JVL (7:17)

Well they're more annoying to be sure. I so here's the thing about Bill Maher. He's always been a charlatan. I mean I, I've hated Bill maher for like 20 years. He was a very medium talent. Stand up his talk show. I, I've always been utterly mystified by why people watch it and people do watch it. I mean it's a very popular show. I don't understand it even by the standards of broadcast media. He is unbelievably superficial. He's a blowhard, he's vain. I mean this is a, he's just stupid. He is both stupid and self important. And here's the thing, there are two Bill Maher's here and one of them is wrong and is so wrong that the, the other Bill Maher ought to simply stop doing his television show because either the Bill Maher who was saying all those things about Trump being a monster was wrong. And so he's been wrong for years on end about everything. At which point like what is he even doing on television? Why, why would he be subtracting from people's understanding of the world by subjecting the rest of us to his opinions? Or this new Bill Maher who says that actually Trump is a totally normal guy is also wrong and is so monstrously wrong that again he should not be on television talking because he's too fucking stupid. Which one is it? One of them is right, one of them is wrong and he's so wrong that he shouldn't be on tv. Well, I'm glad that everybody has come around on Bill Maher hating the way I have been. Like everything else with Bill Maher, like the Key is that you can't like him just when he like, is agreeing with you. You have to understand that even when he is like, you know, theoretically on your side, he's still an asshole and he's still stupid. And so he's only on your side by accident.

Sarah Longwell (9:21)

Okay. I'll just say for the record, I don't. I actually find his critiques often quite good and sharp. I don't think he's stupid. I actually think, you know, he's. He's one of. He is extremely highly informed. See, and this is where I actually think, like low info types are people who don't pay a ton of attention to politics. They're not focused on it. They've got their sort of very bespoke concerns that impact only them. You know that I feel differently about people like that and their responsibility to understand who and what Donald Trump is than I do for people who are close political observers who know exactly what he is. So while I don't agree that he's stupid, I actually think he's quite sharp. And I think one of the reasons people I actually. And I also find, I think he is often very funny. And I think that delivering politics and humor.

JVL (10:20)

Funny.

Sarah Longwell (10:21)

I mean, he is sometimes quite funny. Yeah. And delivers funny moments on his show, which I think since the Daily show went away, I just think there's still like a real appetite still on the air. Yeah, but not with John. I mean, Jon Stewart is like back on Mondays, but like went back when it was like a really cultural. You still watch the Daily Show?

JVL (10:44)

I don't, but I. Well, whatever. That's my like, meh on Jon Stewart is a topic for another day.

Sarah Longwell (10:50)

Okay. Yeah, maybe. I don't know, maybe you just hate humor. I don't.

JVL (10:54)

You know what it is? I hate happiness, Sarah. I don't like it that people try to make other people happy.

Sarah Longwell (10:59)

This checks out. I do. This makes sense. Yeah. So anyway, but for people who are sharp political observers, for them to sort of. Because this is where you get. And also to allow yourself to be a pawn like this is. It is sort of the definition of a useful idiot. Right. Is that like you can be sort of. Oh, no, we'll bring you in, we'll give you a nice dinner, we'll be nice and inquisitive toward you and we'll flatter your particular pretensions about being central to the American discussion. And then you're going to go out and carry my water for me. You're going to go tell people what a nice guy I am, despite the fact that you do show after show every week, acknowledging in the news all of the damage that I do by being an absolute terrible person. And so, you know, I agree with you though that the contradiction is pretty. Like the swing is too broad to go from Trump North Korea lover and turning us into North Korea to Trump guy I dine with. Good dude.

JVL (12:08)

So, as you know, as we talked about with many of the anti antis, this is an analysis problem. And if you're anal, if you are so bad at analysis that you are catastrophically wrong in one of those two directions, then you shouldn't be doing it.

Sarah Longwell (12:24)

Yeah. And that brings us, I think, to a second topic which also has me very annoyed and something I would put to mayor himself because Bill Maher is a free speech guy. Right. He's got that libertarian kind of bent. Oh, those libertarians.

JVL (12:43)

You can always count on the libertarians.

Sarah Longwell (12:45)

Yeah.

JVL (12:46)

All right, so, so let me, let me set it up. I want to tee this up for you. 60 Minutes was on, on Sunday night and it mentioned Donald Trump. They talked about Greenland and Ukraine. And here is the bleat from the President of the United States almost every week. 60 Minutes, which is being sued for billions of dollars for the fraud they committed in the 20 presidential election, blah, blah, blah, mentions the name Trump, all caps in a derogatory and defamatory way. But this weekend's quote broadcast all caps tops them, all set, etc. I am so honored to be suing 60 Minutes, CBS Fake News and Paramount over their fraudulent beyond recognition reporting. They did everything possible to illegally elect Kamala. Sorry, illegally elect Kamala. I have to read it in his voice, obviously, including completely and corruptly changing major answers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They should lose their license. Hopefully the Federal Communications Commission, parentheses fcc, which is the like the craziest part of this entire thing. But that's okay. As headed by its highly respected chairman, all capped, Brandon Carr will impose the maximum fines and punishment which is substantial for their unlawful and illegal behavior. CBS is out of control at levels never seen before and they should pay a big price for this. Make America great again. So, Sarah, that's the thing that happens in America now.

Sarah Longwell (14:22)

It is actually a thing that is because this is not the first time. Like when he says they're being sued for. He's the one suing them. He's suing them for other stuff. Yes. And you know what I know from George, because this is it actually goes to why the law firms and the media companies both capitulate for Roughly the same reason, which is mergers and acquisitions. There is apparently in that mergers and acquisition markets, especially among these media companies with streamers and all the things. There is a, a big glut of need from like Disney and other things to do, acquiring to do, you know, whatever.

JVL (15:03)

They've all got these paramedics of a sale right now.

Sarah Longwell (15:06)

That's right.

JVL (15:06)

Right.

Sarah Longwell (15:07)

And so they end up having to. And by having to, I mean, you do not have to. You can make choices here. You have agency. But they decide that in order for them to pursue these business endeavors that they need to do, they must capitulate to Trump and give him protection money. Right. And if Paramount and CBS caves on this, I mean, if I say that like I'm about to threaten them with something real, but I'm not the President of the United States, so what am I going to do? It's just. But it is unconscionable what Trump is doing. But that's the part. I mean. Okay, so that part bothers me at the most fundamental level. But my sort of pedestrian annoyance going back to the anti indies is I was told reliably by so many of the people who said libs were worse, who said we couldn't vote for Kamala Harris, that Donald Trump was going to be a free speech champion. I was also told that about Elon Musk, that this is that. And you know, when, when Mark Zuckerberg said that he was going to, to become, you know, somebody to really work with Donald Trump, it was because we had to make free speech great again. And Elon had to buy Twitter to make free speech happen again. And the free press, you know, this is free speech is our central issue or someplace like Reason magazine, everybody, like, these are all the free speech, free speech, free speech. There's basically one group that has been consistent on that and that is fire the foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Right. They have been 100%. But all these other people who during the Biden years and basically when a Democrat's in, just talk about free speech constantly. I don't know where they are. He is suing pollsters for results. He hasn't.

JVL (16:50)

What does Barry Wise, what does Barry Wise think about this?

Sarah Longwell (16:52)

She, I am curious.

JVL (16:54)

I mean, she did a whole Twitter files thing because it was bad that Twitter like suppressed tweets about the Hunter Biden laptop for 12 hours once.

Sarah Longwell (17:03)

I do think that went wrong though. I think she ended up into like a bit of a fight with Elon.

JVL (17:08)

Well enough to make her recant anything.

Sarah Longwell (17:13)

That I don't I don't. I don't remember the. I don't remember the details of the Twitter files situation. What I do know is that. That that is, like, part of the crowd that I do not understand why we're not up in arms about free speech at the moment.

JVL (17:31)

So I understand it. There is a fellow I follow on Substack, have followed him for years before Substack, and he is not quite part of the heterodox movement, but he was always right on the edge of the heterodox movement. And over the weekend, he wrote something in which he said, you know, we had all this stuff we wanted because we thought the DEI stuff was ridiculous and the woke stuff was super annoying, and we wanted more speech. And then we got it on Twitter, and now Twitter is basically a Nazi cesspool. And we have people who are trying to unstigmatize the Second World War and Germany and Hitler, and we have a bunch of people who are running around firing basically every woman with a high rank in the armed forces and pulling Maya Angelou books out of the Naval Academy library, but leaving Mein Kampf. And, like, I don't know, maybe all the DEI wokes were worried for a reason.

Sarah Longwell (18:53)

I actually can't believe the amount of which here.

JVL (18:58)

Maybe that stuff all existed because there are some really, very, very bad impulses running around through American culture.

Sarah Longwell (19:05)

Yeah, maybe. I also. I don't. I don't know. I don't know. But the amount of, like, really racist stuff in the for you feed. And I don't know if, like, at some point I was like, oh, no. Or like, I saw one of them. And because this is the problem is if I saw it and was like, what is this? And then clicked on it, it just keeps giving you more.

JVL (19:29)

Give you more no matter what. Same way you get, Elon, no matter what. Right?

Sarah Longwell (19:33)

Yeah, that's true. You do. I block this guy. And you still can't.

JVL (19:37)

Doesn't matter.

Sarah Longwell (19:39)

It is wild.

JVL (19:40)

Now, Sarah, here's what I want to know. Where does woke DEI go to get its apology?

Sarah Longwell (19:46)

What?

JVL (19:48)

I'm just saying, it turns out that woke DEI existed for a reason, because there was a lot of, like, terrible stuff happening.

Sarah Longwell (19:54)

Yeah, but that's not a lot of.

JVL (19:56)

Like, really nasty impulses and people wanting to. Want to say and do terrible things. Yeah, I don't really mean that. Don't worry.

Sarah Longwell (20:07)

I'm just trying to trigger you. Okay. I don't.

JVL (20:10)

Woke deis are still terrible, Sarah.

Sarah Longwell (20:12)

Great. I just don't. I don't. I Don't. I don't think that that was the best corrective to what are some terrible human impulses. Here's the thing, though, I will say another thing that gets served to me that I saw, and you just mentioned this, so it's worth just throwing it out. There is this guy, Matt Walsh, who. I miss the days when I didn't know who these people were, but he's one of those Daily Wire guys and apparently a big part of his shtick is just being like super misogynistic.

JVL (20:44)

That guy is so butch. I mean, but I really. He's a man's man.

Sarah Longwell (20:48)

Yeah. I think like when he shows up, it's always like some lecture about women and how, you know, men should be alpha and trad wives. I don't know. Anyway, but I got, I saw he did this thing where somebody was. He was quote, tweeting the story about the four star female general that got fired. And he was like, good. You know, like this. And because they're just. I don't know why they're purging a lot of women from the military. I mean, I mean, I do know, but this appears to be a thing that's happening.

JVL (21:27)

Well, it's probably all merit based. Yeah, they probably all have really bad performance reviews or something. And just a coincidence, they all happen to be minorities and women.

Sarah Longwell (21:35)

Yeah, I just. It does strike me, Donald Trump was obviously a draft dodger who has repeatedly insulted men and women in uniform. But like, you get these guys like Matt Walsh being like, this woman is. I don't care what you think. She's serving her country. Like, where did these. Did Matt Walsh serve his country in uniform? I presume. Even, even if you think DEI got her there, she probably still worked pretty hard. She still served her country, devoted her career and her life to it. Is that. Are we not respecting that anymore or is it.

JVL (22:12)

Of course, we don't respect that. It's like the cops thing. Blue lives matter. Except for the Capitol Police. Right. And this is. I respect law enforcement, except for the FBI, which. And when the FBI is carrying out a raid at Mar a Lago, then you can't trust anything that the cops do or say. Right. It's. It's what all of this is.

Sarah Longwell (22:31)

Yeah, I mean, I know. I just, I guess I, I guess what I want is for individuals like Matt Walsh to feel some modicum of embarrassment or shame being somebody who's never served his country and criticizing someone who has.

JVL (22:49)

I mean, I don't know. Matt Walsh.

Sarah Longwell (22:51)

Now you could, now you could criticize her for if there was one specific thing, but, like, this was just woman. Get her out of there.

JVL (22:57)

Yeah, I feel pretty confident in saying he won't ever feel embarrassment or shame right now.

Sarah Longwell (23:04)

I understand this.

JVL (23:05)

Yeah. You know who else won't? Bill Maher. Because he is a callow, vain little pony. He's a little man, a little, little fellow.

Sarah Longwell (23:19)

Okay, well, I'm also a person of small stature, so I'm not gonna.

JVL (23:23)

You know, I'm not all making. I'm merely observing. Sarah, I'm not making any valid judgments about it. I'm just saying he's a pathetic little man, that's all.

Sarah Longwell (23:31)

Okay, okay. Let's settle down.

JVL (23:34)

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