Tim Miller on Days of Rage
00:07:
(Charlie Sykes)
Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast.
00:08:
(Charlie Sykes)
What an extraordinary day.
00:10:
(Charlie Sykes)
In real time, we're seeing the Trump administration disintegrate.
00:14:
(Charlie Sykes)
You have aides cabinet members resigning.
00:18:
(Charlie Sykes)
You have former allies deserting him.
00:20:
(Charlie Sykes)
A lot of reputation laundering going on out there.
00:24:
(Charlie Sykes)
And of course, Congress is moving, looks like, very rapidly towards impeachment 2.0.
00:30:
(Charlie Sykes)
So we're going to get to all of this.
00:32:
(Charlie Sykes)
It is really a moment that
00:35:
(Charlie Sykes)
I don't know.
00:36:
(Charlie Sykes)
I see Tim Miller joins me.
00:37:
(Charlie Sykes)
You know, Tim, we have been doing this Never Trump stuff for a very long time, and we always knew it was going to end badly.
00:44:
(Charlie Sykes)
So it seems kind of surreal that it's all ending this spectacularly badly.
00:51:
(Charlie Sykes)
You know what I mean?
00:53:
(Tim Miller)
Does it seem surreal?
00:55:
(Tim Miller)
I guess.
00:56:
(Charlie Sykes)
I mean, I think that... Because in real life, in the movies, you always have some spectacular thing ends, you know?
01:02:
(Charlie Sykes)
The guy has a truckload of horse manure dumped on his head, and it's like, oh, that's fantastic.
01:07:
(Charlie Sykes)
But in real life, it's messy.
01:08:
(Charlie Sykes)
You know, it's more nuanced.
01:11:
(Charlie Sykes)
You have the ups and the blacks.
01:12:
(Tim Miller)
I'm not sure, you know...
01:14:
(Tim Miller)
Well, I'm not sure.
01:15:
(Tim Miller)
I think that we have to keep writing it out.
01:16:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, look, you know, we have been here and we don't know exactly what things look like a week from now.
01:22:
(Tim Miller)
We don't know how things look like a month from now.
01:24:
(Tim Miller)
And, you know, I've seen my husband last night.
01:27:
(Tim Miller)
You know, he said that this is worse than he expected.
01:30:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah.
01:30:
(Tim Miller)
And I thought about that for a second.
01:32:
(Tim Miller)
I was like, honestly, I don't think that's true for me.
01:34:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, I think it's worse than it could have been.
01:37:
(Tim Miller)
But, you know, I look back at Lafayette Square.
01:41:
(Tim Miller)
And I mean, as horrible of a moment that was, and as un-American as moments that was for the president to, you know, order the tear gassing and rubber bullet grenades at clergy, innocent protesters.
01:55:
(Tim Miller)
At that moment, I was deeply concerned that something like what, that the inverse basically of what happened two days ago would happen.
02:03:
(Tim Miller)
And that, you know, there would be a shooting at peaceful protesters and
02:08:
(Tim Miller)
It's still shocking to see it happen.
02:11:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah.
02:12:
(Tim Miller)
I just think that this was inevitably where we were going to end up, and that is the source of my rage, which I'm sure we can get to.
02:19:
(Charlie Sykes)
Well, okay.
02:20:
(Charlie Sykes)
I want to counter the rage.
02:21:
(Charlie Sykes)
I don't want to discourage the rage, but I want to give you just a counterpoint to it.
02:25:
(Charlie Sykes)
I know you put out a letter to...
02:27:
(Charlie Sykes)
to some of our our listeners yesterday, you know, reminding people that this is and then I this is hard to really think about is that two years ago yesterday, we launched the Bulwark to two years.
02:40:
(Charlie Sykes)
It feels like it's been much, much longer.
02:43:
(Charlie Sykes)
We couldn't possibly have known
02:44:
(Charlie Sykes)
how it was going to play out.
02:46:
(Charlie Sykes)
I mean, when we started the Bulwark, it was just month to month.
02:49:
(Charlie Sykes)
I was just talking to Jim Swift about this a couple of minutes ago.
02:52:
(Charlie Sykes)
And when we first started, it was like, okay, we'll do this for three months after the death of the weekly standard.
02:58:
(Charlie Sykes)
We had no idea what was going to happen.
03:00:
(Charlie Sykes)
And I do think that it is it's important at some point to acknowledge that we're sitting here now watching the complete vindication and the vindication of many of the things we'd been warning about and the defeat of Donald Trump in this rather dramatic fashion.
03:17:
(Charlie Sykes)
I mean, he is gone.
03:19:
(Charlie Sykes)
In fact, he's not only gone, you just see the rats jumping from this sinking ship.
03:23:
(Charlie Sykes)
I mean, the water is churning with all the rats who are jumping from this ship.
03:28:
(Charlie Sykes)
I mean, you had a great tweet yesterday that, you know, that everybody is the bulwark is bulwark online now is, you know, one as as one conservative media outlet after another does their deathbed conversion.
03:40:
(Charlie Sykes)
But, you know, he's going and he's going in disgrace.
03:45:
(Charlie Sykes)
and and i and i think that that's that's something i mean we need to keep the rage going but but also acknowledge i mean tim take a deep breath here we we we beat the mfr he's going i'm taking a deep breath yeah it was a little effort to get people to sign up for the bulwark plus because it is nice to be right you know no right but so here okay i'm taking a deep breath you're right
04:11:
(Tim Miller)
You're right.
04:12:
(Tim Miller)
And I'll be, boy, nobody will be happier than me on January 20th.
04:16:
(Tim Miller)
And frankly, nobody was happier than me on Wednesday morning for people that listened to the next level after the Georgia, surprising Georgia victories, which surprised to me at least.
04:28:
(Tim Miller)
And I thought that was an important rebuke of all the things that have been happening.
04:33:
(Charlie Sykes)
Let's not go too far ahead, though.
04:34:
(Charlie Sykes)
I just want to go back two years ago when we launched this thing.
04:39:
(Charlie Sykes)
I had forgotten.
04:41:
(Charlie Sykes)
You wrote two days.
04:44:
(Charlie Sykes)
We launched on January 7th, 2019.
04:48:
(Charlie Sykes)
You had a piece two days later.
04:50:
(Charlie Sykes)
Do you remember what your first article for The Bulwark was?
04:54:
(Tim Miller)
I do.
04:56:
(Tim Miller)
Sarah had called me and said, you guys are doing this new thing, and would I write something?
04:59:
(Tim Miller)
And I was mad about something.
05:02:
(Tim Miller)
I was mad about Mitt Romney's...
05:05:
(Tim Miller)
I was happy about Mitt Romney's op-ed in the Washington Post criticizing Trump, and I was mad that all the...
05:11:
(Tim Miller)
All the anti-anti-Trumpers and all the Republican quizlings were criticizing him.
05:16:
(Tim Miller)
And so I called Trump a special snowflake that he couldn't take the criticism from Mitt Romney.
05:20:
(Charlie Sykes)
Yeah, that's the headline.
05:21:
(Charlie Sykes)
Trump is a special snowflake.
05:22:
(Charlie Sykes)
Now, here's the weird convergence of the stars.
05:25:
(Charlie Sykes)
My first piece in The Bulwark was also about Mitt Romney and that –
05:29:
(Charlie Sykes)
And that op-ed piece and the reaction from folks who are saying, you know, you shouldn't criticize him because he's a man of great character.
05:38:
(Charlie Sykes)
So this was, I think I rolled out the phrase, you know, late stage Trumpism there.
05:42:
(Charlie Sykes)
But so anyway, that was two years ago.
05:45:
(Charlie Sykes)
We want to thank all the people who have contributed, who have listened to us.
05:49:
(Charlie Sykes)
We're nearing 30 million downloads on this podcast since then.
05:53:
(Charlie Sykes)
I think that Bulwark has...
05:55:
(Charlie Sykes)
you know, become something way better than we all expected.
06:00:
(Charlie Sykes)
So here we are at this moment.
06:04:
(Charlie Sykes)
And I, I, I, I, again, the, it's kind of alternatively, alternatively wonderful conversation.
06:13:
(Charlie Sykes)
and terrifying to see this disastrous collapse of this administration is 12 days to go.
06:19:
(Charlie Sykes)
Do you know what that means, by the way?
06:21:
(Charlie Sykes)
As of tomorrow, the Trump presidency has only one Scaramucci to go.
06:24:
(Charlie Sykes)
Only one Scaramucci.
06:26:
(Charlie Sykes)
So where do we want to start on all of this?
06:30:
(Charlie Sykes)
I have to give you kudos.
06:32:
(Charlie Sykes)
You were...
06:33:
(Charlie Sykes)
You are way ahead of the curve, people, of saying we need to impeach this guy again.
06:37:
(Charlie Sykes)
OK, I mean, I came around and said maybe we need to have an emergency impeachment.
06:43:
(Charlie Sykes)
But this thing looks like it's going to happen now, doesn't it?
06:48:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, Charlie.
06:48:
(Tim Miller)
Well, I'm happy to start there.
06:51:
(Tim Miller)
You've called me.
06:52:
(Tim Miller)
Just so you know, as I got on the podcast this morning, my chest was tightened to such a degree that I was preparing for some heart palpitations and a blood vessel bursting.
07:04:
(Tim Miller)
So I've now taken a few deep breaths.
07:06:
(Tim Miller)
Zen.
07:07:
(Tim Miller)
And I'm sure my rage will build over the course of the hour and we can get back to what was driving it.
07:11:
(Tim Miller)
But yeah, I mean, I think...
07:14:
(Tim Miller)
I guess it depends on what you mean by happen.
07:17:
(Tim Miller)
Um, I think that whether impeach, whether he actually gets impeached again and whether they go through the process depends largely on Trump on what he does.
07:26:
(Tim Miller)
Um, I think that the, the prospect of it, in addition to the prospect of prosecution is what is what drove the hostage video yesterday.
07:35:
(Tim Miller)
Um, I think that, uh,
07:38:
(Tim Miller)
Republicans, with the exception of maybe Adam Kinzinger, one or two others, I think are going to be reluctant to want to go through it again unless he forces their hand.
07:50:
(Tim Miller)
I think that Joe Biden is going to be pretty reluctant to want in Congress to be dealing with this come January 21, you know.
07:59:
(Tim Miller)
uh, he's got a pretty major crisis that he's got to deal with.
08:02:
(Tim Miller)
Um, so with all those factors, um, it seems to me like this is something that could be rushed through.
08:09:
(Tim Miller)
And I think really almost will be rushed through if, if, you know, it's sort of like a sword of Damocles hanging over the president's head, I think.
08:17:
(Tim Miller)
And I think that the president's behavior is the thing that is most likely to drive it at this point.
08:23:
(Tim Miller)
Um,
08:24:
(Tim Miller)
But I don't think that there's a 0% chance that it happens even if he stays quiet.
08:29:
(Tim Miller)
But I think the chance is rather low if there's not another incident.
08:34:
(Charlie Sykes)
Of being removed or being impeached?
08:37:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, of their being holding an impeachment vote.
08:40:
(Tim Miller)
And I mean, they're going to just do an impeachment vote without the removal and without the trial.
08:47:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, maybe I'm for that.
08:49:
(Tim Miller)
If they do it, that's great.
08:50:
(Tim Miller)
I just, I don't know what the...
08:53:
(Charlie Sykes)
I think that's the most likely scenario at this point.
08:56:
(Charlie Sykes)
You do the impeachment vote in the House of Representatives.
08:58:
(Charlie Sykes)
You don't actually have the trial, but what you do then have is you have the hammer to break the glass in an emergency.
09:04:
(Charlie Sykes)
It is remarkable, though, how the scope of the people just jumping.
09:11:
(Charlie Sykes)
I mean, you have Bill Barr, Lindsey Graham, Nikki Haley, your friend Nikki Haley.
09:17:
(Charlie Sykes)
And by the way, that's in quotation marks.
09:19:
(Charlie Sykes)
She says that Trump's actions will be judged harshly by history.
09:22:
(Charlie Sykes)
You have Elaine Chao, Betsy DeVos resigning.
09:26:
(Charlie Sykes)
Shock, shock to find out they've been working for a sociopath.
09:30:
(Charlie Sykes)
You saw that the former...
09:31:
(Charlie Sykes)
communications director uh elissa farah who just stepped down last oh yeah she's been tweeting at me so good we can we can she said that trump should seriously consider resigning thinks the country would be safer under president uh pence yeah these national security officials telling axios that uh they and their colleagues uh would uh defy any requests they believe would put the nation at risk so john kelly former white house chief of staff saying he'd vote uh
09:59:
(Charlie Sykes)
to remove him.
10:01:
(Charlie Sykes)
Of course, you know, Larry Hogan of Maryland, Michael Chertoff, former Homeland Security Secretary under Bush.
10:08:
(Charlie Sykes)
And of course, the Wall Street Journal editorial board has finally, after four long years of turd polishing, seen enough calling on Trump to resign.
10:19:
(Charlie Sykes)
So your thoughts.
10:22:
(Tim Miller)
Well, we could do the whole hour on each of these people one at a time, so I'll defer to you on which one you want to take.
10:27:
(Charlie Sykes)
We could do it the whole weekend, you know?
10:29:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, but I will start with just my big picture thoughts on all of these people, which this is going to be a... We're going to have the explicit rating on this podcast.
10:37:
(Tim Miller)
We're just going to warn people now, so I apologize if you're in the car with your children, but...
10:43:
(Tim Miller)
It's Nikki Haley whose actions are going to be looked on poorly by history.
10:49:
(Tim Miller)
And not just Donald Trump's.
10:52:
(Tim Miller)
And I don't... All of these folks are now doing the thing that we needed them to do over and over again.
11:01:
(Tim Miller)
That we needed them to do during the Republican primary...
11:04:
(Tim Miller)
that we needed them to do after the Access Hollywood tape, that we needed to do with impeachment the last time, that we needed them to do before this election, that we needed them to do when Trump should have been primaried.
11:15:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, I could go over the list.
11:17:
(Tim Miller)
Everybody needed to hold hands and jump together.
11:20:
(Tim Miller)
And now, after the writing is on the wall, when he's one Scaramucci away from leaving the White House, they're trying to do this to save their own reputations.
11:32:
(Tim Miller)
And I have to just say no.
11:34:
(Tim Miller)
I'm sorry.
11:35:
(Tim Miller)
I don't accept it.
11:37:
(Tim Miller)
I do not accept their comments that it is because a police officer died, because five people died,
11:46:
(Tim Miller)
That it's now Donald Trump's actions that were the bad ones.
11:50:
(Tim Miller)
Charlie, we all knew this was going to happen.
11:54:
(Tim Miller)
We've all said this was going to happen.
11:56:
(Tim Miller)
Look, you can go back to when he yelled at people in the audience in 2015.
12:02:
(Tim Miller)
And told people to kick their ass of the protesters.
12:06:
(Tim Miller)
All caps tweeting liberate Michigan.
12:08:
(Tim Miller)
He didn't accept the results of the Iowa caucus.
12:10:
(Tim Miller)
He didn't accept the results of the 2016 election when he fucking won.
12:14:
(Tim Miller)
Okay?
12:15:
(Tim Miller)
He's been doing this coup for two months now.
12:18:
(Tim Miller)
They just wanted to let him blow off some steam.
12:21:
(Tim Miller)
They didn't think it was going to be a big deal.
12:23:
(Tim Miller)
The day before five people died at the Capitol, two Republicans were running for Senate on a pro-coup platform.
12:33:
(Tim Miller)
They had a rally where Donald Trump called for a coup, where the first sentence out of Kelly Loeffler's mouth was, we're going to get the coup done.
12:41:
(Tim Miller)
And everybody cheered.
12:45:
(Tim Miller)
And then the next day they have a riot and people die.
12:49:
(Tim Miller)
And all of these people who supported everything up until the night before now are like, Ooh, it's really Donald Trump's rhetoric that it's gone too far.
13:00:
(Tim Miller)
Fuck you.
13:01:
(Tim Miller)
So come on.
13:03:
(Tim Miller)
Are you serious?
13:04:
(Tim Miller)
Are you serious?
13:05:
(Tim Miller)
And then I have to, then everybody, you know, has to be like, yes, thank you.
13:09:
(Tim Miller)
Thank you.
13:10:
(Tim Miller)
Alyssa Farah and Bill Barr and Nikki Haley.
13:13:
(Tim Miller)
This is on them.
13:16:
(Charlie Sykes)
So in the first, you mentioned, I think, the key thing here.
13:19:
(Charlie Sykes)
And every day I try to go through what's the chaff, what's the wheat in terms of the news, figuring out what actually makes a difference.
13:29:
(Charlie Sykes)
And, you know, I mean, there's a lot of things.
13:30:
(Charlie Sykes)
I mean, is it Nancy Pelosi?
13:32:
(Charlie Sykes)
And, you know, is it Nancy Pelosi calling for Trump's removal?
13:38:
(Charlie Sykes)
Was it that sort of, you know, Disney animatronic speech that Donald Trump gave last night where he sort of conceded, not conceded?
13:45:
(Charlie Sykes)
You know what?
13:47:
(Charlie Sykes)
I think the one thing that is hanging over everything right now at this moment are the deaths, is that five people died and that you can't spin it anymore when you have a Capitol Police officer whose head was bashed in, who was murdered by rioters.
14:05:
(Charlie Sykes)
you know, during, during this, uh, this, this insurrection, you know, that he, that he, that he died in the line of duty.
14:11:
(Charlie Sykes)
I mean, this, this takes all the people who are in denial.
14:15:
(Charlie Sykes)
You, you, you saw that, that there was this, there's multiple, you know, the right wing media ecosystem, Trump, uh, spin was, uh, okay, well, it wasn't that bad.
14:24:
(Charlie Sykes)
It was just tourists.
14:25:
(Charlie Sykes)
You had Sean Davis from the federalist saying, oh, these people, you know, they didn't know they weren't allowed in and they just sort of wandered in and, you know, Ben Dominic, uh,
14:33:
(Charlie Sykes)
From the from the federalists saying, yeah, he wasn't really bothered by this because, you know, the the Capitol really wasn't that sacred.
14:41:
(Charlie Sykes)
And, you know, other people saying, well, it was mainly, you know, peaceful protest and really no different than Black Lives Matter.
14:48:
(Charlie Sykes)
Well, when you have a dead police, when you have five dead people.
14:52:
(Charlie Sykes)
That just blows away all of the attempts to minimize it.
14:55:
(Charlie Sykes)
The Antifa infiltrators is just complete bullshit.
15:00:
(Charlie Sykes)
It turns out that Matt Gaetz and the Washington Times were just lying about all of that.
15:04:
(Charlie Sykes)
And I think this is a huge, huge problem.
15:09:
(Charlie Sykes)
for anyone that was going to rationalize the president's behavior.
15:14:
(Charlie Sykes)
Because remember, this is the movement for law and order.
15:16:
(Charlie Sykes)
This is the Blue Lives Matter.
15:18:
(Charlie Sykes)
Well, you know, screw that, right?
15:19:
(Charlie Sykes)
Because you people incited a riot that ended up with a dead cop.
15:23:
(Charlie Sykes)
Okay, so I want to play the animatronic Donald Trump.
15:27:
(Charlie Sykes)
Before you play the animatronic, I was trying to say one thing about this.
15:31:
(Charlie Sykes)
Absolutely, sure.
15:31:
(Tim Miller)
This is not, I'm sorry, these are not the first deaths, okay?
15:35:
(Tim Miller)
So they're the first ones that you can say,
15:38:
(Tim Miller)
You know, obviously Donald Trump said, let's march to the Capitol together and get wild.
15:43:
(Tim Miller)
So, I mean, you know, in this one, I think obviously the tie is more direct.
15:48:
(Tim Miller)
But the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting was based on, you know, anti-Semitic conspiracies that were going around in Donald Trump's circles.
16:01:
(Tim Miller)
The El Paso killer was, you know, a believer of this great replacement theory.
16:08:
(Tim Miller)
You know, obviously Christ Church in New Zealand.
16:12:
(Tim Miller)
So there have been other deaths of people who got into Q that, you know, just kind of went crazy.
16:20:
(Charlie Sykes)
And there could have been more.
16:22:
(Charlie Sykes)
You had Cesar Sayoc who, you know, sent out those bombs.
16:25:
(Charlie Sykes)
You had the plot, which again, you know, that anyone is surprised about this.
16:30:
(Charlie Sykes)
Remember, we had a plot to kidnap and murder the governor of Michigan.
16:34:
(Charlie Sykes)
Yes.
16:34:
(Charlie Sykes)
That was this year.
16:36:
(Charlie Sykes)
That was a direct line between the rhetoric and the politics of... Where was Nikki Haley then, by the way?
16:44:
(Tim Miller)
Did Nikki Haley say anything about the plot to kill the governor of Michigan?
16:48:
(Tim Miller)
I don't remember that.
16:49:
(Charlie Sykes)
Remember how Donald Trump tried to lower the temperature in Michigan?
16:53:
(Charlie Sykes)
Yeah.
16:53:
(Charlie Sykes)
Alyssa Farah stayed on, on staff, right?
16:57:
(Charlie Sykes)
She quit then.
16:57:
(Charlie Sykes)
I can't remember.
16:58:
(Charlie Sykes)
All caps.
16:59:
(Charlie Sykes)
Liberate Michigan.
17:01:
(Charlie Sykes)
Yeah.
17:01:
(Charlie Sykes)
So what the fuck did you people think was going to happen?
17:04:
(Charlie Sykes)
Really?
17:04:
(Charlie Sykes)
What were you expecting was going to happen?
17:06:
(Charlie Sykes)
Really?
17:07:
(Charlie Sykes)
You think about all the things you said, Oh, these are just his words.
17:10:
(Charlie Sykes)
These are just his tweets.
17:11:
(Charlie Sykes)
It's not going to lead to anything.
17:13:
(Charlie Sykes)
But now we have five dead people in the U S capital after an attack on
17:18:
(Charlie Sykes)
You know, incited by the president, the head of the executive branch against the legislative branch.
17:25:
(Charlie Sykes)
The president of the United States incited an attack on the legislative branch.
17:30:
(Charlie Sykes)
I mean, even the Wall Street Journal.
17:33:
(Charlie Sykes)
That's impeachable.
17:34:
(Charlie Sykes)
This is this is too far.
17:35:
(Charlie Sykes)
OK, let me play the animatronic Donald Trump.
17:38:
(Donald Trump)
I would like to begin by addressing the heinous attack on the United States Capitol.
17:43:
(Donald Trump)
Like all Americans, I am outraged by the violence, lawlessness, and mayhem.
17:49:
(Donald Trump)
I immediately deployed the National Guard and federal law enforcement to secure the building and expel the intruders.
17:58:
(Donald Trump)
America is and must always be a nation of law and order.
18:03:
(Donald Trump)
The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy.
18:10:
(Donald Trump)
To those who engaged in the acts of violence and destruction, you do not represent our country.
18:16:
(Donald Trump)
And to those who broke the law, you will pay.
18:19:
(Charlie Sykes)
OK, just a reminder in case people forgot because it was like two days ago.
18:27:
(Charlie Sykes)
Trump put out a video while the mob was in the Capitol.
18:31:
(Charlie Sykes)
And remember, he said, we love you.
18:35:
(Charlie Sykes)
You're very special.
18:37:
(Charlie Sykes)
And then later, he seemed to justify the actions in a tweet writing, these are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away.
18:48:
(Charlie Sykes)
So that was the quote unquote new tone from Donald Trump.
18:52:
(Charlie Sykes)
And we know how this works, right, Tim?
18:54:
(Charlie Sykes)
It'll take about
18:55:
(Charlie Sykes)
10 minutes for him to be back doing the other stuff.
19:00:
(Charlie Sykes)
Give me your explanation for why he felt the need to come out.
19:05:
(Charlie Sykes)
By the way, there's a lot of his people who feel very betrayed by this.
19:08:
(Charlie Sykes)
I think it was Emerald Robinson tweeted out that he was throwing his supporters under the bus.
19:15:
(Charlie Sykes)
There are other folks that were really upset about his concession.
19:19:
(Charlie Sykes)
But, you know, there he is, the president of the United States, saying his people that he told to go to the Capitol and to fight.
19:27:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, I think I love two things.
19:29:
(Tim Miller)
This quickly, I think that he did it because.
19:32:
(Tim Miller)
The one thing that has saved us throughout all this is this empty black hole in Donald Trump's heart where he does still kind of want to be loved.
19:41:
(Tim Miller)
And whenever he gets up to the edge of the plank and he puts his toe in the water, he tends to pull it back out.
19:47:
(Tim Miller)
If he's getting criticized too harshly or he's worried that he's going to get sued or in jail or impeached or whatever, he really didn't want to get impeached.
19:56:
(Tim Miller)
the first time.
19:56:
(Tim Miller)
I know that some people don't believe that, but he really genuinely didn't.
20:00:
(Tim Miller)
He knows branding.
20:01:
(Tim Miller)
He knows what it means to be the impeached president.
20:03:
(Tim Miller)
I think it was simple as that.
20:09:
(Tim Miller)
He felt the walls closing in and felt like he needed to calm it down.
20:12:
(Tim Miller)
We've been through this before.
20:13:
(Tim Miller)
He's done these hostage tapes before.
20:15:
(Tim Miller)
Then 48 hours later, real Donald comes back out.
20:20:
(Tim Miller)
I want to take maybe a counterintuitive position, which is
20:25:
(Tim Miller)
I agree with Emerald, actually.
20:28:
(Tim Miller)
He is betraying them.
20:30:
(Tim Miller)
The only reason that people, that the smart set of the Wall Street Journal ed board and all these idiots that missed this every step of the way, every Republican senator, every other conservative media outlet except us and the dispatch, the reason that they missed this is because they thought he was a clown.
20:49:
(Tim Miller)
My article about this, about how
20:52:
(Tim Miller)
You know, they took, Trump's voters took Trump, you know, seriously, not literally, the famous quote by Brad Todd and Selena Zito.
21:00:
(Tim Miller)
No, they, no, that was wrong.
21:02:
(Tim Miller)
They took him seriously and literally, okay?
21:06:
(Tim Miller)
It was the Trump enablers that thought he, that were treating him like he was a clown and that it was all a joke and that what he was saying wasn't a big deal, okay?
21:15:
(Tim Miller)
So if you were one of his supporters who is down, especially during the last year where
21:20:
(Tim Miller)
you know, you have been maybe isolated somewhat and you're down this online rabbit hole and you're reading everything that's happening on cue.
21:28:
(Tim Miller)
And every tweet you see from this insane Twitter feed is about how they're stealing this from us.
21:32:
(Tim Miller)
They're stealing their country from us.
21:33:
(Tim Miller)
They're, they're going to implement socialism.
21:36:
(Tim Miller)
You know, they're, they're going to put, you know, real Americans aren't going to be able to go to church, aren't going to be able to live their lives.
21:44:
(Tim Miller)
They're going to end, they're going to end Jesus and Christmas.
21:48:
(Tim Miller)
Like,
21:49:
(Tim Miller)
Eventually, people that believe that shit want to act on it, you know, and they want to say they want to stop that because that sounds really bad.
21:58:
(Tim Miller)
So then when he is telling them all that and then they finally take things into their own hands because the end is near.
22:06:
(Tim Miller)
I would also be upset if he's been like, actually, you guys went a little overboard.
22:11:
(Tim Miller)
They didn't go overboard.
22:13:
(Tim Miller)
Trump went overboard.
22:14:
(Tim Miller)
They acted logically, given what they were told.
22:17:
(Charlie Sykes)
They did.
22:18:
(Charlie Sykes)
There are some reports that Trump thought that they looked low class, that he was concerned about the aesthetics of it rather than what they actually did.
22:26:
(Tim Miller)
He wasn't concerned about the aesthetics when they were dancing backstage to Gloria.
22:30:
(Charlie Sykes)
If people haven't seen this, by the way, I'm, I'm a big Laura Brannigan fan.
22:35:
(Charlie Sykes)
I hope this doesn't, uh, they're, they, they are watching this and clearly kind of cheering it on, but here's the, here's the delicious part about this, which, you know, the, the reason why we actually have this very damaging, very damning video of the president, you know, you know, cheering on this, this, this protest is because, you know, his idiot son, Don Jr. posted it online.
22:58:
(Charlie Sykes)
I mean,
23:00:
(Charlie Sykes)
OK, everybody's got to read this Tim Alberta piece in Politico.
23:03:
(Charlie Sykes)
Do you see this where he talks about makes the exact point you're making?
23:06:
(Charlie Sykes)
This was all four years in the making.
23:09:
(Charlie Sykes)
He said, I spent the last election cycle immersed in the metastasizing paranoia behind Wednesday's assault on Congress.
23:15:
(Charlie Sykes)
Nobody should be surprised by what happened.
23:18:
(Charlie Sykes)
Right wing propaganda outlets like The Federalist and OAN churned out deceptive content framing the election as obviously corrupt.
23:27:
(Charlie Sykes)
The Republican National Committee itself hosted disgraced lawyer Sidney Powell for a sanctioned news conference that bordered on clinically insane.
23:37:
(Charlie Sykes)
And then he makes this really scary point.
23:39:
(Charlie Sykes)
He said, you know, the fringe of our politics no longer exists.
23:43:
(Charlie Sykes)
What he means is that, you know, the line between the you know, that what's happened is the democratization of information exists.
23:53:
(Charlie Sykes)
has basically meant that there's no longer any buffer between mainstream thought and the extreme crackpot elements of our politics.
24:03:
(Charlie Sykes)
And that's really the scary part about that.
24:05:
(Charlie Sykes)
So when we're talking about the enablers or the people who incited this, yes, Donald Trump.
24:10:
(Charlie Sykes)
But also, all of the media outlets and Fox, I'd throw Fox News in there as well, all of those folks that went along, not to mention the Josh Hollys and Ted Cruz.
24:21:
(Charlie Sykes)
You want to talk about Josh Holley and Ted Cruz, by the way?
24:23:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, can I start?
24:25:
(Tim Miller)
That's easy pickings.
24:26:
(Tim Miller)
I want to start with Mitch McConnell and Tom Cotton, because I saw a comment yesterday that really angered me, which was that
24:35:
(Tim Miller)
um, from Ari Fleischer that congratulated Mitch McConnell and, and Tom Cotton for getting this thing right from the start, uh, because they didn't sign on to Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley's letter.
24:46:
(Tim Miller)
So, so we can get to Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley's letter, but I'm sorry.
24:51:
(Tim Miller)
When was the start?
24:53:
(Tim Miller)
I don't understand when the start was, was the start like two hours before the policeman died?
24:57:
(Tim Miller)
Because, uh, you know, the Gabe Sherman or the, excuse me, the Brad Raffensperger tape, uh,
25:05:
(Tim Miller)
You know, where Donald Trump was trying to steal the election and ask Brad Raffensperger to find votes for him.
25:10:
(Tim Miller)
That was Sunday.
25:11:
(Tim Miller)
OK, that was right.
25:13:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah.
25:13:
(Tim Miller)
Today's Wednesday.
25:14:
(Tim Miller)
That was on Sunday.
25:15:
(Tim Miller)
So I don't remember Tom Cotton and Mitch McConnell calling for impeachment on Sunday when Donald Trump was trying to steal the election and pressure elected officials to find votes that weren't there.
25:26:
(Tim Miller)
I don't know.
25:27:
(Tim Miller)
Maybe I just missed the Senate majority leader calling for impeachment on Sunday.
25:31:
(Tim Miller)
But I think he was quiet because he wanted to stay majority leader and that there was a Senate election two days later in Georgia.
25:37:
(Tim Miller)
And that finally, once he'd already lost his power, he had the balls to say something on the...
25:42:
(Tim Miller)
Senate floor.
25:44:
(Tim Miller)
And now, you know, people want to act like this is his finest moment or whatever the national review called it.
25:48:
(Tim Miller)
So, uh, you know, I mean, I just like Holly and Cruz are a completely different category because they're trying to go for 2024.
25:55:
(Tim Miller)
Um, but, uh, but this is, this was, this was everyone.
26:00:
(Tim Miller)
And, you know, my crew, the thing with Cruz is he was asked for the Dallas paper.
26:04:
(Tim Miller)
If he would do it again, knowing what he knows, he said, yes.
26:09:
(Charlie Sykes)
I have a soundbite from Ted Cruz, but your point is right in terms of Mitch McConnell.
26:15:
(Charlie Sykes)
What do you mean right from the beginning?
26:17:
(Charlie Sykes)
And a couple of things on Georgia, the sort of scattered reaction here.
26:22:
(Charlie Sykes)
Remember, it was Gabriel.
26:24:
(Charlie Sykes)
It was Gabe Sterling who was one of the top election officials who...
26:27:
(Charlie Sykes)
gave that passionate press conference a few weeks ago, pleading with the president, your rhetoric is going to get people killed.
26:34:
(Charlie Sykes)
Do you remember that?
26:35:
(Charlie Sykes)
He specifically said, Mr. President, you're setting fire.
26:43:
(Charlie Sykes)
You don't understand how bad it is.
26:46:
(Charlie Sykes)
Or if you do understand it, you need to stop doing it.
26:49:
(Charlie Sykes)
People will die.
26:50:
(Charlie Sykes)
So this, again, the warnings were out there.
26:53:
(Charlie Sykes)
They were very high profile warnings.
26:55:
(Charlie Sykes)
And let's go back to Mitch McConnell.
26:57:
(Charlie Sykes)
Because I want to actually run the tape back way further than you.
27:00:
(Charlie Sykes)
Remember that famous quote right after the election in the Washington Post where one senior Republican official tells the Washington Post, what's the downside for humoring him for this for a little bit of time?
27:14:
(Charlie Sykes)
No one seriously thinks the results will change.
27:17:
(Tim Miller)
I actually saved that because I have it in front of me.
27:20:
(Charlie Sykes)
What is the... Oh, wait, no, you have it.
27:22:
(Charlie Sykes)
Yeah, what is the down...
27:23:
(Charlie Sykes)
He went golfing this week, and it's not like he's plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on January 20th.
27:29:
(Charlie Sykes)
He's tweeting about filing some lawsuits.
27:31:
(Charlie Sykes)
Those lawsuits will fail.
27:33:
(Charlie Sykes)
Then he'll tweet some more about how the election was stolen, and then he'll leave.
27:36:
(Charlie Sykes)
Well...
27:37:
(Charlie Sykes)
No, that was the calculation.
27:39:
(Charlie Sykes)
Of course, that was the calculation that that Mitch McConnell made right away.
27:43:
(Charlie Sykes)
Now, he eventually.
27:44:
(Tim Miller)
I just want to just really quick interrupt.
27:45:
(Tim Miller)
Is that this is a fun aside?
27:47:
(Tim Miller)
Is that the worst macabre fun?
27:50:
(Tim Miller)
Is that the worst background quote in history?
27:52:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, it may.
27:53:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, I would I would challenge the listeners to find a worse background quote in history than what is the downside for humoring him a few weeks before their five deaths on the Capitol.
28:03:
(Charlie Sykes)
OK, but this is familiar to us, Tim, because over the last four years, how many times have people really smart people told you and I?
28:09:
(Charlie Sykes)
Oh, gosh, you know, come on.
28:11:
(Charlie Sykes)
What's what's the point?
28:13:
(Charlie Sykes)
You know, you know, you shouldn't sweat it.
28:15:
(Charlie Sykes)
You should chill out a little bit.
28:16:
(Charlie Sykes)
OK, so we're going to get these judges.
28:18:
(Charlie Sykes)
We're going to get the tax cuts.
28:19:
(Charlie Sykes)
We're going to get this.
28:20:
(Charlie Sykes)
You shouldn't care about Charlottesville.
28:22:
(Charlie Sykes)
You shouldn't care about the Muslim ban.
28:23:
(Charlie Sykes)
You shouldn't care about the corruption.
28:24:
(Charlie Sykes)
You shouldn't care about the kids in cages and all that.
28:27:
(Charlie Sykes)
Come on.
28:27:
(Charlie Sykes)
Just the tweets.
28:29:
(Tim Miller)
Was there ever a bigger lie that it's just the tweets?
28:32:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, besides the fact that it wasn't just the tweets, even if it was just the tweets, here we are.
28:37:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, the tweets just by themselves have led to what we saw on Wednesday.
28:43:
(Charlie Sykes)
So if Mitch McConnell and all of the Republicans had immediately on December, when did they declare him the victor?
28:49:
(Charlie Sykes)
It was December 7th or something, declared Joe Biden the victor.
28:53:
(Charlie Sykes)
If they had done what has been done in every other election season, it might have, it would certainly have not have enabled the insanity that grew and grew and grew.
29:05:
(Charlie Sykes)
They could have stopped it or slowed it down.
29:08:
(Charlie Sykes)
So, yeah, Mitch McConnell's decision to say, hey, let's just let him work through his feelings as if, you know, I mean, because his feelings are hurt.
29:17:
(Charlie Sykes)
So therefore, we shouldn't do anything.
29:19:
(Charlie Sykes)
It's just been disastrously mistaken.
29:22:
(Charlie Sykes)
And all of those same lines.
29:24:
(Charlie Sykes)
You know, think back to Election Day and the day after the election and where the Republican Party was.
29:32:
(Charlie Sykes)
They actually were in a pretty good position when you think about it.
29:36:
(Charlie Sykes)
OK, Trump was leaving.
29:37:
(Charlie Sykes)
OK, but, you know, they had picked up lots of seats in the House.
29:42:
(Charlie Sykes)
Mitch McConnell was still in charge of the U.S. Senate.
29:45:
(Charlie Sykes)
If Donald Trump would have behaved like a normal human being and maybe emphasized the rollout of the vaccine, if they would have done something serious to deal with stimulus and relief, OK, they would have lost the presidency.
30:04:
(Charlie Sykes)
But the Republican Party, you know, guys like Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell would be able to look around and say, you know, this isn't so bad.
30:10:
(Charlie Sykes)
You know, we still control the Supreme Court.
30:12:
(Charlie Sykes)
We still got a story to tell.
30:15:
(Charlie Sykes)
We're probably going to win the House back in two years.
30:18:
(Charlie Sykes)
Really not so.
30:19:
(Charlie Sykes)
And look where they are right now.
30:22:
(Charlie Sykes)
I mean, this is this Chernobyl of political awfulness and
30:28:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, Charlie, to this point, I just want to give you a counterfactual.
30:31:
(Tim Miller)
So let's say that David Perdue hung on to win.
30:37:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah.
30:37:
(Tim Miller)
Okay, let's say David Perdue hung on to win.
30:39:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, John House only won by 0.5%, so that was not inevitable.
30:44:
(Tim Miller)
Let's say that David Perdue hung on to win.
30:46:
(Tim Miller)
And let's say after that mob, after that rally, the Capitol Police and the National Guard had done the minimum to protect the Capitol.
30:56:
(Tim Miller)
And there had been maybe a skirmish outside.
30:59:
(Tim Miller)
They didn't breach the building.
31:01:
(Tim Miller)
One person had a heart attack, but they were one of the protesters.
31:08:
(Tim Miller)
It wasn't really a death.
31:09:
(Tim Miller)
It wasn't like a shooting or a cop dying.
31:12:
(Tim Miller)
um they were they marched through the streets chanting donald trump cheers them on the next day uh you know mike pence you know they they count the votes there's booing there's chanting there's some bottles thrown outside the capitol the next morning we all wake up and uh what is what's everybody saying that everybody's like see that wasn't so bad
31:37:
(Tim Miller)
All these people who are jumping off the ship, they're all still on.
31:41:
(Crosstalk)
They're all still on.
31:42:
(Tim Miller)
Mitch McConnell, everybody's still on the team.
31:45:
(Tim Miller)
There's not a single person who quit or who's jumped or who's criticized him in the last day that would not have stuck with him had everything been the same, but two things were different.
31:56:
(Tim Miller)
They didn't actually breach the Capitol, and David Perdue won, so the Republicans still had the Senate.
32:01:
(Charlie Sykes)
Yeah.
32:02:
(Charlie Sykes)
Yeah, I would like to say that the conscience of the Senate Republicans was really, really affected by everything that happened.
32:08:
(Charlie Sykes)
But I think that what really, really happened this week was they lost control in Georgia.
32:12:
(Charlie Sykes)
And you know the reaction would be very different.
32:15:
(Tim Miller)
Same with Merrick Zuckerberg, by the way, and Jack Dorsey, whose I think conscience was greatly affected by the fact that they're no longer going to have Republicans, you know, that it's now the Democrats that are going to be regulating them.
32:28:
(Tim Miller)
But just...
32:29:
(Charlie Sykes)
I'm going to come back a little bit later to talk about this.
32:33:
(Charlie Sykes)
All of the issues raised by the security breakdown, but as we were talking about, we've got to do some of the low-hanging fruit, Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz.
32:39:
(Charlie Sykes)
So as everybody is going through this reputation laundering, the people that are saying, you know, we were against him all along, or now we're shocked, shocked, shocked, and we can't, in good conscience, I cannot work for this man for the next 11 days or how many working days they have.
32:57:
(Charlie Sykes)
And then you had this
32:59:
(Charlie Sykes)
moment where Ted Cruz actually goes on this interview.
33:03:
(Charlie Sykes)
I don't even know where it is.
33:05:
(Charlie Sykes)
And he goes, I've been disagreeing with the president for the last four years.
33:09:
(Charlie Sykes)
So this is, take a deep breath here.
33:11:
(Charlie Sykes)
Okay.
33:12:
(Charlie Sykes)
Ted Cruz.
33:14:
(Ted Cruz)
Tom, I think you have to draw a distinction.
33:16:
(Ted Cruz)
I agree with you that the president's language and rhetoric often goes too far.
33:22:
(Ted Cruz)
I think yesterday in particular, the president's language and rhetoric crossed a line and it was reckless.
33:29:
(Ted Cruz)
I disagree with it.
33:31:
(Ted Cruz)
And I have disagreed with the president's language and rhetoric for the last four years and have said so many, many times.
33:40:
(Crosstalk)
Many, many times.
33:42:
(Crosstalk)
Go to hell.
33:44:
(Crosstalk)
Go to hell, Ted Cruz.
33:46:
(Crosstalk)
I don't know whether this is just gaslighting or it's like...
33:49:
(Tim Miller)
I think he really believes it.
33:50:
(Crosstalk)
I think he really convinced himself of this.
33:53:
(Charlie Sykes)
These are not the droids you're looking for.
33:55:
(Charlie Sykes)
I have boldly stood up against him.
33:58:
(Charlie Sykes)
Do you remember when I denounced him when he said my wife was ugly and he said my father killed JFK?
34:04:
(Charlie Sykes)
I mean, I've been a fierce critic of... Really?
34:08:
(Charlie Sykes)
Really?
34:09:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, remember, he doesn't see the tweets.
34:11:
(Tim Miller)
I'm sorry, he's been a critic of Donaldson.
34:13:
(Tim Miller)
And this is the whole thing.
34:15:
(Tim Miller)
They all spent the whole time pretending not to see what he was saying.
34:22:
(Tim Miller)
And look, I have to go back to the point that Cruz...
34:26:
(Tim Miller)
Ted Cruz, I think, has this pathological type behavior.
34:32:
(Tim Miller)
I said this, I was like, I think that this person needs to be in a mental institution, not in the Senate.
34:37:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, he created this fantasy in his head that there's voter fraud and that there's this widespread fraud that Ted Cruz needs to come in and save the day and uncover without actually doing any work, but just by vamping about it on the Senate floor.
34:55:
(Tim Miller)
And that is going to overturn the results of the election and maintain Donald Trump in power for a second term.
35:04:
(Tim Miller)
And this effort, which was a total fantasy, which was a total show, which was based on nothing,
35:12:
(Tim Miller)
It then results in a mob of people believing him, storming the Capitol, occupying the Capitol, five deaths.
35:19:
(Tim Miller)
The next day, and then after the people die, they go back into the Senate, and he goes along and votes for it.
35:27:
(Tim Miller)
Again, the imaginary fraud.
35:30:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, this is clinical.
35:33:
(Charlie Sykes)
No.
35:34:
(Charlie Sykes)
But it's happening.
35:35:
(Charlie Sykes)
I totally disagree with you on this.
35:37:
(Charlie Sykes)
There are people who are delusional and need treatment.
35:42:
(Charlie Sykes)
Ted Cruz is a charlatan.
35:48:
(Charlie Sykes)
He knows all this stuff.
35:50:
(Charlie Sykes)
He knew that that Texas lawsuit was bullshit.
35:53:
(Charlie Sykes)
He knows all this stuff.
35:54:
(Charlie Sykes)
He doesn't care.
35:56:
(Charlie Sykes)
And I actually think that he thinks that he can step in and be the successor to Donald Trump because he does share one thing with Donald Trump.
36:04:
(Charlie Sykes)
the absolute lack of shame of any kind.
36:07:
(Charlie Sykes)
I think that this is not clinical.
36:08:
(Charlie Sykes)
This is just fundamental dishonest.
36:11:
(Charlie Sykes)
This man is dishonest to the core and he knows how to play it.
36:16:
(Charlie Sykes)
And he's done this over and over again throughout his career where he makes promises.
36:21:
(Charlie Sykes)
He does things that he knows he can't achieve.
36:24:
(Charlie Sykes)
He raises people's expectation.
36:25:
(Charlie Sykes)
Remember, he became that big celebrity with the government shutdown and everything and
36:29:
(Charlie Sykes)
And Rush Limbaugh thought that, you know, he was the, you know, the next great conservative leader.
36:33:
(Charlie Sykes)
And everybody, you know, went to Cruz and said, what the fuck are you doing?
36:36:
(Charlie Sykes)
What is your end game?
36:37:
(Charlie Sykes)
How do you think you're actually going to win this?
36:38:
(Charlie Sykes)
And the answer was he had no idea.
36:40:
(Charlie Sykes)
He knew you all remember this.
36:42:
(Charlie Sykes)
He knew it was bogus and he did it anyway, because this is the way his deeply corrupt mind.
36:49:
(Charlie Sykes)
So I guess I'm trying to make a distinction here, Tim, between people who are crazy and people who are evil.
36:54:
(Charlie Sykes)
And in this particular case, there are a lot of crazies out there, but Ted Cruz is in the pure Dr.
36:59:
(Charlie Sykes)
Evil category.
37:00:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, but I might be a level of evil that requires institutionalizing.
37:04:
(Tim Miller)
I don't know.
37:04:
(Tim Miller)
I'm not a doctor, but I just, I mean, because he did have a break.
37:08:
(Tim Miller)
Here's the difference though, by the way, is that we know Ted Cruz is capable of seeing reality because he had a break with Donald Trump in 2016 and he went up and gave what in retrospect was
37:20:
(Tim Miller)
Again, with the counterfactuals.
37:21:
(Tim Miller)
In retrospect, when he said, vote your conscience about Donald Trump, and then when he realized it was going to ruin his political career the next day and his internal polls came in and he had a mob of Texas Republicans yelling at him, he changed his tune.
37:35:
(Tim Miller)
But had he stuck with that?
37:37:
(Tim Miller)
Had he stuck with that, it would be Ted Cruz sitting here with us, right?
37:41:
(Tim Miller)
I'm saying, saying, saying, well, you know, Matt is selling with us per se, literally.
37:45:
(Tim Miller)
I don't know.
37:45:
(Tim Miller)
We'd want to talk to Ted Cruz, but you know what I mean?
37:47:
(Tim Miller)
And in general, he knew he saw it and then, and then he saw the reaction.
37:54:
(Tim Miller)
And so he never, he never made that mistake again, you know?
37:57:
(Tim Miller)
So that, I mean, that shows that it is, that just, that just makes your point really, not mine, that about how calculating it is that he,
38:04:
(Tim Miller)
Uh, he's capable.
38:06:
(Charlie Sykes)
He just, he just took, uh, you know, is totally capable.
38:10:
(Charlie Sykes)
And I think that's, what's really important to understand that when people say he's smart, he's really, really smart in sort of a Machiavellian evil kind of way.
38:18:
(Charlie Sykes)
But I mean, I, I've said this before, I have this picture, which I have now taken down from my wall because I can't take it anymore.
38:23:
(Charlie Sykes)
The picture of me with Ted Cruz back in April of 19 of, uh, 2016, when I helped him win the Wisconsin primary, uh,
38:32:
(Charlie Sykes)
Even though I knew he was a snake.
38:34:
(Charlie Sykes)
Okay.
38:35:
(Charlie Sykes)
It was, he was, it was like the, you take the weapon at hand.
38:38:
(Charlie Sykes)
And so I'm shaking his hand saying, Hey, I will do any, you know, and, and, and, and his wife, Heidi's right next to me.
38:43:
(Charlie Sykes)
And it's like, I will do anything possible to get you elected.
38:45:
(Charlie Sykes)
I said, Oh man, fuck me.
38:47:
(Charlie Sykes)
You know, I mean, after all this, but here's the, the weird part about it, as you know,
38:53:
(Charlie Sykes)
among the other dark moments in my past was was ron johnson and ron johnson in his first two years was it was i'm i'm telling you it was a different guy and one of the things that really motivated him and he and i talked about a lot was what a total asshole ted cruz was how dishonest ted cruz was now ron johnson's elected a basically a tea party agenda i mean he's out there you know against obamacare um
39:20:
(Charlie Sykes)
very much against debt spending and everything.
39:22:
(Charlie Sykes)
And yet he recognized early on that Ted Cruz was completely dishonest, that he was a charlatan.
39:29:
(Charlie Sykes)
There was a reason why Ted Cruz was the most hated man in the Senate.
39:33:
(Charlie Sykes)
And I remember at one point,
39:35:
(Charlie Sykes)
Johnson went on Mark Levin's radio show and he was saying, look, this this filibuster makes no sense because we're not going to be able to succeed.
39:44:
(Charlie Sykes)
The Democrats are not going to give us what we want.
39:46:
(Charlie Sykes)
So this really has no point to it whatsoever.
39:48:
(Charlie Sykes)
Mark Levin was beating up on Johnson and kicking him and calling him names and why he wasn't fighting more.
39:55:
(Charlie Sykes)
And I remember he was saying, like, you know, there's a lot of crazy out there.
39:58:
(Charlie Sykes)
And it was part of my relationship with Johnson was understanding how evil Ted Cruz was.
40:05:
(Charlie Sykes)
Now, here's the flip side.
40:07:
(Charlie Sykes)
Ted Cruz is still evil and a charlatan, but it's Ron Johnson who's become utterly delusional.
40:14:
(Charlie Sykes)
And that's the weird part.
40:16:
(Charlie Sykes)
Boy, I've gone off track here.
40:19:
(Charlie Sykes)
We all should have known this, right?
40:23:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah.
40:24:
(Tim Miller)
And, you know, again, sure, I guess.
40:27:
(Tim Miller)
I thought all those decisions were logical, though, right?
40:30:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, that's what you're saying, what you're reading about, about going along with Ted Cruz in the Wisconsin primary, even though you knew he was a snake, is that it's because of how obvious
40:41:
(Tim Miller)
unpresidential Donald Trump was in the extreme, right?
40:47:
(Tim Miller)
It was so obvious that this man was not capable of the job.
40:50:
(Tim Miller)
It was so obvious how potentially dangerous the tail risks were going to be with him that it was like,
40:56:
(Tim Miller)
I don't know.
40:57:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, I guess I'll have to deal with Ted Cruz.
40:59:
(Tim Miller)
I guess I'll have to deal with Hillary Clinton.
41:01:
(Tim Miller)
Those are the choices made by people who, you know, had, you know, who had functioning brains and were able to see what Donald Trump was and then were able to process what the, you know, what that meant, like, and what you had to do in response to dealing with that.
41:20:
(Tim Miller)
And so...
41:20:
(Charlie Sykes)
Yeah.
41:22:
(Charlie Sykes)
And that's where everybody else failed.
41:24:
(Charlie Sykes)
And the big flaw was, and I should have known this back then, and you still have the scars from 2016 as well, was I was figuring that when it came down to a one-on-one, there's no way that Trump could win.
41:38:
(Charlie Sykes)
But the problem was,
41:39:
(Charlie Sykes)
that if it was one-on-one with Ted Cruz, that as awful as Donald Trump was, Ted Cruz was more deeply and widely loathed.
41:47:
(Charlie Sykes)
So let's talk about Josh Hawley.
41:49:
(Charlie Sykes)
He had a shitty day yesterday.
41:50:
(Charlie Sykes)
I mean, his really, really bad day.
41:52:
(Charlie Sykes)
Okay, so his publisher rescinded his book deal.
41:56:
(Charlie Sykes)
His top donor, the guy who basically financed his campaigns, is now calling for him to be censured.
42:02:
(Charlie Sykes)
His home state newspapers, the Kansas City Star and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, are both calling for his resignation.
42:08:
(Charlie Sykes)
Kansas City Star saying that he has blood on his hands.
42:12:
(Charlie Sykes)
Mizzou law students are calling for his resignation.
42:16:
(Charlie Sykes)
John Danforth, the former senator, who had been a supporter of his, one of his mentors, calls his support of...
42:24:
(Charlie Sykes)
His support, the biggest mistake of his life.
42:28:
(Charlie Sykes)
And his colleagues are basically going, yeah, Josh, who?
42:32:
(Charlie Sykes)
So, I mean, you know, this headline in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial, Holly should resign.
42:39:
(Charlie Sykes)
Silent enablers must now.
42:41:
(Charlie Sykes)
publicly, they condemn Trumpism.
42:44:
(Charlie Sykes)
So this week was supposed to be the week that Josh Hawley launched Hawley 2024.
42:50:
(Charlie Sykes)
How's it going?
42:51:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, he's on the cover of the Washington Examiner magazine.
42:53:
(Tim Miller)
Oops, a little puff piece.
42:57:
(Tim Miller)
I'm not there.
42:59:
(Tim Miller)
I'm not certain yet that...
43:03:
(Tim Miller)
He's blown himself up completely with the Republican voters.
43:06:
(Tim Miller)
I think that the dust still remains to be settled with that.
43:10:
(Tim Miller)
Again, I lived through, we all lived through the Access Hollywood tape.
43:17:
(Tim Miller)
Everybody went against Trump then.
43:19:
(Tim Miller)
In the end of the day, the voters basically said, we don't actually care.
43:23:
(Tim Miller)
Is this different than that?
43:25:
(Tim Miller)
Yes, there are deaths.
43:28:
(Tim Miller)
Can we be 100% sure that the voters won't say,
43:32:
(Tim Miller)
We kind of actually think that it's Mitch McConnell and Tom Cotton who are the cucks.
43:37:
(Tim Miller)
And we sort of like what Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz and Donald Trump were doing.
43:41:
(Tim Miller)
I think that's very much still a possibility.
43:43:
(Tim Miller)
So as far as 2024 is going, I don't know that he did that.
43:47:
(Tim Miller)
I think what he has done is exposed himself as being...
43:52:
(Tim Miller)
a complete fraud and deeply, deeply unserious and phony.
43:59:
(Tim Miller)
And I think that that is going to hurt him with his Senate colleagues over the next two years where he's going to be very unpopular.
44:05:
(Tim Miller)
The rage eyes that Mitt Romney was giving at him as he was
44:09:
(Tim Miller)
still speaking about his fake coup attempt after the, after the people had died and the Capitol had been occupied was, you know, is a, is, is a meme for the centuries.
44:19:
(Tim Miller)
And, and, you know, I think that, you know, his little feet, you know, power, white power fist that he was giving outside the Capitol to, to the people.
44:28:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, it's just all embarrassing and deeply embarrassing to, to anybody, you know, who, you know,
44:35:
(Tim Miller)
who is outside of the Trump cult.
44:39:
(Tim Miller)
So the question is, you know, what, what kind of what the voters think and how, how things, how things bubble up.
44:46:
(Tim Miller)
And I think that within, you know, elite circles, if you will, to the extent that matters, I think he's going to be deeply shamed.
44:53:
(Tim Miller)
And I think that he revealed a lot about himself that was, that we all are pretty sure about, by the way, but that, that, you know, his kind of,
45:00:
(Tim Miller)
just very scared, embarrassed, half-hearted attempt to continue the coup after the Capitol was occupied was just a moment of historic weakness and shame that he is going to have.
45:13:
(Tim Miller)
And that fist picture is going to be something that follows him throughout the rest of his career, honestly.
45:18:
(Charlie Sykes)
Yeah.
45:18:
(Charlie Sykes)
And you think about it, Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, the most Trumpist of the 2024 prospects, had the worst week, of course.
45:27:
(Charlie Sykes)
You know, you do have the Tom Cottons who are still pretty Trumpy, but I don't know.
45:30:
(Charlie Sykes)
I where do you come down on all of the on on Trump 2024?
45:35:
(Charlie Sykes)
Because, you know, we've talked about this in the past where Trump is forever that if he announces he's running again, he freezes the the race.
45:43:
(Charlie Sykes)
He'd be the odds on favor to get nomination.
45:46:
(Charlie Sykes)
I don't think that's true anymore.
45:48:
(Charlie Sykes)
I think this has been tremendously damaging for him.
45:51:
(Charlie Sykes)
I think that, and I think that the next 12 days could make it even worse.
45:55:
(Charlie Sykes)
I'm trying to imagine a scenario in which Donald Trump becomes more popular than he is, you know, that does something that turns things around.
46:03:
(Charlie Sykes)
I mean, there might be some rallying around if they try to impeach him, but, um, I, I think that's done.
46:09:
(Charlie Sykes)
I, I just, I, I think that this week did make a difference and that Donald, Donald Trump's viability as, as, uh, as a candidate for four more years, uh,
46:19:
(Charlie Sykes)
I don't know.
46:22:
(Tim Miller)
I'm not a no on that one.
46:25:
(Tim Miller)
We'll see.
46:25:
(Tim Miller)
Again, I think the impeachment, we kind of cut that conversation at the beginning.
46:29:
(Tim Miller)
Again, if he is impeached and removed, which I don't think is a 0% chance at all, I think it's possible.
46:36:
(Tim Miller)
I went through the Senate...
46:39:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, again, I don't think a 0% chance, but if it happens, he can't run again, right?
46:44:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, that's not going to happen.
46:45:
(Tim Miller)
So, I mean, I looked through the Republican Senate roster last night, and I had trouble getting up past seven votes.
46:52:
(Tim Miller)
So, I don't really think it's going to happen, but I think that's possible.
46:55:
(Tim Miller)
possible um i think that legal ramifications are obviously very possible so so i think that you know 2024 could get derailed by by by these kind of outside forces outside the voters hands and there's also criminal charges as well yeah exactly which i think is is more likely so yeah
47:15:
(Tim Miller)
I guess I'm just saying, let's say that he survives all that.
47:20:
(Tim Miller)
Let's say that this is just in the hands of the voters.
47:24:
(Tim Miller)
I'm just sitting here right now this morning, January 8th, 2020.
47:28:
(Tim Miller)
I just think he's the favorite.
47:30:
(Tim Miller)
I think that if there was...
47:33:
(Tim Miller)
I think, you know, if he survives all the other stuff, now the other stuff, that's a big if, but I just think the voters are still with him.
47:39:
(Charlie Sykes)
Nah, you know what?
47:40:
(Charlie Sykes)
Okay.
47:41:
(Charlie Sykes)
I know why you're saying that because we have, you know, had this branded on us, but I do think, and again, this is why I come back to the fact that
47:50:
(Charlie Sykes)
we have a dead police officer in the Capitol.
47:52:
(Charlie Sykes)
This, this is something that, that he, it's going to be very hard for him to shake.
47:56:
(Charlie Sykes)
I don't see him coming.
47:57:
(Charlie Sykes)
Okay.
47:57:
(Charlie Sykes)
Let's talk about this, the security failure.
47:59:
(Charlie Sykes)
There's two things here that are just mind boggling.
48:02:
(Charlie Sykes)
And I can't really, I mean, I'm really kind of obsessed about number one, why it broke down so badly.
48:10:
(Charlie Sykes)
Who is responsible for not having the national guard that we're getting multiple stories, including stories that the Capitol police and the city of, of, of Washington refused support.
48:20:
(Charlie Sykes)
for them, in which case the mayor of Washington, I think, should resign, but also the double standard.
48:25:
(Charlie Sykes)
And I do think it's legitimate for people to say, you know, if if if these had been black protesters, they would not have been treated remotely in the same way as the protesters.
48:38:
(Charlie Sykes)
But again, I wasn't there.
48:39:
(Charlie Sykes)
What is what's what's your sense?
48:43:
(Tim Miller)
I want to be very cautious on this.
48:48:
(Tim Miller)
I think that there is good reason to believe that
48:52:
(Tim Miller)
you know, certain police officers were, you know, treated the MAGA protesters with much more discretion than with black protesters.
49:02:
(Tim Miller)
I think particularly in the counterfactual where it's a black riot inside the Capitol, I think you're seeing a much more aggressive policing.
49:09:
(Tim Miller)
So I think there's no doubt about that.
49:12:
(Tim Miller)
Some people have taken that to another extreme, which is like the Capitol Police is collaborating with them.
49:19:
(Tim Miller)
And I...
49:19:
(Tim Miller)
I haven't seen a lot of proof of that.
49:22:
(Tim Miller)
I think that what is the more likely explanation is that the Capitol Police is like the TSA of the police.
49:32:
(Tim Miller)
This is not an anti-riot outfit over there.
49:35:
(Tim Miller)
This is a failure.
49:37:
(Tim Miller)
I certainly think it was a failure from the White House who didn't
49:40:
(Tim Miller)
who chose not to act because they didn't want to militarize the actions against their own supporters.
49:45:
(Tim Miller)
So absolutely, that's a fair criticism.
49:48:
(Tim Miller)
But some of the charges about the police themselves, I think that they were overwhelmed, man.
49:52:
(Tim Miller)
And I think that there were a lot of instances last summer that we saw where there were some instances, of course, of just disgusting police brutality, disgusting violence.
50:01:
(Tim Miller)
But there were other instances where, to me, where police looked overwhelmed and were kind of letting, you know, vandalism and stuff happen just because, you know, they were just trying to, you know, not make the situation worse.
50:13:
(Tim Miller)
So I think that there are two things can be the same, right?
50:16:
(Tim Miller)
That, of course, you know, a black, you know, instigated riot outside the Capitol, occupying the Capitol, they would be treated more harshly.
50:24:
(Tim Miller)
I don't think, I also think an explanation is,
50:29:
(Tim Miller)
for this is that these guys were just completely, completely overwhelmed and were just trying to, you know, contain and manage it until the, until the, you know, reserves came in and the reserves came in late, according to Larry Hogan, because the, the, the administration slow walked it.
50:46:
(Tim Miller)
So absolutely shame on them and shame everybody that worked as part of that.
50:51:
(Tim Miller)
So, so that would be like the distinction I would draw.
50:53:
(Charlie Sykes)
i think everybody needs to be held accountable for this and i'm uh pretty certain that i i think this investigation is going to be extraordinary my i guess i have a little bit of anxiety now whether or not they're going to get it right uh for the inauguration which is just 12 days away because i have to tell you that i was on a show this morning i think i mentioned before we started the podcast where somebody i'm not going to try to beat on somebody was saying that
51:18:
(Charlie Sykes)
You know, we're in this era of good.
51:20:
(Charlie Sykes)
We're about to go into an era of good feeling where people are going to be able to, you know, embrace the new politics of bipartisan decency.
51:29:
(Charlie Sykes)
And this has broken the fever.
51:31:
(Charlie Sykes)
And I had to say, I'd like to think that's true, but I don't think it's true.
51:36:
(Charlie Sykes)
You look at the social media that made it very clear that there was going to be violence on the 6th.
51:41:
(Charlie Sykes)
And a lot of these folks, they are not accepting reality.
51:45:
(Charlie Sykes)
They are talking about revolution.
51:47:
(Charlie Sykes)
They are talking about civil war.
51:49:
(Charlie Sykes)
They are talking about how to smuggle guns into Washington, D.C.
51:51:
(Charlie Sykes)
This is not paranoia.
51:53:
(Charlie Sykes)
This is out there.
51:54:
(Charlie Sykes)
And it's not being done on the dark web.
51:56:
(Charlie Sykes)
It's being done on just it's there if you would look at it.
51:59:
(Charlie Sykes)
And that's one of the remarkable things about the failure.
52:03:
(Charlie Sykes)
Is there was no secret about what was coming on the 6th.
52:07:
(Charlie Sykes)
And that was a joint session of Congress.
52:10:
(Charlie Sykes)
The president of the United States was tweeting out, make sure you come.
52:13:
(Charlie Sykes)
It's going to be wild.
52:15:
(Charlie Sykes)
So how anyone didn't understand what was going to happen.
52:18:
(Charlie Sykes)
But again, January 20th.
52:19:
(Tim Miller)
And there was some violence the night before.
52:21:
(Tim Miller)
Remember, there was the burning of the Black Lives Matter flag.
52:25:
(Tim Miller)
And so, no, I do not want to be misinterpreted on that.
52:29:
(Tim Miller)
Absolutely.
52:30:
(Tim Miller)
And just an utter failure of planning, probably intentional from this administration because they did not want, you know, scenes of, you know, the scenes that we saw this summer with the military police out and, you know, the scenes we saw in Lafayette Park.
52:43:
(Tim Miller)
So I absolutely think that there were ill intentions from the Trump administration.
52:46:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, absolutely.
52:48:
(Charlie Sykes)
There might be a counterfactual explanation as well, and we're now speculating, okay?
52:52:
(Charlie Sykes)
Sure.
52:53:
(Charlie Sykes)
So I don't know, which is that it was the city, the Washington officials who were afraid of misconduct by the feds, who were afraid to do this, who might have, look, we just don't know.
53:09:
(Charlie Sykes)
I guess my point is, and I've said this over and over again, because I do think we live in these bubbles of
53:14:
(Charlie Sykes)
If you go on, if you track some of the folks that have been tracked right wing conspiracy theory at media, one thing that will strike you immediately is that there are still people or certainly have been people.
53:31:
(Charlie Sykes)
And a lot of them who are in complete denial, they really did think that Donald Trump was going to stay president.
53:38:
(Charlie Sykes)
They really did not think that Joe.
53:41:
(Charlie Sykes)
I mean, they believe this.
53:43:
(Charlie Sykes)
They believe it deeply to the extent that the word sincerely applies here at all.
53:48:
(Charlie Sykes)
And so they are angry.
53:51:
(Charlie Sykes)
They are shocked.
53:52:
(Charlie Sykes)
They are disillusioned.
53:54:
(Charlie Sykes)
And the fear has to be that they are very radicalized about all this.
53:59:
(Charlie Sykes)
It's interesting because the night before January 6th, Denver Riggleman, the former congressman for Virginia, was ousted by one of the crazy crackpot theories.
54:10:
(Charlie Sykes)
But he's got a long background in military intelligence and conspiracy theories.
54:14:
(Charlie Sykes)
He tweeted out that he was really, really worried that the combination of the Georgia, the defeat in Georgia and what was about to happen in the Capitol on January 6th was going to lead to a real explosion.
54:29:
(Charlie Sykes)
And I think he was dead on about that.
54:32:
(Charlie Sykes)
And so for people who think that it's over now, that everyone is shocked, everyone's going, well, we'll never do that again.
54:40:
(Charlie Sykes)
Not necessarily.
54:43:
(Charlie Sykes)
Not necessary.
54:44:
(Tim Miller)
No, no.
54:45:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, again, look at the bottom up and look at, you know, our media ecosystem.
54:50:
(Tim Miller)
I mean, we've been writing about this in the book and this is going to be continuing to be, you know, something that I'm doing and others over the next year and years is, you know, look at where these guys are now getting information this morning from Rush Limbaugh.
55:02:
(Tim Miller)
Yesterday, who's who's comparing them to Patrick Henry and from the Federalist that is, you know, talking about how, oh, this is everybody's overreacting.
55:13:
(Tim Miller)
You know, the left wing violence is worse.
55:15:
(Tim Miller)
And, you know, they on their on these, you know, on Parler and on the Donald.win and on all in all the all these groups.
55:23:
(Tim Miller)
Uh, you know, so yeah, I think that there will be, I think some people were shook by what happened for sure.
55:29:
(Tim Miller)
And, and, you know, I think the tail caught the dog, um, uh, a bit.
55:34:
(Tim Miller)
Uh, and so I think that will, um, you know, negate, you know, mitigate some of this, but, but, but no, I mean, I think this is a bottom up driven thing.
55:44:
(Tim Miller)
And until, uh,
55:45:
(Tim Miller)
you know, we fix the way that we're communicating to these folks until people that enable this take responsibility for it and actually try to make changes rather than just cover their ass.
55:58:
(Tim Miller)
Like, yeah, no, this is not the end.
56:00:
(Tim Miller)
Absolutely not.
56:01:
(Charlie Sykes)
Should we end on a high note, though, since this is our weekend podcast?
56:05:
(Tim Miller)
Do we have to?
56:07:
(Tim Miller)
Yeah, sure.
56:07:
(Charlie Sykes)
Well, my chest is constructed again, so yeah, it'd be nice to- I was figuring that spending an hour talking to me that you'd get all mellowed out.
56:15:
(Charlie Sykes)
You know, Charlie, you're right.
56:17:
(Charlie Sykes)
We won.
56:18:
(Charlie Sykes)
They lost.
56:20:
(Charlie Sykes)
We have been vindicated.
56:21:
(Charlie Sykes)
They have been exposed.
56:24:
(Charlie Sykes)
You know, I mean, this is this is I don't want to say, you know, schadenfreude here, but but man, it's it's it's way more than four hours now.
56:33:
(Charlie Sykes)
I mean, I'm serious.
56:34:
(Charlie Sykes)
OK, so how do you pronounce the name?
56:36:
(Charlie Sykes)
J.L.
56:36:
(Charlie Sykes)
Coven, the really brilliant comedian who does who does the the Donald Trump show.
56:43:
(Charlie Sykes)
Well, he does Donald Trump.
56:44:
(Charlie Sykes)
What can I say?
56:45:
(Charlie Sykes)
He's very talented.
56:47:
(Charlie Sykes)
And he has some thoughts about some of the figures, some of the speeches that we've been hearing this week.
56:52:
(Charlie Sykes)
So let's just end here.
56:55:
(Charlie Sykes)
And I'm just going to say thanks, Tim.
56:57:
(Charlie Sykes)
I really appreciate you coming back on.
56:58:
(Charlie Sykes)
Thank you, Charlie.
57:00:
(Charlie Sykes)
You know, we'll just understand that, you know, that at some moment, got to have a little champagne and say, we are on the right side of history.
57:09:
(Charlie Sykes)
Apparently, it turns out that history had a side and we were on the right side and didn't always necessarily feel, actually, it always felt that way.
57:16:
(Charlie Sykes)
Anyway, so thanks for coming on.
57:17:
(Charlie Sykes)
Thanks for listening to the Bulwark podcast.
57:19:
(Charlie Sykes)
We'll be back on Monday and we'll do this all over again.
57:22:
(Charlie Sykes)
Here is J.L.
57:24:
(Charlie Sykes)
Coven.
57:26:
(J.L. Cauvin)
did you see mitch mcconnell he sounded like he was gonna cry now they got crying chuck schumer talking you know with that whiny just total waste but mitch mcconnell i never thought a turtle could cry okay i thought they were you know turtles they're always very dry and believe me he's not a ninja turtle we actually lost to a ninja turtle in georgia last night rafael warnock okay he's a
57:53:
(J.L. Cauvin)
He's a black priest wizard.
57:54:
(J.L. Cauvin)
That's why they call him a Warnock.
57:56:
(J.L. Cauvin)
That's like a male witch.
57:58:
(J.L. Cauvin)
And he's a Raphael.
58:00:
(J.L. Cauvin)
Okay.
58:00:
(J.L. Cauvin)
That was the angry Ninja Turtle.
58:03:
(J.L. Cauvin)
So now we got Wolverine Ted Cruz talking.
58:06:
(J.L. Cauvin)
God, what a...
58:09:
(J.L. Cauvin)
Even though he supports me, let's be honest.
58:11:
(J.L. Cauvin)
What a bitch with an ugly wife and a presidential killing father.
58:16:
(J.L. Cauvin)
That's right.
58:16:
(J.L. Cauvin)
I said it while Ted Cruz is talking.
58:19:
(J.L. Cauvin)
I'm still talking powerful Trump words about his family.
58:23:
(J.L. Cauvin)
And he'll still defend me.
58:25:
(J.L. Cauvin)
So the country's in trouble.
58:28:
(J.L. Cauvin)
Mitch McConnell is crying out loud.
58:31:
(J.L. Cauvin)
Little turtle tears down his crackly skin onto his shell of judges that I gave him.
58:40:
(J.L. Cauvin)
Okay, so we'll see what happens, but I will be releasing the Mountain Dew Army later today.
58:45:
(J.L. Cauvin)
And we're going to have the first Mountain Dew Code Red Civil War in Washington, D.C.
58:52:
(J.L. Cauvin)
The streets of the swamp will run red.
58:56:
(J.L. Cauvin)
With the bubbly, code red Mountain Dew.
58:59:
(J.L. Cauvin)
Okay, so we'll see what happens.
59:01:
(J.L. Cauvin)
But Mitch McConnell, I am not happy with you.
59:06:
(J.L. Cauvin)
Ted Cruz, your beard now looks like some sort of Old West thing.
59:14:
(J.L. Cauvin)
What a sad beard.
59:17:
(J.L. Cauvin)
Okay, no, Mike, I'm not talking about Mother.
59:20:
(J.L. Cauvin)
And then Mike Pence.
59:21:
(J.L. Cauvin)
We'll see the ultimate betrayal from that.
59:25:
(J.L. Cauvin)
From that, you know, he's, you know, a bottom is supposed to be sort of your, you can rely on it.
59:32:
(J.L. Cauvin)
Okay.
59:33:
(J.L. Cauvin)
But he hasn't been that kind of, there's no power in that bottom today in DC.
59:38:
(J.L. Cauvin)
So, you know, if you see him in DuPont circle, tell him his president hates him and we'll see what happens.