Bill Kristol: This Is the Trump Flailing Phase

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to the Bullwark Daily. I'm your host Tim Miller. It is Monday, November 9th. And it is the first Monday of a new era that I get to be with Bill Crystal. You know, a defeated Maga era. And we're gonna enjoy ourselves as we discuss that bill. How are you doing? Mr. Wright, Bill Crystal. - I've been enjoying myself for the last six days. I have this tendency to always want to worry. Let me worry about this now. Let me think about that. But I've managed to carl that in to contain that just to be pretty happy actually. - I'm not worrying about anything. - That's good. I see some people out there in the content space doing, you know, Chuck Schumer talk and who's in and who's, I don't just like, guys, guys. This was an overwhelming defeat. Things are on the right trajectory. Let's enjoy it. Let's live together in the moment for a little bit. So let's do that. What was, I haven't spoken to you obviously since the election last Tuesday. We've talked offline about that on a podcast. Give me your kind of biggest picture recap of what we saw and what you think explains it. - I mean, you and I, I think we're always on team wave, right? That it could be a wave, could be a very big wave. I give you a lot of credit. When we did that podcast with that Labor Day weekend, we used to, let's look back at 2006 and 1994 and reminisce about the two waves and it might be useful, it might be a little bit. - Well, I appreciate the credit but this wave ended up being bigger than that. We should have done 1974. Is anyone alive from that? We could have brought, we could have brought back. Somebody who was working on the 1974 wave. - Yeah, that would have been, yeah, but, you know. - Anyway, but I agree with that. No, it is bigger. I think I expected it to be maybe as big as '06 or '94, but yeah, not bigger. The house, you know, I sort of bought in a little too much to the conventional wisdom on that. I think everyone did kind of on the house and well, you know, you can't really get beyond 30 seats in this modern environment with Jerry Mandarin and socioeconomic sorting and polarization and all that. But in terms of, you could get beyond that if you had a real wave of 11 state legislative chambers. It really reminds me of '94, in the sense of it. It's not just his breath, but his steps. - I don't know, I think he did pretty good. And so this morning, I had our team, the editors put together just a little mashup of Bill Crystal's election takes and I want to play that for you now. - I don't know, I remain pretty optimistic. I actually don't, I mean, I think it's going to be a very big blue wave and I think it's probably going to swamp these. The house will be plus 30. - But nevermind. - A republicans, it will be '06. I think this will be worse. I think this will be bigger than '06, that's what I do. I think they will actually pick up more Senate seats and probably more House seats actually than '06, which I think six Senate seats and 31 House seats. So South Carolina, I think that's the most expensive. 50/50 South Carolina, Mississippi, 40/60, but I think 40/60, not 20/80. I mean, Kansas was closer than Iowa, I think, in 2024 in the presidential. So I don't know why everyone thinks Kansas, you know, they have a Democratic governor. It's not like no one in Kansas is ever like wild, buttered for a Democrat. That would be crazy. So I kind of think that I put that up with the same category as there's other four, make it five. Something else that will be some surprise. - The Senate thing, I just don't, of course, I don't trust myself. Of course, I'm infected by Hopiim. But I go down, state by state, and I can get to the 57 or so, you know, without 28, without 58. Without feeling like that it's impossible. I think if they would be Mississippi and Nebraska, but, you know, and those are, we have actual polling show and those are very close, and I know you're gonna just scoff if I even mention Louisiana, so I won't mention it, but I'm just, I'm keeping Hopiim for 10 years. But anyway, but, you know, with a more normal result of these 50/50, these very close races, you know, go either way, would be 54 or 55 and so on. But I actually think that is quite reasonable. I think at this point, we're close enough. I'm close to 55, just a pure and a little better than like 50 or 52. - If anything, you underestimated by one. (laughing) - Yeah, that's good. I like that. Well, you know, Mississippi did go through, it was coming through. I think it's fair to say Alaska, we don't quite know, but it's coming through, so it'll be 56. Louisiana wasn't, what was the margin? What did the margin end up there? It was pretty close, right? - Yeah, it ended up only in two or three. I was at a big dinner of Louisiana Democrats last week and a lot of, I was like the one group of people that wasn't happy. One group of Democrats that weren't happy this week. A lot of wish about more national money and all that though. I had some of that cuts both ways, right? Like, had more money come in early there. Does that help to increase more Republicans turn out? I thought a lot of people voted for Jamie Davis just because he didn't have any money. Just like really, it's kind of a vessel to express their disapproval of Julia Latlow and Donald Trump. So anyway, it's possible that I had come in late, that the money come in late. At the right time, it was possible. Louisiana's 58 was possible. But let's be happy about 56. - Totally, no, totally. And I thank you in your team for putting together that nice clip of you. You low-minit all the stuff I was wrong about. And people should not, I just want to caution people, do not take this one year's performance as not a ticket necessarily a feature or a passport. Or a passport, if we could be honest. Do not put any money in the betting market on anything I say as a result of this little mashup that Tim and his guys did. There you go. You shouldn't bet on the betting work as I'm politics anyway, but I will feel terrible if someone says, oh, that's great. Now, the next crazy thing Bill says, I'm going to put a lot of money down on it. That would be bad. - You were bullish on Mississippi, though. And does our credit for that? Your newsletter is on Mississippi this morning. And I think that it's not finished yet, but it's hard to see how Scott Klohn is not the Senator Electra, Mississippi by the time we're together next Monday. If you just got to look at where the votes are out and stuff. But she's just saying a little bit more about what you wrote about this morning and the state of play there. - It's so moving that Mississippi, which hasn't elected a last Black Senator, was elected in 1875, I think, in Reconstruction. And then it left office in 1881. They haven't had a Black Senator since, though it's the most black state as the highest percentage of black residents, the black voters in the nation. And that obviously hasn't had a Democrat in about what, almost 35 years. And he ran such an admirable campaign. I mean, Texas and Mississippi, I think I want to hear from you since you were in Texas. Those are, I think, with the two most moving races, in the sense that people who have been out of power and what's the word persecutor, is that too strong? I mean, disenfranchised and treated very badly. Let me just put it that way. By the power in their state, they won. And they won by running admirable campaigns, right? I think, and really, and hopeful campaigns. And Colom really did that in Mississippi, I think. And I mean, they'd carried Forest County, named after one of the founders of the Ku Klux Klan, is kind of amazing. And he's closing ad. I hadn't realized that until I read about it this week, was an ad filmed outside of Medicare. Every house, Medicare, every house was killed by a clan member in 1963, a civil rights activist in Mississippi murdered. It doesn't even say vote for Colom. It's just that this is what he fought for and what he died for, the chance to vote this election. So I found that moving. - Realized moving. I'm so happy for him. And we're going to have a lot more. I miss to be coming up for the next two weeks. I want to talk to you about the polling myth. Say a word about Texas, though, was I by self-tiered up a little when I saw there's a video somewhere it's not at headquarters. I think it's someone's home. And they see Talleriko is what? And they're very happy. This is 20, 30 people in someone's house. I think then they see the announcement about Tina Ho set. And they are in tears, you know, at this moment. It was really I myself tiered up a little. - Yeah, the excitement about Tina Ho set, I'll tell you. I, there's this corny scene in the newsroom. Remember the show? The newsroom was a sorkin show after it was a less successful sorkin show after the last one. And this clip goes around a lot on social medics. It's like so cloying. And it's like these reporters who are on a plane. And they get in the work because of the reporters. That Osama, what Ben Laden's been killed. And like they say to the other passengers, that it's their honor to inform them that we've killed Osama Ben Laden and the music plays. And people start cheering and crying. And I got to experience that actually with telling a group of people we were kind of waiting to get into the Telle Rico party. And you know, at this point it was pretty clear that Telle Rico is going to win, you know, but cell service is bad. And you know, a lot of folks are just kind of with their friends and I'm very excited. And we're hoping to get a good seat in there. And I was at this group of women. And you know, I heard one of them say to the other one, like, I think Gina could even win. I think she's looking good. And I said, don't say, well, I have the opportunity to tell you right now that Gina, you know, so it's going to win and Greg Abbott called to concede already. And they all start crying. And like hugging each other. And I do think just this long period, I was at Travis County Democratic HQ during the day. And, you know, as there always is. And one of these grassroots offices, there's probably 75-year-old lady, you know, sitting at the front, taking people's names as they come in and I was talking to her. And she talked about how she's been volunteering for all these races in Texas going back to Ann Richards. I've not had any wins. I just think about the Texas policies that have been put in place last 12 years. I mean, the abortion bounty law. And I do, you know, to think a lot about the people that have believed in, or maybe even didn't even believe in the Texas, but just wanted to, you know, try to make a difference. And we're volunteering and working for this for a long time. It was really special. And then Gina and James Rodrigo met at the Letterburger afterwards, because James is a teeth, not a drinker, you know, so they had a victory, whatever. Tyco, milkshake or something. I know it was really good. Yeah, they go a little too far. They go a little too far in that, you know, Democratic Party is the party of milkshakes and nicest stuff, like telling me 'cause, you know, they could have a drinker too, you know. I'm telling you this. It's like a Hispanic woman working the right way. Registers shouting like Gina. I love you. Let me take your order Gina. It was really it was really special So it's a lot of good vibes in the south over the last week And I will say though LSU lost yesterday or it's sad today when I was at the game It was funny. I was at the game last year after Charlie Kirk died and they did fly over and everything and everybody's cheering for Charlie Kirk And I'm kind of like trying to home run to the bushes a little bit So I got you know and nobody nobody's talking to me nobody sees me nobody knows who I am and You do realize that you know there may be some secret Blue dots in every space, you know, I go out to the games a couple times a year and everyone's while I'll see somebody They'll like whatever listen simple work, but like every time I walked to the concession to the bathroom Like somebody wanted to give me a high five Before see it out so there was definitely a bifurcift even in even a deep red band region said today Let's just talk about the pull of this then we'll get to new stuff The guy I fell in such a meeting who's like that state house monitoring chaz nutty com is a good follow He posted this anyone noticed how there isn't widespread frustration about the polling this is this year despite them being his largest 2020 There were tons of articles talking about pop polling was broken after all these past elections when the miss was driven You know by whatever quiet Trump voters COVID this miss was just as large as any of those But it was driven mostly by these waiting decisions And he doesn't think he's seen a single article talking about it And I do think that's true. It's kind of this asymmetry that we talked about a lot But I often tell Rico those races are both off by 10 10 we did talk about I had a I had a pulling expert on we talked about this and I just couldn't but actually believe it in my brain You know, but like there were signs that this could happen with the waiting I know I brought up the story a couple times in the show where I was talking to a guy that does that was looking at the pulling for shared browns Race in Ohio and he was like they can't find Republicans and so they're waiting it so much You know to try to avoid that miss like there was good reason to believe that they were actually under counting Democrats I think that because I don't know the shock of Donald Trump winning I guess makes it feel like that pulling this is more significant than The miss but I mean I do think it's worth You know not letting folks get to skate by on that Yeah, you and I discussed I think that so we can go at the times it had said shown what the numbers would be if they had waited In the way they did in the last term as opposed to the presidential and it probably would have gotten them closer to the vote in most of these states The thing I would say is I mean the generic ending up a 13 there. I wonder if they The polls were off some but also there probably was a late break especially in the States They were already breaking that's sort of how these waves go sometimes, you know you go from your 12-point victory to your 15-point victory just because I don't know it somehow voters instinctively get on the bandwagon Or where the bottom falls out more and maybe it was only 12 points five days before the election and then it became 15 and I do feel like no one really expected that what what did the generic the national popular vote end up and looks like it ended up 13 13, which is massive. It's so much the largest in the market. I was going through your highlight real this morning and you were talking about eight or nine Right, I'm even like the Polish bill crystal Bitch. Yeah, and that's so maybe they're the Poles was also kind of a waiting issue and partly as I say the late break Just kind of confirming the wave that does that I remember that happening in 94 and but again the 13 It makes it a very big deal. Just take one minute on the actual meaning of it I mean sure the extent to which the Democrats are now at least for a while the majority party in the country not overwhelmingly so not FDR New Deal coalition But if you just look at every level of government basically except executive ranch unfortunately And the Supreme Court the Democrats have the Senate in the House and not that close they have 60% of House members So about 60% and we know the national pop up hill vote was 156 44 or so So 56% 60% 70% of the public have a day of the American people have a Democratic governor 11 state houses flipped. I feel like it just changed the whole don't you think that the whole I don't know direction the of American for now at least it suggests a future for American politics Which is not Trumpism or desperately fighting back against Trumpism to kind of win a 51 49 set it for two or four years so we can stop some of the horrible damage that's being done It really suggests the possibility of a very different future Yeah, just thinking about the structural part of it You know, I mean like there's a lot of discussion about that like the structural advantages that Trump had and you know The size of the wave just kind of overwhelmed that you know, it's gonna like I'll figure out the levies on election It's a hurricane. What's like the levies can hold a cat three cat four cat five and even you know sort of the Manor in which they gave themselves a moat by You know cheating in some ways jerrymandering in other ways just the kind of structural nature of the Senate and You know the way that the coalitions are divided You know, I think that that is as significant as anything about the election It's very hard to see the Republicans getting sent the Senate back until 2032 I mean again anything can happen the robots could be our overlords by then but like the map gets very hard for them Until six years from now these state legislators and the houses house of representatives I we saw in Wisconsin for example Which has been jerrymandered to the hilt that flip that they have a trifecta now governor both state house state Senate David Crowley's already said that he'd be open to you know Changing the way that the districts are drawn up And so the Democrats could kind of you know Whatever in two years some of these seats that they want in insane places will come back That's kind of how things always work But but they can offset that by fixing some of the jerrymandering on some of these states they want in North Carolina You know they won the state house and in Georgia Now you've got a democratic governor and democratic officials everywhere So there are a bunch of these states that were kind of red-tinged that had really jerrymandered Both their congressional delegations and their state legislative delegations And that is has either been swanched by the wave or is now placed to be fixed in the future And so you know, and I just remember talking to Anderson Clayton Before the election and she was like We need two more wins right to be able to fix What they have done by giving themselves the structural advantages and the wave is so big that it ended up not Actually now like that's fixable now and so that's meaningful I think in a bunch of places and I do think that that's Gonna have a long-term positive implication on a lot of stuff and lots of working like the fight for democracy You know shout out to all the lawyers and mark guys and everybody that's out there like working on all this But it's was like too big to rig, you know, that was your newsletter the day after the election I think that's an important takeaway agreed The best pieces you're gonna cause that are the ones you can count on whether you're heading to work going out or keeping things casual And this time of year quince makes findings something great for everybody else just as easy this holiday season It's where I'm shopping for myself and everybody on my list Quince focuses on high-quality staples made with premium materials like a hundred percent Mongolian cashmere 13 karat gold and italian leather all-time was versatile pieces that feel special to unwrap and become everyday favorites long after the holidays Everything at quince is price 50 to 80% less and some more brands They work directly with ethical factories that cut out the middleman so you can get luxury-quality pieces without the luxury price tag It's finally Just kind of barely and I'm a wimp you guys know I'm a wimp and where it isn't that's the south, but if I got just a little chilly Last night here I got just a little chilly. 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I'm looking at that as well So I'm gonna have some new quince staples for the winter and you guys should do and also maybe your mom should or your dad or whoever you're shopping for This winter give the gift of quality this holiday season download the quince app or app exclusive offers Or go to quince.com get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada and the UK too And when quince asked for you heard about them let them know it was the bullwork daily that sent you It's the best way to support our ship Anything else on that should we move on to trump flailing. Oh, that's it trump flailing is also fun to talk about So we can figure he was on 60 minutes last night And uh they're a bunch of different topics. They're kind of one one run through Probably the most delicious. So we'll start with that. We're still on a high is um the conversation around JD Vance He is asked about whether he's gonna endorse JD Vance He was very non-committal on that basically. Maybe I don't endorse anybody lots of people. I like He's asked for JD Vance's statement that he put out the morning after the election that basically said You know the ron war led to increased costs and that was uh the reason for this a lot of our people didn't turn out And Ross asked trump about whether he knew that jade was gonna write that statement and he said yes Um, but then he had an interesting caveat. He's like there's one thing I wish he would have added to it Which is that he would confirm that He would do the ron war over if he could You know because sure it might have cost us analytically, but it's just oh so such an important Mission that i wish jade would confirm that he'd said that That's our event jade isn't really looking forward to that question Getting asked him soon because trump is already signaled what he wants the answer to be and it's uh answer That could be very harmful to his future prospects and trump is also signaling. He is not whatever his weaknesses and you know God does he can over turn for trump is so much of it is seems sort of random You know Flailing and self-indulgence and you know God knows what all of his idiot humanity and idiot seasonal He is not going to go quietly into the night here and sort of you know I'm endorsed someone and be ever you know and try to stay out of the spotlight in the late 2028 He can't give up the spotlight. And so he's gonna not endorse anyone. He's gonna toy with them all. He's gonna try to make himself, if not the candidate, which I don't 100% without or if not the selector of a candidate who's not JD and not Rubio, but someone who trusts more or something like that. Make himself at least a master of ceremonies in the game show host here for all the way into 2028. I mean, the degree to which he's gonna be a problem for the Republican Party is reassuring in a way. I think he's not gonna get more popular. But it's also means that actually the Democrats should keep their focus on Trump and discrediting Trump because he's not, make it harder for them to liberate, it's gonna be very hard for them to liberate themselves anyway. Make it really impossible for them to liberate themselves from an incumbent president who'll be it, hopefully at 32, Sarah's 32% push line by a year from now, which I think is quite possible. - Yeah, I think that that is right. And it also just previews something that we've all known as coming, with that we can delight in over the next two years, which is that he's not gonna just make it easy on JD. He's not going to paint JD's little too cute by half effort to kind of be like, well, I was the one guy that wasn't against the war. You know, that he's been trying to do leaking and then now basically bring it out into the public on what that statement, you know, good luck with that. And JVL kind of laid this out on Newsletter last week, which is basically that his options here are trying to nudge Trump to back off the Iran war and stop doing the harmful things, good luck with that. Or, you know, if there's some people out there Carville is saying this to me and it's over and other, so suggested that Trump might quit. I find that insane, but who knows? Anything can happen. And then another, I should be like JD quitting, which creates a whole nother briar patch of his own, right? Because, you know, Sarah had a great focus group over the weekend, people should check out where she's talking to the town of the Trump voters were coping. And like the core Trump base still isn't ready to blame them, right? I mean, the podcast class might be ready to blame them. The, you know, sort of new people onto the, you know, seeing casual, more casual Republicans, you know, people that are annoyed about their money. But like the core mega base that will be turning out in the 28th primary, they might allow a little bit of, you know, some light acknowledgement that you would do things all differently on foreign policy, but they're not looking for somebody to do a full assault on Trump. The Republican Party nominated Trump three times and delivered to the general election to him twice. And the idea that they're not, I mean, it's possible that they would sort of all just collectively decide, well, let's just move on. But it's not that easy. And especially when he's now unpopular, and there are some of them are broken from him, but a lot haven't yet. I mean, obviously, by definition, they, you know, they're still pretty big chunk of the party. Which are already always still pro Trump when I presume it is, right? I mean, let, so we don't have a Reagan situation where he's going to hand off to whoever wins the nomination and then it ends up being Bush. We don't have a, the normal situation where Bush's, George W Bush is, okay, it's finished for him. He'll just going to try to do the surge and do the right thing. And he's going to let the primary play out with McCain and Robin Hood and everyone, right? It's nothing like that. That Trump is going to be central. And a lot of the party will want him to be central and will listen to who he endorses. But he's not going to want to endorse early because then he's giving up his centrality. I actually can't even imagine even as late as the summer of 2020, I've been thinking about this somehow the last two, three days. I can't even imagine sitting in the White House and watching someone else almost accepting the nomination. It's why I almost, I mean, he's so old. I don't think he can do it. But I almost come back to JVL's kind of, are we sure he doesn't go for another term? Are we sure he doesn't like get if Ivanka hadn't married Jared? I mean, he must be, if the other kids were a little more respectable, if down junior words, I mean, I can just see Trump's mind must be working. Like, how do I make this hat work? Because he can't stand being out of the off-center stage. So I don't think, do you think? It's hard to imagine him giving a helpful convention speech into what I mean. I'll tell you that much. I just, for example, because we give him push, push didn't go to McCain, so like convention, because he understood he had be a problem. And I don't even believe that there were like leaked stories to the New York Times about how W's mad at McCain. You know what I mean? I just think he was happy to move on. And like, that's not, that's not what we're going to be doing here. Couple of other 60 minutes things I want to hit on. I just want to go to the con corruption. Trump doesn't back off on that and he'd get a grip from the office at all. When Ross asked him about making the $3 billion-- he Ross said, I didn't make $3 billion in terms of, well, you should have been in the stock market then, too, because that's where I made my money from. No issues with the UAE putting that much money into the family business that he's still as part of. And you look at what Robert Garcia said on the show a couple of weeks ago about how Trump family is going to be their top priority. Like that is another thing that hangs over 2028. And if it comes very hard for anybody, maybe somebody emerges from the outside, right? No, Ron, to stay at this or somebody that has a little distance, it comes very hard for JD Vance or Marco to not become totally tainted by all this, because Trump's not backing off at all on the South of Russia. I think that's so important. The one thing, he backs pseudo-backs off on immigration, does other things, but corruption, he won't back on, and that's his greatest vulnerability at this point, I think, because he can move a little of some of these other issues, so you can imagine, or you can imagine a successor moving a little war than Trump and sort of the war would be over. I mean, you can imagine things that make those things a little less damaging by mid-28. I don't see how corruption is less damaging if the Democrats do anything, a minimally competent job of just having the hearings and bringing out the truth. It's not like they have to make anything up. I mean, there's so many instances, and there's so much foreign corruption incidentally. It's one thing to be, you know, like chiming things here at home, kind of, you know, Richard Daly getting a little kickback on, you know, or maybe Daly didn't personally, but those types, Tammy Hall types, get your kickbacks on construction projects and all that, this is different. This is Saudi and UAE and China. I would bet a fair amount on the nominee not coming from the Trump administration, but then I can't quite figure out the Santa's cruise, but I don't know, there were some total outs, person, I don't know. I don't know, but on the other hand, it has to be someone Trump sort of blesses. - Yeah, they didn't have a lot of wins. You know, there's not a lot of fresh faces that emerged in the midterm, that could be an outsider choice. I should note, we mentioned the too big to rate coming earlier, but there was one other thing that Trump, he did bleed on his social media account this morning that he doesn't believe the election was honest and that there were early voting dumps that were too large, and it's all about the machines. It's half-hearted and much less scary than what we're all prepared for, but it's not over. It's not ending, and again, that complicates everything for potential successors going forward. You mentioned the immigration. I do want to talk about this for a second, because this was, I guess unintentional actual news item. I don't really think it is, but I'll just read the transcript here of the back and forth on 60 minutes. Ross asked him, "One thing you'd like to work with the Democrats ought, it's an open-ended question." Then Trump says, "I'd love to do something on immigration." I'll go back forth a little bit, and then Ross says, "Okay, well, so you think your deportation policy was too tough?" Trump says, "Too tough, yeah, I think it might be too tough." And so then he talks about the people that are landscaping. It's always, the immigrants always thinks about are the ones that are being treated unfairly, are the ones that work in his hotels. Sorry, I always start to mention maids and landscapers. So he goes to do that, and then Ross says, "So do you think there should be some type of legal status for the landscaper?" Trump says, "Yeah," and he mentions the maids again. And then he says, having those kind of people be taken out, it's tough. It's a tough thing, there's a group of people that I would say on the sort of pretty far right that would like everybody to be taken out, and then Ross asked, "Any of those people working here administration?" And Trump says, "Well, there are a lot of those people." So, you know, this whole thing to me is preposterous. You know, maybe it's true. I do think it's true that Trump, like in an imaginary world, you know, would like to have a carve out for the people that work at his hotels, but I don't see how that is actually practical or operational. You know, I was gonna do the full me once, full me twice. It's like what, full me seven hundred times by Trump, like this idea that he's gonna want to do a deal that he's not, he's not a deal-making president. He's not, the amount of things that they'd have to give up on immigration to get a deal are unimaginable to Trump in his coalition. And simultaneously, to him doing that, which I think is an obvious fig leaf to try to get Democrats to work with him on something rather than focus on the stuff that he doesn't want, which is oversight. He promotes Stephen Miller to Chief of Staff, which is the other big news from over the weekend. Susie Wiles gets pushed out, Stephen Miller gets promoted. That is not the thing that you wanna do if you're looking for a grand bargain on immigration. - You know, I think you're absolutely right. The key thing Trump's trying to do is sucker the Democrats into, let's have a meeting. I mean, you know, well, you know, if Billy may be working out, they're not gonna work it out. But meanwhile, with the photos of Schubert and Jeffries and Trump and Stephen Miller, I guess all sitting there talking and then leaks and earnests back and forth on different parts of the immigration agenda, Democrats need to say, forget it. They could say we're gonna pass parts of immigration bills or even a big immigration bill. Let's fight to ambitious. But they'll have majorities in both houses. They should pass some good immigration stuff and let Trump sign it or let them veto it. They should not get into some stupid negotiation with Trump. That needs to stay on the offensive past their agenda and let Trump, you know, as they accept it or not, if they, including some of the immigration agenda. You know, I'm the Stephen Miller thing, which we should talk about for a minute, if you want. - Yeah. - For me, I mean, I think, yeah, it makes them harder to go the other way on immigration. For me, that was an enforcer pick. Trump is a mob boss. You know, that's how he thinks that way. He is at all. lot of associations with mob types over the years. Floyd Cohen was always his key inspirer and organizer at Floyd Cohen was among many other things a mob lawyer. So he knows that once you've had a defeat and he knows he had a defeat, you do lose control of things internally. You need a tough guy to crack the whip internally. That's the first thing you have to do. I don't think he's wrong about this. Anyway, the middle of the thing, a lot of people think I can't understand what an unforced error I'm not so sure. The administration could literally fall apart if he had Suzy Wallace still as chief of staff, I think being diced everyone. Or if you had taken, at first I thought, why does he take someone who's the last controversial, but who's totally in Trump's pocket, your friend Whitcaw for someone, just kind of someone who, he'll make sure all the graft and graft go on, but he's not heated by people. But I think he thinks he needs a really tough guy to call, to make sure the whole thing gets tightened up as you would do if you're a mob boss and you've lost some territory or something like that. You can't have defactions internally. You can't even be more leaking. You can't have any of the intelligence community deciding not to cooperate with you. You can't have the military deciding, I don't really think we should get more crimes anymore. That stuff can start to happen in a flailing and failing administration. So I don't think the mill of things entirely stupid in a way, but it is, of course, the effect of it is going to be, is a kind of doubling down. And I don't know if you can pull it off. I don't know if Millier has been effective in his own horrible way, but can he do it as chief of staff? What do you think? I don't know. - It survived a long time in Trump world. And somehow, I mean, you go all the way back. He won over Javanka in the first term. I can tell they saw it as this kind of dirty business. Like the dirty ministry like is making money. Like the dirty ministry don't like is the deportations and the culture war stuff and the menacing tone they would prefer to get rich nicely. And so they recognize that Trump needed somebody to represent the Id has the party, right? And so they, he cuts a deal at them in the first term. And he's still there. Like I think about how many people are gone. I told him if you sat in 2017 and said, "Hey, 10 years from now, Trump's still going to be president." You know, look at this cast of characters that are around him in the White House. Who do you think is going to be the one to still be there? I don't think a ton of people ought to pick Stephen Miller as the one that was most likely. So, you know, to me, I think that, you know, he's demonstrated that ability to navigate Trump world. And yeah, look, and I think that's the ominous part about all of this is that Trump is going to want to have the loyalists around by the end. And what Biden did for the last two years, he brings in somebody from the outside, business leader, to be the chief of staff. And like that's what a normal president does, right? It's like, okay, well, you know, the last two years, you know, he brings somebody with some fresh eyes, an organizer, you know, who can, you know, help, you know, ensure that things are going to be done. Like, that's not what Trump wants. Like, that's not what this administration is. It's about protecting the grift, protecting the illegality. And, you know, protecting his desire to build the arch in the ballroom and, you know, and like, those are the things that matter now. And suppressing any kind of internal dissent or dissent in the movement as much as you can or broadly or even in the party. And Miller and vote in theirs, the top two guys in the White House. I mean, that's, they're both skilled operatives in a way. They know a lot about government and we're the levers of power. And they're not embarrassed to use that power. And as Miller said, it was striking and it was a Friday night where he took the stage in Mar-a-Lago. I mean, what a world. Anyway, and, you know, he pledged, I don't know, like undying loyalty. It was really kind of creepy, actually. So he didn't talk, I don't recall that I didn't see the whole thing. I don't think he spoke about immigration or any substantive policy issue to speak of. It was just, I am, this is an honor beyond anything I could have thought. And I pledged to you in my field team, my loyalty, my devotion, whatever I mean, it was really grotesque, you know, fewer princip type stuff, like it's end. But that's what Trump wants. And that's why, and that's why he wants Miller more. And it doesn't mean Miller, and he could override Miller on some substantive issues. I think people are doing overdoing the ideological side of it and underdoing the kind of, you know, enforcement, the enforcer side of it. You know, like Trump is very responsive to what's in the news and what's in front of his face, right? And so if you have another horrific ice moment, like the idea that Trump tells Miller and tells Mueller and to pull back is certain, and the fact that Miller says, you know, yes sir, and still kind of continues his ideological vendetta under the cover of darkness as much as possible. Like that's very possible, like the outcome. That's not the big deal. And like this is the thing that I just, I can't like a back and email this morning from a listener who pointed out that on Friday, ICE arrested a student at Berkeley. Paula Hernandez, she was at SFO waiting for a flight. She's 23, she came from Columbia. She had a gender-based violence against her, pending asylum case, no criminal record. She's now in the Mojave Desert and, you know, some fucking ICE hellhole. This stuff is happening still. You know, this stuff is like still ongoing right now, and it's still going to continue to be ongoing. And if it's not at the top of the news, Trump's not going to know about it. And Steven Miller is going to show it to him. And like to me, like that agenda, like the disappeared while driving style deportations and nabbings of people, like are going to continue. And the Democrats, like absolutely, you know, need to have like an opening, negotiating posture of letting all these people out of detention. Like there's absolutely no reason that we should be detaining a single person who does not have a violent criminal history. Like that should just be like step one and a good faith operation if he wants to do this. And like just how preposterous it is to think that that would happen with Steven Miller's chief of staff, like shows you how like unserious the whole thing is. But to me, they found the Democrats in the House. And obviously they'll be a big, fun big fight over ice. And there'll be a lot of conversations around that. But like at the start, there's absolutely no reason that we should have nonviolent immigrants. And as people are asking for asylum in internment camps in the Mojave Desert. If I'm speaker too free, if I'm over in the House, like that is my ask, which is, I want a jailbreak for all these people who, who's like rights are being just completely infringed upon and who are being treated like animals. Like they need the dignity of being able to at least be in their own homes and with their families. - Totally agree. And the Democrats should ask that. They shouldn't just ask it. They should pass it, in my opinion. And at least a bunch of twice to make Trump veto it. Maybe eventually they have to accept something a little less. But that has to be their opening position and their position on the record. I mean, I'm a little worried. They all have a tendency to pre-negotiate with themselves. Well, of course he'll never accept this. So we want to ask that who cares if he'll accept it. You just want a massive landslide election. You should go with your agenda and then see what he instantly, Trump is capable of accepting more than we think. This is so, you know, God knows what. He thinks it's popular. And suddenly Steven Miller will grumble that he will be a loyalty for staff and go, "Oh, I want Trump over place him." And so like Trump is loyalty to all of his loyalists. The loyalist has to be loyal to him. But he can dump, he can dump his loyalists when he wants to be, Pam Bondy, he thought was supposed to be loyal to him. And what's her name it, DHS. I blank out all these, all the women he for places with this kind of question. It's good that he's keeping the pattern up of always replacing the women with men though. What is that? It's crazy, right? It is crazy. You know, you add to this, you want also the list. All right, let's go to Hegseth and men that aren't going to be replaced in my opinion. And we'll see, it's going to be interesting drama over the next six weeks with Pete Hegseth because Trump did say last night that he's confidence in Hegseth. He always says that, no, he said that. And then tweeted that somebody's fired like three hours later before. So, you know, we'll see. There are Republicans on the hill. You know, so there will be a vote on this during the lame duck while Republicans are still in charge. So I think that's important to kind of think about. And obviously it would be much more meaningful for him to be impeached during the lame duck Congress with Republicans in charge. I just think that's a lot harder for the administration to brush aside than not to say the Democrats shouldn't do it too when they get back in charge of January if it doesn't go through. But French Hill, one of the few Republicans that was on my list of stretch goals for us for a stolen seat from the Democrats didn't quite get their Chris Jones as a good candidate, another minister finished about three or four points short and that Arkansas district. But French Hill recognizing that is on the Sunday show this weekend saying basically he's open to Hegseth impeachment, which I thought was meaningful. Then you have all these guys that are out on the way out. Don Bacon, for example, in Nebraska said Hegseth doesn't have a lot of love within the House conference. I just think about all the Republicans who lost, who have been swallowing their pride for the last five years, 10 years in some cases. Maybe a vote against Hegseth is just kind of a minor way to retain some dignity on the way out from some of them. I don't think it's crazy to think that Hegseth could lose an impeachment vote in a Republican House in the next six weeks. - Oh, I think he will. I actually think he will. And some of those guys won't vote against him. They'll just not show up because what's the point of coming back this week and so forth. I don't quite understand the schedule supposed to be maybe this week if Massey can force the vote. No, I think he could lose the vote. And that would be excellent. The Democrats should insist on the vote one way or the other as soon as possible. And again, they have to have the attitude that they're already pushing their agenda as hard as they can. I don't think they can't have the attitude of, we're going to take two months to get better organized, which we haven't quite staffed up yet. also we haven't moved the offices. into the majority. I mean, that's the natural tendency to do. When you win something like this, you have to, and it's understandable. You want a plan, but they need to really hit the ground running and, and peachy hexath would be a good start. I can argue with the hexath thing either way from Trump's point of view. He doesn't want it. He likes, it looks weak maybe to fire him, but I don't know. I think after Susie Waw, the one-two punch has got to be dump Susie Waw's blame the election on her dump hexath, blame the war on him. Those are his two biggest weaknesses right now. I think he gets rid of those two. You know, he takes a little hit short-term, you acknowledge hexath screwed up, and three months from now, at least T-texath's not defense secretary, which he's got to know is, would be terrible for Trump, I think, to have that hang over him, that human being hanging over him for the next six, nine, two months, I think. I don't know. You know, kind of like all sensible considerations would point to what you just laid out. I just still keep coming back to who could Trump find a replace feet hexath that would be suitable for him. And maybe that person exists, you know, like, who is there a department of war, Todd Blanche? Right. Does that person exist? I don't know. Can they get confirmed? I think they'd do a confirmation during the lane duck. Can they rush that through? Maybe, you know, or if so, the move was your hexath now, like ASAP this week. So maybe that happens, but if not, then you look at a democratic senate. I don't know. Maybe Trump decides that he can just have temporary secretaries that aren't confirmed, like in a position like that would be totally unprecedented, obviously. Is there somebody could find that could get through a democratic senate? Maybe, I don't know. I don't, I'm tired to imagine who that is really, but maybe that person exists out there. And then at the end, doesn't, isn't that the most important thing to Trump? Just like he said with Miller that he has somebody there who's totally loyal to the last two years. I think, I think that there's some hurdles to it as well. I agree, but I agree with you. He should do it this week. I don't see if he's going to do it. And that's why I kind of think he will, but I could well be wrong. And as I say, do not, I accidentally got a few things right during this election season, do not take any of these, any of these predictions or as gospel or even this probably correct. But I kind of think he'll do, yeah, Jay Clayton or the equivalent of a top plan, just what he needs, right? So what is sort of, maybe someone's already in there in the admit who's been confirmed once to something. Clayton, maybe kind of weird to move him over from ODNI. Just two or three months after you got confirmed or something with the current CIA director, Ratcliffe, who's sort of vaguely acceptable, I think, so remember, yeah, one of those guys could go to defend, I should think, may the number two people, is the business guy, people sort of find burger. I think they people respect him apparently, number three, Rich Colby. I don't really respect him, but he's like, could not get, could not get. He probably couldn't, right? No way, Rich Colby. Yeah, in fact, I agree. Even via Republican Senate, it probably not. So maybe it'd have to be find burger or Ratcliffe or Clayton or someone like that, who knows? Yeah, yeah. All right, I want to talk with the other big story. You posted this, this is one of those like going on from ballot still being counted to know if she's a staff to access the impeachment, but the Trump long scandal is exploding. Spectre will likely soon be the big story. Senator Warner and Representative Himes are to insist on briefings and hearings in Congress now. This is referencing Jensen Wong, the C.L. of NVIDIA. I got honeypotted by a Chinese spy. She's on his wife with a woman, Chinese woman, who also runs like some kind of AI cut out company, complimented how good he looked in the leather jacket. It should have been the warning sign. I think any time, if you're a super nerd tech nerd and someone says you look great in the leather jacket, I'm sorry, they're trying to get you over. They're trying to go, trying to get one over on you. Okay, nerds don't look good in leather jackets. All right, it's just not, it's not for us. Okay, if you don't have tattoos and muscles, you don't look good in a leather jacket. You might look fine in a leather jacket, but certainly not good enough that a younger woman is just moved to sexual excitement over it. So just to break it down real quick, quick summary, the US intelligence community discovered that Jensen was sleeping with Alice Wong, two Wongs, which also kind of weird a Chinese spy in an executive at mega speed. Okay, multiple independent investigations concluded that mega speed is a Chinese cut out, which helps Chinese companies access AI chips or circumvent export controls. The US intelligence community also concluded that Alice Wong's goal was to convince Jensen to lobby the US government to loosen export controls on advanced AI chips. The intelligence community relayed this information to a small group of top US government officials earlier this year that could Marco Rubio, Secretary of State National Security Advisor, who briefed Trump on this in the spring. So they knew in the spring that a Chinese spy had infiltrated Nvidia and Jensen Wong, and that that spy was encouraging Jensen to advocate for us to sell these chips, his chips to China. And we did that. We did what they wanted. We loosened the export controls and then Jensen's like on the trip to China, even though he's compromised. We'll have to find out so much more and I hope they are extremely aggressive and insisting on private briefings. This is the Democrats in the Senate in the House that has the intelligence committees, Senator Warner, Representative Jim Himes, and then also public hearings. I think this could be huge. I mean, the TikTok just seems so damning. Rubio, as National Security Advisor, supervises this process which produces this finding. He presumably briefed Trump on it, at least the story of the time says he briefed senior officials, but who's more senior than Rubio has to take care of. And then, interestingly, they don't have Jensen Wong on the original manifest to go to China on Trump's trip over there. What was that three, four months ago? Obviously, they are aware of this problem, right? Otherwise, he would have been on all the other big tech titans who are on that as I recall. And then somehow, he gets to Trump and Trump invites him to join last minute and he joins. Remember this? He joins in Alaska. It's kind of weird. Remember, he's not on the original group and then the joins when the Air Force two, Air Force one, Air Force two, that's a slip of mind from the old days. Air Force one, we refills, we've refilled in Alaska a lot, refills in Alaska. So Trump personally intervenes to get this guy whom he presumably has been warned is sleeping with the Chinese spy and who is lobbying for huge relaxation of export controls. And Trump intervenes. Why? I mean, he's either he likes Jensen Wong. That's sort of the press reporting. It's a little credulous way to like Jensen. And Trump says that himself last night, right? Oh, you know, into a gaggle at the airport, I think. And we're down in Mar-a-Lago. I guess a good guy. I don't think he really liked it. There anything more wrong than anyone else did. This is ludicrous. He's been President of the United States. He's been briefed at this guy is, you know, sleeping with the spy and is acting to X to go around rather important export controls, I believe. I don't know, not an AI expert, but it seems like it's kind of important to keep the Chinese from getting our top chips and all this. And he personally intervenes to make it happen. Why? Because he doesn't care. Because he does want the Chinese to get the wants to do G a favor. I mean, I think you're at a level of of presidential either miss malfeasance, but even well, I guess malfeasance is the way to say it either, either carelessness or, you know, positive subversion of our natural interest. That's pretty astounding. And, and so I, yeah, I think this becomes a huge story. And, and also, and I like the way that Memo gets leaked somewhere right up to the times, the fact that the route and it's presented as if Rubio is kind of key. That had niche, I mean, which he was, I guess, as national security advisor, the way that Memo was done by the intelligence community, not directly by Rubio, but by the NSC, but, you know, they obviously would have been involved in it. Felt that felt a little bit like Rubio desperately trying. Don't you think to cover his tracks here and get a little bit? I tried to warn them about this. I wonder how soon he'll be gone too. I think the rats, there's not a lot of rats looking for exits from this ship. It seems to me. Yeah. I don't. Does is that Rubio covering his tracks? Is somebody else trying to well plan it on Rubio for minutes? This is why that's a good question. I could be either, but it's, you know, this is one of these things where it's like, okay, like last night, Trump is saying that it's important that we beat China and the AI race. Like, that's critical. Like, these two things cannot live side by side. Like, this is absolutely critical that we need to beat China and the AI race. And also, we need to relax export controls on our highest level trips to help China in their, you know, AI development process. Like, that's always not made any sense. And, you know, I can understand why Jensen would want that. The CEO of a company that helps his business can understand where the Chinese spy that's fucking him would want it. But why does Marco Rubio want it? I mean, he's the national security advisor. Like, you would think that if this was a national security issue, Chinese access to these threats and China infiltrating the CEOs of our biggest companies and our most sensitive industries, the like that is within the purview and the remit of the national security advisor to flag it, to stop it, to start an investigation, to get internal investigation, refer to DOJ. And there's a bunch of stuff that could be done. And, you know, it gets a little bit lame to do these sorts of things. But it is important just to think about this. Like, imagine what Marco Rubio would be saying, this is Tony Blinken. Yeah, she was on the other foot, right? I mean, this would be a wall-to-wall story on Fox, like for, and it should be for good reason. And Marco Rubio would be the one that was out there talking about how weak the Secretary of State is and a security advisor that they won't, you know, protect our interests and that they're going along with the Chinese up. And that's like what is happening in this administration? And so I think it's a really big potential threat for Rubio and also just betray something we've done for a long time, which is like all of the China hawks in the writer fake. Like it's all performative. There's not been a single China hawk within Congress or the Senate, our buddy Tom Cotton, none of these people have like done anything to try to pressure Trump to be tougher on this. And now we know that Trump has been accommodating the Xi during a period where he knew that they were infiltrating our AI companies. And Justin Wong or Andrew NVIDIA. Personally, you're NVIDIA corporately. I can't remember, it gives $25 million to the ballroom and it's not all kinds of other things to be nice to Trump. So they basically deprived. If we could just be honest here, why isn't this just bribery? I mean, I really feel like we're in a high crimes and misdemeanor kind of situation here, conceivably with Trump. It reminds me a lot of Ron Contra, which we're constantly right after the 1986 elections, where I think it was sort of random timing, but it was bad with the Reagan administration was doing things that shouldn't have been doing and deceiving Congress and so forth. But Reagan wasn't taking prives. And it was a mistaken policy and they kind of covered it up a little bit, but then they basically went all, they exposed everything. Howard Baker comes in as chief of staff, the White House Council's office gets very serious, they have an independent commission. I mean, they went pretty far, very, very far actually and trying to be acknowledging their wrongdoing as a national security adviser quits. I don't know if it feels like that to me. This is more serious than a Ron Contra. Just objectively, a Ron Contra was problematic. It noticed to be so nice to the Iranians and you shouldn't get to be able to shovel a few tens of millions of dollars to the good guys in Dikaragua without congressional authorization or contrary to congressional appropriation and language. Still, that's nothing compared to this kind of thing. We're helping China's, you know, I keep abilities. So I guess maybe I'm overdoing it, maybe it'll turn out to be a little bit more fusing or complex or they never quite get the goods on them. But yeah, and they're all complicit. I think your point's very important. If you're a national security adviser, we just watch, okay, you're just depressing. I guess you just wanna be nice to Jensen Huang. And so I'm just not gonna do anything, does no one resign over this? The entire intelligence community produces this report and then they just sit there and watch Trump go ahead with what they've warned him? - Or even confront Trump, right? And we hear everything leaks out of this administration. Like there hasn't been a story of Marco Rubio, you know, going into the overall office. So I mean, like Mr. President, the Chinese threat is too serious for this. You can't have this guy that's a Chinese ad that is like being manipulated by a Chinese asset on the foreign trip with you, right? There's not been nothing none of that. - I can't even keep a straight face that the idea of Marco Rubio walking into the Oval Office and confronting Trump with saying anything strong or, you know, upstanding to Trump. So I'm that's why I'm chuckling. Yeah, no, I totally agree. And maybe one of these people someone should resign and say this is an outrage, but I mean, God forbid. But and Himes Warner, I think, are pretty serious about this stuff. The intelligence is, you know, something that has been taken a little more seriously than other things even in recent years. But some people in both parties, I wonder, I think, and also Trump's going to Asia this weekend, right? Where he might meet with Xi and Putin and all that stuff. Oh, he is going to be with Xi, I think. And there might be this bizarre three-way meeting with Putin. - Really, you just have to say, you know, with respect to both Xi and Putin, whose interests are Trump representing? Whose interests are Trump acting in? - There's, I mean, it's really, you know, I mean, you know, you're getting a little close to a, like, non-dare call it, treason moment here. And I'm not calling it treason, heavy, but still it's, it's really astonishing. And I do think it blows up in a big way this week. - I do as well. All right. I had some notes to some other kind of Republicans coping with their defeat and that I was going to review, but I'm going to save it for this. So we got, I want to keep providing candy for people as the week goes on. This is going to be a happy place, this podcast, you know, and that's not something I've been able to provide to listeners very often over the past few years on that we've been doing this every day. So we're going to indulge ourselves, we're going to treat ourselves for a little while. And, you know, so more, more good stuff to come as week is on, but I appreciate it Bill and I apologize for my, you know, gobsmacked reaction to your 57 Senate choice. You're just, you're almost there. - That was off, I was off, you know, you're strict, great. - You're just short. - 56, come on, Dill. How'd you get that wrong? You, I, I take, I take your point in. - I appreciate it, that's Bill Crystal. He'll be back here next Monday and we'll be doing this all again tomorrow. We'll see you all then. 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