The Bulwark Podcast - Tom Nichols: Political Malpractice

Episode Date: July 1, 2024

All Americans who love this country and hate Donald Trump deserve answers about Thursday's abysmal performance—and how we are going to move forward. And do not answer our doubts about Biden and his staff with a MAGA-style blaming-the-press bit. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court recklessly assists Trump yet again, and Bannon goes to the big house. Tom Nichols joins Tim Miller. show notes: Mika Brzezinski on Joe Biden

Landlord telling you to just put on another sweater when your apartment is below 21 degrees? Are they suggesting you can just put a bucket under a leak in your ceiling? That's not good enough. Your Toronto apartment should be safe and well-maintained. If it isn't, and your landlord isn't responding to maintenance requests, RentSafeTO can help. Learn more at toronto.ca slash rentsafeTO. Hey, y'all. I just wanted to start by acknowledging we're going through some choppy waters right now. I'm thanking everybody for the notes, positive and negative. I really appreciate y'all on this platform. But before today's show, I wanted to share a little update about what to expect in this space the next few weeks.

On Thursday and Friday, 4th of July, I have some off-the-news interviews about race and culture and the economy with two amazingly smart people I hope you'll enjoy. We'll also have a check-in with Ben Wittes tomorrow about the Trump immunity ruling that's coming down right now as I'm talking. Other than that, between now and the RNC convention on July 15th, I'm going to be spending the preponderance of time on the urgent crisis in our democracy that is unfolding following last week's debate. And I want to be clear, this is a crisis, maybe the biggest of my lifetime. Having our democracy's bulwark, Joe Biden, the one man standing between us and Donald Trump's autocracy, demonstrate a complete inability to offer a coherent argument amidst

a campaign that he's already losing is a crisis. Having three and four Americans think that he doesn't have the cognitive ability to be president is a crisis. There are questions about whether he can go forward, whether he can be replaced. There are questions about how he'd be able to govern at the age of 86 if he won. There are the dire consequences if he or a replacement candidate loses. This is the political story of our time. I've heard from some folks that aren't interested in that, that they think everything's fine. They're riding with Biden and we should just focus on how Trump is bad. Well,

yeah, Trump is bad. He should drop out, but I'm sorry. The other part of the equation, putting our head in the sand, that's not happening here. This is a bullshit free zone.

So if you want an honest talk about the path forward, cool. If you don't, no shame in taking a little summer vacation. I'll see you back here July 15th for the Republican convention. One more thing. I heard her wise word of caution from maybe our most loyal and beloved listener. She said that while there's value, it's going to be tough for me and Tom today. Well, there's value shouting into the ether about how right we are in a world gone mad. There's more value in discussing the practical ways forward.

So I'm going to try my best to do that too. for being along for the ride up next the great tom nichols hello and welcome to the bulwark podcast i'm your host tim miller we got tom nichols here as i mentioned professor emeritus at the naval war college, staff writer at The Atlantic, author of The Atlantic Daily Newsletter. His books include The Deaths of Expertise, which now is an updated and expanded edition. What's happening, brother? Thanks for coming back. Hey, Tim. Good to be with you. Wish it were a different day, but different year, different place, but great to be hanging with you. Yeah, same. Okay. So, I gave a long intro about what's coming about the Joe Biden discussion, but I've got two other topics I want to hit on before we get to that, if that's all right with

you. One of them is just right in your wheelhouse for the death of expertise. And the other one is just, I feel like we've earned this. Despite the madness around us and the badness, there is something happening today that we can enjoy. Steve Bannon is going to jail. Steve Bannon is set to report to federal prison. Not too far from you. Maybe you could go visit him. Danbury, Connecticut. It's actually pretty much a hike. It is a hike. I'm here by the ocean and Danbury's out by the New York border. Not far enough for my taste, but, um, you know, it'd be worth it though. I hope he enjoys his time in the in the rolling hills of connecticut how do you feel about the uh about the ban and jailing i gotta tell you i have pure sean and freud which i like but while i'm giving unpopular takes i might as well start with this one the crimes he was pardoned for were maybe jailable i feel a little bit mixed about this

like should we really be putting i don know, okay, good. No, I mean, he and Navarro, you know, you're subpoenaed to appear in front of Congress. You can sit in front of Congress and say, I choose not to answer, go fly a kite, whatever it is. But Bannon and Navarro were trying to make the point that Congress isn't real and doesn't have that power. And it can't actually do any of that stuff. And they were counting on, you know, Trump somehow to get him out of that jam. I worked in Congress. Congress subpoenas you. There are plenty of other options besides just flipping the bird and saying Congress can't, Congress isn't the boss of me. And courts all the way up to the Supreme Court affirmed that you can't just, you just can't do that. And, you know, I know there are people out you can't just, you just can't do that.

And, you know, I know there are people out there saying, oh, four months, that's nothing. Let me tell you something. Two weeks in a federal prison would flip me out. I mean, my first boss of politics was a judge that was in the Marines. And he was explaining how he decided to go into the Marines. And he said that, you know, I figured that boot camp wouldn't be that long. And he's like, you don't realize how long a few weeks is until you live them one second at a time. That's kind of how jail experience is, I would imagine.

You know, four months in federal prison is, you know, that's no joke. And I think either the rule of law means something and our institutions I can understand that that people who feel let's try and be non-partisan not bipartisan but non-partisan I understand that there are people who could feel like you know this is just a circus and congress is just dragging me in here to yell at me okay but if it's a lawful subpoena and your lawyer has advised you yes congress can actually can actually do this, then you sit there and you fold your hands and you say, you know, whatever, Congressman. Yes, Congressman. No, Congressman. I choose not to answer, Congressman.

You get it over with and you go about your life. They wanted this show. This is the thing, I think, to understand. This is why I don't have the same why it's all schadenfreude and no regret the way you have. They chose this. They wanted to make this a circus. They wanted to plant a flag and say, look at me, I'm different. Well, okay, a bunch of courts have now said, nah, citizens of the United States, this is the law you did this you brought it on yourselves you know enjoy uh eating off trays for four months you're winning me over a little bit it's just my bleeding heart about i just i feel like we over jail a little bit but you're winning me over and and on top of that i'll even add to what you said we over jail the wrong people is what we do yeah that's true i just would add not only did want this, he kind of even wanted the jail thing.

Like if over on MAGA social media, like he right now is being valorized, right? You know, all great men went to jail once. And it's like, there's an element of this that they wanted. So, okay, well, you can get what you ask for. Fuck around and find out, as they say. I think both he and Navarro wanted the jail sentence and wanted it to be averted just as the prison door swung open. Right.

You know, but I think about, yeah, about three days from now, probably the same thing with Navarro that they're sitting there going, maybe, you know, all those people that are valorizing them are sleeping in their own beds tonight. Concur. Concur. Okay've i've changed my mind i want to i want to save the death of expertise question for dessert because we're going to need that the supreme court ruling obviously as i mentioned we're going to have a deeper dive in this with ben what is tomorrow with some time but saying is it's going to be the big news of the day and obviously acknowledging that you haven't had a chance to read it like any big picture thoughts you know, just how we got here with this delayed immunity ruling. I am not a lawyer and a constitutional expert. I did predict they would not everybody saw it's gonna be nine zero, and they're just dragging their feet and they're just holding on to it, but they're going to do the right thing. You know, no, I didn't expect that at all. I expected exactly this.

Some, you know, tripartite, you know, decision that then allows Trump to go back to court and basically never be charged. Because I already read part of Sotomayor's dissent. Sotomayor's dissent. I was just, why don't I just read it really quick and then you can weigh in because I was just looking at that. It was a six of three ruling, which you alluded to on straight partisan lines. It was, he has full immunity for official acts, right? But that he has no immunity for personal acts, which is, you know, a president can do anything, anytime, blah, blah, blah, Trump's position. But the nub of it is now we have to go back to court and say well what's an official act

i mean president's already had immunity for things that presidents do if he signs legislation right you can't then sue him for being criminal this now says it goes back to the droning question right like the obama drone situation like that so that's an official act yeah so here's sotomayor's dissent this shields presidents from criminal and treasonous acts and makes a mockery of the principle foundational to our constitution and system of government that no man is above the law she said with fear for our democracy i i dissent she goes on and lists the criminal acts that presidents can now take with immunity and says that in some ways the president's now a king above the law you know uh let's see uh takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon is one of these examples immune organizes a military coup to hold on to power immune

pretty alarming dissent and she goes on even if these nightmare scenarios never play out and i pray they never do the damage has been done wow yeah well especially if he's re-elected these drama queens saving this thing for the last day this is something that has bugged me for a long time like that it's like the supreme court is we're non-political we're non-partisan we're these nine people in robes above the law and for fucking 20 years now maybe this goes back further but just in my lifetime of paying attention to this it's always like we're going to save the most dramatic you know biggest decision for the last day you know we don't want all this unseemly political attention pay attention to us now yeah first of all they should never have taken the case i'm just going to say dc district court

speaking as a layman trump's whole argument was ridiculous supremes probably should have never touched it you know we affirm the lower court bye-bye but if they were going to take it if they released it on the first day that's all anybody would have talked about and maybe that was you know well maybe they thought they were doing a you know were they doing a public service by not sucking all the oxygen out of the term i That's absurd. Tim, I'm working on, you know, the most, you know, work with me here, man. I'm trying to find a decent explanation. You're trying to give some person somewhere the benefit of the doubt. Exactly.

I mean, what are you going to say next? That what? That they would leak controversial decisions just to see what happens? I mean, come on, man. I guess I'm just saying I'm not the Scooby-Doo investigator on that, but I do think with all we've learned from Martha An and alito i think that uh i've got a suspect let me just say i've got a suspect for the leaks i am not a lawyer or a detective shaggy um but yes i have a particular suspect in mind myself and the the reason I still maintain that theory is, boy, no one's

really put a lot of effort into figuring this out. It's like, there's only nine of us and we're just never going to know. Who can tell? And who could it have been? Who could it have been? Well, we will have much, much more on this with Ben with us tomorrow. But once again, the final three categories was full immunity for core constitutional functions, presumed immunity for official acts, oh boy, and no immunity for non-official acts. So much more here. And really, the main takeaway is this delay and now creating something that's gonna have to go back to the circuit courts. And this is what we'll be talking about with Ben. But boy, it just it gets

harder and harder to think that Trump will be on trial this year. They found a way to do it. They said functional immunity for Trump, but no immunity for anybody for any decent person who ever becomes president again. They figured out how to thread that needle, which is exactly what I was worried they would do. They're not saying Trump has immunity for whatever he did. They're saying, we don't know. You're going to have to send it back to the court, which is they have decided six of them found a way to protect Trump, give him functional immunity. Again, layman's view of this and basically no immunity ever for any same normal person who would ever hold the office again.

All right. Are you ready to talk about Joe Biden? Will you shut up, man? Yes. That's what we've both been getting for two days, for all weekend. Will you shut up? Shut up. Shut up. Be quiet. Yes, I'm ready to talk about Joe Biden. So, yeah, my article this morning, and you can take this. We'll do this Socratic. We'll just sort of bounce things off each other and, and see how we get because there's

a lot to go through. But my article this morning, it starts with a baseline, which is stop the gas lighting, the Dems out saying things like, Oh, Reagan and Obama had a bad debate. No, this was nothing like that. It was one bad night. No, it was not one bad night. He had a cold, maybe but colds don't make you incapable of making arguments. It was gish galloping. Like that's the stupidest shit I've ever heard. Did you see how great he was at Raleigh the next day? I guess, but he's on teleprompter. So there's this whole list of all these things about how you should just be quiet and get in line. I don't think that's the path to success. I think people who are not on politics Twitter

are seeing reality and we should think about what they're seeing. I think people who are not on politics, Twitter are seeing reality and we should think about what they're seeing. But anyway, what are your thoughts? Well, as I wrote on Friday, I said, look, I don't want to have these endless, because I think one of the things that's most frustrating about politics, Twitter and blue sky and all of it is, well, he's been a good president. I like him. He's better than Trump. Yes, yes, yes. Thank you. That's all irrelevant to the question right now. My question was, can he win an election now? Is he electable? And I'm, you know, I'm making the same argument about Biden that I made for him

in 2020 when people from left-wing Twitter were jumping all over me. Biden can't win. Biden is the weakest candidate. I said, no, he's the most, he is clearly the most electable candidate. And I'm willing to believe that he is electable and can beat Trump. But my confidence in that has been shaken. I think the campaign needs, and this is where I dovetail now with the kind of arguments you're making. The campaign needs to show that instead of of just saying don't believe your lying eyes i haven't called on biden to step down i firmly am in the camp of people saying look we need to have an argument about this we need to air this and we need to do it now and not in october it's

a great point and we should get talked because that goes to the it was not one bad night side of the gaslighting. Let's just stop with that. Okay, stop. All right. If you want to make the case that Joe Biden is still the best bet because the other alternatives are worse or chaos. And I want to go through all of those. But we have to dispense with the it was one bad night.

It was not. And stop with the Reagan stuff. Reagan was 18 points ahead. And Reagan looked great. I went and rewatched 1984, the Reagan debate. And I have the video in my article today, which we'll put in the show notes if folks want to do this for themselves. Reagan was halting at times. You could tell that he was either nervous or maybe, you know, he was starting to decline a little bit.

And he wasn't at the peak of his powers. You know, it doesn't look like the great Reagan that we see sometimes. But he also was coherent. In the one clip I put, he pulls this Abraham Lincoln quote out of the air to respond to something that Montale had said. He makes very nuanced arguments. It was not at all comparable in style and substance or in context. As you mentioned, he was up in the race to what's happening in this race. He was 18 points ahead, and he loses like 40% of that. I was told there'd be no math, but whatever percentage, seven points, he loses seven points, you know, in one shot. And yes, he can get it back. The problem for the campaign is, and I said this in my piece, this is about as good as Joe Biden's going to get.

Yes, he will be great in front of teleprompters. So was Reagan. This is where I'm going to invoke the privilege of age and say, I was in my 20s, you know, when Reagan was president. And even those of us who loved him as president, you know, we were young conservative Reaganites. Reagan would come out, do a press press conference they'd ask him something and all of us together would join him in that little verbal stumble he'd do of going you know right and he'd always gather in his thoughts it's like the lawnmower warm you know in the head the head would kind of buy like i've been a room full

of young Republican guys. And we even we made fun of him. Mr. President, what do you think about this? You'd hear the whole room go. Because, OK, that's how he was. But we thought, you know, still still better than the alternatives. Still going to vote for him. that the campaign so hermetically sealed Biden from any of these moments of looking old in the way the Reagan campaign didn't, that it was a shock to go from, you know, the public Joe to

the debate Joe. And this is the point I want to make, and then I'll shut up. They didn't need to do that. It wasn't necessary. Biden should have come out for the past two years saying, wow, you know, am I tired? Or, you know, geez, you know, I just flew in from the NATO summit and, you know, I need my nappy time. I mean, there are ways to make self-deprecating jokes about being old. And God knows, you know, I'm in my 60s now. I make a few of them myself. But I think this goes back to being a senator, not a president. Senators don't really have advisors. They have staff. And they do what they want. You know, and you just don't contradict. And even the best senators, and I worked for one of the best, they develop a kind of mindset about this. And I think he's just not being well served by

that. And so none of this was necessary the america's full of grown-ups at least some who could handle that joe biden is getting old that he doesn't sound like himself but the time to unveil that was not the debate and that it was just political malpractice down the line speaking of political malpractice that's what i want to get to next because this is the thing that pisses me off the most because i i'm more towards the side of Joe Biden needs to get out of this race than you. And we can talk about that a little bit. But let's just say that's not going to happen. The thing I'm the most adamant and most outraged about right now is if he's going to stay,

they need to acknowledge how catastrophic that debate was, how bad the situation they're in is, and start acting differently and change the campaign trajectory. Instead, here's Axios. Based on conversations with top officials and advisors, here's Biden's survival strategy. One, dismiss bedwetting. Attack the pundits who are criticizing him. Two, squeeze polls for juice. Look for any evidence that he didn't go down that much. Three, warn of chaos. That's a not- a not so subtle attack on kamala harris four limit dissent five keep elected leaders close six tell the donor class to chill out seven prove vitality interesting that's number seven eight ignore the media that shit is fucking insulting okay that is insulting to all of us anybody that wants joe biden to win okay anybody that that loves this

country and hates donald trump and wants joe biden to win what joe biden needs to do is not attack the what they say over the self-important yeah attacking the self-important podcasters it's not attack the media it's not attack james carville all right like that we're not the problem like the thing that joe biden needs to do is demonstrate to all the people that are legitimately it's not attack the media. It's not attack James Carville. All right. Like we're not the problem. Like the thing that Joe Biden needs to do is demonstrate to all the people that are legitimately worried that he is up for this. Okay. They need to get him out there and attack Donald Trump. Instead, he was doing a weekend photo shoot with Annie Leibovitz on Sunday. What is happening right now? Well, two things. One is when you say that he's up for this, when I say up for this, I mean, the campaign that defeats Donald Trump. You know, everybody's worried about the 3 a.m. phone call.

Hey, pretty much anybody over 45 has got to worry about a 3 a.m. phone call. You're not at all worried about Joe Biden being president in 2028? A little bit. I think it's a little bit presumptuous for pro-democracy people to be like, you know, it's fine. It'll be fine. We can just have shadow President Jill Biden and Ron Klain in 2028. Yeah, no, I definitely have worries about it. You know, an 86-year-old president. Yeah, I'm not happy about it. But if it gets down to election day and my choice is between an old guy who's going to need a team of people around him, you know, during a crisis that I will trust, or someone who is, you know, mentally unstable, and an autocrat with lunatics around him, of course, lunatics around him, exactly, you know, like, okay, well, I take doddering old Joe Biden

with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, or will I take, you know, crazy pants, Trump with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, or will I take, you know, crazy pants Trump with Secretary of Defense Kash Patel? As I said in my article, not even going to think twice about it. I definitely have concerns about his health and his acuity, as I would with any older man in the presidency, especially now after the debate where, you know, he looks like an older man. So back to the campaign side of it, though. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, so stipulated that I have those, those concerns, but not enough to sway me off of, you know, thinking that he's the better choice. And so now I want to go back to where I really agree with you, which is the campaign's approach to this, which is all is well, these are not the droids you're looking for is not only insulting it's

panicky and it's stupid i mean this is just such a bad staff environment and again i think it's i think it's the extension of a senate staff not a president's staff this is the thing i'm wondering during the campaign prep let's just kind of focus in on that for a moment. I had this image in my head of like a half a dozen people, at least half of them, you know, 30-ish or 40-ish going, now, Mr. President, remember, you've really got to hit this thing about Pell Grants because that's what the students are tuning in for. Right. At that point, the chief of staff or the oldest guy in the room or the guys in charge of this should have said, you, you and you get out and then close the door and say, Joe, you've debated this guy twice. You know what he is. Take a rest, you know, spend a day with gel, rest up, read the Sunday papers, do whatever it is you do and then kick his ass. And they didn't do that. And that is just

malpractice. Now now whether maybe that's maybe that's the president's fault maybe he said hey uh you know i need to go out there and really know those celsius temperature targets for climate but i doubt that i mean you remember that tim right he's i mean trump is going out about i you know i am jesus christ i will I shall smite the earth. And Biden's standing there going, we're within 1.2 Celsius. And I'm going, what the fuck is this? What are you talking about? And they asked for this, by the way. This is the thing. The other thing I was going to say, the campaign is putting all this out and saying, it's got to be like this. And we're going to jump. Oh, by the way, in going after the media think jonathan martin had a great point over the weekend where he said great so all of the democratic elected pauls are

whispering to the media so that they can be the bullet catchers for biden's anger because the media is not making this up this is the thing that drives me that's crazy okay we're pausing this for one second because i have to rant about this this whole fucking thing that it's like oh it's only the pundits and the bedwetting class that are concerned about this the real people out in america and the elected officials who love joe biden are standing by him bullshit yeah that's bullshit i'm damn near close to starting to leak my texts from fucking democratic politicians by the way because democratic politicians sound exactly like I do. And like the pods of America guys do. And like you, like, and Mediasat, no matter where you are in the political spectrum, Bill Kristol to Mediasat to James Carville,

these guys, the politicians sound exactly like all of them. It's just, we don't have to talk to voters and we don't have future like careers to worry about. So we can just say the truth. Okay. And by the way, the people in my life who are the least political also sound exactly like us right like so give me a break with this i will just say the only person i talked to when i wrote my piece on friday was my wife and what was her take what was her take he did she think he sounded great it was just one bad night she wouldn't watch it and. And the next morning. Yeah, exactly. The next morning she got up. She turned on, what did she turn on?

She turned on Morning Joe, I think. And she said, I could tell from the look on everybody's faces. I knew what happened without even seeing a bit of it. And then, you know, she watched some clips. I had one of these grifting influencers reply to me with a video. And it's like politics girl. And she was like, we have to get in line because our rights are a threat and this democracy isn't threatened i couldn't even watch the debate it doesn't matter and i'm like the fact that you couldn't watch the debate like tells you everything

you need to know okay that is so revealing oh yeah well you know just for the record my wife is always my best editor and so i'm just i didn't have a whole phone full of, you know, freaked out Democrats. But the idea that the only people who had any concerns about this were, you know, as somebody one of my favorites over the weekend, somebody said, the only people care about this are pundits scum like you. You know, I'm like, yeah, OK. Yeah. Now, let me drag somebody else in. I think it was David French who said a lot of normal people had a real concern about that because we have elderly parents. You know, we know what they look like. My father lived to be 94. My father at 94 could have, you know, probably done a better job than Biden did with that debate. And I would certainly have trusted my dad to be president more than Joe Biden. But you don't get anywhere by simply saying, everybody shut up. Everybody, you know, get in line. Everybody just blame this on Mucinex and the CNN makeup room.

That's another one. I'm like, come on, man, you guys sound like, I mean, you really do sound like Trumpers when you do that. Just say, look, our guys, fake news media, don't listen to the fake news media. Don't listen to the polls. Don't listen to the focus groups. Don't listen to your friends. You got to start doing the hands. Don't listen to the polls. It was the lighting. It was the makeup. It was the, you know, just say, just say it. Our guy is a good guy, right? If you're a Democrat, our guy's a good guy. He's had a great first term. He's old. He loses a step. He's had some bad days, but he's still the better choice. And yeah, it was, you know, we get it. You're all scared.

It's miserable. Instead, they do the conference call. I don't know if you saw this over the weekend, Tim, but they tried to do a DNC conference call. And they took no questions and turned off the chat function. Great. Yeah. And it's like, hi, I'm here to reassure you. Sit quietly.

I'm going to date myself now, but it's like the outer limits control voice. Do not adjust your set. You know, we will control the vertical. We will control the horizontal. You know, it's like, just sit quietly for the next 60 seconds. You can't do that. I mean, people are calling up saying what the hell just happened. And your answer is all as is well and also i will be taking no questions i always take no questions and i also will be doing nothing to demonstrate the things are better i'm not like the malpractice of this just as a comms person is you have this absolute crisis and then he doesn't go out he hasn't done any interviews he hasn't demonstrated he hasn't done

anything to even try to assuage any concerns and and maybe that's because he can't or maybe it's because they have hubristic petulant anti-media bunker mentality it's both of those and both of those are terrible just to wrap up one thing about it the people that are accusing you especially i know what you've been going through for the past couple of days so that just i'm a big boy i appreciate it but i know i know but i don't have to like it either. You know, maybe part of the argument for having this argument is this is how candidates get better. This is how campaigns get better. You take your lumps, you fire some people, you have a come to Jesus meeting and you say,

okay, we can't go on this way. Because I think one thing that's clear is, hey, if Joe Biden comes out tomorrow and says, look, this discussion's over, I'm never leaving the race. I'm in this until I keel over, whether that's tomorrow or 10 years from now. Great. Then let's go back to the argument about who the better candidate is, which I think is a no brainer. But to simply say, we're going to march on as if nothing happened, that's just not an option. You brought up an important point about how the only reason we had this debate in June was because of these strategists, right? The Biden strategists came up with a plan,

and they were concerned. Why were they concerned? Because they're losing. And they were like, okay, our theory of the case is, if we have have an early debate that's going to focus the minds of the voters they will see that joe biden's up for it and they will be reminded that donald trump is a crazy lunatic that was their strategy and it just blew up in the most catastrophic way possible so then to tell us that oh the debate doesn debate doesn't matter, or, oh, we should just ignore it. It's like, no, it was you guys that told us we need to have this early debate to address Joe Biden's problems, and your plan failed. And so now you got to tell us what's the new plan, not just like, oh, it's cool, don't worry about it. Right. When people say, oh, it's just one night and debates don't matter. And let's just move on. Well, I'm sorry. Focusing on the debate as a crucial inflection point was your idea, right?

You know, as media hacks or whatever we're supposed to be, you told us to focus on this debate as the turning point. That's why you put it in June. You thought that this was going to be, that this was D-Day, that Trump was going to finally self-destruct, Biden was going to look strong. And really everything that happens over the summer wasn't going to matter anymore. And so you can't just turn around now and say, again, pay no attention. These are not the droids. It wasn't one night. It was the implosion of a strategy and again who thought this was a good idea this is the come to jesus moment in a campaign and i would say this

about any campaign by the way i'm gonna stop and rant for a minute can we just stop with this shit about why are people calling trump to step down okay step down step down done called for it trump should not be running for president he should be in prison he should step down step down done called for it trump should not be running for president he should be in prison he should step down you know we should get out of scroll tom nichols professor emeritus naval war college tim miller bulwark podcast host officially call for donald trump to step out of the race are you happy one of the funniest guys i know on twitter guy guy who follows me on twitter said this is going to be a military analogy. After Kasserine passed, sure, you call for our guy to step down, but you didn't call for Rommel to step down. You know, he's not going to do it.

We have to beat him. Just take the Trump campaign as like the weather, you know, or as a rock formation. And maybe that's a good thing because while it's not going to get any smaller, it probably can't get any bigger. You can beat him. My concern is not people going from Biden to Trump. It's people going through all the stuff you just talked about and saying, you know what? Everybody sucks. Politics sucks. Biden sucks. Trump sucks. I'm going to stay home. And 100,000 people in four states decide to do that and it's all over. That's the other thing I think that a lot of the people yelling at us don't understand. You're not

playing for millions of votes because it all started to come out again. Well, you know, the popular vote and millions of people, I don't care about any of that stuff. Can the Democratic candidate sew up 271 electoral votes? Yes or no? If you can, great. If you can't, or if you think you can't, or it's starting to look like you can't, then you need to do something. And by the way, what was up with the campaign sending around that chart? Did you see it? Attacking the other Democratic candidates, potential candidates. Who poll within two points of Biden against Trump. They all pulled the same they put out a chart thinking it was like oh see how much better joe biden is but it was all it was

all within margin of error it's like why are you attacking kamala harris and gretchen whitmer right now you should be attacking trump you shouldn't be attacking the fucking podcasters and kamala harris but also it's not a good attack it wasn't a good argument it's like look at all these other people who would do just as well against trump as jo Biden. Wait, what? That's not, I don't think that's the argument. That's yeah, that's the argument you don't want to make. This is where I worry not just about Joe Biden in the campaign, but oh my God, this staff malpractice from top to bottom makes me worry. Can this staff handle a campaign? Because so far their instincts are just terrible. I think they've been coasting too long on Donald Trump is nuts. And that's a fine point to make. I intend

to make it many. We talk about that quite a bit around here. I talk about it every day. But you know that somehow saying that they're, you know, therefore, we don't have to give an effective press briefing. You know, it's just it's just not a real campaign that way it's not a real alternative to a campaign a young data analyst guy i really like like shia jane he's not he hasn't gotten fully brain damaged like like nate silver sometimes he's a straight shooter and he has a post split ticket we'll put it in the show notes i like the guys over at split ticket and um it's uh the case for keeping with jo with Joe Biden and the case for moving to Kamala Harris. And it's just a straight data-based argument.

And on the case for Joe Biden, he writes this, which is, I think, kind of compelling, but it goes to your concern about people staying home. And he looked at the CBS poll over the weekend that showed that only 27% think that Joe Biden is cognitively capable of being president. Pretty concerning number. But he points out that in February, it was only 35%. And that the drop from 35 to 27 is mostly among Democrats, probably people that are going to hold their nose and vote for him anyway, because the orange ban is bad. So the point that he makes is that this is kind of baked in already,

Biden's age, and people, you know, have accepted that this is their shitty choice and so the unknown of what would happen if he dropped is maybe a risk not worth taking he goes on there's there's more to it than that i don't know i'm not that compelled by it but it's it's a fair point what do you think about the case for for biden's The thing I said on Friday was, you know, because when I was trying to kind of talk this through with some of my colleagues and I was like, OK, what am I really talking about here? You know, maybe do we walk through how it actually happens? You know, I've been wrestling with that.

And I got to that point in the piece and I said, this is where I always freeze about this question of what happens, you know, after Biden steps down. Let's also point out, he would have to step down. You cannot take the nomination from, and I don't think any party should. I mean, he's earned those delegates and they're his to release or keep. But Kamala Harris is a structural lock on this process. And I suspected that this would be the case when he chose her in 2020, because I don't care that people are going to yell at me. You don't like her. I just don't think she's good at this. You can ask her what time it is and you can see she is so political

that you can see her workshopping the question in her head. know matter by what time is it well you know this administration cares about watches tim and and we've always thought about time pieces as an important part of the american experience because you know and you just say just stop you know with all that said if you could show me that she does better again i'm all about the electability just show me who gets the 271 i don't think it's her at this point, or maybe it is, but it's a structural block where Biden said two years ago, because certainly two years ago, you could not make the case that she could pull it off. So Biden says, well, I guess I just have to run. Trump's running again. You know, nobody in Biden world really has that much faith in her. And so this this moment we're dealing with now

became inevitable. So I'm leaning toward Yes, you know what, this is baked in. We're all strapped in this. This is a discussion probably should have been having a year ago. But I still maintain that if we're going to talk about the Democratic nominee and air this freak out, do it now. Get the issues out there. And the campaign, as you pointed out, should say to people, we get it. We get that. We're going to fix some of this stuff. We can't fix it all because Joe Biden's going to be Biden and let Reagan be Reagan. But do it now in July, because if this happens again and you have to do it again in September or October, then it's over. That's one of my lead cases against Biden.

It's like the serious, like, why don't you think he won't have something like this happen in October? And if so, then it's curtains. It's going to happen again. Everybody should just accept that. So your point about how we should have been having this conversation a year ago. I do think it merits mentioning that my, because I was more torn on this question, frankly. And so, you know, my colleagues, Bill Kristol and Charlie Sykes, actually were having this conversation a year ago and got a lot of negative feedback from people about it. So, including me. Yeah. So, I think they deserve at least a note of acknowledgement

on that front. I want to move to the common question, but actually, just to be fair, I would like to play, Mika Brzezinski gave a pretty full-throated argument on the side of staying the course with Biden this morning on Morning Joe. And so I'd like to listen to that and respond to that, then talk about the Kamala question. After Thursday's abysmal debate performance, President Biden finds himself at rock bottom again. It was bad. And again, a chorus of Biden doubters. My family and I, as you know, have known this man for decades and his family as well. And yes, I know them personally. And I still believe in Joe Biden. I've learned that counting him out is always a mistake. And doing that now could be catastrophic for our country.

Do there need to be changes? Yes. Managing him. Management to his schedule. Changes maybe even to those around him. also say America needs an explanation from Joe Biden and reassurance that the other night was a one-time event and not part of a larger problem. Goes on. I'll put a longer version in the show notes. She does about eight minutes of all Joe Biden's comebacks. It was a little provdy for me, but maybe that's right. I don't know. Joe Biden's been knocked down and he gets back up. What do just say, look, you know, yeah, he's 81. So he sounds now. Maybe firing some people. Again, I think that the debate was a real flashing red siren that there are people around Joe Biden

who shouldn't be around Joe Biden. But this kind of hunkering down, I think, isn't going to serve them well as a political campaign. But the thing about Joe's comebacks, yeah, I mean, the guy, you know, the guy's been trying for 35 years to be president, and he made it. And I think he's persevered. I mean, you look at the primary, right, where it was like, well, Joe Biden's dead, three primaries in and then, you know, rolls to victory. I think he has a lot more support among the normals than a lot of people realize. And I think that's obscured by kind of the really screechy activist types who both love

him and hate him. I think that it was true at one point, but I think it's an open question about whether it still is. For anybody who follows me on social media knows I'm obsessed with this. My husband, I literally can't talk about anything else but this. I'm like consumed by this, what's happening right now. Lucky him. I know, lucky him. And so literally I've been asking strangers. You know, we went to a little music festival.

We went to the dinner. We were at a kid's birthday party. And I'm just going up to strangers. This isn't a real focus group. I'm just making sure I'm not losing my mind. I'm like, what did you think about Biden on Thursday and everybody every race every income scale everyone you respond to is like they were horrified right like I think that they like Joe Biden you know again I'm not asking MAGA people but like you know they like

Joe Biden but they're horrified so I it's a different i have one outlier years ago give me the outlier i'd love to hear an outlier well and also i have to say my um sympathies to your husband because my wife you know i come downstairs and i pop down on the couch and i pick up the remote and she's like watching the bear or she's watching you know she's binging the good wife or something i'm like listen i gotta turn the news on and she her head just kind of falls, you know, and she's like, I get it. I know it's your job, but you know, like, and then she's like, I'm going to go watch TV upstairs. So, uh, you know, it's, it's stressing everyone's relationships. Tim is the bear back out. And I need that. I might watch the bear tonight. I've never seen it. She loves it. She adores it. It's a good show. I need a break mentally. The one outlier I was,

I had coffee with a friend the other day, retired military guy. And he was, he's like, he hates Trump. And he thinks, you know, he's not a fan of Joe Biden. Right. But he's one of these dragging himself out, I guess, you know, but because he would know he's, he's as close to a kind of a never Trumper friend as I as I have. I saw a text from him during the debate. And I thought, he's just calling me up to say, see, I told you, he said, and he went, okay, he said, but the answers make more or less make sense. And a lot of the stuff he's saying is, you know, clear enough. And I mean, he just sort of said, okay, you know, bad, but not horrible. And kind of just, again, he kind of priced in Biden's age. So I was really shocked.

I'm like, cause I'm the one saying to him, no, no, this is a disaster. This is the Hindenburg. Oh, the humanity right in front of us, you know? And he's like, eh, okay. He's like, but Trump's nuts. And this isn't really changing my mind about anything. And I'm going to go for John. I thought, okay, that is a really interesting outlier of somebody who does not like Joe Biden, but doesn't like Trump, but it finds Trump unacceptable. And I just thought it was an interesting outlier. Okay.

I'm open to outliers. I didn't find any in my spur of the moment focus-moment focus groups on the streets in New Orleans. But, you know, that's not real data. Okay, but my wife would not let me do what you're doing. If I turned to somebody in a restaurant and I said, hey, by the way. Literally. Ask Tyler. He did not let me do it either.

He was just like, will you shut up? And I was like, I can't. I can't think about anything else. Anyway, the case against Joe Biden. I just want to get back to the comma thing one more time. Here's back to like Shia Jane. Poll after poll suggests Biden's biggest weakness is among core Democratic constituencies. I've been saying this. It's not never Trump versus time. It's not the suburban college educated vote. It's young and non-white voters. He goes on. Nobody credible can say that Trump is likely to win black or young

voters outright, but it's exceedingly clear that Biden is struggling to recreate these parts of his 2020 coalition. Is it not possible that Kamala Harris is most likely a replacement and really the only real replacement? We'll have a longer discussion about this tomorrow on tomorrow's podcast, but process-wise, in theory, you could get somebody else, but Kamala is much cleaner than anything else for a variety of reasons so that most likely replacement wouldn't she have some upside with those voters uh could the data for progress polls found ferris harris's net favorable rating to be better than biden's maybe she wouldn't have some of the gaza baggage i don't know i mean i think that's a legitimate argument well i have two reactions to that one is yes it could be except that she is just so bad at politics that that's all a notional advantage until she gets up and starts talking though i mean she was much better and i reject

your outlier friends notion that but the substance of biden's comments were good i encourage people to read the transcript if they agree with that but she was she was much better than him and again it wasn't the debate less pressure etc but there's kind of some pressure as a vp after just the disastrous debate she's got to go out and do the tv rounds and she was pretty good it wasn't barack obama wasn't ronald reagan but it was it was fine you know and i also accept that that's why my friend that's why i called him an outlier because that is really an outlier um but it happened it's a real thing that happened yeah i agree i saw her afterwards and i said, okay, this is kind of, this is a better Kamala Harris. I still carry a lot of baggage from that first debate. Don't like the way she did that.

And I, I just don't think she's good on the stump. I don't think she's good at retail politics. With all that said, maybe she is the strongest one, but I want to go to the second thing, which is, this is where I'll talk to you in former Republican mode. Right. We used to count on this as. Let me just say to the Democratic base, Republicans count on you to be purity testing weak sisters who will defect at the drop of a hat. I mean, they're not even they're not even a base. They're kind of a base. They're sort of presumptive voters. It amazes me how willing Democrats are, and I still think this

as an independent. It amazed me, and it was something we counted on as Republicans, that they always eat their young and create the circular firing squads. I find it astonishing that there are young people whose futures are on the line, who think that because Joe Biden isn't the president of Israel and couldn't run the Israeli war in Gaza, that therefore it is worth instituting an autocracy in America that will take away their rights for the next 40 years of their lives. I can't grok that. If you think that's bad, I saw a TikTok influencer, James Charles, had like 3 million views for a TikTok about how Joe Biden, it's Joe Biden's fault that

Roe v. Wade was overturned. And so that's enough to make you want to just jump off a ceiling. Jump off a roof, I guess want to just jump off a ceiling jump off a roof i guess you can't jump off a ceiling jump off it hit the roof jump off the ceiling it's it's late in the interview we're getting bad metaphor uh fails but but you know that or the story about black farmers who blame biden because republicans somehow did you see this story in the times it was like you know saying biden hasn't helped us. Maybe we should think about Trump. Well, he hasn't helped them because the two times Biden tried to do relief, an advocacy group involved with Stephen Miller basically took them to court and jammed the thing up.

And it's like, it's like the people who say, well, Joe Biden was president, as you just pointed out, Joe Biden was president when Roe v. Wade was overturned. It must have been his fault. I don't know what you do with that. And I don't know what you do with a base that is so micro-targeted on particular issues that they say, if I don't get my thing, whether it's Gaza or student loans or green policy or whatever it is, that therefore I'm going defect defect by just not showing up and if a fascist shows up and takes power well that'll teach you because there's always that element

under it right it's like well we'll teach you a lesson we'll let an authoritarian take power it's like dude you're not going to teach me a lesson yeah no or me it's all flabbergasting uh one more on this then we'll get to the dessert that I promised. I may maybe have to do a little mea culpa on the Robert Herr thing. And I think this has been lost in the conversation, like putting my old Republican oppo hat on. One of the big things happening over in MAGA circles that you might not know if you're not paying attention to Fox News is they've been agitating for Merrick Garland to release the tapes of Joe Biden's interviews with Robert Herr. And to me, that seemed like a stupid stunt, still is kind of a stupid stunt. But this is what's coming, by the way, when people do the one bad night thing, like there are all these other ancillary things that I think the shock of Thursday has prevented people from

thinking through logically, the Robertd tapes issue becomes very real, I think. And if they are released, my guess is that they sound a lot like what Thursday night sounded like. Yeah. I'll say this about, I saw like Nixon here, right?

Let me say this about that, but I'll say this with the Robert Hurd report. It wasn't his job to reach those conclusions. It wasn't. I mean, fine. Her once talked to reporters and said, ah, the president, you know, I thought the president was out of it. Well, you know, it's unprofessional. But, you know, I'm a little tired, especially after we were all gaslit by the bar bowdlerizing of the Mueller report for these prosecutors to say, well, let me just do one other thing that

isn't really my job here. You were not hired to evaluate Joe Biden's mental competence. I think your overall point, Tim, is the Thursday debate broke the dam about this, where now it's fair game to talk about this. Because up until then, you know, you didn't, you could just say, well, he's an old guy, he's going to have these moments. Thursday, I think, made it so that there might be people outside of Fox News who say, yeah, you know, I'd like to hear those two. Lastly, we'll get back to the dessert, the death of expertise. I just I needed to do this when when I had Tom Nichols on here in Louisiana. There's been a lot of discussion about the 10 commandments going on the walls of schools. And I've got thoughts on that. But I think it feels a little less important than some of these other bills that were passed

under the radar regarding vaccines. Are you ready for this? Buckle up, Tom. Just in this session in Louisiana, these are laws that have passed and been signed by Governor Jeff Landry. Restricts the state from enforcing any rules put out by the World Health Organization. Funds a study on unexpected deaths of under two-year-olds and whether vaccines are to blame investigates the origins of autism prohibits vaccine requirements in schools

there are a few other ones uh vaccine exemption requests at schools have gone up like 100 percent in the last two years in louisiana schools so it's it's the the republican crazy continues apace while we deal with the joe biden crisis as they say in a famous movie why you do this to me dimmy what's so interesting about it is i mean these are the people that used to call me when i worked in politics and say is your boss part of the trilateral commission have you met with the bilderbergs the bilderbergers oh my god yeah yeah but unfortunately those people are now running louisiana so that's kind of a problem Have you met with the Bilderbergs? The Bilderbergs. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. But unfortunately, those people are now running Louisiana. So that's kind of a problem.

They're running Louisiana. And all of these, all this legislation is, it's not just ignorance and paranoia. There's also a huge element of narcissism in it, right? I mean, I'm always going off about narcissism because it's like only we know we've figured it out here in baton rouge that you know the billions of people taking vaccines are all sheeple it's a performative jerkitude you know it's like here we're going to pass this bill and maybe kill some of our children because we're so desperate to be in the national news saying fuck you we'll show you anthony fauci we're bringing measles mumps and rubella back to shreveport right right i mean you know whooping cough is the roar

of freedom now there is this kind of problem of unrequited hate that is making these demonstrative performative things happen remember the scene in uh Mad Men where the guy gets on the elevator with Don Draper and he says, he's just been fired and Draper's ruined his life. He says, Don, I feel sorry for you. Draper's looking up at the elevator and he says, I don't think about you at all. I think there are a lot of people who say, okay, well, I'll make you think about me by giving my kids rubella. You know, there is this desperate pay attention to me thing going on. And it's like, this isn't

about what people in San Francisco, or Washington or New York think about you. This is about protecting your children from childhood scourges. And yet you're so mad about this. You're so wrapped up in, you know, the Fox and OAN and talk radio world that you actually think passing a bill to hurt your own kids is going to make Don Draper say, okay, now I see you now. You've hurt me now. It is a really weird dynamic that has all this kind of insecurity in it. They remind me of Russians in a way. I told Russians years ago before things got really bad, they were like, you in the West. I said, listen, we in the West would be happy never to pay attention to you again as long as you leave other people alone. Just don't invade your neighbors.

No one's trying to take away your nukes. We want to do business with you. We want to build hotels here. We want to visit. I have a great love for Russia. My daughter's a Russian. But we don't want to have constant arguments with you. Just leave fucking neighbors alone, and we won't think about you at all. I think that was the wrong thing to say because you can almost see them going, no, we want you to think about us. We want you to think

about us every day. We want to matter to you. And I'm like, why can't you just not matter? Why can't you just leave people alone? And I think it's exactly the same dynamic. We will pass crazy bills because experts and bureaucrats and other people, we're going to hurt our own children if that's what it takes to show that we are, you know, flying the Gadsden flag of crazy down here. I don't understand how anybody would do that to their own kids. Yeah, I 100% agree with that. And there is no equivalency here. But I think that there's a lesson also from some on the left, some I've been hearing from. This whole question that we're discussing right now about Joe Biden is also not about sticking it to the media people that have been mean to him or sticking it to the MAGA or whatever. The goal we have right now is defeating Trump.

We need to be clear eyed about it and not petulant. And by the way, that's going to be me. It's not personal. It's not personal. It's not about me. It not about joe biden it's not about jill biden it's about protecting the democracy figuring out the best way to do it sometimes you got to eat a little shit i've eaten plenty of shit over the years show up no matter how this all turns out joe's staying in joe's getting out whatever it is in the end as long as you're in the big coalition that says donald trump can't be president you know fine we'll work it out show up focus on that yeah and don't like you know impugn the motives of others that are that are trying to figure out the way to do it as well um okay

that has been a good show i've got an update for tomorrow a little tease for tomorrow's show i have a text from benjamin wittis following the supreme court ruling. This is a fucking disaster. So, so it should be an uplifting show tomorrow. Let's try and parse that for a moment. Shall we, Tim? Tune back in for that. We'll talk a little bit more about the practical elements of,

of what, you know, what moving on from Joe Biden could look like if that route went, whether there'd be chaos, whether it'd be workable, the calm love at all, should be a very entertaining show. We'll see y'all then. Tom Nichols, thanks for standing in for Bill Kristol today. I appreciate you very much. Thanks, Tim. We'll be back tomorrow. See y'all then. Peace. to the ground Young bloods can't be settling down Young hearts

need the pressure to pound To hold me close my baby Don't lie I want them to know God's love's dying Is it ready to go?

It's the last time I'm running through snow, where the vaults are full and the fire's bold. I want them all to does it bother you? The long click of a ticking clock. There's a lifetime right in front of you. And everyone I know. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Breth.