The Bulwark Podcast - Will Saletan: Don't Panic

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

Recent polls have some Democrats reverting to bed-wetting, Christie calls out the deplorables, and Scalise is an election-denying weasel. Plus, Biden and Gaza, and the left's support for Hamas. Will Saletan is back with Charlie Sykes for Charlie and Will Monday.

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I did, Charlie, with the exception of the transition to, what is it, standard time that we went into? Oh, no. I have devoted decades of complaining about daylight savings time and going back and forth. This is one of those things where you don't want to trigger me on this. Okay. It's just the worst thing ever. But just to be clear, all the complaints are about standard time, right? Not about daylight savings time, which is good. Just the switching back and forth, which I'm sure made some sense in 1932 or whenever they did it, you know, that they convinced themselves that it made some sort of economic sense, which it does not. But let's move on. Let's start off with a question from literature. Are you a science fiction fan, Will? Don't know. Used to be more than I am now, but I like it when it's good.

Okay. Do you remember The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Oh, yeah. One of my favorite books. Do you remember what was the words that were printed on the book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Don't panic. Okay. That seems to be the theme for today. Do not panic because I got to say, there was an awful lot of pearl clutching, bedwetting. How many analogies do we want to run together over the weekend? Let's start with these two major stories because I think they're linked. Number one, of course, is the New York Times survey, that New York Times Siena poll that shows that if you had the election today, that Donald Trump would win the electoral college

handily, that he's leading in a whole bunch of swing states. I mean, this is just jam-packed with bad news for Joe Biden. At the same time, we had this extraordinary story in the Washington Post about what a Trump 2.0 presidency would look like. I probably don't need to tell you, Will, but it's worse than almost anyone can imagine. I mean, they're talking about already invoking the Insurrection Act to bring the military in to suppress protests on Inauguration Day. They've made a list of the people that they would want to prosecute. They have names. And apparently the one crime that links them all together is they've criticized Donald Trump. But despite the fact that this morning as you and I are speaking in New York, Donald Trump is going to take the stand to testify. What could go wrong

there? Take the stand to testify under oath in that civil trial that could destroy his business. And so here's a guy who faces 91 felony counts, is about to be put out of business because he is a chronic fraudster. Here's somebody who will be standing trial for trying to overthrow the election, defrauding the government, violating the Espionage Act, who's facing charges of racketeering, who has been found liable for sexual assault by a federal judge. And I'm sorry, I'm leaving so many things out here. But he is the leading candidate, not just for the Republican nomination, but for president. I bring this up because I'm looking for the pony in all of this. And so we do this every week, but I'm really kind of looking for the pony because I'm looking at

this survey here, and I'm sorry for people who are triggered by this sort of thing. Election held today, Trump would win Nevada by 10 points. Looks like 11 to me. Georgia, he would win by six points. Arizona, he would win by five points. Trump would win Michigan by five points. He would win Pennsylvania by four points. My home state of Wisconsin, Biden leads by two points, was sort of something of an outlier.

So Will, let's do some rank punditry here. with sort of something of an outlier. So, Will, let's do some rank punditry here. I sort of envisioned that you stayed up all night crunching the numbers here. You had a whiteboard. Well, since I have to look for the pony, you have to look through the numbers for that. By the way, I want to bring this out. This is a My Little Pony, which was sent to me by one of our favorite Bulwark members, Holly Berkeley Fletcher. Thank you, Holly. I'm just showing it to you. Yes, Holly sent this.

Wow. And so I'm going to try to collect all of them. I think there are six. Is that right? Okay. That may be a bridge too far. Okay. I only have two ponies for you here.

I mean, maybe we can come up with some more. Look, I think this is a grim poll. So I'm reaching here. The first thing, Charlie, is what you said a grim poll. So I'm reaching here. The first thing, Charlie, is what you said at the beginning. If the election were held today, fortunately, it's not. It's not being held today. There's a year. What's going to happen in that year? One thing that could happen is that the objective reality that the economy is better than people think it is, even at the household level. And I understand your point that you've made before. Don't tell people they're not feeling what they're feeling. They are feeling it,

but lived experience is a thing. It is true that household indicators are better than people express their subjective feelings. So over time, one would hope that the objective situation would influence people's subjective views. That's one. Okay. A second thing that's going on there is, I mean, there will be a lot of advertising between now and then. I mean, Joe Biden has been absent, right? Just absent. He gives speeches, nobody watches. He talks for two minutes for 30 seconds. He's a tired guy, right? He did the last campaign from his basement. He's tried to do a lot of the same thing now. So let's see what Joe Biden has to say. Let's see, Charlie, what other surrogates have to say on behalf of Joe Biden. Because again,

there's a lot of good stuff to say. The other thing, Charlie, is the New York Times published the Grimm story on Sunday, right? And then what do they do today? They come out with the part where they say, however, if Trump is convicted, about 6%, I think they said, in these swing states would switch over and vote for Biden, right? And that's enough to swing those states. Now, I don't know if that's true. That's a pony. I'm going to hang my hat on. Let me just read this here. The headline today is, Trump indictments have not sunk his campaign, but a conviction might. If the former president is convicted and sentenced, as many of his allies expect him to be in the January 6th related trial held next year in Washington, D.C.,

around 6% of voters across Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, say they would switch their votes to Mr. Biden. That would be enough potentially to decide the election. Okay. Genuine pony. Do you buy it? No question about it. Maybe.

Let me step back for the non-pony party. We need to look at the pile. Donald Trump. We know who Donald Trump to look at the pile. Donald Trump. We know who Donald Trump is. We have lived through Donald Trump. We know what he intends to do. He keeps telling us what he intends to do. He is one of the most deplorable figures in the history of American politics.

He is actually on trial for 91 felony charges. Almost on a daily basis, he comes up with some absolute piece of complete batshit crazy lunacy, and yet he is competitive in the race for president today. Okay, I'm not making it a predictive. It's like, what does it say about America that he's even plausibly being considered? What does it say about how truly shitty the campaigns of Ron DeSantis and other Republicans are that not one Republican can figure out how to derail a guy who's basically been found guilty of rape, fraud, who's absconded with documents, who was complicit in a coup? You would think that they would find a way to run against him. So there is that moment where you step back and you go, okay, are we crazy or has the whole country lost its mind? So I do think that's a legitimate concern. The second is the real danger here. I

mean, we need to get out of denial. Donald Trump can be elected president. Joe Biden can lose this election. This is possible. And the danger of a Trump presidency, it becomes more apparent every day. It's like just when you think you can't learn anything more. Let me just read you from this Washington Post piece, which I know you've read. In private, Trump has told advisors and friends in recent months that he wants the Justice Department to investigate one-time officials and allies who have become critical of his time in office, including his former chief of staff, John Kelly, former attorney general, Bill Barr, as well as attorney Ty Cobb, and former joint chief of staff chairman, Mark A. Milley, according to people who have talked to him. Okay, so he's come up with a list of people

he wants to prosecute. The only thing they've done is to criticize him. Now, it goes on to basically describe that not only does he want to weaponize the justice system, they've actually drawn up specific plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents. And he and his associates are drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstration. Charlie, this has been going on when Donald Trump announced for president in November, a year ago, a year ago, he said that he would send the military into American cities. That insurrection, that's been out there. No one has paid any attention to it. Now, maybe they don't

care. And I think that's the real alarm in these polls, right? That people don't actually care. Or maybe it hasn't registered and Democrats can somehow make it register over the next year. Well, I'm afraid, and I don't mean this to be as snarky as it's going to come off, but you know, it's like 1992 called, Will, and they want their, it's the economy's stupid line back, because I'm not sure that the economy is going to change things. There's something different about our politics, something genuinely strange. And I'm not sure that anybody fully understands, but can I find some ponies here for you? Go ahead. Because I think there's going to be a lot of ads, frankly, is not going to be doing it here. And I wrote this in Morning Shots. And I am, by the way, you know, I am not a unskew the polls kind of guy. I'm not a kind of

guy that will dismiss the polls easily easily because I do think that the polls are consistent in saying Joe Biden is in trouble. And I mean, you really have to be in trouble to be losing to Donald Trump. I mean, I just want people to take a deep breath about how bad things have to be. Not just that you're underwater, you know, in terms of approval rating, but you might lose to Donald Trump. But I do have some questions about this poll. Do you really think that Biden only leads Trump by one point among young voters? I am a little skeptical here. Okay. Young voters may have their own issues, but I'm not sure that Donald

Trump is tied among young voters. So what happens if younger voters come back home to Joe Biden? Those numbers change. Do you really think that Hispanic voters are flocking to Donald J. Trump and that they put him within single digits in the polls? A little skeptical about that, too. What happens, again, if those numbers revert to the polls? A little skeptical about that too. What happens, again, if those numbers revert to the norm? If Hispanics realize, hey, this guy has actually been running against us and hates us, maybe we shouldn't vote for him. Do you really think, back to this New York Times poll,

do you really think that Donald Trump is going to draw nearly a quarter of the black vote? That Donald Trump is really going to be getting 22% of the black vote. What happens if that drops back into single digits, as it will? What does that do to the numbers? So I mean, part of this is just like, these numbers are horrible. There's no question about it. And I'm not trying to be a denialist about it. But I'm also saying that if you're Biden's people, you say, okay, we can get those voters back. We're never going to get the MAGA voters. We may have lost this other group of voters here, but there's no way that Donald Trump's getting 22% of the black vote. What do you think?

Am I being too optimistic here? I mean, what? Kind of. Yeah. I mean, Charlie, it's a fine line between skepticism and denial, right? I think you're right. You haven't been an unskew the polls guy. True. No. But I worry, look, I've hung up with Democrats and progressives my whole life, and I've heard this a lot. Charlie, I remember somebody saying in 1984, when Reagan was about to crush Mondale, you know, the polls can be wrong, the polls can be wrong. So this has been going on on the left for a long time. Okay. I know. I believe in taking this stuff seriously, because if it ain't exactly like 22% of the black vote and 42% of the Hispanic vote, this is at least a signal that it's higher than it ought to be. It's a warning, right? There's a warning. And these polls are a way to puncture one's preconceptions, right? About, oh, we've got

this in the bag. Cause Charlie, I hear people on the left say all the time, look, Donald Trump is a racist, right? So how could any self-respecting Latino, how could any self-respecting Black American vote for him? And yet some do, more than you would think. This is a warning. You saw what the reaction was over the last 24 hours, which I thought was rather significant. David Axelrod, who is a Obama-era guru, big Democratic player, commentator, put out tweets suggesting that maybe it's time for Joe Biden to take his gold watch and leave. Our colleague Bill Kristol is also saying that it's time for Joe Biden to announce that he's not running for re-election. I have to say that I am squishy on this issue, okay? Let me explain two things. Number one, because I don't know what the plan B is. I think the problem is that you have not made the case that anyone else

would be stronger. On the other hand, this is what I wrote about this morning. We need to be crystal clear about the priorities of 2024. 2024's main challenge is not reelecting Joe Biden. It is stopping the return of Donald Trump. Right. And so the question is, is Biden the best person to do this? How do we do this? This coalition is very, I think is very fragile. It's very obvious that the anti-Trump centrist coalition is under a lot of stress and strain, particularly with Israel Hamas. But I do think that we need to keep the focus on the fact that, you know, Biden is in many ways an instrument here to protect liberal constitutional democracy. If it turns out that Joe Biden has so many flaws, is so weak, that he is not a reliable bulwark against authoritarianism, then all of the folks, the fanboys and the

fluffers out there who are telling us that Joe Biden is the best president ever are missing the point because the point isn't Biden. It's stopping Trump. Okay. All right. So I'm going to half agree and half not even exactly disagree, but raise a question. Okay. I want to agree with you about the fundamental question, which is the test.

This is a one job election. Last one was a one job election. Right. Right. Keep Trump out. That's it. Right. Right. So exactly. which is the test. This is a one job election. Last one was a one job election. Right. Right. Keep Trump out. That's it. Right. Right. So exactly. That's the test. And then the question is, who does that best? I am sympathetic to the argument that our friend JBL and others have made that you can't imagine Biden against an imaginary Democrat. You have to imagine him compared to a real Democrat. Trump against an imaginary. No, no, no. Biden in terms of their performance relative to Trump. Oh, I see. Okay. I'm sorry. Okay. So it's very easy to say. And in fact, I believe this New York Times,

CNN poll showed the same thing, but an imaginary Republican does better than Donald Trump. You got to ask an exact question and the same thing with Biden, right? An imaginary alternative. So who is it? Is it Gretchen Whitmer? Is it Jared Polis? Is it some other person, right? And once you fill in that name, I'm sympathetic to the argument that once you fill in that name, now you face a whole bunch of negatives that you weren't thinking about when you just talked about, well, it shouldn't be Joe Biden. What do you think of that argument? See, that's what the part I agree with. We've seen know how somebody like Ron DeSantis, who is strong on paper, what they actually look like when they're in the arena. I think we ought to be skeptical about that. So I don't think that the Democrats have a plan B yet. On the other hand, I do think this sort of angry

protectiveness, like we can never talk about Joe Biden's age. Inflation is a complete myth. You people are complete idiots if you don't believe that. Or let's not talk about Hunter Biden's sleaze or the border of crime, any of those things. You're betting the future of constitutional democracy on the fact that those things won't matter. And here's the reality check. They do matter. Voters are paying attention to them. So I do think there is this defensiveness. And again, you can make the case that Joe Biden has had a successful term without saying, and therefore deserves a second term, or that he's the best candidate to protect us from Donald Trump. I guess this is where I dissent from the Biden is better than Obama. Biden is the best president since Harry Truman sort of line here. Because I want to be focused, crystal clear on,

this is not about the affirmation of Bidenism. For me, it's about stopping Trumpism and the illiberal authoritarianism. I mean, I am single-mindedly focused on that. If Joe Biden's the guy, fine. But if he's not the guy, then it misses the point completely to go all in on writing fan fiction about him. Can I just say, I'm really enjoying this conversation because I

feel like I'm in a one-on-one focus group. Now, I don't matter. I don't matter. I'm a Lib. I'm a Lib in Maryland. I'm going to vote for Joe Biden. Right, right. But I'm talking to a conservative who lives in Wisconsin. And leaving aside, like to win these states, Wisconsin was one of the ones in the CNN poll, obviously, to win these states, people like me are not enough. And the whole game is, can we get, you know, people like you, and then there's lots of other people who are, you know, swing constituencies. I think the argument that's going to get a lot of folks like you is the negative argument. And so even if I believe in some of the affirmative arguments, we've got to make... Now, one of the things that really scares me about the New York Times-Siena poll, Charlie,

is why is it that we say the one job is to defeat Trump? Well, it is to protect American democracy, democracy and the rule of law. And yet in this poll, literally, they asked the question, who do you trust more, Trump or Biden, on protecting democracy? I forget exactly the phrasing of the question. So in one state, in Wisconsin, Biden's like a winner by like nine or 10 points. In every other state, it's one point or two points. That's the margin on democracy. Biden against a guy who literally tried to overthrow the government of the United States, literally tried to overturn an election. That is a shocking number. And it makes me worry that let's say Trump gets convicted

in the January 6th case and he appeals it, right? And that appeal is going on. Which you will. Right, right. And so we've now had a jury say that he tried to overthrow the election. What if people don't care, Charlie? What if there aren't enough American voters who care about that? And they just say, I think the economy was better under Trump. Yeah, he tried to overthrow the government, but it doesn't really matter. Well, I know this is the nightmare scenario. This is why, and I think we need to focus on all of this. I guess, you know, you're talking about Wisconsin and the swing voters, and I won't get too deep into Wisconsin politics,

but, you know, there was some discussion like, why is Wisconsin different? And it is because of these swing voters in places like where I live, the Wow counties, Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington counties. These are people who voted Republican in the past who are just not going to vote for Donald Trump. But I will tell you that if you walk in and you say, the first thing is, you know, you need to recognize how absolutely wonderful and awesome Joe Biden is. You need to vote for the Biden-Harris ticket. You need to support his forgiveness of student loans. And you need to embrace these various policies here. And by the way, let me now tell you what I think you should do. The conversation's already over. But if you walk in and you go, let's talk about who Donald Trump is, what Donald Trump has

done, what Donald Trump is prepared to do, what it would actually be like. Let's talk about that. And so, yes, am I embracing a certain negativity? Absolutely. Absolutely here. Because you can persuade swing voters they do not want to be part of what Trump represents. Right. But if you expect Republicans to become Democrats, if you expect Mike Pence to endorse Joe Biden, you're chasing unicorns. I mean, you may find a pony in the pile, but that's just fan fiction. So I think and we've talked about this before, job number one is to break them free of voting for Donald Trump. If they vote for Joe Biden, that's really good because I personally think, and I'm going to vote for Joe Biden because Joe Biden is right now the one way of stopping Donald Trump. I think if you write somebody in or you vote for a third party, I think you're wasting your vote. I don't want to do that. But it's a much heavier lift. So a year out, I focus on telling people you need to understand who this

guy is. But if never Trumpers basically declare we're all liberal Democrats, they've taken themselves out of the conversation with the swing voters who are going to decide this election. Right. So you talked about negativity there and like feeling guilty about it. Can I put in a plug? No, I don't feel guilty at all. No. Oh, no, no, no. You misinterpreted that because there's no guilt at all. I just want to put in a plug for negativity. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

Negativity is why this country is still here 240 years later. Like our entire constitutional system is set up to negate the worst, right? Yeah, we don't get the best. We have gridlock. We have courts getting in the way of legislators, getting in the way of executive. And like, that's beautiful because it's all designed to prevent one guy

from taking over our country or a guy in his mob, right? So back to the one job idea, right? That's fine. Anyone out there who is unhappy with Joe Biden for all the reasons you just gave, you know, the inflation, the economy, border, et cetera, for them to, you know, at the end to say, you know, I really don't like him, but we got to stop this guy, Trump. And God, I really hate having to choose between these two. Look, I'm sorry those were your choices, but for you to make your decision on that basis is patriotic. You're protecting the United States. Right.

Okay. So you have to find that person who says, okay, I disagree here, here, here, here, here, but I have to do this because the alternative is so much worse. Right. And with Trump, it is so much worse. winter trip is a safe one for your family. Enjoy them for years with the Michelin X-Ice Snow Tire. Get a $50 prepaid MasterCard with select Michelin tires. Find a Michelin TreadExperts dealer near you at TreadExperts.ca slash locations. So let's just do a little bit of this because I have to

say we've had an internal bulwark disagreement about Chris Christie. I've been very, very critical of Chris Christie. I had a big rant about Chris Christie. I will never forgive him for that moment when he went all shine box back in 2016 and endorsed Donald Trump. But the guy has been a magnificent and I would say courageous beast in taking on Trumpism. And where would he speak over the weekend? He's down in Florida. The Florida Republican Conference, whatever. Okay. So this was a very MAGA heavy event.

Asa Hutchinson, who I was slightly surprised is still in the race, also spoke. Got a very negative reception. But let's play Chris Christie, who basically stands up there and the crowd hates him they're booing him almost boot him off the stage but listen to this your anger your anger your anger against the truth is reprehensible whoa Whoa! Truth to MAGA. Reprehensible. And as people watch today, if your arguments are so strong, if your arguments are so great and mine are so bad, then just keep quiet. Let me make my awful arguments and then you can just reject them out of hand

but the problem is the problem is the problem is you fear the truth the problem is you want to shout down any voice that says anything different than what you want to hear. And you can continue to do it. And believe me, believe me, it doesn't bother me one bit.

I don't know whether it bothers him, but I got to tell you, one thing that people even forget about people in politics and people who are in the public life, they're still people. Really, remember, they in the public life. They're still people really remember. They actually are human beings. I mean, they are people. And I understand that Chris Christie has a lot of thick skin and a lot of ego,

but it is not fun standing up in a room where everybody hates your guts and they're yelling at you. That, that is not fun. But what I think is amazing is that he's at the point of being all out of bleeps to give. And he comes this close to saying, you are effing deplorable. You are.

What are you sniveling cowards afraid of here? You know, you're clinging to your ignorance. You're reprehensible. That was a magnificent moment. Right. But clearly, the primary electorate doesn't care. Well, the people in that room don't care. And that's a question of

who's in that room. But I really like Chris Christie too. And I had the same feeling that you did about him in 2016. This guy did more than anyone else to help Donald Trump win the nomination and then the election. So the thing that I like about Christie, and it sounds like you do too, is he's the realist person in that race. He just talks like a guy, right? He goes into a room, a politician panders. That's not pandering what we just heard, right? That's the opposite. That was not fan service. Because I mean, like 90% of these guys is like, what button can I push, you know, to get their political erogenous zone aroused? Now he's like,

screw it. I'm going to tell you what I think. And Charlie, it wasn't even a nice version of disagreement. I have never heard, and I don't think I ever will again, a politician walk into a room that he knows is against him and say, your anger is reprehensible? No. To tell the people in the audience they're reprehensible? Now, I want to just flag one thing from that clip that might have gone by some folks listening. Okay. There was a phrase that Chris Christie said.

It was, as people watch today. Do you hear that part? That's just a preposition he dropped in there. In other words, Christie went to this thing knowing that the room was against him, the room full of MAGA people, right? But that's not his audience. His audience is anyone outside who's either watching the event, which is not that many people, or who will see a video clip, or who will hear us talking about it, or who will read about it, right? So he's talking to everyone outside the room about the people inside the room. And he's saying to the people outside, oh, I'm with you. I'm with you sane people against these lunatics in the room. But I still respect him for the courage to go in and do

that. Yeah, no, that's a very, very good point. OK, so another really interesting soundbite over the weekend. I think we've been waiting for a long time for members of the American media to emulate the British media, the Australian media. I mean, have you ever noticed the difference between, say, a BBC interview and an American network interview? The BBC interviews, first of all, they don't let you filibuster, and they keep asking the same question over and over. I mean, they keep pressing it. Mehdi Hassan is very much from that tradition. But American interview is too often. Look, and I understand the limits of time and the limits of the format.

I mean, I'm sympathetic. It's not as easy as it looks. But George Stephanopoulos had Steve Scalise on yesterday. And he's asking him about whether the election was stolen. And by the way, I think this is a relevant question to ask, not because it's backward looking, but because it's forward looking. Because the real question is, will Republicans ever conceive the 2024 election? I mean, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves here, but is Donald Trump ever going to acknowledge that he loses next year, if he loses next year?

And will it become then an absolute litmus test for Republicans in the House of Representatives to reject the results of the Electoral College? I think it's more than a 50-50 chance. We've seen that with the unanimous vote for Mike Johnson, one of the full-throated election denialists. So Steve Scalise, who also was kneecapped by the slathering Jackal caucus, is on with George Stephanopoulos. And I was really struck by how many times Stephanopoulos asked him the question. Let's listen. It's about two minutes. Let's listen to this. Can you say unequivocally that the 2020 election was not stolen? What I've told you is there are states that didn't follow their laws.

That is what the state constitution, the US constitution requires. I've seen in my own state where we had to send our elections commissioner to jail years ago for fraud and corruption and we cleaned up our act in our state. Every state ought to follow the laws that are on their books. That's what the US constitution says. That's not what I asked. I said, can you say unequivocally that the 2020 election was not stolen? Twice. Look, Joe Biden's president. I know you and others want to talk about 2020. We're focused on the future. We've talked about 2020 a lot. We're talking about how to get our country back on track, how to get our economy moving, how to stand up to the bad actors around the world. Xi is not slowing down in China. He's looking at Taiwan. You see what's

going on in Russia. You see what's going on in Russia. You see what Iran is doing to work with Hamas and other terrorist organizations. This administration needs to pick up the pace. They're not standing up to the bad actors around the world. They need to. We're passing bills to address this through the House. The Senate needs to take action. The president needs to take action as well. That's what we're focusing on in the House. I know that Joe Biden is president. I'm asking you a different question. Can you say unequivocally that the 2020 election was not stolen?

Third time what I've told you and you've seen this. There are states that didn't follow the laws that are on their books, which is what the US Constitution says they have to do. So you just refused to say unequivocally that the 2020 election was not stolen. So do you want to keep rehashing 2020? Yes. We're talking about- I just want an answer to the question.

Yes or no? To this country. Five. We've asked, we've talked about this before. But again, will you acknowledge that there were states that didn't follow the actual state legislative enacted laws on their books, which the US Constitution says they're supposed to do. I know that every court that looked at whether the election was stolen said it wasn't, rejected

those claims. And I asked you a very, very simple question. Now I've asked it I think the fifth time that you can't appear to answer. Can you say unequivocally- Six, six. I told you there were a handful of states that didn't follow their laws. The rest did. Oh, my. Okay, Will.

If I smoked, I would light up a cigarette after that one. Good on George Stephanopoulos. Six times in two minutes. And Steve Scalise. What a weasel and a wimp. Because first of all, I mean, okay, nevermind. Go ahead. What do you think, Glenn? Okay. Just to get the numbers out. All right. We spared the audience here. You just heard six of them. There are nine. Stephanopoulos asks this question nine times in five minutes. He goes on and on. Now, just so everybody understands how these interviews work, the anchor has, the host

has a list of questions that they want to get to, right? Yeah. So every time you stop on a question, you're giving up a couple of minutes that you want on your later question. Right. I got to praise George Stephanopoulos. This is great. He's willing to chuck every question below that on his list.

He's willing to spend the rest of the interview repeating that question until he gets an answer because it's important. And let's remember, Stephanopoulos is the guy who after was at the first Republican debate, when six of the eight raised their hands and said that they would support Trump, even if he were convicted, right? He did the same thing. He asked a question about that. Why would you do that? Nikki Haley refused to answer. I forget who else he had on the show. Anyway, he is willing to tank the interview for that one question. And just to your point, Charlie, about what Scalise actually said and the plausibility

of whether the House Republicans would block the election results. Let's remember the number of elections that Donald Trump has been a candidate in, in which he has conceded defeat is zero. Am I correct? Zero. Remember when he lost in Iowa? Yeah. I mean, always, he's never a gracious loser ever. And we know what he will demand. He will demand that House Republicans do the courageous thing and throw out the election results, right? It would have been easy for Scalise to say that the election wasn't stolen, but he won't even say that. And you can hear him coming up with the rationale. The states didn't follow their laws. Now, this was all certified by courts, but Scalise and the Republicans

don't care about courts. And therefore, because they didn't follow their laws as they were written before COVID, that that's unconstitutional. Scalise is basically saying that the 2020 election, as it was conducted, was unconstitutional. He's saying that it was stolen. tire. Get a $50 prepaid MasterCard with select Michelin tires. Find a Michelin TreadExperts dealer near you at TreadExperts.ca slash locations. Let's switch to graver matters. What's going on in the Middle East with Israel and Gaza. And I want to talk about it, first of all, just in terms of domestic politics, because this is a real challenge for Joe Biden. There's no question about it. I know there was a little bit of denialism about how deep the divisions in the Democratic Party were. Vast majority of elected Democrats still supporting Joe Biden. But Biden

is, I mean, clearly the coalition is fractured as a result of all of this. Give me a sense of how he's navigating it. He started off with an absolutely full-throated, bear hug support, bear hug of Benjamin Netanyahu's government and Israel and what they're doing. They have been trying to have a more nuanced approach, calling for a humanitarian pause, which has been rejected now by the Israelis. So how is he handling this? Or is this one of those almost insoluble puzzles for an American president in this kind of conflict? Well, the basic problem that Biden has is he's taken a position which is popular in the United States, but the facts on the ground have changed over time. And you and I said at the very beginning that this was going to happen.

At the beginning, you have 1,400 murdered people in Israel, just a massive terrorist attack. Everybody's with Israel. And then as the response begins, the military response, the Israeli death count stays the same. The Palestinian death count stays the same. The Palestinian death count increases, you know, many times more. So it's not clear exactly how many, but there are thousands of civilians who have died in Gaza. Israelis are still dying, by the way. I mean, in the conflict, there are Israeli soldiers, so it didn't- Israeli soldiers, but the attack on Israel happened at the beginning. And just to be clear, yes, there are still rockets being fired into Israel, but there is Iron Dome, right? And there are still hostages. Yes. And some of those

hostages may be being killed. Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, I'm just pointing out that it's not like, you know, it's like, okay, so the bad thing happened and then that stopped and now it's the main argument that I would concede on your side. And I hate to call it your side because I am Jewish and I support Israel. The main argument I would agree with you here is let's not forget the attack, the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, right? Let's not forget that. And that's very easy when you have a 24-hour news cycle to forget that. So I fully agree with that. But it is still a fact that what's going on day by day is bombing and killing in Gaza. And although it is aimed at Hamas, Israel is not targeting civilians. But it's very hard, particularly when Hamas uses human

shields, not to kill civilians. So as that number keeps going up, and as people see the scenes of death in Gaza, Biden's position becomes more difficult. And that's part of why you see Biden and Antony Blinken saying, let's have a humanitarian pause. You see Blinken going to the West Bank talking about a two-state solution. I'm sure people in Israel are like, what the hell, you know, talking about what can we do for a Palestinian state when we just had an attack from a Palestinian territory on our civilians, right? But politically, that's what the United States needs to do. And it is important to show the Palestinians and to show the people in the Arab states and the Arab governments that there is a way other than violence that can lead to some

sovereignty for Palestinians. I'm trying to think of what scenario would be better for Biden at this point, because as you point out, he is sort of trapped. Okay, now, second guessing is a little bit unfair, but it's also the third oldest profession. So, in retrospect, was Biden's trip to Israel a mistake, a political mistake? Now, at the time, I thought it was bold. I'm always all in on it. But in retrospect, as you look at it, because, you know, you look around the world and also in progressive circles, and there is a lot of skepticism toward Israel, much more sympathy,

growing sympathy for the Palestinians. And yet that image, he was there hugging Benjamin Netanyahu. Mistake? No, no, no. I'm fully with Biden in that. And remember, he went to Ukraine too. Yes. Biden has a bigger agenda here.

Let's remember Biden and Mike Pence gave Biden a lot of grief about this, that, oh, gauzy speeches about democracy. Biden actually believes this stuff. He believes there's an international fight. I agree. Global fight going on between autocracies and democracies. And so he's going to Ukraine. He's going to Israel.

Which requires actual courage. Right. And there was a massacre of Jews. It was enormous. And so he was exactly right to do that. And now he's just got to navigate the evolving circumstances. And it's important to tell the Israelis that we have their back, because if the Israelis don't believe that, there's a little bit of danger about what they might do. And I think he wants some leverage with them to limit the civilian casualties. So I don't have any problem with that. On a different note, I mean, my main focus, I was going to say obsession, but yes, obsession, is trying to think about what's going through the minds of the folks that are tearing down the posters of the kids who have been kidnapped. It just strikes me, first of all, as, you know, a self

destructive, you know, in terms of the cause, but also the degree of animus. And I think this is one of the things that's kind of shaken our politics, because you kind of realize that these are people that you might have thought of as being roughly on your side in terms of politics. And suddenly you realize, no, we have a really radically different moral code. But I have to give credit to Democrats, particularly in Michigan, for policing their own. We talk about the need to police the bad actors on your own side. So Rashida Tlaib puts out a video that includes the people chanting from the river to the sea, which you and I have talked about, which is basically a genocidal, wiping out Jews. She's defending it. One Michigan Democrat

after another has called her out on that. That is not easy to do in our politics today, but it is urgently necessary. What do you think? Well, it's funny. This is one of those topics where I feel the difference between you and me and between sort of center left and center right. You're very attentive to people on the left saying crazy things, talking about abolishing the police or talking about supporting Hamas. My reaction is always, oh, it does happen. It does, it does. But my gut reaction is, let's not talk about that. Can we please not talk about that? Well, because you're me from 2015 saying that about people on the right. No, literally, we've now exchanged places. Because in 2015, we'd hear the crazy people on the right and going, just don't talk about it. They are not who we are.

They don't represent. We don't have to spend any time on them. And look where we are today. Okay, I'm sorry. Go on. Okay. No, that's a very good point. After we're done with this, I'm going to be thinking about that all week.

But my reaction is I don't want to talk about Rashida Tlaib, but part of me wants to defend Rashida Tlaib because we have a lot of Jewish members of Congress, but we don't have a lot of Palestinian members of Congress. I think she's the only one. Is that right? Palestinian American. So she's going to feel viscerally the pain, the suffering, the death in Gaza. And she's going to talk about that. I'm sympathetic to her on that. I think it's good that we have that voice, but you raised something

very specific. That video she put out has people chanting from the river to the sea. If you are the only Palestinian American representative in Congress, you have a responsibility. And I would say the same if there were one Jew, I would say the same about all the Jewish representatives in Congress. You have a responsibility to represent your point of view, your people, your interests, your concerns in a way that is not alienating, right? And if you put out in your video, as she did, from the river to the sea, you're telling America that the position of the Palestinian American community, as expressed by you, is the position of the Palestinian American community as expressed by you is the abolition of the state of Israel. Well, right. Cause there's a sea, there's a sea and there's

a river, right? And if you go from the sea to the river, there ain't no Israel in between. There can't be one under that definition. And by the way, talking about policing, guess who was on TV this weekend talking about this? They interviewed Bernie Sanders on CNN. Now Bernie's Jewish. I know. That was amazing. Yeah. And Bernie said, he said, because he's not up on this, but he said, well, if from the river to the sea, if it means abolishing Israel, then that's wrong. And I'm against that. Right. And it's important for voices like Bernie to say that. So I'm glad he did. It is. I mean, let me pick one little nit here is that Rashida Tlaib does not just represent Palestinian-American.

She is a U.S. congressperson who represents a lot of constituents. And so I understand the identity politics card you played there, but she also represents a lot of people of different backgrounds. And I don't think has less of an obligation to represent other Americans as well. You want to slap back? I mean, just about the identity policy. No, I didn't. Yeah, no, I agree with that.

And I don't know the exact composition of her district, but this would be true whether you're Jewish, whether you're Latino, Black, Palestinian, whatever, whatever your ancestry is, you do have to be certain that you're representing your district as a whole, because if you're a minority, very seldom is your minority enough to get you reelected. Speaking of what's going on in Congress, we're still getting to know Mike Johnson, the fifth string speaker. I have to say, it seems like the script writers are outdoing themselves with this guy. I mean, really, the contrast between the sort of the serious mild mannered demeanor, and this guy's background, apparently, he's spent a good deal of time scrubbing his,

his social media background, because, I mean, besides, you know, talking about, you know, gays and dinosaurs and whatever it is he spent his attention on in the past, he's going to face a couple of very, very tough weeks coming up. We have a countdown now to the shutdown of the federal government. Be interesting to see if he can avoid that. That is sort of his job, number one. But he was on over the weekend as well, talking about this whole linking Israel aid to the IRS gamut. I'd like to get your thoughts on the other side, Will. Here is Speaker Mike Johnson. That money from this giant fund over $67 billion that's sitting there to build up the IRS,

we weighed those priorities and said, you know, what a concept. We're trying to change how Washington works. And so by taking that money from this giant fund over $67 billion that's sitting there to build up the IRS, we weighed those priorities and said, you know what? It's more important to protect Israel right now than it is to hire more IRS agents. Apparently, Senator Schumer disagrees with that, but I'll take that debate to the American people all day long. Well, all right. So when Mike Johnson says we'll take that debate to the American people all day long, that's his way of saying we did this deliberately. We House Republicans attached Israel funding, which everybody wanted to support, to defunding the IRS so that we have a political issue. So if Biden vetoes this or the Senate rejects it, then we're going to say that Democrats

care more about the IRS than about Israel. Remember, the Republican argument was there shouldn't be anything with the Israel money. The Ukraine money shouldn't be in with the Israel money, but we're going to stick the IRS in there. So it's a political dig. And what I really wanted to flag here is Mike Johnson talks about, and he talks in this interview about being a Bible believing Christian and a person of faith.

What he's trying to project is earnestness. I'm not just another politician. I'm a sincerely devout Christian. What he's doing here is playing standard Kevin McCarthy politics, but he's doing it with that pious face. And it's deceptive, it's dishonest, and it's insulting to faith to pretend that you are somehow not playing normal politics, that you're being a righteous person. In fact, you're just like everybody else. And I just think it discredits the idea of the Christian sincerity. Yeah, I am not just playing politics.

I am actually trying to enact Leviticus. I mean, I'm not sure. Okay, I mean, we also need to mention that the cutting the IRS money does not actually reduce the deficit. In fact, it expands the deficit. The CBO numbers were out there saying, yeah, you actually reduces the deficit. In fact, it expands the deficit. The CBO numbers were out there saying, yeah, you actually increase the national debt by doing what you're doing. This is not about fiscal conservatism. There were a lot of incidents over the weekend where Republicans had their feet held to the fire on like, well, wait, you cite and believe the CBO here, here, here, here. But why do you doubt the CBO? Because they're like in denial. Like, I just don't believe it. It's like, if we stop enforcing laws against tax cheats,

if we don't go after millionaires who are underpaying their taxes, which we all know goes on, right? I mean, it's not a right left thing. You actually reduce revenue. I mean, that seems relevant, right? Right. And can we just flag here? That was George Stephanopoulos again, the same interview with people should just go watch the interview, Stephanopoulos and Scalise. The last five minutes is the stuff about the election and the 2020 election being stolen. The first part is about this and Stephanopoulos absolutely grilling him about, you know, Scalise says, well, we wanted to be fiscally responsible. That's why we attached to funding the IRS because that's money that's going to the IRS. Stephanopoulos says CBO,

which you just cited, says that what you're doing increases the debt. And again, Scalise had no answer. No, he had no answer. But I, you know, this is why, I mean, I rarely want to have politicians. I don't want to say never politicians on the podcast because, you know, for years I had politicians on the radio. And at a certain point, you realize you just put a quarter in and all you're getting are the talking points. It's just the blah, blah, blah. When Scalise was on, you could just sort of just hear the sort of like the tap dancing. And he's like, you know, word salad, word salad, word salad that I'm going to use to not answer the question. And the only way to make that valid is to do what George Stephanopoulos did, which is to keep coming back at them because they really absolutely do count on this.

I mean, the clock is their friend. I'm sorry to get too much into this interviewing thing. No, it's true. But they know they're looking at this thing. OK, they're told you're on for nine minutes. So that politician very consciously calculates. OK, so I'm on for nine minutes. If I spew six minutes of bullshit, that means only three minutes where I get, you know, have to answer or impressed on difficult

things. So Stephanopoulos is kind of taking that away, saying, okay, the clock is not your friend. I'm going to use all of this time to keep asking you the same question over and over again. Right. It's very important also for the, not to not care whether you ever get that guest again, because a lot of times the hosts are nice to the guests, right? And if you don't care, you can ask the right questions. One of the things I wanted to flag from that interview, so we just named two parts where Scalise talks about so one was about attaching the IRS defunding to the Israel stuff, not standard politics, right? And Scalise stonewalls and lies about that, right? When they move on to the election

and Scalise does the same thing, he won't say the 2020 election was stolen. Remember, this is the number two Republican in the house, right? He's the majority leader, right? And what he's telling you there, what he's signaling is he and his Republican colleagues see no difference between a standard political issue,

which people play politics all the time. We're touching our issue to your right and lying about election results. They just don't see it. They don't acknowledge any difference. And that makes them, you know, uniquely ill suited to protect this country. If they're willing to lie about an election result, the same way that they lie about a standard political issue. That is an excellent point. Will, it is great to talk with you. It is great to kick off the week with you. And of course, we'll do this again next Monday. Thanks, Charlie. And I want to thank everybody for listening to today's Bulwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We will be back tomorrow and we'll do this all over again.

The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown. If it's a flat or a squeal, a wobble or peel, your tread's worn down or you need a new wheel, wherever you go, you can get a pro at Tread Experts. Ensure each winter trip is a safe one for your family. Enjoy them for years with a Michelin X-Ice snow tire. Get a $50 prepaid MasterCard with select Michelin tires. Find a Michelin Tread Experts dealer near you at treadexperts.ca. From tires to auto repair, we're always there at treadexperts.ca.