How Lindsey Graham Became "That Guy" (The Secret Podcast PREVIEW)

The Next Level

The Bulwark

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.9 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2023

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

JVL sits down with Will Saletan to talk about his book on The Corruption of Lindsey Graham. It’s a *much* more free-flowing and philosophical discussion than I’d planned. If you’re game for a journey, you might like it.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Next week's TNL will be streamed LIVE on YouTube on The Bulwark's main channel. Tune in May 17th at 3 pm EST to watch Tim, Sarah, and JVL record in the same room for the first time in ages! The chat will be open to get ready to ask our hosts your burning questions! Join here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONVoAmys1Lg

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey there it's J. Ville. On the secret show, Will Salitan was sitting in for Sarah Longwell today.
0:05.2	And we talked all about his book, about Lindsay Graham and the rise of authoritarianism in America and the decline of parties and institutions, it's a really long and kind of meandering conversation, but I think you're going to like it.
0:20.0	Here's the show. And we ended last night, Will, with me asking you a question that I teased and I said
0:31.6	and people can come in and get the answer on the secret pot.
0:35.0	My question was looking at the transformation that Graham underwent and looking at all the reasons why you lay out. People make these
0:47.6	transformations and how they rationalize and how they do it. Do you believe that there is your how do you pronounce it a heuristic
0:58.2	is that how it's pronounced juristic sounds right through which one could have looked at say Liz Cheney and Lindsay Graham simultaneously in 2015 and said
1:10.0	This this one of them this guy is gonna go along with it and this one of them this guy is going to go along with it in this one this woman over here is not
1:17.2	Do you think there is or is it all a crap shoot? So it's first of all I think we should be really humble about our ability to predict this stuff because I'm not I'm very very good
1:27.6	I'm not I'm very very good. So if if the JVL shirt says JVL is always right and the Sarah shirt says
1:36.3	Sarah is always right the will shirt says will is often wrong.
1:39.8	Will will as will is very very humble about his ability to know what is going to happen and what is not going to happen.
1:48.6	I am a huge believer in retrospective analysis, which means that looking at your mistakes and what you got wrong.
1:55.4	So a lot of people for example got did not see Lindsay Graham becoming what he became and so I think even
2:02.2	today it would be hard for me to, I mean, I'm thinking now of Tim's book. Did Tim really know that
2:06.4	Elise Stephanic was going to turn out to be what she is? It doesn't appear that way.
2:12.3	So, but I think to answer your question, it is true that you can look at
2:16.9	certain personality traits and project them forward. So let's take a couple of
2:20.8	pairings. Lindsay Graham and John McCain.
2:24.3	You could have looked at John McCain and said,
2:26.7	this guy has a very stubborn, willful personality.
2:30.8	He gets it in his head.
	...

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