Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
The narrative now is every day and in every way
that the Democrats have rediscovered their mojo. That Harris is
come the moment, Come the woman, and Waltz didn't exist
minutes ago. Is now come the moment, come the Midwestern man,
and nothing can stop them. That is the narrative right now.
(00:28):
Donald Trump the monster. We have found a way to
defeat him. The reality boom is it's a fifty to
fifty election. It's a toss up. Welcome to Fire and
(00:51):
Fury the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I'm Michael Booth and I'm James Truman. Good morning, Michael.
So where the morning after the first Kamala Walt's rally,
which happened in Pennsylvania last night. I hadn't seen Kamala
for a few weeks. I thought she was remarkable. She's charismatic, confident, focused.
He was dressed like an undertaker, which was unfortunate, looked
(01:17):
a little bit like a deer in the headlights, but goodvibe.
I thought what they said was reasonable, socially conscious, compassionate, decent.
And then I tuned into the morning show this morning
and Donald's was on the line saying that they were
imminently about to turn the country Communist that Waltz was
big on trans that they were going to create an
(01:38):
economic disaster, which indicates several things, one of which Michael
is that he seems extremely nervous.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Nervous is a weird word to apply to Donald Trump
because it seems to imply some amount of self consciousness
and self awareness. So I think he's reacting. He's a
react of God, that's what he does, and he doesn't
yet know how to react. I think that he's probably confused.
For good reason. We've seen Kamala. We've seen that narrative
(02:10):
change so quickly and so dramatically that I think it's
certainly confusing to him and perhaps ought to be confusing
to everybody else. And now the Wall's narrative. I mean,
here's a guy who literally minutes ago nobody had ever
heard of. In fact, two days ago, I'm looking up
Google to get a name pronunciation, and suddenly this person
(02:33):
we have no idea who this person is, and suddenly
he's the everyman hero of the age. So the issue
is this the narrative or is this reality. One of
the Trump strengths is that he's the reality. Donald Trump
really is Donald Trump, and clearly I don't think that
(02:55):
there's any There's no longer any media pretense. Are all
in for Harris and this campaign and for defeating Donald Trump.
Literally no pretense anymore. This is a national emergency. We
know what side we're on. This is like World War two?
Which side are you on? Very clearly there is no
(03:17):
other side. We are all committed to this. I think
the question is is this sustainable? And I think from
the Trump camp point of view, their question, their challenge
and their werry and it's a major worry for obvious reasons.
But it's curious now to back up a little and
look at how this walls things happened because up until
(03:39):
again minutes ago, all of the smart money was on Shapiro.
For obvious reasons. It was Pennsylvania. All the Democrats have
to do. It's really they only have to do really
one thing, which is to win Pennsylvania. So why wouldn't
you have taken Josh Shapiro? Yeah, because he's a Jew.
(04:01):
And it just kind of comes down a black woman.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
And a Jew.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Is that too much? And I think that's clearly the
decision that they made. We've got a retreat to a
real white guy in this sense, a Jewish white guy
would not be exactly a real white guy. And so
the anti Semitism that I think is implicit in that
(04:26):
is probably real. And it's hard to tell who's more
anti Semitic, the Trump people who have been always been
anti Semitic, or a considerable fraction of the Democratic Party
at this point. But having said that, there's also this
other thing which the Democratic Party is and is trying
(04:46):
to run away from, which is kind of the yuppie party.
And in that probably anybody named Josh is someone you
don't want if you're running away from the yuppie lay,
which I think is the thing that has hoisted jd
Vance because although clearly the Trump side had hoped that
(05:10):
he would be a Maga representative and the true Midwest guy,
in fact, and this is where their reality diverged from
their narrative, he's an aspirational climbing the greasy pole yuppie type.
He just went with the tech bro version of that
rather than the New York investment banker version of that.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I thought Israel Klein had an interesting point about him.
He talked about, first of all, Trump, who almost unintentionally
had accumulated around him, his own personal dark web of
underground commenters, agitators, not so right wingers, and that was
part of Trump's carnival, but for Vance it was also
(05:55):
his reality, that is where he comes from.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
One of the things that I know that the Trump
camp is now suddenly the alarm bells have gone off,
is to realize that Advance turned forty last week, has
documented his entire life on social media. So it's suddenly like,
what's out there? What has this guy with his own
weird history? What has he said? What are they going
(06:19):
to be hoisted ones? And the best they can do,
the best rationalization now is that he hasn't said anything
terrible since he's become the nominee. So we're just kind
of trying to draw a line in the sand. I mean,
I find with the walls thing to return to that
Midwest ideal, this ideal that the Democratic Party has long
(06:41):
ago strayed from, abandoned, or in fact run from, is notable,
and I'm not exactly sure what the meaning of it
is except to pay no attention to who we really are.
Now we're going to pretend that we're real, normal, old fashioned,
salt of the Earth people.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
But if you read the Wall Street Journal or even
the New York Post. They're casting Waltz as being a
very left wing progressive and absolutely unrepresentative of the traditional
Democratic Party.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Right.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
But I think the mistake Democrats make with Trump. You
can cast him as all of these things which don't
address the real character that everybody sees. And I think
that's probably the attraction of Walls. He looks like a
guy from the Midwest. He looks like a guy without pretense,
(07:34):
without heirs. However you want to frame that whatever weird
I say, weird ash shucks kind of way, and it
probably goes back to something else and perhaps the overriding
point in picking a vice president, which is that you
want to pick someone who will not upstage you. That
(07:55):
probably means that the first rule of a vice president
is picked someone who will do no harm. And then
any advantages that you might be able to get our
cream on top. But the most important thing, don't shine
the light on yourself, which is obviously what has happened
in the Vance pick. And now the Democrats will be
(08:17):
able to offer Walls in contrast. In sharp contrasts to Vance.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
How does Trump's team renavigate around this new world?
Speaker 1 (08:29):
There was a piece in the Atlantic which I think
didn't get the attention that it should have because it
was published just after the assassination attempt, just before the convention.
The writer Tim Alberta got enormous access to the top
figures in the Trump campaign, Susie Wiles, Chris las Avita,
(08:50):
Tony Fabrizio, and spent one of those long Atlantic efforts,
months and months to observe what was going on there.
And the piece really reflects the self satisfaction of the
Trump campaign and the rightful self satisfaction everything has worked.
This eighteen month campaign or near that has been up
(09:14):
until very recently entirely successful. Yeah, they vanquished every Republican opponent,
you can barely call them opponents. They've raised an enormous
amount of money they are pulling against the incumbent president.
This is extraordinary for the better part of a year.
So no reason not to feel incredibly satisfied with what
(09:39):
you've accomplished. The other point about the piece, the whole
campaign seemed to be the yin and the yang of
Trump Biden. Yes, they defined Donald Trump against and successfully
defined him against Joe Biden. Essentially, it was they were
running a campaign against somebody it's some an unfair campaign,
(10:01):
it might seem because Biden could barely fight back. So
suddenly you have that same team in that same campaign
confronted by an entirely new circumstance. If I were Donald Trump,
I would certainly take note of that. Everything that I
understand is that this is a moment of keen disarray.
(10:22):
I mean, I think an important noteier is that every
Trump campaign, this is the third presidential campaign, twenty sixteen,
twenty twenty, there were major leadership upheavals. So this campaign,
the twenty twenty four campaign, is distinguished by the fact
that this has been an incredibly smooth running operation. It's
(10:44):
been an operation that Trump seems to have been very
content with, very happy with, and as well he should,
because it was working. Now campaign organizations, I mean, there
are a couple of reasons, probably really three reasons campaign
leadership in any campaign might encounter a leadership change, and
(11:05):
I think it's usually because the polls are terrible, because
there's an ideological conflict, or because there's a basic power grab.
Now I don't think that there is an ideological conflict
at this point in the Trump campaign, which is curious
given that it's supposed to be an intensely ideological affair.
But I think that those issues Project twenty five, they've
(11:28):
dismissed that the probably the largest MAGA outside agitator who
has an influence on the campaign, Steve Bannon, is safely
in jail. But I think it's important to pick the
word here because the polls in fact are not that bad,
but they are no longer the Joe Biden polls.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
And there's a momentum in the other direction now right.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
So that's a concern. But I think the other thing
is that there is a power grab, and there always
was going to be a power grab.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
Now.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
My understanding is that prime mover at this point is
Kelly Ann Conway. And that's an interesting story because she
very much wants to be the chief of staff in
Trump White House. Yeah, and she feels that's a job
that she was unfairly deprived of in the last administration
because of her husband, George Conway, who became a professional
(12:25):
Trump antagonist. What was going on in that house? Actually,
Trump would say, who came to hate George Conway? But
he would also say, God, what did she do to him?
She's divorced George Conway, which that's the kind of thing
that Trump loves. She chose Trump over her husband. Okay, great,
(12:46):
And in fact, he's always been very comfortable with Kelly Ann,
and Kelly Ann is pretty good at this, that is
to say, pretty good at waging a power grab. I
noticed that there was a I think it was I
don't know, Puck or something like that was reporting that
she was a source of the leaks about JD.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Vance.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
But that in fact was a reverse leak. So that
was the leak. Well, that was the campaign leaking against
a leaker to try to taint her, not necessarily for
tainting Vance, but for coming after them.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
But we're at this pivotal point. And there was a post,
an ex or Twitter post from Chris Lasovita last week
which was of James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano giving the finger,
and I would interpret that as the finger was being
given to Kelly and Conway. We'll be back right up
(13:50):
to the break.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
So has the equation around Trump's campaign been changed at
all by David Pluff coming into the Kamala campaign.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
I think the equation in the Trump campaign has changed
because of Harris and because the Democrats suddenly have this momentum.
I think there will be a change in personnel. If
I had to guess, I would say Chris Lasovita's head
is going to be chopped off. But having said that,
I actually don't think that the Trump position is all
(14:28):
that bad. I think that the Democrats position has clearly
gotten stronger, but the Trump position has not gotten meaningfully weaker,
and that maybe again we're in this incredibly close race
and getting stronger, not getting weaker. I guess advantage is
(14:49):
to the getting stronger. But on a timeline, how much
time do you need to get truly stronger? There are
ninety one days. I think it is now left to
the election. That's not a lot of time. Trump has
secured his strength over eighteen months. That's unclear. So we're
back to this debate. Happened and then there was a
(15:12):
cascade of events. Okay, we're back to before the debate,
a fifty to fifty race, a toss up in every
swing state. You're in the margin of error. So for
the Trump people, because they enjoyed a moment of absolute
certainty that they would win, which turned out, of course
to be a false moment, they're now in a state
(15:35):
of nearing existential crisis. But again, what there is right
now is a locked in race. No one can say
at this point what the outcome.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Will be the state you think, we're just waiting for
uncontrollable outside events to shape an outcome. If Donald Trump,
who likes you so much, if he called you up
and said, Michael, what do I do now? What would
you tell him Jesus names?
Speaker 1 (16:01):
What if I know the right answer?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Ah? Very good, Very good. Keep it to yourself, Michael.
I was interested in your response to Trump's an ABJ speech.
Was that something that he taxically prepared? I mean, he
knew he was going into a hostile environment. Had he
gone in there preparing to blow it up? Or did
you think the question just triggered him and he was
genuinely insulted.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
No.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
I think this was one of those things that just
kind of happened in politics. This had been scheduled before
Biden Withdrew, and I think when he was feeling at
the top of his game and they were looking at numbers,
really astounding African American numbers, and I think he was thinking,
(16:48):
I'm going to lock in this vote. You know, this
is the mountain come into Mohammed kind of thing. But
even having said that, I understand that by the time
he arrived, he was saying, what, why are we doing this?
Who scheduled this? Why didn't I know about this? What's
going on here? And then there was this long delay. Yeah,
he blamed that on their audio, but it was really
(17:11):
My understanding is that it was really about the announcement
that he would be fact check in real time, and
so he was having a conniption about this and refusing
to come out on stage, and then by the time
he got out there, he was just furious. And that's
the thing about Trump, and it's important, I think to
(17:31):
keep that in mind, is that there's a good Trump
and a bad Trump. There's a Trump that's effectively on
Trump message, and then there's undermining that message because he
just goes off into wherever he goes those moments. It's
actually extraordinary that he has survived in the past, the
gold Star Mother's moment, for instance, or John McCain being
(17:54):
a coward moment. It may be this weird Trump genius
thing that's still in these incredibly what would otherwise seem
to be monstrous errors. He actually claims some advantage, so
I heard that he was on the phone to someone
after this, And remember Trump can never make a mistake,
(18:18):
he has to double down on it. And in one
of those subsequent I think a rally the next day,
they had one of those big JumboTron things with a
headline about Harris being an Indian. So I understand that
he said to this person on the phone, no, no,
this was great. Remember black men don't like black women.
(18:39):
And just to further double down, he added, like Jewish
men don't like Jewish women. But never forget that he
has this extraordinary ability to mine prejudices that we don't
even know we have.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
So Michael loh On's are the most important matter? Are
we to make of Bobby Kennedy and the Dead Bear?
Speaker 1 (19:02):
I think it's just this extraordinary story. It's almost worth
the whole election just to get that story. Bobby Kennedy's
story is where he to be elected president. I would
have several more books. It is such a compelling story.
I mean, it's a story of such pain and craziness
and floundering, and it's novelistic in all.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Its Yeah, it's Joseph comrads in doll in madness.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Its dimensions I was on the I guess yeah nineteen
eighty when Teddy was running against in the primaries against
Jimmy Carter. I was covering that race for Life magazine,
this a long time ago, and spent a number of
weeks with Bobby, and then I thought he was incredibly
(19:52):
compelling and incredibly crazy, alarmingly. So it's interesting this bear
story emerges from this New Yorker article. And I'll take
a moment to say that the New Yorker has become
a stranger in stranger publication. Is anybody doing anything but
phoning it in? Maybe that's the magazine business now. But
(20:13):
this New Yorker piece is written in this and this
is I suppose a kind of New Yorker can see,
an effectless way. So instead of telling the story the
great story of Bobby Kennedy Junior, it kind of lists
these facts, each one an explosive fact, as though without intonation.
(20:35):
And so actually the bear story, which is dropped in
there in passing, is almost uncommented upon. This is a
classic burying lead. And in fact, curiously, if Bobby Kennedy
had not made this extraordinary video in which he's talking
to Roseanne bar of all people, and then sitting at
(20:57):
a table with his just eaten takeout dinner and then
telling this incredible, ridiculous and frankly unbelievable story about the bear,
and telling this because he's aware that the New Yorker
has this story, yeah, and is going to out him
for the bear story. But he would have been much
(21:19):
better off just letting the New Yorker, in its affectless way,
drop this story. And there would have been a few
questions about it, but it would not have become what
I think will be remembered as a central tale of
this campaign.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
So what's going on with the debates? Do you think?
Speaker 1 (21:35):
I don't think anything's going on at this point. I
think this is just a negotiation to something. And why
would you give up this advantage? So Trump has an
opening to renegotiate here, why wouldn't he take that. Part
of this was when he didn't choose Bergham to be
the vice president and he felt he had to mollify Murdoch.
(21:56):
He said, I'm going to get a debate for Fox,
and I think from Marris's point of view, it's let's
see how much leverage I have, so let's not do
this now. I got to do the Vice president. I
got to do the convention. Then we'll worry about the debate.
I would predict that there will be at least a debate,
and probably more than one debate that will be locked
(22:17):
in not long before the debate.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Thank you, Michael.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
That's all the time we have for today, and we'll
be back next week. Fire and Fury The podcast is
hosted and executive produced by Michael Wolfe and James Truman.
(22:52):
The producers are Adam Muller and Emily Marono, executive producers
for Kneidoscope, Mangesh
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Had to get A and Os Valascian executive producers for
iHeart On, Nikki Etour and Katrina Novel