Bill Kristol: Beating Back the Authoritarians

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Monday. We are eight days away from the midterms. And so, of course, we have editor-at-large Bill Kristol. 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, become a Bulwark Plus member. We're going to do Q&As with Bulwark members. And then Tuesday, we'll be live. And I'll be in Austin. You'll be in D.C. in the office? I'll be in D.C. And I'm looking forward to spending the next week poring over and misinterpreting misleading early vote numbers from obscure counties that I've never heard of and reading people telling me about how it compares to 22, but on the other hand, 2018. And you can really get into this. Great. Well, I have a few of those hot facts for you coming up here in a little bit. But first, I want to start 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 seem like at least victories against despotism, if nothing else, in Serbia and Brazil. And so, I did just want to start briefly there. Yeah, pretty surprising results, I think, in both cases. Yeah. 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 a January 6th Trumpy-type, you know, auto coup. 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 Latin America way, you know. And it was thought to be, there were thought to be a lot of appearances against him, so he'd have a tough time. Came back to win. Got a big turnout. And Bolsonaro, I guess, is contesting it. They kept the polls open. But they requested both candidates, I think. But anyway, because there were problems in getting to the polls. Ends up being like a three-point victory. Yeah, 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, did they want Bolsonaro back? And it was sort of like a Trump second term as opposed to a Trump first term, I think. His father was bad enough, but this, he was more radical. He said over the last two weeks, someone, I talked to Anne Applebaum this morning, another contact, 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. That's heartening. And then in Serbia, where this guy Vucic, 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 Milosevic protege. 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. The list that was assembled by, the students went to the streets about two years ago, huge numbers of protests, grievances, and mostly it's 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 selected 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 was certainly a referendum on Vucic, on authoritarianism. It wasn't a vote for anything, except for big change and against corruption, which is not nothing. That was more Hungary-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. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. in eight days. So big 10 days of elections and off to a pretty decent start. You know, as Applebaum 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 been 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, obviously, like the Bolsonaro family brand significant, a bunch of other family members won in the first round, right? It's a very significant, I mean, unfortunately, it's, it's kind of significant in a 2024 sense 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. But for people 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. There's also a fourth candidate on the ballot that seems like a stalking horse. It's also a fake candidate. It's a stalking horse from the left against Paltola. So four candidates on the ballot. It's ranked choice 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 Sullivans 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 because 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 it's kind of a bunch of do about nothing, 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 just 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 that being desperate just a week out, and they don't have sort of more threatening things to do. I believe this was litigated, they brought a case in Alaska, the Republicans, and it was tossed out to die by the Alaska Supreme Court. So this was litigated in the state, you know, so it's kind of unbelievable for the federal government to intervene. And anyway, so I think it's gonna fail. But I would say that they're trying to do something. They're trying to do something. I mean, 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 elect the Democrats, you can have a bunch of corrupt black officeholders. Look at this fake case we brought against Louise Lucas, the Speaker of the House here in Virginia. Fake case in the sense that there was zero need for it to be brought two weeks before the election. It's based on stuff that allegedly happened months and years ago, and it could have been brought after the election, which is a normal way one 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 more about adding a little bit to their general narrative of how horrible, corrupt, extreme, 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 at Protect Democracy had a poll out in the field last week that just kind of measured the interest in one of these issues. Trump hasn't even really won over the Republicans on his attempts to meddle with the elections. 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 opening criminal investigations into state and local officials to pressure them, including half of Republicans. Two-thirds oppose county officials refusing or delaying certification of votes in attempts to contest results, including a bunch of Republicans. So, like, he has not won the argument with anybody except for the core MAGA 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 going to 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 going to 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 Fetterman deal, Senate seats, which is, like, very possible. Maybe the plurality, like, 52 is probably the most likely result. I think it 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, gum up the these people from being seated. And to me, the fact that they're already basically previewing that if it's close, that's what they'll try to do. No, I agree. I mean, Lisa Murkowski, 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 attorney general to kind of go along to make this really work. And hopefully with Murkowski 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 know, you got Republican constitutional office holders 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, you know, the city governments, obviously in the blue dots in Texas and a couple of counties. Now there's still bar barriers and there are election commissioners who are 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 had originally ran as a Republican, has gotten very extreme and, and grumpy and aggrieved, just like her on the campaign trail. She's like, cause she's sounding very Trumpy, but without the joy in her attacks on Rob Sand and Turek's, you know, they have control of Iowa. It's a Democrat that'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, it's the, the lack of seriousness was which he's doing this, but, and that is the kind of bribes and threats in the lead up to the election that he's, that he's offering. And basically in every speech, as Andrew points out, people know about the Trump offered people $5,000 checks if the Republicans win, but, but he's localizing that same, you know, type of bribe campaign in Kentucky. He said that there's a hundred million dollar 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 reason to vote for Adam 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 June, 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 imagine if Obama said it type situation, which is we're not going to take care of the veterans that drink contaminated water, but we're not going to take care of the veterans that drink contaminated water and had medical issues unless we win. Like that is the carrot and stick that he's offering. It's totally unprecedented and insane. And he's done this in office, hasn't he, in these last two years, a little FEMA money goes to the governors he likes and so forth. I mean, it's pretty astounding on it. You know, that's something that we've had pretty partisan politics at different times in our nation. Nothing quite like this. I was funny that you were struck by the capitalism 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 you, why do I say it's ridiculous? He could break the law, but literally a law was passed in 2022 by partisan law by Congress, authorizing lawsuits and payments for people who served at Lejeune. This is decades ago, really long time ago from the fifties to the eighties, basically when there apparently was contaminated water, there are serious claims. I gather you've credible and believed claims of health problems that resulted from this contaminated water. And so lawsuits were authorized. They've got ahead, they're paying out money. It's in a very American legalistic kind of, you know, appropriate way for these by now very elderly veterans or their, their, their kin, their, 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, 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, probably people in that area know a little bit about the history of Cap Lejeune 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 called it Camp Jejeune. Now Trump is acting very Jejeune. I don't know where that happened. I had to, I had to fly across the country last night. So, you know, the brain is still getting caught up this morning, but, um, yeah, I mean, it's disgusting is what it is. And, and I think that it speaks to the asymmetry that JBL talks about that. It's just like that nobody takes it seriously. And so it doesn't get covered seriously and it should. The Bulwark 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 should be protected. Recently, the Freedom From Religion Foundation helped stop a Georgia 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 in someone else's freedom, not to FFRF also gives free thinkers, atheists, agnostics, and non-religious Americans a 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 slash Tim. Or text Tim to 511-511 to join or learn more. Go to FFRF.us slash Tim or text Tim to 511-511 now. It's about deciding what kind of country we want to be. Text Tim to 511-511 today. Text fees may apply. One other thing on kind of his bribes and self-dealing, Isaac Salt at Tangle News. I had him on, I don't know, probably a couple months ago now when he did what I think is probably the most comprehensive and. Readable list of all of the Trump corruption, you know, crimes and accusations. And we'll put a link to it in the show notes. And he just updated it over the weekend. And there are a million things you can talk about and all this. But there was like 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. Like it's broken containment. It's not even in like political world, like just regular people. Just like big jokes about how Nancy Pelosi was trading on stocks and enriching herself and all this. Like that's like just kind of 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? Like I don't think anybody knows this. You know, J.D.'s defense of all this, like when he got asked about this, by Tony DeCoppo the other week, he was like, you know, well, Trump was already rich. And I just, I think that there's that thing that like 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. Like it's the one thing you can lock in on, on Nancy Pelosi. But I thought that was just kind of a wild fact. And I think that, you know, it ties to kind of 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 few days. The amount of insider trading and market manipulation that seems to have gone on like during this war, when he would make a fake announcement that, you know, that would drive all prices down. And they would trade on that and then sell out or sell immediately before people realized that it was fake. I mean, and then they ordered, didn't they, the, was it the Commodity Future Trading Commission, whatever that's called, to not look into certain things. I mean. And he offered early access to his bleeds to certain people via Truth Social. Yeah. 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 in what we used to call the third world, that's just terrible that they don't have the rule of law. Terrible that they don't have this kind of massive unchecked corruption. It's one thing to have some subtle stuff going on behind the, you know, behind the scenes, but this is just flat out, you know, 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 over early vote analysis here. There's the exception. John Ralston really keeps nailing it in Nevada. Every time he assesses the early vote, I don't know if it's something about Nevada or if John Ralston just has a rain man like, like ability to, you know, interpret the data, but, 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 there's 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 was a big blow up between Data Republican and, and somebody on the inside of the Trump administration. And that kind of fight led to the revelation that the, the, the department of defense, meaning us, are paying trump influencers to post online anyway um data republican is the you know person they 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 i really could 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 onto 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 everyone sophisticated knows you there are too many variables you're not supposed to predict it's hard to compare when you're to another because you don't know if more democrats are voting early does that just mean they're taking votes from themselves later so to speak or is it real and you don't know how people voted it sounds like i'm 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 and 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 like a lot of states they don't have party so you're basing it on modeling and yeah so yes and then it doesn't say anything about how many republicans former people who formerly voted republicans are deserting so there are many many caveats that should be having said that it is a real thing people are a little now too skeptical about it i think it's becoming like almost it's like i you know i sort of said this myself you know almost a joke a kind of thing you mock yeah 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 at the sense i think about 20 percent of the electorate for this a week from you know for this election cycle and in some states it's higher than that uh one reason nevada i think wilson's 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 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 much higher democratic turnout than republicans like north carolina for example i 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 to two years ago and you typically would have to add that on to the generic ballot the generic ballot just to recall your ballot you're taking about your you're uh asking people how they would vote you ask all adults then you can narrow it down to registered voters as most good pollsters have done at the time and then you can narrow it down to at this point you can try likely voters but then you are asking people you know are you certain to vote that's but unregistered voters only about 60 maybe of them 65 in a mid-year are going to vote but that generic ballot is of that whole universe right so if you got eight percent already gained so to speak by the democrats and then if you get disproportionate turnout you're going above eight 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 eight states are going to get a little bit more than one percent you're going to get a little bit more than one percent because you're capturing kind of just a normal movement within the electorate and then there's a disproportionate uh numbers in the electorate who 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 and so i think it's not foolish of people to look at the final thing i'd say is in the south it does seem this disproportionately high black turnout african-american turnout uh and that obviously could matter yeah i was going to say i was going to say yeah i was going to say no i was going to say yeah i was going to say two things to that one on the black turnout in louisiana one of the guys i follow is a republican data analyst a real one not not like one of them not like the influencer person that somebody i've known for a long time was bolstered 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 like he's trying to sound the alarm for other republicans basically um 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 overturning of the voting rights act and you know just a lot of um motivation you're seeing among black voters 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 in the black voters in the north carolina as mentioned this includes a lot of black voters georgia running up big numbers for ossoff and helping quiche alliance bottoms and then also the hispanic vote and the hispanic turnout in texas in particular which i do think is different florida florida florida seems to be florida inc it's the 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 and and also i think that's a big part of the reason that we're seeing this kind of a big part of the reason that we're seeing this kind of a big part of the reason other places and and and also one thing you can see in texas where you can't see party identification is age and a lot of young hispanic voters um 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 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 i think i did south carolina and mississippi a week ago i sort of moved from the great plain states to the south from my uh 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 putting money in mississippi now right yeah both sides right yeah yeah yeah but the republicans 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 so 50 50. south carolina i think it's optimistic i think it's a little bit of both i think it's a little bit of both 50 50 south carolina and mississippi 40 60. but i think 40 60 not 20 80 is my view but now i'll give you a couple of 20 80 states though just sure that i'm not i'm not totally high in my own supply and that's louisiana as we said and florida i mean florida's just so the early vote in florida just take a second on that it's a little complicated i've seen arguments both ways of what to make it right now it's far as a huge early vote the public is used to vote early in florida and by mail now they stopped was when trump got went against it but they've sort of gone back to it 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 what why it's a wave here right right so if it's even in party id the democrats are going to win now they may lose they're going to lose some points uh on election day presumably relative to their early vote but it seems like it's somewhat close and then there was a while late last week this shows how much i'm getting too much in the weeds however i was like well the democrats and the republicans are gaining each day but then they stopped gaining for a couple of days who knows i think florida could be close uh and jolly 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 are not out of the question about plus six average in the polling i've seen on the senate race uh against nixon you know 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 there the black turnout does seem huge and it's 33 33 percent i assume that the democratic candidates can get 95 of that 33 percent so i can't do the math in my hand that's probably 31 percent i can't afford to talk this jamie davis is a black farmer yeah it seems like a very impressive guy and it's like i you know i made the mistake of giving a little bit of money to 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 text or something anyway but that's not true anymore so maybe i stupidly gave them my phone number once you know so or so i get all these things his are the best do you get any of these so he's like he spends all his time attacking half his time he's like i'm gonna send him money and he's like i'm gonna send him money and he's like i'm gonna send him money and i sort of felt sympathetic so it's a little money but anyway bill crystal for jamie davis totally and if he if he's and so if i've done the math correctly if the black turnout holds and holds through election day and i think there are only two more days of early voting in louisiana today and tomorrow yeah you know then he needs 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 my math is decent i don't know what that is exactly it's under a third but 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 uh democrats have gotten in the past a democrat did win the louisiana governorship on the other hand right in 2015 and 2019 so it's not like no one in louisiana has ever voted for a democrat for anything right so i don't know i feel like louisiana could be it'd be fantastic if he won with no help at all from the national democratic party which is busy spending the sort of 32nd million second millionth 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 at this point i think you know all right well there you go strong bill crystal endorsement in louisiana senate race we'll keep an eye on that i've already voted i voted yeah i was one of the early voting whites for jamie davis um yesterday as was my husband and a couple of my buddies we went together and you know if you have any louisiana 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 i think might be shenanigans to keep the aforementioned john bell edwards from running again against jeff landry no on six and nine which is property tax relief for only 65 plus you know guys everybody needs property i don't 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 if you're in louisiana okay here are my uh long shots one of these isn't even a long shot but i just wanted to mention it wisconsin eight and iowa two we'll start with iowa two over on bulwark takes i did i did a video on saturday about uh elon attacking us which we'll get to in a minute as well as this iowa two race there's been redistricting it covers a bunch of the district that was like my first job in politics out in eastern iowa so i'm very familiar with the district had been traditionally democratic union uh territory went very mega and now we've got lindsey james who's another kind of divinity school type candidate kind of in the adam hamilton and um and talarico mold um she's in dubuque on the river they're 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 bulwark takes you 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 uh that is something to watch but i wanted to shout out wisconsin eight because i caught a video of rick cross and who is a um you know an older black guy that served in the military uh 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 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 a double digit swing but it's a double digit swing and i think it's a swing but not not impossible at the end of the debate they each can ask each other a question rick asked tony about his um you know stock trading uh while in congress tony asked rick he's like aren't you all in with the commies you know these democrats are communists now and rick gives this great answer i'll put a link in the show notes about why he does not support communism he talks about his service of the military seeing the ravages of totalitarianism up first and how meanwhile steve wickhoff is sucking up to putin and tony hasn't said anything about that and he also like served on the border and you know worked with mexico on drug trafficking you know 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 liked that answer a lot so rick cross in wisconsin eight there we go i wanted to ask about um there was some discourse on the internet over the weekend about how to handle this trans stuff i just wanted to kind of discuss that and i think it's a great question and i think it's a great question to kind of just hit on that briefly josh turrick is up with an ad in the iowa senate race defending himself against attacks that you know he he voted for pro-trans bills while in the state house in the ad he talks about how he you know wants fairness for everybody he doesn't think everybody should be discriminated against he also thinks there should be rules and you know you shouldn't have you know trans girls and girls sports and also shouldn't have taxpayer-funded gender reassignment surgeries some folks have left upset about it and i think it's a great question and i i think it's a great question and i think it's a great question and i think it's a great question that that like that why would you be running that ad in the last week arguing on their turf adam hamilton simultaneously 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 don't 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 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 uh 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 what you know at the two-yard line and the 15-yard line of of reasonableness i mean that'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-genocidal hatred of all trans people i mean i think i'm sort of okay with different candidates making their own a they might have slightly different views on some of these you know you know slightly closer call aspects of government paying for it and i think that's a good thing i think that's a good thing things or or this the sports issue i i would at least want and i think turk that does this to begin every ad every response with a strong statement of tolerance and respect and okay yeah so i and then if he wants i i that is a tactical question i guess i would not bother having a big intra-democratic argument about this at this stage you know yeah i'm torn about it um 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 think that gives you a lot of credibility to kind of talk about this and he also kind of uses it to sidestep like he doesn't actually weigh in on the substance of any of the questions and the other thing is in kansas in addition to this where i think that you know some of the questions around sports and some of this other stuff like i think there's like legitimate conversation to be 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 lead with 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 um if you're josh turk you know i 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 and i don't think they're going to be able to exist that josh turk is trying to get to like who is the person that hates trans people and also might vote for josh turk and it's like that person does exist actually and in iowa in particular like there's a lot of like you know high religiosity in iowa a lot of people older people that like are getting fear-mongered ads about josh turk that he's going to trans our 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 i don't know what they're saying about me on this i don't know and i also you know want respect and 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 on democratic politics shows me that 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 the 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 palate 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 hear that voice right now i i hear the the president actually doubling down on where he's at and the interesting thing is my farmers are still supporting its dire time 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 bankruptcies are up suicides are up vote trump but keep the keep the faith suicides are up but keep the faith oh my god that is he's he is a genuinely horrible candidate oh man oh buddy suicides are up vote trump kind of a horrible thing to say even i mean not leaving aside the fact stupid it is it's sort of don't you think it's kind of creepy i don't know no it's horrible it's i mean it's it's literally like i keep the faith that's right it's literally cultish it's like oh yeah i'll you know this next year's corn harvest will be better um with as long as the orange god is in office again anyway i want to go to michigan really quick and talk about um that race which if you just base it on republicans 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 etc on the michigan senate 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 this is a race still so the democrats you know brought in the hammer over the weekend brock 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 the central establishment figure of the democratic party going in and offering closing help to abdul assad i've always been a little doubtful that these surrogates make much of a difference i'm also doubtful that the contrary argument that they're hurting much because it looks establishmentarian but i am slightly i guess if you push me i'm 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 the Islamophobia side, Obama's not going to solve that. Barack Hussein Obama. Barack Hussein Obama isn't going to solve that. Well, maybe with black folks, I think. Well, okay, so that's a particular issue because there have been, I guess, tensions between the Muslim and black communities in Michigan, and if that is the intention and if they have reason to think that will help there, which it could, 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, where are you on 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 a blue state. And thinking about it more is like juicing turnout, particularly with black voters. I wouldn't want him in there for Tallarico in Texas, for example. He has some outsider vibes, and you don't want to make him seem like he's just part of the main body of the Democratic Party. I think it makes sense for him to do it in Michigan. So I think kind of it's a 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 WNBA 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 tan suit controversy 2.0, this time in the form of the Cheesecake Factory. Let's listen to what Barack Obama said. And if you're not on the internet, try to figure out what you think the right wing can be upset about. In regards to 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. It's paved over the Rose Garden. Put a helicopter pad 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 Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory. Just as an aside, one of our commenters, I like to support and uplift when the community has good ideas. One of the commenters sent me a suggestion that we call the helipad a maxi pad, which is now house style here at the Bulwark, like Nutlick, just so you know. So going forward, we'll be discussing the helipad as the maxi pad. Obama there, the thing that people were upset, and like, it's crazy, honey. Like, 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 Barack Obama doesn't understand regular people and regular Americans think the Cheesecake Factory is nice. And so they would not understand his joke. What do you think about that? I mean, I'm no expert on 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. and Northern Virginia. They seem fine. I don't know. 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 it. I've got to admit. They're upset that Obama showed that he's out of touch. I see. 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, I'm not a huge cheese. Let's just be, I don't know why I was understating 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 being, my husband and daughter do 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. It's 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. Is the Jason factory, even that particularly striking in its design? I just, I don't even remember that. I remember they have a very big menu. That's my main memory. Taking the kids there many years ago. It's like, you have to 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 or like, you know what I mean? Or like, whatever. I don't forget which rooms they, they put a script outside the room. So if you're walking by, you can, it kind of, it kind of resembles, I think that's the joke, whatever. Anyway, I thought Barry was, Barry made me, you know, look the right wing. It's not a good sign when your own people, this reminds me of losing campaigns. I've been involved, sympathetic to 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. That didn't work out so well. Reminds me of the Romney campaign. I'm sorry. If Hillary doesn't, as a listener, nothing but love to you. So sorry for bringing this back up. It reminds me, when she like made a joke on CNN, or it wasn't even a joke, like made a comment on CNN. I don't know. I think about Ann 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 moms, you know, it reminds me of that kind of anyway. All right. Affirmation. Elon came for us over the weekend at the live event in Atlanta, which you were there. You were not on. We're 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 donating to campaigns. It's just, that's another interesting fun fact with next time you have somebody bring up Soros to you on the internet. The, you know, basically the, the, 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 and somebody clips this video and talks about how the bulwark is deranged 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 to 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 on K street the night before just pop it 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. People should go watch that after they finish watching, of course, this, this five guests of the show. Um, no, no, you were, you were great and you made clear we're not intimidated and we're not impressed really by Elon's pithiness of that statement. Is this sort of a threat? I don't know. Elon threatens everyone and I guess everything. I don't sell. Whatever. I believe the origin of that is of course from the 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 us 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 Ukraine from defending itself and so forth that God forbid you should actually have to explain or defend yourself. So yeah, that doesn't seem like such a radical thing that JVL was saying, but indeed not. And um, he can keep tweeting because come 10 days from now, I do. I do think that, you know, Jamie Raskin and crew 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 his behavior was out of control. Um, and you know, in addition, we discussed 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, people's career is ruined. Civil servants illegally fired and um, 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 Maher, Kid Rock and Stephen, a Smith had dinner with Trump. Sounds horrible. I could an unimaginable force to have dinner with. Couldn't possibly get a word in edgewise and why would you want to? But uh, after that, I don't watch Bill Maher show anymore, but from the clips I saw, it doesn't seem like Bill Maher was particularly harsh to Trump. I, if anything, like lately, I remember there was 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 the Bill Maher show over the weekend was unhappy. He, 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 like, That's the quid pro quo. We'll then do that. you know, this is what happens with Trump. He sent a bleed about Belmar that was like longer than the Gettysburg Address. It was so lengthy. And there's one sentence, I just want to 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 Belmar lied, but he 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 offered by the president. What is that fake poll incidentally? I skimmed that and saw that thing. I didn't even bother to look it up. It's like one of these things where it's like, CNN isn't polling CNN viewers. Like that's a poll of Republicans. If anything, it shows that the 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? Unclear, 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 scary. I like your point about the dinner. There's this parlor game. I don't know if the people still do this. It seemed like they did this when I was younger. I mean, you know, who would you like to have dinner with? Mozart, Thomas Jefferson, you know, ridiculous kind of things like that. And you're right. This is very, they should have the opposite. Who would you most least like to have dinner with? That would be high up there. Those, that foursome. But anyway. You'd have to include J.D. If J.D. went there and had a five-some, then you'd really be in business for the worst five-some. Yeah. Good, good point. Good point. But you know, he really, he should not be president for the next two years. I just make a simple minor point here. And he really should be. 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 him to. Doubtful, right? Doubtful. John, the newly liberated John Thune will decide to step up to his responsibilities and tell the president. Of course, it would make J.D. Vance president, which is problematic in its own way. But he really is, the combination of the recklessness and the deterioration is not good for the country or the world. That's a great place to look. So leave it. He should be impeached and removed. This is the Bulwark 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 going to tape with you and then leave for Austin. And so we'll be chatting then. Everybody else, we'll be back here for another edition of the podcast. See y'all then. Peace. You can put your clothes back on. She's leaving. And you. No time to apologize for the things you do. Go rent a Ferrari and sing the blues. Believe that Clapton was the second coming. And you. The Bulwark Daily is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Dante DiCicco and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.