Speaker 1: This incredibly corrupt private playing gift, which he is he's
going to post through it. We've really reoriented the moral
compass of America in which we are now envious of
the petro state autocrats in the Middle East, and we're
really harsh on the democratic allies that have traditionally been and.
Speaker 2: That is a lot been allowed to happen because there
has been no one in political leadership who has a
ball among them, not one scrota among them, to actually
stand up and go no. I mean, we just got
an air force one how many? How many do we
get a new plane each administration?
Speaker 1: In this case, it wouldn't be because eventually it would
be to the Trump Library.
Speaker 2: And if you believe Donald Trump is not going to
fly around on that bad boy, that's the most ridiculous part. Well,
I'm looking forward to a little fun today here on
the Bulwark platform. I'm so glad you could join us
because my guest is a longtime buddy of mine, Sam Stein,
the managing editor of The Bulwark.
Speaker 3: Soh yeah, I kind of like you know the boss.
Speaker 2: He is just a real good journalist, real good Washington reporter.
Prior to his current assignment, he was the white House
editor for Politico, politics editor at The Daily Beast, and
covered national politics for huff Post, where he was one
of the site's first political reporters. He's a frequent contributor
on my network at MSNBC. He's a funny guy, smart guy,
talented journalist, and I look forward to welcoming him to
the Michael's Podcast right after this. Hey, folks, it's me,
welcome back to the Michael Steel Podcast. Is always a
special treat when you decide to grab yourself a nice
little adult beverage.
Speaker 3: In a coffee cup.
Speaker 4: Adult beverage. It's a dude.
Speaker 2: Today. How long do you know me? Man?
Speaker 1: Come on, man, this is that type of podcast.
Speaker 4: I would have had.
Speaker 2: That type of podcast every day.
Speaker 4: You're in here.
Speaker 2: Okay, good, it's it's called a g n T ten.
We kind of keep it clean. Some people think it's
water anyway, My buddy Sam Stein, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 2: It's good to have you.
Speaker 4: Great being here. What an honor.
Speaker 2: Ah, I love it. I love it.
Speaker 3: You treat me too kindly, my friend.
Speaker 2: Hey, you know, before we get into politics and all
of that stuff and news of the day and the
work you're doing at the Bulwark and your your pedigree
has been one I've actually had the pleasure to watch
over the years when you first really kind of came
on the scene and your writing, your appearances certainly on
MSMBC Morning Joe for particularly, they love, they love having
a little fun with Sam Stein. Yeah, right right, And
and you're you're filling in and hosting and stuff like that.
You have such a wide, wide background of experiences. How
when you're looking at how you assess this period to
do your job and you're and we were talking a
little I asked a little bit before we started about
the family and everything, and then you're balancing that against
the family. Are there days when you're sitting there and
you're working and it's like, my kid just won't believe this,
or I gotta I gotta be on top of this because.
Speaker 3: It's going to be important for future generations.
Speaker 2: How how do reporters today work in an environment in
which they're you know, face forward on television.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, before you could just hide behind
not hide, but you.
Speaker 2: Would be behind the words you wrote, right, they'd be
on paper or on a site somewhere. But now you're
a little bit you're a lot more face forward. How
does that change your coverage of the news and how
do you report it for future generations.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a good question.
Speaker 1: When I so, I started back in two thousand and six,
two thousand and seven, and it was kind of like
there was no Twitter back then. It's just you know,
there was blogs, and you know, even online only journalism.
Speaker 4: Was considered exotic. And I would say.
Speaker 1: That it's kind of it works both ways. One is
that things have gotten way more supercharged. Obviously, even just
the news cycles a more fast. Uh, it turns over
way more quickly.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: The the the impulse that you have to sort of
never sign offline because you might miss something is way
more pronounced than it was.
Speaker 3: Even better.
Speaker 1: On the flip side, it's it's it's a lot easier
to get information and to stay on top of things, right,
Like it's continuous. If you set up uh these information feeds,
you can always be reading stuff.
Speaker 4: So there's a bit of a back and forth on that.
I do. You know, there are times where I feel like.
Speaker 1: I've overloaded on it and I feel like through overwhelming
and that I do need to sign off of it.
Speaker 4: And I'm not trying to pretend like this.
Speaker 1: Is like some grand burden, right, It's like, you know,
I'm not I'm not in the minds, you know, but
it is it can be a lot, and you you
sort of you sort of recognize that it's kind of
taking you over. And certainly when you have kids, like
I do, you you fight the impulse to be on
your phone at all hours.
Speaker 4: And I'm not very good at that. I wish I
was better at it.
Speaker 1: And then on the public facing stuff, you know, that's
that's that's a whole nother thing because back in six
oh seven, you know, I wasn't on TV that much
or anything like that. But even when I started going
on TV, you know, the chances for interactions with people
were more limited than they are now, and that like,
it wasn't like, you know, you didn't see all the
nastiness in your feed and and and the feedback that
you get now.
Speaker 4: The flip side of that is that I kind of
not that.
Speaker 1: I enjoy it, but I don't mind it as much
as other people do.
Speaker 4: I kind of I used to do this thing. I
don't do it as.
Speaker 1: Much anymore, but I used to try to find the
people who were like particularly horrible to me on Twitter,
and I used to try to find their phone numbers
and call them up and uh and uh and just
to be like, yo, let's talk it out, like why
did you say that about me? Like you know, let's
have a let's have a con just to see if
I could like reason with these people.
Speaker 4: Now oftentimes you couldn't.
Speaker 1: But oftentimes they just be like, you know, I didn't
mean to say that that was right. So I have
like a weird impulse about it. Not to say I
don't get affected by it, but.
Speaker 4: I encourage the reporters who are now edit.
Speaker 1: Like you know, what I try to tell them is
that it's hard, but you do need to recognize that
so much of this is just theatrical, like that the
anger that people are showing online and the nastiness and
the harshness of the of the feedback is not actually
grounded critique of your work. It's not real. So much
of it's not real, and that you have to have
an ability to sort of push it out and compartmentalize it.
And I try to do that myself, and oftentimes it's
not easy and and but that's just part of the gig.
Speaker 2: Yeah it is, and it's funny. I mean for me,
you have been a journalist. You have been uh you know,
White House editor for Political you've been at the Huffington Post,
and now you're the managing editor at the Bulwark. So
you're you've got good journalism roots, as you said, starting
out in two thousand and six, as they used to say,
as a cub reporter, if you will, and sort of
growing your way through the game and you know, developing
the skill sets, and then the environment changes where you're
no longer the reporter, but you're the target. In twenty
ten years after you start in the business, you're now
labeled the enemy of the state. What you do is
considered fake, and that alters the way journalists approach their stories.
We went through the period where every story was basically,
you know, a six hundred word article was nice two
percent fact check, you know, and and and the and
the real essence of what was going on and what
was happening to the country, to the government was was
suffused into storylines around the rightness or wrongness of what
Trump just said or what some official just said or
did how how do and when you look at the
last couple of White House correspondence dinners, the focus now
on the First Amendment and the the craft of journalism
and leveling that up, this sense of trying to get
back to that where you know, it's about reporting, it's
about the accuracy of the story and the facts. Talk
about what that's been like for I know, you have
conversations with your colleagues about this. You guys swimming against
the same tie that you know politicos like myself are in.
You know, I I, you know, have a lot, I
think a lot more freedom than you do in many
respects because I basically don't give a ship because I've
been in the room and I know, I know, I
know what's in the room, and and so that's one piece.
Speaker 3: But you covered the room, and that's a different that's
a different lusture.
Speaker 1: I guess the way there's a couple of ways to
think about, Like one is I would rather that they,
you know, attack us than ignore us, because it doesn't
signify that you know, what we do matters.
Speaker 4: I mean, the real problem comes when they're.
Speaker 1: When the institution is so insignificant and so marginalized that
they don't really care.
Speaker 4: Right. Yeah, it doesn't mean that I'm it doesn't mean
that I'm thrilled because of this day, Like, yeah, I
think I think there's a fairly nasty I thank you.
I've been trying, but you know, I don't know it.
Speaker 1: Different outlets have to approach this in different ways, Like
you know, if.
Speaker 2: I are the bulwark.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so like if I were a political it's different
than I approached at the bull work.
Speaker 4: But the bullwork now for us, it's like what we're
trying to do is.
Speaker 1: Just be I know this sounds so quaint, but it's
like honest and fair, right, like honest and fair. And
our view is that, you know, people need to sort
of grapple with the stakes of what's happening, right and
you and you shouldn't sugarcoat it and you shouldn't put
you know, some both siderism, you know, wrapping around it.
Speaker 4: You you should be upfront about it.
Speaker 1: And and that can take the form in a variety
of different types of journalism. So we have like incredibly
unbelievable essays in common Harry and analysis and like I
don't know if he gets enough credit, but like JVL,
like every single newsletter he writes, I think is I
think he's like the voice of I'm I'm obviously byased
but I do.
Speaker 2: Think he's the voice of that you are fought on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he's the voice of the air and
what he's doing, and like that's one form of it.
Speaker 4: And then you know what we've decided to do. You know,
we've we've.
Speaker 1: Hired a bunch of newsletter writers and what we've done
is we've said, look, these are like, these are the
areas where we think are the most meaningful coverage areas
for the Trump administration, and we hire newsletter writers on
those areas. So we made a determination like immigration obviously
first and foremost, you know, the revamping of government and
what Doge and Trump are trying to do, Democrats and
how they get back into power right like, and then
the online right, which is really you know, used to
be as you know, used to be a bunch of
weirdos and gadflies and now is the power center.
Speaker 4: And yeah, yeah, they're they're basically right.
Speaker 1: I mean, when Laura Lumer can have a bunch of
national security official sacked.
Speaker 4: You take her seriously.
Speaker 1: So those were like so we did it through reporting,
But I think the through line of it has always
been that you know, you have to be honest about
the stakes and you have to be fair in what
you write, and if you can get those two metrics,
it doesn't quite matter all that much what they call
you or how they dismiss you or whatever. Now, I
think if you're looking at it in a macro sense,
I'm deeply troubled by the fact that there's.
Speaker 4: Been a very concerted and effective effort.
Speaker 1: To marginalize the press and diminish its impact and you know,
try to convince you know, half or more of the
public that you shouldn't trust what you read. I think
the damage is very evident to that, right, Like, we
can spend hours talking about how damaging that's been, and so,
you know, my I hope we can reverse those trends.
I hope we can get to a place where people
understand that what they read is, you know, it's not
always going to be satisfactory to you, but it is
going to be an honest attempt to get to the truth.
Speaker 4: But those are larger trends that they are.
Speaker 2: They are, so so let's let's let's talk about what
you're writing about. Let's talk about the the news, what
what's the lead, what's the lead on the bulwark as
we get up today, and what we're doing.
Speaker 3: This is early boning for me, folks.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, even with the booze, I feel, uh,
lead today has got to be trumpa in Saudi Arabian
and cutter. I mean, I just think if you watch
the spectacle, there's both sort of the micro elements of it,
like what are the deals that are being done? This
incredibly corrupt private playing gift, which.
Speaker 4: He is he's going to post it, he just.
Speaker 1: But then then there's like the larger picture, which is
and this was our morning Shots newsletter lead, which is
like this is this is a guy in Trump who
clearly has a kind of a tyrant envy. And he's
over there and he's talking about how great the marble
is in these palaces and how lovely you know, the
Saudi Arabian government, uh you know can organize its citizenry.
And you're like, this is not you know, you know,
this is not sort of traditional, right, like this is
this is a break.
Speaker 4: He confessed his love for MBS and said he may
have loved him too much.
Speaker 1: And I just think if you, if you, if you
actually and occasionally you do have to do this, you
step back and say we've really reoriented the moral compass
of America in which we are now envious of the autocrats,
the petro state autocrats in the Middle East, and we're really,
you know, harsh on the democratic allies that have traditionally
been And that's the.
Speaker 2: Part that drives me absolutely sideways, is that we are
not one man is and let and yet.
Speaker 4: Well, one man who is man managed to reorient.
Speaker 3: People.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's my point. That is a love been
allowed to happen because there has been no one in
political leadership who has a ball among them, right, not one,
not one scrota among them, to actually stand up and
go no, no to the fact that you look at Trump.
The Trump family business alone right now in the Middle
East consists of Trump International Hotel and Tower in Dubai,
the Trump International Golf Club in Doha, Trump Tower, Jetta
and Saudi Arabia, Trump Hotel, Oman Crypto Venture, Kushner's investment fund,
Right Live Golf right where, and of course the four
hundred million dollar airplane we don't need, right, I mean,
we just got an air force one. How many how
many do we get a new plane each administration?
Speaker 1: And this is bull I mean, well, in this case,
it wouldn't be because eventually it would be and to
the Trump Library.
Speaker 2: And if you believe Donald Trump is not going to
fly around on that.
Speaker 4: Bad boy, that's as ridiculous part. I'm just gonna put
it in my libbary. Please.
Speaker 2: So why are we so damn gullible?
Speaker 4: Wild?
Speaker 2: I mean, you cover the Hill, you talk to these people,
they won't talk to me as much anymore because my
tolerance level is zero for for the excuse making. And
I'm just like, what, what is it? I don't understand someone.
Speaker 4: It's not even that they're gully.
Speaker 1: It's like, so Joe Perdicaron is our Hill guide and
you know, like he was out there starting talking to
these folks, and it's like, you know, you have to
understand in any one of these stories, the through line
is that Trump is a genius and anyone who questions
him as suckers. And so it's not just that you're
rationalizing this this bizarre gift, it's that you are, you know,
mocking people who would dare question it and Trump, you know,
their suckers. If you don't take this now, I will
say I've been somewhat surprised. Pleasantly, I guess that like
there are a few Republicans who are like this is
a little too much.
Speaker 4: Like you know, we talked about Laura Lumer. She she
didn't she was not a fan of it. Ted Cruz,
Ron Johnson, they're both like, you know, this is a
bad look.
Speaker 1: So there is maybe we've hit a place where people
are discomforted enough that they're willing to talk about it,
but by and large they're you know, doing the usual
evasion saying I didn't see it, I don't know enough
about it, or yeah, he's smart to take it. And
I think what's happened is one people are just totally
you know, petrified of Trump and the Republican Party and
they don't want to speak out about it.
Speaker 4: And too is that he's kind of normalized the type
of open.
Speaker 1: Corruption that people now are some people I should say,
are fine with. I've always i mean, we're always making
this parallel on Nicole Alfles show yesterday, But like you know,
Hunter Biden was doing business deals with Barisma and Ukraine
when his father was not in office, when he was
out of office as vice president, and there was real
questions about whether Barisma was using Hunter Biden to sort
of get in with good favor with Joe Biden, and
you know whether money actually made it into Joe Biden's account.
Speaker 2: Who was a private citizen at the time.
Speaker 1: With this is a subject of an impeachment. Yeah, this
is a subject of impeachment in quer by James Comer.
In this case, it's like you don't even have I mean,
you mentioned the son's business deals. In this case, it's
just a gift straight to down the Trump and he's like, yeah,
of course I'm accepting it, and it's going in my
library and you'll be a sucker to question it.
Speaker 4: And I am president, by the way, and it's.
Speaker 1: Like the levels are just so distinct and yet you know.
Speaker 2: But what so you just drew the parallel. And I
had this debate yesterday on my show the week night,
weeknights at seven pm. It always plugging the bulwark and
the week night that's this is the com But I
had I was making this point the other night last
night about the fact that we sit here and we
we look at what Donald Trump is doing and we
know I mean, you even had uh Nikki Haley tweet
out regarding the plane. If Joe Biden did this, we
Republicans would be losing our minds.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you can say that about a lot of things.
Speaker 2: You know, you can say that about a lot of things.
But the point for me is that for some reason,
the Democrats aren't able to make the constant narrative or
tell the constant story of this corruption and to ingrain
in it. I mean, when you stop and think about it,
Hunter Biden during the time that Joe Biden was in
office was mentioned covered over one hundred and thirty thousand
times during that period, that constant boom boom. Let me
tell you how bad this guy is. The Biden crime family,
you know, Barisma, this laptop, that, et cetera. Republicans are
very and I guess I guess bad actors acting in
bad faith are really good at perpetuating the badness, right,
In other words.
Speaker 4: It goes beyond it.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, it's like the Hillary Clinton email thing, right,
it's the same exact stuff. They use signal to discuss
worklins And you're like, wait, do you remember when but
this is kind of a yeah.
Speaker 4: They call this the.
Speaker 1: Hack gap, right, right, It's like you just this is
the way it's it's traditionally been. Now, I do think
Democrats are trying to make an issue out of this.
One thing that has always been a kind of a
problem for the party during the Trump era is that
there's just a lot of shit happening. You spend a
lot of time going on one controversy and then suddenly
he pops up and there's another thing. And you know,
I'm not saying like, well, whatever, you have to end
up choosing which ones you think you choose, you gotta choose.
We sort of handed them something that's pretty easy to choose.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we'll talk about that. We don't take a
quick break with Sam Stein. My man, I've gotten a
note Sam a long time now. I think I think
I've known you since before you were certainly before your kids,
but before you got married.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, Yeah. When did you become chairman?
Speaker 2: Two thousand and nine.
Speaker 4: I got married that year, so yeah.
Speaker 2: Right around around that time. So but yeah, and he
hasn't aged a bit, folks.
Speaker 4: Not one day like Benjamin buttoning this thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, folks, we'll be right back right after this. All right, folks,
let's take a quick break from the discussion and talk
about protecting yourself in the digital world we live in,
because whether you're scrolling the news, booking, travel or doing research.
You deserve online privacy that works as hard as you do.
That's why my team uses a surf Shark VPN for
this podcast. It encrypts your Internet activity, keeping your private
data away from trackers, hackers, and anyone else trying to snoop.
You can even safely browse on public Wi Fi at airports, hotels,
coffee shops, you name it. And here's a game changer.
With just one subscription, serf Shark secures all your devices laptops, phones, tablets,
your covered. Plus, if you're traveling or living abroad, serf
Shark lets you break through GOEO restrictions so you can
still catch your favorite shows, news and sports just like
you're back at home. And let's not forget serf Shark search,
no ads, no tracking, just clean private searching. So here's
the deal. Head over to serfshark dot com, slash steal
or use the code steal at checkout, and you'll get
four extra months of serf Shark VPN absolutely free, and yes,
it comes with a thirty day money back guarantee. Serf SHARKVPN,
It's time to take control of your online security serfshark
dot com slash s.
Speaker 4: T E E l E.
Speaker 2: Or code Steele at checkout for four extra months of
surf Shark DPN for free surf shark dot com slash Steele.
Welcome back, everybody, Michael Steele Podcast, Hanging in with my
buddy Sam Stein, who's taking a moment from all the
work he's doing as the managing editor over at our platform,
The Bulwark. So, Sam, you had, uh, the Supreme Court
has been in the news a lot for a lot
of different reasons, largely related to cases that are that
are flowing through the system. But you had the death
last week of Justice David Souter, appointed by George Bush,
and certainly he was no longer on the court, but
it got a lot of folks I think thinking about,
you know, the style of the man relative to the
changes in the court, what the court of the future
looks like. Are you hearing or seeing any movement towards
in either this administration or future administration's Democrat or Republican
A relook a redo of the Supreme Court anyway?
Speaker 4: Not really.
Speaker 1: I mean there was talk early on in the Biden
air of like trying to plow forward with Supreme court firms,
and you remember Biden put together, which is like classically
no thanks. I think it would be worth doing, because
you know, what we've ended up with is a very
political body, and there's no incentive to depoliticize it unless
both parties jump into those waters together. What struck me
about the Pseudon news is just seeing like he retired
at what sixty nine years old?
Speaker 4: Was it something like that?
Speaker 1: I mean, you imagine like that wasn't that long ago,
but like, there is no incentive for anyone to step
down now unless your party's controlling power. So I happen
to be interested in some court reforms, but in terms
of the political in political movement behind them, it seems
pretty much dead right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and I agree with that. I too, am
very supportive of some court reforms. I largely think that
the Congress needs to impose ethics requirements, as they do
in all other federal benches. I think, you know, I'm
not sure about tinkering with the number, not wholly convinced
that that changes too much of anything.
Speaker 3: But I love the idea of term limits.
Speaker 2: I love the idea of okay, you're on the court
for sixteen years. We can do the math to figure
out the right sweet spot for that, sure, But this
idea of a life appointment absent some type of type
of ethical safeguards.
Speaker 3: To me is.
Speaker 2: Has contributed to the rot and the distrust that has
grown and the lack of it, the lack of the
independence I think for the court well.
Speaker 4: And there's also the court.
Speaker 1: This is the question of like, you know, should you
do tumor limits and then allow each each president, you know,
a certain number of appointments to make sure that everyone
feels like they have buy into the system. You know,
should you do age limits that's a little bit more complicated.
And then of course, you know there's other reforms that
you should consider. Now conservatives are kind of running over
to them, but like national injunctions for instance, was you know,
it's funny to see Stephen Miller and the gang go
crazy over these district judges having these national injunctions, and
it's like, yeah, but this was working in your favor
under Biden, right, like all the like, you know, they
put that one on us too, a student loan relief,
put that on ice And so you know, there's a
whole host of different reforms that probably need to be
seriously addressed. But there's just no political capital to do
it because any party in power inherently would either look
like it's exercising an incredible power grab or they you know,
happen to.
Speaker 4: You know, not want to do it at that point
in time.
Speaker 2: So let's go kick a little ass. What what do
you think the Democrats need to do right now?
Speaker 3: You got you got ass?
Speaker 2: Donkey, I get it.
Speaker 4: I've heard better jokes. I would say one. Well, I
don't know where do you come down.
Speaker 1: It's like there's there's the debate right now where it's like,
you know, they need to moderate and they should therefore
adopt moderate policies.
Speaker 4: Or is it that they need to show their sort
of you.
Speaker 1: Know, generationally changing or maybe they don't need to do
anything at all because you know, it's always going to
be a referendum in the in the midterms and look
at these special election results to do great. I kind
of jump between a few of those. And before I
give you my answer, I one to hear yours. So
if you know anything about me, uh and the first.
Speaker 2: Right, sorry about I'm going to I'm going to redefine
the edge and I'm going to do everything I can
to cut you with it.
Speaker 3: And that's that's what the Democrats do.
Speaker 2: Not have a propensity towards a political fight, so you.
Speaker 4: Just say slash.
Speaker 2: I say, I say, look what I did in when
I was a county chairman, out outgunned here in Prince
George's county fifty eight thousand Republicans to eight hundred thousand citizens. Right,
what I did is state party chairman, outgunned two to
one in Democratic registration.
Speaker 3: Yet I got a governor.
Speaker 2: Elected in twenty in two thousand and two that happened
to be on the ballot.
Speaker 3: That may have helped, may not have helped.
Speaker 2: But we had a plan, and the plan was to fight, right,
was to fight, to to lean into the opposition. When
I got to the R and C, it was no different. Outnumbered, outgunned,
a seventy percent plus approval for Barack Obama. Our brand
was in the toilet. We were hemorrhaging voters and money.
I had a lot of internal fighting. You know. The
political establishment didn't like me or trust me, even though
they knew me. Probably that's why they didn't like me
or trust me. And I was not I was not
a person who play well with others.
Speaker 1: Well, let me talk, let's let's stop there everything, because
this is this is the most interesting.
Speaker 4: Parallel, which is two thousand and nine and twenty five, right, like,
is there is this.
Speaker 1: What were you see like a lot of discontent among
Democrats The party is not very popular, but if I
remember in two thousand and nine, their public party wasn't
very popular either. Nope, and there's a lot of discontent.
The Tea Party was on the rise, and there's a
lot of questions about whether they were going to fumble
the ball because of it, right, and it turned out
it was like, hey, obviously historic election for the party.
Speaker 4: I'm I'm kind of interesting towards this being similar to that.
Speaker 1: But maybe that was because of Obamacare and that was
a unique situation or maybe not.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, but you can have Obamacare, but if you
don't define what Obamacare means to people, if you don't,
if you don't look, it's a parallel thing. I've got
to know what we're going for, what we're doing, and
I've got to be able to convince my team this
is the way to go, and that was very hard
to do. I had a lot of people in January
twenty ten, Karl Rover. I'll never forget the op ed
he did in the Wall Street Journal basically lighten my
ass up. And I don't know what I'm doing. I'm
an awful chairman. We'd be lucky if we get thirty
seats out of this election. Well we got sixty three, bitch, right,
and I picked up almost one thousand.
Speaker 4: Have you ever brought that up to him directly?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: He and I have laughed about it.
Speaker 3: Carl is a good guy.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I've got no beef of Carls
with me. But but you know, a thousand state legislative races.
You know how we got those? I focused on and
no one in the party were focused on winning state
legislative races. Right, You want to change the game, change
the game? Where the game is changed? How do you
you know if you want the how do you how
do you get control of the courts congressional districts? How
do you get control of congressional districts? You draw the lines,
and who draws the lines.
Speaker 4: Say legislatures.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 1: Well, there's some state supreme courts that can have some
say but yes, I hear you.
Speaker 2: But what I'm just saying is you've got to have
You've got to have a forward looking strategy. Now, look,
you can't. You can't account for every outcome and the
behavior of every politician and gets elected. Sure, I mean,
we're all sitting here looking at some of the folks
that we've worked with over the years ago. Who the
hell is that person in the land of Trump? But
but the reality of it is, that's for me, Sam,
the way the Democrats need to sort of look at
this is what's the multi layered strategy here? Right?
Speaker 3: Number one?
Speaker 2: But then what is your messaging? What was my messaging
with twenty ten? Fire Pelosi? Right right? You want your
garbage picked up? Fire Pelosi? You want to change the Congress?
Fire Pelosi?
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And see that's where it might be different. I don't
think Mike Johnson is that type. I mean, this is
not a Mike Johnson election, right.
Speaker 2: This is it. It's Mike Donald Trump an the other
things that will substitute for Mike Johnson.
Speaker 4: Right right? You know, I mean I I my sense
is that.
Speaker 1: The question was where do Democrats stand and what should
they do? I think honestly they need to find one
or two things which resonate with the public and it
could be honestly, could be the corruption right like, that
could be it it worked that to works them in
six it was a corruption thing and then.
Speaker 4: Kind of hammer away.
Speaker 1: And yes, there's gonna be divisions in the party over
like ideology and philosophy and what policies to emphasize.
Speaker 4: But if you can say Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Is corrupt and Donald Trump has not done anything to
make your life meaningfully better.
Speaker 4: With costs, so I think that's a winning formula.
Speaker 2: That works better than a conversation around birthright citizenship in
monuments clause.
Speaker 4: Except yes, I mean yes it does.
Speaker 1: Now they the emolument's clause does get into the corruption stuff.
But an argument over birth rate, here's the thing I
think you can argue. I think you can argue the
morality of the immigration stuff totally fine. I think what
you say is I'm not I'm not a strategist, so
so no one should be listening to me, be like
that's the guy. Now, just I'm just throwing on an
idea here. But the birthright citizenship, the deportation stuff, that's
a form of corruption, all right. It's a corruption against
the constitution. And if you can frame it like that,
then you can kind of sweep it into one.
Speaker 2: I like that frame. What what about the economy We're
I've been saying for a number of months. I mean,
you know, I was I'm minored in economics, and so
I know a little bit of our numbers work and
how they flow. And I've been saying for a few months,
along with a few other folks, that the impact of
what Trump has done, even though he's trying to clean
up on all nine through twenty right now, right, has
already been set in motion and will be realized at
the end of this month, beginning of June, and it's
starting to come come into focus. We'll see a lot
of folks. How does the economic piece play rather that messaging?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, I mean, look, what is it. It's May fourteenth,
twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4: We have so much time.
Speaker 1: We have so much time, so we don't just we
just don't know where we're going to be economic. But
let's say in theory the elections were in like six months,
then yeah, I think it would.
Speaker 4: I think there's a lot to run on here.
Speaker 1: If you're a Democrat, it's it's you know, it's all
self inflicted damage that he's created. You can easily say,
we we handed him and helped protest, but like we
handed him a pretty good economy with low inflation, high
low unemployment GDP moving the direction, and he went and
took a hammer to it. And that's factually true. Like
he just the tariffs were self inflicted. The fact that
he had to reverse on them is not an act
of negotiating genius.
Speaker 4: Is not like the art of the ill.
Speaker 1: It's just he admitted he was wrong. And you know,
going out and firing you know, tens of thousands of
workers and these are, yes, they're government in place, but
they're also you know, blue collar people who man your parks,
who work in and around government buildings, who research diseases
and make sure your water's clean and all that stuff.
That like he fired them, right, and that has a
real impact. I mean, like you can say that the
economy is not in a better spot despite what he
wants to say, and he promised you fix it on
day one, and does it feel fixed to you? And
you can look at the consumer sentiments like the University
of Michigan consumer sentiment data, then people don't think the
economy is going in the right direction. They're fearful about
where the economy is going so again, we're very very
very very very far away. We don't know what the
economy is going to look like in a year from now,
but there is fodder for Democrats here for sure.
Speaker 2: So before I let you go, I want to have
a little fun with you. So you mentioned her.
Speaker 3: A little bit earlier, a little Laura Lumer.
Speaker 2: You guys had a little little Twitter Twitter back and forth.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what was that about.
Speaker 3: You?
Speaker 4: Well, so I don't think she went after me. I
didn't get lumored. Let's just be I want to be very.
Speaker 2: You did not get lumored. You're just not.
Speaker 4: So what's happening here is this is the backstory, will So.
Speaker 2: Who he asked the question, is Laura Lumer for sale?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 1: I was posting an article we reported from Will Summer
about whether or not Laura Lumer's for sale? And by
that we mean there's accusations flying around that she's running
some sort of payola scheme because suddenly she's tweeting about.
Speaker 4: Venezuelan oil, Like, where did that come from?
Speaker 1: I haven't really tweeted about that ever, And this was
not an accusation I made. Kaylee means a top Robert F.
Kennedy advisor whose sister is being nominated for surgeon General,
has publicly accused Laura Lumer of attacking his sister because
she's paid for by someone he hasn't specified, but she
has been pretty viciously attacking Casey means his sister, And
so Lumer denied it to Will Summer. She says she's
not paid for her work. She's just out there doing
the vetting that everyone needs to do. But this is
like getting a lot of buzz in Maga circles. And
Will noticed it, and he did the reporting. And then
I tweeted the article innocently enough, as a good editor does,
trying to promote the work of his reporters, and.
Speaker 2: I got lumured.
Speaker 4: I got lumered for it.
Speaker 2: It was so funny. It's just it's just the way,
you know, she just sort of came at it, and you're, like.
Speaker 1: Typically and typically understated fashion, Yes.
Speaker 2: Right, exactly exactly, you know, your misogynistic I you know what,
I can't have my own companies. It's just it does
matter who pays you.
Speaker 1: Yes, if you're paid for And this is the other thing, though,
there's like a pretty lengthy history now people in this
sphere getting paid to post and so there's not like
it's not like this is like non contextualized.
Speaker 2: I thought she protested a bit too much and went on,
had had to explain way too much and just sort
of couch it. And when you look, you.
Speaker 4: May have read similarly to some people here.
Speaker 2: Yes, I was like, okay, all right, see in any
other world to go please and move on. But no,
you got to go into the whole. If you can't
beat them, make them join, I mean, make them like
you quotes. I'm like, please spare me, all right. Well,
Sam Stein, you keep doing you boo.
Speaker 4: Thank you, mister chairman, Thank you very much. I'll always do.
Speaker 3: It well, my friend, you do it well.
Speaker 2: It's a real treat to spend a little bit of
time with you, to get some insights on on the
stories you're you're writing, and.
Speaker 4: Thank you man.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be I know you're gonna be insufferable this
fall because of the commanders and how good they are,
and it's gonna be so annoying, you know.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell you, yes, it will be. It's almost
damn near forty years that we need the party about something. Shit. Uh,
it's been standing back and yeah, we're getting. We're getting,
And I know it's gonna be branded by whoever puts
up the most money to help build it.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be it's gonna be Maga Stadium or something.
Speaker 3: Right, Oh God help me on that one.
Speaker 2: But I would love if they could keep the name
RFK Stadium. They probably won't, but it's just from that, yes,
having it back in DC. I say that as a
native Washingtonian, not as the former Lieutenant Government Bryan where
the commanders currently play.
Speaker 1: Uh, there's some old footage, isn't there some old footage
of you at our Yeah.
Speaker 2: The old Reins game. Yeah, I'm in the real baby
wearing my member's only jacket.
Speaker 4: That's awesome. Well when that when it happens, let's catch
a game.
Speaker 2: Okay, you got it. My friend Sam Stein, he is
the one and only the managing editor for the Bulwarks.
Always a pleasure in my friend to have you on board, folks,
Thank you for spending time with us. You know, I
love it when you did that voodoo of downloads and
likes and all that good stuff. It makes all the
people at the bull Wok very happy, especially and uh,
this is my boss, right here. Come on, you guys,
you guys got to pay attention. And right, let's do it.
Let's do it. And remember what I always tell you folks,
don't play but stupid. Okay, because you become stupid. So
there we are, all right, Take care,