Republicans All Told the Exact Same Mitch McConnell Story | The Next Level

The one thing I know about Republicans, when we had a very bad candidate and found out, we didn't vote for that person.We walked away.For better or for worse.

It's incredible stuff.

Is that right, Sarah?When the Republicans had a bad candidate come forward, they got rid of them?Hello, everybody.This is the Next Level Podcast.I'm hosting because JVL is out, still sending him our love.I forget how the podcast is supposed to start, but I'm here with my best buddies at the Bulwark, our publisher, Sarah Longwell, whose tweet and thumbs have been getting some exercise this week, and Sam Stein, managing editor, who's been editing, which is important.

Yeah.Part of the Bulwark as well.

I will not take Twitter shaming from you.

You are.Maybe maybe Twitter shaming for me is the thing that causes reflection.You know, it's kind of like when you're drunk friend tweeting when your drunk friend comes up to you and you're like, hey, buddy, couple too many pops last night.Whoa.

Anyway, they're telling lies about me on the Internet.

I know it is for shame, for shame that ever happened before.The Americans got their ass handed to them last night in football, American soccer.by the belgians their waffles belgians dominated there's some discussion i'm not a big soccer person myself but um i am i'm in my peers morgan on the show today so it's a little minor troll i wore a scotland uh shirt uh francis france it's scotland and france okay it's a double attack on the fucking limeys um anyway uh i just think we should I appreciate the reality, which is like, this is all Trump's fault.I mean, it was like the most shameful soccer game I've ever seen.I mean, the eight -year -old soccer that I watch has had better goaltending than the Americans did last night.And how else could you explain that other than the Trump curse?

Yeah, I think that's true.

He cursed us.I totally agree with you.We had such momentum.And then he decided to get his little hands involved in the red card situation.And then all that goodwill that we had built up just went down the toilet.So I do blame Trump, yeah.

Yeah, it's an everything Trump touches dies moment.Um, I will say I don't have a ton.I mean, I've been watching the world cup and enjoying watching the world cup.I was enjoying, I did not enjoy watching last night.Did you?No, no, no, no.

I was enjoying, I was enjoying watching our, I'm rooting for our, our men.Uh, but last night I was watching the game and I was like, I couldn't tell if it was just that now the level of competition is up to a point where like, we just couldn't hang.Or I was like, why do we look like this?It was the part where the guy, the goalie leaves the goal and just like kicks the ground accidentally.So the other team, he's so far out.The other team just like pops the ball and it rolls down to the goal.

That was embarrassing.

You have children.You all have watched Space Jam.Yeah, it was kind of like when the aliens took the power from the NBA players.And that was Trump.Trump is the alien.And he the players went out there and could not do it.

Anyway, OK, that's a bad owl.

But but in Space Jam, we beat the aliens.

Oh, but like it was.Shut up, Sam.Here's my reply to that.Shut the fuck up, Sam.

I just want it like you.I'm an editor and I want to be fine.

So that was like when they lost their power, they got the power back.Okay.No, maybe we'll get the power back in 2030 when Trump is gone.Yeah, there we go.I've, I've, I've, I've finished it.Norway.

I'm rooting for Norway.Do you have a team?Do you have one?Anybody you're rooting for?No.

Can I be honest?I'm kind of rooting for England.

Yeah.I'm also think I'm rooting for England.British by matrimony.What is that?Uh, just my matrimony.

I don't mean i mean my mother's side

for that American.Fuck the King.All right, Mitch McConnell.We have some news about Mitch McConnell.We've got a bunch of politics news today.We'll talk about the main Senate race some more.

I had a friend that texted me who listened to all 55 minutes of me and Sarah last night in bed.which was not, I don't think, a way to kind of wind down.But me and Sarah have already done 55 minutes on the main Senate race, so we'll do a little more, Sam.But first, it's pretty big news that Mitch McConnell is alive, we think.It's a little suspicious.I don't want to be in conspiracy, but it's a little suspicious that Mitch McConnell goes into the hospital June 14th.

He's been basically MIA ever since.It is now July 7th, so it's almost a full month.Yesterday, rumors start to spread.Laura Loomer, who OK, you can't trust Laura Loomer on the one hand.On the other hand, she's been like one of the best inside sources in the White House.So you got to just take that with what it for what it is.

Laura Loomer said that he was a vegetable and he's brain dead yesterday.And so this seems to have yielded the need to respond.Sarah's friend, Scott Jennings, John Barrasso, John Thune, all all posts on Twitter within like five minutes of each other about how they just talked to Mitch McConnell for 20 minutes.And so it's like, was it a group call?Like, was, did he call them all one at a time?It is a little suspicious.

And they all were also saying, talking about how the conversation was very depth.Like he's doing a lot of policy discussion, a lot of thoughts about Iran, foreign affairs, the NATO meeting in Ankara.I don't know.Okay.I guess I kind of like to see it.

Yeah, could they not record the conversation?Can we get an audio recording maybe?It does have this vague, you know, flashback to the Biden era where it was like, yeah, you know, you may seem slow in public, but in private, man, he is just a whiz.He's just whipping around.So is that funny?

John Stewart did.It's like, why can't we see the private meeting Biden?Everybody keeps saying how great he is.Why can't you bring cameras into the meeting?

Technology exists.

Wait, I'm going to call BS.I'm like, you talked to Mitch McConnell for the first time.He's had this catastrophic health event.And you're like, sir, What are your thoughts on Iran right now?That actually doesn't feel like how you would approach that conversation.Also, when they were like, oh, you know, it was this in -depth conversation, I had the same thought, where were they all in a Zoom together and they had an in -depth conversation about those things.

I don't know.I mean, look, I'm not such a good point.

Like, why would you call them up and be like, Hey, I heard that you were unconscious for a couple of minutes, but can I just get your thoughts on like, what's going on with the straight and foremost?

Like, can we choose a cutter?Yellen G ship got hit yesterday in this fate of our moves, sir.

I need, I need your insights here.I don't believe you.

Yeah.

I will just say I'm the loomer thing though.Like.She did tweet about that yesterday.She may have the right.She also tweeted like that.Mark Kelly was getting handsy with a woman at some soccer watch parties.

She wondered who it was and it was Gabby Giffords.So like I thought the most reliable reported.Did you see that one?

Gabby Giffords is like, I am looking great.You're right, Laura Loomer.

She thinks I'm the side piece.What a compliment.That was a great, that was a great own by Gabby Giffords.But can I just say between Laura Loomer, who we should never believe because she's a lunatic, and Scott Jennings, who we should never believe because he's a liar, it's possible the truth lies somewhere in between, which is that Mitch McConnell is neither braindead nor discussing the finer points of foreign policy at this moment, that perhaps he is a sick old man who, at this point in time, is holding on for reasons that are, I think, clear to all of us.right?They don't want Bashir to be able to appoint somebody to replace him.

He doesn't want to resign.

As I understand, Bashir can't appoint.Don't they have to do some sort of commission where they give him three recommendations or something like that?I thought the issue was that there's like an August 3rd deadline before which they'd have a special election that has to run.And they're worried that Tom Massey would jump in and run as an independent.and potentially cost them some votes, if not, you know, score a win.And so there's like real concern about all this stuff.

That's great editing and factual information.Thank you for that.My point, I guess, is that they have him holding on for political reasons and that he should no longer be in office.He is no longer fit to serve in public office.And like, we just got done with this whole Tom Keene, I disappear for four months and don't tell anybody.And so like, Republicans can't just, and just elected officials in general, can't just keep hanging on to their offices while they are indisposed for health reasons.

Yeah, I guess I would just also say on the political side of this, It's July 7th and Congress isn't doing anything like this.The seat is up in November like he's like so it's he's going to be replaced.

Yeah.You know what I mean?It would be kind of a short -term thing at this point.

That feels like elder abuse, and if that is the real reason.It's like, we're going to make you pretend like you're in the Senate for five months when this seat is...It'd be one thing where you'd say, okay, we have to do a little light elder abuse because four years of the Senate is a long time, and it's just practical consideration, and I'm not defending that, but that would at least be sensible.That's not what's happening here.Right.

Like it's over.He's already going to be replaced in November.I don't know.There's a little bit of just this people holding on and you do have to be careful talking about this because I honor our elderly and our seniors, even the seniors.likes to bring up that I one time suggested maybe they shouldn't be able to.

I like to bring it up.You did do that.

What was the proposal?

I was just saying that you can reach a certain age where it's like, Sam, this is one of those instances where nobody was talking about anything remotely like this.

And Tim was like, I just want to throw this idea out there.

16 years old vote.Can't vote.Should 96 year olds be able to, it was just, we're just, there are no bad ideas.

You said this publicly.

Yeah.On a podcast on this next level podcast.But anyway, I also just, people should have a dignified, Retirement.My dad just retired.He went on a little past 65.That's good.

You know, he's still kind of had the mojo going, but he wants to hang out with the grandkids.He's happy.That's good.Like that's life.You're 84, man.Like what is it?

There's a ton.Every phase in life is different.Like you have, there are moments for everything, you know, there as we're about to get to a grand planner, there's moments for bringe, binge drinking and being a dick.You know, there's moments for being in the Senate.There's moments for retirement, retirement.Maybe there's a moments for being addicted, but you know, there's moments for, for being a little bit more irascible, you know, there's moments for being more responsible.

There's moments for being, you can keep going, but we get it.

Yes.You see where we are.Well, this is what it, this is, it's continued with these guys.It's like not just McConnell.

It's like a, well, this is like my, my, I mean, it's not theory, but it's politicians are like the most among the most selfish people.On the planet, they're egotistical, narcissistic.They think that they should be all should lead people and that they deserve their votes.And this this ties together Joe Biden and Mitch McConnell and ties together Graham Plattner, who selfishly felt like he could run for this seat despite all that baggage.I mean, that is the one sort of underlying principle.is that these people believe that there's no one better to serve than them.

And so they hold on for God knows way too long.

In this case, there's a weird subplot to this.Sarah, have you, have you been following the Elaine Chao subplot?

Yeah.She went to China for like three days after he went, he, he was found unconscious.

Yeah.She took a couple of meetings in China.Uh, she was in Shanghai where, um, she was in Shanghai.Two days after his hospitalization, the Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs said Chow met with its president, Wu Ken, in Beijing.They discussed U .S.

-China relations and other issues of common interests.That's a very bizarre thing to do.Like, in general, I mean, she's not a member of our government.

Yeah, does she have an official position of any kind right now?

No.I don't think we should be, people should not be doing rogue diplomacy with China, I don't think, just in general.But it's particularly bizarre to do it two days after your husband was in the hospital.

That is weird.I don't have, I don't have any, I don't have any speculation on this.It's just other than, yes, it's very strange.And I, and unless, I don't know, I don't know what these people's relationship and like, but like one would assume if one's spouse was, uh, found unconscious that two days later, you're not hopping on a plane to go transatlantic, but I don't know.

Unless, unless, unless she's there to scout information for Mitch that when he gets on the phone with Thune, he can have more detail.

Well, Sarah, you're responsible and you don't speculate.Um, but not everybody's like you, you know, uh, no, Marjorie Taylor green JVL is gone.Marjorie Taylor green.Um, she had a different take on my guys at TMZ.I did a little interview with those TMZ guys for this YouTube over the weekend.If you'll miss that, go check it out.

They're funny.And one of them caught.MTG on the streets of New York and asked her about what's going on with Mitch and Elaine Chao.And I want to play her response.

Listen, I wanted to get your thoughts on the Mitch McConnell situation.He's been hospitalized for weeks.Other than that, we don't really know what's going on.What do you think about it?

I think it's extremely serious and I'd like to say shame on the Republican Party for just basically staying silent while such a powerful Republican Senator is basically laying in a hospital like a vegetable.And his wife flew to China and met with the Vice President of China just days after he basically died and they brought him back with CPR and took him to the hospital.But you know what, it doesn't surprise me from the establishment because this is what they support.They support people holding on to power until they're practically dead or do die in office.And this is why the state of our country is so pathetic.

Any lies detected there?No lies detected.I'm not sure if the vice president, is the vice president correct?I'm not sure that's correct.We'll have to effort a fact check on that.But besides that, Something to be said for being free, you know, free of the shackles of party constraints.

No or nothing.

I can't channel JBL on this.Kudos to MTG.She's great.Yeah.Nothing to be said.

JBL would say I could do it.JBL would be like, that's my girl.Telling it like it is. I feel about Marjorie Taylor Greene the way I feel.Well, not quite about Laura Loomer because Marjorie Taylor Greene has made some decisions that are rational.She's not wrong in this instance about the establishment trying to hold on, but also, I don't know that I need to get into that.information from Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Yeah, I mean, I guess my final thing on the Mitch McConnell is we're not going to get the John McCain.deathbed moment for him that I, that I'd pitched.I don't think, um, and I don't know exactly the severity.

Like a deathbed conversion to say, well, yeah, it would have been the same.

I don't try.McCain was in a lot of ways, obviously I find more honorable than Mitch McConnell.And I'm frankly, Mitch McConnell's like at the top of the list of people to blame about the situation that we're in right now.But, um, the, uh, you know, I McCain was himself.You know, I don't would he have been the person to do the final thumbs down on on the Obamacare appeal at a different point in his career?You know, you don't you can't say you can't say what's in a man's heart, but he recognized that he had power.

And John McCain, I mean, obviously, Donald Trump was very nasty to John McCain, but it was not any better to Mitch McConnell.And he said worse things about Elaine Chao than we have on this podcast by this far.Yeah, he's been very racist about Elaine Chao.And so, yeah, I mean, they had an opportunity across several different policy areas over the past few months for Mitch McConnell to buck president and wield some power and get together with his buddies, Tom Tillis and John Cornyn for kind of one last ride.And like, this is, it feels ridiculous to say it.It's like fantasy politics.

Like, what is this?The hangover Senate?But it's like, I don't know.They could have, right?

They could have, I wish they would.Cornyn, Tillis, I wanted to see the YOLO Senate for the people that Trump has been awful to.But Trump's always known them a little bit better than they know themselves, right?He just knows what cowards they are.They're not just afraid of Trump.They're afraid of his voters.

They're afraid of their post -Senate lives and being welcomed into the right Republican clubs.And it's embarrassing and it's a shame or shameful for them.But Mitch McConnell, it really is like nothing left to lose.You can't take it with you.This is the time.But who also knows what state he's in right now.

I would just say that, I don't know, I feel like there's fundamental difference between McCain and McConnell.Like McCain's whole MO was that he liked taking independent shots.Like he had these streaks every now and then where he crossed the party and that was his brand.And that was never McConnell's brand.McConnell was like ultimately an insider.So it was never going to be, in my equation, part of him being part of like, like some Ocean's 13 caper one last run.

Like, let's do it.Like that was not in the cards for me.It would have been nice though.I mean, there was moments, I guess, Especially around the confirmation of the cabinet, whereas it was evident that like he didn't want Pete Hegseth.

I think he voted against Hegseth if I'm remembering correctly.

I don't know.There's a bunch of people that he was clearly unhappy with.And this guy who's like the master operative of the Senate couldn't really like manage to cobble together four votes to like Stop or this year.

I mean forget and maybe give him the chance then but I mean like Todd Blanche stuff is coming up right now He won't be there for that.

Let's just be honest.He's not gonna be back in the Senate So it's it's done and I think the legacy I'm a cop I'm actually curious for you guys because you know the legacy McConnell I don't think you guys think it's particularly complicated Honestly, I think some people would treat it as complicated because he has had sort of a turn against Trump in the last couple years But like when it gets written, it's it's clear to me that this guy had a chance to do something brave and important and whiffed.And that's that.

Like, that is it.

Yeah.

I think that, look, there's some bad Senate majority leaders that have buildings named after them in D .C.You know, in D .C., people like to honor power and success and so.I don't think this is like, you don't have to hand it to them.

But I just think that kind of you look at, say, you know, from our adult lives, right, like the leaders of the parties that like actually wielded power.It's kind of like Pelosi and him, maybe honorable mention to read, read, give Harry Reid a shout out.

I'm just gonna compare reading in the comment.And I'll tell from the democratic perspective, you tell me how it works from a calm.Reid left his position probably at the height of his popularity.Like he had muscled through Obamacare.He had gotten this reputation as being just this incredibly effective guy who also loved to brawl and loved to brawl with Trump.And here was this, you know, at some point in his life, kind of an unknown semi backbencher from Nevada who like wasn't really beloved by the base that ended up totally loved by basically every Democrat when he retired.

And McConnell's kind of the inverse in a way, like he had a lot of cachet with Republicans for what he did around the Supreme Court and then spent the latter years of his career getting pissed on by the base because of how he treated Trump.So that's my perspective.

Yeah, that's true.I guess I'm just kind of looking back at the last 10.It's like Thune, Schumer, Frist.Trent Lott gets run out on a rail, you know, and then you kind of get back to Dole.So it really is kind of McConnell and Reed, or I think the polls of people that have these examples and the McConnell McConnell, I think he would say his people would say, well.I would say he stole a Supreme Court seat.

People would say they got an extra Supreme Court seat.And then, you know, muscled through the Trump agenda, despite being against him in the first term, and also navigated the Tea Party wave, stayed in power, you know, was able to try to kind of navigate the party through that to some degree of success.That would be thepitch.I don't, you know, at the end of the day, to me, it's kind of like it comes down to the Supreme court seat and, and the, and the cowardice after January six, he knew he knew.And not only, you know, the one thing I always bring up with McConnell on this is that like, could he have gotten the 17 people to convict him and prevent him from running again?

I kind of think he could have, maybe he couldn't have, we don't know.It's a counterfactual, but the thing that is the most.to me just craving about all of it was like his argument for not convicting him was that the courts would take care of him.And then when the courts came around, it was like, this is lawfare going after the president.And so just the degree of disingenuousness of that.It's hard to get over.

You know, just first of all, I think if Mitch McConnell had written hard to get Trump convicted, I think he could have.I think that would have been one of the last real displays of his power.One of the things that Mitch McConnell always said, though, that I think is really true is he said, winners make policy, losers go home.And he was a power actor from start to finish in a way that I think ultimately was to his detriment.I mean, I think this is why people loved him, but ultimately his idea of power meant accommodating Trump in some way or trying to find a way around Trump.And what's interesting is that his view of power is ultimately what caused Republicans to sort of abandon him, right, because he was trying to, he was trying to protect the institution as well as find a way to sort of mitigate Trump as a, he saw Trump as a temporary phenomenon.

He just got the voters, he got his own voters wrong.He understood the institutional power, but he never understood the voters from which that power derived, at least not in the later years.

Speaking of somebody who stayed in power decades after they should have, Sarah, we've got,a read from our sponsor, Decagon.

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Everyone is excited for more Graham Plattner discourse.Here is what has happened since we last checked in with you.Basically, everybody wants him out of the race, even Bernie.called graham platner his last soldier uh called him personally and suggested that he get out uh now i guess it comes down toGrant Plattner's decision himself, and also Plattner and his allies seem to think they deserve to pick his successor.In a private call with campaign staff, he did not announce plans to withdraw, but said a decision would be coming.

He said that he believed he still had leverage to influence which candidate would replace him on the ticket.a lot of tweeting out there from the populist left wing to this effect about how voters spoke and they, they deserve to have a plat.It's kind of like, well, I don't, unfortunately the voters spoke and picked a candidate that's left everybody carrying a bag of shit.And so the person that left her to be carrying a bag of shifts doesn't quite have as much leverage as you might think.So we can hash all that out.Um, Sam, Sarah and I gave our extended thoughts last night.

I'm just kind of wondering open ended.your feelings on the state of play in Maine?

Um, I'm mad.Like I, I feel like mad about it.I feel like, um, this is just like reckless and irresponsible.Um, you know, you put it, it's irresponsible for a variety of reasons.Like obviously the macro reasons is you risk in the Senate and that's like obviously hugely consequential, but I also feel like it kind of, you know, dicked around a lot of emotions for people and it really, frankly, um, sets back a movement that, If you really believed in it, you wanted to accelerate.Right.

So like the next time some person who comes out of nowhere with very limited political experience, but like a good message and a thoughtful sort of populist platform, uh, next time this happens, they're going to be, everyone's going to say, well, we don't want to get platinored again.Right.Like, you know, that, that has lasting consequences.And if he sticks in this race, I'm not sure he's going to stick in this race.He does have leverage.I will say he does have leverage because he could just not go like that's actual leverage.

But let's, but if he does stick in this race, it does make it painful.Like that's the downside is that you are just tarnishing anyone else who wants to be kind of an outsider with a legitimate shot.And then of course, obviously I'm, I find the allegations themselves.gruesome and sickening and all that.And I feel it's really a sad state of affairs.So I'll shut up now.

Now, I want to talk about your second point for a second, then I'm interested in Sarah's reaction to that, because he really has let a lot of people down.And Plattner was not ever my particular cup of tea.I think maybe I was more bullish than him than some other people in part, because like, I talked to a lot of people that really, we're excited about it.And, and I do think that, you know, for people who hated Platner looked at him from the start, we're like, I fucking sniffed you out from second one that you're a scumbag.I think that some of them don't, you know, that's hard to understand.But like, it is what it is.

And like, there are a lot of people on the left, particularly younger people who have had to, you know, have been pretty beaten down.by our political system and are pretty negative about America and our system, and in part because they've had to swallow three pretty uninspiring Democratic campaigns going up against the worst person they've ever met in their life on the other side and having to watch him win two out of three.just because Plattner wasn't everybody's cup of tea, like for those people for whom it was like, they were excited, like, fuck, there's something different.It's refreshing.He is talented.Like if you use Sarasota focus groups, I talked to people just kind of, you know, through the grapevine who are in Maine, and a lot of people were really excited about him.

He was really talented, like in his office cup speaking, and he's exciting.And so I think that that, you know, that's, that'slike, it sucks.And like, that's not a very probably popular Twitter conversation to have to like, be earnest about that.But like, it just is what it is.And I think that when you talk about the long term ramifications, also another reason why it really sucks that Platner did this and put people to this, and he's the one who's responsible for this, is You don't know what the long term ramifications are.

I say this all the time about the Bill Clinton situation, you know, and the Democrats lost a lot of credibility, people like Sarah, as she's talked about this before, over the Bill Clinton situation.And, and, you know, they defended him and came around to him.And, and then You know, maybe you think, OK, well, whatever that stain, we got through it.That was just whatever a new cycle.And that was just Monica Lewinsky's life that we ruined.And now we're going to move forward.

And then it's like fast forward 20 years and like Bill Clinton's mistresses and the women that he sexually assaulted allegedly are sitting in the debate helping Donald Trump.So, you know, you can't predict these things like irresponsible decisions lead to unpredictable outcomes down the down the line.I'd like that is another element of this.I'm glad you mentioned because we didn't talk about that yesterday.I don't know if you have anything to add to that.

I think no, I think that's a look.Obviously, I have been quite skeptical of Plattner from the jump.I I wanted I very badly want Susan Collins, who has four reasons of she is somebody who is going to help Trump continue this authoritarian agenda that he has.Right.I want her to lose.I was willing to tolerate And continue to be willing to, as somebody who wants to see Donald Trump's power curbed, like, I'm interested in all kinds of different flavors of Democrats in all different kinds of places.

And I think that the party and the environmentis changing for a lot of reasons.And so I was like, oh, I think like you, Tim, the place that I was what I was open to was like, I don't have to agree with a lot of these guys on policy to like, let's experiment.Let's see how they play.Let's see who they attract.I think what was interesting about the Plattner experiment for as much as we saw of it was that The hope that he was going to appeal to sort of white working class voters with his more populist message and the oyster farmer, you know, that's my aesthetic.

Yeah.It wasn't working.Like his people, the people who were supporting him were, I think he had more enthusiasm from younger people than Janet Mills would have, would have.Although I'll also say that in Maine, Janet Mills's age bracket, though I think she was the, a poor choice for Schumer to recruit, still think like, that is the age bracket of candidate that is voting in Maine.Uh, and like, not if, not if Tim gets his way, not if Tim gets his way.Right.

Uh, it was just an idea.Okay.

Just spit balling.

Uh, I just, my frustration, um, is that when it, my, my objection to a lot of people then comes down to, are they bad people?Like, do they have bad behavior?And Graham Platner, I, if Graham Platner, as we learned more and more about him, cause I do think it's weird when people are like, They're jamming it down people's throats when they're like, didn't you, you should have seen this coming.And I think that he was trying to do something pretty specific, which is own the bad behavior of the past, create a redemption arc and say, I'm a new person.And where that started to fall apart, when that started to fall apart, then I think, you know, there was nothing left there.

It got complicated because it started to fall apart.That story, which is obviously a lie, um, from the start, um, that story started to fall apart after he'd already won the nomination, you know, like the times article, you know what I mean?Like the, the more, the more recent stuff all came out after I, you know, again, this is only if you're going to, if you're to go back in time and say, Hey, if Platner's pitches, I was doing these Reddit posts, I was out of military, I PTSD, I've been through therapy, whatever.And then I started to get my life together.Like the oppo that was out there before Mills dropped out was that was the previous stuff.And then Mills drops out.

And then all this recent stuff comes out.

And that that I'm not even saying I'm not even saying the thing I exactly mean.What I exactly mean is if you want different kinds of candidates and you want different and they represent different kinds of policy, people who are better than this.Pick people who don't have these kinds of pasts.People were supposed to have vetted him.The people who are saying right now, who was looking at these guys?They're right.

And I'll also say this, everybody's mad at the establishment.Everybody's thrown around the word establishment.What does that mean?Because in some cases, what it means, actually in a lot of cases, it means someone's with some experience and someone who's been through some previous election cycles, which means they have been vetted.The voters have vetted them.And listen, voters are going to tolerate, because I had to maintain kind of a dual track with Plattner, which is, and it's very annoying in this moment, because people are taking things that the focus groups said about Plattner, and they're trying to attribute it to me, which anybody who's been listening to this show knows that I've been quite flat or skeptical, but like on one hand, the voters wanted somebody new, right?

They were willing to tolerate infidelity, sexting, the past, the redemption story.They were willing totolerate quite a bit of ugliness that Sarah Longwell, if I had to be as a voter, don't want to tolerate.But I could understand in the face of Trump and in the face of Republicans who have tolerated horrible behavior from their candidates, people are starting to say, screw this.When they go low, we go high stuff.You know, I'm watching this happen with voters all the time.

I recognize it in the ether.But at the same time, guys, the establishment does have some things going for it, namely candidates that have run races and won them.

Let me just say, I've never felt more like JVL than at this moment because it's clear you didn't read my morning shots, which made this exact point that establishment is established.Like you literally go through a process of running an election to prove you know how to do it and getting vetted and getting hit by whatever your opponent can find on you.But beyond that, like, you know, obviously we're at a place now politically where having held or holding elected office is seen as a scarlet letter.And like, Why does it have to be?I just, I, you know, you can be, I know I just went on a rant about how selfish politicians are.So I'm contradicting myself a little bit, but like you can, you can be a decent person and also hold elected office.

And the irony of course, is that like the, the sort of godfather of this movement is Bernie Sanders.Who's done nothing but hold elected office for decades upon decades upon decades.Um, so yeah, yeah, I don't know.

I mean, so here's my thing.Like here's where I think.that there need to, there needs to be some hard truths, um, that folks in the populace left need to take in.And I don't, I'm not really expecting a ton of reflection.People aren't very good at reflection, but, um, this is what I would say to like the big other YouTube channels that kind of represent this wing.And many of them I've had on the show, crystal and Ryan grim and all that.

And I asked all of them when they come up with the show, this question, I always ask the same question, which is like.are you sure this is going to work?As far as winning over working class people, like they have a strong critique of the establishment.That's not totally wrong, right?That's like, Hey, you've put up Kamala Biden and Hillary and even Obama, frankly, and over the course of that last 20 years, we've just lost more and more ground with working class voters of all races.And what you're doing isn't working.

And so that's their critique.And that's, that's true like the democrats have lost ground working class voters over that period and they're like so it must be the neo -liberalism.

Bernie, Bernie ran in two of those elections.

I don't know, I'm talking about in the general election.

Wait can I just, I'm sorry, actually this analysis makes me crazy.Democrats won overwhelmingly in 2018, They won with Biden in 2020.They won and overperformed in 2022.And then in 2024, they made a catastrophic mistake of rerunning Biden because they were so afraid of changing midstream on somebody who had beaten Trump, so they were totally afraid of their own shadow.And they have lost working class voters because, and this is, sorry, if we're talking hard truths, a big part of it, nobody wants to hear this.They wanna focus on the economic populism without also understanding that voters do not like a lot of the social policy stuff.

They don't.

Well, this is what I was gonna say, but thank you.I appreciate you interrupting me.It is true.

Oh, I interrupt.

It is true.Sure.Great points about Biden.It is true, though, that if you look at the just Senate map and if you look at the presidential performance starting in 08 and going to now, it's just been basically a downward trajectory among working class voters and among voters in rural states as a generalization.And the left part of the party hasn't had any power in that time.And so it's easy to be like, hey, you guys fuck this up.

All right.And you know what we should do to do it is goto these more anti -corporate anti -billionaire policies and et cetera.And like I said, I, I don't think that's a totally wrong critique.I think there's an element of that.That's right.

But like, they haven't actually tried to test it out and show it.And like, I speaking of Twitter fights, one that I got into a couple of months ago, Sarah was I posted on social media.I was just like, Hey, populous lefties.If you think that this is the secret sauce to winning in Iowa and Ohio and Florida and these states that the Democrats have lost ground in, nominate a populist lefty, put them up in those states.Let's see how they do.put up a Bernie to run for Senate in Florida.

I think that they will do worse than the establishment person did.I don't know, though.I could be wrong.We don't know.We don't know until we try it.And so now we have the situation with Plattner, where they put up a guy like this.

He was a disaster, personally.Even before he went out, he was polling way below Roy Cooper, you know, in North Carolina, who is everything that they say is wrong.And so it's like, okay, maybe Some of your critique is right, but your solution is, is not fully there.And maybe you got there.You have to deal with some harder questions where it's like easy to say it's kind of easy to say.like oh the big problem with the establishment is they haven't stood up to corporate america enough because everybody's like yeah it's a little harder to say like one of the problems with the establishment is that they haven't stood up to corporate america enough another problem is that they got out of touch with voters on a bunch of cultural issues and and these voters don't think that they like them anymore and they might need to start to you know kind of dial back, you know, some of these positions that became in vogue in the 2010s.

And like, that's where you start to get a lot of boo.You know, who do you want to take your rights away from?Right.And it's like, OK, well, like, that's just kind of, you know, Plattner exacerbates the problem with their theory of the case as well.

Also, I wish they'd run him and tried him in Florida.I wish they tried him in Ohio.Like you guys tried him in the one Senate state that is a blue state that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won.And where if if like we could have done it, Susan Collins is old and Instead, we got Graham Platner, and now it's a disaster.And again, this is where Democrats talk about democracy being at stake, and then they don't act like it.And here I mean Chuck Schumer, too.

Picking somebody to run in this race, knowing you have to go up against Susan Collins for years and years.And he's done it.Look, but the other thing is, on the establishment candidates, I'm sorry, Sam, and then you can jump in.Chuck Schumer's also done a good job in a lot of places.I'm glad.that we've got Mary Paltola in Alaska.

I'm glad we've got Roy Cooper in North Carolina.Those candidates are actually, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, those candidates are overperforming Democrats nationally, whereas Graham Platner was underperforming Democrats nationally.

Well, we're going to get a case study of what, it's not going to be in Maine, it's going to be in Michigan.And it's going to be a seed.Yeah.

I want to come back to the Michigan Senators in the end.So I want to hold that.I want to do a little bit of just kind of main what's next on the Democratic side.And we'll do a commercial.Then I'm going to give people candy where we're going to make fun of the people who have had the worst ticks, but the partner drop out.But just to this question of whether Platner, I mean, I guess, Sam, your point is that his power here is leverage here is just that he could like threat this could be a suicide leverage like he threatened kamikaze leverage i guess um it's also i just think that the story is more complicated than twitter wants to make you think like gram platner was super popular because he was really dynamic you know and like yeah

they, I think the main voters, yeah, I don't want to deny the main voters were attracted to kind of this popular left policy program, but he also is just like much more dynamic of a campaigner than Janet Mills.Maine is a strange, is a weird fucking state as we're about to get to when we think of some of these, some of these fossil replacements and the people of Maine might like certain candidates to replace him for different reasons than others.Among the people, I pitched Patrick Dempsey last night of Grey's Anatomy.Someone reminded me that Martha Stewart has a place in Maine, so she could be the oldest U .S.senator.

Some of the more actual succession ideas are Dan Kleban, who was originally going to get in, who was also an outsider, ran a beer company, seems like a decent guy to the extent that I know him a little bit.Nirav Shah was the runner -up in the governor's race.He was the director of the Maine CDC during COVID.The person that's more popular from the left, Troy Jackson, actually had fewer votes than Nirav Shah in the governor's race, which kind of complicates his story.The other thing that complicates the story is that Progressive Victory tweeted this morning that his Maine senator, a sane Senate president, Troy Jackson, in a heated disagreement, struck a female colleague with a bottle that he threw at her.I'm sorry to laugh.

I don't know what's happening in Maine.They've backtracked off that, and they're like, it was a plastic bottle, and he threw it on the ground, and it bounced up.Who the hell knows what happens?But this guy has some issues.Shanna Bellows was the Maine Secretary of State.She might remember her for being briefly a resist lib hero when she tried to get Trump off the ballot in 2024.

There may be some other possible options out there.I don't know.Any thoughts?

I'm still on Heather Cox Richardson, but that happened, but no, uh, didn't someone float Madagasius last night in the, another thing that's a neuron shy.

I should throw this out, he suggested that they do what...Some people such as Sarah, um, we're suggesting that the Democrats do in 24 after Biden dropout, which is like a lightning primary where they have like, they do, they have debates and like, they just do it all in two weeks and get, get as many people as possible to come to a convention.Sam's laughing.Sam, Sam has covered the Democrats longer than us.So the Democrats capable of doing a two week lightning primary.

I'm looking up the date that Joe Biden withdrew.Okay.So that was.July 21st, so we're dangerously close to the same time frame here, two weeks early, I suppose.It's not that much time we have to do this.I suppose there's less that you have to stand up when you're running in Maine versus a national presidential election.

I was talking to some people who were on the 24 campaign about what this is like, and there's just no good answers here.We can debate what they should do and who they should go with.Any door you open presents incredible complications.You go with another outsider type figure and who knows if they're vetted, right?Like you go with a more insider figure and the platinum people who were drawn to him and don't like politics usually are gone.You don't have a convention and people think it's just, you know, the establishment picking.

You do have a convention, it gets messy and people are fighting.It's just a a goddamn mess.And so I don't really have any particularly interesting insights on with respect to that.But I, you know, with respect to Plattner himself, like, what is he doing?Like waiting?I don't know.

I don't I think he's going to drop out, obviously.And, you know, there already his people are denying this New York Post story that he's just trying to, like, leverage who they choose as his replacement.But, you know, what do you think he's waiting for, Tim?Like, why would he wait?he just do it tomorrow?

I have no idea.It's, you know, these situations, I was in the green room.Some of the producers like I worked on a lot of losing campaigns.Um, the end of losing campaigns are wild, you know, and I was always like the rain cloud who was sort of like the bearer of bad news.That was just always my job.Like, you know, I had the size that was walking through the office like this campaign is over.

Um, and, uh, yeah.And, and, you know, you'd be at, I've gotten, I had a guy, I had a campaign manager throw a phone at me. I had a candidate's family start to try to tell them to stay in the race when it was obviously over.I know you had like, uh, anyway, you just crazy shit happens.

What's the hardest conversation?I bet it's with the family or the spouse, right?

Yeah.Yeah.And the spouse never takes it well.Yeah.Adult kids in the situation, they're adult kids.They don't take it well.

Um, So it's just hard.And like, so I think that that, you know, there's probably a lot of conversations happening.And, you know, they're mixed reporting out there.So I don't want to give bad reporting, but there's maybe some people telling them to get it out.You know, and, uh, and I think he probably does, you know, try to want to save face.Can you figure if I pick the next person, can I save face?

Is he caught?He's probably calling.And at this point he's again, plenty of negative say about Graham platter.It does seem like he was working the grassroots.So he probably has a lot of, you know, people that he's trying to influence on how to move forward.I don't know.

That would be my speculation.

Yeah.I don't think that people liked, I think he thinks he's built a grassroots movement, right?He thought he was going to be somebody that the national spotlight was on.And i think this is clearly a person i'm sorry this is why i could never get on board with pattern like doesn't seem like a great guy right and even if he has nice policies that you like he himself seems like a pretty difficult character selfish narcissistic.and obviously just downright bad.And so I don't know that he operates in a way that we would find entirely rational.

I think, and look, the other thing that's happening, I'm sure.is that Donald Trump has taught a generation of campaign types to look at things differently.They're like, look at what happened with Access Hollywood, right?Steve Bannon, everybody was bailing on him, all the Republicans, those squishes, Lindsey Graham and Reince, they're all out.And Bannon says, stay in, stick it out, and look at what happens.He guts it out and he's fine.

And I think that they're like, we should try some of that.They are taking, in my opinion, Many of the far left are taking the worst lessons from Trump and not the correct lessons from Trump.

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I just got an alert during that ad.The other topic, the bad takes.There've been some bad takes about Graham Platt.I know that you're going to be surprised to hear that coming from the anti -antis.I previously mentioned Reince.I caught Reince out of the corner of my eye.

on Fox and what's like a kid to turn that on, rewind it.And, you know, he was out there talking about how like the Democrats just don't have the courage to just drop out.I'm like, you let us.I was like, you were the one that told Trump to drop out and then he didn't drop out and he stayed in the race and then you got back on board.How can you be the critic?Another person that has offered a similar thought to that is Sarah's good friend, Kevin McCarthy.

He was on Fox last night.Let's play that.

The one thing I know about Republicans, when we had a very bad candidate and found out, we didn't vote for that person.We walked away.For better or for worse.When Matt Gaetz came forward, we got rid of him.

Kevin McCarthy, as always, great to see you.Thank you.

Great to see you.It's incredible.It's incredible stuff.

Is that right, Sarah?When the Republicans had a bad candidate come forward, they got rid of him?

He definitely walked to Mar -a -Lago.

And by the way, my memory of that is different.People can go look at the track record.Did Kevin McCarthy say, vote for Doug Jones or don't vote for Roy?We'd have to go look.I remember, I I have a distinct memory of this because I just moved to Oakland.I was in the dark place that Sarah likes to talk about in her book when I was go.

And I like just donated to Doug Jones and just tweeted it out.Just like Doug Jones for Senate or something.Like here's my donation, linked it, the thing.And I was like shocked by how much attention it got.Like, honestly, it was like, it was really an off the cuff thing.I wasn't really thinking about it.

And I got loaded.npr came to interview me there were but they're like lists going out of like prominent republicans that endorsed doug jones and it was like four p and i'm on there it's like jeb spokesperson you know it's like what and so i don't recall there being like a big moment movement of people to oppose well i mean Maybe my memory is incorrect about that.

McCarthy did.I just looked at McCarthy did call for walking.He actually used the exact same phrase.It looks like to ought to do the right thing and pull back.He said the party must walk away from bad candidates.So this whole idea of walking, I think is in his mind, but I mean, the most indelible image of Kevin McCarthy ever, obviously walking to Mar -a -Lago three weeks after January six.

I mean, that's like.The lack of self -awareness on that alone is remarkable.

Can I just say, I remember when I was in my fight with Kevin McCarthy, and I do open the book with this thing at the Steelbook Summit, and he goes, you know, it's the same formulation.He goes, you know, when Republicans lose, we don't need therapy.Right.He was doing this thing where because Van Jones had just said something about how a lot of Democrats were in therapy post Trump winning a second time.And Kevin McCarthy starts making fun of him, says, you know, we Republicans, when we lose, we don't need therapy.And I, like, freaked out.

And I was like, yeah, you just tell people you didn't lose.deny that you lost.Like, he is, he's just such a liar.The fact that these guys can do this with a straight face, like Scott Jennings is out there doing it too.Scott Jennings was on, I think with Anderson Cooper last night, who I'll be on with tonight.And he was like, the bulwark, you know, that's been all in on Platner.

And I'm like, no, we weren't.What is it?And also, Here's the thing that I just want to say, because there's a lot of people right now coming at me and saying, oh, you supported this guy.with the nazi tattoo turns out to be a racist and obviously anybody who listens to this podcast knows that's not true because many of you yelled at me for not being more uh more pro platner but i do think and i'm sorry that character Ultimately ends up being destiny, which doesn't mean your character has to be perfect But at some point like you look at all the stuff and you think this is tough This is why you shouldn't fight with them and I don't gonna make fun on them This is why you shouldn't fight with them because this is what this is about It's about their personal struggle and journey.

They want to create a moral equivalent.That's right Like that's what it's all about They want to create a moral equivalence to alibi themselves like Scott Jennings went all -in for Donald Trump after saying all these horrible things about him on January 6th and how so did Eric Erickson going to say to his kids and all this stuff like a very deep you know moral reparation of trump on january 6th and everybody gets back on board and by the way that was five years after trump admitted to sexually assaulting women right so like again they're like oh i saw i love the anti -antis are like i couldn't believe you couldn't predict that graham platner would end up doing sexual assault i sniffed that out from the second and i was like well Why didn't you sniff it out after Donald Trump said, I love sexual assaults.Actually, I love it.I do it.They let me do it because I'm a star.I get to sexually assault people or after his wife, a cuticle, right?

The whole thing is fucking preposterous.You don't take any of them seriously on this front.And I would add to this just another level with Mr. Kevin McCarthy.Like I think it merits bringing this up, and I tend to bring it up a lot between now and November.So you've got two incumbent Republican congressmen accused of different types of abuse, different types of assault of women who are on the ballot this year.haven't heard national review opposing those guys haven't heard eric erickson talking about how they should get out of the race you got max miller who's been credibly accused of physical abuse by two former partners former trump white house aide stephanie grisham and ohio senator bernie moreno's daughter emily uh grisham

says that Miller allegedly pushed her against a wall and slapped her in the face in his Washington apartment.Miller allegedly held a gun to Moreno's head while she was changing their infant daughter's diaper and in a separate incident threw her against the wall.It's got a whole other rap sheet.Corey Mills, he allegedly physically abused one girlfriend and threatened another.Police reports that Mills grabbed her, shoved her, and pushed her out the door.Reports of sexual...

So anyway, that's just a couple of them.And it's just like, I'm going to get on my moral high horse about so any whatever, like also the people that had bad takes.

We had Matt Gaetz.We had Hegseth, like Trump himself.And he's funny.RFK.

I mean, Sam, you know, the RFK history of the RFK black book.

Yeah, that's a complicated one.But basically, he like emotionally abused multiple women.And his wife, like, was driven to suicide.You know suicide essentially it's it's dark rfk is dark for a lot of reasons, but they all rally behind these guys So anyway, that's uh, uh, kevin mccarthy one is good.

Should we watch it one more time?

The one thing I know about republicans when we had a very bad candidate and found out we didn't vote for that person We walked away for better for worse when matt gates came forward.Yeah, we got rid of him Yeah, kevin mccarthy as always great to see you.Thank you.

Good to see you Um, all right.Uh, do you have any final thoughts on platner before we get to michigan senate?I've got one now I've said my piece.

We said our piece.

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The next level for 30 % off select mattresses during their July 4th sale.plus an extra 50 bucks off on top of that.And when you use our code, you're supporting our show lisa .com promo code, the next level and the Michigan Senate race.There is a debate tonight.Uh, Mallory McMorrow has dropped out.

It is down to two.And then there were two Haley Stevens and Abdul Syed, um, who is a populist insurgent left candidate.Um, I gave a lengthy take on the McMorrow dropout on the pod with Bill yesterday, so I don't have anything more to say about that.But if you guys have, do you have any thoughts on the McMorrow campaign?

Any obits on that?Cone's writing a good old bit on it right now that I've been simultaneously editing.Yeah.Like I, I, I admit, I haven't seen your lengthy take and I'm curious about it, but like, it is interesting.

There is something.Yeah.Well yesterday's podcast with Bill Crystal.

There is something, I'm just going to keep talking.There is something interesting about how all these kind of like Goldilocks candidates, like the, the Elizabeth Warren ask ones who aren't quite Bernie, but aren't quite, you know, moderate, they don't win.They just don't, or at least they haven't.And, uh, more was occupying that lane.And I think it's just like, people are just trying to split the difference and no one wants that or not enough people do.

Yeah.I'll offer my take on this, or you can respond since you didn't listen.I think that's maybe true.I do think it's super challenging to run up the middle in a three -way ideological thing.I think McMorrow, I think it's possible, though.It's doable.

We saw it in Republican primaries from time to time.I'm trying to think of a good example, but, you know, where there'd be like a Tea Party candidate, then like a super moderate candidate, then somebody like in the middle.Occasionally, that person won a couple of times.I think that McMorrow's issue was like she needed to consolidate.the Normie side.And I think that it was a strategic mistake to start going after Abdul.

And I think there are other issues.I think that, you know, to consolidate the Normie side, you got to do well with black voters and older black voters.And she had a little bit of a problem there to the polls.Haley was like there with labor, had done a good job with black voters.But I think it was like a strategic error to start going after Abdul when Haley's candidacy kind of struggled to launch.I'll talk about her in a second.

But I thought maybe she was more vulnerable.I was going to be tough either way, but that was kind of my take was that that was kind of a mistake, uh, to do that.And then you sort of ended up, ended up holding the bag with nobody in it.Yeah.

Uh, this race to me is one of those where I think that we who observe it online and not in the state end up with a really distorted view of how it's going.Um, because I think that the internet has not liked Haley Stevens and has done a lot of sort of memeing her in ways where it looks like she's kind of a, Goofball or silly and I think she is kind of a quirky person, but I also think people in the state who know her know that about her and so they don't read it as dumb in the way that the internet would.when they were making fun of her.Um, there was a lot of like, oh, look, there's nobody at her events, which turned out to be rehearsals, you know?And so I think she, the way that she has been caricatured online does not reflect the fact that she's a pretty popular Congresswoman that has been in the state and people know she is well -liked.And so she is consolidating the establishment that she is.

And by establishment, I guess I mean people who are engaged in politics in the state all the time.And so, like, McMorrow was actually my preferred, like, who I liked quite a bit and who I think is maybe slightly more built for this moment.almost nationally, but like in the way that that race just was lining up.Abdul is really owning the, I'm the outsider and I'm the anti -establishment and I'm taking the hard anti -APAC, anti -Israel position.And so like there's a constituency for that.And I think, look, I also want to just praise McMorrow because I think also the conventional wisdom in DC is that nobody gets out, you know, oh, nobody's going to do it.

And in again, saying sort of somebody who is the opposite of Plattner, I think she genuinely said, I can't win this.And I think I think she thinks Abdul Syed is the wrong person to try to win in a against the Republican.And so she's like, although she hasn't endorsed Haley Stevens, so it's not totally clear.

You might be.That could be true.I don't know if you know some.I don't know.But she at least got out.Yeah, yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure that her getting out necessarily helps Abdul and I don't think her, I know her team isn't sure.

Like, I think that it's close.

It could help Steven.It's likely to help Steven.I think it helps Steven.

We don't know.We honestly don't know.Abdul's got some internal problems.

Her team thinks it's like 50 -50.

Yeah.

will say that her getting out, she has some connections to people who advise Pete Buttigieg, as we know, Liz Smith, this is like a very Pete Buttigieg get out before you get, you lose move and it saves you some capital and you can probably spin it for something forward.I do think there's something strategic there.Yeah.

Yeah.I think that's strategic.I want to say about Haley, um, because I was, I was, I don't think I was ever nasty to her on the internet, unless we count this as the video internet that we're on.But I've made some jokes at her expense on various podcasts.And I got to say, I was pretty skeptical before all this happened, when the race was close.You know, to me, this like kind of read a lot as and so this has been my PTSD.

I get read a lot.It's kind of like a Marco and Jeb situation where it's like Mallory is Marco and Dale and Haley is Jeb.And I always said with my thought internally, one of my things always strategically is like, we have to keep the pedal to the metal, because if we get passed by the insurgent person in our wing, like everybody will start jumping onto the hot train.And like that did happen.It's just Trump's train was even faster than Marco's and Marco could be Trump.And that could be true for Abdul, by the way.

Anyway, not to impugn him by comparing him to Trump, but just kind of when you think about it from a lane perspective.And I thought that was going to happen.And Haley proved a lot more durable than I expected.I think that she has been extremely frisky in the past couple of weeks, as you've seen Mallory start to decline.I think that Abdul said made a big mistake.Mistake because I think that his momentum was very strong when he does this interview with Dave Weigel friend of the show Where he's where he like makes fun of Haley in a way that feels very demeaning and sexist kind of where says she can't swing two sentences together and it feels like that's almost given her a Now I'm doing all my 2016 references like a Hillary in New Hampshire type of like where it feels

you?Like kind of second wind like a little bit that Hillary ends up or that was oh, wait, God, that's eight.Yeah.Yeah.Yeah.Yeah.

Well, Haley didn't start crying, but there is like this kind of sense of like, oh, wait, you're going to, you know, I'm going to kind of fight for myself.Like, I'm not just going to let this guy take it from me.Obama ends up winning that again might end up happening with site else.So, um, yeah.You know, I, I don't know.And I think Abdul has proven himself to be pretty capable as well.

Like not going kind of down the crazy rabbit hole on some stuff.Um, I mean, I think Murphy, Mike Murphy has been very, very.flattering to campaign is just like just like grading it just as like is he is he's more skilled than I think the Establishment consultant class and the Democratic Party thinks he is And I credit to Murphy Murphy is always kind of like else I had is what these guys think Platner is like they think Platner's really talented But he's kind of a hack and and I think that Murphy kind of had that one, right?So we'll see how it shakes out I just kind of wanted to make up on on the Haley Stevenson because I think that She's just, again, this is a candidate skills department.I think that she's been better than I expected.Again, we'll see.

We have a debate tonight.Hopefully I didn't just hex her.Um, and I think that both of them, I don't really have a horse anymore, which is nice.I can kind of just assess it because I was obviously for Mallory.I've said a million times that I, I've issues with both of them on different things.Ideologically.

I don't think either of them are perfect, uh, for my taste.So.We'll kind of see how that shakes out.I don't know.

I do think to Sam's point earlier, though, with Platner out and obviously depends who replaces him, it it is we are running an experiment right now.There's a factional experiment going on.And I always get uncomfortable with experimenting when things are so high stakes where we're just going to like experiment with this factional fight.And by experiment, like, I do think we should, uh, that we should,

myself, because it's like, I do think we should be trying - Wait, wait, wait, wait, if you do contradict yourself, you have to do that also in song form, just like you did the experiment thing, okay?

Okay.I think what I mean, I think, I'm gonna back up and say, It's not good to take huge risks when things are at stake.Because some experimentation is good.It's like the big, the big swings in like a blue state, like with the biggest swing state.And we're going to we're going to take a flyer on this guy with with no, no past other than like no actual political past and a real past that we can see.So Abdul Syed, though, will end up being a big part of this experiment, like is the insurgent in a swing state?

And then he, cause I don't mean in the primary guys, because this is the problem that for me right now, I'm watching the left do a lot of victory laps over winning places that are really blue and taking out, you know, establishment Democrats in blue places.Okay.The question is who can beat Mike Rogers?

Yeah.And the Democrats do have a model and this is the Haley Stevens case, which is like, okay.And Alyssa Slotkin won.Gretchen Whitmer won.We've got a lot of women in that kind of wing of the party that have been tested that have won.We have the goodest, longest show of all time, apparently of another ad.

And I have a brief final topic after the ad.Sam.

A quick break is brought to you by the New York Times.So on this show, we do a lot of analysis of the news of the day, and we take our best stab at explaining why it matters and where the puck might go next.Underneath that is shoe leather reporting.Yes, even here at the Bulwark, we do shoe leather reporting, but also from our friends at the New York Times.So just today on the show, for instance, we've been talking about reporting from the New York Times on the main Senate race and whether Graham Plattner is going to stay in the race as he's facing Senate Republicans.allegations.

So the story that we want to talk about is from Katie Gluck and Lisa Lair, who have covered Plattner's state of mind as he's been dealing with the scandal in the last 24 hours.They covered the discussions he's having with his campaign team, the conditions he might put on for dropping out of the race, and they talked to about half a dozen or so people who might be angling to replace him on the ballot.They also have some reporting on the process that the state Democratic Party may use to pick a replacement candidate for Plattner.Some options they said are quote, a pop -up convention or holding a statewide caucus to effectively redo the party's primary election.Now, all of that has to be done.They know by July 27th, boy, that's pretty soon.

So look, there's a fair amount of information to distill down and to fact check in a newsroom, and especially to do so on a tight deadline doing that's really impressive.But here's the thing.The times reporters have spent months or even years cultivating sources in Maine And all that grunt work makes a difference.It means that you can get fact -based reporting and you can get it done right.And as importantly, you can get it done fast.So as a longtime newsroom editor, I've been honestly jealous of the times for many, many years.

They are the best in the business and they do great reporting.And it's the stuff that we here at the bulwark do rely on to talk about on podcasts, just like this.So wherever you seek it out nationally or locally, You got to support fact based reporting.

Sam, I want to ask you about that time story.Actually before I even realized we had an ad in it So that's nice you have synergy between your sponsors and the things you want to talk about Because I was annoyed that Katie Gluck who I've worked with a bunch in the past Like took a lot of shit about the original Platner story She took shit from the partner supporters on the left some like really nasty attacks on her.I guess her parents live in Israel allegedly I don't even know if that's true or not.But that was what was going on the line.I know very disgustingpretty disgusting attacks on her.

I don't care if her parents are fucking mob bosses.Like it doesn't matter who the person's parents are.Just for starters, you shouldn't go after a reporter on the reporting based on that.And that this had some anti -Semitic undertones was pretty notable to me.And then she also took shit from the right, you know, kind of saying that like she didn't, you know, whatever that Lindsay Fifield story, she like wanted, wanted the reporter to, have more other sources than they did, I guess, you know, and Lindsay kind of felt like she wanted, she thought there'd be more strong statements from other women.And like, so I just thought it'd be interesting to kind of ask you as somebody who's like editing these stories, like how you kind of navigate all that, because like this stuff is like so tough and like, it's so easy to armchair quarterback.

So I'll say this.Um, I've had to handle a couple sexual assault stories as an editor, uh, during my time editing.And they are, without a doubt, sexual assault and affair stories and things like that.They are, without a doubt, the hardest things to do.Because obviously, if you get one detail wrong, you've both maligned the person that you're writing about and your own publication, right?And everything has to be super airtight.

And you've got to get contemporaneous evidence.You've got to get people on the record, ideally.Not always, but ideally.And there's certain bars that each outlet has to clear, but the bars are always very high.And so the criticism of the first, as I understand the criticism, that first New York Times story on Platner was that they didn't get to the point where they could put into print that he had sexually assaulted someone.They had him committing an act of basically domestic violence, but they had been scouring Maine and they couldn't get to a place where they could credibly say he had sexually assaulted someone.

And then, of course, now, a couple of weeks later,Politico has this person, Janie Resica, on the record saying she was, she believes, sexually assaulted by Graham Plattner.So why couldn't the Times have gotten that?And was there some nefarious thing happening?And the answer is, of course, no.Like, the Times is not here to, like, try to protect Graham Plattner.

Otherwise, they wouldn't have run that first story to begin with.They are trying their best to get as far as they can credibly with the reporting that they can assess.And January was very clear.The reason that she came forward was in part because she saw the reaction to the time story.She had her own story to tell.She wasn't ready to tell it at the time.

As far as I can tell, she may have even talked to the times off record.Yeah.And she, but she talked to the times off record, which means for people who aren't aware, they cannot use that.There are versions of off record that different institutions have, but one clear version is you cannot print that stuff.You might be able to inform your reporting going forward, but you cannot print it.And so, you know, I'm sure the Times reporters, they're good, smart, awesome reporters.

I'm sure they were like, please let me put your name on the record.Please let me tell your story.It's important that we have other people.They were probably begging her for that and they couldn't get it.

Just the other thing I have this question to be about on reddit from using my oppo background like why didn't Democrats catch all this stuff?Why can't they catch all this stuff earlier?And I could 40 like all this stuff is like more complicated than like seems on House of Cards, right?Like the reddit stuff that they did have and I think they hand they botched and handling that for starters the other stuff with the women it's like you know, I think that they my understanding is the partner campaign did do self oppo and like Platner gave him gave them X's and they called X's.And it's like, okay, we've called it, but maybe Platner didn't give him this X, I'm guessing Jenny or Scott, right.

And, and, you know, they call his profile, or lots of things that, you know, you're only as good as your candidate will allow you to be in the right and you know, you can put money and I think that they probably could have put more money in there.

into this on the self oppo.And so, you know, a lot of this stuff comes also publicly later, you know, it's like, Oh, this person's famous now.So people want to come forward.And I, like the amount of fucking shit I tried to run down on Jeb's campaign about, about Marco and Trump, you know, and it's like, some guy calls you and it's like, Hey, I remember this story or I had this deal with Trump.And it's like, It's, it's hard, you know, and it's not as easy as it seems.And I don't know, maybe the Democrats do better than us, but the Republicans have had a lot of fails on this front too.

Since you asked about the reporting perspective, and I hope this is helpful for people who are watching, I have no idea how it went with either Politico or with the New York Times or anyone else reporting this, but I get a sense talking to some contemporaries in the field that it went like this.You get wind that there are these stories out there through various means, rumors, chatter, you know, in this case, you know, some of these people were, are DC based and they're in, and they're in politics and they're spreading this stuff, which doesn't mean it's wrong.It's just, it's in the, you then send reporters up there.And this happened with the one more stuff too, where they send people to Alabama and they go on the ground and they knock on doors and they talk to people and they chase down leads and they talk to people and they earn their trust and they talk to more people and then they build up relationships with the women and they say over and over again, look, let's just go through deals.And then they might get the woman to say, yeah, it happened, but that's just the beginning because then you got to get, Hey, what kind of evidence do you have to support it?Do you have any Facebook chats?

Do you have any?text threads that you sent.Do you have any, you know, X, you know, your therapist notes, do you like anything contemporaneous that you could get that could support this?Did you tell anyone?Can you then put me in touch with that person?Can that person talk on the record?

And then you're not even done then because then you go to the campaign, right?And you say, I got all this stuff.Okay.Here's the case.And they say, that's fucking bullshit.All of it's a lie.

You have lawyers call you.

And if you print this, I'm going to sue you.And then you got to go to your own publication and your editor say, Hey, this is what's happening.And your editor's got to say, take this part out.send this part down, go back for more comment, get some more evidence.Oh, and by the way, we have to tell our own lawyers that they have to look through this to make sure they were on solid ground.Then you revise it.

You go back to the campaign.Fuck you.Don't print it.We're going to sue you.And it goes back and forth until ultimately, finally, you're like, okay.We're confident in this.

We have the goods.We've laid it out in presentation form.We have the pushback.We feel we've put it in the right places.We've emphasized the right things.We've put the right nuance.

We're going to hit publish and we're going to hold our fucking breath to make sure that nothing went wrong here and a million things can go wrong.Yeah, but that's it's an arduous and then one thing goes wrong.

And particularly if it's like, just let's say it's on the right, this now is true on both sides.Like one thing goes wrong and you know, the partisan media ecosystem then starts kicking up.And it's like, Oh, you know, this outlet is fake news.I don't know.They have this one fact wrong.

This happened with the first time story.So they withheld a couple of things because they probably hadn't nailed it down to a level of comfort.And that editorial act of withholding that one or two things was then put through the partisan ecosystem as a political act.And then suddenly your whole work process is discredited as partisan.And it's just like, it's hard.Yeah, that's it.

Anyway, Sarah, do you have a final thought?

We should really be trying to elect.decent people.

Like James Tallarico for Senate in Texas.Thanks, everybody.It's been a good show.Very long, very, very long show.Sam's been editing an article, slacking and commenting on the show.Sarah's engaged in three fights with random right wing social media accounts.

And you know, I've just been here hanging out with you guys, giving you my full attention and trying to disenfranchise the elderly.We'll see everybody next week.Hopefully JVL will be back.Bye everybody.Subscribe to the feed.Subscribe to the bulwark.

We're doing the reporting.