The Bulwark Podcast - Tim Miller: Heroes and Zeroes of the GOP

Episode Date: September 1, 2023

How different would things be if other Republicans had stood up to MAGA like the way Kemp did for Fani Willis? Plus, Ted Cruz tried on beer-swilling tough guy, Candace sampled the Trump playbook, and the BS behind the political consultant game. Tim Miller joins Charlie Sykes for the long weekend pod.

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 it from our Tread Experts. Ensure each winter trip is a safe one for your family. Enjoy them for years with the 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 at treadexperts dealer near you at TreadExperts.ca slash locations. Landlord telling you to just put on another sweater when your apartment is below 21 degrees?

Are they suggesting you can just put a bucket under a leak in your ceiling? That's not good enough. Your Toronto apartment should be safe and well-maintained. If it isn't and your landlord isn't responding to maintenance requests, RentSafeTO can help. Learn more at toronto.ca slash RentSafeTO. Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Six. Oh my God, it is September 1st, 2023. Ugh.

It's Friday. At least we have a long weekend, Tim. I mean, I'm looking forward to the long weekend. You? I love a long weekend. I do too. But I get sad at the end of summer. You know, I love summer. Not done yet. Got another three weeks. Fall people, if you're a fall person, just close your ears for a second because I don't get fall

people. I just don't get it. I have this childhood maybe trauma that bubbles up inside of me, just this feeling that happens in my gut that's like, I know I have to go back to school right now. School's coming. Anyway, that's it. I'm going to have a great weekend. LSU Tigers are

back. It's beautiful here in Louisiana. We're're gonna have a great time it's gonna be a nice three-day weekend i actually love fall because it's beautiful here in uh in the beautiful midwest we have all the colors we have the like five weeks the gold no no it's basically it is it is it is beautiful but uh there was that whole back to school thing you know you sort of go back to back and forth remembering how excited you were the first day of school versus the anxiety of like, holy crap, I have to go back to school. Hey, I got to tell you, first time in decades, walked the grandson to the bus this morning. It happened.

First day. It happened. That's so exciting. When was it? Today. This morning? This morning. Oh, Friday's kind of a weird day, first day of school.

It's just like a little orientation situation. It's kind of brilliant. You ease into the year by starting on Friday. Then you have a three-day weekend, and then you dive in next week. It's a very French schedule, actually, so it's a nice way for them to start. A little bit, but the whole back-to-school thing, get the school supplies and everything, and it's even more exciting when it's not you. I definitely hear that. Can we do something a little bit unusual? Can we start off with

something positive today? I'd love to. I have a few positive things, even. I think we spent several years on a regular basis, you know, doom gloom talking about which Republican has crushed our souls, who has disillusioned us, who has betrayed fundamental principles, all of that stuff. Did you catch the Georgia Governor Brian Kemp's press conference yesterday? I did. Okay. Now, I understand a lot of people are going to go, Brian Kemp. No, no, no. Okay.

Whatever you think about his politics, I think this was pretty extraordinary. There is a big push in the Georgia legislature from the usual suspects to do something like impeaching district attorney Fannie Willis. This is a big thing down in Florida where Ron DeSantis has been firing prosecutors that he doesn't like. And so there is this push, let's use our legislative clout in Georgia to pull Fannie Willis and basically obstruct and blow up the entire case. So, again, I think is one of these sort of amazingly ironic moments for the party of law and order that ran so successfully against defund the police. And now they're like, hey, hold our beer, you know, defund the prosecutors, defund the law enforcement, defund the criminal

justices. Eliminate the fbi why stop there who needs an fbi well brian kemp again i don't know this guy i don't do you know him at all i mean have you ever encountered him in any way i covered him uh no i've never actually i never well that's not true actually we uh i met him one time with jeb uh we were together and he was friendly but it was kind of a formal setting and and and then the bulwark, I went down and covered his campaign. So I'm in a little press gaggle. So I don't know him personally. I mean, he kind of ran as governor, you know, as kind of a MAGA guy, you know, with the buses he's going to send immigrants back and all of that.

Yeah, I had a negative initial feeling, too, because he had that first ad that was like, blow up the bus, send the illegals back type thing, which was pretty gross. Right. Total pander. But he did, as we all know, a stand up to Donald Trump when Donald Trump was pushing the big lie and he lived to tell about it. This is, again, another extraordinary story because the assumption on the part of every Republican in America is if you cross Donald Trump, particularly on election stuff, you're dead. That's the third rail. He defies Trump, ignores Trump, you know, is primaried and wins overwhelmingly. So, I mean, he's kind of untouchable a little bit. So anyway, there's this big push to use the legislature, you know, to pull Fannie Willis.

He holds a press conference yesterday saying absolutely not. Let's play it because he he doesn't hold much back here. I did want to take just a few minutes to speak to some history that's trying to repeat itself over the last few days here in Georgia. of 2020, I clearly and repeatedly said that I would not be calling a special session of the General Assembly to overturn the 2020 election results because such an action would have been unconstitutional. It was that simple. Fast forward today, nearly three years later, memories are fading fast. There have been calls by one individual in the General Assembly and echoed

outside of these walls by the former president for a special session that would ignore current Georgia law and directly interfere with the proceedings of a separate but equal branch of government. Up to this point, I have not seen any evidence that D.A. Willis' actions or lack thereof weren't actioned by the Prosecuting Attorney Oversight Commission. But that will ultimately be a decision that the commission will make. Regardless, in my mind, a special session of the General Assembly to end run around this law is not feasible and may ultimately prove to be unconstitutional. The bottom line is that in the state of Georgia, as long as I'm governor, we're going to follow the law and the Constitution, regardless of who it helps or harms politically. Over the last few years, some inside and outside of this building may have forgotten that.

But I can assure you, I have not. The oath I took with my hand on the Bible that's right behind me in January of 23 is the same Bible that I took in my inauguration in 2019. And in Georgia, we will not be engaging in political fear that only inflames the emotions of the moment. We will do what is right. We will uphold our oaths as public servants. And it's my belief that our state will be better off for it. Who is this guy, Tim?

Wow. That warms your heart a little bit, doesn't it't he goes on to talk about the grifters you know and the grifting off of all of this it's like hey who are you talking about what are you aiming he could have just issued a press release right he could have written a letter saying yes no we're not going to do this you know thank you for your concerns but at this point we're going to keep it on. No, he comes out and basically says, OK, we've been through this bullshit before. We're not going to do this bullshit again. It's illegal. It's unconstitutional.

And we are not going to engage in some stupid political theater like some other people out there. Yeah. Or, you know, he could have done nothing. There are a lot of different steps between what he did and what the other options would have been. And just think about how these senators act, what Marco would have done in this situation. You get asked about something like this. He starts talking about why the media is always obsessing over this random nonsense and and oh you know isn't it not true that the district attorney fonny willis is targeting trump and that it's politicized and you guys you know what i mean like you could have

done that it could attack the media he could have attacked fonny willis i've ever done what every other trump opponent is doing saying that you know these prosecutions are not not appropriate there are a million things that he could do and he chose to not brush it off not attack the media not attack fanny willis but defend fanny willis and attack trump not by name i guess so he could have gone one step further but everybody knows what he's talking about i think everybody's talking about and and and just the thing that i thought watching this yesterday was I just would love to rewind history back to January 7th and just done where would we be today September 1 2023 if everyone had done what Brian Kemp did a much you know I'm not asking for everybody to do even what Liz Cheney did just what Brian Kemp

did just you know, speaking truth about what happened in the election, calling BS when it's BS. You know, I'm not asking everybody to change parties. You know, I'm not asking everybody to change their beliefs. Just speak honestly about what Donald Trump was doing. Where are we today? And my guess is that he's convicted in the Senate and that, you know, we're staring down the barrel of probably a campaign that doesn't have Joe Biden or Donald Trump, right? Because Joe Biden wouldn't feel like he needed to run again if Donald Trump wasn't on the ticket. Individual choices matter. Bill Kristol is so good on this. Like history is contingent. Like this stuff is not inevitable.

And I just have so much credit to Brian Kemp, despite, you know, obviously we disagree on a few on a handful of issues, particularly on social issues. But if this was easy, some people say low bar, you know, I come from an Australian Twitter and a few people replied to me like, oh, the bar is so low for Republicans. Yeah, sure. Okay. Yeah, the bar is low, I guess. But if the bar was, he's the only one stepping over it. So, so there must be something to it. I'm with you on this. Okay, let's go back to January 7th. And it's not just everybody behaving like Brian Kemp. It's like if everybody behaved like they thought and they believed back on January 7th, if every one of them remembered that moment and then, again, you're absolutely right.

If Mitch McConnell would have gone ahead and pulled the trigger and he would have had the impeachment and the conviction. If all of these other Republicans had said, okay, we're just done. If Lindsey Graham had said, okay, I'm off the train, you know, before I get yelled at in the airport, this country, this political world would be almost unrecognizable compared to what we have right now. And the Republican Party would be better off. Like, this is the thing that I kept saying at the time is,

Brian Kemp survived. Now, Georgia is a different animal. You talked about this a little bit on the podcast yesterday. I think that the nature of Atlanta is so dominant. I just think there's so many more college-educated Republicans because it's a southern metropolis in the state. I do think there's some demographic reasons why Georgia is happening. But there also is we ended up happening to get ethical leaders there. We could have a different universe where Marjorie Taylor Greene ran for secretary of state instead

of Congress, right? And we'd be in a whole different world right now. So part of that is leadership. Part of it is demographics. But we, you know, that we had this, these decisions that were made in Georgia. And it's like, I think that the Republican Party had everyone done that, there would have been some sacrificial lambs. A few other people would have gotten Liz Cheney and lost primaries. But in the medium term, in the long term,

the party would have been stronger. The party would have been stronger. See, I think that's almost inarguable. And this, by the way, is Brian Kemp's point as well, that if you actually want to win elections, we need to stop this sort of thing. And here we are in Georgia where we saw that up close and personal. And here we are in Georgia, where we saw that up close and personal. And it is interesting to me why the Georgia Republican Party is so different than the Republican Party, let's say, of Michigan or the Republican Party of Arizona, which has gone completely crazy. Now, of course, Marjorie Taylor Greene still represents Georgia in the House, big asterisk there. Your point about the Republican Party being strong, I mean,

imagine if the Republican Party was not carrying, you know, the dead stinking carcass of Donald Trump on its back, going into the 2024 election, they'd have every reason to be optimistic. The 2022 election would have been a rocky exit, right? A certain percentage of MAGA folks would have bailed on the party, there would have been some third party MAGA candidates. They would have lost some primaries. There would have been a little pain. Like, you know, you don't make a deal with the devil and not have a little pain coming out of it. But by now, by September 1, 2023, I think that that's a trade that Mitch McConnell should

have wanted to make. And he just didn't do it. He went out. He went out because he wanted to be the longest serving majority leader and he didn't want to get overthrown. And it was just an unbelievably horrific, consequential decision by him and kevin mccarthy and and all of the party leaders really and had they switched places with brian kemp i mean we could only wish we'll come back to mitch mcconnell in a moment because he's in the news again but before we

get into you know irrational exuberance about brian kemp's speech here um can we go to the other end of the spectrum i got some feedback this week from some readers like you guys are too doom and gloom i'm like am i am i doom and gloom i mean i have a mug shot trump's been indicted four times well you're not the doom and gloom guy you you you and i had a schadenfreude party you know a week ago here and we got some negative you guys shouldn't be so happy about all of that. Whatever. I got, you know, it's like, we need to be much more earnest. We need to not to do this sort of thing. Anyway, so here's the opposite end of the spectrum, just to remind us how far the party has come. And I say this as somebody that was so desperate to stop Donald Trump in 2016,

that I supported and voted for, I'm wincing. Can you feel me wincing? Well, I did the same thing. So it's okay. Ted Cruz. No, okay. Ted Cruz. Look what Ted Cruz, who still remains a, I think he's still a part-time senator, full-time YouTube influencer. Yeah, it does give me a little bit of pleasure on the charts. He's behind this podcast significantly. And on some weeks, he's behind this and the next level. So a full-time YouTuber, part-time sender, he's still trailing us in the charts. That's another thing to be happy about.

Lauer is being happy this weekend. Every week in which we are higher on the charts, the Bulwark podcast is higher on the charts than Ted Cruz podcast is a good week. Okay, so here's performance artist Ted Cruz, who goes on Newsmax, and he's triggered by these comments from a guy named George Koob, director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. And he's really pissed off that this guy suggested that maybe the US government should embrace Canada's recommendation that people only drink two beers per week. Okay, I'm going to raise my hand. This is not going to happen. It drink two beers per week. Okay, I'm going to raise

my hand. This is not going to happen. It's never going to happen. Okay, but he found some random guy making this proposal. He goes on Newsmax and in this sort of performance art, he's standing in a bar, he's wearing this blue, you know, shirt with lots of buttons and a bunch of guys in cowboy hats standing behind him, you know, obviously to do some synchronized drinking. And here's his rant. Here is part time U.S. Senator, full time YouTube influencer Ted Cruz's rant. They're trying to go after and regulate ceiling fans. I got to tell you, it's hot in Texas. We don't want to get rid of our ceiling fans. And now these idiots have come out and said, drink two beers a week. That's their guideline. Well, I got to tell you, if they want us to drink two beers a week, frankly, they can kiss my ass. No. Okay. Senator, I brought a beer to drink with you. I'll drink this non-alcoholic beer

with you because I'm not allowed to drink on camera, but... I'll have a sip. I gotta say, have you ever seen a brand do more damage to itself than Bud Light, which would single-handedly seem to destroy themselves, so I'm glad you're not drinking a Bud Light. Personally, I'm fond of Shiner Bock, which is a good

Texas brand. I've been to the Shiner Brewery in Shiner, Texas and I recommend it and I promise you this is not alcohol-free beer down here. Yeah. Ted Cruz is a good old boy. He's not going to drink Bud Light. He's not going to drink Light beer. He's going to drink Texas beer.

And those liberals are not going to take that away from him. They can kiss his ass. Charlie, this is where the little limitation of the podcast like the visual here is pretty important because number one here's this man ranting against somebody suggesting that he has less beer while his beer gut is so big that he hasn't seen his manhood since 1999 and i touch my toes i am touching my toes? I ain't touching my toes. He's sweating. He's sweating. His neck is all wrecked. He's

profusely panting. Ain't no jogging. I'm not going to only have two beers. And then he does. And then when he does the, you can kiss my ass. He changes, leans his shoulder in and does his performative pose like he's been practicing it in the mirror for a little while. Which is you ivy league pansy you debate club ivy league

pansy pretending to be some fucking beer swilling tough guy the whole thing is just preposterous the whole thing is preposterous like if there's anybody stupid enough to get fooled by this they get what they deserve that's all This guy is such a fucking phony. Next week, Ted Cruz is going to, you know, come down hard on, you know,

the government warnings against drinking paint thinner. Yeah. Down here in Texas, we want to drink paint thinner. We are drinking paint thinner. I don't know where we're going to go on this. All right. People are going,

when are you guys going to get serious? We've been serious. Democracy is hanging by a thread. We are actually being serious. Okay, so can I do a complete mood changer? Because just change it up here. I've been pretty happy, but yeah, sure. Okay, so I don't know what I did.

I don't know which straw I drew, but I apparently became the designated guy to go on and have to comment about the Mitch McConnell video. Oof. And like, I get about three or four times I had to say that was really painful to watch because it is painful to watch. I haven't been called fat. Do you think that's a generational thing? MSNBC is like, we need to call in, you know, another old guy that they might be more empathetic or what do you think the reason was for that?

It could be that. Because what would you have said? Okay. They it like and you're there going what going mitch um mitch no i don't know i don't know um be careful what you wish for people people who are dumping on this and okay so here comes the comment section But I'm looking at that going, this is the danger of, you know, politics dominated by a gerontocracy. And, you know, 2024, everybody's thinking it's going to be all these indictments, all these trials. You know, maybe it's going to be some 80-year-old guy, I'm not naming any names here, who freezes for 30 seconds, who has those moments. This is what you get when your entire culture is hanging by the thread of 82-year-olds. And I'm sorry if that comes off as ageist. That's just a fact. I am worried about this on a couple of levels. The interesting thing, just gaming out the politics,

not to be macabre, Kentucky has a Democratic governor and there's an election in Kentucky this year. So there's a lot of ins and outs and what have you is if mitch can't at some point continue his duties now there's this appointment rule that they pass that he has to appoint a republican but we've already been whispering behind the scenes there's some never trump republicans down in kentucky i'd like to i'd like to see in the senate so anyway we'll see while we're in happy talk mode as for mitch and biden in the age thing i'll do the positive first yeah joe biden's comments about mitch were very generous and i had some people be like well he's just doing that because oh he's old too and it's like i guess but still he could do the thing you know and you

could imagine again we're doing the brian kemp what what were some other options you can imagine somebody like president trump former president trump in situation, who's also an old guy being like, yeah, well, I haven't been freezing lately. You know, people have been asking about my stamina. I'm not, you know, he could have done. I thought I was sleepy Joe. It looks like he's sleepy Mitch. He's not doing that, right? He doesn't do any of that. He talks to Mitch McConnell. It has paid off. They've got several bipartisan accomplishments that he can now tout on the campaign when a lot of people said, including myself, by the way, that I didn't think it was realistic that Biden was doing a little happy talk on how much he thought he could do from a bipartisan

standpoint, given the nature of the Republican Senate. So that's all good. And it was all decent. And Biden's response was really good. Having said that, it does bring up that thought in the back of your mind, though, which is like, there but for the grace of God go our democracy, really. If Joe Biden got into a situation like Mitch McConnell was in. And that is something that I think that is fair to be worried about. It is fair to be worried about.

And I know we get people who say, you know, stop talking about Joe Biden's age. Why? Because you think that denial is really a good strategy here? Because as I talked to your old colleague, Mike Murphy, the other day, we could talk about that in a moment. But, you know, what I told him was, I mean, so far, every conversation I have with a voter, every single one, will eventually get to the question of Joe Biden's age. Now, some people will say, you know, I'm worried about his age, but I'm definitely going to vote for him. I'm going to vote for the old guy versus the fascist.

You know, that's not really a problem. But they worry about it. I mean, it's a reality. Every time he comes out and speaks, you know, I find myself struggling to listen to what he is saying as opposed to, why is he walking like that? You know, he sounds really old. And if I'm thinking that, then other people are thinking that. And so let's not pretend it's not there. I mean, I understand only happy, give us only happy talk about this. Do not mention this giant elephant

in the room, but Joe Biden's got two problems. Mike Murphy says two big problems. Number one, the age problem. Number two, there is the poll numbers showing that he is not getting credit for the economy, that people don't think that he's a good steward of the economy. And those two things are really dangerous for an incumbent president. I don't want to belabor the point on this because I think that I'll just say just two really quick things. One, I am not exaggerating or playing some sort of political game. I genuinely think Joe Biden's had the best first term of any president of my adult life. I just I think it's been better than what obviously Trump and Bush and Obama and Clinton.

So I think he's done a great job. I've had some things I've disagreed with, of course, which we've talked about, but I think he's done a great job. I've had some things I've disagreed with, of course, which we've talked about, but I think he's done a great job. But you know, when he's walking to the lectern, like he looks like I was thinking about this last night, I was trying to walk into the room, I had to go get a shirt to wear on Stephanie rules show at 11pm. And you know, my husband's sleeping. And I'm like walking in the dark through the room, like very gingerly, like to not wake him up. And I don't want to bump into anything. And I was like, I just was thinking to myself, I was like, this is kind of how Joe Biden walks. Right. And it's like, you just can't help yourself. Like you can't help but notice it. And then people will reply and be like, what are you talking about? He seems, and it's like, he just, he just doesn't like,

like normal people when they're watching him, it's like, he seems really old. Has he done the job? Well, could he still conceivably do the job on in the second term yes but like i just find it very weird when people are like what are you talking about it's like what do you mean what am i talking about i just i have eyes and like that's something that i know people are going to see and it's a worry and maybe when you look at all a game everything out jbl has done this in his newsletter and others maybe if you game everything out it's like okay that risk is a smaller risk than the other potential risks. And I'm open to that argument for sure. And I think that's probably right, really. But that doesn't mean it's not a risk. It is a risk. And again, I understand people

say, well, look, we're stuck with it. Okay. And I acknowledge that. I mean, I don't think the Democrats have a viable plan B at this particular point. But I do think that it's important to confront it and maybe, you know, look, there are ways of working around this, even in the modern internet age. Okay, so let's move on to some of the other stuff. I mean, what did you think of Murphy's critique, Mike Murphy's critique? I thought Murphy's point about Biden was pretty right. You know, I part ways a little bit with him on the Republican Party side. With love to Mike, I think that he, you know, on the Biden side, he had the antlers metaphor. You know, he's like, people want to live in a fantasy world where what's happening with Biden isn't really happening. And other

people are like, what are you talking about? I see the antlers. I thought that was a fair metaphor. But it feels like he has an antlers problem on the Republican side, which is just like this notion that Trump has all these problems and somebody's going to come save the party from this and someone else is going to win. But it's like, wow, it's the old meme about like Donald Trump gets indicted, question mark, question mark, question mark. Someone else gets nominated to be the Republican party president. Trump is dominating in every poll. His numbers have only gone up since the winter. There's no sign of him losing any strength. So I know that people don't want this. I know there's a lot of people who don't want this, including A.B. Stoddard, who I thought wrote a

good piece yesterday. But it's just in my view, it's like we're staring down the barrel of Trump and Biden and a meteor, I guess, could hit and change things. But as a political commentator and as somebody who has deeply invested in Donald Trump not being president again, I think pretending like we're not staring down the barrel of Biden and Trump is a little bit of folly. I don't disagree with that. But if you're going to have a conversation about this, this is the time to have it. We're not going to have this conversation in September of 2024. So I think clear eyed recognition of reality is always a good thing, particularly if you're a commentator, or if you're a defender of the final bulwarks of democracy, you at least ought to know exactly what the state of your defense and the state of the attack is, right? Good information is better

than self-delusion. That's just my point. Hey, folks, this is Charlie Sykes, host of the Bulwark podcast. We created the Bulwark to provide a platform for pro-democracy voices on the center right and the center left for people who are tired of tribalism and who value truth and vigorous yet civil debate about politics and a lot more. And every day we remind you, folks, you are not the crazy ones. So why not head over to thebullwork.com and take a look around? Every day, we produce newsletters and podcasts that will help you make sense of our politics and keep your sanity intact.

To get a daily dose of sanity in your inbox, why not try a Bullwork Plus membership free for the next 30 days? To claim this offer, go to thebulwark.com slash charlie. That's thebulwark.com forward slash charlie. We're going to get through this together. I promise. If it's a flat or a squeal, a wobble or peel, your dread's worn down or you need a new wheel, wherever you go, you can get it from our 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 at treadexperts.ca slash locations. Landlord telling you to just put on another sweater when your apartment is below 21 degrees? Are they suggesting you can just put a bucket under a leak in your ceiling? That's not good enough. Your Toronto apartment should be safe and well-maintained. If it isn't and your landlord isn't responding to maintenance requests, RentSafeTO can help.

Learn more at toronto.ca slash RentSafeTO. Speaking of delusion, could we dip back into deplorable delusion because you came up with a soundbite that I think is extraordinary. Have you been spending, are you like spending time listening to For Your Sins, For Our Sins, Candace Owens? I'm kind of obsessed. So I wrote the big feature article on her. I punished myself through most of June listening to her and wrote it. Remind our listeners who she is for people who are like, who spend most of their time in the rational universe. Yeah. So Candace Owens was a former Turning Point USA, which is the MAGA College Republicans spokesperson who became a media darling on the conservative side, obviously.

Conspiratorial, a black woman. She looks good on TV. She's a good presenter. And at times, she's floated the idea that she might run for office anyway she got hired by ben shapiro's daily wire and now has i think very clearly the second biggest podcast and youtube show behind shapiro's himself great on all of the right he's crazy and maybe bannon's is in there too but i but i think it's pretty clearly that candace is the second biggest one and so i listened to her whole podcast for a month and wrote a profile on it a couple months back, which you can read.

I think it was called President Candace that kind of posited that she was an inheritor of the Trump spirit more than a lot of other of the imitators because she, like Trump, kind of talks about, like he's obsessed with celebrities like talks about pop culture stuff and you know it's not uh you know we say that a lot of these politician trump imitators like like ronda santa's getting to the weird culture war stuff in a way that seems weird that's not candace right she's more pop culture like trump so anyway i don't have to listen to her anymore because the article is already out but i find myself when things happen wanting to be like i wonder what candace thought about this just kind of check myself to be like, I wonder what Candace thought about this. Just

kind of check myself to be like, is my MAGA ballast? And so the other day, and so I have her in my podcast feed and her new episode came up yesterday or Wednesday or whatever it was. And I was pretty intrigued by the topic. Was not on the news, let's say. Let's listen. That's a pretty big one. The idea that the president of the United States was involved in having illicit affairs and the media was covering it up. And I'll take it a step further. I'll tell you what I heard. I heard this directly from the mouth of a Secret Service agent whose name I cannot remember, but who worked for Barack Obama and his family. And he said that while Barack Obama was in office, again, this is coming

from a Secret Service agent, that they would help sneak young men into the White House. It was not a secret of sorts that Barack Obama was sleeping with these young men. And that was just

a part of their job. Tim. Unbelievably. The press never found out about this, which happens sometimes. Sometimes you can actually drop off crack cocaine

at the White House and they don't know who did it. So yeah, the government can be super hush hush when they want to be. And of course, the media will help them worry those facts. Wait, wait, wait. Why are we talking about this to him? What are you doing to our podcast here?

This is from this week. I feel like you have just come on the bulwark podcast and you take this truck you just backed it up and you're just like dump beep beep beep dumping this toxic shit into our ears a million people are listening to this i mean a million people this is like she she does huge numbers and yeah that was that was her it was most of the show this week that's just a little 50 second clip it was most of her uh her most recent show was covering the idea that Barack Obama is actually a secret homosexual. Oh, God. Okay.

Everybody knows about this. They're just sneaking boys. There's a little bit of a QAnon wink there. It's a little bit of a callback to Obama's really a secret Muslim wears the birth certificate. And it's just right. It's just asking questions. It's salacious. It's just right in the trump wheelhouse

i'm gonna go take a shower now is it possible that after this aired you know she got a call uh miss owens it's ben shapiro on one ben shapiro you know the who used to be the young conservatives intellectual who read books and things like ben wants to talk to you about that podcast you think that happened no no she got away with she defended kanye when he was doing his nazi anti-semitic stuff ben is obviously a devout jew and so ben chastised her a little bit publicly when that happened but she didn't lose her show she didn't get suspended what was that line the new york times called them there's something good it was like the conservative it boy intellectual i was probably But she didn't lose her show. She didn't get suspended. What was that line the New York Times called him? It was something good.

It was like the conservative it boy intellectual. I was probably quoted in that story. Oh, you know what? I have a book of like my worst takes, but that's like right on the top there, right next to my support for Ted Cruz. So I'm having this flashback. The morning I woke up at a hotel in San Francisco. Okay, bear with me here. Is this related to Barack Obama being homosexual? up in a hotel in San Francisco. Okay, bear with me here. Is this related to Barack Obama being homosexual?

No. Oh, you're in San Francisco? It's not, but I will be working in Ben Shapiro into this story. The reason I remember this day so well is because this was, I wake up and I look around and I think the hotel is on fire. The room is filled with smoke. Actually, it turns out there was just these wildfires that were covering San Francisco and smoke and nothing was going on. But I remember and it woke me up real fast. And I also remember, this is weird,

that Ben Shapiro called me that day. And there was somebody on his website who had posted some clearly white supremacist, really racist thing. And I think he was wanting to know, should I fire him? Should I get rid of him? What should I do about it? You know, this is really bad. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So my take was, yes, of course you should not be associated with this guy in any way whatsoever. I have no idea what happened, what he did with this guy. But in this distant mists of past, in this smoky San Francisco hotel room, I was talking to a Ben Shapiro that gave a shit about what people thought about it, right? That he was actually concerned,

hey, there's some racist stuff on my website. Is this going to be a problem? Fast forward to today, clearly it's like- Did he fire the person? Do you remember? I don't even remember. No, I don't. It was not a close call. And I assumed he was calling me because he probably knew what I was going to say and he wanted some validation. But I think I can safely say that he's never going to call me again and he's not going to listen to my advice again, because clearly this is not something that he worries about. He does not wake up thinking, boy, my whole reputation as the it boy of conservative intellectuals will be undermined if I have somebody like Candace Owen, who is defending Nazis and suggesting that Barack Obama

brought boy toys into the White House. He's gone, what are the numbers on this? Well, you know, I'll tell you what the numbers are, by the okay number seven apple podcast political podcasts we do this number seven bannon's war room number six npr politics podcast number five candace owens number four velshie's band book club number three msnbc's prosecuting donald trump. Who's that? Number two. Political podcast. Apple podcast chart. United States of America. This one.

Pretty good. The Bulwark podcast. Behind only pods save America. I will just close in a loop. I will say, Candace, in fairness, just in the scary side of this, Candace also has a gazillion YouTube. You know what I mean? It's a video show.

I'm happy we're meeting her on the podcast. And to close the loop, just for listeners, I don't want any misinformation out there. Barack Obama, not gay, actually two children. His wife is Michelle, a woman. I do have many DC friends who probably wish Barack Obama was gay. But he's not. This whole thing was just based on some letter from college when he was like you know writing a letter about how he's like exploring is what you know and it's just like okay canada soans was like a liberal in college so you think that she might have a different point of view but uh well my favorite part is canada soans i got this from you know word of mouth from a secret service agent whose name i can't remember i forget i. I forget. We've got the source. I know it's out there.

It's in Hawaii somewhere. We're going to send investigators. Secret Service agent gives me this earth-shaking news. I'm probably going to get the name. I mean, it's literally the Trump birth certificate thing all over again. It's just gay, not Muslim. It's the same playbook. Trump being like, I have a source.

We're sending people to Hawaii to track this down. It's the same playbook. Trump being like, I have a source. We're sending people to Hawaii to track this down. It's the same fucking thing. 12 years later, time is a flat circle. Candace Owens doing the Donald Trump shtick. It's funny, but it's also sick. I mean, it's sick how many people are listening to this. Where do we go now? Should we talk about jobless numbers? Should we talk about the

negotiations with China? Should we talk about... Jobless numbers are good. Hey, how about the pharma deal? Pretty good. Populist Donald Trump kept talking about how he was going to take on the pharma companies, and he wasn't one of these Paul Ryan conservatives. He was a populist conservative, and he's going to lower drug prices. And then he folded like a cheap suit as soon as pharma started running some ads against him. And now Joe Biden, Medicare, negotiating with some lower pharma prices. That's a pretty good pivot from his Barack Obama gay, straight into Joe Biden accomplishments. So I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Donald Trump will not be campaigning in 2024 on his healthcare agenda. Actually, there's a good piece.

This is strange that I'm going to say this because I'm not necessarily a fan of the New Republic, but they have a piece by Michael Tomasky. It makes a great point. Trump's trials don't interrupt his campaign. They are his campaign. This is a great point. It is really a good point because people are saying, well, is this going to interfere with his ability to run the campaign?

I mean, is this going to distract from his detailed proposals on dealing with pharma? No, he's not going to be talking about any. Well, he may, but no, he could care less. The point of his campaign is, you know, I am on trial. I am your victim. You know, this is the deep state setting himself up for, you know, the retribution. But that's absolutely right. And now, of course, this trial in Georgia is not just going to be televised.

It's going to be live streamed. I mean, the bad news is when that happens, are we going to have lives at all in 2024? I mean, I know asking for a friend. Yeah, seriously. People are like, oh, well, this will be fun to watch in 2026. God willing, our constitutional republic is still will be fun to watch in 2026. God willing, our constitutional republic is still standing. But that is a great point. And I think it's underappreciated. I also think that it's not great, as you've pointed out many times in this podcast, to be sitting in a courtroom and having to surrender to a judge and being at the mercy of

their schedule all day long when you're supposed to be running for president. But at the same time, it's not as if, you know, he's going to be rolling out his policy proposals and that, unfortunately, he's going to have to go to court that day. Yeah, I mean, his trial is going to be, you know, will be the 2024 version of the rallies. Yeah, he doesn't get to go to the rallies, but he's going to be everywhere. I mean, everywhere, especially with the streaming. Okay, so the debate feels like it was a million years ago. It was totally meaningless.

There was a lot of speculation about Vivek Ramaswamy, the new hotness, the surge is coming. And of course, there's been a lot of buzz, but I'm not seeing the Vivek momentum bump out there? Is it because basically the fact that he's a sanctimonious asshole kind of negated all of the MAGA stuff? What is your take on Vivek? Well, I don't think so. My friends have been in Iowa said actually that his like events have a lot of energy, but it's a lot of Trump people. So I think part of the problem is, right, in a different world, let's imagine Trump's disappeared, right? And this is a DeSantis, Ramaswamy, Haley race, right? Okay, can I go there?

That's kind of my happy place for the moment. Okay, let's go there. Let's go to that. Give me a minute. Give me a minute. There's no Donald Trump. He's gone. He's just okay.

Okay, I'm sorry. Back to reality. I think in that case, Vivek probably jumps from like seven to 20. Yeah. And you're like, wow, because that's then more reminiscent of the old days where it's like herman cain when you jump up after a thing or carly fiorino you know i think he would have had that but that bump was limited by the fact that donald trump has 50 of the primary vote i just pulled up the 538 average here because i want to get this right so we're

today trump is 50.3 we got desantis way down here way down way way down 14.8 ramaswami 9.2 hailey 5.6 so before the debate you know i'll just pull up a random day august 9th trump 53 desantis 14 ramaswami 7 hailey 3 so vivek and hailey bump up two points trump goes down three points that's all that happened. Nothing happened. Like it was just storm and fury and takes upon the tree for nothing. And I just, I think that goes back to what I was saying in the Murphy discussion. It's just like,

okay. I mean, that was everybody's big opportunity. We think the next debate is going to make a difference. It's on Fox business. Are people going to watch? Like, isn't the shine going to wear off these things?

People are going to watch the third debate without Trump? And why would Trump go? So I don't know. I do think that Vivek, that he's polarizing, right? And so I assume that some people were turned off by the fact that he was, what'd you call him? Sanctimonious, smarmy asshole? Yeah, yeah. Something like that. There's a longer sentence there, but yeah, that was pretty much it. Yeah, facile. And he had a bad week. I mean, I think there, but yeah, that was pretty much it. Yeah, facile.

And he had a bad week. I mean, I think that to the extent that anybody was paying any attention, I mean, he's just all over the map. Did you see Trump on Glenn Beck? Did you see this? Glenn Beck asked Trump about Vivek for VP, and Trump said some nice things about him. And he's like, but you know, Glenn, he's getting a little controversial. Wow. When Trump's out there going, maybe dial it back.

Like that's, that should be a wake up call. Okay. So speaking of the opposite of my happy place here, the whole wild ride of somebody like Glenn Beck, Glenn Beck was, was crazy before crazy was fashionable with the conspiracy whiteboards and all of that stuff, kind of softened the ground for the Alex Joneses. But then in 2016, there was this apparent epiphany where he said, but I didn't mean Trump. And he sounded like a never Trumper for a while, right? He did. Sorry for all of that and seemed to sober up and fly straight. And that lasted, what, about 10, 15 minutes?

And it's like, no, I'm back with the tribe. What happened with Glenn Beck? Yeah, just to get a couple of these things here. So the Glenn Beck cover was Glenn Beck is sorry about all that. Yeah, exactly. The Ben Shapiro quote I was looking for then is actually worse than the one we said. He was the cool kid's philosopher. That's in the New York Times.

The cool kid's philosopher. I'm sorry. Just throw it. said he was the cool kids philosopher that's in the new york times the cool kids philosophy i'm sorry just throw i mean whoever wrote that has just got to want to slit their throat right now that's that's way worse in there and i feel that way so um glenn beck is sorry about all that i don't know i can't get inside glenn beck's head to me this is one uh while i've been suffering through candace for the team. I don't know. It worried me. I did get a text from my uncle about something that Glenn Beck said recently. And so that that made me a little bit concerned that he's still out there. His tentacles are still out there. But I don't know if this was a this was a gimmick. I do think that a lot of people

genuinely were deeply scared and concerned about Donald Trump and then, you know, realized that they, if they wanted their career lavish lives to continue, they had to get back. And I think that's probably what happened here. It was their business model. I mean, what was his company? What was the... The Blaze. Yeah. I mean, so, you know, it basically crashed and burned around him. And he realized that if he continued actually having a conscience, you know conscience and speaking rationally, that he had no business model anymore. And so he did what all these grifters do.

Speaking of grifters, you tell me whether this is unfair. I am somewhat fascinated by the Ron DeSantis super PAC that has raised a gazillion dollars being run by a guy named Jeff Rowe, who I encountered only briefly when he was running the Ted Cruz campaign. What is his deal? Because he seems like he's sitting out there burning through a huge amount of cash and DeSantis' credibility at the same time. But it's kind of a great gig for him. I mean, although the headline today is that he's begging for another $50 million. Unbelievable. Because he hasn't sufficiently tanked the desantis campaign so i know jeff pretty well a big

problem i just have with all of this is that a lot of the political consultancy is bullshit like this whole svengali thing is bullshit things it's mostly candidates strategists happen on the net on the margins you know trump strategist was a golf caddy okay so like okay let's just be real okay i think that this stuff matters on the margins it matters in house races where people don't know the candidates right but on the presidential level so you know a lot of this is just prbs and so you know i i don't think you can blame ron desantis's tank on jeff rowe like it's ron desantis's fault he's a very unappealing person i think that's the main issue but there's a lot of money going through there. He has spent so far, this was as of August 1, $34 million.

$34 million for Ron DeSantis to have fallen, to have lost like half of his vote share while he spent $34 million. Now, the New York Times reporting Maggie Haberman and John Swann, he's asking donors for another $50 million. And it's like, why are these people burning their money on fire? I want nothing more than to have the job of just telling rich people to stop giving money to these super PACs and to just give me 10% of whatever they were going to give as a consulting fee and give the other 90% to unhoused youth or something. I just do something with your money that's useful. Presidential campaigns, it is all worthless. People get to know these candidates. They are on TV interviews. They're on radio interviews. They're on their sports talk shows. People are talking about it in their lives,

on Facebook, on TikTok, everywhere. This race is everywhere. People make these decisions. Do you think a 30-second ad, it's like desantis you know stood up to fauci in florida like you think that's going to change people's minds these people already fucking know that they all know that this is not a state delegates race like where you do introductory ads and yet they spent 34 million he's lost half his vote share and now these people are going to keep giving him money and i guess it's like i guess i'm happy that they're separating stupid rich people from their money. But, you know, at some level, it's like, won't somebody say, don't give Jeff Rowe any more money? Like, what is the point of this?

I think we can say that. Don't give Jeff Rowe any more money. But, I mean, and maybe this is not the most significant question, but how do you spend that kind of money? I mean, where did it all go? Is it all like on private jets and motorcades and yeah tv ads jets you know when i went to that event in tama they had a five-car motorcade they had a bus they had security you know so so all that cost money they had these huge staffs that are door knocking you remember that story about the how they had

paid door knockers? Like, why do they think this is useful? You really think that you're going to pay some burnout who's 25, you know, 12 bucks an hour to go knock on a stranger's door and be like, hey, have you considered Ron DeSantis? And that that person is then going to change their mind from Donald Trump to Ron DeSantis. Just think logically about this. And really, as I look at this article, he's probably spent more than 34 million actually that that was just through june so we're through july and august now so he's probably already spent 50 million and wants another 50 it's just like it is astonishing that people it's like were you all awake in 2016 donald trump's campaign was his own jet the golf caddies tweets and the rallies He didn't fucking run ads.

He didn't have a voter outreach program. Like, Joe Biden ran out of money. Like, it was a Jim Clyburn endorsement in South Carolina. And people being scared about Bernie being the nominee. And a consolidation from the other candidates that turned things around. Sometimes I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. I'm like the only one that recognizes. It's big business, I guess.

When all of his money's on the line and everybody's beach houses are on the line, nobody's going to go out there and say, hey, maybe we shouldn't spend so much money on presidential campaigns because it's worthless. And yet there's an old guy billionaire somewhere going, you know what you need to do? We need to hand out more matchbooks. Matchbooks with the message, with the three-point plan. Ron DeSantis. Because, you know, my first political campaign, I found that I could hand out matchbooks and everybody took the matchbook. They knew my name. And, you know, if we just had more, I'm telling you, I'm willing to write out a big check if we put out more car tops. We need car tops that's because remember it's like the uh in my driving through the neighborhoods with uh with the bullhorn yeah jeff i'm really really concerned

we don't have enough yard signs we need more daniel we're mass communicating you you you do know this you you know that's this trend that people are going you you know, I'm telling you, if we don't have this, I just, anyway. All right. We have a long weekend, which I am looking forward to, seriously. Same. So I will see you on the other side, Mr. Miller. I'll see you on the other side, Mr. Sykes. I'm looking forward to hearing about the first day of school.

I am as well. And thank you all for listening to this long weekend Bulwark podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We will be back next Tuesday and we'll do this all over again. The Bulwark podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.