Donald Trump Wants to Psych You Out
Plus: It’s the Gender Gap, Stupid!
Recently in The Bulwark:
BILL KRISTOL & ANDREW EGGER: When You Thought He Couldn’t Sink Lower
JVL: Women, for the Win 🔐
Overtime is for everyone. If you’re a subscriber: thank you. If you’re not, there’s no better time to subscribe to Bulwark+ than today. If you like today’s issue, you can share this newsletter with someone you think would value it.
JILL D. LAWRENCE: Donald Trump Wants to Psych You Out
SWAGGER, CHUTZPAH, EGOTISM—whatever you want to call it, Donald Trump has taken delusions of grandeur to such heights that he needs an explicit reminder: Joe Biden is president of the United States, and Trump is not.
This sounds like Civics 101, but it’s essential counterprogramming as Trump conducts faux presidential business in fake-it-till-you-make-it mode, and an inevitability narrative takes hold.
ADAM KINZINGER: Trump Wants to Execute My Friend
IT’S NOT EVERY DAY THE PRESIDENTIAL nominee of a major political party fantasizes out loud about putting your friend in the way of harm and violent death. Yet that’s just what Donald Trump did to Liz Cheney yesterday: “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK?” he said. “And let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.”
Editor’s Note: This item has been cross-posted on Adam’s Substack, which you definitely should sign up for if you haven’t already.
CASEY MICHEL: Elon Musk Is Putin’s Best Weapon
THERE IS PLENTY UNPRECEDENTED about the 2024 presidential election. For the first time in American history, a twice-impeached convicted felon has a good shot of winning the White House. Not only does Donald Trump promise to enact authoritarian policies reminiscent of Viktor Orbán’s Hungary and Recep Erdoğan’s Turkey, but he would bring more foreign financial entanglements than any prior presidency—creating untold opportunities for influencing his administration.
🎥 PODCASTS AND VIDEOS 🎧
Bulwark Podcast with Tim Miller: Mehdi Hasan: Memory-Holing the Worst President [YouTube]
Beg to Differ: Who Are You Calling Garbage? [YouTube]
Across the Movie Aisle: Some Election Eve Distractions 🔐
The Secret Podcast: Finish Line 🔐
Bulwark+ Live: A 3 day election live stream palooza! 🔐
Did you know? Bulwark+ members can listen to an ad-free version of these podcasts on the player of their choice.
Learn more at Bulwark+ Podcast FAQ.
📣Bulwark+ members can now listen to ad-free podcasts on Spotify! Learn more here.
Our 🎥YouTube offerings are the free-versions of shows, and they do have ads.
✍️Also: Did you know that every podcast has a transcript for B+ members? Yes! If you’re more a reader than a listener/viewer, open any podcast and the transcript button is beneath the player.
DANIEL MCGRAW: It’s the Gender Gap, Stupid!
AT MY APARTMENT BUILDING in suburban Cleveland, I asked some of my neighbors what they thought of Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden last weekend. Most didn’t know anything at all about it, so I filled them in: One guy said Puerto Rico was an “island of garbage” while another said Kamala Harris’s campaign team were “pimp handlers.” Hillary Clinton was called a “sick bastard.” And former Fox News host Tucker Carlson said Harris is a bad candidate because she has a “low IQ.”
SONNY BUNCH: ‘Woman of the Hour’ and ‘Conclave’ Reviews
There’s a really interesting sequence nearly 70 minutes into Woman of the Hour in which director Anna Kendrick demonstrates how subtly changing the position of a camera can dramatically change how we feel about a scene, and how we read the intent of the characters in that scene.
BILL RYAN: Spooky Season Is Year Round
THOUGH NOVEMBER IS UPON US, signaling the end of another Halloween and suggesting that all our good times are done for another year, there is in fact no reason to stop watching horror films. They’re available year-round, after all. And today I would like to recommend a couple of great ones that you may not have seen before. One is a bit of an obscurity; the other is a tucked-away masterpiece by one of the cinema’s most famous horror directors. Both can be found without much effort. I hope you’ll seek them out, and thank me later.
MATT BENNETT AND JIM KESSLER: Don’t Buy The Trump Camp’s Spin
ON THURSDAY, THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN leaked a polling memo entitled, in their customary all-caps shout, “PRESIDENT TRUMP ON THE VERGE.”
To use language Team Trump would understand, this memo is bullshit masquerading as serious analysis. The race, as any neutral observer would agree, is tied, bouncing around inside the margin of error in almost every swing state. And, as we detail below, there is ample reason to believe that Vice President Harris can—and perhaps will—win.
🚨OVERTIME🚨
Happy Friday… From Texas! I am here for a family vacation in the lead up to this historic election. Texas Monthly’s cover story, gracing my hotel coffee table, is on Ted and observes that he has difficulty giving up “the pleasures of provocation.” I recommend it as a read, and do encourage Texas to help make Senator Cruz a full time podcaster.
As such, and due to the surplus of content, today’s Overtime section will be shorter than usual.
In local news… I awoke on my ride to the airport to Kentucky state troopers blocking off a major thoroughfare in Cincinnati due to a fire under the “Big Mac” Bridge. A much loved local playground was a fire victim.
Mike Johnson’s running for his life – and possibly Trump’s – this election, writes Matt Laslo at Raw Story.
Tech support questions? Email members@thebulwark.com. Questions for me? Respond to this message.
—30—
Editorial photos provided by Getty Images. For full credits, please consult the article.