The Bulwark Podcast - Tim Miller: They're Still Humoring Him

Episode Date: August 11, 2023

Remember one of the worst quotes in history about just 'humoring' Trump after he lost in '20? Well, he's creating another threatening climate. Plus, Tim's reporting trip to Iowa, Pence gets a little loose, and Tim and Charlie share some life advice. Tim Miller joins Charlie Sykes for the weekend pod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. It is Friday and it has been way too long to have Tim Miller backinger. What, just because he fought in the military and was in Congress and has a snappy Twitter feed now? That's fine. Okay, that's fine if you have a new love. But you were always in my heart. I always knew that we were going to do the catch-up. And, of course, you've been being a road warrior in Iowa this past week. I want to talk to you about all of that.

One of the things I was thinking about as you about all of that. So, you know, one of the things I was thinking about as I was sitting down here with you, Tim, I need your advice on something, or just your thoughts on all of this. I love that. I've thought about whether we need to add a life coaching segment. Yeah, yes. This is exactly what I... Because I feel like I could be a good life coach, but anyway. One of the experiences, and you wrote a whole book about this over the last seven years, has been watching people, you know, lose their minds. And I don't mean that in some metaphorical, you know, existential way. I mean, losing their minds. People have just,

it's like you can feel as if all of the neurons have just fried themselves with all the crazy. And every conversation that I've had over the last couple of weeks eventually comes back to, so how do you stay sane? How are you going to get through the next year and a half? I mean, isn't the part of you where you look at the calendar and go, oh my God, okay, it's going to be something. I mean, it's a year, but we have to go through this again. And when I say that people are losing their minds, I mean, I think people are, they emotionally are fried out by all of this. It's the stupidity. It's the pressure. It's the relentlessness.

We're all overwhelmed. And let's be honest with it. I mean, people are listening to this podcast, but then they're probably nodding their heads because there has to be some days where you go, it's just too much. So I don't know. What is your life coaching? How do we not become completely insane over the next year? I'm thinking about prospectively. You don't know what I mean, by the way? Do you think about the last seven years, the number of people who something's happened to them?

And I understand it. I mean, you cannot be an emotional, intellectual punching bag, you know, day in and day out, week in and week out without paying a price. So I don't know, tips. There's a lot of broken people. I was on the end of COVID that like one person on every text chain I'm on has completely broken. And, you know, and sometimes that might mean going crazy and radical. And sometimes that means just, I just don't want to talk about politics anymore, which I understand that just completely checks out. You know, my negative side of what you're saying is, I think part of the reason why it's so daunting is like, there's really no, like light at the end of the tunnel, you know, which makes this a little different, right? Even in 2016, and through 2020, it's like, oh, we get rid of this guy and then things are gonna get better. And like, that isn't really there. There's no light at the end of the tunnel of the Republican Party.

And, you know, we can all quibble over how much everybody likes Joe Biden. I might like him a little more than most, but even still he's an older. And there's no real, you know, it's not like there's some excited, everybody's so excited that we're gonna get to move on to this other thing.

And I think that that is hanging over all this. You know, for me, there are two things. One, and I hope this is useful for our listeners, we're going to talk about this. It is actually good for my brain to be out there with the real people. And I think that the exception, it did not give me, I don't mean this in the Pollyanna optimistic sense, as you're about to find out. I didn't go to Iowa and think, oh man, people are really great and good out there and things are going to turn out better. I don't mean it like that. But there's just something about the just parade of horribles on your social media feed and in the emails that gets to wear on me. And so actually being out there and kind of having

an engagement and learning the nuance. And even if it's a dark, you're hearing about people's real stories. I mean, I just like I had a very interesting conversation with a woman who was there on January 6th and you can tell she's one of the broken people really, but she had a humanity about her. She didn't end up going into the Capitol. She didn't do anything wrong. She's one of the ones who's been fooled. And we had a very long conversation. And in some ways that was nourishing for me, even though it wasn't hopeful if that makes sense the other big advice i have for you and for everybody is it's nice to have friends and interests that aren't politics and i just uh this has been a big part of my move here i being in new orleans i've got a lot of pals here that don't know about

that don't follow this shit don't listen to us i've got a couple pals who listen to us hi guys but most of them don't listen to us. And I like that. And I just think that is absolutely necessary. And when I meet people who say, I love you from MSNBC, my advice is always, maybe one hour less a day. I hope that the bosses aren't listening to this. But just like one hour

less a day, finding something else, read some fiction. It's different for everybody. Bird watching for some people. LSU football is coming up for me. Whatever it off. Just walk away. It's different for everybody. Bird watching for some people. LSU football is coming up for me. Whatever it is for you. I think my book reading is I do one homework, one treat. So I just go back and forth on my book reading.

I give myself a treat that's something totally separate from all this. So anyway, that's my life advice. Let me maybe pick up right there because, um, you, you, you made a couple of different points. I do think that one of the reasons why people are feeling the pressure right now is, is exactly as you, you put your finger on it, but you know, back in 2016 and actually in 2020, we could all sort of, we could cling to the illusion that, okay, you know, once this is over, we can get back to our lives, right? That you see the end, you see that light of the, at the end of the tunnel. And I,

I certainly remember that, you know, people saying, well, what are you going to do next year? And I'm saying, you know, I'll think about next year because we just got to get through this and then things are going to be okay. And, and four years later was thinking the same thing. Now, it is hard to think that it's ever going to get back to normal. And I think that's part of why it feels even heavier after all of this. So that's number one. Number two, getting out in the world. I know exactly what you're talking about. I remember a few years back, and like you, we can get caught up in social media and start to think that that's the world and the kind of vitriol and the back and

forth and everything. And I actually remember being down, I think it was, I think it was, was it Tucson or Phoenix? It was at some event. And we're having an interesting conversation about politics. And I remember being actually surprised to realize that, hey, this is the real world. These are real people and they're not crazy. They're reasonable. And we're having this conversation and it was really refreshing. So I know exactly what you're picking up on as far as, as the therapy, I, you know, everybody does have something different. I do think it's a good idea to turn it off once in a while. You know, I try to cultivate a sense of humor about all of this, which is very, very difficult. And somebody, how can you laugh when

American democracy is burning? If you don't laugh, American democracy will burn and you will burn with it. Okay. That's not, that's number one, but in terms of like, you know, the way I step out of it, you mentioned your, your reading habits. I read fiction, but also weirdly enough, and maybe this is just idiosyncratic, it's therapeutic for me to read histories about other dysfunctional periods of history to kind of realize, okay, we are not the only people who lived through a shitstorm. You know, it used to be really, really bad. My favorite television show is Babylon Berlin, 1929 Berlin, because it's kind of escapist, but also it's realized, you know, you realize that, okay, you know, things have, you know have been worse in the past. It is important to do all that. And also, you moved to New Orleans. Have I talked to you about this? I'm kind of preparing for a major lifestyle change.

It's kind of big for me. Oh, no. No, I don't know if you have talked to me about this. We're doing it live. I am about to have a teenager in the house again. Really? I'm about to go to soccer games again. We're doing it live. I am about to have a teenager in the house again. Really? I'm about to go to soccer games again. I love that for you.

My French grandson has decided that I am the Ferrari of granddads, and he wants to come and live here and go to school for the next semester. Now, assuming that all of the papers are all approved and all the passports and everything, fingers crossed, you know, at the end of August, I'm the passports and everything, fingers crossed. You know, at the end of August, I'm going to have a teenager in the house. Wow. Again. I mean, the teenager, awesome for him.

I mean, God, America, you know, sometimes we get down in America. America is great. There's a lot of great reasons to come here despite all the problems we have. But he's going to leave France for Wisconsin. That's a little bit of a confusing choice for me, but I'm open to hearing why. Well, it's going to be interesting to see this country through his eyes because, I mean, obviously he'll have a different perspective, but he's very excited. I mean, he loves soccer. I've signed him up for the suburban soccer leagues and everything. He visited the school, the middle school and everything. And because his mom, my daughter, is an American citizen,

he and his brother just got their American citizenship last week. Got it. And so he is a dual citizen, and he's very excited. I obviously, you know, this is one of those things where, okay, this is exciting. I'm proud for him. I hope we don't let him down. You know what I mean? I hope the experience is a good experience.

I'm glad it's dual. Dual is kind of nice there. You wouldn't want to come back and come back to the Donald Trump, MAGA, idiocracy, autocracy. That would be a poorly timed move. But I remember thinking, and when this idea first came up, it seemed a little bit fanciful. And now he's coming. And part of me is thinking, well, okay, it seemed a little bit fanciful. And now he's coming. And, you know, part of me is thinking, well, okay, this is, I get, this is a flashback. It's kind of a do-over, being dad type

thing. But also, it's like having, for me, having to go back into real life, having to go to events like soccer matches and parent conferences and meet other kids' parents and things like that. So this is going to be... I'm excited for this. We should start to have a segment at the end of the Friday pod where I get an update on fatherhood part two. Okay, so let's talk about the news of the week. And I want to talk about your Iowa thing. I'm going to put this in the category of the least surprising story of the week. The Donald Trump announces that, hell no, he's not going to sign that pledge to support

the Republican nominee, which is the requirement to be on the debate stage, which he was never going to be at. So, Tim, it's interesting to me watching all these other Republicans, you know, sign the pledge and sign the pledge because they want to be loyal Republicans and they don't want to be, you know, they don't want to be considered a rhino and they don't want to, you know, get on the wrong side of MAGA. And there's Donald Trump who basically goes, yeah, screw it. Okay, let's start. These people are so pathetic, Charlie. It's just like really gobsmacking kind of. And it's like, we lived through all this. They learned nothing. Yeah, that's why it's exhausting. I'm sorry. Yeah, we spent the first 10 minutes, you know, having to do some little therapy because it's like we already did this i we did the pledge thing back in 2016 i was with jeb when we were like this is so stupid that your friend writes previous is making us do this and he's taking the train up to new york to try to get donald trump who's never signed a

contract that he's kept in his entire life he thinks this non-binding piece of paper is going to make some fucking difference and we're into dunkin donuts in new hampshire and jeb just like writes down on a on a on the table it's like voted republican since 19 whatever i don't want to i forget what hit what the year was he turned 18 and uh and you know tweeted it out and he's just like there that's my there's my pledge asshole and it's like donald trump they walk into this bait every time. Where it's like, oh, you know, if we butter him up, if we're just nice to him, if we just try to please him, if we just try to keep the lion in the cage, you know, then maybe he'll behave better next time. It's like, how can you still think this? How could these guys have been fooled by this?

And, you know, Nikki Haley, I don't know, did you see this one, what she did? Yeah, I did. I clicked on it almost, I don't know why maybe I'm the idiot I had like a false sense of hope of something of that maybe that Nikki Haley had you know an iota of integrity left because the tweet was a teaser and it said uh you know Nikki Haley signs pledge with one caveat and I was like oh what could that caveat be you know I clicked on it I was like maybe she was like if the nominee has been convicted three times of felonies, if the nominee is convicted of insurrection against the country, then maybe I want, no. In the plunge, she crossed out, I pledged to support the Republican against President Biden and replaced it with President

Harris. And it's like, oh, that's so clever. So clever, so cute. And it's like so funny that you're making a mockery of this as you, for some reason, have decided to pledge your undying loyalty to somebody that could not give a shit less about you or this country or the Constitution or any of that. So anyway, the whole thing is so pathetic. So we started off with self-therapy, and now I'm having PTSD flashbacks because, you know, to the moment that Reince Priebus, you know, begged on bended knee for Donald Trump to sign the pledge, I actually had a flashback to exactly where I was standing when I was walking the dogs, talking on my cell phone to Reince Priebus. And he was telling me about this and I was expressing my opinion on like, Reince, why are you doing this shit? And, you know, back then you think about the real turning points. They were so terrified back then that Donald Trump would run as a third party candidate that they had to do this. This was their way of keeping him in the tent, which, as you point out, you know, is an absurd episode of self delusion. and they're still doing it so many years later. Again, when I say least

surprising story, Donald Trump has made it clear that you either nominate me or I will burn the whole thing down. I mean, there's no third option. Donald Trump will never graciously concede. He will never graciously acknowledge that he lost. He will not graciously support the nominee of the Republican Party if it's not him. And this is really not any different than the position that they were in in 2016. And as you point out, they've learned nothing, absolutely nothing. This is where it just related to this, actually the political side of this. This is where I've come around kind of changing my view on this. The conventional wisdom still among, I think, the media class and the never Trump early classes that anybody would be better than Trump for Republicans.

I can't even among Democrats. A lot of Democrats try to just feel this way. You mean in terms of electability? Electability. In terms of electability. Exactly this point that you bring up about how he's going to burn the whole thing down regardless. I'm like less convinced that that's even true anymore. Right. I mean, DeSantis' campaign has been so poor. We'll talk about that. There's

nobody else. I mean, I guess Tim Scott, like this notion that Tim Scott's going to win, I think is preposterous. And if one of these guys was to beat Trump, or if one of these guys was to, you know, win in some kindly contested effort, the idea that Trump is going to send his MAGA forces out to vote for them, you know, then maybe there's a pardon at play. And there's a lot of, you know, potential interesting things to discuss, no matter how depressing it is over the next year. So there are a lot of ins and outs and what have yous. But that said, it's just, it's kind of hard to see anybody else being able to put together a better coalition, as crazy as that seems, because of, you know,

Trump's nature, right? Like that there's no, there's nothing that you can make him sign that would not make him be, you know, be a happy warrior, you know, I guess, with the exception of, you know, potentially a pardon. You know, I heard you make that point the other day, and I winced at first, then I thought, no, you know, you're right, especially with this dynamic that we're describing, you know, in terms of electability. I mean, in terms of just substance, no one is as bad as Trump. No one is worse than Trump. I'm sorry. I'm willing to die on that hill, including Rhonda Sanders. I mean, because Trump is uniquely awful, dangerous, everything. But in terms of electability, that's where that whole argument, you know, falls apart because, you know, which nominee will be leading a non-split party?

So, again, Donald Trump is never going to debate, is he? He's never going to get on that debate stage. I don't think so. The only exception I could think about to this, he's definitely not going to do the second. The second one is at the Reagan Library, and he definitely won't do that because yeah some internal drama some story that you know even the closest watchers of us don't remember but the donald trump remembers of his lizard brain is when the ronald reagan institute you know said that they didn't want to have trump's name on something or whatever so there's some slight of donald trump that's what he remembers more than anything he doesn't know any policies but he

remembers slights so he won't do the second one i think it's 98 likely that he doesn't do this first one and i think that the right thing is just to watch he's not coming to milwaukee yeah and and so the question is does like the anger of you know of norma jasmine as you and olivia put it like sitting and sitting in mar-a-lago you know just kind of watching all of them talk about him two times. Can he not handle not having the spotlight on him and not proving that he is the alpha male? That's the only thing that makes me think maybe it's more like a 50-50 chance that the third one, by the third one, also the number gets higher. So a lot of the riffraff from his perspective, from our perspective, you know, the noble candidates will be off the stage by then.

It's hard to imagine that the Asa Hutchinsons of the world who are struggling to get to this first threshold are going to get to the third highest threshold. So I don't know, 50-50 on the third debate, but it seems exceedingly unlikely before that. I guess I'm more bearish on all of this. Now, I know that you and I have a somewhat different perspective on Chris Christie, but part of my reason for thinking he's not going to debate is because he does not want to be on that stage with Chris Christie. And I have to say, I wanted to get your take on this. I mean, I have been a huge Christie skeptic, but I was willing to listen. But, man, he is bringing it.

I know you're kind of anti-Christie from the foundation. From way back. From way back. He is bringing it. Yeah. I know you're kind of anti-Christy from the foundation, but. From way back. From way back. The OG. But I'm looking at these clips of him on social media and I'm going, whoa. I mean, he has dialed this thing up to a 10 and is just pounding and pounding. Yeah. Caught him a honey baked ham and the whole thing.

I mean, I'll, yeah. I'll say two things about Christy. One positive and one one concerning here's the pot the positive is thank god he's just doing what he's doing and and i just and i think that just as a net comment it's better to have him out there speaking the truth on fox news speaking the truth on that debate stage in two weeks than otherwise and i think that he is doing it see what you want want about Asa Wilhurd, you know, I watched, I was at this cattle call in Iowa and it's like Asa goes up there and he just,

you know, God love him. He just doesn't have it right. He's just not making the case. Right. So it's kind of like, what's the point of that? You're not going to make the case. You put those three in the same camp. It's like Christie is clearly the one that's making the strongest anti-Trump case. And there is a value in having that case being made and having some people hear it. You know, whether he's a convincing messenger, I'm a little bit skeptical, but it's better that people hear it than don't. Here's the thing that worries me a little bit though. Can he help himself if he is on this stage in two weeks without Trump? I mean, is he just going to be machine gunning the rest of the field?

And then you get to New Hampshire. And, you know, if we just kind of play this out from a strategic standpoint, I think right now, Chris, if you had to put a gun to my head, I'm like, who finishes second in New Hampshire? It seems like Chris Christie to me. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Wow. That's right. But I lived through this, right? So now I go back to my John Huntsman experience, right? We finished third, actually, to Ron Paul, but it was a close third. I think it was, you know, Mitt was in the 40s and it's like Ron Paul 17, Huntsman 16, something like that. I'm going from memory. The gap might've been a little wider, but okay. So let's say that happens this time, right? And it's like Trump 40, Christie 19, you know, whoever, DeSantis or Tim Scott or

whatever, 14. It's like, did that help? If the scott or whatever 14 it's like did that help if the purpose of this was to stop trump did it help for you to take that one-fifth of the new hampshire electorate that kind of likes the moderate truth-telling guys that i worked for i mean all my guys were from new hampshire guys mccain huntsman um jeb uh yeah i didn't work for casick but that you know that voter that was like a m, Huntsman, Kasich, or Jeb voter, if you take all of them, but then you don't have anywhere to go after that, did you actually kind of hurt the cause of stopping Trump in the long run? It's complicated.

And despite my distaste for Christie, personally, there are a couple of folks over there that still talk to me. And it does seem like they're aware of that. So hopefully Christie's a kamikaze guy on Trump, and these concerns I have get fleshed out between now and New Hampshire, but those are the concerns I'd have. Okay. So let's talk about your big story this week. You were, you were in Iowa, you were covering them and I want to, I want to hear about this. But you had a really interesting piece that got a lot of traction in the, in the bulwark about the, what the plan B or plan C or what, what, what are we at for the DeSantis people? really interesting piece that got a lot of traction in the, in the bulwark about the, what the plan B or plan C or what, what, what are we at for the DeSantis people?

Emergency break glass. I think it's the emergency break glass. Remind us what their, their thinking is for the long game. Well, I was surprised this was happening. So I was in, I'm in Iowa and I was following around Vivek and DeSantis and well, just as a brief aside, so I did three campaigns in Iowa. And the people from the McCain-Romney era are just off the field. And I think that's kind of an untold story. It's just like people that worked on those campaigns, like they just aren't involved in any of these campaigns.

Like most of the, so I was calling all of them doing the who should I talk to, who should I talk to? And they would put me to other people who are either younger or a little crazier or whatever you know who are still working for some of these campaigns and one of those conversations a desantis super back person was talking at length to me about how you know during this reset they've got to think about you know the short term and getting some momentum back but they also got to consider the long term and i was like what do you mean by that and i said well you know in iowa if you if you get second in Iowa, people are like, he's dead.

But is that really true? You know, we've got all these legal cases coming out with Trump, and maybe there's an argument for sticking around and getting seconds and thirds and second and going into the proportional states and amassing delegates. And we have the money to play the long game in the way that other candidates don't. And I'm sitting there listening. And I was like, oh, that's an interesting thought exercise and all that. And I was like, but do you got, are you guys like seriously talking about that and having meetings? I mean, so the long game is you basically, you know, pile up delegates and then what is the latest version of this magical thinking that, that you're there when what unicorn happens? Yeah. Okay. So it's like step A, get as many delegates as you can not a majority

right because trump's gonna have the majority and this is basically conceding that trump is gonna win the most of these races right so you get enough as many delegates as you can and then step b is that jack smith does your dirty work for you and we can get into the trial dates and all that but if you're looking at these spring dates you know and step c is a question mark okay i just just trump decided to get not run because he does he cut a deal does he go to jail and and does he not run for jail magical thing is a question mark but easy so it's like a we get delegates b jack smith trials are happening in the spring c is a question mark d we have a fight on the convention floor where we want to have as many delegates as possible so that we have you know negotiating power strength whatever as we try to figure out who in milwaukee you know

is the actual nominee because it can't be the guy in an orange jumpsuit i mean this is just fantastical thinking i mean it'd be great for the bulwark podcast we'd have a lot to talk about we could we'd be doing live streams all day as they as these guys shiv each other on the convention floor in Milwaukee. An open convention. Wow. Yeah. To me, the big takeaway was, A, I mean, it's pretty bleak for DeSantis if you guys are even gaming this out at this point. I mean, we haven't even had a debate yet.

We know it's bleak. B, it's like they would say this. And I checked. I was like, are you sure I can? Okay. Like, is this just a thought exercise? Or can I say that you guys are thinking about this he's like you can say we're thinking about it i was like okay i i mean i i just the whole thing was a gomp smacking to me but i will say this it's not a zero percent chance right i mean it is crazy and fantastical thinking and

we just can't we can't possibly be this lucky to have a Republican convention floor fight with Donald Trump in jail. I mean, you know, pass the champagne if that's happening, but it's not a zero. The reason why it's not zero, why nothing is zero is because something truly amazing and unprecedented is going to happen next year, right? I mean, something, I think it was David who tweeted out that Donald Trump is on track to be convicted of felonies and to win the nomination maybe in the same month. So we are in this bizarre moment that anyone who says for sure they know what's going to happen. We don't,

I mean, everybody's making it up as they go along. Right. Yeah. Right. I mean, I, I,

I think the one thing that we know for sure at this point is that Donald Trump's going to win a lot of states. Yeah. But even that you're looking at this and you had this in the newsletter today that Jack Smith was looking at what was it, January 3rd? I don't have in front of me. January 2nd. Yeah, let's go. Yeah. So I was the 15th. Right. And this D.C. judge seems very amenable. And, you know, listen to the Thursday podcast if you want to go in depth on how all that shakes out from a legal standpoint. But let's say that happens. I do think Iowa is probably the place where he's weakest. And he's on trial during the caucuses.

And maybe somebody else can sneak out a win there. And then, okay, then he wins some of these other states. And he's still on trial. And then it's like there's another trial looming. And he can't go and campaign. And there aren't cameras in the courtroom there just are a lot yeah we are very much in our uncharted territory here i guess is so i think having complete confidence in predicting anything is foolish that said i guess we can have a lot of confidence in predicting that it's it's not like donald trump's just going to go away right you know what i mean it's not like he's going to lose you go away, right? You know what I mean? It's not like he's going to lose, you know, start finishing in fourth place.

And that's what we know is not happening. Among the anecdotes that you tell about your trip to Iowa, one that stuck out to me was you went to an event that the DeSantis people had, kind of a small event, and it turns out not many people were there. And I think your picture made the drudge report or something like that of, you know, how sparse the crowd was. It was actually darker than that, Charlie. I had a moment where I was like, am I the bad guy here? Because it was, the picture was at the top of the drudge report. And then also then Trump bleeded it. And I was like, oh, no, I've given aid and comfort to the content to the enemy. Tim Miller is now a content provider to Truth Social. I felt bad about that for about two minutes. And then I was like, you know who really should feel bad about

this is Ron DeSantis' campaign. I mean, they invited us to, they invited me to this event. All I did was take a picture. It's not my fault that only 40 people showed up to your event. Now, the dazzling detail though, that you had, was that Ron DeSantis shows up in a five-car motorcade.

Now, this is the downsized, you know, so he didn't actually take a private jet in a helicopter there, but this is the trim down, slim down campaign. This is part of the problem with Ron DeSantis. Ron DeSantis, you know, wanted to do the Bigfoot campaign. Since we're in the PTSD, sort of reminded me of where Scott Walker was back in 2015, where he was spending money like crazy. His campaign was run by Rick Wiley. And their burn rate of money was just staggering. And I think maybe in part, the thinking was, let's look as big and impressive. We have to look like the front runner. And of course, he was done by September. And by the way, Walker family, you know, inner circle, they, to this day, hate Rick Wiley.

I mean, they just think he F'd them over, spent all of the money. He's doing the Haley campaign now. So, you know, the grift continues. Perfect. Just perfect. Great job on that pledge. That's definitely going to move you from three to four percent. Okay.

So the other dazzling detail that stood out from your account is, you know, Ron DeSantis does his, I mean, look, it feels like an old story now that Ron DeSantis is really kind of bad at this, that he's not that great. What was interesting was your account of Vivek Ramaswamy, who I think is this cycle's, you know, charlatan fake candidate in many ways, but he's playing well on the field, isn't he? They like him. Yeah, they like him, right? So this is, I'm not making any moral judgments about Vivek. He's touching all of the erogenous zones.

He knows how to do this. It was a back-to-back event. So I see DeSantis in the morning. I go two hours one way from Des Moines, then two hours the other way. You know, they're both rural kind of areas, but DeSantis' area was actually more, you know, there are more towns around Tama

than there are around towns around uh tema than there are around this place like where i saw vivek this place was called veil i'm friends with the old uh an old chief of staff of a republican governor there and i was asking her about about about these events like just getting her sense she's like i i didn't know veil existed that's how small it is so vivek is out there in the middle of nowhere i mean he's in bfe and his crown is three times as big as ron's his little stump speech is i mean a thousand percent more engaging than desantis's people are into it yeah they're standing ovations there are cheers now these people are actually going to vote for him you know know, he's 37. I think he just turned 38. Actually, he's 37 when I was there. He's Hindu. The third question was about being Hindu.

His answer to that was strange credulity a little bit. You know, he kind of, he goes, well, I see us really as all on the same team. And I know we believe in one God and I believe in Judeo-Christian values. I'm going, I don't know if I'm an evangelical. I'm sitting there listening to that and be like, I'm not sure that was that convincing of an answer. They were queasy about Mormons. Exactly. Hindu, you know, the elephant God, you know, okay. I have

respect for all cultures, but I'm just saying. Talk to me about Vishnu. Talk to me about Vishnu. I don't see that happening. Also, his attitudes about pork seem to be problematic. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how he does at the state fair this weekend. So I don't actually think he's necessarily going to win. But his message, which is very Trumpian, you know, very nationalist, hostile to Ukraine, you know, hostile to elite culture in every sense.

It was hitting their erogenous zones, as you said. And if he was a 44 year old evangelical i'd be looking at that and going this guy is clearly in second he would have dusted desantis by now but you know because of his his drawbacks you know who knows if he'll be able to win people over but the other interesting element to this which shows really this kind of coming back to our first question about why this isn't going away in the deep rot here, is that the Vivek event, the people I talked to, many of them were, they liked Trump. There was one guy in particular who started talking to me about how he thinks Trump is still in charge of the nukes in the military. And then he says to me, and I was like, okay,

interesting. So you're going to be with Trump then. But let's say Trump can't run or something. Who would you be second? And he thinks about it for a while. He's like, I don't know, maybe this guy. I went to talk to the Vivek staff and I was like, good news. The guy that thinks Trump is still in charge of the military, you're number two for him. So you can mark him down on your caucus count. But, you know, there were a lot of Trumpy people there. And the DeSantis, that wasn't true, right?

Like it was a lot of more kind of establishment, older kind of Republican types, Chuck Grassleyley types people that are playing the field you know that a that's that's got to be a concern for desantis but b it sort of shows that like those those folks aren't they're not going to snap back right like maybe vivek isn't the next you know the second coming or whatever but but somebody that can offer them you know that nationalist grievance mongering is really going to be it. So what do you think is going on with Mike Pence? I was, I just retweeted something, I think it was from David French, who had a soundbite of Mike Pence being heckled by some super MAGA people who are telling him, you know, you're a traitor. Why did you, you know, why did

you betray the country, you know, on January 6th? And Pence's answers, I don't know, sounded pretty good. And kind of, you know, is this the new Mike Pence? Is this the temporary Mike Pence? Is this Mike Pence's moment? What the hell? I mean, look, this guy's not going to get the nomination. I mean, this is not the party that's going to, you know, go for the guy that defied Donald Trump.

But what is your take on Mike Pence? Because, I mean, he's been a weak tit for years, and now suddenly it's like, dude. Yeah, I think it's just happening more than we think, even. There's a video from the fair. Yeah, that's what I was talking about you sharing. It's worth noting that many people push back. Now, this isn't a Republican event.

It's at the state fair, so you have a mixed crowd. There's some Democrats there. But that's a good sign, just while we're positive signs you know that this is still a minority of unfortunately it's a majority of the republican party somebody stood up and said you should shut your mouth or something yeah that's good that's happened there's still some iowa nice out there you know it's not a total dark wasteland but i think this is happening to him a lot um that woman that i mentioned in the in the lead-in um donna was her name who said she'd been there on January 6th, and she was disappointed that the other candidates weren't sticking by Trump even. As we're on this podcast going, why don't these guys have balls?

Donna's out there going, why are they sucking up to a martyr? Anyway, but she said that she told me a little anecdote about how she yelled at Mike Pence recently at an event. So I think he gets yelled at kind of a lot, basically, is what I'm saying. You do get on the campaign trail, having been on a bunch of losing campaigns, you get a sense of freedom. Like once you kind of accept your likely fate. That's what I was wondering. Yeah. I thought that Jeb's like best days of his campaign were the very first days.

I thought we had a couple of really good days. And then he gets overshadowed by Trump. And it's a free fall for a while. But around Christmas, when people aren't paying attention, and the only thing people remember is please clap. And that's fine. Whatever. It is what it is.

But he had some very convicted moments, right? Where people aren't going to remember. Nobody's really going to remember these Mike Pence moments probably either. But where he was able to just say what he really fucking thought you know about trump and and where you know i think that he made the moral argument and i think that that's probably happening to pence here yeah yeah that's that makes sense because he does feel more comfortable in his skin which is something that i never would have said about mike pence before yeah like right now he's still kind of awkwardly he's like naturally

awkwardly comfortable if that makes sense like he's not the now kind of awkwardly he's like naturally awkwardly comfortable if that makes sense like he's not the most natural person but but it's like it's like he's owning his awkwardness did you see the little exchange between him and his wife or his wife's like i want to go see the bunnies and he's like yeah i don't think i'm gonna do that it was kind of like it was kind of frank and comfortable i don't know there was something about it where. He said no to mother. He said no to mother.

It's like, he's really, you know, yeah, you can stand up to a pro desert, but when he says no to mother, you know that Mike Pence is really feeling his oats. It is interesting that you put it that way, because that was kind of my reaction to watching Chris Christie, that he's becoming more and more comfortable with this. He's like, this is what I'm doing. I don't need to overthink it. In politics, obviously, there comes that moment like, oh my God, I could win. It might be close. I better watch what I'm doing. I don't need to overthink it. In politics, obviously, there comes that moment like, oh my God, I could win. It might be close. I better watch what I say, right? And

you have to trim your sails. And so that's when you will inevitably become tight and you will become programmed and you stick to your talking points. At a certain point, you go, F it, I'm laying it out. And there is that feeling of liberation. It's the Hillary crying. It's Hillary crying in New Hampshire. It got her comeback after Obama beat her in Iowa. That feeling of liberation is there for sure. Okay, small trigger warning for everybody here because I need to have an earnest moment. We sort of avoided that so far in the podcast. No, they're really serious.

You know, okay. So next week, we're going to have these indictments coming down from Georgia. Obviously, that will be the big story of the week. Fannie Willis is going to come down with multiple, maybe racketeering charges. Might not just be Trump. It might be the, you know, a whole bunch of co-conspirators. But here's the deep breath. Here's the earnest moment. The level of the vitriol that is now being aimed at the prosecutors, the judges, and against Fannie Willis from Trump and Trump

world is in many ways just another page from his playbook. But the intensity and the vileness of the attacks are ramping up. And what's interesting about this, and again, interesting is a weasel word, what is alarming about all of this is that the threat of violence has been real and growing for some time. but now it feels like we are coming to a real ignition point. So this week we had that confrontation in Utah where a guy who'd spent way too much time online and had lots of guns was... Did you see this dude's Facebook page? Yes, I did. Lunatic shit. And very clearly he was tracking anyone who was involved in opposition to Donald Trump or into the cases against Donald Trump, Alvin Bragg, all of those people.

He was basically breathing threats. And whether he would have acted on it, we don't know. But the FBI had no choice other than to check him out and leaving that aside. But just a reminder, there are millions of people out there with guns who are being destabilized, who are being ginned up by this rhetoric. And in a normal, rational world, there would be voices out there saying, this is the time when we need to be sober, when we need to be careful, we need to be restrained. None of that is happening. So what do we have? Donald Trump, who has decided that a climate of chaos, violence, and fear

works for him. He's okay with that. And so he's going to be stoking it. Now, down in Georgia, they're actually running ads attacking Fannie Willis. I'm not carrying any briefer, but he's actually now – it's one thing for Donald Trump to say that, you know, these racist prosecutors, by which he means they're black. So he's going to try to weaponize the race of Alvin Bragg and Fonny Willis because that's what he does. But he's gone one step beyond that. The Fonny Willis had an affair

with a gang leader she was prosecuting. Now that's like she's not just a black woman, she's a black woman, and you know what he's saying here. Yeah. Prostitute or whatever. Yeah, so. Yeah, and it was like a affair with a drug dealer or something,

gang member, I forget the quote. So where are we going on all of this? And we're still only in August. What is the level going to be at in January, in February, what is it going to be like next summer? And you know that, I mean, we've gone from spending years worried about the threat of, you know, international terrorism, Islamic terror, radical Islamic terrorism. And now the real threat is us, is domestic terrorism being stoked by the former president of the United States. And I'm

sorry, this is where I become earnest. The alarm bells ought to be ringing off the charts. And so we talk about what's going to happen next year. One of the things that we need to factor in is just the contingency of an act of violence. Because again, it doesn't take 10 million people with guns. It just takes a handful. And we don't know what's going to happen. But I think that there's that danger that we become so numb to what Donald Trump is doing, the threats, the attempt to intimidate and obstruct and everything that we think, well, OK, this is, you know, same old, same old. When, in fact, no, the context is more dangerous. The language is more dangerous. And I don't know where we're going here. But the the Fannie Willis attack feels like we're in kind of new territory, maybe not new territory. And I don't know about

you, Tim, but I see no pushback from any of his opponents or Republicans saying, hey, guys, whatever you think about this, this is not the moment to be engaging in this kind of reckless behavior. Yeah, this is where I was going in some ways where it's worse than the rhetoric. Yeah, but it's also worse in that there's no dissenting voices in MAGA world and conservative media world. Because I think back, so before January 6, the most heightened fear I had for violence was kind of late in that primary season in 2016, when Trump was doing the rallies when he was when he was like, yeah, fuck him up. Yeah, I remember he had a period of time where at the rallies where he's encouraging people in the crowd to hit protesters you know saying i'll pay for your legal bills and right like it was like trump's always trump but but his

you know his rhetoric waxes and wanes yeah you know and so that was a period where his where his violent rhetoric was the most heated and at that time you had you know his opponents marco and ted cruz and other people within the republican party saying this is uncalled for like you know you shouldn't we can't have this kind of rhetoric some events were canceled you don't see that at all to your point now there is nobody so if there's been one example show it i'd love to to give anybody credit but i i don't see any example anywhere in conservative media world, in Republican world, you know, beyond the Chris Christie's limits. Yeah.

People saying, we have to stop this. Like, this is going to lead to something dangerous. And, you know, they just want to pretend as if it doesn't exist. And I go back to that Iowa bar and I was in that cattle call. And it made me feel very uneasy because everybody that goes on stage, all of these Republican candidates, everybody that talked, they just pretended like it all wasn't happening. Like they didn't talk about the indictments. They didn't talk about anything. And meanwhile, you had some people in the room liked that. And then you had these like kind of agitated Trump fans that are like, why aren't you fighting for my person? They're at,

you know, like those people need to be kind of talked off the ledge and nobody's doing that. Like they're either being stoked by Trump himself and by his most noxious allies, or, you know, there's another class of people that are just putting their head in their sand like ostriches and hoping that this all gets better sometime with some convention floor fight in Milwaukee. You know, this is kind of fantasy talk and so that part to me i think when you combine just the heightened intensity of the drama around actually convicting a former president

and how that how people would respond to that and you saw the interview von hillier did on nbc was somebody who was like civil war calling for civil war so so people's emotions because obviously we can't live together if we do this yeah Yeah, right. So the news will be heightened. The emotions will be heightened. Donald Trump's rhetoric is heightened. The pushback is non-existent. And, you know, I think a lot of national security experts, domestic terrorism experts said the thing about January 6th was that it culminated in a moment, right? Like to have real violence, you know, you have your one-off people, there's something to be scared of, but then you have your real violence is when it culminates in a moment. We're going to have a violence, you know, you have your one-off people, there's something to be scared of, but then you have your real violence is when it culminates in a moment.

We're going to have a lot of those potential moments coming up next year. I think it's exactly right. And so all of that is very unbelievably concerning. The only one last thing, the only good positive thing that I think we do have going for them is the way the DOJ has been so tough on the January 6th, the people organizing the violence, the Oath Keepers, all that. I think that has taken some people, some of the people, the troublemakers off the field in a way that is making real tangible difference. I think that's the only green shoot here in a situation that,

as you bring up, is deeply scary and very alarming. Well, I agree with you, but the danger does not come from just organized groups. It can come from these lone actors as well. Sure. You know, and I was thinking back to that period before January 6th, and even some of the stuff that you wrote, that I wrote, that we were saying, this is really dangerous, this is really dangerous. Well, Bill kept saying, I am alarmed, I am alarmed. And yet, in retrospect, we were not alarmed enough.

Bill was really out there on this. And I remember having a conversation with Denver Riggleman right before January 6th, you know, and he had done some of this work and he was saying, look, all the signals are this is going to be really bad. This is going to be bad. And he laid out the kinds of things that were happening that would lead to violence. I mean, he called the shot and then it happens. And people go, oh, my God, this we are now in a volatile situation.

Things are very, very fragile. But to repeat a theme from earlier in the podcast, we've learned absolutely nothing from that. Absolutely nothing. We've seen how people have retconned what happened on January 6th, downplayed it, rationalized it, even now kind of supporting it. I mean, there's a real strain of Trumpian rhetoric. And by that, I mean coming from him directly, that characterizes that 1776, we're going to take down the government as a virtue, as a good thing. So what happened in Utah ought to be a reminder. I think people have already forgotten about it, of how bad things can be. So what I'm specifically saying is that we're gaming out 2024. What we haven't gamed out is what happens if there are assassinations? What happens if you have witnesses

who are killed? What happens if prosecutors are attacked? What happens if judges are attacked? What happens then? Fair enough if you want to accuse me of Trump derangement syndrome or being alarmist. I am alarmed. And you go back again to that pre-January 6th, you know, where Bill, you know, kept saying, I am alarmed, I am alarmed. And now when we know all the things that were going on, we realize that that alarm was completely justifiable. I mean, it was way worse, much more serious, much more of a close run thing than I think we believed at the time. And we were pretty ginned up on it. We were pretty ginned up, but it ended up being worse than many of us thought. And then you have the other camp, which is to beat the dead horse on not learning from anything. We have the what's the downside for humoring him crowd. And you remember that's the worst background quote in history. What's the downside for humoring him for a few

months? Here they are, They're still doing it. They're still humoring him. Even the people that are running against him are still humoring him. And I just, it's pretty sick, I think, that you have these people in roles of responsibility, whether that be McCarthy or McConnell or whether that be the people at Fox, who just are making the same damn mistakes they made before January 6. And I think that, you know, you can just see, hopefully, this doesn't happen. But you know, you can just see into the future, which is, you know, one of these terrible events that

you laid out occurs, you know, they express their concern and then say the right thing for 48 hours. And then, you know, they go back into their bunker as Donald Trump keeps winning primaries and caucuses. And, you know, there's not much I think that we can do to kind of stop that inevitability, except for what's happening to the justice system. So we don't have time to get into some of the other things I wanted to talk about. So let's make a note to talk about this over the next couple of weeks. Because I think that over the last month, I think there's a growing recognition that even though Republicans have been completely full of shit about some of the allegations they've made about Hunter Biden, that in fact, the Hunter Biden thing is a problem.

That's a cliffhanger for next Friday. I mean, this is where holding two thoughts in your head at the same time is one of those difficult things in this current environment that, you know, there's no evidence that ties Joe Biden to any breaking of the law, any of that stuff. A lot of the allegations that have been made have been completely baseless. And yet there is a cloud of sleaze that I think is a mistake to ignore. Can we just, like, noodle this out? I talked to Ron mistake to ignore. Can we just like noodle this out? I talked to Ron Filipkowski. Yeah, we can noodle on it.

People can go listen to Ron. I got to him a couple of Sundays ago on the Sunday next level interview, and he was good on this because he's following all this stuff as closely as anybody and all the accusations in MAGA world. And, and his advice is, is in short, basically that the Democrats need to be better about distancing

from Hunter because, you know, because even if there's no evidence of what happened with Joe, of Joe doing anything, it is pretty gross and there's some political advantage to distancing. So, anyway, we can get into it deeper another time. But, Ron, I had some good thoughts on that that sound pretty aligned with what you're saying. Well, I think, and Jill Lawrence had a piece in the, in the bulwark about all of this. And, and I think, look, are there any crimes? Is there anything impeachable? Absolutely not. But that doesn't mean that it's not gross. And, and I think that's part of the political reality. And the other reason is because Republicans have this deep, deep, deep psychological, cultural, political reason to talk about Hunter, you know, as as all of of the criminality of Donald Trump, you know, becomes impossible to ignore. I mean, what do they want to do? They want to talk about the criminality of Donald Trump, or do they want to engage in whataboutism and the whataboutism of the moment? And for the next year is going to be Hunter Biden. So...

Have you seen a lot of Jared Kushner coverage from that? I don't know. Somebody, I've got this for cliffhanger somebody left me with a dark uh prediction for next year which was uh what if trump just flees to saudi it's like you're worried about hunter biden and his shitty and his little small ball bullshit corruption deals and here we got uh jared kushner bringing in a half billy from the saudi so anyway okay so this is what i really like that Christie has done because Christie, without any varnish with, you know,

completely on varnish is saying he was good about reminding people about Jared Kushner working in the white house, then leaving the white house and doing a billion dollar deal with the people he had been working with. I mean, come on people. You can't show anything remotely like that with the biden's but outside of chris christie nobody's really played that jared kushner card which is amazing tim miller great to have you

back on we will continue this conversation soon sounds good brother talk to y'all soon thank you all for listening to the weekend bulwark podcast i'm char Sykes. We will be back next week and we will do this all over again. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.