Mark Leibovich: The Democrats' Rumor Mill
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The iHeartRadio Music Festival was a blast, and Hyundai's EV lineup was there for every moment. In Vegas, Hyundai took VIPs to the Speedway to test drive the 601-horsepower Ioniq 5N. On Friday, the EV Sessions winner was announced, Hyundai's music contest on TikTok. The twist? Their performances were all powered by the all-electric Hyundai Ioniq 5. How cool is that? And after the show, fans got to check out the Hyundai dance floor at House of Music.

Thanks again to Hyundai's amazing EV lineup. Learn more at HyundaiUSA.com or call 562-314-4603. Hey, everybody. Big show today. I've got a couple of programming notes for you real quick. I am going to be a guest speaker at Yimby's for Harris. Y-I-M-B-Y-S. You know what Yimby is? Yes, in my backyard. We need to build, baby, build. I've been so encouraged.

that it seems like Barack Obama is a Yimby per my interview with Jon Favreau last week. Kamala Harris has come around on this. We need to build 3 million new houses. This is something that, let's just be honest, Democrats have been a little bit behind the ball on when it comes to our housing crisis. I think it's one of the most important issues that face us. I'm pumped that there's a group out there that is both demonstrating support for Kamala Harris and building support for her and also demonstrating that there is huge support for this issue and she should follow up on her promises as

if she's to win in November. So I'm pumped to be part of this. Yimby's for Harris, Brian Schatz, Senator from Hawaii, Wes Moore, Governor of Maryland, London Breed, San Francisco, and myself. It's Wednesday. It's tomorrow night. You can come hang out. Yimby's for Harris. I will be there.

It's going to be good. It's going to be a little Zoom hang. We'll put the link in the show notes today. Speaking of show notes links, I got stopped in the street yesterday by a guy that's like, where is the playlist, the music playlist for Apple Music? Our boy Jake's been doing that. Super listener Jake has been doing that. So we'll put the Apple Music and Spotify link in the show notes today. Lastly, today's show, your man and mine, Mark Leibovich. I'm trying something a little bit new this week.

where we have a little bonus guest at the end. We have a full show. We're not shortchanging you. We're not doing one of these double shows where we shortchange you. We have a full show with an A-list guest like Mark Leibovich, and I'm so excited about tomorrow's guest. But there's just so much shit going on, and there are also other people that I want to get on the show. So today we also have my good friend Juliana Glover talking about her New York Times op-ed over the weekend that I think was very revealing about some games that

that the Trump campaign is doing with their campaign finance work. She also has some insights on what the hell is happening with these former cabinet officials. How can, how can we get them in the boat for Kamala Harris? So stick around for Juliana at the end. We're going to do another double tomorrow. Hope you guys enjoy it. Put the feedback in the comments up, up next, Mark Leibovich of the Atlantic.

Hello and welcome to the Borg Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. He's the staff writer at The Atlantic. He's the author of five books, including This Town and the most recent Thank You for Your Servitude.

It's Leibovich. What's happening, Leibo? Tim, great to be here. Am I officially a friend of the show now? I mean, I feel like a friend of the show. I've been on a few times, but I would like to be. You aren't quite at the Tom Nichols status. Eventually, once you've gone on a certain number of times, you get a special gift in the mail from me. But you haven't reached that yet. But certainly in our hearts, you're a friend of the podcast.

Okay. Yeah. Well, you kept it vague, but I appreciate that. So it'll just give me something free floatingly to work for. I'm so happy to see you. I just, you have a great piece about 21 minutes in the Buttigieg bubble, which had me chuckling from the DNC. But before we get to mayor, speaking of a friend of the pod, mayor Pete, I mean like this podcast is like the home base of the Pete Stan club. I mean, you can't get more on the nose. I don't think than the bulwark audience for Pete, but,

I want your biggest picture impressions. You did both conventions. You're a man that is observant. I just kind of want to let you flow. I want to put a quarter in and just see what you thought, what your impressions were of the DNC and how it compared to what happened up in Milwaukee. Yeah, I mean, both conventions were fascinating in their own ways. I mean, the first part about it, just sort of looking at them together, was that they were separated...

by like three, four weeks, but ultimately massive history in the middle of it, which is the Biden, you know, dropping out thing. So that little thing, that, that little thing, I mean, but if you look at both conventions, which occurred on both sides of that, I mean, they were both incredibly, uh,

hyper-confident affairs. I mean, I remember kind of not dreading, but going into the RNC, I was thinking, you know, there could be some menace here, especially because the assassination attempt happened a few days ago. But it turned out to be just the opposite. I mean, there was a mix of overconfidence, but also

touched by Godness because, you know, Trump had just survived, you know, a assassination attempt. And I guess the only point of argument there was, is he Donald J. Trump or Donald John Trump? Or did he survive the assassination because he has superhuman powers or because he was touched by God? I mean, real controversy. Is he more of a Moses figure or a Peter or a Jesus on the cross? All those things. But I mean, look, it was, it was dear leader on steroids. Like,

nothing we've seen before and then of course two three days later can we just pause on that for one second though because your menace point isn't something i've been wanting to bring up

For anybody that's read Thank You for Servitude or Why We Did It, not a lot of huge compliments from the two of us here for the MAGA culture. All right? No. And so when something happens that surprises me in a positive way, I do think it bears mentioning. I re-listened on just like super fast chipmunk speed to the two podcasts that we did right after the assassination attempt. And I was extremely worried at the time. Like almost...

There was a somberness to them out of expectation. I thought that there was going to be extremely violent period that followed it at minimum of rhetoric, you know, and who the hell knows what that would have led to. And that just didn't happen. Yes. There needs to be like a very modest, like,

Cap not. I guess it's like, do you really got to hand it to them for not trying to advance a violent backlash? But like, you kind of do got to hand it to them for not trying to push a violent backlash, I guess. Yeah. I mean, people were just freaked out. I mean, it was that soon after. So I think, you know, it's a combination of the freaked out factor, maybe some genuine humanity there. And also, again, just overconfidence, which at that moment seemed very well founded. So yeah.

That convention was framed by the assassination attempt and then Biden getting out a couple of days later, which kind of changed everything about the race dynamic wise. But it also it was a big mood swing. I mean, from day to day to day. And then the Democratic Convention, you had a somewhat similar atmosphere.

not mood swing, because it was all, I mean, it's been a pretty momentum-filled few weeks for Democrats since Biden got off the stage. I thought it was a little messy or felt like it could be a little messy on Monday night between the really, you know, the sort of unforced error delays in getting the main speaker, who in that case was Biden, on like well after 11, it turned out. But also, I mean, the Biden thing,

is and remains kind of messy. And I think that was the night where they kind of had to deal with it and kind of deal with the awkwardness and listen to Biden and then send him off, which itself was weird. And then beginning Tuesday night, they could do the work that they were there to do, which is to show the unity, show the star power, get behind Kamala. And also, obviously, there were some great performances. The Obamas and Tim Walls and a number of other people were really good. So

I mean, you've done, you know, probably like 37 conventions or something like that. 94, actually. 94? Yeah, my first was the Keef Offer. No, I don't know. Rather than maybe comparing it to the weird...

Trumpian, you know, dear leader kind of vibe. Like how did it compare to 2008, 12, you know, democratic type conventions for you? Yeah. I mean, you sort of remember those conventions by moments. I mean, like 12, you remember, I guess, Romney talking to the chair and then... Clint talked to the chair. Clint talked to the chair. Yeah, the Clinties were talking to the chair. I mean, 2008 was like all Obama, but also Palin. I mean, that was quite a moment.

in quite a frenzy, which took place in St. Paul. 2004, I mean, it was the John, in Democrats, it was the John Kerry Convention, but really, retroactively, we sort of remember it as the Obama, right? And then- Zell Miller, obviously. Zell Miller on the Republican side, right. That's the speech you remember from that. I think Arnold Schwarzenegger came out. I mean, there was a lot of very different times.

2016, geez, I mean, Ted Cruz's speech, and then there was still, there was some pretty serious Democratic disarray then, because the Bernie thing and the Hillary thing, I mean, that was pretty hot at that point. Then there were no conventions in 2020. So, yeah, what was interesting about these two conventions is that, like, it's been a while, right? There's a lot of pent-up energy for convention madness and convention dynamics, and it's unclear, you know, what we'll remember about these two conventions, but

yeah, I have a pretty good idea. Like I think the ear gauze imagery of, of the Republican convention of the Trump convention kind of lingers. It just, you just kind of think of it with both Trump himself, but also the kind of coast playing ear gauze. Yeah. A lot of the delegates were putting on, which was, which was kind of weird. And then for this one,

I don't know. Just, I thought the speech is the star power, the energy. Michelle. What's Michelle? Yeah. He's going out to one of them black jobs. That was quite a moment. Yeah. I'd be curious to know what you thought. I thought the combo speech, at least in the hall. I mean, everyone was like, Oh, it's a home run. It's a home run. I felt like it was a double maybe in the hall. I think that when you were in the hall,

she kind of paled a little bit next to the Obama, the walls experience and a couple of others. Maybe look, I think that when you saw it analyzed through clips, through the sort of the totality of what she did, like there, she had some real great moments. I mean, he's an unserious man, but his danger is very serious. That was, I thought, you know, I thought really, really good. And it's pretty good that the, um, the analysis landed on that. So yeah, I think it was a successful convention.

Here's why it was a double in the room and a home run is because the people that was a home run for were us. It was my people that she was trying to hit a home run for. She was trying to demonstrate to the people that put Biden over the top that didn't vote for Hillary. They could trust her, right? That she was up for the job, was presidential, right?

shared their values and so it's like all those lines you know about america being the greatest country in the world yeah the democrats are cool with that like that's good you know but that's not getting the standing ovation the same way that michelle making the black jobs joke is but she was trying to get bill crystal to make the standing ovation so i'm in mclean be like okay all right now we're in business right like her audience was broader than the room and that's why i think she hit it

Yeah, I agree. And I think it's smart, too. I mean, I think, you know, maybe there could be some blowback from the left. But I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think Biden kind of that I think was the most successful thing that Biden did in 2020. I mean, he ran a kind of center left campaign rather than a far left campaign.

The only book I've seen from the left, well, I guess that they didn't let a Palestinian advocate speak, which I do think was kind of an unforced error. Like they could have put him anywhere. And that's one of the things like, why not just check the box and move on, put him at 615, you know? The only thing about her speech was the word lethal.

And that's kind of one of those good gaffes. If you're a progressive with a big social media following listening, maybe you pretend to be mad about that. Because that's the kind of thing that butches her up for the middle a little bit. People are like, oh man, those peaceniks are so upset that she used the word lethal. But that was really the only thing that I saw that people had any issue with. Yeah, I do. And it doesn't seem like an actionable gaffe if it was even a gaffe. It's not like I'm not going to vote for her because of...

All right. So you follow Pete around. Did you get any sense that there's, you know, wishing could have been him? Yeah. Let me sort of bring you into like the journalism sausage factory here. The wishing here was that I needed to write a story and Pete was in obviously great demand. Liz Smith and his team were nice enough to let me in for a very brief period of time. I mean, I've got a 14 minute interview, 21 minutes sort of walking from point A to point B. So it's just sort of,

the desperation there was just watching the Pete Buttigieg phenomena up close for as much time as I could get and then just writing it up as quickly as possible. So that's what I did. I mean, look, Pete Buttigieg is a star. I mean, he, he, I mean, there are a lot of stars walking around the democratic convention. I mean, there were a lot of,

kind of bubble entourage sensations. You'd see these scrums walking around the concourse or on the floor or out on the street. Who else? Like who? You know, AOC, certainly, I mean, anyone Obama adjacent. I mean, certainly Tim Miller, right? I mean, it's actually, it's funny. I mean, a lot of the

the podcasters who have sort of emerged around the Trump era are, are, are huge, uh, as you can attest. But I think, uh, who else, Wes Moore, um, anyone who's Tim Walls adjacent, any high level staff, like in the sort of pluff cutter category at this point, you know, Jen O'Malley, there was a lot of that. There's a Jen O'Malley hive there. Uh,

I didn't actually see it, but I could imagine if Jen walked around for a few minutes and if people recognize her and you're in a crowd that people will recognize the Jen O'Malley Dillons of the world, you would have seen some fuss. A lot of the governors, I mean, Gavin Newsom, I saw had a fuss around him. Chris Coons had a fuss around him. He said people earnestly probably asking him about Biden, things like that. So, yeah, it was very specialized. I mean, this is a heavy user market of political junkies, obviously.

So you're following Pete around. One of the interesting things about your story, it's just like...

one of these i'm getting old time flies sort of things like life is so strange was so this was like his first not really his first convention as a star even but like his first convention right it kind of feels like he's been alive for so long at this point but in 16 he was live blogging for slate right which i did not realize that was a fact about him i did not know and the funniest thing to me is like to think about it in 16 both pete the top surrogate for

and a cabinet secretary, and J.D. Vance, a sitting senator who is the VP nominee, were both bloggers during Trump's first campaign. We've gone in eight years from bloggers to the biggest stars at the respective conventions. So there's hope for you out there, bloggers. It's true. Actually, I think Pete blogged the Indiana primary for Slate, and I think he might have eventually gotten to the convention as a delegate. I know he rated and invited

to the Obama 2012 convention, but he did not rate an invite to the, obviously the 2008. And he also worked on the Kerry campaign in 2004, certainly didn't rate an invite to that. So what's funny about Pete is he's such a fan boy and, you know, he kind of lived the fan boy experience. And I remember,

I interviewed him in 2020 and we talked about it the other day. He was at Harvard, I guess, in 2000. And there was a debate between Bush and Gore at the Kennedy Library in Boston. And he volunteered to like be a driver for some faculty.

other volunteers on the Gore campaign, like people they had wanted to plant in the crowd. And he was talking about how starstruck he was getting to meet like Donna Brazil and getting to meet like, you know, Bob Shrum and people like that. Cause I mean the guy, I mean like a lot of young kind of Kennedy school or IOP types, he was just thrilled to be in the presence of this. And he was like a total, you know, total fan boy. So he's on the other side of that.

that that is so cute so the one thing that struck me about how much more public he's been since kamala i'm not reporting anything i don't know anything but i just this is just i'm a you know keen observer like you are of the swamp condition i was with pete maybe six months ago and like we were off the record i was just like why aren't you like like i want more of you like you're doing a lot but i want like i want 10x of what you're doing like i didn't i didn't get a good answer and

And I think that there was like a worry about overshadowing Biden during this period. Like you could imagine that that would exist for Kamala. And like, it doesn't, like, it feels like they want everybody out there, but I don't know. You tell me. I think they do. I mean, I do think that, yeah, there were great sensitivities around Biden because let's face it, it wasn't that hard to overshadow him. Whether you were a really gifted political athlete, like

Pete Buttigieg or Gavin Newsom or whoever, or someone less talented, right? So it does seem like there's not a lot of insecurity about talent outshining confidence.

Not because she can't be outshined, but because I think people are genuinely unified behind her. And excited, yeah. And excited. And I had no sense whatsoever from anyone I talked to that, oh, Pete secretly wants her to lose. Or, you know, Wall secretly wants her to lose. Or Wes Moore secretly wants her to lose. What about Gavin, though? What about Gavin?

Gavin. You know, it's funny. Gavin is, Gavin's one guy I was really looking forward to running into and maybe catching up with a little bit. I mean, obviously he's in big demand. Only saw him from a distance. I mean, I spent time with him back in April, March or something like that for a pretty big story I did. He was in a different place. The race was in a different place. Would have loved to have kind of gotten a little window into his thinking, especially given his history with Kamala, given his history with Biden, given his fairly

I wouldn't say obvious, but certainly frontal desire to run and certainly consideration about running and so forth. So I'd be curious to know what his thinking is. He's welcome on the pod. I was watching him on the pot with the pod bros. And I don't know, you know, I'm just joking. Obviously, Gavin Newsom wants Kamal Harris to win and is going to be out there working for and all that. But there is a sense of regrets. I have a few maybe, I think, underneath the

underneath the skin i wouldn't surprise me yeah it wouldn't surprise me i mean look the guy obviously i assume if biden had like gotten out from the outset he probably would have run he also i mean his history with comalones they go back like san francisco in the early aughts at least i mean i think when he was when he was with kimberly and um i don't think she was with doug yet but anyway they would socialize i mean san francisco bay area is a small town especially politically

Guys, here's the thing. I don't know if you're like me, but these days, even if I just have like two glasses of wine at dinner, sometimes I'm dragging the next day. And so to make sure that this podcast is fresh for you, I'm cutting out weeknight booze. I'm cutting it out. But sometimes it's been a long day. You know, sometimes I had to watch a two and a half hour Donald Trump speech in Montana. And how am I supposed to tolerate that all alone?

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kind of your habit, talking about what people are whispering about. I forget, when was this? Early? Was it like January? I was at Disneyland, I think, when you were doing this. Yeah, well, the first story I wrote on him being too old and shouldn't run was 2022. I mean, that was... Yeah, they didn't like me at all. And I wrote similar stories about how someone needed to primary him and so forth a number of times. But part of the story that I want to focus on, part of the stories was what came to be in a lot of the later stories, which was the like...

The public talking points did not match what people were saying at the various cocktail parties that you reluctantly attend. I'm above it all, Tim. We must state that. Yeah, because you're very above it all. Yeah, you are very above it all. That is not your scene, but you just have to go there. I'm an anthropologist. I have great remorse. It's quite a game I play. I got to ask it.

Was that happening at the DNC at all still about the current situation? I mean, he's keeping a pretty light schedule. He was in California for a week. He's in Rehoboth all week. We're not seeing a lot of him. There'll be a lot of reasons for that. I'm not trying to do conspiracy mongering, but is there any buzz that people are concerned about August 27th through January 20th?

Possibly, maybe. I would say this. I mean, I think it's possibly a little more sad, which is that I think he's quite upset. I think he is still...

really wounded by this whole, you know, the whole state of affairs this summer. I think he remains old. I think this summer has probably aged him and exhausted him even further. But I also think, and this part of it, I mean, it's not like he's an asset out there. I mean, maybe he will be seen as an asset at some point strategically in Pennsylvania, parts of Michigan, things like that.

But he, at this moment, seems like a man without a purpose within what currently has been reconstituted as a very energized party. And that's kind of an ongoing awkwardness. I mean, this is one thing I'd say to him, and you probably heard something similar on Thursday night when everyone was still, well, the last night of the convention, people were pretty high about the whole week and Kamala's speech and all the speeches.

I had about three or four different conversations with people saying the exact same thing. And they would say, you know, can you imagine how we would feel if we had spent all the energy and all the time this week trying to push Biden over the finish line through Thursday night? And, you know, we'd have to worry about, you know, can he stay up this late every, I mean, it's, these are very real considerations that I think. I've had the same conversation where I was like, I think Sarah Longwell would have had to put me on administrative leave at the end of the, at the end of the week.

Yeah. Because it just would have been. Absolutely. He could do stuff, though. He could go on foreign trips. He could. I don't know. He could do a part interview. Like the president could still do other things. Like, you know, there's still presidenting things that he could be doing. Presidenting. He has a real job, unlike Kamala. Right. I mean, hate to say it. I mean, it's like, OK, the vice president can work from home for the next three or four months or like Pennsylvania or something like that. So home being Pennsylvania. But it doesn't seem like he's doing that.

Just because it's you. I wouldn't do that if it wasn't for this town audience. This is a little more indulgent than we like to get on the pod, but I do have one other piece of gossip. A prominent media person received a text following Pete's speech, speaking to your 21 minutes in the Pete bubble, from a high-ranking Biden official, upset that Pete didn't mention him. It doesn't surprise me, and it's also a window into that dynamic, which was not that far from the surface. Kamala

And I guess walls, right? That went up to Wisconsin on Tuesday night. They had that great rally at the Fiserv Center, which looked like a brilliant move. You know, you go into Trump's convention space, you blow it out, and then you simultaneously have the Obamas blowing out at the convention. But supposedly, I forgot where I read this, there was some concern about Trump.

Biden being upset seeing the Harris walls. I think that was bullshit. You think that was real? Hey, I read it somewhere. It might have been on Twitter. No, I don't know. You're the one that should know. That's why you're on the podcast, Mark Leovitch. You're supposed to know who's mad at who. Okay, how's that? That's why you're here. Get this. It's true. It's 100% true. No, look, but...

Biden's up in his feelings. There's no question about it. I mean, you don't have to be a great, you don't have to be Sigmund Freud, you know, or whatever. Sigmund Freud's such a dated reference. I disavow Sigmund Freud. Dr. Drew?

or perceived slights about Pete Buttigieg not mentioning Joe Biden enough or at all in his speech. I mean, to me, that takes up a lot of energy, and he remains a sensitive sort of part of all this that's obviously not going away, at least till January. All right. Well, I guess I would rather it be a little bit sad than it be...

concerning if those are the options. Sure. I want to talk about this debate over Kamala interviews and then get into your colleague Elena Platt's latest on the people doing servitude for Trump. Playbook this morning has this whole fucking thing about...

Oh, which network is going to get the first Kamala interview and who's going to do it? And when, when are they going to do it? And are they going to meet their goal within a month? It's like, who fucking cares about this? Like, why don't they just rip off the bandaid and get this over with? What is happening? Yeah.

Yeah. And by the way, you don't even have to, I mean, you can do it with like a friendlier interviewer. Yeah. You know, I would happily talk to her. Not that I'm friendly or safe or reliable or anything like, like you guys. No, I mean, no, no kidding.

I don't know, just like it doesn't, yeah, take the energy out of this. But I also think, look, I'm all for interviews. I think transparency is good. I think interviews are good. I think the public officials should talk to the press. But I also just don't think in the real world there are a lot of Sarah Longwell focus group members who are saying, I will not vote for this woman until she sits down with, you know, David Muir. And if she does David Muir and not Gayle King, I will be upset. I mean, like, come on.

The whole thing is crazy. It makes me feel the most of remove from DC reading this playbook thing. It was like, and so-and-so is calling Tony West and Maya about how they should get the first interview. And so-and-so is calling Brian Fowl. And she's like, who cares who gets the first interview? Just do an interview, do a couple, do some friendly ones, do interviews. I,

Like don't do interviews with these people, by the way, do interviews with black media, with Charlemagne, with DL Hughley, do media with like weird TikTok people I've never heard of, right? Like do just do whatever, do whatever. Do whatever. Everything is crazy. So I want to talk about the Trump people. The Mar-a-Lago mood music these days is,

feels pretty rough. Huh? But it's almost like it's out of balance with the actual race. Like the race is still close. It's extremely close. It's, it's extremely close. So what do you, how do you assess that? Yeah,

I guess the Trump campaign, one thing we're learning is that there's never much of a campaign. Like, I mean, yes, you can say that they really know what they're doing this time. But then you see like some adversity and you realize that basically it's all a reflection of the candidate. And, you know, are we waiting for the Corey Lewandowski era to emerge more fully? You know, and I mean, I don't know. That's that's kind of it's all 2016. Right. I mean, yeah.

the race remains really, really close. And you would think that the fundamentals, like traditionally, are very much on the side of the responsibly, strategically run democratic race, the more disciplined nominee and so forth. But here we are. So the mood music seems really bad. I mean, I'm just struck by how unprepared they were by all of this. I mean, the idea that there was this 80%

chance pretty much at their convention that I think Kamala Harris or at least Biden was going to step down. And yet they seem completely flat footed by that is to me malpractice. But at the same time, I mean,

I mean, Donald Trump is like walking political malpractice. And he has, of course, shown people again and again that that can win or at least that can retain a complete stranglehold on one of our two political parties. So I don't know. I mean, it doesn't surprise me, but it's certainly a different or a new version of a movie we've seen many, many times before.

He's on his fourth nickname for far and it's comrade, which doesn't really land for me. Even Connie Kamala would have been better. I think than comrade. That's not great. I don't think either, but it's just, yeah. Who's that for? I don't know. I mean, I mean, you'd think it'd be like some old, like kind of John Bircher kind of like Reagan Nixon. Is he not already have those people?

Not really. I mean, you would think not, right? They're either dead or probably, I don't know. They were still alive, though. Anybody who gets a good chuckle out of Comrade Kamala, I don't think was a gettable voter. You're probably right, Tim. I think that's 100%. Did you see Sam Stein wrote about this morning for the Bulwark that...

they're running ads now in Palm beach. The campaign is, Oh my God. That was a great piece. Yeah. We've heard this before, but it's really stunning, but of course not stunning. If you've been following this guy and the pathology around this guy for,

eight years now. It just keeps getting to be a kind of thicker reduction. What's that cooking thing? Is it a reduction? I never, I'm not. Reduction, yeah. Yeah, it's a reduction. It's like, you know, a thick thing where the essence of it is still. It's a cherry reduction, yeah. Mark on cooking. Not something you're going to hear very much.

So this is actually a lead into the Cash Patel story by my colleague Elena Platt. But also, yeah, the idea that they would actually put any money, time, resources into running ads just so their client in Palm Beach can watch it is insane, pathetic, and completely on brand. The man who will do anything for Trump is the headline. Why Cash Patel is exactly the kind of person who would serve in the second Trump administration.

There's one part of the story about a military action in Africa I want to really dig in on, but I'm just at the biggest picture, since this is sort of representative of your oeuvre, you know, having hung out at the Trump Hotel and like knowing these people, give people a little bit of color about cash and like the types and how maybe the mix of people might be different in

in 2025 if you were to return versus what it looked like in 2019. So we're talking about this because, so Elena Plott, my colleague, a friend of good journalism, wrote this great- Also, she's a friend of the show. Friend of the show. I mean, I'm sure. I don't want to presume anything. She was on. We had a great episode. You told me at the beginning of this podcast that you were not sure I rose to the level of- No, no. No, just down to the Tom Nichols level.

We're ranking the Atlantic people. It's Nichols and Frum are on one category. You and Elena are kind of in category two. You haven't quite got the gold watch yet. That's all I'm saying. The green jacket. Again, something to work for. It was on the Elena episode, by the way, that I first revealed that I was coconut curious.

So I think that could end up being a historic document because we were discussing her piece on Kamala. And I was like, I think that Kamala has been treated unfairly. And I think I'm coconut curious. It was early July. And that really, I think has aged well for the six weeks that it's been.

Young history students, 40, 50 years from now, maybe 100 years from now, will look back on the Coconut Curious podcast. So Elena wrote this great piece on Kash Patel. It's a profile of Kash Patel, who is this complete Trumpy, flunky, but also way over the top. I mean, someone who, as the headline indicates, will do anything to please the

Donald Trump, which, of course, you know, if you are in the Trump orbit, if you please Donald Trump, you will juice your own standing, your own ambitions inside that world. And so in a rational world where such an administration did not exist or come to power, this would be a pure laughingstock.

But because of the world we live in or could live in if the election goes a certain way in November, Kash Patel could have a very big job. And I think one of the things about Elena's story that was just essential to realize is that this is maybe an over-the-top version of Trump.

someone who could do this, but very much not a one-off. I mean, this is an administration that would be populated top to bottom in Donald Trump's ideal vision. With people like this, the only potential check on this is what the Senate would abide. And I think there's a really good chance it could be a Republican Senate. The question is, could they get into Senate-confirmed positions? But

Yeah, just very scary display, but also really well told story about the kind of person who could really thrive in the next if there is a next Donald Trump administration.

Yeah, I mean, with Mitt gone, you really are looking at Susan and Lisa. You know what I mean? Like, if you get to 53, it's like, who's going to stop? Who, you know, we're going to be waiting for John Cornyn to show a spine? You start, like, the type of person that would have to stop a confirmation depending on how the Senate shakes out. Yeah. Anyway, here's the one story that I think is worth really highlighting. It happened October 30th, 2020. SEAL Team 6 was awaiting the green light on a rescue mission in West Africa.

The administration had recently learned where gunmen were holding an American who had been kidnapped. Multiple agencies were coordinating on the final details for the evening operation, but it was the State Department's job to resolve securing airspace permission from Nigerian officials. Wanted to make sure the people in Nigeria knew that CL Team 6 was coming in so they didn't shoot them down.

Around noon, Kash Patel called the Pentagon with an update. Pompeo had gotten the approval. The mission was a go. The seals were close to landing in Nigeria when DOD discovered that state had not, in fact, secured the clearance. Patel had just made it up. Yeah. Story goes on from there. People should read the whole thing in the Atlantic and subscribe. But Ike,

Just think about the fact that this guy is in this position at all. And to, to be like the liaison between the secretary of state and the defense department is insane. And then when you kind of expand that out to be like,

in the next Trump administration, it's going to be mostly cashes. Like the one-offs will be the people that are like, hey, actually, maybe we should do this the correct way. Yeah. That is sociopathic stuff. Like that isn't, like it's one thing to be like, oh, this is just a dumbass and he's encouraging Trump to send out a mean tweet. Like that's bad. But this is like, we're lying to the defense secretary about what the secretary of state said and putting our people at risk. It's madness. Yeah.

Yeah, it's such a chilling account in this story. I mean, I think, first of all, I mean, thank God they got these people out. It was a successful mission. Ultimately, it did not cost any lives, but it easily could have been the piece sort of talks about, you know, just the kind of.

The ire that was raised, I think, rightly among the people who sort of learned what had happened after the story, thank God, ended well. But yeah, this was a window just into the pure nihilism of one desperate man, which I think, as I was reading it, it kind of mimicked.

Trump on January 6th, just sort of watching TV impassively, doing nothing, feeling gratitude, it seems, for the insurrectionists. And this is the same thing. I mean, no...

sense whatsoever of life and death and personal safety and, you know, law enforcement or diplomacy or any of the things that you would hope that a high level of fish and much less the president would, would keep front and center in their mind. Again, just the desperation of, of wanting to do something to please the,

This similarly erratic person at the top of the chart is really chilling because that could be the next norm, right? I mean, it's an extraordinary story to read in retrospect during an incredibly tenuous time. But again, going forward, this could be maybe, you know, some preview of the next level of pathology we see in an administration like this.

And here's the other thing that's just worth sitting on for a second. Of the players in that conversation, you know, you had Pompeo, who's the Secretary of State, not a fan of Mike Pompeo on this podcast. You had Esper, who's the Secretary of Defense at the time. I'm so-so to plus on Esper. We'll see. He was on CNN yesterday implying he might vote for Kamala. So Esper we like. He's coconut curious. Yeah, he's coconut curious. Mark Esper, coconut curious. We've got to get him over the line. Pompeo?

We don't like cash. These are the three key players, right? In negotiating this cash is the one that almost gets our people killed by randomly lying about whether the Nigerians have secured airspace. That's October 30th, 2020. A month later, when Donald Trump is trying to execute a coup, Pompeo is out kind of half supporting it, just like tacitly, but not really involved. Um,

Esper's literally out, kicked out. Patel is trying to take over the government and be like the lead man for the, you know, whatever, the coup, whatever you want to call the rogue Trump administration during the transition. And now fast forward four years later, Pompeo wouldn't be in the next administration.

Esper wouldn't be in the next administration. Patel would. Oh, yeah. Right? Like, that is, like, the craziest part about this. Like, you hear the story where it's, like, one person is obviously the most incompetent. Put ideology aside, one person is, like, should be nowhere near the levers of power. And Trump looks at that situation and is, like, oh, yeah, I want the lying, crazy person. That's the guy that we're keeping around. You other two that were just worried about, like, responsibly doing this exfil.

I'm not really that interested in you anymore. Yeah. By the way, how sure are you that Pompeo wouldn't serve in the next Trump administration? I mean, I don't know. Has he really done anything to me? He's sort of been laying low from what I can tell. That's fair. I guess he's out of the circle of trust, though. Probably. I guess. I mean, you can get back into the circle of trust with Donald Trump just by putting on a red hat. Yeah. Like if right now I took off my Nuggets hat and replaced it with a MAGA hat and was like, Mark Leibovitch, here's the big reveal.

I'm going full Donald Trump. I've been wrong. I love Donald Trump. I would be on the short list for press secretary if I did that. He doesn't care about the past, obviously. As long as you pay homage to him, you're in. So sure, Pompeo could be back. But right now...

the only person in the circle of trust is the one that totally fucked up that situation in the most astonishing way imaginable. And the two people acting responsible are out of the circle of trust. Yeah. I'm sure Trump would appoint a blue ribbon commission to really get to the bottom of how that went South in 20, you know, at the end of 2020. No, I mean, yeah, true. I mean, it's up and down. I mean, that's what a, that's what a Trump victory would look like, you know, just full stop. And, um,

You know, again, you can't put any trust in a Republican Senate or Republican anything, you know, presuming that, you know, they're not, I would say Mitt Romney, you know, Adam Kinzinger level at this point, and, you know, maybe Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski in the Senate. So, well, dark times. Anything else, Mark? Any other gossip for us? Any other news insights, deep thoughts, innuendo, insults? I take insults.

I was rooting for Serbia. I was rooting for Serbia in the Olympics. Were you because of Jokic? I was rooting for Serbia. I love America. I love this country. I believe in American exceptionalism. I was rah-rah-ing all of Kamala's most jinglistic lines at the convention. That said, Kevin Durant's Twitter feed got under my skin. And I love Nikola Jokic for one time only.

I was written for Serbia. So maybe that's a room for an insult. I was just throwing that out there. I think it's room for an insult, but I come at it for different selfish reasons, which I thought that Jason Tatum was seriously disrespected by Steve Kerr. In fact, at the convention, when Steve Kerr was speaking, I tried...

unsuccessfully in the press area to get a Jason Tate kind of mocking Jason Tatum chant going. And I failed miserably, but I'm proud that I tried. Right. Okay. Did you, have you had a chance to confront Steve Kerr in the hallway? Did you have a chance? I have not, but I was hoping for it because I would've gotten right in his face on the Jason Tatum thing. I mean, I think, you know, politically, you know, he gave a good speech.

I thought it was effective. It was perfect coming back to the United Center, Bulls, blah, blah, blah. And Steph Curry. I mean, there was a lot going on there. But no, I can't get beyond Jason Tatum. At root, I love America as much as anyone does, Tim, including you. But ultimately, I'm a parochial asshole, and we are the worst.

Look, I love America. Look, but let's agree that the things that bring us together, Tim, are stronger than the things that divide us. How's that? I will agree with that. Mark Leibovich, thank you for coming back on the Borg podcast. You're only five to seven guest slots away from getting the secret super guest prize. So by 2027, it's going to be happening. We'll be talking to you soon. Up next, our mutual friend, Juliana Glover. Thank you, Tim. Thank you.

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Hey everybody we are back with my old friend Juliana Glover she's the chief executive of Ridgely Walsh a corporate consultancy and she's a former advisor to a bunch of Republican officials John Ashcroft George W Bush Dick Cheney you might have heard of them John McCain and she's been one of the good ones stalwart throughout the troubles of the last decade and I'm excited to have her on the podcast how you doing Juliana?

I'm well, Tim. It's good to be on here with you. Thank you. Thank you for doing this. I wish we could hang out in person. I do miss the cocktails in your little living room there, though not that much. Not that much. You know, one of the problems is you do have to talk to the D.C. people that are there. So I'm missing you there. I want to talk about an op-ed that you wrote yesterday and also –

Because of your kind of experience in dealing and navigating with principles and kind of how they think, I also want to talk about the article that I wrote over the weekend about kind of the missing endorsements for Kamala from some of these ex-Cabinet officials who I think know better. But first, to your New York Times article. It was titled, Republican Donors, Do You Know Where Your Money Goes?,

And you covered like this really underappreciated thing that has been happening in our campaign finance where you should be able to see where every dollar is spent because you have to file that as part of campaign finance laws. But what these campaigns have done, the Trump campaign, the most egregiously is create these like.

S-corps that are catch-alls that do a lot of the payments, and they just pay the money to this one group. And so you don't know where they're dishing out the money to. So talk a little bit about that process and what you speculate might be happening here.

Sure. So it's not actually S-Corps, it's LLCs largely. And I think LLCs are well known to be easily constituted, typically in Delaware. And you can do it basically with like a Zoom legal doc capability. They take about 15 minutes to build. So in this case, the summer, Tim, when it looked momentarily a couple of weeks, like Trump was going to be an inevitability.

You know, I just started really sort of flailing about looking for any way to get, you know, a grip on an effective criticism of Trump and just started spending time leafing through the FEC reports. So 69%.

Of all of Trump's expenditures under his campaign went to an entity called American Made Media Consultants. American Made Media Consultants, you know, looked into who that was. Turns out that the Campaign Legal Center had filed a complaint at the FEC in the spring of 2021 saying,

asking the FEC to investigate the payments made to American-made media consultants because those payments, it wasn't clear where they were going. And under FEC law, any expenditure over $200 must be disclosed. And you would also under FEC law, you must know who the ultimate recipient is. Now, the reason this

Spurred additional inquiry is because the Campaign Legal Center was also able to discern that the entity American Made Media Consultants had been set up by Jared Kushner in the fall of 2019. Laura Trump was momentarily named president of the entity. And the legal center also chronicled that one of Eric Trump's deputies from the Trump organization ended up running this group.

Do we know that they did anything wrong with American-made media consultants? Do we know that money actually, you know, all of the money was actually spent on campaigns, campaigning or not? You know, the fact is we don't know anything because, you know, in the end, the FEC voted three to three. The commissioners voted three to three to dismiss the complaint filed by the Campaign Legal Center.

And at this point in time, Campaign Legal Center is appealing that decision in a D.C. court. And, you know, it could eventually we could get some visibility into where those payments to AMC actually ended up. But for now, we only have a set of facts, a set of facts that are really quite astounding on its face. And that's that 69 percent of the Trump expenditures went to an entity that was set up by Jared and headed by Laura.

Who would have thought? The Trump family, scamming and grifting. So like one example of this, right, is I remember there was like a big stink when on one of the FEC reports, I believe it was like Melania's stylist or something was on there, her personal stylist, right? And then that stopped happening, right? We're just speculating. Obviously, we don't know, right? So you don't know.

kind of thing where maybe she just started paying it for it herself or maybe that's the kind of thing that you start putting under this group, right? Various lawyers they've got to pay. Who the hell knows? People that they want to put on contracts that might have been potential witnesses in cases. All of this stuff is possible and it definitely could tie into his non-election related legal troubles too.

Yes. And it was reported at least in 2020 around AMMC specifically that the payments were made to Guilfoyle and to Laura Trump, you know, retainers and the tens of thousands of dollars a month. Again, we don't know whether any of that is true, but that was reported around it. And then this cycle, there seems to be sort of a similarly troubling pattern where

As you look through the cycles, FEC reports are really only available up until the details are only available up until the end of June. There's a new entity that makes frequent appearances under expenditures called Launchpad. And Launchpad is sort of another mystery LLC. If you go to the website, it doesn't say who's associated with it. It's sort of a generic ad agency, like no distinguishing characteristics about it whatsoever. And that entity is the recipient of around $15 million.

as of June 30th for the Trump 2024 campaign expenditures. One of the news outlets had tried to figure out what Launchpad was. It's a Delaware-formed LLC, but supposed to be headquartered in North Carolina. They checked with the North Carolina Secretary of State. Under the Delaware documents, it should be headquarters. The Secretary of State had no record of the business in state.

I mean, the FEC is embarrassing. This is a long-term problem. The way in which our campaigns have just turned into totally unregulated Las Vegas campaigns.

So that's a problem. And Trump stealing from his supporters is a long held story that's been happening for a long time that I wish his supporters cared more about, but there's not a ton of evidence that they do. So that's the negative part of the story. Maybe the only silver lining to the story is that it is weird how little they've been spending on ads. And that's something you talk about in the piece, right? Like that, given what they've raised, uh,

And given what the Harris campaign and what the former Biden-Harris campaign had raised versus the spending, there's a gap there that's pretty noticeable.

Yeah, it's a multiple, actually. Depending on what sort of ad tracker you look at, it's anywhere from three to one to Trump's matching Biden two thirds to one third, spending two thirds of what Biden-Harris or Harris is spending. He's spending less. He's also really noticeably, the ground game is deeply lacking. They're not spending money in key states. I think one of the stats that I've used in the piece was that as of June, the

The Trump campaign had only a single office opened in Pennsylvania. And, you know, by all accounts, Pennsylvania is going to be the tipping point state. You have to win that. Whoever wins that state wins the election. So, I mean, really, what are they spending the cash on? I speculated that maybe they're, you know, holding in a reserve for some sort of big last minute blitz. But again, that's all speculation. And we really...

can't know where the money's going because the FEC just won't do its job. Anything else to catch your eye? You know, I think the legal expenses are not fully understood. We're never going to know based on, you know, how the FEC works now, how many dollars are being used to pay for the legal bills. We know that legal bills are now, you know, tens of millions estimated to be 50, $60 million. And this is for a campaign that as of now has raised $260 million. Wow.

So back at the end vote math, a third of the expenditures may be going to legal bills. And that's how much money is actually going to be used for campaigning. One last point on sort of how much money will be used for campaigning. Human nature being human nature as we move into the fall and Trump's numbers, if perhaps they continue to drop and it looks increasingly unlikely that he could win.

I think that it would be human nature for individuals to decide they're going to pad their nests as much as they can while the spigots are blowing cash. And it could be a self-fulfilling prophecy that they perpetuate the likelihood that they lose because the fact that they think they're going to lose, so they're just going to spend all the money they have.

self-deal, pay themselves as much money as they can while the money is flowing in. Yeah, get while the getting's good. Your lips to God's ears. Okay. Well, one of the things that could help speed that process up was...

would be some of our old friends actually doing what you and me have done and uh explicitly supporting kamala harris and i'm just wondering what is the psychology what is happening here that we haven't i mean we kind of assume liz will get there in the fall but esper was wishy-washy on tv yesterday christy's been wishy-washy you know going back to bush administration officials there was some gossip going around that condi and bob gates were going to do something but

I think maybe that was false. I don't know. You kind of live in these worlds. Like what do you think is the holdup from like the more big ticket Bush officials as well as the kind of spurned Trump world people? You know, we can talk about the specific names, but for many of those, I think they are going to come home in the end for Harris. There may be some sort of careful, effective planning, I hope.

The convention itself was really quite a blockbuster. It was extraordinarily well done. I don't know whether it would have been strategically wise to unveil any of these prominent Republicans during the convention, but I do think a cadence...

of holding these prominent Republicans potentially for after the debate, where if she does okay rather than amazing, then you would roll out some very prominent endorsements following that. But I think holding the endorsements that we are pretty sure based on at least how they've spoken previously are going to be supporting the Democratic ticket in the end.

The ones that are waffling over the last couple of days, let's wait and see where the poll numbers end up. I think the fingers in the wind for some of these guys. Yeah. Some of these folks are young. They want to go out and have political careers after their future entirely hinges on whether Harris could indeed win by a lot. And if she does, then I think they'll have a place at the table where

setting up what the future of the Republican Party is. If it's close, if it looks really close, and it feels like they are, you know, it's going to be a couple yards in a cloud of dust, and there'll be no resounding verdict on Trumpism, I think they will support because I think that at that point in time, their voices will be needed and necessary. And they'll feel as though they won't have an opportunity to really sort of dig in and rebuild the party afterwards. Well,

I love optimistic, Juliana. I hope that that's true. My one area of disagreement is I don't know if there's a lot of strategizing going on. Again, I put Liz in a separate category.

I think that the rest of them, I don't, I have uncouth authority that I don't think that there's a strategic cadence being planned. There might be a strategic cadence that just falls into place. A lot of things have fallen into place for Kamala over the last five weeks and would love for that hot streak on the craps table to continue. But anyway, are there other things besides Liz that you feel like really are going to get there?

And they just need a little nod. Just anybody else that stands out? I think Harris is consolidating control over her campaign now. It's only been a couple of weeks since she understood that she was going to be the nominee. And I think the long term strategic planning that has her imprint and her leadership's imprint is really just digging in and getting started. And I fully expect a charm offensive campaign.

to bring in every Republican of significance that would be inclined to support a Democrat against Trump this fall. And I think timing is going to be important. It needs to be a cadence of high profile names throughout the fall. This is why we bring in Juliana. I'm over here, rain cloud. I'm stressing about this. I'm wringing my hands. And you're like, it's happening. It's happening, girl. Calm down. So I appreciate that. I hope that you're right.

And maybe we'll have you back on in a couple months. We'll talk about it. Thank you very much for that piece and the New York Times. Thanks for coming on the Bullard Podcast. First time for Juliana. We will be talking to you soon. Thanks, Tim. Thank you all. All right, guys, everybody. We got a big one tomorrow. We'll be back. Come check us out then. Peace. She's electric. She's in a family full of eccentrics. She's done things I've never expected. More time.

She's got a sister that only knows how to mister and is a blister. And I want you to say, do you not say yes? Because I'll be you. There's lots of us to see, lots and lots for her. She's electric, electric too.

The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.