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- [00:00]
Stuart Stevens
Mmm.
- [00:02]
Tim Miller
Oh, whatcha eating?
- [00:03]
Stuart Stevens
The new banana split cookie from AM pm. All freshly baked with real butter with banana, chocolate and strawberry flavors.
- [00:09]
Tim Miller
Wow, that sounds amazing. Can I have a bite?
- [00:11]
Stuart Stevens
I'm sorry, but no. But you can't split the banana split.
- [00:15]
Tim Miller
Not even a little.
- [00:15]
Tim Dillon
Not even a crumb.
- [00:17]
Tim Miller
What if.
- [00:17]
Stuart Stevens
No, please. Mine. When it's too legit to split. That's cravinience. Get a 3 pack for 99 cents with our app ampm. Too much good stuff. Plus tax where applicable. Prices and participation may vary. Terms and conditions apply.
- [00:42]
Tim Miller
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to have back. A former Republican media consultant, he worked on five presidential campaigns. He's a senior advisor at the Lincoln Project, co host of the podcast Strategy Session produced by the affiliated Lincoln Square on Substack. He's from Mississippi. His books include It Was All a Lie, the Conspiracy to End America, and my favorite, even though it's kind of as sad as the other ones, the last season, a father, a son, and a lifetime of college football at Stuart Stephens. Welcome back, brother. How you doing?
- [01:11]
Stuart Stevens
Hey, brother. Great. Great to be here, man.
- [01:13]
Tim Miller
We'll get to football at the end. Of course. I obviously will not let you off the hook without discussing the weekend's events on the college football field, but we need to start with the Conspiracy to End America. I mentioned this one of the other times you were on, but for the new listeners, I think it's worth bringing back because I didn't mean to double book you back to back with jvl, and I'm a little concerned about the darkness that people are going to get because I remember, I remember this was before Trump even won. This is the fall of 2016. The New Yorker is writing a big profile on the Never Trumpers. As if we mattered, you know, all 20 of us or 15, however many there were. And Ryan Lizzo has also got a substack, interviewed all of us. And he interviewed me in a coffee shop in D.C. i remember where I was sitting with him, and at the end of it, he just goes, whoa, man. You're in a dark place about where things are going. There's only one guy I interviewed that was darker than you, and I was like, who? He said, stuart Stevens. So here we are, baby. Here we are. Everybody just buckle up.
- [02:11]
Stuart Stevens
You know, when I get depressed, I listen to you because I always get cheered up because you're such an optimist.
- [02:16]
Tim Miller
So tell us about your state, how you see things right now. What are you most worried About. Yeah. Where's your alarm?
- [02:22]
Stuart Stevens
Think about it. If a year ago, you and I were on here and we said, a year from now, you're gonna have an army of masked men chasing gardeners. Brentwood with funding larger than the Marines, larger than any military in the world, except for two. You're going to have former Ms. Snow, Queen of South Dakota, head of Homeland Security. You're going to have a lunatic, longtime heroin addict who defends being a heroin addict, by the way, in charge of America's health, who's also a steroid freak, and Casp Patel run the FBI. We said, no, look, that's not going to happen, dude. So I think it's actually worse than I thought. I would have thought that some element of Republican responsibility would have held. And I go back to my longtime friend, client, Roger Wicker.
- [03:13]
Tim Miller
Is he still in the Senate?
- [03:15]
Stuart Stevens
He's chairman of the Armed Service.
- [03:16]
Tim Miller
All right. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I saw his little Ukraine pin. I remember his Ukraine pin during the confirmation hearings.
- [03:22]
Stuart Stevens
Funny you say that. Is he still in the US all his life, Rogers wanted to be chairman of the Armed Services Committee. He finally is. He spent his entire life building up alliances pro NATO, all of this very serious human being. And he asked her thing. Pete had said, like, I don't get it. He's not up for reelection. He's going to be 80. He's not going to run again. Why do you care? And I think it's just indicative. And I've said this, you know, I don't think you can call yourself a patriot and vote for Pete Hegsett or Kristi Noem. And I think Democrats need to get about using that kind of language. That's the language we used to use also.
- [04:00]
Tim Miller
Just like on its face. I mean, there's so many examples of this. But Joni, she was in the military, has personal backstory with sexual assault. You know, there are ways in which she's unserious, but as a serious person on this front, you know, if she wasn't gonna run again, could have held a line in the sand on this with her and Wicker and McConnell. I mean, he's a weekend Fox and Friends co host, and now he's going to be arming the military as it goes after their alleged enemies within instead of without. And it's really bleak.
- [04:32]
Stuart Stevens
Generally, we should leave. Appointing the town drunk to run the military to Russia. They actually do that better. But, you know, my theory about this is that Trump does this not because he doesn't know that Petersett's a moron not because he doesn't know Kristi Noemi. Not because he knows Keshe Patel. He does it to humiliate the senators, to prove I can make you vote for a drunken weekend talk show host to run the largest military, the greatest military in the history of the world. You will degrade yourself to that degree. It is like the way Saddam would make families sitting executed dissident space with a bullet. Yeah, it's just that little extra. See, see, I control you. Yeah, I think it works well. I think it's humiliating and it works. And I think they all get together and tell themselves it's not that bad, which is they definitely the same thing lynch mobs do.
- [05:30]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [05:31]
Stuart Stevens
And they justify it. And you know, Republican party's become a functional element of the Russian Federation.
- [05:40]
Tim Miller
So that might be a part answer to my next question because I wondered what was worrying you most. I like to ask that to people so we can kind of look ahead because we have a lot, what, three and a half years left of this. You know, that's an assessment of where we are. Given that. What has you keeping one eye open there in Vermont?
- [05:58]
Stuart Stevens
Well, look, I'm actually an optimist in one sense. I don't think that the 24 election was in any way an endorsement of Trumpism. On election day, the right track of the country was 27%. No incumbent parties ever won. When it was lower than 45, you had a job approval for the incumbent president. 40. Nobody's ever incumbent party's ever gotten two points higher. So actually Harris did a lot better. And we know that like other people, Nikki Haley would have done better, probably. So I don't think that it's an endorsement of Trumpism. They knew that Project 2025 was poisonous. Now that they're making people drink it, it's not going down any easier. And that Trump coalition that existed was always kind of a Faberge egg because you had MAGA over here that would demand you chase gardeners through Brentwood with mass men. And if you did that, you were going to hurt yourself with Hispanics, without a doubt. Right. When they did a little better with African Americans, only 87% voted against them. You know, probably on this crusade to rehabilitate the Confederacy isn't particularly helping them with African Americans. We've seen they've, you know, that little boom that they had with young voters, particularly male voters, seems to have collapsed. You look at the polling. So I could make a case, I wrote an article that November 24th will be sort of the picket's charge of MAGA, you know, they can't get over the wall, get right there, they all get killed. Now, the exception to that is if you can curate the election. So, you know, in very simple terms, the base of MAGA is non college educated white people, which, you know, we did Bush in 2000, that was 60%. Now it's 39% and it'll be less when we finish. Means the fastest declining large demographic.
- [07:43]
Tim Miller
So 60% of the country to 39%.
- [07:46]
Stuart Stevens
Of the country, 60% of the electorate to 39% of the electorate. So Ronald Reagan wins a sweeping landslide right in 80 with 55% of the white vote. John McCain loses with 58% of the white vote. Says it all. So just in a crude sense, you say, okay, if you know that your base is non college educated white voters, what would you do? You try to make the electorate whiter, which clearly they're trying to do, and clearly they're going to continue to do with all these sort of intimidation tactics and all the stuff they're doing and all the stuff that Clea Mitchell's out there doing with $1.3 billion funded to Leo Leonard that we don't talk enough about. I mean, it's really dark, bad stuff. They don't believe in democracy. And what would you do? You'd also try to make them less educated, which I think a lot of this whole war on higher education is part of that. I mean, it's not just that they convinced themselves that higher education was an own ramp to socialism. I think they literally know that they do better with less educated voters. So in a crude sense to go, okay, let's make them less educated will do better. I still think there is no such thing as voter fraud. It really doesn't exist. I mean, I did this for years. I saw more elephantitis cases than voter fraud. And elections are still run locally. It's still going to be very difficult to do. So probably Democrats should have a very good election. I don't see anything Trump is doing to expand his vote.
- [09:13]
Tim Miller
I want to give you a counterpoint to what you're saying, which is maybe you're right. Maybe this was a confluence of really bad luck. I mean, the dude almost gets assassinated by a centimeter. The economy, inflation is persistent. And I say there's a bunch of bad stuff that happens. A lot of people that vote for him vote for him out of wrong track, out of pocketbook feelings, not out of endorsement of authoritarianism. But maybe the kind of why they voted for him doesn't matter that much and that in a couple of years I killed do too much damage to be able to rebuild it. And so I want to play for you the counterpoint from somebody I found one person even darker than both of us. It's former Judge Michael Ludig, really credible jurist, conservative jurist, somebody who's on the short list for Supreme Court back when you were working for W. Here's Ludig with Terry Moran over the weekend.
- [10:13]
Stuart Stevens
If the courts can't stop this and there are three plus more years of it, who does?
- [10:22]
Michael Luttig
It cannot be stopped. Now, Terry, again, the discussion that's going on is this, can it ever be stopped? And the only answer completely unsatisfactory and unsatisfying is, well, at least in a year and a half there'll be another election and hopefully the House will change hands. To which I say, the first thing I say is to my friends, there'll be nothing left in a year and a half. But suppose it changes. So what? The damage has been done.
- [11:11]
Tim Miller
Now, I hate to laugh, but Ludig's, I just, I love the bluntness of Ludig there. Where are you at on so what? Okay, maybe you're right. Maybe they are at their strike, but maybe too much damage has been done. Where are you at on that?
- [11:24]
Stuart Stevens
I think, to quote Lawrence of A Labia, destiny is a choice and I think it's how the Democrats handle it once they win. So, you know, if I that's where.
- [11:33]
Tim Miller
I want to go to next.
- [11:34]
Stuart Stevens
If I could say to you, okay, look, yeah, very reasonable Trumpism went too far. What we need to do is elect a normal governing party who is going to go out there and do very positive things for the middle class and remind people that government can play a positive role in their lives and that that will be enough. That sounds reasonable. The only problem is Biden tried that. He did that. I mean, in every way. He was a very successful president. On the economy and everything. I mean, I say to my, well.
- [12:07]
Tim Miller
Not inflation, not inflation. I mean, inflation got out of control.
- [12:09]
Stuart Stevens
I mean, what is it the record low unemployment or the record stock market that bothered you the most? 21 highs in the stock market. I mean, it wasn't bad.
- [12:16]
Tim Miller
I don't think it was people that were benefiting from the record highs in the stock market. They're the reason why I lost.
- [12:21]
Stuart Stevens
But you know, Trump's best group is like most Republicans. Those make over $100,000 a year.
- [12:26]
Tim Miller
Sure.
- [12:26]
Stuart Stevens
But so I would say we ran that experiment and it failed. So Democrats have to, to Quote, Jonathan Last act like a dissident movement. And I still think that piece that Jonathan wrote, I don't know, months ago, is going to be one of the pieces people are going to look back on and read. And I read it regularly. I just wrote a piece and quoted from it. So what I think they do, they have to give up on the idea that they're a governing party. They have to give up on the idea that the Republican Party is a traditional political party of which you can have some sort of meeting of the minds and some sort of compromise. You can't. What they need to do on the first day is they ought to cut off all funding for the executive branch. They ought to pass legislation to nationalize Starlink, nationalize SpaceX, they ought to defund ICE. And then on the second day, they should get more aggressive and they need to have a vote on whether or not Maxwell should be sent back to a real prison. Put everybody on the record. They've got to start using these broad, sweeping categorizations of maga. Right now. Racism is working completely to the benefit of the Trump people. They get out there and they can talk about, use all this racist stuff, and it works. And no one on the Democratic Party is calling their number on. No one is making them pay for being racist. And this whole idea, I get why Harris did this. He wanted to be post racial, all this. But the whole idea that we don't talk about racism, I think is leaving a very potent card on the table for the Democrats. They need to wake up every day and say, we're right, they're wrong, there's more of us than there are of them. And if you support Pete Hexit, you're not a patriot. So you say that. Does that mean you're saying that John Thune's not a patriot? Yes, that's what I'm saying. And he can prove it today. He can vote to have him resign. Now, does the Democratic Party have that ability? I don't know. I think there's a very positive sign. You look at what Newsom's doing and he's being positively rewarded and it's better than most politicians tend to do what's in their best interest. So eventually it's a positive sign. You can go out and do this stuff and the market and your base, this whole idea, I'm going to be a president for all of America and all of this, it's a great idea, but you just have to quit acting like it's true. You have to write off that I mean, look at everything that Biden did for red states. I mean, the majority of the Infrastructure act in a lot of categories went to red states and rural areas. Tremendous efforts there. It didn't mean anything. So they've got to be passionate, they got to have courage, they got to have conviction and they have to not hesitate from saying, these are not good people.
- [15:15]
Tim Miller
I want to be with you. In my brain, I'm with you. I get a little like centristy Normie Tim gets a little uncomfortable when I start to hear all that stuff. I worry that we end up in a zero sum situation that takes us back to the ludic. We can't really get out of it. I guess my response to that is I think that you are right, that that is the right short term political move for the Democrats is to cause as much pain as humanly possible for them when they get back in. I don't know if Hakeem Jeffries and these Democrats are actually up for doing that, but I think that that in a vacuum would be their best short term move. Don't you worry though that we just end up in this death spiral like the Republic ends up in a death spiral over.
- [16:00]
Stuart Stevens
I think we are in a death spiral. So, you know, the person who's in charge of intelligence for the US in World War I famously said, Gentlemen don't read other gentlemen's mail. So then cut to 1944. That same person is now Secretary of War, as you know, it was then called, and he's sitting in his office trying to decide if they're going to blow up Hiroshima or Nagasaki first. That's a transition. So I would urge Democrats to get to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki stuff quickly and get out of this. Gentleman don't read other male stuff. You don't get to pick the fight that you're in. You have to fight the fight that you are in. You have to adapt. I mean, it's the story of the Ukraine war. They still going to be up there rolling tanks across, you know. No, you have to adapt. Nuisance showing signs of that. They're fumbling around trying to learn how to do this, how to play around with it. Look, I mean, maybe this is just my campaign side because to a fault, I never worried about governance. It was like that's what they do. We do elections. After that, you're on your own. You know, as Arthur Finkelstein said to me once when I asked him why someone who's gay could elect so many rabid anti gay guys, he goes, hey, they're on their own after I like them, you know, which is kind of what lawyers say, by the way. Everybody, you know, they have a nice little moral out.
- [17:14]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I am the same. And so I say this as throwing myself on the mercy of the court. But that mindset is so endemic. Like, you would hear that after Trump. Wonder that was such a common thing for, like, the strategists that stuck with him to say, like, they would compare themselves to defense lawyers. And I'm like, this isn't actually like an offense lawyer. You don't. You don't have to take a client in politics. You can choose not to take a client. Like, there's no, you know, right to a fair trial for if you're running for President of the United States.
- [17:44]
Stuart Stevens
And this idea that this is what the people wanted. Well, where I grew up, they wanted slavery. That didn't exactly mean it was good. The people that could vote wanted slavery. You know, one of the things that always fascinates me is why in the 30s, didn't America become fascist when we had this huge fascist movement? And probably it's because FDR was president, not Lindbergh or Henry Ford. So maybe we go back to that old thing we used to learn in civics. We still had it. Leaders matter. So what would have happened if Romney had won? It would have been the same party, but it would have gone in a different direction.
- [18:15]
Tim Miller
Or maybe they overthrow him four years later.
- [18:17]
Stuart Stevens
Yeah, listen, Tim, I think something happened inside the Republican Party that we evolved a system that rewarded weakness and compliance. And it probably goes back to the fact in 64 when, you know, Eisenhower, 56, gets 39% of the black vote, Goldwater gets 7%. Right. Trump gets 8% and 20. That's one point every 56 years. So you become a predominantly white party. It evolves a certain kind of way of operating where the next person's turn, it's your turn. You're rewarded by weakness, by compliance. You know, the. The mavericks of the world aren't really rewarded. I mean, McCain called himself a maverick, but he really wasn't that much of a maverick. And I think that that as opposed to the diversity of the Democratic Party, which is a great problem for him in many ways in messaging, but it's also a great ultimate asset because it's more like the country. How is it we ended up with such weak politicians in the Republican Party that Trump understood that if I gave them power, they would go against everything they swore they were for? You have to give Trump credit for that. That kind of Feral weakness. Sensing of weakness that he has. And look, we used to say you can't negotiate with terrorist organizations for a reason. The Republican party is an extremist movement. You can't negotiate with them. The only thing they're going to respect is fear and force. And once you cross the line that I'm going to be for the guy who organized the mob to come into my workplace and try to kill me and my colleagues, you're not going to have, it's like, well, I don't know his position on the law of the sea treaty. That's too much. I'm not going with that. You've reached the point of compliance. And you know, if you ask someone like Marco Rubio, Trump wanted one of his children for tribute, his might work up the courage to say if he could ask if he could pick the kid.
- [20:16]
Tim Miller
Yeah, yeah. Not the one that made the Florida football team. One of the other ones.
- [20:19]
Stuart Stevens
Yes, it would be.
- [20:21]
Tim Miller
You got to tell you about this game changing product I use before a night out with drinks. It's called pre alcohol. Let's face it, after a night with drinks, people in their 40s don't bounce back like they used to. I have to make a choice. You can either have a great night out or a great next day. That is until I found pre alcohol. Let me tell you, there's a sure fire way to wake up feeling fresh after drinks with friends. It is with pre alcohol zebiotics. Pre alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's a buildup of this byproduct, not dehydration that's to blame for rough stays after drinking. Pre alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down. Just remember to make pre alcohol your first drink of the night. Drink responsibly and you'll feel your best tomorrow. Yeah. Until you know that you're, you have solidified your relationship with a brand when something like this happens. I was going to see beloved Betta in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago. Andy's playing, playing a local music venue, the Howlin Wolf. Shout out to our friends at the Howlin Wolf. You know it's still going. Town hall has taken a while. I was like, you know, I'll have one drink, right? One drink. You head back to the bar, lean over to the bartender, ask him for a bourbon and Coke. And he looks back at me without missing a beat and says, have you taken your zbiotics yet? And so I appreciate you hollow wolf bartender for supporting our program and listening to our ad campaign. A handful of people have given me negative feedback about the drinking chat. And I gotta tell you people, we're performing out here. We're out here, Zebiotics. We're coming in every morning delivering you A plus content. Be happy with what you got and thank Zebiotics for their contribution to it. Go to zebiotics.com thebullorg to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use the bulwark at checkout. Zebiotics is back with 100% money back guarantee. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Remember to head to zebiotics.com thebullwerk and use the code the bulwark at checkout for 15% off. Special shout out Rudy Giuliani for this product. I have a couple more news items to get to, but I just like while we're campaign dorking and thinking about the Democrats and what they can do. You mentioned Newsom. I'm looking out there right now and you see like a bunch of different models for how to handle the moment. There's a lot of people on social media like to pretend like they know what the exact one is. And I think the answer is we don't really know like what the right one is. And so I want to give a couple of them to you and see what you like about each. Look at this guy in Maine, the planter that's running kind of just this populist, a Bernie ish, but maybe with a little bit more of a working man's vibe. Maybe Bernie ish policies, maybe a little bit different of a vibe. Slotkin is out there trying to do this sort of centrist butch, like, we gotta fight harder. But I'm gonna do it from the middle. You got Gavin, who's like we mentioned already, who's also doing the fighting thing but is more of kind of a siffer. Like the ideology doesn't really even matter. It's sort of an American psycho fighting vers version of it. You've got some of the governors that are, you know, trying to do, I think this tactic that you rejected earlier. But I want to throw it out there, which is a lot of these Midwestern governors, Whitmer Shapiro that are doing, I'm going to pick my spots. You know, I'M going to govern. Well, I have a high approval rating. Maybe there's another model. I'm not mentioning one of those tickles your pickle.
- [23:46]
Stuart Stevens
I'm for all of them. I think this idea that you need one message is, well, first, you remember from campaigns when we would try to have an education week or jobs week, we never even could do it then. And then you only had like three or four streams of media influence that really were going to matter. I mean, I Remember vividly in 2000, the New York Times would go online at midnight every night, east coast time. And it was 11 o' clock Austin time. You could look at your watch. By 11:15, you'd be getting calls from every reporter that basically used what the Times put on their front pages, their assignment editors. You know, those days are over. So I think you could and should do all of those things because the people that are drawn to it are going to hear you. People who are shopping for that will hear it. Why do people go to AOC and Bernie? It's not so much their ideology, it's their passion. They're fighting. That's what they're for. So I think that there's not one clear way to do this. And I think, you know, when I see the Democratic Party having 250 focus groups to determine what young men want, to me, I mean, it's like sending the best journalists to America to figure out why men go to strip clubs. I think we know. I don't think you need to have focus groups.
- [24:54]
Tim Miller
I even figured it out eventually. You know, not my cup of tea, but I can figure it out. You know, I didn't need a pollster to tell me.
- [25:02]
Stuart Stevens
So I think the illusionary search of a perfect message is always in a campaign, a terrible, terrible trap to fall into. You know, it's the idea. There's the perfect spot syndrome, there's not. You have to do a lot of different things. And I think that ultimately the test for each of those candidates, politicians, office holders, is what do you do best? I mean, I always thought as a consultant, your job was figure out what your person did best and make them do it great. And the other stuff, just make sure they don't do it so badly it's going to be disqualified. That's what it should be. So a guy in Maine is going to be different than Josh Shapiro, should be different market, different backgrounds. Sawkin was a warrior. She should run as a warrior queen.
- [25:53]
Tim Miller
Do you think that? And I'm talking more like long term, building appeal, improving the party Image, which is low right now. I'm not really talking about if you're a generic House member running and some, you know, against Don, whoever's replacing Don Bacon. I'm talking like a House race but for the bigger names. Do they have to like run against the party at some level? And you look back and like Obama really ran against the party in Iraq, obviously Trump ran against the party. Do you think that they have to do that or do you think that.
- [26:22]
Stuart Stevens
He was a different kind of Democrat? Turns out he's a conservative. Just for the death penalty, he was going to end welfare as we know it. Look, I think that, I don't think people really care about parties anymore.
- [26:33]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [26:34]
Stuart Stevens
So I think trying to rehabilitate the Democratic Party, sort of like trying to boil the ocean, you know, you get in a campaign, you're in primaries and you're losing, the only thing you can do is to win. You can't talk your way out of it, you know, and either you're going to win or you're going to not.
- [26:48]
Tim Miller
So I think you're in the bear.
- [26:49]
Stuart Stevens
Yeah, you can't, you know, like. Well, let me tell you what really happened, you know, so you have to win. And once you win, it starts to heal itself. And I saw an interview with Jake Tapper and he was saying, you know, that observing his like 16, 17 year old son who plays football and Democratic Party doesn't have anything to offer him. I'd say, well, I don't know. Does any party have anything to offer some 17 year old guy playing football? I hope not.
- [27:14]
Tim Miller
I mean, what does the Trump party have to offer him? The ability to say the word pussy without feeling ashamed about it, like, okay, great, thanks.
- [27:22]
Stuart Stevens
I don't think that's a test. Look, I think with all of that largely symbolic stuff that I was reading off that they need to do, they also need to do very tough class warfare. They do need to go out and say we're giving a tax cut to billionaires to cut Medicaid. They should talk about that. They should put a thing out there that they want to have a 10% wealth tax on every person worth over. Pick a number, you know, half a billion dollars.
- [27:48]
Tim Miller
I mean, I love that Stuart Stevens is a wealth tax man. I love that.
- [27:52]
Stuart Stevens
Well, I mean, look, my party now has embraced nationalizing industries, so that just seems like a logical next step. Plus we're the pro Putin party, so I mean, I just tried to be compliant with the party. Now every poll I ever saw that said like even polling people over A million dollars was like 95 to 5. And you wondered who the fuck were the 5? Were that really that many millionaires? So I think they need to do that stuff. Look how many House members are going to run bragging about stuff that Biden passed that they voted against? A whole lot. They're already doing it. All that infrastructure stuff, all that money they got spent, it's getting spent.
- [28:36]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I saw Nancy Mace doing this the other day.
- [28:38]
Stuart Stevens
They're gonna do this and I think that's a tremendous opportunity to go out and attack them.
- [28:46]
Tim Miller
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- [31:18]
Stuart Stevens
So the guy who wants to, I think I'm quoting you, you pointed this out. The guy that wants to maybe open five city owned grocery stores is the socialist versus the party that's out there taking 10% of massive industries like Intel. Really? I think you run right at that. I wouldn't run away from that. First of all, I think there's a chance this guy might actually be a successful mayor. Ran into him at NBC the night after he won. I think he's someone who likes to be liked. He's not Bernie for sure. You know, Bernie revels in not being liked. I mean, and look, it's not like, you know, he came out of the desert as El Cid. He's, you know, Upper west side liberal, went to Bowdoin, you know, mother's Academy Award winner, his wife from this, you know, vastly wealthy family. You know, this is not, he's not Bernie. And I think that if he does stuff and it's proving to be very unpopular, he'll change. And I think he's fluid enough to do that. He'll say, okay, learn. You know, I'm like, you know, 10 years old, I'm learning. And he's likable. So I would say the Democrats, you'd rather Andrew Cuomo? Really? When Bill Clinton endorsed Andrew Cuomo, I guarantee if you were tracking from Indomie, that's the night you went ahead. It was like a T. Rex endorsing a will to be showing us a record. Yeah, it's like really? I mean, or some guy who seems to have confused being a character in the Wire with being mayor. That's the choice. You know, you're really going to be better off. I don't know.
- [32:49]
Tim Miller
So you don't think the ads are Republican ads? Because this is what they worry about. And I am 100% with you on everything you said when Zoran came on the show. Obviously all the intifada stuff is what made all the news. But I think was the most notable thing was like, he tried really hard to win over bulwark people. Like, he was thinking about, like, what are the policies that he cares about that would appeal to centrist type folks. He wasn't giving away his values. He was just like, I think government should work. I want to cut red tape. Like, he listed a couple of things so you could tell he was trying. And to your point about it, he wants to be like, that's a good trait, actually. And he's obviously very charming, which is what Democrats could use. Who the hell knows if he'll be a good mayor or not. But I think that his instincts are more towards wanting to be a good mayor than wanting to be an ideologue or he's not a crazy person like the Chicago guy. Anyway. What about the ads, though? I mean, he did like, you know, he was tweeting some crazy shit about queer liberation, like we don't need cops because of queer liberation. And he had some bad tweets at the to be a woke today.
- [33:40]
Stuart Stevens
He's kind of like our vice president. Look, I think if you're a party where you have a lunatic of declining mental powers as president who's put Russian stooges, drunks, former drug addicts who are destroying the country, if you allow your party be defined by a guy who's mayor of New York because he wants five grocery stores or something, the only honorable thing to do is just when you wake up the next day is just kill yourself. Because if you allow that. So how is it that we're having a discussion about what is wrong with the Democratic Party when you have this? The Republicans, look what they're doing. It's insane. I do not understand how the Democratic Party allows this to happen. You lost an election, okay? Get over it. We lost elections. People do lose elections. That's exactly why we have them. It's a good thing you lost. You know, somebody's gotta lose. That's an essential element of democracy. But you lost with a candidate would have been a perfectly reasonable president who wasn't out of the American mainstream. Okay? Come back, you win, and you should be prosecuting the Republican Party for its complete failure. I mean, it has taken the legacy of the greatest generation and it's completely trashed it. And this is the pro Putin party. I mean, I'd be taking J.D. vance's family. He's got these nice kids, and saying, how's he gonna feel if his kids are kidnapped? Really? You're for Putin. You're defending Putin on national television. Really? I mean, they need to just go at this stuff, and they need to very personalize it. I mean, I would be putting billboards in front of Mike Johnson's church saying, does Mike Johnson support a pedophile child sex trafficker in a Club Fed? Make them answer it. Same in Tom Holman's hometown, where he tried to deport some guy that people actually liked into town.
- [35:29]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [35:29]
Stuart Stevens
Personalize it.
- [35:31]
Tim Miller
Hey, y', all, I warned you. I warned you. Our Toronto show has sold out. The Canadians love Sam Stein so much that, you know, there are lines around the block to get tickets to it. But the good news is we still have tickets left for our live shows in Washington, D.C. and in New York coming up in early October. So go get those tickets now@thebullork.com events. I'm missing LSU versus South Carolina for you guys. I'm going to be in New York for that. And so assuming that's an afternoon game, I might have a couple bourbons in me by the time we get on stage on Saturday night. So that one could be a rowdy one. So if you're looking for an excuse to get to the Big Apple, see it. You know, go see a show Friday night. Come see us Saturday night. Could be a fun little weekend. Go get tickets. Like I said, thebuller.com events the bullork.com events. See y' all soon. I'd like to end the podcast on you telling some whining Democratic strategists to kill themselves, but we have a couple of news items I need to ask you about. And football. You've several times brought up how this is a party of Putin files at this point, even if you steel manned their case for nationalists foreign policy and America first foreign policy and what their stated goals were. And you don't include any theories about the Trump Putin. Love you. Just take them all at face value. Their strategy is failing miserably this weekend. Xi Modi and Putin had a chummy summit in China. We've driven Russia and China back together and driven India into their arms and gotten nothing for it. And it's, like, really remarkable.
- [37:12]
Stuart Stevens
Well, Maybe that's because J.D. vance is married to someone whose parents were from India. You know, that's what Laura Loomer would say. How can you not get a real American look? I think Trump likes that. I think that's what Trump wants. I think Trump wants this. I mean, clearly. I mean, it's nothing new. He obviously wants to be a strong man. And, you know, I think a lot of Republicans, they look at Russia, they say it's all run by white men.
- [37:35]
Tim Miller
What explains just how soft he is on China, though? I was watching. He didn't read the Daily Caller, that very important journalistic outfit over the weekend. I was reading this. Most of the questions she asked Trump were like, shouldn't you be on Mount Rushmore? But there are, like, one or two issues that she actually challenged upon, and one of them was the Chinese students. And she's like, why are you bringing in Chinese students? That's not America first. And then Trump goes off in his thing about how he and Xi have a great relationship and how she does a good job for his people and how they're working on so many great deals, and it's unbelievably pathetic.
- [38:06]
Stuart Stevens
Well, yeah. I mean, if you pet Trump, he'll follow you home. You know, it's not a hard thing to figure out. This is a guy who can't resist attacking the Lincoln Project. You know, we make an ad and we run it. Mar a logo on the Golf Channel. And he responds, what if you had, like, the apparatus of a foreign intelligence agency to manipulate this guy, not just buying a few ads on the Golf Channel. How difficult would it be? I think the great underreported story of our time is Russian compromise of the Republican Party on all fronts. It goes back to the nra. It goes back to the fact that, you know, we shouldn't forget. Russians tried, and they did help, as Marco Rubio proved. They wanted to elect Donald Trump president. They got him. What did they get? They got more than they could imagine. So that's how people end up being compromised. So even if you're a Roger Wicker or John Thune, and you really do believe in your heart for Ukraine, you're compromised. You can't go out and do what it takes to force that to happen. That's what's happened to the party. Nothing like this has ever happened in history. It's like Churchill's party became the pro Nazi party.
- [39:13]
Tim Miller
Did you know that? We let. The latest Russia deadline has passed. The latest red line to pass today. Here we are. I don't know. Maybe after we tape John Thune and the Republican Senate will come down hard and force Trump's hand on a sanctions bill.
- [39:29]
Stuart Stevens
The only way to get Trump to care about this is if you pointed out that his next wife, who's probably in high school somewhere, maybe in Eastern Europe, may be suffering his next beauty queen. Look, it is evil. It is evil. In our time, one of the two major parties of the United States in America supporting a genocidal war of kidnapping and rape and torture. I'm older than you. My dad spent three years fighting the South Pacific. My uncle was wounded in France, never really recovered. You think all those people who lost their lives were buried across Europe, but they came alive? You think they'd want to fight for Putin or they want to fight for Ukraine. And it is evil. RFK Jr is evil. And we should be saying that.
- [40:14]
Tim Miller
I have one other potential theory on how to maybe win Trump over on this. That's a Wall Street Journal story this morning. So yesterday the Trump crypto token officially started being traded on the open market. Previously had been only private deals. The Trump family has notched as much as 5 billion on paper as of Monday. After its flagship crypto venture, open trading, it is now the Trump's most valuable asset, exceeding all of the property portfolio. They raised 750 million in cash from investors to buy the cryptocurrency. The investors are private. The market for one of the coins in this little bucket of tokens is the dollar peg stablecoin that's being propped up by Binance, whose convicted founder Changpeng Zhao. You can wonder where he's from if you want. He's been seeking a presidential pardon.
- [41:08]
Stuart Stevens
This is one of the things that Democrats need to do. They need to open investigations into all of these crimes. These are crimes, as was a lot of what Elon Musk did. It's a crime. It's against the law.
- [41:23]
Tim Miller
Agnew resigned over 100k.
- [41:25]
Stuart Stevens
100K in a paper bag. I think it was actually less, maybe in a paper bag.
- [41:28]
Tim Miller
I think it was 10k in a paper bag. And then there was some other, you know, if you add it all up, some other side deals, but this is.
- [41:34]
Stuart Stevens
5 billion and no one in the Republican Party will say a thing. So one of the things they need to do is they need to go in and they say, you know, end all stock trading of members of Congress. They need to pass a law demanding you release your tax returns and they need to open basically a 911 style commission into the crimes of Trump and They need to start using it in that language and they're hesitant about it. We might offend people or something. This is actually worse than what Putin did. As he rose to power, he cut more people in on it because he didn't have the power base that Trump has. He needed to cut in the former KGB thugs to form his kleptocracy.
- [42:17]
Tim Miller
You're right about the threatening. And I don't, you know, Trump's so old and at this point feels like, you know, he shits gold or whatever. And I don't think he's gonna be intimidated by any of this. But the other might be. This is Malinowski this morning sent us. Former congressman, Democrat from New Jersey. He writes, any Democrat interested in being president today should say that they would slap Magnitsky act, anti corruption sanctions on any foreign person or company that bought the Trump crypto to get some value out of the US that's just like one idea. Other people should be scared and realize that the party is going to be over or the party might be over, party might be over, we don't know. But in 2029, the party might be over. The Democrats win. It won't be Merrick Garland again, and they'll be coming for you. And so if you're fucking El Salvador or you're one of these crypto guys that is running a scam, recognize that the cops are coming for you if the new guys get in charge. And maybe that is a way to intimidate other people who have concerns about their self interests.
- [43:16]
Stuart Stevens
Absolutely. Trump. These executive orders he puts out are just press releases, but he puts them out. Democrats need to learn from that. If they control the House, they can pass a bunch of symbolic stuff that makes Republicans vote on very uncomfortable stuff. And they need to do that. And they need to make it clear they are going to go after these people and they are going to go after their families, because that's where the money's going. And not just the Trump family, all these other people that are making it, they have to go after them. You can't look at it as a normal time. When we say that it's not a normal time. Well, then you can't respond in a normal time.
- [43:53]
Tim Miller
Last topic before we get to football. So this morning, Judge Breyer found the Trump administration violated the Posse Comitatis act by using the military for domestic law enforcement in Los Angeles. You were on one of the Lincoln podcasts talking about how Trump is doing, basically what the J. Helm conspiracy was on all this. I want to Play for you. I put this on the podcast a couple weeks ago. I want to play it one more time. This is a MAGA comedian type podcaster that's in this rare case, not a contradiction in terms. Tim Dillon. I just want to play this for you really quick.
- [44:26]
Tim Dillon
They've already got the cops on the street that are. I mean, that are not cops that are the military. They've already got the National Guard on the street. They already have all your information, D.C. and now they just get to decide what is and isn't over the line. That should scare everybody. You're fucking nuts, dude. If this doesn't scare you, you're nuts. All of these things that Alex Jones, you know, and I've had Alex on, I like Alex. But all these things that Alex Jones was like worried about when I listened to him in the late 90s, early 2000s are coming to fruition. Military in the street. The FEMA camp, the tech company that monitors everything, the surveillance. This is all of that.
- [45:08]
Stuart Stevens
And what the Democrats should be saying is, and we intend to use it, and we will be coming after you. We do have list. Thank you very much. We now have this masked force. We've accepted that. Larger than, funded, larger than the Marines. They're government employees. They'll do whatever the fuck we order to or we fire them. That's how they should be responding to it. Like, yes, you've created this powerful, powerful chief executive with an armed military, and we're going to use that. Understand that? And they ought to be thinking of inventive ways to do that. It's the only way. You have to just sit in a room and not say, okay, what sounds reasonable. You have to say, what is it that it will take to stop this? How do you instill fear? And fear is the only thing that will teach them. Absolutely the only thing.
- [46:01]
Tim Miller
That's one option. I'm listening to that. I'm open to that as a good option. I do think installing fear is smart. I think another response to that is, is this not a way to get these guys back, you know, and to start talking to them about this? And just the crank realignment really hurt the Democrats where every single person that was. That had strange conspiratorial thoughts all voted for one candidate that. That used to be dispersed among both parties kind of equally. We both, we both had our cranks in the corners and Trump aligned them all. And I feel like going after the Trump masked thugs and language that resonates with cranks is not maybe something for every single Democrat to do, but certainly for some of them.
- [46:41]
Stuart Stevens
And this is why the Epstein stuff works so well.
- [46:42]
Tim Miller
Exactly.
- [46:43]
Stuart Stevens
Because it is exactly everything that they said. I mean, it's like that, you know that classic cartoon, the MAGA guy dies and goes to heaven and meets St. Peter. And the first question he asked, who killed Jeffrey Epstein? He goes, it was suicide. And his response is, this goes deeper than I thought. So we're going to be running something in the Lincoln Project. Trump's, I think, universally accepted greatest achievement was warp speed. And you have this former lifelong Democrat, radical lefty, RFK Jr is attacking the MAGA great achievement of vaccines. Really? You're going to let this guy, this ex junkie traitor, ruin the legacy of Donald Trump's first term? Really?
- [47:30]
Tim Miller
I'm surprised to hear you disparaging RFK's steroid use since you famously tried steroids.
- [47:36]
Stuart Stevens
I use the word abuse.
- [47:39]
Tim Miller
Okay, got it, got it. As a former steroid trier, we'll say trier rfk. How do you assess him based on your expertise?
- [47:47]
Stuart Stevens
Well, his voice is affected by steroids. All these things are affected by steroids. His weird sort of manner that he has a lot of these ice guys, these seem to be roid rage more than any kind of law enforcement. It's like they went to Gold's Gym at last call on free steroids day and just like, said, hey, you want a job guy? And RFK Jr is a tragic figure in American life, right? I mean, horrible, horrible tragedies in his life. His siblings have adapted to that and been, you know, positive lives. If you've never read his defense of using heroin, how it worked for him, quote, unquote, how he'd still be doing it if it continued to work. That's pretty weird. There's just something deeply off about that. And who's it going to hurt? You know, the kids going to Exeter and Lawrenceville and Chope, they're going to get vaccinated. I don't think their parents are going to say, well, you know, they're the RPK Jr. You know, and they're going to find doctors who will do it. If they have to pay under the table, if they have to put them on a plane and go to Mexico, France, wherever it's, you know, the people the most vulnerable are going to get hurt. All right.
- [48:56]
Tim Miller
Most importantly, both wins, Ole Miss had a cupcake this weekend. LSU goes on the road to Clemson. LSU defense looks as good as it might have looked since 2011. I worry a little bit about the Rebs last year. Felt like it Was their year. They blew a couple games. Could have been it. They had the talent. Jackson darts is looking good in training camp for the Giants. I worry about that for you.
- [49:19]
Stuart Stevens
Yes, you should.
- [49:20]
Tim Miller
But we can at least have one like Joy together, which is that the Alabama empire is over. They didn't just lose. The empire is over. It is done. It is done.
- [49:31]
Stuart Stevens
Yeah, I agree. I think last year was the greatest choke in Ole Miss history. One of the greatest jokes in sports, football. I mean, they had nine guys, went to the NFL, first round draft pick, quarterback, and they lose to Kentucky at home. It's tough, really. Now, give LSU credit, but Kelly has said to his credit, I guess he's open about it. The payroll for this year's roster is $18 million, and it's fucking worth every penny. Steve, how many of these people are going to take pay cuts when they go to the NFL? I mean, literally. They are. They are. Some of them, you know, once they get past the first, you know, four.
- [50:06]
Tim Miller
Rounds, it's worth every penny. They're playing in front of 100,000 people. You know, they're playing on prime time.
- [50:12]
Stuart Stevens
As Texas A and M proved you can spend all that money and still play like shit. So that's true.
- [50:19]
Tim Miller
Well, I've already blocked out January. I'm. So this is where I'm at. I need a destruction. I'm high on my own supply and I'm already blocking out some playoff travel. That's where I'm at after one game. Knocking on wood over here, you know, there but by the grace of Garrett Nussmeyer's knee, go I on this. But, you know, they look really good, man.
- [50:37]
Stuart Stevens
I'm not a Kelly fan. I don't like his whole affect, but.
- [50:39]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I don't blame him. I love life.
- [50:41]
Stuart Stevens
They look good.
- [50:41]
Tim Miller
So how are you feeling about Ole Miss?
- [50:43]
Stuart Stevens
You know, it goes to what I say about sports, you know, it will always break your heart, but at least it reminds you you have one. I think there'll be one great moment and some disappointment.
- [50:55]
Tim Miller
All right, well, I hope they exceed your expectations. That's Stuart Stevens. Go read some of his books and hope to have you back again soon, man. Holler at me if you find yourself in New Orleans.
- [51:05]
Stuart Stevens
Not. Not very often.
- [51:06]
Tim Miller
You got to, though. You got to come see your mom's old stomping grounds. All right, we'll have a drink together.
- [51:11]
Stuart Stevens
I'd love that.
- [51:12]
Tim Miller
All right, we'll see you, brother. Everybody else, see you back here tomorrow for another edition of the podcast. Peace. Go Tigers.
- [51:16]
Musical Performer
Oxford Town. Oxford town? Everybody's got the heads bowed down? Sun don't shine above the ground? It going down to Oxford? He went down to Oxford Town? Guns and clubs followed him down? All because his face was brown? Better get away from Oxford Town? Oxford Town? Around the bend? Come to the door, couldn't get in? All because of the color of his skin? What do you think about that, my friend?
- [52:03]
Tim Miller
The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.
- [52:11]
Musical Performer
Me and my girl? My girl son? We got met with a tear gas bomb? I don't even know why we come going back? We come from Oxford Town? In the afternoon? Everybody's singing a sorrowful tune? Two men died neath the Mississippi moon? Somebody better investigate?
- [52:36]
Tim Miller
Soon.
- [52:47]
Stuart Stevens
Sat.