The Bulwark Podcast - Tom Nichols: A 2016 Flashback?

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

Once again, the anti-anti-Trumpers are standing back and hoping Trump will run out of tricks, instead of calling him out as an existential threat to democracy. Plus, will McCarthy really get the gavel — and how long could he possibly hold it? Tom Nichols joins Charlie Sykes today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. It is Monday. It's hard to unpack all the things that we have to talk about today, whether we're talking about special counsels, Elon Musk continuing to try to shitpost his way past his $44 billion fiasco, or the former guy's momentum in his campaign so far. So, joined this morning by Tom Nichols, Professor Emeritus at the Naval College, and now a staff writer at The Atlantic, and author of the Peacefield Newsletter and the Atlantic Daily Newsletter.

Wow. So, Professor, welcome back on. Hey, Charlie. Good to be back. So, Professor, welcome back on. Hey, Charlie. Good to be back. Okay, so most important question first. Are you staying on Twitter? Not creating other accounts or anything?

No, and, you know, I wish people would stop sending me messages saying, is it time to go? Should we leave? Is it over? You know, it's not. Nothing is over until we decide it is. Like when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor. You know, I'm just too old and too cranky to go figure out how to use Mastodon or anything else. To be honest, I was talking with our friend Molly Jongfast about this, and I said, my

DMs aren't open, and I don't get notifications from people who don't follow me. So my Twitter experience hasn't changed at all, as far as I can tell. You know, the site still works, messages still get posted, people still talk to me. So, you know, the fact that it's owned by a, you know, 12 year old, yeah, there's some weird stuff that if you follow him and others, you're going to see. But I just, I think Twitter's going to be around no matter what, and whether Musk owns it or not. You know, it's kind of a reminder, you know, it's very fashionable to bitch about what a hellscape it is because it is. On the other hand, it is marvelously useful as a news feed. It's very easy to use. And I was struck by how easy it was to use only in

retrospect, having fuddled around with Mastodon for a few minutes. I do have a Mastodon account. I have no idea how to use it. I'm figuring that everybody will upgrade the capabilities over time. We'll make it a little bit easier to do. So somebody in Silicon Valley is going to say either, either we're gonna have to make Twitter work or we'll make something work. That's just like Twitter. But the idea that Twitter is just going to like, you know, the lights will go out forever and they won't ever, I just, I think people, I said the other day, this is like the, um, this is the new moving to Canada argument. Well, you know, if Musk's takes over, I'm, I'm like, if Trump wins, I'm going to Canada. No, no, you're not going to move to Canada. You're going to stay. And I'll just add one other thing, Charlie, the same people who say

I will stay and I will fight. I fight for democracy. I will fight Trump. I will fight the, say, oh, I have to leave Twitter. Well, no, if you care that much, stick around, make your points, speak your mind and, and don't be run off by the fact that, you know, again, the new owner is, you know, this kind of prepubescent weirdo. And I think you also made the point, there's no rational basis for thinking that Elon Musk is just going to trash his $44 billion investment, as in completely shut it down, turn the lights off.

Right. Even though it's very clear that he has no idea what he's doing, he's just throwing stuff up against the wall. He has no concept whatsoever. I mean, really, he does have the feeling of this, the accidental owner who suddenly realizes that, you know that dream you have where you show up for the last day of class and you realize you haven't been there all class, you know, all year long and you didn't

study. And you're not wearing pants. Yeah. And you're not wearing pants. That's Elon Musk. Elon Musk is like showing up and going, whoa, I was actually supposed to know what I was doing. I have to take a calculus exam in my underwear. What am I doing here? Okay. Now you, you may disagree with this, this take that I have over the weekend. There was the big event for the Republican Jewish coalition out in Las Vegas. And it was, uh, it was this parade of possible presidential wannabes. And okay, I'm not trying to get ahead of myself and I'm not engaging in irrational exuberance. So that's not where I'm going here. But I thought the most remarkable thing about it was that it was this parade of candidates

and that it really underlined the fact that less than a week after, you know, the former president of the United States formally announces his campaign for reelection. Nobody got out of the way. He did not clear the field. They did not defer to him. There has not been a rush of endorsements. Now, I still think that he is the dominant, overwhelmingly dominant figure in the Republican Party.

But I'm struck by the fact that something's happening this year that would have been absolutely unthinkable a couple of years ago. What do you think, Tom? The field is not cleared. That's true, Charlie. But on the other hand, they still treat him like a Balrog or a mythical demon that they don't want to invoke his name, leading Christie to say, say his name, say his name, right? If you're going to oppose this, say his name. And yet Christie doesn't say his name, leading, you know, Christie to say, say his name, say his name, right? You know, if you're going to oppose this, say his name. And yet Christie doesn't say his name. Well, hold it. Wait, wait, wait. Here's Chris Christie. Let's go to the tape. We keep losing and losing and losing. And the fact of the matter is the reason we're losing is because Donald Trump has put himself before everybody else.

Point taken. Let him rip. Let the man talk. And I understand and believe in so many of the policies that were able to be accomplished during those four years. I mourn what more could have been done. And let's remember this. Everything that has happened in the last two years is because we lost that election. All right.

Well, my apologies to the governor. I had forgotten that he said because Trump put himself first. But oh, and by the way, the other person who really hasn't got out of the way, just so we can point out, is future vice presidential nominee Elise Stefanik. I heard that sigh all the way over here, Charlie. Made sure to get out in front of the endorsing Trump train for 24. But I think while this could be a healthy development in the Republican Party, I'm actually pretty, I'm still pretty pessimistic about it. For one thing, the first time Trump makes a good showing, if he does not, you know, this is I'm reliving 2016 in a way where everybody dismissed him and said, the guy's a psycho and get, you know, don't worry

about him. And then he starts pulling in some numbers and everybody gets out of the way. I mean, you remember, this is how the never Trump folks, you know, people argued with us about being never Trump. They're like, well, don't worry about it. You know, he's not going to get more than, yeah, right. He's not going to get more than 10. Oh, he won't get more than 15. Well, he's got 30%. So we can't push him out of the way. Now, with all that said, I also think that a lot of people are tired of Donald Trump in the party and outside the party. I think that there are people in the party who are ambitious and are not going to take well to being told to sit down and wait their turn for another four years. But

the people that keep getting left out of this, and this is where I think Christie and Larry Hogan and others are wrong. They keep saying all of our problems are about Donald Trump. My answer is no, all of your problems are about a base that loves Donald Trump. The voters are the problem here for the Republicans. Their base loves him. They would take him back in a minute. And, you know, Chris Christie thundering about how Trump is the source of all evil. If the primaries were all held tomorrow, Trump would win it by a landslide and Chris Christie would be in single digits. So let's not kid ourselves about people. If all these people stay in, he can win with 35%

of the vote as he did back in 2006. As he did the last time, exactly. Well, here's part of the problem though, this critique, which is very, very widespread, that Donald Trump is a loser and that we ought to turn the page because he is a loser. But you'll notice that people won't go beyond that. It is sort of a content-free, content-free critique. And of course, we saw this with my good friend, Paul Ryan, who came out this week and declared himself not a never Trumper, but a never again Trumper. So let's play the first soundbite where, you know, he talks about his relationship and he declares why he is a never again Trumper. I was not a never Trumper. You worked with a speaker.

I governed with them and I'm very proud of those days. I'm proud of the accomplishments of the tax reform, the deregulation of criminal justice reform. I'm really excited about the judges we got on the bench, not just the Supreme Court, but throughout the judiciary. But I am a never-again Trumper. Why? Because I want to win, and we lose with Trump. It was really clear to us in 2018, in 20, and now in 2022. See, here's the problem, of course, you know, Tom, is that if you're not willing to say, I'm a never again Trumper because the man is not fit to be president of the United States.

If you're not willing to make any sort of a constitutional or moral case, you know, that he is a moral failure and cretin, then, you know, then all you have is, you know, the winner loser type thing. So Jonathan Karl asks them the existential question and listen to how Ryan punts. But if I'm saying if he wins the general election, if he becomes president again, I mean, the way Liz Cheney has put it,

it's like an existential threat to the country. I just don't think he's going to, I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think he'll win. He's just unelectable. I think he's unelectable because that suburban voter, you think he's going to. I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think he'll win. He's just unelectable. I think he's unelectable because that suburban voter, you think he's more popular since the 20th election with the swing voter in America or less? No evidence of that at all. Jesus jumping Christ on a pogo stick. Two things strike me about this

is number one, it's kind of hard to say you're never again Trump or at the same time you're saying I'm so proud of that first term. You rewrite the history that somehow this was a very, very successful first term, first term. And then you go into complete denial about the danger of the second term. And this does have that 2016 vibe of, well, we don't need to worry about that. Just calm down, Charlie. Just calm down, Tom. It's just not going to happen. We don't actually need to do anything. And, you know, it is kind of a PTSD from 2016. This really shows you the, the utter moral cowardice of the anti anti Trumpers, the people who, you know, as you say, said, calm down, Charlie, you know, this isn't going to happen. It's not a big deal. And, you know,

it's better than any Democrat, Charlie, it's better than Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden. And I'm not saying it's like the people who begin every sentence. Now, I'm not in favor of Trump, but, you know, Joe Biden's a socialist or Hillary Clinton's a crook. And so therefore, and they won't take that next step. You and I have both had these arguments with our anti-anti-Trump friends or former friends where we've said, and therefore what? You are willing to put the nuclear codes, the national security of the United States, in the hands of a deranged sociopath who is vastly more dangerous

than any mainstream Democratic candidate who could possibly win that office. Well, you know, so the same people who say, Trump could never win, let's not think about it. Make that argument by saying, but you know, if you don't do it, you're going to get President Ocasio-Cortez because Party could happen. And it's especially galling when the Democrats nominated Joe Biden, who is as centrist, so centrist that his own left wing came after him. The guy that in 2016, and no one will admit it now, Charlie, but you know that a lot of our former, you know, colleagues said, well, you know, if they would just run Joe Biden, I could vote for him over Trump, but they won't. And then when they did, they said, well, you know, if they would just run Joe Biden, I could vote for him over Trump, but they won't. And then when they did, they said, well, I still can't because I'm an opportunistic careerist, a moral, you know, a black hole when it comes to any kind of moral

or political reasoning. And I want to say one other thing about why this is happening in the GOP and the never Trump position. I think that all of these calls to get Trump out of the way, and also with Chris Sununu up in New Hampshire saying we have to stop nominating crazy people. I think it validates or vindicates the never Trump position of you have to deprive the Republican Party of oxygen until the pain gets so deep down to the grassroots that everybody starts calling for change, including the donors. There is obviously some donor fatigue going on here. So I don't disagree with your critique about where we're at, but why were all of those

candidates still on the stage? OK, so Donald Trump, I mean, you and I can remember a couple of years ago that if Donald Trump made an announcement, everybody would would rush to bow the knee and tug the forelock. And this is not happening. So why? Why has the field not cleared? Why did no one defer to him? I think they smell blood in the water. OK, what do they think is going to happen?

And I don't think it's because they think Trump's going to be indicted or frog marched or perp walked. I think they smell blood in the water. They think something's going to happen. Trump's but also that Trump's out of tricks. You know, and and I think that there is an opportunity there. I also think that some of them are counting on the Iran-Iraq war of Trump versus DeSantis. And if DeSantis knocks out Trump, great. But I don't think DeSantis solves the problem that the Republican Party is a Trumpified violent movement. So they may be sitting back the way a lot of Republicans

sat back in 2016, waiting for the fratricidal warfare to subside. But they're waiting for something. They're waiting for what? A health event, a legal event, just something. Or that first outing where Trump just flames out. It'll be really crucial. They're waiting for some early electoral event or straw poll or primary or caucus or something that says where Trump places fourth

and then the jackal pack can pounce. My concern is that he's going to place first and everybody's going to say, all right, well, I got to get out of the way. Well, you're right, because once he places first, then that whole, well, he's a loser thing just goes away and you have nothing behind it. So what about that announcement speech last week, one week ago, you, you wrote about it. I mean, this was a, I know it's now tedious to say that it was low energy, but I mean, it was appallingly bad. How bad was it? Fox News cut away from it. What did you think of that? You're a former speechwriter. I wrote speeches for a senator at the state level for my state house guy back in the day.

First of all, let's get that out of the way about speechwriting. If this was Miller, it sounded like Miller. Stephen Miller. Yeah, it sounded like Stephen Miller, but who knows? Trump's speech writers are always writing for themselves. They're trying to show their erudition and their high-flying, they all want to have their Ted Sorensen moment, and they don't realize Trump doesn't speak that way. He's not capable of it. And so you get that weird thing where Trump reads the teleprompter because he never reads ahead of time because his reading skills are pretty limited. And so he reads it and you can see him getting bored with it while he's looking at it.

And then he stops and he goes away from the teleprompter and he starts to riff in the accordion and start to go and the little finger, know starts popping in the air you know it was just a bad speech in its content and then when he starts to riff that's where the i think he started to see the real exhaustion it almost was like he just didn't have the energy to keep you know oh and and i won the election and the russia hoax And the, I mean, I think everybody's bored with it. And, and I think this, but I still think the speech itself is going to be less important than the first time he heads out into some, he, he needs a foil to play off of. He wants to get into some group of Republicans where, you know, he can call Chris Christie fat or Ron DeSantis stupid or, you know, whoever he's going to go after here. So I, I, I'm not writing him off because of that speech. Yeah. But if it

turns out that he's shooting blanks, that people go, yeah, you know, making fun of Ron DeSantis, kind of like Ron DeSantis, you know, we don't think it's funny. Uh, the whole young kin thing fell kind of flat. It's so strange. If he starts to realize that his shtick isn't working anymore. Now, you made an interesting point. You wrote that we actually should welcome Trump's candidacy, even if he wins again and brings dangerous people with him. So what?

Yeah, I mean, I think we need, you know, one of my favorite movies is L.A. Confidential. And there's a great line where the corrupt captain says to the corrupt officer, we must have a clarification session one of these days. And I think, you know, this is going to be the clarification. How, you know, oh, Trump's not really that popular anymore. And the base will abandon him. And, you know, there are better candidates. Really? Well, let's find out. Because otherwise, Trump, and by the way, the other thing that that speech proved, once again, or showed us once again, is he's such a weird guy. I mean, he's just such a weirdo. And so, you know, this is really the acid test now to say, is he really no longer popular? Are other Republican candidates willing to call him out and start healing the damage in the Republican Party by saying, no, we are not the party of election denial. We are not the party of militia kooks.

We are not the party of whacked out conspiracy theorists. We're not the party of, you know, and the problem is they are. That's the problem, Charlie. And so I'm waiting to see what happens the first time somebody takes on Trump and says, you need to leave this party. And the people who are supporting you because of all this craziness need to kind of get right with God here

and sort of come back to reality. I don't think that's, I'm not convinced that's, I hope it happens. I really hope it happens. But I think Trump's candidacy is going to have a forcing function to make Republicans decide who they are. And I think it's going to force the rest of us to decide who we are. You wrote, we discovered or rediscovered in our elections last week that American democracy has great regenerative power, but the elections of 2022 only suppressed a fever. The people of the United States until now have been reluctant to lance the boil, cleanse the wound and just get it over with. And you point out that if he just slunk off into the night, his supporters would never have to come to grips with what they and he have done to this

country. And if he stays in exile in Florida, the Trumpists would cultivate a modern stab in the back theory, which I think they will, no matter what actually happens, you know, that's already underway. And then of course, Republican enablers would try to pretend they never liked him. You know, you won't believe how fast that never happened sort of thing. And I agree with you also that, you know, to think that he's irrelevant, you know, the people who, who complain, like, why are you even writing about him? We should not him oxygen now yeah ignoring him works so well back in 2016 so oh my god can i just say that please yeah i have blocked people on twitter literally who say why are you giving him oxygen why are you amplifying him why are you covering these press conferences and i've i wrote about i wrote

about it in usa today back when i was a columnist there, and I've written about it since, where I've said, you do this partly because there needs to be a record, and partly to just keep putting it out there and hanging it around the necks of Republicans who keep saying, well, I didn't hear that, or I don't follow the tweets, or I didn't see that press conference. I have a good friend whose mom was a total Trumper out in the Midwest and, you know, classic Trump kind of profile, right? You know, Charlie, it's your old state. You, you know, this evangelical all about abortion, you know, um, pastor loves Trump. So she loves Trump.

And every time this woman was, her kids would say, mom, how can you not, you know, didn't you? Oh, I don't watch those things. I don't see that. I didn't hear that. I don't know that he said that. And I think that ignoring him means that he gets his message to the faithful in the way he wants to get it to them.

Well, all of the normals out there, all the people don't, and you know, I should say we always call the normals or the people don't pay attention to politics 24-7 like normal people shouldn't, that all of the normies out there are like, well, I guess he can't be that bad. I didn't really hear any of this stuff either, and people seemed to like him. If you put this stuff out there, every time he tweets and you put it through a bullhorn, you're sending that message to independents, to Republican moderates, you're riling up Democrats. I actually think covering him and doing blow-by-blows on his speeches and pressers, and I'll make one last case for this and then shut up about it. When he was

doing those COVID press conferences every day, remember those? His staff finally begged him to stop doing them. And just ask yourself, if free media and a lot of exposure is good for Trump, why were his own people tackling him around the legs to try to stop him from going on TV every day? Okay, two points here. We ought to mention this whole thing with Paul Ryan finally coming out and saying he's a never again Trumper. It's probably not irrelevant to point out that he is a member of the Fox board. And he could have said this earlier, but he waited basically until the Murdoch empire turned hard against Trump. Now, maybe he's responsible for that. I don't know. But to your point now, there's going to be a spotlight shining on Trump and that there

will be people within that sort of right wing bubble who watch Fox News, who may see this, who are going to be exposed to different points of view about Donald Trump, which is healthy. The second is the reports are and I think they're they're accurate. The DeSantis strategy at this point is and maybe the other candidates as well is to kind of sit back. Don't get into the race for months. Let the spotlight be on Donald Trump. Let him fly his freak flag while the spotlight is on him and let people have a chance to think about why they're so tired of him. And I think that that is sound. I don't know what the disastrous self-own would be that would turn his base against him, maybe nothing. But I guess I still am struck

by the fact that there's a there's a piece in The Hill that did a survey of Republican senators and found only one Republican senator, Tommy Tuberville, willing to endorse Trump at this point, not even Lindsey Graham. And you can tell the donor community is just really sick of him. But, you know, we'll we'll see where this goes. So the one thing that that that Trump would love to cling to to rally his base back to him to get the get the band back together again is the special counsel appointment. My initial reaction last week when I heard that America only was appointing a special counsel appointment. My initial reaction last week when I heard that America only was appointing a special counsel was I was disappointed. I felt he was punting. It annoyed me no end that he was doing it in response to Trump's gambit of announcing. Trump was hoping that if I

jump into this race, I will preempt the Department of Justice. And sure enough, he did have an effect on him. I'm less disappointed today than I was on Friday. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think it was probably the right decision. And all indications are that it's not going to slow down the investigation, that you have kind of a balls to the wall prosecutor. So what do you think, Tom? Yeah, you know, I went through the exact same thought process you did where I was, you know, disappointed and I thought Garland was process you did where I was, you know, disappointed and I thought Garland was punning. And then I realized that being the author of a book called The Death of Expertise, I am not a lawyer.

I am not a Justice Department official. I am not Merrick Garland, you know, and it occurred to me that they might be professionals who know what they're doing. And so, you know, with the appointment of the special prosecutor i i wonder if now trump has to live with this forever because you know that's part of what happens with these kinds of investigations they just go on until these bulldogs find a bone and so i i like you i kind of got off my uncharacteristically for me i sort of was up there in the rafters with resistance twitter and going grumping about, you know,

should have indicted him. And I'm like, you know, I have exactly zero years of law school. And maybe the attorney general of the United States might know a little bit more about this than me. And so, you know, maybe I ought to calm down. And then thinking more about it and listening to people actually know something about this, pointing out that there is an alternate version of this in which Garland has now well and truly screwed Trump for years to come. Because, you know, getting a special counsel like this is like trying to get gum off your shoe. But I also, you know, Charlie, I still have that kind of disappointed feeling. You know, Jill Lawrence at USA Today made a great point. She said, our political and legal institutions just can't cope with a guy like Trump.

And I think she's right. I think there's just a part of me that just never, I expect all kinds, I'm going to see Steve Bannon in an orange jumpsuit. We saw Paul Manafort in an orange jumpsuit. A lot of guys are going to go to jail. It feels like Trump is just one of those guys that just karma is not going to catch up with him in this life. It feels like that. What I wonder about, though, is this swarm of charges and indictments, whether or not it's just it's just the sheer weight.

You have what's going on in Georgia. We have a report today in The New York Times. The Manhattan D.A. is looking once again at possibly charging him. This Jack Smith, he's an interesting choice because, and I have to say the one thing that I thought was the most positive is that, you know, unlike Robert Mueller or Merrick Garland, he's not one of those, now I'm going to be misunderstood here, I'm going to be really careful here. He is not one of the older generation of institutionalists who as a class, I think, are engaged in asymmetrical warfare with Donald Trump.

I think that they're particularly ill-suited for dealing with somebody who is so much of a sociopath as Donald Trump. Jack Smith isn't of that cut. That's not the cut of his jib. He actually is used to dealing with with war criminals and other miscreants and is kind of known for moving fast and hard and breaking things. So I guess I'm glad to see somebody who is a little bit more pugnacious. I mean, in retrospect, Robert Mueller was maybe not the right guy to go up against Donald Trump. Maybe Merrick Garland is not the right guy. One indicator here is that Trump seems to be panicking. He's lashing out. Yeah, he's lashing out. He's trying to smear the guy.

And you can always tell the level of a threat against Trump by the kind of sweaty, idiotic lashing out he does. So maybe Trump's more worried about this than I am. I always just assume that Trump has this kind of disposable ring of buffer goons that are just kind of set up to go to jail, almost like in case of indictment, break glass, and you pull out alan weisselberg or somebody and and stick them in the joint um but i hope you're right i mean i hope this is different this time so we haven't gotten around to speaking about how absolutely pathetic mike

pence was this weekend and i say that as you of, you know, going through various stages of denial, there was really a part of me that kind of wanted Mike Pence to step up to the moment and say, you know, that he was the defender of democracy on January 6th. Maybe he was the hero that, you know, we didn't necessarily want, but we deserve or the opposite. He's never going to do it, Charlie. He's never going to do it, Charlie. He's never going to do it. I mean, when he's essentially now saying that he's troubled by the appointment of the special prosecutor, you know, the easiest thing to say is let's let the justice system run its course. Right. But no, he wants to straddle the line and it's going to he's going to end up with like

seven percent of the vote. Listen, six months from now, six months from now, we's going to, he's going to end up with like 7% of the vote. Listen, six months from now, six months from now, we're going to have a picture of Mike Pence vacuuming a red carpet, like Carrie Lake, you know, he, he gets really close to it. And then he, but then he's all about the, Oh, you know, but I so much respect, like, like with Paul Ryan. And by the way, that Paul Ryan clip you played, it's an involuntary cringe mechanism to listen to. Oh, so proud of all the things we did. Well, you know, except the violent attempt to overthrow the government of the United States, but hey, bygones. And you know, here's a guy whose life was in danger, who looks at a Secret Service agent and says, I'm not getting in that car. and now has to talk about how troubled he is.

And, oh, you know, the Trump-Pence administration. You're right. It would be, what a great moment. And also, I think, what a moment where Mike Pence could live according to his, I believe, sincere Christian principles, to stand up and say, this man is a violent menace to our society and to our way of life and to the Constitution of the United States. And as a Christian, as an American, as a citizen, as a father, as a grandpa, I can't,

you know, I have to speak the truth. And instead, we get this opportunism and ambition turns all these people into lumps of jelly. And the extraordinary thing about it is this could have been the defining moment of his life that really would have solidified his place in history. It could have been a defining moment. If he would have leaned into it. And yet he appears intent on undermining it and hedging it and fudging it and walking away from it. And, of course, the people who, you know, Trump supporters are never going to forgive him for it. And the people who, you know, perhaps admired his his willingness to stand up for his one moment are going to remember.

Well, he had one moment. Right. He's not Margaret Chase Smith. He's not going to be this giant of the Senate, of the vice presidency. No, he's going to put it aside. You nailed it, Charlie, when you said it could have been the most important moment of his career, but more importantly, it could have been a defining moment in American history. It would have been one of the most important things since the founding of this country, if the vice president of the United States stepped forward and said, my conscience compels me to tell you that the president of the United States betrayed his oath, he betrayed the Constitution, he betrayed you, he betrayed me, and he put all of us in mortal peril, and he didn't do it. There could have been a movie about it. Oh, they'd have been a movie about it oh they've been making and people would have people would have had goosebumps when who would who would who would play him yeah well that's not that's not going to happen and now no it's not going to happen now

now his when he his imdb um you know when they do make the movie about this will be ineffectual vice president with white hair, you know, played by stunt guy number four, because he has relegated himself to being a footnote because of this. And it was absolutely, I genuinely felt bad for him for a moment watching him do that. I thought you had a chance to recover everything you ever believed in, along with your manhood and your pride here. And you and you blew it, you threw it away. So what do you make of Kevin McCarthy's first week as speaker designee? It's interesting how he's he's really leaned in. We are going to be the vengeance caucus. We're going to strip committees from Adam Schiff,

Ilan Omar, Eric Swalwell. And then, of course, you have Jim Jordan coming forward with the 24-7 Hunter Biden investigation. So how is it how do you think it's going to play out for Kevin McCarthy? Because I have to admit, there's part of me that is kind of relishing watching him flail around with that razor-thin majority. I mean, look, Nancy Pelosi also had a very, very small majority. But you know what? Kevin McCarthy is no Nancy Pelosi, and we're about to find that out. He ain't no Nancy Pelosi.

Exactly. You know, when you said, what do you think of Kevin McCarthy's first weeks? And I thought, oh, I'm sorry, is Kevin McCarthy still in politics these days? Because all I see is Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert and, you know, the usual kook caucus out there. And this is going to be the Marjorie Taylor Greene caucus, whether whether McCarthy wants it or not. She is she is going to be the face of the Republican majority in a way that AOC was not the face of the Democratic majority. And just think of how amazing it is of how weak the institutions of the Republican Party have become, because this goes back to what we

were talking about earlier, Charlie, about, well, let's say Trump's defeated and DeSantis takes over. That doesn't fix anything. I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene is a congressperson that a better Speaker of the House would have flicked off his lapel like a dandruff flake. I mean, he would have crushed her like a grape early in her career. And instead, because none of these guys really, I shouldn't say they don't know where their base is. It's because they know where their base is and they're terrified of their primary voters and they don't want to go back home and deal with them that they sort of throw up

their hands and go, okay, well, whatever, you know, and I think that's just pathetic. Well, and the math is just horrible. They hold him hostage. But you know, here's an undercover story that I think people are now just starting to notice, which is that there's another group in McCarthy's caucus. Remember, he has no give. He has no he has no margin for error here. You know, the nutcase caucus, when they make a demand, he's he's going to have to give in. On the other hand, there are the so called crossover members. These are the more moderate Republicans who actually were elected in districts that Joe Biden won. And they are not going to be that anxious to go complete hair on fire crazy. And so he's going to have to pay attention to them.

Now, how many are there? You know, a dozen, two dozen of those. So this is why there's almost no prospect that Kevin McCarthy can be a successful speaker, because you can't square this circle. You cannot give Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene what they want. At the same time, you have all of these vulnerable sort of centrist candidates who have to win in pro-Biden districts. We're going, no, we don't want to go off the cliff with you. What is Kevin McCarthy did? Well, one of the things that I've been kind of looking forward to is what happens if Kevin McCarthy doesn't have the votes to become speaker? Now he does at this point. I don't know. Does he have 218? Well, yeah, I guess nominally he's got, you know, the commitments in his pocket for now, but the first time something really important happens and he becomes, you know, the commitments in his pocket for now. But the first time something really important happens and he becomes, you know, John Boehner saying, what, my God, what have I inherited here?

Or that he just has to, that he just can't sustain himself. You asked earlier, how does this end for him? I think not well. You know, I think he may finally get the gavel. And for him, of course, part of the problem is all of these people just want their merit badge. They don't care about what's good for the country. So maybe for Kevin McCarthy, it's enough for him to say, fine, I did two years. I get to hang that on my wall. And then I leave politics and I go sit on, I do the Paul Ryan thing.

I just say, screw it. I go sit on boards and I make money. But I actually am not that worried about this margin in the house, especially because the Senate is going to act the way the Senate is supposed to act, which is that you're not going to get things through a democratic Senate. Um, and, and I think that, you know, that to me was the thing I was waiting for. I didn't really care about McCarthy in the house as much as I did to see which way the Senate was going to go. I mean, if you had to to ask Joe Biden, would you rather have the Senate or the House? There's no question about it. No question about it. I mean, especially with all of the appointments

and the judges, et cetera. So you, I wanted to ask you about one thing though. You, you were, you actually had an untypical for you moment of ebullience after the election, when you said that November has been a good month for democracy. But you also point out that this year's midterms was less a ringing victory triumph than America's Dunkirk, an improvised but crucial escape from disaster. So tell me about that analogy. Did you think of the election as Dunkirk? You had to know that any temporary moment of optimism was immediately, I was going to crush that and snuff it out and make sure that no one felt any joy. I thought of it as Dunkirk in that,

and I say in the piece, look, I don't like World War II metaphors. Nothing we do is as big as defeating the Axis, and sometimes it's overblown. But I wanted to get across the idea of if this one battle had gone wrong, everything else goes wrong down the line. You know, if the British had been destroyed at Dunkirk, they really are facing, you know, the need to surrender to Nazi Germany. You know, D-Day never happens. I mean, a lot of things that that miracle at Dunkirk sets the stage for the survival of Britain for the years to come ahead. And in the same way, I argued that 2022, and I do a little thought experiment, imagine that 2022 goes a different way. And that in 2024, you have a tight election, and Governor Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, and Governor Kerry Lake in Arizona, and Governor Tudor Dano in Pennsylvania, and Governor Kerry Lake in Arizona, and Governor

Tudor Dixon in Michigan, and Government Tim Michael in Wisconsin, all start getting on the phone with each other and saying, you know what, we're not going to certify any Democratic electors right now. We're going to let this thing go into chaos for weeks. We're going to, you know, our us and our weirdo secretaries of state, Mark Fincham and Christine Karamo and all the rest of these election deniers could have thrown the United States into violent chaos in 2024. None of that is going to happen. That doesn't mean 2024 is a cakewalk. It doesn't mean that, you know, the Democrats should sit back and say, you know, we fixed democracy. But the necessary precondition for anything like a fair fight in 2024 was that all of these election denying loons had to be defeated now. And they were.

And I think that's actually accurate because I think we had weeks of anticipating that this could have happened and what it meant for 2024. In fact, watching what's going on in Arizona right now, where again, Katie Hobbs is going to be the next governor. Kerry Lake was defeated. But giving us a taste of what election denialism might look like, you have state representatives who are saying that they're going to refuse to vote on anything unless they rerun the election. But the chairman of the Maricopa County Board has gone into hiding because of threats against his life, the potential for violence. This is an indication of what these folks had in mind for us. Absolutely. And why the danger hasn't passed. This is like Russia in the 90s, you know, with this kind of insane arguing and violence and weird coalitions popping up here

and there. But as you say, Charlie, this was the plan for 2024. It's this on a much grander scale. And we escaped that by the skin of our teeth because turnout wasn't great. But I just don't understand what it's going to take for Democrats to finally understand that they are a numerical majority and can swing a lot of elections. But be that as it may, we got those candidates. Those candidates were defeated. The voters got together and got the good candidates off the beach. And so we live to fight another day at the ballot box. Tom Nichols, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast. It's always fun.

Thanks for having me, Charlie. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio production by Jonathan Siri. I'm Charlie Sykes. Thank you for listening to today's Bulwark Podcast, and we'll be back tomorrow to do this all over again.