The Bulwark Podcast - Tim Miller: Sometimes Reality Sets In

Episode Date: November 18, 2022

Steve Bannon knows he's lying, irrational exuberance took over Kari Lake HQ, and Mar-a-Lago is in a bubble. Tim Miller joins Charlie Sykes for the weekend pod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Well, that was a hell of a week. Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. Looking back on, well, it's actually been a hell of a two weeks. And it's been a while since we've been joined by my buddy, Tim Miller, who is taking a break from his many, many, many media ventures to come back on the podcast. So first of all, welcome back, Tim. I was chained in the basement, Charlie. I'm just happy to be unlocked. It's good to be back.

You have been absolutely everywhere. And I want to start here. I'm sure you're tired of talking about this. But I want to talk about your quality time with Steve Bannon in Arizona. This was on the circus. I think people probably seen it because it is freaking viral on social media. You had a chance to talk to Steve Bannon on the eve of the election. He was there to support election denialist

who continues to be a denialist. What a shock, Kerry Lake. And you asked him whether he believed all this stuff. Okay, let's just play a bit of your confrontation. Tim Miller walks up to Steve Bannon, all this stuff. Okay, let's just play a bit of your confrontation. Tim Miller walks up to Steve Bannon and this happens. You're the king of the Stop the Steal movement. What are you doing here? Shouldn't she be running away from you,

running towards the moderates, trying to get the old John McCain, Jeff Flake voter? I think she's going to get that. You know, Carrie Lake's the future. Carrie Lake, this energy that, this populist nationalist energy. What's she doing to appeal to those voters, the moderates? It seems like she's running against those people.

No, I tell you what she's running for. This is the independent vote and the working class and middle class out here. Why is she still talking about the 2020 election? Wait till the House of Representatives next year when we have a real J6 committee. Oh, come on. And we're going to adjudicate. Oh, no, we're going to adjudicate all of 3 November. You don't really believe this.

A hundred percent. You seriously think it't really believe this. A hundred percent. You seriously think it was a stolen stuff? A hundred percent. And she still thinks it was and she's still talking about it? A hundred percent. Okay. So, Tim, tell me about that. You go back. You have some history with Steve Bannon.

Yeah, me and Steve do go back, which is why I knew I had an advantage in this one confrontation. You lose a little bit without the video. So if you are one of the people that hasn't seen it on Twitter, I've got it pinned to my Twitter account probably for another day or two before I want to move on. Your body language, the pure disgust. My pure disgust, but his body language is the key. So the backstory, the behind the curtain here is, I heard he was there and he's going to come out and speak. And because I wrote him why we did it, I know Steve a little bit. And so I texted him and I said, hey, I'm here.

Let's talk. And so he brings me backstage. We chat for a little bit. And, you know, he's just a classic bullshitter. He's buttering me up, talking about how, like, they should give me a show on MSNBC and all this stupid shit. And I'm like, Steve, let's do this. Let's do this on camera. He gets permission

from Carrie's campaign. Yeah, we bring the cameras back. And the key to this exchange for me is that I know that Steve knows he's lying. Steve knows that I know that he's lying. And Steve wants me to kind of get it. Like, it's one of these things where I didn't know him. If it was somebody that he had contempt for and just really hated and didn't care their opinion, I think that he would be able to just lie to their face and insult them. But, you know, at some level, deep down in his dark soul, I don't love that he wants this, but he kind of wants me to think that he's smart. The old George Costanza, it's not a. If you believe it, you know, that's hard, right? Like, it's hard to be so sociopathic that you advance a ridiculous lie over and over again, without breaking without smirking without trying to, to talk to other people, you know, that you

respect and giving them the wink, wink, nod, nod, I'm in on this joke. And he tried to do that with me in this exchange. And that is where I knew that i just had this advantage and that i wanted to just continue to press him on it and and then what they didn't really show it happened two times during the exchange only showed one you know he just he laughs and he kind of gathers himself and then continues to try to you know talk nonsense about the election and i just said no i'm not we're not doing this i cut it off i said i'm not going to listen let you sit here and like talk about the chain of custody of the fucking ballots or the Chinese bamboo, you know, any of the nonsense that he's pushing. Anyway, I think that it worked for that reason. And I was conscious of this, like I didn't want to give him an unnecessary platform. But I think that there

are times where it's appropriate to demonstrate that these people are full of shit, and that they should be embarrassed about that and called out for it because maybe somebody somewhere is going to look at this and be like, oh my God, this guy that I've been listening to is full of shit. But is he embarrassed? Does he have any shame at all? Because I was just looking at his eyes and it's like, you're so deeply invested in this. Does he actually believe this stuff? Or is that like an irrelevant question? Is there a real person way down deep in there that is going i know this is shit or what i mean how do you parse that out both no it doesn't

matter because if you're a public figure what you say is is what matters not what you think but yes there is a person deep down like i said they are there backstage his brother is there he's like introducing me to his brother his brother's just like a normal guy in a blue blazer and khakis who like works at an investment board for colleges. You know, just an old time Doug Ducey Republican guy, right? And no, he doesn't care enough, to be honest, right? He needs to keep his grift going.

And he sees this all as a big game, which we've discussed a lot. And so, you know, he tries to do this tongue in cheek thing with me, right? Where he's like, where he breaks, he's laughing, he's laughing. He's like, yeah, of course I believe it while he's, while he's laughing. The ticket, you know? Okay. So you asked the actually a key question of this whole campaign, which is what was Kerry Lake doing near that end of the campaign where you would normally think in on earth 2.0 that the candidate would be reaching out to the center would be you know having locked up the base would be talking to i don't know mccain voters as opposed to wrapping herself in my pillow guy and steve bannon and telling mccain voters to go uh to go stuff themselves that was an interesting question

and it was an interesting decision. So talk to me a little bit about, and in the end, may have cost her the election. Was she just so cocky and so arrogant that she said, screw those people, I got this thing? Probably did cost her. I mean, in the end, it's gonna be less than 1%, I think it looks like, an Arizona governor.

Cocky, arrogant, in a bubble, buying their own BS. I mean, the vibes, I have to tell you, I wrote about this, and it was the thing I probably got, arrogant, in a bubble, buying their own BS. I mean, the vibes, I have to tell you, I wrote about this and it was the thing I probably got the most wrong before the election. But while I got the ramifications part wrong, the assessment of what their sense of things was right, if that makes sense. Like when I was around them,

their chefs were puffed. They were confident. They were having a good time. They were having a blast. It was a rock concert. Exactly. That's part of the reason they brought me backstage. I'm a never-trumper.

They're rubbing my face in this. They're gloating. That's why they felt confident enough to do this freaking interview. Why would you do an interview with me? You knew I wasn't going to be nice to you. But there was just this irrational exuberance. And part of it is the bubble that they're in. And I think that there's been a lot of ink spilled and a lot of podcast conversation about how Democratic elites

are in a bubble and how they're out of touch with regular people. And there's something to that at times. But the Republicans, particularly these MAGA Republicans, found themselves in just a very thick bubble of their own, where they thought that they didn't have to do the normal politician thing of reaching back out. They thought that they had enough enthusiasm with them, that people were disgusted enough with the Democrats that because of, you know, transgender kids on swimming meets and whatever, you know, inflation and whatever combination of things that they felt like they didn't have to do it. And, you know, their experience at these events was seeing hundreds and hundreds of people come out and cheer them for, you know, their most insane stuff. enough of the vote in suburban phoenix and elsewhere that was not interested in a governor that was going to be palling around with a guy who is responsible and at least in part for a siege of

the capitol like that was enough for people some people said no whether it was abortion or democracy or steve bannon or just carry the carry lakes nuttiness or all a vaccine conspiracy or all of the above all in one big package, enough people said, no, I might not like everything about the Democrats, but these people are lunatics and I'm not giving them the keys. And it was a conscious decision based out of hubris and being inside of a bubble.

And it was a really catastrophic decision because Kerry is in her weird way, like has an appeal. She was a TV news host. She could have pivoted to the center and probably squeaked out the 20,000 or whatever votes that needed to yet. But that wasn't where they were going. They had their eyes on the bigger prize. Let me come back to that in a second. But I think this point about the bubble is so interesting because one of the things that really struck me was a little video of an appearance on Charlie Kirk's show. Yes, I do occasionally watch this sort of thing. And Wendy Rogers, state senator there, who is one of the most batshit

crazy extremists. I interviewed Wendy too. I interviewed Wendy for the show, but it didn't make the cut. So Wendy's on after, Wendy Rogers, who is way out there, she's on the show after the election and you can tell she is stunned. And she actually says, how did this happen? Maybe we live in a bubble. Wow. Maybe I don't know what's going on out there. And I thought for reality to penetrate that far that Wendy Rogers is actually seeing the sky and was, was, was pretty remarkable, but it was easy, I think, to get this wrong. Um, and I had Mark McKinnon on the podcast yesterday. He's talking about, you know, having a similar experience up in New Hampshire where he goes to Maggie Hassan's event and it's really boring and, you know, lifeless. And then he goes

to, you know, General Bolduc's event and people are having fun and it's raucous and everything. And, you know, you did the same thing and you wrote about it very clearly. Katie Hobbs ran one of the most low energy, uninspiring, uncharismatic campaign. She's running against one of the most charismatic, talented, deeply dishonest and crazy candidates. But it was easy to sort of get caught up and everyone seems to have been caught up and like, you know, here's the next big rock star of MAGA. So how surprised were you that she lost? I was pretty surprised. And I did write in the article, I didn't think it was a done deal. You know, I said that, and I, and I said that there's, I think some lessons to take for this, even if Katie wins. And I, and I still believe that. So for example, Katie Holmes is going to win by about 1% and Mark Kelly is going to win by probably four or 5%. Like when all these ballots are counted, that's a meaningful gap. Right. And so, you know, had had things shifted 1% the other direction, and it's Carrie Lake winning narrowly and Mark Kelly winning by

3%. Like that article is going to look prescient, right? You know, because that is an important 3%. Right. So I think that candidates and campaigns do matter, especially when there is a when the stakes are very high. And I think that in this case, Katie Hobbs benefited not from a particularly compelling campaign or anything that she did, but from a deep sense that was that happened across the country. As I wrote in the article this week, a complete sweep of the election deniers. Yes. Yeah. It's just the fact that in a purple state, there are enough people, maybe not as many as we'd want. I wish it was 60 to 40. It was 51 to 49, but there are enough people that just said, no, I will not go along with something this nutty. I will not go along with something this bigoted and this crazy, and that I can't trust that our democracy will

hold and that the basic rights will be protected. And so she benefited from that, and Carrie cost herself, you know, by not trying to appeal. And so on election night, when I was there at their party, you know— Yeah, I wanted to hear about that. What was that like? It was something, because, again, they all thought that they were going to win. Like, the Star Wars bar analogy is so beaten to death and by and like it's so perfect i know but these people were worse it was like a it was like if the star wars bar and the kkk rally met and i had some live streamers there i mean it was so weird it was

danny johnson and nigel farage is there and wow you know all these like some like some weird oath keeper types but also some like rich donor types. It was the most odd Republican event I've ever attended. But, you know, the early numbers come in and Lake is losing by more than Trump was in that early vote and absentee vote. And you sense the panic in there. And she comes out very early to do her little, you know, kind of crazy speech. loons in this room now some of them are going yeah we're gonna come back there's fraud but i'm looking around and that's about 50 50 there's another 50 of people who you know had been to these kinds of election night of things before and are kind of saying to themselves

this is odd you don't usually come out and declare victory when you're down by 18, you know, very early in the night. Like, what is happening here? I'm unsure about this. And so the mood in there was very uncomfortable. And so it was very clear that what happened was going to happen right then. I kind of thought Carrie was going to come back and win by 1%, but I thought it was also very possible she could lose by 1%. It was clear that Masters and Fincham were going to lose.

So I was really encouraged by that and encouraged overall that this was kind of like the closest one and the last nail in a huge, overwhelming trend towards all of these folks getting knocked out. I prefer to think of it as the cherry on top. Yeah, sure. But yeah, it's like the, I mean, it's the best news we've had in a while. I mean, you made me go back and re-listen to our podcast after Donald Trump left the White House. And it's fun. That's a fun re-listen. I appreciated that. And there's something to that win. the country, rejection of these people, and the fact that having Republicans who even went too far for me in dabbling with Trump, but if they showed even a modicum of normalcy and sensibleness, they won. And so it's impossible to not look at that and say, this mattered. These people's behavior mattered, and it cost them. And despite the fact that they had a lot of energy and they're

having fun, it cost them. So I expected Kerry to win. So I totally it cost them. And despite the fact that they had a lot of energy and they're having fun, it cost them. So I expected Gary to win. So I totally will admit that. And I was really thrilled to see her lose. I will gladly admit that. You were certainly not alone. OK, so I think the least surprising story of the day is she's refusing to concede. And of course she is.

This is her whole existence and her fame is tied up in being an election nihilist and a candidate. Why would she let that go? So I'm not surprised by that. I think it is significant that she's the only one. All around the country, you've had Republicans who lose these elections and then graciously concede, which is kind of shocking, kind of a reminder of what a singular outlier Donald Trump was back in 2020. I'm glad you asked that and put it that way because that was going to be my answer anyway. So full agreement. Laxalt, even creepy Blake Masters,

even Mastriano, really. And I will say this was something that in the lead up, I had a sense might happen, because I looked at that, and I forget if it was on this podcast or a different one, but I talked about that Larry Elder race in California. And sometimes reality sets in. When you get beaten bad enough, you talk a big game about Trump and all that.

But boy, it's tough when you lose then to go out there and be like, I got to get myself up and I got to look at that camera and stare at it and lie and pretend like I think it's fraud and smile. And Carrie Lake is just psychotic enough to pull that off. And I think it's why she was particularly dangerous, because everyone saw correctly that she had channeled all of the elements of the Trumpism in the most authentic way out of anybody who has tried to parrot him to date. So I don't like that guy at all. But Ted Cruz lost in 2020 or 2016. It's really hard to imagine a crowd full of people carrying Ted Cruz flags charging the Capitol. Yeah. You have to have a certain amount of sociopathy and a certain amount of charisma to be able to pull that off.

And it seemed like Carrie Lake and Donald Trump are really kind of the only ones that have it. Okay. So since we dealt with all these serious questions, I have one other question that I thought you might have some insight into. What is with the weird soft focus lens when she does YouTube videos? What is that? It's creepy. I mean, she has to come out of the room right into the real world. I mean, you know, she's been on TV. She knows how to make herself look okay on TV, but it's weird. It's this gauzy look and it's kind of, it feels like she's kind of beaming in from another planet. It's like, okay, what are we missing here?

You kind of like want to pull it away and go, okay, so what's actually going on? I mean, when you just look at it as her and like in a Zoom, for me, it's kind of like, oh, you know, it gives it an air of like professionalism and, you know, she has a nice spotlight on herself. Okay. But then when you're like doing an interview, and it's her and another person, and the other person is beaming in from earth, she's beaming in from gauzy Vaseline faced,

non earth, it becomes very creepy. And I don't have a good answer to it. And you know, I it was I had a list of things to ask the Lake camp when I had to suffer a lot of time with them and it was on there, but I didn't get around to it. A couple of them had suggested that I get drinks with them and I kept following up saying, I will do that. I will take one for the team and get drinks with the Cary Lake team just to kind of get a sense

for what's happening behind the scenes in the crazy, but they never got that far. You know, they got a little comfortable with me, letting me get backstage with Bannon and, uh, and texting me, but they did not get that comfortable. So I never got an answer on this, but I will do my best, Charlie. And if I can find the answer to why, what the thinking was, I'll report it here first. See what I think would be hilarious is if you or I got that, you know, got that thing. And next time we're on MSNBC, we have the Carrie Lake glow. I don't even know how to do it.

I would love to do that. That would be so great. Okay. So deep breath. Can Barry help us for that? Can Barry help us? Because I will do that. I'm next week, Thanksgiving week.

It's a perfect time. I will do it. I figured you would know people who would know how to do that. Okay. Well, we have a lot of listeners. So if someone can make me look like Carrie Lake, I will do that on Thanksgiving week. Okay. So taking a deep breath.

Donald Trump is running. I think everybody knows this. You did your Not My Party video on this incredibly tired, weak, boring speech. I mean, look, for people who think, well, you guys are never Trump, of course you're not going to like it. It was really remarkably bad, wasn't it? And I want to get your sense. What do you think was going on? We've watched him for a very, very long time.

And there was something happening there. Yeah. I mean, it was long. I mean, all of his speeches were long, but it was a drug out, man. I mean, Fox cut away. Have you seen the clip? This is hilarious. Have you seen the clip?

He's going on about Angela. Angela. Angela. People don't even know who Angela is. And then, like, Sean Hannity cuts in. It's like, that was President Trump. I mean, Fox is getting bored. So there's something to it.

My guess here, and this is just as an observer who's had to suffer through seven years of having to think about Donald Trump and no inside info, is that the feedback he got from the small number of people that are still in his circle is that this should be a State of the Union-esque type address. You know, that this should convey seriousness, like especially after that election you didn't get great feedback on de sanctimonious and you used to be the president you have that advantage over everybody let's project that that's what i think was happening and so they're like we're gonna put you on the prompter and he always hates that he always just hates that yeah he's not good at that he's not good at that okay so it was not good now i think if i think if you went back now jvl did this and and looked at the on the triad and compared it to the 16 announcement and and so

there were some things that were different like his energy level did seem lower and like his excitement to be there seemed lower but if you sat down and watched the whole 26 and that was weird and boring too at times right like we don't we just only see the clips of that, the, you know, rapist and murder, you know, like that's the only thing you watch anymore. So, you know, part of that is just Trump. So I'm doing my best to just hedge and just be like, this is something that's worth monitoring. I think that there is a chance that the thing that I've wanted to happen for seven years might finally happen, which is that like like he just officially wears out his welcome

and i kind of i always thought that was quite impossible betting on it always seems stupid even suggesting it on tv kind of makes you seem stupid right because you were wrong every time but eventually you are going to be right right i mean eventually people are gonna get sick of him or he's gonna die right like one of those things is gonna happen at some point and so it could be happening and i think that he is speaking of bubbles i do think he's in this die, right? Like one of those things is going to happen at some point. And so it could be happening. And I think that he is speaking of bubbles. I do think he's in this Mar-a-Lago bubble and it does feel like he's losing his, his feel. And so maybe if he gets out there and is doing rallies again, you know, and kind of doing the crowd work where he actually has some candidate skills, you know, that'll change, but I don't know. He's made some misses. He played this really poorly.

He had this thing locked up. If he had made a few moves differently in the past five months, he had a re-nomination locked up, and he's been his own worst enemy. So what would he have done to have locked up the nomination? What are some of the reasons? He didn't have to pick all these fucking losers, for starters. There was no obligation to pick everybody and all these primaries and to interfere he could have just sat out some of them right uh you know

he didn't have to push people through he could have been positioning himself as jv else others suggested this as anti-mitch and anti-kevin and talked about how poorly they're running these campaigns right rather than anticipating that everybody's going to win and thank him right he didn't have to be out on the campaign trail the last week. I mean, it's his party, right? So it has been. And so had he campaigned with Ron DeSantis instead of weirdly snubbing him? I mean, had he just kind of laid back and done what a relatively normal ex-president did

and helped the guys that won primaries and then see where the chips fall? He could have come out this week and said, hey, Mitch McConnell cost you guys. You only win when I'm on the ballot and I'm back, baby. And I think that he would be a very formidable, maybe even insurmountable candidate. But by putting his stink on all these guys and coming away as the one who's blamed for all this while Ron DeSantis wins by 20, he's opened the door. Yeah. And that, that is grinding him. You know, I think he was counting on the, you know, heads Trump wins, um, you know, uh, tails Trump wins too. The, whatever happens if the GOP wins, we take credit for it. If the GOP lost, he could point the finger that didn't

work out for him because as you point out, his stink is just all over this campaign. And so he said something was very interesting that, you know, he could have swept the field. That may be one of the most significant things of this week. He comes, the former president announces big event and he doesn't clear the field, does he? It doesn't happen. The fact that not many people, you know, of the quote unquote establishment or even of the influencers showed up at the event was kind of a tell the fact that he clearly didn't have the wind at his back that that he thought he was going to get out of the the midterms. He's getting blowback, some real blowback for his jibes against Glenn Youngkin and Ron

DeSanctimonious. You know, he's used to everything and how clever you are, boss, that these are the smartest things. You will totally crush them. And in fact, he's finding out that he's not getting that kind of feedback. And then he does this speech that is, you know, universally panned and I think fed into the, you know, this narrative that is he passed it? Is it time to turn the page? And worst of all,

he did not dominate the news cycle the way he thought. What do you think about that Murdoch front page in the New York Post? Florida man. You know, Charlie, I know we're never going to get this, but like I could have used a whoops from Murdoch World, like a hey, we're not going to do this again, you know, to move from being a propagandist for him to trying to kill him. And then everybody just kind of giving them credit for it. I just that's hard for me. It's hard. You know, it's hard for me to do. I maintain some bitterness. And maybe I know that that's probably my darker angels, but I just I maintain some bitterness over it. But it's meaningful that I maintain some bitterness. Well, the good news, of course, is that National Review has now decided that it's going to stand

athwart history and saying, no, no, this time we mean it. No, we really mean it this time. No. You guys are so weird. They're all mad at me on Twitter for making fun of this. I'm just like, just own just own it guys just own it you've been trump curious for the for the ever since the against trump issue you know there have been times where you've said nice things there've been times where you said mean things

that's fine you you you call it said it's a you termed it we're calling it balls and strikes okay i said from the start i don't i don't think he's on the field okay i'm not calling balls and strikes on him he's everything is a strikeout for me you don't think he's on the field. Okay, I'm not calling balls and strikes on him. Everything is a strikeout for me. You don't got to hand it to him at any point. You don't have to put on your cover the case for the Trump presidency like the National Review did. So I just, I don't know why these guys are all so defensive about the reality.

But hey, if everybody wants to come over to Never Trump World right now, that's fine. The water's warm. I welcome them. It would be nice the welcoming would be a little warmer if they just said you were right before they came over i would the welcome would be with a hug but instead now i'm gonna kind of have to welcome them with a little bit of a cold shoulder at first and get a couple drinks in me before that they're allowed into the party but that's fine everybody's welcome i will say this though all these people were against him in 2016 too

so i just i also don't i also don't love kind of the whole like oh we're the power brokers here and oh some of the big donors and fox and the national review all you guys live in new york all right like none of you people were for trump the first time so i just i think everybody should just hold their horses on discussing the great meaning of all this, though we welcome all converts, and just let's see what the people want, okay? And so, you know, when I first started hearing people that were like, hey, I was, you know, Sarah's going to go do some focus groups, you know, when we, you can listen to them on Bulwark Plus, worth every penny. And if we listen to the first focus group and it's like, man, I was with Donald Trump in 2016. I went to every rally. I wore a red hat, but I'm sick of him.

That is going to intrigue me a lot more than Rich Lowry's ninth flip flop on this guy. OK, like that. I think that is going to be that much more meaningful thing. And that's a little bit of a wait and see for me. Well, I think that's why Trump himself, obviously, he's feeling so threatened by Ron DeSantis, because Ron DeSantis gives that crowd pretty much everything without the without the crazy, without the baggage, without the indictments, without being, you know, 80 years old and all of that stuff. So that's that. But the thing about it is that I don't think that he has cracked the code of how to take him down. There is a code.

I mean, there is something that Trump will do to Ron DeSantis. I don't think he's figured it out quite yet. Right? Oh, no. Because attacking Ron DeSantis is not the same as Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio because, quite frankly, they didn't have the kind of, you know, emotional bond with the base and the credibility and politics was different then. And so he could rip Ted Cruz and there was no massive blowback to to all of that. But DeSantis, the young content, not not not landing. People were pretty protective of their Marco. OK, I lived through the 2016 campaign.

People in the conservative media were pretty protective of their precious on Marco, and Marco ended up folding. Now, maybe DeSantis is stronger than Marco and has a deeper well of support. At least he has somewhat of a deeper well of support now. How much, I think, remains to be seen. So I think both of these guys will have a ton of time to talk about this, but the short of it for me is I think neither of them have demonstrated that they know how to take the other one out yet.

Yeah, right. And DeSantis hasn't actually made any punches on Trump. I think he's hoping he digs his own grave. And I think that'll be the case for probably three, four months. But eventually, if he wants to run, he's going to have to get in. And there's a lot of things, a lot of landmines that everybody stepped on in 2016 that he's going to have to avoid when it comes to being in a campaign against Trump. You know, he hasn't had to talk about January 6th. He hasn't, we haven't talked about the House yet. I hope we have a little time to talk about the House.

Every time some lunatic in the House says, we're going to investigate, you know, like the FBI and how it's too woke. And the libs have taken over the FBI. We're going to defund the FBI. And Trump's like, yeah, defund the FBI. Well, what does, is DeSantis going to be for that? Right? That's just one example, right? Every crazy thing that comes up, is DeSantis going to be for it? Yep. I think he's going to stay as close ideologically as possible. You're not going to be able to be more anti-woke than he is. You know, Trump comes up with creative things, right? I mean, where's DeSantis on the summary execution of drug dealers, right?

You know what I mean? The next Muslim ban that comes out, right? Eventually all that stuff. He's going to have to say something. Yeah, he's going to have to address all that stuff. And can he do that? Can he go head to head with Trump? I don't, you know, I don't TBD on all that.

And it's a slippery slope. I mean, look at Mike Pence, right? You know, you get on the wrong side of Trump on the wrong issue one time and you go down that slide and you go from 40% potential support to eight. You know, that's a challenge coin. He's going to have to prove that he can win and he hasn't had to yet. Yeah. And I listen to you. I'm thinking of it. If I'm Donald Trump, what is the one thing that would drive a dagger? You know, make him endorse January 6th. Make him take a stand on the insurrection by saying, and Trump has already done this, that not only was it not a crime, it was a patriotic act.

And I will pardon every single one of them on day one of my presidency. What will Ron DeSantis do? Just force him to take a position. Will he pardon the insurrectionists? That's a great question. And then you get on this tightrope. It's like, what do I do? Do I go full crazy with Trump in order to keep my position and keep going further and further down into Cary Lake land where I can't win if I actually come

out of this? Or do I try to risk challenging him and risk going down into Mike Pence land where nobody likes me anymore because I was too mean to Mr. Trump. That's all in front of him still. Okay, let's switch gears. Since we're talking about crazy, let's talk about the Congress, what Washington is going to look like over the next six months, one year or so. Rick Wilson tweeted out, Imagine all the GOP House craziness you can.

Now magnify that insanity and loon bucket fuckwittery by a billion. Then transport it to the pinnacle of Burning Tire Mountain as an endless cascade of clown cars plunge into the radioactive waste dump at the peak. And I responded to him. I believe you are understating the problem. So let's talk about this. On cue, day one, they have the majority.

They roll out Jim Jordan and says, yep, we're taking on inflation. We're taking on the economy. No, we're going after Hunter Biden. I mean, what is this going to be like? Yeah, we're going after Hunter. The people really care about Hunter. I'll tell you, Charlie, I've been out there.

I was in Virginia. I was in Pennsylvania. I was in Arizona. I was in Washington State. All those trucks. That's what they're talking about, right? Hunter kept coming up. Every hipster coffee shop.

I get a little window into just how ugly it's going to be when I got invited to this Twitter spaces thing with Mick Mulvaney. And I'm going, you know, I usually would say no to something like this, but maybe I can have a little fun with Mick. And as it turned out, it was a very buttoned up Twitter space. And so I didn't have a lot of chance for back and forth with Mick. But one thing did come out of it that was useful. One of the people listening asked him what he expected from the new House majority. And, you know, he kind of gives some lip service to the

economic stuff. And then it's like, but, you know, they're going to have to spend time on investigating the politicization of the FBI in the deep state. I'm going to interrupt you. I'm going, excuse me? What are you talking about? And he's like, well, you know, I'm going to interrupt you. I'm going, excuse me? What are you talking about? And he's like, well, you know, we're going to have to look into the unfair investigations of Trump. It's like, Nick, who is the guy that said he quit over Trump, you know, who ostensibly is one of the normal ones who you know that Kevin McCarthy has on speed dial, right? So if one of the, now this is not a compliment to the, you know, we're grading on a steep curve here, but if one of the most rational potential operators is suggesting that investigating the deep states Trump treatment is one of the things that they plan on doing,

imagine what Marjorie Taylor Greene and the top of the tire fire or whatever Rick was talking about. Imagine what those lunatics are going to want the unfair treatment of the insurrectionists looking into hunter biden uh a fauci you know at every event i went to every republican event i went to prosecuting fauci is this huge applause line i just these guys you know have no idea where the middle of the country is. They've learned nothing about from from this last midterm. And Kevin McCarthy is like nowhere even in the ballpark of being strong enough to stand up to them and keep the caucus together. So, I mean, if they were willing to learn from all of this, they would be saying, OK, you know, how can we address the, you know, the swing voters? How can

we reach out to these, you know, suburban voters that we have lost? You know, let's do, I don't know, an autopsy where we talk about how we broaden our appeal. This time around, unlike 2012, they're going to skip the autopsy and go right to rejecting every single possible lesson they could have taken from it, right? They're going to go, we had people who were really concerned about, you know, dinner table issues and the cost of gasoline. Let's spend all of our time doing these investigations of Hunter Biden. You have to be like on truth social to even know what they're talking about half the time. That's the thing. Nobody has any idea. I'm guessing that very few focus groups, people say,

well, OK, what I'm most concerned about is Hunter Biden. What do you want from your government? I want them to spend the next six months fighting over Hunter Biden. Not that the FBI subpoenas of Mar-a-Lago were a little too, you know, shaded and unfair. And I'm upset about people being shadow banned on social media. It's like, what do you? So what this means is they will do exactly what they ought to be rejecting, which is that rather than looking forward, they're going to be looking back. So, you know, despite all the people saying, well, we got to move on from election denialism, we got to move on from 2020, you know, the Marjorie Taylor Greene's and the Jim Jordan's say, fuck that. We are going all in on this stuff. I mean, I think I will be mildly surprised if they

actually don't have a hearing on Barack Obama's birth certificate. Yeah, I don't think that there's any evidence or any path that they have learned anything from this. And so and it's because they're in this echo chamber, you know, where they're big constituents, this is what they want, you know, and this is what gets them money on social media and low dollar. So all the incentives from them are wrong. And the only way to fight it is to have a strong leadership that says, no, you know, in order for the good of the whole caucus, I'm going to resist this inside the bubble, like Republican, like lunacy. And I'm going to focus on, you know, Pat, what was the advice we always give the Democrats over the last two years? And it's come up with some issues that divide the other side and unites your caucus. Well, let me tell you, you're not dividing the other side when you're investigating like crackpot conspiracies.

The other side is like more of that, please. So speaking of bubbles, you had a great rant on the Next Level podcast about Ben Shapiro, right wing influencer, one time colleague of ours, who has now become obsessed with all things gay. And I thought it was interesting that the day before the vote on providing federal protection for same sex marriages, he announced that anybody that voted in favor that doesn't belong in the Republican Party and then promptly 12 of the whole dozen senators voted in favor of this. A majority of Republican voters are in favor of this. 71% of Americans believe that same-sex marriages should be regarded as valid. And here you have Ben Shapiro in his own world saying, no, what Republicans really ought

to do is double down on this issue. So go on Ben Shapiro. I do have to say, I give him a little bit of credit, I guess. I mean, he seems to deeply, genuinely think it's bad for society, for Disney to have a movie where two fictional characters are boys, and they have a high school crush on each other and they're a little bit awkward about it and one of the boys' father is supportive. I mean, that offends him deeply. You really think that offends him deeply? I don't know what other explanation there is. He seems to be genuinely offended by this and worried about societal rot

that might come from two high school boys wanting to kiss each other and getting the butterflies and having supportive parents. And so I just, I don't, I encourage him to just keep exploring that because I think that, you know, at one time I would, this would have made me mad and I would have said, these are the people that are holding us back and preventing me from rights and preventing me from having happiness. But I think that he sounds completely detached from where American society is. I think that these guys are extremely out of touch with what actual real America wants. When I was with Abigail Spanberger in the Virginia district, I was like, this is actually real America. You know, like the suburbs between Richmond and DC,

this is the middle of the country as far as demographically and economically, et cetera. And these people don't care about this. And if anything, they're downright supportive of kids being themselves and being supported by their families. And so if these guys want to be that out of touch with real America and punish disney over this which everybody has to remember this this was what was behind ron desantis punishing disney was the lesbian kiss in the buzz lightyear movie so if they decide that that is what they want to do i mean at least they have an ethos right i mean a lot of people just do anti-gay shit because they want to be dicks and i think in ben shapiro's case he has an an ethos and there's something to be said for that. Well, and also this is at the same time that, you know, folks in that world, I hope people are

picking up the sarcasm here because otherwise you're going to get a lot of email reaction. At the same time, there's this whole, and by the way, you know, the worst people in the world are these single lady skanks who are a bunch of, you know, whores of Babylon, et cetera, which of course then does not encourage, you know, young men, the kind of people that, that hang on, you know, Ben's every word to go out and find one of these young ladies. So it is a bold political strategy to basically say our new base is the incel community. We're very happy with the incel community and all you other people. We have some thoughts. What could go wrong for them?

This is the bigger picture about all this, Charlie, which just shows you how it's not getting better. You know, I'm doing all these events and people are always like, it's going to get better, right? The party, you know, after this. And the Trump thing, in a weird way, is like an easy cop out, you know, as an explanation for the midterms, because all of these guys have secretly blamed Trump in their in their private thoughts for seven years now, they couldn't say it. And so now they're able to say it that because they had this

moment where they might have a chance to finally get rid of him. But Trump was a symptom of all of this other stuff, right? It's like, if the head of the Babylon Bee, who is the one doing the skank tweet you were talking about, and the head of the biggest Republican conservative media outlet, The Daily Wire, you know, and his cohort, Candace Owens, is out there defending Kanye. You know what I mean? So if the biggest media outlets that are serving the most people, if what they want to provide to them is you should be mad about a gay kiss in a Disney show and you should be defending Kanye because free speech rights means you can be anti-Semitic and we should blame all of our ills on the single women and the cat ladies, you know, because they aren't willing to have sex with me, then like, what do you think the replacement of Trump is going to be? And this was my joke about Next Level and Ron DeSantis.

It's like, do you want to run on this, Ron DeSantis? Fine. Okay. Republicans will just be punished again. All right. This extremism in the middle of the country is upset with, yeah, there was the acute problem of the threat to democracy, but it was all lumped into this kind of boiling pot of the, you know, a 10 year old girl that gets raped by her uncle has to go across state lines and this obsession over, you know, trans swimming meets and the litter boxes in the

classroom and, and the vaccine conspiracies and the anti-gay stuff and the anti-single women, like all that is wrapped up in that people in the suburbs just don't want that. They don't want it. And so and I don't see how the Republicans can move away from it. It's like the easy thing to say, oh, we just get to Trump and all of our ills will be fixed. That's not true. This illness that underlines all that is the problem. And that actually seems to be metastasizing.

OK, let's make some news here on the podcast. All right. Because I have sources who are telling me that, and this is always something to keep an eye on when certain people show up in certain places, that you, Tim Miller, have been cited in New Hampshire. So, folks, is he running? I'm not going to rule anything out, Charlie.

I mean, I'm just exploring. It was nice to be up in Manchester. There were some great supporters of the Bulwark. I was happy to see people come out and that our message is kind of resonating. I'm noticing that our message is resonating in New Hampshire. People at the Institute of Politics, Neil Levesque, and at St. Anselm's, they said the crowd was bigger than a normal crowd. They didn't say it was the biggest crowd in history for the dinner,

but they did say it was bigger than the normal crowd that they get for political speakers. Tim, you're drawing big crowds in New Hampshire. Yeah, so I'm just saying, I'm going to continue to sort of discuss, talk with people and just sort of see what it is that they're interested in hearing about. And if our message... Listen to the American people. Yeah, talk with people and just sort of see what it is that they're interested in hearing about. And if our message... Listen to the American people. Yeah, and if our message resonating, then we'll just, we'll have to see what the future holds. I appreciate you bringing that up, Charlie.

Okay, well, I'm glad that we were able to cover that. Tim Miller, enjoy your trip out east and hope to talk to you soon. See you, Charlie. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio production by Jonathan Siri. I'm Charlie Sykes. Thank you for listening to today's Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio production by Jonathan Siri. I'm Charlie Sykes. Thank you for listening to today's Bulwark Podcast. We'll be back tomorrow to do this all over again.