Conversation with A.B. Stoddard
Filmed May 16, 2023
BILL KRISTOL:
Hi, I’m Bill Kristol. Welcome back to Conversations. I’m very pleased to be joined today by A.B. Stoddard, with whom I had an excellent conversation about 10 months ago. And we’re going to pick up on some of those themes today. A.B. has had a distinguished career as both a reporter and a commentator. You can find her work at RealClearPolitics and occasionally, it should be even a little more occasionally at The Bulwark, with some really excellent pieces there. And I think really one of A.B’s great virtues is that she’s both a serious reporter, a real reporter, does interviews, has sources, and a very thoughtful commentator. And most people are sort of one or the other, but A.B. is both. So, A.B, thanks for joining me again.
A.B. STODDARD:
Thanks for having me again, Bill. It’s an honor and a pleasure.
BILL KRISTOL:
Well, it’s great. The previous conversation, which was in July, 2022 stands up well, and we discussed Donald Trump, and Joe Biden, and Congress. And let’s just go through those three topics today and see what’s changed and what we have to say since July, but also since the election. So, Donald Trump, the Republican Party, you’ve been a consistent skeptic that the Republican Party could liberate itself from Trump. I think it’s fair to say and including when other people thought that was quite likely. Where do you think we stand on Trump in 2024 and Trump and the Republicans?
A.B. STODDARD:
Well, Bill, I mean, as of this time, he is clearly the almost presumed nominee; it’s going to be a big mountain to climb for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to try to overcome him. A morning consult poll I saw today has his lead against over DeSantis now biggest ever at 43 points.
BILL KRISTOL:
This is May, what is this? Just to be clear, this is mid-May, May 16th, just so when people look back a year and a half from now, they can give you credit for being way ahead of the curve here in May.
A.B. STODDARD:
Or will be able to say, isn’t it great that Ron DeSantis came out of his terrified corner and took Trump on and took him down, and that would be a great thing. But anyway, at this rate, it just seems that Trump is impenetrable, that his support has grown as his legal exposure has increased, and that the contenders around him, like DeSantis, cannot find a way to go after him. And unless they go after him, they can’t beat him, and they can’t take him out. So all of this pain and duress about not poking the base is really proving fruitless. They haven’t come up with a response. They haven’t found their secret weapon, their solution. They’re laying their path, their way of distinguishing themselves from Trump, showing the base that he’s truly vulnerable in a general election and that it’s time to move on.
No one will even call him a lame duck. I mean, imagine that’s not hard to do. “Hey, with Trump, you only get four years.” I mean, they won’t say anything about this guy. And so he had a great town hall for him, I think, at CNN, and he’s just steamrolling his way. Many things intervene, of course, Bill, but right now his firm grip on the party is as powerful if not more powerful than ever because, what’s the goal? To get away with as much as he can. It’s to get away with things. And he’s gotten away with January 6th, and the plotting of a coup. He’s gotten away with being found potentially… first, he stole documents, classified documents from the White House, but potentially he obstructed justice and caused his lawyers to lie and everything. The more this builds, the more intense the support. And the establishment and the elites, who are not in the 2024 field but are connected to the donors in this deep sense of fear about Donald Trump being their nominee, are still powerless in the face of his strength.
BILL KRISTOL:
Okay, well, there’s a lot there. So let’s unpack that a little. I mean, A, do you take it that DeSantis is close to being the only alternative to Trump? That, I mean, it’s sort of 90% that it’s one of the two of them, 95%… I mean, you think it is? Do you think no one’s going to come from 4% and have a dramatic run and upset both of the people ahead of them, ahead of that person?
A.B. STODDARD:
This is an amazing thing that you look at the same polls I do that Pence and Haley are always number three and four, which is stunning to me. I understand the appeal of Nikki Haley. A very solid resume, a non-white woman, that’s exciting to a lot of Republicans. Mike Pence consistently holds at third place, usually over her. Right now, I think in the morning consult poll, he’s at 6%. He is now, as of today, going to launch. Allies are launching a PAC in favor as he considers an exploratory committee. And we’ve talked about this before. We don’t see his constituency, we don’t see his path, but he is refusing to engage in the culture wars. His allies say if he runs, this likely campaign will be issues-centric. Nikki Haley, again, she’ll say a few things here and there on Twitter, but she really tries to be policy-based.
She tries to retreat from the culture war. Tim Scott— not running on the culture war. So if Chris Sununu and Chris Christie get in, I doubt that they will be running on culture wars. But Ron DeSantis is all in on culture wars, and he obviously has a solid resume of accomplishments he could be running on. I mean, he does, but he also just wants to be sort of second MAGA king in line, and he has the most appeal. So the others have to test the theory that the Republican primary electorate wants to move past the culture wars. And I don’t think they do. And that’s why it seems that Ron DeSantis would be the only fallback for the base.
BILL KRISTOL:
It is striking, you’d think there’d be a lane… I mean, once they sort out who’s the third man or woman in this race, there’s some lane for a non-culture war, somewhat more attractive to independents, perhaps Republican. But I guess that lane is probably 20% of the Republican electorate, not 40, right? And so it doesn’t actually win. So maybe DeSantis was right to sort of show he’s a culture warrior, even though, from my point of view, it’s a little crazy—if you’re a pretty successful governor of a major state who won reelection by 19 points—never to talk about that. Almost never to talk about that. And to talk entirely about Disney and so forth, but we’ll talk about DeSantis, I guess, and sort of what you’ve learned about him as a presidential candidate so far.
A.B. STODDARD:
Well, we all know, and this so well, Bill, that the idea of running for president when everyone tells you that you have to do it, that you’re the hope of the party is very tantalizing. Again, he comes off this amazing 19-point victory, reelection victory in which he won independents and Democrats just a resounding stunning win. And people are telling him he’s the next hope of the Republican Party, and he has to come in and save the Republicans from Trump. And the idea with his wife’s great encouragement, we reportedly know, of doing this is so different than doing it. And he’s not even officially a candidate yet. But the guy looks so panicked. Now, obviously, as I said from the start, has not found a way to criticize Trump and separate himself from Trump. But even when he is standing at these podiums, they always have him in with big posters in front of the podium and people around him flanking him, and he has a new thing he’s mad at that day… The Chinese buying property, the Disney corporation, the teacher, the groomer teachers, whatever it is that he’s going after. And he’s going to have a new bill in the legislature to end this once and for all. He looks miserable. He always looks like he’s counting the seconds until he can leave. And, of course, there was that… he took a recent trip overseas, and he was in Japan. He was supposed to look like a statesman on a world stage. And someone just said, “You’re way behind,” a reporter said, “You’re way behind Trump in the polls.” And this video went around that looked like it was doctored, he looked so almost like he was on a very strong drug. So the guy has not figured out a sense of comfort with himself as a candidate, a sense of confidence. He feels like he should do it, he’s being put up to it.
He has all the boxes checked. And he also has a really impressive story in addition to his tenure as governor, but he’s not feeling it. And so I think that the people around him are really concerned. And I was in touch with, again just in the last week with a DeSantis supporter…fluffer. And they’re really trying to, because we’re about to be at liftoff, it’s likely he’s going to be announcing in about 10 days, likely next weekend around May 25th or so. And he’s gathering people to Florida. And so that’s what they’re anticipating. And they’ve been in these kind of emergency meetings. It was very telling that the brain trust invited Jonathan Martin of Politico down to talk to them because they don’t speak to the mainstream media ever. But the disappointment and the doubt among the donors was so intense, and people were leaving, that they had to reset before this announcement and try to rebuild some momentum.
I guess the best place to be is when everyone has literally no expectation that you can pull this off. But he’s been in sort of crash repair mode and trying to convince these people he can do it. But we haven’t seen it yet. We just haven’t seen Ron DeSantis in an interview. Ron DeSantis doing his job, looking like he knows his why and he knows his how of taking on Donald Trump. And so I think I’ll believe it, Bill, when I see it, if he really has what it takes. But so far, you could always look good on paper, but when you get out under the light, it’s so tough.
BILL KRISTOL:
No, it’s so different. I mean, I do think there’s, of course, a very short term price we paid, and you do reset, and you have a little bit of panic and meetings and so forth, and you get a little hit in the media for a few days. But actually, there have been successful presidential campaigns, certainly nomination campaigns that had pretty conspicuously bad starts and needed to reset. Gore in 2000. Kerry actually in 2004. I mean, there’s cases where people just… neither won the presidency, but that’s sort of different. But Obama was viewed as sort of floundering a little bit in the first few months after he… was he really ready in 2007? So I do think McCain totally crashed and burned in 2007. So in a way, I’ve always thought resetting is better than not resetting, even if the reset is awkward
And I guess the question though is reset to what, right? And you identified 10 months ago, the problem with running as, I’m better than Trump, but I’m not going to criticize Trump. Trump’s being unjustly persecuted. Trump was a very excellent president, but you need me. Why exactly? Well, because I’m younger maybe, but Trump looks pretty vigorous. I can win. But Trump’s kind of even with Biden in the polls. I mean, Jonathan Last, our friend and the editor of The Bulwark, has made this point many, many times. It’s hard to run against someone when you don’t make the case why you would be a better president than that person. And then it becomes electability or fresh face, but that’s a little tenuous. I don’t know. What do you think? I guess that would bad question. Does he have to take on Trump, or could events, indictments, for example, wound Trump enough that DeSantis can be sort of, “I’m not Trump, but I’m not taking on Trump?”
A.B. STODDARD:
Right. So, first of all, I totally agree with you about early stumbles can really help the maturation of a presidential campaign and candidate. And the reset can turn the whole ship around. I think in the case of Ron DeSantis, because he just basically also doesn’t seem to have much personality, if you combine the fact that he has the too-tight-shoe look on his face and doesn’t really love hanging around with people, which John McCain ultimately did. I mean, once you got him into the diner or into the town hall, even if he was grumpy on the way out to the car, he really liked talking with people. So if you combine that with the fact that he hasn’t figured out his way to defeat Trump. When you run, this is the most surreal presidential primary where you have everyone saying, “Oh, he is the best president we’ve ever had. But I don’t know, I guess I’m in this primary in case he has a heart attack or gets indicted.” I mean, the indictments, first of all, I don’t think he’ll be prosecuted before election day. And I don’t think there’s a jury that would convict him in this country. Because I think there always will be an outlier among the jurors. And then I just think Ron DeSantis, we’ve seen him in a jam after the Stormy Daniels…. I mean, he tries to “on the one hand, and on the other hand” it, but they’re terrified of infuriating the base. And so it’s just this idea that he’s both nervous in the lane and then he sort of has no destination. He doesn’t have that plan like Chris Christie’s articulated, which is, you have to literally take this guy on. You have to say, you only get four more years.
He’s tired with baggage. The legal peril is serious. Some of it’s actually going to be serious, and he’s going to lose women and he’s going to, whatever case you want to make. He’s too afraid to make it. And so that’s why I just think, until and unless we see that they have found a place for him to land where they think that they can keep all of the Republicans, win all the Republicans who want to move on from Trump. And that’s a pretty big amount. And then bring the voters after a few more headlines who were telling Sarah’s focus groups a while ago, ah, I’m worried about him winning. I’m worried about the baggage. So maybe a few more polls that are good for Biden. This is entirely possible.
And as you know, Bill, I hope this happens, and I hope that Ron DeSantis is the nominee and not Trump, because I think the threat of Trump is so dangerous. But all that has to happen. He has to find some comfort, some actual physical comfort in the role of being on that stage and under those lights and pressure of those questions. And he has to then have the confidence that he can beat Trump. And this is why he needs to. You have to tell the voters, he has to be beaten, and this is why. This is why I do it. And if you can’t articulate that, you don’t often do it.
BILL KRISTOL:
No, I think that’s well said. And that’s such an important point. And Trump does look cheerful in his own way and at home, comfortable, certainly on the stage. I mean, that was, for me, the take. I was traveling during the CNN Town Hall, and I’m curious to get your thoughts on that, very curious. But I mean, what struck me from a distance watching some clips is Trump is good at this and Trump has done it a zillion times. He’s better. He’s older, but I’d say he is better at it actually than he was in 2015-16, or maybe even 2020 a little more. It was such an easy one, that town hall. But if you’re an incumbent, 2015-16, he hadn’t run for president before 2020. He wasn’t incumbent, which meant he couldn’t simply not, he did sort of have to defend certain things he had done in office, which is a little awkward.
Now he can just] be as demagogic as he wants, but also on other issues, not be quite as right wing as DeSantis, let’s say on abortion or something like that, or not pick really ridiculous fights with Disney. Because the base is so attached to him that they’ll forgive a little bit of heterodoxy. So I guess what I’m struck by, and I want you to talk about this, but he’s just a better demagogue as of now than DeSantis. Demagogues have to sort of look like they believe what they’re saying. And in America, I think they have to look like they enjoy what they’re saying. Not just demagogues, but politicians. McCain, Obama, Bush. We tend to nominate somewhat cheerful people. And Trump, in his own kind of bizarre way, is somewhat cheerful, but also he’s a mainstream demagogue.
I mean, what’s wrong with Biden? He’s going to start World War III because God knows what he’s doing in foreign policy. I’m tough, so they won’t mess with me, and he doesn’t really understand the economy. And I’m a businessman, and we had a decent economy when I was president, so I understand the economy. So that’s not actually that ideological. I mean, it’s sort of substance-less, but if you’re a middle-class business person who doesn’t really like Trump and sort of worried about him, you hear that and you think, yeah, that’s a reasonable appeal. And, meanwhile, DeSantis is talking about Disney. I really think Trump is in a better demagogic lane than DeSantis as of now. So anyway, comment on all that.
A.B. STODDARD:
I do agree, talking about inflation and not starting World War III is enough of a message alone. It’s actually true. And you can say the border’s chaotic, which actually, interestingly enough, this week it turns out that it’s sort of not after the end of Title 42, but that could change.
BILL KRISTOL:
It will be at some point.
A.B. STODDARD:
Right. And so if he sticks to a simple message that’s not all about what he calls “gender insanity.” A few months ago, he was so worried about Ron DeSantis, he was trying to run to the right on him on education. He seems so confident now he’s not doing that anymore, but if he will—
BILL KRISTOL:
There’s been a mention of some, which is good for his days, probably. Yeah.
A.B. STODDARD:
But putting out the scary videos and stuff, he feels like now he should retreat to that and speak to the general electorate. In the CNN in town hall, he was having an absolute blast because he’s a showman, and as Mike Murphy tweeted, “It was open mic night for him.” So once he realized they were laughing and applauding, he called everybody stupid. And he was really relishing, just letting it all hang out. And he knew that they were easy laughs. So he was really on fire. But it is true that he also knows, like you said, Bill, I think when to pull back, and DeSantis’ Disney thing now looks like this kind of weird fetish where people are wondering, what’s wrong with you? Can you just move on to something else? So it’s weird. DeSantis could just be talking about lockdowns, and he could even be talking about vaccines to try to jam Trump.
But instead, he wants to talk about all these bills that they’re going to do in Florida to stop this and that, and only talking about Trump’s record. So it’s easy for Trump, I think, as you said, to just have a couple of things he hits over and over. But what struck me about the CNN Town Hall was that his lies, they were coming so fast and he wasn’t the least bit sheepish about them. And it’s a tool for dominance. We’ve watched him now, it’s my eighth year of watching this up close, and it definitely has changed. He lies more and more loudly and more rapidly in a setting like that. And he is the president, and he creates his own reality. And if you want to try to drop in there and correct him, you’re just like a gnat on the windshield. You’re just going to get run over and ‘see ya.’ So it was both a great night for him and it was truly terrifying, I thought.
BILL KRISTOL:
Yeah, I mean, that’s so well said. Because when you read up on authoritarians in the past and on con men, two categories that Trump probably fits in pretty well, they get better at it. I mean, I thought in 2015 I think Trump said these outrageous things and these lies, and you could tell he was a little uncertain like, “Can I get away with this exactly?” And I don’t know if you could tell, maybe I’m reading stuff in retrospectively, but he seemed a little more tentative, let’s say. And you’re right, now that he has gotten away with it all… And of course you’re a better liar if you’re totally comfortable lying, right?
I mean, you’re a better conman if you have just gotten beyond any constraints on the con, and either the constraints of conscience of that ever existed or the constraints of what if they find out about this, and in that respect I think my friends, my new liberal friends are, “well, he can’t get away with this. This lie is even worse,” but I think they underestimate how many people unfortunately are willing to get swept up into this.
And not just the true believers, but even the not quite so true believers who just find it… The open mic night is a great line of Mike’s, just gets swept up in it. And he wasn’t that bad last time. Then you say, “Well, the reason he wasn’t that bad if he wasn’t was because he had 19 different constraints, both individuals and institutional constraints that won’t exist in a second term,” but no one of course is making that argument except for Biden, none of the Republicans are, so the primaries that doesn’t stop people from defaulting back to Trump, do you think? I don’t know. January 6th incidentally, is anyone even going to mention that in the Republican primary? I guess not.
A.B. STODDARD:
It just makes me so sick. I wrote that for The Bulwark months ago. They’re not allowed to say that he didn’t win the election. Chris Sununu says that, Chris Christie says that. Mike Pence says things like, “I didn’t do what he wanted me to do because I didn’t have the constitutional authority to on January 6th,” and will always disagree, but he doesn’t like to come out and say, “We lost the election.” He really avoids that.
BILL KRISTOL:
But you shouldn’t incite mobs. It’s the story of the Capitol.
A.B. STODDARD:
But they won’t even, they will not even criticize January 6th. So not only will they not say he lost, they will not say he definitely tried to steal an election, he plotted a two-month coup, he incited a deadly a riot where people died. They won’t touch January 6th. They won’t touch his coup plotting. And so the message they’re sending everybody is that it’s okay. And Trump is absolutely giddy that he has, as you just referenced, gotten away with it. He is being rewarded for it. And in that audience, he was rewarded for making fun and denigrating E. Jean Carroll, his accuser. So he’s gotten past the Stormy Daniels indictment into a civil defamation case where he was found liable of sexual, they call it abuse, but they lumped that in with assault for which he owes her five million dollars, but people were laughing the very next day. So he’s been rewarded by the primary electorate and the fact that his rivals cannot bring themselves to criticize any of that.
BILL KRISTOL:
Do you think DeSantis… Two questions. He launches in 10 days or so, does he start criticizing Trump more directly either because he can’t win or because he wouldn’t actually be as good a president as he DeSantis would be? And also it seems like DeSantis’s strategy is focus on Iowa and New Hampshire, if you win both of those, you’re probably the nominee, if you win one of them, you have shot at being the nominee, and that’s how an underdog typically gets to at least parody with a front-runner, you win Iowa, Obama won Iowa and so forth, McCain won New Hampshire in 2000. McCain fell short, Obama won the nomination, but in each case that’s how they became the plausible alternative to the person who would seem the fairly prohibitive front-runner, Hillary Clinton or George W. Bush. So what do you think of the Iowa, New Hampshire strategy, and does he have to start taking on Trump?
A.B. STODDARD:
I think with Trump’s lead, he has to start taking on Trump, but I understand in the absence of that he is going to try to sell himself, I am the man of all these accomplishments, I don’t have baggage, I get things done, Ron delivers. That’s going to be his message once he’s a candidate. And I think he is really smart in this moment of reset where there’s been all this disappointment that he was going to rescue the party and turned out to look like he was maybe losing his nerve. I think it’s very shrewd that they went ahead and they got the endorsement of Steve Cortes, which he’s a huge Trump supporter, and it’s a pretty big deal and it makes it look like Ron has a few more tricks up his sleeve. So that instills some hope in the people who want to keep supporting him.
And then to come out and unveil a whole slew of Iowa endorsements and then a whole slew of New Hampshire endorsements, the ones from New Hampshire yesterday totaled 51, both lists had people that the Trump campaign had said were endorsing them that turned out to be false information. What a surprise that these state legislators, Bill, had not actually endorsed Trump. They were somewhere maybe in talks with the DeSantis camp and they get on DeSantis’s final list of supporters and have to say, “Look, I don’t know why I was ever put on Trump’s list.” So, he’s trying to needle him in, but not directly. And so, it doesn’t look bad. It looks better than it did five days ago or a week ago. Winning New Hampshire and or Iowa would make a big difference, but some other stars I think have to align between now and then, which is Trump needs to be weighted down more.
If there is a Georgia indictment or a Jack Smith indictment on Mar-a-Lago documents, he needs to be weighted down and there needs to be some serious chorus that started the other day with Senator Todd Young from Indiana, Senator Mike Rounds from South Carolina saying, “Wait a minute about the—”
BILL KRISTOL:
South Dakota.
A.B. STODDARD:
Oh, sorry, South Dakota, about the E. Jean Carroll verdict. And if you have, that was a civil defamation case, on a serious indictment or maybe for obstruction of justice, if you have people say, “We just can’t nominate someone like this, that’s doing the work for Ron DeSantis.” So a few things have to align in order for him to avoid criticizing Trump. He will be asked by every reporter wherever he goes, maybe sometimes voters, but in the end is he going to have to criticize Trump on the debate stage because we don’t think that Trump’s going to show up?
So it’s very hard now for me to see how this plays out without just damage happening to Trump because of Trump. Maybe this accusation that Rudy Giuliani was trying to sell pardons at two million a pop and maybe Trump was involved in, we don’t know, things could happen that weigh Trump down that would help Ron DeSantis, but I think he has to screw up the courage to say, “I am running because we need a better nominee. I am better for these reasons.” And I think he has to find a way to say that with strength.
BILL KRISTOL:
Yeah, I think that’s right. For all that the Republican establishment is discredited allegedly and mixed blessing, I do think having a lot of these senators and governors just weigh in the way you just said would have some effect on those swing maybe Trump voters. Obviously, Trump will have his 30% no matter what, but it can’t just be DeSantis saying it, but it can’t not be DeSantis saying it. It has to be people up to and including probably Mitch McConnell ultimately, just people who really… If you’re a business Republican and you respect, it has to be the chamber of commerce, it has to be whoever it is in different states saying, “Look, we have a better alternative here. Trump’s likely to lose. He’s going to govern very erratically if he gets back in.”
But that is a more traditional message for DeSantis, and what’s weird is the DeSantis campaign seems to have seemed to have talked itself into, “we can’t be the establishment candidate at all. We have to be even more of a culture warrior than Trump.” They spend half their time, that super PAC of DeSantis’s, they’re accusing Trump of being like in cahoots with CNN, and I just think that’s the most ineffective… The idea that you’re going to beat Trump by saying he’s part of the establishment is just childish at this point. Trump, everyone thinks correctly, if he goes in for a second term, God knows what he’ll do. So, DeSantis is unwilling to embrace the fact that he’s got to be the candidate of the slightly more respectable Republicans than Trump and mobilize those forces, but in a way his campaign, until these very last few days, hasn’t really gone in that direction.
I just think your point about him attacking Trump and distinguishing himself from Trump is so important. And you said this 10 months ago, if he had to get up on stage and say, “I love Donald Trump, he’s a great president, great guy, unjustly persecuted by the libs, but, hey, vote for me for president.” I know the guy’s been president four years, he won the nomination twice. He’s the only Republican to win a general election since 2004. It’s a little hard to say he can’t do it again or he shouldn’t do it again unless you say he can’t do it again or he shouldn’t do it again.
A.B. STODDARD:
Exactly. It’s interesting though that you just said about the establishment, Ron DeSantis a few months ago was looking like the establishment. And Trump could have run… I think he would’ve if he didn’t regain his foothold, would’ve run against him as he says, “The backing of all the rhino sellouts, they’re coming to get me, we’re the outsiders that [inaudible]—
BILL KRISTOL:
He did that a little, right? He liked Jeb Bush, he liked Paul Ryan?
A.B. STODDARD:
Right. And that was because Ron DeSantis had some momentum back then. Ron DeSantis had Fox News, there was a soft ban on Trump. Ron DeSantis had all the love, he had all the donor money, he was doing better in the polls against Trump. In the early states, he was quite competitive with Trump and his campaign liked to point that out. So now I don’t think that Ron DeSantis is the establishment, and I don’t think he has to worry about that. He can say, “Look, you’ve got your senators too, Tuberville and everyone else, you’re running around with all your endorsements and you’re a former president.” I think there’s a way where he can also paint Trump as the establishment, or his allies can do that. So I don’t think that he’s really in that corner anymore.
I don’t think Ron DeSantis is running for vice president, they clearly can’t stand each other, and they’re both from Florida, so he has to say, “I’m in this to win this. People are begging for an alternative. We have to have a president who does such and such. We can’t support someone who does such and such.” He has to articulate that. And the most frustrating thing, Bill, about watching this primary, not only that they refuse to address January 6th, which is to me just such a dividing line in our whole American life in terms of what we expect from leaders, what we believe about our country, what our hopes are for the future, how we’re seen in the world, none of them will say he shouldn’t win.
So you just said, they could say he’s going to govern erratically. Not one of them when they compliment Tim Scott, when they say that E. Jean Carroll verdict bothers them, they always say he can’t win. They never say he shouldn’t win. And I’m just waiting for one of them to tell the American electorate that he should not win and he should not have power again, and put it in the terms at least halfway as stark as Liz Cheney does when she says he cannot hold any office again, it’s indefensible. Not one of them will say that. I don’t expect them to go that far, but they’ve got to start with he can’t win and he shouldn’t win. And until that, like you said, they can come back with the random Rasmussen poll that they’ve got that shows that he’s always going to beat Biden nine out of 12 times, blah, blah, blah.
BILL KRISTOL:
Speaking of Liz Cheney, final Republican question, and get to President Biden, the Democrats, I don’t know, would it be better for her, would it be better for the Republican Party, such as hopes for a saner Republican Party would be better for the country, if she actually ran for president? She’ll make her up her own mind and she’s got all a million considerations obviously, but are you rooting for her to run or think that would be crazy and imprudent and she should do other things?
A.B. STODDARD:
When we talked about this last year, I was so hoping that would be a possibility because I think that she would really provide this course correction for the other people most importantly talking about January 6th for the conversation and the debate in the race, even minus Trump, even if he wasn’t on the debate stage. I just think the RNC is so compromised that she’ll never get on the debate stage. And I think that all the state parties are compromised and they’re subsidiaries of Trump and they won’t put her on the ballots, and it’s just a total wasted exercise. So in a normal world, if we could go back a few years, it would be very healthy for her to be the outlier who was going to try to revive the old party, but right now that’s just Asa Hutchinson because he is playing nice and maybe they’ll let him stand on the right far right side of the debate stage, but I don’t think they’d permit Liz Cheney anywhere near, I think they’d do whatever they could to make it so hard for her.
BILL KRISTOL:
All they’d have to do is say you have to pledge to support the nominee and they won’t hold Trump to [inaudible] but of course they would hold Liz to it.
A.B. STODDARD:
But they’re not going to hold Trump to it.
BILL KRISTOL:
Right, of course not.
A.B. STODDARD:
He’s not going to pledge to support any nominee except for him.
Bill Crystal:
Will he debate, do you think? What do you think?
A.B. Stoddard:
I don’t think he will.
Bill Crystal:
Interesting.
A.B. STODDARD:
Because it’s just a set-up for failure. He could go in and start screaming at everybody and saying crazy things and dominate, and he likes that, I think he enjoys the actual fight, but I think he knows, he’s telling people privately, I’m too far ahead, he knows that the most likely outcome is he loses his lead a little bit and so what’s the point? And they can all stand the stage and say he’s afraid and he’ll be like, “They’re afraid.”
BILL KRISTOL:
Yeah, it draws him down to their level if you’re the front-runner in your debate, whereas he’s done a town hall, he’s not scared of anything. This is where that CNN Town Hall let’s just do a final before we get to President Biden, who’s important. This is, of course, typical of the Biden years, you spend the first half hour of the conversation on Trump,
A.B. STODDARD:
Right.
BILL KRISTOL:
But why not? He’s been the dominant figure in American politics for eight years. It’s really astonishing. But anyway, what was I going to say about that? The CNN Town Hall, I don’t know, maybe it just comes and goes, but it feels like a significant moment where he went on CNN, he did what they said he wouldn’t do, confronts, a tough questioner in a somewhat fake but still town hall setting, only with Republicans or Republican-leaning independents who two-thirds of whom were pro-Trump presumably, and certainly showed they were, but still, it gives him a good talking point for the foreseeable future about, and for voters it’s like he took them on, that’s the Trump we know. Look at him. He’s not scared of them.
A.B. STODDARD:
It most definitely energized his supporters just so much. And that’s probably what led to the bump in the Morning Consult poll, the new one. And I think that a lot of Republicans who want to move beyond him, like Mark Thiessen at The Post and stuff are saying, “that was a Biden commercial.” I don’t think it was. And to your point, Biden wants us to keep talking about Trump because he thinks it’s better when we talk about Trump than when we talk about him. But I don’t, and I think the White House was trying to say… that they too were trying to say it was a Biden commercial, but I’m not so sure. So, I think that ubiquity is power, Trump’s always known that, at least it is for him, it works for him. And so the more you see him, the more desensitized you become, et cetera.
BILL KRISTOL:
Obviously I’m for Biden over Trump by… not even close call, but I got to say, and I saw just the clips, but Trump looks energetic and in charge and enjoying himself in that debate. And presumably if he’s as healthy a year from now, he’ll look that way in a presidential debate. And so getting to President Biden, you thought he wouldn’t run 10 months ago and that was my view or my wish, I guess, that he might think about arranging a transition even if it’s a messy primary to the next generation and so forth, but it looks like he’s running. So what do you think? Is he running? Will he continue to be running? How much of a problem is the fact that he’ll be 82? I say this totally not about his mental acuity or anything, but he doesn’t look like Trump up there on the stage.
And I think that they can say until they’re blue in the face that, “Trump’s also an old guy. He is only four years younger than Biden.” And maybe the difference it looks doesn’t matter. If you think Trump’s a threat to the Republican, if you vote for Biden it’s not a problem that his gait isn’t as limber as Trump’s. So give me your general take on all this. And so you talk to a lot of those people and you’re in touch with them.
A.B. STODDARD:
First, it is strange because we’ve seen the presidency age people, most recently George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and we didn’t really see it age Trump too much. And I agree with you that he really didn’t look like he’d aged much. I don’t think he looked like he aged when he was at the CNN Town Hall. And I don’t know if that’s what orange makeup does for you, but he didn’t look the way that when you look back at clips from three years before when you’re dealing with someone in their second half of their seventies, whatever, you usually notice it, so he definitely seems like he’s very vital. He wasn’t even sniffing, I don’t think he was on his little Diet Coke medicines that he takes, but Joe Biden has visibly aged in office.
And before I start on all this, I always like to preface it by saying, it’s not that Joe Biden is not worth voting for, obviously he is, and Trump is unacceptable. It’s just that I still remain completely stunned that he decided to run again. I don’t know that he’s going to make it a year and a half on the campaign trail to sign up for another four years and tell us that he can lead the free world until January of 2029. I don’t see that. So having covered the Congress for all these years, I know that you can function highly as US Senator well into your 90s, and that’s what Chuck Grassley’s doing right now at 89 or 90. Joe Biden could do that. Joe Biden’s in great shape for an 80-year-old. It’s just that being president of the United States is too draining a job for when you are 80. So we were very blessed to have him in the time that we did. I believe he can continue to do his job for the next almost two years.
I think he’s doing an incredibly important job, particularly overseas, in a way that other Democrats probably couldn’t have obviously handled so effectively. I don’t believe he’s lost a step mentally. I just spoke to someone, a member of Congress, who was with him just a few days ago and said it’s not that he doesn’t know what’s going on, he’s not confused, but he’s really tired, he speaks more slowly. At the State of the Union he was shouting, he was obviously on some Red Bull, then the next day his voice was hoarse. He went straight to Wisconsin and he was tired. There’s a reason… and people say, “Oh, he doesn’t do anything until 10:00 and then he stops at 04:00.”
Well, Trump never showed up at work. He didn’t come down until 12:00. He watched every single cable show and then screamed to people on the phone for half the day. Joe Biden can actually do this job without working that much. It’s just that in a presidential campaign, when you’re doing things like you’re going on a lot of airplanes and you’re going to events at night and stuff, it shows his age. So when I think about the fact that he’s so tired now, that he’s visibly aged so much since the campaign began in 2019, that he’s not going to be able to hide in the basement. Intuitively, I just feel that he might not be on the ticket in November of 2024. I don’t like saying that, but I always believed it was untenable for him to run, and now he’s running, and I still think it’s untenable.
BILL KRISTOL:
Even if his health holds up, let’s hope it does, of course, and that he sticks to his determination, how much of a problem do you think it is that, fairly or unfairly, his vice-president, there is some chance of her having to assume greater responsibilities or even take over obviously in a second term? And how much is the fact that she doesn’t seem terribly to have had a very successful vice presidency, again, fairly or unfairly, that’s the appearance, how much of a problem is Harris as the running mate to Biden?
A.B. STODDARD:
So I think him staying on the ticket and just limping to the finish line is a problem because I think that for a lot of Americans, Bill, they don’t follow politics at all, and they can be decisive in these elections. 45,000 votes, fewer than 45,000 separated Trump and Biden in 2020. It was not the blowout that everyone said it was going to be. The eight to 10 points in the polls, the 8 million votes. No, no, no. It was in three states. That’s how you win the election through the electoral college. And Trump almost won.
And so if you think about those voters who they’re not tribal, they’re not the people that we worry the most about, the most partisan, the most activated, no, these people very well could look at these two guys next November and say, “Trump, at least he did the job before, and he’s nuts, but eggs and gas costs less than, and Biden just looks like he needs to go home.” So his age, I think even if he can make it through the campaign, is a huge liability. And if they’re just trying to pass the presidency on to Vice-President Harris, maybe that’s the plan, that’s strange to me because they know that the voters will be taking her into consideration, which is why they’re trying to spotlight her now more and highlight her accomplishments and give her more attention and visibility and praise.
But Trump is going to say, “In a couple of months, sleepy Joe’s going to be in the hospital, and we’re going to be stuck with Kamala.” And that’s crude, but that’s what he’ll say. And it will matter. And especially if he picks Nikki Haley, and he doesn’t have someone crazy like Kari Lake as his VP. I don’t know. That actually could matter. These two old guys, one clearly older, an unpopular vice-president, so that’s a real factor that could be part of the conversation.
So we know that he probably ran because he was afraid of the open primary that you and I have been advocating for a year and afraid that would open up divides in the party and that people would get upset that he wasn’t openly endorsing her. But he can’t openly endorse anybody because the voters pick the nominee. So it wouldn’t have ever been appropriate for him to do that. But I feel that he was probably talked into running again because people were too afraid of those divides and of alienating Black women, the most critical constituency in the coalition. So that’s likely what happened. It doesn’t look good for their prospects. As the great James Carville said on Conversations with Bill Kristol, the age thing gets worse each week. It doesn’t get better.
BILL KRISTOL:
My other slightly heterodox, and it may be an incorrect reason for hoping half a year ago, a year ago for a generational turnover for Biden not to run, even if it’s a messy primary, was that people are unhappy with the country. And that’s the mood. It’s been the mood for quite a while. And it’s understandable after the pandemic and everything else and a challenging world and so forth. So the normal argument that look, an incumbent’s always better, especially if he doesn’t have a primary, which Biden presumably won’t, not a serious one, always better to have an incumbent than an open sea, which is in effect what would happen if he were just to step aside. I take that point that incumbents usually win. They don’t always win, obviously as we saw with Trump, and as you saw with George H.W. Bush. I served in that administration. And Jimmy Carter, so people overdo a little bit how, and we had a string of three incumbents winning with Clinton, Bush and Obama, and everyone decided that’s the nature of things. But they were actually pretty close in some of those elections, at least Bush’s in ‘04.
Anyway, but I feel like when the mood is wrong-track in the country, to use the pollsters term, I’m not so sure being an incumbent is such an advantage. I don’t know if Josh Shapiro or Gretchen Whitmer or whoever you want with the nominee, they could say, “Well, I don’t entirely agree with President Biden. I think President Biden should have done a little more on crime.” Obviously you’re going to be the Democratic candidate. Obviously you’re pro-Biden. Obviously you’re going to praise him effusively at the convention, and there’s going to be a lot of praise of Joe Biden. But I just think having someone who could do a little bit of distancing wouldn’t be crazy in this environment. But maybe I’m just underestimating how bad the primary would be, how nasty the debates would be, how much of an advantage Biden, having done it for four years, would be. Those are all reasonable concerns on the other side, I suppose.
A.B. STODDARD:
Of course, I’m with you, Bill, that I think that if Biden said, “Look, we have this great,” to use Bill’s pair, “this great pair of leaders, Governor Whitmer of a blue state of a swing, important battleground of Michigan and Reverend Warnock, senator from the important swing state of Georgia, they’re the next generation. They have their own ideas. They need to make a new Democratic Party, but most importantly, they are in touch with the America of today, and Donald Trump is not, and it’s time to turn a page, and that old man needs to go home just like me.” I just think it would be incredibly energizing to have, when the entire country is dreading the choice of Trump and Biden. They don’t want either one.
So I always thought that was the right thing to do. And of course they would have a little independence, like you said, to create distance while obviously championing the issues that unite the party. And abortion and mass shootings are top of mind for young voters and will very much drive the turnout of young voters in the next cycle. And so they could concentrate on the things that they agree on while saying crime is a serious issue and we need to control the border or whatever they would need to do. But to know that you were locking down critical electoral college states with next generation leaders against Trump would be obviously the smartest move, I think.
BILL KRISTOL:
And like you said to me a month ago, we were just chatting, that the thing that undercut the Stoddard-Kristol plan the most was probably the 2022 results where Democrats outperformed, right?
A.B. STODDARD:
Yeah. And so last year when you and I talked, I was expecting a huge … There was so much tension last summer between the progressives and the moderates in the Democratic Party and this divide that was the hangover from the Build Back Better fight. And the progressives didn’t get what they wanted. And after we spoke, of course, we spoke about a month after the Dobbs decision, right? Is that…? Yeah.
BILL KRISTOL:
Just around the time of the decision.
A.B. STODDARD:
About, yeah.
BILL KRISTOL:
I think it was about a month after, yeah.
A.B. STODDARD:
And then I guess they had just passed the gun legislation, but then there was this slew of the CHIPS Act, the PACT Act. So, all of a sudden, they went to the midterms with this serious rage against the Dobbs decision helping them and then also a slew of legislative accomplishments. And everybody united around the abortion decision and the party, they didn’t fight with each other, but they still expected to lose a lot of seats, in which case they were anticipating a huge come-to-Jesus moment in the party. I thought that was going to affect the leadership elections, and it would have. If there was a slaughter, it would have been a huge fight about how to mobilize young people and all the stuff that the far left always talks about and how to swing swing districts. And that didn’t happen. They were not able to divine a message except that abortion helps us, and so they never had the talk. And so it’s so interesting—
BILL KRISTOL:
And that Biden was a good leader because they did pretty well.
A.B. STODDARD:
And it looked great for Biden. It looked great for Biden. He defied history. And so they carried on in a united front. And again, as you and I said, another opportunity to say, “I’m going to be a great one-term president, and the midterms is another accomplishment,” but still walk away. But he dawdled. It was going to be after Christmas, then after the State of the Union, and then he goes all in. The midterms were no excuse for him to run. It’s no mandate for him to run. But another thing I think the people around him tell him is another one of his strengths, that he’s always underestimated, that the middle of the country understands him, that the Democratic candidates running in the most tough races were able to decouple and distance themselves from him, that he is not toxic, that Americans don’t energize against him. And that all can be true, and you can still be too old to run again.
BILL KRISTOL:
You talked to so many members of Congress and staff, but really members mostly, privately and sometimes off the record or in the background. I’m just curious, on both the Republican and Democratic side, how discomforted are most of the Republicans with the prospect of Trump? And is that going to have any effect? So revert to our earlier conversation about Trump for a minute. But then I’m very curious on the Democratic side, are they confident? Are they worried? Or they just feel like this is the hand we’ve been dealt and we have to play it out? And I don’t know, what are they telling you?
A.B. STODDARD:
Democrats are very worried, and they wish that he had stepped aside, not stepped down from his job, but refused a second term. And they feel stuck with it, and there’s nothing you can do. No one’s saying anything on the record, and they believe that this is an enormous risk.
BILL KRISTOL:
Are they worried about the general election? They’re in touch with their own districts. A lot of them are swing-ish.
A.B. STODDARD:
Yes. I think that the serious-minded Democrats know that the age issue alone could decide it. That’s just a fact. We have close elections, and Trump, he has survived and come back and looks like he’s going to be the nominee. So some of them will definitely tell you, “Oh, he’s going to lose. He’s totally going to lose. We’re going to take the House back.” But a lot of them are very worried. And then universally, no one wanted Biden to run again. On the Republican side, they’re having trouble picking a candidate.
BILL KRISTOL:
That’s interesting. Some of the Democrats …Wait a minute. I’m so struck by what you said. So I talked maybe a little more, I talked some of them, but I talk to a lot of the not-for-profit world, the Democratic democracy activists, and they’re much more confident that Trump will lose again. And MAGA is clearly a minority view, and they say these outrageous things, and they’re struck with these outrageous positions, all of which is sort of true. But I am struck, if I can extrapolate just a bit from what you’re saying, that the elected politicians who actually are in touch with voters, unlike democracy activists, as much as I love them, who don’t even have to be and aren’t in touch with voters because they’re not running for anything, that the elected Democrats are more nervous about the general election in 2024 than the Democratic good government types. Is that your sense?
A.B. STODDARD:
Right. Not all—
BILL KRISTOL:
The closer they are to the voters, the more nervous they are.
A.B. STODDARD:
Exactly. So if you’re from a safe district, you’re like, “He’s going to lose again. It’s going to be awesome. We’re going to take the House back and be in the majority.” And if you saw what happened in New York, let’s say in 2022, basically tipping the majority to the Republicans in seats that they lost because Kathy Hochul ignored crime and gave herself a competitive election. And Lee Zeldin was a good candidate and surged a bunch of turnout among Republicans and swing voters, and they picked up some seats.
Look, there’s a reason to be nervous, and enough people are feeling that reason, I’m just saying. I do want to give you that caveat that there’s so much dismissal like, oh, it’ll be the fifth election that they lose with Trump. And that could be true. I just don’t buy that it’s a slam dunk for Biden at all. His numbers are terrible. Low turnout for Democrats will be the key to Trump’s victory because there’s apathy in the coalition. They have erosion with Asians, erosion with Black voters, erosion with Latino voters. And Biden’s support among Black voters has dropped 30% in two years. This is really horrible.
BILL KRISTOL:
Presumably, I think the pros will say, “Well, they’ll come back and vote Democratic anyway.”
A.B. STODDARD:
You know what? I think that no, no, it’s never that they’ll vote Republican. It’s that a lot of people will sit this out if they’re mad. They didn’t get voting rights. They didn’t get police reform. There’s a lot of frustration among Black voters about the fact that the Democrats always think they can count on their vote. So it’s a very serious matter. And I think Democrats in swingier, more competitive environments understand that, that these are close margins, and that Biden’s unpopularity is pretty strong across the board.
And so that’s a problem. On the Republican side, Republicans are having trouble recruiting candidates because they don’t want to run next year when Trump is running. And that’s a really interesting, hasn’t-really-been-talked-about-yet issue. But do you want to run with Donald Trump? Do you want to start a political career and raise the money and run in this environment defending him? It sounds like fun, right? So that’s interesting. And the other thing about how crazy this whole environment is, is that Democrats and Republicans, they both feel that the Democrats are likely to take the House and that the Republicans are likely to take the Senate. And that’s something that I find a bunch of people in both parties agree on. Again, everything could completely turn around in the next 12, 14 months, but that’s pretty interesting right now, that that seems to be the safe bet, a bipartisan safe bet.
BILL KRISTOL:
I also think, if it’s a Biden Trump race, there could well be a third party, well, there always are third and fourth parties of some kind that could be a more centrist, maybe No-Labels-backed, third-party ticket that I assume won’t ultimately go anywhere much and may go nowhere or may go for a while and then fade some. But of course, if it gets 2, 3, 4%, it could still be very important, given that the margin is less than that in key states. And there’s a lot of evidence that the 2016 voters who voted third, fourth party, they didn’t have that chance in 2020, and Biden won two-thirds of them and it probably was key to his margin in some of those really close states. So I feel like the chances of a semi-credible, younger-looking, now that doesn’t quite include Manchin so maybe he’s not the right person for this, third party fusion-ish candidacy.
Time for change, get beyond the polarization, we can’t have these two old guys again, ridiculous, what does that ever work, we deserve a better choice. I feel like that gets a little more momentum if it’s Biden versus Trump as opposed to Whitmer or Shapiro or Warnock or whoever you want, Buttigieg and a million other people against Trump. And that probably takes votes ultimately from Biden. It’s dismissed by the pros because the pros know that these third parties never go anywhere. They never go anywhere, but they did actually affect the results of the 2000 and 2016 presidential elections. So that’s two of the last, what, six or something like that. So it’s not nothing. I don’t know. I get the sense just talking to people, and I include myself in this criticism, that we know it’s ultimately a two-party race.
We think it’s probably going to be Biden versus Trump. We don’t quite appreciate how much unhappiness there is out there at that choice. And I think obviously if you think Trump is a total existential threat, you go vote for the alternative, even if he’s too old or whatever. And if it’s Biden, some of us will do so pretty cheerfully, even though it might be nicer if he were younger. But I don’t know, younger voters, as you say, voters who are not connected closely to politics, the chances that they’re staying home, I think, starts to go up quite a lot, doesn’t it, in a Biden Trump race. That’s where I worry about the polling might show Biden up by one or two, but I don’t know. Who knows? In 2020 people were energized. Would they be on the Democratic side after various, as you said, grievances with Biden and lack of alarm, a lack of as much alarm as they might have with Trump?
A.B. STODDARD:
Biden was a relief. He was rescuing the country from Trump. Biden’s the incumbent now. He’s not rescuing the country from Trump. He’s going to campaign, he’s going to talk that way. And you and I see it that way, but to the average American, it’s like, no, no, no, you had your chance. Everything costs more now. There’s been a lot of change. ChatGPT, things are coming at me. I’m very unhappy. And so he is not coming out of left field. He’s the sitting president. It’s very different. And I always like to remind people that woman in the suburbs who has a college degree or more degrees and came out to vote against Donald Trump, she’s coming back out. She’s never going to stop coming out.
Young people are very energized about guns and abortion. They are not energized against Trump. They don’t lie in bed at night and worry about Donald Trump and democracy. Unfortunately, they just don’t. If they are the politically involved, politically informed young person, they turned out in the midterms, they’re going to turn out in the presidential. It doesn’t mean that all the kids my kids’ age are going to vote because they’re tuned out of politics. They think it’s insane, and they prefer not to know anything about it. And they don’t follow the news, and they’re horrified. And we have a mass of apathy in that generation.
And so you can look at what an advantage it is for Democrats when those voters vote for Democrats by 28 points. But again, the only thing that activates them are guns and abortion, in my view, and it doesn’t activate enough of them. In fact, fewer of them turned out in 2022 than they did in 2018. So it’s really a question of, how many voters can they get off the couch on the Democratic side? And I think it’s harder than they think. It’s not Biden coming in to rescue, to give us a break from this man who’s literally telling Bob Woodward that the virus is dangerous while he’s lying to us about it, telling us to drink bleach, all the madness. Lafayette Square on June 1st of 2020. Just one thing after another. We could never catch a breath. We’ve caught our breath. People have forgotten. So it’s a different dynamic, and I think that Democrats just assume that it’s the same as 2020. It’s not.
BILL KRISTOL:
No, that’s very well said, and I think it’s very shrewd actually, that people always want to fight the last election, but very different when you’re the incumbent. God knows, I was in the George W. Bush White House and he wasn’t a bad president at all. And people are tired, they want to change.
Now, changing back to the guy from before is very unusual, and especially when it’s Trump. So there’s some Republicans probably would be better off to just nominate Nikki Haley and then have a normal “election”, and win in a wrong track environment. Sort of a… But having said that, yeah, I agree. Trump’s not as much of a disqualifier as a lot of us would hope. What about the Hill? We talked about Congress. You covered almost full-time. We cover White House too. But we thought it might be pretty crazy this year. So far it’s been a little crazy. We’ll see what happens with debt ceiling in the next couple of weeks, but maybe a little less crazy than we expected.
But I mean, how much turmoil do you expect to see from Congress? From the investigations, debt ceiling, Ukraine aid votes? Or do you think maybe at the end of the day we’ll look back, if we talk again in December, and say, didn’t really change the dynamics of American politics. Didn’t really reveal that much about either party. Or will it … I mean, what’s your guess and what’s your analysis?
A.B. STODDARD:
Well, the debt ceiling debate has been so interesting, because I really assumed that Joe Biden had some kind of plan. And it would be a process, jujitsu exit ramp where he gets to say, I didn’t give them spending cuts on the debt ceiling. They didn’t hold it hostage. They gave me a clean debt ceiling increase, but I am in favor of clawing back covid funds and doing some things, and making these budget spending cuts in the budget and the annual spending bill.
And so if there was a way to suspend it for the summer, punt it to the September fight, that’s what we all kind of anticipated and that didn’t happen. And then at the same time, Kevin McCarthy’s strength, and I think he is not a political strategic thinker, and he’s blundered in different ways that have really built his reputation. I’m not taking back my criticism of him. But he has outperformed expectations because he is very, very good at what McConnell and Nancy Pelosi are good at, which is the carrot feeding of the individual members, and constant communication with the rank and file about their needs and wants. He doesn’t have master strategy in his brain the way that Mitch and Nancy do. He’s not a badass in the way they are, he is a bumbler.
But something has happened since the 15 rounds of voting for speaker, where he has managed to keep the loudest Freedom Caucus members who were full of threats, quiet. Matt Gaetz is quiet. Chip Roy is quiet. This is an incredible accomplishment. Because he was able to get them around the table to agree on a bill that would increase the debt ceiling. Most had said they wouldn’t vote for a bill to even increase the debt ceiling.
So they voted for this bill with all their cuts. They united as a conference and they remain united as conference. He convinced all of them that if you start going on Fox and crapping on me, it’s going to hinder my hand with Biden. I have better leverage with Biden if you stay on sides. And he has kept them under the tent.
I don’t know how long it lasts, I don’t know what the final compromise is that has to go through the Senate Democrats and then attract 10 Republican senators, or whatever’s going to happen. This could get very, very difficult, very quickly. But McCarthy has succeeded because of how intensely he communicates with people. And God knows, Bill, what he has promised them. We didn’t know that in January, and we don’t know what he’s continued to promise them.
But for their silence, he has definitely talked a good game, because it’s succeeded in silencing the Freedom Caucus. And so, again, I don’t know how long that lasts. But this, to this date, is very impressive. And I think that Biden now is facing that loud left that he hasn’t heard from.
Pramila Jayapal is mad, because he’s saying maybe he will actually agree to Kevin McCarthy’s request for work requirements for SNAP and TANIF and other government aid programs. And the left is going nuts. And so it’s a bad time when you’ve just announced that you’re running for reelection, and people in the party think you’re too old to get in another fight about this stuff. But it is looking like that’s, potentially, one of the things he might agree to.
Long way until the final package, we don’t know the outlines of that today. But I’m surprised that he is in a situation where Kevin McCarthy looks so pulled together. The House Republican Conference looks so united. And Joe Biden is getting snapped at on the record by Pramila Jayapal. This is not what he wanted.
BILL KRISTOL:
It is kind of amazing. I mean, things so often go the opposite from one expects. I mean in 2020, the Democrats won the trifecta when they won the Georgia Senates. And everyone thought, okay, this is it. But rebound from Trump, Biden gets to govern, he has support and they have to sort of mandate.
And of course, 2021 was a bad year legislatively for Democrats. Was a huge fight over Build Back Better and stuff, Afghanistan pullout, that was more the administration obviously. But a lot of criticism, even for Democrats in Congress.
Then everyone went in, as you were saying earlier, 2022, that’s going to, Democrats badly split. Republicans have all these chances, some decent candidates maybe will emerge. And of course the opposite happens. Some horrible Republican candidates emerge. Democrats and Biden sort of managed to pull it together for various reasons, and in various ways.
Including Ukraine, which he responded well to, and where he had bipartisan support. Which sort of reminded people that he’s the president, and we should be grateful that he’s the president. I don’t know, all kinds of things happened, right?
A world of Afghanistan being the headlines is very different for a world of Ukraine being the headlines. So 2022 surprised on the upside for the Democrats, I think it’s fair to say. They passed all that stuff, they outperformed in November. And then everyone decided, and I think you and I sort of had this view that, well, oh man, these Republicans are crazy. And the investigations are going to be nuts. And how could this McCarthy, 15 votes, 15 ballots for the speaker? How could they hold it together?
Democrats had incredibly smooth transition. You’ve talked about that, how Pelosi pulled that off in a really amazing way, with no squabbling even. And the new team comes in, and they’re competent, it seems. Schumer’s been there as leader for a while on the Democratic side. And so far, I’ve got to say that in 2023, I don’t think it’s been a terrible year for the Democrats, or a great year for the Republicans.
But certainly the imbalance, I think a lot of people expected. Where the Democrats were going to, as it were, win the congressional fight writ large. I wouldn’t say that’s exactly happened. I think the most, the craziest Republicans have popped off, but it’s been a one or two day story. The investigations haven’t really done a great damage, but they haven’t been humiliating, I wouldn’t say, to the Republicans yet.
I don’t know, tell me what you think. You cover it. But I do think it’s a weird, it’s an interesting, contrarian story so far.
A.B. STODDARD:
I think what’s interesting is what has allowed, well again, we don’t know entirely what’s allowed Kevin McCarthy to succeed, besides the fact that he works it really hard internally. But in terms of Ukraine funding, he spoke out strongly in support of Ukraine when we least expected it a few weeks ago, right after Tucker was pulled off the air. And I think that bodes well for the fact that there’s still support among the donor class, and much of the elected elites, for supporting a fight against Vladimir Putin, the invader. And that is a good thing.
I think that once Kevin McCarthy figured out that it wasn’t a wave, and it wasn’t a slaughter. And he didn’t have enough seats to impeach Joe Biden. I mean, I think with a big margin he would’ve been under serious pressure to do so. And he basically told them, we only have a few seats and we can’t do what you guys have planned.
So far the investigations are, I think the Hunter stuff is getting a little serious. There’s a report out today that IRS agents looking into this stuff were pulled off there at the request of the Department of Justice. This is I think going to continue to be a serious problem for Joe Biden.
And I thought the Republicans were going to sort of come out with it right away, but it looks like they probably look like they want to drag it out closer to the election, which probably makes sense. But they’re dribbling out some good headlines, good fundraising stuff.
Their investigation into Alvin Bragg and stuff is silly. And again, the voters don’t know that. They see on Fox that they’re fighting the justice department, and they don’t know that Congress can’t intervene in a pending investigation, and they can’t give the documents. But again, they send in the money, and Jordan gets to go home and thunder and roar. And it’s worked for them.
But I do think that Republicans still have a chance to very seriously overstep. But there also could be very real stuff. And I think that is potentially a problem for the Democrats
But the small margin really did stop McCarthy from having to give in to the madness. It’s like, we’re this close, guys, to losing the house. A couple of you could get sick or die, and we’re going to be back in a Democratic majority. So just holds your horses. And that’s the reality.
And it definitely calmed down their great and grand ambition to at least impeach Mayorkas and Merrick Garland, do a lot of whatever. And potentially Joe Biden.
They’re not pursuing it. Because I think they feel the very real knife’s edge between having the Democrats take power again. So that’s what I was expecting. I was expecting a big Republican margin that was going to buffer them, and let the crazies rule. So it’s a challenge for the Democrats to respond to that, and they need to get their head around the fact that McCarthy has landed in a good spot right now. At least tactically.
BILL KRISTOL:
No, that’s such an important point. And we’ll close with that. I do feel like the Democrats haven’t done a very good job of taking all these mini-scandals and embarrassments, George Santos and stuff, they haven’t really wrapped it around the Republican’s neck.
So it’s sort of well, Santos is a bizarre story, and here’s the latest detail of that. But no one thinks, I don’t know, that somehow, shouldn’t the speaker do something about that? Or shouldn’t his colleagues do something? And that’s been true of Gosar and others.
And so the Democrats are not very good at sort of attaching the worst things any one Republican member does to the whole conference. And McCarthy has done a decent job of getting Marjorie Taylor Green and Gaetz and all to speak up less. I guess maybe the speaker vote thing, which was sort of an short-term embarrassment to McCarthy was kind of also a wake-up call for all the others that we can’t go through, it would hurt them all if everything just broke. They needed to ultimately come together and play the hand they had.
And as I say on the flip side, I am struck at the Democrats lack of political skill, it feels to me. I mean they should be… I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong, and maybe they’re holding back their fire, it’s too early and so forth. They did all vote for this budget that has all kind of budget cuts, the debt ceiling-slash-budget-legislation that does have a lot of budget cuts in it, presumably. We’ll see if they can make Republicans pay for that.
A.B. STODDARD:
Right. Well I mean, they tried. They tried to say it was cuts to veterans and stuff, but I think they’re used to only fighting against Trump. And I will add, Bill, it’s not beyond the possibility, because Trump said so at the town hall and he has since said on Truth Social, if the Republicans don’t demand this and they don’t demand that, and of course he recommend that they do a default.
So look, as this gets more difficult in the next few weeks, it’s not… And then of course, even if we move beyond this, he’s going to try to force them to shut the government down again on the government funding fight for September. He wants the confrontation, and he wants to be their leader, and dominate, and push them around.
So I’m going to be surprised if he stays out of it. I mean, I think he’s going to be, when it gets really tense and there’s like some real stuff on the table, if it looks like McCarthy’s about to convince his members to support it and it can pass Schumer’s Senate, I’m sure Trump’s just going to get in there and editorialize. He could be an exacerbating factor, and he could make it very hard for McCarthy. Hard to see why he wouldn’t. But I guess stranger things have happened.
BILL KRISTOL:
I mean he’s a huge wild card, as you say. I mean, in a way, the best case for Trump is if he gets to scream and yell about how it’s a sellout, and then quietly let it go through, not actually put too much pressure on members. Because Trump does not actually want, presumably… In a certain way he wants, I don’t know, does he want a crisis?
I mean, it’s true if we have a huge crisis in default and the market’s down 2000 points in one day, I suppose Trump says this is, see, what I warned you about. It never happened when I was president. This is Biden.
I mean, I don’t know. Trump could sort of win either way. Or if it doesn’t happen, he’ll attack the Republicans for selling out on the Hill, which the base will like, and there’ll be no consequences. I don’t know. Maybe we’re being too…
A.B. STODDARD:
I’m glad you weren’t so you weren’t watching CNN, Bill. But when he said, “I think this time we have to do a default.” She played him tape of him in office at the resolute desk saying, “We cannot toy with this concept, and it’s far too dangerous, and it’s not even remotely on the table.” Or something like that. And she said, “Why’d you say that then?” And he said, “Because I was president then.”
BILL KRISTOL:
Yeah. That’s amazing, isn’t it?
A.B. STODDARD:
Like he was enjoying the fact that, if he could tank the economy and on Biden’s watch, that it’s no sweat off his. So it was one of the low moments of the night, and there were many.
BILL KRISTOL:
Yeah, but that’s such a revealing one. I’m glad, I don’t know if I’m glad, we call it closer to that. But it’s appropriate to… Because it is so, I mean it’s utterly shameless. You shouldn’t be able to say that.
Which is literally saying, of course if I’m president, I can’t tank the economy. If Biden’s president, who cares? Let him pay a massive political price. We’ll just blame him.
But just, as what is, and what do we call that? Saying the quiet thing out loud, or whatever? That’s what Trump does. But I don’t know. He’s paid no price, right?
And in some ways people think, yeah, that’s right. That’s why we need to have him as president again. Because when he is president, we won’t have this crisis. Oy.
Any last thoughts that we haven’t covered? We’ve covered a lot. But I guess, just final. So, if we get back together in, you know, Christmas, or at the end of this year, of this calendar year, debt ceiling will be big, I suppose. Possible government shutdown, and where we end up on that in September. Ukraine aid.
A.B. STODDARD:
I mean, I always hold out the hope that the Biden administration, because they went through this in 2011 and they have been talking about this and studying it for years, that there’s no such thing as prioritization. That even talking about that sends a message to global markets, could threaten our credit rating. They were never going to have another downgrade because we came too close in 2011.
I mean, that they had put so much mental energy into this, from experience, I still am sort of holding out that maybe in the end this isn’t a big deal, and they come up with something to get through it. And I don’t think that it’s going to hurt Biden’s numbers if McCarthy ends up looking good. I don’t think voters are going to go, “Boy, Joe Biden didn’t play six-dimensional chess, and Kevin McCarthy got the better of him.”
I think we’ll just move on. And it’ll just be good for Kevin McCarthy, but not bad for Joe Biden to have averted default. But I do think, and I really hope, I’m really being optimistic on Ukraine. That we’re in a situation now, where people got mad at Ron DeSantis in the party about his remarks. Donors left him over those remarks, and he equivocated.
And that message from Kevin McCarthy, I thought, was very promising. So I’m hoping that it’s very bad for Joe Biden actually going into reelection, I think, if it looks like we are in a quagmire. And that he’s not giving Ukraine the ability to win, he’s just giving Ukraine the ability to not lose.
If that drags on into next year, past the two-year mark, I think that that actually is an electoral liability for him. So I think he’s invested in their success, I think the Republicans are going to help out with that, I hope. I don’t see that being a big thing. But I’m just focused on Biden and Trump. And I just have this weird feeling that something will intervene. At least one of them will not be on the ticket. I think there’s more drama in store.
BILL KRISTOL:
I think that’s a good prediction. And no, I have the exact same totally irrational kind of gut feeling, somehow. Of course, analytically, Trump’s the most likely Republican nominee. And Biden’s overwhelmingly likely to be the Democratic nominee. And yet somehow, deep down, I can’t quite believe we’re going to have Biden and Trump a year from now. But that lack of belief is worth nothing. So I don’t know.
A.B. STODDARD:
We’ll have a long time to accept it.
BILL KRISTOL:
We will. We will have to discuss this, both maybe at the end of this calendar year, or before even Labor Day. Let’s see what happens. I mean, even this debt ceiling in the next couple of weeks could be pretty, who knows, right? We would not have predicted two months ago that Biden, and Yellen, and the Democratic White House and Treasury Department look a little bit like they’re flailing around. And McCarthy’s kind of got his budget through the house and is sitting there saying, hey, we’ve got to negotiate here. Let’s speed up the negotiations.
It’s a little thing. I don’t think it matters. Ultimately, what matters is what happens. But it is striking that all the assumptions one makes about who might have the upper hand in each of these cases, often they’re not, they’re just not right. It doesn’t turn out that way.
A.B. STODDARD:
Yeah, I’ve been wrong a lot, and I’m happy to be wrong. It’s kind of part of the fun that you can’t really predict it. But we’d like to predict that Trump is not going to be the next president. That’s what we would like to be able to predict. Because that’s what matters.
BILL KRISTOL:
That prediction’s going to be pretty right. No problem. No question at all.
A.B. STODDARD:
Oh, okay. Okay.
BILL KRISTOL:
Take it to the bank. You heard it from…
A.B. STODDARD:
Okay.
BILL KRISTOL:
…A.B. Stoddard here on Conversations with Bill Kristol on May 16th, 2023. A.B., Thanks a lot for doing this again. And we’ll do it again soon, I hope.
A.B. STODDARD:
Oh, thanks Bill. It’s always so much fun. Thank you.
BILL KRISTOL:
And thank you for joining us on Conversations with Bill Kristol.
