Bill Kristol: Beating Back the Authoritarians

[MUSIC] >> Hello and welcome to the Bullwork Daily. I'm your host Tim Miller. It is Monday. We are eight days away from the midterms. And so, of course, we've editor at large bill crystal. Hey Bill. >> Hey Tim, how are you? >> I am doing pretty well. I'm ready for the midterms. You know, we're going to sprint to the tape. It's going to be a big week. I'm going to be in Austin for us. We have a members only live stream on Sunday. So we're going to Bullwork Plus member. We're going to do Q&A with Bullwork members. And then Tuesday will be live. And I'll be in Austin. You'll be in DC in the office. >> I'll be in DC and I'm looking forward to spending the next week pouring over. And this interpreting, this leading early vote numbers from obscure counties that I've never heard of and reading people telling me about how it compares to 22. By the other hand, in 2018 and you can really get into this. >> Great. I have a few of those hot facts for you coming up here in a little bit. But first I want to start a big picture. Your newsletter discussed, as is your want, you know, letters from Jefferson to Madison or vice versa and the great struggle between liberty and despotism. And use that as a way into some victories, what seemed like at least victories against despotism, if nothing else, in Serbia and Brazil. And so I did just want to start briefly there. >> Yeah, I'm pretty surprising results, I think in both cases in Brazil, Bolsonaro had been ahead in the first round. This is the son of the previous president, a great buddy of Trump, who also tried to pull off January 6th, Trump be type, you know, Otto Kuh, and to stay in office that failed in Brazil. But his son is running one in the first round, Lula, 80-year-old, long time in and out president, big kind of left, old-fashioned leftist, actually, kind of let America away, you know. And that was thought to be, there were thought to be a lot of appearances against them. So he'd have stuff, so I've came back to win on a big turnout and Bolsonaro, I guess, is contesting it. They're, they keep the polls open, but there are questions about candidates, I think, but anyway, because they were problems in getting to hold-- >> That's a big difference. >> It's a big difference. >> And it was, it wasn't quite as close as people thought, so that's pretty impressive. And again, I think it was not about Lula, they weren't thrilled with his governance, it was about focusing on the fact that they want Bolsonaro back. And it was sort of like a Trump's second term, was supposed to a Trump first term. I think his father was bad enough, but this, he was more radical in what he said over the last two weeks. Someone started to add an apple on this morning, another context, and she said she had talked to someone in Brazil who said that people were sort of more alarmed by how radical the young Bolsonaro seems, so that's heartening. And then in Serbia, where this guy, Puchich, I don't even know how to pronounce it, is the longest-serving leader of a European country, great buddy of Orban, had been a Bolossovic protégé, so a lot of bad stuff there, a lot of authoritarian stuff, close to Putin, lost. It's not even to a party, lost to a list that was assembled by the students went to the streets about two years ago, huge numbers of protests, grievances, and most of this water change, they didn't want the authoritarianism, they didn't want the corruption, corruption was huge. And they put together a student list, so they literally, these students at different universities, like select the professors or people they liked, or other known people, a few students, put them on a list, they ran against the other parties, sort of stepped aside, the established opposition parties kind of faded away by this point. And this list defeated the authoritarian 14-year ruler of Serbia, pretty amazing result. He did, like Orban, step aside, maybe he thinks he'll come back or something, these people might have trouble governing the country, so it's certainly a referendum on Puchich, on a authoritarianism, it wasn't a vote for it, if he except for big change and against corruption, which is not nothing. Yeah. That was more hungry-like, but without the one charismatic leader. So in both cases, some lessons, maybe for America, what hopes, for Israel votes tomorrow, the U.S., obviously, in eight days, so big 10 days of elections, and off to a pretty decent start. You know, as Applebum said, you know, she's like basically, one lesson we can take is that this rise of the international far-right, like, isn't inevitable, and can be pushed back against, right? Because there was a string of victories, and I think people are kind of looking at France, what's happening in Western Europe, and thinking, God, you know, there's just a swing of kind of far-right victories in Latin America, in particular, but other places, and to be pushed back against in, you know, I mean, two places, like, pretty, you know, relative strongholds, you know, with, I mean, both, obviously, like the Bolsonaro family brand, significant, a bunch of other family members, one in the first round, right? And it's a very significant, I mean, unfortunately, it's kind of significant in 2024, since for us, so there's like, not a perfect analogy, right? Because he was going to come back in, they're going to pardon everybody, you know, at some level, the Brazilians were kind of able to beat it back with their 80-year-old candidate more effectively than we were, but even still, I think, definitely encouraging results there, and should give people a little bit of, you know, a little skip in their step, a little optimism about the possibility of beating back the authoritarians, on our authoritarian here at home, you know, he continues to work on some hapless shenanigans where you have to balance, you know, the menace with the, you know, kind of absurdity, you know, then one of those cases is what's happening up in Alaska, or for people who haven't been following this, there was a little bit of certainly, you know, gamesmanship from the Democrats. You have a guy named Dan Sullivan, who gets on the ballot, it's the same name as the Republican incumbent senator, so there's been a lot of crying foul by the Republicans about this. So there's also a fourth candidate on the ballot, it seems like a stalking horse, it's also a fake candidate, it's a stalking horse on the left against Paltola. So, there are four, but four candidates on the ballot. It's ranked ways voting, so it's kind of like, in some ways, that minimizes the potential that this could even be even matter, right? Because even if you get confused, someone gets confused in Alaska and goes in and ranks the Dan Sullivan's one and two, it doesn't matter what order they are ranked in, right? Or ranks the Mary Paltola and the Communist guy one and two, like it doesn't matter what order is in the end, you know, of the main two, you know, it'll be what your highest rank was of the main two candidates. So, that's kind of a bunch of deal about mouthing, honestly. And yet, on Friday, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit preemptively seeking to block officials from certifying Alaska Senate election, if only if Mary Paltola wins because of the Dan Sullivan issue. The legal experts, we've talked to, I mean, says like that doesn't feel like this is going anywhere in court. Meanwhile, Trump said on the tarmac over the weekend that he ordered the lawsuit, which is nice, that he's not even hiding the ball, that he's directing authoritarianism. So, I don't know, where do you fall on the scale of alarm here with the Alaska shenanigans? I mean, it's a little desperate and it's good to see the being desperate just a week out and they don't have sort of more threatening things to do. I believe this was litigated, they've brought a case in Alaska, the Republicans, and it was tossed out by the way to die by the Alaska Supreme Court. So, this was litigated and in the state, you know, so it's kind of unbelievable for the federal government to intervene. And anyway, so I think it's going to fail. But I would say that they're trying to color the whole environment as much as they can. I don't know how much it works, right? That, you know, there's massive fraud with Latinos. Look at what's happening in California. If you like the Democrats, you can have a bunch of corrupt black officeholders. Look at this fake case we brought against Luis Lucas, the speaker of the house here in Virginia. Fake case in the sense that it was zero need for two weeks before the election. It's based on stuff that allegedly happened months and years ago. It could have been brought after the election, which is some normal way what does things. So, they're doing a whole bunch of stuff to try to just draw a picture of the Democratic Party. Less about winning these cases and war about adding a little bit to their general narrative of how horrible, corrupt, sick stream. And if we could be honest, black, brown, and trans, the Democratic Party is, right? That's their core message at the end of the day. Two other just kind of data points on this. Our friends over protect democracy and a pull out in the field last week that's just kind of measured the interest-oriented issues. Trump has it even really won over the Republicans on his attempts to metal with the elections. I just a couple of examples. 75% of voters oppose the federal government intervening to seize ballots machines, et cetera, including 62% of Republicans, 70% oppose open criminal investigations into state and local officials to pressure them, including half of Republicans, two-thirds opposed county officials refusing or delaying certification of votes and attempts to contest results, including a bunch of Republicans. So, like, he is not one argument with anybody except for the core mega base, you know, about elections being fraudulent and needing these kind of steps. That's encouraging. I think the thing that worries me about the Alaska situation and kind of the one place where my spidey sense is up is I've always felt like I thought the most dangerous period was between November and January. And the fact that they're already going to this, we're not gonna seat them. To me, that feels like much more potentially fruitful and ominous, fruitful for them and ominous for the country than the things that they've been trying to do before the election to mess with it. And I don't know that it's gonna work in Alaska, but if you look at the map here, and, you know, Democrats end up at 51 or 52 and they have a Federman deal set at seats, which is like very possible. Maybe the plurality at 52 is probably the most likely result. I could go a little bit one way or the other. And then you get into these states. And it's Alaska, it's Texas, it's Iowa. It's a bunch of states that have total Republican rule where they might be willing to, You know, I'm out the works to try to prevent it. have these people from being seated. And to me, the fact that they're already basically previewing that, if it's closed, that's what they'll try to do. No, I agree. I mean, at least in where Kowski, I think, has already denounced this. So I hopefully, I think you do need the government of the state, the governor of the state basically, maybe the Secretary of State, or Chair General, to kind of go along to make this really work. And hopefully with Marcoski, saying, no, it's less likely to happen in Alaska, but I don't know a whole lot about internal Alaska politics. So I'm not confident that Texas makes me nervous just because I feel like there, you got Republican constitutional officers from the governor on down who will do anything, honestly. And, you know, it's a massively important state for them. And they control everything, except for the city government's obviously in the blue dots in Texas and a couple of counties. Now, there's still bar barriers in their election commissions. You're going to try to do the right thing and stuff. But yeah, so I agree. It's worth being nervous about election night. And then about the next two months, I guess. Yeah. I look at Iowa too. And Kim Reynolds, who originally ran as a normal Republican, has gotten very extreme and grumpy and aggrieved. Just like her on the campaign trail. She's like, she's sounding very Trumpy, but without the joy in her attacks on Rob Sand and Turek. You know, they have control of Iowa. It's a Democrat. It's governor of Kansas, which is interesting. And DeWine, who has not been Mr. Courage, also doesn't seem like he's going to go along with a gambit to try to steal an election. So, you know, I do think it's a couple of those states, maybe more potentially risky than others. Andrew wrote about this morning for the newsletter. You know, the other thing that Trump is doing that in any other world, if this was any other president, that would just be mass outrage across the board. And like, this doesn't even really get mentioned because it's Trump and like the lack of seriousness was which he's doing this. But it, and that is the kind of bribes and threats in the lead up to the election that he's these offering and basically in every speech is Andrew points out. People know about the Trump offered people $5,000 checks if the Republicans win. But he's localizing that same, you know, type of bribe campaign in Kentucky. He said that there's a $100 million defense department investment in a plant that's supposed to go in Kentucky, but he's only going to do it if the Republicans win there in Kansas. He said he promises to allow the sale of ethanol, blended gas year round, but only if Roger Marshall wins. Quick aside, another great recent reveal frame out of Hamilton, by the way, just in that one case, because we don't, the ethanol cartel could probably get broken up in North Carolina. This one is the most outrageous one. He promises to settle claims from veterans exposed to contaminated drinking water at Camp Gisune, but only if the Republicans win the House and the Senate. And if we lose, there's no money. That's what he said. I mean, just an unbelievable, like, you know, imagine if Obama said that type of situation, which is we're not going to take care of the veterans that drank contaminated water and had medical issues, unless we win. Like, that is the care and stick that he's offering. It's totally unprecedented in sight. And he's done this in office, hasn't any of these last two years. A little FEMA money goes to this governor of sea likes and so forth. I mean, it's pretty astounding on it, you know, and that's something that we've had pretty partisan politics at different times in our nation. Nothing quite like this. I was funny, the year struck by the Camp Gisune thing. I was most struck by that too. So I did four seconds of research on it. And that one is ridiculous, in the sense that he has no control. I mean, unless he, why do I say it's ridiculous? He could break the law. But literally, a law was passed in 2022, bipartisan law by Congress authorizing lawsuits and payments for people who served at Lujoon. This is decades ago, a really long time ago from the '50s to the '80s, basically. When they were apparently, it was contaminated water. There are serious claims, I gather incredible and believed claims of health problems that resulted from this contaminated water. And so lawsuits were authorized. They've gone ahead. They're paying out money. It's all going in a very American, legalistic kind of, you know, appropriate way for these by now very elderly veterans or their, their kin, their families. So I don't think he actually could stop it unless he literally ordered the VA not to make these payments. I think they would go to court and lose that. But the willingness to threaten it and the willingness to think that this will work politically, I guess possibly people are so credulous. They'll just think, "Oh, we like our veterans. We want them to get the money." They deserve from the contaminated water 50 years ago. So we better vote for Trump. Do people really think that? Or do they think, "What the hell is he doing here?" You know? I mean, finally, people in that area know a little bit about the history of Camp Lujoon in this case. So I don't know. It does seem, it seems more desperate than dangerous, but it's awfully bad. It's bold. That was one of the most highfalutin Freudian slips I've ever had in my life. I call it Camp Lujoon. Now Trump is acting very Jujoon. I don't know where that happened. I had to fly across the country last night. So, you know, the brain is still getting caught up this morning. But yeah, I mean, it's disgusting is what it is. And I think that it speaks to the asymmetry that JBL talks about. It's just like that nobody takes it seriously. And so it doesn't get covered seriously than it should. The book is brought to you by the Freedom from Religion Foundation. Look, here's a democratic guardrail that really shouldn't be controversial. Government doesn't get to pick a religion for the rest of us. You can go to church every Sunday and still believe that public schools shouldn't promote Christianity. Recently, the Freedom from Religion Foundation helped stop a George school district from officially promoting Christian prayer walks. That's the kind of work FFRF does every day because the First Amendment protects your freedom to believe and someone else's freedom not to. FFRF also gives free thinkers, atheist, agnostics, and non-religious Americans of voice in the national conversation with the midterms just days away. Remember, some constitutional principles should transcend party lines. Power comes from the people, not religion. If that matters to you, go to ffrf.us/tim or text Tim to 5/11, 5/11 to join or learn more. Go to ffrf.us/tim or text Tim to 5/11, 5/11 now. It's about deciding what kind of country we want to be. Text Tim to 5/11, 5/11 today. Text fees may apply. One other thing on kind of his bribes and self-dealing, Isaac Salt Tangle news. I had him on, I don't know, probably a couple of months ago now, when he did, what I think is probably the most comprehensive and readable list of all of the Trump corruption crimes and accusations. We'll put a link to it in the show notes. And you can't be up to just updated it over the weekend. And there are a million things you can talk about in all of this. There's one little fact that I think is interesting and worth sharing, especially with the magas in your life that I would like to share with people here. Everybody talks about the Nancy Pelosi stock trading. It's broken containment. It's not even in political world. Just regular people, just big jokes about how Nancy Pelosi was trading on stocks and enriching herself in all this. That's just an accepted fact that's a basis of jokes and comedy sets now. Well, Nancy Pelosi made 213 total trades between 2014 and now. Trump made more trades than that in the single day before his tariff announcement. Isn't that wild? I don't think anybody knows this. JD's defense of all this. When he got asked about this, like Tony DeCopo the other week, he was like, well, Trump was already rich. And I just think that there's that thing that Trump doesn't need to do this. I don't know why that has seeped into people or if it's just because of all the other controversies that they don't cover this. It's the one thing you can lock in on Nancy Pelosi. But I thought that was just kind of a wild fact. And I think that it ties to what we were talking about with Robert Garcia and why he's going to focus on the Trump crime family first as on oversight. Because I don't think we are even scratching the surface of the kind of enrichment that they've done. I also hadn't really focused on it until I looked up a little stuff. Also last year, the amount of insider trading and market manipulation that seems to have gone on during this war, when he would make a fake announcement that would drive all questions out. And they would trade on that and then sell out immediately before people realized that it was fake. And then they ordered, didn't they, that was at the commodity futures trading commission, whatever that's called, to not look into certain things. And he offered early access to his beliefs to certain people via truth social. I mean, it's really, it's a level of corruption that I guess you mentioned Obama. I'll just say, if we saw this in another country and what we used to call the third world, so that's just terrible that they don't have a rule of law terrible that they don't have this kind of massive unchecked corruption. It's one thing that has some subtle stuff going on behind the, you know, beneath this behind the scenes, but this is just flat out, obvious corruption and no one cares. And here we are. Well, hopefully there'll be a rebuke of it coming up next Tuesday. The early vote analysis, you mentioned earlier, we have a policy of not overreacting to the early vote analysis here. There's the exception, John Ralston really keeps nail on it in Nevada every time he assesses the early vote. I don't know if it's something about Nevada or or John Ralston just has a rainman like a likeability to, you know, interpret the data, but he's been pretty good over the years. Oftentimes other times it's just, there's just a lot of assumptions that go into it, right? If it's like, oh, the Democrats are voting at a higher rate in the first five days. Well, it's like, well, maybe that's because Republicans don't trust the mail anymore. And they're all going to shut right like they're just a lot of different things that could be happening. So with that long wind up in caveat, it was worth mentioning this just because it's so funny. There's a popular right wing internet account person called data Republican people who are fans of the trio might remember we got there's a big blow up between data Republican and somebody on the inside of the Trump administration and that kind of fight led to the revelation that the Department of Defense meeting us. are paying Trump influencers to post online, anyway. Data Republican is the, you know, person they get, it's like kind of the Nate Silver of the Maga set, if you will. Okay, they're going to her. She posted this on social media. Oh, look at it. I've been asked about early voting analysis. The dilemma I have is that my platform is big enough such that being too blunt can have an effect on morale. I'll push out new states and tools under my website soon, but won't announce them on X. Basically, the early vote analysis that she's doing is so depressing and so bad for Republicans that she won't even share it out of fear that, you know, it will send a kind of mass onset depression among the, among the Maga volunteer base. I mean, that's pretty remarkable. It is, you know, and I made the mandatory early joking early voting joke earlier. You know, about just, if what's sophisticated knows you, they're 20 variables, you're not supposed to predict. It's hard to compare one year to another because, you don't know, more Democrats are voting early, does that just mean they're taking votes from the cells later, so to speak, or is it real? Well, and you don't know how people voted. I've struck by this looking online. People get confused. We do know, in some states, what the previous voting patterns and primaries were, that is which primaries people chose to vote in, or what they registered as, or both. So you can say X number of Democrats or people who voted Democratic voted as opposed to Republicans. You don't know how they voted. And so people are like misunderstanding. Even in Texas, for example, I'm like, a lot of these things, they don't have party instructions. So you can be in a modeling and, yeah. So yes, and then it doesn't say anything about how many Republicans formed a people who formally voted Republicans for absurdity. So there are many, many caveats that should be done. Having said that, it is a real thing. People are a little now too skeptical about it. And I think it's a couple like almost like I, you know, I sort of said this myself, you know, almost a joke, a kind of thing, you mock. 30 million Americans have voted. We do know some stuff about who those people are, and in some states it's a very, it's already a quarter. The sense, I think, about 20% of the electorate for this week for, you know, for this election cycle. And in some states it's higher than that. One reason Nevada, I think, well, so so good is that it's, it's almost all male voting, I think, and it's early. And they tell you a lot about more, maybe than in other states, but who those people are, not again, you don't know how they voted. But it's pretty consistent state to state. The least good states for the Democrats are kind of, it's not that much better than in the past. And there are other states where it's clearly a much higher democratic turnout. They're Republicans. Like North Carolina, for example, I'm one of the things that data Republican wouldn't share on Twitter that someone else better, that, you know, someone else more willing to contribute money than me went and signed up for her website and went and found it. It was like the North Carolina shift was like 20 plus points in North Carolina from, you know, where it was at this point two years ago. And you typically would have to add that on to the generic ballot. And the generic ballot, just to recall, your ballot, you're taking about your, you're asking people how they would vote, you ask all adults, then you can narrow it down to registered voters with most good posts who've done it at this point. You can try likely voters, but then you are asking people, you know, are you certain to vote Tesla? But on registered voters, only about 60%, maybe of them 65% and a, an average year are going to vote. But that generic ballot is of that whole universe, right? So that you got 8% already gained, so to speak, by the Democrats. And then if you get to support should it turn out, you're going above 8, really. So it's not stupid for people to really look at the early voting numbers and say, wow, it's a couple of states. It looks pretty significant. And if you assume that the 8% is capturing kind of just a normal movement within the electorate. And then there's a disproportionate numbers in the electorate to turn out from one side to the other. You're getting to the plus 12s and 13s that you need to win the Senate seats for Trump's plus 13. That's why it's so interesting, right? I mean, or the House seats where where Trump's over plus 10. So I think it's not foolish of people to look at it. If I find something I say is in the South that does see this disproportionate, we high black turned out. Africa turned out. And that obviously can matter. Yeah, I was going to say two things to that. One, on the black turned out in Louisiana, one of the guys I follow is Republican data analysts, a real one, not like one of them, not like the influencer person, but somebody I've known for a long time was a bolster for Republicans and and really just kind of give straight analysis. And I mean, his posts about like the share of the black vote are like he's trying to sound the alarm for other Republicans, basically. It's just like it's unprecedented, like the percentage of people who have voted early, who are black is higher than it's been since he's been measuring it. So I think that's noteworthy and obviously we'll have in part I think certainly, you know, kind of a response to the opportunity of voting rights act and, you know, just a lot of motivation. You're saying among black voters, so I think could make a big difference in other places besides Louisiana, that Mississippi center race, which we've been talking about, obviously North Carolina, as mentioned, this includes a lot of black voters, Georgia running up big numbers for us often and helping Keishel and his bottoms. And then also the Hispanic vote. And the Hispanic turned out in Texas in particular, which I do think is different Florida. Florida seems to be flirting. And so one place where the numbers seem good for Republicans right now, but in Texas, there are small counties that are like 90% Hispanic, you know, close to the border, where you're seeing turnout higher than 2024, like higher than a presidential year. And you're also kind of anecdotally seeing that in other places. And also one thing you can see in Texas where you can see party identification is age and a lot of young Hispanic voters turning out as well. So something to keep an eye on. Why don't we transition from there? I want to do some other midterm stuff. We might as well do our long shots. Well, while we're high on our own supply from early vote, we might as well do our long shots. Since I mentioned Louisiana, I think Bill, you're going to mention that. Why don't you go first? Well, I think I did South Carolina in Mississippi. We could go, I sort of move from the great plane states to the South from a long shot set of picks. And I was glad that Trump went to South Carolina last week. And I guess he's going to Mississippi tonight, right? So they must have some data that shows those two are in play. And then I think they're widely recognized those two to be. They're pretty money and Mississippi now. Right. Both sides, right? I think. Yeah. Yeah. But they're probably going to be very much so defending both. And I've got, I don't know, I think one or both of those could come through. I mean, I think that's almost now almost 50 50. You'd have to be maybe South Carolina a little more. 50 50. South Carolina, I think 50 50 South Carolina. Mississippi 40 60. I think 40 60 not 20 80 is my view. But now, I'll give you a couple of 20 80 states. So just I'm not, I'm not totally high in my own supply. And that's Louisiana, as we said, and Florida. I mean, Florida is just so the early vote of Florida just six second on that. It's a little complicated. I've seen arguments both ways and what to make it. Right now, Florida is a huge early vote. The public has used to vote early in Florida. And by mail, now they soft was when Trump got went against it, but they sort of gone back to what it's supposedly. So maybe it is reflective. And it's about even in party ID. But again, presumably, some Republicans have voted for Democrats this year. That's why it's a wave here, right? So if it's even a party ID, the Democrats are going to win. Now, they may lose, they're going to lose some points on election day, presumably relative to their early vote. But it seems like it's somewhat closed. And then there was a while late last week. This shows how much I'm getting too much in the weeds. However, it was like, well, the Democrats are probably going to gain each day, but then they stopped gaining for a couple of days. Who knows? I think Florida could be close and droply could win the governor's race. Probably it's a little better chance, I would say, than Nixon the Senate race. But I think both they're not out of the question about plus six average in the polling I've seen on the Senate race against Nixon. So that's a little high to overcome. Plus four, Louisiana, the two actual polls I've seen are only plus four Republican. It's hard to believe. But they're the Black China does seem huge. And it's 33. So I'm going to 33%. I assume that the Democratic candidate is going to get 95% of that 33%. So I can't do the math on my hand. That's why I'm 31%. Democrat candidate for this Jamie Davis is a black farmer. Yeah. And it seems like a very impressive guy. It's like a whole bunch of candidates this time. So it's like out of control, the texting. I thought there's only supposed to send you emails, not texts. So anyway, that's not true, anymore. So I'll go guys stupidly give them my phone number once you know, so I get all these texts. His or the best. Do you get any of these? He's like, he spends all his time attacking half his time attacking the National Democratic Party. I think somewhat with some justification for totally abandoning him. He's getting no help at all. He's getting no money. And so that's why we should send him money. And I sort of felt sympathetic. So it's a little money. But anyway, Crystal for Jamie Davis. Totally. And if he's and so aside, if I've done the math correctly, if the black journalist holds and holds through election data, I think there are only two more days of early voting in Louisiana today and tomorrow. Yeah. You know, then he needs to get 20% of the 65% of the vote. That's the white vote. So that's a little, that's about 30% of the math is decent. I don't know what that is exactly. It's under a third, but a more than a quarter. So I don't know, could he get 30% of the white 28% of the white vote in Louisiana? That's a little higher than Democrats who got in the past. And Democrats did win the Louisiana governorship on the other hand, right in 2015 and 2019. So it's not like no one in Louisiana ever voted for a Democrat for anything, right? So I don't know. I feel like the Louisiana could be fantastic. If he won with no help at all from the National Democratic Party, which is busy spending the sort of 30 second million, second million dollar in Texas, which I'm not against either. They have to do it. Obviously, it's very competitive, but there's something a little crazy about the disproportionate this point. I thank you. All right. Well, there you go. Strong Bill Crystal endorsement in the leasing on a Senate race. We'll keep an eye on that. I've already voted it. I was one of the early voting whites for Jamie Davis yesterday, as was my husband, a couple of my buddies. We went together. And, you know, if you have any leasing on a people listening, we also have a ton of ballot initiatives. And I'm a no on four, which is, which is a term limit thing that I think might be shenanigans to keep the aforementioned John Bill out of it from running again. Again, it's definitely entry. No on six. and nine, which is property tax relief for only 65 plus, you know, guys, everybody needs property tax relief. I don't know about the boomer luxury communism. Yes, on seven, we need new pipes. So there you go. Those are my, those are my amendment endorsements of here at Louisiana. Okay. I'm here in my long shots. One of these isn't even a long shot, but I just wanted to mention it. What's considered eight in Iowa two? We'll start Iowa two. Over on board takes I did, I did a video on Saturday about Elon attacking us, which we'll get to in a minute, as well as this Iowa two race. There's been redistricting covers a bunch of the district that was like my first job in politics out in eastern Iowa. I'm very familiar with the district had been traditionally Democratic Union territory went very mega. And now we've got Lindsey James is another kind of divinity school type candidate, kind of in the Adam Hamilton and and tellerico mold. She's in Dubuque on the river there running against Joe Mitchell, who is like running as a clown caricature of Donald Trump. Like he dresses like Trump. He's 29, but he looks like he's 50 because he like dresses like Trump. He does the same haircut. He's not doing any skincare routine. Anyway, I discussed much more on this over on board. Take she can check it out. But Lindsey, Lindsey James, I think this is wonderful. I think the Democrats could win three of four in Iowa in the house. So that is something to watch. And I wanted to shout out Wisconsin eight because I caught a video of Rick Croson, who is a, you know, an older black guy that served in the military, debating another guy that like looks like a Trump imitator. It's unbelievable. There are multiple Trump imitators running. His guy's name is Tony weed. I think he's already a congressman. This is Wisconsin eight. This is like Green Bay up to Door County. And it's a stretch. It's R plus eight. So, you know, on top of whatever that was last time, you know, that's, that's a double digit swing, but not impossible. At the end of the debate, they each can ask each other a question. Rick asked Tony about his, you know, stock trading while in Congress. Tony asked Rick, he's like, aren't you all in with the commies? You know, the Democrats are communist now. Rick is his great answer. I'll put a link in the show now. It's about why he does not support communism. He talks about his service of the military, seeing the ravages of total totalitarianism up first and how meanwhile Steve Witt cough is sucking up to Putin and Tony isn't said anything about that. And he also like served on the border and, you know, worked with Mexico on drug trafficking. And he's like, all these things you're saying that I'm an open border trans commie is just like not true. Actually, I'm a law and order public servant running up there in Wisconsin. I'd like to answer a lot. So Rick Crossen was gone today. There we go. I wanted to ask about, there was some discourse on the internet about how to handle this trans stuff. I just wanted to just hit on that briefly. Josh Turek is up with an ad in the Iowa center race defending himself against attacks that, you know, he voted for pro trans bills while in the state house. In the ad, he talks about how he, you know, what's fairness for everybody doesn't think it should be discriminated against. He also thinks there should be rules and, you know, you shouldn't have, you know, trans girls and girl sports. And also shouldn't have taxpayer funded gender reassignment surgeries. Some folks in the left upset about that, but that, like, the why would you be running that ad in the last week, arguing on their turf? Adam Hamilton, simultaneous who's asked about this issue. Where do you come down on transgender rights? Well, first of all, I don't understand everything there is to know about transgender people. What I can say is this. I don't think we should take a small group of people and bully them, pick on them and and and hurt them. I just, I think, you know, I look at people and I understand one thing really clearly when it comes to transgender and that is Jesus told me I was to love my neighbors, but I love myself. And so I'm going to love the trans person as well as the straight person as well as the, you know, male or female. I just think we have to do better than picking on small groups and what's happened is we've turned a group of people into a campaign issue because it, it, it, it, it, it pulls well. I just don't think that's okay. Just kind of wanted to open ended. See what you thought about that discussion about how to handle this issue. Yeah, I'm not sure. And I look, since both these positions are sort of, I don't know, you know, at the two yard line and the 15 yard line of, of reasonableness. I mean, there's on the right side of the field. And the typical Republican position is somewhere around the 97th yard line of horrible bigotry and basically semi-genicidal hatred of all trans people. I mean, I think I'm sort of okay with different candidates making their own. They might have slightly different views on some of these, you know, you know, slightly closer call aspects of government paying for things or, or this sports issue. I would at least want, and I think Turk that does this, to begin every, every response with a strong statement of tolerance and respect and okay, yeah. So I, then if you once, I, that is a tactical question. I guess I would not bother having a big intratemocratic argument about this at the stage, you know. Yeah, I'm torn about it. Adam Hilton's answer was just obviously wonderful, but like very unique to him, right? And he's like speaking as a pastor, you know, and I, I think gives you a lot of credibility to kind of talk about that. And then he also kind of uses it to sidestep, like he doesn't actually weigh in on the substance, but the questions. And the other thing is in Kansas, in addition to this, where I think that, you know, some of the questions are on sports, and some of this other stuff, like I think there's like legitimate conversation we had in Kansas, like they're also doing insane things, like trying to like take away licenses for trans people and stuff like that. So, you know, and so he had, you know, I think more room to condemn some of the extreme stuff they're doing in Kansas. The Turk ad, this would be my defense of it. And that is the people that are undecided in Iowa are socially conservative. Like that's just it. Like that's what the polls say. You can, you can say that like you shouldn't listen to polls and you should just, you know, leave a strength and not engage on their turf. And yeah, I mean, I think there's, there's an argument to be made for that. But if you're a jashturic, you know, I think that there's a lot of people out there that are that I see some folks on social media saying like, this person doesn't exist that jashturic is trying to get to. Like who is the person that hates trans people and also might vote for jashturic? And it's like that person doesn't exist actually. And in Iowa, in particular, there's a lot of, like, you know, high religiosity in Iowa, a lot of people, older people that like are getting fear mongred ads about jashturic that he's going to trans or grandkids or whatever. And like having an ad that just speaks to those people directly to camera and says, Hey, I am not what they're saying about me on this issue. And I also, you know, want perspective tolerance for everybody. I understand why they would do that, like looking at the data. And I just think everybody who shows me their private data and democratic politics shows me, but like the undecided voters left are like quite conservative. There's also like the turnout side of things, right? So like there are two groups you're trying to get, right? You want to maximize younger disengaged progressive people. And that's not what this ad is for, obviously. But then you also want to try to neutralize like that last group of undecided. So that's my take on it. Speaking of handling something very poorly, on the other hand, I do want to stay in Kansas for one video because it's just this is a nice palo cleanser from the last conversation. Here's Roger Marshall on one of the finance networks talking about how tariff policy is hurting Kansas. And whether he thinks Trump would change after the midterms. Do you see anyone advising the president in the White House towards the free trade, the less tariff trade that Kansas needs? I don't hear that voice right now. I hear the president actually doubling down on where he's at. And the interesting thing is my farmers are still supporting its dire times, times back home bankruptcies are up, suicides are up. But nevertheless, we have hope in this president that he can take us to victory here. There, suicides are up, suicides are up. Vote Trump. But keep the faith. Suicides are up, but keep the faith. Oh my god. He is a genuinely horrible candidate. Oh, man. Oh, buddy, suicides are up. Vote Trump. OK. A horrible thing to save. I mean, not leaving aside the vast stupidest sort. Don't you think it's kind of creepy? No, it's horrible. It's, I mean, it's literally like I keep the faith. It's literally cultish. It's like, go, yeah. I'll, you know, this next year's corn harvest will be better with as long as the orange god is in office again. Anyway, I want to all go to Michigan really quick and talk about that race, which if you just base it on Republican's behavior, it's maybe just pure Islamophobia or maybe their data shows them that this is winnable or both. But there is just like a ton of focus on the right, financially, et cetera, on the Michigan center. Race is one that they think that they can get. I've long been skeptical of that, but like the Republican behavior says to me that they're that they think is a real race still. So the Democrats, you know, brought in the hammer over the weekend. Barack Obama goes to campaign for Abdul. There's a silly controversy. I want to get to in a second, but just at the biggest picture, any thoughts on, you know, Obama like the central establishment figure of the Democratic Party going in and offering closing help to Abdul. I've always been a little doubtful that these are going to make much of a difference. I'm also doubtful that the contrary argued me that they're hurting much because it looks establishment Terry and mixed much different. But I am slightly, I guess if you push me a little bit, maybe I'm wrong about this though. I don't know. I'm a little on the side of keep them all out and make it about, you know, the candidate himself. If he's a strong, pretty strong candidate, which he is, he's a complicated candidate. But if you already have a real problem, with him on these photo-phobias side. Obama's not going to solve that for us. >> You're saying Obama? >> Maybe a black folks, I think. >> That's a particular issue because they have been, I guess, tensions between the Muslim and black communities and Michigan. And if that is the intention, and if they have reason to think that will help fair, which is good, that's fine. I don't know, it's a little bit of a, I guess it's a tactical thing. But I think generally, don't worry about that. I mean, I kind of think all these big names coming in is a little questionable. >> Yeah. I think in this case, Michigan in non-presidential elections is basically able to state. And thinking about it more as like juicing turnout, particularly with black voters, I wouldn't want them in there for Tallerika in Texas. For example, he has some outsider vibes, and he don't want to make him seem like he's just part of the main body with Democratic Party. I think it makes sense for him to do it in Michigan. So I think kind of it's case-by-case basis, we're all being there, did provide some fodder for the right. The right is depressed. They're down. They have nothing to talk about. There's nothing good to say about the Donald Trump presidency. The WMBA season is winding down to a conclusion. So Caitlin Clark has been eliminated, so they can't pretend to be outraged about foul calls. They're running out of things to talk about. So we are bringing back the Tansuit controversy 2.0 this time in the form of the Cheesecake Factory. Let's listen to what Rocco Lama said. And if you're not on the internet, try to figure out what you think the right wing could be upset about in regards to this this little bit from his speech. I don't know if you've noticed, but he seems very focused on home renovations. He should be on HGTV. Guys building a ballroom that's bigger than the White House. He's paved over the Rose Garden, put a helicopter paired on the south lawn, and there's gold everywhere. What's up with the gold? Everything, more gold. He's got the White House looking like Stavnam, who's saying open a cheesecake factory. Just as an aside, one of our come, just I like to support an uplift when the community has good ideas. One of the commenters sent me a suggestion that we call the Hall of Pad a Maxi Pad, which is now house style here at the bulwark, like not like just saying now. So going forward, we'd be discussing the Hall of Pad as the Maxi Pad. Obama there, the thing that people were upset, and like it's crazy, you know, the whole thing, Scott Jennings, and the daily wire people, everybody pretending to be outraged, flopping, throwing themselves on the ground, and their critique was that Rocco Lama doesn't understand regular people and regular Americans think the Cheesecake factory is nice. And so they would not understand his joke. When do you think about that? I mean, I'm no expert at the Cheesecake Factory. I've been to a few of them, and they seem fine. You've been to a few. Yeah, yeah. We have a couple here in D.C. in Northern Virginia. They seem fine. I don't know what I think the kids, you know, maybe a little good place for the family and so forth. What are they upset about? I haven't actually followed that. I've got to admit. There are upsents that Obama showed that he's out of touch. This is another example of out of touch, Arugula eating Obama, and that in real America, real Americans want the White House to look like the Cheesecake Factory, because they see the Cheesecake Factory as a fancy night out for them and their family. I don't know that that is true. I just, I'm not a huge cheese, let's just, I don't know why I was understanding it. I should be true to myself on this podcast, radical candor. I don't like the Cheesecake Factory. Maybe I am one of the fancy pants people. They're accusing Obama of beating my husband and daughter. Do you like it when I'm out of town? They might go tonight. They're probably, they might be as a Cheesecake Factory tonight. It's one of the things they do when I'm gone, like Papa John's Pizza. And, you know, I don't think anybody there at the Cheesecake Factory thinks I wish the White House looked like this. It's a little, it's cheesy. It's in the name. Like it's a little like that's what it is. It's like a little over the top and whatever. It's not, it is what it is, right? It's like, that's different from what you would want. Maybe the map room to look like, you know, in the White House. I don't, I don't think that there's anything there, but it's, it was a, it was very warm. And so for the right-wing influencers, I'm sure Jesse Waters will be talking about it tonight, like be able to come up with something to be upset about again. And so, you know, Barack Obama gave them that. It's ludicrous. It's a Cheesecake Factory, even that particularly striking in his design. I don't remember, I remember they were very big menu. That's my main menu, taking the kids there many years ago. It's like if you go through pages and pages of of sandwiches and desserts and stuff. Yeah. I think, I think he's probably referencing like, you know, how they have the script now outside the White House where it says like the West Wing. You know what I mean? I mean, whatever. I don't forget which rooms they put a script outside the rooms. So if you're walking by, you can kind of resembles, I think that's the joke, whatever. Anyway, I thought Barry was, Barry made me, you know, look at the White Wing. It's not a good sign when you're own people. This reminds me of losing campaigns. I've been a vocabetic too. Like you didn't build that. Yeah. Exactly. It's like, can you believe I said, yeah, right. We're really going to go to town on this mistake of Obama or something. Well, I think that didn't work out so well. Yeah. The reminds me of the Romney campaign. I'm sorry if Hillary Rosen is a listener, nothing but love to you. So sorry for bringing this back up. It reminds me of when she made a joke and see it. I wasn't going to joke. Make made a comment on CNN. I don't know. I think about me and Romney being a homemaker that was perceived to be derogatory in some way. And then like we spent three days on the Romney campaign being like, Obama's hate stay at home. It reminds me of that kind of anyway. All right. Afer mentioned Elon came for us over the weekend at the live event at Lano. You were there. You're not on stage at this moment. JVL goes on a rant about how you cannot hate Elon Musk enough. Fun fact about Elon Musk, you know, he spent more money in the last two years on campaigns than George Soros has in his entire history of dirty into campaigns. It's just another interesting fun fact with the next time you somebody bring up Soros to you on the internet, the, you know, basically the bit that we were discussing was who we want to see testify. Who should buy property on Capitol Hill because they're going to be testifying so much. JVL kept talking about who Elon needs to pack a lunch because he's going to be on Capitol Hill, raising his right hand so often. And you know, like the momentum builds and it's like, maybe don't stop there. Maybe he should be at the Hague. And, um, and somebody clips his video and talks about how the bulwark is arranged and they're just like for Elon, Elon sees it replies, if they want to live by the sword, that is how they will die too. Like a child it's hard to say like, maybe he's just saying that we should be investigated or maybe it's a death threat. It's a little unclear. It's probably just somebody who's been, you know, on K Street the night before just popping off on social media. But anyway, I don't know. I gave a lengthy rebuttal to the childishness of it over on YouTube. People can watch, but do you have any thoughts on Elon targeting us? Seems, seems probably like, it means we're over the mark. Yeah, I think your thing on Saturday was excellent and people should go watch that after they finish watching. Of course, this, this podcast, this show, um, now that you were, you were great and you made clear we're not intimidated and we're not impressed really by Elon's pisciness of that statement. No. Is it sort of a threat? I don't know. Elon threatens everyone and I guess everything. I don't sell. Yeah, right. Whatever. I believe the larger that is, of course, with a new testament. And the point is you shouldn't live by the sword. It's a new testament kind of Jesus pacifist type thing. It's not a, it's not supposed to be used as a threat of violence against someone who's, who is God forbid, suggested that maybe as a U.S. citizen, you should be accountable when you spend when you have all these corrupt dealings with the government and spend hundreds of billions of dollars to affect campaigns and to stop Ukrainian from defending itself and so forth. The God forbid, you should actually have to explain to defend yourself. So yeah, that doesn't seem like such a radical thing that JVL was saying. Indeed not. And he can keep tweeting because come 10 days for now. I do think that, you know, Jamie Raskin and Cruz is going to be thinking about the ways in which Elon is going to be testifying on the Hill and he damn well should be because just the behavior was out of control. And, you know, in addition, we just got USAID and Ukraine and like literal deaths of children as a result of these policy changes that, you know, he instituted single handedly as an unelected donor to the president. But also the public servants, like people in DC, I thought, you know, people's career is real and civil servants are legally fired and, you know, he should have to answer for it because we do still live in a liberal democracy. I just want to close with a little bit of Trump dementia watch and have a little laugh. Bill Moore, Kid Rock and Stephen A. Smith had dinner with Trump. Sounds horrible. I can unimaginable for some to have dinner with. Kid and possibly get a word in edge wise and who I would you want to. But after that, I don't watch Bill Moore show anymore. But from the clips I saw, I don't know if something seemed like Bill Moore was particularly harsh to Trump. If anything, like lately, I remember there's one show recently where Trump texted him and he like defended Trump about something where Trump was wrong, by the way, you know, his accusations about elections. Trump must have watched Bill Moore show the weekend was unhappy. He figures that if you have dinner with him, that means you have to just be totally obsequious in every possible way when discussing him following. That's the quid pro quo. We'll then do that and You know, this is what happens with Trump. He sent a bleed about Bill Maher that was like longer than the Gettysburg address. It was so lengthy. And there's one sentence I just wanna read it in full so you can kind of get a picture into the mind of our demented president. CNN did another poll at who was the most popular person in the history of the Republican Party. And I won that too, with me being at 53%, Ronald Reagan being at 18%, and Abraham Lincoln being at 8%, and these are CNN polls, people not exactly in love with me. So Bill Maher lied. Everybody lies about everything. And I believe he lied to me when I asked him with all the applause and laughter he gets after almost everything he says about things that aren't funny or even good, what laughter machine does he use? That's a sentence. Question mark, I guess. That's a question authored by the president. - What is that fake poll, essentially? I skimmed that and saw that thing. I didn't even bother to look to look it up. It's like, it's not one of these things where it's like, CNN is the polling CNN viewers. Like there's a poll of Republicans. If anything, it shows that Republicans are in a cult. They like Trump better than Abraham Lincoln. What does that have to do with the laughing at Bill Maher shows? I'm clear, nothing. What laughter machine does he, I mean, it's, you know, I mean, it's just like three little lightning bugs rattling around in the brain. - It is, I like your point about the dinner. There's this parlor game. I don't know the people still do this thing. Like they did this when I was younger. I mean, you know, who would you like to have dinner with? Mochart Thomas Jefferson, ridiculous kind of things like that? And you're right, this is very, this should have the opposite. Who would you most, at least like that dinner with? That would be high up there, those, that force them. But anyway, it would, you'd have to kind of do more. - JD went there and had a five something. Then you'd really be in business for the worst five something. - Yeah, good point, good point. But you know, he really, he should not be president for the next two years. I just make a simple matter point here. And he really should be in teach or, you know, pressured to resign by the Republicans if they were actually a Republican party. Maybe if they lose a lot of seats, someone will have the nerve to go tell them to doubtful. - Doubtful, right? - Doubtful. - John, a newly liberated John Thune will decide to step up through his responsibilities and settle the president. Of course, it would make JD vans president, which is problematic in some way. But he really is the combination of the racluses and the deterioration is not good for the country or the world. That's a great place to leave it. He should be impeached and removed. This is the baller podcast after all. We could end every show with that. So we'll do it here today. Bill, we have one more podcast before the midterms. I will see you next Monday. Will I be in Austin already? No, I think I'm gonna tape with you and then leave for Austin. And so we'll be chatting then. Everybody else will be back here for another edition of the podcast. See you all then. Peace. ♪ You can put your clothes back on ♪ ♪ She's leaving new ♪ ♪ No time to apologize for the things you do ♪ ♪ No interferari and sing the blues ♪ ♪ Believe that Claptop was the second coming ♪ ♪ Far so far, we all got work to do ♪ ♪ It gets dark, we all got work to do ♪ ♪ She's leaving ♪ ♪ She's leaving ♪ The Bullwork Daily is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Anzali Skipper, and with video editing by Dante DeCicco and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.