The Bulwark Podcast - Will Saletan: Don't Forget Who Jim Jordan Is

Episode Date: October 16, 2023

Jordan was not just another Republican who voted against the election—he was behind the scenes in strategy meetings plotting how to keep the election's loser in power. Plus, the laws of war and Israel v Hamas. Will Saletan is back with Charlie Sykes for Charlie and Will Monday.

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At Don Valley North, Don Valley North for Lexus. A proud member of Wayne's Auto Group. Good morning and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. It is officially the second half of October 2023. It is going to be an amazing week. It's going to be an awful week. It's going to be a terrible week. It's going to be a completely implausible and improbable week. So who better to talk with than my friend and my colleague, Will Salatan. How are you, Will? I'm okay, Charlie. How about you? I have to admit, I'm going to make a confession here. I find the whole story about the war in Israel to be very, very painful to deal with. So we're going to have to ease into it. We're going to get to it. We have

a lot of material on it. I want to spend some time on the absolute insanity of the speaker's race with one stipulation. Because we're going to spend a lot of time talking about how absolutely insane and absurd it is to even consider the possibility of making Jim Jordan the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Right? I mean, this is crazy. It is, however, not nearly as crazy as what the Republicans are planning to do by nominating Donald Trump to be the next president of the United States, leader of the free world. So let's put this in perspective, right? As nutty as it is to put somebody like Jim Jordan in the presidential succession, putting Donald Trump evaluating you know whether or not the normie caucus of the sanity caucus of the republican party is finally going to take a stand kind of remember that they've already made it clear they're not going to take a stand on the big one okay so we may

have this little moment of sanity but one of my themes lately is to tell the listeners you are not the crazy ones so could we start off the week with a little bit of a you are not the crazy ones. So could we start off the week with a little bit of a you are not the crazy ones palate cleanser? Okay with you, Will? Sure, sure. Okay. So here is an actual interview. This is a real person. This person votes.

She may be somebody's grandma who was interviewed at a MAGA rally over the weekend talking about the role that Space Force is going to play in the presidential election. And by the way, this would be big if true. So let's play this audio of this interview. The election, I believe, was stolen. But we know that Space Force has it all. Trump has all the information. It's going to be overturned. What do you think Space Force has?

Space Force is a military branch of the, you know, just like the Army, you know, all the military. And they literally, walk up here. That's right. They literally, the night of the election, they literally watched the election be stolen. They know, they watermark the ballots. They know exactly what happened with every ballot. They know what fake ballots, all right. They saw, they knew the election switches.

They know what countries were involved. They know, they followed the money. They know what every politician that's been paid off. They know there was 260,000, 269,000 sealed indictments, but I think it might even be up to 500,000 sealed indictments. And I believe that we're going to have an emergency broadcast, and the military is going to come in

with martial law, and we are going to be shown eight hours on, eight hours off of videos for seven days, the world, and they're going to be showing us taped tribunals, taped confessions, and the world is going to be awakened to what's really going on with the deep state. Wow. I don't know. So maybe we ought to change our plans. Just don't make any long-term plans, Will, because this woman is looking forward to all of this. There's a little bit of QAnon there, but part of it is, and I'm sorry to keep coming back to this, this is probably somebody's mom

or grandma. So probably in her daily life, she bakes casseroles for neighbors who go through things, right? She's, right? She buys tricycles for her kids. And yet, there she is, very matter-of-factly explaining to this interviewer, yeah, yeah, Space Force knows everything. And you're looking around going, okay, no, Space Force, because it's got satellites, knows all this stuff. And also, somehow, she didn't quite explain how they watermarked the ballots. But there's going to be hundreds of thousands of indictments.

Charlie, they're Space Force. Of course they watermark ballots. That's what Space Force. Among other things, this lady has a lot of faith in lawyers. 500,000 indictments. I'm trying to imagine the production on that. Televised. Right.

Eight hours on, eight hours off. Televised tribunals. Did she say we'll be forced to watch them? We can, right? Televised. Right. Eight hours on, eight hours off, televised tribunals. Did you say we'll be forced to watch them? We can, right? She's talking about the countries that are involved. I guess that's Hugo Chavez. I'm not sure who else is in on that, but okay. There were some Italian satellites. The Italians, that's right. Okay, so have I made the point that you are not the crazy ones? Let's just set this aside for a future conversation, Will, about the sort of the nature of insanity and how widespread it is because insanity can be overused. But I have to tell you, there are a lot of really, really crazy people out there. Can we stipulate that?

I'm not going to say which show it was because I don't want to embarrass them. But I was on a show. I sat there about 20 minutes before it was my turn, listening to callers call in. And I have to tell you, Will, it's enough to make you doubt your faith in democracy. And I'm not talking about people who are uninformed or even the folks who basically just string together bumper sticker cliches, talking points, and think they're engaging in some sort of intelligence. I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about people who believe really seriously batshit crazy things, and they vote, and they get elected,

and they determine the future of our government, I'm afraid. I mean, no, they may not be the people who actually determine, but, you, but as we just get into this conversation, kind of remember when we say that there are politicians who are really afraid of the base. I have a couple of serious points, but I got a pony. I got a pony for you. Actually, you already gave me the pony. So the serious points are this lady, we just heard talking about tribunals. She says the military is going to come in with martial law. There's going to be tribunals. She says the military is going to come in with martial law. There's going to be tribunals and taped confessions. And this is her idea of a rescue operation, right?

This is Christmas. Right. And so the serious point is this is how authoritarianism comes to America, in the name of democracy, right? The people's votes were stolen. Will, she's nuts. I mean, let's not get too serious, okay? This woman is fucking nuts. She's nuts. But in addition to this crazy lady, there was a discussion in the White House, right? Yeah. Before Donald Trump left,

Mike Flynn and the others, right? Talking about exactly this, the military rerunning the- The Italian space satellites, right? These crazy people discussed this in the White House with the president, and he was one of them, right? Okay, so that's the serious one. The pony, of course. The pony, Charlie, is the casserole, right? Because the people who are spouting this garbage, they are baking casseroles, and they're perfectly functional in other parts of their life. So somehow people can be absolutely nuts and say this crazy stuff and then go about their daily lives as moms and grandmas and whatever. I'm not sure that that is as reassuring as you think it is. They're basically saying,

okay, so yes, there are zombies, but most of the time you can't tell the zombies. They walk among us. I'm just not sure that that makes my day. But to your point about, again, I'm kind of brushing her off as nuts, but you make the point that, okay, we have this line between completely insane and completely corrupt and completely seditious. It's kind of blurry, isn't it? I mean, that's the moment we're in. And can I come back to your point about the base that these politicians are following the base and the craziness of it? So this happened on Saturday in New Hampshire, Mike Pence is up there and there's another one of these casserole ladies, right? She gets up and she says to him, how are you going to get elected? He's like, how am I going to get elected? She says, yeah, because after the vote, she says, this is a quote, that's where it all goes away. Somebody comes along and just takes a bunch and puts it in the back of a truck and takes it away. And what does Mike Pence say? Does Mike Pence say, I'm sorry, ma'am. No,

that doesn't happen. Elections are actually free and fair in this country. No, Mike Pence says, yeah, I hear you. Well, and he starts going into his thing. My secret weapon is New Hampshire. So Mike Pence knows this lady is nuts and he doesn't correct her because he's afraid to correct her. And this is what's happened. Or he's exhausted. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not, is that a certain point you just kind of roll your eyes and go, yeah. Meanwhile, back in the real world. No. So let's talk about where we're at here. Because, you know, when I talk about this being an implausible, improbable week, we have the what's about to happen in Congress, which is amazing. I think it's fair to say, and feel free to disagree with me here.

Really, literally, no one knows what's going to happen this week. I mean, this is one of those, I mean, no one has any idea. So for those of you catching up who actually had a real life, Steve Scalise won the vote for speakership that flamed out in less than about 24 hours, right? Jim Jordan immediately jumped up and said, you know, I want to try again. The house conference gets together. He wins the vote, but there were a surprising number of votes for this dark horse guy. We leave that aside. And then, well, I mean, was this Jim Jordan's idea, this weird validation vote, this sort of other second

vote basically saying, so how many of you would actually be willing to vote for this complete numbnuts to be speaker? How many of you will vote for him on the floor? Now, keep in mind, here's the math. He can only afford to lose four. More than 50 Republicans voted no. So Jim Jordan spent the weekend trying to arm twist, bully, sick Sean Hannity on people, threaten people. Well, you know, Donald Trump is supporting me. The base is going to come after you like this lady. They're going to be really pissed if you don't do it. So he's going to force a vote on the floor. There is a group of normies who have said that they're not going to vote for him. There might be another candidate on the vote. So what

do you think? Tell me what you think of the state of play here. Are we going to go through another 15 to 20 ballots before people decide that putting Jim Jordan in the speaker is just too nuts even for this Republican Party? Well, first of all, there is nothing too nuts for this Republican party. So let's set that one aside. Okay. That's right. The fact that Scalise couldn't get enough tells you we're already through the looking glass. He had the best chance. He had the best chance. So everything from here on in is less likelihood of it. The fact that Jordan is the next guy up is because the crazies are in control. So all of the normie Republicans, to the extent that they still exist, are kind of out of the equation because they're the ones who are flexible, right? They'll be just like, give me Austin Scott, give me

somebody to vote for, right? Sorry, that's the dark horse guy. So we're in the stage where we have to appease the crazies because that's where the Republican Party is. And there's very little likelihood of getting enough votes. So I don't see a way out of it. And that's the crazy vote that you brought up, Charlie. How many of you would vote for me on the floor? That's because the Republicans are afraid to take this to the floor because it's going to show everyone how nuts and chaotic and disorganized it. Well, but they're going to do it. They're going to do it because Jim Jordan apparently wants to

get people on the record so that he can beat them up. So look, there's at least, correct me if I'm wrong, at least 12 Republican congressmen who were elected in districts that Joe Biden won. Clearly, there are a lot of people who know who Jim Jordan is, who know he's an idiot, who know he can't be trusted, who cannot stand the idea. So the question is, will there be more than four who will just say no or vote for somebody else? And I think there's a high likelihood of that. Again, I don't want to be the optimist here. So then what happens? Then the question is, all right, there has been a lot of, I think, wish casting over the weekend about how, you know, maybe they should caucus with the Democrats,

elect Hakeem Jeffries, people that it's just not going to happen. They are not going to elect Hakeem Jeffries. But is it at this point completely impossible that there could be a bipartisan deal to say, keep Patrick McHenry in position, but, you know, and empower him, you know, but with the requirement that you don't shut down the federal government, that you vote on aid for Ukraine and Israel, and that you maybe change some of the floor rules. Is that impossible, Will? I wouldn't say impossible. First of all, none of this is totally impossible because we're in the realm of the unlikely already. Everything's unlikely. So the interesting thing to me is

that Hakeem Jeffries was on one of the talk shows yesterday and he said, we're not playing for an individual. We're not negotiating that we want a specific speaker. So correct me if I'm wrong. The Hastert rule is the one that says, if you don't have a majority of Republicans supporting whatever the legislature, it doesn't even come to the floor. So he wants to get rid of that. That's his deal. We'll come on board. And he's not saying support me, Hakeem Jeffries, because he knows he's not going to get that. We'll cut a deal with you to give you our votes for speaker, for a speaker. And then you won't have to capitulate to the crazies. You don't need Gates's vote because you got mine in exchange for waiving that rule.

And then the House would be much more bipartisan than it is. And the question is, can things get bad enough in the Republican Party that they would make that deal? Those folks in the Biden districts, Charlie, that you brought up, they'd be happy to make that deal, I think. But they're also inviting being primaried, even if it's in an overwhelmingly Biden district or even overwhelmingly Republican district. The primary is a scary prospect for all of them. So I don't know. I mean, either way for those guys strikes me as, as potentially political suicide. They vote for Jim Jordan. They'll lose their seats in the general election. They vote against Jim

Jordan. They might lose their seats in a primary election. Let me come back to those. Cause you said there are 12 of them, right? And I don't know what the exact number is, but it's, it's relatively few and that's the problem. Okay. Because the more districts we can create where the incentive structure is to win in the general election, as opposed to the primary, the more sane the Republican party will be. It shouldn't be that winning the primary is the whole ballgame in your district. It should be competitive districts. Then you have to behave like a normal person who has to win some people on the other side of the political aisle. for your family. Enjoy them for years with the Michelin X-Ice Snow Tire. Get a $50 prepaid

MasterCard with select Michelin tires. Find a Michelin Tread Experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca slash locations. From tires to auto repair, we're always there, treadexperts.ca. So over the weekend, there was, you know, obviously as, you know, people are going on the Sunday morning talk shows to talk about, really, Jim Jordan? Seriously? You think that he's a viable candidate for speaker, that this actually makes sense for the Republican Party? One of the more interesting exchanges was Jake Tapper and Dan Crenshaw.

Now, I've written about Dan Crenshaw in the past. There's a whole segment of folks out there that want to believe in Dan Crenshaw, that want to think that Dan Crenshaw represents something new and refreshing and independent. And one of those is Dan Crenshaw, who actually wrote a whole book about values and virtue and everything. And our colleague Tim Miller did a review of it. It's really a remarkable book because you'll talk through the values and the principles and the character traits that you want in a good leader and somehow reconcile that with sucking up to Donald Trump. I mean, it's impossible to do, but Dan Crenshaw is one of these guys that wants to say, no, I'm actually saying normal and

decent. And yet there he is on the Sunday shows yesterday explaining why he's supporting Jim freaking Jordan to be the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Listen to this. What I would remind a lot of the members who are against Jordan, you know, because his reputation precedes him, but his reputation has changed over time. He has become part of the solution, not part of the problem. He has long since been part of the solution of a lot of a lot of good conversations with him. I've gotten to know him. There's a reason I support him.

Giving McHenry additional powers. Well, that still requires a vote. And what kind of powers? I mean, at a certain point, you're just electing him speaker. And he doesn't want that. He's asking us not to do that. I mean, he defied the congressional subpoena, and he was trying to get Pence to overturn the electoral votes.

But anyway, you're you're in the you're in the Jordan camp. But a lot of them did that. If I if I held that grudge, I wouldn't have friends. Right. That's two thirds. A lot of that's two thirds of the conference. That's it. That's it. That's an excellent point. I was I was on an island there. Yeah. I wait. Wait. OK. OK. So let's just translate that in Bass. And I don't have it right in front of me. But basically, yeah, all of my friends are like seditionists who tried to overturn the election. And, you know, if So here's the Republican Party, right? I can't apply the standard of doing the right thing on January 6th about protecting democracy because then I wouldn't have any Republicans. It's the greatest confession in the world. So I don't want to beat this horse too much, but I think this would be a good moment just to remind ourselves about who Jim Jordan is. I mean, Jake Tapper mentioned that he refused to comply with a

congressional subpoena, you know, so much for his collegiality. This is from David Korn and I think Dan Friedman from Mother Jones. I mean, here's the strange world that I'm quoting from Mother Jones, but just reminding us who Jim Jordan was. Jordan was an early and enthusiastic recruit in Trump's war on the Republic and reality in public and in private. Days after the November election, he spoke at a Stop the Steal rally in front of the Pennsylvania state capitol. He spread election conspiracy theories within right-wing media. He endorsed Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell's bogus claim that Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic had robbed Trump of electoral victory. Okay, we're looping back to the crazy lady.

Jim Jordan is this far away from her. You know, he was spreading the Dominion voting lie, which, by the way, cost Fox, what, $787 million. He called for a congressional investigation of electoral fraud, for which there was no evidence, and demanded a special counsel be appointed. He endorsed state legislatures canceling vote tallies and selecting their own presidential electors. He urged Trump not to concede. He

demanded that Congress not certify Joe Biden's victory in the ceremony scheduled for January 6, 2021. Behind the scenes, he schemed with Trump. The final report of the House Select Committee on January 6 lays out in damning detail Jim Jordan's participation in Trump's election thwarting machinations. Quote, Representative Jordan was a significant player in President Trump's efforts, the committee said. He participated in numerous post-election meetings in which senior White House officials, Rudy Giuliani and others, discussed strategies for challenging the election. Chief among them claimed the election had been tainted by fraud. As early as November, Jordan was, quote, involved in discussions with White House officials about Vice President Mike Pence's role on January

6th. The report noted, conversations had focused on whether Pence could block the certification of Biden's win. Jordan was one of 10 Republican members of Congress who attended a White House meeting on December 21st, where the topic was how to pressure Pence to undo the election. And we could spend the rest of the podcast going through just remember who Jim Jordan was. You know, Jim Jordan, the guy who was responsible for the tweet, you know, Elon Kanye Trump. He's the guy who is continuing to harass Fannie Willis because he sees his role in Congress as being the obstructor in chief. So putting this in context, so there's Dan Crenshaw saying, hey, if I held this against everybody, I'd have no friends. Right, Dan? That probably

should tell you something. Right. Okay. Now you and I have talked about this before and you have made the point and you're right that Jordan is not just another one of the Republicans who voted against certifying the election, right? So Jordan went further than others. And let me just come to that last point. By the way, love Mother Jones. I used to write for Mother Jones. David Corn's a great guy. Friedman's a great guy. From Mother Jones to the bulwark. Okay. What I love about them is that they are very focused on facts, right? And that article that you just mentioned, they've laid out a lot of facts. And let me just come to the last one because I think that's the important one. There are varying degrees of complicity and guilt in January 6th.

There are a lot of people who lied after the election, spouted fraud and all that. But Jordan was one of the guys who was behind the scenes. He was in the meetings. And as you get closer and closer to January 20th, 2021, you get to January 6th, you get conspiracies to go beyond January 6th. Jordan's participation in that meeting where they're trying to get Pence to stop the certification and push things past January 6th. Now you're getting into territory where you're going to keep the defeated president in power past when the constitution says he's supposed to be out of power. It's that much further into the madness. And Jim Jordan, we must never forget his role in that. We must never forget that we don't even know

enough about him because of his defiance of the subpoena, right? And Liz Cheney has said, Jordan's not just another pretty face here. In this case, not just another ugly face, right? He's particularly complicit in this. He's particularly dangerous. I would say in a choice between Scalise and Jordan, it's not close. I was wrong about that last week. And yeah. Okay. So in another mind-blowing moment that would cut against any optimism about the GOP normies, Mike Pence was asked about this over the weekend. Mike Pence says that Jim Jordan would make a great speaker. See, I have to tell you, you know, guys like Mike Pence just continue to blow my mind. At some point, every once in a while you think, okay, Mike Pence has suddenly realized I'm not going to be president.

I'm not going to win this nomination. I'm going to go out in a blaze of glory. I'm going to say what I think. I'm going to call out the seditionist. I'm going to say that Donald Trump tried to get me to ignore the constitution. You know, that's the hill I'm going to die on. And then it's like, Mike Pence goes, no, no, no. Um, and Jim freaking Jordan, explain this to me, Will. People always ask me to explain this stuff, and it's like, okay, I'm done. I'm out of material. Okay. It does matter that Mike Pence on January 6th didn't go along with the plot to stop the certification. It always matters.

We're going to give Pence credit for that. But having said that, Pence is one of these guys who's very concerned with his personal piety, his personal reputation. I did the right thing by God's grace, he always says, you know. Right. Thanks to God, I did the right thing. And that's really wonderful. But if you're interested in protecting the United States, as opposed to your personal reputation, then it can't end on January 6th. You can't after January 6th, having done the right thing, then turn around and say, I'll put a guy like Jim Jordan back in power. So why is he doing it? Wouldn't this be a moment of saying, the Republicans have so many brilliant, bright people in the House of Representatives.

How about somebody that did not try to overturn the election? Well, see, that's the problem. This goes back to the Dan Crenshaw problem. Boy, if he says that, they got nobody, right? Exactly. Because look, let's go back up. Remember, Liz Cheney is what you would do if you're serious about protecting the Constitution. You are Kinzinger. You draw a line. You say, anybody who doesn't meet the test of defending the Constitution is out. And if that means 67% of the House Republican Conference, then so be it.

I'm going to protect the Constitution. Once you go down the Crenshaw road of saying, hey, you know, I got to work with what I got here, and that's where the Republican Party is, then you're just dropping standards one by one, you know? And so this is just another one. Pence ends up saying, yeah, Jordan's okay, because that's who the House Republicans would nominate. I don't know.

We're like five minutes away from somebody saying we should just check with Space Force who they think Republicans would nominate. I don't know. We're like five minutes away from somebody saying we should just check with Space Force who they think we should. All right, let's switch gears because on a much more serious level, and I guess this is part of this split screen world that we live in where we have clown world and then we have real world and real world is brutal. And it's kind of reminding you that the world is deeply, deeply serious and grave at the point you're playing these stupid games, which will continue. So let's talk about what's going on with Israel, which is preparing a ground offensive in Gaza. Of course, now the debate is shifting from the Hamas atrocities to are the Israelis, are they going to not show enough

restraint? Are they going to engage in atrocities? And let's just play some of the soundbites that we've talked about over the weekend, sort of a scattershot. Ron DeSantis is trying to capitalize on this crisis. You saw that he has like his own air, like Air DeSantis, flying people out of Israel and everything. He was on one of the talk shows talking about all the people in Gaza. Let's listen to this. Of the two million people who live in Gaza, half of them are under the age of 18. Let's take a listen to something you said yesterday. We cannot accept people from Gaza into this country as refugees. I am not going to do that.

If you look at how they behave, not all of them are Hamas, but they are all anti-Semitic. I'm sure you know all Arabs are Semites, but how can you paint with such a broad brush to say 2.3 million people are anti-Semitic? Well, first of all, my position is very clear. Those Gaza refugees, Palestinians, Arabs, should go to Arab countries. The U.S. should not be absorbing any of those. I think the culture, so they elected Hamas. Let's just be clear about that. Not everyone's a member of Hamas. Most probably aren't. But they did elect Hamas in 2006. And then the military occupation

happened after that, where they went in and haven't allowed elections since 2007. So in 2006, there was a lot of there was a lot of there was a lot of celebrating of those attacks in the Gaza Strip by by a lot of those folks who were not Hamas. But if you look at their education system, this has been an issue for a long time. They teach kids to hate Jews. The textbooks do not have Israel even on the map. They prepare very young kids to commit terrorist attacks. So I think it's a toxic culture. And I think if we were to import large numbers of those to the United States, I think it would increase anti-Semitism in this country. And I think it would increase anti-Americanism in this country.

Nikki Haley was asked about this as well, just to get the kind of the back and forth on this. Nikki Haley asked to respond to Ron DeSantis' comments that we shouldn't have anybody from Gaza here because they're all anti-Semites. According to recent polling earlier this year from the Washington Institute, which is a pro-Israel group, using the polling of a Palestinian Center for Public Opinion, 62 percent of Gazans wanted the ceasefire with Israel to stay in place. 50 percent of Gazans want Hamas to stop calling for Israel's destruction, want Hamas to accept a permanent two-state solution based on the 1967 borders. 70% of Gazans wanted the Palestinian Authority from the West Bank to take over Gaza. So I'm not really certain that Governor DeSantis has a real

read on the difference between Hamas and the people of Gaza. What was your response when you heard what Governor DeSantis said? You know, I dealt with this every day for two years. And, you know, what I can tell you is you have to realize that whether we're talking about Gazans and Palestinians, you know, all of them don't, you've got half of them at the time that I was there, didn't want to be under Hamas's rule. They didn't want to have terrorists overseeing them. They knew that they were living a terrible life because of Hamas. You had the other half that supported Hamas and wanted to be a part of that. We see that with Iran, too. The Iranian people don't want to be under that Iranian regime. They don't. We saw what happened

to Masa Amini. We saw how they treat them. There are so many of these people who want to be free from this terrorist rule. They want to be free from all of that. And America's always been sympathetic to the fact that you can separate civilians from terrorists. Okay, so Will, there seems to be kind of a difference of opinion there. Yeah, okay. So folks, I am Jewish. It's painful to me and my community that so many Jews were murdered in this Hamas attack. Just going to stipulate that. I have a personal interest in this topic. Having said that, okay, having said that, what Ron DeSantis said here, this is how evil happens on the other side. This is how we become the bad guys. In the name of fighting prejudice, right, he says they're all anti-Semitic. He doesn't say Hamas is anti-Semitic, which is true. He says all the Palestinians in Gaza are anti-Semitic, right? And Margaret Brennan points out that half of them are under 18. Ron DeSantis says it doesn't matter. He said they teach the kids to be anti-Semitic. The children of Gaza, he's saying, are presumptively anti-Semitic and shouldn't be allowed to come to the United States.

OK, that's one step. He says, you know, they elected Hamas. Right. And Margaret Brennan points out that was in 2006. That's 17 years ago. 17 years ago. And when she says they haven't allowed an election, she's not talking about Israel. She's talking about Hamas. Hamas has not allowed a vote in Gaza. So, and then Tapper has the,

he has the numbers from the poll, right? So that it's bullshit. What, what DeSantis is saying is just wrong about what people in Gaza believe. The larger point though, is he's trying to say there should be collective guilt. Yes. No one from Gaza should ever be allowed in, but I have another soundbite for you because then this also can translate into, therefore, we shouldn't have any sympathy for what is about to happen to anyone here. Here's Tom Cotton, Republican Senator from Arkansas, talking about the coming attack on Gaza and the possibility of massive civilian casualties. Israel has inflicted no suffering on Gaza. Hamas is responsible for the suffering in Gaza.

They've been in charge there for 16 years. They didn't have to spend the billions of dollars they get from countries like Iran on things like tunnels and missiles. They could have spent it on water and power plants. Hamas is the only, their sole responsibility for any suffering the people of Gaza have currently, have already had, or for any civilian casualties in Gaza, because Hamas intentionally uses women and children and the elderly for human shields. And if you don't want your hospitals or your schools or your mosque bombed, you shouldn't use them for military purposes. But you know the images that we're going to get. They're going to say this is Israel. They are carpet bombing and blanketing the Gaza Strip in a way that leaves, first of all,

food and water cut off, a humanitarian crisis and destruction there. Shannon, as far as I'm concerned, Israel can bounce the rubble in Gaza. Anything that happens in Gaza is the responsibility of Hamas. Okay, bounce the rubble. Everything is a responsibility. Okay, let's parse this out,

because on one level, I want to agree that Hamas began the atrocities. It wants to inspire more. On the other hand, there's something breathtaking about Tom Cotton essentially saying, whatever happens when they bounce the rubble, it's not Israel's fault. I mean, how do you parse out the clear guilt and responsibility of Hamas without basically saying, and yeah, here's a complete blank check for Israel to do anything to anyone in Gaza Strip? There ought to be some moral clarity here, but it's going to be painful and it's going to be difficult. And there are no good answers to this, I think. Yeah, I agree with you. The blank check thing is the scary part here. Charlie, I agree with you about moral clarity, right? Moral clarity says things like Hamas is deliberately targeting

civilians. True. Israel may end up killing civilians, but it won't be deliberate. It would be inadvertent, right? And that distinction matters. The way that Hamas conducted its invasion, targeting civilians rather than soldiers. These are all parts of moral clarity, but moral clarity can't mean that we completely disregard any other moral considerations because we're the righteous ones. That's not moral clarity, right? That's blindness. That's ideology. That's dogmatism. And that is the road to hell. When you think you're so righteous that nothing you do can be wrong. So when Tom Cotton says that last line, anything that happens in Gaza is the responsibility of Hamas, he is giving a blank check. And just because you are the more morally right party in a war does not mean you can do anything, right? You still have the laws of war. What makes you

different is that you respect the laws for, you respect the distinction between enemy soldiers and civilians. So no, it is not true that anything that happens in Gaza is entirely the fault of Hamas, right? There must still be proportionate behavior by the Israelis to the extent they are able. You're still responsible for your own behavior. Absolutely. Yes. I mean, this is the overwhelming guilt here is Hamas, but that does not mean that everyone else then is absolved of responsibility for the decisions that they make and the acts that they take. Okay, so another soundbite here. Your good friend, Lindsey Graham, because of course, people who have listened to this and watched this know that Will has written the definitive

account of Lindsey Graham's descent into authoritarianism. You can buy the book, you can read the article, you can listen to the podcast. So Lindsey Graham was on yesterday and has a couple of interesting things to say. Here's Lindsey Graham. If Hezbollah, which is a proxy of Iran, launches a massive attack on Israel, I will consider that a threat to the state of Israel existential in nature. I will introduce a resolution in the United States Senate to allow military action by the United States in conjunction with Israel to knock Iran out of the oil business. Iran, if you escalate this war, we're coming for you. Okay. So your thoughts, Will. You are a student of Lindsey Graham. That's like the old saber rattling Lindsey though, isn't it? Right. It is. Now,

last week you were saying, I was talking about, oh, if only we could retaliate against Iran, and you pointed out, look, be careful what you wish for, right? You don't want to expand this war. In fact, all of American diplomacy is to try to limit it. But in the name of trying to limit it, Lindsay is now explicitly threatening United States, not Israeli, United States military engagement attacking Iran, right? And what's interesting to me about this, in addition to that it's a little bit dangerous to talk this way, is who exactly made Lindsey Graham in charge of Joe Biden's foreign policy, right? And the answer is nobody. The answer is nobody. But this is a major reason why Lindsey Graham became a Trump flunky, because he loved when Trump was president, he could say, you in Iran, I have been

talking to Donald Trump. Donald Trump's my buddy, and he's going to do the following to you if you come into this conflict, right? But he doesn't have that now. So now he just has to say, I'm going to introduce some resolution in the Senate. Okay. So Lindsey Graham is, in fact, as you accurately describe him, a Trump flunky. But on that same program, he said that Trump's comments about how smart Hezbollah was and his attacks on Israel, being a bunch of jerks and idiots and everything, was a big mistake. I hesitate to ask this question because I think you and I both know the answer, but there was a lot of sort of, you know, Henry like, well, will this latest gaffe by Donald Trump, will this make a difference? The fact that at this moment, he makes it all about himself, of the narcissism of Donald. See,

the thing about Donald Trump, and again, just come back to it. There's no ideology here. There's no through line of principle. It's all about him. It's all about his grievances and everything. So he's mad at Benjamin Netanyahu because Benjamin Netanyahu called up Joe Biden and congratulated him. So, you know, Trump tried to walk back his comments about how smart Hezbollah was. You know, there's no better friend of Israel. But now and even Lindsey Graham's calling him out on. But it's not going to make a difference, is it? Because we're like way past that.

We're way past any moment at which anything Donald Trump does is actually going to be the breaking point, right? Or do you have a more optimistic view than that? I'm open to this from you. No, I don't. And so there's two points here, Charlie. One is the political point you're making that the Republican voters don't care about any of this. They still vote for Trump, no matter what. But the other thing is, it's just amazing to me that people like Lindsey Graham are always trying to draw this distinction between, oh, you know, Donald Trump just said this outrageous thing, like attacking, you know, criticizing Netanyahu and claiming that he didn't support Trump when Israel's literally under a mortal, a deadly attack. And at the same time, so Lindsey

Graham says this, he shouldn't say this stuff, but he keeps calling it, what is it, a mistake? This is not a mistake. What's lacking here is Donald Trump is a very bad person, right, who doesn't care about anything but himself. That's why he says what he says about Israel. That's why he says let's overturn the Constitution. That's why it is so dangerous for anyone who cares about America's role in the world to even entertain the possibility of returning Donald Trump to the Oval Office. And of all the people who should know that, shouldn't Lindsey Graham be like at the front of the line? Totally, totally. And this is like, but the scary thing,

Charlie, is if Donald Trump wins the presidency again, it will be with the help of a bunch of people who literally think this. They think, you know, I don't like Trump's mean tweets or whatever, but, you know, he was good on the economy or whatever, and we can manage him. We'll just limit the damage he does to Israel or the Constitution or whatever, right? And Lindsey will be the secretary of defense or something. And he'll talk himself into, like, I will protect the world from him because I'll be his secretary of defense for, like, five minutes until, you know, thrown under the bus by the Donald. And what we have to convince these people of is you don't get to choose. You don't get Trump a la carte. You get Trump.

And Trump's going to do all the bad stuff you don't like in addition to the things you think he did well. Well, you know, that's where we're at. So what are you watching this week? What are you going to keep an eye on? I've been writing, and I'm going to, hopefully this will be out tomorrow morning, a look back at what happened when there was a massive Jewish slaughter of Palestinians 30 years ago in Israel. And what was said at that time, you didn't have all this namby-pamby excuses for the terrorists. Israel and its allies and the United States and Jewish groups were out very clearly talking about the evil of this act. That's what we need more people on the other side to do. We need more Arab countries,

more Muslim organizations speaking out in the same way about violence against Jews. Now, going back to Trump's comments and the need for moral clarity, I do think that that is something that Joe Biden has actually risen to the occasion on, at least in a couple of the things he said, his public statement, his interview on 60 Minutes last night. I don't know whether you caught it. I only caught some excerpts of it. But he seems to have a very clear view of the moral stakes here and his historical perspective and looking at the pictures of what happened to the children and everything and thinking of the Holocaust, the distance between the seriousness with which he is proposing this, and I'm not saying I'm going to agree with everything he does here. I'm not giving him a blank check in any way. You know, I'm not going to join the, you know, rah-rah, you know, club here, but the distance

between Joe Biden's seriousness and his moral clarity and Donald Trump's narcissistic recklessness, boy, could not be more dramatic. And again, it's one of those moments that you're not the crazy ones if you're saying this guy's acting like a grownup, this guy's acting like a complete fucking buffoon. And it's not just that Joe Biden understands the moral clarity of the wrongness of killing Jews and that Israel is in the right to defend itself. It's also that he does something Donald Trump would never do, which is that at the same time that Joe Biden says that,

he also talks about the Palestinian American boy who was just murdered in Illinois, in Chicago, right? And this goes back to what Ron DeSantis said. When politicians like Ron DeSantis go out and talk about how all the people of Gaza are anti-Semitic. That's not just like a rhetorical error. That has consequences. And I'm not going to draw a straight line, but there has already been one hate murder that we know of. The sheriff's office says that they believe this is related to the situation between Hamas and Israel. A man murdered this boy, a boy, right after Ron DeSantis says, around the same time as Ron DeSantis says, oh, the children of God, you know, they're all indoctrinated. They're all.

And Joe Biden has come out and talked about that as well and said, we must not do that. He's not doing China virus. You know, he's not playing on ethnic stereotypes. He's trying to stand against that and in defense of human rights. And meanwhile, I think the odds are at least 50-50 that we will see a shutdown of the federal government because of the complete dysfunction in the Congress of the United States. I mean, if they do come up with some sort of a bipartisan power sharing agreement, which by the way, would be incredibly countercultural. I mean, that would be incredibly

not on brand for 2023 to have some sort of a bipartisan compromise. So if in fact, Republicans do fall in line behind Jim Jordan, I think the chances of a government shutdown in the midst of this international crisis is way higher than 50-50. And I mean, among the many mind-blowing things that we have to endure, you know, the most mind-blowing of all being the possible reelection of Donald freaking Trump, The fact that anyone would even contemplate shutting down the federal government during this particular period of time is just, but here we are.

If only they had been warned. Charlie, can I have a do-over? So last week we talked about this and I said it didn't really matter that McCarthy was out because Congress wasn't really relevant to the situation in Israel. Yeah, totally wrong. I was totally wrong because all of a sudden, if you need appropriations, if you need money, you know, Israel's in a better position than Ukraine vis-a-vis the money.

But like, yeah, to the extent that Israel needs money and they do are trying to get an appropriation. If you don't have a speaker, you don't have a house, you can't pass anything. And that's a major, major problem. So we do need the Republicans to get their act together, among other reasons, on behalf of Israel. And this is one of those moments of political crisis and of American weakness that is completely and utterly self-inflicted. No one is doing this to us.

The Russians are not doing it to us. The Chinese are not doing it. We are doing it to ourselves, or at least the Republicans are doing it to themselves. And unfortunately, we are the collateral damage. Will, it's going to be a hell of a week. We'll have to catch up again next Monday. All right, Charlie. Thanks. All right. And thank you all for listening to today's Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes, and we will be back tomorrow and do this all over again. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.