The Bulwark Podcast - Will Saletan: Lying Dog-Faced Pony Soldier

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

Biden giving a press conference while jet-lagged may not quell rising concerns about his age. Plus, Kamala sticks to the script on abortion, Trump can't wait to sic his AG on opponents, and Good Nikki faces off with Bad Nikki. Will Saletan joins Charlie Sykes for Charlie and Will Monday.

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From tires to auto repair, we're always there. TreadExperts.ca. welcome to the bulwark podcast i'm charlie sikes it is the anniversary of 9-11 and i continue to be just really struck by the fact that uh even after 22 years we still remember every moment every hour where we were what happened on 9-11. Although I have to say, Will, Will Salatin joins me, of course, again. I have to say that one of the interesting things that as you grow older is watching how historical memory changes and puts things in a different context. Do you remember when we thought that 9-11 was this moment of great national unity and national purpose? And we look back now with a completely different lens, don't we? Right, right. Well, you know, it could happen again if some terrible tragedy befalls us

that forces us to recognize that we're actually compatriots. Yeah, exactly. We have a piece up at the Bulwark today, a really disturbing piece on 9-11. We promise to never forget, Will Selber writes, but too often we forget the post 9-11 combat vets. This is a really, really, really good piece. I just want to highlight this before we get going here. He starts off with the words that I've never read before in this particular context. He writes, I hate 9-11. I hate the commemorations, the Facebook posts blaring never forget, and the empty declarations that we will stand vigilant. I didn't always feel this way. I used to religiously watch the annual ceremonies, and I'd re-watch footage of the

horrific event itself. Seeing the iconic images again helped steal my resolve and propelled me to stay dialed into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They motivated me to fight. But ever since 2021, when Kabul fell, I have come to despise the public remembrances of 9-11. Why? Because almost nobody speaks truthfully about the wars that followed. Now, I use the anniversary to take stock of all that happened after that day of terror. I look back on my friendships and see what the wars did to us, the 9-11 day of terror. I look back on my friendships and see what the wars did to us, the 9-11 generation. Specifically, I look at my two best friends, Mike and Alex, and wince at the toll these forever wars took on the few who fought them.

If we really want to never forget, we must remember not only the events of the day, but also what we lost in the wars that followed and what we are still at risk of losing. It is a great piece. It is a very, very powerful piece. Will Selber has been one of, I think, most valuable and eye-opening contributors to the bulwark. So, Will, we have a lot of ground to cover today, a lot of audio, and I'm sorry to say a lot of heavy lifting. Although, could I start with this? It is a cold and rainy day in Wisconsin today, this morning, on a Monday morning in mid-September. And yet there is joy throughout Cheesehead land, I have to tell you. Yep.

Because there is nothing sweeter. There is nothing more important. There is nothing that eclipses a Green Bay Packer stomping of the Chicago Bears in Chicago on opening day with a new quarterback. I have to tell you, this has lasted more than four hours already. And I am not going to seek treatment for this. I'm just telling you right off the bat. And nothing I'm saying is overstating just the sort of the joy. I mean, you see these, you know, wet and soggy Wisconsinites, and they've all got this sort of beatific smile. All is good.

All is good. Spring in our step. Little extra niceness to Wisconsin nice, if you follow me. That's wonderful for you, Charlie. And I have to say that with apologies to the people of New York City, I tuned out the Cowboys game when they were up 33 to nothing. So also a good day for me. Yeah, well, I can't root for the Cowboys, but I'm in a magnanimous mood. I can share the joy. Okay, all of that is kind of a long lead up to doing some heavy lifting.

All right. And I need you, Will, to provide some perspective. President Biden is on this epic Asian trip at the G20. It's a killing schedule. There's no question about it. There are some significant diplomatic, I would say, advances and accomplishments here. But because we are who we are, there's also this debate. Should we be focusing on the diplomatic substance, the diplomatic successes, or should we focus on what was a, what weasley word can I use here? Problematic press conference by a clearly weary Joe Biden in Hanoi. Can I play a little bit of the soundbite? And then I want to get your take. Put it in context. How should we think about this? Okay, here's Joe Biden talking about the lying pony soldiers or whatever. Did you ever think you'd be sitting at a G20

conference where everyone was preoccupied with the notion of global warming? Not a joke did you ever think that not a joke and there's a my brother loves having there's famous lines from movies that he always quotes and one of them is there's a movie about John Wayne he's an Indian scout and they're trying to get

I think it was Apache one of the great tribes of America, back on the reservation. And he's standing with the Union, so they're all on their horses and their saddles, and there's three or four Indians in headdresses and the Union soldiers. And the Union soldiers are basically saying, the Indians, come with me, we'll take care of you, everything will be good. And the Indian scout, the Indian looks at John Wayne and points to the Union of Soldiers and says,

he's a lion dog-faced pony soldier. Well, there's a lot of lion dog-faced pony soldiers out there about global warming, but not anymore. All of a sudden, they all realize that it's a problem. And there's nothing like seeing the light. Is it a little bit didactic to point out that he's referring to this John Wayne movie, actually the actor playing a Cree in 1952's Pony Soldiers, addressing the character played by Tyrone Power?

So here they are, the dog-faced soldiers, the regulars, the 50 cents a day professionals riding the outposts of a nation. Okay. There is a John Wayne film, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, where Wayne is assigned

to get the Cheyenne nations back to the reservation after Custer's defeat. And there is this final clip in the movie here. The pony soldier speaks with the tongue of the snake that rattles.

All right. So what do we make of all of this? Because this is the headline in the Drudge Report this morning. And obviously it comes the week there's all of this concern and all of this panic. I mean, here's the headline in the Drudge Report. Mumbling in Hanoi, President's strange behavior, press conference crazy. They shut him off in mid-answer. They had to whisk him off. What do you make of it, Will? Okay. I just want to start by putting this in context. This is not the most important thing, obviously. The important thing is that Biden went there and what we are doing, obviously, is we are, although Biden said we're not trying to contain China, we are trying to contain China. And that's why we're upgrading our relationship with Vietnam. We're meeting with India, Australia And that's why we're upgrading our relationship with Vietnam.

We're meeting with, you know, India, Australia, the Philippines, South Korea, Japan, what do they all have in common? They're all afraid of China. Biden's going to the G20, and he's building an alliance in Asia. And it's great. That's all great. Which is very important. Extremely important. He says, we're a Pacific nation. This is, we're setting up in Asia what we had previously set up in Europe, an alliance of democracies or alliance against an aggressive totalitarian regime. But this particular press conference is obviously bad. And I have to say, Charlie, that when I watched the press conference and when I listened again to the clip of that, the word that comes to mind is grandpa, right?

This is the way grandpa talks sometimes. In fact, Biden refers, he mentions, one of the reasons why he got this story wrong about the movie is that he heard it from his brother. So it's gone through two grandpas now. He's told this story before and he gets it wrong every time, right? And this is what Joe Biden does. He's a storyteller and a lot of his stories turn out to be full of, what's that word, malarkey? So he gets his stuff wrong. He's slurring his words. He's also, it's just so inappropriate. He's talking about climate change, right?

And how he got from that to this movie, and it's the Indian headdress. Talking tired. He's jet lagged. Right. So it's from his era, this movie about cowboys and Indians and stuff. So it's not great, but it's not the headline to my mind. It is not the headline, but again, it plays into this narrative, which is just dominating. I mean, just dominating the coverage right now, you know, that, and again, whether it's,

you know, fair or not, let me just read you the, this is the Daily Mail. A sleepy president, Joe Biden saw his rambling Vietnam press conference brought to a sudden end on Sunday night with his mic cut and jazz music playing him off the stage like he went on too long in an awards speech. Biden was mid-flow and answering questions from journalists when he was interrupted and forced to shuffle away and head backstage. We talked about stability. We talked about the southern hemisphere has access to change it wasn't confrontation at all biden said as he rambled on okay so i have a couple of takes on this clearly he was exhausted he was tired but this strikes me again as as a staff failure

how do you put this guy out there and why do you humiliate him in this particular way? You know, look, I am not giving advice. And this may be an insoluble problem. But we know what Joe Biden's strengths are and what his weaknesses are. You saw his weakness there. Why not put him in more stable environments, the set pieces, have him give addresses, have him sit in the Oval Office, have him sit in, obviously he's in Hanoi, he can't do that, but to throw him out, obviously exhausted, tired, clearly sort of confused in all of this. It's like, Will. And I understand that we're going

to get people saying, okay, there you go again, you people at the Bulwark, you're talking about what 300 million Americans are talking about every day. If you just ignored it, those 300 million Americans would probably just forget this was an issue, except when it's reminded. So I guess my concern is how many of these dog-faced pony soldier type things are we going to have to endure between now and November before people come to grips with either how you deal with this and leading him off stage or how you package him in such a way that this does not become the dominant issue of 2024. Well, it's- Okay, I don't have any better answer. No. You and I can complain. I certainly have complained that we don't see enough of Joe

Biden. Joe Biden isn't out there selling his message, selling his record, yada, yada. And you know, why is he in his basement? Why isn't he out? And what we're seeing in this press conference is there's a reason. There's a reason he's not out there more because his staff know that they know that when he is out there and when he's forced to go on for hours without a nap, this is going to happen. The guy is on what is like a five day trip. He's gone across the world. It's like 30 hours. This is a lot for him at his age, for anyone at that age.

And for anybody, you think Trump would do this? Right. And there's the jet lag. There's all that. It's exhausting. And when he gets exhausted, it's pretty clear that he gets, I don't want to say disoriented, but he slurs his words. He was slurring his words here. He's telling this old story. They give him the hook. So it's not him at his best. And in their defense, I think they're trying to show him being more active. And the price of it is when he's

active, this happens. They could have shown that he was active without putting him out in this particular case. Okay, so let's leave this aside. The reason why I am so alarmed about this is because of the danger that is lurking out there that we have discussed, I feel, endlessly for seven years. And in case you missed it, Donald Trump went to South Dakota. Okay. And he's talking about how if he's president again, what he would do with his attorney general, you know, sticking his attorney general on an opponent. He obviously he's implying that Joe Biden, this, by the way, here's talking about the cognitive dissonance. And on the one hand, Joe Biden is completely senile, you know, and sleeping in his basement. On the other hand, he's, you know, he's out going around

the world doing these diplomatic things and apparently orchestrating the greatest conspiracy against a political opponent ever. Okay. I mean, he is at the center of this web that would make Machiavelli blush to listen to Donald Trump. Okay, so let's play clip number five about Donald Trump saying how he's going to sick his attorney general on his opponent. But remember, it's a Democrat charging his opponent. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. That means that if I win and somebody wants to run against me, I call my attorney general. I say, listen, indict him.

Well, he hasn't done anything wrong that we know of. I don't know. Indict him on income tax evasion. You'll figure it out. Okay. So he's not done yet. He's talking about the opponents doing well and what he would do. It does. It allows me to now, because this is unthinkable, I'm president and I call my attorney general, indict my opponent. He's doing well. See, Willis is the fantasy world that he lives in,

but he's clearly obsessed with it. Yeah. And does anyone think, by the way, that he wouldn't do that? That he didn't try to do that in his first term? Right? He did.

He tried to abuse the Justice Department. That's pretty well documented. He told people- He said to shake down Volodymyr Zelensky for dirt. Right. To remind people, the background here, there's a reason why Donald Trump has been indicted four times. He is a criminal. He is a criminal. The law is catching up to him. And that distinguishes him from all the other presidents, right? Who were not explicitly criminals. But the problem is Republicans need to sort of equalize this. They need to make Joe Biden seem as bad. So the idea is the law enforcement is going after me. So I will do the

same to you. Now, when law enforcement goes after a criminal, that's law enforcement. When the president says, I'm going to use law enforcement to go after my opponent, he said, like, you'll figure it out, come up with something. That is the definition of the, of abuse of power, right? It would be an impeachable offense if Republicans were still capable of impeaching one of their own, which they're not. But the point is that what Donald Trump attributes to his opponents, the weaponization of law enforcement, A, they are not doing, and B, he is explicitly saying he would do. And I think we've got to take him absolutely seriously. I mean, you know, just an asterisk there, if he's elected president again, he won't have an opponent because

in theory, he won't be allowed to run for a third term, but he's clearly unaware of that particular constitutional provision. Meanwhile, he got in a dig at Mitch McConnell. And in case there's any doubt in your mind, there's no ambiguity about what Trump is asking Congress to do. He wants Congress to defund the police. Oh, no, no. Actually, defund the entire Department of Justice and state prosecutors. He wants Congress to defund the entire criminal justice system that is coming after him.

Let's play this. The House has been working hard, but the Senate under this guy, Mitch McConnell, has been a disaster. And they should immediately defund the DOJ and prosecutors who are trying to take conservatives and Republicans out of political races through indictments and other illegal means. That's what they're doing. Yeah. No ambiguity there, is there? Look, he's calling on his political allies to abuse their power in Congress to undercut the, first of all, undercut the rule of law.

And secondly, it drives me nuts, Charlie, that Democrats have to answer for this rhetoric of defund the police, which is espoused by a tiny fraction of the Democratic Party. But was weaponized by Republicans very effectively. It was weaponized very effectively. And at the same time, a much, much larger percentage of the Republican Party, if not a majority, is behind this idea of defunding federal law enforcement. In this case, he literally says defund DOJ.

So it's anyone. It's anyone who goes after, who investigates a Republican. It's the state and local prosecutors. It's the federal prosecutors. This is the Republican party. If you're asking yourself, who is trying to defund law enforcement today? It is not the Democratic Party. It is the Republican Party. Can you imagine if there was audio of Joe Biden saying, I think we should defund the police in Portland, Oregon? I mean, that's okay. Whatever. Okay. This is a slight digression, but over the weekend, one of the breaking stories, there's so many major stories, including the fact that, you know, Mark Meadows got totally slam dunked by a federal judge in his attempt to move his case from state court

to federal court, which would suggest that everybody else is going to have a hard time doing that as well. But the other rather unusual story was the release of the original Fulton County grand jury report that had a whole bunch of names of people who the jury recommended for indictment, but who were not in fact indicted. This generally doesn't happen. We generally do not see what grand juries are doing. And we also don't hear about the people who were investigated, but not necessarily indicted. But in this case, because of Georgia law, we were. One of the names that popped up was your old friend, Will, your old friend, Lindsey Graham. And for anyone who has not listened to

Will's absolutely brilliant podcast, or read his book about Lindsey Graham, I wanted to just ask you what your thoughts were to see that Lindsey Graham, his name was up before that original Fulton County grand jury, and a majority, not all of them, but a majority of the members of that jury had recommended indicting Lindsey Graham. Just give me your thoughts on this. And of them, but a majority of the members of that jury had recommended indicting Lindsey Graham. Just give me your thoughts on this. And of course, Lindsey Graham comes out afterward and said, I did nothing wrong, and I'm prepared to do it again in 2022. Just saying. Okay, a couple of things about here. So Trump gets indicted and Lindsey Graham doesn't in the Georgia case. Why? Okay, so one reason is if you look at the math on how the special grand jury

voted, the prosecutors went after the people who got look at the math on how the special grand jury voted, the prosecutors went after the people who got like 20 out of 21 votes from the grand jurors. They didn't go for Lindsey Graham. Lindsey Graham was a 13, I believe. 13, yes, seven, no. So you're probably not going to win that case. Pretty mixed. Right. Also, Lindsey Graham was not directly involved in the fake elector scheme, which is central to the Georgia indictment, right? So they wisely focused on that and left him out of it. The third thing though, Charlie, is the phone calls, right? Lindsey Graham and Donald Trump each had a phone call with Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state in Georgia. Trump said, all I need you to do, Brad, is go

find me 11,780 votes, right? Graham said, apparently, it wasn't recorded the same way Trump's was, so we don't have the exact details, but he apparently started asking questions about, you know, in these counties where there were a lot of mail-in ballots and we're not sure if the signatures are valid, we being whoever is on Graham's side, then maybe you could set aside those ballots and basically disenfranchise all those people. And just throw out votes. Right. But he didn't actually say do it. And Charlie, the funniest thing to me is when Lindsey Graham was asked about, I think this was on Friday, about him not getting indicted,

he said, I never suggested anybody set aside the election. This is a quote from Lindsey Graham. I never said go find votes. So Lindsey Graham is saying that he is innocent because he didn't say what Donald Trump said in a recorded call, right? Without really intending to, Graham is obviously incriminating Trump that to say go find votes does mean that you corruptly tried to overthrow the election. Hey folks, this is Charlie Sykes, host of the Bulwark podcast. We created the Bulwark to provide a platform for pro-democracy voices on the center right and the center left for people who are tired of tribalism and who value truth and vigorous yet civil debate about politics and a lot more. And every day we remind you, folks, you are not the crazy ones. So why not head over to thebulwwork.com and take a look around? Every day, we produce newsletters and podcasts that will help you make sense of our politics and keep your

sanity intact. To get a daily dose of sanity in your inbox, why not try a Bullwork Plus membership free for the next 30 days? To claim this offer, go to thebullwork.com slash charlie. That's thebullwork.com forward slash charlie. We're going to get through this together. I promise. If it's a flat or a squeal, a wobble or peel, your dread's worn down or you need a new wheel, wherever you go, you can get it from our tread experts.

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details. Expect excellence. A proud member of Wayne's Auto Group. All of this is leading up to this conversation we have to have about Kamala Harris, because I think with Joe Biden, there are three separable questions. Number one, you know, has he been a good enough president to deserve a second term? He could make a very strong case. Yes. But a separate question is, but is he up for a reelection campaign? And I think there's a much bigger question mark over that. But then that leads us to the third question. And this is where I sort of come up against it, which is like, okay, if you answer no to either one of those questions, what is your plan B? What is the alternative? So let's say that you think that to either one of those questions, what is your plan B? What is the alternative? So let's say that you think that Joe Biden is too old. So what are you going to do

about it? Because he's running. Either the Democrats are stuck with him or they're going to have a wide open primary in which the vice president, I think, would be a very, very strong favorite. This is going to be a huge theme throughout 2024, by the way, that if you vote for Joe Biden, you're really voting for Kamala Harris, correct? I mean, so she lurks here. And, you know, and I was on Morning Joe this morning, and they were saying, well, you know, historically, nobody's ever voted because of a vice presidential nominee. It's never made a difference. I mean, I think that's probably largely true. But 2024 is going to be an unusual year. And you know that Nikki Haley has made it very clear that she's running against Joe Biden dead, Kamala Harris alive, right? And she said

this over and over and over again, President Kamala Harris. So inevitably, any conversation about Joe Biden and his age has to lead to, okay, plan B, Kamala Harris. Would Kamala Harris be better? Would she be better as a better? Would she be better as a candidate? Would she be better as a president? How would she play out? Well, she was on with Margaret Brennan on CBS, who asked her some really tough questions. And one of the key issues that Democrats will be emphasizing next year will, of course, be the Dobbs ruling, abortion, the right to life. And this has become now a signature issue of the vice president who has really made this her cause. So Brennan, you know, tries to drill down on her on the question of, okay, do you draw the line anywhere? Now, for those of you that want to push back on this,

this is going to be the Republican line of attack is the Democrats won't draw the line anywhere. They support abortion up until birth. I think Marsha Blackburn is now even saying things like even after birth, but they're kind of challenging. And this is going to be something you can hear over and over again. Democrats say, okay, so first trimester, second trimester, do you draw the line anywhere? And this is what the vice president was pressed on in CBS yesterday morning. Let's play about two minutes of this back and forth, okay? And then I want to get your take on this one. What is it that you believe?

I mean, what week of pregnancy should abortion access be cut off? We need to restore the protections of Roe versus Wade. We're not trying to do something new. Well, that was nebulous because it was about viability, which could be anywhere between 20 to 24 weeks. But, so, no, no, no, no. That was in the Women's Health Protection Act that the White House also endures. Let me be very clear.

From day one, the president has been clear. I have been clear. We need to put back the protections that are in Roe v. Wade into law. Since the Supreme Court took it, Congress has the power and ability to pass legislation to put those protections back in law, and Joe Biden will sign that bill. So that is what we want. But does it need to be specific in terms of defining where that guarantee goes up to and where it does not, which week of pregnancy. We need to put back in place the protections of Roe versus Wade. You know why I'm asking you this question, though, because...

We're not trying to do anything that did not exist before June of last year. It wasn't crafted into law. And that's why I'm asking you for the specifics there because Republicans say the lack of a precise date in cutting it off. You know this. They say that allows Democrats to perform abortions up until, you know, birth.

Which is ridiculous. Statistically not accurate. And it's ridiculous. I understand that. And it's a mischaracterization of the point. No, the point is, the point is we have to. But do you need to be more precise? I am being precise.

We need to put into law the protections of Roe versus Wade. And that is about going back to where we were before the Dobbs decision. And this is a very real issue. Our daughter in her 20s is going to have less rights than my mother-in-law who's in her 80s all right will have at it okay so this goes on for like two minutes as you said she has plenty of time to explain in her answer at least the basics of what Roe versus Wade said, and she doesn't do it. She doesn't even begin to address the trimester framework, the idea that Roe drew distinctions between early and late abortions, right? That in the third trimester, Roe says, fine, states can

ban abortion. In the second trimester, Roe says states can pass laws relating to maternal health. And then of course, Roe was modified by Casey to allow more regulation. The point is, there is a lot that Kamala Harris could say here to clarify to the American public that Democrats do not support unrestricted, unlimited abortion up to the moment of birth, which is exactly what Donald Trump and all the other Republicans are telegraphing they are going to run on on this issue. They're going to say Democrats are extreme. All Kamala Harris has to do here is to say a little bit about the Roe framework and how it does not allow abortions up to the moment of birth. And she doesn't do it. It's basic communication. And I got so much

blowback from people on social media this weekend saying, you know, their position, these people on the left, is everyone should know what Roe versus Wade says. She shouldn't have to explain this. No, that's your job. You're running for vice president of the United States. Whether Donald Trump is president again may hinge on your ability to communicate with the public.

Do your job. Let's just spread this out just a little bit, because this, I think, is a really crucial, crucial point. So you are Kamala Harris. I am asking you a question. So, Madam Vice President, do you or do you not support third trimester abortions? You want me to answer that?

Yes. Yeah, you're Kamala Harris right now. Okay. I'll try to put myself in her shoes. I mean, the answer is no. The answer is no. I mean, the fundamental distinction that I would draw if I were answering this question is at viability, the way we regulate abortion changes. Before viability, the presumption is it should be legal. We don't need to know about the reasons or any of that. After viability, which is when, it's not entirely clear because it varies according to the pregnancy. But in that range of 20 to 20, it's not really 20 weeks, but like say 22 to 23, 24 weeks. In that range, we're going to change the state laws about this to say that you need a good reason. Now, in fact, pro-choice people are correct that women don't generally go out there at 23, 24 weeks and say, I feel like having an abortion. Correct.

These abortions that happen late happen generally for very serious medical reasons. You know, as Pete Buttigieg has said, by this point, you may have ordered the crib, you're painting the room, you're expecting to have a baby. So you're not going to do this for frivolous reasons. But it's fine for progressives, for Democrats to say that the law should express the moral distinction that people make, including the women who are going to make that decision, instead of saying the law should have nothing to say about abortion at any stage of pregnancy. But there's a reason why they're not giving that answer. Okay. So why don't they? I mean, what you're saying makes a lot of sense. So why aren't they doing it? A couple of reasons, I would say. I think they're afraid on the merits that if they

open the door to some regulation, that the right wing will take hold of that. Look, we're already there. The right is already passing laws in all these states, taking abortion back to six weeks or zero, right? There's also the political concern that we mustn't, you know, pick a fight with anyone on the left about any issue, right? And I guess that's- I think what you're seeing here is the way that the absolutists dominate this debate. And you do see this in the pro-life movement, but you're also seeing it now in the pro-choice movement, which is that if you are talking to these swing voters, you look at every poll and voters make the distinctions that you are describing. You ask them, how do you feel about abortions after 15 weeks? They're strongly opposed. If you ask them,

how do you feel about abortions in the first 15 weeks? You know, there's strong support for the legalization. And so this debate seems to be dominated by people who represent a very small sliver of the electorate who are unwilling to say there's any limits whatsoever. Right. And I'm just not sure that that's smart politics, but it's also, I think, does defy a certain common sense and a certain moral sensibility among American voters. And I'm talking about people all across the political spectrum. And on that point, Charlie, not just the spectrum, but across both genders, okay, both sexes. Look, to every woman who is listening to our conversation and saying, I can't believe that these two men are presuming to talk about how to control women's bodies. Let me tell you, okay, this is really,

because I got a lot of this blowback from people. The problem to you folks who are upset about that, the problem isn't me and Charlie, okay? We're just a couple of guys. Your problem is with the public of America, including the women of America. And if you are a pro-choice woman and you are an absolutist and you think the only people who don't share your point of view are men trying to control women's bodies, let me quote to you some polling data. Okay. This is from the most recent Gallup poll on this issue, which was from May. This is among American women, not men, women, the percentage of women who believe that abortion should be illegal in the last three months is 66%, two thirds. Okay. But let's go beyond that. The percentage of American women who think abortion should be illegal in the second trimester,

the second three months of pregnancy is 52%. 40% say it should be legal. 52% say in the second trimester, it should be illegal. So if you are a woman who thinks you're only arguing with men, you need to get out more. You need to talk to other women. And this goes all the way back through the history of abortion politics. If you read some of the best sociological works about this issue, Kristen Luker, Faye Ginsburg, this is largely a fight among women. Men are heavily involved. Men are in these legislatures passing laws. And I understand the complaint that they shouldn't be speaking the same way women do, but you need to talk to more women and you need to communicate to those women and explain to them that you do recognize

moral distinctions between the trimesters, between various weeks of gestation. This is an ad by BetterHelp Online Therapy. October is the season for wearing masks and costumes, but some of us feel like we wear a mask and hide more often than we want to, at work, in social settings, around our family. Therapy can help you learn to accept all parts of yourself, so you can stop hiding and take off the mask. Because masks should be for Halloween fun, not for your emotions. Whether you're navigating workplace stresses, complex relationships, or family dynamics, therapy is a great tool for facing your fears and finding a way to overcome them.

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you go, yeah, Nikki Haley is really sounding like the normie candidate. And then she'll say something like, you know, no, I will definitely vote for Donald Trump, even if he's in jail, because X, Y, and Z. So over the weekend, we got a little bit of the good Nikki and the bad Nikki. Let's hear clip number nine, when the good Nikki talks about cutting off funds for Ukraine. So House Republicans should keep that Ukraine spending in the spending bill and should not separate it and should support it. Republicans and Democrats should not pull in Afghanistan. Don't go pulling out now. We Putin is at rock bottom. We know that because he's getting drones from Iran and missiles from North Korea. We know that because they've raised the draft age in Russia to 65. Finish this. Then she's asked about this weird flex in the Republicans right now to basically invade Mexico.

Do you think that's a fair way of describing what Ron DeSantis and others are talking about, sending our military into Mexico? That sounds like an invasion. Yeah, there's the question of consent. But yeah, we would be sending military forces into Mexico, that sounds like an invasion. Yeah, there's the question of consent. But yeah, we would be sending military forces into another country. Now, we've done that before, though, right? I mean, haven't we sent special forces to various places in Central America to go after drug dealers? I mean, is this really that radical?

I'm asking for a friend. So it depends. It depends, Charlie, on what happens after we send them in. Do they get shot at? Do they start shooting back? Who else gets hurt? These things can get out of hand. They have in the past. I mean, you assume you send special forces into a foreign country to go after cartels that there will be shooting, that they will shoot and people will shoot back. Yeah. Okay. Here's Nikki Haley asked about that. And apparently like all the other Republican candidates,

she's like all in on this. I've heard some of your colleagues talk about treating the drug dealers in Mexico as if they are a terrorist cell and having the military in cooperation with the Mexican government, obviously, treat those Mexican drug dealers as a terrorist cell. What do you think of something like that? Well, first of all, I think we deal with China first because that's the originator. That's where it's coming from. But I actually do think we should send our special operations over to eliminate the cartels. We can't wait on Mexico anymore. We can't wait on any more Americans to die. We have to be aggressive on this and we treat them like the terrorists that they are.

Okay. So troops into Mexico. When Nikki Haley answers the question, she specifically says, we can't wait on Mexico anymore. What the hell does that mean, Charlie? Is she saying she doesn't care whether the Mexican government consents? Because all of these Republican candidates are telling us, oh, we mustn't risk American men and women, you know, in harm's way in Ukraine, right? We, you know, we don't want that. But now they're talking about sending them into harm's way in Mexico, and they're not even taking the offer of this would only happen with Mexico's consent. It makes me wonder how much of the Republican position on fentanyl and on the border is bluster and how much of it is really about doing this despite Mexico's opposition. Speaking of bluster, I wrote a piece sometime back where I said, it used to be the cruelty was the point. Now the new litmus test is brutality is how much are you willing to embrace in terms of just, you know, killing people, maiming people, and suggested there would probably be a war of words there. And sure enough, Rhonda Sanders is doubling and tripling and quadrupling down on his use of the term stone cold dead to describe what would happen if somebody crossed the border with a backpack with fentanyl. Now, how they would know that it's fentanyl before they shot him stone cold dead is a little bit unclear, okay? But he's apparently relishing the idea that we will be killing people coming across the border, not arresting them, not giving

them due process, killing them. And apparently he's doing this because either polling or focus grouping or whatever is telling him or crowd reaction that there's kind of a kind of, yeah, absolutely. We just need more dead people coming across the border. So there is this escalation in terms of, you know, how much force are we going to use and how many people are we going to kill? I mean, look, there's no secret about it. Donald Trump is always talking about how much he admires the Chinese approach of executing drug dealers. You know, after a short trial, he's praised the former Philippine president Duterte for the extrajudicial murders. He's got a real fetish for this sort of thing.

But other Republican candidates seem to be picking this up as well and without any blowback as far as I can tell. Right. It's, I mean, Trump certainly broke the mold in terms of just disregarding human rights and the thing about the death penalty and, you know, one day trials and that kind of thing, emulating the Chinese. When DeSantis says this stone cold dead thing, you know, this sort of, to me, brings home how unserious this party is, right? Serious strength, including serious military strength, includes not making threats that you don't actually intend to enforce. It's not just something you can say in a campaign speech. So when DeSantis says this thing about stone cold dead, does he really mean it? My guess is, Charlie, he doesn't mean it. And so it's all bluster. But if he did mean it,

of course, that would take America down the road of becoming just another country that disregards human rights. And that really would destroy our country. Yeah, I mean, the whole idea of a wall and shooting people coming over the wall. I mean, where did we hear this before? What does this remind me of? This is the thing that drives me crazy about immigration policy, right? The Republican message here is we need to defend America. And Trump talks about blood and soil, right? It's our land. People are coming into this territory of ours, right? But what makes America, America isn't just the Rio Grande, right? It's that we have values, right? We stand for something. We're not just another, you know, tin pot dictatorship. And so when you hear these

Republican candidates say, we're just going to shoot people, right? Or we're just going to give people one day trials and execute them. That is destroying America. That is destroying the essence of what makes our country different. Yeah. And of course, Rhonda Sanders has to be, not to shoot them, but shoot them dead. And not just dead, but stone cold dead. Okay, so this is a strange thing. And you and I were talking about this off the air, this big speech that Mike Pence gave up at St. Anselm's College in New Hampshire,

where he drew this bright line between populism and conservatism. I talked about this with Tim a little bit, Tim Miller, on Friday, how weird it is to listen to Mike Pence, who for four years sat across from or sat next to or stood behind Donald Trump, now saying that there are unbridgeable, irreconcilable differences between traditional conservatism and the kind of populism represented by Donald Trump. This is former Vice President Mike Pence. But today, a populist movement is rising in the Republican Party.

The growing faction would substitute our faith in limited government and traditional values with an agenda stitched together by little else than personal grievances and performative outrage. Ooh, performative outrage. The Republican populace would abandon American leadership on the world stage, embracing a posture of appeasement in the face of rising threats to freedom. Republican populace would blatantly erode our constitutional norms. A leading candidate for the Republican nomination last year called for the, quote, termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution, close quote.

While his imitators in this primary have demonstrated a willingness to brandish government power to impose their will on opponents. I'm going to say their names, too. So, OK, that's really kind of extraordinary. It's kind of a it's kind of a moment like, you know, how long has this been going on? That Mike Pence is shocked, shocked to find out that this is going on in the Republican Party. And I understand that people would say, Charlie, it's like, you know, wasn't that you? OK, but I never bought into the Trumpian populism. And Pence was right there where all of that was going on. Still, it is I guess I have mixed feelings, Will, because here you have somebody who is saying what we have been

saying or I have been saying for years now, which is that this is not conservatism. This is an abandonment and repudiation of conservatism. And for Mike Pence to be saying it, I mean, you know, hey, welcome to the party. A little bit late. I think we have some scraps left around here. I think the cake's all gone, but you're still welcome to the party. Your thoughts? This is going to be my pony, right? Okay. So yes, Mike Pence is eight years late. He's eight years late. You could argue he's 15 years late in terms of the changes in the Republican Party since the Tea Party. But still, this is the way out and better late than never. And even if it's too late for Mike Pence to redeem himself, he is explaining to conservative people who are still of good faith, who believe in conservative principles, why Donald Trump is wrong and what the Republican Party must

be in the future if it is to stand for something at all. And I welcome that. And even if it's too late for Mike Pence, future conservatives could read this speech. And Charlie, you know how history works. The speech of a loser, which Mike Pence is right now, can become a beloved document, a scripture for the future about what the party should stand for. Yeah, I'm not sure this is going to become scripture or a beloved document, but he does make some interesting points. Here's where he, one more clip here, where he kind of slips in the dagger saying that these populists are starting to sound

a little bit like the much dreaded progressives. And he actually kind of lumps in the populist Republicans with people like Bernie Sanders and Huey Long and William Jennings Bryan. I mean, the truth is Donald Trump, along with his imitators, often sound like an echo of the progressives they seek to replace and a choice for the American people. For instance, they argue that we can only end our crises at home by abandoning our allies abroad. Like progressives, Republican populists insist government should dictate how private businesses operate.

And in fact, the governor of Florida still justifies using the power of the state to punish a corporation for taking a political stand that he disagreed with. Okay, so in that clip, he takes a shot at Donald Trump by name and Ron DeSantis pretty clearly. But you see the way that he's framing, he's telling his fellow conservative Republicans, who do these guys remind you of? Huh? Right. So I don't know whether that will get any traction. My guess is it won't. But it's that was a sign to me that he is somewhat in earnest in explaining to conservative audiences, look what these guys are doing. Are you old enough to remember when you thought this was terrible, using the power of the state to punish somebody you disagreed with?

You remember when you thought it was terrible if we ever abandoned our allies out there? And like, look in the mirror. Look at these guys now. Right. And it's one of the things that Pence says there that's really important. You're right. He names Trump, and that's a big deal. But he goes beyond it, and he says, Trump's imitators. And to me, Charlie, this is the problem because Donald Trump actuarially,

you know, he will pass from the scene. And the real danger in the longterm is that he will have imitators. He already has one in DeSantis and to some extent, many other politicians. And what happens if the Republican party goes that route in general and there ceases to be a conservative party. So good for Pence to say that. And here's just a theory. I don't know what you think about it. Is this happening now because Mike Pence is losing because he's hanging out at what, 3% a decade, but he's kept silent because the Republican Party was doing okay because Trump won the election, right? And then they all stuck together. And when they're losing, losing is what forces you to reflect on, was it really worth it to abandon everything we believed in? Yes. Yes. I think that's exactly what's happening. I don't think there's any other interpretation. And I do think that Mike Pence has known this all along and yet has chosen not to say it. He went along with it. He rationalized it. He enabled it. He was complicit in it all along. So what turned him around? You would have thought that

it was January 6th, but you can sort of see his gradual evolution where he looks at what happened on January 6th and he's now becoming more outspoken that this wasn't a terrible day. This was an attack on the constitution. Donald Trump asked him to put his political career ahead of constitutional norms and the peaceful transfer of power. So obviously, that was something of a shock to Mike Pence. But you can see that he's now working towards saying, all right, you know what? I have nothing to lose. I might as well just lay this out and say what I'm actually thinking. Although the speech has got a lot of boilerplate in it, and it's got a lot of the usual stuff, and there's a lot of Reagan nostalgia. And to me, I have to tell you,

Will, I know that he intends it as kind of a clarion call for a restoration of principled conservatism, but it really felt like kind of a eulogy for a party that just doesn't exist anymore. I mean, he's right in explaining the difference between conservatism and this Trumpian populism, but the phrasing of his entire speech was, it is a time for choosing, which of course is an echo of Ronald Reagan from 1964. The problem, and this is almost too obvious, is the time for choosing has come and gone. The party chose Trump. The party chose populism. The party was just not that into conservatism. And it's obviously not that into Mike Pence. Right? So the choice has been made. First of all, I do think that we're going to look back at this. I mean, hopefully in the future, we will look back at 2024 and the Republican race in 2024 as a moment when there was an articulation of what the party used to stand for and should stand for by people who could not in that year of 2024 win the election. Just to go back to the Republican debate, right?

The first Republican debate, you got eight candidates on stage and you see six of them articulating what Mike Pence is articulating here, traditional conservative values, right? And those six have no chance, right? Who's at the top? Donald Trump. Who's behind him? Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, right? So the populists are ruling the party.

But there's this minority voice, the losers who are articulating something different. And maybe in the future, things can change. I don't know if they can, but I don't agree, Charlie, and this is just temperamental with me and you, obviously, I don't agree that the choice has been made in perpetuity. I think the choice is still open. And I think that's the message Mike Pence is trying to deliver. And he says beautifully in this speech, I think, he says at the end of the speech, if we abandon all of the conservative ideas we used to stand for, for this populism, this pastiche of grievances, right? He says, we will be Republican in name only. It is a beautiful turn of phrase on Trump's accusation that everyone's a rhino

who doesn't support Donald Trump. Except that I know people who said that seven years ago. You know, seven years ago, eight years ago, six years ago, and they said it five years ago. They said it four years ago. Great to hear Mike Pence saying it now, but I desperately hope that you were right about this. Certainly will. I mean, let's end on this note. I am absolutely hopeful that you were right about this. I'm not optimistic about it, but I hope you are right. I'll take what I can get. Making the distinction once again between hope and optimism. Will Salatin, thank you once again for joining me on this anniversary of September 11th on this Monday.

I'm Charlie Sykes. Thank you all for listening to the Bulwark Podcast. We'll be back tomorrow and we will do this all over again. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper and engineered and edited by Jason Brown.