- Charlie, welcome back to Austin.

We actually met at Trip Fest a couple years ago.

You signed a book for me, I really appreciate that.

So, I have a two part question for you, and kind of to preface this, I'm originally from the New York area, Wall Street guy, and remember, for example, the Central Park Five, like it was yesterday, and things like that, and folks like me could never imagine that this con could continue.

Right?

- Right.

And so on, but I just kind of wanna preface that.

I'm a guy really kind of right down the middle.

So the question that, I guess, that I wanna come across here with is I think that it's kind of interesting, prior to Trump, Republicans were really good at winning elections, right?

I've always felt that Democrats were more interested in winning a fight than winning an election.

So question one is, I hope they've learned that lesson, because kind of since that point in 2016, it's kind of come more towards the Democrats way of winning.

I mean, they just have won a lot of the elections.

Maybe the abortion issue has been a major thing and so on.

So the first thing I want to know is, do you feel like, so I kind of wanna go to the other side.

You talked about the Republican side, but on the Dems, have they learned their lesson, that they gotta win an election, right, not a fight, and number two, it seems to me that prior to 2016, folks like you and others, and other Republican strategists, you understood that and you knew how to win elections.

And I understand how politics work, but I don't understand why they don't come to folks like you and others because this is gonna be an election that's gonna be right on the margins, as you guys discussed, in six or so states, because I think that that's really important.

And ask for your opinions at least, and respect those and work on those.

- So, I come from one of those six states- - You're from Wisconsin- (everyone speaking at once) - In Wisconsin, they have figured this out.

It is interesting, and I do have a good relationship with some of the people there, even though we're not on the same ideological wavelength.

So they have.

Now, does that apply everywhere?

I honestly don't know.

I spend most of my time looking at the horror of what's happening to the Republican party.

I do worry about some of the far left fringes of the Democratic party.

If Donald Trump wins Wisconsin this year, it will be because of people who turn out and vote for Cornell West, or vote for Jill Stein, which is what happened in 2016.

I do think that most of them have learned the lesson of that.

But just one little point, the thing you hear from the MAGA people all the time is that we're doing this because it was winning.

Donald Trump is a winner, which is weird because as you point out, Republicans had won a lot before he came down the escalator, and they've lost a lot since he's been there.

- [Host] He never won the popular vote.

- And he's gonna lose it again this year.

- Lose it again this year- - By a big margin.

- 2018 was a blowout in favor of the Democrats, right?

2022 was not anything approaching the red wave, right?

And all the state elections, to the questioners point, in the last year since Dobbs decision, have gone...

I mean, the Democrats elected a state senator, I think, in Alabama.

- Yeah.

- Right?

I mean, you can't imagine some of these things.

So they seem to at least be profiting from this.

- Right, and I do think, I mean, the fact that the nomination of Joe Biden over Bernie Sanders was an act of pragmatism.

I mean, there is that sense of pragmatism.

The African American vote is much more pragmatic than it is ideological.

I think this is one of the things that we've seen here.

But Donald Trump has done a remarkable job.

You talked about how the con has gone on for so long.

He's also gas lighted Republicans into thinking that no, we never lose, I can never lose, I can only be cheated.

This is crucial for his self-image, obviously, that he didn't actually lose.

And he did something, and we haven't even gotten into it.

We didn't have time to get into it, but what Donald Trump is doing with abortion is very interesting to me because part of his gas lighting is, in 2022, where the Republicans really underperformed, I think there was a lot of recognition that was because of Trump.

It was because of the fallout from January 6th.

- [Host] Well, they had terrible candidate recruitment also.

- Terrible candidate, but we what Trump's line was?

He was telling people it was because of abortion.

It was because you pro-lifers, and now, he's kind of thrown them under the bus a little bit.

[Audience Member] But isn't he losing that on both sides?

I mean, he's not threading the needle here.

- No, no, no, and he's not gonna be able to.

This is one of the things why I don't think that he's LeBron James.

I think he's put himself in a trick box on abortion.

There is a point where, if you actually have no principle and you're a complete opportunist and you're trying to speak a foreign language, it's always like anytime Trump tries to speak on these issues, you can tell it's like sort of in translation, and he doesn't ever quite get it right.

- Well, both sides didn't like what he said on Monday.

- And they're not going to- - And they're not going to.

And so thank you for your great questions.

But we talked about this a moment backstage, but let's just say a word about this before we take the next question.

So the Arizona Supreme Court unearthing a law that apparently was on the books before there was an Arizona, right?

And then the Florida decision, by their Supreme Court, to put a six week ban into effect.

Those don't help him.

- Oh no, no, and he knows that.

I mean, he does get it, especially because in both Florida and Arizona, it's likely there'll be referendum.

And everywhere this has been on the ballot, pro-life- - Well, it's turned a lot of people out too.

- Yes, I mean, it's an engine, does two things, it motivates democratic voters and it alienates swing voters.

And so he does understand this is a problem, but you know what, I don't see how he threads the needle on all of this, because first of all, and to your question, have the Democrats kind of learned?

Have you noticed how simple their argument is today?

It is, "Trump did this."

It's like they're not making this long, Aristotelian argument, it's like- - More complicated.

- He did this.

- He did it.

- He did it, and of course, he bragged about it, and you know, he said, "I'm responsible for Roe versus Wade being overturned," but then, he was talked into, and this is really interesting to me, he's talked into the idea that that was really all about state's rights.

And I think, as somebody who's been part of the pro-life movement for a long time, I don't think you can overstate how surprised the movement was by actually winning.

They had 50 years to think about what they would do in a post-Roe world, but they never really thought through what the answer was going to be.

And I will tell you, for most people who are pro-life out there, they did not think it was about state's rights.

And so when he turns around and he pulls something from 1954, and he thinks, "This is my magic bullet, I've taken this off the table, there's nothing the Democrats are gonna say," you've got the right to life movement going, "Wait, that wasn't what we were for."

- Well, I heard Right to Life people saying, as a consequence of what he said on Monday, he's pro-choice.

- He is technically pro-choice, and you're seeing this all over the country.

Carrie Lake cut an ad in Arizona.

Carrie Lake, we all know who she is, right?

I mean- - She ran for governor the last time and lost.

- And when she ran for governor, she endorsed the 1864 law.

- The exact same thing by number of the bill.

Like she specifically called it out.

- Right, and she said, "There's no exceptions except for life of the mother, and this is what we will have in Arizona, and it's great."

She's now done a complete 180 and has done an ad that is indistinguishable from a pro-choice Democrat saying, "I choose life, but I am not everybody and we could do this."

And so I'm not sure this is fully played out in terms of the disillusionment of the Pro-Life Movement, but also, he is now stuck owning every extreme, punitive, draconian law in the country.

I mean, he's got the worst of all possible worlds.

He's basically said, "For all you pro-lifers in blue states, you're on your own, I'm not gonna do anything."

You have Republican candidates in Michigan basically saying, "Yeah, I wouldn't do anything about our pro-choice laws."

And yet, he owns the laws in Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Texas.

- He owns Kate Cox.

- Yep.

- Right, I mean, if you think about it.

Yeah, it's absolutely fascinating.

Dave.

- Oh, I was gonna about abortion, but you've just covered it.

What do you think the result will be if he's found guilty in the Star Daniel's case, which starts on Monday?

- Well, no one knows because, okay, I mean, first of all, we're in this completely different universe where the idea that you would have a convicted felon who'd be running for president of the United States would be absurd.

I mean, in any other walk of life, if you're charged with a felony, you wouldn't be still the Speaker of the House of Representatives, you wouldn't be the CEO of the Ford Corporation.

I mean, it's mind bending.

So there is that conventional wisdom, which is, he's gonna shoot somebody, he's gonna get away with it, he's gonna get stronger.

Maybe that's right.

But a felony conviction, I think is, let's just say it's not an asset in the general election.

(audience laughs) It might be an asset in a Republican primary, but I'm just trying to think how, what voter in America is gonna say, "I didn't vote for him last time, but, you know, since he's been found guilty of this felony for paying off the porn star he was schtupping while his wife was at home nursing, I think I'm gonna go with him now."

I just don't see- - Well, that's actually a really interesting question.

Where are the new votes for him in this scenario?

This is why you say, and I happen to agree with you, in all likelihood, he loses the popular vote again, where are the new votes for him, under these circumstances?

- I don't see it except that their strategy is that there're still un-mined, angry, White, rural voters in Michigan, Pennsylvania- - Who didn't vote last time.

- Right.

But who could be- - Persuaded to vote - Yes.

- Sir.

- This week, Donald Trump is selling a Bible to pay off a porn star.

- [Charlie] You think that's problematic?

(audience laughs) - Is this gonna make a difference to evangelicals and women in your opinion?

- Yeah, I wonder about that.

I mean, we know what the evangelical vote has done.

They've forgiven him his sins, right?

Yeah.

- If they're gonna forgive him all the other stuff, they're gonna forgive him this, you know?

I mean, it is one of those eye-rolling moments where it was so cynical that he's hawking a 60, I mean, he's a billionaire, right, and he wants people to read the word of God.

He could give away the Bibles, right?

I mean, he could donate them.

Instead, he's selling $60 Bibles and you know the money is gonna go for the legal fees.

But again, it's 2024, the normal laws of political gravity don't apply, right?

I mean, and I have to say that I have worked on this as hard as almost anything, trying to figure out the whole Christian evangelical flip flop.

This was the one thing, after the election, and I was writing a book, "How the Right Lost its Mind," and the most difficult chapter for me was, explain this to me, how do you have evangelical Christians, the people who, back in the 1990s, were the most intensely, would, by the largest margins say that personal character really mattered.

Remember back during the Clinton years, when character mattered, they were off the charts.

By 2016, no demographic group had switched as radically as evangelical Christians in saying that personal character didn't matter.

And so I spent time talking to people like Dr. Russell Moore and David French, and my friend, Peter Waner, you know, people who were in that world and they struggled with it as well.

And the power of rationalization, the power of, you know, convincing, well, we don't want a pastor, we just want a champion, he will be the defender of our faith, has been incredibly powerful.

And I still have trouble understanding because their understanding of what it means to be a Christian is very different than my understanding of what it means to be a Christian.

At this point, it appears to be unshakeable.

And I will say that this is going back to the thing about they're not coming after me, they're coming after you.

He has, with his lizard brain, understood that Christians have decided they are an oppressed minority.

And I do remember making the argument, back in 2016, that I wish that people on the left were more sensitive to how powerful the issue of religious liberty was, that if you take the win, just take the win on a lot of these issues, when you try to roll over conscience clause, or insist that everyone believe what you believe, then you're gonna create more problems, and he's exploited that.

He has exploited that because, so for example, if we were an evangelical group and somebody was saying, "Okay, it's not enough that they have now legalized gay marriage, they're gonna force your church to perform gay marriage, they're gonna force you to do it."

And everybody in the room would nod their head saying, "Yeah, they're coming for us.

They think that we're bigots if we don't believe it, and they're gonna make us do that."

Now, that's not true, but it plays.

- And in fact, members of the gay and lesbian community would tell you they don't particularly wanna be married by people who are hostile to the idea of marrying them anyway, right?

I mean, the whole thing is almost, in some ways, a nothing burger, except it becomes a something burger when you weaponize it.

- Right.

- Right?

And it was weaponized.

- Right, and this is something that I think people need to keep in mind, that, and I was saying that if I show contempt for you, you're not gonna listen to my ideas about school choice.

If you say to an entire, you know, tens of millions of people and their church, that your belief about marriage is not just wrong in our diverse, tolerant culture, but that if you adhere to this, you are a bigot, and that we must use the power of the government to punish you, you've created a completely different dynamic.

So the question is, are we going to be tolerant and diverse, or are we going to impose a monoculture?

Now, the one thing that I've said, because for those you wondering, are you still a conservative?

I don't know what the word means, but I do worry about illiberalism.

I mean, there is illiberalism on the left, and there's illiberalism on the right.

The illiberalism on the right, represented by Donald Trump, is the immediate emergency, it is the heart attack.

The illiberalism on the left is serious, but we need to deal with the way we would deal with slow growing cancer versus heart attack right now.

You deal with the heart attack right now, but don't pretend that there's not a problem.

That my concern over the next several decades is that we're finding out that the forces of liberalism, liberal, constitutional democracy, are much more fragile than we thought.

And they could face a two-front attack, and we need to be prepared for both of them.

But right now, there's no question what the greater emergency is.

- Jordan, are we okay?

Okay.

We have any more?

- Two more.

- Okay, we'll just take two more, that's fine, sir.

- This will be quick.

- Yes.

- This was really for Judy Woodruff, but we didn't have time to ask her any questions.

- [Charlie] I'll tell you what she would say.

- [Host] Okay, go ahead, yeah.

- But you had talked about the Dan Quale, Lloyd Benson debate, and- - Did you remember she had moderated that?

I had forgotten.

- I had forgotten that.

- I had forgotten that.

- I remember the debate though.

- Oh, of course.

- [Audience Member] And when they mentioned Jack Kennedy, she said the crowd exploded.

- Right.

- There's gonna be a debate, apparently, with Trump and Biden.

- [Charlie] Well, that's an interesting question.

- Right, but what bothers me about the debate, and I'd just like to know your opinion, is you have Trump's side over here, Biden's side here, every time they say anything, it explodes.

And it bothers me because I'd like to hear what they have to say and then get that through.

Do you think it'll ever stop where they won't have a crowd?

Or if you do have a crowd, where you won't even hear them yell and scream, - Did they have a crowd in 2020?

- I don't remember, I mean, look, people don't obey rules, period, right?

Like, even if they say, "You can only come in, but you have to be quiet," people aren't quiet anyway.

- Okay, can I turn this around on you?

Okay because I was actually thinking of this on the plane coming here today.

That I have some contrarian ideas about this.

So, for example, one of the things that I would suggest to the media is if you acknowledge this is not a normal year, I'm gonna get to this in a second, why would you cover the political conventions as if they actually matter?

You know, I mean the Republican convention is in my hometown in Milwaukee, which is like, screw me.

I mean, it's just all these Trump-ees coming, but I mean, what is the news value of this?

Why would you devote three days of live coverage to what's basically an infomercial?

And then I started thinking about the debate.

And I guess my default setting is, of course debates are good, you know, Lincoln, Douglas, all of these great moments, you know, Kennedy, Nixon, but there's a case that can be made, and all the networks are basically saying, we want you to have a debate, commit to debates.

But the debate is just the show, it's not the substance.

We will not be smarter after that debate, you know, and we know how it will play out.

And there is a school of thought that says, if you want to say this is not normal, do not dignify Donald Trump with being on the stage.

(audience applauds) Okay, so I mean, just can I just ask this?

So I'm toying with the idea of saying, no, I don't want a debate.

I don't wanna cover the conventions and I don't want a debate because how do we say this is not normal in that particular way?

All of my instincts tell me we should have a debate.

It seems like that ritual of democracy, but maybe it's not a good idea this year.

So how many people think that Joe Biden should debate Donald Trump?

How many think he should say, "Screw you?"

(audience applauds) - Well, look, the argument from the Trump side may be, "You have to debate me," and the response should be, "Nikki Haley would like a word."

- Yeah.

- Right?

I mean, you basically told us what you think of the responsibility to debate during the Republican primary when you didn't.

No backsies.

- Well this, I think- - Right, that could be one answer.

- That will be one of the answers.

I mean, there's a case that could be made that, first of all, I mean the important thing is that, look, if I'm Trump, I'm gonna try to say, "You're afraid to debate me, you're old," and everything.

So I mean, there's a risk to this, there's a political risk to this, but there's a substantive, I think a case can be made that let's not pretend that the show is what this election is about- - Is the substance.

- Because- - [Host] Right, I agree.

Ma'am.

- Yeah, do you remember the last debate that was crazy between the two of 'em?

- Yes right.

- My question, I mean, all these issues are very interesting, and I love you Charlie.

I listened to you, before work, all the time, and when I heard you were going off, it was really upsetting to me, but I do like Tim Miller, but nobody's like you.

Okay, having said that, I'd like to ask you, what's your opinion about the electoral college?

And that's off all these issues, I realize, but it's so important to our democracy, and how can we ever get rid of it?

I mean, I know the senators used to be elected by the legislatures, and they passed an amendment, and now we directly elect senators.

So why can't we change the Constitution and get rid of electoral college?

Or maybe it's not even in the Constitution, I'm not sure.

- Oh it is.

- No, and you'd need 38 states, is that right, is there some number to- - Yeah,- - I mean, do you ever foresee that happening?

- No.

- No, huh?

- No, I mean, and clearly it no longer represents the reality of the American political- - Six out of seven elections, right?

- Yeah, I mean, and that of course, it was not a problem up until then.

I mean, there was a point, I'm trying to remember, you know, up until 2000, it pretty much never happened.

- No no, but literally it's been, except for Obama beating Romney, I believe every election since Bush and Gore, I believe this is right, the popular vote and the electoral vote have been different.

I think that's right.

- I think Bush over- - No, Bush over Kerry- - Bush over Kerry- - No, or maybe it was Bush over Kerry, in fact.

- No, but look, it's just one of those things.

I don't think it's gonna happen because it would require the consent of the states that rely upon it.

So it would be great to have it gone, but there's- - If you're Montana, why do you wanna give up the fact that you're equal to everybody else in this, as opposed to simply saying you're million population is diminished in its influence.

- Yeah, I mean, on the other hand, I mean, look, the case for it is, I think, overwhelming because the fact that we're about to have this consequential election, and only six states really count, that if I live in 44 states, basically, it doesn't matter.

I mean, that's gotta be frustrating for voters on both sides, but I just don't see the dynamic.

- [Audience Member] It only takes 3/4ths of the state.

- That's 3/4ths of the state.

- [Audience Member] So all the other states would want that, wouldn't they?

- No.

Well- - Not sure, not sure.

Okay, before we go, we're gonna do the six before we go.

- Okay.

- Gut check us.

- [Charlie] Okay.

- Who's gonna win the six states, Michigan, gut check.

- I think Biden wins.

- Biden wins.

Georgia.

- I don't know.

- Don't know.

Wisconsin, you know Wisconsin better than anybody.

- I think Biden still wins.

- Even though now that liberal Supreme Court justice just announced she's gonna step down and Republicans are gonna be motivated to turn out to vote.

- That's not 'til 2023.

- So it doesn't make a difference now, 2025?

- 2025, I'm sorry, yes.

- So you still think, okay, Nevada.

- That one could flip, I'm worried about Nevada.

I think that could be Trump.

- Arizona.

- I think that's gonna be Biden.

- Well, you know, I would've worried about Arizona if I were the Biden people, until this week.

- Yeah, this week.

- I mean, if Carrie Lake is walking away from that thing, you know, something.

Okay, the big kahuna, Pennsylvania.

- I think Biden wins Pennsylvania.

- You do?

Do you think Bob Casey gets reelected?

- Yes.

- To the Senate?

- Yeah.

- Wow, okay.

Well you know what, there's the math on the election right there.

You didn't answer the question when I asked you at the beginning.

You just answered it now.

- Well you didn't ask about North Carolina.

- Well, Biden could afford to lose North Carolina.

He lost it last time.

- Yeah.

No, so I still think that he's in a good position to win those states, but if he loses the swing states, I mean there's weird things like what they're doing in Nebraska.

- Right, but I thought the legislature didn't support that.

- Right, but that doesn't mean they're done.

- Yeah yeah, it's never over, a lot of game left.

- I mean, there is a game this out and make yourself crazy, and there is a scenario in which Joe Biden gets 269 electoral votes.

- And it goes to the house.

- Well, it could.

- Could.

- And then that's Trump.

- I'm gonna take an Ambien, I think, and then, until after the election.

All right look, give Charlie Sykes a big hand, well great.

All right, thank you guys, see you soon.