S.E. Cupp: A Sucker and a Loser
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Understand why the European allies and our NATO allies are so thankful that you are no longer president and that we understand the importance of the greatest military alliance the world has ever known, which is NATO.

and what we have done to preserve the ability of Zelensky and the Ukrainians to fight for their independence. Otherwise, Putin would be sitting in Kyiv with his eyes on the rest of Europe, starting with Poland. And why don't you tell the 800,000 Polish Americans right here in Pennsylvania how quickly you would give up for the sake of favor and what you think is a friendship with what is known to be a dictator who would eat you for lunch.

Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. And speaking of getting eaten for lunch, how about that last night? Donald Trump, boy, he was on the menu, so to speak, for Kamala Harris. And I'm delighted to be here today with my old pal, S.E. Cupp, CNN contributor, Battleground America series. She's doing for Fox stations across the country. And the last time we were together...

Boy, the vibes are very different. How you doing, Essie? Very different vibes. I'm good. How are you? I couldn't be better. I was living the dream last night. I was living the dream last night in the spin room. Just going up to all my old friends. Asking them how they're doing. Asking them if they're in their fee-fees. Trying to make them spin. Pretending like I was a journalist next to all the other journalists. Asking them to give me their best spin.

Right. Oh, boy. It was enjoyable. It's not about me, though. It's about the country. It's about Kamala Harris. So let's just kind of do this conversation style, like we're a couple pals having coffee, just enjoying ourselves. Aren't we? That's what we're doing. Aren't we just a couple pals having coffee? Exactly. Like we're just hanging out at the coffee shop, chatting about what happened last night. We're both in Philly, right? We are both in Philly. We should have done this together. It's like we're just hanging out. Yeah. Virtually. Gen Z counts us as being together, actually. Okay.

What? So what'd you think? What was your top line? Give it to me. I feel like Kamala Harris must be feeling what Putin and Kim Jong-un feel, which is like, I can't believe this guy fell for it. Like, I can't believe how easily manipulated this guy was. She laid out trap after trap after trap. These weren't like

well-concealed traps. These were pretty obvious traps. And he walked into every single one, like giddily, giddily. I mean, she's a prosecutor, but she's not Houdini. She didn't like, there was no magic. She laid a trap. He walked right into it, like laughing and screaming and like happily. I think even for, for me, having covered him so long, um,

somewhat surprising to see just how easily manipulated he was by her. And I think if you're a swing state voter who is undecided and you don't really, you don't really love either of these people, you just watch that thinking, man, he's a sucker. What a sucker. I

And a loser, you might say. What a sucker and a loser. The bait element of this. I was skeptical because they said this before the Biden debate, right? That he was going to try to bait him. And they were saying that. Those leaks were coming out of prep. And I was like, is that really true? Is that just a head game? I could kind of see her focusing on her own message, her own story. Is she really going to do it? And then it's this immigration section. The whole debate is...

you know, was lost. I mean, he didn't win a single point in any part of the whole debate, but like the key segment of the debate was where you go from immigration into abortion, right? In the immigration section, this topic that should be very friendly for him comes up.

And the question goes to her first. And she gives her answer, which is a fair, substantive answer about how Donald Trump killed that bill. It aligns a little bit with what happened before that. But, you know, it was a fair point. And what she wants to do going forward. And then she ends it with like a total non-sec...

about his crowd size yeah she's still kind of nervous that's what i mean these are not carefully planted traps like she she doesn't even know he executed that well like as the debate goes on she gets better and better at this but it's kind of like a rambling mess a little bit about how his crowd you know what it reminded me of you know in zoolander yeah

Right? They've got a subliminal, like a song that they just play to like trick Derek Zoolander into going after the prime minister of Malaysia. It's not careful. It's not clever. It's literally Pavlovian. It's like she does a policy thing and then she'd be like, crowd size. And he sins. He goes nuts. He becomes, you know, Zoolander. It was so...

It would be funny if the consequences weren't so high, but like I said, these were obvious traps and anyone with any self-control

or foresight about what was trying to happen here could easily, easily have avoided them. But he has no self-control. Correct. So yeah, during what should be the best part for him. Yeah, the best part, right? You know, he goes off on defending his crowd. So people don't even show up to her rallies. What are you talking about? And then he's spiraling so much that takes him into the dog section.

So it's in the question where she is triggering him over his, you know, how the people leave, they get bored by him. Then he's like, and then it's in Springfield and people are eating dogs. They're eating cats. They're eating pets of all kinds. All the pets are getting eaten by these immigrants in Ohio. It's like, if you are not...

Somebody that is so online. Like, you know, if you are not just super attuned to mega media or to Twitter or whatever. Yeah, regular viewers are like, you know, I'm like thinking about my father. Like, what the fuck is he talking about? Who's eating dogs? Yeah. And then David Muir has to correct him and be like, well...

Well, actually, it's not true. The city manager says it's not true. There was one alleged cat incident 170 miles away, and it wasn't even an immigrant who allegedly had skinned a cat. And then Trump's like, but I heard about it on TV. Right. That's not right. We have facts here. And I mean, it just, the thing spirals from there. But my question to you is,

Do you think his campaign said, don't bring up the dogs and cats? Don't do it. And he couldn't help himself? Or do you think they planned, like, you can bring up the dogs and cats. Bring up the dogs and cats, but wait for, like, the right time to bring up the dogs and cats because, you know, the dogs and cats things will scare people. What do you think happened? Did he go off-

there or did he do it but just sort of ham-fistedly? I think he did it ham-fistedly, but here's what I really think about the prep. And you've been in some prep sessions, so we both can talk about this. He didn't prep. They weren't joking. They kind of prepped. Mark Caputo, my colleague, has reported on this. I was talking to him this morning and it's like, they kind of prepped. Gates is in prep. Was he really? There were times where Gates wasn't really there and then he was. I guess Tulsi Gabbard.

And Trump doesn't like to get told things. He doesn't like, and the cat thing is new. It's fresh in his mind. It's like he's this person. It's like the last thing that someone said to him, he'll blurt, you know? So that was going around the day before because JD Vance actually laid this trap for him. Like this shouldn't have even come up. The JD just like tweeting the day before about how this is his home state of Ohio. And there's this epidemic of Haitian migrant cat eating. And so, but I just think if you look at that answer and then you get to the abortion answer,

The contrast on the abortion answer, it's like Trump's whining this morning on Fox. He's like, Kamala knew the questions. It's like, no, Kamala knew the topics. Kamala prepped. So you get to the abortion section and you have Trump's answer, which we can't even play the audio off because it's just gobbledygook. It's like, I love the Supreme Court and it was great, but it also isn't that good. And I care about the exceptions and also the states. And it's like he didn't even prep the answer on his hardest question. And then you get to Kamala's answer. I want to play one bit from that.

one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree. The government and Donald Trump certainly should not be telling a woman what to do with her body. I have talked with women around our country. You want to talk about this is what people wanted?

Pregnant women who want to carry a pregnancy to term, suffering from a miscarriage, being denied care in an emergency room because the health care providers are afraid they might go to jail and she's bleeding out in a car in the parking lot. She didn't want that. Her husband didn't want that. A 12 or 13 year old survivor of incest being forced to carry a pregnancy to term. They don't want that. And I pledge to you

When Congress passes a bill to put back in place the protections of Roe v. Wade as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law. That answer was prepped. That was a heat-seeking missile aimed at pro-life swing voters that don't like Donald Trump or, you know, people that were for some types of restriction. Weapons grade. It was a weapons grade answer, and she had clearly planned it. But what was so great about it was, A,

She delivered those lines very emotionally and passionately. So I think connected with real people. And she said everything short of, and you did this.

What she was saying was, we don't want this. Women don't want this. You know, girls who've been raped, they don't want this. And you did this. She looked at him as she sort of laid out the consequences of that Supreme Court decision. And she tied it directly to him. And we know this puts him in a pretzel because he loves to take credit for it, but he's also trying to distance himself. So he had nothing. He had nothing for that, I think, very surgical reason.

And creatively crafted answer that did all the things, checked all the boxes. Emotional, personal, passionate, political, policy. And she made it about him. It was great. You're looking at him. Looking at him. If you're a Trump hater and she says that line of like, the government shouldn't be telling these women what to do. And certainly Donald Trump shouldn't be telling them. And you're just like, just the subtext. She doesn't have to be like, the grab him by the pussy guy and the E.G. and Carol. That's all right there.

Not this man is not going to tell you what to do. Only a woman could deliver it like that. Only a woman could deliver it like that. Anyone could say it about him, of course. But coming from a woman, I thought it was probably the moment of the night. And that's obviously a winning issue for her. So I don't think she had to work that hard at landing the plane, but it was a really good landing. And he didn't take the moments that would have been good for him. He got so distracted that,

that he didn't make the most of the issues that inure to his benefit. And that was his big mistake.

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So this all ties, the prep with the body language. So let's talk about, because I had Simone on yesterday, and she was talking about how for a woman candidate, particularly a woman of color, going against Trump, and what we saw in the first debate where the body language was so bad for Biden, you know, it was just like for a variety of reasons. He's a TV guy. The prep is twofold. Like, you know, I didn't really prep

maybe I should have prepped Jeb's facial reactions. We didn't work on that, really. It was substance or style. You could tell that she was both prepped on the substance and on the baiting. Just also in the way that she carried herself. It begins from the moment of walking up to shake his hand all the way through how she looked and how he didn't look at her. So talk about that.

And her faces while he was speaking were careful. Look, I'm a woman of many faces. Lots of times cannot control what happens right here. And there's plenty of evidence of that on TV. I know about that. Yeah, you do. You do. But we also know how to make an effective face that says everything.

And I think she did intentionally think about how to look when he said things that were meant to bait her. She wasn't going to fall for the bait, but her response to the bait was going to be these faces. And her faces were both puzzled, amused, sometimes amused, almost like a grandma or an auntie looking sort of askew, like,

at someone saying something stupid, just this is stupid, but like, oh, poor thing. They were careful. They weren't distracting, importantly, because we remember some debate moments like Al Gore, whose reactions were like distracting throughout a debate, whether he was like humping or, you know, huffing and puffing. They weren't distracting. They were meant to, I think, signal to like everyone, do you hear what I'm hearing? This is fucking crazy shit.

This is crazy. And if you're a normal person like me, you are looking at this thinking, what? I think that's what she was channeling. Like, don't take this like seriously. It is not serious. It is absurd. And my face will reflect how absurd it is. And it was also show of dominance over him, right? Like, I'm not scared of you. I walked straight up. I shaked his hand. I looked him in the eye. I went back to my podium. When you talk, I'm going to look at you and sometimes make some bemused faces and

When she was talking, he couldn't look at it. Straight ahead. He was seething. His body language is hunched, shoulders. His face paint was multicolored for some reason last night. It was dripping a little bit. And it was just coming in different, splotchy in his mouth. The thing that I just could not get over is he would not look at her. And well, in the postgame, you might have heard me.

Ask him about that. Let's listen. Now she wants to do another one because she got beaten tonight, but I don't know. Why wouldn't you look at her? The polls are indicating that we've got 90%, 60%, 72%, 71%, and 89%. Where are you getting these numbers from? Where are you getting these numbers from? I love that. I was live on Fox going, why would you look at her?

Why would you look at her? But, I mean, the fact that he's in the spin room at the end is a sign of just total failure and delusion. You know, I mean, they had nothing. Like, this is the other thing. You've, you know, been supporting candidates at bad debate nights. I've worked with candidates at bad debate nights. There's something you grab onto. You're like, oh, we had a good moment on this. We won on points. They had nothing. He was out there just rambling. Yeah.

And they're just complaining about the moderators. Am I too coconut pilled right now? Am I too ebullient? What? No, I mean, they're going to blame the moderators. They're going to blame the media. Like you said, they're going to suggest she got the questions or something. It was rigged. They'll do that. And that might work with his base.

It absolutely will not work with this undecided swing state voters who are going to decide this election. They've told us over and over again here at battleground. We pull them all the time. Um, in the swing States, they say they are not here for the distractions that you're not here for the personal attacks. They actually have substantive problems and questions. They want answers. Um,

Um, so I don't think any of that works with the people that he needs. That was his job last night to speak to undecided swing state voters and on the economy and immigration, he has the issues that benefit him, but he couldn't, he couldn't do it. And she had the same job too, to speak to those voters. And I thought, interestingly, if you take Trump out of it, her policy answers are

I think we're speaking to moderates and undecideds and swing state voters. She wasn't playing to the base. She knows what the game last night was about. She's got the base. She's brought most of the base back after Biden lost a lot of the base. She needs those swing state voters. That's why she was saying, I'm not banning fracking. I'm not going to do this. I'm going to look like the normal, sane person.

candidate here, well, I'll allow him to look crazy. And it worked. It worked perfectly. She repeats we're going to have the most lethal military. The one time when she was the most adamant about getting in another response was when she was like, no, that's not true about I'm not going to ban fracking. I'm not going to defund the police. I forget the third thing that he said was like she was adamant, like trying to get time from the moderators to

to just be crystal clear about the pivot to the center. Right. And, you know, on the policies, the way, what are the policies? Just talk about opportunity, economy, building houses, you know, it's this broad base. There's some popular stuff in there too, like some, some free money parts in there, but it was mostly middle of the road stuff. He was so bad on the key points that,

It's actually kind of secondary how bad he was on the typical Trumpy things. For example, they finally get to January 6th like an hour into the week. And let's play one clip from it that really stood out to me when he was asked about January 6th. Is there anything you regret about what you did on that day? You just said a thing that isn't covered. Peacefully and patriotically, I said during my speech, not later on.

peacefully and patriotically. And nobody on the other side was killed. Ashley Babbitt was shot by an out-of-control police officer that should have never, ever shot her. It's a disgrace. But we didn't do this group of people that have been treated so badly.

Press 15 seconds back if you guys missed that. Nobody on the other side was killed. We didn't. Like police. Yeah, we didn't. And then he catches himself saying we. We didn't. So it's like the rioters are we. The other side is the police getting attacked. That's an astonishingly horrific answer. It is. And if there were a debate just about that, what you would have gone in and said in response was...

How can you say, I told them to go in peacefully and patriotically, and then when they didn't, you want to pardon them? That's contradictory. Either you didn't tell them to go in violently, and so you're mad that they did, because they clearly did, or...

You wanted them to go in violently, and so now you want to pardon them. You can't have both ways, but this debate didn't get that granular. But he can't answer coherently and consistently on that. It's very similar, very similar to his abortion answers. He's constantly trying to take credit for

for carving out this part that he thinks works for his base while carving away the part he knows that turns everyone else off, but he gets it mixed up in his head all the time. And he can't help himself for taking credit for the whole thing. And then he has to distance himself and back out like a chunk of it. It's the same game over and over and over again.

It was a terrible answer. I will just say the undecided swing state voters we're talking to about who they're going to vote for, they don't care about January 6th. I know. The Bullard Gloss Center is dead. Just saying. I'm just saying.

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Protect yourself with a 30-day free trial at LifeLock.com. Use promo code NEWS. Terms apply. So one thing that you guys might be talking to that I think they might care about is the divisive thing. Yeah. There was only one moment where I was a little bit like, uh-oh, where's she going with this? And it was on the race question. He gets asked about how she turned black or whatever. And he says it like that, black.

He can't say black. Black. And he gives this horrific answer where he looks so weak and small. And he's just kind of like, well, I don't really care. Do you care? And then they're like, well, you brought it up. He's like, no, you know. He is nothing. You'd think he at least would have been prepared to be like, my whole point is she's a phony. That's all I had to say. My whole point is that she's a phony. She's a panderer and a phony. That's all I was trying to say. It wasn't about her. And then she goes into like,

A lengthy, again, prepared response that goes back to the apartment discrimination against blacks, the Central Park Five, birtherism. And that's separate from her, what she's been doing. She hasn't been talking about race that much.

But then she kind of ties it together by just being like, that's not what the American people want, right? They don't want, you know, it wasn't like a, whoa, is me. He's so racist thing. It was like a stop fucking doing that. Stop dividing us. And so I do wonder, like, how do you think that landed with the types of voters that you're talking to? Well, we know, um, going back 40 and 50 years, we've talked to black voters in swing States who are undecided. They don't care. Yeah. They don't care about central park five. They don't, it's not relevant to their life today. Yeah.

I'm not saying they don't care ecumenically. Yeah, sure, sure, sure, of course. But in terms of who they're voting for, it's just not relevant. So it was good that she got through that and then tied it back to now and this bigger picture of his divisiveness because they do care about that. They don't, they're not here for the,

The anger, the grievance, the complaining, the rigged election, the backwards looking. They're not here for that. They don't want it anymore. But I wouldn't spend too much time walking back to the birtherism. It's just not what's bothering these voters right now. But she does pivot into the turning the page thing.

which she hit pretty well. Again, this is another just total failure, just like basic debate prep for him is you go in immediately and try to tie her to Biden. Easy to do. She is still the vice president. Exactly. And he doesn't do it. And then finally towards the very end, she's like, sorry, I don't know if you noticed, but I'm not Joe Biden.

And because it's so late in the debate, it ends up being kind of like a winning line. That's a losing line in the first seven minutes where it's like a good line. But then if you keep repeating it, it's like you might think you're not Joe Biden, but you guys did this and you guys did that. But he couldn't do that. And I think that sort of this – the racist stuff kind of gets wrapped up into this like people are sick of these old fucking guys and they're sick of the way – is there a potential –

strand there for her in kind of this, the culture war topic that she's just trying to move people past it. Yeah. I mean, God, there were so many things he could have done. Yeah. Right. Tying her to Biden, catching her on her flip-flops. That's tough to do because he's also flip-flop, but, but he could still go after it and he could go where, where media frankly hasn't gone. Like why has no one asked her? She and Wallace have not been forced to answer a question. For example,

In Minnesota, Tim Walz, there are no weak restrictions on abortion. That is wildly unpopular. Wherever you stand on that issue, it is outside the mainstream of where a majority of Americans are. Is that your policy, Kamala Harris? Do you want America to look more like Minnesota, Kamala Harris? I mean, these are things he could have not only tied her to Biden, but tied her to Walz.

and made her answer for some of this. Why'd you pick him? He's super extreme. I mean, he could have done all kinds of things that made this not just about this one woman and his issues with her. But he didn't because he didn't practice. California, broadly, the failures of California, the crime and the cost of living. I'm not here to give coaching advice to Donald Trump, but like there are a million things you could do.

Anyone could have looked at the dynamic here, the issues at play, the issues that matter to Americans and crafted out a clear course of action for him that really would have presented a challenge for Kamala Harris. They didn't do any of that. He didn't prep it or he forgot about it or he couldn't control where he took it. So for her, I think she allows him to do the culture war stuff because it makes him look crazy. I don't think she really even has to dabble in it that much because he's going to do it

for her and he's gonna he's gonna lose it and win it for her I mean he's in like this hermetically sealed world of crazy it isn't just a dog thing he's like Victor Orban

And then Victor Orban, they call him a strong man. It's like Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity debunked the Charlottesville hoax. And like, he's like name dropping these random, like he's very deep in his own navel and all this kind of cultural stuff and all like the art, the story of Trump and the Game of Thrones of it all. Like most people just don't care about. Well, I'm wondering, and listen, let's say it again. This race is tight. I expect it will remain tight.

I don't think he lost the election because of this debate. But I read yesterday or Monday, too, that Republicans are worried he is not investing. The campaign is not investing enough in swing state voter turnout. Because of the fraud. They're focused on the lawyers and the fraud. Literally, that's why. 100%. They pulled out of this at the RNC and directed their efforts, money, resources to voter fraud. But turning the vote out

has never been his strong suit. It's never been interesting to him. Remember in midterms when he was president, he would go out and say, these midterms aren't as important as my elections. Well, they are to every down ballot Republican, right? He doesn't get it. He doesn't care. He doesn't care about

widening the tent and bringing in new voters, which he will need. I don't know if Chris Lasavita and Susie Wiles care. They're smart. I'm sure they do. But I'm just wondering if everyone around him said he doesn't care and we're never going to get him to care enough to control himself, to speak to these undecided swing state voters the way they want to be spoken to. So just forget it. Let's just forget it and work on turning out everyone we already have and

and they're persuadable friends. Because that's what it's sounding more and more like he's doing. So just like thinking about that in the biggest picture element of this, you're spending time with these, with the voters that matter. This was a tight race going in. You know, I just did a sports talk thing right before this, you know, and like the first question for like non-politicos is like,

Are there any undecideds out there? Does this even matter? Is this just a show for you political guys? That's a legit question. I am of the view that, yeah, that matters. It's small, but a significant number of people that are gettable. But you're out there talking to these people. What did you think? What extent does it matter? Well, just by the numbers, undecideds represent about 18% of American registered voters. That's not a small number.

Even if you don't believe all of them. Sure. Even if you only believe half of them.

Right. Even if 9% is very significant. Electorally significant. In Pennsylvania, it's about 3%. That's a lot of voters. And as we know, Pennsylvania's big prize, 19 electoral votes. The undecideds, 3%. Yeah, the undecideds in Pennsylvania represent 3% of registered voters, okay? So that's a lot of voters. We go out on the streets in Wisconsin and North Carolina and Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan. We go out into the streets. We meet these voters. We've done focus groups with these voters. Okay.

they're saying we're undecided because we don't like either of these people. And we know Kamala Harris a little less. We're waiting to see more. And a lot of them pegged their sort of decision deadline to the debate last night. They thought the debate last night was going to make their decision. If we believe that and we extrapolate that that's how a lot of undecided voters were going into this night last night, that this was going to help them decide, I think that's very bad news for Donald Trump.

It's very good news for Kamala Harris. Now, there's like two months left. Lots could happen. But if we're just taking them at their word and what they're telling us, and we're going to go out and talk to more of them post-debate, certainly, so we'll know more, then this is significant. And the sports guys...

you know, should handicap this, knowing that that is significant. Just looking just at the combo of it, if that was really a decision point, as much as I talk about Trump's crazy. To me, like expectations beating, like by a wide margin. Like I thought she was really nervous. Like, let's just be honest. Like she does the word salad stuff sometimes herself, like these circular sentences where you can tell she doesn't know what she's going to say, kind of, and she's like blabbing. She didn't do a lot of that.

There wasn't visible. A little bit of the first eight minutes, maybe. But once she got going, there was not visible nerves. And then to me also on the foreign policy stuff, people don't vote on foreign policy, but they wanted her to pass this bar of believability. And she was like, fucking Ukraine, Munich Security Conference, Abrams tanks. I mean, she's like dropping names of missiles and tanks. You know what I mean? And I'm like, oh, she was – so I think that she felt like that she passed that bar for those folks. But what do you think?

Yeah, I think the bar, I wouldn't say the bar was low for her, but she definitely beat it. Wherever it was, she beat it. Because she does do word salad. She can also get, I'll remind you of the Lester Holt interview, testy and defensive. And almost like, I'm too good to answer this question. Or why are you even asking this question about the border? Dismissive condescending. I didn't see any of that. I think whoever's around her, and we probably know the folks...

gave her very specific good advice. And maybe this even came in, you know, inherently from her just knowing what she needed to do, which was don't word salad. Don't be dismissive of issues that matter to voters. Like don't go out and say there's no crime. Don't go out and say the economy is great. Don't do that. And try not to get emotionally rattled by Trump. She did none of those things. And she,

like we said earlier, she did policy. She did substance. I would have liked a little more, but that's always me. She did the foreign policy check. She did. And then, like we said, and then she just dropped this little like bait, like, um, crowd size and, and just let him go off on it. Like, right. She'd end the policy thing with like your inheritance. Like, are we talking about the size of his inheritance? And we didn't all inherit a billion dollars. And like,

Like kind of out of nowhere, but he's so dumb and so man, he was just like a dog with a, I got the bone. Let's go with it. I couldn't believe how easy it was. Truly, truly how easy it was to manipulate him. Yeah.

Great prep. Plus was in there, the Obama guys they brought in. Karen Dunn, we should mention. Obviously, all the credit goes to Kamala, but this was a professionally executed debate. Yes, it was. And impressive. And it's a lot. And it looks hard, but I promise you all, it's harder than it looks. I've been in those rooms. All right, last thing. Yes. Okay. Tay-Tay. Say it again? Tay-Tay. Taylor Swift. Oh!

Yeah. Last night she posts on Instagram endorsing Kamala. Yeah. I noticed one quick notice I should also mention. Caitlin Clark gave that a like. Saw a Caitlin Clark like. There's a lot of wish casting out there in Coke and Mago World that Caitlin's one of them. I don't really see it. Okay. Does it matter? Is it just fun? No. Doesn't matter. Celebrity endorsements don't matter. Like never. And she has endorsed before. She's done it before. It didn't matter. No. And listen, all the caveats.

Everything matters. This election's crazy. This election's atypical. This election's different. It's unprecedented. Anything could happen. Every vote counts. All the things. But no. No. Celebrity endorsements just generally don't move people. Okay, last, last. Is God good enough for us to get another one of these? Will Trump do it? He's saying this morning he doesn't think he wants to. Again, it's really hard for him to take that bait, too. And...

After this, he will need another event. He will need another inflection point to try and, I think, regain some momentum. A debate is kind of conceivably the only manufactured thing you could do to create that opportunity, but he'd have to be a completely different person to...

help himself in the next debate. And I don't know that he can be that. So does he not even show? Does he show? Does he do it? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know either. I would have said, yes, he does do it, but he looked like a beaten puppy this morning on Fox and news. He did. He did. He might just take the L and be like, it was rigged.

I was like, the people wanted you back. And I was like, the last time we were together was after the RNC convention. And it was, you know, the different energy in the world there. Joe Biden was still there. So things have changed. And, you know, we are now in the Coconut Grove. I'm happy to have you back. Thank you for doing this. That's Essie Cupp. Stick around. I got a few more things for you all on the other side.

Man, isn't Essie great? You just know she's giving you real talk, too. If you don't believe she's giving real talk, go back and listen to our last time together when things were looking a little different. Guys, so we have like wall-to-wall content for you. Just wanted to make sure you weren't missing anything. Over on YouTube, there was a live stream last night. We've pushed it up.

There's a post-game analysis that I popped onto before I went over to the spin room. I want to talk to you about the spin room real quick. And then also it's Wednesday, so we've got the next level, which we're going to be going real long on and focusing on the debate, of course, but also on where we're kind of going from here and forward-looking campaign stuff. The spin room, guys.

I wrote for The Bulwark this morning, which you should go check out at thebulwark.com, about inside Trump's spin room from hell. And I got to tell you, I was having the time of my life, people. Nobody except Doug Emhoff was having more fun than me last night. Let me tell you that. You know, I left the Bulwark live stream and immediately upon returning, before I even get into the spin room, outside the magnetometers, there's only two people standing out there.

Lindsey Graham and his flack. And for those who've read my book or been longtime podcast listeners, you know that me and Lindsey do each other pretty well. I mean, Lindsey was a big Jem supporter. We were on the road together a lot. He used to call me at night. We get drunk together a couple times. I know you are thinking, don't get the bad thoughts out of your head. All right, nothing like that. You know, no signs of that. There's plenty of bad Lindsey Graham things to talk about without you going there.

I know where your head was, listener. So he recognized me immediately, of course. And I just went in out of like, and I'm just like, all right, this is your moment. After this night, we were on the same page back in 2016. We used to talk about how awful he was. Let's go. You're welcome. The water's warm. Come on back. Come on the board podcast. We can talk about your conversion back. And he got hot, immediately hot, red-faced.

shame on you you should be ashamed he's saying to me i should be i should be ashamed who should be ashamed here anyway it goes it goes on and on going around and around all things you'd expect him talking about how great the trump years were minus 2020 me talking about how he was running for his life like a scared little baby from the donald trump supporters in january 6th and so maybe it didn't end as well as he remembers and then finally because he can't help himself he's a politician

Even at the end of a pretty heated exchange, he wanted to win me over. He wanted to demonstrate we were still pals or he wanted to demonstrate we could still ride in the golf cart together if the winds of politics ever change. And so he gives me a fist bump and he leans in and he's like, man...

He goes, I'll say this. He was unprepared and that debate team should be fired. It was a disaster. I was like, oh, thanks for that, Lindsey. Turned around, fired that bad boy off on Twitter. And the whole world knows that even Lindsey Graham acknowledged that it was a loser last night. That was joyful. There were more fun exchanges like that that I'll be talking about on the next level. So go and check out that feed if you haven't on whatever your podcast app is of choice.

Today, life is good. More work left to do. Going to be a close election. But man, that was a beating puppy last night. As my friend Michael Steele said on MSNBC After Dark, he got a spanking. He got a whooping last night. And we got to take these little moments of joy when we can. So enjoy it. We'll be back.

tomorrow. I'll be coming at you from D.C. tomorrow because there's a hurricane in New Orleans so I can't go home. Everything should be good. We're prepared. Sending good vibes to the hubs and kiddo. I'll be FaceTiming with them, checking in. And we'll be with you on a podcast from D.C. tomorrow. We'll see y'all then. It's coconut time. Peace. I am alone And I pay my dues And I don't depend on nothing No more

I am a loner, all confused, waiting for the rainy day while I spend my time walking in the sunshine. Swinging on my palm tree, cause I love coconuts. I'm drinking coconut kiss and you don't get to know me. Oh, you don't get to know me. Swinging on my palm tree, cause I love coconuts.

I'm drinking full by my kids and you don't get to know me. No, you don't get to know me. Yeah, you're waiting for the blow, for the big fat blow. When mama's gonna get away, gotta go. I like to watch the world. It's looking good today. I like to watch the world.

♪ The world is looking good today ♪ ♪ It's almost like I'm sleeping ♪ ♪ I pull my head back to the sun ♪ ♪ It's almost like I'm sleeping ♪ ♪ I pull my head back to the sun ♪

The Bullwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Breff.