March 30, 2021 • 39 mins
William Kristol is one of the nation’s leading conservative voices. And, since 2016, he’s been at war with conservative elites and Trump loyalists. Kristol tells Alec he didn’t just vote for Joe Biden, he is actively rooting for his success. There is just too much at stake otherwise, particularly when so many members of the GOP keep parroting Trump’s lies about a stolen election. Kristol was the founder and editor of The Weekly Standard for more than two decades. When it closed in 2018, Kristol and a band of Never-Trumpers founded TheBulwark.com, a news site “free from the constraints of partisan loyalties or tribal prejudices.”
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
from my Heart radio. In February, none other than Bill
Crystal tweeted, we are all Democrats now. From one of
the nation's leading conservatives, it was yet another sign of
the chasm between moderate Republicans and Trump loyalists. Crystel earned
(00:26):
his political stripes serving in the Reagan and George H. W.
Bush administrations, then as founder and editor of The Weekly
Standard for more than two decades, he argued for hawkish
foreign policy, lower taxes, and against universal health care. After
the January sixth insurrection, Crystal says our democracy is facing
(00:49):
an internal crisis. It's all enough to make him regret
Hillary Clinton's two thousand sixteen loss. We would be much
better off. Just reckless disregard science and denial of truth
and demagoguery of Trump that's unmatched, in my view, really
by by a major party nominee of either of either
party in modern times, and bad enough that he got
(01:11):
the domination. I thought that would do real damage to
the country. But then winning the election, in which obviously
that damage is by no means over or even beginning
to be over. I think the degree to which having
a really reckless demagogue, nativist, authoritarian demagogue as president for
four years, that takes a while to recover from. You know,
(01:31):
New York is always new Trump. Yes, Trump was a vacuous,
I mean vapid nonentity in New York and people wouldn't
do business with him. Well, I mean, I think in
New York society, which I don't put myself in New
York society. I'm not an astor, if you will, but
but in my life of tickets and tables and going
to charitable events for the last thirty thirty five years,
(01:52):
Trump was always a drive by presidents. You know, he
had the tuxedo in the glove compartment, He jumped out
of the limo, snap snap on the red carpet on.
Never a tablemate, never a conversation to be had. But
let me switch back. Your father was obviously this figure
that looms large and the neo conservative movement. What was
your home life like? What was the intellectual were you
(02:13):
like the conservative Kennedy's at the dinner table you had
to beat Foreign Affairs Magazine before you sat down for
your salad course. No, I think my parents of anything bent,
were a little bit backwards to you know, let me
go play baseball or football or basketball and Riverside Park
and and we were all big sports fans, including my father,
and so many of my memories, like everyone else's memories,
(02:35):
I suppose of being ten, twelve, fourteen years old is
watching TV with my father and my mother, not so
much in sports, but watching, uh, the Jets and the
Mets that I was. I was a big New York
sports fan. And it was the sixties. You were Jets, Mats,
not Giants Yankees. Yes, my junior senior in high school
featured the Jets winning the huge upset in the Super
bowlth three, sixty met swinning the World Series and sixty
(02:57):
nine and the nixt winning in nineteen seventy with Little
Street hobbling onto the court. So that was where I
always felt like. I never was quite as much of
a sports fan after that, because how can you do
better than root for these teams, which, as you say,
we're pretty hopeless in the beginning of the decade when
I started to do do it for them, and one by
the end of the decade. But when they won these titles,
it was a shock to New York. Yeah, people forget
(03:18):
that it's like, well, of course, you know Joe Namoth
Willow Street, but it was it was in the Mets
were of course a total shock. So so that was
an exciting I had a good youth in that respect,
in terms of sports, and and honestly we watched a
lot of mysteries on TV and stuff, so we were
we were pretty um, I mean, my parents were intellectuals,
and I grew up surrounded by more books, I suppose
than an average kid, and then therefore did pick up
(03:40):
a lot of that obviously. But actually, and also in
the sixties, this is sort of before neo conservatives, and
so they were kind of old fashioned liberals. They supported
Hubert hung Free from president and sixty eight and what changed, well,
they would say, and they would have said, and I
would agree with this, that the left, the old fashioned
lived list and got overtaken by the new left, and
they didn't like that. Around what time, late sixties, I
(04:02):
would say, I mean, in New York the teacher strike
was a big deal. But the failure of John Lindsay
as mayor, the sense that domestic policy things were falling apart,
crime was increasing, the city wasn't being well governed. Some
of these big government programs weren't working too well. And
then in foreign policy that kind of George willgoverned victory
and the Democratic Party a very decent man, but a
(04:23):
very devilsh view of America's well in the world. So
they moved to the right, and uh, methought they were
always kind of heterodoxy liberals, I would say, sort of
contrarian and didn't just take liberal pieties for granted. But
uh yeah, in the seventies they certainly that's when do
conservatives came into existence. It was originally a term of
opprobrium used by a Democratic socialist, Michael Harrington, who attacked
(04:46):
my thought. He thought it would sort of be the
It would discredit all these liberals who were retaking liberalism,
to call them by the dread word. This is so
long ago conservative, ordo conservative. But he couldn't quite say conservative,
as they obviously weren't conservatives from youth. So they were
neo conservatives. And remember my father wrote My father wrote
a piece I think in nine seventy four saying, Okay, look,
I guess if they want to call me indio conservative,
(05:07):
I'll accept the term. A lot of his friends resisted
it throughout the seventies say no, we're the true liberals.
But you know how politics is, you sort of end
up with the term. They stick on you when you
talk about McGovern, devish and so forth. And I come
from a different place where I believe that, you know,
Vietnam is the stain we're never going to be able
to wash away. That's when the country really took the
(05:30):
turn down, and we've never recovered from that, and and
I'm curious as to whether we ever will because we
knew it was wrong way back when we knew Ran
Corporation Elsberg all that we knew it was wrong, and
when we pressed on. But the point is that how
much longer do you think the United States can afford?
And you can correct me if you think this is
that this is not an apt description to be this
(05:51):
world policeman going around the world and telling everybody else
what to do all the time in order to benefit
ourselves economically. How much longer can we afford to do
that financially? Well, I think we can afford to do it,
or in the sense I think the price we would
pay for not doing some of it is even greater.
I mean, Vietnam was obviously in retrospect, I mean a mistake.
I think we stumbled into it with decent intentions Kennedy
(06:12):
and to some degree Johnson, people like McNamara, who was,
you know, a person who wanted to do the right thing.
And then we got out in a way that was
was understandable why we got out the way we did.
And then of course Vietnam fell on seventy five and Cambodia,
it was pretty disastrous. On the other hand, Reagan came
back at eight and we won the Cold War, and
it felt it really what I was that firing a shot.
(06:34):
And in the nineties, you know, we managed to help
construct a Europe that was kind of whole and free.
We defeated Milosovich. So I would still defend the kind
of US, uh, the model of US internationalism and to
some degree of interventionism that held through most of those years.
And I think we had a world that wasn't getting
(06:54):
better and in pretty good shape for all the mistakes
that various administrations have made. But you believe that there
are things that we need to do in this guy.
When I look at America now, I see, you know,
not just the floorboards creaking and the paint peeling. I mean,
I see that this country is desperate for forget about
the COVID and and and and as Howard Dean said
on this program, will be interviewed him. I said, will
(07:15):
we be in trouble financially if we keep printing money
to address the COVID economy? Said, We're gonna be in
trouble if we don't. We have to print this money
to keep this economy going, or we'll be in real
trouble if we don't. But my point is that you
turn around and education, healthcare, infrastructure, what's going on in Texas.
Everywhere you turn around, the country is fraying in terms
(07:35):
of some kind of infrastructure. How much longer can we
go on giving the Pentagon a blank check to do
whatever they want to do, to buy all this crap
bombs and planes and submarines, everything that we may or
may not need, when there's so many other things we
need to take care of this country right now. And
the Pentagon is what about seven fifty billion dollars a year,
so it's about three and a half four percent of
(07:57):
g d P honestly, and we're about to spend one
point trillion dollars on the COVID relief bill, which I
think is fine, but it just shows how much it
dwarfs whatever saving is you're going to get for the
Pentagon with fifty billion a hundred billions. So I really
don't think it's fundamental. And I would say the COVID
Covidge reminds us the world is inter connected. It matters
to us how the w h O is governed, it
(08:18):
matters to us how China is governed. And so the
notion that we can just sort of not worry so
much about the world, I don't think it's correct. And
then I think the liberal answer what I just said
would be, well, we can worry about the world, but
we don't need all the military side of it. But
I think the military side backs up the diplomatic side.
So I guess I'm I'm with the sort of Clinton
type Democrats on this now. And I think the Biden
(08:40):
administration and having reasonable defense preparedness and defense spending and
forward deployment to keep things stable and safe around the world.
And I think and also free trade and some of
these things that are out of fashion. Look at the
vaccine development, which is really a tribute I would say
to the kind of integrated flow capital and and also
(09:02):
of immigration accent only uh to America who they're They're
responsible for so many these scientific and medical breakthroughs out
of also just the medical care we're getting. So I'd
say I'm I'm a pretty unembarrassed globalist, and I think
part of that is having a reasonable military, you know,
capability neo conservative Bill Crystal. If you enjoy hearing from
(09:26):
independent minded conservatives, check out my two thousand and twelve
conversation with Pulitzer Prize winning columnist George Will. Today, we
have this cornucopia of news sources. People define journalism on
their own terms, get it on their own time. I
was told by an activist in South Carolina during the
primary this year that a survey showed that sevent of
(09:50):
all Republican primary voters in South Carolina get all, not most,
all of their news from Fox News. On a Republican
candidate buys an ad on Fox News, he's not broad casting,
he's narrow casting right in the Republican voters. Here more
of my conversation with George Will and here's the thing
dot org. After the break, Bill Crystal walks us through
(10:13):
the recent history of the Republican Party right to the
point where Trump lost Crystal's vote. I'm Alec Baldwin, and
you're listening to Here's the thing. Bill Crystal says his
initial enthusiasm for social media has faded. The changes have
(10:38):
been greater than I at first expected. I liked the
you know, the democratization of news to some degree. I
thought it was a healthy thing. I thought I discovered
personally a lot of people. I learned a lot from
whom I wouldn't have discovered in the old days, because
they wouldn't have been you know, fifty two year old
people who had moved moved their way, white males who
had moved up in the pecking order. And we're now
(10:58):
on partly frankly right. And so the kind of flowering
of a lot of voices was in many ways a
healthy thing, and I underestimated the damage it would do. Though,
the degree to which the echo chamber character of social
media Facebook, I think in particular, though, but also other
parts of social media have allowed people to live in
their own worlds and and believe that a lot of
(11:20):
things that aren't true. And also the kind of rewarding
of extremism and of a sort of superficial hot takes
as opposed to, you know, more serious consideration of things.
Having said all that, you know, when I talked to
young people go college campus, you know there's still that
hunger I think for real information and thoughtful analysis of things.
(11:41):
So I'm not despairing about it, but it does require
fresh thinking. I mean, I think in terms of regulation
and how we structure or how what government centers we
provide and distincenters for organizations like Facebook. Um, that's something
we've just let it develop on its own. Maybe that
was necessary for a while, understandable, but it is the
wild West, and it does require, Like the wild West
(12:02):
eventually did some law and order, some regulations, some sheriffs, Yeah,
some rules to try to get people to Uh, should
we bring back the fairness doctrine? I don't know how
important that would be at this point, honestly, and I
don't even know quite what it would applied to. I
guess is Fox News and news organization? Well, no, I
mean Fox News is so I was on Fox and
on the Sunday Show mostly I've been every week and
(12:24):
then somewhat on on the Special Report panel when when
Britt Hume was the host of special Report and then
a little bit with right there. I would say Fox
News was always conservative. It wasn't quite fair and balanced.
It was a sort of tugging cheek thing. But on
the other hand, it was very different. It's very different
have a conservative leading or even conservative oriented a news
(12:45):
organization with some shows with a little bit of demagoguery
frankly from Bill O'Reilly and a little bit of silliness
from Sean Hannity, but still kept in check mostly, I
would say, and balanced by other networks. And that is
very different from the true conspiracy, theorizing no holds barred,
(13:05):
denagar green dativism, racism. Really that you now get. I
think it's I remember when Trump did the birth of
stuff inve I just thought it was ludicrous and dismissed
it on Fox to use, and I would say most
of my fellow panelists did as well. That Fox did
give him that platform on Fox and Friends, but we
thought that was kind of the ridiculous show in any way.
People thought it was just idiocy. We underestimated how much
(13:26):
damage it would do. Obviously, I'm not trying to say
that it wasn't a big there'sn't a lot a lot
of people, including me, should be held responsible for being
part of that organization to the degree we were, but
I think the degree to which it spiraled out of control,
it's a big difference between having a sort of conservative
you know, pro tax cart, pro you know, conservative judges, whatever,
(13:46):
news organization and having one that truly deals and in
saying conspiracy theories and one that's a mouthpiece for the GOP.
And as a total matter, yeah, we criticized. I mean,
I was very I was pro the Iraq War, but
I was very critical of rumsfelt thought he should be fired.
Was with McCain and wanting dout more troops in a
different strategy. And you know, I said that repeatedly on Fox.
It was a little bit of bristling at times. Was
(14:07):
they were already a little bit getting into the mode of, gee,
we don't want to antagonize the Bush administration too much
Obama to drive them a little crazy, especially in the
second term. And I I don't really understand why it's
in retrospect. In retrospect, was President Obama such a radical president?
Not really, But I feel like looking back at what
I said to I mean, I don't think I said
anything terrible racist or you know, crazy, but the intensity
(14:31):
even of my opposition on some of the issues, uh,
the President Obama, I can't, I gotta say, looking back,
I find it a little startling, you know. I I
still would wish to structure healthcare reform differently and so
forth that he would, but I don't quite remember. It's
hard to put yourself back there. I don't think in
my case, honestly it was race. Maybe it wasn't some people's,
but the general spiraling of the right into a kind
(14:55):
of insanity over the last decade is something that's going
to take a while to just disentangled. But I do
think the media incent is what you began with like
is an important part of it. The incentators were always
to get more extreme. Who is a person speaking of
the way that the the media has transformed over the
last many years, who's someone deceased? Who's the news for you?
(15:18):
You really admired from yesteryear, if you will, that you'd
love to see that kind of person come back. Yeah, No,
it's I mean you mentioned to brink Huntly Wrinkley and
I got to know David a little bit, and it's
very last iteration when he hosted the Sunday Show on
ABC that I was on a few times when he
still did it, and I think six and that kind
of worldly wisdom, a little bit of irony and a
(15:39):
little bit of I've seen it all. I'm not going
to get too worked up. At the time, I thought
I was young, and fairly young, and I was a
little more kind of an enthusiast one way or the other.
But I thought, in a way, that is a healthy
thing for people to see, you know, what these things coming.
Let's not think that every policy fight, every disagreement, every
confirmation of some on is the end of the world.
(16:01):
And I do think that kind of wisdom someone who's
seen real war, World War two, who had seen real
social transformation and the civil rights movement and real battles
against you know, deeply in trans racism and so forth,
and that kind of perspective is something that people don't
don't have much these days. I mean, I miss my
friend Charles Craudhammer, who I think would say now today
(16:24):
probably what I would say about myself. They probably went
a little a little too harsh and his statements on
Obama and on the Democrats in that period, Where were
you too harsh on Obama. Well, I don't even know
that I would pull back too many of my differences
with him on some topics, whether it's Obamacare, which I
was critical of, or the Iran Deal and so forth.
(16:45):
But I just think the tone was too you know,
absolutist and uh just extreme in the sense that how
much damage Obama and the Democrats were doing and how
important it was to check him. And I mean, I'm
glad that he was checked in certain ways. But two
thousand nine, for example, the Tea Party began, and I
(17:05):
kind of thought, well, it's this sort of it's being
unfairly attacked. These are people who just don't like spending
all this money. You want to get back to a
world fashioned kind of conservatism. I think there was some
of that, honestly. Obviously there are a lot of decent
people who just thought, to you, why we spending all
this money to bail out the banks. But in retrospect,
it was it was an unleashing of passions that just
never got constrained. I mean, I think typically in American
(17:27):
history you get real passions. Sometimes they're for good, obviously
civil rights. Sometimes they're not so good, but then they
kind of get reined in and and and turned into
legislative agendas and sort of merged you might say, into
one of the parties and uh normalized a little bit
um and then the fringers get marginalized. But the opposite
(17:48):
happened here, the passions took over the party on the
Republican side, and again Trump Trump's It's hard to say
what would have happened. But what if Trump hadn't run.
What if he had just been like as he had
in the past, sort of pretending, getting some publicity, and
then he shows not to postured, right, What if he
had just posture? What if therefore the nominee had been
I don't know, Marko Rubio or Jem Bush or anyone
you want you know, or my favorite, Ted Cruz. Yeah, whatever,
(18:10):
what our politics be pretty different today. I guess I
on the one, and I think so because I do
think he's an important part of it. I mean, you
can have a lot of problems in our society and
our culture, a lot of bigotry, a lot of craziness, frankly,
but if it doesn't have a president willing to constantly
amplify it and magnify it, if you don't willing to
(18:30):
throw the match every day. You know, the gas, I
mean that the gas can sit there, could be bad,
it's not healthy, but it can sort of be kept
under control. So I guess I often do come. People
say you're a little obsessed with Trump, but I don't
think I am. But if I am, it's because I
do think this one man has done a huge amount
of damage. But I will hasten to say this. He
could not have done the damage without the enabling by
(18:52):
the Republican Party and the conservative elites. And that's if
you could have had a president who was a bit
of a crack pot, who was silly, who was the
demago was screened and yelled. But you know what if
the party, beginning in January seen and said, look, fine,
your president, you propose your stuff, but we're going to
legislate soberly. We're not gonna echo you and everything crazy
you say. We're going to rebuke you when you go
too far, you would have had an unusual four years
(19:14):
in American politics, but not maybe an excessively damaging four years,
but the degree to which Republican elected officials, Republican donors,
and I would say conservative intellectual elite, so that last
for me is the most painful in a way and
the most disturbing just we're willing to go along with
him because they wanted to be part of the winning team.
(19:35):
That that did huge damage. I mean, I'm a pretty
moderate Democrat, and I think to myself, you know, there's
a finer line between Trump and lb J than people
want to admit. I mean, lb J was a haranguing,
furniture throwing I mean he was a real I mean,
no matter how much Bob Caro has sanitized by lbj's reputation, um,
(19:57):
the the lb J was somebody who he didn't get
his way. He's gonna make your life hell. He's me
on the phone till four o'clock in the morning. He was.
He was a bit of a lunatic as well in
terms of him pursuing his his goals. You know, it's funny,
can just say, I mean, I've often thought about that,
that it was I very much agree with that, and
I somehow the system was set up maybe more to constraining.
But I think if you look back, it's funny we
we we look back ideally on those posts called post
(20:17):
World War two years. It's kind of a little bit
of a things were healthier than But I mean, look
at the presidents we had. Honestly, between lb J and Nixon,
we had two people who were pretty disturbed. I think
you'd have to say if you looked at it analytically, right,
I mean that's one word. Yeah, I mean they were
pretty they were they were, and we survived them and
the people around them. I think we're more but we
(20:37):
paid a big price, as you were saying with Vietnam.
But as you pointed out, we had people that were
willing to oppose them. Yes, we in the Watergate era,
we had Republicans willing to vote to convict. We had
people that would stand up to the sky. I'm wondering,
um Pence has disappeared. Pence is laying low? Is he
following the same plan as he borrowing down? Getting ready
for I guess they're all getting ready for four. But
(21:00):
I mean this is the big story for me of
the months since Trump left. But really the three months
since the election is you could reasonably have thought, Okay,
Trump loses, he doesn't lose his badly as people thought
he would, and as he would have been better if
he had lost worse. And it's because it's not a
full scale of rdiation. They picked up seats in the house.
They ended up losing the set up, but it was
repudiation esque. Yeah, yeah, but that's a pretty big difference.
(21:23):
But still, and you would have I would have said,
it was not crazy to them to think, well, maybe
he really will start to fade away, and maybe more
people will say, okay, enough already, let's move on the
degree to which he was able to pull off the
big lie and keep the party on board at his
own administration on board, and and conservative elites to some
degree on board for the big lie, at least for
a month or two. Then they finally broke a little
(21:45):
bit after December fourteenth, and then after January six, and
then after January six, a lot of people said, and
again this wasn't silly. Okay, that's in a finally in
a way, it's horrible that had happened, but an opportunity
to finally get rid of Trump. And now look at it,
not at all out at all, right, I mean, Kevin
McCarthy goes to visit them, they're all busy sucking up
to him. The ones who don't want to suck up,
(22:06):
but just keeping quiet and hoping magically he goes away.
I think for me that's the almost as depressing as
the initial enabling of Trump is the current re enabling
of Trump. Well, I think that people who are of
a certain stripe, it's either that or they have nowhere
to go. If if you if you step away from
Trump and you go into the other camp, you're gonna
be in the corner with a drink in your hand,
(22:27):
all by yourself. You're gonna be lonely. There's no turning
back for them now, and you're gonna be attacked bitterly.
I mean that people do underestimate that. I mean, it
is silly, these county committees and the centers and all,
but if you're an actual politician, it's kind of your life, right,
That's what you do on weekends. You go to these meetings.
You meet these people. You've known these people for a while,
they supported you, they helped you. You go meet your
dotors and they're all attacking you. And that's why. Ultimately,
(22:51):
of course, the voters are the problem. And but they
get it's sort of a catch train to the leader.
The elites need to tell the truth to the voters.
They don't want to. They're intimidated, and so the voters
may continue in the delusions they've been led into by
Trump and his and his enablers. Do you ever spend
any time with Trump? No, I mean I met him
a couple of times, just as very marginally, and he
(23:13):
called this and I'll tell one story. So in the
summer after announced, uh, we were at the Trump at
the beginning of the Weekly Standard. But I wrote editorial
about three weeks into his um campaigns with June July,
and I said, you know, Trump's getting some traction. We
do not we would never support Donald Trump for president
at the Weekly Standard, but we will say that he's
(23:34):
getting some traction and he's probably hit some themes that
the other candidates need to look at and figure out
how to dullify. They can't just assume Trump is going
to go away. I had originally thought, like other candidates before,
whether it's a Pep Buchanan or Herman Kine or something,
you know, he would kind of fizzle out and the
establishment would as he always had win. So but I said,
I was worried about Trump. So this senatorial was I
(23:57):
guess you might say, respectful of Trump as a political
phenomenon that would be clear and like the second sentence
or something that we would never could never support him
bed for the country. So I get a phone call
on a Friday after the introal goes out, it goes
online Thursday night close the magazine and Thursday night then
and Friday afternoon, I get a phone call. I'm kind
of the office phone, and the receptionist comes back and says,
(24:18):
this someone on the phone. It's a woman and assistant
apparently saying that Donald Trump wants to talk to you.
So of course I figured it was some friend of mine, like,
goofing off, You'm playing a joke. But I was sitting
literally sitting my desk and it was kind of quiet,
so I said, okay, I get whoever it is, I'll
go along. And it was in fact Donald Trump's long
time personal secretary, and it was Trump and he was
(24:39):
calling from the plane, his plane that was about to
take off to go to Iowa. And it was like
it was funny, he said, I remember the stell. He
said stuff like, hey, they tell me you what some
editorial that was pretty nice to me that you said
you wouldn't vote for me. But I'll talk you out
of that. But at least you understand that they should
take me seriously. And what was funny was they said,
you vote the editorial. It was obvious and the editor
was seven words. You know, It's like it didn't even
(24:59):
a heard of him that he would read the editorial.
I'm not saying is that of any vanity that it
was like well written or anything. It's just kind of
funny that it's so much his world of people giving
him something and say, this guy Crystal is kind of
a pain. But you know, maybe you call him up
and stroke him for three minutes and maybe he'll be
nice around when he's on TV or he and Trump
was pretty good at that, I would say. I mean,
you know, it was a kind of in a certain
(25:21):
way if you like that kind of thing. He's, hey,
well we've gotta get together sometime on the trail, you know,
by buy a coffee, and I mean by your drink.
I don't drink, but you know, maybe you drink. And
I was kind of a little bit of that New
York backslapping sort of thing. That was Friday. He took
off Iowa. He said, I gotta hang up taking off Ioway.
I said, well, safe travels on on the trail and
look forward to meeting you at some point, I suppose,
(25:42):
and that he took off. The next day was the
day that he attacked McCain in Iowa and said that
McCain wasn't a hero. I don't like people who've been captured.
The day after, I was on actually on ABC on
this Week and and said Trump's dead. I've never liked him,
but now he's he's dead. To be personally, I just
said so offensive what he just said. But also I
(26:03):
can't believe he could be the nominee. So that's my
political genius there. But that was a memorable two or
three days. So that was That's the last feel conversation
I had with Trump. I'm told you have a very
record and prognostication politically. Is that true? Yeah? Yeah, because
I always like to it's like the mess, you know.
I always like to pick the long shot and be contrarian,
but sometimes that doesn't work out. So well, yeah, right
(26:25):
now we're close to Garland probably being confirmed as the
attorney general. Yeah, this is the pivotal moment. I mean,
Biden winning I'm happy about the Garland nomination is something
that nothing has cheered me more than that Nothing's made
me happier than that. And I'm wondering which ones of
Trump's appointees, because Bar is my choice of were the
ones that were the most troublesome for you. Yeah, I'd
(26:46):
say Bar because it's such an important department, and because
I knew him a little bit, and I didn't quite
expect him to go as far as he did in
accommodating and enabling Trump. Why do you think he did?
Because he liked being attorney general and it was power,
and maybe talked himself into some of that. And I'm
sure he also talked himself into the if I don't
if I do this, I probably can not do some
other things that would be even crazier. It's hard to
(27:07):
know with people. And look, you know this, it's people's
psychologies are complicated, so they they're not, you know, coldly
calculating rational. They talked themselves into things and they kind
of believe them. They start off not believing things and
they end up believing them. Pompeio similarly, who I it
was slightly and thought was pretty conservative and pretty partisan.
But the degree to which he just became a really
(27:28):
kind of disgraceful secretary of State I think I wouldn't
quite have expected that either, So, but those are important
departments defense. I think until the very end when he
fired us after the election, you know, they mostly prevented
the worst stuff from happening there, So I give them
some credit for that. How did you feel the way
that Garland's Supreme Court nomination was handled as a lined
(27:50):
up against Barrett? Did that horrify you? The way that
McConnell's positioned that, Yes, it did, and I sort of
I think we said so at the time, but in
a kind of oh its, we don't really think this
is you know, this is just taking partisanship to a
new level. But whatever McConnell's doing, and I didn't think
you get away with it. I actually thought more Republican
senators even would say, you can't really do this as
pretty unprecedented. But I know Garland very slightly, but I
(28:13):
respect him a lot. I was very pleased that he
was nominated. I think he wouldn't have been. This is
one of these cases where one thing at least to another.
Because they won the Democrats one of those two Senate
races in Georgia January five, Biden felt he could afford
to nominate Garland, but he would then be able to
replace Garland on the DC circuit, very important, the most
important circuit below the Streme Court. So it's one of
(28:34):
these things where I don't think we would have Merrick
Garland a security general if the Democrats hadn't pulled out
those upsets and Georgia were about to have him. Uh,
people think very well of him. I like most of
Biden's appointments, you know, I mean most of the big ones.
What concerns you most about him? Because Biden is older,
he'll be eighty two years old or approaching eighty two
years old, what concerns you most about a Kamala Harris presidency.
(28:58):
I have to agree. Personal concern earns. I mean, I
think she's a serious person and a pretty impressive person,
you know, generally, as you would expect coming from where
I've come, I prefer a more moderate Democrat. But I
would say this, I think politically what concerns me is
that it'll be easier to portray her as radical, and
some of that is let's not get ourselves of race
and gender, and that's not that's not her fault. I mean,
(29:20):
that's not a negative. I'm just saying in the real
world of politics, it'll be a little easier for some
demagogic Republicans and ad makers to say Kamala Harris is
dangerous to you, as opposed to saying Joe Biden is
dangerous too. So I am a little worried about the
politics in a general election of Harris. But if she's
been vice president for Biden for four years, when week
(29:41):
she will have a record, they'll have a record, and
I assume she would run as the heir to the
Biden records. So if Biden has been a good president,
I think Democrats have a pretty good chance in four
and I think it's important. I mean, I say this
is someone who's still has some hopes that Republican Party
might come back someday. But I've got to say for
the foreseeable few you, which for me is really I
(30:03):
don't see a Republican party that one could really support
in good conscience. And I think it's important that Democrats
wind it to prevent this kind of authoritarianism and nativism
and demagoguery from coming back. And if that's the case,
I think it's important that Biden be a successful president.
I'm obsessed with the fact that no one talks about
Biden like everyone talks about Trump, which is understandable, and
(30:24):
everyone talks about all these other things going on in
the country and in the world, but it kind of
matters an old habit. Yeah, I want to see Joe
Biden succeed. I think it's important for the country to
have a sort of successful president Bill Crystal. If you're
enjoying this conversation, tell a friend and be sure to
subscribe to hear the thing on the I Heart radio app,
(30:47):
Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. When we
come back, Bill Crystal talks about what it will take
to loosen Trump's stranglehold on the Republican Party. I'm Alec Baldwin,
(31:07):
and you were listening to Here's the thing. Bill Crystal
founded the Weekly Standard. In The Weekly Standard was closed
down by our owners because we were anti Trump. At
the end of eighteen, I had given up being editor,
but I was sort of editor at large as Steve
Hayes was entor. And then it was closed down. Why
tell me? Because we were anti Trump and he was.
(31:28):
He's a wealthy business guy who is not himself like Trump,
but he wanted to get along with tru and the
Trump people were pretty tough that way. They would let
people know, why why are you paying for and effects
upsidizing this magazine that's attacking us all the time, And
maybe he just didn't like it. I don't know, so
he closed us down. He wouldn't let us find a buyer.
Is quite quite annoying. And so just a week later
(31:48):
I was sort of sitting on I think, at what
should we do? And Jonathan Lasa, let's let's just start
a website and we can probably get some readers we have,
we can get some good writers. Charlie Sikes was there
at the beginning to an other ex Republican, James Carver,
wrote for us. He went a very moving piece about hey,
we're on the same side. Now this is the height
of the election campaign obviously, so now, I mean, I'm
(32:08):
proud of it. It's been very I think it's been
open minded, it's been centrist, it's Republican, you might send
some issues and moderate Democrat on others. And above all
the critical of Trump and of the accommodation to Trump.
And I think the great insight Jonathan last and Charlie's
sakes have had is it's not going away. You can't
just tell yourself Trump is so longer president. Let's just
go back to being the kind of conservative Republicans. Are
(32:30):
moderately conservative Republicans we were in two or that does
not work. There was something wrong already that we didn't
pay enough attention to. But more importantly, whether it was
wrong or not, what's happened has happened, and the party
has got along with Trump and it's a different party.
And as we're seeing at the state level, these crazy
people are taking over the party at the local state level.
And then it's a big question what do we do
(32:51):
with third party? Try to fight to reform the Republican Party.
I just wrote a piece yesterday say, yeah, maybe what
we do is try to help Joe Biden be as
good at president as possible and accepted for now where
they're kind of ex Republican wing of the Democratic Party.
And we're not gonna be happy with everything the Democrats do.
But what democrat is happy with everything the Democrats do?
You know? So I'm very proud of the Bulwark. That
website is the Bulwark dot com. The Bulwark dot com. Yeah,
(33:13):
I'm so grateful to hear you say that. You want
to hear Biden succeed, and I would want a McCain
administration or so forth to succeed as well. And I
just singled out Trump with I just thought Trump was different.
This is different, because that's what horrified me about the
election when they voted for him in two thousand and sixteen.
I thought that my said, well, you didn't know. Now
(33:34):
you know, you voted for him again and you knew
what you knew. I totally agree. I think such an
important point. I mean, I've said that an election night.
We did a live stream with the bullwork this you
know it and at midnight, and it was pretty clear
that Biden was gonna win once the late vote you know,
came in and Philadelphia and so forth. But I was
pretty depressed. And people said after this, and it was
because it wasn't enough of repudiation and because seventy four
(33:55):
million people voted for Trump after four years of Trump
and you know, you could talk yourself into thinking, shake
things up, kind of useful business guy, and they'll keep
in lie and the other people of the party outside. Yeah,
And I didn't agree with it, obviously, and I think
it was a short sighted and foolish but it was
you could be honestly a decent person and think that.
(34:17):
I think I kind of talk yourself into it. I
have trouble. I mean with thete seventy four million people
for Trump after watching him for four years, there's something
really worrisome about that. Over the arc of your considerable career.
And I'm not saying this to be kind. I mean,
you're such a smart and you're such a blazingly articulate guy.
Why haven't you run for office? Did you ever contemplate that? Ever?
(34:41):
You know, once or twice? This is funny. In the nineties,
so the Bush I was in the regular Bush administrations.
We lost, obviously, and so I was kind of a
free person in January ninety three, trying to figure what
to do next. Ended up starting the Weekly Standard magazine
about two years later, two and half years later. But
and a few people did say, come back to New
York and run for something, and it just didn't seem
I don't have the personality of a politician. I am not.
(35:02):
I am not a hail fellow. Well, Matt, I think
I'm a polite person, but I'm probably too just not
really into the no retail politics for you now, I
don't think sitting at all these long dinners and pretending
to be interested by everyone's speeches and all that. I I,
what about appointments we ever approached about in an appointment? Wells,
I served in the regular Bush administration. I of course, yeah,
what did you do in those two administrations? So I
(35:23):
was I went to Washington eight five that this is
a pretty young thirty two, I guess. I was a
speechwriter for a bit for Bill Bennett and then became
his chief of staff of the Education Department. That was
a different era. I think Bill was a you know,
he was controversial, but he was a forced for education
reform and stuff. We tried to be civilized where we
even though we caused some trouble. Then I went into
the George H. W. Bush White House and worked for
(35:44):
Dan Quayle, the vice president, and became his chief of
staff after a few months. And that, of course, yes,
I got a thick skin, just like you do. You know,
after four years of being of taking grief for that,
I'm glad we provided a lot of material for a
Saturday out live of brothers. And he's a good man, honestly,
and and I think you know, had some bad breaks
in terms of br and all, and I didn't do
a very good job, probably assistive of staff helping him
(36:05):
overcome that. I think he was actually pretty good Vice president.
The George H. W. Bush administration was a pretty good administration.
I think historians will judge. Signed some bipartisan legislation Clean
Air Act, American's Disabilities that got the budget deficit going
in the right direction, ended the Cold War peacefully and responsibly,
got Sadamo saying out of Kuwait, which I think was
the right thing to do. We just got Cooberate, we
(36:26):
got colloberd In No people want to change twelve years
of Reagan. Bush Clinton was an attractive candidate. Good lesson that.
You know, election results don't always correlate maybe with what's deserved.
But anyway, that was my last Uh yeah, I have
a good record of being on That was the one
campaign I was most involved in, the ninety two Bush
Cuil reelect, and we got and we got and we
got crushed. So that's my I've had a very I've
(36:47):
had a very consistent electoral That's what another reason I
didn't get into electoral politics from the very beginning. I've
never been really much of a success in that area.
Do you think Trump has anything to worry from side
Vance and New York? Yeah, I don't know a thing
more than I've read, but yeah, I think he does. Yeah.
He certainly went out of his way, fought all the
hard to keep his tax returns and business records out
of their hands. And usually if people do that, that's
(37:09):
because they don't want prosecutors. They think they're worried about
what prosecutors will find. Why do you think the Republican
Party can't shake their addiction to Trump? So? I think
for the elites it is it is somewhat fear and opportunitism.
But I think for a lot of the voters, I
just think we can't overestimate how much Trump unleashed a
lot of things they had been feeling and anxieties, concerns,
(37:30):
but also bigotries and hatreds frankly, and resentments. And once
people are told it's fine, you should say things that
you wouldn't in the past, they might have thought these things.
I'm not. I don't have a polyaddish view exactly. That's
what I say to people. What Trump did was there
were things that we knew that half the country felt
this way. They have their prejudices, their racism, their anti semitism,
their misogyny or whatever. But he didn't say that, and
(37:53):
it makes a big difference. If you don't say it
and can't say it, because it does mean that you
sort of are acknowledging, then that's not quite respectable. Look
in a better world, people wouldn't think it in the
first place. But in a decent world, you can still
have a decent world where people keep it to themselves,
so to speak, at least most of the time. But
once the president unleashes it and ratifies it and justifies
it and fosters it, it's very hard to put that
(38:15):
toothpaste back in the tube. Bill Crystal, editor at large
of the Bulwark dot Com. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're
listening to Here's the Thing. We're produced by Kathleen Russo,
Carrie donohue and Zach McNeice. Our engineer is Frank Imperial.
(38:36):
Thanks for listening.
I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
from my Heart radio. In February, none other than Bill
Crystal tweeted, we are all Democrats now. From one of
the nation's leading conservatives, it was yet another sign of
the chasm between moderate Republicans and Trump loyalists. Crystel earned
(00:26):
his political stripes serving in the Reagan and George H. W.
Bush administrations, then as founder and editor of The Weekly
Standard for more than two decades, he argued for hawkish
foreign policy, lower taxes, and against universal health care. After
the January sixth insurrection, Crystal says our democracy is facing
(00:49):
an internal crisis. It's all enough to make him regret
Hillary Clinton's two thousand sixteen loss. We would be much
better off. Just reckless disregard science and denial of truth
and demagoguery of Trump that's unmatched, in my view, really
by by a major party nominee of either of either
party in modern times, and bad enough that he got
(01:11):
the domination. I thought that would do real damage to
the country. But then winning the election, in which obviously
that damage is by no means over or even beginning
to be over. I think the degree to which having
a really reckless demagogue, nativist, authoritarian demagogue as president for
four years, that takes a while to recover from. You know,
(01:31):
New York is always new Trump. Yes, Trump was a vacuous,
I mean vapid nonentity in New York and people wouldn't
do business with him. Well, I mean, I think in
New York society, which I don't put myself in New
York society. I'm not an astor, if you will, but
but in my life of tickets and tables and going
to charitable events for the last thirty thirty five years,
(01:52):
Trump was always a drive by presidents. You know, he
had the tuxedo in the glove compartment, He jumped out
of the limo, snap snap on the red carpet on.
Never a tablemate, never a conversation to be had. But
let me switch back. Your father was obviously this figure
that looms large and the neo conservative movement. What was
your home life like? What was the intellectual were you
(02:13):
like the conservative Kennedy's at the dinner table you had
to beat Foreign Affairs Magazine before you sat down for
your salad course. No, I think my parents of anything bent,
were a little bit backwards to you know, let me
go play baseball or football or basketball and Riverside Park
and and we were all big sports fans, including my father,
and so many of my memories, like everyone else's memories,
(02:35):
I suppose of being ten, twelve, fourteen years old is
watching TV with my father and my mother, not so
much in sports, but watching, uh, the Jets and the
Mets that I was. I was a big New York
sports fan. And it was the sixties. You were Jets, Mats,
not Giants Yankees. Yes, my junior senior in high school
featured the Jets winning the huge upset in the Super
bowlth three, sixty met swinning the World Series and sixty
(02:57):
nine and the nixt winning in nineteen seventy with Little
Street hobbling onto the court. So that was where I
always felt like. I never was quite as much of
a sports fan after that, because how can you do
better than root for these teams, which, as you say,
we're pretty hopeless in the beginning of the decade when
I started to do do it for them, and one by
the end of the decade. But when they won these titles,
it was a shock to New York. Yeah, people forget
(03:18):
that it's like, well, of course, you know Joe Namoth
Willow Street, but it was it was in the Mets
were of course a total shock. So so that was
an exciting I had a good youth in that respect,
in terms of sports, and and honestly we watched a
lot of mysteries on TV and stuff, so we were
we were pretty um, I mean, my parents were intellectuals,
and I grew up surrounded by more books, I suppose
than an average kid, and then therefore did pick up
(03:40):
a lot of that obviously. But actually, and also in
the sixties, this is sort of before neo conservatives, and
so they were kind of old fashioned liberals. They supported
Hubert hung Free from president and sixty eight and what changed, well,
they would say, and they would have said, and I
would agree with this, that the left, the old fashioned
lived list and got overtaken by the new left, and
they didn't like that. Around what time, late sixties, I
(04:02):
would say, I mean, in New York the teacher strike
was a big deal. But the failure of John Lindsay
as mayor, the sense that domestic policy things were falling apart,
crime was increasing, the city wasn't being well governed. Some
of these big government programs weren't working too well. And
then in foreign policy that kind of George willgoverned victory
and the Democratic Party a very decent man, but a
(04:23):
very devilsh view of America's well in the world. So
they moved to the right, and uh, methought they were
always kind of heterodoxy liberals, I would say, sort of
contrarian and didn't just take liberal pieties for granted. But
uh yeah, in the seventies they certainly that's when do
conservatives came into existence. It was originally a term of
opprobrium used by a Democratic socialist, Michael Harrington, who attacked
(04:46):
my thought. He thought it would sort of be the
It would discredit all these liberals who were retaking liberalism,
to call them by the dread word. This is so
long ago conservative, ordo conservative. But he couldn't quite say conservative,
as they obviously weren't conservatives from youth. So they were
neo conservatives. And remember my father wrote My father wrote
a piece I think in nine seventy four saying, Okay, look,
I guess if they want to call me indio conservative,
(05:07):
I'll accept the term. A lot of his friends resisted
it throughout the seventies say no, we're the true liberals.
But you know how politics is, you sort of end
up with the term. They stick on you when you
talk about McGovern, devish and so forth. And I come
from a different place where I believe that, you know,
Vietnam is the stain we're never going to be able
to wash away. That's when the country really took the
(05:30):
turn down, and we've never recovered from that, and and
I'm curious as to whether we ever will because we
knew it was wrong way back when we knew Ran
Corporation Elsberg all that we knew it was wrong, and
when we pressed on. But the point is that how
much longer do you think the United States can afford?
And you can correct me if you think this is
that this is not an apt description to be this
(05:51):
world policeman going around the world and telling everybody else
what to do all the time in order to benefit
ourselves economically. How much longer can we afford to do
that financially? Well, I think we can afford to do it,
or in the sense I think the price we would
pay for not doing some of it is even greater.
I mean, Vietnam was obviously in retrospect, I mean a mistake.
I think we stumbled into it with decent intentions Kennedy
(06:12):
and to some degree Johnson, people like McNamara, who was,
you know, a person who wanted to do the right thing.
And then we got out in a way that was
was understandable why we got out the way we did.
And then of course Vietnam fell on seventy five and Cambodia,
it was pretty disastrous. On the other hand, Reagan came
back at eight and we won the Cold War, and
it felt it really what I was that firing a shot.
(06:34):
And in the nineties, you know, we managed to help
construct a Europe that was kind of whole and free.
We defeated Milosovich. So I would still defend the kind
of US, uh, the model of US internationalism and to
some degree of interventionism that held through most of those years.
And I think we had a world that wasn't getting
(06:54):
better and in pretty good shape for all the mistakes
that various administrations have made. But you believe that there
are things that we need to do in this guy.
When I look at America now, I see, you know,
not just the floorboards creaking and the paint peeling. I mean,
I see that this country is desperate for forget about
the COVID and and and and as Howard Dean said
on this program, will be interviewed him. I said, will
(07:15):
we be in trouble financially if we keep printing money
to address the COVID economy? Said, We're gonna be in
trouble if we don't. We have to print this money
to keep this economy going, or we'll be in real
trouble if we don't. But my point is that you
turn around and education, healthcare, infrastructure, what's going on in Texas.
Everywhere you turn around, the country is fraying in terms
(07:35):
of some kind of infrastructure. How much longer can we
go on giving the Pentagon a blank check to do
whatever they want to do, to buy all this crap
bombs and planes and submarines, everything that we may or
may not need, when there's so many other things we
need to take care of this country right now. And
the Pentagon is what about seven fifty billion dollars a year,
so it's about three and a half four percent of
(07:57):
g d P honestly, and we're about to spend one
point trillion dollars on the COVID relief bill, which I
think is fine, but it just shows how much it
dwarfs whatever saving is you're going to get for the
Pentagon with fifty billion a hundred billions. So I really
don't think it's fundamental. And I would say the COVID
Covidge reminds us the world is inter connected. It matters
to us how the w h O is governed, it
(08:18):
matters to us how China is governed. And so the
notion that we can just sort of not worry so
much about the world, I don't think it's correct. And
then I think the liberal answer what I just said
would be, well, we can worry about the world, but
we don't need all the military side of it. But
I think the military side backs up the diplomatic side.
So I guess I'm I'm with the sort of Clinton
type Democrats on this now. And I think the Biden
(08:40):
administration and having reasonable defense preparedness and defense spending and
forward deployment to keep things stable and safe around the world.
And I think and also free trade and some of
these things that are out of fashion. Look at the
vaccine development, which is really a tribute I would say
to the kind of integrated flow capital and and also
(09:02):
of immigration accent only uh to America who they're They're
responsible for so many these scientific and medical breakthroughs out
of also just the medical care we're getting. So I'd
say I'm I'm a pretty unembarrassed globalist, and I think
part of that is having a reasonable military, you know,
capability neo conservative Bill Crystal. If you enjoy hearing from
(09:26):
independent minded conservatives, check out my two thousand and twelve
conversation with Pulitzer Prize winning columnist George Will. Today, we
have this cornucopia of news sources. People define journalism on
their own terms, get it on their own time. I
was told by an activist in South Carolina during the
primary this year that a survey showed that sevent of
(09:50):
all Republican primary voters in South Carolina get all, not most,
all of their news from Fox News. On a Republican
candidate buys an ad on Fox News, he's not broad casting,
he's narrow casting right in the Republican voters. Here more
of my conversation with George Will and here's the thing
dot org. After the break, Bill Crystal walks us through
(10:13):
the recent history of the Republican Party right to the
point where Trump lost Crystal's vote. I'm Alec Baldwin, and
you're listening to Here's the thing. Bill Crystal says his
initial enthusiasm for social media has faded. The changes have
(10:38):
been greater than I at first expected. I liked the
you know, the democratization of news to some degree. I
thought it was a healthy thing. I thought I discovered
personally a lot of people. I learned a lot from
whom I wouldn't have discovered in the old days, because
they wouldn't have been you know, fifty two year old
people who had moved moved their way, white males who
had moved up in the pecking order. And we're now
(10:58):
on partly frankly right. And so the kind of flowering
of a lot of voices was in many ways a
healthy thing, and I underestimated the damage it would do. Though,
the degree to which the echo chamber character of social
media Facebook, I think in particular, though, but also other
parts of social media have allowed people to live in
their own worlds and and believe that a lot of
(11:20):
things that aren't true. And also the kind of rewarding
of extremism and of a sort of superficial hot takes
as opposed to, you know, more serious consideration of things.
Having said all that, you know, when I talked to
young people go college campus, you know there's still that
hunger I think for real information and thoughtful analysis of things.
(11:41):
So I'm not despairing about it, but it does require
fresh thinking. I mean, I think in terms of regulation
and how we structure or how what government centers we
provide and distincenters for organizations like Facebook. Um, that's something
we've just let it develop on its own. Maybe that
was necessary for a while, understandable, but it is the
wild West, and it does require, Like the wild West
(12:02):
eventually did some law and order, some regulations, some sheriffs, Yeah,
some rules to try to get people to Uh, should
we bring back the fairness doctrine? I don't know how
important that would be at this point, honestly, and I
don't even know quite what it would applied to. I
guess is Fox News and news organization? Well, no, I
mean Fox News is so I was on Fox and
on the Sunday Show mostly I've been every week and
(12:24):
then somewhat on on the Special Report panel when when
Britt Hume was the host of special Report and then
a little bit with right there. I would say Fox
News was always conservative. It wasn't quite fair and balanced.
It was a sort of tugging cheek thing. But on
the other hand, it was very different. It's very different
have a conservative leading or even conservative oriented a news
(12:45):
organization with some shows with a little bit of demagoguery
frankly from Bill O'Reilly and a little bit of silliness
from Sean Hannity, but still kept in check mostly, I
would say, and balanced by other networks. And that is
very different from the true conspiracy, theorizing no holds barred,
(13:05):
denagar green dativism, racism. Really that you now get. I
think it's I remember when Trump did the birth of
stuff inve I just thought it was ludicrous and dismissed
it on Fox to use, and I would say most
of my fellow panelists did as well. That Fox did
give him that platform on Fox and Friends, but we
thought that was kind of the ridiculous show in any way.
People thought it was just idiocy. We underestimated how much
(13:26):
damage it would do. Obviously, I'm not trying to say
that it wasn't a big there'sn't a lot a lot
of people, including me, should be held responsible for being
part of that organization to the degree we were, but
I think the degree to which it spiraled out of control,
it's a big difference between having a sort of conservative
you know, pro tax cart, pro you know, conservative judges, whatever,
(13:46):
news organization and having one that truly deals and in
saying conspiracy theories and one that's a mouthpiece for the GOP.
And as a total matter, yeah, we criticized. I mean,
I was very I was pro the Iraq War, but
I was very critical of rumsfelt thought he should be fired.
Was with McCain and wanting dout more troops in a
different strategy. And you know, I said that repeatedly on Fox.
It was a little bit of bristling at times. Was
(14:07):
they were already a little bit getting into the mode of, gee,
we don't want to antagonize the Bush administration too much
Obama to drive them a little crazy, especially in the
second term. And I I don't really understand why it's
in retrospect. In retrospect, was President Obama such a radical president?
Not really, But I feel like looking back at what
I said to I mean, I don't think I said
anything terrible racist or you know, crazy, but the intensity
(14:31):
even of my opposition on some of the issues, uh,
the President Obama, I can't, I gotta say, looking back,
I find it a little startling, you know. I I
still would wish to structure healthcare reform differently and so
forth that he would, but I don't quite remember. It's
hard to put yourself back there. I don't think in
my case, honestly it was race. Maybe it wasn't some people's,
but the general spiraling of the right into a kind
(14:55):
of insanity over the last decade is something that's going
to take a while to just disentangled. But I do
think the media incent is what you began with like
is an important part of it. The incentators were always
to get more extreme. Who is a person speaking of
the way that the the media has transformed over the
last many years, who's someone deceased? Who's the news for you?
(15:18):
You really admired from yesteryear, if you will, that you'd
love to see that kind of person come back. Yeah, No,
it's I mean you mentioned to brink Huntly Wrinkley and
I got to know David a little bit, and it's
very last iteration when he hosted the Sunday Show on
ABC that I was on a few times when he
still did it, and I think six and that kind
of worldly wisdom, a little bit of irony and a
(15:39):
little bit of I've seen it all. I'm not going
to get too worked up. At the time, I thought
I was young, and fairly young, and I was a
little more kind of an enthusiast one way or the other.
But I thought, in a way, that is a healthy
thing for people to see, you know, what these things coming.
Let's not think that every policy fight, every disagreement, every
confirmation of some on is the end of the world.
(16:01):
And I do think that kind of wisdom someone who's
seen real war, World War two, who had seen real
social transformation and the civil rights movement and real battles
against you know, deeply in trans racism and so forth,
and that kind of perspective is something that people don't
don't have much these days. I mean, I miss my
friend Charles Craudhammer, who I think would say now today
(16:24):
probably what I would say about myself. They probably went
a little a little too harsh and his statements on
Obama and on the Democrats in that period, Where were
you too harsh on Obama. Well, I don't even know
that I would pull back too many of my differences
with him on some topics, whether it's Obamacare, which I
was critical of, or the Iran Deal and so forth.
(16:45):
But I just think the tone was too you know,
absolutist and uh just extreme in the sense that how
much damage Obama and the Democrats were doing and how
important it was to check him. And I mean, I'm
glad that he was checked in certain ways. But two
thousand nine, for example, the Tea Party began, and I
(17:05):
kind of thought, well, it's this sort of it's being
unfairly attacked. These are people who just don't like spending
all this money. You want to get back to a
world fashioned kind of conservatism. I think there was some
of that, honestly. Obviously there are a lot of decent
people who just thought, to you, why we spending all
this money to bail out the banks. But in retrospect,
it was it was an unleashing of passions that just
never got constrained. I mean, I think typically in American
(17:27):
history you get real passions. Sometimes they're for good, obviously
civil rights. Sometimes they're not so good, but then they
kind of get reined in and and and turned into
legislative agendas and sort of merged you might say, into
one of the parties and uh normalized a little bit
um and then the fringers get marginalized. But the opposite
(17:48):
happened here, the passions took over the party on the
Republican side, and again Trump Trump's It's hard to say
what would have happened. But what if Trump hadn't run.
What if he had just been like as he had
in the past, sort of pretending, getting some publicity, and
then he shows not to postured, right, What if he
had just posture? What if therefore the nominee had been
I don't know, Marko Rubio or Jem Bush or anyone
you want you know, or my favorite, Ted Cruz. Yeah, whatever,
(18:10):
what our politics be pretty different today. I guess I
on the one, and I think so because I do
think he's an important part of it. I mean, you
can have a lot of problems in our society and
our culture, a lot of bigotry, a lot of craziness, frankly,
but if it doesn't have a president willing to constantly
amplify it and magnify it, if you don't willing to
(18:30):
throw the match every day. You know, the gas, I
mean that the gas can sit there, could be bad,
it's not healthy, but it can sort of be kept
under control. So I guess I often do come. People
say you're a little obsessed with Trump, but I don't
think I am. But if I am, it's because I
do think this one man has done a huge amount
of damage. But I will hasten to say this. He
could not have done the damage without the enabling by
(18:52):
the Republican Party and the conservative elites. And that's if
you could have had a president who was a bit
of a crack pot, who was silly, who was the
demago was screened and yelled. But you know what if
the party, beginning in January seen and said, look, fine,
your president, you propose your stuff, but we're going to
legislate soberly. We're not gonna echo you and everything crazy
you say. We're going to rebuke you when you go
too far, you would have had an unusual four years
(19:14):
in American politics, but not maybe an excessively damaging four years,
but the degree to which Republican elected officials, Republican donors,
and I would say conservative intellectual elite, so that last
for me is the most painful in a way and
the most disturbing just we're willing to go along with
him because they wanted to be part of the winning team.
(19:35):
That that did huge damage. I mean, I'm a pretty
moderate Democrat, and I think to myself, you know, there's
a finer line between Trump and lb J than people
want to admit. I mean, lb J was a haranguing,
furniture throwing I mean he was a real I mean,
no matter how much Bob Caro has sanitized by lbj's reputation, um,
(19:57):
the the lb J was somebody who he didn't get
his way. He's gonna make your life hell. He's me
on the phone till four o'clock in the morning. He was.
He was a bit of a lunatic as well in
terms of him pursuing his his goals. You know, it's funny,
can just say, I mean, I've often thought about that,
that it was I very much agree with that, and
I somehow the system was set up maybe more to constraining.
But I think if you look back, it's funny we
we we look back ideally on those posts called post
(20:17):
World War two years. It's kind of a little bit
of a things were healthier than But I mean, look
at the presidents we had. Honestly, between lb J and Nixon,
we had two people who were pretty disturbed. I think
you'd have to say if you looked at it analytically, right,
I mean that's one word. Yeah, I mean they were
pretty they were they were, and we survived them and
the people around them. I think we're more but we
(20:37):
paid a big price, as you were saying with Vietnam.
But as you pointed out, we had people that were
willing to oppose them. Yes, we in the Watergate era,
we had Republicans willing to vote to convict. We had
people that would stand up to the sky. I'm wondering,
um Pence has disappeared. Pence is laying low? Is he
following the same plan as he borrowing down? Getting ready
for I guess they're all getting ready for four. But
(21:00):
I mean this is the big story for me of
the months since Trump left. But really the three months
since the election is you could reasonably have thought, Okay,
Trump loses, he doesn't lose his badly as people thought
he would, and as he would have been better if
he had lost worse. And it's because it's not a
full scale of rdiation. They picked up seats in the house.
They ended up losing the set up, but it was
repudiation esque. Yeah, yeah, but that's a pretty big difference.
(21:23):
But still, and you would have I would have said,
it was not crazy to them to think, well, maybe
he really will start to fade away, and maybe more
people will say, okay, enough already, let's move on the
degree to which he was able to pull off the
big lie and keep the party on board at his
own administration on board, and and conservative elites to some
degree on board for the big lie, at least for
a month or two. Then they finally broke a little
(21:45):
bit after December fourteenth, and then after January six, and
then after January six, a lot of people said, and
again this wasn't silly. Okay, that's in a finally in
a way, it's horrible that had happened, but an opportunity
to finally get rid of Trump. And now look at it,
not at all out at all, right, I mean, Kevin
McCarthy goes to visit them, they're all busy sucking up
to him. The ones who don't want to suck up,
(22:06):
but just keeping quiet and hoping magically he goes away.
I think for me that's the almost as depressing as
the initial enabling of Trump is the current re enabling
of Trump. Well, I think that people who are of
a certain stripe, it's either that or they have nowhere
to go. If if you if you step away from
Trump and you go into the other camp, you're gonna
be in the corner with a drink in your hand,
(22:27):
all by yourself. You're gonna be lonely. There's no turning
back for them now, and you're gonna be attacked bitterly.
I mean that people do underestimate that. I mean, it
is silly, these county committees and the centers and all,
but if you're an actual politician, it's kind of your life, right,
That's what you do on weekends. You go to these meetings.
You meet these people. You've known these people for a while,
they supported you, they helped you. You go meet your
dotors and they're all attacking you. And that's why. Ultimately,
(22:51):
of course, the voters are the problem. And but they
get it's sort of a catch train to the leader.
The elites need to tell the truth to the voters.
They don't want to. They're intimidated, and so the voters
may continue in the delusions they've been led into by
Trump and his and his enablers. Do you ever spend
any time with Trump? No, I mean I met him
a couple of times, just as very marginally, and he
(23:13):
called this and I'll tell one story. So in the
summer after announced, uh, we were at the Trump at
the beginning of the Weekly Standard. But I wrote editorial
about three weeks into his um campaigns with June July,
and I said, you know, Trump's getting some traction. We
do not we would never support Donald Trump for president
at the Weekly Standard, but we will say that he's
(23:34):
getting some traction and he's probably hit some themes that
the other candidates need to look at and figure out
how to dullify. They can't just assume Trump is going
to go away. I had originally thought, like other candidates before,
whether it's a Pep Buchanan or Herman Kine or something,
you know, he would kind of fizzle out and the
establishment would as he always had win. So but I said,
I was worried about Trump. So this senatorial was I
(23:57):
guess you might say, respectful of Trump as a political
phenomenon that would be clear and like the second sentence
or something that we would never could never support him
bed for the country. So I get a phone call
on a Friday after the introal goes out, it goes
online Thursday night close the magazine and Thursday night then
and Friday afternoon, I get a phone call. I'm kind
of the office phone, and the receptionist comes back and says,
(24:18):
this someone on the phone. It's a woman and assistant
apparently saying that Donald Trump wants to talk to you.
So of course I figured it was some friend of mine, like,
goofing off, You'm playing a joke. But I was sitting
literally sitting my desk and it was kind of quiet,
so I said, okay, I get whoever it is, I'll
go along. And it was in fact Donald Trump's long
time personal secretary, and it was Trump and he was
(24:39):
calling from the plane, his plane that was about to
take off to go to Iowa. And it was like
it was funny, he said, I remember the stell. He
said stuff like, hey, they tell me you what some
editorial that was pretty nice to me that you said
you wouldn't vote for me. But I'll talk you out
of that. But at least you understand that they should
take me seriously. And what was funny was they said,
you vote the editorial. It was obvious and the editor
was seven words. You know, It's like it didn't even
(24:59):
a heard of him that he would read the editorial.
I'm not saying is that of any vanity that it
was like well written or anything. It's just kind of
funny that it's so much his world of people giving
him something and say, this guy Crystal is kind of
a pain. But you know, maybe you call him up
and stroke him for three minutes and maybe he'll be
nice around when he's on TV or he and Trump
was pretty good at that, I would say. I mean,
you know, it was a kind of in a certain
(25:21):
way if you like that kind of thing. He's, hey,
well we've gotta get together sometime on the trail, you know,
by buy a coffee, and I mean by your drink.
I don't drink, but you know, maybe you drink. And
I was kind of a little bit of that New
York backslapping sort of thing. That was Friday. He took
off Iowa. He said, I gotta hang up taking off Ioway.
I said, well, safe travels on on the trail and
look forward to meeting you at some point, I suppose,
(25:42):
and that he took off. The next day was the
day that he attacked McCain in Iowa and said that
McCain wasn't a hero. I don't like people who've been captured.
The day after, I was on actually on ABC on
this Week and and said Trump's dead. I've never liked him,
but now he's he's dead. To be personally, I just
said so offensive what he just said. But also I
(26:03):
can't believe he could be the nominee. So that's my
political genius there. But that was a memorable two or
three days. So that was That's the last feel conversation
I had with Trump. I'm told you have a very
record and prognostication politically. Is that true? Yeah? Yeah, because
I always like to it's like the mess, you know.
I always like to pick the long shot and be contrarian,
but sometimes that doesn't work out. So well, yeah, right
(26:25):
now we're close to Garland probably being confirmed as the
attorney general. Yeah, this is the pivotal moment. I mean,
Biden winning I'm happy about the Garland nomination is something
that nothing has cheered me more than that Nothing's made
me happier than that. And I'm wondering which ones of
Trump's appointees, because Bar is my choice of were the
ones that were the most troublesome for you. Yeah, I'd
(26:46):
say Bar because it's such an important department, and because
I knew him a little bit, and I didn't quite
expect him to go as far as he did in
accommodating and enabling Trump. Why do you think he did?
Because he liked being attorney general and it was power,
and maybe talked himself into some of that. And I'm
sure he also talked himself into the if I don't
if I do this, I probably can not do some
other things that would be even crazier. It's hard to
(27:07):
know with people. And look, you know this, it's people's
psychologies are complicated, so they they're not, you know, coldly
calculating rational. They talked themselves into things and they kind
of believe them. They start off not believing things and
they end up believing them. Pompeio similarly, who I it
was slightly and thought was pretty conservative and pretty partisan.
But the degree to which he just became a really
(27:28):
kind of disgraceful secretary of State I think I wouldn't
quite have expected that either, So, but those are important
departments defense. I think until the very end when he
fired us after the election, you know, they mostly prevented
the worst stuff from happening there, So I give them
some credit for that. How did you feel the way
that Garland's Supreme Court nomination was handled as a lined
(27:50):
up against Barrett? Did that horrify you? The way that
McConnell's positioned that, Yes, it did, and I sort of
I think we said so at the time, but in
a kind of oh its, we don't really think this
is you know, this is just taking partisanship to a
new level. But whatever McConnell's doing, and I didn't think
you get away with it. I actually thought more Republican
senators even would say, you can't really do this as
pretty unprecedented. But I know Garland very slightly, but I
(28:13):
respect him a lot. I was very pleased that he
was nominated. I think he wouldn't have been. This is
one of these cases where one thing at least to another.
Because they won the Democrats one of those two Senate
races in Georgia January five, Biden felt he could afford
to nominate Garland, but he would then be able to
replace Garland on the DC circuit, very important, the most
important circuit below the Streme Court. So it's one of
(28:34):
these things where I don't think we would have Merrick
Garland a security general if the Democrats hadn't pulled out
those upsets and Georgia were about to have him. Uh,
people think very well of him. I like most of
Biden's appointments, you know, I mean most of the big ones.
What concerns you most about him? Because Biden is older,
he'll be eighty two years old or approaching eighty two
years old, what concerns you most about a Kamala Harris presidency.
(28:58):
I have to agree. Personal concern earns. I mean, I
think she's a serious person and a pretty impressive person,
you know, generally, as you would expect coming from where
I've come, I prefer a more moderate Democrat. But I
would say this, I think politically what concerns me is
that it'll be easier to portray her as radical, and
some of that is let's not get ourselves of race
and gender, and that's not that's not her fault. I mean,
(29:20):
that's not a negative. I'm just saying in the real
world of politics, it'll be a little easier for some
demagogic Republicans and ad makers to say Kamala Harris is
dangerous to you, as opposed to saying Joe Biden is
dangerous too. So I am a little worried about the
politics in a general election of Harris. But if she's
been vice president for Biden for four years, when week
(29:41):
she will have a record, they'll have a record, and
I assume she would run as the heir to the
Biden records. So if Biden has been a good president,
I think Democrats have a pretty good chance in four
and I think it's important. I mean, I say this
is someone who's still has some hopes that Republican Party
might come back someday. But I've got to say for
the foreseeable few you, which for me is really I
(30:03):
don't see a Republican party that one could really support
in good conscience. And I think it's important that Democrats
wind it to prevent this kind of authoritarianism and nativism
and demagoguery from coming back. And if that's the case,
I think it's important that Biden be a successful president.
I'm obsessed with the fact that no one talks about
Biden like everyone talks about Trump, which is understandable, and
(30:24):
everyone talks about all these other things going on in
the country and in the world, but it kind of
matters an old habit. Yeah, I want to see Joe
Biden succeed. I think it's important for the country to
have a sort of successful president Bill Crystal. If you're
enjoying this conversation, tell a friend and be sure to
subscribe to hear the thing on the I Heart radio app,
(30:47):
Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. When we
come back, Bill Crystal talks about what it will take
to loosen Trump's stranglehold on the Republican Party. I'm Alec Baldwin,
(31:07):
and you were listening to Here's the thing. Bill Crystal
founded the Weekly Standard. In The Weekly Standard was closed
down by our owners because we were anti Trump. At
the end of eighteen, I had given up being editor,
but I was sort of editor at large as Steve
Hayes was entor. And then it was closed down. Why
tell me? Because we were anti Trump and he was.
(31:28):
He's a wealthy business guy who is not himself like Trump,
but he wanted to get along with tru and the
Trump people were pretty tough that way. They would let
people know, why why are you paying for and effects
upsidizing this magazine that's attacking us all the time, And
maybe he just didn't like it. I don't know, so
he closed us down. He wouldn't let us find a buyer.
Is quite quite annoying. And so just a week later
(31:48):
I was sort of sitting on I think, at what
should we do? And Jonathan Lasa, let's let's just start
a website and we can probably get some readers we have,
we can get some good writers. Charlie Sikes was there
at the beginning to an other ex Republican, James Carver,
wrote for us. He went a very moving piece about hey,
we're on the same side. Now this is the height
of the election campaign obviously, so now, I mean, I'm
(32:08):
proud of it. It's been very I think it's been
open minded, it's been centrist, it's Republican, you might send
some issues and moderate Democrat on others. And above all
the critical of Trump and of the accommodation to Trump.
And I think the great insight Jonathan last and Charlie's
sakes have had is it's not going away. You can't
just tell yourself Trump is so longer president. Let's just
go back to being the kind of conservative Republicans. Are
(32:30):
moderately conservative Republicans we were in two or that does
not work. There was something wrong already that we didn't
pay enough attention to. But more importantly, whether it was
wrong or not, what's happened has happened, and the party
has got along with Trump and it's a different party.
And as we're seeing at the state level, these crazy
people are taking over the party at the local state level.
And then it's a big question what do we do
(32:51):
with third party? Try to fight to reform the Republican Party.
I just wrote a piece yesterday say, yeah, maybe what
we do is try to help Joe Biden be as
good at president as possible and accepted for now where
they're kind of ex Republican wing of the Democratic Party.
And we're not gonna be happy with everything the Democrats do.
But what democrat is happy with everything the Democrats do?
You know? So I'm very proud of the Bulwark. That
website is the Bulwark dot com. The Bulwark dot com. Yeah,
(33:13):
I'm so grateful to hear you say that. You want
to hear Biden succeed, and I would want a McCain
administration or so forth to succeed as well. And I
just singled out Trump with I just thought Trump was different.
This is different, because that's what horrified me about the
election when they voted for him in two thousand and sixteen.
I thought that my said, well, you didn't know. Now
(33:34):
you know, you voted for him again and you knew
what you knew. I totally agree. I think such an
important point. I mean, I've said that an election night.
We did a live stream with the bullwork this you
know it and at midnight, and it was pretty clear
that Biden was gonna win once the late vote you know,
came in and Philadelphia and so forth. But I was
pretty depressed. And people said after this, and it was
because it wasn't enough of repudiation and because seventy four
(33:55):
million people voted for Trump after four years of Trump
and you know, you could talk yourself into thinking, shake
things up, kind of useful business guy, and they'll keep
in lie and the other people of the party outside. Yeah,
And I didn't agree with it, obviously, and I think
it was a short sighted and foolish but it was
you could be honestly a decent person and think that.
(34:17):
I think I kind of talk yourself into it. I
have trouble. I mean with thete seventy four million people
for Trump after watching him for four years, there's something
really worrisome about that. Over the arc of your considerable career.
And I'm not saying this to be kind. I mean,
you're such a smart and you're such a blazingly articulate guy.
Why haven't you run for office? Did you ever contemplate that? Ever?
(34:41):
You know, once or twice? This is funny. In the nineties,
so the Bush I was in the regular Bush administrations.
We lost, obviously, and so I was kind of a
free person in January ninety three, trying to figure what
to do next. Ended up starting the Weekly Standard magazine
about two years later, two and half years later. But
and a few people did say, come back to New
York and run for something, and it just didn't seem
I don't have the personality of a politician. I am not.
(35:02):
I am not a hail fellow. Well, Matt, I think
I'm a polite person, but I'm probably too just not
really into the no retail politics for you now, I
don't think sitting at all these long dinners and pretending
to be interested by everyone's speeches and all that. I I,
what about appointments we ever approached about in an appointment? Wells,
I served in the regular Bush administration. I of course, yeah,
what did you do in those two administrations? So I
(35:23):
was I went to Washington eight five that this is
a pretty young thirty two, I guess. I was a
speechwriter for a bit for Bill Bennett and then became
his chief of staff of the Education Department. That was
a different era. I think Bill was a you know,
he was controversial, but he was a forced for education
reform and stuff. We tried to be civilized where we
even though we caused some trouble. Then I went into
the George H. W. Bush White House and worked for
(35:44):
Dan Quayle, the vice president, and became his chief of
staff after a few months. And that, of course, yes,
I got a thick skin, just like you do. You know,
after four years of being of taking grief for that,
I'm glad we provided a lot of material for a
Saturday out live of brothers. And he's a good man, honestly,
and and I think you know, had some bad breaks
in terms of br and all, and I didn't do
a very good job, probably assistive of staff helping him
(36:05):
overcome that. I think he was actually pretty good Vice president.
The George H. W. Bush administration was a pretty good administration.
I think historians will judge. Signed some bipartisan legislation Clean
Air Act, American's Disabilities that got the budget deficit going
in the right direction, ended the Cold War peacefully and responsibly,
got Sadamo saying out of Kuwait, which I think was
the right thing to do. We just got Cooberate, we
(36:26):
got colloberd In No people want to change twelve years
of Reagan. Bush Clinton was an attractive candidate. Good lesson that.
You know, election results don't always correlate maybe with what's deserved.
But anyway, that was my last Uh yeah, I have
a good record of being on That was the one
campaign I was most involved in, the ninety two Bush
Cuil reelect, and we got and we got and we
got crushed. So that's my I've had a very I've
(36:47):
had a very consistent electoral That's what another reason I
didn't get into electoral politics from the very beginning. I've
never been really much of a success in that area.
Do you think Trump has anything to worry from side
Vance and New York? Yeah, I don't know a thing
more than I've read, but yeah, I think he does. Yeah.
He certainly went out of his way, fought all the
hard to keep his tax returns and business records out
of their hands. And usually if people do that, that's
(37:09):
because they don't want prosecutors. They think they're worried about
what prosecutors will find. Why do you think the Republican
Party can't shake their addiction to Trump? So? I think
for the elites it is it is somewhat fear and opportunitism.
But I think for a lot of the voters, I
just think we can't overestimate how much Trump unleashed a
lot of things they had been feeling and anxieties, concerns,
(37:30):
but also bigotries and hatreds frankly, and resentments. And once
people are told it's fine, you should say things that
you wouldn't in the past, they might have thought these things.
I'm not. I don't have a polyaddish view exactly. That's
what I say to people. What Trump did was there
were things that we knew that half the country felt
this way. They have their prejudices, their racism, their anti semitism,
their misogyny or whatever. But he didn't say that, and
(37:53):
it makes a big difference. If you don't say it
and can't say it, because it does mean that you
sort of are acknowledging, then that's not quite respectable. Look
in a better world, people wouldn't think it in the
first place. But in a decent world, you can still
have a decent world where people keep it to themselves,
so to speak, at least most of the time. But
once the president unleashes it and ratifies it and justifies
it and fosters it, it's very hard to put that
(38:15):
toothpaste back in the tube. Bill Crystal, editor at large
of the Bulwark dot Com. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're
listening to Here's the Thing. We're produced by Kathleen Russo,
Carrie donohue and Zach McNeice. Our engineer is Frank Imperial.
(38:36):
Thanks for listening.
Host
Alec Baldwin
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