Welcome to the Bullwark Podcast. I'm Charlie Sipes. It's April 26, 2023. This is my last day

broadcasting from sunny, incredibly hot Phoenix areas. I'll hopefully be back in Wisconsin.

By the way, we will have some tempted to say personal news. Actually, it's more like professional

news because we will be unveiling a, I want to say new podcast, but it is not a completely new podcast.

It will be a new Thursday Bullwark Podcast. We're very excited about it. I'll tell you about it

later. But stay tuned for all of that. No, I guess today because there's so much going on here.

Benji Starlin, Washington Bureau Chief at Semi Four, previously covered elections for NBC News,

Benji. Welcome to the podcast. Hey, Charlie. Thanks for having me. Okay. So maybe it's because I was out

in the sun too much, but I was thinking about the 2024 election. We have dark brand and

running for president. He's in, you know, made the announcement. It's been completely overshadowed

by the firing of two cable TVOs. You have, you know, the RNC putting out a deep fake video.

And it just occurs to me that at the moment, the presidential race is simultaneously,

and feel free to disagree with me. It is simultaneously boring, same old, same old,

and completely terrifying at the same time. I find it a little exciting too. I mean,

the Republican side is, I find extremely interesting. The Democratic side, it's, you know,

partly because Democrats had such a strong midterms, they're not making any drastic changes.

There's not really a wilderness that they're in at the moment. And because Biden's running,

you know, essentially on a pose, except for, you know, some sort of fringe candidate so far. There's

not a lot of drama there. But, you know, the Republican side is, I think it's still pretty interesting,

depending on how competitive you think it is and what the broader implications you think are. But,

yes, it is compared to the last several election cycles. I do feel like the presidential election

is a bit of a side show. And you're seeing that in things like, for example, donations. Small donors

...