YouSaid · the spoken record

Tucker Eskew

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45
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2024-01-29
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2024-01-29
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  1. “I think we all have a year of tremendous uncertainty in front of us But I do think there's power in hope. I know I'm coming across as sort of a, I've been called by my friend Stuart Stevens as one of those sucker optimists in the Bush world. I think optimism takes action to make it hope. I do have some hope. I will do what I can to try to produce outcomes that improve the country, but there's not much I can do. I hope many others, and I know many others will join me in that. The South Carolina motto in Latin is while I breathe, I hope. Dum Sparrow sparrow. I do breathe, I do hope. And I do believe that will ultimately make the right decision.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Electorate that keeps them in office, there's way too much of the latter. It doesn't speak well of the character and ability of the people entrusted by Republicans at least to hold office in this country. I think Democrats have many weak spots in their elected ranks, but I couldn't compare the problems on the left to those that the Republican Party has made, created, sustained, and doubled down on.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “I have long felt, Rory, that if those politicians in the Republican Party had seen themselves as being on a plane with engine trouble, they could have wrapped arms around each other and 10 of them, 15 of them even, taken the three or four parachutes left on that potentially crashing airplane and jumped out all together. They might have lost six or eight of them as a percentage, 60 or 80% of them. And yet many would live and the party would have survived and we could have put Donald Trump's political career and his marring of the American landscape to an end by convicting him during impeachment, either of those two times, but especially the second time. And they failed to do that, whether that was lack of foresight, wishful thinking, or fear of the voters and the election.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “I think it is more muted than it used to be. I think it has changed. I think it's deeply unfortunate, but the same forces that brought Trump that were reflected in Brexit have served in both cases, in my view, undermined the standing of our two nations in the eyes of the world. And really your economic strength, ours. I think you add up COVID media fragmentation, destabilized world, terrorism, and the rise of authoritarians. And I think there's a great need for nations like ours. I'm pulling for Great Britain in the United Kingdom, and I'm pulling for the United States.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “And I think our history proves that sometimes when you most need them, they do come forward. And I hope to be part of making a grassroots movement that demands that that happen come into being.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “I think that's a fair assessment. I don't doubt that we're in a period of enormous transition. I still see the United States coming around to its place. That place will be different from what it was as it changed really, you know, throughout the last century. But it is a place that is fueled by innovation, fed by our diversity, our strength. We're not bowed to almost in a temple-like fashion by some of the far left. So diversity, innovation, enormous economic strength, and the ability to reinvent itself, those things still exist in the America I live in. I'm trying in my very small way with my very small teaspoon to be part of efforts at the kind of grassroots level, truly grassroots, we need better leaders as well. And if I have to vote for Joe Biden over Donald Trump, so be it, but I still be looking for stronger leaders than that.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “It reminds me of Rory's question about Newt Gingrich, did Sarah Palin, you know, I think history's a big ocean and there are a lot of rivers that have fed into it. So I couldn't single out any one thing, except to say that when you are fighting on really high stakes ground with the eyes of the world upon you and mistakes lead to enormous expenditure and treasure and lost lives that's bound to have unstabilizing, destabilizing rather effects. And it has been the case that too many destabilization events have occurred in the last 25 years in America. And we need to get back on more solid ground.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “And finally, Koppel said, But Alan, it looks like you're trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon. And Alan took a deep breath and said, yeah, but what else are you going to do? And I think we've all got teaspoons. And yes, the ocean is boiling in spots, Rory. What are you going to do?”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “I'll talk you through this. Joe Biden led that debacle of a withdrawal from Afghanistan. I and countless other Americans began to go very negative on Joe Biden as soon as that happened and have held to that ever since. Rory, we live in an era of changed expectations and dramatically greater problems. And I think we've got to all have the will to do the very best we can. I think there are enormous problems in this difficult, at times decaying world. And yet all we can do is what we can do. And I'm committed in my own way outside of elective politics of doing what one newsman said to another problem solver in this country. My friend Alan Miller was trying to engage a journalist, Ted Coppel, some of you would know, in the cause of fighting disinformation.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “and not effect. I think there were very damaging effects from mistakes. But a mistake is far different from a lie. And in the way that George W. Bush held true to supporting our troops and trying to defend our country, believe he did the best he could. And he will let history judge him. But he didn't lie. And yes, he's human. And there were mistakes. He made mistakes. I made mistakes. And we're all living in a post-9-11, post-Iraq, post Syria, post. We're in tumultuous times.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Well, I'll start by saying that I am on the record over and over again defending President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, particularly while I was still in the government left in early 2004. And I think with the passage of time, I recognize that toward the end of his administration, George W. Bush made some long overdue, very helpful changes, which were later undermined as our government swung in a different direction. I think there were nothing but the best of intentions for our country and our alliance in the West and peace. I think there was, as I've said, no playbook for contending with our enemies in a post-9-11 world. And I believe that those who've accused Blair and Bush and others of lying are doing so willfully, knowing that they are wrong, knowing that a lie.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “To disagree, but to disagree better, more smartly, and within the framework of a wide ideological spectrum that nonetheless rules out the rise of authoritarianism and socialism run amok.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “of hope and that we can restore some of the luster to our Western ideals and work together with our allies to advance freedom and flourishing even in very troubled times. I'm a strong internationalist who's fearful of a crumbling alliance around Ukraine. I am a pro-Israeli small Democrat who believes the people need an awful lot. And that's not that far out of the American mainstream. I want to remind you all that there is in this country and I think in much of the Western world a perception gap where the people on the polls for the various ideologies believe that the other is just far worse than they actually are. And there's numbers that back this up in this country. So what I'm trying to be part of is better conversations that lead to open discussions that don't all end in the mushy middle. We're still going to...”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “I could foresee that. I could also foresee a reawakening. It's happened in the church before. I also think that other, particularly the Abrahamic religions offer something to a diverse and changing America that could show patterns of growth. I'm not saying we've hit we, meaning the church, broadly defined, has hit bottom. It could go lower and there are fears that it will. But whether through faith or DNA, I have some hope and optimism. And I do believe it's a country founded on some principles that are quite consistent with the church but live well beyond the walls of the church grounds and have been deeply influential in an enlightened world, which may be going through some very dark times and could get darker, but I try to keep my eye on the long game and believe that this country is a beacon.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “I think the sense of grievance and being under assault and looked down upon by your bettors, so to speak, drives a great deal of this, and a sense that the way it was, which includes tenets of faith, but much more than that in terms of patriotism, society, I don't believe that it is demonstrably or overwhelmingly racist. I don't believe it is demonstrably or overwhelmingly fueled by hatred, but I do think there is grievance and there is a sense that our betters look down upon us. And the changes that have occurred in our society are too rapid, too destabilizing, and run counter to what we in our group, our in-group considers the norm and Donald Trump's a fighter.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “I have a partner, Mike Shannon, who says very wisely that if you're Orthodox and you're Christianity, you should be unorthodox in your politics. And sadly, that has not happened in too many of the evangelical churches in this country. Not all.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “There is a cottage industry in trying to determine what is really going on in the evangelical movement. I belong to a mainline Protestant church Episcopalian. So we nod to the Archbishop of Canterbury while having very local control of our churches. And I belong to a church where two weeks ago we actually talked about politics in what we call an adult forum, not the pulpit, not the church itself, but in a separate room where I was allowed to speak to the idea of depolarization and an organization called Braver Angels and some of the civic reform movements going on in this country. Not every church is like that. It would be impossible to overgeneralize about the Christian church in America. There are many strains of the faith, but any strain of the faith which puts politics above faith and the tenets of a religion.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Every day started with Alistair ripping into either a spokesman or a newspaperman or a woman in a room with 15 other people, all either because they have that sense of humor or because they were dutiful minions laughing uproariously.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “That is extraordinary in the pre Trump era and will be again someday if it isn't already under Biden. So there were differences. It's this Hutch. It's this Warren of offices without quite the same sort of reason, you know, the White House has been added to with the West Wing, which is what most of us really think of when we think about White House, but the residents, as we call the building that you see visually in your mind, is grand. It's massive. Everything's painted in white. There's a brilliance to it that is quite striking. And then next to it is the Eisenhower Office building, this almost baroque old structure with huge columns. And it's got weight to it. It is substantial. So I didn't quite feel that.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Its scale is quite different. You know, we call the land and the compound. The White House is on the 18 acres. That's its nickname. There are no 18 acres. So you know the scale is different. But you sit in the lobby in a smaller welcome spot and there are seven newspapers laid out in front of you. I'm the son of a newspaper man. I was so excited to be in a newspaper-centric culture. So I love that. I was amazed to get secret information in a brown paper bag that was handed around in the foreign office. That was very striking to me. Notwithstanding Donald Trump's transgressions with secret documents, I can assure you prior to the Trump era, documents were distributed, maintained, burned, and shredded with care.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Well, aside from being in a place where there was a great deal of sympathy for the United States, and yet there was already the sort of counter effect we hadn't at all gotten to that place in the United States. So you knew you'd borrow a term from American entertainment that Dorothy was not in Kansas anymore. We're in a new place, a different place. And yet one that we have deep roots and deep affection and alliances. So I felt at home, but a new home and thoroughly broadened by living in an environment that included many people of Arab descent, including Muslims, a place that was remarkably international.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Well, as I've told the story, I had a colleague who worked with me, Greg Jenkins, and he and I were going to leave the country and help set up these coalition information centers. And I drew the short straw and sadly got London. And he got Islamabad. as difficult as those times were. It was an incredibly broadening experience. My wife had lived in the UK during a summer internship in college. I was delighted to get to know the city and it brought me back as recently as just before Christmas this year and I still love it.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “I'll finish this by just saying your president on 9 11. There is no playbook for what has just happened to your country. And Londoners and others there can identify after the attacks in London, which came later, but there was nothing that really had been put in play for a series of steps to take after that kind of asymmetric attack. And I think he did his very best over and over again and gave his all for eight years to the cause of freedom.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Could sit in front of a table at the White House and take visitors on a world tour of what he was seeing and analyzing and understanding. And that did not always convey through a television screen or even off-the-printed page. And yet remarkably charismatic and bright man who suffered from those attacks without thinking too much about them. He let those arrows bounce off of him as best any politician can and did to our repeated assertion stick to his beliefs. He stuck to those beliefs even when the facts that were presented to him were not correct. And I think conviction is an absolutely essential quality in a president. He had it and he had love of country and the Western alliance in very challenging.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Well, you remind me of a moment, Alistair, when I landed in London to come work with you in Nober 10 and at the Foreign Office. And I had some spare time. I sat in a coffee shop in Piccadilly and watched a demonstration go by. This is, remember, this is fall of 2001. And I was struck by the unambiguous condemnations of George W. Bush, even in the wake of 9-11 and even support or at least signs that nodded in the direction of Osama bin Laden. So I got a sense of how he was perceived, at least on those fringes. And yes, reading the daily papers, working with you on messaging, knowing that it presented a challenge to you. Many Republicans, Ronald Reagan, the cowboy, had faced similar. I think we had a unique moment. We had a unique man, remarkably big-hearted man who”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush, who were elected in the era leading up to Trump. So the Republican Party has plenty of very responsible leaders who, like their Democratic counterparts, have their strengths and weaknesses, but who nonetheless played within bounds. And it is a sad commentary on all the rare circumstances that weave together.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Could call Ms. Palin almost proto Trump in some sense, very charismatic, very good at bumper sticker length labels and attacks. But unlike Trump, she did not have the ends of the earth confidence, the sense of overweening, overwhelming confidence in herself. She'd been placed in this position by John McCain's choice, not through her own efforts. And say what you will about Donald Trump. He envisioned this. He called it. He executed against it, and he did it. And I think that sets him apart. There are any number of strains of politics that contribute to the rise of Donald Trump, individuals whose actions, and I condemn every single one of those to the degree it contributed to making Trump palatable, acceptable, reasonable, or within bounds. But of course, you can't forget it was”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “May be sickened by it, what this person does is tear at every norm, every pillar of our society. Ronald Reagan could pick at the media, which picked at him quite a bit. And yet he would defend the rights of a free press to the end of the earth. Ronald Reagan defended, believed in, and actually read and internalized the United States Constitution. It's like an alien life form to Donald Trump. He has no idea what it is, and yet wields its name as a hammer against his opponents. So I have no doubt in my mind that Ronald Reagan, much like the Bushes who succeeded him, would have no use whatsoever for this mix.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “You know, the keys to the front door of the White House out of your hand. I share the question I asked it for the last year or two of my democratic friends and partners. And I think he and Mrs. Biden believe that they were the only campaign that could have beaten Trump in 2020. And I think they're probably right about that. And they carry that forward to 2024. And I'm not at all so sure there are at least a half dozen governors in this country, center-left, Democratic governors who would, you know, they'd have to fight it out. There'd be a longer primary. Some people don't like that. They get nervous about it. They could have really produced a superb Democratic candidate for president and they didn't want to take that risk.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “There are a lot of people who do not feel that way about Ms. Harris. And she's had chances to prove herself with me and other people. Some people would never, of course, come around. But to your first question, Biden, you know, the threshold characteristic that you've got to have to run for president is almost a defect. And you've got to have this ambition and sense of self that is so overweening that you actually think you can be leader of the free world. That's a phrase that may not go down well with all your listeners, but certainly the way Americans see it, the president is that. And to assume yourself in that role in this era with these challenges, with these stakes, is to be, by definition, almost effectively convinced in your own abilities. So he's got that. That's a threshold matter. And so if you've got that, it's pretty hard to pry.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “Yeah, so your second question, Rory. I really had thought, and maybe it was just wishful thinking, that Biden might do to his vice president. In effect, what his president, Obama, had done to him. Presidents have to have a kind of ruthlessness, leaders of Western democracies want to appeal to our better angels, but they have to be tough as hell. And I think if you were tough as hell and you really knew what the landscape was in front of you, you would take a demonstrably weak running mate and replace her with someone who satisfies some of the needs of the base of that party and take the hit, there would be all sorts of awful protests and do it far enough in advance to where that becomes history and you march forward with a stronger running mate and you give people like me a sense that he's got someone to heartbeat away from the presidency I'd feel very comfortable with.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Well, one thing is don't play his game. You cannot put out that fire with gasoline. So I think Joe Biden has to be true to himself. I'm one of those who believes steady as she goes, conveys strength. Biden doesn't really earn a lot of points for strength, but I think in an era of a slightly improving economy, there's evidence out this week of consumer sentiment rising. Certainly the stock market, which is an unreliable gauge of American political sentiment, but there's some positive signs certainly there. I think if you're Joe Biden, you”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “After a hot day in the sun, normally you think there might be some sympathy for that. I think it conveyed weakness at a time when strike needed to be conveyed. You put all of that together and Trump capitalized and I think stunned the world.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “The leak of those stolen emails right at a moment when Trump was most on his heels after the leak of the audio tape that was really so awful. And the narrative, as we talk about in politics here, and I'm sure you do there, suddenly shifted. We'd had shifts between James Comey and the FBI saying, yes, no, maybe no about whether or not there were legal issues that deserve federal investigation involving private email server and Trump relentlessly pounded those things. The media certainly, which enjoys conflict and changing narratives. They like the narrative. They create the narrative, but they also like to see it change. And when there are circumstances that force that change and a candidate who, by the way, was weakened in closing days by an illness and there was videotape of her sort of slumping into an automobile.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Well, I will make it personal at first. I'll come back to that. I would say at the start, you have a candidate with poor candidate skills. No one would question her intellect. I wouldn't question her love of country. I think there's certainly things you can say very positively about Secretary Clinton, but the country had Clinton fatigue. There was a sense within the Democratic Party, certainly going back to 2008, that they needed to change. Obama, I think he put a knife in Joe Biden's political back about supporting her. I think there were a lot of people who felt that she could do the job, but she was not likable. She didn't really have a strong plan to match the moment in the eyes of a majority of voters. But I still think she could have gotten elected, Rory, had there not been those last minute issues, you know, one of which was.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “I wrote in Evan McMullen's name. Don't know how it works in the UK, but we have the option on our ballots of writing in a name. I couldn't find myself. Hillary Clinton had in 2016 given me a center-right lifelong Republican, no reason to vote for her and admittedly many, many Americans just didn't conceive that Donald Trump could win.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “And the legal issues that were raised in that campaign. And so people began to defend, as I said, the indefensible. And over the last years, they have become quite accustomed, so much so that even when they defend it, they start to believe it. And I think there's a kind of cognitive dissonance here where people are defending things they never would have before because they've put on a higher pillar their allegiance to Donald Trump.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “And I am, you know, demography, sociology, psychology, and pathology. You really have to understand all the different forces that led us to this moment, but the fact that Donald Trump is one of a kind with shamelessness as his superpower means that people who might have been unhappy or angry about some circumstances in 2015 and 2016, people who were caught up in his charisma and he's got it in enormous amounts. It's a kind of dark charisma, of course, but it is entertaining and it attracts people's attention in an era where attention is the greatest commodity out there. You take those unhappy people, you take a rapidly changing society, and even those voters who had doubts about him had more reason in 2016 to vote against Hillary Clinton, doubts about the Clinton era and all that came with it and her weaknesses as a candidate.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “We keep going back to higher powers, but an act of God could stop that. It's very hard to see how anything short of that keeps him from the Republican nomination. There are surveys that show a significant minority of the Republican electorate would not vote for him were he convicted in a court of law. Sadly, Trump has a way of defining deviancy from the norms downward. And I think there's a chance that that too could fade just as being indicted might once have killed presidential candidates' chances. Sadly, it has locked in some of his base, who have gotten quite accustomed to defending what in any prior period of American history would have been indefensible.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “Well, Lee Atwater is known in American political circles for a tough, dare I say, knife fighters approach to politics. He was associated with the term wedge issues, a wedge being something that would cleave one part of the electorate from another part. And Lee was masterful at understanding human motivations. And I think his reputation took on almost mythic qualities, some of which he encouraged, some of which were probably true. some of which were not. And, you know, we'll leave it to higher powers, Alistair, to determine what's true and what's not true in all of that. South Carolina politics is tough. American politics is tough. And yet we had never until Donald Trump had anyone as transgressive, as brutal, as personally derogatory, as norm button.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “George W. Bush won Iowa McCain wrestled back the momentum by winning New Hampshire with his straight talk express. And then we came to South Carolina and we beat McCain. We beat him. It was a hard-fought campaign. There were allegations, impropriety. South Carolina is known for tough politics. Not as tough as the allegations put forth, but it was a tough, hard-fought campaign. George W. Bush was the victor. McCain stayed in the race after that. And there were further primaries for a number of weeks, but not too many weeks.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Well, primaries are not governed by the law. There are state laws that do apply to primaries, but parties often sit in the driver's seat in South Carolina. That was the case. It was an extra legal arrangement where the party ran its own primary, so it could change its own dates. So I know that's a novel system. You have both talked recently on your podcast about how odd this system is and how unchanged it is despite all the many changes around us. There have been little adjustments to the calendar, but yes, South Carolina comes early. And yet, if you want some more recent history than 1980, go back to 2000 when George W. Bush and John McCain came barreling out of New Hampshire, a very important early state, as you have already covered in previous discussions, and came to South Carolina. There were not quite two weeks to work between the New Hampshire result, which John”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  43. “A good bit of history there, Rory. It goes back really to 1980, and the Reagan campaign in which a person who went on to become a mentor to me in an early period in my career, Lee Outer, whom Alistair just mentioned, along with Carol Campbell, the man who became governor of that state, so two leading Republicans helped position the state so that its primary would start to take on significance.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  44. “To speak at the Republican convention. I put air quotes around convention because they ultimately held it in the south lawn of the White House, an abomination to those of us who revere that as apolitical ground. And he was quite proud of this. And I was pleased to give him some advice about that speech. But I wanted to tell him the truth. And I did at the end of that conversation. I said, Tim, I have this year voted in a Democratic presidential primary for the first time in my life. And I hope it's the last. And I'm going to vote for a Democratic candidate for president in the general election in 2020 for the first time. And I hope it's the last.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  45. “Well, it started in a sense in 2008, Alistair and Rory, thank you for having me. I said after that election that I was a recovering Republican. I tell people now I'm a recovering politico. I don't do campaigns. I've made one exception here or there. But I help other companies and causes take what I learn in politics and apply it to the Civic Square. So in 2016, I found myself writing in. I couldn't bring myself to vote for Hillary Clinton. I certainly couldn't vote for Donald Trump. You get fast forward to 2020. The stakes are that much higher and the chance of Trump being re-elected that much greater than I had thought his chances were in 2016. So I got a call. I'll set the scene for you. It's August 2020. My friend, Tim Scott, senator from my home state, calls me up to tell me that he has been choking.”

    2024-01-29 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 57. Tucker Eskew, spin doctor to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin: Why I'm voting Democrat · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source