The Bulwark Podcast - Tim Miller and Bill Kristol: Rally Around the Felon

Episode Date: June 9, 2023

Fox calls Trump's prosecution an insurrection. The GOP shrug off his hoarding, hiding, and sharing of top secret national security docs. But our justice system is working, and the feds are going to perp walk an ex-POTUS for the first time. Bill Kristol and Tim Miller join Charlie Sykes for the weekend pod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. It is June 9th, 2023. It is the day after the big indictment dropped of Donald Trump. And as I wrote in my newsletter this morning, it feels like an understatement to say that we're waking up today in uncharted territory because no former president has ever been indicted by the federal government, much less charged with violating the Espionage Act. And so what we know, we don't have all of the details because the indictments are still sealed. But the Florida grand jury has handed down seven charges. There may be multiple counts that we don't know. Washington Post reporting the charges include willful retention of national defense secrets, obstruction of justice and conspiracy, which carry the potential of years in prison if Trump is found guilty.

So in other words, Jack Smith went big. This is not a trivial case and these are not trivial charges. So joining us on this special post-indictment bulwark podcast, my colleague Bill Kristol, and we'll be joined by Tim Miller when he gets here in a few minutes. So Bill, how are you this morning? I'm fine, Charlie. How are you? Well, you know, it's one of those moments where I think we're balancing on, have we been here before? Is it same old, same old? Is the base going to rally around him? Is this going to be another one of these Lucy in the football cases? Or is there something genuinely different about this? And no one knows the answer to this. Donald Trump is still the

apex predator. And until somebody takes him out, that's the way the Republican Party is going to feel. But I have to say, I was really struck by how big Jack Smith went. I mean, you're talking about the Espionage Act. You're talking about obstruction of justice, not just obstruction of justice, but a conspiracy to obstruct justice, making false statements. I mean, I'm sorry, this is a BFD. Your thoughts when you heard about this? Yeah, my first thought was this is a big deal. My second thought was January 6th was kind of a big deal. And for 48 hours after that, it looked like it really would end. Trump was a leader of the Republican Party. In fact, it looked like he'd be impeached and convicted, perhaps. And that turned out to be wrong. And I guess since then, I mean, God knows the preceding four or

five years for both of us were disillusioning in terms of Republicans ever taking one of the exit ramps they claimed privately to want to take to get off the Trump highway. Then they didn't after January 6th. And here he is leading the field by 25 points. But this, you know, it is a criminal indictment. It is by the Justice Department. It's not by one local DA. It is it looks like a strong case. I guess I still have the old-fashioned view that what the actual charges are will matter. What the actual evidence is will matter. If it looks like he's just being

trumped, he's careless, he's a little reckless even, contemptuous of the law and of law enforcement, Justice Department people. but still ultimately, you know, what really did it matter? Did he did anything hurt the U.S.? That would be one outcome that people could talk themselves into. I mean, for someone like me who served in government, it's just unbelievable his behavior and really is not trivial, as you say. And it really isn't trivial, incidentally, if I could just take a minute on the substance.

I mean, if you have serious classified documents floating around somewhere uh we don't even know if they're all back you know at the archives now or in safe custody and who knows who has them the one reason they're so strict on this stuff is you don't know all the damage that's been done we don't know what the iranians know do we know if the iranians paid someone $10 million to get that document that he was waving around about plans for possible contingencies for military action against Iran? So we don't know. That's why the FBI, that's why the U.S. government takes these things so seriously. Anyway, we don't know. But if the appearance is, you know, Trump being Trump, that's one thing. If the appearance is, he really, not only just kind of reckless and contemptuous of the law, but could really have endangered our national security or purposely wish to, in the sense of keeping these documents to

cut deals with the Saudis and stuff, that would be different. So I think it sort of still depends on at least the odds change in terms of how serious this is, depending on the seriousness of the evidence that emerges. I agree. I want to get to that in a second. But, you know, take a step back from all of this, you know, Lawrence Tribe and Dennis Aftergood right in the bulwark today, you know, just think about the historical marker that we've set here. I mean, already Donald Trump's the only president to be impeached twice, and now he has been indicted twice, including by the nation he once led.

And so maybe we are finally seeing, you know, the constitutional system asserting itself, you know, the wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine. But to your point about the details of the case, I guess, I'm not surprised that Republicans like Kevin McCarthy and Elise Stefanik and Steve Scalise and the usual suspects immediately rushed to Trump's defense. I mean, they immediately, even Marco Rubio, you could tell that they were pre-written, that they had to show loyalty to the orange god king. And obviously there's something sleazy about that,

but also just strikes me as politically dumb because they don't know what is in this case. And the fact that you're looking at top lines of things like possible witness tampering, conspiracy to obstruct, what is in this? We're talking about a violation of the Espionage Act, and yet they're just going through the motions of attacking this prosecution without realizing, I think, that it could get a lot worse. And it is going to get a lot worse because we know what the charges are now, which are pretty big. On Tuesday, when he has to do his second perp walk, we're going to have that indictment unsealed. And if Jack Smith does a speaking indictment and tells the story, it could be a compelling story. I mean, there are going to be dazzling details.

And so they've prematurely lashed themselves to this guy as they have over the last six years, like their muscle memory. But this is going to get a lot worse. And as you mentioned about January 6th, we're not at the end of this process. We're still in the middle of this. So there's this indictment. There could be indictments from January 6th coming down as well. Yes, that's right. And I think it's an important point. And there was a somewhat timid exit ramp they could have taken temporarily on this, which they don't have on some other issues. I mean, either you're for Trump or Biden, either you're for Ukraine or not, you know what I mean? So on those, they have to kind of take a side. This one, they didn't have to tweet anything. And then they could easily would have asked to simply said, hey, look, this is going to be a legal case. I have confidence in our judicial system.

I have Mark Rubin, who is the senator from Florida. Doesn't he have confidence in Florida juries? I mean, this is a Florida grand jury that indicted, and it's a Florida jury that will try the case. And you can simply say, I have my own worries, concerns, doubts. Let's let the legal system play out. So there was a place they could have gone that would not make them sound frankly like you and me you know what i mean and they could have sounded neutral and they chose not to i think in that respect your point is really important

that they don't even have the either the courage or the uh i don't know foresight yeah or maybe let's just think of the other alternative we kind of keep giving them the benefit of the doubt they kind of want an exograph. But maybe deep down they don't, you know. They think Trump could beat Biden and everyone they've talked to is for Trump. I mean, 75% or 90% or something in their town are also for Trump. And they're scared of the Trump forces. So they want Trump.

Well, yes. But the smart play for anyone going into this election cycle would be to keep your powder dry, right? To say, well, let's wait to see what the charges are, and then we'll comment. Because you can attack them next Tuesday and next Wednesday, except the demand, of course, from Mar-a-L not only would have been smart politics, it would have been the right thing to do. Instead, you get people like Josh, you know, running man Hawley, who is huffing that if people in power can jail their political opponents at will, we don't have a republic. Which is not just demagogic. It's just dumb because, of course, no one's just jailing him. He gets a trial. He will get appeals. He's still presumed innocent until convicted, right? I mean, it is not like Donald Trump does not have resources. So, again, you have this weird sort of, you know, need to take a position when you didn't actually have to do it. Now,

this is all going to play out. It's going to obviously suck up a lot of oxygen in the campaign. But it also seems that one of the issues that's going to overshadow the 2024 campaign now is the whole question of pardons. Is Donald Trump going to pardon himself? Would the other candidates be willing to pardon him? That's going to come up all the time. And so it's hard to imagine that they're going to be willing to pardon him, that's going to come up all the time. And so it's hard to imagine that they're going to be able to get away with answering that question. And we are joined now by Tim Miller. So Tim, what do you think of this? You think, I mean, at some point, isn't Donald Trump just going to say, yes, screw it. Absolutely. I'm president. I'm pardoning myself. I think this was a sham prosecution. And, you know, you bet you can't handle that.

Good morning, Charlie. I am. I was, you know, I'm running out of champagne. OK, for all this, after all these indictments, you know, it's becoming a little too much to have to celebrate all this. Can I rain on your parade, though? Can I rain? Do you know the judge? Please, let's do it. We've already we've already rained on that parade. OK, well, that's great. That's've already reigned on that parade, Tim. Okay, well, that's great. That's why I'm coming in to bring a little joy to the weekend podcast. Eileen Cannon is the judge that's been assigned, at least in the preliminary stages of this.

Eileen Cannon, who is the absolutely absurd Trump toady federal judge. So worst case scenario there. So I'm sorry, I just have to lay that out before people get too jiggy. But he does still get to get perp walked once again. And we have a little bit of, I know this is a family podcast, so we have a little bit of a see you next Tuesday situation happening next Tuesday. So, you know, Charlie, here's the thing. Would I like to see him go to jail? Yes. But we did this a couple months ago, and I think we're going to probably be able to get to do it in a couple months after Fonny Willis files additional charges. And who knows, maybe more of you Jack Smith again. That's for Ben Whittes and your Thursday podcast expertise. But it is not a winner to run for president while having several court dates to have to attend. As somebody who's

been involved in multiple presidential campaigns, they're pretty busy. And no matter what kind of PR you do around your various arraignments, that's not going to be a winner. Now, the Republican primary stuff, I'm sure we're going to get into. On your worst day, you did not have a candidate who had to wear an ankle bracelet. That's true. I never had to schedule a town hall meeting around an arraignment. I wonder when he was going to be required at court. So that was something I always had to avoid. I never had to experience, rather. So, yes, I think that he can campaign on pardoning himself. Yes, we have already seen.

Yeah, exactly. Good luck with that thing. Who was on Fox pushing that campaign slogan last night? It was my fellow GW grad. Jonathan Turley. And legal expert, Jonathan Fartley Turley. Yeah, he could do that for sure. Vote for me, pardon me. And I think that you'll see the same rally around the felon effect that we

saw before, which we saw last night in a primary, but I pray it won't be right, Don, on balance. Well, this is something worth reminding ourselves. We're focusing on what Kevin McCarthy and Elise Stefanak is saying. Mark Levin apparently had a complete screaming meltdown on Fox News. But the polls that have measured this would suggest that something like two-thirds of American actual human voters think this is a pretty big deal, that these are serious crimes, these are disqualifying crimes. So every once in a while, we ought to remind ourselves that the Trump base is not the universe. It is a minority of a minority. And that the more they cling to this guy, the more they are alienating themselves from the broad electorate. I guess that's the thing about being smart. You don't have the screaming Mark Levin audio? No, no, but I got something better.

No, we could do that. That would be a little bit of schadenfreude. But in terms of smart politics, I was talking with Bill about the impulse to immediately rush out and embrace Donald Trump before knowing all the details of this. But also, I'm trying to imagine elected Republicans who want to win elections, looking at Donald Trump, looking at this man, looking at the calendar and what he is facing and how much worse it's going to get and saying to themselves, yeah, we're good with that. We're fine. Let's lash ourselves to the mast of Trumpism for the next year and a half. I mean, it's just, well, yeah. I mean, the question is, is there a plurality of Republicans who are making logical, rational choices on their nominee? Probably not, right? Is there a significant minority? Yeah, I do think so. I think that listening to the Sarah Focus groups,

just looking at the polls, understanding, you know, you do have Republican voters who are saying to themselves, I like Trump, but it might be gold watch time. And might there eventually be a straw that breaks the camel's back on this? I think so. Now, will that happen if nobody campaigns against him? Will that happen if Fox News, remember we went through the whole cycle about how the Murdochs were pivoting off Trump. You know, Fox News has a tweet last night that's like, insurrection. This is an insurrection against Trump. So if the main media organs of the party, if even the normal politicians don't speak out against him, then no, it's not going to work. If they have a strategy, which I think is a big if that says, hey, you know, we're going to do two days here of kind of puffing out our chest against the deep state, etc. And then move into an aggressive campaign to

say we cannot win a campaign with this guy. And Ron DeSantis wages that campaign successfully. And the other Chris Christie and the other people's in the race and Fox and the Fox House, right? Yes. If they don't do that, then no, there are not enough Republicans that are going to just move off him just because of magic fairy dust, right? You actually have to get them to move off of him. We have to talk about this morning's big development because this morning, CNN, which by the way, has had a pretty bad couple of weeks, broke a very, very big story. And this is one that you almost have to read several times to realize what a big deal it is. It's about this tape, about the tape that we'd heard about before, where he is sitting in Bedminster and he's talking about these documents and cnn has

gotten their hands on the full transcript and this is paula reed reports that on this tape donald trump acknowledges that he'd retained secret military information that he had not declassified and he says as president i could have declassified but now i can't according to the transcript i I mean, it is like, yes, I've committed these crimes. This is how I'm committing this crime. I'm doing it right now in case there's any doubt about it. So let me just play for you. Paula Reid's report on CNN, because it is absolutely jaw dropping. And I think it puts all of this in a really significant new context or certainly highlights how strong the evidence is and how much of that evidence comes right from Donald Trump himself.

So let's play. This is Paula Reid from CNN. He is referring here to General Mark Milley. He says, quote, Well, with Milley, let me see that. I'll show you an example. He said that I wanted to attack Iran. Isn't that amazing? I have a big pile of papers. This thing just came up. On the tape, we're told that you can hear him rustling the papers at this point. Look, this was him. They presented me this. This is off the record, but they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department

and him. We looked at some. This was him. This wasn't done by me. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him. We looked at some. This was him. This wasn't done by me. This was him. I'll keep reading, but you can tell at least four times, you know, he emphasizes that this was Milley. He goes on to say all sorts of stuff, pages long. Look, wait a minute. Let's see here. I just found, isn't this amazing? This totally wins my case. And I want to note here, his case he's referring to here is this dispute with Milley, not the current pending criminal investigation. Except it is like highly confidential, secret. This is secret information. Look, look at this. I will note that secret and confidential are both, of course, levels of classification.

And then arguably the most damning quote, he says, he asks someone in the room if he can declassify it. And then he says, as president, I could have declassified, but now I can't. And of course, that last quote undercutting all of the public arguments that he, his allies, and his attorneys have made about how he was able to declassify things once he left office, or that he may have even had a standing declassification order to declassify any materials in his possession before he left office. But in terms of the investigation, prosecutors are likely going to be most interested in the fact that he is claiming to have retained secret information and is appearing to try to share that with a room full of people, none of whom had security clearances. So again, this is a really key piece of evidence in this ongoing investigation.

Oh my. Okay. So in the immortal words of Stringer Bell, is you taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy? What the fuck is you thinking, man? And they didn't just take notes on it. They had a tape. So Bill, I mean, I can't imagine it being more clear. You're talking about military documents that were given to him as president of the United States that he knows are top secret and confidential. He knows he's not supposed to have them. He knows that he doesn't have the power to declassify them. And it's all right there on tape. And I think this gets to the point we discussed briefly before Tim came on, actually. This is why national security people really are freaked out about this.

This isn't just he's careless, he's a jackass, he's showing off. But ultimately, can you show damage result? We don't know whether that Iran document was ever returned. We don't know if Trump made copies of it. We don't know if Iran heard that Trump had it somehow from all these people he was showing it off to and bought it from someone. I mean, the degree to which there are real national security consequences of having highly classified documents floating around unattended to, uncounted, so to speak, without full knowledge of where they are. And I don't think we still are confident that, I don't think the government's still confident they got everything back.

So I think one reason this is a big story is it's not just, it's a classified document that was scheduled from, you know, some day or talking points for a phone call with, you know, some foreign leader or something, or even the letter from Kim Jong-un, which he shouldn't have taken, but whatever. But this is an actual important classified military document that was in his control being waved around and maybe shared with others and not secure and so this is why it is a serious matter and this does i think increase we'll see what the evidence is as i said earlier but this really does increase somewhat i think the chances of this being as tim put it the straw that breaks the camel's back finally i was speaking

to some people up here in boston last, senior Democratic types, donors and so forth. I used the exact same image or metaphor, whatever that is, straw that breaks the camel's back. And actually, we sort of stopped and had a brief discussion. What does that mean? When did a straw break a camel's back? There must be like a story. This is something we can all research on Google, I guess,

after we finish this podcast. But what fable or anecdote or story or literary thing does this idea come from? The bad news is straws don't usually break Campbell's back. But this is not a straw. This is a big one. I mean, Yes, I agree. Again, I always come back to January 6th and the fact that that didn't break Campbell's back, but maybe it weakened it and this is the one that does it. I'm very open-minded, so to speak, about how big this turns out to be. I think we really, we've just never been in this circumstance before, so we don't know. I don't think the distraction from the campaign stuff matters much.

She's probably better off not being in the debates, just fighting the Biden Justice Department full-time, than actually worrying about all these candidates attacking. I'm not even sure. I've said what Tim said earlier, that it's sort of important that they need to make the case. But at this point, almost the whole Republican primary is now Trump versus Trump. You know what I mean? It doesn't really matter. Hey, listen, I'm not going to let you guys get off this. That CNN story, that transcript, there he is sitting there saying, I have this secret document. It is a war plan. And I know that I cannot share it with you. I know that I didn't have the power.

I mean, this is amazing. You know, I have two reactions. Number one, I mean, damn, talk about a smoking tape. But also, I think this may be just kind of the tip of the kind of anecdotes, the kind of details, the kind of evidence, the kind of stories that might be in all of this. Because we don't know what's behind that conspiracy to obstruct justice. We don't know what's behind that conspiracy to obstruct justice. We don't know what's behind some of these other charges. So, Tim, I'm trying to think of any analogy where you have somebody who is basically on tape saying, yes, let's commit this crime.

I'm committing this crime right now. And this is how I know that I know that it's happening. What the hell? Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon. Watergate. Watergate would be the last one. But a couple of thoughts.

One, just I promise you, Charlie, I'm not going to duck your question. But the other thing about that tape that is striking is that this person's brain is mush. You know, we're running on the, you know, cogent, you know, mental acuity candidacy here against Joe Biden. And it's like hard to even follow the logic of his just rambling, incoherent nonsense. He's just so mad at Mark Milley, and he's in front of a crowd in front of other people, and he's waving around, you know, papers. And a couple of times, Paul Reed has to jump in in the middle of the transcript and explain to people like what he's saying, because he's making no sense. So I mean,

there's that element to this. But I think that as far as the crime is concerned, I think there is good reason to believe that there are other very tangible examples of this because this is Donald Trump. Like, of all of Donald Trump's flaws, which are myriad, which could take up this entire podcast, his hubris, you know, is the one. You know, if you read Maggie's book, Confidence Man, if you just observe Donald Trump, like his hubris is the one that goes back 50 years, you know, and since the 80s, this man has been, you know, a hubristic bore. And, and this goes on steroids, once you become the President of the United States, and he decided that the rules did not apply to him. I mean, I was really amused, Ryan Grimm sent a good tweet, which is like, getting charged with a classified document crime when you have unilateral authority to classify documents takes unusual talent but like that's the case here like his hubris was such

that he did not feel like he had to be limited by any rules be constrained by any rules he admired as we learned this week once again kim jong-un and the autocrats like that was who he modeled himself after of strong leadership and so when you see yourself as an autocrat and as a king, you don't have to abide by these silly little rules about whether I need to declassify this document. It is mine. I won this. It is a trophy for me. All of America's secrets, you know, the entirety of the U.S. government is my play thing, is

my play toy. And that was his attitude towards this. And so given that, I don't think that there's any reason to believe that this is the only example of him very directly and very blatantly demonstrating to other people who have to testify under oath now that he had classified documents, knew they were classified and didn't declassify them and was showing them off because he thought that I think that's a great point about the pattern and practice that we have from Donald Trump, his his attitude toward national security. I mean, how incontinent he is. I don't know. Do you guys see this piece by David Rothkopf in the Daily Beast, where he sort of lays out this this story? And it's actually pretty good. You know, he talks about, you know, that this is not a trivial case. This is about national security. I mean, you know, his supporters are going to try to say that he's being charged with a bureaucratic slip-up, you know, some mistake in shifting a few pieces of paper that he moved from the White House to

West Palm Beach. And obviously that framing will make it sound petty. But then he goes through saying, you know, look, this guy ignores the law. He ignored the advice that he was repeatedly given. And this is the pattern that we have from this guy. And again, to your point about how Donald Trump has behaved, you know, this is a man who has shown complete contempt for our national security, for the products produced by our intelligence community, for the entire concept of protecting vital national secrets throughout his presidency, Rothkopf writes. He appointed a national security advisor, Michael Flynn, who lied to the FBI about inappropriate exchanges that he had with foreign enemies. He sought to defend that national security advisor after his crimes were clear, and he said he would reappoint him if he's elected again. In one of his first meetings in the Oval Office with Russia's

foreign minister, he revealed to him and to the Russian ambassador sensitive classified information that put allied intelligent assets at risk. He ignored the advice of national security professionals and granted his son-in-law and daughter classified clearances they should not have had. He repeatedly attacked and denigrated the intelligence community, including that one time while standing alongside Vladimir Putin in Helsinki in 2018. And it goes on and on and on. So you're right, what we're seeing is we're picking at the scab of what Donald Trump has been doing for a very,

very long time. So to Tim's point, though, that this will only hurt Trump in the Republican circles if somebody attacks him. This week, we did see something new. We did see a willingness of the other Republicans to go after him on the Kim Jong-un thing. I mean, that was significant, wasn't it, Bill? Because, I mean, he's been sucking up to dictators, murderous genocidal thugs for six years, and they haven't said anything. But this week, they decided, and this was pretty much across the board, Republican candidates decided that, no, they were going to ding him. They were going to say that it was something un-American. Even Brian Kemp out of Georgia, who's not running for president, felt inspired to say how un-American it was. So, I mean, is that like a slight green

shoot that they are willing to take those shots? Yeah. And I mean, I've been saying for a long time that if they did, maybe it would have some effects on Republican primary voters. I mean, you can't quite expect the primary voters, you could expect them to, but it's maybe too much to expect the primary voters to come to their senses without anyone whom they've elected to another position or their fellow Republicans have elected to another high position from another state to ever tell them they should come to their senses. So there's a bit of a vicious cycle when the elected officials pander to the voters and the voters hear nothing from the elected officials except Trump's being persecuted, so they believe it. And there could be a virtuous cycle, if you want to use that term, for the green shoots, where more people start criticizing Trump.

There's some erosion in the polls. Someone maybe picks up a couple of polls. Christie suddenly goes from, he's not going to be the nominee, I don't think, but he goes from 2% to 5%. And some people think, gee, maybe there's a little bit of upside here in criticizing Trump. So while of course, you know, saying how horrible Biden is and all this. So I think we could get a set of positive developments out of this. It's a moment. It's hard to, yeah, I really do think in that respect, it's a possible inflection point.

It could also be that as in other cases in the past past two months from now, we're on to something else. I mean, this trial won't happen immediately, and Trump will try to make it as confusing as possible. I come back to just one last point on the actual stuff. I think I said at the very beginning, I think the charges matter and the evidence really matters. One reason I think Smith, I'm very struck that he brought the case in Florida. All the legal types I've spoken to for the last two months have been saying, D.C., D.C., D.C., you get a better jury pool and better judges to handle this. But Smith brought it in Florida.

He probably felt he had to, well, he wanted to avoid the delay of an attempt by Trump to remove it to Florida. But also it suggests that he thinks the fundamental crimes were committed in Florida. And that suggests the fundamental crimes weren't just taking the documents to Florida from DC, that the fundamental crime was the kind of thing that that tape revealed. And maybe there are 20 other tapes. It's not like a lot of people didn't tape a lot of interviews with Trump. It's not that there weren't a ton of witnesses to Trump doing things. The 20 Secret Service people have testified. There's a lot more. That's where I think Tim's thesis that this could be huge or big really comes through.

It really depends on sort of, I think, a mass of evidence of both reckless behavior and maybe even really pernicious behavior. Okay, you want to reign, Tim? Yeah, I just want to reign a little bit. We're always talking about two different groups of people, right? And I think that to Bill's last point about how if the evidence is extremely strong here and easy to understand, easy to comprehend, I think that is one more nudge

towards this group of people that is so important in the general election, which is college-educated Republican, particularly men. A lot of these college-educated women have already left the party, you know, who are now swing voters, you know, who are your Warnock-Kemp voters, that crowd, you know, they are watching this. They you know, who are your Warnock Kemp voters, that crowd, you know, they are watching this. They are reading the Wall Street Journal. They can comprehend what is happening. And, you know, some of them are going to vote in Republican primaries. Some of them are general election swing voters. And I think that this can just be another catastrophic hit for Trump with that group.

But that group is irrelevant, essentially, in the Republican primary. Like the type of people that would even consider Chris Christie are irrelevant in the Republican primary. I think it was on the next level. Sarah was saying that Matt, you know, that they couldn't find a Republican at the Chris Christie town hall in New Hampshire. You know, it was people who also they're independent, which is fine. But like, for the people that matter, in order to move them off of Trump, a tweet about Kim Jong Un-un doesn't cut it. A passive-aggressive comment about Trump's electability that you have to read through the lines doesn't cut it.

For these people, you're talking to non-college voters who get their news off Facebook. And these people right now are being inundated and deluged with big microphone people talking about how Trump is being persecuted and Trump is being attacked. And they're not talking about Ron DeSantis or Brian Kemp or Tim Scott. Trump is the main story. And that has to be pierced. And just this one thing on this, here's Robert Costa yesterday, speaking tonight to key strategists with several top contenders. They see, they think GOP voters will rally to his side now but they also believe that once georgia comes trump political bleed out possible that is nonsense like oh we've we've lived this

and over if you go as the next one right yeah that's the next one yeah groundhog day man and it's like but but if you let this happen now who knows when when Georgia comes, but if you let him spend this summer up until the first debates being the only story, deep state versus Trump, Biden versus Trump, Trump is fighting all of these forces, and everybody else is just like these tiny little moons circling around the main planet, then they don't have a chance. Then they can never penetrate the narrative. Okay, I've heard this over and over and over again, and it's probably right. then they don't have a chance. You know, then they can never penetrate the narrative. Okay, I've heard this over and over and over again, and it's probably right. The default setting ought to be that what's happened in the past is going to continue happening in the future. And no, the hardcore Trump folks

are not going to be peeled away by this at all. I mean, I get that. On the other hand, you could see that there's a calculation being made on the part of some Republicans that there are wedges that you can drive between Donald Trump and the base on issues like sucking up to Vladimir Putin, on being the grift with Saudi Arabia. I was struck by the fact that even Mike Pence's super PAC put out a really hard-hitting video yesterday going after Donald Trump on January 6th. Now, of course, Pence is walking cognitive

dissonance. He's still saying that he would support him. But one of the questions I guess I would throw out there is Mike Pence says it's wrong to indict Donald Trump on this particular case. What will he say if there are indictments involving January 6th? Will he say the same thing since clearly he's a witness, he's drawn some lines. So that may be new. And you didn't mention him, but Chris Christie is not going to win this nomination. Chris Christie is a kamikaze here. But Chris Christie, Tim, was...

Oh, God, we're going to do this? I'm saying this. He was fabulous. He brought it all. I didn't know you were such an easy mark, Charles. We knew that he was going to punch. You're such an easy mark. What? You know, it's so easy to- Oh man, look, you're not the only one that can suck up. I mean, honestly, I'm just saying that

we knew that Chris Christie was going to be pugilistic. But what we saw this week was that he's going to throw everything at Donald Trump. He's all out of fucks to give. He's going to punch him on the grip. He's going to punch him on the character. The personality is going to go after, uh, Jared and Ivanka. And again, you don't have to love him, except here's a different dynamic from the strong on the camel's back. You know, Donald Trump is the apex predator who has terrified everyone.

Everybody's in the weeds looking at the apex predator. Oh, I don't want to be eaten first. You know, he's too strong. If somebody comes out of the weeds and bites him, hits him, wounds him. If the apex predator starts bleeding out, starts stumbling, then you might have a completely different dynamic. And that's where I think that Chris Christie can be consequential, that he can maybe bloody up Trump enough, but also that he might move that Overton window of acceptable criticism, that he might open the door just a crack for the other candidates to also realize you cannot beat Donald Trump without

beating Donald Trump, without going through Donald Trump. So I find what he's doing interesting, and I wonder what effect he's going to have on the other candidates. There were two months where DeSantis gained on Trump. I mean, he didn't last. So there are maybe Trump Republican primary voters, assuming the polls weren't just totally fanciful, who were open to leaving Trump. Why were they mostly open to leaving Trump?

I have doubts about Trump? Electability. The truth, I'm happy that Christie's doing what he's doing. Maybe it'll have some small effect. Maybe it won't. Maybe it'll have a little bigger effect as things go on and others start echoing him a little bit. But the single thing that would be really good would be two weeks from now if suddenly it does look again as if Trump won't beat Biden. A poll that shows Trump flailing a little bit, fading a little bit against Biden, instead of even with Biden, at least in donor world and elite world, which would percolate down, though, I think, to others, would have a real effect. So again, these things are sort of cumulative, and you don't know what provokes what and what

causes what. You're not going to move 20% of the Republican primary electorate right away. Could you move a few percent, which also might show up in a general election poll, which then moves a few donors, which then makes Tim Scott suddenly have a lot more money to spend in Iowa? I don't know. I mean, I remain basically skeptical of all this, but obviously people should try. We should try. Everyone should try to do what we can to weaken Trump. And look, it makes a big difference if Trump wins the Republican nomination unimpressively, sort of staggers to it, 42 percent in some of the key states, divided field, you know, a little more, or if he wins it overwhelmingly, right, in terms of his strength going into the general election.

So it does matter how much Trump is nicked up here in his primary process. So I very much agree, you cannot let the summer go by waiting for Georgia and waiting for the next indictment. That's really insane. And we'll see. Christie has been sort of quiet, but others too. I mean, they all say the donors, McConnell, everyone in private, we want the exit. We want the off ramp. We don't want Trump. And then this is the moment they need to, I mean, really it is pathetic if they just sort of sit around looking at this as the Republican car drives by the 47th off ramp. And none of them has the nerve to, like, try to grab the wheel and at least make an attempt to get on it. Well, that's why Christie matters, because he's the only one who is running against Donald Trump at this point. You know, OK, we can deal with all the baggage.

But, OK, Tim, take your Chris Christie. Yeah, I guess. I mean, look, we just we don't need to lather the guy up with icing and cherries, okay, when we talk about it. It's fine. His town hall seemed fine and good. I hope he keeps doing it. Let's see. We'll see. I know Chris Christie.

I don't think he can help himself, and he's going to start turning his fire against Ron DeSantis and other people at any minute now. That's his nature. Yeah, but you know what? This did not happen in 2016. Sure any minute now. That's his nature. Yeah, but you know what? This did not happen in 2016. Sure. That's true. Jeb! never went at Donald Trump like that. That's not true. We don't need to relive 2016,

but that's not true. That's false. Jeb wasn't good at going at Donald Trump, but he did. He just wasn't good at it. He wasn't very well suited for it. But this is the thing about Chris Christie, though. He is suited for it. He is the guy. Sure, sure.

They can punch and punch. Here's the thing, though. And I think Chris Christie should keep doing it. I'm just going to hold my flowers for a little while. I want to see it. And same with Mike Pence. I think that Mike Pence ad, it had some goofy stuff in there about how he stood up to a mob and now how can you trust

Trump will stand up to the woke mob. And it's the shit you got to do, I guess republican primary it had some goofy stuff in there but it went right at trump on january 6th i'm happy they did it it was the super pack not the campaign yeah i'd be interested to see if that the campaign stands behind the super pack ad i've been trying to get a report to ask about that but it was a good ad and and i hope these guys keep doing it and i do think it'll matter on the margins but who are again who are they speaking to? They're not speaking to the maybe. They're speaking to the people that are already basically off the boat. Like maybe you would vote for Trump in the general election.

So that's useful again to have those messengers out there, you know, assuming Trump ends up being the nominee. They're not speaking to people that are the maybe Trump folks that Bill talks about. Well, I don't know. Like Trump. Well, I don't know. I don't know whether they're not speaking to the maybe, especially as these problems pile up to have somebody out there who is highlighting them and hitting him and making it clear. So, look, I mean, the thing that Chris Christie is doing, the thing that Chris Christie is doing is he's not arguing just on electability. He's going after the fundamental unfitness of the guy. And I will say that he's going to get a lot of attention. He's going to get a lot of publicity because he is saying something that nobody else is saying.

Where is he going to get his publicity? On CNN? I just, let's see it. Well, he was on Fox last night. He was on Fox News last night. The median primary voter, who do you think that they're hearing from today? Are they hearing from the Mark Levin clip? Are they hearing from Chris Christie? Are they hearing the Kevin McCarthy thing? Are they all watching Fox and Friends? You know, are they hearing Eric Bolling on Newsmax?

This is the problem, right? What Chris Christie's doing is fine, but Trump is vulnerable. But the people that have already tuned out Chris Christie, that are the maybe Trump people that like Trump, they need to hear it too. I agree. And they are not hearing it. The people who are hearing the Chris Christie stuff are the Bulwark podcast listeners. God love you. And sure, he's getting booked from time to time. But if you look at the preponderance of what we're all seeing from conservative media,

it is a rally around the flag. And he is being drowned out by people rallying around the felon. Well, he just got started. So yeah, I mean, so far, there's no question about it. He's not even at 1% in the polls. And I'm not making the case that he is going to be dominant. But he is going to break through, I think, or has the potential to break through because he is doing something that is newsworthy when you say something that nobody else is saying. And he was on Fox News last night. And I think that it will come a point where people are

going to go, okay, I'm not going to be listening to, let's face it, we're also talking about people that are not going to be listening to liberal elites or to never Trumpers who've decided that they are Democrats. They're going to be listening to people who have at least some residual credibility in the Republican Party. Now, for the people who believe that all we have to do is just vote straight Democratic and all Republicans are evil. Okay, well, then- The idea that you think that Chris Christie has more credibility with these people than

whoever you're criticizing right now by subtweeting is just wrong. It's like, it's just wrong. A Republican primary voter who consumes Newsmax and who consumes the Bannon podcast. The difference between Chris Christie and me is nothing. He's just a bigger version of me or Liz Cheney.

What? They don't see Chris Christie as any different from Liz Cheney. Okay, but I'm not talking about that segment of the electorate. I'm talking about because you're right. That's the voters that matter. They like Trump. Well, no, that is not the, see, this is where I think. No, Tim, I mean, look, 45% of the Republican primary electorate is college educated. 55% now looks like it's non-college. So one problem people challenging Trump has had is that Trump, of course, controls the working class, the non-college vote, but he also does pretty well,

not as well, but well enough with college. If someone could really pry off, and I'm leaving aside Christie personally, if people could pry off, if a range of people, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, I'd say matters a lot more than Christie for this, if they could pry off some of the college-educated support for Trump to start with, that could have some effect in making his lead less prepossessing, and suddenly other people start looking up and thinking, well, what about DeSantis? Or what about someone else, Tim Scott or something? So, I mean, I think it's not likely and it's not easy

and it's not going to happen all at once. But I very much agree with your original point, Tim, which is that this is where it has to start happening. I mean, this is probably the best opportunity. This is hard to see a whole lot of exit ramps after this one are going to be any better. And if you don't take this one, you're not going to take the other ones. I agree with that. My whole point originally was that right now they're not taking it and that they need to start. And yeah.

Yeah, no, no, we're in agreement. Right. So then the question is, how do you get them to do that? And I think this is the fundamental flaw of your argument, Tim, is that you are focusing on the deep MAa voters who i i can see i'm not focusing on the deep maga voters i don't know how many times i need to say this okay you're saying the people who listen to news max the people who listen to this no it's not no it's not the whole casey tim that's just wrong i mean the reality is that there are people who were you awake during the 2022 primaries? Who won every primary? I will finish here, okay? There are people who also do things like,

and I find the Wall Street Journal editorial board to be often quite deplorable, but I'm saying that there's a different universe out there. That there is, it is not 90% who lives in deep, in deep MAGA world. There are others. And it doesn't necessarily take a huge number to make a difference.

Look, I just think more power to Chris Christie, who is doing what no other Republican has been willing to do. We have had this mantra. How many podcasts have we had? When are Republicans going to stand up to Donald Trump? When are they going to say this? You know, Liz Cheney does it.

Chris Christie is doing it right now. Belatedly, they should have done it a long time ago. But at some point you go, okay, you know, this is a good thing. And there are people out there that are not just rocked. I mean, I know the people you're talking about. I know the people who are injecting their Facebook feeds into their veins every single day. No, you're not going to affect them. But Chris Christie is talking to them. I mean, he is talking to other Republicans, which makes him different than other folks who have decided we're just going to go off in some different direction. Fine, whatever.

I'm just going to say this one more time. I think that Liz Cheney acted wonderfully, and I did nothing but praise her. I think that she's in a 100 different category and Chris Christie but and it's fine if you want to face Chris Christie what he's doing fine he cost us Donald Trump so if excuse me if I'm not I'm not ready to start slathering him with fucking compliments because he had one good town hall but here's the thing the voters aren't you you keep alighting who we're talking about here there is a 30 percent of the party that's mega there is you know maybe let's use bill's bill's construct here 40 that you know you got 10 that are anti-mega and another 30 that are college educated

may be ready to move off of trump the people that matter the big middle like donald trump they might be ready to move off of him and that's why when you looked at the numbers from ron desantis and christmas while he was beating trump in some polls they might be ready to move off of him. And that's why when you looked at the numbers from Ron DeSantis in Christmas, why he was beating Trump in some polls, they might be ready to move off of him, but they like him and they, they watch Fox and they consume mega media. They are not watching CNN or excited about clips from Chris Christie's town hall in New Hampshire.

They are MAGA voters. They are not deep MAGA, but they are MAGA. And I'm just And I'm sorry, but these people need to hear from Mark Levin and Brian Kilmeade and Jim Jordan. That's who they need to hear from. And if all those people are out there spending the next three months saying that Donald Trump is the main character of this existential fight between good and evil, then what Chris Christie says doesn't matter because those are the people that matter.

I was reminded that Chris Christie is deeply flawed, but also a uniquely talented performance artist. And I mean, look, I remember, I have that memory of him standing as the shine box behind Donald Trump, burned into my retina, because he did enable Donald Trump. But the fact is that he is a gifted politician. And you saw that this week. And I'm trying to remember the last time that I saw a politician put on a performance like that.

I mean, he's all out of fucks to give. The January 6th hearings. You know, and they were great. There's no question about it. So let's add to it. By the way, Mitt Romney has just issued a statement on the indictment. Dr. Heron. So Mitt Romney is like coming out now. Like all Americans, Mr. Trump is entitled to the presumption of innocence. The government has the burden of proving its charges beyond a reasonable doubt and securing a unanimous verdict by a South Florida jury. By all appearances, here's the meat of it, the Justice Department and Special Counsel have exercised due care, affording Mr. Trump the time

and opportunity to avoid charges that would not generally have been afforded to others. Mr. Trump brought these charges upon himself by not only taking classified documents, but by refusing to simply return them when given numerous opportunities to do so. These allegations are serious and, if proven, would be consistent with his other actions offensive to the national interest, such as withholding defensive weapons from Ukraine for political reasons and failing to defend the Capitol from violent attack and insurrection. So that's a pretty good statement from Mitt Romney. So is that also irrelevant? Well, Mitt's a sitting senator, and he's been fantastic, and he continues to be fantastic. Does Mitt have much of an influence

in what happens in the Republican primary? I don't think so, as evidenced by the fact that Mitt's been doing this consistently for six years. So I think that's a good statement. But again, I think that the statements that matter, that are worth watching this weekend, are the ones from the people that once again, once again in our Groundhog Day life, are not just making apologies and drawing cover for Donald Trump, but actually rallying to his side. And that's what we're seeing from the big middle of the Republican Party. Well, I think, you know, it is going to be interesting to see over the next couple of weeks how Ron DeSantis does in the polls. So, Bill, what is your sense? If Ron DeSantis does

stumble and the sense that Donald Trump has damaged goods rise, is there a lane for somebody like Glenn Youngkin, Brian Kemp, to get into this race? I mean, is there some possibility out there that this whole thing could be shaken up in ways that we don't see right now? And there's a possibility, and I do think it's not automatically dissent as if Trump, you know, really collapses for, you know, because of the assault, because of what turns out to be the truth, the evidence that the justice program produces, and maybe because of his own reaction to it, and which might strike some, again, of those maybe Trump voters, even as a little bit excessive, or maybe some polls showing

that he's a little weaker. So I do think it's Trump versus Trump. Now, though, I kind of don't know that it matters. I mean, I'd be more than happy, God knows, if they all started denouncing Trump. It's obvious that the closer you are to Trump world, the more effective and more important your denunciation is. And then we could have, you know, it's complicated. It's a sort of slice of dice.

It's got to come from inside the house. Who has the most effect. But for me, it's Trump against Trump at this point. Trump needs to implode, basically, I think, not to be the nominee. I don't think anyone can beat Trump in a conventional picking up five points here and three points there. At this point, it's pretty hard if you're over 50% already in June of the year before. Maybe it'll happen. It hasn't happened.

But what would that look like? What would a Trump implosion even look like, given what they've already absorbed? Well, that's fair enough, but that's sort of the straw and the camel and all this, the predators, the camels, there's so many animals. I don't know, I think it would be evidence of the Iran type, but more of it. And it would be not just, this is where I don't know, maybe none of these people matter. Trump's defense secretary started to say, this is genuinely damaging to our national security. Now, maybe Mark Esper has no, of course, no one knows who he is, I guess.

And there's no clout. Mattis sort of was already anti-Trump. Pompeo, I don't know. So, I mean, some people like that. Bill Barr, I do think the fact that he's been saying, we put out a Republican Cannability Project, put out the video of him saying that he is kind of guilty of this, it looks like. But Barr emphasizes this, that Barr is willing to really go out there and stump, so to speak, on this issue. So I think it's interesting to try to be imaginative, or not imaginative, just try to think about who fits that middle tier between super loyalists and people who probably don't have much effect on even the maybe Trump voters. But there are people...

Yeah, what about Bill Barr? I think that it was meaningful that Bill Barr said that this was a crime. Now, again, I don't... The problem is, you have to think about this globally, right? Like, it's easy to say, okay, it's great if one...

You know, we can all sit here and be like, well, would Bill Barr be better or Brian Kilmeade or would Laura Ingraham or Mark Levin or like, you know, Bill Barr, having that statement matters. Now, here's the question. Are the rest of these shows going to be airing

the Bill Barr statement and saying, man, this is, even Trump's own national, you know, Attorney General, this is a real problem this or is the tone of mega world gonna be entirely this is a witch hunt this man is being persecuted by the deep state and like is there going to be a fight between those two people that's what we've never seen right like you'll have a one-off person they might send a tweet asa hutchinson just sent a great tweet about how about trump about about how Trump should get out of the race.

I just saw. So, like, you know, having one-off people is good. Is the bill bar comments, are they going to be used by people besides the Republican Accountability Project? God bless you all. to create a conversation within the Republican primary on the debate stage in Fox that says that where there's one camp that's obviously will be there that says Trump is a victim, Trump is being persecuted. And there's another camp that says, ah, there's some legit things here and we shouldn't all have to carry this guy's baggage. That is a fight that we've seen, we saw at the end of the last midterms, was effective. And who was carrying it?

Primetime Fox. Laura Ingraham was doing that. The biggest names were out there saying, man, this is not a good sign that all of these Trump candidates keep losing. Can that be parlayed again? And can that argument be made again in the context of legal fighting? We haven't seen that because what we've seen is mostly people rallying around the felon while one-off folks try to criticize. Yeah, I think it's, again, you're obviously right about that. And I'm just going to be interested to see the details that Jack Smith has in this indictment, because at least what we're hearing right now is it sounds jam-packed. And if anybody thought that he was going to pull his punches, he did not. I think what's also interesting is that he seems to have learned the lesson from the

Mueller investigation, which was, in retrospect, quite asymmetrical, that Robert Mueller and his team really never figured out what they were up against. And of course, they were also up against a sitting president of the United States. Jack Smith is able to look at that record and realize, okay, this is who we are dealing with. And also, pretty dramatic difference between being the president of the United States and being the ex-president of the United States. Just leaving aside the politics of all of this. I mean, it's not just a test for Donald Trump and the Republicans. It's really a test for the American justice system and whether the constitutional guardrails are going to hold here. And that's what makes these cases so important here, because I think the failure to charge Donald Trump in this case and in January 6th going forward, that would have been a real failure of our system. Bill, I mean, do you agree? I mean, I understand that they're politically, maybe this will end up strengthening

Donald Trump, but it's still the right thing to do because we actually have to have the rule of law and that's not just a slogan. Yes. And I also think it's just uncertain which way the politics of a lot of this cut are just very interesting and intelligent, I think, a discussion where we haven't fully agreed and we haven't maybe even each of us is sort of not in full agreement with themselves even perhaps in thinking about the implications of what, at least in my case, what I've been saying is that the politics are uncertain. You got to do the right thing. I mean, that's, you know, politics were obviously one way you might say in this case, pull your punches a little on the legal side, but you need, you cannot have a

system where Trump just gets away with this when people are, you know, when soldiers in Afghanistan who made a mistake with some classified document for 20 minutes, you know, leaving it somewhere are reprimanded and taken down in rank and maybe even court-martialed. I mean, it's just bad for the country. So I'm very much for what Jack Smith's doing. I'm very much for everyone carrying out the rule of law at this point. It's not like ignoring the rule of law has helped stop Trump, right? It's not like everyone turning a blind eye has really been effective in muting the Trump threat.

So I think Smith is, and I'm very pleased, again, that he's done it in Florida. I think he's gone by the book in that respect. He didn't go through the easier jury pool in DC. I think it's politically more effective. If he gets a good case in Florida and a good trial, maybe he doesn't even win. What if it's a hung jury? But if people have the sense that, you know what, there's a lot of evidence there and

I'm making this up. Obviously nine of the 12 jurors thought he should be convicted in Florida. I think that could have a little more effect if it comes to trial early enough. And Florida has a faster docket, I think. That could have more of an effect than a 12-0 verdict in D.C., where every Republican primary voter, or not everyone, but 70% of them think, oh, come on, that's just D.C. So I do think there are a lot of variables now at play. And I'm impressed by what smith has done so far keeping it quiet screaming it you know looking like he's going big on the indictment they've got more things like that cnn tape i think we are a little bit much so i will give you tim you get

the last word as always i just i agree with that i just uh boy that's why i was having a mimosa to start uh this conversation and i will have one when it's over. I think that this guy getting indicted twice is something to celebrate in itself. I think there's a lot of times to be worried about that. There's a lot of times where he was not held accountable over the past, you know, nearly a decade now that we've had to suffer through him. It seems like that there are more coming. And I think that Bill's insight there is correct that there is, you know, we all have this sometimes this sense of, you know, wanting to immediately going down into the micro and the analysis and the analysis like at the macro level, him being held accountable is a good thing. And him having to once again, go sit before a jury of his peers is something that brings me a lot of joy. It is something that, you know, puts him in his place somewhere where he deserves to be. And I think that it's worth celebrating that element. And I think that lastly, once again, from January 6, through the court system,

you know, I think it's worth stating that these elements, while a lot of our institutions have been weakened, these elements for institutions have held up. And there've been a lot of people that were critical of Merrick Garland and critical of this January 6th committee in the micro over the times. But we've seen time and again that maybe we haven't gotten the exact result we wanted in every case, but that the system, you know, might be moving a little slower than some of us like, but it's working. And so I wish all of our Bulwark listeners who made it this long a happy weekend and a cheers and have a mimosa on me.

And let's cling to the hope. Let's cling to the happiness. Tim Miller, thank you so much for joining me, Bill Kristol. 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. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.