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- [00:00]
Sam Stein
Hello again, everybody. Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bulwark, here with our fearless publisher, Sarah Longwell. We're here to talk about Donald Trump, the Kennedy center, the Kennedy Center Awards, and musical theater. Because Sarah is our in house musical theater buff, we made sure that she was on this program. Sarah, what's your favorite show?
- [00:19]
Sarah Longwell
You know, my favorites are ones that mix my most favorite two topics, which is politics and musical theater. And so, well, it's Evita, it's Hamilton. You know, I. Les Miz, the French Revolution. Oh, my God, 1776. There's lots of good. There's lots of good political musicals, man.
- [00:41]
Sam Stein
Fair enough. Well, you and Trump do have something in common, it appears, after all.
- [00:45]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, but his favorite musical is like.
- [00:46]
Sam Stein
Cats and Les Mis.
- [00:49]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, but Les Mis is a great show like that.
- [00:51]
Sam Stein
He likes Phantom. He likes Phantom. Do you like Phantom of the Opera?
- [00:54]
Sarah Longwell
Phantom? It's not my favorite. That's fine.
- [00:57]
Sam Stein
It's fine. He's a. He's more of a classic guy. Okay, cool. Well, that's great. So Trump had a big event this morning where he was going to unveil who was going to get the. Who was going to be the honorees for the Kennedy Center Awards this year. And lo and behold, he threw a real curveball at us. Although I suppose not. Not that big a curveball concerning his Trump. Let's listen to his opening remarks and get some reaction on the backside.
- [01:21]
Donald Trump
Delighted to be here. And as we officially announce the incredibly talented artists who will be celebrated later this year at the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors, it's going to be a big evening. I've been asked to host. I said, I'm the President of the United States. Are you fools asking me to do that? Sir, you'll get much higher ratings. I said, I don't care. I'm President of the United States. I won't do it. They said, please. And then Susie, well said to me, sir, I'd like you to host. I said, okay, Susie, I'll do it. That's the power she's got. But I just. So I have agreed to host. Do you believe what I have to do? And I didn't want to do it. Okay. They're going to say I insisted. I did not insist, but I think it will be quite successful. It's been a long time. I used to host the Apprentice finales, and we did rather well with that.
- [02:20]
Sam Stein
It reminded me of that scene in Anchorman where Ron Burgundy's at the jazz club and he's like, nah, I couldn't Possibly play and then he whips out the flute or whatever. Couldn't possibly play a few here. And then. Are you excited for Donald Trump to host the award ceremony, sir?
- [02:36]
Sarah Longwell
No, I'm not, obviously. And I do not appreciate this whole. It's the Trump Kennedy Center. He's gonna rename the Kennedy center after himself here. Like, he wants that more than Mount Rushmore. You know, it's always funny to me with his thing where he likes musicals, because Donald Trump does blend. Not that musicals are inherently feminine, because they're not, but they are theatrical in a way that. It is always funny to me that his, like, hyper masculine, Especially his supporters, the way they talk about him. Like, he's a hyper masculine guy with the makeup and the weird poofed hair and the love of musicals. I'm like, guys, this guy is one step away from, you know, I mean, it looks like, like Pavarotti threw up in the White House, you know, so it's just.
- [03:24]
Sam Stein
He's got. He's got a gay vibe. He does have a gay vibe. Let's just be honest about it.
- [03:29]
Sarah Longwell
Which is. Which is mean to gay people. I don't mean to do that, but he's not. Yeah, this is not.
- [03:35]
Sam Stein
The guy's not gun to someone who wasn't the president, who was obsessed with gold adornings in their house and musical theater and interior design. I think he would, like, have some suspicions about their sexuality. I think that's totally fair.
- [03:49]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. Makes sense that he's been overcompensating his whole life by having sex with porn stars.
- [03:56]
Sam Stein
The idea that he would take time out of his day to host the Kennedy Center Awards and that he obviously wanted to do this and that he even took out his time of his day to do this announcement about it is so hilarious and outlandish to me. Like, in a normal world, he'd be pretty busy. Right? Like, there'd be other things going on. But he's very, very. I mean, I think if he had his druthers, he would focus on redecorating federal buildings, hosting award ceremonies at the Kennedy center. And, you know, there's another couple going to play, like, the design of Washington, D.C. i think that's what he really has his passions around.
- [04:35]
Sarah Longwell
This is how he wants to spend his time. Like, he doesn't want to spend his time doing normal. Present president. Right. And I also. Sam, I got a question for you. How are they going to have this successful program in Washington, D.C. which is in the middle of a crisis of crime of such epic proportions? That they need to federalize the National Guard and put troops on our streets. How, how could, can we have musical theater in an environment like that, where.
- [05:05]
Sam Stein
The city is in worse shape than Baghdad? And I can't see how we could possibly put on a show in these conditions. Although Trump has some designs on that. He said during this press that he's going to potentially go well past the 30 day limit that is mandatory or mandated under law for these types of emergency declarations. He also talked a lot about sort of the, the image of Washington D.C. and he got so granular that he literally started talking about the city's grass. Let's play that clip for you.
- [05:41]
Donald Trump
We're doing that and doing some other things and we're going to also fix up a place called Washington D.C. we're going to make it so beautiful again. We're going to be redoing the parks, redoing the grass. You know, grass has a lifetime, like people have a lifetime. And the lifetime of this grass has long been gone. When you look at the parks where the grass is old, tired, exhausted, we're going to redo the grass with the finest grasses. I know a lot about grass because I own a lot of golf courses and if you don't have good grass, you're not in business very long. Lindsey Graham, by the way, you have very good pole numbers. Lindsey, I just saw. Congratulations.
- [06:25]
Sarah Longwell
That's the real weave, man. I know a lot about grass. The grass is tall, the grass is green. It's on the other side.
- [06:33]
Sam Stein
Is the grass dead on the Mall? I don't think it is. I've been down there recently. Look fine. To me, the grass is fine.
- [06:40]
Sarah Longwell
I mean, at least the federal government has control over the parks, unlike the way that they're federalizing, like the cops in D.C. i just.
- [06:47]
Sam Stein
It's weird to have a president obsess over the quality of grass.
- [06:50]
Sarah Longwell
It's not this. No, this all makes total sense, though, for Trump. No, it makes sense for Trump because Trump, Trump doesn't actually know how to be the president. Still, he knows how to do all the things he's done all his life, which are corruption, make deals in which he tries to bully people, not pay people. Golf courses, do golf courses and build buildings. Right? This is where. Why is he building a ballroom? Because he knows how and like, he cares about that and that's how he seeks to put his imprint on things. He wants to. Like he, he wants all the puddings. Like he wants the. Okay, just rock with me for one second.
- [07:30]
Sam Stein
Okay. Putting. I'm thinking of DeSantis now, but go ahead.
- [07:33]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, I know. Sorry. Not finger eating pudding, but, like, he wants the treats. The treats that come with being of high status. Right? Like, that's. He likes the. He likes the. The fancy planes and the ornate offices and the Nobel Peace Prize. He doesn't. But this is, like, classic for Trump. He doesn't want to do the work, like, the real work of diplomacy. And, I mean, meeting with Putin is not exactly diplomacy. This is who Trump is, and he's not good at. He's not good at the real stuff.
- [08:05]
Sam Stein
He likes chasing the shiny stuff. Let's note that he is meeting with Putin. He was asked about the meeting with Putin during this press conference. He's pressed about the fact that it emerged that Russia was the ones hacking federal databases recently. And. And he seemed to be like, well, of course, that's what they do. He talked a little bit about a resolution to the war potential, actually weighing the possibility of punishing Russia if there is no resolution. We'll see. Probably not. And then he kind of, like, weaved in and out. I mean, this whole thing was. It was. Was really wild. He was rambling on about the success of Les Mis, and then he's talking about the government shutdown possibility. He. He then got into the issue of the Fed Reserve building and Jerome Powell. To your point, Sarah, the honorees he did reveal. These are the honorees this year. Sly Stallone, the rock band Kiss, George Straight, Gloria Gaynor, and the British actor Michael Crawford, who famously starred in Phantom of the Opera. And then at one point, he said of the song I Will Survive, quote, it is an unbelievable, unbelievable song. So he's got, again, he's got that vibe.
- [09:10]
Sarah Longwell
George Straight Love, Love me some George Strait Carrying a love with me I listen to a lot of country music. Yeah.
- [09:15]
Sam Stein
What do you make. What do you make of these honorees?
- [09:18]
Sarah Longwell
Well, these are from real America, Sam, but, you know, they're great. I begrudge Sly Stallone nothing.
- [09:25]
Sam Stein
Sly's the man. He deserves this. He's an incredibly accomplished artist, a Pennsylvanian like myself.
- [09:32]
Sarah Longwell
There you go, Philadelphia.
- [09:35]
Sam Stein
I'm totally fine with these honorees. I was expecting, like, Kid Rock, honestly, to get his due. And, you know.
- [09:41]
Sarah Longwell
Do you know, I have been increasingly thinking about Trump's mental decline and what seems like dementia. I mean, when he was talking about.
- [09:50]
Sam Stein
Thank you for bringing this up. The grass thing, I was like, man, that sounded kind of like, imagine, like, Biden rambling like that. We'd be like, that guy's demented, right?
- [09:57]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. And I do, I think that Trump, this is what happens with people who start to go into this kind of mental decline when they're old is they go back to their basics, right? The stuff they really know. And this is where him talking about grass, him talking about the songs that he loves, like these are burrowed deep in there. And I think he's lost his facility to sort of catch on to newer things. He does. This is in there.
- [10:19]
Sam Stein
Yeah, he does definitely talk about this stuff way more regularly than he did in the first grind. You know what, let's play that last one about the Fed, because he started rambling about the Fed's redesign and the construction doing there and he started talking about wallpaper and random shit. Let's just play to emphasize the point you're making.
- [10:37]
Donald Trump
And that's the beginning. They did a, just a terrible job. They, instead of I could take a ceiling like this, they'd rip out the ceiling because they see a crack, let's rip out the ceiling. And I would fix the crack and I would paint the ceiling. And under the ceiling they put the most incredible protective material. They go out by 3/4 inch brand new, gorgeous 3/4 inch plywood and Sheetrock, hardened Sheetrock. And they had it all over the building. So if a little piece of flake came down. But the problem is when they took the ceiling down and it would hit. They spent millions of dollars on protective material that you didn't have to spend anything.
- [11:21]
Sarah Longwell
His brain is soup. His brain is soup. This is, we've got to start talking about this. This is a problem. He has some man, camera, woman, you know, parachute. He is in severe decline. And he is, he's going, he starts to play the hits, right? This is what really old people do. And what's ironic about all this, Sam Stein, is that over in the corner when Trump's like, Lindsey Graham, love your poll numbers. Way to go, buddy. It's because Lindsey Graham is wearing a Trump 2020.
- [11:54]
Sam Stein
I know.
- [11:54]
Sarah Longwell
And you listen to Trump and you're like, no. And I just said this on the next level. So it's a bit of a repeat. But I believe this to be true, which is that we are very lucky when it comes to the authoritarian takeover of the United States, that Donald Trump is 79 and almost 80 years old.
- [12:11]
Sam Stein
As opposed to 59.
- [12:13]
Sarah Longwell
As opposed to 59. Because the authoritarian project would have a lot of, a lot of rope at that point. But instead we have the reality of actuarial tables. You know, just listening to him, he is mush mouthed. He Cannot articulate things he does. He sounds like Biden being like, listen here, bub, when corn pop was thing and had that layer on his legs. And you're like, where's this going? What's happening? Trump sounds exactly like that.
- [12:42]
Sam Stein
Well, so someone made the point this morning because. And I want to get it right, the post that Trump put up this morning about Leningrad. Did you see that one?
- [12:50]
Sarah Longwell
Yes, I did.
- [12:52]
Sam Stein
So someone made the point. I forget who it was about how there's a big scandal in. Biden erroneously referred to Macron as the deceased French Prime Minister Mitterrand, and how this was evidence of. Of decline. And it's like, well, you know, the standards seem to be uneven here, to put it lightly. Like, Trump can get away with saying, yeah, Putin wants Leningrad, which hasn't been a city in Russia since the 90s. So, you know, I do think you're right about that, and I think it's probably worth having or seeing people have more honest conversations about it. I thought today's press conference was just emblematic of it. It's like a guy who's very much obsessed with the most trivial stuff possible, gets off on it, and then spends a lot of time just kind of rambling, frankly, in. In a way that if you saw it from anyone else, you'd be like, this person's, you know, not all there.
- [13:39]
Sarah Longwell
And in some ways, this is like, a much clearer for, I think, other people. I think we see the authoritarian project clearly with putting, you know, the National Guard on the streets and everything else, but in some ways, him standing up and rambling forever. Even the. The press conference he did about D.C. where he was flanked by Bondi and Cash and Seth, you could see them, you know, Piro, like, these are not responsible, respectable people by any stretch, but you can even see their eyes being like, I wonder how long he's gonna go. And he goes for so long that at some point he says, you know, like, I'm gonna let you guys go. They're busy people. Like, he was just gonna keep standing there.
- [14:18]
Sam Stein
Yeah.
- [14:18]
Sarah Longwell
And having. Forcing everyone to listen to him. That is real authoritarianism. Right. Where everyone's gotta sit and sort of abide your knowledge.
- [14:27]
Sam Stein
Show up at the Kennedy center with a 2020 hat to show how much they care.
- [14:31]
Sarah Longwell
2028 hat.
- [14:33]
Sam Stein
Sorry, my bad. Yeah.
- [14:35]
Sarah Longwell
Yes.
- [14:35]
Sam Stein
It is what it is. All right, Sarah, thank you so much for doing this. Really appreciate it. No, it wasn't that big a lift, because you would jump at any opportunity to talk about musical theater.
- [14:43]
Sarah Longwell
I was told we were going to talk about musicals the whole time. I have. So we haven't talked about Rent or In the Heights, which preceded Hamilton. Great.
- [14:51]
Sam Stein
Let's save that for another one. I can go on and on about Rent. Really? An uplifting musical? Definitely.
- [14:58]
Sarah Longwell
So are you. Are you crapping on Rent right now?
- [15:00]
Sam Stein
I like Rent, but it's super depressing.
- [15:02]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, but it holds up. It's good. Still great, actually.
- [15:05]
Sam Stein
Yeah. All right, Sarah. Thanks so much, everyone watching. Thank you, too. Subscribe to the feed. Tell friends to subscribe to the feed. Love you. Talk to you. Bye.