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From the Lever's Reader Supported Newsroom, I'm David Sirota.I worked on Capitol Hill in the lead-up to the Iraq War.
If you had told me back then that the Democratic nominee for president in 2024 would be touting support from the Cheney family, I might not have believed you.And if I did believe you, I might have thrown up in my mouth.
But here we are, in the final weeks of the 2024 election, and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and her vice presidential nominee, Tim Walz,
have not only accepted the endorsement of Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney, they've aggressively and repeatedly touted those endorsements as a way to try to court Republican voters.
Many liberals see the Cheney gambit as a no-brainer, with all upside.But if you're like me, and you don't want to see Donald Trump win again, Maybe you're a little worried about the assumptions and the risks baked into this political calculation.
On this special edition of Lever Time on our premium feed exclusively for paying subscribers, we talk about all of this with Adam McKay, the writer and director of the Academy Award nominated film Vice, which dove deep into the Cheney dynasty, its political goals, and its ideological objectives.
We explore some big questions. Will the Democrats' embrace of the Cheneys attract Republican swing voters and win them the election?
Or will Democrats' alliance with the Cheneys end up repelling voters who remember their time in office and dislike them?And does the Democrats' embrace of the Cheneys tell us anything about Democrats' policy goals if they win the election?
Look, I just recently did an event with Liz Cheney, the former Congresswoman.Her father, the former Vice President Dick Cheney, has supported me.Unbelievable.
There are over 200 former members of both Bush presidencies, John McCain, Mitt Romney, who have endorsed me.Leading thinkers in the national security space are supporting me.
This was Kamala Harris earlier this month on ABC's The View, using that national TV appearance to tout the endorsement the Democratic ticket has received from former Vice President Dick Cheney and Cheney's daughter, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney.
Dick Cheney left office with super low approval ratings.
Liz Cheney cut a profile as an arch-conservative anti-abortion, pro-war politician, but who's also broken with her party to speak out against Donald Trump's assault on democratic institutions and lead the congressional inquiry into the January 6th insurrection.
In these final weeks of the 2024 election campaign, Kamala Harris has been aggressively touting her alliance with the Cheneys, campaigning with Liz Cheney, and touting the Cheney's legacy.
I'm actually, I'm honored to have their endorsement and I think that what they both, as leaders who are well respected, are making an important statement.
And I also want to thank your father, Vice President Dick Cheney, for his support and what he has done to serve our country.
For those who remember living through the era when Dick Cheney basically ran the country, this can be jarring.
Many still remember Cheney's role at the top of a Republican ticket that stopped votes from being counted in Florida and essentially stole the 2000 election.
Many also remember Dick Cheney helping lead the country into the Iraq War, leading the assault on civil liberties, and running the secret energy task force that boosted the fossil fuel industry as the climate crisis was worsening.
But clearly, there's a political calculation here.Democrats seem to believe that the Cheney's endorsement will help them win over wavering Republican votes.
And the calculation is that if the Cheney's help them do that and win the election, then the alliance is worth it to stop Donald Trump.Vice presidential candidate Tim Walz made that case on a recent episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
Walz cast the Cheney's endorsement as proof that Democrats represent a large coalition in defense of American democracy.
How is that, the Cheney thing, do we really have to do that?
Uh, look, I, it goes broad in that, look, Bernie Sanders, Dick Cheney, Taylor Swift.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
What country did Taylor Swift get us to invade?No!
No, don't you think though that, and I do this, I believe this, there is still a core group of folks out there, you know, your point being, and not joke, the don't tread on me, the Reagan piece of this, the libertarian piece, but the constitutional piece, there are a lot of people out there.
I think Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney give permission to those folks who want to find a reason to do the right thing.
So that's the political gamble. And lots of liberals seem convinced that it's a total no-brainer that will definitely work to attract Republican voters.But there are some untested assumptions at play here.
I mean, are there really wavering Republican voters? Do lots of those voters really even exist?And here's the thing.
This Cheney gamble appears to involve some really big downside risks, ones that Donald Trump is now trying to exploit to attempt to cast himself as the anti-war candidate and to try to portray the Democrats as a pro-war ticket.
Liz Cheney is a stupid war hawk.All she wants to do is shoot missiles at people.
Trump doubled down on this line of attack at a recent rally in Michigan, which has one of the largest Arab and Muslim voting blocs in the country.
Kamala is campaigning with Muslim-hating warmonger Liz Cheney, who wants to invade practically every Muslim country on the planet.And let me tell you, the Muslims of our country, they see it and they know it.
There are now Republican billboards in Michigan advertising Harris' alliance with the Cheneys.It's an effort to try to reduce Harris' support there.
It's a cynical ploy for sure, especially considering that Donald Trump was the proponent of the so-called Muslim ban prohibiting visitors from various Muslim countries.
But some fear that Trump's use of the Cheney endorsement against Harris is working.A recent poll shows Trump now leading among Arab voters.Meanwhile, in light of Harris's promise to appoint a Republican to her cabinet,
Some have wondered whether she'd appoint Liz Cheney Secretary of Defense or Secretary of State.
More broadly, with Harris declining to stake out a different position than the Biden administration in its unwavering support of Israel's Netanyahu government, there are questions about whether the Cheney's endorsement signals anything about a Harris-Waltz administration's overall national security and foreign policy.
Now, for his part, Tim Walz said that wouldn't be the case. Because the Cheneys have been so front and center in this election, I've been re-watching the incredible 2018 film Vice a lot lately, just to remind myself of what we lived through.
The film is all about what the Cheneys did to this country and what they represent.It paints a portrait of Dick Cheney as a ruthless political force.
I can feel your recriminations and your judgment. and I am fine with it.You wanna be loved, you'll be a movie star.The world is as you find it.You gotta deal with that reality.And there are monsters in this world.
It also paints Dick Cheney as totally unrepentant for what he did.
I will not apologize for keeping your family safe.And I will not apologize for doing what needed to be done so that your loved ones can sleep peacefully at night.
So with everyone understandably on edge about the upcoming election, what does this all mean?What should we make of the Cheney's involvement in the 2024 election and Democrats' embrace of that involvement?
Is it a smart political strategy or an electoral disaster?Is it a shrewd alliance of necessity that will end up defeating Donald Trump?Or is it an immoral deal with the devil?
To try to answer those questions, senior podcast producer Arjun Singh and I caught up with Adam McKay, who wrote, directed, and was nominated for an Academy Award for the movie Vice.Here's our discussion.
Okay, so we're about a week away from the election, so let's just start by getting your thoughts, Adam, about how you're feeling going into this, your general vibe.Yeah, that's my vibe, too.
Well, I just saw the news that Jeff Bezos overruled his editorial board and said no endorsement. And that creeped me out.That tells me that the oligarchs of America know what's coming and are relatively okay with it.
Because otherwise Bezos would be giving hundreds of millions to Harris and like, but they're okay with it.So it's a really weird time.
And then while Trump is running neck and neck with one of the worst campaigns I have ever seen, I mean, Trump's campaign is deranged.We have Harris campaigning with, Liz Cheney, whose approval rating, I believe, is 27%.
And I know that when Dick Cheney left office, his approval rating was 11%.So somehow, the Dems have decided that, you know, the Cheneys are the pathway to winning And then, of course, they can always blame the left.
We're going to get into the Cheneys in a second here, but just to your point about the oligarchs and what they're thinking, I've been thinking a lot about this quote.
from back in the summer, in which Kathy Wild, who was the president of the major business group in New York City, she made this statement that I think is very revealing.They don't usually say this kind of stuff out loud.And the quote was,
and I'm quoting here from Politico, she said, Republicans have told her that, quote, the threat to capitalism from the Democrats is more concerning than the threat to democracy from Trump.
I mean, there's just so much to unpack.
The oligarchy doesn't usually come out and just admit that if forced to choose between fascism and socialism or anything really left of center at all.And I'm not even saying the Democrats are really representing that.
But if forced into those choices, it's really an admission that the business community will choose fascism.
And so I do look out at both the Silicon Valley billionaires and something like, in this moment, Jeff Bezos not allowing his editorial board to endorse against Trump.I do sort of see
that idea, right, that oligarchy, if it has to choose between a little something it may not like, like something even a little bit left of center, and authoritarianism and fascism, it'll choose the latter, right?
Well, I mean, what's extra crazy about all of this is we are talking about the Biden administration.I mean, we know Biden's track record.I mean, he was essentially created by the credit card industry.
I mean, he is as pro business as right wing a Democrat as you're going to find. But he did one thing.He appointed Lena Kahn to oversee antitrust and to try and stop
these endless mergers that give bonuses to CEOs for doing nothing while hemorrhaging jobs, innovation, quality.So what's crazy about this is we're not talking about like LBJ.
We're not talking about even Nixon, where there are real efforts going on to create a public interest element to government versus private interest.It's really, I mean, if you look at Biden's entire four years, Am I missing something?
Like, it's all Lina Khan, who, by the way, Harris, after billionaire donors said that they want her gone, Harris refuses to say that she'll- Yeah, I mean, I would expand it to the CFPB.
I think they've done that agency that was created essentially by a push from Elizabeth Warren, the right tried to kill it at the Supreme Court.The CFPB has done a lot of really good things.
The antitrust people at the Department of Justice have done a good job.
But I certainly agree that the
Wait a minute, good labor policy?I mean, they literally dug into the arcane box of tools to shut down a strike.
Yes, absolutely.This isn't saying much, but the labor policy, the labor proposals at the NLRB and the like has been much better than
anything in the past, but as I've always said, I feel like that's more of a referendum on the past than anything really to say about the present.
And now, as you just alluded to, the campaigning with Liz Cheney and the resurrection of and veneration of the Cheneys, I mean, I feel like it's turning me into the Joker.Like I feel like I'm actually becoming the Joker.
And I feel like the part of the process of becoming the Joker over this is, Not just that the Democrats would be cynical enough to campaign with the Cheneys, not just cynical, but I think politically moronic enough to do that.
I mean, that's one thing, that's kind of what I expect from them.But the embrace of this among the sort of activist class of the Democratic Party, people who watch lots of MSNBC, like the effusive cheering over this,
really is disturbing because it suggests that people have forgotten who the Cheneys are, or maybe never even really knew who the Cheneys are.So for somebody who would come to you and say, Hey, Adam, why is it so bad that
that Kamala Harris is saying she's honored to have the Cheney's endorsement and that they're brave people.How would you answer, how would you begin to explain why that's so disturbing?
So, you know, I have been asked this question a few times over the last couple of years.And even when we released Vice during the Trump administration, there were people saying like, but who cares about Bush Cheney when you're looking at Trump?
And my answer was always the same.If you look at the actions that were taken, there is an argument to be made that there has been no more destructive criminal administration than the eight years of Cheney Bush.
The other thing I say more recently is imagine being a politician in Chile and running with like Pinochet as your endorsement.I know he's dead, but like, if he were alive, like imagine being in a public sphere and like holding hands with Pinochet.
And there's a real argument to be made.We don't know the death toll from Pinochet that disappeared, but there's a real argument to be, made that what Cheney did with his misinformation, lying us into an invasion
that conservatively directly killed a million people.And recent research shows that indirect deaths get to two, three million, not to mention the torture program, which I don't think people realize what that does to a country.
When you move past something like a torture program.And when Obama came into office, we got to move forward.No, you have to stop that.And so it is insanity to see friends of mine saying, well, you know, you gotta get the right wing.
She's gotta, you know, go with Dick Cheney.First off, Republicans hate the Cheneys.So like there's such a lack of understanding about what Republican voters are responding to.They feel a deep betrayal from Bush and Cheney.
And we saw it when Trump beat Hillary Clinton.There was a big argument about, did Trump support the Iraq war?He claimed he didn't.And now suddenly we're cheering on, we got to build the wall better.The Cheneys are great.I mean, it's a creepy,
Time to be alive in the US.Yeah, I mean it wasn't even that long ago like you released vice and I remember this moment I wonder if you do Adam back in 2019 at the Golden Globes Christian Bale.
He wins for his performances Dick Cheney, and he thanks Satan and When you saw him say that, first, what was your reaction?But then can you expand on that a little bit?Like, you two were crafting his performance as Chaney.What did you draw on?
Like, what do you think it is that makes Dick Chaney, Dick Chaney?
So, you know, the whole movie came about because I was talking to a friend and I said, you know, I don't really hate individuals.
I kind of feel like every individual as, quote, evil as they may be, you can look at the psychology and past history and circumstance and kind of understand what's going on.
In a way, I reject the notion of the individual as a deciding factor in anything.And then I jokingly said, accept Dick Cheney.And my friend said, that has to be your next movie. And I was like, you know, no one's really ever told that story.
We saw some, you know, Hollywood sort of glancing stories like Hurt Locker, which was great, but it was more about the combat experience.We saw Green Zone, which kind of tried to do it, but it wouldn't really fit into a narrative box.
And after having lived through what I'm going to call the trauma of the invasion of Iraq, for a fair amount of us who knew what was going on, who could see the car driving off the cliff, I realized, like, why, you know, the question Who is this guy?
How did we get to this point?So yeah, I probably read more about Dick Cheney.You know, we conducted our own interviews.I read every book, every article.I talked to journalists for a year and a half.I mean, everything was about Dick Cheney.
And you know what's funny?The answer is really his wife, Lynn Cheney, which we showed in the movie.And she was someone who came up in an era where if you were a woman, you couldn't be in Congress.You never could consider running for president.
And she's very smart, very charming.She was kind of like a star in Casper, Wyoming, where the Cheneys met.And, you know, the quarterback of the football team was dating Lynn Cheney.And underneath that kind of the B plus guy was Dick Cheney.
And he was dating another woman who was lovely, nice girl.And the quarterback dumped Lynn Chaney because she was so ambitious and wound up.And she kind of looked around and she's like, I need a guy.The prom is coming.
And she found this somewhat passive, you know, but capable guy, Dick Cheney, and sort of pointed at him.And there's a funny story, which we didn't put in the movie, which after Cheney dated Lynn for a couple of months, he broke up with her.
He was like, this is too much. And she then went and put on her sexiest dress and found the guy with the coolest car in town and drove down the strip with this guy looking incredible.And she was very pretty, talented.
And Cheney just came up to her and was like, come on, you're coming with me. And that was it.I mean, she got him into Yale.She was the one when he kind of hit rock bottom with drinking, partying.
She was the one who was like, no, and like got him back on track. So it's an incredible story.And a lot of it is driven by the fact that Lynn had a really tumultuous childhood.I mean, she had a father who, you know, we really dug into that.
And it seems very likely there was abuse going on.And this is from, you know, her writing, you know, the daughters.And then when the mother died, it was a really suspicious death.I mean, it was either a suicide or a homicide.
And the Chinese even allude to that.So there was this desire for safety, consistency, power.How do you protect yourself when you grow up in a household that's, you know, that erratic.
You know, a shorthand would be the great movie Election and Tracy Flick.There's a lot of that energy to that story.But the thing she didn't account for and the thing that no one accounted for
is that Cheney has an amazing ability to observe and incorporate details.So throughout the beginning of his career, he was always a right-hand man.He was Rumsfeld's right-hand man.He was Ford and Rumsfeld's right-hand man.He became a congressman.
And even though he wasn't directly Reagan's right-hand man, he served as a right-hand man for that moment. And it wasn't really until George W. Bush called him to be VP that we really saw who Dick Cheney is and was.And the results were horrible.
You talk in the movie, there's a lot in the movie about the unitary executive theory. And I think this ties into what's going on on the Trump side.But really, in some ways, in both parties, although it's certainly a conservative movement agenda.
When I look at the Project 2025, Donald Trump's, the policy program put together by all those former Trump folks from the Heritage Foundation, and one of the central parts of it is, consolidating even more power in the executive branch.
I think back to all of the things in Vice that outlines Dick Cheney's obsession with the so-called unitary executive theory.For folks who don't know what that is and Dick Cheney's role in it, can you just tell us about that?
Yeah, it's a really tenuous
overreach interpretation of the Constitution, where you take certain language and say, especially under the situation of war, I mean, that's really when the unitary executive shines through, that interpretation, and it's saying,
Because you're the president, anything you do is legal.And my interpretation of why we attacked Iraq was always twofold.It was always privatize the oil for the corporations and activate unitary executives.And yeah, it's a really scary theory.
And you saw it come into play with the Supreme Court's presidential immunity decision that says anything the president does, he can't be prosecuted for later.I'm actually really proud that there was a speech
at the Federalist Society, I'm trying to remember who gave it, and the person said, mockingly, oh, this dumb movie Vice. it talks about the unitary executive.That's ridiculous.And I was like, we got them.
Like we, because we put that in a popular sphere, they could no longer at least directly use that terminology.But I still think the drive behind unitary executive exists.Everything we're living in is about that.
I mean, you have to look at Kamala Harris and really the Democrats and their donors.Why aren't they ever talking about the Chevron decision and the immunity decision?Well, the answer is simple.They want it. They want those powers.
And it's been a repeating process for years that the Republicans go and claim these extreme powers, Democrats tongue-lash them, come into power and do nothing to challenge those powers.
And in researching Cheney, the Republican Party, the Republican Revolution, how it flowed into Bill Clinton, over and over again, we kept seeing this, that there really
Really, the two parties, as we know, are driven by the same donor class corporate powers.And the Republicans have a base, which through, you know, abortion, racism, you know, all anti-immigrant rhetoric,
They're able to be naked about what they seek, and the Democrats get to pretend to be good guys and then come in afterwards.
But yeah, it was a wild experience, kind of like what you're going through or what you went through with your podcast that's doing so well, where once you get into the granular details, of this stuff.It turns your hair white.
After the break, David and I continue discussing Dick Cheney with Adam McKay.We'll be right back.
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Yeah, I mean, it feels like in a way, when you look at Dick Cheney as the vice president, that this was the culmination of a long decades long scheme.But one thing that I thought was really cool about vice, I watched it last night.
And then I recently had watched that new movie, The Apprentice, where Sebastian Stan plays Trump.And so in Vice, you know, Dick Cheney kind of comes off, he's paranoid, he's irascible.
But in some ways, he seems uncertain, especially like earlier in his career, one of my favorite moments is when he comes out of the Oval Office, and he talks to Rumsfeld.
And he asks him, are we the good guys, you know, and he seems a little uncertain, and it feels like that's a turning point for him.
But one thing I wonder, Adam, like, do you think Dick Cheney, is he a product of America's political and cultural dysfunction? And this is the end result of going through the meat grinder of years in Republican politics.
Or is he someone who had this worldview and he he imprinted it on the government and the psyche of the country.And compared to Trump is I think Trump in many ways is a reflection of our media culture, 80s excessive culture.
But I wonder what you think is Dick Cheney formed by culture or did he change the culture?
So a great question.And we took so much crap for that moment where Cheney kind of awkwardly says, like, what do we believe?And Rumsfeld laughs at him. And we weren't willy-nilly with that.
That was the result of me looking over and over again for some kind of shape of ideology with Cheney, and I could not find it. It was all about power, leverage, control, and ideology requires some kind of sacrifice.
You know, sorry guys, I can't join you in this.I really believe X, Y, and Z, and I never found that with him. You know, and there's great examples.I mean, we had dozens of examples.
One of the famous ones was when the secretary of, oh God, what was his name?I think of the treasury and the Bush administration fired him. And then he wrote the book, what was it, Paul?Thank you.
And he went into Cheney's office and he said, this new economic plan will explode the debt, create wild inequality.
Like, you could tell O'Neill was one of those guys who kind of still believed that it was about the good of the country, even though it was wildly naive.And Cheney is like, You know, we don't care about debts.Reagan proved that.
Whereas before, with Nixon and Ford, it was all about the debt.And O'Neill was like, wait, what?And, you know, whatever, a couple of months later, they were like, yeah, we're gonna need your resignation.
So we very specifically put that beat in the movie where we were trying to make it clear that this approach to governance, career, the idea of power for power's sake, is really like an addiction.And by the way, it applies to both parties.
I mean, David Halberstam's incredible book, The Best and the Brightest, about the Kennedy administration shows exactly the same dynamics, where it's more about being right and clever and smart
as a, you know, so your career can advance, uh, as opposed to what needs to be.
So I want to ask about the, what you think will be, or could be the real world implications of Cheney here and now, the Cheneys.I think the first question is, um,
what do you, knowing what you know about the Cheneys, what do you make of them refusing to endorse Trump and them affirmatively endorsing Kamala Harris?I mean, the story as it's told is the Cheneys, you may hate them, but they are institutionalists.
They believe in, you know, America.Trump is an overarching threat to the, basic institution and institutions and the entire democracy.
I mean, I will just say before I have you answer, I find it very difficult to say that a person who helped stop the vote count in Florida and steal a national election, Dick Cheney, that he cares about democracy.
That's very difficult for me to kind of understand how anybody could actually say that.But What do you make of it?What do you think is actually going on here in the Cheney's decision to do what they've done and not endorse Trump, but endorse Harris?
Yeah, it's the equivalent, that interpretation that the Cheney's are protecting democracy is like saying that when I play poker,
The reason that I have raised the bet with a jack 10 off suit and I have tripped jacks is because I believe in fair play and I have the highest value in my hand. there is no consideration from the Cheneys about what is right, what is wrong.
It is pure power game theory.And their daughter, Liz, the same way that they blessed the idea of her throwing her sister's family under the bus because her sister, Mary, is gay.
Everything in the Cheney family ultimately is about power, and it comes down to Lynn.So in this case, they placed a bet that Trump would flame out.
And Liz Cheney stepped forward and everything was about the two parties both careening to the same right-wing place.One is right-wing authoritarianism through corporate rule.
The other is right-wing authoritarianism through extremist kind of dog whistle politics, ultimately supporting corporate rule.And she made a bad bet.She lost her seat.She got trounced.I think she lost by, what was it, 40 points.
She was in the wrong state, making the wrong bet.And we've seen this with that family before.They're not really that good at the game.You know, they had the daughter, Liz, tried to run for the Senate against a popular Republican.
The timing wasn't right.And so what you're seeing now, it's all about reading odds, bets.And there's this moment where if Harris wins, I could see Liz Cheney being
you know, given the role of Secretary of Defense, which would be really incredible given her father's history and Rumsfeld becoming Secretary of Defense.
And that's always the position they want because it relates to unitary executive, executive power. So yeah, I've had a few friends say to me, wow, did the Chinese have a change of heart?And my response is, that question makes me so tired.
I'm like, I don't even, like we are in completely different realities.So I'll say to the friend, do you want the real, answer, or do you want to feel like this election is some battle between democracy and autocratic rule?
And most of the time, they don't respond.
Are we seeing a retconning of Dick Cheney's history right now?I'd be curious.I mean, when Vice came out in 2019, lots of fanfare, I think everyone correctly identified that this was a perfect portrayal of a very cruel and cold man.
But I wonder, Adam, like you think if vice came out two years from now, does it feel like it's a totally different political climate?Like, does it seem like we've just completely retconned and decided, okay, now the Chinese are cool.
And maybe George W. Bush is going to be cool in the future too.
And we're just going to move on and forget about everything that was said in the past, because it's weird that it's like the same people who back then were so furious and painted this guy correctly as a Darth Vader are now
applauding and cheerleading the fact that the Democratic candidate has his endorsement?
That is a big question.So I think what we've learned from the experience that when we invaded Iraq, it was near 80% approval.I think it got to 76, 78%.And there were a lot of Democrats
that voted to give war authorization to Cheney, knowing full well, I mean, they'll lie about it today.And Hillary and Biden will be like, well, we were misled.And I'm like, I was at Saturday Night Live and I knew this was BS.And
I think what it really points to is the performative nature of our political process.I think that Democrats represent not real policy change, but propriety, optics, the appearance of standing for something good.
Whereas the Republican leaders represent anger, you know, a reactionary sort of old school blaming of Brown people, promiscuous women, and both are totally performative.And so in the case of Cheney and Bush,
it's really necessary for the Democrats to read paint them as institutionalist, because at this point, the Democratic Party is so corrupt and doing nothing.
I mean, that moment where Schumer and Akeem Jeffries gave the thumbs up to Netanyahu speaking to Congress, for me, that was it.Like, everything was over.
And so when you've given away everything, the last little shred they have is this flimsy argument about we're protecting democracy.And really the only people who are buying into that are people that have enough money
that they don't want their lives disrupted or members of the legacy news media who are, you know, specifically paid to propagate this ridiculous narrative.So I think like Cheney, Bush, Reagan, anyone you can think of from the past
has to be used by this fake political party to promote the last little shred of argument.
So the Cheneys are depicted as never Trumpers. like that there's this idea that there's a Republican Party that has Never Trumpers and then MAGA people and this is the Republican Party.
And so I think the idea that's being put out there is this idea that Dick Cheney and the Cheneys, Liz Cheney, they're the opposite of Donald Trump.But I wonder if you see a direct line, actually, from the politics of Dick Cheney to the rise of Trump.
In other words, they're not opposites, that Dick Cheney and Dick Cheney-ism actually helped create the conditions for Trump.Do you agree with that?
So, you know, I think like all of the history, there is a larger narrative that is going on.And I will plug your podcast master plan, because to understand the narrative, you have to know that history.
of the Powell memo, Ralph Nader, the Chamber of Commerce moving to D.C.because that story is when big money finally figured out how to take over the system.So if you look at everything since then,
As part of a larger story, I always frame Cheney as the safe cracker.He was the guy because, you know, Link Cheney once said, if you want to understand my husband, you need to only know one thing. He is a fly fisherman.
And anyone who knows anything about fly fishing, which I learned way too much about, and by the way, Christian Bale caught a fish.Amazing. fly fishing his first time out.And his kind of coach was like, wow, that's what a good actor Christian Bale is.
But Cheney's attention to detail and understanding of the vast bureaucracy of DC and how to weaponize that was a critical part of the narrative of the story of how America has come undone.And so I always say like Cheney is like the safe cracker.
he's the pro who really went in and did a lot of the detailed work along with, you know, Gonzales and all these horrible neocons, Pearl and, uh, obviously Rumsfeld and, um, But then you had Obama who was kind of, he was the false hope.
He was the one that we all couldn't imagine that you could be at a low point like this and someone as craven and as full of it, as Obama would take power
and do nothing with the moment and really just, in the end, want to have a house on Martha's Vineyard.And then Trump, if you look at the story, is like, so you walk into the store, the jewelry store, and the safe is open.
in the back, all the expensive jewelry is gone.Trump is really like the dog that wanders into the store and takes a crap.And
Like everything's been undone and everyone is yelling about how that dog should not take a crap on the carpet while forgetting that Cheney cracked the safe And Obama was on the street saying, everything's fine.We're taking care of it.
And now Trump is kind of the raw, twitching muscle of all of this chaos and misdirection. So, that was a long answer.
But, you know, like, I think you hit on a really important point, which is the sophisticated nature that Dick Cheney consolidated power.
One of the things about Dick Cheney is, I think, in his relationship with Bush, he always would say, you know, you're the decider.
I'm going to defer to you, but, like, you outline really well in the movie the technical ways that he was able to consolidate power in the White House.When I look at the way that Kamala Harris is going out with Liz Cheney, when I talk to Democrats,
you know, they they give the Oh, come on, you know, she's really using her, you know, this is great.Liz Cheney is not going to advance anywhere.
But you know, this whole idea of I'm going to defer to you, Liz Cheney with Kamala Harris, in some ways, almost reminds me of the way that Dick Cheney said to George W. Bush, you're going to be in charge of the entire thing, and manipulated his way into control of that.
Do you see parallels in a way to that kind of way of some weaving into power and back by pretending to be the sidekick, but in reality, she's really gotten Harris to come onto a lot of her positions.
I mean, the only thing I would say that's changed since the days of Reagan and Bush Sr.and Clinton and, you know, Cheney Bush and Obama, I think their project was the undoing.
I think their project was to undo all of the firewalls that were about keeping big money out of democracy, the kind of faith that we had in our institutions.That was an undoing project.
I would argue that the undoing is done, that there is zero separation between the will of the corporate money and the billionaires and the foreign countries that flood our democracy with money and what the leaders say.So I'm not sure.
I think it's a very different circumstance.I think Liz Cheney wants a position of power, and I think there will be room to exert some influence.But ultimately, Cheney was always a servant of power.
I mean, one of the creepiest moments in all of the research we did about Cheney and the run-up to the Iraq war was the discovery that they were openly saying, first we take Baghdad and then we take Tehran.And if there hadn't been that insurgency,
that seriously ruin their plans, we 100% would have moved on to Iran.So you look at what's going on now with Netanyahu, Israel, the support from the US,
the weapons company lobbyists, the oil companies like a seek and destroy missile against any nationalized oil.I think at this point the hands on the wheel are very clear, whereas back then it was a little more
70, 30 with the 70% still being corporate money.And yeah, so no, I don't think it'll play out like that.I've seen nothing in Liz Cheney's history to indicate that she's any kind of lever pulling mastermind.
What do you think?What do you think about? Trump's tactics here.He has gone out and he is in his speeches and on social media cited Liz Cheney's support. for Harris as a way to portray Harris as the pro-war candidate.
He called Cheney the crazed war hawk, and I'm quoting here, who, like her father, the man that pushed Bush to ridiculously go to war in the Middle East, also wants to go to war with every Muslim country known to mankind.
What do you make of that from Trump?Is Trump Do you think the Cheney's support for Harris will help Trump tap into some piece of the vote that is an anti-war vote, et cetera, et cetera?
Oh, yeah.For sure.I mean, I think any time you allow Trump to be right, you have seriously
you're either operating a bad faith campaign, which I really think that's what the Democrats are doing, or you are so adult that you have been hit in the head with a ball peen hammer.And I would say the one good thing that's come out of this
disastrous campaign period in American history is all of the chattering class that loves to call themselves smart and in the know.They have been totally
I mean, going back to Biden being in serious cognitive decline, and those of us that were saying it a couple of years ago being shouted down, you're not serious.The IRA being pushed as like, we have solved the climate issue.
I mean, I really think that chattering class, that pundit media class, has totally exposed themselves as empty careerists and just rule followers.
And like literally for a group that calls themselves the smart people, possibly the dumbest people operating in American society, what scares me is I think a lot of them. know that it's bad faith, what they're doing.
And I really think we're headed towards a new chapter in the US.And these people are going to be fine with it.
Well, you know, one thing that I do appreciate, Adam, is that you have been able to make these really searing commentaries.And you've done it in Hollywood.
And you have to go through, I imagine, that corporate process, the big studios, a lot of different things. How does someone get a political movie made?And has that climate changed?
Do you think it gets tougher to be able to deliver, you know, movies that really are going to question that corporate class, that sort of establishment class?And how have you been able to do that through your career?
You know, the trick to anything in the world we now live in is kind of understanding what you're dealing with.And the one borderline meritocratic element of these studios and streamers.They want to make money.
And so like we made the big short and like I had a great experience.We got to say what we wanted to say and Paramount Vehicon, made a lot of money off of that.
In the case of the movie I worked with David on, Don't Look Up, you know, that was clearly a heartfelt, terrified message that we were sending.Netflix made so much money.I mean, half a billion people watched that movie.So,
The last kind of honest, pure thing, to some degree, there are still certain media companies, you know, you're never going to do a movie at Apple that like calls out you know, corporate control of our government.
But a lot of these companies still ultimately are driven by profit.So I don't think it's a mistake that the guy who made Anchorman and Step Brothers is able to still get things made because I like stuff that's entertaining.
I mean, we just put out the documentary from Colin Hoback that exposes who the creator of Bitcoin is. He also did a movie where he exposed who Q was.We've done documentaries about the, you know, the election being seized for Bush, Cheney.
We've done all kinds of stuff.But I think people know that if I'm doing it or producing, I want it to be entertaining. I'm not looking to impress a small group of, quote, smart people or critics.
Our company, Hyperobject, makes populous movies, documentaries, shows, succession.I mean, the reason I was able to
tell HBO this is going to work is because I knew that ultimately it was a family drama involving rotten wealth and like I dare anyone to resist that, you know.
Absolutely.Adam McKay, as always, it's great to catch up.It's great to chat.
I should tell people Adam and I have been frantically texting in ever greater desperation and despondence as we see Liz Cheney and the Cheneys be venerated in the 2024 campaign.I mean, I don't think that my previous self from, let's say, 2008 would
really believe, or at least want to believe, that the Democratic Party is campaigning by venerating the Cheneys in 2024.And yet, here we are.And I just want to say one other thing. I told you this, Adam, and I didn't mean it figuratively.
I have been rewatching Vice like every night, like little pieces of it, like every night, like 15 minutes, just to remind myself that I'm not the crazy one for being upset about the veneration of the Cheneys.Like, yes, that did happen.
Like, I'm afraid that my my own memory is going to become a goldfish memory and I'm going to forget my entire world in 15 minutes.
But like, I know that shit happened, which means I know how horrifying it should be to everybody that the Cheney's are being venerated in our, in, in, in the campaign.And I want to be clear, I don't want to see Donald Trump win, right?
I don't want to see Donald Trump win.
And actually before we go, I, there is one question I would have for you is, is like, Let's run like an alternate reality here.The Cheneys endorse Kamala Harris.What do you think should have been the Democrats' response to that?
If you could have written the response, what do you think a moral response and a politically effective and moral response would be?
I think there were so many ways to respond to that in a way that wasn't so disgusting, obviously careerist, that sort of horrible election gamesmanship that white liberals and moneyed liberals translate everything into.You could have said,
Dick Cheney is one of the most horrific individuals in American history.Conservatively, a million people died.A whole generation of young men from America suffered traumatic brain injuries, loss of limbs.
We, by the end of it all, will have spent $3 trillion, all to privatize oil for these corporations and to create power for Cheney.He is despicable and it shows you how noxious Donald Trump is that even this foul figure would step up
and speak out against him.That would be a way where you could keep some sort of moral reality and sense of history alive while also being terrified that Donald Trump is about to become our next president.But no one even tried.
I mean, that's what was so crazy about it.It jumped right to fight of our lives, look at the Cheney's, God bless them, standing up for democracy.And then there's this whole crowd that's angry at George W. Bush for not endorsing him.
Yeah, well, I actually said, I actually tweeted, I said, you know, George W. Bush is doing the biggest gift he can possibly give to Kamala Harris by saying silent because lots of people remember even more
uh, what George Bush, uh, did in the Bush Cheney administration.But, but I agree with you in that there was a way to respond to the Cheney's endorsements by basically saying monsters, no monsters.Dick Cheney is a monster.
So one thing we can safely say he is, he has credibility on what monsters look like.And so if that monster, is saying there's an even bigger, scarier monster, that's a takeaway we can at least glean something from.
And it's a response that the Harris campaign could have put forward that you're right, honors the history of what actually happened and honors the political reality where there's no evidence that a Cheney endorsement helps you.
Now, I will say, I've heard people say, You can't blame the Democrats for trying to get votes from anybody.And so if Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney help convince some wavering Republicans to vote for Kamala Harris, then that's great.
The problem with that analysis, in my view, is it pretends an endorsement operates in a total vacuum.
you know, it pretends it's like the old Chuck Schumer thing where Chuck Schumer said on the eve of the 2016 election, and I'm paraphrasing here, but he said essentially our theory is for every Democratic vote we lose in western Pennsylvania, we'll gain two votes in the Republican suburbs of Philadelphia, and that will be replicated in state after state, which of course it wasn't.
But I guess what I'm trying to get at is, okay, let's say there's a mythical allegedly moderate Republican voter who gets swayed by learning and realizing that the Cheneys endorsed Kamala Harris.
Okay, but how many votes are you potentially losing by campaigning with Liz Cheney in the final few weeks of the election?Right, these things aren't in a vacuum, right?
You can gain a couple votes, you may lose thousands of votes in a place like Michigan.
I would say the same thing applies to this blank check approach to Netanyahu and his ethno-nationalist extreme right-wing group that are now, every single day, we're seeing videos of murdered children and hospitals being attacked
if you're a Democrat, like they're not even trying to lie, which to me shows you how much control, you know, something like AIPAC, the weapons manufacturers have over these candidates, because all you would have to do is consistently say,
What Netanyahu has gone too far.I am sickened by this.We have a relationship with Israel that goes back 50 years, 60 years.We are doing everything we can.
Even if, like, Harris and people like Schumer and Jeffries, we know they don't care about this mass slaughter, but the fact that they don't even pretend gives me a really spooky, foreboding feeling.
And the thing that happened with Bezos saying, we're not endorsing anyone, I think, like, the trap is about to spring.
Thanks for listening to another episode of Lever Time.This episode was produced by Ronnie Riccobeni, with editing support from Joel Warner and Lucy Dean Stockton.Our theme music is composed by Nick Campbell.
We'll be back later this week with another episode of Lever Time.
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