The Bulwark Podcast - Will Saletan: Trump Is Anti-America

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

On the stump in New Hampshire, Trump parroted Putin condemning the American political system. Plus, the tension among Democrats over Israel, Christie v Haley, and it's either Biden or the end of democracy in 2024. Will Saletan joins guest host A.B. Stoddard for a special A.B. and Will Monday.

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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. Therapy is a great tool for facing your fears and finding ways to overcome them. If you're thinking of starting therapy, but you're afraid of what you might uncover, give BetterHelp a try.

It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com. Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm Amy Stoddard, columnist at the Bulwark, sitting in for Charlie and Will Mondays for Charlie Sykes.

He is on a well-deserved vacation, and I'm delighted to be with Will Salatin, my old friend and colleague. And we have a mountain of news. Actually, I was surprised how much news has happened in the last few days for us to chew over. And I'm not going to get to the juice of the crack-up of the DeSantis campaign or super PAC, I'm going to start right in on some substance because this is very seriously depressing. Well, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has landed in Israel for what will be very difficult discussions, I'm sure, situation with the hostages. And I want to start, because this is a bulwark podcast after all with a repulsive tweet from rick grinnell who needs no introduction but to back everybody up

he was the illustrious ambassador to germany under donald trump and later acting dni in that like very creepy end part of the trump administration where everyone was getting like many temporary assignments to do horrible things and he writes this morning morning, will SecDef Lloyd Austin bring the U.S. hostages home while he's in Israel? Or is he there to tell Israel to stop looking for them? So we're framing this discussion about the serious matter of where not only our government is positioning itself with the Israeli government, Will, but in terms of this supplemental funding that people keep hearing about, that Congress is considering, which is security aid for Israel, security aid for Taiwan, security aid for Ukraine. Lots of fighting. They're all different. And we see now this kind of tension

within the Democratic Party, Will, about where to go with this. And there's concern about where the bombing campaign is going. So I want to start with this sound from over the weekend from Maryland Senator Colin being interviewed about this topic. We also heard him this week in a closed event, but say that Israel was doing indiscriminate bombing. Indiscriminate bombing and was risking them losing support. That's not a phrase that I've heard others in administration repeat or him repeat. Is that what Israel has been doing? Because that, I mean, indiscriminate bombing, depending on how you define it, is potentially a war crime. Well, John, look, here's the bottom line. We do have unacceptably high levels of civilian casualties. We see

very loose rules of engagement, way looser than anything the United States would exercise. We would not drop a 2,000-pound bomb on a refugee camp to target a Hamas commander. Just yesterday, snipers fired into a church compound, killing a mom and her daughter without warning. So it is very important because the United States is not a bystander to this. We are a big supplier, of course, of military assistance to Israel. So we are with them entirely in the objective of ending the military threat. But again, we need to make sure that our values are reflected in this so long as we are providing all of this equipment. So Will, we share this objective, but we want to make sure that the conduct reflects our values. Can you translate this for me? So a very complicated topic. First of all, first of all, AB, I'm just so delighted. This is my

first chance to do the Bulwer podcast with you. Many times as a guest, but this time that I get to be with you as a host. but this time I get to be with you as a host. And hopefully we're going to get through this show, folks, without any expletives, with apologies to Charlie, we're going to manage to do that. So let me start with the Grinnell thing. Here is Lloyd Austin going to Israel, and Grinnell is asking whether we're going to stop Israel from looking for the hostages. By the way, this tweet from Grinnell, is this after Israel has actually killed three of the hostages? I believe he does this. So maybe Lloyd Austin would be there instead of telling Israel to stop looking for the hostages, maybe tell them to stop killing the hostages.

And the fact that the hostages got killed is a symptom of what Chris Van Hollen is talking about in that clip when he says loose rules of engagement. That's a very important phrase. So there's two things in that clip that we just played. One is Joe Biden saying that Israel is doing indiscriminate bombing. Now, Biden didn't say this on camera, but he did say it. And so what we're seeing is an escalation from Joe Biden, not going further away from the truth, but going toward it. He's been very restrained. He's been, look, we're going to be good friends to Israel. We're going to talk behind any criticism we're going to try to do backstage, out in front. We're just saying we're friends of Israel. But he's being increasingly explicit

about saying that what Israel is doing is indiscriminate. And when Chris Van Hollen talks about dropping 2,000 bombs on a refugee camp, he's getting detailed about, so this is not just a blind accusation. There was recently a report on CNN that there have been about 30,000 Israeli munitions bombs dropped in Gaza and half of them are dumb bombs. They're not precise. They're going to kill civilians. So what Israel is doing is predictably going to kill a lot of civilians, and it has. And when Chris Van Hollen talks about the loose rules of engagement, that is a much more serious accusation. That is saying that Israel is telling its troops to operate by rules of fire. Again, we just saw three hostages killed.

Supposedly, that was against the rules of engagement. But Israel is deliberately using rules that, while not intended to kill civilians, are much more likely to kill civilians than if you had tighter rules of engagement. Where do you see these conversations going? What I think is interesting is there is some nervousness building among Democrats, definitely not among Republicans, about the execution of the campaign in Hamas and the conduct and everything you just described. And so there is some talk about conditioning aid. So apparently Biden has called this a worthwhile idea, but it's not embracing it. What I see is that this is going to be punted until after the holidays.

And this debate could change a lot between now and when that aid package is being voted on. So in terms of the politics of this, where do you see it going here? And what do you anticipate as Biden gets more explicit and leans more into the truth and puts more pressure on Bibi Netanyahu? Where do you see it going between now and let's say like January 10th? You know, when the Congress returns on January 8th, they have nine days to pass a bunch of government funding to just fund government operations. This is a different set of funding to just fund government operations. This is a different set of money, just so that the viewers understand. It's separate and apart.

It's sort of emergency spending. And so this whole debate is going to be in the middle of the stew of inviting over just our annual spending, which everyone knows is a regular feature of the Congress. So take us overseas. Where do you see that conversation going? And do you actually think Democrats are going to lean in to conditioning aid because they don't like the execution of this campaign and the way it's going in Gaza? Or do you think that Biden between now and then can put enough pressure on Netanyahu that they pull back a bit, They change their conduct.

They tighten their rules of engagement. Where do you see it going? Yeah, so I think they're connected in the sense that Biden may be more able to persuade Netanyahu and the Israelis to tighten the rules of engagement, to change the way that they're conducting the war, to be less dangerous to civilians. If the Democrats and Biden have behind them the threat, the implicit threat that they will make this an issue in terms of whether to continue funding Israel's side of the war. I don't think they really want to do that. There are some progressives who are willing to do that. The Democratic Party as a whole, and certainly Joe Biden, they don't want there to be a big public

fight over whether we're going to give money to Israel. First of all, as we're going to be discussing, there's so many other fights going on. And the Democrats are fighting with the Republicans about the border policies, which are all part of this negotiation. That's a fight where the Democrats need to be united, they need to figure out a position. So I don't think they want to open this fight with Israel. But it is true that we are helping Israel conduct this war by funding them. There are, in fact, US laws about, you know, enforcing our values when we give money for something like this. So there is a legitimate case to be made. And what's going on in Israel is Benjamin Netanyahu and Biden are at loggerheads about this. And Netanyahu is resisting

the Americans. And at some point, the Americans have to be able to have some leverage they can point to against Netanyahu and say, listen, buddy, if you don't change what you're doing in Gaza, we're not going to be able to get our Congress to continue to support you. And what's going on between Democrats and Republicans around Israel is that the Republicans have a totally carte blanche position about Israel. Because Israel was victimized horribly on October 7th, Israel can do whatever the hell it wants. Absolutely. And it is. And so the Democrats are going to be taking any position to the, I don't know what to

say, not to the left of that, but inside of that in terms of drawing some boundaries on what Israel can do. Do you think that Bibi Netanyahu goes around Biden to the Republicans, or is he humbly aware of the danger of his circumstance? I would love to believe, A.B., that Bibi Netanyahu has ever been humbly aware of anything. Humility and this guy really don't go together. Can I flag one thing about these hostages that got shot? Yeah. Okay, so the IDF is in Gaza, is in Gaza City, and three hostages come out.

They're shirtless. They're waving a makeshift white flag, and they get shot. And supposedly, the soldier who shot them wasn't supposed to shoot them. Supposedly, this is against the rules of engagement, but they got shot. Two of them get shot dead. One of them goes in, comes back out and gets shot again and killed. Okay. This scene, the only reason we know about this is that those three people were Israelis because they were hostages. And so the IDF had to account for them. Three hostages are dead. We can't hide this. Aby, how many times has this happened with people in Gaza who were not Israeli hostages, who were just Palestinian civilians?

Because if you have a bunch of 20-year-olds going around, which is what happens in war, they're armed, they're scared, they're on high alert, and somebody comes out. How many Palestinian civilians have died this way? And we just don't know about it because the IDF didn't have to account for them. So I'm very concerned about that. 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. Therapy is a great tool for facing your fears and finding ways to overcome them. If you're thinking of starting therapy but you're afraid of what you might uncover, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com. Let's move on to another deeply disturbing topic, which is Ukraine. And so when we're looking at this battle over supplemental funding, this is as bleak as it can be. Vladimir Zelensky comes to the U.S., again, leaves empty handed with congressional Republicans saying enough of the blank checks and we can't continue to do this.

And a lot of them on the on the far right really kind of trashing him. I mean, just if you look at social media, the way that they talk about him, it's really so nakedly pro Putin. It's amazing. It's not just, oh, the brave people of talk about him. It's really so nakedly pro-Putin. It's amazing. It's not just, oh, the brave people of Ukraine can't depend on our money forever because we're broke. It's not at all that. It's just naked hostility to Ukraine. So this is in the balance and it's terrifying that we're in this place where it's definitely the last money that will go out. If Trump wins, that's the end. I don't know where this debate is going long term, but it doesn't look good. And just in the next, again, as I said, three weeks or so, the idea that they're going to be able to balance this supplemental

dance. Taiwan doesn't seem to be controversial, but how he gets the Israeli package right with the Ukraine funding right and gets it out the door depends on this immigration compromise. Will My Gut tells me that Republicans don't want to fund Ukraine. And so the idea that they would go in and approve a border compromise that would help Joe Biden control the border, calm the border, give the public the impression that he's tightening up, restricting asylum criteria, et cetera, trying to get control of the mess, which obviously would just help Joe Biden next year politically. It just doesn't seem feasible to me that Republicans are in this to do this, to fund Ukraine and to actually vote on a border compromise. What do you think they're doing? All right. So I think there's two categories of problematic Republicans. One is those who really don't want to fund Ukraine, who think that Vladimir Zelensky is like some thug in track pants and they've followed the Donald Trump pro-Putin line, right? There's a lot of them, especially in the House. But there's another category of Republicans

who say, hey, I really, like the Lindsey Graham camp, I really deeply support Ukraine. I want us to fund Ukraine. But if you don't give us exactly what we want on the border policy, we're just not going to fund Ukraine. So these are kind of, I don't know what you call these people exactly. When somebody takes the Ukraine money hostage, I think they're kind of telling you they don't really support Ukraine, but you can get their votes. So I think that Biden actually can put together this package. He's going to have to make concessions on the border, a lot of which I agree with, but he's going to have to give Republicans a lot of what they want. And he'll be able to get those Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell Republicans who are sort of halfies on Ukraine. And with their vote, I mean, the Republicans are

all in on Israel, as we were discussing, it's the Democrats who are problematic there. So I actually think Biden can put this together. And that the hitch is not really going to be Ukraine, it's going to be what Democrats are going to have to give away on the border to get it done. But I think they can put that coalition together. Wow. Okay, so it's going to look like 10 Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell, Republicans over on the Senate side. And how's it going to get through the House? Remember, if this is all in a package, then there's cover. Because Republicans have to vote for Israel. Yeah, you want to be seen as voting for Israel. You want to be seen as, you know,

Ukraine has become unpopular, right? Why should we help them with their border? Right. So they won't tank it because of Ukraine and the border and say, it's not fair to do this to Israel? Yeah, I think Israel gives some of them cover. Look, there are a lot of Republicans in Congress who actually know that we should be funding Ukraine, but they've gotten the vibe. They know which way the wind is blowing inside their party, and it's blowing, thanks to Trump and others, towards isolationism.

What they need is political cover to do. They don't need to be persuaded, those folks, that funding Ukraine is the right thing to do. But they need a little bit of sugar. They need something that they can point to and say, look, I voted for the package because we had to stand with our friends in Israel. And we had to change the border policies, and we did. And Ukraine goes along for the ride in that politically. So this is sounding good. A deal would help Biden, obviously. Although, let's be honest, Will, nothing has. And with that, I'm very concerned. Apparently, the White House has said something about Trump's fascistic language over the weekend. But let's play that sound from

Saturday of him sounding like a maniac. Joe Biden is a threat to democracy. He's a threat. And, you know, we'll bring in adversaries and I'll bring it in right now. But even Vladimir Putin, has anybody ever heard of Vladimir Putin? Of Russia says that Biden's and this is a quote, politically motivated persecution of his political rival is very good for Russia because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy. So, you know, we talk about democracy, but the whole world is watching the persecution of a political opponent that's kicking his ass. It's an amazing thing. And they're all laughing at us.

Viktor Orban, the highly respected prime minister of Hungary, said Trump is the man who can save the Western world. He said this in of an interview to it. Yeah. So he seems I know that he has talked this way before, but he seems to be really loosening up. If I didn't know he didn't drink, I would thought maybe he had like something in his milkshake from McDonald's that night, because when he's actually naming Putin and saying like Putin's a validator for him because Putin understands and appreciates the preservation of democracy and thinks that this government investigating and indicting Donald Trump is just basically

the fall of the West. So he knows the nomination fight is over. Will, why do you think it's getting worse? Well, Donald Trump is just being who he is and who he is. So just so everybody understands who Donald Trump is, Donald Trump has always been sort of a CEO type, a narcissist and egotist, loves power, loves the trappings of power. And he loves, when he got elected president, he became a member of the country club of dictators. He loves these guys, Putin and Xi and Kim Jong-un. He wants to be part of this country club. These are his buddies. He would be playing golf with them, right? And the fact that they run, you know, we always talk about how Xi runs China with an iron fist. Gosh, I'd love to be doing

that. And he goes around and talks about things that Xi does, like executing people with one-day trials. Gosh, wouldn't it be great if we could do that in this country? And Trump is just getting increasingly explicit about it because he hasn't been punished by the American voters. And he may not be, which, you know, is horrifying. But let me set the scene for you on this speech that Trump is giving. This is Saturday in New Hampshire. So Trump is in New Hampshire. He's doing this rally. Everyone behind Donald Trump is holding a sign. All the signs say the same thing because they're in New Hampshire. The signs say, live free or die, right? Well, liberty, New Hampshire, freedom, live free or die, right? This entire section of the speech, Trump is doing nothing but quoting his dictator friends, right? He starts off with Kim Jong-un. He's talking about, he says, Kim Jong-un was out of nowhere. He brings up Kim Jong-un. He was very

nice to me. We had a very good relationship. Then he invoked Kim Jong-un like, Kim Jong-un likes me, but he doesn't like Joe Biden because he literally says, because Kim Jong-un doesn't like incompetent people. So he's using the North Korean dictator as a standard of how to run a country and saying Joe Biden doesn't measure up to that. Then he gets to this Putin stuff, right? And he's quoting Putin saying Putin's line about how the prosecution of Donald Trump shows that America isn't a real democracy there. The government has a politically motivated prosecution of a political rival. He's actually quoting Putin's indictment of America, of the American system, that the American system is no better than the Russian system or anyone else's.

He's saying that's true. He's saying that's true. And elsewhere in the speech, Trump says what he often says at these rallies, we're not a great country anymore. We're a laughingstock. We're terrible. Donald Trump is anti-American and he's anti-American democracy. And that's why he's quoting Putin and Xi and Kim and all of these dictators to that effect. So I've heard him talk about these guys, you know, frequently and Orban and Xi and the ruthless control and everything. But I don't know. He just wanted to tickle vladimir putin just the naming him it was a little too much for me and of course when lindsey graham because i had to bring up lindsey graham with you will of course when he when he was asked about this dictator talk he says i could care less about the way he talks right so i'm really appreciative of that and

i'm so glad john mcc McCain is not here to know that. So- Wait, sorry. There was one other guy that he brought up. I forgot from the clip. Orban. Yeah, yeah. Orban, right? He loves him too.

So he's like Victor Orban and quoting him to the, and Trump does this all the time, Victor Orban. He's picked the one Western leader, the West European leader who is himself an authoritarian. And just so folks understand the context, last week, Viktor Orban, the authoritarian leader of Hungary, vetoed the EU's financial aid package to Ukraine. Right.

So Trump is working with Orban. Trump is the vehicle in the United States to block funding to Ukraine. Orban is the vehicle for doing it in Europe. So they're all part of the Vladimir Putin team. And the country club of dictators, which I love. So you and I feel the same way, which is that Christie has been providing a valuable service in being the truth teller in the Republican primary. But I think we have to look at the developments from over the weekend and sort of ask, you know, what's he doing? There's a new poll out from CBS showing Nikki Haley now at 29 in New Hampshire, and she's gone up from 11 percent, she's gone up 18 points in

September. And Trump went from 50 points in September in New Hampshire in the CBS poll to 44. So he's seen some erosion and she's really made this crazy gain. So currently Christie is at 10, DeSantis at 11. So if you added Christie and DeSantis, she bests Trump in New Hampshire. So this is getting everybody very excited and CBS Face the Nation anchor Margaret Brennan was talking to Christie about it and he got grumpy and was like fighting with her about the polls I don't know what he's doing I don't know what his end game is but again he is the only person and we have to give him props for this, who is willing to talk about this kind of language from Donald Trump and the threat of Donald Trump. So in honor of Chris Christie, we're going to play a little Christie rant from yesterday.

I want you to take a listen to something else that Donald Trump said about immigrants last night. They're poisoning the blood of our country. That's what they've done. They've poisoned mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world. They're coming into our country from Africa, from Asia, all over the world. They're pouring into our country. South America, Africa, Asia, immigrants poisoning the blood of our country. The words of the leading Republican presidential candidate, your response. He's disgusting.

And what he's doing is dog whistling to Americans who feel absolutely under stress and strain from the economy and from the conflicts around the world. And he's dog whistling it to blame it on people from areas that don't look like us. And look, Jake, the other problem with this is the Republicans who are saying this is OK. Almost 100 members of Congress who've endorsed him. Nikki Haley, who this week said he is fit to be president. You're telling me that someone who says that immigrants are poisoning the blood of this country, someone who says Vladimir Putin is a character witness, is fit to be president of the United States, was the right president at the right time? Nikki Haley

should be ashamed of herself. What Trump says is disgusting. I'm so grateful to Chris Christie. I would like to just actually will just listen to him for the rest of 2024. Like there's part of me that doesn't want him to leave the race because I want him to tell the truth. And I was very, very surprised to hear him say that Nikki Haley should be ashamed of himself because everyone is trying to get Chris Christie to leave the race and back Nikki Haley. And I don't know that I see an endorsement coming.

What are your thoughts on his comments? Well, just so everybody understands where I'm coming from on this, I'm a Biden supporter. I'm going to vote for Joe Biden. Within the Republicans, I'm a Christie supporter. Christie is the guy, he's the only one left, Asa Hutchinson's technically in the race, but come on. Christie is the only one left who is telling the moral truth about Donald Trump and the cult of the Republican Party. Nikki Haley is in this middle ground where she is, the classic line is Nikki Haley saying, rightly or wrongly, chaos follows Donald Trump. Chris Christie is telling the truth, which is rightly because Trump is causing the chaos. But Nikki Haley is leaving an opening for Trump supporters to come to her by saying, you know, it might be wrong that chaos follows Donald Trump, but we all sort of

know that, right? And this cowardice is what makes Nikki Haley more electable within the Republican party than Chris Christie. So the reasons why I like Chris Christie are reasons why I don't think he can get nominated in that party. And as a realist, I want Nikki Haley to surge because I think Ron DeSantis has proven himself to be a total stiff. So there's really only one candidate who could possibly, long shot, take out Donald Trump in the primary, and that's Nikki Haley. And so I feel terrible and I hate myself for saying this, AB, but my moral satisfaction in hearing Chris Christie continue to speak the truth is not more important than consolidation behind a plausible

alternative to Trump. And so I want this poll that shows a massive increase for Haley in New Hampshire already close enough. AB, if this happened tomorrow and Trump got 44 in New Hampshire, already close enough. Maybe if this happened tomorrow and Trump got 44 in New Hampshire and Haley got 29, that's already sort of Gary Hart level of, wow, somebody came up and that would be portrayed by the press as a real race. But I think she could pass him with more consolidation. And that would give the Trump alternatives at least a shot of going into Super Tuesday with an alternative. Trump dominates in Iowa. He is going to have a great Iowa. My theory of the case is that there was a piece, actually, when you and I were on with Charlie and Mona

at the end of last week, Charlie mentioned an NBC piece, which he's quoted in, about what a cult it is in Iowa of Trump. Obviously, it is nationally. But in Iowa, there are three Iowans on the record. They dare to go on the record to say, it's really hard to oppose Trump. Like you don't want to tell your friends and family and neighbors that you do.

So given that on the ground, that tension in Iowa caucuses, you have to physically represent your choices and it is not a secret ballot, right? You're like caucusing for somebody. So Trump is going to roll, dude. He is going to pound in Iowa. Not only does he have the polling lead by way, like you can't add Nikki Christie and Ron together to get close to Trump in Iowa. But even people who want a caucus for other people are going to back out and wimp out. So this is the thing. That's what happens in Iowa. And then my question to you is why would New Hampshire even matter?

New Hampshire is going to be an open primary where Democrats and independents are going to vote. Republicans are going to write it off. I bet the RNC puts out a statement and says Trump will say it's rigged if Haley were to win it with this consolidation. Let's say she got the 50 and Trump came in at 44. It's a total outlier, right? Why would anyone care about New Hampshire? It's a Democrat-rigged primary. It's not real. It's not real Republicans. It's just a rhino thing for her. And then he goes on to South Carolina and Pound's. That's my dark view. And I invite your disagreement.

Okay. So I brought out the pony. I brought out the pony. I know. I'm glad it's always on hand. Here are my ponies. And again, I think Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee for president. Right. I know. Setting that aside, the case is, first of all, that New Hampshire loves to tweak Iowa. New Hampshire loves to go the opposite way. It has often done so in the past. So I know, I think Iowa's a lost cause. And I'm going to give just a special demerit to Kim Reynolds, the governor of Iowa for endorsing Ron DeSantis,

which did nothing. I mean, this total stiff has no shot. And every dollar that goes into that guy, every endorsement that goes in it prevents consolidation of a plausible alternative, which he is not. Okay. So Iowa's screwed. We get to New Hampshire. I think there's every chance that New Hampshire says, hell with you, especially because of all the factors you just cited, A.B. There are a lot of independents. Well, Democrats can't technically vote, but you can vote as an independent in the Republican primary, right? Right. So they might be because Biden's not on the balance.

No democratic race. Exactly. Exactly. And so I think it's quite plausible with some consolidation that Nikki Haley wins New Hampshire. At that point, we have pony number two. Sorry, it's the same pony. I'll do it. Oh, pony number two is the media loves a race.

The media loves a contest. Loves to pretend. I mean, I want to grant you all the pessimism. You and JVL and Charlie, everybody. The pessimism is based on a very well-founded thing, which is that the entire Republican party, the electorate of the Republican party is sick, is just locked into a cult, doesn't seem to care about any principle that gets violated. All that matters is standing behind Donald Trump. And so just winning

in that party is really, really difficult for anybody sane, which Nikki Haley is sort of half trying to be. So that's all true. But she wins New Hampshire. South Carolina's a big problem. Big problem because the governor there, Henry McMaster, is behind Trump. Nikki Haley losing her own state, I grant you that probably cuts her throat. Even if she does okay there, we're going into Super Tuesday in like a week after that. And like 47% of the Republican delegates will be gone after Super Tuesday. There's no time for her to put together an operation after that. A.B., there has to be a whole lot of half-Trump skeptical Republicans who, in the space of a couple of weeks, turn around and say, yeah, you know what? Nikki Haley. And then they all vote

for her. And that has to happen in all these states or Trump runs away with the delegates. I don't know if that technically was a pony the second time. I felt like I need to put the pony away after I said that because I just killed it. This is really rough. Everyone in the bulwark community knows how fond I am of Joe Biden and how just depressing it is that he has been written off because of his age. And now I just feel this bleakness around him. That is today is the 51st anniversary of the death of his wife and daughter in a car crash seven days before Christmas. And he is in Delaware at their grave site.

Last night, he and Jill were in Delaware at the campaign headquarters. And a car hit one of the cars in his motorcade. He comes out of the campaign headquarters and a reporter asks, why are you losing to Trump in the polls? And he says, they're the wrong polls. Like, Will, this is getting so sad. The polls are terrible.

They continue to be terrible. There's a Washington Post story today saying that Alyssa Slotkin, House member who's running for Senate in Michigan, has told the high order of Democrats that she doesn't think she can win in her state if Biden is at the top of the ticket. There was an anecdote in this Washington Post report about Biden gathering his brain trust before he left for Nantucket for Thanksgiving and basically saying, like, why aren't the polls getting better? What's our plan? Oh, by the way, President Obama in another bleak account in Wall Street Journal on Saturday, two days ago, December 16.

Obama let it be known to this reporter, Danny Linsky, that he is one of the people that is worried that Biden will lose and will have an autocracy. So this is so, so, so seriously bad. And my heart hurts for Joe Biden. I love Joe Biden. I can't believe what a good man. This man is, he's been through so much. He is managing two massively important conflicts overseas. And he's telling his team, like, how are we going to change these poll numbers? I mean, Will, do you have a pony? I don't have a pony here. So anytime Joe Biden or anyone else says they're the wrong polls, don't believe the polls, the polls are a snapshot. This is almost always denial. It's unhealthy.

It's outright dangerous, obviously, to deny election results. But when you're denying polls, you're in a similar sort of silo about not accepting negative feedback. The feedback here is unanimous. They're not all skewed. All these polls are showing Biden in trouble. So just the general picture of where we are, all it takes to have a second Trump presidency, and with all of the danger that that poses to the continued existence of American democracy, is two things. And they're both happening. One is the Republican Party itself remains a cult. After January 6th, did not turn away, turned back, is rallying around him. You could live with that one if the party got punished for that in the general election. But what we simultaneously have is not just in the United States, but in a lot of Western democracies,

a lot of anger at incumbents and a lot of dissatisfaction with various economies. We have the best of the economies, and people still feel like it. So those two things together are producing an autocrat in the one major political party that's running against the incumbent, and a lot of anti-incumbent sentiment. Those two things together can result in the autocrat getting elected again. It's very, very plausible. So I don't have a pony for you on the prospects, as we say, the odds of Biden. So all I can do is really talk about the stakes and why people need to focus on the autocracy. As we just discussed, the alternative to the incumbent everybody's grumbling about is right out there saying,

and you've written about this, he's making it real explicit that he is going to be an autocrat. He's not hiding the ball. You and I, AB, can't make people care about that, but we can underscore that this is what's at stake and that you, Mr. and Mrs. America, you may be unhappy with inflation, which is actually coming down. You may be unhappy with the border, which is going to get better as the Republicans and Democrats work out a deal. There are a lot of things you may be unhappy about. But this thing, the fact that this guy will steamroll the Constitution, has already said he would suspend the Constitution, has already tried to overthrow the American government, tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. We're just going to remind you of this and get you to focus on this because this is more important than

any of that other stuff. You don't get any more elections if we lose democracy. Exactly. I saw Joe Trippi trying to be optimistic about the gap in economic polling versus economic reality, and that there is a lag, and that there will be improvement that is probably felt 11 months from now that isn't being felt today, or let's say 10 months from now, or nine months from now that isn't being felt today. What will help, you know, is interest rates, people's ability to get a mortgage that should shift into better territory. That's a huge complaint. The frustration is that inflation, like once prices go up, they don't go down. And so I love the JVL's championing zero inflation, but the average voter consumer, you know, American taxpayer has no idea that inflation's at zero because they still can't believe. I saw butter on sale the other day,

and it was on sale for $5.99. I mean, it was like $2 off, you know, for four sticks of butter. And so that is just so hard to grapple with when we're trying to convince Mr. and Mrs. America that once you lose the system, you never get it back. Inflation is the easy line, no matter what. Folks, this is why we do the bulwark. Like, I know that some listeners and viewers, people complain that we talk too much about Joe Biden's age and the polls and all that stuff, and we're too bleak about that stuff. People, you can go everywhere in the media. They're all talking about this. They're all talking about how much trouble Joe Biden is and how the Democrats are screwed and all that. That's the media line. What's different about us is we're the ones talking about the stakes. We're in here talking every day about, hey, Donald Trump is categorically different from any other bad presidential candidate you ever had, right? He is literally going to undermine, throw away the Constitution, democracy, the rule of law. This is a categorical difference. And every day, every week, we're out there talking about this and his latest iteration of making clear that that's what he would do. So this is why we do what we do. And

we hope that it has some effect. I totally agree, Will. I want everyone to try to find a way to talk to the people who probably are not tuned in to the stakes and try to encourage them to appreciate the stakes. I think that's what we all need to do. We do it at the Bulwark and we want our readers and our viewers to try to invest some energy in the time we have left to convince the convincible, right? I don't think we need to worry about the people who will never, who just want to reelect Donald Trump. I think there are Americans who don't entirely understand the gravity and the consequences of electing Donald Trump again. And that's our mission. That's our mission in the next 10 months is to make sure that we persuade the persuadable to wake up, to sense the urgency and to do what they can. And there are enough persuadables. There are

enough of them. Yes. It happened in 2020. We saw it happen. It can happen again. That's true. Thank God for the pony. Will, you're delightful. It's really been fun. And thank you. And thank you for joining us today. Stay here for awesome lineup of subs for Charlie all week and throughout the holiday.

He'll, of course, be back in the dreaded 2024, which is soon upon us. And I want to send everyone our best wishes for health, hope, and laughter in the new year and constitutional order as well. Thanks, everyone. Thank you.