The Bulwark Podcast - Tim Miller: We Told You So

Episode Date: August 25, 2023

We were always going to get this first-of-its-kind presidential portrait. What else would you expect from a con man and a criminal? But this is all because of the choices Trump made, and because the party has refused to take every single off-ramp. Tim Miller joins Charlie Sykes for the weekend pod.

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Well, thank God it is Friday. And thank God that I am joined once again by Tim Miller. I was telling my wife, Tim, just a few minutes ago, I am so glad that I have Tim on the podcast today because there's so much going on, and I think that you and I are probably in the same lane on our reaction to the debate slash the mugshot. I mean, we have to start with the mugshot, okay? Oh, so satisfying. Talk to me about it. Talk to me about the mugshot. I mean, we have to start with the mugshot. Okay. So satisfying. Talk to me about it. Talk to me about the presidential portrait,

the first presidential portrait of its kind. It's been a long time coming. You know, it really has. I mean, for us, eight years now, but really, even before that, you know, he's been a criminal for a long time. The people he screwed over at Trump University, people he screwed over other places. He's been a con man and a criminal his whole life. And we knew it. We said it. And it's been kind of this one long, slow rolling, unsatisfying, I told you so.

I was hoping you were going to say it first. If only they had been warned. What did you tweet out? You know, never Trump from the jump from the jump. Guys, we told you this eight years ago. And that was my thought this morning. I'm looking at the mugshot and, you know, and I say, you know, what a twisted, bizarre, tangled road this has been. I mean, there's been so many chapters, you know, so many clowns and cowards and co-conspirators, but it all comes back to Donald Trump. And it was always going to end this way, wasn't it? I mean, you elect someone like that, you know, a wannabe mob boss, you know,

a serial fraudster, liar, and, you know, hey, shock that it ends this way. Yeah. I mean, anybody that knew anything about Donald Trump would have known that it would have ended somewhere like this. I mean, did we know we were going to get 91 felony counts and the storming of the Capitol? You know, no, the particulars. But no, you knew it was going to end in a fucking flaming dumpster fire disaster. And here we are. And it's just so, you know, there's a lot of, you know, what are the impacts and what, you know, there's a lot of other ins and outs and what have yous but it's like this is just an absolute unmitigated disaster for the republican party that is going to have ripple effects forever right i think like this stuff is like his mugshot is never going to go away these guys complicity is never going to go away the whole never parade of mugshots i mean i was I was enjoying every one. The Trump one I was worried was going to be a little disappointment, but Rudy and any of his chief of staff,

and people were bringing back the old pictures of Haldeman's mugshot and flashing back the Meadows Haldeman comparison, which was satisfying. And Jen Ellis and Sidney Powell, I'm still waiting for Jeff Clark's, but it was needed. But I guess the only one thing that cuts the other way for me on this is like, we do kind of feel like we're at the point now where everyone that's going to jump off the ship has jumped. You know, usually on each of these inflection points, there's been an exit ramp that

like far too few people have taken, but a couple have taken. But nobody's taking any exit ramps yesterday. Nobody's saying, you know, none know none of you mean the politicians the political class types and everything yeah yeah you know let's come back to this a little bit later because you know there are some there are some polls out there suggesting that uh you know despite our default setting of nothing matters and he could shoot somebody and all of that stuff that he could set you know live monkeys a fire in i'm not saying i'm not talking about that. Yeah. I mean, okay. Right. So, but you know, and of course there's all these, you know, the, the whining about the weaponization of the justice department. And the point that I made in, in morning shots this morning is, you know, if you know, Donald Trump, this was always coming,

but also this is a result of his choices. This is what he wanted. I mean, there there's an alternative reality. I mean, he chose to lie about he wanted. I mean, there's an alternative reality. I mean, he chose to lie about the election. I mean, he could have behaved like every other president in U.S. history and conceded and allowed the peaceful transfer of power. Instead, he chose to orchestrate a coup. And, you know, he chose to defame election workers and he chose to try to intimidate officials into stealing votes. It was his choice to form a criminal enterprise, right, and conspire to defraud the government. It was his choice to summon the mob.

I mean, all of these things. It was his choice to steal the classified documents and then ignore the subpoena. It was his choice to, you know, try to, you know, erase the tapes and all of this. And frankly, and I guess this is like, you know, Tim, I'm sorry, we've had this conversation. To your point, this is also the Republican Party's choice, because they had so many opportunities to say no, they could have impeached and disqualified him. Yeah. And I have to say that, what an amazing moment at that debate, when they were all asked, you know, the candidates for President United States were all asked for the show of hands, whether they would support Trump, even if he was a convicted felon. And then six of them

raised their hands. Two of them sort of, you know, awkwardly that that moment, you know, Ron DeSantis looking around like, what is everybody else saying? Maybe ending up being the only thing that ends up being memorable from that debate. We've talked about the debate more, but DeSantis' slow hand raise feels like might be the thing that has legs out of all that on the weaponization really quick before we get to that though i just i know our listeners know this it is important to say it just how preposterous it is and if anything merrick garland was too timid as you've covered quite absolutely quite extensively like mike pence doesn't have any mugshots he hasn't been arraigned he hasn't been indicted bill barr hasn't been indicted ron desantis nobody's coming

for him for you know the firing of prosecutors or anything like this like this whole like the whole preposterous notion that these guys are coming after trump because they're whatever scared of him or whatever it's like it's ridiculous I mean most of these Democrats frankly are so stupid they want to run against Trump and risk burning our entire society down with it so there is no nothing to that and the fact that otherwise smart people otherwise Ivy League educated people like Ted Cruz like continue to advance this just shows like the depth of the rot on this side. And I think that is what connects for me the two things you brought up there.

You have a Republican Party primary field where we're going to give Chris Christie three and Asad just in one percentage point, where 96% of the vote share is with people who said that they would vote for a convicted convict, where, you know, the vast, vast majority of Republican elected officials are advancing the obvious lie, you know, that this is some politicized, like, indictment. So, somebody asked me, you know, if you were a producer for Saturday Night Live, what would you do with that debate, you know, with the slow hand raise of, you know, Ron DeSantis looking around? The thought that comes to my mind is that, and you know, this is the problem of parodies these days, is that Brett Baier then actually asks a follow-up question. Well, okay, let's have a show of hands. How many of you would still vote for Donald Trump if he set baby monkeys afire in the middle of Fifth Avenue, all the hands would go up.

How many of you would vote for Donald Trump for president if he beat baby whales to death with the bodies of baby seals? And it would just keep escalating. And, of course, all the hands. And you can picture on everyone Vivek getting more and more excited, raising his hand more fervently as like DeSantis looks around to be like, really? We're doing it again. We're doing it again. OK, I guess I'll raise my hand again. Okay, I just want to just stop for a moment because every once in a while, you need to underline things. How extraordinary it is for the party of law and

order. Because five minutes ago, Tim, it would have been the easiest question in the world because nobody would ever think of voting for a candidate who had been indicted, tried, and then convicted of felonies, found guilty of felonies by a jury of their peers. Nobody would have thought of endorsing or supporting that person, not for city council, the legislature, secretary of state. I mean, much less the presidency of the United States. I mean, this is like mind boggling. If you just wanted just one moment that captures what has happened to the Republican Party. I mean, on one level, you know, the extent to which they're still in the thrall of Donald Trump, but also just the incredible intellectual and moral corruption that they're all up there

on stage saying, yeah, convicted felon, actual criminal. Yeah, we're okay with that. I mean, can you imagine this in 2005? Yeah, I was thinking about this reading your newsletter and just thinking about the confirmation process, right? Like any confirmation, any official that gets appointed to the federal government needs to be confirmed. Take out all the coup stuff. Take out all the coup stuff. Just the documents case. Somebody that was indicted for this level of mishandling of documents would not get approved by the Senate for any office. There's nothing that they would approve. This person, deputy secretary of commerce.

Or hired by any public company. You show up to apply for the shift manager at Arby's with this rap sheet. You're not going to get the job. And it's just like, it is crazy. The moral bankruptcy is part of it. And then also just the self-preservation element like the thing that just was astonishing to me on that stage on wednesday was i guess nicki haley kind of made the practical argument about how donald trump was

the most unpopular politician in america but nobody was like guys guys we might love him but have you seen this court date calendar next year like are we really going to nominate somebody who's who's got to be sitting behind a table for a vast part christy kind of flirted with that yeah but no no you're right you're right it's like people like have we lost our minds do you know what we're about to do here okay there's a lot of heavy stuff here and i I want to get to the debate. I want to get to Vivek and all of that stuff. But a couple of things. Number one, Donald Trump's weight. Donald Trump self-reports his weight. He says he's 6'3 and 215 pounds. I mean, for fuck's sake, Tim. Yeah. He could be Mac Jones, quarterback of the New England Patriots. You know, I saw that his basketball comp was this guy, Lou Dort, who's like the most muscled man in all of the NBA, plays for Thunder. So that's not true.

I'm just going with the fact that it's a typo and that it was 315. Yeah. He's got to be 290, right? Minimum. You'd think that the Fulton County Court would have just been like, guy, you know, at least give us something in the ballpark here. I mean... This is actually an official document.

Yeah, I was disappointed in that, but I'm not going to let myself get too disappointed because the lie is so obvious. The more intriguing thing was that he volunteered his hair as strawberry blonde when it's more of like a burnt sienna for me um but maybe it's just this orange scalp is like you can see his scalp going through but a straw he's not really a strawberry blonde i wouldn't say uh it's kind of that was kind of an effeminate choice even strawberry blonde okay what was with the motorcade i mean you asked this

really excellent question what is the possible security rationale for 80 motorcycles flanking a loser who is being arraigned i mean this actually pisses me off well and also the media doing they cannot freaking help themselves they have to do the whole oj slow moving bronco stuff but what was with that motorcade i mean i don't know that there were 80 motorcycles, but it was intense. There were so many motorcycles. And then it was in the New Jersey side and the Georgia side. One of the guys that replied to my tweet on there was like, it was like when the King of Zamunda comes to America and coming to America, you would think that this was a G20 or, you know,

the Queen of England going to visit her, you know, an imperial capital. Like, I don't, legitimately, I don't understand the security rationale. I mean, like, do you think that there's going to be like an armed Antifa confab that comes after him? I mean, how many people could you possibly need to protect the president? But seems more dangerous right like if you're worried about a bomb threat or something staccatic terrorism everyone being able to watch this slow moving motorcade you know parading through newark and then parading through atlanta it seems like a bigger threat to me i'm not a security expert but it seems like a low profile and george kahn what you point out tweeted you know there's a video of obama going to something that he that he picked up at post-presidency and it's it's two

yeah it's two suvs and one police car no sirens no nothing and that seems like no like that seems just from a security point more appropriate but then just from the optics like this thing this pisses me off right he's not he has no office right he's a former president so you know we he has secret service we get that but in america just to start with you know we don't have royal kings and queens right like we have citizen leaders and they should be treated as such um and it's a long time rant of mine like i just think i think that politicians should sit at stoplights like i don't i don't understand why anybody maybe the president for security reasons why anybody else gets a motorcade that doesn't sit at stoplights we have citizen leaders in this country we do not have royalty and just the visual of this guy going to get arrested

you know with that kind of pomp and circumstance it fucking pisses me off and then there's the taxpayer element of it i just i don't like it and it. And I don't know the real answer because he had the same treatment in New Jersey and in Atlanta. So is it the local police? Is it the Secret Service guys doing him a solid? I genuinely don't get it. I think it's a legitimate question. I mean, this whole thing, like no one is above the law. You will be treated like anybody else. No. I mean, I mean, look, I understand that there are security concerns, but this was essentially, you know, a taxpayer-funded parade. And we know that Donald Trump really, really likes parades, doesn't he? Hey, folks, this is Charlie Sykes, host of the Bulwark podcast. We created the Bulwark to provide a platform for pro-democracy voices on the center-right and the center-left,

for people who are tired of tribalism and who value truth and vigorous yet civil debate about politics and a lot more. And every day, we remind you folks, you are not the crazy ones. So why not head over to TheBullwork.com and take a look around? Every day, we produce newsletters and podcasts that will help you make sense of our politics and keep your sanity intact. To get a daily dose of sanity in your inbox, why not try a Bulwark Plus membership free for the next 30 days? To claim this offer, go to thebulwark.com slash charlie. That's thebulwark.com forward slash charlie. We're going to get through this together. I promise. If it's a flat or a squeal, a wobble or peel,

your tread's worn down or you need a new wheel, wherever you go, you can get a pro at Tread Experts. Ensure each winter trip is a safe one for your family. Enjoy them for years with a Michelin X-Ice snow tire. Get a $50 prepaid MasterCard with select Michelin tires. Find a Michelin Tread Experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TreadExperts.ca So let's talk about the debate. I think you and I may have a slightly

different take on all of this. Okay, good. How do you think Fox handled it? I thought this was supposed to be the redemption. I mean, good. How do you think Fox handled it? I mean, I thought, you know, this was supposed to be the redemption. I thought Joe Pertikong had a great newsletter. This was, this was a reminder that Fox news is still Fox news. And I thought it was kind of a shit show.

What did you think? Just about the way the moderators handled it. The fact that they went a full hour without even mentioning the orange elephant, not in the room. I mean, come on questions about country, Western songs and UFOs.

Yeah. The three minute propaganda thing at the beginning was very strange like like eight people walk out on stage and then there's like a two minute sizzle reel about how joe biden's the worst president in american history and then they they play the preponderance of the richmond north of richmond song for everyone to sit there and listen to like while all eight of them just stand there i don't know there was something communist about that like i just i don't know it was very strange i think the most telling thing about fox's treatment of trump is like the crowd is booing and at one point you know brett has to turn around and calm everybody down and he's like you know i

know we all want to move on from this i know we all want to get on to other things and it's like do we though he has about half of the primary electorate right now. There's this whole like farce that gets perpetuated in the, you know, polite society, conservative media world where it's like, you know, it's just those deranged never Trumpers and the New York Times that are just an MSNBC that's obsessed with Trump. And we want to talk about other things. We want to get on to serious matters like, you know, whether kindergartners are ready to read about the Stonewall riots and, you know, vape pens. And it's like, I don't think that that's right, actually. It's Republican voters. I would love for Donald Trump to just go the fuck away. I'd love for him to fall into the sea and disappear forever. I'd love to never have to think

about him again. It's Republican voters that want him. And so they might not be happy that they have to talk about all the bad things that he did. And I'm sorry for them that they need their binky. But to not talk about the guy winning by 40 points in the first hour is preposterous. And then to apologize for it to the crowd when you have to bring him up. And the whole thing's preposterous. I mean, especially because, I mean, Donald Trump's decision not to come is basically an FU to Fox News. It's an FU to the RNC and to Republican voters and to the other people on the stage. But, you know, this has been the pattern, right? That the response to being humiliated and slapped by Donald Trump is to say, thank you, sir. May I have another one?

Yeah. Instead of pushing back on him. Just like nobody made the practical case against him about the arrest, like we were talking about him earlier. Nobody tries to do the, this guy's a wuss. He's a wuss. He can't even come out here. Yeah.

I was hoping that Christie would say, by the way, we are here, you know, doing this. You know, where is the coward who won't even face this? Yeah. A little baby won't even come. Give him the empty podium treatment. You know what I mean? Like, do something. The thank you, sir, when I have another is exactly the vibe.

All right. So this was the Vivek show. I think the one thing that united everybody on that stage, the one point of unity is they all loathe Vivek. They think that he's a fraud, that he's a fake, and they're all right about all of this. And they're just sick and tired of him. But the crowd seemed generally to like him. He's the one that he's got the buzz. Now, again, we may disagree, but I thought they were kind of, if there were two lanes, the MAGA lane and the Normie donor lane, clearly Vivek won the MAGA lane. He speaks fluent MAGA. I mean, he hit every single

one of those buttons. I'm going to argue later that I thought Nikki won the Normie lane, but let's talk about Vivek because there's a guy who has been just, you know, throwing feces up against the wall for, you know, several weeks. You've seen him, you know, how entertaining he is. I mean, he is, he's gifted. He's a gifted and therefore even more dangerous demagogue. But he's out there talking about, you know, 9-11 being an inside job, January 6th being an inside job. He embraces every batshit crazy conspiracy theory about Ukraine policy, you know, more Trumpy than Trump on appeasement. Give Taiwan to the Chinese, you know, let Vladimir Putin win. I mean, what's the downside? Defund Israel. And yet, Tim, he is the new hotness. He is the new rock star for the MAGA right.

Yeah. You feel like there's a trajectory line, right? I mean, since you've done Trump, should we be surprised that the next man up is not, say, Mike Pence, that the next man up is this shallow, utterly shameless demagogue, Vivek Ramaswamy. Yeah. So, just really quick on the merits of what he's saying. Did you see the clip from after the debate where he's asked about Ukraine and he's talking about how actually us cutting a deal with the Russians is the best thing for Ukraine, because if we don't, then some warlord is going to take over from Zelensky, and they're going to turn into Afghanistan.

It's just like, he's a buffoon. That's just rank idiocy and offensive. And the Pope Zelensky stuff, a total charlatan on this stuff. And he's up there just machine gunning, like conspiracy nonsense. Like the one that caught my ear that I didn't see anybody else talk about was, he's like, you know, one way to resolve our crime issue is we need to bring back insane asylums. Did you catch that? Oh, yeah. He's like, yeah, he's like, we've been shutting down our mental institutions. We got to bring

those back. And it's like, okay, well, that's a hot take. You know, we need more comps. We need qualified immunity for them so they don't get sued. And then we need to give them the right to lock people up in the loony bin. That's great. That's the freedom first agenda right there. But I think maybe he overstepped on some of that stuff. And I think that his personality is more grating than Trump's. But just directionally about what the people want in the party, and not everybody, but what a big portion of the party wants. On the Ukraine thing, the other hand raised question, when Brett Baier is like, should we stop sending money to Ukraine? Vivek shoots his hand up.

I mean, it's coming out of his shoulder. Way up. Yeah. He didn't give a DeSantis sort of little alligator arm thing. He was up there like, me, me. Yeah, tiptoes, me. No one else on their stage raised their hand. Okay.

In recent polls, 71% of Republicans are with Vivek. So, this was a little reminiscent to be a Trump of 2016 when people are like, this guy's a clown. He's saying conspiracy stuff. And that was true. also a handful of issues, immigration, Muslim ban, Iraq war, where he was the only one on a big stage saying something that people in the crowd agreed with. And so I'm not saying that everyone should pander and change their view on Ukraine. I'm just saying that if we're in reality about where the party is, that that's good for Vivek if he's the only one on a 70% issue on the side of the 70. And then there's six people really on the side of the 30. And then Ron DeSantis does the alligator arms thing and kind of tries to do,

well, you know, the Europeans should pay more. And so he tries to tiptoe on both sides of that whole thing. So, you know, and then there's six on the side of we should give Ukraine more money, which is, you know, a decent chunk of the party, a quarter of the party, 30%. You could replicate that on some other issues too. You're right. That's a reality check that in fact, he knows where all the erogenous zones are for the right. Yeah. And he has flipped. I mean, he has flipped. His criticisms of Trump in his book were like, oh, he has a baby like Stacey Abrams. And I didn't like the tariffs. And he's like, the spending was too high. And that was just in a book that he wrote like two years ago. And he's trashed all that.

But he's learned from Trump. He's gotten on the road. He listens to what the people want. And now he's just like, oh, okay, well, I can adjust. I can just give these people unfiltered Candace Owens. Like, that's easy. None of these people have any memories whatsoever. So did you see what your old friend Lee Stefanik tweeted out today?

Oh, no, I've missed that one. All in caps, TrumpUMP WON. Won what? Who the fuck? I mean, here's somebody who, again, has got this great educational pedigree who was once considered a rising star among the thoughtful right.

You worked with her at the RNC. Her transformation has been to absolute, complete, shameless shell. I'm just watching how many of these people have just completely shed everything that they used to be and believe, starting with J.D. Vance and Lindsey Graham. It's like there's some weird drug out there

that they have to go in the room and they get the juice or something. You know what I'm saying? It's just, so Vivek in some ways is, well, of course it's going to lead to somebody like this. Oh, yeah. And this is the other thing that just, and I want to get into Nikki next, but this is a related topic. And there were some things that I liked about the stage. In my Not My Party this week, I talked about how Nikki was surprisingly good for me. And so, so was Penn. So there were things I didn't like, both raised their hands and said they voted for convicted

convict, for example, but there were some things that I liked, which we can talk about. The thing that I get frustrated with is I saw a lot of, there was some conventional wisdom out there, and particularly in the center-right world, that was like, there was some refreshing elements of this debate, that this is what the party could look like under Trump. Like, there's one weird MAGA guy, but there's a lot of relative normies up there, and then there's the same just kind of straddling. And it's like, well, wait, the stage was like that because trump wasn't there if trump died if trump

had a heart attack maybe i'm wrong but i don't think the field would be this field right i think that there would be other people trying to fill that vivek would not be alone there would be other people trying to fill the trump lane because that's where the majority of the party is. I mean, Ben Shapiro did this tweet yesterday that was like, the party is 35% MAGA, 20% MAGA adjacent, 25% Reagan, 20% never Trump. And I'm like, I wish. If that was true, the stage would make sense, right? Because it's kind of a competitive, it's like 55, 45 MAGA traditional. But like, that's not what it is. It's like 65, 35 or 70, 30. And so that is a thing that, that I just think is sobering. And Bill put this well, I think on Thursday night for Bulk Plus subscribers when he was like 75% of the party is going to be with the three worst candidates or 80%. It's like, that is, that's the concerning thing, and I think that that is some context about

the Vivek situation. If it's a flat or a squeal, a wobble or peel, your tread's worn down or you need a new wheel, wherever you go, you can get it from our tread experts. Ensure each winter trip is a safe one for your family. Enjoy them for years

with the Michelin X-Ice Snow Tire. Get a $50 prepaid MasterCard with select Michelin tires. Find a Michelin TreadExperts dealer near you at TreadExperts.ca slash locations. Before we get to Nicky, who was the biggest loser on the stage, did you think? Tim Scott, for sure. Okay, that's what I thought. He weird he disappeared and totally i mean again he proved what people know i my my friend peter hanby writes for puck i just i wrote this article like a month ago it's just like i don't think that these donors that are giving tim scott money have met tim scott like

he's a nice guy he's fine you know obviously he's way too lickspittle about Trump, but interpersonally, he's a nice guy. But he doesn't have these performing skills. This is a reverse tokenization effort to put somebody up that they can feel good about. But he just didn't have it up there. And so I just think that Larry Ellison just lit $60 million totally on fire for no reason. I'm also confused what Tim Scott's thing was. Remember when he said he agreed with Mike Pence? It's like, okay, so now you're not going to be VP. It's like, why are you running just because some rich guy gave you 60 million and you had nothing

better to do? Just like the motorcade. I genuinely do not understand. If anyone is listening and knows why Tim Scott is running for president, please let me know. Because I assumed he was running for VP, but now he's never going to be VP. I had the same assumption. And of course, you know, if he was not running for VP, this was a great opportunity for him to be the, hey, give me a second look. I'm the non-Trump acceptable candidate. And he just faded away. I mean, he spoke for about eight minutes. By the way, I'm totally bored now talking about Ron DeSantis. Ron DeSantis is really, really bad at this. Okay, have we done this? But I mean, clearly that was not the debate that he wanted or needed. And talk about a guy who is just not comfortable in his skin. So you're a veteran

of these debates. It was Ted Cruz for me. I don't need to go on. It was Ted Cruz again. Now, remember, Ted Cruz finished second. and it was kind of a distant second but I remember um you know he he hit his marks he said that mostly the things the MAGA people like you know the awkward hand raise is going to be bad he has weird facial expressions he's a kind of an awkward person just like Ted Cruz is and and his likability factor is low but he is minimally acceptable for people in all these lanes to the extent that, you know, you want to call them lanes. And so, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if polls come out next week and he gained a point or two or something. You know what I mean?

I'm expecting that Vivek's going to overtake him, though. What do you think? I mean, with the polls next week, who's in second place? I think that you'll see some for both of them. I put out a tweet that I was like, I bet you'll see one poll that has Vivek in the high teens and DeSantis in the low teens. That's my priors. We'll see.

Maybe that's wrong. Remember, DeSantis was in the 20s and has lost altitude. So, you know, can you win some of those people back? Sure. I think that Vivek gets some momentum for sure. Nicky does. He needed to really regain alpha status, you know, and regain, oh, oh, right. This is why we liked him, you know, the migrant guy. And he didn't do that. And he was fine. You know, the National Review people

liked him, but they liked him already. Yeah, of course they did. I just thought that by the end of the debate, he felt like an afterthought. Okay, so let's bring me to Nikki. I actually was very, very surprised by her performance. I have to admit that, I mean, I've been quite critical of her. I she comes out right away with that statement about spending of all things, you know, this high lob, you know, ripping fellow Republicans, you know, calling out Donald Trump for raising $8 trillion in debt. And that was the moment I thought, okay, so she has decided that she's running for president, not for vice president, and she's going to call them out. I thought she was really strong on Ukraine going after Vivek. I thought Vivek dominated that stage until that moment. And I think if you listen to the crowd, there was a turn. Now, it doesn't change the fact that it was his dominant night, but feel free to disagree with me here. But I think a lot of that, and maybe they're irrelevant. Maybe

this doesn't make a difference. Maybe there is no donor class. Maybe there is no normie class at all. Maybe it is only 30%. But the folks who've been sitting around going, you know, we need somebody else because DeSantis is so awful. The people who are on the phone to Glenn Youngkin or hoping that Brian Kemp gets into the race. On Thursday morning, didn't they wake up going, hey, we've got to give this Nikki Haley a second look. Yeah. And that's why the real big winner of the debate was Nikki Haley's political consultants.

Because they are now going to get to cash in on some TV ads that they didn't think that they were going to have the money for. And so I want to congratulate those guys and the new pool they're putting in in Bethany Beach. Because they are the real they have no cynicism here okay here i'll be earnest for a second it was refreshing to hear her about ukraine to give just a in touch with reality position about abortion um even if you don't agree with all the particulars i thought that it was directionally good to have her a woman up there saying that and

like offering like at least some kind of reality-based position on on how to balance different contingencies on abortion the spending thing but i again yeah let's just say and i think that this could be possible right that she coalesces the scott vote the christy vote, you know, the little ones and twos of the aces and the Will Hurd altogether. Maybe even takes one or two of the normie National Review types who are with DeSantis and they pop over. Like, what's her ceiling? 25? Ceiling?

Like, ceiling, ceiling? 28? Right? It's just, I just don't. What did DeSantis have at his peak? Like, 28, 29. I don't remember. Yeah, 28. I'd have to look. I don't have it in front of me, but just don't. What did DeSantis have at his peak? Like 28, 29. I don't remember. I'd have to look.

I don't have it in front of me, but something around there. Yeah. But the thought with DeSantis was always that he could unite the tribes. This is the fundamental issue with the anti-Trump effort. Exactly right. Which is, I was actually talking to a guy that's working for a super PAC trying to beat Trump and still a Republican. And I was like, test me out on this. But I think that the persuadable vote, if you say that Trump has this 35% rock hard base, right?

Like, to me, the persuadable vote then, the remaining 65, is basically split down the middle of MAGA and norm, right? Like 30-30. And he was like, eh, it might be a little better than that. It might be 35-25. And he was like it might be a little better than that it might be might be 35 25 i was like okay but still then then that that puts the peak up at 35 you know when you're doing the math here it's like you have to get into the mega world somehow you got to get some percentage of those people right and you know maybe nikki can find some mega women who like the fact that she's a woman she does she does do pretty well in sarah's focus groups that stuff, but Trump hasn't really started attacking her yet. I think that the,

oh, we need, that Joe Biden isn't giving enough money to Ukraine. We need to cut spending, cut entitlements. I don't think this is the party for that anymore. There's a strong minority of that within the party, but I just don't think there's enough people there to do it. Going back to previous primaries, and we've seen in the Republican primary, you know, a strange phenomenon where, you know, Michelle Bachman has her moment, right? Herman Cain surges to the top of the pack. Newt Gingrich is all hot, you know, after the debate in South Carolina. There was the Rick Santorum moment. And then, of course, these things fade. Vivek strikes me as the kind of guy who's going to burn very, very hot and very bright, but burn out because the more scrutiny he gets, the worse it's going to get.

And, you know, he's going to get a time in the barrel, not just from the media, which is not going to be vetting him aggressively, but from fellow Republicans who thoroughly detest him. So I don't know that he is that his bump is going to be sustainable. I think that it's got a short fuse on it. On the other hand, Nikki Haley, I think, has the potential for more staying power. I mean, she is substantive. I mean, she's been all over the place. We've all written about her and how disappointing she is. Are you sure people want substantive? Well, that's an interesting question. But at least in terms of if the donor class does start calling

her up, she'll have more staying power. And the more attention she gets, the more people are going to say, okay, you know, this is, you know, a strong woman. This is somebody who is worth listening to. She makes a lot of sense and she's, uh, she's strong and she's gutsy. And here's my other point. It had to occur to some people after Wednesday. Can you imagine what a general election matchup between Joe Biden and Nikki Haley would look like? If you're a Democrat, you cannot be relishing that prospect. And if Democrats see how bad that would be, some Republicans are also going to come around to thinking, well, wait, we could have another Biden-Trump matchup. Or what if we put a youngish woman, who's still very much in her prime, by the way, up against Joe Biden? It's kind of a nightmare

scenario. Look, I'm just sort of gaming this thing out. I'm not saying that she's going to win because the numbers are the numbers and the Republican Party is the Republican Party. But if I'm a Larry Ellison and I've just burned through all this money for Tim Scott and that's not going anywhere. And I'm thinking, wait, if she was the nominee, what would that look like, Tim? Yeah. I mean, if you're sitting in the Biden White House, what do you think would run it against her? So I actually kind of see the other side of this. Christian Vanderbrook had a good article for the Borg this week about what exactly is the plan?

Like, even for DeSantis, he was talking about this as DeSantis, not Nikki. But, you know, let's say he eked it out. Let's say that he had, this was before the debate. Let's say he had a great debate and he wins over Trump and the caucuses narrowly. And then in South Carolina, everybody unites behind him and hees narrowly. And then in South Carolina, everybody unites behind him and he wins narrowly. And then they kind of split delegates on Super Tuesday. And he's in the delegate lead slightly. Then what? Where do they go from here? Have they thought about that? Do they think Donald Trump's going to concede to him? Do they think Donald

Trump's going to give the keynote at the Ron DeSantis convention in Milwaukee next summer? And so anyway, that is even more intense for Nikki. I think that there's a huge chunk of the party that would never go for her, never. And I think you end up with a RFK or Vivek style third party candidate if Nikki is the nominee. And maybe not, I don't see people getting in line for her. Like that 35% rock hard Trump base, if you look to that Des Moines register poll, I guess it was 28. And I think Iowa is a bad state for her. Like that 35% rock hard Trump base. If you look to that Duane register poll, I guess it was 28. And I think Iowa was a bad state for him. I'm laughing. I'm in Louisiana, my new home state. There was a poll that came out that had Trump 75, DeSantis 10 recently. And so it's like, where is Nikki getting votes in Louisiana? Like she's not, right? She's just not, like they don't want her. I thought that was really a good analysis because there's been a

lot of magical thinking, like something, something, something happens. And then Trump, you know, graciously concedes, you know, Trump, you know, gives the nominating speech at the convention, this will never happen. You know, the magical thinking always has to end with and then Trump dies. I mean, there's there's really no other way because he is never going to admit that he lost. He will never graciously lose. He will never go away. But I noticed, Tim, that you did dodge my question. Okay, I'm sorry. Okay, because since we're doing the what if, what if, what if,

and now, by the way, I totally accept the premise that it's really hard to imagine this, but what would a Joe Biden-Nikki Haley matchup look like in the general election? Yeah. I'm not saying it's going to happen. Sure. See, this is the vulnerability. I think Joe Biden can beat Donald Trump because he's Donald Trump. But what if the meteor strikes?

What if the Big Mac takes him out? What if there is a younger candidate? Yeah. If I'm a Democrat, I think that matchup just has to be terrifying to them. I guess. So this is my point is that I just don't think that we would ever see that for this reason, which is that if Nikki were the likely nominee, I don't think Joe Biden is running again, right? I think that the Democrats would have had a primary or even Kamala would be the nominee and we could, you know, game out fantasy politics, what Kamala versus Nikki would look like,

but it's different. I just, I don't think you're ever seeing a stage where it's Joe Biden and Nikki Haley on that stage, because I think that, you know, there'd be a MAGA third party candidate and or Joe Biden would get out of the way, right? But sure, yeah, you're right. Like on Earth 7.0, I think that's a huge problem for Democrats, right? Because Nikki Haley is whatever, 48 or however old she is, and Joe Biden, you know, is going to look like the past up there. But I think that for a variety of reasons within the Republican Party and within Joe Biden's strategic thinking, there's no path to that. But the Biden re-election campaign does seem to be premised on the assumption that it's going to be Donald Trump at this point.

So pretty good assumption. I mean, he's winning by a lot. Well, you know, this is really the, just watching the agony of the anti-anti-Trumpers, you know, who had, who, you know, are stuck with like, we have to beat Joe Biden, but we can't go along with Donald Trump. And they had, they projected so many qualities onto Ron DeSantis. There was so much wish casting there. It's really been a struggle for them. They're not going to go along with Vivek, but this realization seems to be sort of settling in on them that the magical thinking, I think, in DeSantis' world, that Republicans look at these perp walks and these mugshots and say, yeah, we're fine with that. We are okay with that. Okay, you know,

he set baby monkeys on fire, but like, who doesn't? Their agony takes us back to my very first answer in this question, which is just our slow rolling, I told you so. It's like, they hate us so much. And for people who don't know, sometimes we just throw out the anti-antis. People don't know what we're talking about. But these are the people that really dislike Trump privately, politicians, the right-wing commentators that dislike Trump privately, but have just continued to stick with him because the Democrats are bad and the Democrats are scarier and Elon Omar and transgender youth or whatever the excuse of the day is and

they're going to find themselves now for like the ninth tenth straight year having to suck it up and you know just be donald trump's you know what again apologist the thing is like they hate us because like we are a mirror up to their choices and they they would you know say they have tds and they're they're Democrats now and whatever. But it's like, had they listened to us in 2015, had they listened to us in 2016, 2017, impeachment one, the 2020 election,

after the stop the steal, impeachment two, they had so many fucking off ramps. They had so many off ramps and it was so obvious. It wasn't hard to figure out that they were going to end up here. It was so obvious that they't hard to figure out that they were gonna end up here it was so obvious that they're gonna end up here and they refused to take every single off ramp and now they are stuck on this hell ship with the flaming monkeys and donald trump's uh mugshot

and i just i don't feel bad for him i kind of enjoying their pain i have to admit are we gonna do the t-shirt come on we're gonna do the t-shirt? Come on. We're going to do the t-shirt, right? Yeah. We were Never Trumpers Were Right t-shirt? Please. Yeah. This is Tim's brilliant idea, that you have the mugshot, and what does it say? Never Trumpers Were Right, thebullwork.com. There's a slightly more obnoxious, we could say, we told you so.

Oh, we told you so. We told you so. Sure. We told you so, thebullwork. you so. We told you so. Sure. We told you so. TheBullock.com. Either of those are acceptable to me. We are going to have that t-shirt because I want that t-shirt. Okay, great. Let's do it.

I want to walk down Main Street in Cedarburg with a big mugshot, we told you so, or, you know, never Trump from the jump. Just some version of that. I really want that. Same. So anyway, by the way, you will sometimes throw yourself on the sword. Did you watch any of the Tucker counter-programming with Donald Trump? This was the one time I have not thrown myself on the sword.

I watched a clip show put together by somebody, and that was it. So I've seen somebody's highlights. Low energy, tired, weird. Philip Bump, though, is debunking some of these, you know, crazy numbers that are coming out. And basically, look, it turns out one in three likely Republican primary voters watched the debate, which is a pretty big number. One in six watched all of it, all two hours. Only one in 20 watched Trump talk to Tucker instead. So let's just put this in some context. And that may actually be good for Trump because, you know, he's continuing to retcon January 6th, you know, talk about, you know, the riot, the attack on the Capitol, you know, which you had all of these police officers bloodied and a death toll as this beautiful day, this wonderful picnic of patriotism. And he is all in on all of this. And of course, we're going to get a lot more of that because he is absolutely committed to making January 6th, his attempted coup into a great proud moment in American history.

And Republicans ought to realize that that's going to be their platform in 2024. And I think that's an interesting stat because I'm genuinely intrigued by the poll, not the very first ones, but like maybe two Fridays from now by two Fridays from now I think that we're really going to know a lot you know because it will have been in the water for a week and you know you got to let this stuff trickle down to the two-thirds of people that didn't watch the debate but these guys had about as good a chance as they're going to have they had a third of the party watching them without him there at all right free shots and then he gets a rain the next day now

everybody's going to see that everybody's gonna see the mugshot it's number four people are gonna be able to you know judge like whether that's someone they're gonna want to put up if there is no meaningful gain what else is left to happen that would it be a gain for people i know that the you know delusional irrational confidence people will, maybe when they get to the voting booth, then they're finally going to get serious. But that was about as clean a shot as they're going to have. No, no, no. You and I have lived through this before, right? I'm sorry to bring this back, but I'm sure that you remember back in 2015 at exactly this point, everybody would say, well, there's, you know, five months, no votes have actually been cast and lots of things. It's way too early. In fact, it was

already too late. All right. But I do think that it's important to provide a little bit of an antidote to the, you know, the more he's indicted, the stronger he gets because yes, within the Republican party, that may be true, but hello, that's still a minority right now because you're getting one poll after another suggesting that this is not helping him, shockingly, in a general election. I'm reading this from Politico. A new political magazine, Ipsos Poll, provides some bad news for Trump. Even as he remains the clear front runner for the Republican nomination, the cascading indictments are likely to take a toll on his general election prospects. Amazingly, we have not repealed all the laws of political gravity.

The survey results suggest that Americans are taking the cases seriously, particularly the 2020 election case, and that most people are skeptical of Trump's claim to be a victim of a legally baseless witch hunt or an attempt to weaponize law enforcement. Public sentiment in certain areas, including how quickly to have a trial and whether to jail Trump, is moving against the president when compared to previous Politico polls. So right now, most respondents want a trial before the general election. Most Americans right now, Trump is guilty in the eyes of half of Americans. Do you believe that Donald Trump is guilty of the alleged crimes? Total 51%. Yes. No. 26%

among independents. 53%. Yes. He's guilty. Only 20%. No. And that's before the televised trial. That is before one court date after another. So, you know, once again, even though there are those polls showing him running neck and neck with Joe Biden, guys, how does a year of litigation and arraignments and trials and testimony, how does that help Donald Trump win swing states in a general election? Isn't that the heart of it right now? Yeah. And the front page of the Atlanta Journal of Constitution this morning is the mugshot with books. You know, I used to work in campaign PR. That's not really what you're generally going for, for your candidates is to be on the front page of the biggest swing state paper with your mugshot uh generally not seen as helpful you know think back to the old wdui controversy right before the 2000

election but it's so trivial now right trivial um but you know and the other bizarre thing about all this we did a little gimmick on the next level on the next level podcast this week where we were like the jail or the white house are really the two main options for this person in the next two years is one of the most bizarre dichotomies i think in world history it's just i was looking at that same poll i guess it was in your newsletter it was like 50 percent of the country wants him jailed i'm part of that 50 percent yeah and it's like it's like 50 percent of the country wants him jailed 41% wants him to be the leader of the free world. It is just, I mean, it's kind of hard to wrap your head around.

I know it's our job to help people wrap their heads around that, but that's a tough one. Yes, it is a dichotomy. And yeah, you're not the crazy ones. Okay, point of personal privilege, Mr. Miller. Please. So I think I've told you this before, but this is actually happening. I'm going to have a teenager in the house again. Congrats, Dad.

But it wasn't really sure until right before we started this podcast. My grandson, Elliot, who's French, wants to come and live with us and attend school here in Mequon, Wisconsin. There was some paperwork, obviously. There's some passport stuff. And so he and his mom, my daughter, took a train to Paris to go to the U.S. Embassy today. And if things were going to go wrong, it was going to go wrong today. He's coming tomorrow. Okay, so don't leave things to the last minute. So at 4.30 this morning, I roll over, hear my phone buzzing, and there is a picture of him. And I put it in my newsletter

outside the U S embassy holding his passport. He's got it. And so he is coming. This is actually going to be happening. I'm going to have a teenager in the house for the next semester. I'm a soccer dad. I'm going to be a soccer dad again. I mean, like, man. Football dad, I think. Well, it's soccer here. A reality check. Can I have a request? I think, you know, I don't know anything about your grandson, so feel free to reject this, but maybe around Christmas, I want our Friday podcast to end with, I want to interview him. I want like five minutes to, I want to ask him about being a, you know, a Parisian in Mequon. Because I am fascinated by what it would be like to be an eighth grader who just gets dropped into Mequon, Wisconsin. You

know, we could just a little break from the parade of horribles. Because I'm very intrigued by this. Well, that's a deal that I will at least talk to him about and see whether he's comfortable doing that. I mean, I think a podcast is kind of – No pressure. Well, no, it's low pressure because, I mean, we don't have cameras around us or anything like that. So, yeah. And it will be fascinating to know because – and again, I am so out of touch with what the culture, the social media culture is. I mean, it is – I think it's hard to be in middle school.

Was your middle school years difficult? My middle school years were fucking awful. Can you imagine going through middle school with social media now? No. I don't want to catastrophize it, but it's one thing for people to have clicks and talk about people behind their back. But now, of course, it's so much more difficult. One jerk with an Instagram account, and I don't know. It does seem, I have to tell you, the school system has been so responsive, and they are so supportive,

and they're sort of aware of all of the problems. And so, you know, they will have a support network to help him. His English is extremely good, but they're going to have people who are going to help him with the English and with math and things, because you don't know what you don't know. I'm sorry, Charlie. I've been told that our school system is in complete tatters and disarray.

And the only thing people care about is critical race theory. And they don't actually teach anything anymore. Is that not? Does that not seem right? Not in Mequon, Wisconsin. I have been reliably informed the same thing. I'll report back, but it doesn't appear to be the case in Mequon, Wisconsin. So you have a great weekend,

Tim Miller. And I'll talk to Elliot about this and say that at least put the request in. It may, and again, probably not till the end of the semester. Sounds good. Congratulations. We'll talk to you soon. And congrats on the mugshot. Congratulations to all of us for the mugshot, to all of Americans. If only they had been warned, if only they had been warned. if only they had been warned, but Tim keep pushing for the t-shirt. And if we can get coffee mugs, that would be pretty cool too.

Okay. So use your extensive influence on all of this. Thank you all for listening to this weekend's Bulwark podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We will be back on Monday and we'll do this all over again. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.