Charlie Sykes: GOP “Absolutely Confident” That They Will Win in 2024

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, SENIOR GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, now returning back to the United States and the expected political drama set to unfold at the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin next week. In many ways, the battleground state tells a story of the evolution of the GOP there. Republicans swinging more and more to the right to a full-on embrace of Donald Trump’s MAGA policies. A close observer of this has been Charlie Sykes, founder of The Bulwark and a respected voice among never Trump Republicans. He joined Walter Isaacson to discuss it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALTER ISAACSON, CO-HOST, AMANPOUR AND CO.: Thank you, Bianna. And, Charlie Sykes, welcome back to the show.

CHARLIE SYKES, FOUNDER AND FORMER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE BULWARK: Thank you.

ISAACSON: Hey, you know, right after the debate that Biden had down in Atlanta, the problematic one, you said — you wrote that the Biden White House needs an intervention because this can’t go on. And you said there’s no way to spin it away. It wasn’t just a bad night or a gap, it was a disaster. Do you still feel that way?

SYKES: Yes, I do. But of course, there’s been a lot of things that have happened since then. And, you know, at that moment, it was very clear that Joe Biden had to do several things. I mean, he was going to have to convince his party and the public that he was up to it, that he was up to actually beating Donald Trump in November, which I think is clearly the priority. But also, I think he’s also got to answer the questions about whether he is fit to serve for another four years. And, you know, to do that, he is going to have to give more long form interviews like he did with George Stephanopoulos, you know, hold these live press conferences like he did on Thursday and also have transparent and credible medical information, because, I guess, you know, my take on all of this is that if, in fact, Democrats believe, as I do, that Donald Trump poses an existential threat to our constitutional Republican system, then they need to ask really tough questions about Joe Biden. And obviously, that’s been what’s been happening for the last two weeks.

ISAACSON: You’re up there in Milwaukee. You started your political journalism career almost 50 years ago in Wisconsin. You’re kind of a Wisconsin guy. The Republican Convention next week will be in this town of Milwaukee. Tell me right now, would Biden be able to win Wisconsin?

SYKES: Well, things are in flux. I mean, I remember October 7, 2016 where Hillary Clinton was clearly on path to a landslide victory, and that, of course, did not happen. Right now, I mean, in a snapshot, Republicans are coming to Milwaukee supremely confident. They think that Donald Trump is going to win. They don’t believe that Joe Biden can win. Now, a lot can happen between now and November. But I have to say that I can’t recall a time when Republicans were feeling more optimistic than they are right now adding to the bizarre nature of this bizarre political year.

ISAACSON: What’s making it so bizarre?

SYKES: Well, everything. I mean, look, I mean, we keep saying to ourselves that there’s nothing normal about Donald Trump, and there’s certainly is not. There is no norms that have not either been shattered or that are being challenged. I mean, the fact that we are sitting here today having a discussion about a presidential race between a convicted felon, a twice impeached, disgraced man who has been found liable for sexual assault, and he’s facing a man whose own party is asking questions about his cognitive abilities. I mean, this is a great nation that does feel like it’s sort of, you know, on the precipice. And we’re dealing with these two men that are so supremely challenged. But again, what Donald Trump represents is something very much outside the mainstream of American politics.

ISAACSON: Yes, tell me about that, because you were a Republican, you’ve been part of the Republican Never Trump faction. How is it that the party, and your party in Wisconsin, which used to be led by people like Paul Ryan and Reince Priebus. How did this happen in the Republican Party?

SYKES: Well, Walter, you and I have discussed this in the past, and I have to say that after nine years, it is still vertiginous to watch what has happened, particularly here in Wisconsin. I mean, the Wisconsin Republican Party was very skeptical of Donald Trump in 2016. You’ll remember that he was defeated in the primary. He lost by double digits to Ted Cruz of all people. Not because people like Ted Cruz, but because Wisconsin Republicans looked at Donald Trump and said, no, this is not what we have in mind. This is not the kind of conservatism that we have. So, there was a moment back in, say, 2015, I believe, when Wisconsin Republicans really thought they were the wave of the future. You know, Reince Priebus was chairman of the Republican National Committee, Paul Ryan was speaker of the House of Representatives, Scott Walker was a candidate for president. And think about where they’ve come since then. So, we’ve seen this transformation of the Republican Party everywhere, but it’s really dramatic here in Wisconsin.

ISAACSON: Why did the Republican voters, why did the people of Wisconsin so strongly end up being in Trump’s, you call it, tribe?

SYKES: Well, I mean, that obviously is the most difficult question. What is it about the electorate in places like Wisconsin? I mean, this is like a reasonable place. We’re not talking about places that had been MAGA for years. This is a state that has seen reform Republicans that has not always gone along. This is a state that Barack Obama won twice. And the question is, what did they see? I think it was a combination of push and pull. I think it was a combination of disillusionment and disaffection from what they saw as a Democratic Party that was no longer talking to them. But also, there was something about Donald Trump’s approach to immigration and other issues that appealed to them. He touched something that I think had been blatant in Republican conservatism for a long time. And I will admit that I did not necessarily see that coming. You know, I thought that the party was going in a very, very different direction. Donald Trump had a sort of lizardry instinct that, in fact, he could tap into these resentments and this fear, this sense that the forgotten American was being victimized, was being exploited, and he tapped into that in a very, very successful way.

ISAACSON: You wrote about it a bit, and you have a sentence that was very striking. You wrote that, on the stump, Trump freely rewrites history, peddles bizarre conspiracy theories, and aggressively memory-holes the darker parts of his record. Thus far, it’s been working. Is that because it resonates with resentments among people you’ve covered for 50 years in Wisconsin, as well as around the country?

SYKES: Walter, let, let me say something that I know is somewhat uncommon. I am still trying to figure this out. I think this is the most bizarre question of our bizarre times. Why is this working? It’s one thing for politicians to lie to people and to mislead people, but we’re also seeing a politician who lies so easily. And a large segment of the electorate either doesn’t understand that they’re being lied to or frankly, and this is actually more disturbing, doesn’t care about it. And so, I think this is a reflection of like, what is happening in American culture in our information ecosystem? What’s happening to the way that we process information or that we approach politics, that this is happening? And I still find it amazing every day. I mean, I think that, you know, for people who think that they’ve taken crazy pills every morning, look, you’re not the crazy ones, because you look at Donald Trump and he’s spouting these things and then you turn the camera to the crowd and they’re eating it up and they’re like it. And Donald Trump understands this. He understood something that none of us saw coming when he said, I could shoot somebody in the middle of 5th Avenue and I wouldn’t lose any votes. Now, what did he see that I think a lot of mainstream observers did not see, there is something broken in the American political culture that this is happening. And I think part of it is that people like me, probably people like you, thought that politics was about ideas, about policies, about legacies, when in fact, turns out that politics, for a lot of Americans, is about identity. It’s also perhaps about just giving a big middle finger to the people that they think don’t care about them or look down on them.

ISAACSON: One of the things that seems to me to be driving both in the United States, but even around the world, the populist backlash, has been a reaction to immigration. And I notice that in the Republican platform, which has toned down a bit, one of the things not really toned down is you’re going to seal the border and massive deportations. Leaving aside Canada, Wisconsin is the furthest you can be from a border state.

SYKES: Yes.

ISAACSON: How does that resonate in Wisconsin and why?

SYKES: You know, this is a really interesting question, because up until 2016, immigration was never a big issue here in Wisconsin. In fact, I used to have a radio talk show, and I remember one day opening up the phone lines and saying, I want to talk to dairy farmers in Wisconsin. How do you feel about immigration? And the overwhelming reaction from Wisconsin dairy farmers is, we need immigration. We need people on our farms. So, it was, we’re not a border state. But there is this sense, and it’s been fed by Donald Trump and his supporters, and their allies in the media that this country is under attack, that it is under invasion, that you have brown people coming across the borders and they’re coming for your jobs and your women. They’re causing crime. And it is that sense of menace. So, what they’ve done is they’ve created immigration from being an engine of economic development and opportunity to a threat, to an imminent threat. And that has obviously — that’s going to be a major theme of the campaign and it’s one of the driving forces behind Donald Trump right now.

ISAACSON: One of the discussions we’ve had for a long while is whether the border or abortion would be the most cutting or salient issue. Abortion probably helping the Democrats up. You once ran on a pro-life platform in Wisconsin. Tell me, how does abortion play both in Wisconsin and will it be a factor around the country in this election?

SYKES: Yes. No, I was very much part of the pro-life movement, but had been very disillusioned by the way that the pro-life movement is handled Roe v. Wade, I mean, I’m sorry it’s a cliche now, but they were the car — I mean, they were the dog that caught the car. The fact that they were not prepared for creating a culture of life that would encourage families and mothers, and children I think is a major lapse on the part of the pro-life movement. And instead, they’ve emphasized very extreme and punitive measures. But I think that in Wisconsin, abortion will play the way it plays the rest of the country. We had a — in fact, it’s already had a tremendous impact here. This is a very evenly divided state. But a liberal Supreme Court candidate who ran on Roe versus Wade won by a landslide here in Wisconsin. So, that should be a really salient issue. In a state like Wisconsin the — I do think that abortion is going to be more significant than immigration. But again, we’re a very, very evenly divided state. And can I just say something about the immigration issue that I think has been underappreciated? And I don’t know how this plays in Wisconsin, but I think that if the issue is, should we toughen the border and, you know, have more enforcement? I think there’s going to be a lot of support for that. That that’s not going to be necessarily a massive wedge issue. But one of the things that Donald Trump is pledging and that is in the Project 2025 and in the Republican platform and has been endorsed by other Republicans, is the mass deportation of illegal immigrants. Now, there’s so much going on, it’s sort of easy to pass that over, and I guess I sort of want to pause and go, wait, you are talking about forcefully deporting 10 million people from this country. I guess, if people begin to focus on that, if they begin to ask exactly how are you going to do that, what kind of roundups are we going to have? Is the military going to do that? Will police officers do that? Will there be detention camps? Will we be putting people in buses, in trains? How do you move 10 million people? Because potentially that will be one of the great humanitarian disasters of our time. And yet, we really haven’t litigated that and debated that very much. I mean, is something like that, perhaps it’s just Donald Trump is saying it because it’s the symbolism. It’s like the law. But this has real world consequences, and I just don’t think — I don’t feel it’s gotten as much attention as it deserves.

ISAACSON: Who do you think Trump should choose as his running mate?

SYKES: Well, I am somewhat interested in this question because if Donald – – if you woke up Donald Trump at 3:00 and said, who do you want your vice- presidential nominee to be? I think he would say Ivanka or Don Jr. Because he understands that that person immediately becomes a power center in the second Trump presidency, because in theory, he’s a lame duck president. He also knows that that is the one person he cannot fire. So, Donald Trump is haunted by the ghost of Mike Pence, that Mike Pence, who was loyal until he wasn’t loyal, who actually had enough principle and an — you know, a streak of independence that he was willing to say no. So, Donald Trump is looking for someone who will never say no to him, who will never threaten him, who will never overshadow him. So, I don’t know what he’s going to do, but it’s going to be a very revealing choice. And obviously, given the fact that he would be term limited out, that person becomes an immediate candidate for president, which again, Donald Trump may see as something of a threat. So, I’m expecting that he will name someone low key, but again, I don’t know. I don’t spend a lot of time in Donald Trump’s head.

ISAACSON: As a long-time conservative, if Joe Biden remains the nominee of the Democratic Party, are you going to vote for him?

SYKES: Oh, look, I’ve made it absolutely clear that I will, you know, walk through fire and crawl through glass to vote for anyone who would beat Donald Trump. So, yes, I mean, I’m going to do that. Well, let me tell you where I come from on that. I don’t believe the 2024 is about re-electing Joe Biden. I mean, he — let’s concede that he’s had a successful presidency, but re-nomination, re-election is not a gold watch. 2024 is about preventing Donald Trump from regaining power. So, I will vote for anyone who will prevent Donald Trump from getting back in the White House, whatever the circumstances, no matter how reluctantly, because I think that that is the key. And I think that’s the way that voters need to think about it, is that if, in fact, Donald Trump does post this existential threat, then it will be a binary choice, and it might feel good to indulge oneself by writing someone in, but in a state like Wisconsin, that election will be won either by Donald Trump or by Joe Biden, or whoever the Democrats nominate. So, that’s not a hard choice for me.

ISAACSON: The Republican Convention starts next week. What are you going to be watching for?

SYKES: For me, the most difficult part of watching this will be watching Republicans bow their knees or applaud for the most extreme and outlandish positions, positions that never would have been taken by a Republican Party, a Republican Party that claimed it was for law and order that is now going to embrace a convicted felon, the party of Ronald Reagan that is going to be cheering speakers who will talk about abandoning Ukraine. I wonder whether or not there will be people who will stand up and say, OK, we’re going to support Donald Trump, but we’re not going to abandon NATO, or we’re not going to go along with some of these extreme positions here. You know, I think one of the things that has been the most disillusioning over the last nine years has not just been the bowing of the knee to Donald Trump, but it’s been the willingness to change principles, to change positions that people have held through their whole lives because that’s what they need to continue to be with the tribe. Will there be any indication whatsoever that this party wants to reach out to centrist voters or will this just be a doubling down? And unfortunately, this convention takes place in the shadow of the turmoil that’s going on in the Democratic Party. So, this is, again, going to be a very optimistic, very aggressive, very triumphalistic Republican Party. This will be the gathering of the party that is absolutely confident that they will be in power next year. So, it’s going to be interesting to see how they respond to that. Do they figure that — you know, that because they are in a position to win this election, they should moderate and reach out to swing voters in places like Wisconsin, or will they see this as a ratification of everything that they have been doing since January 6th and double down? So, I’m going to be very interested to see how much and how willing they are to litigate the 2020 election, how they will react to all of that, and how much they’ll talk about the future, because I’m not sure how they will balance that.

ISAACSON: Charlie Sykes, thank you for joining us.

SYKES: Thank you so much.