just puts out a little bit of tease on pick a topic, everyone's going to follow it and eat it. And I'm sitting there watching what he did this week. And I'm saying, this fool just punked everybody. He doesn't know if he's getting arrested on Tuesday. In fact, his spokesperson

came out after he posted that tweet at 730 in the morning saying, well, that tweet was posted without any real knowledge of an actual arrest coming on Tuesday. Everybody bought it. Everybody bought it. This is his playbook. And he framed the narrative before it could unfold. And he set the tone on his terms, right? Absolutely, which is what he does. Was he really expecting big crowds to turn out and protest for him? Was this a fundraising gambit? What was the playbook here?

This is narrative. This is narrative. I'll give you a good example. What happened with the Mueller report? He sent Bill Barr out there to tease it on his terms and to set the narrative around the report to get people to think and view it and believe things about it that weren't necessarily true, accurate, or reflective of the facts. And that's exactly what he's done here. This wasn't about fundraising. It wasn't about drawing a large crowd. Yeah, people may or may not show up, but it really wasn't a call to arms per

se. It was Donald Trump putting a placeholder in something that was going to happen in the future so that when it happens, you now have a different view of it than you otherwise would have when you heard it coming from, oh, I don't know, the DA. Because Trump is the only one who announced he was getting arrested, not the DA. You would think the DA would be the source for that information, but it wasn't. It was Trump. And so what he does is he gets ahead of a narrative and he tries to frame it around the outcome that he wants. And the outcome is not so much like, oh, this will prevent the DA from arresting me. It's how people will react when the DA does. And so what you find is his people get jacked and they're all fired up talking about we're going to form a human ring around Mar-a-Lago and shoot down helicopters.

And everybody else gets defensive because now everybody's explaining, well, you know, this is unprecedented. I know. And oh my gosh, well, you know, we'll see how it comes out. And, you know, the rule of law and everybody starts humming a hummina hummina trying to explain why, okay, this man had an affair with a porn star, tried to pay her off with campaign funds, and we're wrong? We're crazy? And that's what happens. Well, here's some good advice. The media has to be a little bit sober in covering the story because of what it may mean for covering the 2024 campaign. I mean, you would think that eight years in that the media would have figured out how not to be punked by this guy. And yet it still happens again and again. And it's likely to happen

more over the next few months. It's kind of a sobering moment. Okay. So I have to ask you about this New York Times report. I want to get to what the Republicans are doing. And this is a story by Michael Bender and Maggie Haberman. Donald J. Trump claims he is ready for his perp walk. Behind closed doors at Mar-a-Lago, the former president has told friends and associates that he welcomes the idea of being paraded by the authorities before a throng of reporters and news cameras. He has even mused openly about whether he should smile for the assembled media and has pondered how the public would react and is said to have described the potential spectacle as a fun experience.

No one is quite sure whether his remarks are bravado or genuine resignation about what lies ahead, but if he is truly looking forward to it, he might be disappointed. So, Michael Steele, what's going on? Is it bravado or is he so delusional that he actually thinks that this is something, this is a media event that he can turn to his advantage? Absolutely. He thinks it's a media event he can turn to his advantage. And not only that, again, he's setting the narrative. He's telling the DA, you know, it's like, you know, I'm ready for my closeup, Mr. DeVille, right? I'm ready. And now the only thing I got to decide is, do I smile? Do I wink? How coy should I be? How forlorn should I look? I suspect what will happen if all of this does come to pass is

that the DA will not do a perp walk. They won't do a perp walk with a former president. It's undignified. They won't do it. Even though I think for someone like Trump, okay, yeah, it works, but they won't do it. What they will do is they will secure him in a vehicle, whether it's an auto or helicopter. They will take him to the designated processing center, and they will take a mugshot, and they will fingerprint him. And the mugshot is what we'll probably see. Oh, yeah. But there will be no perp walk. He's not going to be walked out of Mar-a-Lago in handcuffs, although that is an image he would oh so ideally love to have. Because what does that do to his base to see their guy, their king, their MAGA king hauled out of his home in handcuffs?

It stokes the kind of passions and flames going into this election that Donald Trump wants. And we should all be aware, just for a point of reference, there's no constitutional bar for Donald Trump to run as an indicted individual, an individual at trial, or an individual who's been convicted. He can actually run the country from jail, because our Constitution, the only requirement is age and residency. They didn't figure on somebody like Donald Trump. No, they didn't. So as you and I are speaking, we don't know what's going to happen. We don't know what he's

going to be charged with. We don't know how this is going to play out. But we do know something for certain. And this is, I think, one of the biggest stories of the week. The zeal and the speed with which Republicans rallied around him, that the GOP moved to defend him, you know, something that they've, you know, they have a lot of muscle memory. actually have committee chairs write letters basically threatening the Manhattan DA. So talk to me about that. I mean, because, you know, Republicans could have kept their powder dry. They could have said, you know what, why don't we wait to see what the grand jury does? Why don't we wait to see what the prosecutor does? We need to, you know, let the criminal justice system play out. No, they're all in on this. So talk to me about that, what we're seeing. And of course, down in Mar-a-Lago, this is their obsession, right, is to bring everybody into line, make sure that everybody bows the knee, and they line up either with Trump

or attacking Alvin Bragg. So this is now the world the Republicans are going to live in for the next two years, in case there was any question about how zealous would they be in their defense of the indicted, corrupt, disgraced former Orange God King. These guys make the blind mice look like they've got sight. It is an amazing story to watch leadership so malleable. There is not a backbone amongst them that are willing to stand on the underlying principles to not allow it to get to a point where the nation could be threatened by the rogue behavior of a current or former president. And so we see now the narrative set for 2024. The grift and the power are still the game. There is no governing principle. There is no means by which they can articulate a vision

for the country beyond Trump. I mean, they can't even do that. They are so mired in the ink of Trumpism that they cannot escape it. So to a point you made a little bit ago, it is going to be incumbent on the media and it is going to be incumbent on folks like you and me to be vigilant about the narrative and to make sure America understands and appreciates that this is not governance, this is not leadership, this is nothing more than a MAGA play for grift and power. And McCarthy is at the center of it. So let's play this out, though, the timeline, because, of course, the temptation is to focus on everything that happens this week. You know, does it help him? Does it hurt him? What is the magnitude of the threat of political

violence? I think it's also important to sort of take a deep breath and say, OK, this is gonna be a long, hot spring and summer. There may be more indictments coming down out of Georgia, out of the Department of Justice. And right now, I think it's reasonable to think that the MAGA base will rally around Donald Trump. This will give him a short-term boost among Republican primary voters. But the question is, I want to get your take on this. What is the cumulative weight of this going to be? That after we've gone through this, if we go through something in Georgia and then the feds do it, is there an exhaustion? Does it change?

Does the rally around intensify or does it feed a sense of just exhaustion? And oh, my God, can we just move on from having to carry all of this freaking baggage? I think it does both. And I think it depends on who you're talking to. If you're talking to the average Joe and Jane out there who are just trying to get by and deal with inflation and getting a kid graduated this year and trying to get mom and dad who are elderly settled, yeah, to the extent that they stay tuned in, they will become exhausted by it because it is exhausting.

Let me put it to you this way just to show how exhausting it is. The only thing we have talked about in light of all the events that have occurred in the world in the last five days is Donald Trump. It's the only thing we're doing. It's leading the news. Oh, we're on a perp walk watch. We're sitting here waiting for a grand jury to come back with indictments. And meanwhile, the rest of the world is like, you know, Putin and Xi Jinping just met and just signed 14 accords between their two nations. Do you have any understanding what that may mean for the global stability of the world? No, we don't. And so it is exhausting. It is overwhelmingly

so. For the MAGA folks, they continue to feed off of it. You know, everybody's making a big deal that, oh, you know, a handful of people showed up at the DA's office in New York to protest. Big deal. Yeah, that's not the test. Exactly. It's not the test. And Trump didn't really ask them to do that. He didn't really ask them to engage in that way. And so I think for them, they're always on standby when it comes to Trump, and they're always ready to move. What it means longer term is something that I fear more than anything else. And that is complacency to the point of, I just don't give a shit. Or depression and boredom. Yeah.

That is the hardest part here because when it becomes normal, when it becomes okay, and in some respects, I kind of agree with ABC and others who are reporting out that maybe going with this case, the sex case with the porn star, which is nothing more than a misdemeanor, ultimately is not the best play. And I asked Paul Butler that question yesterday, and we had a sort of round robin on whether or not, yeah, maybe, maybe not. But there are, to your earlier point, bigger fish that are going to come in on this. Georgia, for example. And you know it's a bigger fish because how hard the Republicans of Georgia are working to oust the prosecutor there and change the rules of the game midstream.

Yeah. So all of that has a weight to it, Charlie, that I think Americans, we've never been in this space before. And we just can't fathom that people actually behave this way and do the things they do. And Trump makes it so entertaining to some degree that there is sort of a laissez faire to I don't care to, you know. Nothing matters. You know, this is just political attitude that can seep in. Yeah. Unfortunately, because this is the first case, it will allow Trump and his allies to set the narrative that this is just about sex or this is vindictive. It's an old case. It's a trivial case. And that is unfortunate. And there is the danger that this will set the narrative in a way that if you had led off with the much more serious charges, it won't.

The other point I want to make very, very briefly, and I was on Nicole Wallace's show yesterday, and everybody was talking about the fact that there was no major demonstrations. Well, okay, this week and next week are not the test of the magnitude of the threat we face. Because first of all, there were never going to be mass protests in downtown Manhattan. That was not going to happen. And also, we can't make the mistake of fighting the last war because as Trump continues to throw matches and kerosene on the fire, the danger is not just, you know, mass riots. The danger is also lone wolves or disgruntled individuals. We have millions of Americans that believe that

violence is appropriate to fight a stolen election. We have millions of those folks who actually own weapons. After the search of Mar-a-Lago, you had a lone wolf who attacked an FBI office. So that danger is going to continue throughout the spring, in fact, throughout 2024. So talk to me a little bit about what Ron DeSantis is doing, because the other day he came out and, you know, did the obligatory, you know, talking about the weaponization of the justice system and, you know, called Alvin Bragg a Soros prosecutor and all the yada yada yada signaling to the MAGA base. But then he also took a not very veiled shot at Donald Trump for paying hush money

to a porn star. And now he's sitting down with Piers Morgan, of all people. And Morgan writes, it was clear the governor's had enough of Trump's constant baiting and felt ready to take him on in what could end up being a ferocious battle for the White House. So what do you make of the fact that DeSantis is now basically testing out, you know, how hard can I hit back at Donald Trump? How do you think that goes? that he can take a punch. He's that politician that I've dealt with in many settings over the years that is prickly and prissy and gets emotional and takes it all personally. Any politician who takes what happens in politics personally shouldn't be in the game, because this is first and foremost about not only not having a glass jaw, but having skin thick enough that whatever comes at you, the worst it does is scrape your arm or creates a small

bruise, but you pile through it. I listened to his response to Trump. And okay, yeah, that was a cute little ploy at the end of the conversation where you sort of work in the porn star and the payment and your wife having a baby, but you never mentioned the man's name. You never called him out. You made a reference to his behavior, but you never called him out. And until you do that, that tells me you're not ready to engage him. Everyone who talks about Trump, Charlie, talks around Trump. They don't talk directly to Trump. They don't tell him, like, as I said the other day, shut up and sit down. We don't need you in this game anymore. You were president. You were president.

You will not be president again. And so those of us who can actually win the office, we got this. No one will do that. Not Nikki, not DeSantis, none of them. Watch. Well, I am seeing DeSantis at least beginning to move now. I completely disagree with some of his criticism. I mean, weirdly enough, he's trying to get to the right of Donald Trump on COVID. So he's... Why are we talking about COVID? Yeah, well, he's talking about, you know, going after Anthony Fauci, you know, and so he's...

So, you know, Morgan asked him specifically, cite your differences between you and Trump, you know, that question that Nikki Haley couldn't answer. And he said, well, there are a few things. The approach to COVID was different. I would have fired somebody like Fauci. I think he got way too big for his britches. And I think he did a lot of damage. So there is that.

No, he wouldn't have. No, he would not have. Because you sitting your ass down in Florida is not the same as sitting in the White House on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. No, you would not. And that's the thing that bugs me about this. Can I just be honest about this? I grew up in this town. I've watched the men who walked into that Oval Office over the last 50 years of my life.

I've watched these people come into this place. And everyone outside of Washington, yeah, this is what I would do. And when you sit your ass behind that desk, it becomes something very different because now it's not the X number of millions of people who live in your state. It's the entire frigging country. And no, he would not. I would look him in the eye right now to his face and say, stop lying. You would not have fired Dr. Fauci because you would have taken his advice because it was the best advice you were getting at the time. I think this whole Fauci obsession is, once again, DeSantis playing to what he thinks the base wants to hear. Right, right. Let me just turn this around because I've raised this question that one of the big unknowns is, does Ron DeSantis have a glass jaw?

Let's turn this around because Noah Rothman over at National Review says DeSantis exposes Trump world's glass jaw. And so the question is, because Trump world seems to be having kind of a meltdown over the mildest kind of comments that DeSantis is making. And he writes, if this is how Trump and his acolytes respond to a glancing blow, just imagine how they'll respond when the Florida governor starts throwing real punches. And this is something we've never really seen, right? I mean, we never, in 2016, nobody really threw, you know, the real punches until it was way too late. You know, remember when Ted Cruz had his meltdown where he said, you know, this guy's a pathological liar. He lies about everything. Well, that was when it was all over. Yeah, but the man still dogged his wife, and he said nothing.

So there's that. Well, that's right, and that's the pattern. Okay, so can we talk about the most delicious story of the day? Yes. Fox News is having a shitty week. I mean, they are having one shitty week. They had a bad day in court, but that's not the most delicious story. There is a Fox News producer named Abby Grossberg.

Oh, I know. Who worked with Maria Bartiromo and Tucker Carlson, and she's now filed lawsuits against the company. Lawsuits in New York and Delaware, you know, accusing Fox lawyers of coercing her into giving misleading testimony in the lawsuit against Dominion Voting Systems, which is really bad enough. She's basically saying that they coached her to give misleading testimony to make it, you know, to blame Maria Bartiromo as opposed to what the suits were doing. But then she has all of this, all these dazzling details about the culture at Fox. According to the lawsuits filed by Mrs. Groesberg, Fox superiors called Maria Bartiromo a crazy bitch who was menopausal, asked Ms. Groesberg to cut the host out of coverage discussions. Then she went to work as the senior booking producer at Tucker Carlson on the first day, according to the lawsuit, she discovered that

the show's Manhattan workspace was decorated with large pictures of Nancy Pelosi wearing a plunging swimsuit. You're going to have to help me here because I don't know. So Tucker Carlson having a big picture of an 82-year-old woman in a low-cut swimsuit would suggest that Tucker has maybe some mommy issues. What do we make of that? I didn't know he had a Nancy fetish. I read that and I fell out of my chair. I was spitting up milk through my nose, man. It was crazy.

Michael, it gets better. Okay, so the very next day, okay, after she finds this, the very next day, Justin Wells, Carlson's top producer, calls her into his office, she said, to ask whether Maria Bartiromo was having a sexual relationship with Kevin McCarthy.

Oh! Okay, it gets better. It gets better. So, Mr. Carlson's staff joked about Jews, freely deployed a vulgar term for women, according to the complaint. Later that fall, before an appearance on the show by Tudor Dixon, who is the Republican nominee for Michigan governor, Mr. Carlson's staff held a mock debate about whether they would prefer to have sex with Ms. Dixon or her Democratic opponent, Governor Gretchen Whitmer. And I have to tell you, Michael, none of this sounds implausible that you have this, you know, white boy frat party, Tucker Carlson. I mean, you listen to what he has on the air. You can just imagine.

Well, actually, you no longer have to imagine what's going on. No, you don't. It's consistent. It's consistent. And the frat boy attitude is a lot of what has permeated. And we know now from the Roger Ailes stories and other lawsuits that have come out about Fox, involving Fox, and even the narratives now emerging out of the Dominion lawsuit, the culture there. I mean, you can't even say it was corrupt. It's just corrosive. It is cesspool level of erosion of values. And so when you take that story, those little vignettes, and you put it up against CPAC and match slap trying to stoop a young man who's driving him

to his hotel and Cawthorn and his lingerie and the sexual exploits of these Republicans now being revealed in the context of other things that they are doing, whether in media or politics, the country now has a real sense of, and I'll just use it because it is ironic to use irony here, the irony of these people who've pontificated against how people have lived their lives, who they love, how they behave, whether or not they go to church on Sunday, all of these frontal Christian values that they beat us over the heads with, they themselves don't live out. They themselves don't express because they are so devoid of that thing that they claim we don't have, as every other American out there. So I just find it to be so delicious right now as these stories continue to unfold.

And I just shake my head, not in shame, but in just utter pity that these people are that pathetic. Is there any way that Fox comes out of this actually materially damaged or will they skate because they're, you know, they're, they're cocooned in this alternative reality silo? I mean, you know, the cynical view is that this won't hurt, that none of this actually will have any effect on Fox news, but there does seem to be this more than a drip, drip, drip, and the worst stuff is coming from inside the house. Dude, how many advertisers have they lost? Okay, well, fair. I don't know. Their advertisers are hanging away. And the ratings are still solid. And the ratings are solid. Tucker Carlson co-hosts on American television three weeks ago, two weeks ago, with just having, you know, put together some fake clips from January 6th, 4 million people

tuned in to watch the lie. They knew they were going to be lied to and they tuned in to watch. This lawsuit with Dominion, $1.6 billion potential judgment. They're like, okay, we'll pay that. Why? Because we're still making money. Well, okay, but how come they haven't then? Because they could settle. I mean, this is an interesting question, why they haven't settled. Just basically write a check. Do not go to a jury.

Dominion won't settle with them. Well, if they write a check for $1.6 billion, why wouldn't they? Because Dominion wants to make the point. Because a settlement is going to involve all kinds of things. You know, OK, we'll apologize and say, well, maybe we may said some things that weren't true, but all the details, all the stuff that's come out so far with a lot more left on the table to come out. If I'm the me and I'm like, oh, no, no, we want all this ish out here.

We want everybody to know what you are. Yeah, because it's not just about our lawsuit today. It is blocking and tackling for what will come down the road. We still have a presidential election coming up. And what do you think, how that's going to play out with Fox News having skirted by Dominion, wrote a $1.6 billion judgment. Okay, no sweat. We made $5, $6 billion off of that lawsuit because our folks still tuned in. Our advertisers didn't go away.

Well, and also you have Smartmatic and others who are waiting in the wings. I mean, this is part of the problem. This is part of the problem, that if you do settle this, then the floodgates open and a lot of other people who have, you know, felt wrong. Interesting piece. I don't know whether you saw this. This is in the Sydney Morning Herald, Sydney, Australia. This is an Australian newspaper, a column about Rupert Murdoch

by Malcolm Turnbull and Sharon Burrow. And they write, Rupert Murdoch, Australia's biggest media mogul, succeeded where Vladimir Putin failed. He turned Americans against each other, promoting anger, hatred, and lies. Murdoch knew Donald Trump's claim the election was stolen was a lie, but his Fox News network persuaded millions of Americans that it was true. And so he created the environment that made January 6th possible, thousands of Americans assaulting the Capitol and trying to overthrow the election, etc. I think that's a very interesting point that Rupert Murdoch succeeded where Putin failed. You know, I remember back in 2016, 2017, you know, in our innocence, we thought it was Russians and it was bots that did it. Vladimir Putin doesn't need to lift a finger anymore. The bots are so last century now.

They really are. Isn't that funny? They really, really are. And there's a lot of truth to that. As you were reading that, I was thinking about some of my friends in media from Great Britain, who years ago warned me, but we were just kind of warning America generically in our conversation about, you know, you guys are getting in bed with the wrong man, with Rupert Murdoch. And, you know, he has a global reputation that the rest of the world is very familiar with. And yet America, you know, took it hook, line, and sinker and gave him the platform and the means by which to utterly undermine the foundations of our democracy, which always begins with truth. And it begins with a protection of the media. And when you allow your hosts to go on the air and promulgate the national media and local media as fake news, because that is a term created by the guy

who is the king of fake news, the guy who will come on and lie to your face, all right, this is where you're going to wind up. And there's so much buyer's remorse. I mean, I mean, Rupert Murdoch, you know, walks in and goes, where did this giant fetid toxic pile of shit come from? It's like, who put this here? Speaking of buyer's remorse, I saw last night, Mr. Steele, that you also commented on the remarkable piece in National Review magazine by Charles C.W. Cook, who has had an epiphany. Pick one. It's conservatism or Trump. Now, Charles C.W. Cook is a very smart guy, really good guy, but was the author of the piece maybe Trump right before the 2020 election? And now he's deciding, no, maybe not Trump. He says conservative Americans must choose. Do they want Donald Trump to play a central role in Republican politics, or do they want to win elections and achieve the policy outcomes that supposedly inspired them to get involved in politics in the first place? My

question is literal, not rhetorical. Conservatives must choose. They cannot have both of these things. They must pick only one. Well, Michael, if only they had been warned. I mean, it's like all these guys looking around going, hey, you know, this would be crazy. This guy's nuts. This is a magazine that went from against Trump to, you know, in defense of Trump, you know, with Victor Davis Hanson writing these glowing things in the various defenses and everything. And now they're going, hey, you know, a second Trump administration would really, really, really be bad. It would really suck. Yeah.

Really. I would like to engage in schadenfreude here, but I have to say that part of me is like, you know, look, you have spent the last, you know, eight years telling us that we suffered from Trump derangement syndrome and, you know, playing around with all this anti anti-Trump rationalization and bullshit and wish casting and everything. And now it's suddenly like, dude, this is really, this is a stark choice here. I mean, really, you know, listen to us now.

So Charlie, let your audience in on a little bit of fun that you and I had last night because I saw your tweet to this National Review plaintiff plea of, okay, it's either conservatism or Trump. You can't have both. And you tweeted out, if only they had been warned. And I couldn't resist the moment. I said, I responded to your tweet. Why? Oh, why, Charlie? Didn't anybody warn them? Oh, the humanity. And then our friend Tom Nichols timed back it, well, it's because you guys were too timid to speak up. And then, of course, I had to respond, well, I do have a shy problem, I must admit.

If only Michael had not been so shy. Right, right. If only I had not been so shy. And if, you know, if you'd only decided to write about it and to sort of say to conservatives, you sure about this? If only. So, yeah, you know, we take the moment, we take the revelatory opportunity to realize, oh, yeah, gosh, I guess all that screaming and shouting about warning there's a cliff ahead, you're about to fall off was true. But they'll be back. But they'll be back. They'll be back.

They will write, you know, these tortured pieces explaining why you should jump off the cliff. Right. Because other cliffs are bigger and because there's a long, you know, rich tradition of jumping off cliffs and et cetera, et cetera. I mean, we know this playbook. We've been here again and again.

And if Donald Trump is the nominee, they will find ways, you know, to contort themselves, to get their head up there. You know what? Again, because they have a lot of practice. They know the way. They know the way. I want to bring it up one more level off of Cook's piece, which begs for me this question

around, you know, it's either Trumpism or conservatism. Well, that's a fool's errand. That's Hobson's choice. I mean, it's all those things all in a bubble, right? Because at the end, it makes no sense. Because conservatism, what is that? Because is it what Trump is saying? Because what are these Republicans now saying? Oh, I don't like Trump, but I like his policies. Well, exactly which policy is that you like? And when you ask that question, you get crickets, right? Because is it, oh, we're just going to go hog wild on Russia now? Putin is our boy. Orban, you got big factions within the party embracing white nationalism. Is that is that it? Are you prepared to have a dinner with Mr. Fuentes and his ill?

The neo-Nazi. Right. What's what's conservatism? So, yeah. So if you decide to come off of Trump and you're going to go with conservatism, I still think you need to have a conversation. What you'll understand is I had a long discussion with a public radio station yesterday, and they're doing a long deep dive into populism and the roots and looking at Wisconsin. And I think that the host was pretty committed to the narrative that, you know, from Scott Walker to Donald Trump is a straight line. It's the same thing. It just laid the groundwork. And I was trying to push back on that saying, you know, don't make the mistake

of assuming that what's happened has been driven by ideology or driven by the belief in certain things, because to a certain extent, the public policy, the governing philosophy, all of those things fell to the side and it became about which jersey you wore. I mean, some of us thought that politics was about policy and programs and government action, et cetera, when in fact it turned out to be about identity and turned out to be about attitude. And if you try to say, well, they were pushing this particular issue, which led to this. Well, no, it's somewhat different than that. And so we are in a complete post-principle, post-issue, post-ideology. I mean, look, we're talking about a Republican party, Michael, which I still think is extraordinary,

that literally did not have a platform in 2020. The Republican National Convention had no platform in 2020. No platform. No belief system. No belief, except whatever the Orange Collegial wants. That's exactly right. Whatever. So, Michael, it is good talking with you. We have to do this again soon.

Always my pleasure, my friend. Anytime. For those of you who have not checked out the Michael Steele podcast, also wherever you listen to your podcasts. And thank you for listening to today's Bulwark podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow. And we'll do this all over again. The Bulwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.