From 33 States to 29%: Paul Begala Tells the Truth Again

David Wheeler: 00:00:03

Hey, folks, it's Muck U, the American Muckrakers podcast where we sling mud at the high and mighty. I'm David Wheeler, the clown who kicked off this circus, joined by my co founder and co host, Colonel Mo Davis. Take it away, Mo.

Col Moe Davis: 00:00:17

Well, thanks, and hey, thanks everybody for tuning in again. It's kind of a, we're capping off the week we started, you know, the week with Mark McKinnon and the important role he played in Bush 43.

And we're ending the week with Paul Begala, who was instrumental in Clinton, you know, the 42nd president.

the Clinton campaign back in: 1992

You know, Paul's, if you watch CNN, you've certainly seen him on there a number of times, and he was gracious enough today to get down off his John Deere tractor there out in rural Virginia and to join us. And Paul, thank you so much for, for doing this.

Paul Begala: 00:01:14

Col. Thank you. And David, good to see you again. Thanks.

Col Moe Davis: 00:01:18

Well, let's start by, you know, you, you were instrumental back in the day when Clinton won 33 states.

And we've gone from that to, to now where, you know, the Democrats have a, depending on which poll you look at somewhere between a 27 and a 29% approval rating. So how in the hell, you know, over a 30 year period, how, how did we get to where we are now?

Paul Begala: 00:01:39

That's a good question, Colonel. In fact, I'd like to meet the 27. I mean, I've been a Democrat all my adult life and I'm, I'm pissed as hell. That's why I love your podcast.

I have to say I'm a fan as well as a, as a guest. So thank you for having me. It's very kind of you all.

You know, it's like you remember in the Sun Also Rises, there's a guy named Mike and he's all messed up from the First World War and he'd been rich in England and he goes broke and his friend says, mike, how did a guy like you go bankrupt? And he said, slowly and then suddenly, and that's kind of how the Democrats have lost their majority.

Slowly and then suddenly, Bill Clinton, you're right, carried 33 states in a country where the electorate was 87% white. Nine out of 10 voters when Bill Clinton got elected were white and he carried 33 states.

And I know, believe me, you grew up where I grew up in small town in Texas. I know there is racism in this country, but it's not worse than it was 30 years ago. So you can't simply say, I don't diminish it.

g going on. Even as recent as: 2009

60, including two from Arkansas, two from West Virginia, two from Montana, two from North Dakota, one from Alaska, one from Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio and South Dakota. Those are 18 seats that we have lost. And, and very few people think we can compete in those places again.

I think that's why we have a lot of problems. Believe me, we'll get into with the Republicans and I just can't stand Mr. Trump.

But Democrats need to look at themselves and ask them, how have we given the Heisman to so many good Americans? I mean, and what do we need to do to change to get back on track?

Col Moe Davis: 00:03:36

Yeah, it is disappointing. And you're right, it happened so quickly that I think it caught a lot of people by surprise.

I know I've Certainly in, in: 2016

Particularly if we can't beat someone as flawed as, as Donald Trump, then we really do have a, have a problem. I know you're a big Willie Nelson fan and Willie's got a birthday coming up here in another week or two. He's gonna be 92 years old.

And we were fortunate back before we had the hu main hit here in western North Carolina. Willie played here in Asheville last year and it was a real treat to get to see him. But it kind of reminds me of this song, you're Always on My Mind.

Paul Begala: 00:04:29

Right.

Col Moe Davis: 00:04:29

Because, you know, if you listen to it, he's talking about, you know, this woman, I guess, that he loved that he neglected it and ignored. And he's trying to tell her that even though I didn't give you the attention that you deserve, you know, you're always on my mind.

It kind of seems like Democrats have done that with the electorate that, you know, we might have had them on our mind, but we certainly didn't show them the love that we should have. And, and we lost their, their love and their support, and we've got to win it back.

Paul Begala: 00:04:56

That's so insightful. It's. It's exactly right. And of course, growing up in Texas, we got a word for people who don't believe in Willie. We call them atheists.

But you're right, you're right. We. I actually think our policies are pretty darn good, particularly for the middle class.

On economics, if you look at what Joe Biden did, the jobs, the factories, it was really good. So what I think it is, it's a couple things.

First, they do think we're not sufficiently focused on the middle class, and they think we're spending all our time on elite, esoteric cultural issues that don't affect their lives. It's not that people are haters. They're not.

But they're thinking, why are you so obsessed with what's happening in bathrooms and locker rooms instead of what's happening in classrooms now? I would argue it's the other side. It's actually the Republicans who. They can't stop thinking about where people pee.

And I'm sorry, I could give a shit. Right. Let's live and let live. But before, like, I do think some of this is on us.

You know, I was, I was on npr, actually, and I was having a discussion with a. A very, you know, far left strategist who had a different take on things.

And, and we didn't entirely disagree, but it's the priorities that people think we have that I don't think are true. But they believe that, that we care mostly about social and cultural issues. There's data that says that.

And we got to get back to those economic issues. And we got to get back, you know, if the Democratic Party doesn't stand for the working class, we shouldn't exist. We created the middle class.

The middle class created us. Democrats invented the weekend. You're welcome. There was no such thing as a fucking week.

Excuse my language, but you told me I could cuss on this weekend until the Democratic Party came along.

And yet now, and I said this to this guy, I said, our party needs to get back to being the party of the people whose names are stitched over the pocket of their shirt and not the people whose pronouns are typed at the bottom of their email. Now, I'm not. Again, I'm kind of against this kind of virtue signaling I'm wholly supportive of trans rights and gay rights, and I'm a Democrat.

I'm wholly supportive. But yeah, you know, you don't need to be advertising your pronouns to me on your Email. You know, seriously, maybe I don't have my pronouns on my man.

It's change it to raise the minimum wage because, you know, I have family and friends who are trans and they, they care a lot more about economic issues, believe me.

Col Moe Davis: 00:07:34

Right.

Paul Begala: 00:07:35

And, and again, it's not that people are punishing us for being good on these issues, and I, I will never tolerate discrimination, but it's, they have, they believe we have lost the thread, we have lost the narrative that, you know, my gay and trans relatives, they need a job too, and they need reliable health care, too, and they need safe neighborhoods, too. And I think that's kind of what we need to do is just kind of rebalance what people think our priorities are.

Col Moe Davis: 00:08:02

Right. Well, we talked about Willie Nelson. There's some great Texas artists. I was a big fan of Robert Earl Keane and Kiki Friedman.

And I guess the one that really comes to mind for me is Jerry Jeff Walker, because it seems like the Democrats kind of been pissing in the wind and it's blowing back on us and all our friends. So. You're exactly right.

I think, you know, folks out here in western North Carolina are more concerned about putting food on the table and, you know, paying their mortgage and, and having a decent job than they are about, about pronouns and those kind of things.

But, you know, it seems like for the other side, the other, you know, the, on the Republican side, they've, they've, you know, kind of made their chops by demonizing Democrats.

I know when I ran in: 2020

You know, I had groups that would endorse me because I wouldn't agree, I wouldn't promise to support, like, the Green New Deal. I'm not, I'm a supporter of the Green New Deal, but there are 52 provisions and some of them were notional.

Paul Begala: 00:09:24

Right.

Col Moe Davis: 00:09:25

And, you know, if I wouldn't commit to vote for all 52, then they wouldn't support me, even though they couldn't tell me exactly what some of those things meant. So we're purists.

And on the other side, you know, you got Matt Gates or, you know, down in Texas, your Attorney General, I guess, is going to take on John Cornyn for the Senate. How do, how do we rebalance things for the Democrats and learn how to fight and win rather than demand purity and. And procedure?

Paul Begala: 00:09:54

Is exactly right, Colonel. Is exactly right. Well, because you have led troops, you know, everybody has to agree on the mission.

And I believe sometimes that we are in coalition with people who don't necessarily want to win. And I got no time for somebody on my team who don't want to win.

You know, I'm a Texas Longhorn, but Nick Saban's the greatest football coach ever lived, and he used to say, the greatest tool I have as a coach is the bench.

Like, if I don't think you're trying your hardest, if I don't think you're in this to win, I'm going to sit you and give somebody else that playing time. We, we can't really do that. I'm not saying I want to bench people, but you gotta work backward from the goal.

In my time in politics, I've never seen anybody better at that than Nancy Pelosi. Nancy begins every conversation with, will this help us win? What will it take to get us to the majority? And then you work back from that.

So way back, I guess it was: 2018

Col Moe Davis: 00:11:04

Right.

Paul Begala: 00:11:05

And Heath ran, and, oh, he wasn't pure at all, okay? But he, he ran, he ran as a Democrat, and that's all Nancy cared about. And he probably voted with her, you know, 20% of the time or something.

She didn't care. Let's get the majority. That's the most important thing. We gotta, we gotta get back to that.

And within the bounds of law and ethics, we got to do anything it can, anything we can to win. And that begins with giving up these purity tests. I wouldn't, I would tell any politician, and a lot of them listen to your.

Both you guys, front, don't sign any questionnaires. Don't fill them out. Just don't do it. Don't try to meet every purity test of every interest group and every pressure group.

You tell them what you stand for. And, and if they want to endorse that, they can.

But, yeah, you shouldn't have to sign on to 52 provisions on somebody else's program which has some good and some bad. And if you ask me, but, you know, it was drawn up by a congresswoman from the Bronx, and that's a great.

I love the Bronx, but, you know, that ain't western North Carolina. And if we believe in diversity as a party, we better, by God, ought to practice diversity and not purity.

David Wheeler: 00:12:18

You're right, Paul, that it's really tough out here in western North Carolina be a Democrat, primarily because the Democrats in western North Carolina don't want to win.

Col Moe Davis: 00:12:30

Right.

David Wheeler: 00:12:32

It's unbelievable the battles that Mo and I have been through. I mean, we helped get rid of Madison Cawthorn. We talk about this a lot, brag about this a lot.

But we, to this day, are on the outs because we had Democrats sign up to be unaffiliated voters and get rid of the. And so that, I mean, that's an issue that I think has been a theme on our podcast is how do we get tougher candidates?

How do we get voters to understand that we're not mean and terrible people just because we point out that our opponents are? I don't get it, Paul. How do we. How do we. How do we reorient folks to be a little bit tougher as candidates?

Paul Begala: 00:13:13

You're right, Wheeler. I think it's coming from the. From the bottom up.

You know, Barack Obama always used to say, Washington's always the last to get the message, and he was right. And he's right now. I am seeing it. You're probably seeing it. I'm seeing it again. I'm in rural Virginia. My county voted 71% for Donald Trump. Okay.

I'm seeing it and hearing it. And you know what everybody is saying left, right and center. I want someone who fight. Stand up and fight. And.

And, you know, that's the classic definition of a Democrat is somebody who's afraid to take his own side in a fight.

David Wheeler: 00:13:49

Yeah, but we don't. We don't reward Democrats to do that. I mean, not. Not to bring this back to me and. And low my poor campaign for insurance commissioner.

But, you know, I took on my opponent who was on the insurance committee, and by the way, she got in the race. 72 hours for filing ended. But anyway, she was on the Insurance and Commerce Commission or committee in the North Carolina State Senate.

She'd never introduced one bill. She never called the insurance commissioner to account. She never, you know, puts together some bipartisan hearing around rates or anything.

But when I pointed that out, I became the asshole, literally. The executive committee of the Democratic Party sent out an email to all of their buddies saying, don't vote for this guy. He's an asshole.

He's taken on Natasha in a way that is going to damage her in the fall. And.

And I just thought, well, if, you know, and I did it in a pleasant enough way, it Wasn't like I was being racist or sexist about it, but I became the bad guy somehow. And then she gets her ass kicked in the fall because she wasn't willing to be tough.

I just don't understand why Democrats reward candidates like that.

Paul Begala: 00:15:01

That's a really good point. And I think it's changing. I do, because of Donald Trump. And I can't thank him for much, but I'll thank him for that.

He is reminding Democrats that when they lose, bad things happen. Okay? We're not just talking about, you know, I mean, I helped run campaigns against President Bush Senior, against John McCain and Mitt Romney.

We're not talking about just normal patriotic Republicans who have different ideas. Right? We're talking about Donald Trump. Who is he?

I mean this, he is waging war against the American dream and against the Declaration of Independence and against the Constitution. I mean he's going at fundamental Democratic little d. Fundamental American principles. And so it's catastrophic when we lose.

And by the way, all we needed was 1 out of 100 people in Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, 1 out of 100 to change their minds and we win. Kamala wins and I know she made mistakes and I know, etc. Etc. But we were a hair's breadth from winning. But we lost.

And we lost in part because some of our left wing Americans took a walk and, and they either stayed home or they voted for third party or they skipped that race and voted down ballot and, and you know, I, I hope this is working out for them, this Trump presidency.

But I, I do think Democrats need to have a reckoning with the extremists in their own party if we're going to be credible taking on the extremist who's running the country.

David Wheeler: 00:16:33

I agree with you 100%, Paul. Your buddy Carville this week suggested the left leave the party and I couldn't agree more. I'd be happy to give him a ticket out of town, but.

Paul Begala: 00:16:45

So listen, I agree, but let me press that point because I get this a lot. I want a reckoning with. And by the way, it's the woke white left. When, when the press talks about the base of our party, I get so angry.

I'm sorry to yell, but I do because they think the base of our party is over educated, over caffeinated, over opinionated, pain in the ass, white liberal assistant professor of aromatherapy candle making on social media. That ain't our party. The base of our party is a church lady in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Okay?

The heart of our party is is black folks, Hispanic folks, Asian Americans, immigrants. And I'm white as I can be. I'm so white I get a sunburn when you open the refrigerator door. But I'm not the base of the Democratic Party.

's going to be the nominee in: 2028

That's who's going to win. Because they always pick our presence. They do a damn good job. And it's when we listen to those that woke white left that we get in trouble.

And so Carl's point, if we drive them out, oh, my God, we'd lose 2%, 5%. How could we possibly win? Well, maybe you lose 2% or 5%, but then you gain 15% in the middle.

David Wheeler: 00:18:06

Exactly. By standing up to him.

Paul Begala: 00:18:08

Barack Obama did. He stood up to him. They called him the deporter in chief. He had such a strong border policy that the left called him the deporter in chief.

He didn't flinch, and he was rewarded with a landslide reelection. Same thing with Bill Clinton.

I mean, the great leaders of our party, the great progressive leaders, have always been willing to stand up to the, the perfectionist caucus fringe. And, and that's what I loved about Obama, that's what I loved about Clinton, and that's what I'm looking for in our next leaders.

David Wheeler: 00:18:40

You got it, man. Okay, so let's go, let's go back a little bit in time. So Mark McKinnon and you went to school together?

Paul Begala: 00:18:49

We did, yeah. Well, yeah, I, I, I went to school. Mark was enrolled. I don't mean Delta.

David Wheeler: 00:18:58

So what, so what's the deal with Hank, the hallucination?

Paul Begala: 00:19:02

Oh, my gosh. Well, first off, you got to understand, and I love McKinnon, and I think you could probably take about 12% of what he says seriously.

He got a very loose grip on reality. It's part of why I love him.

David Wheeler: 00:19:15

Yeah, that's true. He spends too much time up in the mountains of Colorado.

Paul Begala: 00:19:19

He does. And I'm not saying in college, he imbibed in what Kinky Friedman used to call 11 herbs and spices. But so here's what happened.

The students had abolished student government in the 70s. And, you know, I arrived in the 80s, and there's no student government. Well, it turns out power abhors a vacuum. It is never created or destroyed.

It simply moves.

So back then, back then: 1981

So we recreated student government, by the way, we got Lloyd Doggett, now a congressman, was our state senator. And Lloyd passed an amendment to the university appropriation saying the president university couldn't spend that money without students input.

That the students had to spend student money. God bless Lloyd. So we recreated student government and we're having an election for student body president.

The cartoonist for the local, the school paper created this character, Hank, the hallucination, who you could only see when you were high because he was a hallucination. And of course he won in a landslide. He won a landslide. Who wouldn't? It was fun, it was funny, it was great.

He had the greatest slogan ever, especially for a hallucination. But for any politician it was be real. So I wound up winning because poor Hank was.

Was actually killed in the comic strip, not by me, but by a little girl with an imaginary gun on her finger gun, you know, a little finger pistol. She went boom. And of course imaginary gun is going to kill imaginary creature. Here's what I took from that though. Be real.

So we were blessed to have no precedent because five years out of college is a generation. So we had no bureaucracy, no precedent. We could do whatever we wanted. And I thought I got to be real.

So we set this thing up and my then girlfriend, now wife, took some of that $7 million and opened a child care center for students who also had babies. It's still operating today, 40 years later, generations of young people have been able to get an education while having a kid.

Because of my wife and because that student fees, the university president would have never thought of that. She created the campus recycling center, which is still operating. I created a group. I'm so proud of this, I'm sorry to brag. Called sure.

United for Rape Elimination,: 1982

And it was a campus walk system then, where you'd get a couple of folks who'd walk a young lady home, you know, if she was studying late. Now it's gotten so big that they have a bunch of golf carts and they drive them around.

And a year or two ago, when my son was a student, he contacted probably the most famous Texas ex in the world, Matthew McConaughey. And McConaughey drove one of those golf carts and they filmed it to promote the rape prevention program. God bless McConaughey.

So we did stuff that was real.

We defeated a bill in the legislature, lobbied and defeated a bill to raise the drinking age because 18 is good for me, and good if you're representing thousands of 18 year olds. And we killed a tuition increase because tuition was already $4 a credit and why would you want to spend more than that?

So I'm really proud of that time, but that's what I learned. And the Hank thing was formative because he was a hallucination. He insisted that politicians be real.

And a lot of campus politicos to this day are out there, you know, pissing and moaning about Gaza as if they've ever been, as if they know what river and what sea when really, seriously, they ought to be trying to make students lives better. And, and that's what my, my wife and I did. And, and I'd say McKinnon was against all of it because he was a nihilist back then and a socialist.

He was always writing in the school paper about how we were terrible.

Col Moe Davis: 00:23:15

Hey, Paul, I want to ask you about the. I think I always started taping.

I was telling you I've got on my bookcase your book that you and James Carville put out about 23 years ago called Buck up, Suck up and Come back when you foul up. So let's start. Didn't you have another four letter F word in mind?

Paul Begala: 00:23:33

We did and Carville insisted, but Simon and Schuster, I think prudentially said, well, there's a lot of bookstores won't carry it, a lot of libraries won't house it. So we, we relented.

Col Moe Davis: 00:23:44

You know, one of the, one of the themes in the book, and like I said, I've had it for quite a while and you know, when I was in leadership positions, some of the things you guys talk about in here were really useful. And one of the points you hit a number of times, you talked about schadenfreude and how people enjoy, you know, the misery of others.

So if you've got bad news, get out, get out in front of it.

And to take responsibility if you screw up, you know, admit your mistake and, you know, and, and have a plan on how you're going to move forward and take responsibility. And all these things make imminent sense to me.

But now we've got a, a man in the White House who has never taken responsibility for anything, much less admit that he ever made a mistake. So how do you square those two?

On the one hand, you know, taking responsibility is the best course but, you know, for a man who never takes responsibility, he's at the highest office in the land.

Paul Begala: 00:24:43

It's a great point, Colonel. And I don't understand. I really don't. And I got family and friends who vote for Mr. Trump, but.

And maybe they like his policies, maybe they want stricter border, etc. Okay, but his personal character is so reprehensible. You're right. We had the Bay of Pigs fiasco in the early 60s, and our President was.

Had been a junior officer in the Navy, and he stood up, and it was the CIA screwed it up, and Eisenhower gave the okay, and Kennedy just come in and he didn't say any of that. He made no excuses. He stood there like the young naval officer he was, and he said, I am the responsible officer of this government.

And by the way, his approval went up to, like, 71% because even though it was a disaster, he stood up. I honestly don't understand, Colonel. I don't. And I don't understand people who look at Trump and see some macho.

I think he's the weakest, most pathetic thing I've ever seen. You stand up. Everybody makes mistakes, and Mr. Trump probably makes more than his share. Well, fine. Stand up and own it.

And I'm sorry to sound sexist, but stand up and be a man, Donald. Man up and take responsibility for your mistakes and your policies that haven't worked out.

He never, ever does that, though, Colonel, and he seems to prosper by that. And I am mystified, I really am, because I believe it's not only good morality, but it's good strategy.

I believe, and I argue this in the book, that voters, they have an inverse relationship between credit and blame. The more you seek credit, the less they want to give it to you, and the more you seek blame, the less they want to give it to you.

Col Moe Davis: 00:26:18

All right.

Paul Begala: 00:26:19

You know, Ben, I have a friend, anytime he does you a favor, you say thank you, say, well, I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything. And it makes you love him more. And the same thing with blame.

When you stand up and say, well, this is on me, people tend to say, oh, no, that really wasn't all your fault. So I don't understand it. I'm mystified. Carl.

Col Moe Davis: 00:26:40

Yeah, it's. It's shocking that we've gone from the days when, you know, the breath, you know, the buck stops here. You know, I'm the man in charge.

I'm the one responsible.

I, you know, I take the blame to an administration where no One, you know, like the, the Secretary of Defense, you know, transmits attack plans over a, an INS unsecured commercial app and includes a journalist in, in the discussion.

You if those had been ordinary military folks that have been a, a 21 year old lieutenant or an 18 year old airman, they would have marched him out of the Pentagon with their, all their, in a copier paper box immediately as they begin a criminal investigation. But we've got all these senior leaders that you know, are getting a free pass on what would been a career ender for anybody else.

Paul Begala: 00:27:33

And it is a mystery and usually in America especially people think that, they think, what if I'd have done that, let me tell you, I was blessed. I had a very senior position in the White House. I was a counselor to the President.

If I had taken one document home with me, one, I'd be, you know, on a one way trip to Leavenworth, Kansas. And this guy takes boxes and boxes and by the way, he's flushing them down the drain.

And I mean their whole thing, their whole defense always with Trump is diversion, deflection and it is. I had a friend who was a public defender and I asked him once, I said, how many of your clients are actually guilty?

He said, hell, all of them as far as I know. I said, so what do you do? And he said, you generally. I offer the Saudi defense. And I went to law school, I have a law degree, I'm a lawyer.

But I didn't, I thought, man, I should have gone to class that day. What's the Saudi defense? And he said some other dude did it and that's Mr. Trump. He is the President Trump.

I don't want to be disrespectful to the office, but he offers the Saudi defense every doggone day, doesn't he?

Col Moe Davis: 00:28:37

Right? And it works.

I mean the public, you know, we used to laugh that when he made the statement about shooting someone on Fifth Avenue and not losing a vote. But hell, it's true.

Paul Begala: 00:28:48

He sexually abused a woman on Fifth Avenue and didn't lose any votes. Gained votes, gained four points in the primary.

Col Moe Davis: 00:28:53

Yeah.

Paul Begala: 00:28:53

To me, after a jury found that he had sexually abused and defamed Ms. Carroll.

Col Moe Davis: 00:28:58

rossly underestimated back in: 2024

And a majority of white women said, oh, we're okay with the, with a Sexual predator being in charge.

Paul Begala: 00:29:21

Well, but you know, sir, I think it is also that they believed we weren't doing enough about their cost of living. And, you know, when, when you can't afford to make bacon and eggs for your kids, everything else is an abstraction.

And I really do respect those folks and I think we should have done more to address their cost of living. And, you know, before he dropped out of the race, Joe Biden kept telling us things were better than we experienced them. And that made me crazy.

And I love President Biden, but, you know, if you go to the doctor and you say, doc, my shoulder's killing me, and he says, no, it's not. That's not a good doctor. Like, you know, if your shoulder hurts. So I think, I think some of this is on us.

And it's not that abortion rights wasn't a big issue. And I think Democrats did gain a lot of votes on it, but at the end of the day, we did not have a credible economic narrative for the middle class.

And at a time of high inflation. That's just a, that's just a killer.

Col Moe Davis: 00:30:22

Listen, I know your, your son Billy is involved with the Barbed Wire, which is a new news media outlet that focuses on politics and issues in Texas. We've got something similar here in North Carolina called the assembly.

And here locally in Asheville, we've got a great group of, for, for whatever reason, a number of retired journalists, you know, some Pulitzer Prize winners chose to retire to the North Carolina mountains. And they joke that they quickly, quickly realized they weren't very good at playing pickleball and they had to have something to do.

So they started up a news outlet called the Asheville Watchdog that does the in depth reporting that our local paper that's been gutted just can't do.

But, you know, it seems like the, you know, clearly the right owns social media, literally, and they've kind of beaten the mainstream media into submission. So how do we get the message out now to people?

How do we connect with those working class voters about, you know, the, the messages that Democrats want them to hear when a lot of the, the means of communicating are no longer in our control?

Paul Begala: 00:31:35

It's a really good point. It's a really good point. Thank you for plugging the Barbed wire. My Billy. I'm so proud of it.

It does terrific work reporting and a lot of culture, music, politics, food. I mean, it's not only politics. It's, it's. I just love it. I'm biased, but I love it because I am a Texan. And.

And I love my son, who's amazing, but I think some of it is, like.

And what these folks are doing in Asheville, you know, President Clinton used to say, everything that's wrong with America can be cured by everything that's right with America. And I don't know if that's true about social media. Everything that's wrong, and social media can be cured by what's right.

I don't know, because those algorithms manipulate you. I was on Twitter. Oh, my gosh. I had 230,000 followers on Twitter, and I was tweeting 50 times a day.

I had opinions about everything, Colonel, and it was mostly crap and hateful, and it made me a worse person. It did. And it's on me. I'm morally responsible for my conduct. But it didn't do me any good. And so I tested something. Actually, my wife's idea.

We're Catholics, and during Lent, you're supposed to give up something. And every year, I'd give up drinking, cussing, Twitter. The three sins of my daily life. Can't go a day without all three.

And after a couple years, my wife said, why don't you do something positive? Why don't you get on that Twitter machine and say something good every single day? So I created a hashtag, people are good.

And my own rules were, it's got to be an American doing something good that people don't know about. And every single day, I scoured the news to find, you know, a cop was off duty.

He was driving home, and he saw a minivan swerve and crash into a pond. A woman had had some kind of a seizure. He dove in and saved her life, then realized there's a baby in the back seat and saved the baby.

People are good in. In Des Moines, Wheeler, a bunch of girls in a homeless shelter formed a Girl Scout troop, and they set the.

They won the state championship for selling cookies. People are good. So I did this every day, and I had 230,000 followers.

If I tweeted that Trump's a pig, anywhere from five to 50,000 people would say, oh, yeah, I like that. The highest engagement I ever got. Two years. I did this two different lengths. So 80. 80 tweets in all. 107 people. No one I knew or loved saw it.

No one knew about it, because the algorithm wouldn't promote good news because it doesn't keep you on the platform.

The algorithm is designed by neuroscientists who know that what keeps you on the platform is division, hate confirmation, Bias, you know, telling you, oh, yeah, Trump's a pig. Yeah, I don't like Trump. And frankly, the right has manipulated that much more successfully.

And the Russians and the Iranians and the North Koreans and the Chinese, all our enemies around the world, have manipulated that far better than we have. But so we got to get in the new formats, like the, like the, the outlets you've got in Asheville, like my son is doing in Austin.

But also, I know you guys like him. Mark Cuban talked to me, and I was off social media then for several years and a better person for it.

He talked me into joining Blue sky, right, where I have maybe 500 followers, but it's moderated and it's not hateful. The last thing I ever did on Twitter was when Dianne Feinstein died. And Diane had been a client of mine, she'd been a friend of mine. I loved her.

But young people only saw the woman who was past her sell by date and should have retired from the Senate and was really obviously suffering from dementia. So I wanted to contextualize her career on her passing. A wonderful person. She was a trailblazing mayor and senator.

So I wrote something very loving and, and you know, more about the sweep of her career than the end. And within seconds, guys, my Twitter feed was filled with most anti semitic hate you can imagine.

And that's not because people are bad, people are good, but the algorithm is bad. And so I slammed that laptop down and never went back on that site.

And, and I've been trying Blue sky, and I kind of like it, but again, it's just me and 500 like minded people right now.

David Wheeler: 00:35:41

Yeah, well, it's a good place to be, I think. And yeah, I'm a big fan of Mark Cubans. And he, yeah, we've been trying to get him to think about it, but I think the family's against it.

And I don't think he wants to get too far ahead of Trump on some of this stuff. But so listen, you know, you've been an honorable guy in politics.

I'm sure you, I'm sure you've been presented with some weird situations where you could have been become a bad guy or you could have cut some edges here or cut some corners there. But just like McKinnon, you've had an honorable career in a profession that is sometimes less than honorable. Where does that come from?

I asked McKinnon this and he kind of skirted it. But where does that come from? Is that your family? Is that your church?

Is it, you know, a mentor along the way, what makes Paul Begolla such a good guy?

Paul Begala: 00:36:42

Well, it's all of the above. I mean, I, I, I'm Catholic and I practice my faith and I try my best to live my faith and that, that's the foundation for me.

I'm a Catholic more than I'm a Democrat, and I'm a real Democrat and, and those values which again, I, you know, Nancy Pelosi is one of the best Catholics in public life that I've ever seen. And she is always reminding us, love the sinner, hate the sin. So we're commanded, for example, to pray for Donald Trump. You can't hate.

I can't hate Donald Trump. I hate what he does. And I do. And I think Nancy is such a role model in that regard.

She is, I think, the most effective legislator in all of American history. The greatest speaker we have ever produced, going all the way back to Muhlenberg. And, and so for me, it starts with my faith.

I, I married the love of my life who I met when we were 19, and she has a very strong moral compass and teaches Sunday school, taught, taught religious ed in our Catholic Church and has a very strong moral compass. And then you get mentors. I mean, obviously my biggest one was Bill Clinton, who, he used to say this to me all the time.

He'd say, paulie, you have to beware of anyone who believes they are in sole possession of the truth, including you. He would say, you need that small still voice in the back of your conscience saying maybe they're right and I'm wrong.

He's the most open minded grownup I have ever known and really an inspiration because, you know, years ago, McKinnon and I have always been friends. I love him. But Karl Rove and I were pretty bitter enemies. And as time has passed, we've gotten older, maybe we've moderated.

Maybe he and I are both too freaked out by Trump to worry about Bush and Clinton. Right.

And we've become friends and I learned from him and I regret, I really do, the hateful things I've said about him or things I said about Liz Cheney or any of these people now who are, you know, not exactly on the Trump train. But it's, it's that for me, it starts with my faith and I, I tend to be too preachy about it. But, but that's, that's where it starts from.

Because if you believe that we're all children of God, who am I then? You know, to, to judge anybody, that's.

David Wheeler: 00:39:04

That'S a really Sweet sentiment. And I. It's interesting. Rove seems to be a recurring theme on these. These Texas boys that talk about politics.

We should probably get him on here, Mo, I think, and have a conversation.

Paul Begala: 00:39:20

He's a brilliant guy. We still disagree about.

David Wheeler: 00:39:22

Yeah, yeah. Remember, you remember how much we hated the motherfucker, though. And now he's like a voice of reason. Well, and even. Even his boss, you know, I.

I remember, God, how much I just despised Dubia and how I wanted him out of office. And now, Jesus, seeing him with Michelle Obama, his wife with Barack. I mean, it's just unbelievable how you. How things change.

Paul Begala: 00:39:49

Well, w. I intensely, and I knew him, like, when he was governor and intensely opposed to. I wrote two, three books publicly criticizing him and his policies.

But he's a good man. When one of my other mentors, Zell Miller, passed away, the only person I ever saw had three different presidents speak at his funeral.

Bill Clinton, who he was terribly close to, Jimmy Carter, who he started out in the state Senate with, and George W. Bush, who, at the end of his career, Zell came around and supported Bush on most things and not the Democrats.

He remained a Democrat, but he really was a George Bush Democrat after being a Bill Clinton Democrat. And Bush showed up at that funeral, and I went up and thanked him, how much I was really close to the family, still am.

And I said, it means so much to Shirley and. And the kids, and Mr. President, I really want to thank. And he looked at me, he's like, there's nothing more important I could be doing, Ben.

And I thought, that is such a wonderful sentiment. He could do anything. He could be, you know, flying on a Gulf stream to, you know, Abu Dhabi to do billion dollar deals.

And he took time to go and mourn a Democrat who had helped him when he was president. So it's that kind of thing. You have to. You have to be able to put things in different contexts. And maybe Trump has been good that way. Seriously.

Col Moe Davis: 00:41:08

Well, listen, if you were, you know, looking ahead, if there are two or three themes that you think Democrats ought to be hammering, what would you be advising folks to focus on right now?

Paul Begala: 00:41:18

That's a great question, Colonel. The. The one word I have for this Trump presidency is betrayal.

I think when every Democrat thinks about Trump, the first thing we should say is betrayal, because that's different from resistance with your fist in the air. Betrayal means a lot of really good people voted for him. You can't tell me that 75 million Americans are irredeemable, racist.

I mean, it's the fallacy of composition. All the racists are Trump supporters, but not all the Trump supporters are racist.

You know, and it's a really important fallacy for us to keep in mind. So a lot of really good people voted for Donald Trump. People who built this country, served this country like, like you did, Colonel.

Teach our kids, police our streets, fight our fires, and he is stabbing them in the back. He is betraying those people for his billionaire bros.

And I think that kind of a message and always circling back to the economics, you know, why on earth would we're going to cut veterans benefits, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, special needs kids so that Elon Musk can get a few more million to add to his 400 billion? Give me a break.

I think that that sense of betrayal about middle class working people and their economic interest is what Democrats ought to be talking about every single day. And not Greenland. You know, ain't nobody voted for Trump because they wanted to buy Greenland.

They voted for him because they wanted to buy groceries. And while he's distracting us on Greenland and Panama and all this other stuff, groceries, gas and rent are going through the roof.

And that's why we hired him. He got, he got one job, cut our cost of living. What does this mean to groceries, gas and rent?

And he is raising the cost of your groceries, your gas and your rent every doggone day. And he's doing it to enrich, I would argue, to enrich his billionaire buddies.

Col Moe Davis: 00:43:13

Yeah, yeah.

I was reading today where I guess the budget they put forward, they're going to totally eliminate Head Start, which is a program that enables over a million, you know, low income families to work. You know, there's this big push on, on their side that if you're going to get benefits, there's a work requirement.

But now they're going to take away one of the tools that helps make work possible.

Paul Begala: 00:43:38

And it's just that's, and I, by the way, we ought to be about work and people think we're about welfare, not work. Colonel, the fact that you're focusing on work is so important. We want to reward work. We want to make it pay.

So we'll raise the minimum wage, we'll expand this earned income tax credit that President Reagan created and President Clinton expanded and President Obama expanded even more, which gives you tax breaks if you work, if you're low income and all of it. I believe that. I believe Democrats should represent the land of work, right?

That vast expanse in our country between the golden shores of wealth and the rocky coasts of poverty. We should be about work. And if you work for a living, I'm a friend of yours and you're a friend of mine and I want to work for you.

That's what Democrats ought to say. I want an economy that works for the people who work, and I want a government who works for the people who work.

And those billionaires, God bless them, they can take care of themselves. But you know, if, if you're somebody, you know, working their tail off to make ends meet, I want to be there for you.

And that's a very different message than some Democrats want.

David Wheeler: 00:44:51

Well, Paul, one other question. I, I'm just back from Iowa.

I took my boys to see grandma for a couple days and we're in the kitchen having dinner the night before we left, and she's 90 and she kind of looked at me and she said, what's going to happen to my Social Security? Yeah, Kind of quiet so the boys couldn't hear it. Even the boys don't know what Social Security is.

But, and she said, david, you know, I could, I could start crying. If we start talking about this too much, is he going to take away my Social Security?

Because I'm going to have to move and, you know, what is this doing to our country? It just, you know, my 90 year old mom at the end of her life is worried about, you know, paying her homeowners dues. There's something wrong here.

Where, where is this headed, Paul? I, I don't want it to be too gloomy, but you know that there's, you know, a whole conspiracy theory that April 20th is a big day for Trump.

He's gonna institute martial law, which I, I'm not too sure sure about that. But where do you think this is ultimately headed?

Paul Begala: 00:46:01

Yeah, of course, 420 is Willie's birthday kind of honorary, but that's, that's when Willie celebrates his birthday. Yeah, I, I have not heard that.

I don't think that's imminent, but I think we have to be eternally vigilant about our rights and our, our, our Constitution. I, I really do believe he's violating it every single day. I think this Department of Government efficiency thing, I think it's pronounced douche.

Those douchebags are violating our Constitution every single day because Congress spends money, not the President. This is really elemental. It's Article 1.

Congress allocates money and they say, you must have these programs for farmers, you must have this assistance for veterans, you must have this funding for special needs children, you must have grandma's Social Security. Check every month you must. And the President swears an oath to God and to the Constitution to faithfully execute those laws.

And so when you can't just walk in one day and say, I don't think we're going to have Social Security office in this town, you can't do that. So he's. I think he's violating the Constitution, all of this Doge stuff. And I think we have, we do have to rise up. I mean, we have to oppose.

And if you look, it's happening out there, you know, less in Washington, although, God bless Cory Booker, 25 hours. And it was a very coherent speech, too. It was brilliant calling attention to this.

And I think it's more at the grassroots, although I give Cory a lot of credit for being one of the Washington Democrats who's stood up. But we have to be out there.

The good news is, you know, this Wheeler, the 35th district of Iowa, Clinton county on the river, eastern Iowa, Trump carried it by 21 points. Democrats just won it by four. We had a 25 point swing in five months. And you know, that area, I mean, that is not a liberal.

You know, you're not talking about Des Moines there. So we are on the march everywhere in this country where there are elections, we are winning.

Now, I think we have to protect our elections, but I actually, I do. My faith in our people and our Constitution is endless and limitless. But, but, you know, we have to, we have to preserve it. And it's.

You all are doing it on this podcast and you're doing it in your real lives. And, and that's what's going to determine the outcome here.

I refuse to believe that the American people who created the greatest, freest, fairest, wealthiest, strongest nation in world history, are going to tolerate watching all that squandered.

David Wheeler: 00:48:53

Well, let's hope to God not. I, I agree with you. I think there's just too much momentum against them eventually, that.

And, you know, the other thing I think is Trump will overstep and there will be that moment.

You know, Tom Vilsack ran in Iowa, good friend of mine, and he ran against a member of Congress that claimed that Vilsack, while in the state Senate, had supported a bill to allow strip clubs near schools. And I think that was the, the moment when people said, you know what? I don't think I like that guy. I'm going to vote for Vilsack.

And because it was so far from reality, and I think that's, I think that's going to happen with Trump, too. Is or he's going to do something so illegal that it will cause a problem.

I, I listened to Katherine Graham's book on the way out to Iowa and back and you know, her description of what happened during the, the, the Johnson Nixon era, you know, it really has a cumulative effect over time and that's what I learned from that, that book. And I, I hope that happens to Trump too.

Paul Begala: 00:49:59

But.

David Wheeler: 00:49:59

Okay, so let's end up on a high note here. Paul, what's your favorite bourbon? Moe is a big bourbon guy.

Paul Begala: 00:50:11

It's a still Austin whiskey. It's still, of course, as a play on words, but it's an Austin based bourbon and it's, it's damn good. I highly recommend it.

Col Moe Davis: 00:50:22

Well, Paul, you need to try. We had Denver Riggleman on and he's one of your Virginia neighbors. Yeah, he's not far and has a distillery.

I haven't tried his bourbon, but he's making bourbon there in Virginia, not too far.

David Wheeler: 00:50:35

And his wife. Yeah, that's right.

Paul Begala: 00:50:37

Of course, all of us would be scolded by my friend Andy Bashir, the governor of the great Commonwealth of Kentucky.

David Wheeler: 00:50:42

Oh, God.

Paul Begala: 00:50:43

We're not really supposed to call it bourbon unless it's made in Kentucky.

David Wheeler: 00:50:47

That's right.

Paul Begala: 00:50:48

His father made me a colonel in Kentucky. I worked in that, in that Commonwealth for a while and love that place. But, but you know, Kentucky's doing a lot right.

I know people get mad at him because their politics has kind of gone right, but they got a right wing, but they got a great governor and they reelected him even though they voted for Trump. And it gives you a lot of hope. You see somebody like Andy Beshear winning in a state where they're hunting us down with dogs.

And part of it is like, he gets it. When Mr. Trump started these tariffs, he stood up right away for Kentucky bourbon.

And the Canadians are giving us hell and giving him hell and his, his distillers and bottlers. But, but yeah, so anyway, back to. I probably should have plugged a Kentucky bourbon because I love Governor Bashir.

His father made me a Kentucky colonel, but, you know, I'm a Texan more. So that's still Austin whiskey. Good.

David Wheeler: 00:51:36

Yeah, well, Andy's a good guy. I think he, he has what Cuban has in common. There's not really an gene there that, that is prevalent.

I'm sure they're sometimes, but I think that helps. And that's a wrap for this uproarious episode of Muckyou. Thanks to our friend Paul Begolla.

For dishing out zingers spicier than jalapeno and insights that hit harder than a political cartoonist pen. If you're not cackling or cheering, you might need a humor transplant. Hit that like button.

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Jimmy Muckraker: 00:52:28

This has been Muck you, co hosted by colonel Mo Davis in Asheville, North Carolina and David Wheeler in Spruce Pine, North Carolina. Thanks to our guest today, Paul Bagala, one of the most successful American political operative narratives in history and a model American citizen.

merican Muckrakers. Copyright: 2025

You can learn more and donate@AmericanMuckrakers.com follow us on Blue sky under American Dot Muckrakers and on substack@americanmuckrakers.substack.com David and Mo hope y'all come back soon for a new episode. And remember to never take from anyone, especially Trumpers.