Stuart Stevens: Republicans Are Desperate

[MUSIC] >> Hello and welcome to the Boark Daily. I'm your host Tim Miller. Delighted welcome back to the show. An old friend, former Republican media consultant. He worked on five presidential campaigns, including his chief strategist for Mitt Romney. Senior advisor to the Lincoln Project, his books include The Conspiracy to End America. And it was all a lie, and he also wrote a book about Ole Miss Football. And so he's back to talk about that. My first question for you, Stewart, is are you ready? >> [LAUGH] It's not ready. Oh yeah. >> I'm in my shirt as promised last time you were here. >> First for the bulwark to have two people in Ole Miss gear. As soon as we hang up, I'm going to be talking to Keith Carter, and see if he can sponsor the bulwark now. You know, it's an official Ole Miss platform. So-- >> I'd love to come visit the Grove, and this would be as good as time as any as a loser. So everybody could rub my nose in the dirt. Or it's time to go back, you know, go see square books again, and get a proud layer. He's having been docks for in a hot minute. So handy, handy, maybe. But it was a hell of a football game. And I had planned, you know, what, three, four months ago now to bring you back during Ole Miss LSU week. We had Bright Thompson on last week. I do have a little favor for the audience. >> Love it, guys. >> Dude, he's so great. That part was so great. And I've said this for-- it's just worth repeating. The podcasts were like this one right now. We're about to talk about Trump's arrangement syndrome, and how Trump is crashing in the polls. And we do hope for the midterms. The algorithm does the work for us on those podcasts. All right, people are going to see this out in the world. The Bright Thompson ones, you know, the thoughtful, the literary ones. The algorithm doesn't know what to do with that. So if you enjoyed Bright Thompson, you've a friend in your life that thinks they would have liked that podcast. Please send it to him. He was fucking hilarious on Game Day. With his little voice over, you know, talking about how important the game was. So, you know, a loss is a loss, but it was great theater. I enjoyed my stuff. >> Well, look, you know, I think that-- I've known that Mississippi is sort of the Ireland of America. This green poor place that overvalues riding, fighting, and drinking. And Thompson is in that mix that-- a guy like he could-- it's wonderful how much he is respected amongst at least, I think, all riders. But Mississippi, and, you know, he-- he's not an unknown guy in Mississippi. And, you know, this is a place for Willie Morris, former rider-- famous rider for me as a city. When he-- Willie Doddy laid in state at the state capital. So Mississippi does feel know how to honor riders. And it's great to see Wright continuing that tradition. We'll have a little bit more Mississippi in a bit. I want to start with the bombshell. We'll report it out of the public this morning regarding Susan Collins. Center Susan Collins helps steer millions in federal defense contracts to Navitech, whose CEO, Martin Cowell, illegally funneled thousands of dollars to our campaign or the story to our Super PAC through a fake nonprofit. The FBI was about to launch a probe. It was I and Collins, news and other lawmakers. But then Trump gutted the unit that was in charge of corruption probes when he came in. The nonprofit, I love this, was called Society of Young Women Scientists and Engineers, which has no relationship to the Derek Zoolander Center for Kids who can't read good. I was like, [LAUGHS] But, look, there's a lot of this. I mean, a lot of times this stuff is a little gray. Stuart, where it's like, you know, you have a special interest that pays money to a pack. And, you know, then they get treatment when you're in there. And this is the tale is all this time. In this case, though, it's pretty stark. I mean, you are, as a government contractor, you're not allowed to donate through the company, you know, to politicians. So they went around it, created this fake nonprofit with a ridiculous name. And then when they got caught, Cleeta Mitchell, who was part of the insurrection in Trump's effort to overturn our democracy, like hatched a plan post-talk that was like, hey, what if the Society for Young Women and Scientists gives money to schools in Maine to make it seem real? And the whole thing is pretty cut and dry, probably could do a great job with that. I don't know what your thoughts are. I find that it's sounding that Cleeta Mitchell is still walking around free in this world, unindicted with the law license, you know, in the famous Oval Office call, when Trump called Secretary of State of Georgia. You know, if you read the transcript, at a certain point, Trump wasn't making it clear enough. And Cleeta Mitchell, who was there, sort of started telling him, this is what you need to say. This is what, you know, she is a force of any democracy evil. She is devoted her life now to changing how we vote in America, curating the vote. It is the continuation of the Federalist Society after they received $1.3 billion. And she does this very much under the radar screen. I wrote about her in my last book. And she goes around the country, giving these seminars to local election officials, volunteers, on how to curate the election. I think an aggressive attorney general could get some sort of restraining order against her, because he's trying to teach people how to break the law. So it's no shock to Cleeta Mitchell, who is another one of these people, not to go too much in the weeds. But there was a time when Cleeta Mitchell was a very different person. She ran the ERA campaign in Oklahoma. It's a state legislature. And I think not to get too personal here, but I think events unfolded in her life to change to her. And made her, let's say, a very different person. And it's really disappointing. But when the history of this Trump era is written, she's going to be there, along with the quiet bureaucrats that made this possible. We're part of the conspiracy to end America, as you might have called it. Yeah, I mean, Susan Calle, I mean, well, this is somebody who's a great future behind her. I mean, she's sort of like the Onja News stayed too long. And she's never been what she appeared to be. When I first encountered her, she was a daughter of the World Bush, who wouldn't be seen with any of these people she now frequents with. I don't understand why doing what Jeff Flaked did, saying I'm not going to play this game and resigning, isn't a better life path. And so what is she-- she's going to lose this race. And she's going to be remembered as a magus-supplicant. That's all these people are going to be remembered for it. And corrupt now. And corrupt. So how's that working out? The other thing to sad part of this-- her interview with Jonathan Martin a couple weeks ago. I mean, she just doesn't look good. I mean, obviously, she looks like she should be retiring. You can tell that the hacks and the hatchet men behind Dr. Federer this line, where she starts going after Troy Jackson's wife. And she comes stuttering while she does it. And it's like, this is such a sad way to end your career. Yeah. No, it is. It's like this moment when you're lost and you're driving by a casino that you didn't know exist. And there's a band that's playing there that you remember. Oh, yeah, they had 90s. They had a hit. And now they're selling CDs out from behind their van while they play at the casino. I mean, that's Susan Collins. She's just somebody that just stayed too long at the dance. And another person who never believed what she said she did. It's like I say to match slap our old pal and all these people. You're either lying when you said that you were bush was for. Are you lying now? So which is it? So the woman who gave us Brett Kavanaugh more than anybody else. Scott Reed is also in the story, another old bushy who-- whatever-- he was at the chamber of commerce and he quit the chamber over-- the chamber was trying to endorse more Democrats because there are some free market Democrats now running against MAGA Republicans and he quits over that. Now he's strapped up in this too. And it's just the same story over and over again for all these people. I've known Scott-- I feel like I've known Scott all my life. Before you were born, we worked on a Dole campaign together. And he ended up running the Dole campaign. And he's just another one of these guys that I think just lost his way. There's so many of them out there that we know. And you didn't tell him to your credit. You didn't. I still remember after Trump got elected. You call on me up and said, I don't know what to do. All our friends are going to try to pretend this didn't happen. It's just like, OK, we're just going to ignore this and keep making money and keep doing this. And you said to your eternal credit, and they're the benefit of the whole country in the world, you said, I'm not going to do that. I just can't do that. Well, not that much of a benefit to the whole world because here we are, Stuart. It's 10 years later if we're still talking about it. So maybe you had some of these other people joined, things would be different. But you're, though, just kind of closed loop on this. I mean, you think that Susan Collins' chances are nil, are minimal. Like, what do you think of the main center-right state apply? You're up in Vermont. That's your neck of the woods now. Yeah, I'm in Vermont. She should have lost last time. Her opponent lost with seven figures in the bank, which, you know, there should be some special little Dante circle for candidates to do that. I know people who are working on that campaign-- the Susan Collins campaign-- that morning. one of these calls and I've been on them hopefully you never have but okay we we tried we're gonna live on plenty of those calls. We're gonna lose but look yeah no backbiting everybody gave it their best and you know it just didn't work out. We've got the pen on the concession speech that's Miller you know I've I've had several of those. And then you know I think they weren't that like literally like you know it could not believe that he was losing or winning. So I think she'll lose you know one of the big factors that I think is underappreciated in the New Hampshire race and in the main race is the price of heating oil. Heating oil is now hit $7 a gallon and two years ago it was $325. So that means if you're say it takes you know typical home 900 to a thousand gallons to get through the winter you're gonna have a lot of people who are not gonna be able to heat their homes and because of this Iran war more than anything else and Susan Collins supports that. So I hope the Jackson came is really hitting hitting on that it's something we're gonna talk about in the Lincoln project but it's just one of these micro if you call it micro ramifications of a macro policy. The Canada stuff really hurts her. You know a lot of the economy in northern Maine is fueled by Canadians. Well it undermines her whole pitch which is like hey you know I'm not fully Trumpy you know I went against him on a few things but you need me here because for to protect our interests it's like okay well where were you on the Canada tariffs that are you know that's hurting all his industries it's hurting tourism. Where were you on? Yeah I you know so I do think that that really undermines her pitch in a way that in 2020 you know things were a little different. Yes again I don't think a good campaign was run against her in 2020. Right. So I'm glad to grant partners not to nominee because he would probably might even win this thing. It would be an interesting one you know bribery against sexual assault maybe would have been what America deserved but here we are Trojax and I think I think Trojax is a good one. Pretty handling it. You know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing on repeat is definitely not this Ole Miss shirt okay it's going to goodwill after this podcast but I have some other stuff that I do wear all the time you guys recognize a little navy blue sweater shirt with the white piping love that we've got some we've got some cozy teas some basic button downs that look chic and feel comfortable and where do those come from our friends of Quince Quince focused on high quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere organic cotton and marina wool styles our time was versatile and designed to be come the dependable pieces you reach for day after day. Quince also makes premium pants fitted tees and polos also in that black polo yesterday for people who were watching closely that was from Quince that looked good everything at Quince is probably 50 to 80% less than similar brands they work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middleman so you're paying for high quality not brand markup I feel like I should maybe start wearing more color again my my my mother you know dressed me like a polo prep kid when I was a child in pastels and I feel like even in middle age so I can turnily rebelling and my closet is full of blacks and grays and I just I love my Quince blacks and grays I've got the black polo I mentioned I've got a little black shorts leave button down they all look good but I think we'll see I think the next time I get my little Quince code might try something with a little popped I've been like that purple shirt lately that wasn't from Quince but that looks good so maybe I should try some Quince color but but if you're if you're like me and you just like blacks and grays I mean how good did I look in that black polo yesterday I thought I looked great find your next fall favorites of Quince download the Quince app for app exclusive offers are go to quince.com slash the bulwark get free shipping on your order in three to six five day returns now available in Canada and the UK too that's qiuinc.com slash the bulwark I want to do some counter-hopium first and then we'll get into the hope you have on the midterms Lauren Egan my colleague that's a great newsletter on the Democrats basically talked about the one thing that all the Democrats are worried about which is there is just ungodly amounts of money on the GOP side right now and the playing field particularly for the senate is really red turf and as an ad guy I want to posit something and you're an ad guy and you can tell me whether or not you think this is right but I I think in this day and age of 2026 TV ads it's tough to convince people to vote for your person with a TV ad it's still workable to convince somebody to vote against somebody that they didn't really want to vote against in the first place and so I'm talking about these Trump voters in Iowa Texas Alaska all this money coming in trying to turn you know Josh Tarek into Kamala or whatever to tamp down the types of voters that they need to win to get over the hump like what do you think about that as like the main concern for a long time now people have said that television advertising is sort of a dinosaur that doesn't which always like I don't know like Apple still advertises on television and that's stupid and why are they doing that so now here you have these massive amounts I mean entire new colonies of beach houses are going to be built with the commission on these ads oh yeah I am my feeling about this is I don't think in any of these races an additional 10,000 gross rating points 15,000 gross rating points it's going to make a difference but I'd rather have 10,000 15,000 gross rating points you know we we have to kind of look at these countries people don't know just that's for inside that's that's how you measure the ads yeah that's how you measure it yeah it's about the frequency of the ad you see on TV so what's the rule of thumb it's been a minute for me it's like if there's 10,000 gross rating points on air that means the average person sees the ad 10 times over X period a thousand a thousand gross rating points we got it there you if if if the thousand gross rating points you see the ads 10 times though that's never really been true but we just kind of we established that the field that we had some sort of sense of quantitative ability to quantify the unquantifiable but anyway you know 24 percent of the podcast election yeah so now all of a sudden we're saying well it's going to be ah it's we're we're back in 1998 okay great I don't think it is going to be determinative I think the key for all of these Democrats is to keep this message very simple because in a crowded cacophony loud environment your best bets are to stick with a simple message and the message should be if you think these are going right you should vote Republicans they run everything if you think that we can do maybe a little better give the other cause a chance if you don't like it in two years vote us out I wouldn't get into what you're gonna get when you get Democrats all this stuff I mean I'd save that for debates or something it's just a straight up referendum right track wrong track race and no incumbent party a modern politics is ever one elections when the right track was under 45 it's now 25 and the number that I really look at is Trump's most favorable and most unfavorable those who are very unfavorable were very unfavorable because ultimately those are the ones that are going to be determinative and make sense you feel the most passionately about it yeah so Trump's very favorable the last bowl I saw was bouncing around 15 and his very unfavorable was hitting 50 that you look at these numbers of favor unfave national or whatever well there's that approval candy hit the low water mark of those ARG which is in the best polls but it even still is the first time you hit 29 it was like like 29 68 that's total favor unfavorable and you're saying they're like of the 29 favorable only 15 are very favorable and of the 68 unfavorable 50 are very unfavorable well you know in all these polls I would do a screening we to extent we are pulling Lincoln project do a screening question do you believe Trump won the 2020 election and if you say yes we just say thanks and hang up because what do you need to know about these people they just pollute the sample it it there's nothing you're going to tell them one of the odd little statistics among those who believe that Trump lost a free and fair election you know his favorable is probably I don't know 18 maybe so I think these numbers are getting actually inflated higher than they really are but you know democrat they just don't take the candy don't get into debating all this stuff about democrat socialist and attack attack attack attack in 24 it was disposed my mind Trump campaign never ran a single positive ad not one which is pretty amazing true like on pay me on paid TV yes on pay TV and paid media they never did and you know usually you pay clients clients tend to think that they've done some important shit yeah most of them have so they want that now so you go like dude nobody cares what's funny he's doing it now he's asking them to do it now in the midterms you know yeah yeah yeah now we but they talked him into it they scared him enough that this isn't you know less of either this isn't going to move numbers so you know in that I can't say how many campaigns we can go okay and we're making positive ad and we'll run it like a midnight you know we'll we'll run arrests and show it to the candidate and go, "Okay, you got your positive, it's great, you know?" And I think the Democrats need to attack. Attack, attack, attack. This is a referendum on Trump, and you need to tie together corruption and all of the cost of living stuff. The reason that you're paying 90 bucks to Phillip your car is because of corruption. We wouldn't have an Iran war without corruption. - Yeah. - Separate these two. - Yes. And Taloriko and Osop are doing this so well. Every once in a while, I see on some, I sometimes have conversations with friends who are in Democratic politics or I see these things in Politico where some of the other candidates are still doing this. Oh, we should only talk about kitchen table issues. Oh, I don't want to do as much about Trump at any time. I hear that. I want to stroke out. It's like Trump's from prison. - This is why. - He's under water even in Texas. Like James Taloriko is doing it right. Like what is, what is it about John Osop who's running 10 points ahead in Georgia that you think isn't right for your house seat? - Exactly. - You know, what are you worried? You're gonna win by too much. You're trying to cover the spread or something. You know, but this is why as Republicans, we won a bunch of races we never should have won because Democrats couldn't get out of their way. You know, there is something about the Democratic Party's DNA still. And I say this, you know, as I believe the Democratic Party is the only pro-democracy party in America, the only real American political party. But a need to talk more about policy than emotion and an inability to keep to a simple message. You know, you go back to when Carrie ran against Bush. Carrie took that attitude. He was gonna talk about whatever was negative in the press to try to drive a wrong track message. Remember at one point in that race, he was talking about flu vaccine shortages. And they were like, - They don't remember that actually, but I tried to go work out. - Yeah, I went to some of these rallies. They were hilarious. People were like holding up, you know, syrenzes. I was like, I don't think that's gonna win. God, I don't know. It was right up there with the John Kerry rally. I went to, you know, hi, they had Bruce Springsteen play it. And some advanced guy had Springsteen play first. And let me tell you. - I remember that one. - They had to lock the doors to keep people in. But whereas Bush and, you know, O'Fourth said, look, there are a lot of bad people out there in the world. We ought to kill them before they kill us. And that was it. A very simple message. Obama was very good at simple messages. But I hope they can not make this overly complicated. - All right, guys, eating well can be difficult. When life gets busy, you live somewhere like New Orleans. And making time for meal planning or cooking can be a challenge. As soon as I finish the day and I think about cooking, then I'm like, I don't really want to. What should we order from delivery? You know, the delivery order is probably not going to be healthy. We've got a couple of healthy options. But a lot of them are unhealthy. One thing that we started to turn to that makes it easy to do food preparation to make yourself a healthy meal. As to turn to our friends at Forkful. Forkful makes sure that eating well doesn't need to be complicated. They're fully prepared, deliciously healthy meals, no meal prep necessary. They don't actually cut everything up. Some of those other meal prep guys send you the stuff that then you got a dice. I don't want a dice. Forkful doesn't make you dice. They make sure it's little clean up. And they just make it as easy as possible for you to get clean flavors. And that can be ready in under three minutes. For me, I mean, can you imagine that you can get a chimichurri, filet, mignon, spinach, and asparagus in under three minutes? You can, look forkful. I did, it was yummy. They've got some other good ones as well. Little eggplant parmesan. You want an eggplant parmesan? We're not really an eggplant parm season yet, but I'm looking forward to it when we get to the winter. That one's gonna be yummy. And I gotta tell you, when I came to that filet, I try, I, you know, I try to do a steak from time to time. It just wasn't any better. Put all the time and effort in. And instead, I could just turn to Forkful's chimichurri, filet, mignon, and it's yummy and scrumptious and easy. Why not just do that all the time? Do that with me. Explore our plans. And the menu of fresh, ready to eat meals at ForkfulMeals.com and use code the bulwark to get 50% off your first order. That's ForkfulMeals.com slash the bulwark and use promo code the bulwark for 50% off thanks to Forkful for sponsoring this episode. - To that point, I was trying to be negative cautious and you immediately went to, you know, positive or ethical optimists. And so I appreciate that. But we'll get to the parts where I'm optimist with reality. The Iowa race, I guess I have a little bit of nerves. I do have Ancelser PTSD. So I'll just say that. And I don't know who NPR and Marist is hired for their poll, but out this morning, Josh Turk 50, Ashley Henson 42. And if there's one data point that makes me think, well, maybe if that's not exactly right, there's something to it. It's a tweet that Ashley Henson sent yesterday the Republican running for Senate and Iowa. She wrote this, the war needs to be brought to a successful and immediate end. She then lists out a series of things. She thinks the administration, and I guess who, I don't know who should be doing to help Iowans, including suspending the gas tax, pausing diesel exports, diesel relief program, et cetera, et cetera. There's some problems with this, of course. Ashley Henson voted against a bill to end the war four times and Congress is on vacation until after the election. So it's a little late to come up with proposals to help Iowans for Ashley Henson. - You know, my feeling about polls like this is, I always think it's important to step back and go, does what you're seeing make sense looking at the poll? So if Ashley Henson wasn't eight points behind, she sure shit wouldn't be doing this. The other thing she's saying is, you know, she put out a ad saying that, you know, bipartisan is become a bad word. We need to reach across the aisle. You might as well have like a red flashing orange sign that says, our number suck and this is what we're doing. Because if they weren't sucking, you wouldn't be doing that. And, you know, I've said for a while that the classic moves is not, you know, looking profound, but when you're this far behind, what you need to do is go out and say, look, what made mistakes gives us another chance. And the problem is that Trump can't do that. But you see that JD Vance is kind of trying to do that. - Yes. - Because interesting. And I think it's a classic case, you know, these sports, you know, it's the right play. It's just they can't execute it. - Right. - Because it has to come from the top. And Trump, you know, would rather invade Canada before he admitted that he'd done anything that wasn't perfect. - Yeah. - So we're looking, some of us have lost presidential races in Iowa. - Well, sure. And I mean, I think, and again, so I want to make sure no speaking to our editors here, no YouTube thumbnails talking about how we're definitely winning Iowa because we did that last year. And I still have a lot of people sending it to me after I trusted too much in Ann Seltzer. Okay, so Godlover, nice woman, not really her fault. But anyway, that said, like to your point, it's just like, I don't know, Ashley into the behavior is matching the polls. And the economic numbers or I track wrong track numbers, particularly in the plain states, particularly in rural America, match the numbers. - The other numbers, Tim, where are they spending money? - They've stopped spending in Georgia, basically. There's two things you can't lie about in politics. Where you're spending money and where you're spending time. And those are the ultimate truths. And all this other stuff you sit in these rooms, you come up with spin, but this is really where, you know, you bet on what you believe. And they're spending all this money in Texas. - James, that's even now. - And you don't do that if you're not just, so take a minute to work. And the Democrats should start talking about this, being a huge win. They should not shy away from it. People follow momentum. There's actually interesting data on that. Weird Nate Silver wrote about that in his first book, the kind of bandwagon effect. - People want to be with the winner. Well, I don't know. We had a mixed crowd for the LSU Ole Miss game, including my bestie. He went to Ole Misses while I have the shirt, by the way, it's my godson shirt. He's a very big boy. He might be on Ole Misses team in a couple years. But, you know, my daughter, about halfway through that, about half time, she was written for the Rebels. She ditched me. You know, so it's a human. It's a natural human instinct, you know? - If I were in Derrickark party, I would wake up every day and everybody's chair. We're right there wrong. There's more of us than them. And walk with a little swagger. You know, nobody wins a Super Bowl going out there going, "You know, I think we got a shot." Like, you know, we're not going to get blown out here. Ossoff has that. - Yes. Big time. - And people are drawn to it. - Yep. - And confidence is contagious. - I'd add to that just on the war. Yes, I think they'd swagger, but also, I still see a little bit too much reticence to kind of rub their face in the dirt on the war. And all of these candidates. I mean, Paltola did it very good in the debate against Sullivan. I played that, I think, last week. There have been some good examples of that. But like, this war is extremely unpopular, extremely. And if you already see somebody like Ashley Henson and a state Trump won by 13 trying to back away from it, that should tell you all you need to know. And honestly, I said this couple of weeks ago, I was like, if a Democratic strike just calls me, it's like, "What do you think my candidate should do?" She'd say, "Go back and watch Cindy Sheen videos and be as close to that as possible." Because that's just where people are right now on this. They think it's stupid, it's hurting them, they don't understand. - If I was a coaching of a candidate in a debate who was running against an incumbent senator who would vote for the war. voted to confirm Pete headset. I would say in my openly statement, I find it very sad, but there's no other conclusion. He should resign. This man is not a patriot. He voted to confirm Pete headset. You cannot be a patriot and believe that the United States and America deserve the best and is a beacon of hope without and hope for Pete. A weekend talk show to be interested in those politics and military in the world. He's own national guard unit wouldn't let him be around Washington and they go, "Oh, wait, that's outrageous." You're saying, "I'm not a patriot." You go, "Yes." That's what I'm saying. Yes. And then take it from me. You certainly don't have judgment, you know? You certainly go right into it. No, I do too. I just think you can keep adding to it because that's what the people are. So that's my old friend Roger Wicker. You Austria MP takes it. You're not a patriot. I'm sorry. You are what you do. You can't say you care about the military and put this clown in charge of the military and we're seeing the results. It's not enough American flag pins you can wear on your jacket to get a route. Amen. So I like having you on Stewart. Every time I'm like, "I think I'm pushing the Democrats to be more aggressive and I'm frustrated." You come on and you're like, "Tim, that's pretty good." I'm actually lapping you even further. Pedal even harder further to the metal. And get away from testing these spots. You know? Oh my God. Do you think Willie Horton tested well? Seriously. I really like that spot. This is my biggest pet beef Stewart. It's like as soon as I got it, because I was ever in your business, as a comms guy to an ad guy. So the first time we started doing a Super PAC in 2020, we were doing ad testing so the donors wanted. And I really got to see what the ad testing process is. And it's fucking stoners playing video games. And there's an ad in the video game. And then they've got to watch it. And then they've got to reply about what their emotional reaction to it was so they can keep playing their game. And that's just one tactic. Others. But it's like, people don't know themselves. How many friends do you know in your life where they're making life mistakes? And they can't identify what it is. Why they're making the mistakes? It's hard enough to know yourself. It's very shit hard enough to know whether an ad is going to influence you or not in a split second while you're sitting like the whole thing is stupid. Use your gut. Yeah. I mean, look, if if ad testing worked, everybody would have great campaigns. It's sort of empirical proof. It doesn't work. You know, look, the first presidential campaign ever touched just a little bit was Bush and 88. And I went into the Bush headquarters and there was a giant gun safe in the media section. And I said, guys, why do we have a fucking gun safe? And so that's where we lock up the ads at night so that Bob Teeter can't test them. I love that story. My final hope is just in the Mississippi theory is they aren't spending money. You said we can judge where the Republicans are about where they're spending money. They're not spending money in Mississippi yet. But there's a little bit of a stir around Scott Colombe. Do you do you have any any hope there? And you've run a bunch of races there. Yeah, looking, it's harder to elect a Republican in Mississippi than people realize. It's like everything politics about math, but depending on the African American turnout, you have to get 65 to 70% of the white vote and pretty high numbers. And it's hard to get 65 to 70% of anything. I mean, Hayley's to say I couldn't get that offense, getting dinner. It's a lot harder. She's a terrible candidate. She has no base. Cindy had some of the numbers for Trump in a lot of these suburban areas. And Jackson, Vicksburg, the Gulf Coast, which has always been a different world. And now you look at, you know, the fastest-growing county in the South and Mississippi is DeSoda County, which is basically South Memphis. It's a commuter for Memphis. And then I've drilled about data centers up there. So look, my feeling about a race like Scott, and I hope he wins, he's a terrific candidate. We'll be a great senator. Mr. V basically has one senator. 75. And in a state where it's the only thing that levels of playing field with California, you know, you need two centers. It could happen. But I think if he wins, you're not going to win the Senate because of that. It's going to mean you're winning a lot of stuff. It's going to mean it's 1980. You know, Italico will win. They'll win across all of these races. Yes, sure. Paul Hawkins got elected to the Senate from Florida in 80. Nobody thought that any Republican could win, so she ran. And Democrats have some good candidates out there. So I would take Scott and give the points. Really? How many points are we giving? So we're going to have to fly it for the game on Saturday, three and a half. Look, I think this race will be a three-point race if he loses. I don't think it's going to be a blowout. Yeah, right. And anytime you're in that sort of margin of error, you have a shot. We'll turn it at Chambers. Scott Cologne turned it, you know, can a fair estate to the Senate type story for Scott Cologne? We'll see how it goes. This show is sponsored by perplexity computer. If you ask five different AI experts about which tools best to use, you'll get about seven different answers. And the answers are always changing. Every AI seems to be better at something different. One is better for research, one at copyrighting, one at coding. And then you still need something that can deliver finished work instead of just answers. Perplexity computer closes that gap. Instead of locking you into one model, it uses them all automatically choosing the best model for every part of the project. No more need to juggle between different models. You don't need to ask it one question at a time. Perplexity computer can handle the whole project. Analyze finances and build projections, build entire pitches and presentations, connect to Gmail, Slack, and the work tools you already use. Automate email follow ups. And it keeps going until the project is done. You don't have to become an AI expert to get the most out of AI. Computer handles that part so you can focus on the work instead of managing the tools. For a limited time only, our listeners can try perplexity computer for free, head to plx.ai/thebolwork. That's pplx.ai/thebolwork to try computer today. Most AI tools are still answering questions while perplexity computer is completing full projects. I want to talk about Russia stuff with you. Obviously you visited Ukraine a couple of times now. First, I want to talk about the domestic side before you get to the war. John Curtis Center for Utah. His little inner Jiminy cricket is firing. You have noticed this. The Mormons, the Mormon Republicans have had the most moments of moral clarity. John Curtis has not been a hero by any means. I don't have it right in front of me. I'm pretty sure he failed your Pete Hegseth confirmation test, for example. Here he is this morning on the Don Jr. wedding gift from Omar Kremlev, the Russian gangster. Mobster. A toaster is a wedding gift. A private island party paid for by a Putin connected oligarch is something else. Republicans nearly wore out the subpoena machine investigating Hunter Biden. We should not unplug it now. Trust up was not enough then and it is not enough now. You have to do the Hunter Biden thing, I guess, if you're a Republican, but whatever, it's better than nothing. To me, I think it's pretty important because subpoena is a coming next year. Having even just a couple Republicans in a couple of places saying, sorry, just because you're a Trump family member, it doesn't mean you're above this. I do think it's meaningful. I agree. Look, I think the great untold, under-reported story of our time is the degree to which the Russians compromised our old party. It happened on the financial fronts, like the NRA, it happened on the think tank front with Paradise Foundation. I think it's one of the great, maybe the great story of our time, that the party that went from being the most consistently anti-Soviet union, anti-expansive Russian Federation became the proputant party. For some reason, we just had this inability to say the Russians wanted to elect a president and they did. What are they getting? A lot. More than you can imagine. A mass murder under indictment came to the United States and the Republican Party had American military get on their knees and roll out a red carpet. If the head of ISIS came, he has a lot less blood on his hands than Putin. They should have arrested his ass. I think the great test for Democrats across the board is to erect a structure like we've never had before to pursue the criminality in Trump administration. Part of that should be deep investigations to how many of these people compromised by Russia. I say, "Trump is compromised by Russia. If you vote the way Trump wants you to, you're compromised by Russia." This is how it classically works. If Guy Philby was compromised and he got a lot of people to come around his opinion without realizing that they were being compromised by a Russian asset, that's how it always works. In this case, you look at Trump and he is a Russian asset. He's got his main point man on the negotiations Steve Wyckoff flying Damascus talking about how great it is to see Putin And how it's the great memories of his life when he's on his deathbed It'll be all the time that they got to spend together. Oh, I hope that death bed. I hope that death bed is in the penance entry Yeah, because he's a criminal on an addition on the things that Russia's getting This is something from this week. This is such a dog bite man's story part of this is like people don't bring it up anymore And I think it's important just to like actually read what Trump's words are and see what's happening He bled at this Russia has unfortunately lost control of its diesel oil industry due to its war without Ukraine Why is that unfortunate? I'm not sure he goes on a large number of their diesel refineries have been blown up and are at least temporarily out of commission this ridiculous and never ending war with Ukraine Must be ended passive voice must be must be ended by who Trump does not say and And you know you posted this and I'll I'll put it up on the screen for video people that but you don't have to actually see it on the screen because It's a hockey stick like the chart of drone attacks and civilian deaths in Ukraine since Since 2024 since he won the election. I mean it's skyrocketed and Obviously the war was going on before that and their deaths on the front but like Russia is ability to act with impunity going after Ukrainian citizens Has to I was in Ukraine a couple of weeks ago when the Russians changed their tactics They were you know coming in and keep drone attacks at night missile attacks at night mostly Then they changed their tactics and they went to near 24 hour Attacks and it was very interesting because reading about it It sounded like a city under siege. It was like styling grad or something, you know But being in cave it was beautiful weather the streets were full when their air raids are in which I was there the day when there were the most air raid signs of any time in the war. I never felt unsafe They are out there spending hypersonic missiles to kill two people I mean Good luck with that trying to win a war and you know you you are not going to beat do Ukrainians because they know that they would become slaves and their innovations that they are Across the board are the future of war. It's what America is desperately going to need It's you know pedestals cancelling drone units It says if it's a it's a trump wish list So arguably I think the greatest achievement you could argue Of the American military and Vietnam onward has been casualty evacuation We have the highest rate in the history of the world of Those who are wounded who survived And why is it because we erected this conceived executed the system of you know the golden hour Getting out someone who's been wounded within that first hour get them stabilized get them downstream to a sophisticated hospital How is most of that done by helicopter? You send a helicopter 40 kilometers near the zero line And you're creating what that thing is going to last about maybe maybe five minutes at the most You're going to have maybe a hundred drones attacking that helicopter It's the whole system is dead. So what are the Ukrainians doing? They've brilliantly evolved this new system of land-based drones That have these armored sarcophases over them and they send them in And they go up to 100 kilometers Big tires. I've seen these things that go very fast and they load soldiers that are wounded and evacuated Wow and the United States. I don't think there's anything like that And you've seen how unprepared we were for drones with the devastating attacks in the Middle East That the administration's trying to hide. Well, and Pete's I mean, Pete's pretty focused on getting rid of all the trannies He talks about trannies a lot and pushups and doing TRT hormone therapy. Those are the main things I don't I don't understand how It is that the United States military is now in the hormone replacement business Um, I mean, I can't think of anything more woke than that And you're gonna you're gonna go again. It's someone who wrote a extensive piece about forms enhancing drugs It's a great piece by the way. I'm gonna I like to it for people who are interested and what is the single Highest testosterone level of any societal group Prison really Yes, why well because you know Young men who tend to commit crimes. All right. God. I tend to have jacked up testosterone There it does affect you Of the military who has the highest testosterone The Marines What is it self-selecting? What a shock? You know, if you've got some guy and you've got 900 you know testosterone and you're 19 years old and you want to blow up shit and kill people. I'll join the Marines You're not gonna go say I want to be an air force intelligent sir, you know, I want to work for the NSA Put me in front of a computer But the idea that you're going to like somehow convert people to warriors by testosterone You know, when I was in Ukraine people were just laughing their ass off about this You know keve was saved in a large part in the battle of keve by a bunch of accountants and advertising executives and lawyers and bakers and sushi chefs Who came out in the territorial defense and fought the Russians Because they believed in it. Are there worries about winter when you're there? Yeah, very much. Yeah It's gonna be very very very very hard winner last February I You know, we worked with this finish American volunteering with this finish American a group and they did a sort of emergency convoy taking generators down Uh, we drove down from Helsinki and a lot of warm gear and stuff But it's going to be very tough, but you know, I was there in February when there were a lot of blackouts more often than not and Walk around on Saturday night bars had little generators in front of them People were out drinking They adapted but it is going to be a very very hard winter Losing weight is one thing but looking and feeling better As we hit September that's the real goal. That's why weight loss by hymns now offers access to the FDA Approved wagovie pill and wagovie pen wagovies designed to help you lose weight and keep it off So you can show up feeling like yourself I've got I've got a wedding coming up soon. You want to look good at the wedding? Do you feel the wedding coming up? Make sure you just kind of get a little sunkist And ensure that your body is feeling as fit as it could with wagovian hymns Lose up to 20% of your body weight when combined with diet and exercise and helps you Regulate your appetite eat less and keep weight off plus wagovies the first ever GLP1 pill for weight loss So there are no needles needed. Thank God. I'm scared of needles Even better with a range of affordable GLP1 options hymns makes it simple to find a weight loss approach that fits into your world And your wallet if eligible You'll get a treatment plan personalized to you and unlimited dosage changes as needed ready to reach your goals Is at hymns.com slash the bulwark to get a personalized affordable plan to get you that's h-i-m-s Dot com slash the bulwark hymns.com slash the bulwark weight loss by hymns is not available in all 50 states We'll go ease the registered trademark of Nova Nordic AS to get started learn more including important safety information We'll go be clinical study information and restrictions visit hymns.com I want to um do just a couple more things with you and we'll let you go the China summit is coming up this week Trump was unveiling his new helicopter pad, which is excited to show off to she and delta I just I don't play Trump's voice on the show as you know, but um I'm gonna make an exception for this case because he had an important press conference where he was unveiling the helicopter pad ahead of the meeting Let's watch I Couldn't quite catch that um the pool the pool video is not Covering Trump right now in protest him kicking out cnm as now in politico So Trump was just trying to screen there over the din and didn't quite get it a helicopter pad. Yeah, I mean If you're working in a race for a Republican and you're on the bubble and you're you know, putting in your 19 hours a day And you wake up and you see the fucking president of the United States out there celebrating a hell of head It's like are you out of your fucking mind? I think everybody with a hell of head can really appreciate it Who's probably gonna carry the hell of head and the line they did the boat parades You know, I though some of the boaters might be turning against them with the price of fuel Well, I think some of them suck too and didn't I'm not sure they quite made it Those parades they weren't so do you have any other deep thoughts on the china summit? We're kind of coming on Thursday All the stuff that you know what we work for a parking party. We were kind of right about this stuff I mean sometimes yeah It's a great foreign policy some stuff, you know, I had a couple of wars that were wrong, but How are you sitting there in China in leadership and in the military and look at what we've done for Ukraine And think that we're going to come in and defend Taiwan It's just I mean it's it emboldens every bit of aggression and the Chinese who are Most in the cutting edge of of of drawn Russians, Chinese Ukrainians, but those three in the United States is way behind. The Taiwanese are trying to catch up, and it's interesting, they should be doing more. I'm sort of perplexed why they haven't done more. The Taiwanese? Yeah. Because you know they have all these, you know, every chip factory, everything. And there are Taiwanese who are fighting in Ukraine, interestingly. But, you know, it's, it's, it's weakness invites instability. Then the other end of it, if I'm she, I'm just kind of like, you know, why, you know, stop what's, what's the old line about, you know, why interrupt your opponent when they're, when they're, when they're losing. They're destroying themselves. Yeah. Yeah. And there's an element of that to it. Yeah. Who's the last prominent American politician that I can think of who went to Taiwan? Nancy Pelosi. Right. You know, I think that this is an historic opportunity just in the greater moment that Democrats reclaim what we would cause the party of strength in foreign policy. And they had that at one time, you know, when Nixon ran against China, or when it gets Kennedy, Kennedy was to the right of him on foreign policy. Nixon attacked him in the debates for having a secret plan in Vancouver. And that is right. Right. You know, Kennedy attacked Nixon for allowing a missile cap to develop. Kennedy was the right wing foreign policy candidate. And the Democrats need to get back to that. And if they do, I think it will have a generational impact on our politics. Democrats have struggled to find somebody that can, and I think that Harris had an opportunity to do this, you know, a lot of times the left people criticize her. And I think it's not an illegitimate criticism for focusing the convention too much on like the lethality of the military. And for me, it's like being able to combine, arguing about lethality and American strength and alliance with allies, with also being the person that's like, but I'm not thinking of this stupid fucking wars. I'm not going to do stupid wars of choice. It was those guys that did all the stupid war, you know, you have to be a little dexterous to be able to do both. But they're not necessarily in conflict, you know? If we can live in the world in which Democrats own the iconography of patriotism, that would be a much better world, safer world, and they should not shy away from that. You know, flyover should not be a Republican thing. They should be out there. And this is why again, they need to use these broad sweeping combinations of what Republicans are doing because it is anti-military, they're destroying the military, decades of progress in the military. The military is going to emerge from the headset, wicker, Trump era, weaker than it's been any time since the Vietnam War. Call it out. It's your destroying the military, you're not pro-military, you're not. You won't beat headset in the foxhole next to you? Really? I mean, you know, give me a break. The Aggies didn't, you know, this weekend. All right, final topic, device president is working on his insult comic routine to kind of get ready for 2028, he's bulking up, he was out there in a campaign stop yesterday, and I do want to play one glip for you. And because we need somebody who will fight back against the fart left, we need Michael Watley in the United States Senate. Now, you may not have even heard that, but I actually, I usually don't miss speak, but I just call them the fart left, not the fart left, that, I promise that was an accident. So, the fake news who will accuse me of bad language, I promise I did not mean to call them the fart left, I meant to call them the fart left. I don't know about that one. Yeah, you know, I just, you know, if I was a friend of JD's, I would just say JD, think about your kids, they're going to have to spend the rest of your life watching this stuff. They're going to have to spend the rest of your life listening to your attack to 14th Amendment, which made their mom a U.S. citizen. Listen to you talking about heritage Americans, and by the way, guys, look at us, Dad, we don't look like Kentucky home apps. You don't think Vivek Vance is a heritage American? You know, I do think he's a heritage American and my definition of a heritage American. And it's just, you know, normally most politicians will defend their own family. It's very rare to come up with a guy that much of his entire political structure is attacking his own family, you know, he attacks his wife's religion and says she doesn't really believe it. And he makes it much more likely that there will be another wave of anti-Asian American hatred. We've had this before in America. It's just extraordinary. This is a very, very sick, broken guy. I think he'll be the Democratic nominee. Republican nominee. Republican nominee. And I think he'll run with the Bank of Trump. I like that prediction. We'll leave it there. Stuart Steven-Jourle winner, baby. I've never been happy to lose a bet, be with you for an hour today, hotty-totty. What is hotty, baby? All right. And we'll catch you after the midterms, all right, bro? Okay, bro. Take care. Appreciate you so much. Everybody else will be back here tomorrow with another edition of the show. See y'all then, peace. The Bullwork Daily is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Anzaly Skipper, and with video editing by Dante DeCicco and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.