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