The Bulwark Podcast - Sarah Longwell, Jonathan V. Last, and Jonathan Martin: A Disaster

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

The Secret Pod makes an emergency appearance to work through last night's terrible performance by Biden and to urge the Democratic Party to do the responsible thing in this moment. And Jonathan Martin discusses the strategy behind Biden's failed gamble and whether sitting Democrats would actually publicly push the president to leave the ticket. Sarah Longwell, JVL, and Martin join Tim Miller for the weekend pod. show notes: Claire McCaskill on Biden's performance David Frum on the debate Tim's playlist 

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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. Hey guys, usually on Fridays, I'm doing a big weekend interview for you. And we have a secret podcast for Bulwark Plus subscribers that is JVL and Sarah. But because you might have heard we have a very big news day and a lot of important things to discuss, I pulled the secret podcast over onto the main feed. So it's me and JVL and Sarah.

But if you want to support the Bulwark and you want to get pure, uncut JVL and Sarah and you have not done so yet, join the Bulwark plus plus dot the bulwark dot com. All right. Up next, we've got me, JVL and, and then Jonathan Martin of Politico. Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It's Friday, June 28th. And, you know, we had a little change of lineup this morning. We've got the Next Level crew here to respond to what was the worst presidential debate in American history last night. I've got

JVL and Sarah. Hey, guys. Hey, buddy. Hey, buddy. Okay, so we have a lot of I didn't I did the Sarah there. Okay. We have a lot of takes on the bulwark.com this morning, which range from Joe Biden should absolutely drop out to Joe Biden should seriously consider dropping out. So we will get to that. But I think it's important context. Before we talk about to Joe Biden should seriously consider dropping out. So we will get to that. But I think it's important context before we talk about the Joe Biden machinations to talk first about Donald Trump. Donald Trump last night, in my opinion, gave the worst debate performance on substance of any presidential candidate ever, non-Donald Trump category. Maybe Admiral James Stockdale would be the only other one in the game. He defended a riot at the Capitol. He talked about immigrants taking black jobs. He

weirdly attacked his opponent's son for no good reason. He bragged about his golf game. And it was a performance that on a scale of normal politicians, it was like a two on a scale from one to 10. And he promised retribution against his opponent on stage. It was a deeply scary and bad substantive performance, in my opinion. Do you guys agree with that? What do you think about Donald Trump's performance, Sarah? All he did was lie. And I just got out of a focus group. So obviously,

we're trying to focus group this right now. And it was not lost on and these were all Trump voters who are kind of out on Trump. And so this is a category of people that we always talk to, because we view them as persuadable. And so they were very aware that the performance last night by Donald Trump was filled with lies. And in fact, many of them sort of said that he was lying the whole time and that he was saying crazy things. So I last night as I was watching it was like, you know, sometimes people say insane things, but like in a normal tone. And for Donald Trump's saying things in a normal tone allows him to be winning, you know, the expectations game already. And so I was pleased to hear these voters have it not be lost on them that the substance of

what Trump was saying was problematic. Like he wasn't doing anything last night that made these guys be like, wow, this guy's really changed. Like this is a, you know, so that is not where the voters were. And so I think that's good. Right. Another thing I should have mentioned, like he's asked about childcare costs and he's like, the migrants are attacking Wisconsin. You know, he did not engage on the substance. Like multiple times Jake had to be like, the question was about childcare costs, you know, and like you started talking about immigration. So like. To me, this was where Trump was being effective though though, right? Like he's asked about January 6,

he's anything he's asked about, he turns it back to his great economy, the problems with immigration, like his prep was on how to deflect and pivot away from what are massive liabilities. And I think from a, just you and I both know when you are sort of training people for debates, there's often the like satisfy and steer as a tool, right? You're like kind of answer the question only the way a little bit that you want to and then quickly go to the things that are your strengths. And like he was doing that last night and he was doing it effectively, but it's a question of, can people identify the mendacity in there? But to do that,

you have to be sort of read in on some of the substance. JVL. Am I overstating it? No. I mean, Trump was, he does this thing where he is incoherent or he says things that are non sequiturs or he just makes things up uh like for instance illegal immigrants are taking black jobs

black unemployment is at the lowest rate it's been over a sustained period of time in american history right now so what does that even mean right i mean forget what is a black job job but like take the most charitable reading of that, which is just, he means any job currently held. Don't answer that question. No, but like maybe he means any job currently held by, by a black person. Right. Maybe he's not referring like, oh, that's a black job.

He's just saying that job is held by a black person. Let's just pretend that even under the most charitable reading, it's just nonsense. Right. And then, you know, talking about NATO, the parts where actually where he was the weakest and Biden was the best were talking about Ukraine and Russia. And Trump talked about, he said, they, they in this context being NATO, were going out of business before he became president. What does that mean?

It's a fire sale at NATO, selling off the things that aren't nailed down. So it betrays a person who has been president who doesn't actually understand anything about how the world works. But as Sarah said, he was reasonable Trump last night. He wasn't. I wrote about this early this week. There are two modes of Trump. There is like the Trump who yells about the sharks and the batteries and stuff. And then there's the,

the reasonable Trump and he did his reasonable Trump. So because he did it in a calm voice, he didn't shout. And because he, he was confined enough that he didn't take digressions that were too long because he only had two minutes at a time. It was a substantively terrible debate performance, but yes was a it was a terrible debate performance but here's the thing i don't this is not me attempting to defend joe biden i don't know how anybody counters that look let's pretend pete budaj is up there right i mean it

just oh my god i'm my dream trump doing Trump thing, and people are okay, right? People are basically okay with the Trump thing, because he just gets great on a different curve than any other figure in politics. That's what I'm getting at there. Sure, he gets great on a different curve, but there was softball after softball he put out there. For somebody that was doing the set this is how we get to the joe biden at this i wanted to talk about trump first for this reason so you've you've transitioned us jbl i reject that i i think i thought donald trump he was only good on performance if you're saying that good is like he didn't like try to bite joe

biden or like lash out at him. The only time he actually emotionally lashed out was when his golf game was criticized, which in itself, I think is something you might have been able to observe if you're a deft counterparty. You know, he gave opportunity after opportunity. Andrew Egger brought this up in the morning shots this morning, like the Joe Biden answer on abortion compared to Kamala Harris's on CNN later, like there were plenty of ways to counter. It doesn't mean that Trump is going to go down to zero or that he wasn't going to get graded on a curve or that wasn't unfair. You know, as David Frum wrote in the Atlantic very aptly, like it was a total indictment on this whole system that Donald Trump is allowed to stand up there and get treated like granted all that. Like, yeah,

he gets graded on a curve. Yeah. But he still, even on the curve, was horrific substantively last night. And his counterparty, Joe Biden, was utterly incapable of making a single coherent point against him. A single one. Agree. And people are like, the Barack Obama debate was bad. Like on a scale of all, zero to 100. Like Mitt Romney got a 92. Barack Obama got a 71. Donald Trump got a 35. Joe Biden got a zero last night on debate skill performance. He went up against somebody that offered him plenty of opportunities, and he can't do it. He couldn't do it. Do you disagree with that, JVL? Is that

an incorrect assessment of Joe Biden's performance last night? I agree with it completely. Nobody has been, I said this in the post show last night, I've been very high on Joe Biden from like the minute he declared his candidacy in 2019. You know, I thought he was a very good candidate in 2020. I think he's generally been an exceptionally good president since then. And he has, you know, like given a bunch of good speeches as recently as the State of the Union. And last night was the single worst performance ever on a presidential debate stage, maybe including primaries. I think it was the single worst public performance politics or non-politics in the mass media era people who want to wave aside this and be like you know look but i'm still voting for joe but sure i'm still voting for joe biden too yes to blind

yourself to how catastrophically bad last night was is unwise i think think. And now maybe, maybe it doesn't matter. Like maybe two weeks from now, the polling hasn't moved and everything is basically the same. And maybe, you know, maybe in the long run, Joe Biden's able to roll a couple of double sixes and he wins the, you know, he stays in the race and he, he said those things are all possible. Right. But just evaluating what we saw last night, if you're not troubled by that, then I don't know what to say. I just don't know what to say. Because if you look at that and like, yeah, no, it was okay. Like, was he sick? Sure. Yeah, great. I'm sick too. I get it. And was CNN terrible? Yes, CNN was terrible, right? Well, did Trump just lie? Yes, all Trump did was

lie, right? Biden's performance was the sum of all fears it was what everybody has always on on the pro-democracy side has all you know all the the grabbing onto the arms of the chair every time he right and up to this point right we've always grabbed onto the arms of chair and then like he's done it and we've all been okay last night was was the nightmare and if you're not prepared to grapple with that then i don't know again i don't know what to say because i don't understand i don't understand yeah sarah so i want both your take on this and what you heard from the focus groups i would i will qualify offering a one-person focus group my very best friend in

the world does not like politics, doesn't watch politics. We don't talk about politics. He never texts me about politics. He watched for five minutes last night. He was horrified. It was like, you know, somebody coming in clean, your non-paying attention voter looks at that and is like, what is happening? How is this real? I'm curious your take on it, Sarah, and then whether you have there any green shoots from the from the voters you've talked to? Well, let me let me back up for a second. So last night, I watched the debate at the Aspen Ideas Festival. So I'm out here in Aspen. So it's on stage with average people. Well, yeah, it's a bunch of a bunch of Democrats, right? A bunch of I mean, as best I could tell, these are Joe Biden's people. These are wealthy

people who came to Aspen who wanted to hear about ideas and talk politics. And we all watched the debate together. And look, they were jeering at Trump when Trump would lie, like the, you know, and scoffing and things like that. But also like people were in pain in the room. And I'll tell you what, so was I. Because I knew we did like a pre thing. And in my pre, we had 30 minutes, you know, the panel. And it was me and Celinda Lake, who's a Dem pollster,

Mike Madrid, who's one of the early Lincoln Project guys who then does like- He was on the pod a couple weeks ago. Yeah, so he does this. Yeah, okay. And then Eddie Glaude Jr. He's on Morning Joe all the time. Okay, so, and Jonathan Capehart was moderating on Morning Joe all the time. Okay. And Jonathan

Capehart was moderating. So we did our upfront, what are we looking for? And I said the thing that I've been saying on these pods the whole time, Biden needs to look alive, right? Biden needs to go on offense. Biden needs to be able to go on offense. If he can do that, then these double haters, the main thing people are worried about is his age. He's got to absolve them of that fear. And he didn't. And I watched the opening of the debate and saw how he looked from the jump, how his voice sounded. And pretty early on, I thought, it doesn't matter what he says, because I can't understand it. And neither can anybody else. He was talking too fast. He was clearly jammed with facts as though he was debating somebody else on the merits and substance of policy and not a madman who was going to lie

the whole time. That early part where he was trailed off and then just said, Medicare. And so I watched this. I knew pretty quickly, okay, this is it. This is really, really bad. And I knew I was going to have to get back up on stage after I had just made this big bull case, the bull case for Biden and what he needed to do and how he was going to do it and how it was going to turn this race around. And I got up and I basically said to people like, I can't, I have a job. I have a job that I want to do. My job is to beat Donald Trump. I am not in the electing Joe Biden business. I'm in the beating Donald Trump business. And we can't solve a problem without being honest about the problem that is in front of us.

And we all just watched. And I was like, we all watched the same thing. Then Linda Lake and Mike Madrid both kind of tried to spin it. Like, yep, wasn't good, but this is about Trump. You make it about Trump. And I was just, I mean, we argued about it on stage. I was like, absolutely not. Here's the thing. I have been gaslit by the Republican Party now for a long time about Trump.

I am not going to let people gaslight me into saying that what I just saw last night isn't what I saw. Because that debate performance didn't just open up questions about, can we elect Joe Biden? It's opening up a lot of questions about like, can Joe Biden do this job? Especially in five years. Yeah. And nobody thinks that. And listen, I was in this room of Democrats and I was saying what I thought was true. I told them, I owed them my best analysis and not spin. And my best analysis was that I have not wanted to play fantasy politics. I have not been in the Joe Biden needs to step aside. Once it was him, I was like, what are you going to do?

And look, I wanted him not to run again. I was very clear on that for a really long time. But once it was him, I said, okay, we're all just going to have to get there. But you know what? Last night, we have to figure something out. Where was the room on it? How did the room break down? They were with me.

They were with me. Yeah. I mean, like, Mike Madrid kind of did a little bit of, like, a creed of core. Like, there's nothing to do but grab our swords and, like, be on offense. And, like, people were like, yeah, like, I need that. You know, I need some hope here. But, like, people were also like, what, can we do something? Like, there was a lot of people who were just like panicked at it.

You talked to some actual voters this morning? I did. I do want to get back to what Joe Biden should do, but I'm curious. I'm open to the possibility that every single person texting me and messaging me on Instagram and calling me and DMing me is wrong. People who didn't go to college or whatever saw a different thing than I did. Did you see any hope of that in your focus group this morning? I said this before, my green shoots are this, that listening to those voters, they didn't be like, oh, again, Trump voters who were kind of out on Trump after January 6th, you know, don't like

him. And they weren't like, oh, I thought Trump was great. No, I feel great voting for him. I'll tell you what it did do though. The people who had been leaning Biden over Trump were off of him. They were talking about being embarrassed. I mean, there was words like embarrassed. It was words like, you know, sick to my stomach. You know, I can't believe this is the best we can do. And look, they weren't mean to Biden. They were just like, Biden's cognitively can't do it. Biden's cognitively not there. And that was it. That was all they were saying. And look, they don't think Trump's fit. They were clear that Trump was lying. Trump was BSing. Trump wasn't answering the questions. Like even more so

than maybe I thought they were onto Trump, but they did not think Joe Biden could do it. And they were all more third party curious or a bunch of them were saying they just leave it blank or not vote. Like they're just like, can't do it. I mean, it was embarrassing. I don't know. I mean, JVL is a teenager, so I don't know. Maybe you have some thoughts on how to teach. Like, how do you, how do you show that to a teenager and be like, America is really great. This is, these are the guys that we have that are going to be the president. And it was embarrassing. And it wasn't just the performative.

There's almost no point in talking about Joe Biden's performance on the figure skating side of things because it was literally just like falling down on the ice. I mean, there was no point in discussing the performative part. The substantive part was bad. He did not make coherent substantive cases. He would got stuck in the mental cul-de-sacs. He got to ask about abortion. He starts talking about migrant death, but not even in a way that makes sense. You know, occasionally he would make, he'd have like three good sentences and he'd be like, okay, all right. Like he's making some good here on nato or january 6th but then he'd start talking about something else and then i i mean you're right jack it's like the transcript is as bad as watching it was and so like this is what crystal wrote about this morning it's like i don't think that joe biden has dementia

but i also like how do you look at that person and say that if there is a crisis in this country if there is some sort of crisis in the year 2028 like let's say there's a somebody threatens to nuke us there's a cuba missile crisis in the year 2028 that that guy is up for it and if the the response is, well, I'll have good people around him, Trump won't, Kamala will be there. It's like, well, then let's just fucking have Kamala or one of the people around him run. Let's have Tony Blinken run for president. That is the reality. And this is why I'm frustrated with some of the wagon circling that we're seeing this morning. And part of it is like, I think that going into last night, I was deeply rooting for Joe Biden, he needed to have a great performance. And I wanted him to show the country he could do it.

And if he had done that, that's what we'd be talking about today. But what we saw last night, the idea that we can just run away from it, I think is malpractice. And I've been fighting with Bill about this, or Bill Kristol, but like, here's one of the things the focus group members were saying that I think is exactly right. They were like, it's not about age. They were like, I don't know, I know 82 year olds who are super with it. And that's fine. They were like, they're both old, but like, Joe Biden doesn't seem like he can do it. And that's what they all said. They were like, they're both old, but like Joe Biden doesn't seem like he can do it. And that's what they all said. They were, they weren't even being mean. They were just like, it's not really about age. It's about what you can do. And he can't do it. The wagon circling is a disservice

to everybody. Like Joe Biden has to, this is my honest, I think he has to do what is best for this country. And what is best for this country is that he steps aside, releases the delegates. I don't know all the legal machinations, but like, I think he can, there are ways to get around Kamala. And I think they should. JVL, I just want your take because the response to this is, okay, Tim, yeah, it was horrible. He was terrible. But like, he's been a good president for four years there isn't any reason to have concern about a crisis four years from now because joe biden's done a good job i i that's cope right or is there something is there something to that i am slightly different from bill and i think you on this i don't have much of concern about biden's ability to govern

over the next four years at age 86 at age 86 I mean I I think it's likely to be fine my concerns are strictly political here is here's the problem we can be concerned but ultimately we have no agency here because it's it's his decision and if he decides not to step aside like then i'll go so what do we do you know and then the answer is i think you you make the case for biden as truthfully as possible and i say yeah i i honestly do and this is the first time ever that I have looked at it and thought, all right, maybe he should step aside. Because Sarah and I have had this discussion three dozen times over the course of the last two years. And Sarah would say, got to step aside, big Gretch or Warnock or Josh Shapiro. And I would say, there is no evidence that any

of these people would be faring any better. And I am open to the possibility that if Biden took your advice, our advice and stepped aside this afternoon, I am open to the possibility that whoever winds up replacing him on the ticket would wind up doing worse come November 3rd than Biden would have come November 3rd. I think that is possible. But at the same time, this is the first time I've looked at this and thought, no, maybe the better percentage play here is for Biden to step aside. And if I'm saying that, again, I don't understand who who looked at last night and wouldn't say that right like the people have to talk to him like people around him and this is what i wrote in

the article this morning about joe and joe need to have a family talk but mike donald needs to have a talk with him and ron clain and i'm deeply concerned that everything that i've heard is that that inner circle won't do it and what I am saying to those people is that you have a patriotic duty to at least talk it through, like, and to at least be honest with us about what he's capable of and what a path forward is. Because like, just saying like, oh, you guys are bedwetting and oh, you have to vote for Joe Biden anyway. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I'll vote for Joe Biden anyway. If Joe Biden is nominated next month in Chicago, this podcast will be three months talking about how we need to elect him anyway.

And he will have good people around him and Trump will have crazy people around him. And it's an existential threat and it's not a great choice, but it's the choice we have to make, obviously. But there's a choice now. And these guys have to at obviously but there's a new there's a choice now and these guys have to at least talk like i'm gonna be very fucking pissed at ron clean and mike donald and anita dunn and all these people if they don't at least have a serious talk about this right of course that's crazy yeah this is this is a moment where again i think I think the Democratic Party in general, not universally, but in general, the Democratic Party's response to Trump and Trumpism and Trump's authoritarian attempt has been very good. They haven't played perfect baseball. But in general,

they've been very good. Their response was to move towards the center, not towards the left. Nancy Pelosi, I think, conducted herself very well as speaker during the Trump years. Biden adopted a path of looking forward to be bipartisan and all that. The Democratic Party needs to continue to be good and responsible in this moment. And part of that means the party leaders need to have very serious conversations about this and can't just do the fallen line. Look, I mean, again, it's not up to them. If Biden decides not to, and as Sarah says, he's nominated, then at that point, they got to grab the sword and go out or whatever. But there is still time. Yes. You're watching everybody do this thing. I'm

watching everyone do this thing. Even, even the folks last night were kind of doing it. They were like, Biden needs to say this. And they were all like, you know, putting their words in and, and, and they're, they're basically being, and Trump has all these liabilities and they're ticking off Trump's liabilities. And I'm like, yes, Donald Trump is an extremely flawed candidate. The fact that anybody's not beating him by 20 points is a deep mystery. He's a convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, an all-around bad person with terrible policies and a terrible character. You have to have a candidate who can prosecute that case.

The fact that last night, with all of Trump's many liabilities, Democrats seem to be coping by attacking Trump and listing all the vulnerabilities he has, fine. You need a candidate who can make the case of those vulnerabilities. And last night, I'm not going to give the moderators any shit because they moderated a perfectly clean debate. It's on Joe Biden to fact check Trump. It's on Joe Biden to push back. Like that's what the debate is. The moderators, look, do I wish that we had a quick fact check function? But that's not what's going to happen. You say there's no mechanism for someone like Trump. That's not true. There is. The mechanism is that there is an opposing

candidate who can call him a liar and can effectively adjudicate that case publicly. And I think Pikachu Buttigieg would have done that. And I think Josh Shapiro could have done that. And I think Gretchen Whitmer could have done that. I think the idea that with his immense vulnerabilities, people can make the case against him. We will continue to make the case against him. That's all we're going to do, right? I'm in the business of making sure people understand Trump's liabilities, but like, you got to have a candidate who can make that case a little bit. The subhead of Frum's piece in The Atlantic,

which I'll put in the show notes I've referenced, is the whole, you know, the debate was a travesty because the whole premise was to treat a failed coup leader as a legitimate candidate for the presidency again. I agree with that. Like, there have been a million failure points before last night, right? Every responsible Republican, the news media,

the fucking justice, Merrick Garland. I like, know we could we could go down a whole list of people that like how are we here where we're treating this guy like a normal candidate he should be in jail yes agree but okay now we're here like there was not a single maybe i'm wrong if you're even on a biden stan tiktok account he did not do a single sentence that was good like there was not a single attack on donald trump across like his most vigorous attack on trump was on the golf scores it doesn't matter but like biden was also wrong about that like they like biden had to like retract his handicap whoa all right jvl do you have anything on the cnn side of it yeah i would just say i would just say

go back and look at the the trump biden debates in 2020 and biden cleaned the floor with him and biden did this very effective stuff where he would sort of look straight to camera and talk to people and to his folks folks well you know and and what we saw last night was categorically different. It was categorically different. It was, again, you can't polish this. All right, so let's go. So there's the process of how it would work to get rid of him, and then there's the question of what he could do if we end up with Biden.

So let's do the first one first. There are ways around Kamala, but not really, is really the short of it. It's about the convention delegates now. Joe Biden has all the 90% of the convention delegates. They're not bound. So there could be some sort of floor effort. I lived through that in 2016. If Joe Biden is like, it's really hard to imagine how you get 50% of delegates in a hostile attack on Joe Biden on the floor if he's in there. So Joe Biden has to step aside. I assume he runs out his presidency. There are a lot of awkward conversations there. If you can't run, why are you still, do you resign the presidency? But there's not time to nominate a vice president.

So he probably stays in the presidency. And he could endorse somebody. It would be very challenging not to endorse Kamala Harris. And then if not, then you go to a convention floor fight, like it's the 1970s, and other people could put their hat in the ring. But it becomes very, I think, just as a practical matter, you don't really have time for real campaign. I mean, maybe the DNC could host a debate. Maybe you have a DNC debate the day before in Chicago or something. But I think it becomes very challenging to pass on a vice president that's the first black woman vice president at that point.

I mean, like something would have to be. It's hard for me to even imagine the scenario, but go ahead, try to paint it. Okay, so here's what has to happen. People have to understand that Joe Biden can't do it. And Kamala Harris can't be the person. Both of them have to, I reject the second point, but go ahead, but continue. You think Kamala can do it? I mean, Kamala would not, if Joe Biden had dropped out in 2022, would Kamala have been the horse I would have ridden? No. Okay. Like probably not. But But Kamala is capable of doing a campaign against Donald Trump. Kamala can criticize Donald Trump. Kamala can give a speech. Kamala can go in hostile interviews.

I reject that. She's totally unacceptable. But I don't think that she's the strongest. And to JVL's point, maybe she ends up doing weaker than Biden. We're in a really bad situation right now. But I think that she would performatively be like a million times better than Joe Biden. Yeah, I could potentially get there on that particular point. My best case scenario is this. Joe Biden steps aside and releases his delegates that Whitmer and Shapiro, some combination thereof, like the governors all get together, all the Democratic governors, and they say, we're going to back, including Westmore,

we're going to back Whitmer and Shapiro. Because here's the thing about one of the main reasons that it's really tough to switch people out. One of the reasons that JVL kind of always put forward as an issue is like, these people don't have name ID. And that is true. Like, they don't have name ID. The average person across the country doesn't know who Josh Shapiro is or who Gretchen Whitmer is or who Wes Moore is or whatever. But who does know who Gretchen Whitmer is? The voters of Michigan, one of the key swing states. Who does know who Josh Shapiro is? The people of Pennsylvania who voted for him by a 14-point margin. Gretchen Whitmer won Michigan by a 10-point margin. Two of the key swing states already have really high name ID for those two people. And they are Midwestern governors and they are young. And I think that if all the governors

came out and said, this is who we think should do it. These are excellent candidates. They backed them hard. Like the Democratic Party would have to be unified. And Kamala and Biden would both have to say, okay, like, it would have to be a democratic family decision for the good of the country, and for the best case scenario to beat Trump. And I'll tell you, this is a moment where people have to make a decision that is not about their own ego. I would be very disappointed in Joe Biden, after that, and Joe Biden and everybody else to decide that the best thing for him to do is to continue on. It would be a deeply selfish proposition. And of course, I'll back him. And of course, I'll do everything I can if he does it. But I

think it is wrong. And I think that there is a world in which consensus can be reached behind closed doors. and then people can go out strong with a consensus candidate that people say they're going to back. That's what parties are for. It's the one thing political parties are for. Yeah. And also, just by the way, we're the only fucking system. Not the only, but in most advanced democracies, the parties just choose who the prime minister

is. Like, you know what I mean? Like, this is how things work in other countries this is not like a crazy system anti democratic system right but again i joe biden has the delegates right so he has on him he has to release them a challenge to him i guess is possible i mean you know who the hell knows jvl do you have anything on the convention question? I think there are only two realistic scenarios for Biden stepping down. I mean, in terms of who the nominee is. And in one of those, the nominee is Kamala Harris. I think that's a 90% scenario. And the other, it's Gavin Newsom.

Because Gavin Newsom has already been thinking about this, right? I mean, Gavin Newsom, it is not true that he could plug and play a campaign in the way that Kamala Harris could. But the guy has clearly had this on his brain. If Joe Biden were to step aside, I think we should be realistic that the alternative is unlikely to be Whitmer or Shapiro or any of those people. Unlikely, but we're in uncharted territory. Sure. I'll say I saw Gavin last night. I don't want to betray any confidences, but Gavin, despite the fact that Sarah's mean to him all the time, Gavin is apparently a fan because he recognized me across the room. He gave a very full-throated defense of Joe Biden last night. I think it's kind of hard to get to Gavin, really.

To me, it's like if you're getting rid of Kamala, well, who knows? Again, it would be up to the delegates. Joe Biden would not be able to give his delegates to Kamala. But it's very hard for me in a party that's core base is black women, that they're going to pass over a black woman for a white guy who is her in-state rival. That's just not going to happen. This idea that you can't bypass Kamala Harris, I don't know. I've been listening to voters for years about Kamala Harris, black, white, Latino. I think she probably does better with young people, but I've not heard

black voters be like, oh yeah, I would be furious if, if like people are just like, I don't really see her. I had high hopes, but she's not doing much. I don't think anybody would care. I think people over index on this identity stuff in a way that I don't think is real. Maybe. I also think that though the lobe harver Kamala is like, isn't that how the narrative of this stuff goes?

It's like somebody steps up to the plate. Somebody steps up to the moment and does it. But also, I mean, so she starts with the name ID, right? I mean, it isn't just that, right? It isn't just identity politics. She is the sitting vice president. She has stature and gravitas simply because of that. She has been through national spotlight. She has been through national spotlight she has been vetted fully i'm so happy so there's any so if there's any doubt we've got people being like misogyny it's like this is woman on woman crime it's like sarah's the one that's like ridiculous i've been listening to voters yeah i know i know i'm just teasing i'm not convinced a hundred percent that if we could run like the two timelines one with with Josh Shapiro at the head of the ticket, one with Kamala Harris at the head of the ticket, I'm not convinced that Shapiro does better every single time.

That's all. That's all I'm trying to say. The subtext of a lot of this, the whole time that Bill has been out there being like, we should replace Joe, we should replace Joe, we're going to get Whitmer Warnock. A lot of the subtext of why some of us have been like, no, I don't think that that's going to happen, is because we've believed that it is overwhelmingly likely to be Conville. Maybe not. Maybe it won't be, but it's overwhelmingly likely. And up until 14 hours ago, I was like, that's a worse choice. This morning, I judge it to be a significantly better choice. Not guaranteed to be a better choice, but probably a better choice.

I'm exactly where you are, Tim. Anything else on that, Sarah, before we move on to Joe? I'd be very worried about it being Kamala. I think that what we have seen of her, again, using my eyes, what I have seen of a person performing the job and doing the work publicly, it's been deeply unimpressive. And the voters don't care for her. And this is the thing right now. You might be listening to me right now, listener, and saying, but misogyny, but racism, but the moderators, but whatever. And all of that can be true. I can stipulate every point of it. And the only thing that matters to me is beating Donald Trump and who can beat Donald Trump. And I would just be very concerned that

Kamala can't beat Donald Trump in a way that I think other people can. And you can not like the way that voters judge Kamala, but the fact is that they do. Now, I will say, I think I agree with you guys, though, that because she hasn't been seen a ton, right, if she came out and she did perform, right, she just goes on offense against Trump all day long. Like, I'm for that. If that's the option, I think I'm for that over just letting this thing go. I think I'm willing to roll the dice on it. But I just think if you're going to make a change, there are better options. Let's say Joe Biden stays. What can be done? Our new colleague, Sam Stein, and I sent in my hastily written Joe Biden and Jill need to have a conversation last night. He said to me, it was a good piece, but you should use your expertise. You used to be a comms person. Like if Biden stays, what would he do? And my answer to

that is basically he needs to demonstrate that he's a human and not a robot. And like he needs to demonstrate that he's up for this. The reason why this debate was in June was because his team thought it would allow him to show the American people that he's up for it that didn't work so he's got to go on fox he's got to go out among real people if donald trump's not going to debate him again he's got to find other ways to be in high stakes environments he's got to be off prompter is he capable of doing all that like maybe the answer is the counter to that is he's not capable of doing all that and so the best thing to do is hide him and hope donald trump implodes i don't fucking know but to me it's like if he's capable and he had a bad night he had a cold or whatever then that's what he should do go out among people be with people let them touch him and go on fox and fight

with people maybe that's wrong sarah Sarah, if Anita called you tomorrow, what would you tell her? You know, I do think that there's basically nothing to do, but, and I'll go back to like my fundamentals. The biggest coalition in American politics is not a pro-Joe Biden coalition. It is an anti-Trump coalition. And so I would flood the zone with surrogates who are ready to go on offense against Trump. And I would basically like you need to make the race. So it basically doesn't matter who the candidate on the Democratic side is. Now, I don't believe that to be true, because I do think it matters. I think you have to give people something. But I would just say,

our only position is offense. Our only position is offense. And so we go hard with every person at our disposal. Everyone goes out and just says, Donald Trump is too dangerous. We will all be there to help. There is a great team around him. You got to get Blinken out. You got to get the cabinet out. You got to get everybody, be on a first name basis with them. People understand that a president doesn't do it all themselves. So you have to make the American people aware of and confident in the team around him. That's tough because I think their confidence isn't there on Kamala, but you got to get her out there a ton. You got to let her do the job you think she could do as president. If she was

running, she has to do that as the vice president. She has to become a top effective surrogate and full blown offense against Donald Trump, that's it. And look, that's what I'll continue to do no matter what. I just think about it as a strategist is I will continue to pound Trump's unfitness for that job. But I look through the eyes of the voters last night and they don't think either person's fit. And that's where I just think there's a ton of opportunity. Give them someone they think is fit like the bar is actually not so so high give them someone they think is fit yeah jonathan yeah i mean so if if we're in a world where biden stays as the nominee if he is still able to do it so So last night was a bad night, right?

If last night was just a bad night, then you just got to push him out there, right? And he's got to go hard on it. Exactly what Sarah said. Unless he doesn't have it. There will be more cameras and more eyeballs on Joe Biden's next three appearances than there will have been on

anything that he has done this year besides the State of the Union and the debate. Yeah. So there is an opportunity to do that, I guess, and it shouldn't be on a fucking teleprompter. But if he doesn't have it, then the answer is that it has to become the Democratic Party versus Donald Trump. And as Sarah says with the surrogate, I mean, it really does. And I don't know how you do that. You know, I don't know how you have every single high profile Democrat from Buttigieg to, to Whitmer to Newsom, how you tell all these people like your job for the next five months is to get Joe Biden elected. Drop whatever you're doing right now.

Go out and get on the campaign trail, and we're going to use you as a candidate. I just don't know how that works. Because the other thing is, a lot of these people, if they feel like the ship is going down, why are they going to lash themselves to the mast? Right. And that's that's hard. Look, I can't just say one thing. It breaks my heart. None of the I think a lot of people listening and be like, don't you guys understand how unfair this is?

Joe Biden has done everything we asked for. And the absolutely true. It is deeply unfair that, as you said, Tim, we've had all of these other failures of institutions, failures of people, failures of the American public, which have gotten us to this point. It is wildly unfair that Joe Biden is the one who has to be perfect every single time. But that's also just where we are right now. My friends that work for Joe Biden, if they see this clip, are going to be mad. But that's also just where we are right now. My friends that work for Joe Biden, if they see this clip, we're going to be mad, but that's not true.

Joe Biden had to be a fucking C minus. That's what Joe Biden had to be. A C fucking minus, not perfect. Okay. And he was an F. He was a disaster. And like,

I'm sorry guys, but it's unfair to all of us. There are 330 million people in America, 70 million of them vote for Donald Trump. So fuck them. But there are 260 other million people in this country and it is unfair to them to like continue in a hopeless hubristic campaign that might end the fucking country.

So if he can do it, then show us that he can fucking do it. So if he can do it, then show us that he can fucking do it. But if he can't do it, he has to quit because it's unfair to everybody else for him to stay. All right. Like this isn't about Joe Biden. It's not about Joe Biden. That's right. That's right. And this is where I just, I think the patriotic thing to do is to think about what's best for the country. And I would say again, nobody could have beaten Donald Trump in 2020 from that field other than Joe Biden. God bless Joe Biden.

God bless Joe Biden. God bless him. Now he has got to do the right thing for everybody else. And he could step away and he could bless other candidates. He could, right? A ticket can emerge of governors. Joe Biden can bless it. And like, he could do a great thing. That's a legacy and it would be unprecedented, but he could do it and they would beat Donald Trump.

One other thing. If you're the closest advisor to somebody, I won't name any names, but like some governor. And Joe Biden doesn't do it. Do you go to Chicago? I don't think so. I mean, I don't think this can be a hostile takeover. Yeah, me neither. I think it has to be a Democratic Party decision where everybody gets together. And listen, you need catalyzing events for things like this.

And I think this is need catalyzing events for things like this. And I think this is a catalyzing event. And I think that if the governors were willing to step up and everybody was willing to throw their weight behind them, and Joe Biden was willing to step down, I don't think it's insane. And I think Kamala endorses them too. Everybody has to do the right thing here. And we should, I think it's our responsibility as whatever it is that we do, people who do the analysis to say, come on, guys, you can do this, right? It's not impossible. I think we deal too much in saying like this couldn't happen. Why couldn't it? Here's Hakeem Jeffries. Just now, President Biden is scheduled to speak today around noon, as I understand it, in North Carolina. I'm looking forward to hearing from President Biden. And until he articulates a way forward in terms of his vision for America at this moment, I'm going to reserve comment

about anything relative to where we are at this moment, other than to say I stand behind the ticket, I stand behind the Senate Democratic majority, and of course we're going to do everything that we need to as the House Democrats to win. That's pretty good. I mean, that's the Speaker of the House. And by the way, Hakeem Jeffries would be fucking Donald Trump. Maybe it should be Hakeem Jeffries, who's third in line to the fucking presidency. Maybe it should be Jeffries Harris. That's pretty interesting, because I've been frustrated by the wagon. Like that's not a wagon circle. No, it's being honest about what we just saw and what just happened and leaving the door

open for people to have honest conversations. And you know what, guys, this is what I just want to say. Of course that's happening. Everybody saw it with their eyes last night. Yeah. Like this wagon circling, but like, there's no way that people aren't having some honest conversations behind closed doors. And like, and that was pretty, that's a pretty public leaving the door open to the conversation. My last thing, just so you guys know how terrible my night was,

the MSNBC set was right next to the Fox business set. So at the end of the night, I had to stand there as fucking all of these assholes. I can't even say their names. The worst people in the world walked past me with a smug grin on their face. And I was a big boy. I didn't say anything. And like the fact that I'm not in jail right now is a miracle. And then I came home and stayed up till three 30 in the morning writing that thing. And I was supposed to be on morning Joe at six in the morning and I slept through it. So I had an alarm panic and I had to deal with the smug smile of the worst people in the world last night. So I'm not letting that any of that affect my judgment, which was clear eyed before all of that happened, which was clear

eyed at about 9.07 PM last night. As a matter of fact, it wasn't a great night for Timbo. Okay. We're going to do our best to get this up. Maybe we'll put this up in two parts. And that way we can turn things around quicker. Sarah, any final words? Listen, guys, tell the truth. Everybody should just tell the truth. Okay. And like, let's not pretend things.

Okay. We can still beat this fucking guy. We can still beat him. And the only job is to beat Donald Trump. That's the job. All right. Thanks, JBL and Sarah. Up next, Jonathan Martin. And we are back with my buddy, my fellow New Orleanian, my fellow New Orleans transplant,

Jonathan Martin, Politics Bureau Chief and Senior Political Columnist at Politico, co-author of This Will Not Pass, ominous, Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America's Future. Jay Mart, as they call you. How you doing, bro? The title holds up pretty well three years later here, huh? It does. It does. I was thinking, I was talking to my husband and I was like, who can I have? This is earlier in the week. I was like, who can I have on on Friday that no matter what happens, we'll give real talk, we'll be authoritative, we'll be able to explain to the listener what the stakes were of the debate, what the impact is going to be. I was like, we need to have J-Mart. And then the debate happened last night and I was like,

I wish I would have booked a happy talk person. But Jonathan, you got a new article out this morning talking about how Democrats, Democratic poobahs are responding to what we saw last night. Give us give us a rundown. Well, first, I've always thought Tyler was a discerning, shrewd judge of character. So thanks for having me, Tim. Yeah, I mean, it's sort of last night was sort of a condensed version of what I've heard. You probably heard for the last couple of years, which is Democratic lawmakers, strategists, wise men and women grumble about Biden on background, believe he's too old to run and don't want to put their names on the record saying it.

Now, the difference is that the critical mass of it obviously is substantial. But look, the bottom line is as long as the people who are saying that Biden should drop out are not with a first name of representative, senator, or governor, Biden ain't moving. All the pundits in the world who think Biden should do the right thing, don't cut any ice. This has to be elected officials. Joe Biden cares about folks who have been on a ballot before. And if nobody's going to go public and say it, then they're going to nominate Biden again. So that's the question, Tim. Do Democrats really want Biden to consider dropping out of the race? And if they do, they'll step up and they'll say it on the record. I thought that was a pretty dispiriting part of your piece about halfway

through about how, you know, folks are still kind of saying the same thing on background and not wanting to speak out. I mean, I don't even need people to say Joe Biden should definitely step aside, but at least being honest about what we saw and talking about whether or not there could be some reflection, I think is important. And, you know, we saw some of that Claire McCaskill, who I was with last night, late night. Her first name is former. Her first name is former. Yeah. Yeah. Former senator. Yeah. So it's got to be a sitting senator. Chris Dodd doesn't matter. Yeah. I just think that it's got to be somebody from the current leadership structure of the party that's in office today. And I think the

McCaskill thing got a lot of attention. I think she has real influence, especially with her fellow senators. But I think it's got to come from Democratic electeds. And I think the easiest way that this could happen, and I'm skeptical that it will happen, but if it was to happen, it would be vulnerable Democrats on the ballot this year who speak publicly, and that would obviously give cover to their leadership, who would then at least pretend like they were deferring to the wishes of their most vulnerable members. That's what it would have to be. It would have to be a collective action from the imperial Democrats and the House, Senate,

on the ballot this year. Well, you talk to everybody at the highest level. You're the national political columnist for Politico, so you had to send the text last night. I didn't send the text to my friends in the Biden White House because I don't have to, and I wanted to give them some time to breathe. But forget the senators and congressmen. What do they say?

And Biden keeps a tight circle. There's the Ron Klains and the Ricchettis and the Mike Donald. Do we have any sense today, this morning, what the reaction was from the people that he listens to that don't have Senator before their name? They bet big and lost and that now they have to try to earn back what they lost and that they've got months to do it. Hopefully, Trump will agree to a September debate and they can get back in this thing. And the voters still don't like Donald Trump. That's kind of the best case scenario, right? They're not going to entertain the possibility of dropping out.

Certainly they're not going to confront Biden about dropping out. That would have to be, I think, a combination of pressure from Democratic electeds and then eventually Joe Biden or his family. I just I'm skeptical that's that's going to happen. Tim, you know this. I mean, the bet was we're losing this race. We got to show the electorate that Biden still can throw a fastball and we got to remind the electorate that like Trump is a lunatic. That's the two front war here to mix metaphors. And obviously they come out of the debate last night with the race that's even more of a referenda on Biden than it is choice. So there's no good way for them to spin this. Why did we have the earliest debate in American

history, right? The earliest debate ever before last night was September 23rd. So it's a full three months before the earliest debate we've ever had. Why? Because Joe Biden wanted it to be early. Joe Biden's team wanted it to be early. Why they want it to be early? Not because, as Bill Kristol might think, that it was some deep machination that they knew he was going to faceplant and that they wanted to have an out before the convention. They wanted to

do it early because like you're saying, they thought that Joe Biden could assuage concerns and focus the minds of the voters on Donald Trump and say, okay, he's up for it. Now we have to get serious. This other person we're running against is a criminal lunatic. And like he failed epically on both counts, right? Like the race is not focused on Trump now. And he did not assuage concerns. He exacerbated them. Yeah, no, no, that's precisely it. And they put all the chips in the middle of the table and the house walked away with a whole lot of them. But your point is right. I mean, the best possible news providing coming out of this is the calendar does say June, right? It doesn't say October. So they at least have a chance at recovery. And you know, you hear a lot of this,

you know, maybe the January 6th case can move ahead this fall. Maybe you can get a guilty verdict on Trump on that case before election. I think that's unlikely, but obviously that's also kind of a long shot hope. Look, I think, Tim, the actual best case scenario is that Donald Trump is Donald Trump. And he obviously says and does things that are outlandish and are self-sabotaging of his own prospects. So I'm not sure that Biden can recover, but it's possible that Trump could lose it. So that's what you're hoping for right now, that Donald Trump self-implodes, which is possible. for all of donald trump's personal flaws and weaknesses and failures and etc like what is he gonna do the next four months that's worse than what he's done

already he has some impulse control as we saw last night like he is not an idiot and so why would he debate again what is the thing that would turn it around? I mean, you know, who knows, maybe Biden has a good convention and the polls stay close. And Trump does feel like he has to debate again, because he won so easily the first time he thinks it'll help him. If I'm squinting, like that's the best case scenario, right? Like we're so polarized, the polls stay close, Trump feels like he does need to debate again. Yeah, that's the best case scenario is that Trump impulsively says, I can wipe him out once more. Give me another shot. And that he, you know, gives in against the judgment of his staff and then, you know, shows why the country turned him out four years ago. I just don't think that's very

likely. And Tim, I think you make a central point here, which is the best thing Trump has going for him is that the country is desensitized to so much of his conduct, right? People know who Trump is. It's so priced in. And the hard truth for a lot of people to grasp, Democrats and never Trumpers, is a lot of voters don't give a shit that he's a bad guy and says and does outrageous things, right? They just don't care that much. And that's the hard part to swallow is this is more about the American voter than about Donald Trump. And that's why he's poised to win right now. I want to go back to something you talked about earlier about how you don't think that the inner sanctum of Biden's advisors are going to talk to him about this. I just don't

accept that. I don't understand. I mean, you know, it was what I wrote about this morning, like given the stakes, I'm not even saying I'm definitely for Biden, you know, quitting. I think that there are bad options in front of us. Like the idea that they wouldn't talk to him about it is crazy to me. I like this is the job of being a consultant. I mean, I understand that maybe the intensity of the Klieg light here is a little higher than it was, but I had to sit in a room with Jeb Bush and a bunch of fucking family members of a former president and with a bunch of family members saying, we can still do this, we can still come back. I had to sit there as a 32-year-old and say, I'm sorry, sir. I think it's over. Like, I think we need to talk about the concession speech. Like

I, and it was no hero. I'm not looking for a medal. Like that's just, that is your job. You don't think these people are going to do that? I don't think that the kind of folks Biden wants around him are the people who are going to convey that message. And especially because of the response, what they would get, which is, oh yeah, so what's the alternative? What are we going to do? Are we just going to wave a wand and nominate somebody else?

Kamala is the alternative. Andrew Edgar wrote about this in the newsletter this morning. I don't know how you can look at last night and not think Kamala. Kamala has a lot of problems. Maybe the decision is, oh, the country's too racist and misogynist

to nominate her, and we already tried this with Hillary. We shouldn't. I don't know. Okay. We have bad options, but Kamala would have done way better than Joe Biden last night. Way better. Shameless plug for our book that Alex Burns and I wrote, This Will Not Pass, available on Amazon.com if you want a good July

4th beach read, mountain read, lake read, whatever. but i'll tell you why that the kamala question it wouldn't be taken seriously in the west wing just look at our book because that'll tell you what the view of kamala harris is in the west wing the actual view of her you know and so that's why i don't think that they're gonna seriously uh entertain that question in biden's inner circle you know all right so he stays in i feel i feel like i'm i'm pressing you like you're fucking uh corinne jean-pierre right now like jay mark explain this to me um like what do they do this week they're gonna go on fourth of july vacation

now like what does he do like what does he do to to demonstrate that he is up for this there's an old saying of hang a lantern on your problem in politics. Biden's got to have fun with it. Biden's got to try to diffuse it the best he can. It's like, look, it wasn't my best night to poke fun at Trump and poke fun at himself and then try to move on and say, I had one bad night. This guy gave us four awful years and will give us at least four more terrible years. I don't know if that's going to be enough, but that's obviously what he's

going to have to do in the great pivot. But yeah, this is the other issue, Tim, is that he's not somebody who's 47 years old who can go out and campaign 16 hours a day. He's not going to spend the next three days barnstorming the country, pushing back, right? So, yeah, he's going to the Hamptons tomorrow, I understand, for a fundraiser. What do you think those old Richka folks are going to be saying to him? He does a retail stop in North Carolina Friday and then he'll raise money. Yeah. Can you imagine the kind of damn panic in those circles, the big money circles? I mean, these folks were already alarmed and now it's going to be off the charts. Here's the issue though. I'm not sure what he can say that's going to change it because

so much of this was his appearance and his demeanor and not anything that he said or didn't say. It's just the look from the moment he walks out onto that stage with that gait he has now and to the side-by-side shot of him yeah he said some things that got him into verbal cul-de-sacs that were a bit rough Tim I think the bigger issue is just the appearance and most American voters see the appearance and say no not happening yeah I mean look I agree the appearance is bad but I reject that the substance was good was okay I've had I've had people saying this to me on Twitter, like, look at the transcripts. I'm like, yeah, look at the transcripts. I mean, again, in Morning Shots this morning, Andrew Egger put out a transcript of what Kamala Harris said about the abortion question versus what Biden said.

What Biden said is incoherent. Kamala Harris, was it, you know, the greatest oratory since Daniel Webster? No. But like she can prosecute a case against Donald Trump at least on the topic of abortion on the subject yeah yeah look I I'm not making the case on on I know you're not I'm just saying I'm just saying that like to use a real estate metaphor that when the buyer got to the house to check it out they didn't even get inside to look at the rooms because they were so stuck on the outward appearance of the house to check it out they didn't even get inside to look at the rooms because they were so

stuck on the outward appearance of the house and the termites crawling out of the woodwork before their very eyes yeah and that is true and the tiktok videos are going to be just unimaginably horrible and i have texts from some mutual friends of ours who don't even like politics don't watch politics turned it on for three minutes. They're like, what is happening? It was shocking. The visuals were shocking to people that are not paying attention, to the people that are not listening to the Borg podcast, who only get this stuff remediated through social media. It was shocking for some of those people.

And people who don't like Trump and think Trump has no business in public life, but take a 30 second look at that and say, oh, come on, of course not. All right. I don't want you to out any sources or anything, but so this is not about any internal info you have, but I just want to play a little parlor game with you. If there was going to be somebody that was going to talk in the Democratic elected class. Who is it going to be? Who would it even be? Well, here's somebody who I would put in the top five of House Democrats who would speak out because she has got a knack for speaking her mind, and she comes from a really competitive district in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania,

and that's Susan Wild, who's had a couple of tough races and is in a very competitive district. And I saw that she told Max Cohen over at Punchbowl News this morning that she would only talk about Trump's performance last night. And boy, if somebody like that isn't willing to go on the record about Biden, then I'm not sure who is. That's a very Jay Mardian deep cut of a mid-bench house person. How about somebody the listeners didn't know? Is there anybody the listeners know that will speak out? Absolutely. Obama, Hillary. The flat top nine-finger farmer from Big Sandy,

Montana. John Tester. Everyone knows who John Tester is, right? In the Bullwark audience. Yeah. So John Tester running in a state in which Donald Trump is poised to carry between 17 and 20 points, you know, like, will Jon Tester say, look, Joe's been a friend of mine. He's been a good president, but like, this is not responsible. He'd be the obvious guy to do it. Maybe Sherrod Brown running in Ohio, which is similarly bad, not quite as bad as Montana for Democrats. But Tim, those would be the two Democrats I'd look to in the Senate who are up this year. Just looking at raw political considerations, I don't know how Jon Tester, Sherrod Brown, like what else would you do? They're just going to go down with the

ship. And as you know, from, you know, the Republicans and obviously Democrats that you know so well, the politicians act in their own self-interest. It's all about self-preservation. And that's what gets them to move. That's why Republicans rallied to Trump because their voters like Trump and they defer to their voters. And it's the same issue now with Democrats in the sense that they're going to do what they think helps them survive politically. And in this context, in a general election. And that would be the only reason why Democrats would speak out. And that's why the John Testers of the world would be the ones who would do it. We have had this question on this podcast for a

few months now. Why is Bob Casey and Tammy Baldwin and Ruben Gallego running so much ahead of Joe Biden? We got the answer. We know what the real answer is to that question last night. And so maybe this frees some of these guys up a little bit, right? Because they were already winning, right? I mean, it doesn't seem like there's a reverse coattails issue, or maybe I'm wrong. Or do you think that they're at risk now of having a coattails issue? Here will be the great timestamp check for bulwark readers and listeners. Who is the first Democrat on the ballot to air an ad vowing to be a check on President Donald Trump?

Because that'll be the reveal that they're conceding Trump's likely to win and they're cutting bait. You would think that would be the case given the poll that consistently shows that this is not necessarily a bad year for Democrats, but it could be a bad year for Joe Biden. And Tim, it kind of reminds me of like the last presidential election, except for the other guys. 2020 was a pretty good year for the Republicans, like Susan Collins won while Joe Biden was winning her state pretty convincingly. Interestingly, it was always the great preposterous joke of the lie that Biden stole the election and that he didn't win fair and square. It was a good cycle for Republicans down the ballot, right? It was the craziest, weirdest conspiracy of all time.

Joe Biden wired it so he won, but it wasn't a great night for his party. Okay. Joe Biden didn't want to have a big majority in the senate it was all part of a secret deep state joe mansion joe biden plot like to keep the party in check sorry sarah gideon you're gonna have to eat this one we're bringing back susan collins to keep the big lie exactly yeah deep pots there sarah gideon come on bulwark listener you know who that is joe joe and susan just love each other so other so much. It's an old Senate insider's game. You just wanted to have Susan around.

Okay, the Trump VP pick, which is kind of meaningless, but just as an insight into Trump's mindset right now, you got to feel like you're Doug Burgum, you know, or I don't know. Maybe not. I don't know. Do you think that a confident Trump, how do you think that impacts Volta VP and how he behaves in the next few weeks? Who's the best person that has a personal dynamic with Trump? If he is stripped of any

political considerations, he just wants somebody to ride with, as the kids would say. Who is that? If Trump could just pick somebody that he likes, who doesn't annoy him, who looks the part, and who he thinks is going to not track mud in the club, who is that? That's the question. And a little tease here for Bulwark listeners, I'm working on something, a bigger picture piece about this general topic. So keep your eyes peeled on politico.com here about that. Can you have a family member? I guess he probably doesn't, he doesn't really like his kids. Is Ivanka back in play as VP? Maybe a little too risky. Well, she's a Florida resident now, Tim, so that she would have the Rubio problem as well.

That's true. Though the Trumps have many golf clubs. Something that I've had to learn. Okay, Jaymar, I wish I could have had you on a more fun day where we could have had a couple of pops. But I appreciate getting some mud on your face today on the Bulwark podcast. And I hope to see you in Louisiana soon. Happy to serve my country and stand in solidarity with my fellow 504 resident. And also happy to introduce Bulwark listeners to Susan Wild and the deep cut of the gentle lady from the Lehigh Valley.

But thanks for having me, Tim. Go Tigers. I bet listeners will like her quite a bit. Go Tigers, indeed. And hopefully we can turn this thing around next week. We'll see y'all back here on Monday. Peace. Put your grandmother's Bible to your breast Monday. Peace. And in your heart, you know it to be true You know what you gotta do

They all depend on you And you already know You already know You already know You already know Well, I Thank you. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.