The Bulwark Podcast - Rep. Jared Moskowitz and Marc Caputo: The Least Productive Congress

Episode Date: April 3, 2024

The 118th Congress has made history: by removing a speaker, expelling a member, and holding sham impeachment hearings. Without Dem votes, the government would have shut down multiple times. Plus, the home insurance crisis, abortion politics, and the Democrats' uphill climb in Florida. Rep. Moskowitz and Marc Caputo join Tim Miller. show notes Steve Schale's Bulwark piece on Florida Tim's interview with Fred Guttenberg

landlord telling you to just put on another sweater when your apartment is below 21 degrees? Are they suggesting you can just put a bucket under a leak in your ceiling? That's not good enough. Your Toronto apartment should be safe and well-maintained. If it isn't and your landlord isn't responding to maintenance requests, RentSafeTO can help. Learn more at toronto.ca slash rentsafeTO. Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. I'm pumped to be here today with the star of the Republican House impeachment hearings, Congressman Jared Moskowitz, Democrat from Parkland, Florida. Congressman, I watched this clip the other day when you were actually offering to impeach Joe Biden yourself. And I was like, we need to get that guy on the podcast immediately. So let's

just take a listen to that. Look, Chairman, we got we got like three and a half minutes here. I mean, let's just do the impeachment. I mean, why continue to waste millions of dollars of the taxpayers money if we're going to impeach because you believe you've shown he's committed a high crime and misdemeanor? What are you waiting on? Look, you know, the chairman knows me well. I mean, I'm just here to help him. Right. And so I just think we should do it today. Let's just call for it. I'll make the motion, Mr. Chairman. I want to help you out. You can second it, right? Like make the motion to impeach President Biden. Go ahead. It's your turn. You second it. No, nothing. Okay. We got nothing. So I want to, with my last couple of minutes, show the American people that they're never going to impeach Joe Biden. It's never going to happen because they

don't have the evidence. OK, this is a show. It's all fake. They're lying to their base on Newsmax and Fox, leading these people to believe that they're going to eventually impeach the president. It's not going to happen. Congressman, explain to the listeners that gambit and your life on these so-called impeachment hearings. Well, look, I mean, you know, James Comer's been the chairman of Oversight in the 118th Congress. And this is why we shouldn't pick our chairman based on how much money they raise. I mean, it has been a complete sideshow. It's been literally a circus. They've brought all sorts of interesting people to the committee. They brought a Chinese foreign agent who was selling sorts of interesting people to the committee. They brought a Chinese

foreign agent who was selling Iranian oil to the Libyans. They've brought people in jail that literally appeared by Zoom from jail. And, you know, they've worked with people giving them Russian disinformation, literally coming from Russian intelligence. In fact, that's how this whole investigation started with this 1023 form, which they were like, oh, look, we have direct evidence that Joe Biden took $10 million. The only problem is that guy's now been indicted and has admitted that he got that information from the Russians. But no, no, that didn't dissuade my dear friend, James Comer. He was like, no, let's press on. And so at that point, I said to myself, okay, it's clear they have no evidence on Joe Biden. They've spent a year and a half and millions of taxpayer dollars

trying to tell everyone that Hunter Biden's had some issues. It's time to call their bluff and prove to the American people that they're not actually interested in impeaching Joe Biden. They don't have the evidence. They don't have the votes. And so that was why I called it. And I thought to myself that I'm going to catch them so off guard that he's not going to second it and we're not going to go right to a vote. And I bet he stumbles. And by the way, that's exactly what happened. That is now the end of the fake faux frivolous Biden impeachment. They've now come out after that hearing and been like, well, you're right. We don't have the votes. You know, we're not maybe impeachment's not the right route. Maybe it's okay, great. If I had known that I would have done it six months ago. Yeah, the giggling face of Jim Jordan. It was just like the hand in the cookie jar.

Like it was just a you got me face. Like don't have this. This is all a charade. To me, I think that there's been a little bit of soft bigotry of low expectations for these guys. And it's just such a clown show. It is a disaster. There's been nothing of substance that they've put forth. They've put forth lies and Russian disinformation, as you've said. For some reason, I feel like it's so clownish that it doesn't lead to nightly news.

When if it was like the inverse was happening and the Democrats were just running a totally sham hearings, I feel like there'd be more outrage about it. What is your sense of that? Why have they not gotten called to the mat a little more? I think the American people got tired of it. They've been called to the mat now so many times of having no evidence, no evidence, no evidence, and not having anything against Joe Biden, I think the American people started to tune it out. I think the Republicans were successful early on, on Hunter Biden, you know, getting the American people to sour on Hunter Biden, and then trying to make that leap to Joe Biden. But because they never had any evidence, and because the hearings were such a disaster, I think the American people came to a verdict,

which is why we look at the polling, the American people don't support the impeachment of Joe Biden. In fact, it's why Republicans in the House don't support impeachment of Joe Biden. Some of them are resigning and literally saying, I'm getting out of here. The speaker is not going to make me take an unconstitutional impeachment vote. And so, look, the hearings have been a complete failure. That's something that, you know, James Comer should own because it's his failure. They should have figured out how to pivot from this early on. And again, as soon as it came out that they started this inquiry based on Russian disinformation, they should have figured out how to get themselves out of it. But it's been a complete embarrassment. But it's not unique. The 118th Congress has been a complete embarrassment. Let's see, what have we done

for the American people? Oh, we removed the Speaker. That's historic. That's never happened before. We expelled a member in George Santos. I miss him a little bit, by the way. That hadn't happened in 20 years. And then we decided to impeach a Cabinet Secretary with absolutely no evidence. That hadn't happened in 150 years.

So these are historic achievements by Speaker Johnson and the 118th Congress, and they're helping the American people every day. The more they remove a member or remove a speaker, they're just crushing it for the American people, right? The least productive Congress in the modern era is we should have passed about 350, 400 pieces of legislation now, resolutions. I think we've done 50. So we're way behind what's acceptable. And make no mistake about it, without the Democrats in the minority, in fact, I'd argue Leader Jeffries is the most powerful minority leader we've seen because without our votes, we would have gone off the

dead cliff. They can't do anything. We would have closed the government three or four times by now. In fact, who knows if the government could even be reopened just on Republican votes. It would probably take Democrats to reopen it. So they have a weak hand, but there's a bunch of them that can't wait to get back to the minority, and they're going to get their wish, because I think we're looking at Speaker Jeffries in the next eight, nine, ten months. I'm not that sympathetic to the Ken Bucks and my Gallaghers of the world. I'm just going to say that. You mentioned the fact that these guys are resigning because it's such a clown show. Do you talk to any of these Republicans? This whole woe is me. Oh, it's so hard to be a Republican congressman. Everybody's so

unserious around me. What do you say to those folks in those conversations? Are any of them wanting to play ball with you to actually resolve some of these problems? How do you assess this small number of normie Republicans and their plight? Well, I mean, here's what I would say, right? They always find religion when they're leaving. Right. Okay. And that's the constant thread we see, which is as soon as they realize they're not going to be on the ballot again, right, they don't have to placate to the right and worry about their primary voter. And, you know, they become, you know, what I would say, the person that they really are, the performance stuff goes away. And so look, I would say this, there are actually a lot more normal Republicans than you think. You just don't know their names

or hear from them because they don't get any airtime. Right. And they have to hide. Like who? Oh, look, you're talking there's 200, right, and5 Republicans. I would tell you right off the bat, there's 70 or 80 Republicans, okay, that want to make a deal that, you know, are happy to figure out how to get the train moving. But the problem is they got to hide. They got to pretend because they have a primary election every two years, right? So what they got to do is they got to placate to their base in order to get reelected. Or what happens? They're going to get primaried from theate to their base in order to get reelected. Or what happens? They're going to get primaried from the right.

In fact, you're going to see that. You're going to see Donald Trump primary Republicans put up candidates, right, who he believes are not MAGA enough or are rhinos, right? That right now is what they're battling. I mean, Trump has really destroyed them in a way that is hard to explain. They're afraid of a tweet of his. They're afraid of his of him. They're afraid of his base. They're afraid of him recruiting a candidate because without placating Donald and MAGA Republicans in almost ninety nine percent of the Republican seats, they can't win and they'll lose. And so, you know, they're in a

very weird spot. And by the way, that's not good for Democrats because we need a functioning Republican Party. We can't solve all these problems just on our own because we have divided government. And so, you know, the more they become dysfunctional, the more government itself is going to become dysfunctional. We only have two parties here, right? They're half of the deal. I'd like to see some of them try. I guess that's all I'm saying. A lot of them just are quiet and they don't try and they do the secret stuff. But I don't know.

You don't have to be Tim Miller. You don't have to be trolling. Here's why they don't try. They know if the cameras are on, right, or if they're being recorded and they try, they're finished. Is that really true, though? Mike Gallagher survived. Mike Gallagher survived. Mike Gallagher's been in there for six years. He survived, and now he's quitting. Why not cut

a deal with you guys in Ukraine, do your effing job, and then let the chips fall? Let them try to primary you. Maybe they'll win. Maybe they won't win. I don't know, but why not try rather than quit? That's my frustration. I think they're exhausted, Tim. I think they're just exhausted. The idea of having to defend that you're a good Republican and you've been a good Republican, the idea of having to do that, spending time away from your family, getting on the phone every day, raising millions of dollars to defend who you've been your entire life. I think they're just exhausted with that. I guess lots of people have hard jobs, though. Yeah, but this is an optional job.

You mentioned the Russian disinformation. I'm obsessed with this. I've been obsessed with it on the podcast. Once that came out, the Smirnoff stuff came out, just talk to us about that. You guys finding that out. And what did you think the 10 million was before? Just this whole process. Tell us a little bit more about what it's been like on the committee seeing these reveals come to life about Alexander Smirnoff, who gave the false information about Biden's millions. Well, first of all, when you read the 1023 form, which by the way, was originally in Russian, so it had to be translated. Okay. It was double hearsay. Okay. And it was six years old and it had traveled its way. Okay. And there was only one line in this whole thing. Okay. And it wasn't a smoking gun and it didn't say Joe Biden. Okay.

And so they were taking the little pieces that were in there and, and trying to bring this big picture that Joe Biden himself got direct money in this whole Burisma, you know, nonsense. And so it was a thread, but by the way, it was a thread that they never found any corroborating evidence, right? It was a thread that they never found any paper trail. Okay. But for weeks and months, we heard about this 1023, 1023, 1023, 1023 form. And then it kind of went away. We stopped hearing about the 10 23 form. And then it came out, obviously, that Alexander Smirnoff, okay, was getting Russian disinformation, literally from

Russian intelligence, and has pled guilty. What I want to know, and I don't know that we have an answer to this. When did Comer know the information was bad? When did he know? Would he get any tips that they were investigating Smirnoff? Did he get any tips that Smirnoff was about to be indicted? Did he get any information from the FBI or Intel that, hey, that information may have come from Russia? Or did he find out like the rest of us when the indictment came down? I'm curious about that. That's something I've always, I've always wondered. And again, what was surprising to me is when that came out, because that was the house of cards that this whole thing was built on, it was built on 1023, right? That was the foundation that was, you know, the concrete,

that was the rebar, right? That was how this all started, this 1023 form. And when they realized that it was all fake, why didn't they come out and figure out how to land the plane? In fact, they still haven't figured out how to land this plane. Now we're going to do criminal referrals is what Comer is suggesting. He sent Joe Biden the letter so that Joe Biden can come to a committee. I mean, it's just an utter embarrassment. And I actually think the reason Jim Jordan was laughing that day, okay, is that because Jim has kind of let Comer take the lead on this, right? And that's not very Jim Jordan-esque, right? He's judiciary chairman, right? He's the investigation guy. And he's kind of let Comer run with this whole thing. And I think to myself, deep down, has Jim Jordan known or thought to himself or had conversations with his other Republican members that Comer has boggled this whole thing? And now it looks like there's going to be a ballot initiative. There's a Politico article this morning saying some Florida Democrats are kind of warning

the president not to overly politicize this. They see this as a potential opportunity. They don't want to fumble the ball. How big of an opportunity politically do you think the Florida abortion ballot initiative is for this year? And what's your advice to the White House about campaigning in a state that, frankly, has sort of fallen off of the map a little bit? Well, I think there's a multifaceted approach to this. First, let's talk about the actual case. So, right, a 4-3 decision to let voters decide whether a woman's right to choose

belongs in the Constitution, okay? But at the same time, the same court said the six week abortion ban is now legal. There is no right to privacy in the Constitution that applies to a woman's right to choose, which the voters put into the Constitution in 1980. So they invalidated that law and then said, but we're going to let the voters weigh in one last time. So this is it for Florida. Right. This is the seminal moment in 2022. Right. We had a governor win his reelection by 19 points. Right. one last time. So this is it for Florida, right? This is the seminal moment. In 2022, right, we had a governor win his reelection by 19 points, right? I mean, that, quite frankly, may have been the death of the modern Democratic Party here in Florida. But this gives a little revival. If this can pass, right, and this can get voters out, then maybe the Democratic Party has some life. But if this doesn't hit 60%,

and we now have a six-week abortion ban here as the law of the land in Florida, then the Democratic Party here is the Titanic. It has hit the iceberg, and it's on its way to the sea floor for a very long time in Florida. Let's talk about the data, right? Talk about Joe Biden as re-elected. Look up at the data. Republicans now outnumber Democrats in the state by over 800,000 registered voters. Just five years ago, Democrats outnumbered Republicans by almost 100,000 registered voters. So we've had this huge change since COVID. So that data matters. Before this change, Donald Trump won the state by three and a half points. So now that we have even more Republicans here, you think that would favor Donald Trump even more. But now we have both marijuana and a woman's right to choose on the ballot simultaneously. Who is that going to bring out

from both sides, pro and con? So look, I think the issue is really a jump ball. What it may require is it may require Donald Trump to spend more What it may require is it may require Donald Trump to spend more time in Florida, and it may require Donald Trump to spend some money in Florida that he would otherwise not have to defend because this is going to be so unpredictable. Well, that helps Joe Biden in Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, and Arizona. So Florida isn't just about Florida. I think Florida helps expand the map for Joe Biden everywhere. Let me ask you also about Israel. There's the killing of the aid workers, the World Central Kitchen, just a tragic story. You've obviously been a big supporter of the

president's, I think you graded him a 10 out of 10 on Israel. Even those of us who are sympathetic to Israel, I think are starting to have some concerns about Bibi's prosecution of the war. What's your sense of the state of play right now? Well, listen, I've always been an and-and when it comes to this war, not an and-or. And what I mean is that I've always believed that as a result of the heinous attacks on October 7th, Israel has a right to eliminate Hamas. That is part of Israel's right to defend itself, is to get rid of Hamas, a terrorist organization, aggressor that has said, by the way, we're going to do multiple October 7th if we get another opportunity. And at the same time, they have to make sure that they're following

international laws of war and making sure they're getting humanitarian aid into Gaza for the innocent Palestinians. That's my end to end. It's not eliminate Hamas or it's eliminate Hamas and make sure we're taking care of the innocent Palestinians. But we have to be honest, right? It's an open war zone, right? And so what happened with the World Food Kitchen, and I know Jose Andres is unacceptable. No doubt about that. It's unacceptable. But it's also war, right?

And yeah, mistakes are going to be made. I mean, are you telling me when we did the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan that we didn't accidentally kill a lot of people? I mean, go back and research that. The Iraq war was a mistake, obviously, though, from the start. But also we targeted things that were wrong. I mean, it's horrific. Horrific. And those families that are affected are now broken forever.

And so Israel needs to go back, and they need to look and double and triple and quadruple their efforts to make sure that something like that never happens again. And if they're unsure before they target something, they need to pause. Okay. Because yeah, the world is watching, but this is not a genocide, right? All of that gobbling gook is garbage. Okay. It is a horrific war where a lot of innocent people have been caught in the middle between Hamas and Israel, because let's be clear, Hamas will sacrifice every innocent Palestinian to win the PR war, which is why the leader of Hamas is worth $5 billion. I mean, what product did he develop that he's on the 400 list?

Disgusting. Okay. But look, there are elements within the hardline Israeli government, right, that say things all the time that don't line up with American values. I'm for a two-state solution, right? I don't think Gazans should be, you know, have to leave Gaza, right? And so we have to figure out how Hamas gets eliminated and how we bring this war to an end and then start the rebuilding process. What Hamas has brought on the people of Gaza, it is so unbelievable that, quite frankly, where we are today, that Hamas in the press and in the PR has gotten away with what they've brought on the innocent Palestinians, right? All the blame goes towards Israel. And we got to remember that Hamas gambled with Palestinian lives when they went and killed 1,200 Israelis, innocent Israelis, not military. The largest killing of Jews since the Holocaust. That was a huge gamble to go and commit a mission like that. They're now realizing that as a result of that, Gaza has been mostly destroyed,

and it's horrible and horrific, and it should never have happened. But this is where we are, and we got to figure out, obviously, how we bring it to an end. Thank you for that clear-eyed, unapologetic statement. I wish we had more time. I want to talk about the anti-Semitism stuff. There's one thing you're working on, though, that I just don't think gets enough attention. You have a bill up when it comes to the insurance crisis this country is facing. I live in New Orleans. You're in Florida. Insurance rates are skyrocketing. California, lots of places due to climate change. What is the bill? What are you guys looking at doing? Right. So what it does is the reason rates are rising is reinsurance. And these insurance companies are buying reinsurance

for the one in 1,000 year event, right? In addition to the one in 150 year event, like a hurricane or a one in 100 year event. And the reinsurance for a one in 1,000 year event is very expensive. And they're passing that cost off to the consumer. So what this bill would do is it would allow states to opt in and get bonds, to float bonds to pay for the one in 1,000 year event so that insurance companies don't have to buy reinsurance for the one in 1000 year event so that insurance companies don't have to buy reinsurance for the one in 1000 year event. And it doesn't add anything to the deficit. It's not going to cost taxpayers any money. And I think this will bring rates down

by about 25%. We need to do in the property insurance market, what we've done in the health insurance market. I just want to do it in a way that we're not adding to the deficit. Do you have any Republicans with you? Are there any Republicans with you? Well, right now, no bills are moving in Congress at all. Just generally speaking, though, is there anybody that's with you on this? Well, I think what's happening is that this is a Florida issue that's now moved to New Orleans, to Louisiana, that's now moving to California. And once this starts becoming the seminal issue in governor's races in those states, this is going to become a bipartisan issue. I'm not someone who believes all the government has to solve anything here. But if we keep doing what we're doing, people are not

going to be able to afford to live in the same home they've lived in. And you're going to make people leave. That is where the American dream starts to no longer become a reality. If we allow this insurance market, like what happened in health, where people were losing their houses to pay health insurance. If people start losing their homes because they can't afford to live there, then we're failing the American people. Totally agree with that. Congressman Moskowitz, you're doing a wonderful job. Thank you for your work on the oversight hearing. I want to get you back. We're going to talk about Parkland, gun violence, anti-Semitism, a lot of stuff. You're doing great work in Congress. Thanks

for being on the Borg podcast. Thanks, Tim. Appreciate it. Florida Man attempts to sell baby to Pug. That's Florida Man. For throwing an alligator through a drive-thru. Big news from Florida today. All right, we are back with another Florida Man.

Mark Caputo, first time on the Bulwark Podcast, right? I believe so. I did one other podcast. Yeah, not the Bulwark one. Not the main one. Not the daily. Not the. The Bulwark Podcast.

We have a whole network of podcasts, which we're grateful for you to be on. Mark has a new newsletter, Magaville, which is phenomenal. If you want to know what's really happening in Magaville. Some of you might not want to know what's really happening. And might want to be blissfully unaware. And I'm sympathetic to that. But if you are interested in what is happening in the warped mind of Donald Trump and his advisers, Mark Caputo can get inside their minds. He writes about it for us weekly.

And I want to talk about his latest newsletter. But first, as a fellow Florida man, somebody that's covered Jared Moskowitz for a while, he's an interesting guy. He's not your average run-of-the-day congressperson. Okay, so tell us about him and what you think is creating this kind of wheels-off, Democrat, no-bullshit persona. Well, I mean, he is a Florida man. And in addition to that, he cut his teeth, politically speaking, in the Florida House as a Democrat, where they're just vastly outnumbered by Republicans, and they are sort of trained in're just vastly outnumbered by Republicans. And they are sort of trained in the arts of being good bomb throwers. And he's been an

excellent bomb thrower. And now he has a sort of national stage. And one of the things that's really not talked about a lot in relation to Jared Moskowitz is that one of his friends from Tallahassee is one of the ultimate bomb throwers on the other side. It's Matt Gaetz. Weird world, baby. Strange Benfellows. And I'm going to get in trouble for saying this because he probably doesn't want me to say it, but my favorite quote from Jared Moskowitz about Matt Gaetz is, I tell my wife that Matt Gaetz is my daytime friend, not my nighttime friend. But Moskowitz is just kind of very sharp, very funny. He's always been that way. Another Florida man, Mike Grunwald, who I used to work with, had said that Moskowitz inherited the Barney Frank mantle

of sort of the funny Jewish guy in Congress. And so there you go. And now, of course, Moskowitz replied that when I mentioned this to him, that he was actually didn't want to be remembered that way because he didn't want to be known as just a short Jewish guy. Well, I think he's being known by more than that. He has been by far the Democrats' best, you know, counterpuncher, if you will, during these impeachment hearings. We got into that a lot. He also is a genuine person. One thing we didn't have a chance to talk about, but I hope that, you know, I'm going to put this in the show notes. People should go listen to the interview I did with Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter died in the

Parkland shooting. And Fred and Jared are longtime personal friends. And the way that Fred talked about him was really, really moving, honestly. And so folks can go listen to that. But, you know, Jared is passionate, you know, he's funny, but passionate, right? And he's been a big advocate on this sort of, on gun issues and related issues. Well, Parkland was his district. I think he might have even gone to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, Moskowitz, that is. I'm not quite sure of that, but that is his district. And he was closely involved with the first ever gun control legislation passing in Florida by a Republican-controlled Florida legislature.

And that was in part because of Moskowitz's involvement. Because despite being a partisan bomb thrower and kind of acid-tongued what he wants to be, he also knows how to get things done and work with people on the other side. Again, he is personal friends with Matt Gaetz. And you saw him not only do that with gun control legislation in Florida, but also one of the rarities for Ron DeSantis, who doesn't get more reactionary Republican in Florida politics than DeSantis. Moskowitz was his emergency management director for two years, which is he was the only Democrat that was in DeSantis administration at that level. And he had headed up of all things COVID response. So go figure. You can see why he tickles my back a little bit. A bomb thrower who also is a compromiser. Okay. These are very Tim Miller-y traits. Last thing on Moskowitz, I

noticed, it's hard not to notice during our interview, unapologetic on the pro-Israel advocacy. And, you know, at a time where obviously there's a lot of agita about that on the left from the progressive base, no mealy mouth, no weasel, you know, nothing. Like he has a strong position that Israel should be able to defend itself after that horrific terrorist attack. And, you know, did not seem to show any, you know, interest in any sort of political pandering on that. Well, one of the things that you can say about Florida and Florida politics is this is not a very progressive state. He comes from a very Jewish district. And one of the realities of a lot of the different communities that we have here is that there

are communities that have their own heritage of trauma. You have the Cuban community that's here that has that. But you also have the Jewish community here that's like that. I grew up in South Florida. I grew up in Key West, which is not Miami. But I remember as a kid, when you would go to the mall here, you sometimes have to pack up and drive a number of hours to the mall, you would see people with the tattoos of the concentration camps

still on their forearms. This travels with that community. And Jared Moskowitz is a son, a grandson of this community. And if they are attacked, if Israel is attacked, they're going to be 110% with Israel. So while it might surprise people in other States,

doesn't surprise me given his district, given his dad, Mike Moskowitz, may this memory be a blessing. He's gone now, was a major Democratic donor, but was also known as a major AIPAC donor. And when you started to see the progressive movement adopt more pro-Palestinian leanings, in Florida, you started to see Moskowitz, Mike Moskowitz, was much more of a leading and active voice in fighting against that in his own party. Indeed. Okay. I want to get into your newsletter. You're on the front end of this. Obviously,

we have the Florida, you know, the ruling now that will be a ballot initiative. We talked about that with Congressman Moskowitz. What I want to hear from you about is how Trump world is thinking about this. You wrote about this earlier this week, how Trump calls abortion the A word. He won't really, he doesn't have an opinion about this, how they wouldn't weigh in with you with a statement. He said, since your newsletters come out, he said that, you know, he does the thing where like, we'll have a statement about this next week. I think we're still waiting for the healthcare plan that he's been promising next week for like seven years now. So what's the state of play over there? Talk to us about what your reporting showed in the newsletter,

whether there's been any developments in the intervening days. No real developments in the intervening days, but I think the best way to describe Trump's posture on abortion is don't ask, don't tell. It's not something he wants to deal with. Like when you look at the polling, Joe Biden wins on the issue of abortion. Donald Trump wins on the issue of inflation, the economy, or immigration. So obviously, that's what Trump is going to talk about. I think one of the things I didn't get into that story, and maybe I'll get myself in trouble here by just speculating, is that when I interviewed Donald Trump in May of last year, I tried to pin him down on abortion. It was sort of like nailing Jell-O to a wall. Very difficult.

But I thought what was interesting is that the one bit of news I got out of Trump at the time was that he said that the abortion ban, the six-week abortion ban that DeSantis had signed into law was, quote, too harsh. And, of course, the far right and DeSantis jumped all over Trump about this and said, see, he's a liberal on abortion and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But Trump has never backed off of saying that a six-week abortion ban is too harsh. When Florida Supreme Court greenlit this abortion amendment to go on the ballot, they also greenlit, because of a series of legal challenges, DeSantis' six-week abortion ban to eventually go into effect. So I wonder if Donald Trump, the guy who used to consider himself pro-choice in his own words, who's called the six-week abortion ban too harsh, does he go into the voting booth and secretly vote for the abortion amendment, which would legalize abortion in Florida up to the point of viability? I think it's a possibility. It's a great question though.

It is. And one he should have to answer. He literally will have to vote for it. He's a resident. It's not a hypothetical. Right. That's why I was the first one to write about it because I realized like, look, you know, the New York Times had done that story about how privately Trump was sort of floating a trial balloon, although other people describe it differently, with this idea of like, oh, maybe he'll support 15 weeks or 16 weeks, because he said, quote, it's a nice even number, people like that. But it occurred to me that once the Supreme Court, the Florida Supreme Court was

putting this measure on the ballot, Trump no longer had the ability to say, oh, it's up to the states. You know, I don't have to weigh in weigh in. No, you and the 13.6 million other Floridians who are registered voters now are actually going to get to weigh in by bubbling in the yes or no, or who knows, undervoting it. How do you vote? And so far, no answer. It's just, oh, well, it's up to the states to decide. Well, yeah, dude, we know that, but you're in one of the states that will decide it. So how are you going to decide? But again, thinking about how Trump thinks about things, it wouldn't surprise me if he wound up privately voting yes. Now, the real question is, does Nixon go to China, right? Does Donald Trump actually come out and say, yeah, I'm going to vote for the amendment? I totally doubt that.

But it wouldn't surprise me to find out after the fact that he actually filled in yes, because the reality is a six-week abortion ban is pretty harsh. Like a lot of people, a lot of women don't even know they're pregnant. Yeah. So this takes us to the politics of the Florida. I've been skeptical that this will help Democrats that much. And on the margins, I think obviously with turnout and all this, I think there are a lot of Donald Trump voters. A lot of people don't understand that there are a lot of Donald Trump voters out there that are pro-choice and pro-Donald Trump and that they will see no conflict in voting for this ballot initiative and for Donald Trump on the ballot. Is there an opening, though, at all for Dems in a

state where they've just tanked in the past half decade to try to, you know, pin this on Trump, to try to peel off some of those voters that have been in his coalition because of the threat, like a very real threat that if Donald Trump is president and Mike Johnson is the Speaker of the House, and depending on what happens in his ballot initiative, there could be a massive curtailing of abortion rights in Florida. Is that an opportunity for Democrats at all? I mean, maybe, but I would think that most people swayed by that are already voting Democrat anyway. I just, I just, I find it hard to believe that there are sort of like hardcore pro-choice voters, so to speak, and

hardcore Donald Trump voters. I think they exist on the margins, but I mean, it's, we're talking handfuls of people that would be hard to find. I mean, by and large, you know, the Biden campaign had put out this memo saying Florida is winnable. That's a statement of possibility, not probability. You know, technically Utah is winnable for Joe Biden. Kansas. Right. Yeah, exactly. Who knows? Kansas is more of a swing state right now than Florida, because I think they have a Democratic governor, right? We don't. But I just don't see it. Florida has had a history of voting for left-leaning constitutional amendments and right-wing politicians. Like we did minimum wage in 2004, and we elected or reelected George W. Bush as president. And then

in 2016, there was constitutional amendments about minimum wage and medical marijuana. Those passed 2010 when Donald Trump won and Marco Rubio won reelection. 2010, there was an anti-gerrymandering amendment. That passed and Rick Scott, Marco Rubio were elected to office. So, yeah, so basically, if you're a conservative in the state with more libertarian views or even some sort of left-leaning social policy, you get the best of both worlds. I get my right-wing politician and I get my more progressive policy at the same time. It is not inconsistent to say that people are not going to dim some of this and take a little bit of that and a little bit of this. All right. You don't need to give us candy just for no reason at the end. You don't need to give any Democrats listening any false hope, but just is there any green shoot here? Donald Trump

might having to spend some money here, maybe some certain districts where this issue being at the forefront might help Democrats or are they staring down just another kind of Florida morphing into Alabama type election here in front of us? Ryan Tyson, who was Ron DeSantis' pollster, whose polling has consistently been the most excellent in Florida and accurate. I mean, he's predicted and shown me things that everyone said was ridiculous and wound up being true. Right now, his models have Trump plus 10. And that is just hard to see. Now, maybe Ryan's wrong. Maybe the trend lines are wrong. Maybe things are going to change. I mean, the main problem that Democrats have had in the Biden years, especially, but it's not just Biden, is they haven't done the fucking work.

Like, Florida naturally imports Republican super voters. Who comes here? Like, rich, white people who don't want to pay taxes. Those people, like, the second they get here, they're registering to vote and they're voting early and often. This is why Texas is going to flip before Florida, in my opinion, because who moves to Texas? Young families looking for jobs in Dallas, Austin, Houston. That's who's moving to Texas. And those folks are going to be gettable for Democrats.

And that's different than retirees. Yeah, that's true. We have that too, though. Like, I mean, we're a fast- Not as much. Not as much. That is true. We're a fast growing state. But my point was that you have to do, especially on the left, the work to get that working class coalition to turn out. You have to do the work to get those poor voters, not only to register to vote, but to cast their ballots. And the Democrats haven't done that. They haven't

invested the money. And that's in part because consultants don't make money off of voter registration drives. And it's also been difficult to organize around Joe Biden. He hasn't been that inspirational of a figure, charitably speaking, to get people to be like, yeah, I want to sign up with the Democrats. You had that with Obama. Steve Shale. You know, you didn't have that. Duvall, man. Steve Shale wrote a great bulwark piece about exactly this topic. We'll also put that in the show notes if people want to really dive deep on why the Democrats have struggled in Florida by not doing the work. That is wonderful.

Mark Caputo, brother, welcome to the bulwark. Thank you for the insight and, you know, for putting me on a text with Jared Moskowitz so we could have his fiery takes on the podcast today. And we'll be talking to you again soon. Thank you, man. I appreciate it. Florida man, Mark Caputo. Thanks very much. We'll be back here tomorrow with, you know, just a little light podcast about authoritarianism. We'll see you then. Where rebel flags meet Mickey Mouse. Down where the Wild West meets the dirty side.

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