The Bulwark Podcast - The GOP’s Rubik’s Cube for Morons

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

The Republicans have been on a trajectory to get a Jim Jordan-style speaker for 11 years, and the Democrats couldn’t have stopped it. Plus, Liz Cheney speaks truth, Greg Gutfeld has a Napoleon complex, and Trump spills nuclear secrets. Tim MIller’s back with Charlie Sykes for the weekend pod.

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Don Valley North, Don Valley North for Lexus. A proud member of Wayne's Auto Group. Welcome to the Bullwork Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. It is Friday. Is it October 6th already, Tim? I mean, is it really? Are we into October already? No, I just can't accept it. Luckily in New Orleans, it's just been summer and we're getting our first cold front this weekend. And I got to go to Denver. My father's getting an award. I got to go to Denver. And I looked at the, I looked at the temperature. It's 59 today when I landed in Denver, 59, it's fall. It is fall outside of the South. Oh, we have so much to talk about. Well, you and I haven't spoken since the fall of Kevin McCarthy. Of course, now Donald Trump has decided that he

doesn't want to be speaker, but he's going to endorse Jim Jordan. So Trump, Jordan 2024, what could possibly go wrong? We'll talk about that. Interesting debate about whether the Democrats should have bailed out Kevin McCarthy. Meanwhile, just so it doesn't get lost here, we had this amazing jobs report that came out. I think, you know, the economy creating twice the number of non-farm jobs expected, which means everybody's going to freak out in one way or another. This ABC report that suggests that Donald Trump was shopping super secret sensitive information about nuclear submarines to Australian billionaires. I mean, what could possibly go wrong there? And it's not even like the, you know, top four news stories of the day. But can we do something

first, though, Tim? I forgot about it. Well, before you get to my one sentence exciting thing about the jobs report. Yeah. My one sentence exciting thing is it showed that we are now back to pre-pandemic levels of hospitality jobs. So I just want to say to all my fellow people who like to go out and drink and, you know, have a nice dinner, we did it. We did it. We did it. We've come through. We've fully recovered, and, you know, the bars are back at full strength. So I thought that was good news.

Speaking of a good timing for the bars to be back at strength, can we just briefly mention that we're coming to your hometown of New Orleans. We're coming later this month. And you are – we're having a special Bulwark event for Bulwark Plus members, actually anybody that wants to come to see us live. Mona's going to be there. Sonny Bunch is going to be there. Sarah is going to be there. You're going to be there.

And you have scored a one-on-one interview with Walter Isaacson. Just give us a little bit of details about the Big Easy, Bulwark and the Big Easy. You're going to be there. And you have scored a one-on-one interview with Walter Isaacson. Just give us a little bit of details about the Big Easy, Bullwreck and the Big Easy. Yeah, he's the king of New Orleans, so I'm so excited about that. And hopefully he can give the people who are coming into town, fly on into town. It's beautiful in New Orleans in late October. So he can give some people the expert recommendations on where to get a nice gumbo or jambalaya. And I'm going to interview him.

He's been doing the Elon Musk tour. And I think that me and Walter have a little bit of a different view on Elon Musk. So we might explore that a bit. But then I also want to just get into him with the media stuff. I mean, he ran CNN and Aspen Fest, right? All of this changing. Time magazine. Yeah, time. And so much to talk to Walter about.

So I'm super excited about that. And, you know, hopefully we can all have a daiquiri together in the French Quarter. The venue is great, La Petite Theater. It's right next to Jackson Square. So people should come on down. See, I'm looking forward to that moment where you lean forward, you lean in, and you say, Walter, okay, can we just cut it out here? Isn't Elon Musk just a completely deranged, narcissistic, fascist fuckwad? I mean, you're going to ask him that, right?

I mean, it's like, come on. I've been already practicing that question, actually, and I have a few different versions of it. That's a new proposal, so I got a little notebook, and other ideas are welcome. Yeah. Something along those lines. Yeah. For people who listen to this podcast on a regular basis, we're also now on YouTube. So if you want to watch Tim and I doing all of this, we're on YouTube and you've been doing Tim's takes. I've been doing Charlie's shots. So

we're experimenting with this and I think we're kind of bringing in a new audience. It's a different thing. Yeah. And the big thing, and we don't want you guys, we love the OGs. We don't want anybody to miss anything. But like what we're finding is new people are finding us on YouTube. And that's like part of the mission here, right? Like, you know, you can't save democracy from behind a paywall, bringing new people in. It's been the thing I like the most about the Snapchat show is that like I hear from young people who do not like watch Nicole Wallace all day. Love you, Nicole Wallace, everyday watchers. But, you know, I like to talk to other people, too. And so so it's been useful and that's why we're doing it. And so if you go over and

subscribe and, you know, tell your teens or your grandchild and maybe your case to subscribe. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. No. You know, Elliot comes running down all the time and says, Tim's got a new video up on YouTube. And then you'll repeat what you said about Kevin McCarthy. And I'm thinking, okay, this works. I actually see this. He's not going to sit and necessarily read one of our, you know, 2000 word essays on it, but he's there. So this, by the way, is how we save democracy. Just one shot at a time. Okay, so let's start with Kevin McCarthy. I have to say a couple of things. And I want to use the term that I used on television with you last night, that congressional Republican politics is now Rubik's cubes for morons because there's just no way that it actually works. I like how you're running out of things to say on TV. I was noticing you're like the crazed jackal caucus, the Taliban caucus,

the insane fuckwad caucus. It's just like, you know. I'm just smiling over that. I was not coming close to running out of things. I mean, this is like, it is like a fire hose. Do not worry about this. But let's talk about Kevin McCarthy. And I want to get into this whole debate about whether Democrats should have bailed out because there has been this very radical, you know, defining deviancy down in terms of our politics. I actually heard commentators saying, you know, Kevin McCarthy was actually a much better speaker than we expected. Like, wait, what were our expectations here? Here's a reality check from Liz Cheney. And we have a bunch of soundbites from Liz Cheney. Liz Cheney, who reminds us who Kevin McCarthy was and why he was completely unfit to continue in office and why it would have been absolutely insane for the Democrats to have bailed him out. Here's Liz Cheney speaking at the

University of Minnesota this week. Kevin McCarthy at every moment over the course of the last two years has done more to enable and collaborate with and apologize for Donald Trump. Kevin McCarthy stood on the House floor an hour after the Capitol had been cleared and said that the objections should continue. He released security tapes to Tucker Carlson. He refused to abide by a subpoena that had been issued by the Select

Committee, and on and on and on. So the Democrats made what is a principled and honorable and, in my view, the right decision to say, we cannot abide by that. The Republicans need to choose their speaker. They're in the majority. But we are not going to help to enable somebody who has done those things and who has apologized and appeased Donald Trump. I think they did exactly the right thing. And it was a courageous show of leadership. Okay, this will not be the first time that you and I have agreed with Liz Cheney. But, you know, I mean, there was some pearl clutching. You're not clutching your pearls on this, but it was like, oh, no, no, no. The Democrats should have been the grownups in the room. They

should have stepped forward and bailed out the Republicans from their dysfunction. I'm going to cut to the chase here. I completely disagree with that. Your take, Tim. Yeah, I'm a 98% no on that and a hard no on my 98%. The 2% is Ukraine, in which we can get into. I am a little bit, I'm a little worried about Ukraine. I think Kevin would have protected it. And so I could hear an argument for somebody from the Ukraine perspective. Besides that, fuck this guy.

Every way till Sunday. I love that Liz Cheney was calling Dems, maybe whipping. We don't really know whether she was like actually whipping votes to say no, but I think maybe just giving them the cover, right? Because sometimes the Democrats do need a little bit of a buck up on this sort of thing, on having the spine, because a lot of them are earnest and do care about this sort of stuff, right? And so I think that Liz Cheney calling Goldman and some of the others and being like, no, you know, shiv this guy, I think did help. Yeah.

And I will also say, I heard from a couple of Democrats on the Hill, you know shiv this guy i think did help yeah and i will though i will also say i've heard from a couple of democrats on the hill you know this week and i don't actually think that they needed to buck up i guess is really where i'm getting to this and this one i think that kevin mccarthy had been so deceitful to them you know he'd rubbed it in their face on brennan show as everybody's discussed but also you know they remember all this stuff they remember the january 6th committee that he tried to sabotage person to person it was just kind of like throw him overboard you know tie a brick to his leg and uh you know we'll see what happens and and i think that that's basically right sure sure he kept the government open and we didn't default and that's not nothing but like know, had he done anything to demonstrate that

he was going to act in good faith, but be conservative, that's one thing. But he wasn't. He was bad faith all the way down. And so it's like, but what, so how much worse is it? Why don't we just remove the mask and see Jim Jordan as speaker? Because Jim Jordan was basically speaker anyway. I do understand the concerns about Ukraine. But in terms of the dumbing down our standards, here is a guy who has been just a shameless shill for election denialism, ran down the Mar-a-Lago, threw a lifeline to Donald Trump, pushed ahead with this, the bogus evidence-free impeachment of Joe Biden. And somehow Democrats were supposed to prop him up because why? Now, if there was a grand bargain out there,

if he was willing, I mean, there was that other, and I've described this as Rubik's Cube for morons, is that you either have to appease the lunatic caucus or you have to make a deal with the Democrats, which of course will enrage the base. But to make that deal with the Democrats, you would have to, okay, say, what, we're going to not do the impeachment bullshit. We're not going to do some of these other things. There was no way he was going to do that. He announced right away, I'm not going to deal with the Democrats. And then everybody's like, whoa, wait, why are the Democrats not lowering their standards to the point where they're going to empower this particular guy? He didn't even call to ask. He didn't even call to ask. The other argument that is not totally

baseless is Kevin McCarthy was the devil that you knew. And so now what you've done is you have empowered even worse people. Whoever replaces him is going to be worse. It's going to be somebody like a Jim Jordan or a Steve Scalise, who, again, playing this Rubik's Cube for morons, is going to have to either have to do the exact same thing that Kevin McCarthy did, which is make one concession after another to the bomb throwers. Can I go through the Jackal Caucus, the crazed lunatic Jack Jackal caucus, or he's going to have to cut a deal with Democrats. I don't see how any of that works, right? So what about the argument that, okay, you're going to get somebody who is much, much, much worse? Again, I guess my thing is, are they going to be much, much,

much worse? These guys controlled McCarthy. He did the debt ceiling deal. That is good. Would Jim Jordan have done it? Probably not. But like, here's the thing. The Republican party has been deteriorating slowly, but surely in front of our eyes for 11 years now. When Norm Ornstein wrote that article in the post about how the Republicans

are the problem when Boehner was the speaker, right? It's like it went from Boehner and then it went to, you know, Paul Ryan had to do it and then Kevin. And so like, this is the inevitable end point of getting to a Jim Jordan or someone even dumber than that speaker like we've been on this trajectory for a long time and the Democrats

were not going to stop that trajectory right like the Republicans need to stop their own you know debasement and they need to do it by taking a little pain and they've never been willing to do it right and the pain being that that like their base is going to be mad at them. I think that this was the inevitable trajectory. Did the Democrats like press the gas pedal on it a little bit by voting for this? Yeah, they did. But for how long? I mean, maybe they only sped it up by 45 days.

Could Kevin McCarthy have really survived the next government shutdown? Like probably not. Like they probably would have thrown him over then, you know? So it's like, the problem with the institution is the Republican Party and the Republican Conference. Like, that's the institution that is corrupt right now that needs to be dealt with. go. You can get a pro at Tread Experts. Ensure each winter trip is a safe one for your family. Enjoy them for years with a Michelin X-Ice snow tire. Get a $50 prepaid MasterCard with select Michelin tires. Find a Michelin Tread Experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TradeExpress.ca Kevin McCarthy is very much a symbol of who the Republicans are in Congress.

I mean, he was the face of all that, and that is not going to change. So we may get Jim Jordan. Donald Trump decided last night, to the surprise of some folks, because I think when you and I were on television last night, there was this buzz about Donald Trump is thinking about going back to the Capitol and is offering himself as an interim speakership. You know, instead, apparently he's endorsing Jim Jordan. And by the way, before we get to the Trump thing, let's just a reminder who Jim Jordan is. just reminding Liz Cheney provides the public service by by just saying you know remember the Jim Jordan with the role that he played in January 6th let's let's play Liz Cheney Jim Jordan

knew more about what Donald Trump had planned for January 6th than any other member of the House of Representatives. Jim Jordan was involved, was part of the conspiracy in which Donald Trump was engaged as he attempted to overturn the election. Also relevant? Jim Jordan, if you think about the extent to which people have now said, well, it was Speaker Pelosi's fault that Donald Trump's mob invaded the Capitol, that the security wasn't sufficient enough. The person who knew,

there were probably more than just Jim, but there was a handful of people, of which he was the leader, who knew what Donald Trump had planned. Now, somebody needs to ask Jim Jordan, why didn't you report to the Capitol Police what you knew Donald Trump had planned? You were in those meetings at the White House. Somebody should ask that.

And if the Republicans decide that Jim Jordan should be the Speaker of the House, there will, and I, by the way, I don't think that's going to happen. I think he'll lose. I disagree with Liz, first time. But if they were to decide that, there would no longer be any possible way to argue that a group of elected Republicans could be counted on to defend the Constitution. Damn, there's a grim warning. Okay, so Tim, you disagree? Okay, so Donald Trump is weighed in. Donald Trump is reasserting his control. I mean, he is the big dog who is basically lifting his

leg on the Capitol and says, I own this. Yeah, just I just want to add a little bit to what Liz said there, which was really right on. Jim Jordan also spoke at a Stop the Steal rally in Pennsylvania after the election. I mean, I guess this is part of what she was alluding to, but just to be more specific, he participated in numerous post-election meetings in which Rudy Giuliani and others discussed strategies for challenging the election. He was in a conference called Trump on January 2nd. So anyway, I mean, he was part and parcel with the coup attempt. And so I do think that, you know, that this should be the Republicans need to like have this held around their neck, and he needs to have to answer for it. And these the quote, unquote, normal Republicans

are going to have to decide whether or not they want to completely own this. Here's the problem is they already own it. Like Donald Trump's going to be the nominee, right? And so when I just game this out, I would love to be wrong. I always want to caution this. I would love to be wrong. When I game this out, I just see that the Jim Jordan, Jackal, Taliban, fuckwad, caucus, whatever we're calling them, right? Those guys are not going to fold. We've seen it already. You know, they are not going to- Seven or eight of them. Yeah, yeah. Seven or eight of them, right? Like at least some number,

probably maybe a little more. I mean, it was up to 15, 20 in the first round of January. There are other names you could throw in the mix, you know, so there's really about two dozen of them that kind of rotate through, right? That are crazy in various ways. They're not going to go for a normal person right and so the question is are there five republicans in this conference who will say no i can't do an insurrectionist let's try to cut a deal you don't think so you don't think it's fine i don't know that's the big question right are there five because because he's going to be no on ukraine he's going to be zero dollars on ukraine right going to be $0 on Ukraine, pro-insurrection,

pro-impeachment. So there are five people, or there are just five Republicans who say, sorry, I can't do all three of those. This is the key question, isn't it? And this is where we get to the nub of this. He has to get 218 votes. He can't just get a majority of the Republican caucus. He's clearly Donald Trump's candidate. So, you know, there are members of the House who would like to be perhaps distance themselves a little bit from Donald Trump. If Jim Jordan is elected, it becomes not just Donald Trump's Republican Party, but certainly Donald Trump's, you know, Republican Congress as well. There is no distancing whatsoever from him, right? So in many ways, this is, as you pointed out last night on television, this is Donald Trump reasserting his control over the party. But this has got to be one of

the worst nightmares for a lot of Republicans in swing districts or who are, say, quietly Trump skeptical or pro-Ukraine, all of that. It's also got to be a gift to the Democrats and to the Biden campaign who are thinking, boy, you know, we want 2024 to be a referendum on Trumpism. And this just, this just ratchets it up times 10. Yeah, it's a huge gift. And that's, I think, the biggest threat to Jordan, right? I think that in, let's just go through, and you did a little bit of Ben Wittes, order of pop probability right i would say the jim jordan like if he comes out and he gets 150 members it's like eventually kind of inertia takes hold right i think that's the most likely most likely i don't think that's 100 i just think that's the most likely yeah yeah the second most likely is that there are enough

members that say you know i can't do it it's just it's too much trumpism we're going to get crushed in the swing districts. Let's have Scalise inside. We're throwing up Scalise or somebody else, right? Some other conservative guy. Now, most of us, you know, in the bulwark world or Democrat pro-democracy world would be like, is this really much better? I mean, Steve Scalise was also voted to overturn the election, but they might be able to tell themselves that it's like a consensus choice. I think that's the next most likely. The third most likely, but I don't think is zero, is that five of them say, guys, I'm sorry, there's a reverse gates. Like, I don't think that there are 50 of them, but are there five of them

that can do the reverse gates and say, nope, like we need somebody even more attuned to swing district voters needs. I think that's a low chance, but I think they should be pressured. So who? And all of those guys, Mike Gallagher, Don Bacon, Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania, Valadio in California, go down the list. They should be saying, are you going to vote for somebody that will not fund Ukraine, wants to impeach Joe Biden over nothing? And it was for the Donald Trump coup? Because those are going to be the three parts of your plank. And can five of them finally show balls for the first time since 2016? Well, unless you got our friend Adam and Liz, who already have done it. But can five of them do it? I don't think so, but I don't think it's zero.

I don't think it's totally fantasy. I don't think it's zero at all. And by the way, since we're adding to the Jim Jordan resume, remember when he was the ranking Republican member of the Judiciary Committee before he became chair? He was responsible for that legendary tweet. What was it? Elon Trump and Kanye. Yeah, Elon, Kanye, Trump. That's worked out. Yeah, so.

That's what he wants the party's brand to be. Right. Is this the future of conservative? I have to do a thing next week with some local university students. And I don't want to be too mean because they're these young Republicans, very, very earnest and everything. And I am tempted to show up and say, okay, so let's talk about the state of modern conservatism. Is it Elon, Trump, and Kanye? Discuss. I just want to mention that. That would be a good place to start. I think it is definitely non-zero chance that people are going to go, no, this is nuts.

We can't do this. It's one thing. If Trump is going to be the nominee, we just need to keep our heads down and go in a different direction. This is like all in, all in on all of this. And plus, it means that each and every one of them will be asked all the questions that you just raised. You know, it's one thing to say, well, what do you think of Donald Trump's role in the

insurrection? Now it's going to be, well, you voted for somebody who was one of the conspirators. So I actually think, and by the way, can I do something really profoundly stupid on this podcast? Let's do it. And I want to signal it as something that is probably stupid and that I will almost certainly regret. Yeah, I'm ready. I think that there is at least a 33% chance that six months from now, the speaker will be Patrick McHenry because he's there. Just inertia. If everything goes to shit, what do you do? The guy who's there just stays there. And I would strongly discourage any listeners from smoking any of the hopium that there will be five Republicans who will switch parties and vote for Hakeem Jeffries.

That is just wish casting. That is just fantasizing. I mean, look, it's one thing to fantasize that maybe wouldn't be great to be with Taylor Swift. It's something else to get in a car and go to her house and hold up a sign saying, date me. I mean, there's fantasy, and then there's crazy, stocky fantasy. I do want to say that seems dangerous. Can I just say, I do think the problem might be Taylor. I know this isn't the point of this podcast.

But once you've had 12 relationships go sour and you sing about all of them, I do think the problem might be her. So maybe fantasize about somebody else that you can have a future with. This is something else to think about for folks. I don't know. Just one idea. So you're saying that there's a chance that Taylor Swift could be the next speaker of the House? I think it's higher than Hakeem Jeffries. But not much higher.

We agree on that one. If it's a flat or a squeal, a wobble or peel, your tread's worn down or you need a new wheel, wherever you go you can get a pro at Tread Experts. Ensure each winter trip is a safe one for your family. Enjoy them for years with a Michelin X-Ice snow tire. Get a $50 prepaid

MasterCard with select Michelin tires. Find a Michelin Tread Experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TreadExperts.ca. We have one more Liz Cheney soundbite because among the things that pass so quickly, and you know, we've talked about this, is that Donald Trump layers one outrage upon another to the point where we get what Brian Klass calls the banality of crazy, where the media goes, okay, so yeah, Donald Trump just gave another speech where he's endorsing extrajudicial murders. He's mocking the hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband. And it's kind of same old, same old, right? It's like,

wait, no, he's leading candidate for president who's going for extrajudicial killings, but the media is sort of locked into the novelty and it's not new that Donald Trump is crazy. But we are still a few weeks out from the former and perhaps future president of the United States calling for the death penalty for one of the nation's leading generals, Mark Milley. And as far as I know, Tim, no other Republican has denounced him for this. But Liz Cheney brought it up in Minnesota. This is what Liz Cheney said about the death threat against Mark Milley. The leading presidential candidate, he's not just the former president, the leading presidential candidate

called for the execution of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the United States of America. Every American. I don't care if you are a Republican or a Democrat, a defense hawk or a pacifist, an isolationist or somebody who believes in a strong national defense. Every American must condemn that. Every American must stand against that. You'd think. But that's not happening, is it, Tim? No. Every American must stand against that. You'd think. But that's not happening, is it, Tim?

No. And not to get too repetitive, because I've done this before, but I am frustrated with the media on this. I am. On the Millie thing, but also just on these other items. This is their job. This is the nightly news' job to keep track of the insane, like the extrajudicial killings about the shoplifters. That even kind of swept over me,

over my head a little bit. And I'm like obsessed with this stuff. So I understand that there's a challenge here, but you would think that that would be something that people would talk about. This is what we did in 2016. I think we are over-learning the lesson a little bit. You know, one thing that I'm frustrated with is,

you know, obviously there's all this chaos in the house and so that's the lead story, but the Senate's doing nothing. And, you know, obviously there's all this chaos in the House. And so that's the lead story. But the Senate's doing nothing. And, you know, there was a period of time, right, where, you know, we had the Hill reporters that would go up to every Senate Marco Rubio and be like, what do you think about the fact that Donald Trump wants to deport Ilhan Omar? What do you think about this and that? Right. They don't even do that anymore. Right.

So when you say I haven't heard any Republicans condemn, they're not even being given the chance to condemn. So his opponents in the primary aren't condemning. I mean, like, this is the thing, like, everyone has just gotten so beaten down by this. And I think it's really alarming. I think the Washington Post article about this was was very important and critical. Shake people back awake. I hope they do. And I understand how hard it is, because there are people who are listening to us right now are saying, you know, the answer is we should just not give him any oxygen. We shouldn't cover him. We should ignore him. No, completely wrong. You know, you need to know what he is saying, what he is promising, because he's being very, very clear and unambiguous about it.

So I reject that. The other problem, though, is the media is there's just too much. We can't spend this much time. And it is repetitive. But I think Brian Klass made the point that you need to stress the magnitude of his comments, not just the novelty. When he says these things, we have to cover them. So you mentioned the primary opponents, and they're sort of doing the slap fighting with Donald Trump. So Rhonda Sanders' folks are touting this somebody that I want to play here. Now he's taken the gloves off. He's really going after Donald Trump. This is after he's fallen to what, third, fourth, fifth place in the polls. Here's Rhonda Sanders' latest big attack on Donald Trump. A voter that goes to 10 rallies, their vote counts the same as somebody that's unenthusiastic than then goes and votes.

And we just have to understand that. And people will act like 2020, they're like, Biden was such a disaster. But here's the thing. I don't think anybody voted for Biden, okay? I did. They were voting against Trump. That was why they did it. I mean, let's just be honest. He energized Democrats. You could have John Kennedy walk through the door right now and he wouldn't energize Democrats as much as Donald Trump does. That's just the reality. What did we do in Florida with these Democrats? We defeated these Democrats. We left the Democratic Party in Florida in a pile of ruins. He makes Democrats mad. That's the big

hit. That's kind of the point, actually, of Donald Trump. That was almost an ad for Donald Trump. Yeah. So it seems the same old, same old. I mean, you know, it's I'm sorry because I have run out of terms, you know, too little, too late. Tim, I want to turn over the wheel to you for just a second here, because Fox News is Gregreg gutfield you have to pee uh i'm sorry i thought i thought maybe you had to run and we're on camera now i'm sticking around at least for now okay thank you for caring i feel the concern there greg gutfield who's influential guy on fox news by the way is he supposed to be funny apparently he's there he's their late night man his ratings are good good, I guess. Okay. So up until about five minutes ago, conservatives would have denied that we are not anti-democracy.

We're not anti-elections. This is Trump derangement syndrome. The reason we tried to burn down the Capitol was because we cared so deeply about democracy, because we are so concerned about the integrity of elections. And, you know, there's been kind of this slip slide. So I want to play the, and this, you highlighted this, I would have missed this, Tim, if it wasn't for you. You highlighted this little rant from Greg Guthrie. Let's listen to this. Okay. Elections don't work. We know that. We know they don't work they do look what we have look what we have we had a moderate president and we have crime exploding everywhere we had a democrat president

promised that he was going to be moderate promised that he was going to unite the country and now we have a terrible education system we have no border we have crime everywhere every facet of society is in peril and in chaos because our elections don't matter. Okay, our elections don't matter. And he goes on to say basically that's why we have to have a civil war. So, Tim, what's going on there? Every facet of our society is in chaos. This shit just pisses me off so much.

Oh, yeah, like this guy was really ready for Joe Biden to unite the country. The Fox News guy with the 5 o'clock and the 10 o'clock show on Fox. If you know, he was certainly open to Joe Biden's efforts to, you know, provide an olive branch. The thing is, Charlie, like this chef is really like it's mockable, but it's also really dangerous. Like this guy is like a reasonable guy. Like the viewers, there are a lot of unreasonable people watching. And they're looking at this and they're saying, well, this isn't, you know, this isn't judge box of wine. This is Gutfeld, like Gutfeld's on the five o'clock show. He's on the during the day,

right? Like, and he's out there saying that elections don't matter. Our entire society is in chaos. And we might need to resort to a civil war. The rest of the clip, you know, he's talking about how, you know how this is the parallel between the situation that Republicans are in right now, where they are persecuted by a group. And he somehow makes some tortured comparison to slavery about how the other side can't admit that they're wrong, just like the slavers couldn't admit that they were wrong. And so we had to go to war with them and kill them. We had to go to war with them and kill them. Okay. So this is the analogy to this moment. This is on corporate Fox.

And it's just like Greg Gutfeld went to Cal. Okay. He lives in Soho. One of my friends texted us. We were texting about this. He's like, I've been to his flat. Okay. He lives in Manhattan.

He's a very rich man. He has two shows on primetime Fox. I assume that he has some cats, you know, because he doesn't seem to have a family. And like, I assume that he has a driver that takes him to work. Like what is his life? Like his life is society is in chaos. Like we've got problems. New York city is one of the safest cities in America right now.

It's not, this is not, it's not the 1980s. It's not pretty Rudy, New York. There's crime in New York. Yeah, but it is not a wasteland, right? This is not a dystopian movie if you go to fucking Fox. This is kind of the essence of the authoritarian attack on liberal democracy, right? That liberal democracy does not keep you safe. Liberal democracy does not keep order.

Liberal democracy is going to lead to this chaos. So therefore, we need to move past those norms, and elections are not the answer. And this is part of this moving of the Overton window of what is acceptable. So before Tucker Carlson, the idea of, you know, the great replacement theory, these brown people are coming in and these Jews, they're going to replace you. This was fringe thought. Now it's mainstream. Now you have Greg Gottfield talking about, yeah, elections don't work. Everything is complete chaos. We need to have a civil war because the slavers weren't going to give up the slaves unless we went and shot them. And it's pretty much the same thing with these liberal progressive mayors.

And it's like, wait, so is this now moving this window of acceptability of Donald Trump talking about the border? By the way, there's legitimate concerns about the border, but his new rhetoric, by the way, speaking of new rhetoric and being numbed by it, he's now talking about these immigrants coming in and poisoning our blood. Sure. Now I understand that people think that it's Trump derangement syndrome to say, this kind of sounds like that German guy who talked about, you know, aliens poisoning the pure Aryan blood. But it's like, whoa, this is the kind of rhetoric that had no place in American politics just a few years ago. The authoritarian side of

this is exactly what, right, the authoritarian threat against liberal democracy, because Greg Gutfeld is a five foot five little man with napoleon syndrome that's what this is it's like we need a strong man is he really five foot five he might be five six and a half i don't know we need a conservative strong man that is going to stop this and it ties directly to the shoplifters question right like the trump thing that we're talking about we need somebody that's going to say oh if you want to steal from the store we're not going to have a trial i'm going to assume that you stole from the store and i'm going to shoot you this is taliban style right like i'm going to decide by looking at you maybe you're black yeah like i'm going to look at you and decide

do you look like a thief and then i'm just going to be able to shoot you now is this going to happen in 2025 no but these threats like this is how, you know, a over the long March, we get younger conservatives deciding that this is what conservatism means, and how it becomes more and more authoritarian over time. And this adds to the threats of these people that are unstable, that do not live in flats in Soho, that do not have, you know, riches unimaginable by everybody who in history who are struggling and who have guns and who might be like, you know, Greg Gutfeld's right. Maybe I should be the one to fire the first weapon because Greg's certainly not going

to do it. I can be even a little bit more dystopian here. Oh, great. Donald Trump is clearly also sending a message to law enforcement. I mean, you know, let's put this in some context. Donald Trump has a kink for brutality and for bloodshed. And he's been talking about it. He's been talking about war crimes.

He's been talking about pardoning. On camera. He doesn't want to see blood. He would start. Oh, my gosh. You're right. But he has a kink about at least other people doing these sorts of things. And he's made it clear that, remember when he spoke to those cops and he says, don't be so nice to those people, maybe bump their heads and everything.

Look, what he's also saying is that, how dystopian do I want to be here? We're like five minutes away from him saying, you know what, if you're a cop and you shoot some thug out there, I'm going to pardon you. I'm going to use my pardon powers to pardon you. Here's another context. It's 2023, right? We're only a few years out from the murder of George Floyd. And think about, you know, the country was coming together. There was a moment we said we need to deal with the problem of police violence, Black Lives Matter. Perhaps there were, you know, extreme things right there. But now, three years later, one of the central planks of the Republican nominees platform is, yeah, we ought to shoot more people. We ought to shoot people who committed nonviolent crimes.

I understand that looting is terrible and the shoplifting is a real problem. But this notion that I will order law enforcement officials or give them a green light to shoot to kill people, there are possible consequences to this. And there's no pushback. Not only is there no pushback, but Ron DeSantis is saying, well, yeah, I'm going to kill people at the border. We're going to shoot them stone cold dead too because of what might be in their backpack. And the people love this, Tim. And you know how this works. He's watching that crowd.

And that is that's the ultimate erogenous zone for MAGA right now. I agree with all that. I just want to put a final point on one thing, the pardon point that you made about the cops, which is the article I wrote this week is some actual real life evidence for what you're saying that people are going to start thinking about this. There's this guy, Mike Davis, who used to be an establishment Republican guys, which just shows you the radicalization of all this. But Mike Davis talked about how he wants to be attorney general. Oh, yeah. He's going to have a reign of terror. And during the reign of terror, he described all the horrible

things he's going to do deportations and gulags and all this other fan fiction for demented people. But the line in there that Bill Kristol actually pointed out to me after watching the clip that I wrote about, he was like, the line in here that's the most concerning is the pardon line. Because he lists all these horrible things he's going to do as attorney general. And then he's like, and then I'm going to eventually get pushed out. But I know that Donald Trump will pardon me. And all of Donald Trump's pardons of Manafort and Stone, he has set the tone for this, right? That if he gets in there again, that his people, quote unquote, can do whatever they want. And they will know that he will pardon them. And that is a

People need to pay attention. Okay. Yes. This is a very, very real threat. This is very real threat. In fact, you you remember at one point Trump was suggesting when he was talking to border agents that if they violated people's rights, if they broke the law, don't worry about it because I will take care of you. This is a real danger. that unlimited pardon power, which I increasingly have come to think is it was a mistake by the founding fathers to give that sort of thing, because they assumed that nobody like Donald Trump would ever be president, or that if someone did abuse it, that the Congress would exercise its impeachment. Impeachment is now kind of a dead letter in terms of actually holding him accountable. He could actually do this. Okay, so I want to come back to the border in a moment, but I'm sorry, this story today in ABC, holding this up to the screen.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, the nuclear. Trump allegedly discussed U.S. nuclear subs with foreign national after leaving the White House. See, the thing about the Mar-a-Lago document case is, you know, originally, I think there might have been some thought, okay, maybe it's just trivial stuff. You know, it's just papers. He's keeping them around as souvenirs. But it's hard to imagine if you and I were just gaming out this, or if we were writing a script, that it would be almost too much on the nose to say what was the most sensitive possible thing you might leak out? How about the capabilities of American nuclear submarines?

So here's the ABC report. Months after leaving the White House, former President Donald Trump allegedly discussed potentially sensitive information about U.S. nuclear submarines with a member of his Mar-a-Lago club, an Australian billionaire, of course, who then allegedly shared the information with scores of others, including more than a dozen foreign officials, several of his own employees, and a handful of journalists, including more than a dozen foreign officials, several of his own employees, and a handful of journalists, according to sources. The potential disclosures were reported to Special Counsel Jack Smith's team, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Prosecutors have interviewed this guy. His name is Anthony Pratt, who runs Pratt Industries. In those interviews, Pratt

described how looking to make conversation with Trump, he brought up the American submarine fleet, which the two had discussed. According to Pratt, as described by the sources, Pratt, the billionaire, told Trump that he believed Australia should start buying its submarines from the United States, to which an excited Trump, leaning toward Pratt as if to be discreet, then told Pratt. So discreet, then told Pratt two pieces of information about U.S. submarines, the supposed exact number of nuclear warheads they routinely carry, and exactly how close they supposedly can get to a Russian submarine without being detected. Nothing to see there, Tim. There's another point of that story where this guy mentions the, you know, Mar-a-Lago male cougar, whatever the word is for a male cougar that is at Mar-a-Lago, that he mentions it to three... Jackal? Yeah, Jackal, there you go. Three ocelots, three former prime ministers of Australia.

Again, like this guy has been talking about it and chatting about it. This is not my area of expertise. I don't know exactly how big of a threats are but again i think it showed the doesn't sound legitimate yeah it shows the legitimate concerns people had with the saudis like what what is jared whispering to the saudis if they're just whispering things to random australians at mar-a-lago i do want to flag one other thing do you remember the story i'm not saying that there's a direct connection here but again i think it just shows the sensitivity of all this stuff and the recklessness with which Trump was dealing with it. Here's a story from September 2021.

Australia bailed on a submarine contract with France worth $66 billion last week, choosing instead to work with the United States. Outrage, France recalled its ambassadors from the U.S. and Australia. Very well could be nothing to do with the story. But I just think that that shows, right, that all of this stuff is very sensitive, that there is a reason they call it diplomacy. And like, you know, you just can't be just randomly going up to people at weddings at your club, like talking about nuclear subs. Like, that's just something you can't do. Okay, so the fact that we know about this conversation, I mean, ought to at least suggest that maybe there were other conversations.

Sure. That maybe this was the chit-chat around Mar-a-Lago. Yeah. I mean, think about how much foreign governments spend on espionage. And yet the cheapest thing they could possibly do, apparently, is buy a membership to Mar-a-Lago. And we already know that was happening. We already know the Chinese were doing that.

So I'm sure there are things we don't know and it's interesting remember all the outrage about the chinese balloon how dare we allow that chinese balloon and there's donald trump going hey yeah the nukes you know they have like seven nukes and they can get within you know 100 feet of whatever whatever okay change changing gears because you can explain this to me maybe you can explain this to me oh pressure i'm genuinely confused this is not like pretend confused what is going on with joe biden and the wall the border wall do you do know that can you can you track that out for me i think i can answer this thank you i think i was counting on you now i mean i'm sure you we could bring on an immigration reporter that could give you the nitty-gritty of this but i can give you the broad strokes okay so the previous congress right had funded certain

amounts of the wall that donald trump didn't build right this is something we all know you know mexico was going to pay for it no it turns out they weren't america's money thing for it uh donald trump despite this being his top priority you know only built like you know 1 19th of the wall or something 159th yeah and so there were at least i think 20 more miles that had been funded when biden came in there was some legal wrangling over this some fighting over this but the parallel i can think of is when the obama administration had to defend doma you know and they're obama's like i'm not for this but this is the law we live in a country with rules and laws and like you you know, the government, if something has passed the Congress and been signed, the government, you know, there

are only so much you can do. And so the Biden administration, I think, basically said, okay, well, now this has been decided in the courts and now we've got to build these 20 miles that there's already been the, you know, already been the funds for. Okay. Now within the Biden administration, I think that there are competing views, right? There's some people that are like, this is really bad and terrible. There are some people, apparently Mayorkas, out of Department of Homeland Security, they're like, actually, we could probably use 20 more miles. Like, I'm not for the full wall, but like this place is, you know,

this is a high traffic place. And maybe President Biden disagrees with him, apparently, because during a comment yesterday, you know, Biden was like, no, this doesn't work. So does it work? Does it not? I don't know. I think that that is like what is happening here, which is I think that they legally are obligated to do it and they have a differing views within the White House. And obviously, this is an ideal.

Usually, it's best for the White House to speak with one voice and have a clear message on things like this. And frankly, you could see some political advantage maybe to saying, hey, yeah. Well, this is what I was going to get to, because the Politico playbook, if I'm remembering this, seemed to suggest that this marked a little bit of a pivot, actually a rather dramatic pivot on Biden's part, because he recognizes, they recognize this is a huge political liability. And so you're seeing a little bit of panic here. Look, they're throwing something up against the border because this is going to be a big issue in 2024 you don't see it that way you see it as more of a bureaucratic working working through as opposed to guys we got to do something at the border because whatever

we've been doing isn't working yeah i think it's two things i think that it's bureaucratic i do think that joe biden i know he gets no credit for this but has been like to my taste actually a little too cautious on yeah liberalizing immigration stuff i think that i don't know this but i think that it might help one thing that might help is expanding the amount of asylees we're expecting you know and expanding a guest worker program so that might take some pressure off the border maybe that wouldn't help but that's i think that's one idea that's out there a lot of pro-immigration groups are pushing for he hasn't wanted to do that because he doesn't want to seem like too pro-immigrant i think that's one idea that's out there that a lot of pro-immigration groups are pushing for. He hasn't wanted to do that because he doesn't want to seem like too pro-immigrant. I think he's worried about that, right?

And I think Joe Biden does come from this old union democratic, you know, mindset that was a little hostile to immigration, right? Because of wages and all that. I think that Biden has not been the liberal open borders president that the Fox wants him to be. I think that the problem at the border is very real. I think that there's some people in the administration that are concerned that, you know, maybe they can do some things to alleviate that, you know, to make it less of a political problem. I think that the real long and short of this is I don't think the Biden administration has a coherent view on immigration. I think there's a lot of staffers who are super liberal. He's more cautious. There are a couple of Department of Homeland Security guys that are like, let's be tougher and end up with a policy that's kind of.

Okay. See, I think that's exactly right, is that you don't have a coherent policy. You do have progressive elites who have a very outsized role in the Democratic Party. Rui Teixeira is absolutely right about this. But I think that you're also right that Joe Biden has very different instincts. And so you get that push pull and it's kind of messy. Then they need to clean it up over the next couple of months. What are you going to be watching over the weekend? Tim, give me something to keep an eye on. What am I going to be watching over the weekend? I mean, I guess I'm going to be watching to see if there's any actual momentum against Jim Jordan, which we talked about at the top. I'm going to be going to the Goose concert at Red Rocks in about 12 hours. So I'll be watching Goose. I guess that's a more

micro answer to your question. I hate that question. As soon as we hang up, I'll be like, oh, I'm going to be watching this other thing. So what we're all going to be watching is how deep the chaos is going to be in the Republican caucus. I mean, it's like a euphemism. You know, the Republicans are now in uncharted territory, which means no one has any fucking idea what's going to happen right now. And so it is going to be interesting to see what is the reaction to Trump's endorsement of Jordan. Do they just roll over as they are want to do, as they usually do?

Will there be some pushback? Are there five Republicans who are going to say, no, we don't want to go with the seditionists? Is there going to be any rallying around Scalise? Is this going to be one of those things where it's going to be next week, where it's going to be 15, 20 ballots? And are they just going to say, okay, Patrick McHenry, we don't care. You just stay there. You just keep doing that. As long as you keep expel. By the way, what do you make of the expelling of Nancy Pelosi from her Capitol office? It just seems like pettiness on steroids, but also an indication of this is our future.

It's going to be about retribution and revenge from here on. The Nancy Pelosi thing is related to my answer to your other question, which is who are we watching? And we're watching the people. I don't want to pick on my friend Jonah, who I agree with on a lot, but there's this phrase called the closet normals they use. There's a lot of closet normals over there in the House. Republicans who are normal,

but they have to be in the closet about it. Deep closet. And I know a lot about the closet, so I can talk to you about that, about the way that that warps one's brain. But McHenry is like the poster boy for this group, right? If you ask anybody who are the classic normals, McHenry is like the first name that comes up.

He looks like a normal, right? He looks like it. He's from the old Chamber of Commerce wing of the party. He's managed to survive, you know, by keeping his head down. He's got a bow tie. Bow tie. You can't be an authoritarian with a bow tie. You know what I mean?

Like, you have to be a Michael J. What was it? Alex P. Keaton Republican with a bow tie. Anyway. Well, I mean, Tucker Carl authoritarian with a bow tie you know what i mean like you have to be a michael j what was it alex p keaton republican with a bow tie anyway well i mean tucker carlson lost the bow tie right about the time that he decided to go pure fascist right because hey you know you can't be mussolini in a bow tie great point anyway i will be watching the mckennerys of the world to see if any of them actually let their normal out of the closet and the pelosi action leads me to expect that the answer is going to be no because it's like if this guy is the one that we're supposed to be like oh he's going to bring some you know just like take the temperature down but then he's up there banging the gavel like an angry little elf and saying i'm taking the keys to your office while you're at a funeral like that leads me to believe

that there just aren't that many people that are going to come out. There's no deep closet state here. We're really left with, what degree of crazy are we going for? And considering the fact that people are going, maybe we should have propped up Kevin McCarthy is an indication that it's just sort of like crazy, less crazy, seditionist, crazy, what? We're just constantly defining our deviancy down, right? Hey, have a great weekend. It's always good to talk with you, Tim.

And thank you all for listening to this weekend's Bulwark podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We will be back on Monday and we'll do this all over again. And by the way, if you are a regular listener to the podcast, you might want to check us out on YouTube as well. Tim's got his takes. I've got my Charlie's takes. And this whole conversation is up on YouTube now. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.