The Bulwark Podcast - Symone Sanders-Townsend: Don't Say We Didn't Warn You

Episode Date: June 25, 2024

Project 2025 sounds mundane, but it would institutionalize Trumpism, eliminate the Department of Education, mass deport 11 million people, and turn the Department of Health and Human Services into the Department of "Life." Plus, more from the mailbag, and Biden finding the sweet spot between Uncle Joe and punching Trump in the face. Symone Sanders-Townsend joins Tim Miller. show notes: Symone's interview on Project 2025 MSNBC Live: Democracy 2024 event in September Tim's Mount Rushmore of political books: "What It Takes: The Way to the White House" "Losers," by Michael Lewis "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72" Harry McPherson's "A Political Education"

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. It's Tuesday, June 25th. I'm still in my parents' basement. Things are going great this summer.

The TSA made a big announcement. It screened 2.99 million airline passengers on Sunday, a record, the highest ever number. It's American carnage out there, I guess. People are going on so many vacations, and I'm delighted to be here today with Simone Sanders Townsend. She's back. She's a co-host of MSNBC's The Weekend, former senior advisor to Biden's 2020 campaign, and chief spokesperson for VP Kamala Harris. What's going on, girl? Greetings and salutations. I do know why all these people are flying. You gotta find the joy wherever you can, Tim. You gotta laugh to keep from crying nowadays. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. The airport is packed. The lounges, I don't know if you're a lounge. Okay, the lounges are so packed that you can't even get a a day pass anymore you can't even get a seat what is going on yeah the lounges are more

packed than mcdonald's that's not a luxury experience in the lounge and that's fine you know i'm a man of the people but uh it's it's just it's not a sign that uh we're living in a third world country like the former president wants to say um i want to get to the debate stuff obviously but i want to talk to you first about your interview, your little three-way interview with Kevin Roberts, the head of Heritage. Oh, yes, of the Heritage Foundation. So he is spearheading Project 2025. Dr. Kevin Roberts, I noticed you guys kept calling him Dr. Roberts. Is he an actual doctor?

He is a PhD. He is not an MD, but I said exactly what you said. And then all of the PhD people were in my inbox saying, you are disparaging people with doctorates. And I'm like, look, I just meant he's not a medical doctor, honey. I'm not disparaging anybody with a doctorate. My little brother's getting a doctorate right now. I'm just saying, I don't know. I have a doctorate, to be clear. You have a doctorate. I got an honorary doctorate from American. So, you know, Dr. Sanders Townsend. Dr. Sanders Townsend. So what my first question for you before we get into the details of his commentary about Project 2025 is like, what were your impressions of him and of the type of people that would be staffing the next Trump administration? Well, you know, we wanted to have Kevin Roberts on our show the Weeknd because everyone has been talking about Project

2025. We have been discussing it. And I think that there is nothing more important than to hear from the people directly about the plans that they have, especially if they are as nefarious as it looks like on paper. So I've met him one time before. I don't think he remembered. But Michael Steele, former chairman of the RNC, he knew who Kevin Roberts was. They had met before. And he is a true believer. And I thought that going into the interview and it was confirmed in the interview and it was confirmed after the interview. And he did say he was grateful for coming on and he would like to come back. And I know that there are folks that will say, why do you want to talk to people like that? Because Kevin Roberts is,

to your point, spearheading the effort of not just the policy for what would be the next Trump administration, but the people. And in that interview that we did, Michael really drilled down on the people aspect of it and doing away with all of these career civil service government officials in service of this idea of institutionalizing Trumpism. The ideology. Yeah, no, anybody who criticizes you for that is silly. This platforming conversation, I think sometimes people have lost the plot. I get it. If it's a crazy person posting tweets for engagement, you know, and they're posting racist stuff or misogynistic stuff, you know, you don't want to give them more attention, right? Like you don't want to give somebody

that's some troll more attention. That's not this. This guy is running the Heritage Foundation and it's going to be the point person on a transition if Trump comes in. You got to know what these people's plans are. Anyway, to that point, among the plans he mentioned in your interview was eliminating the Department of Education. Trump was this weekend talking about that as well as at the Faith and Freedom Conference. He talked about cutting funding for education in half, cutting all funding to schools that have vaccine mandates. I want to bring this up because this to me seems insane and very vulnerable. This is different than some of the other Trump crazy stuff. This is a direct policy that sounds like it's more out of the Ted Cruz playbook that just can't be popular.

I don't think it's popular. I mean, you tell people, oh, get rid of the Ted Cruz playbook that just can't be popular. I don't think it's popular. I mean, you tell people, oh, get rid of the Department of Education. And of course, people are like, what? That's crazy. My experience has been, Tim, that I don't think people really believe what they are being told. They don't believe that Donald Trump is going to do what he's saying. They don't actually believe, they didn't believe us when we were all saying Project 2025 is some nefarious stuff, okay? They're talking about getting rid of the Department of Education, abolishing the department altogether, firing more than 50,000 people in the United States government, changing the Department of Health and Human Services to the Department of Life. It sounds insane. But the policy and the way in which they are writing about the policy at face seems very mundane and quite bureaucratic, if you will. And that is how

I think a number of things are going to get done. It sounds insane to say post the 10 commandments in schools, public schools, all across the state of Louisiana. However, the way that the policy was written, okay, passed through the legislature was debated. Nobody had anything to say nationally about the 10 commandments until the governor was about to sign the bill. Yeah, right. Right? And it was the way in which, kudos to the local reporters down there, decided to write it up. But if you look at the language of that particular bill, it sounds very mundane and run-of-the-mill. That is how these things are going to get passed. And I do believe that is why

people have to be very vigilant and just make sure that people are very educated, for lack of a better term, about what the policies actually are, what is actually being discussed, and that none of this is hyperbole. And so, you know, you do what you will at the ballot box in November, but don't say we ain't trying to tell you. I agree with that on two points. One, on the education thing, it just is a little bit more tangible. To eliminate the Department of Education, people are kind of like, what does that do? Trump went out there and saying, cut funding in half. And no funding to your school if they have a vaccine mandate.

That's crazy talk. And that's something that— It's every single school, to be clear. Yeah, exactly. It's every school, right? So that's something that parents— Every single school. I mean, I went to private school. I went to Catholic school.

Even the Catholic school, you got to get your vaccines, kids. Same. You know, the Catholic—well, I don't know. Who knows? There are a Even the Catholic school, you got to get your vaccine. Same, same. You know, well, I don't know. Who knows? There are a couple of Catholic schools these days that are kind of going the MAGA direction. Yeah, the parochial schools, though. They're still making you do your vaccine mandate. But I think you hit on something about this advantage of Trump and why we have to be vigilant

about continuing to bring this stuff up is people don't take him seriously. I was talking to a business, you know, somebody that's more in the business world than the political world yesterday. And I was like, why aren't the big business guys, why isn't CNBC more panicked about the tariff plan? A 10% tariff would totally disrupt every global business and not just the ones that are like, you know, getting, you know, cheap shit from China. Like any business that has any sort of product that's made anywhere besides America is completely disrupted by a 10% tariff. And the answer is basically, yeah, I don't think, nobody believes that he'd actually do it, right?

Well, what I don't understand is at this point, why do the people that know better not believe that he would do it? Because the reality is, is that the people that were around Donald Trump last time, who had served in previous Bush administrations, right, people who had served actual real Republicans and had been Republicans their entire life and had participated in policymaking, those are folks that saw and heard some of the things that Donald Trump wanted to do and was trying to say, and they were like, no, no, we can't do this. The people around Donald Trump right now and the folks that will staff this eventual administration, I mean, that's what Project 2025 is part policy, part people.

And then training up the people so that they know how to effectively carry out the policy that is aimed at institutionalizing Trumpism. And those are not my words. That is what Kevin Roberts said to us last Saturday. All right. My last thing about this interview, because I just, I have to bring it up, is we have this rhetorical debate over multiple topics. He wants to change the name of the HHS to the Department of Life, which is what I like to call

like patriotic correctness, which the Republicans like to do. They like to criticize PC. So in the same interview, he's criticizing you because you corrected what I want to say, undocumented immigrants rather than illegal immigrants. And he's like, oh, that's woke stuff. And then like two minutes later, it's like, well, why don't we call this the department of life? Why would you want to call it department of life? And I'm like, fine, but also tell me what you, if you think women whose doctors say they need an abortion should be able to get one. And he said, abortion is not healthcare. I've been getting lots of fan mail, for lack of a better term, from people who feel very strongly about me stepping

in and saying, oh, I don't want to use the term illegal. I just believe in humanizing people. You know what I mean? So we're talking about people. I don't think people are illegal. Activities can be illegal. In my opinion, people are not because people are not property. I thought we already addressed that in this country. So I like to refer to individuals coming to the southern border who are crossing the border and not at a port of entry and have not done so legally as undocumented. We're in a moderate safe space here at the Bulwark. I'm like, I don't need the patriotic correctness or the PC, but I hear you. I also cringe at calling somebody an illegal. It's weird. And it's like, I believe though that the pay, and I love the term patriotic correctness.

I'm going to start actually using this. You can steal it. I'm going to steal it. I'm going to be like, shout out, hat to Tim. But the patriotic correctness is frankly what people want us to get caught up on. He would have loved for me to take the bait in the interview when I said the thing about undocumented.

And he's like, oh, well, they are illegal aliens. But That's nice. They're illegal aliens. He wanted me to retort and come back. I'm not here to get into a back and forth with you about your patriotic correctness because you're a true believer. And so I'm not here to try to convince you. Otherwise, I want you to say what it is that you believe and what your project is doing so that people can hear it for themselves and make their own decisions. That's why you're here. You're not here to get into a back and forth with me about some words, honey. Yeah, my patriotic correctness bit worked better during the Colin Kaepernick saga. It works a little less good now that Sam Alito's turning the American flag upside down outside

his house. But anyway, that's, I guess, for another day. Speaking of the Department of Life, boy, as somebody that used to unapologetically call themselves pro-life and now is looking at these pro-lifers and are like, I don't think that's what pro-life means. Pastor Jeff Durbin out of Arizona, he gave me a little kick in the ass. Let's listen to this advocate against the abortion ballot initiative coming up in Arizona. Abortion should be considered a crime. It should be considered murder. You're unjustly taking the life of a crime. It should be considered a murder. You're unjustly

taking the life of a human being, and so that's murder. And what I've said is what is the historic position of the Christian church, that if you take the life of a human being unjustly, then what the state owes you, if it's proven and it's true, is capital punishment. You forfeit your right to live. Simone, death penalty for women. Is that pro-life? It is not. It is not pro. Not only is it not pro-life, it's very anti-woman. And you know what, Tim? I don't know if I told you, I'm from Nebraska, right? North Omaha to be specific. Go Big Red. Okay. Go Huskers. And so I grew up around conservative like politics my entire life Nebraska is a red state Omaha is you know that blue dot that elusive blue dot everybody keeps talking about but I'm sorry just

to interrupt you but let's just put a pin in this that might be an important blue dot you and me might be going to might be going to Nebraska because if that blue wall if it's just that blue wall they're gonna Biden if he only wins wisconsin michigan and pennsylvania and not the other swing states he's got to win nebraska too you're blue dot yes nebraska is only one of these two places that will split their electoral college votes is nebraska and maine and obama got it in what 2008 and 12 biden got it in 20 the campaign thinks that they're going to get it again in 2024 so you you let me know when you're ready to go to the district maybe yeah me and you maybe i'll have a barbecue in omaha in oct Yeah, that'd be good.

It's a very interesting place. And so I am very familiar with, you know, conservative Republican politics. Like that is not foreign to me. And the people that I grew up with and the elected officials that I know, they were not running on for, you know, 20, 40 organizing for years that women should be jailed, put to death, right? That doctors should be jailed and fined if they administer the healthcare that a woman needs, that healthcare is an abortion. That's not what they ran on. That's not what they were organizing about. But that is exactly what the policy is now. That is what is happening in places across this country. And now you've got very fringe pieces of the conservative movement that are coming out

and forcing saying, well, you know, women are only just here to give us babies. And if they're not going to give the babies, I don't think that they should be able to live. And again, it sounds crazy. It sounds like hyperbole, but y'all just heard the clip and you can play clips of state legislators in South Carolina and North Carolina, state legislators in Wisconsin, state legislators in Arizona, who are saying the exact same things. This is anti-life and it is very anti-woman, honey. And I am concerned, Tim, concerned. There's another one, because again, I keep being like, you guys, there's a big middle on abortion. You could have some of us, some of your old friends from Nebraska, if it was just like, hey, some of this stuff's going too far. We need to make sure women have the health care they need. You know, if they're

having ectopic pregnancies, they're having these extreme situations, if they're raped, and yet they refuse to do it. Here's Trump himself talking about how he thinks the overturn of Roe has worked out. And we were able to do that when we terminated Roe v. Wade. Now, when you look at it and you look at what's happening all over the country now, states are voting. Ohio just voted. All different, by the way. It's tailor-made. And it's really working out well for people. And they're very, very happy.

Every legal scholar felt and felt for a long time. For 53 years they've been trying to do it. Really working out well, Simone. You think that's something the Biden campaign is going to use? I would be interested to see if Joe Biden himself brings this up and not just in his speeches that he's doing on the debate stage. How are they going to attack and go after this? And I know how people, I listen to a lot of podcasts. I participate in a lot of TV things. I read all the things and I talk to people. There is this idea that the Democrats are focusing a little too much on abortion and not enough on the economy.

And I would just posit again, as a person with the actual womb, as I described to Dr. Kevin Roberts, abortion is an economic issue. This is not happening in a vacuum. Healthcare is an economic issue. People's ability to be able to pay for the care that they need, to access the care that they need, the ability to decide about the family you want to have, that is not a fringe issue. It is directly tied up in everything. And so Donald Trump needs to answer some actual questions about these things. And I don't think he has good answers, but people have to be listening to what he is saying, which is why I think it's important that we play the sound that you hear Donald Trump is in his own words, because we're not paraphrasing what this man said. We're not

making it up. I'm not putting anything else on it. This is what he's saying. And when Maya Angelou told us, when people tell you who they are, believe them. Listen, y'all listen. I mostly agree with that. I want to maybe nitpick one question or maybe not nitpick. Let's just hash out one element of that criticism about whether the Democrats are focusing too much on abortion. Your old boss, Kamala Harris, she was on your current network, MSNBC. I think it was yesterday morning. And she brought Hadley Duvall with her. It's a horrifying story. survived as her stepfather's sexual abuse as a child and i get it i get that the vp is out there and wanting to use these stories to talk about just the real human impact of the overturn of roe and of dobbs and of some of these policies

that these red state legislators have been putting in okay Okay. I'm with all that. I do wonder though, is the balance right? I would like to see VP. She was a prosecutor. I'd like to see her making the case a little bit more against Trump on the economy, on his criminality, on you name it. What do you think about that? You want the case to be prosecuted on all of the things. You just don't want to prosecute the case because she did a speech yesterday on the anniversary of dobbs she did a speech she basically when i used to work for her we called it we got to have the vp prosecute the case yeah but she lays it out like she would if she was in a courtroom and i get on the anniversary of dobbs i get it but it's not just this week i mean it's just she's been doing a ton on abortion which i get but like doesn't biden need a junkyard to attack dog a little bit on some of this other stuff?

Well, I would say that and maybe it's an indictment on all of us. But, you know, while the vice president was also on this road tour, she was also doing a whole black economic opportunity tour where she was sitting down. She had a very prominent black man like D.L. Hughley. I think she just did this thing with Quavo. That was about gun violence, though. But she had been she's been doing these tours about black economic opportunity, talking about what the administration has done, what they would hope to do, what Donald Trump's plan is not and what he has said and done. And that did not get as much coverage. Frankly, it's gotten very little to no coverage. And so I would argue that while cabinet secretaries and whatnot are amazing, you need them, but they are not the president of the vice president. They are not on the ballot. So the president of vice president,

they do need to do more on the economy, but when they do do it, it is not being covered in the same way. And she had been on a sustained tour. So I would just argue that perhaps we all should give the same energy to the economic stuff that they do as we do to what they do and say about Roe, because the president has also been out there on the economy and whatnot. And, you know, it hasn't permeated the same because we haven't played the clips. It's a fair media criticism and the media shouldn't be like this but you and i we were both flax you know so we know what the reality is it's like what's sexy what's popping yeah wouldn't she get more attention though if she was throwing more haymakers right like wouldn't that be the way to get attention

you know if she was at the event with quavo and then she like dunked on whatever trump's the stupid thing he said the night before like wouldn't that help I think so I mean I think that there's a when I was her you know press person and whatnot the fine line that we always tried to walk when I was there was something coming from the vice president will sound different because she says it Joe Biden and her can say the same thing and because she said it because she's it, because she's a woman, because she's a woman of color, for whatever reason, she's a younger woman, like whatever reason, it will be heard differently. And so I do think her team is trying to calibrate. But that doesn't mean that the campaign cannot find opportunities to make it happen from both the

president and the vice president. I think the debate stage is a very good opportunity for that from the president himself. I think post-debate is a very good opportunity. It's my understanding that the spin room is down the dangling street from where the debate's going to happen. So I don't know if we're going to get some surrogates making their way over to the spin room who were watching it in some random room where the debate is. But I just think there are opportunities. Donald Trump does give lots of material. And if you do not talk about what he is saying and doing it, the campaign does not choose to seize on the specifics and elevate it and not just elevate the crazy, right? Like Donald Trump

wants everybody to be talking about his UFC cage fights, but not the thing that he said about the tariffs. Yeah. I understand the concern about there's misogyny. There's a sense that it would come out different coming from her. But I just say, man, let it loose. I don't know. I think that's a worthwhile risk at this point. But easy for me to say there in Atlanta. Down the street, it sounds like. Down the street. Yeah, you're going to be down the street. The first question I have to ask you, since you did work for Joe Biden, is what is his drug regimen like? Uppers, downers, screamers, laughers, amyl nitrates. You mean that orange Gatorade? It's just orange Gatorade and water, a little tea, honey. That's it. That's it.

They tried this playbook four years ago. That's the magic cocktail. I'm bored with this. Come up with something new, Donald. It's a new season. We're doing a callback to season three of The Apprentice here. He already did this Joe Biden's on drugs thing in 2020. Just nobody remembers.

He did. And you know what? If you remember the debate, I mean, I was in all of Joe Biden's debate preps in 2019, 2020. I was at all the debates. Donald Trump was, if he seemed unhinged on television, it was completely unhinged in that debate hall. And to the point where if someone did suggest he was on something, I could understand it, but no one did. This is insane. But Donald Trump has to come up with something though, Tim, because

they lowered the bar so much to say that the president of the United States isn't even able to stand up for 20 minutes. They got to say something about why he's going to do so well, because they made the bar so low. If you watch Fox News all day, you think, oh my goodness, Joe Biden is being propped up by puppets. And when he gets up there and does a good job, well, what is Donald Trump's excuse going to be? And right now, it's apparently there's something in the Gatorade. Okay. What, okay. What was that debate? I mean, because I remember doing it with Jeb. to me the biggest challenge is always how do you choose what to respond to how do you engage because trump is just the river of shit you know you say something then he starts talking about hunter and then he starts talking about the third world economy he starts talking about the airports people have

tents at airports and then he starts talking about hannibal lecter and it's like back to you sir and it's like which thing do you pay i Do you remember, like, how did you prep him for kind of dealing with the Trump insanity? So the way that, and you know, Ron Klain and Anita Dunn, they ran debate prep 2019, 2020. So my understanding, same thing is happening this go round. And I think the biggest thing is to remember that while you are debating Donald Trump, you are speaking to the audience. This is your moment for America. This is not your moment for Trump. And so if you get into a back and forth with Donald Trump and everyone's hands are flailing and it's sounding a little crazy, the people at home can't tell the difference. And so the thing in 2020 was to really ensure that at the end of the day, he's going to be crazy.

You are stable. He's going to be insane. You are stable. And so he's going to be yelling and crazy. You're going to say, OK, and you're going to command the stage and make sure you're speaking to the people. You don't need to talk to him. You need to talk to the people and then be ready to know that he's going to attack you and then practice the attacks. And so I know that now it's been reported Bob Bauer is playing Trump again. Of course he is. Bob is a very, very convincing Trump. And he really takes seriously. He did in 2019, 2020 getting into character. And I have no doubt that like any of the insults that could be lobbed on Thursday at the debate, Bob Bauer is going to lob them in practice because that is the best way to ensure what you don't want is your, as you know, you don't want your candidate to get on the stage. And the first

time they hear something is on that stage and they didn't hear the debate prep. Exactly. This is important. And this is hard. This is always my job, not to play the other candidate, but to be the one to ask the asshole question. That's why I got kicked out of so many debate preps, but it's like, someone's got to bring up, somebody's got to bring up Hunter in this debate prep. Right. And it's, that's uncomfortable. You know what I mean? And so somebody's got to have the courage to do it. Okay. I want to listen to your colleague, my favorite. Sorry. You're on the top tier. Well, Nicole's my favorite too, to be clear. She's everyone's favorite. All right. Let's listen to Nicole's advice together really quick,

because I'm interested if you agree. I prepared a lot of folks who weren't great at debating. And what you need is to own is a self-own. And I think in this moment, Joe Biden has to go out there with a self-own on the age thing. I mean, I'm so old, I may not make it through the next 90 minutes without needing to sit down and taking a sip of water. But I'll never disgrace the office of the presidency. I'll never hand state secrets over to the enemy. I'll never call Vladimir Putin a really smart guy. I'll never frame a love letter from Kim Jong-un. In fact, Kim Jong-un hates my guts.

You know why? Because I call him an evil dictator, not the love of my life. I mean, he has to come in there and punch him in the face with his own boast. Trump boasts about things that are traitorous. Trump boasts about things that are disgusting. Trump boasts about grabbing women between the legs. And if Biden doesn't go in there and punch him in the face with his own things he's proud of, then the thing is lost before it starts. Thoughts?

OK, so I agree with Nicole like 90 percent. I do not think Joe Biden should make a joke about I mean, I think he should make a joke about being too old. Like he sometimes does where he talks about, you know, George Washington. Yeah, I knew him. I went to school with him, but he should not give them any kind of audio or fodder that would allow them to them as I'm talking about the right wing media apparatus and the Trump folks that they can manipulate to make him look even worse. You get what I'm saying? So like, oh, I might not be able to stand up for 20 minutes. No, sir, you can't stand up for 20 minutes. That's not something you should say. And I think he should punch him in the face, but like not seem too overly aggressive. Tim, when I'm out traveling and whatnot, hell, even when I go to my nail shop,

I'm asking folks like, you know, I'm taking the temperature. What do you think? What are you hearing? Blah, blah, blah. And what they say about Joe Biden for people who have supported him before, they say, we want to see Uncle Joe. We want to see beat him like a drum Joe. You remember beat him like a drum from 2019, 2020. Joe Biden said he's going to beat Trump like a drum. That's what folks are looking for. That's what they like. And if Joe Biden can go out there and do that on Thursday, I think it is going to bode very well for him. There has not been a one-on-one contrast. So people have forgotten that Joe Biden does know how to get down and dirty and fight. They are seeing him though. And they're wondering, oh, he's a little old. I don't know if he could still throw a punch like he used to. So yes, throw a punch, but still

remember you are the president. So we want to be able to throw a punch on Thursday, but still go back and sit in the Oval Office Friday morning. And we don't want to get too dirty. I'm pretty close to you. Yeah. I cringed a little bit at Nicole's old self-deprecating joke. The point was right. I'm with her on punching him in the face though. I'm with her to you. Yeah, I cringe a little bit at Nicole's old self-deprecating joke. The point was right. I'm with her on punch him in the face, though. I'm with her. I just think, I think you got to do it. But how? The biggest way he could punch him, I think, would be on the legals.

And we know Joe Biden's not going to touch the legals. Yeah. The legals, i.e. his legal situation. I don't know about January 6th. To me, it comes back to, A, Trump's lies. And there's, I think, a way to punch him on the legal such with, you know, by talking about,

you know, how crimes up, you know, at his golf clubs, you know, and it's down in the rest of the country. But, um,

I, I think that he's got to punch him on January 6th. Like, look, man, the Capitol was stormed. Our Capitol was stormed because of you. There's a couple of police officer that died because of you.

Have you ever called his mother? You know what I mean? Like, I think you can punch her in the face. I have a couple of police officers that died because of you. Have you ever called his mother? You know what I mean? Oh, that's a good one. I think you can punch her in the face on a couple of those things. When is this airing? I hope they hear that one. That's good. Yeah.

Have you ever called his mother? You're friends with Anita. Send that to Anita and Bob Bauer. Okay. You mentioned the chatter at the nail salon. Nobody will talk with me about this. And I was like, Simone will talk with me about this because I'm obsessed with this. It's Louisiana and it is overlapping with my anti-regulation interest,

which I have to bring up sometimes on the bulwark so I don't sound like you, so I don't sound like Bernie Sanders over here. I got to sound like a Republican again sometimes. Louisiana hair braider Ashley Ndakpre and her attorneys from the Institute for Justice, we love IJ, are taking this to the Supreme Court. They're trying to demonstrate that it is unconstitutional, the requirements on licensing on hair braiders. you believe this listen to this to be a hair braider in louisiana so anyway i i said this is a republican view it's not a republican view it's a free market it's a conservative view because the republicans have made this fucking racist law louisiana requires all hair braiders to complete 500 hours of training at a private cosmetology

school pass written and practical exams and pay fees to the licensing board to braid hair. Simone, this can be a bipartisan thing, right? We can get rid of this, right? This is crazy. I think we could get rid of it. And you know what? The regulations that are in place for this one, specifically in Louisiana, it is meant to crush the ability for a young black woman who wants to start her own hair braiding business, right? Who gets enough money to get a salon, who has passed all the regulations for her salon, and maybe her salon is just hair braiding. And the 500 hours, it is excessive. I know so many people who have been able to make a living who are just amazing hairstylists. And hair braiding is one of the things

that obviously I am not a current participant, but I used to be. I think that they have a case to be made, but this is- You never know. Well, you know, I can come back. You know, you just never know. I can also get a hair braid wig.

But this has real implications for people all over the country. There was something similar like this in Iowa where the hair braiders, they got together and they challenged a law. The needs for training were just so cost restrictive on to the person who was seeking to get the license. It was just insane, for lack of a better term. It's like they're making it so hard for me to just be able to do something I love, to be able to make some money and start a business, be able to feed my

family. So I'm with you on this. I think it's ridiculous. I think it's excessive. And I am interested to see what happens. All right. Me too. Licensing reform. We can do this. We can do some things. We don't want those standards to be relaxed, but let's just make it make sense for the industries that we are talking about. Let's make it make sense. Okay. Yeah. If you got to pay some licensing board to make sure you can operate on my eyes like okay you know but uh let's be real here all right we're paying a fee we're paying you know let people have their side hustle all right and we know who they're going after with hair braiding rules we like this isn't subtle i mean it's not subtle it ain't suzy in bucks county all right all right we're over we're

over but we have to make an announcement big announcement happened yesterday you're gonna be It ain't Susie in Bucks County. That's for sure. It ain't. All right, all right. We're over. We're over. But we have to make an announcement. Big announcement happened yesterday. You're going to be there. What's happening at MSNBC in September? Tell all the people because we got some listeners. I know they might want to be there. Yes.

MSO, MSNBC Live was launched earlier this year. And we are so, so, so excited because on September 7th, the creme de la creme of your MSNBC, everybody from Joy to Rachel to Saki to Nicole to Lawrence to all your favorites on the weekend to Alex Wagner to literally everybody. 2024, talking all about the election, what's at stake, all the conversations that people love that we have on the network in those primetime hours before the debates, after the debates, before the big nights, what they love that we're doing on the weekend. You can come in person in Brooklyn, September 7th, and get this live, these specialized panels. I'm very excited about it. This is a real user experience. And so we hope people come out and meet us. We'll have opportunities to do meet and greets.

I think, you know, depending on what kind of tickets you get, you can come to dinner with some of us. So this is a consequential time. And I know that people love when we have the conversations, when we break down everything that's happening, and they have the opportunity to come and see up close and personal. Well, this is the opportunity. Come and see up close and personal MSNBC Live, September 7th. September 7th in Brooklyn. If you want to do a South-North thing, you're going to take a little weekend out of it. The Bulwark Live is in Dallas.

Me and Adam Kinzinger and some others, September 5th. You can go September 5th. You're in Dallas. It's going to be hot. You're like, no, no, no, no, no. I got to get up to the city. I'm going to fly up to the city September 7th. It'd be a little democracy weekend. Come on now. I love that. Hit the bulwark. Hit MSNBC Live. Join us.

Okay, so you can find it all online. Literally, you can go to any of our MSNBC socials, any of the talent socials. We've all posted about it. MSNBC.com. It's literally up there at the top of the banner. But MSNBC Live, Democracy 2024. We want to see you there.

See you September 7th. Simone Sanders, Simone Townsend Sanders, Dr. Simone Townsend Sanders. Thank you so much, doctor. Come back to the podcast soon and we'll see everybody back here. On the other side, I'm going to do a quick mailbag. Catch you over there. all right and we're back with the mailbag i'm just i'm so torn about what to do for the music outros this week i was going to do all widespread panic covers because that show at Red Rocks on Sunday was so good. I was going to do some Nina Simone for Simone Sanders. Then we started talking about Quavo. We'll see what y'all get here at the end.

I want to do a quick mailbag. We had a couple of questions that I wanted to get to with Jane Koston, but me and Jane were just gabbing so much on Friday that, you know, we were way over. So I want to just knock through a couple of these. Kelly. Kelly writes, you rightly talk about the realistic worst case scenario if Trump is elected. What is the realistic best case scenario if he's elected aside from the Miracle Cheeseburger? Miracle Cheeseburger would be nice. I've been thinking about this a lot. And I talked about this a little bit with Jamie Weinstein when I did the Dispatch podcast

maybe a month or two ago now. So if you want a longer version of that answer, you can go check out that interview that I did. But I think the short of it is this. I think the realistic best case scenario is premised on two things. One, Donald Trump is very lazy. And two, he has this hole in his heart because Fred didn't love him. And he wants to be loved. He's an asshole. He doesn't mind being cruel, obviously. He's capricious. But at the end of the day, I don't think that he wants to be Hitler. I think that he wants to be loved. I think that even in that best case scenario, I think we're in an ugly place for migrants, really ugly. Maybe not the camps, maybe not whatever. But I think that the incentive structure will be for at minimum asshole local cops and

local sheriffs and people to really abuse migrants, really abuse people who are here legally. Even I wrote an article, God, probably three or four years ago during the Trump administration about this kid who was driving in his car from a soccer tournament with his little brother. And one of them was here legally. One of them was undocumented and a cop pulled him over, arrested both of them. They were Hispanic, assumed that if one was not documented that the other one was too. It was fake or or something the guy was put in a jail cell for four days guy who's a young kid who's in high school treated shabbily treated horribly that sort of thing is gonna happen that is just a baseline anti trump getting to nominate a couple more supreme court justices at least one more

is a baseline anti probably two trans people being just treated horribly and losing protections is baseline i think you're going to get that so you know they're going to be um marginalized folks you're working i always talk on the abortion issue i think it's always important to focus on working class people that are not of economic means that live in deep red states young women tough i mean i think it would be a really rough term for people in that circumstance. So, I'm going to paint in a pretty best case scenario picture for you. Maybe the economy is solid enough that we don't have total collapse. The problem with that is like, he's not going to leave. He doesn't want to leave. I mean, is he going to actually not leave? This is where the laziness comes in. Is he able to organize a coup? I don't know, probably not, but it's ugly

though. It's ugly because jail's on the other side from him. I think I said this with Jamie Weinstein in that interview. In a weird way, maybe the best case scenario is that some quasi-normal Republican wins at the 2028 election so that he feels comfortable that he can leave knowing that they'll pardon him because if a Democrat's going to win and he sees jail on the other side, you know, now we're into a pretty nightmarish scenario. So there you go. That's the best case scenario. How does that sound? Really good.

Hopefully that little pep talk, you know, gets you to go do some door knocking this weekend for the local Democrats or write in postcards. If you don't live in a state, write postcard writing. There's another way to get involved. Jessica, I'm an eighth grade teacher wondering from a parent perspective, how would you want your kids' teachers to talk about the election this coming fall?

Elementary is way different than high school, of course, but my kiddos are just starting to realize they're part of a greater society. They're born around 2010 now, so they barely remember the 2016 election. It's such an important fact. You know, so my kids are in kindergarten, so I don't have a ton of eighth graders in my life. I'm trying to thank my friends with the oldest kids are even

more in fourth or fifth grade. So I'm going from like memory on what eighth grade was like for me a hundred years ago, but I was precocious. I was into politics in eighth grade. I was reading the little scholastic mag on, uh, on us politics. I mean, I remember reading about, you know, the politicians and, you know, who might run for president. And I was into all of that stuff. I mean, I remember reading about the politicians and who might run for president, and I was into all of that stuff. I was a super nerd in eighth grade. So you're going to have some eighth graders that do care about this and are engaged. Obviously, you have some that are checked out, which is maybe healthy, depending on the ways in which they're checked out. But I think that it is important to talk facts. It is not biased to say to students in eighth grade that what happened in 2020, where the

president of the United States lost an election, refused to leave, did not meet with an incoming president coming in, did not shake his hand, did not go to his inauguration, instead had a speech outside the Capitol where he encouraged people to fight like hell. That happened. That has not happened since the Civil War. There's not been anything like that. That is a major event in our life, in our politics. It's a lesson for kids about being a sore loser. It's a lesson for kids about our democracy and why it works, the peaceful transition of power. So, I mean, I think that there are ways to talk about Trump and his actions in a historical context that is not TDS. Like, you can't help what kind

of backlash some random kid's parent is going to say. And I got to tell you, I'm going to be an annoying parent to my kids' social studies teachers. I'm sorry, social studies teachers, you're going to be annoyed by me probably when I see the homework. Science teachers, you're going to be fine. I'm not going to have anything to say to you. We love our teachers. We don't want to cut funding for the Department of Education in half like Donald Trump does. I think that that's important to talk about. It's an important election that's coming up, you know, taking their questions and sharing facts. And the facts are pretty damning for Donald Trump.

And so I think that sharing facts about what happened, providing historical context is important. And I think it can be done in a way that is not savaging all Republicans or all MAGA supporters or all whatever. I think it can be done in a way that is appropriate for school. And I think that's important to do it. Like to pretend like it was normal, to pretend like what happened in 2020 was normal.

Like to pretend like this election is normal. Having a convict running for the first time, a convicted felon, that would be lying to the kids. That would be biased, right? You know, like this is what it is and we need to be able to talk about it. would be biased, right? This is what it is, and we need to be able to talk about it. So that's my two cents with a huge caveat that I don't have any eighth graders in my life. So I'll take additional feedback in the comments from others if you think

there's something that I missed there. Lastly, I wanted to get to this easy one. Nick from Ohio wants to know, what is my Mount Rushmore of books about political campaigns? So I got to say, I might have told this before, but when I went to start writing my book while we did it, my editor was like, what are your favorite political books? And my answer was, I had a couple of political history books. I like reading old books, but I didn't read contemporary political books because I lived it. I didn't have any interest. Reading books for me is a respite.

I like to read fiction. I like to read history. And so I hadn't read any contemporary political books. And so I had to binge on a bunch of them. The one exception, I've had Mark Leibovich on this podcast. I love This Town. That's not really about campaigns. So I read all of them.

I read all the Game Changers. I read Double Down. John Holliman has been on this podcast, wrote Game Change with Mark Alperin. But let's just be honest, Hallman did most of the writing. He does a good job. He's a good writer. So there's a reason why those books are well regarded. My buddy Scott Conroy wrote Sarah from Alaska about that same 2008 campaign, which is really good. And, you know, didn't get the, maybe the plot it's it deserved because his portrait of Sarah Palin, uh, I think it was very, very rich. If that's something that interests you that said, I still just, I don't know, knowing all the characters and knowing all the people, I feel like it makes it challenging for

me to judge modern political books. So for me, the Mount Rushmore is all about books from the 70s and 80s when I didn't know the people. So it's What It Takes, which has just an amazing portrait of Joe Biden. It's Losers by Michael Lewis, which actually Scott Conroy, who wrote Sarah from Alaska, recommended to me when I said I have this homework assignment, I'm going to read a bunch of political books. He was like, you have to read Losers by Michael Lewis. It's about the 96th campaign and all the losers, all the losing candidates, and just what it's like to be on the campaign trail

for somebody that is hopeless. And I just think Michael Lewis is kind of, just perspective as an outsider. So good because he was not burdened by being a political reporter and having to do drinks with these people and have sources and have relationships. Coming from outside of politics, I think he gave a very fresh view on just how empty our political campaigns are. And it's both a character portrait of a lot

of these losers, but also a critique of the way we do campaigns. I thought Michael Lewis's Losers was fantastic. Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail in 1972 by Hunter S. Thompson has to be on the Mount Rushmore. I racked my brain for a fourth campaign book to be on the Mount Rushmore. And I'm sure somebody will reply with, well, Tim, you had to include this or that. But to me, I kept coming back to, I loved a political education by Harry McPherson. He was a longtime staffer to LBJ. And his book is about the Senate and the LBJ presidency and the civil rights fight and what was happening in DC at that time. I think it's such an interesting first-person perspective on that tumultuous time and those characters and what their real views were on race and navigating these fragile coalitions. So a political education is the other one.

So what it takes, losers. Fear and loathing on the campaign trail. A political education. Shout out to my buddy Scott Conroy, who wrote Sarah from Alaska. All right, guys. Reminder. People in the Denver said, will you say the Charlie line? Will you say the line? You know the Bart meme? You know the Bart meme? my buddy Scott Conroy who wrote Sarah from Alaska. All right, guys, reminder. People in the Denver said, will you say the Charlie line? Will you say the line?

You know the Bart meme? You know the Bart meme? They're already looking at Bart. Say the line. Say the line. I'll do it. I'll say the line. Remember, we're not the crazy ones.

So good to be here with you today. We'll be back here tomorrow for another edition of the Bullard Podcast. We'll see you all then. Peace. My chain, my watch, my wrist, watch my wrist my house my rise and grind i give away all this just to see my dog jet one more time look up at the lights one time hit the stage right the mic one time one time roll one get right one time two cups two cups two cups you remember them mcm backpack we were running around with them racks no walk no walk they

ain't never took walk the polo never drinking that act came in swept the game like a storm with the flow take take did that so don't ask about the game like a storm with the motherfuckin' flow Tay-Tay did that, so don't ask about the groupie gone, we gone, y'all It can't come back, damn, I'ma make your mama straight Especially mama, take, I can't kick it with a fake And I won't sleep with the snakes, I'd rather eat with the grapes I wanted peace, but I can't, I gotta get something straight Hold on, wait, huh, yeah

You made the greatest time of your life Right now is greatness You picked the perfect time and the world is right now That time is greatness I don't care how long it take I don't care what storm you been through It's greatness The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.