← The Bulwark Podcast
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- [00:09]
Tim Miller
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Remember, it is Wednesday, so if you're just looking for my punditing and my Hot takes over on the Next level feed late on Wednesday, I've got JVL and Sam Stein in from a vac in for a vacationing Sarah Longwell. So it's. It's boys. And who the hell knows what we'll be doing? Fart jokes, I guess. I don't know. Whatever boys do, I'm gay. I don't know about what boys do in those sort of settings. Locker room talk. But on this pod, we're going to be serious. And so we turn to serious people. In segment two, I've got Congressman Dan Goldman. We're going to be discussing the Trump transition, what the Democrats are doing to prepare for it. But first, my colleague, Florida man, author of the Magaville newsletter, Mark Caputo. Hey, Caputo.
- [00:51]
Mark Caputo
Good. Serious. Of course. This is when the dog comes in to bark. Fantastic job, peanut.
- [00:56]
Tim Miller
That's okay. People like the dogs and the cats in the background, as long as they're not getting eaten. Caputo, I wanted to just get an update from you because to try to make some sense of what is happening in Mar a Lago, since you're our man with the ear to the ground down there. It has been a bizarre couple of weeks to say the least. You know, as far as the various selections are concerned. And I seem not bizarre, the narrowest definition of the term. Not unpredictable, not unforeseen, just typically bizarre, maybe even. I kind of just wanted a top line report from you. And maybe the best place to start is here. You know, the first pick, I believe the first staffing pick was Susie Wilds, my former boss as the chief of staff. And there was some scuttle about. Okay, you know, there's some seriousness there and you know, Susie's going to make sure that whatever you want to say about the campaign, like, you know, most of the time Susie kept things on, you know, the train's running on time and then Marco gets picked and then after that it gets into kooky town. So I'm just kind of like, let's just start with sue. Like what is happening there? Is anybody actually in charge or is just, just we just. In Trump whim world.
- [02:03]
Mark Caputo
No, I think it's that scene from Apocalypse now where, you know, he basically, you know, says that he doesn't see any kind of order in this chaos. The thing with Susie is that, you know, no method, like they say. My methods were unsound. And he says, I don't see any method. And I think understanding Donald Trump as sort of the heart of darkness Kurtz of what's happening at Mar A Lago is probably a good starting point. Susie succeeded as the chief of staff because, as I think I've said before, she said the Maga Serenity Prayer, which is a serenity to accept the things she can't change. And that's Donald Trump's fundamental nature, and then the strength to change the thing she could, which is basically everything else, and having the wisdom to know the difference. And the reality is Trump's fundamental nature means he's going to pick the people he wants, when he wants and how he want, wants, and all to everything else. And so that's kind of what you're seeing. Also, when she was handing over, you know, the reins of basically, Mogaville to Howard Lutnick and company for the transition, it just meant that there was just a broader number of people with just sort of a different style or lack thereof in handling this. And that's another reason it just kind of looked more chaotic. Mar a Lago, you use the word bizarre kind of pun off the homonym of it, a bazaar. It has that sort of bizarre, like, quality. There's all these people sort of milling in and out like social media influencers and job seekers, consultants, gawkers who have enough money and influence. Yeah. And so there is just this. This sort of menagerie of people, and it just sort of lends itself to the sort of chaotic scene that you saw. Rubio's announcement was actually mistakenly leaked. Some people actually figure, and with reason to, that it was Howard Lutnick who did. And that was among the things that caused him trouble and caused him to potentially lose the treasury secretary post. He just got Commerce. So Susie's ultimate role generally has been, this is Donald Trump's campaign, or now it's, this is Donald Trump's transition. Soon it's going to be this is Donald Trump's White House, and she's going to focus on those things that she can kind of fix and deal with. So I think she was an advocate for Marco Rubio for Secretary of State. I do think that Donald Trump also wanted him, obviously, that's why he picked him. But all this other stuff is, by and large, just Trump and some of the other inputs he gets.
- [04:26]
Tim Miller
Peacocks, vultures, cougars. I'm just thinking about the menagerie. What other.
- [04:32]
Mark Caputo
Well, being South Florida, you're gonna have, like, iguanas you might have some, you know, tegu lizards from South America. I think there's some monitor lizards in southwest Florida. They haven't made to the southeast yet, but give them time. Pythons, obviously, lots of reptiles.
- [04:44]
Tim Miller
What are the things that she can change in the Serenity Prayer? Like, it's hard from the outside to see anything that anyone has control over besides Donald Trump, but I'm sure I'm missing something, right?
- [04:54]
Mark Caputo
Well, that's part of it, is not trying to control Donald Trump. But Susie excelled from what we gather and from what people told us and from what we've observed at sort of not having her ego first getting along with people and trying to sort of nudge the SS Trump in the right direction, you know, kind of. And I mean SS as in steamship or. I don't mean the other thing. Okay. Yeah. Not. Not like the leather. Right. You know, kind of, kind of nudging the tiller, not trying to kind of grab on it too tight and to turn the ship too quickly and making those sort of small adjustments. I think staffing is going to be a big thing. That is an issue that she's gonna have to pay attention to. So far, the White House is staffed with a lot of the campaign people she greatly trusts. It's Trump world. So people inevitably wind up knifing each other. We haven't really seen that yet within the umbrella of the former campaign team, but that could be coming.
- [05:47]
Tim Miller
The Gates nomination is a classic example of, I guess, the limits of the Serenity Prayer method for Susie, based on your reporting and others like. My basic framework of understanding is that Lutnick and McMahon had put forth some serious attorneys and some lawyers for this job. Trump did not like how much lawyering that they were taught. You know, all these lawyerly words they were working on.
- [06:12]
Mark Caputo
Right.
- [06:12]
Tim Miller
And Gates kind of hatches this plan with Trump within, like, I don't know, 20 minutes, while. While the. While the head mistress is not around. But, yeah, maybe put a little more color on how that. How that came to pass.
- [06:25]
Mark Caputo
I wouldn't say this as gospel. This is just from what I gather, allegedly this was Donald Trump's decision. It's not like Matt Gates is like a master. I've got a great idea. Make me Attorney General. That's what I'm being led to believe. Susie Wiles was on the plane when this happened, but she was in the back of the plane. And in the front of the plane was Matt Gaetz, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Boris Epstein, and probably a few other people. But the main Players.
- [06:47]
Tim Miller
I thought Musk and Boris. I thought Musk and Boris were fighting.
- [06:50]
Mark Caputo
I mean, to a degree, yeah. Exodus broke that story first. And from what we're able to follow is like, everyone who spends a significant amount of time around Donald Trump notices that Boris Epstein is. Is the shadow. You know, I said the other day and cnn, he has a kind of a canine master relationship with Donald Trump. You know, kind of think like a Saint Bernard. He's a big dude. Right. And the thing is, is like, people like their dogs, right? So they're not going to get rid of them. And like, or dog. Right, dawg. And the reality is, like, people have come and people have gone and Boris Epstein has endured. And so though Elon Musk apparently looks at Boris Epstein with a certain amount of concern and suspicion that Boris is a leaker and all these other things, I think it was just more borne out by the fact that he doesn't trust Boris. But this happens all the time around Trump. And, you know, people fight and people knife each other. And in the end, Boris usually endures. But anyway, back to the airplane. So they're on the airplane together and apparently Donald Trump says, like, I don't like these other guys. These guys are stiffs. And was like, Matt, do you want this? And from what I gather, you know, it was made clear to Trump, like, Matt has charitably speaking, terr. SEO, Search Engine Optimization. If you Google his name, I've had that, but not to that degree. Sex trafficking a teen is a pretty terrible thing to come up in your top ranked Google searches. And yet there it is. Nevertheless, he persisted. That is Donald Trump.
- [08:21]
Tim Miller
Also, all the pictures of Matt, all the recent pictures from the convention where it seemed like he, I don't know, had expanded, his face had puffed a little bit. There have been maybe some facial changes. I've known Matt for a long time. I just mean his looked significantly different than his face had looked in the past. I'll let people judge for themselves why that may have been a B, I guess, or it's South Florida. So professional work.
- [08:46]
Mark Caputo
Yeah. Well, that was technically Wisconsin when he gave that speech. I assume it was Botox, but I must admit, never having had it before, I'm not quite up on that procedure.
- [08:56]
Tim Miller
This is what you're giving us is on natural Mark. I apologize for interrupting. So Matt has bad SEO.
- [09:01]
Mark Caputo
Yeah. And Trump was like, no, I want to do this. And so a plan was hatched and they've just decided to proceed. Now. There are obviously like, just big doubts about whether this can get done or not. And the question is, to what degree does Trump really try to not just twist arms, but maybe break arms? I mean, my mainstream media mammal brain, it's hard for me to see with all of these negative inputs, like the information flow is just all negative toward Gates, how the Senate is going to stand through that. At the same time, Trump does have that sort of ironclad grip on the Republican base and they can be loud and, you know, there are 53 senators, so I guess we'll have to see.
- [09:43]
Tim Miller
Yeah. JD was shoulder to shoulder with Gates and Rubio this morning. The three amigos were together going to the Senate. So I think that's pretty telling about. There was some, like, somebody took the New York Times out of context and it was going viral on social media about how Trump maybe thinks Gates might not get through. And it's like, there's not a lot of evidence of that.
- [09:59]
Mark Caputo
To me, there are people on Trump's team who think that, yeah, it's like any competition, like, you can't step in the boxing ring and like, oh, I'm going to lose, well, then you're going to wind up on your back within a few moments of the bell ringing. So there's always a certain amount of delusion if you're behind in a campaign or an endeavor like this to say, oh, I'm going to win and I'm going to do it. So certainly that exists. But yeah, there are more kind of sober minded people in the Trump atmosphere in orbit and certainly in the United States Senate and thereabouts that say, how does this happen? I submit kind of close to one of them.
- [10:29]
Tim Miller
But the interesting thing for me, you know, the Gates story maybe about as well as anybody having reported on it, and the Gates life story, but also in particular, you know, the story that is surrounding this ethics report about the two young women and how they're partying and he was flying them, I guess he flew them to New York and took them to see Pretty Woman, which is a little on the nose for me. But give us just a little bit of like your insight on what the truth of the story is. And I want to compare and contrast it to the heg's historic, which it weirdly is, being overshadowed by all the Gates stuff when, I mean, if you just took that straight accusations at face value, right. And who knows in these sorts of stories, but the allegations against Hegsether are like far darker. Anyway, I guess it's hard to rank these things, but the balance seems a little bit off about the Focus on both to me, but give people just a rundown of what the reality is with the Gates situation.
- [11:19]
Mark Caputo
That's difficult to describe in a short period of time because there's so many different twists and turns in the case, but essentially there was.
- [11:26]
Tim Miller
Give us the Reader's Digest version. Give us the Axios version.
- [11:29]
Mark Caputo
There was a 17 year old who came into Trump's orbit who had lied about her age and said she was 18.
- [11:35]
Tim Miller
Gates's orbit.
- [11:36]
Mark Caputo
Correct. And this was through a friend of his at the time, certainly no longer named Joel Greenberg, who wound up being the most corrupt official ever to serve in any public office in Florida ever competitive category. Oh, but I mean he just stands head and shoulders above the rest. The. The insanity of Joel Greenberg is kind of fascinating. So Greenberg was the one who used to procure women through seeking arrangement. And he knew this young woman will call her, as they call her in the court documents, K.M. those are her initials. And K.M. had a friend named A.B. a.B. Was 17. A.B. wound up on seeking arrangement with K.M. her friend, and wound up lying and saying she was 18. And she wound up hooking up with Joel Greenberg and having sex with him for money. And that relationship started in April, around September of 2017. So April 2017, September 2017, Joel Greenberg finds out that AB is a minor. He continues to have sex with her for money. And so eventually he gets busted for that. What originally caused his political downfall and his legal downfall, Joel Greenberg, was that he falsely smeared a political rival as, wait for it, a pedophile.
- [12:48]
Tim Miller
Shocker. Every accusation of confession, of course.
- [12:52]
Mark Caputo
Indeed. So now the question is, because Gates was involved in this milieu, there were drugs surfacing around, there were women who were being passed around, there were group sex sessions, for lack of a better term. The question is, from a legal standpoint, did Gates have sex with the 17 year old essentially between that time of April and September? And he says no. And so far no real evidence has surfaced to say that he had. That is no direct payments to her, no communications to her or any other related communications. However, ab, KM and Joel Greenberg all say that Gates did have sex with this teen when she was a minor. And the feds last thing, which a lot of people don't understand in reading the coverage, decided not to charge. And the reason they said not to charge is not only was there no hard evidence, but that each one of these three witnesses had serious credibility problems. Obviously Joel Greenberg was pretty clear AB as well, because if you look at a related civil lawsuit, she had a number of misstatements. And then KM Herself, who is now being presented by other media as just this sort of, oh, wow, I just happened to go in this room and see Matt Gaetz have sex with this woman on a hockey table. Well, actually, KM if you read the documentation and you have the sourcing, you realize she was guilty of sex trafficking herself. That's a difficult witness to put on the stand to testify against.
- [14:15]
Tim Miller
Congressman, it's an important correction. Earlier this week on the podcast, I said that the accusation was that Matt Gaetz had sex with her on a poker table and it was an air hockey table.
- [14:23]
Mark Caputo
Air hockey.
- [14:24]
Tim Miller
And facts do matter here in the Bowler podcast. And it's a complicated situation. It's a situation that like, obviously there's some legal complexities. It's like, was the law broke? There were some judgment questions which I think are maybe a little less gray about the poor judgment of, you know, a first term congressman. You know, kind of having the 18 year olds, even anybody adjacen around and flying them around to these sorts of parties. But it is like, because everybody hates Gates, like, all the focus is on.
- [14:52]
Mark Caputo
This and he works at it.
- [14:54]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [14:54]
Mark Caputo
And he likes it being hated.
- [14:56]
Tim Miller
Like all the focus on this. When the Hags evacuation again, I like, we'll wait to see what comes up. But like this woman, like accuses, she goes roofied and was raped, you know, which is a different scale of accusation. Linda McMahon gets picked. All you have to do is watch the Vince McMahon documentary to know the types of COVID up of sex crimes that was happening at the WWE where she was an executive like RFK Jr. We got into those earlier this week. Like the list of like various sex pest allegations in this cabinet is insane. And in some ways Gates is like a shield for all of the others.
- [15:32]
Mark Caputo
Right.
- [15:32]
Tim Miller
I don't think this was intentional, by the way. I don't want to imply that was intentional.
- [15:35]
Mark Caputo
Yeah, yeah, there is that theory. However, what you're hearing more and more of in Trump world is the Senate always rejects one, that there's always one nominee who gets rejected. You know, almost like a scapegoat or whatever. Maybe that's the scapegoats or. Wrong word, whatever. A sacrificial lamb. So that's going to be Gates. But the function that Gates is going to have here is that he's just exploded the Overton window into the size of a garage. And you know, if he goes down, and if he, if he goes, if he, you know, the harder they come, the harder they fall, it probably will create the space for the rest of these picks to go through. And then there's this matter of like recess appointments and the degree to which Trump can almost declare Congress in recess. And apparently there's only really one US Supreme Court ruling about this from 2014. And there are a number of legal theories and documents floating around that says Trump can do this. It wouldn't surprise me to see Trump testing out a novel legal theory based on the Constitution and daring people to sue and take it to the U.S. supreme Court.
- [16:37]
Tim Miller
The other thing I think is coming down the pike and I'm interested in your take on the internal version of this and Trump world, but I'm going to talk about the external California House race looks like it's flipping last night that people hadn't expected. John D. Is the Republican looks like he might end up losing, which would mean that the Republican House majority might be 22, 20 to 215. And then you lose a couple of House members for a little while for these appointments. So they're going to have a 1, 2, maybe 3 seat advantage in these early days in the House. Mitch McConnell's press conference yesterday was kind of like he has a little bit of a YOLO vibe about him right now. Tom Tillis does too. And we'll see if they actually do this. But I but they have very narrow majorities for novel legal theories to be tested for starters. And two, internally you're already seeing like JD Vance sends this tweet yesterday lashing out at a Steve Bannon producer calling her a mouth breathing imbecile. Some of these leaks are starting to come out again. So I don't know, like what is your sense of like obviously there was a moment of we are victorious, we have a mandate, we have the mandate of heaven. And like the old school Trump shiving seems to be starting to appear again. Or is that wishful thinking or are you sensing that too?
- [17:47]
Mark Caputo
I mean you're sensing a little as you were talking about earlier with the Elon Musk's like Boris Epstein Contretem and Howard Lutnick and everyone sort of whispering about him as being kind of too much and over the top, I think that Congress is going to be more of a challenge for the Trump team than their bragging indicated. But at the same time, and this is grading on a curve, Trump has been contained like the old Trump of 2017 would have been lashing out constantly at this. And he's not lashing out at McConnell because he needs McConnell.
- [18:20]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [18:20]
Mark Caputo
And they're working behind the scenes. They're dispatching J.D. vance to the Senate. And I think Rubio, I was talking to one of his people yesterday and they kind of ducked the issue. But I think Rubio also plays a kind of a key role in trying to smooth the waters here. This will be different from the 2017 Trump White House for this reason. The 2017 Trump White House had three centers of power that were all knifing each other. You had the Bannon group, you had the Reince Priebus group, and you had the Jared Kushner group. And you don't really have that right now. Right now it looks like just kind of the Suzy group.
- [18:57]
Tim Miller
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- [21:47]
Mark Caputo
Well, yeah, he's too much. He's too much. Like apparently when you meet Howard Lutnick, he's one of these like, ah, you know, kind of gregarious back slappers. But what happened in the end, it was a little too much gregarious backslapping on the front hand and then a little too much like backstabbing on the back end. And it just became too much for Trump, the inner circle and all that. It started with rfk. You know, Lutnick just freelances before the election goes on. CNN starts talking about vaccines. Like RFK convinced me vaccines are bad. I'm kind of mocking and paraphrasing here a little bit inaccurate, to be clear. And then says when Caitlin Collins asked him, well, is RFK going to be HHS secretary? It's like, of course not, like dismisses it. That pisses off rfk. The next day, there's all these meetings, it's the winning day days of the campaign. RFK ultimately winds up as HHS secretary. So that kind of starts the proximate fissure sort of between Trump and Lutnick when Lutnick just looks like he's just sort of a loud mouth, rake stepping problem. And he just kept being loudmouth and rake stepping. And as one of the sources I talked to before, he officially didn't get treasury and was then given basically a lesser position of Commerce. They had said Howard would probably get it, but he just needs to keep his head down and shut the fuck up. Well, he didn't do either.
- [23:04]
Tim Miller
What is the DeSantis gossip? So you lose. Rubio is in the Senate. So DeSantis is going to get to appoint a senator up into the midterm. And then somebody will be there will be election where someone would fill out the rest of the Rubio term. The MAGA world at least some people have been pushing Lara Trump. Some DeSantis people on pushing like a guy that's younger than me. There was his chief of staff. Other names are out there. What's the latest?
- [23:28]
Mark Caputo
I'm going to make some news and probably scoop myself. All right, you know, so the chief of staff is James Uthmeyer. From what I gather, once Lara Trump entered the picture and once the Trump people started to say it's Lara or bust. A guy's like James Uthmeyer, loyal DeSantis and before that, Trump Republican worked in the Commerce Department under Wilbur Ross. He doesn't want to get crosswise with Lara Trump.
- [23:56]
Tim Miller
I don't want that smoke.
- [23:57]
Mark Caputo
No way. So Uthmeyer is signaling other people like, you know, like, I'm cool. So the going theory of like, if this were decided in a vacuum, more of a vacuum, and it weren't that much of a problem, DeSantis would want to pick Ashley Moody, who's the Attorney General of the state of Florida. And then Uthmeyer, his chief of staff, would replace her because he wants to run for attorney general one day. And that would work out hunky dory. However, the real question here is to what degree does Trump world bring so much pressure on the situation that everyone is like, I don't want the job.
- [24:35]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [24:36]
Mark Caputo
And then that basically leaves one person, Lara Trump, to be appointed. I could see that as a possibility. Otherwise, the state cfo, Jimmy Petronas would like the job, but also he might run for Gates seat because he lives out there. There's so many different things in flux. And one thing to look at down the road, at least in Florida, is there are at least two Miami figures, Kevin Cabrera, Miami Dade County Commissioner, and Steve Bovo, the mayor of Hialeah, who are probably going to wind up in the Trump cabinet. So we're going to have all these vacancies around Florida as a result of Trump getting picked. Mike Waltz has gone and the like. But as for who is going to be the Senate pick, I don't know. I have great reason to believe that Ron DeSantis does not want to be cucked by Donald Trump and told to pick his daughter. In law like DeSantis had to eat enough shit by doing that sort of hostage video of dropping out of the primary and endorsing Donald Trump. And one of his advisors told me at the time before he dropped out, he's just going to swallow the shit sandwich whole rather than nibble it in little bites, which he did. But no one likes to eat shit sandwiches even. Well, maybe some people.
- [25:49]
Tim Miller
I don't know, you're just at least that's a silver lining for some of us. Or not, not everybody. Maybe thinking of him having to pick Lara Lee Trump is having her be in the Senate. That's not so great. DeSantis having to eat a shit sandwich, you know, hey, well, that's the thing.
- [26:05]
Mark Caputo
With Donald Trump is one of his superpowers is even for the people who dislike him is that eventually he insults and demeans someone they hate. And there was a lot of schadenfreude during the Republican primary. Like I remember, you know, Nikki Fried, I hope I'm not betraying a confidence or the Florida Democratic Party chairwoman, she was like, look, I don't want Donald Trump to be president, but if it means humiliating Ron DeSantis, well, that's kind of a silver lining.
- [26:31]
Tim Miller
Nikki, be careful what you wish for.
- [26:33]
Mark Caputo
Yeah. But looking forward though, I think if Lara Trump, if the Trump brand remains the way it is and I don't really see that failing in Florida in 2026. If she decides to run for the office of Senate, she is a strong favorite.
- [26:45]
Tim Miller
Hey, Caputo, thank you for that Apocalypse now imagery. And going into the Mar a Lago Heart of Darkness. We are not quite at the end yet, but I appreciate your reporting. We'll be talking to you soon. Up next, Dan Goldman. The holiday season is tough on skin. Colder weather, stuffy indoor heating and non stop festivities can lead to a dull dehydrated pallor. That's where today's sponsor, One Skin comes in. Their scientifically proven products are designed to support your skin at the cellular level so it looks and feels healthier and holiday ready. Founded by an all woman team of scientists, One Skin focuses on skin longevity, not just surface level improvements. It's all thanks to their proprietary OS1 peptide, the first of its kind to switch off the cells that cause skin to become more vulnerable. Don't just take my word for it. One Skin has over 6,300 five star reviews for their moisturizers, cleanser and sunscreen. For a limited time, try one skin for 15% off using code Bulwark. When you check out at Oneskin Co this holiday season. Invest in your skin's long term health, because healthy skin is a gift. And I feel like my gift to all of the straight men that listen to the bulwark is just the knowledge of moisturizing. You know, face moisturizing goes a long way. And the amount of feedback I've been receiving from straights that didn't know about this or thought that that was just a thing that their wives or girlfriends did to me, feels like something that you guys should be sending me a gift back. Honestly, I should be getting some little stocking stuffers from all the straight guys in my life who have now, who are now looking more fresh because they've turned to one skin. Certainly true for me. I started using the One Skin body lotion as well. When you get into your 40s, you start to see that old man skin start to come up. You don't want that. You don't want that. Okay. It's not as important as the face, maybe, but nobody wants it on their hands or shoulders either. And so I've been doing the full body once skin lately and seeing the results. One Skin is the world's first skin longevity company. One Skin addresses skin health at the molecular level, targeting the root causes of aging. So skin behaves, feels, and appears younger. It's time to get started with your new face, eye and body routine at a discounted rate. Today, get 15% off with code bulwark at OneSkin Co. That's 15% off. OneSkin Co with code bulwark. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. We only have one body, one skin. And only you can choose to make it better. Age healthy with one skin. All right, we are back. He's the congressman From New York's 10th congressional district, representing lower Manhattan, a little bit of Brooklyn. He was lead counsel in the first impeachment of Donald Trump. It's Dan Goldman. How you doing, Congressman?
- [29:50]
Dan Goldman
I'm great, Tim. Good to see you.
- [29:52]
Tim Miller
Great. You're great.
- [29:54]
Dan Goldman
You know, you gotta be positive, you gotta be optimistic.
- [29:58]
Tim Miller
Okay, I like that. I like that. I'm doing my best. I'm here, I'm surviving, But I'm aspiring to great. It's hard to even know where to start. But I guess we have two new transition choices since yesterday's pod. Both have extensive reality TV experience, so that's pretty key. Linda McMahon is going to be running the Department of education and Dr. Oz will be running CMS. Which is totally not a serious job at all, that you'd want to have somebody who has subject matter expertise and a history of understanding bureaucracies and Medicare repayments. Anyway, you can take either of those that you want. Did either of those jump out at you?
- [30:40]
Dan Goldman
What jumps out at me is the consistency of these picks. Some are objectively worse than others, but all of them reflect Donald Trump's disregard for our government, frankly, just simply how our government operates and all of the essential functions that our government performs. These are two more political sycophants, people who will do whatever Donald Trump wants. And he's trying to lay a foundation with these picks where he can execute his worst instincts. And it is such a clear reaction, I would say, overreaction to his frustration from the first term when you had competent, patriotic people who were in these significant positions who put guardrails around him, whether it be John Kelly or Mark Milley or Rex Tillerson or Jim Mattis or Mark Esper, and the list goes on Mike Pence, of course, in the final days. And, and all Donald Trump is focused on clearly is not doing that again. And so qualifications, competency matters not at all. All that matters is that he believes and trusts that these are not only political supporters, but they're sycophantic loyalists and they will do whatever he wants. And that's where the real danger lies.
- [32:14]
Tim Miller
I think experience on television and having a few kind of sex related allegations are also key. Seem to be key sort of resume builders for people.
- [32:24]
Dan Goldman
Well, before you went to the second point there, Tim, I was going to say you would really be excellent.
- [32:30]
Tim Miller
Now I know this is what I'm saying. Why did I leave? Why did I leave the party? Why couldn't I have come around on Trump? I would have been. Who knows what job I could have had. It's prime qualification is ability to go on television. Alas, I'm stuck with you guys now. You know, I'm stuck with that actually, you know, that wants somebody to run CMS who actually cares that people on Medicaid get the services that they want and you know, have ability to understand how the bureaucracy can work more efficiently. It's unfortunate.
- [33:04]
Dan Goldman
Yeah. Look, and not only is there the basic functioning and the critical role that CMS plays in making sure that Medicare and Medicaid are executed and implemented properly, but it is very clear that, and Donald Trump has said this, that he wants to cut these entitlements, he wants to cut Medicaid to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. And he is putting someone like Oz in there or someone like Linda McMahon in the department of Education, which Trump has said he wants to eliminate. He's putting these people in Matt Gaetz and the attorney general, who wants to get rid of the FBI, who wants to undermine the DOJ, RFK Jr. Who is a vaccine denier and all of his public health views are contrary to science. And he's not, of course, a doctor. All of this is an effort for Donald Trump to really undo and dismantle the proper functioning of our government. And it is scary because people don't realize how essential these departments are and how important it is that you have someone who's competent, who can oversee these critical roles that every American relies on, whether they realize it or not.
- [34:24]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I think that's astute. And particularly in the Medicaid area, I think their plans for Medicaid cutting is maybe like the most underappreciated and reported element of what's coming down the pike of the things we kind of know is coming because they're going to have to find ways to pay for the, you know, extending the tax cuts, etc. And like this is in all of their plans. And it certainly seems like something that Dr. Oz will go along with. What worries you most just kind of as you assess all that, and I think it ties to the next topic, which what can Democrats do now during the lame duck to try to put some guardrails around the worst potential actions? But as you assess these picks, what are the things that you're the most concerned about?
- [35:04]
Dan Goldman
This goes back to what my biggest concern probably of Project 2025 is, which is Schedule F. What that would do is essentially eliminate all of the protections for the career experts, the civil servants, the foreign service officers in the Department of State, career military, DOJ officials. And what that will do is allow Donald Trump or his cabinet secretaries who oversee and run those departments to get rid of anyone they want for any reason and then to be able to put whomever they want. And as we've seen from his picks at the top, qualifications and competency do not matter. And so what scares me is that this is the first step that in completely dismantling our executive branch and our government. And the risks are immense because I'll give you one example, and this is Tulsi Gabbard, who has questionable contacts with foreign leaders to oversee our intelligence community. If she then removes people who are experts in intelligence gathering and assessment, what that will do is it'll mean there will be very few sources of intelligence that give us Critical information that give us information about what Vladimir Putin is doing or what China is doing or what Iran is doing. We will lose them because a, they won't. The people won't know how to handle them. Our intelligence community cannot be trusted. Tulsi Gabbard and Donald Trump will use intelligence for political purposes, and they will burn sources. So we will lose sources and none of our allies will provide us with, with their intelligence. That is going to make our national security at much, much more risk. People do not understand how important it is that we get that information, how often that information is used to thwart terrorist attacks, to thwart criminal gangs. And that's just one example of how this, what Donald Trump is doing is laying the foundation to dismantle our government. And people will say, oh, well, it's a bloated bureaucracy. And that may be the case. I don't disagree that our government does not run as efficiently as it should. I agree. But the way to attack that is not to just completely destroy these departments because the work that they do is critical for our national security. It's critical for all of the programs that people rely on. And if you're just. If your goal is to tear it down, you are going to put Americans at risk, you are going to put Americans in greater poverty, and you are going to create crisis after crisis.
- [37:56]
Tim Miller
It's interesting. Every smart person I ask that question, what are they the most worried about? The answer comes back around to Gabbard, basically. And like, I do think there is a misalignment between that and what is in the public discussion right now. But yeah, I just, what you're talking about, the sources and methods, and some of it is her expelling people, but some of it is just people opting out, Right? Like, we have to have some concerns about, like intelligence sharing and our allies and sources, like there being a period of feeling less comfortable sharing information.
- [38:25]
Dan Goldman
Well, remember when Donald Trump provided highly classified information from one of our allies to the Russian foreign minister in the Oval Office? That set off a whole cleanup operation for that country to protect that source, get them out of harm's way, and it eliminated, eliminated that source of information. Now, imagine if that is on steroids, and that happens all the time. That information that we get from sharing from our allies and from our own sources who will run away because they won't be protected is, I can't emphasize how vital it is to our national security. And if you think that Tulsi Gabbard, who cozies up to Putin and Assad is going to be respecting and using our intelligence for proper purposes and apolitical purposes. You're sorely mistaken. That puts every American at risk.
- [39:25]
Tim Miller
A couple things you guys are working on now, you're a co sponsor with Don Byron Security Clearance Review act, because I guess these guys aren't vetting people for security clearances anymore. You have a resolution reaffirming the 22nd Amendment, which, for people who don't know, you're about to really familiarize yourself with that, which is the ability to not run for a third term. Talk about those efforts and just other things that can be done between now and January 20th.
- [39:52]
Dan Goldman
We will certainly try to do everything we can. And some of this is making sure that Republicans and Trump are on notice that this is not gonna be some cakewalk running roughshod over our democracy, that. That they are going to be called out and they are going to be challenged in everything that they do. I think there are sort of two key pathways that we need to go on. The first is Donald Trump is appointing or nominating these Cabinet secretaries at record pace. But the Senate is still controlled by Democrats. The administration is still the Biden administration. So if it is true that Donald Trump and his administration are going to try to bypass the FBI and the proper security clearances, which is just absolutely bewildering to me when you think of someone like Tulsi Gabbard who would oversee our intelligence community, the Democrats can still do something while they have the majority in the Senate, and they can request or even subpoena all sorts of information from the FBI, from the intelligence community, from any other vetting agency while they have the majority before January 3rd. And so I have urged my Senate colleagues to get jumping on that because that's something that's within their power to do. And that is a way of getting out in front, I guess, of some of the issues that will be coming down the pipeline. And the other thing that I think we really need to emphasize, and I get asked all the time, what are you going to do to stand up for the Constitution? What are you going to do to stand up for the rule of law? Law. I take an oath to the Constitution, as does every single Republican congressperson and senator. And my oath is no different than theirs. And the Republican elected officials take an oath to the Constitution, not Donald Trump. And they have to uphold the Constitution. They have to uphold the rule of law. They have to uphold our system of checks and balances. And we cannot fall into a trap where everyone just looks at the Democrats to be the bulwark for the rule of law and the Constitution. We have to, all of us, have to hold Republicans accountable. The one silver lining in everything that has happened, in my view, is that the Republicans selected John Thune to be the Senate Majority Leader over Rick Scott, who was clearly Donald Trump's preferred candidate. And what that indicates to me is that the Senate Republicans still take their oath, at least some of them, very seriously, including John Thune.
- [42:39]
Tim Miller
I don't know about very seriously, but, okay, potentially seriously.
- [42:43]
Dan Goldman
I will give him the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise, because we know what Donald Trump wants to do. But Donald Trump can only execute his goals if he has accomplices in Congress, if he has complicity from John Thune and Mike Johnson and the other leaders. And we cannot let them off the hook. Look, they have an obligation to our country, not to Donald Trump. And just because Donald Trump just overloads the Zone with so many unqualified Cabinet picks does not mean that there's a negotiation where you get to say, okay, well, you have. You have five completely absurd Cabinet picks, so we'll let you choose three and we'll reject two. No. Each one they have an obligation to evaluate on their merits themselves. And if that means that you don't confirm 5 out of 5 because they don't meet the standards that the Senate has historically set for advising and consenting on nominees, then that's what you have to do. And that is really important, I think, for all of us to start stressing it's not just what the Democrats can do in the minority. It is the Republicans who are in the majority, who are the ones who are really obligated to uphold the Constitution.
- [44:03]
Tim Miller
Less optimistic than you on that front, but I appreciate you setting the standard for them on this thing. And what's happening on the Hill, though. So just yesterday, over in California 13, we have your potentially new colleague, Adam Gray. There's an influx of votes. They take way too long to count in California, and you should fucking fix that. California. But a new batch of votes came in. Seems like he might beat Republican Congressman John Duarte, which would take their majority down to 220. And then a couple of them, Stefanik Waltz, are going to be gone, at least for a little while. That gets you down to 218. And they have a very narrow majority. I always already saw Chip Roy and Annapolina Luna sniping each other on Twitter. I mean, I don't know, are you doing any charm offensives over there with any gettable Republicans? Because it's Unbelievable how narrow their, you know, their ability is going to be to maneuver.
- [44:52]
Dan Goldman
Yeah, I mean, that's exactly right. And when they get down to 218 or 200, they have a one vote spread, which means every single member of the Republican Party is the deciding vote on every single thing that runs through. And that is assuming everyone is there. And as we see, sometimes people are sick or they have other family obligations and you often don't have full attendance.
- [45:18]
Tim Miller
They decide they want to go be a university president or whatever.
- [45:21]
Dan Goldman
You get some people who are, who don't show up and there's no margin for error. And it also means that each of the Don Bacons or Mike Lawlers or some of these purple district Republicans who have close elections are in democratically majority districts and who win their individual vote is determinative of what, what the Congress does. And that is as you look two years down the road at the next election, which comes pretty quickly, that can have a real impact. And so last Congress, what we saw of course was the most inept and ineffective Congress by the Republican majority in modern history and they had a larger majority than what they're going to have in this next Congress. We think that just like last Congress where Democrats were needed to do the basic functionings of governing, we think there will be a role to play for Democrats in providing checks on Donald Trump, but also in trying to find some compromise to improve the lives of the American people, which is truly what Democrats objectives are. It has not proven to be the case for Republicans. But we are not going to allow politics to overrun what we understand are responsibility to be, which is to try to find solutions for the American people.
- [46:54]
Tim Miller
Can I be the devil on your shoulder? Are you sure? Shouldn't you just let them eff it up for a little while? Is that not maybe the best Machiavellian long term strategy?
- [47:05]
Dan Goldman
I think you're probably right. I think politically is probably right. Right. Just like politically it was smart for Donald Trump to submarine the bipartisan border security bill which would have, have dramatically addressed and significantly addressed the problems at the border and in our immigration system. And he submarined it because he wanted the political issue. And there's no question that was helpful to him in this election. I think that if we descend into tit for tat politics over people all the time, we will descend into more ineptitude, more polarization, more partisanship and at some point, and yes, Democrats all too often seem to be the only adults in the room. But I am of the view that we cannot let politics Be the tail that wags the dog. And that we really do need to make sure that we are taking our obligation seriously. And our obligation is what the people sent us here to do, which is to work, not to fight.
- [48:08]
Tim Miller
Fight a noble notion. We're going to keep a dialogue open on that. Looking at the electoral failure of Democrats, looking back, I mean there are a lot of different things out there that people are saying. The kind of buckets that I put them in is there's like an economic bucket that the Democrats economic message or policies failed. It's a cultural bucket. The Democrats shouldn't, shouldn't be so far left on some of these culture war issues. There's just a messaging bucket. We didn't talk, we didn't go on enough podcasts. We didn't talk normal enough, enough. And then there's just like bad luck, global inflation and hopefully Donald Trump gets a recession and that'll solve everything for us. So among those kind of four categories, what feels the most salient to you looking back as the fail point?
- [48:51]
Dan Goldman
Yeah, look, I think there is truth to all of them and there's some element of all of them. And so it is easy to try to pick one over the others. A couple of things really jump out to me on this and the most frustrating thing for me is that it seemed like whatever Donald Trump's economic message was worked a lot better than Democrats economic message. And the thing that was so striking to me about Bernie Sanders statement after the election where he says that the Democrats have lost the working class and that what the Democrats need to focus on is a higher minimum wage paid family leave, affordable health care, lower prescription drug costs. And I went down the whole list and I said to myself, every single one of those policies is supported by the vast, vast majority of Democrats. Those are Democratic policies. They are opposed by Republicans. And somehow we allowed the electorate and even Bernie Sanders to think that it's the reverse. And that to me is part of meeting people where they are and rather talking about things related to identity politics or to culture wars. We need to talk more about what we plan to do to help people. It's as simple as that. We have to address the issues that the people care about. About. So if Donald Trump spends tens of millions of dollars on a misleading trans ad, we have to say, well actually that was a Trump policy. And then we can move on to talking about the policies that we care about and that we want. But we can't gaslight the American people into not feeling what they feel or to not believing what they believe and just pretend like it's not an issue and we just want to talk about abortion or something else. We have to address these issues head on and we have to be able to then have a positive message that explains coherently to people why our policies are the ones that will help them. And that was just a massive gap. And part of it is because we got distracted by these extraneous issues that don't matter as much to the vast majority of American people. And we allow the Republicans to distract because they want to distract on those issues, because they know if we dig into the meat of policy, people will realize that the Democrats policies are the ones that will help the vast majority of the American people and the Republicans policies are the ones that will help the top 1%. And that's it. So that's where I think we need to find some common ground and common purpose moving forward.
- [51:42]
Tim Miller
All right, thank you so much, Congressman Dan Goldman. We'll keep the convo going. Everybody else, we'll be back tomorrow for a lengthier discussion on this demo autopsy stuff with a first time Bulwark guest. Look forward to doing that. We'll see you all then.
- [51:55]
Unknown
Peace, your love from crime Red is watching city scaves turn to dust Filming helicopters crashing in the ocean from way above Got got the music in your baby tell me why Got the music in your baby tell me why You've been locked in me forever and you just can't say goodbye Your lips, my lips apocalypse lips your lips, my lips apocalypse Go and sneak us through the rivers flood is rising up on your knees oh please come out and haunt me I know you want h Got the music in you baby tell me why got the music in you baby tell me why you been locked in you forever and you just can't say goodbye.
- [53:39]
Tim Miller
The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.