Welcome to the Bullwork podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes.

Welcome to the podcast, our old friend John Harwood, veteran journalist, veteran of the New

York Times Wall Street Journal, NBC, CNN, and now living the dream, John. Welcome back

on the podcast.

Thanks, Charlie.

So I started off this morning by Googling Donald Trump debate John Harwood cartoon.

And I'll tell you what the shock was to realize that this was from 2015. We are coming up

on the seven year anniversary of this debate, the CNBC Republican debate. By the way, there

will never be a CNBC Republican debate. Again, for people who, you know, don't remember

this is going to come back to you. You were one of the moderators of the debate. And this was when

Donald Trump was still kind of fresh and new in American politics. So you described Trump's plans,

including his proposal to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants building a wall on the,

on the border, which of course, Mexico was going to pay for. And then you say, let's be honest,

is this the comic book version of a presidential campaign? Seven years later,

can you believe that we are still talking about this that it's not just a comic book version,

but we are all part of this comic book. And it has been going on for seven freaking years.

It's unbelievable. And you know, when you think about it, people at that time did not think Donald

was going to win the nomination. And before that debate, I was getting incoming from other Republican

campaigns who thought we in the press have been way too easy on Trump. And that as soon as he got

some strict scrutiny, he was going to collapse and then they'd get on to the real competition

between Mark Arubio and Jeb Blesher. Scott Walker, whoever else. And I thought there was some

truth to that that he had not gotten tough enough scrutiny. And so I, you know, questioned him

...