LIVE REACTION: Epstein Files Released, Elise Stefanik Quits

Summary

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Bulwark Takes: LIVE REACTION – Epstein Files Released, Elise Stefanik Quits

Date: December 19, 2025
Host(s): John, Sarah Longwell, Gillian
Special segment: LIVE team reaction to breaking news

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Main Theme & Episode Overview

This episode of Bulwark Takes is a spontaneous, fast-paced roundtable reacting in real-time to two breaking stories:

• The Trump administration’s long-awaited, highly redacted release of the Epstein files
• The shock announcement that Elise Stefanik is suspending her campaign for New York governor and will not seek re-election to Congress

The mood oscillates between holiday giddiness, political schadenfreude, and serious concern over transparency and the future direction of the GOP.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Epstein Files Release: Redactions & Reactions

[02:12 – 07:39]

• Initial Reactions:

  • The panel opens by acknowledging the heavily redacted Epstein files, with John calling them “illuminating” in jest due to how little unredacted material is visible.
  • Sarah highlights skepticism about the transparency of the Trump administration:

    "Not committed to transparency from the Trump administration is what you're telling me." (03:19 – Sarah)

  • Gillian offers a blend of sarcasm and genuine concern about the possibility of ongoing cover-ups.

• Frustration Over Redactions:

  • Sarah: “It does not shock me that they have redacted everything. Like this was their goal... They went to work redacting everything that they could. And so I think…it's going to take a while to work through their redactions.” (04:04)
  • John openly questions the motives:

    “The degree to which this stuff is, is redacted is preposterous.” (06:37)

  • Discussion of Trump’s well-worn delay and obfuscation tactics—“The classic Trump strategy.” (07:03 – John & Gillian).

• Sarah’s Zeal for Full Release:

  • Sarah proclaims:

    “We will never stop fighting for the release of all the Epstein files.” (07:13)

  • A playful moment ensues about Sarah becoming the “point person” for Epstein file transparency—a “zeal of the convert.”

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2. Elise Stefanik: The Fall of a Trump Loyalist

[07:39 – 24:30]

• Breaking News Read-Aloud:

  • John reads Stefanik’s statement on suspending her campaign for governor and not seeking re-election. Panelists react with a mix of glee and disappointment—they were looking forward to watching her struggle in the race.
  • Notable moment:

    "Her pain was going to bring me joy. And then I read the second sentence—‘and I will also not seek reelection to Congress.’" (08:08 – John)

• Commentary on Stefanik’s Loyalty and Downfall:

  • Sarah on the arc of Stefanik’s ambitions and failures:

    “She did everything but suck on Donald Trump's toes. Maybe she did. I don't know exactly what happened on Air Force One, but she did everything.” (08:20 – John, with Sarah and Gillian riffing)

  • There's strong emphasis on the futility of “selling your soul” to Trump:

    “What we want is for people unable to navigate what it looks like to be in the post Trump world to find themselves having to tap out because they sold their souls and they got nothing in return.” (09:33 – Sarah)

  • Sarah adds:

    “Donald Trump has only one good quality, only one. And it is that when people sell their souls for him ... he does not care. And he will happily humiliate them in the process.” (10:24 – Sarah)

• Juxtaposition with JD Vance & GOP Grievance Ecologies:

  • Gillian: “JD Vance and Elise Stefanik are extremely similar creatures... And then they turned on a dime and went for Trump. He gets to be vice president. She gets nothing.” (15:05)
  • John cynically links Trump’s preferences to superficialities:

    “Let’s be honest, if Elise was hotter, she might have been the vp. Really... Like, she and JD are the same. They did the same stuff.” (17:43 – John)

  • Sarah pivots to the changing GOP base:

    “They're starting to realize that their base is not a fan, actually, of defending Israel. And so they need more of J.D. Vance, who can say, actually, I need to welcome the groypers in. Somebody who has made their bones on ‘I'm gonna stand with Israel’—not as good for this version of the Republican Party.” (19:24)

  • John affirms: “JD's willingness to play along with the anti-Semite crowd is a key part of his sustainability.” (20:10)

• Republican Party Factions:

  • Sarah frames the split as “MAGA establishment versus the America First world,” suggesting Stefanik is on the losing, outmoded side.
  • Gillian points out Stefanik’s intrinsic disadvantage for being from New York, a state less receptive to far-right “groypers” than the national party.
  • John reveals personal connections to Stefanik's operations and underscores her transformation:

    “She threw out all her old consultants and had like a 24 year old intern who is a MAGA intern named Alex DeGrasse … She trafficked in the worst disgusting elements of MAGA to win over.” (22:37)

  • Sarah: “All the gross stuff she was willing to do, it is not enough to stay in the good graces of the America first types that are taking over now.” (24:10)

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3. The GOP's “Reward” System and Gendered Power

[13:12 – 18:49]

• Notable Quotes:

  • Gillian: “Check all the boxes, brown all the noses … what she got was her ass run out of town, bupkis.” (14:34)
  • John: “She completely sold every iota of dignity that she had—for literally nothing.” (15:29)

• Discussion on Whether “Selling Out” Pays:

  • They list figures like JD Vance and Tulsi Gabbard who did similar political pivots but were rewarded, contrasting sharply with Stefanik’s fate.

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4. Predictions and Stefanik’s Future

[24:53 – 25:41]

• What Comes Next for Elise Stefanik?

  • Sarah predicts Stefanik will join the “establishment” rather than the insurgent America First wing.
  • Gillian: “Doesn't she get the Paul Ryan Memorial chair at Fox News's board?” (25:09)
  • John: “She’ll live in, you know, either Alexandria or in Manhattan ... she'll come.” (25:17)

• Factional Prognosis:

  • John expects the “America first side wins,” believing that’s “where the mojo is.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Elise Stefanik’s Political Demise:

  • “Her pain was going to bring me joy.” (08:08 – John)
  • “She did everything but suck on Donald Trump’s toes.” (08:20 – John)
  • “Donald Trump has only one good quality … he will happily humiliate them in the process.” (10:24 – Sarah)
  • “She got her ass run out of town, bupkis.” (14:34 – Gillian)

• On the GOP’s Changing Coalition:

  • “They're starting to realize that their base is not a fan, actually, of defending Israel. And so they need more of J.D. Vance...” (19:24 – Sarah)
  • “JD's willingness to play along with the anti-Semite crowd is a key part of his sustainability.” (20:10 – John)
  • “All the gross stuff she was willing to do ... it is not enough to stay in the good graces of the America first types...” (24:10 – Sarah)

• On Epstein File Transparency:

  • “We will never stop fighting for the release of all the Epstein files.” (07:13 – Sarah)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Epstein files overview: [02:12 – 07:39]
• Stefanik's resignation announcement, initial hot takes: [07:39 – 11:05]
• Humorously recapping MAGA loyalty and gender-political dynamics: [13:12 – 14:34]
• Juxtaposing JD Vance and Stefanik's strategies/outcomes: [15:05 – 19:24]
• Changing winds inside the GOP & generational/ideological divides: [19:24 – 22:37]
• Elise Stefanik’s personal transformation and operatives: [22:37 – 24:10]
• What’s next for Stefanik/panel predictions: [24:53 – 25:41]

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Summary Table

| Segment | Highlights | Key Quotes | |------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------| | Epstein Files Release | Heavy redaction, Trump team tactics, transparency doubts | “The degree to which this stuff is, is redacted is preposterous.” (06:37 – John)| | Stefanik Quits | Schadenfreude, GOP intra-party battles, reflection on career debasement | “She did everything but suck on Trump’s toes” (08:20 – John) | | GOP Gendered Dynamics | JD Vance vs. Stefanik, “reward” structure for loyalty, base’s changing ideology | “Check all the boxes ... she got bupkis.” (14:34 – Gillian) | | Future of GOP | MAGA establishment vs. America First, predictions for Stefanik and party trajectory | “I think America first side wins…that’s where the mojo is.” (25:50 – John) |

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Tone & Style

Rich with the panel’s trademark sarcasm, rapid-fire repartee, and inside-baseball references, the episode is both cathartic and cutting. Panelists do not hold back in their schadenfreude over Stefanik’s fall, nor in their cynicism about the state of Trumpism, media incentives, and GOP power dynamics.

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Takeaway for Listeners

Even as the news breaks, Bulwark panelists synthesize the layers of both stories: the superficiality and brutality of Trump-world loyalty, the ongoing struggle for transparency on dark chapters of America’s past, and a party in generational and ideological flux. Their humor and candor provide both clarity and a jolt of holiday mischief.

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Transcript

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[John]

Tim it is. We're having a holly Hol. It's a Christmas miracle. There's a lot of news happening right now and so we wanted to have a holly, jolly Christmas together with all of you. Elise, Stefanik's, career is over apparently and Sarah Longwell is having a martini. And before we get to the joy and the of Elise Stefanik and the eggnog and the cookies, the dessert, there is some other breaking news right now. The Epstein files have been released and we're going to want to talk about that. And so Chris, could you pull up on the screen what we've got. It's the first tranche that's, that's from the first tranche from the government there. That is document 00006209.PDF. There's a hundred illuminating, there's 100 pages that look just like that. So I don't know, I don't know if we're going to resolve anything today on the Epstein files. There were some pictures of Bill Clinton looking a little creepy, but we're still going through them. The team is going through them. But it seems to me that, you know, maybe they're not actually going to give us everything. You know, maybe they might not totally. There might not be full transparency related.

[Sarah]

To not committed to transparency from the Trump administration is what you're telling me.

[John]

What do you think about it and have you seen anything from the Epstein files worth chatting about before we get to Elise?

[Gillian]

I'm shocked.

[John]

You're shocked?

[Sarah]

Not in this new tranche.

[John]

Yeah.

[Sarah]

But I will say, you know, we, we reacted to the Susie Wiles Vanity Fair piece in real time. Like we got Susie, but Susie, one of the things that Susie said because so much of it was about her kind of soft pushing some things into the narrative. Sorry. But some of them was that Trump is all over the Epstein files and that he's not doing anything awful.

[Gillian]

So like possibly illegal, but not awful.

[Sarah]

But not awful because we're working with standards of the Trump team. It does not shock me that they have redacted everything. Like this was their goal. Right. Once they knew that they were going to have to release the files per congressional, they passed a law saying that we had to be transparent about this. They went to work redacting everything that they could. And so I think we're going to, it's going to take a while to work through their redactions.

[John]

It almost seems as if there's a cover up happening with the Epstein files. Jvl I don't know. What do you think?

[Gillian]

I mean you never know. But it's funny, it took a long time to get the Epstein files redacted to release. They really get his name up on the Kennedy center right quick.

[John]

That's 12 hours it's already on the building, you guys.

[Sarah]

I drove by it. I drove by it. They have scaffolding up like they are. They are like getting it done right now.

[Gillian]

It's done. Where did they get the letters? So this is Gillian. You got to get matching. Do they just have somewhere lying around from the original when they put it.

[John]

Doesn'T look like a match to me. They look like a match to you.

[Gillian]

Oh, you know, like when you, when you put in tile somewhere, you always buy extra tiles that if you break one of them, like, you don't have to, like, oh, you know, this tile's out of production. We can't match it. Maybe the Kennedy Centers had a bunch of extra letters lying around. Or maybe they had planned this whole thing for a long time. Impossible to say.

[John]

Yeah, I have gone full JBL in the Kennedy center. By the way. I did it with David from this morning on the podcast, and he was a little taken aback. I think he was.

[Gillian]

What is the full jbl?

[Sarah]

Yeah, what is the full jbl?

[John]

I know. I want to bulldoze the Kennedy Center. When we get back to power, I want to bulldoze the Trump Kennedy Center. I'm sorry, taking his name off it is not good enough for me anymore. Good enough. I want to raise it and then, I don't know, build something else. Maybe low income housing there, gay bar, big gay club or something.

[Sarah]

I'm sorry. The Kennedy center is like a gay club. I've been there. Like, it's just musicals and like reproductions of sheer madness. It's not.

[John]

That's a good point.

[Sarah]

It's not really.

[John]

People go, we're still spitballing on it. Okay, so that's the breaking news on, on the Epstein situation. What?

[Gillian]

Come on, bring it up.

[John]

The good stuff.

[Sarah]

I didn't get on this podcast in the middle of my holiday party for.

[Gillian]

Trump's Kennedy Christmas party. Sarah, you can say Christmas again.

[John]

It is a Christmas party. I was just trying to make sure we had no other. Is there no other important news context about that, about Epstein? I just think that, like, look, they said today they're only going to reach, like, release a hundred thousand of the documents and they're going to continue to roll them out. And you know, I, I just. Here, this is. Boy, I'm just looking at this other batch that's come up here. And the degree to which this stuff is, is redacted is preposterous. It's almost like why I guess they had to do it by law is the answer. My question was Going to be like, well, why didn't they just stonewall it? But I guess this is their.

[Gillian]

Because you can stonewall over right now. So now you'll take it to a coin over extreme redacting and then they'll fight that out.

[John]

The classic Trump strategy.

[Gillian]

Eileen Cannon.

[Sarah]

This is what he did with his legal. Like, his legal strategy this summer was about just trying to delay and delay until people either lose interest or stop fighting. But this is where we will never stop fighting for the release of all the Epstein files.

[John]

We will never. I love that Sarah is like the point person now for the Epstein files release. You know, it was Joe Rogan world and now it's Sarah Nicole Wallace.

[Sarah]

Yes.

[John]

It's like, you know, it's like the zeal of the convert. You know, JBL knows about that in the Catholic Church. Okay, are we ready for the Happy Christmas? Is it Happy Christmas, everybody.

[Gillian]

Into my veins.

[John]

Give it to me. Here is a tweet that was just sent out within the last hour. It's from Elise Stefanik, my former colleague. She writes this. While spending precious time with my family this Christmas season, I've made the decision to suspend my campaign for governor. That's kind of expected. I just don't lose anyway. I was going to kind of enjoy her losing that campaign, so I was a little sad.

[Sarah]

By 20 points. She was going to lose by 20 points.

[John]

Reading that first sentence kind of made me a little glum. I was like, ugh, her pain. I was going to have some schadenfreude there. Her pain was going to bring me joy. And then I read the second sentence and I will also not seek reelection to Congress. I did not come to the decision lightly for our family. Elise Stefanik thought, found herself thinking maybe she would be the vice president right now. Threw her name in the ring, did some Ozempic, got a glow up, did everything but suck on Donald Trump's toes. Maybe she did. I don't know exactly what happened on Air Force One, but she did everything. At least. Toes, Sarah.

[Gillian]

He said toes.

[Sarah]

Oh, toes.

[John]

Okay, toes. Suck on his toes. Everything except that we go live in.

[Gillian]

The middle of a holiday party. We did wheels off.

[Sarah]

He's sober.

[John]

I didn't do that. I said she did everything up until the possibility of sucking on his toes, which we don't know. Actually. I'm not on Air Force One, but just asking questions. She did everything that she could to become vp and if not vp, to become ambassador to the United nations. And if not that, his speaker of the House. And instead she will be unemployed, her and Matt Gaetz. I guess that Gates, a competitor of ours in the podcasting space, not doing as good in the ratings. It is joyful. It is pretty joyful that at least a phonic sold her soul and got nothing. Jonathan. At least Sarah. At least Sarah's excited. Sarah, you first.

[Sarah]

John, this look, it's a Christmas miracle, right? This is. This is what we want. What we want is for people unable to navigate what it looks like to be in the post Trump world to find themselves having to tap out because they sold their souls and they got nothing in return. Okay. She was put up for UN Ambassador and then had the rug pulled out from under her and she thought, okay, okay, I'll run for governor. And then what did Trump do? He had walked mum Donnie into her office, who she was, her entire campaign.

[Gillian]

Her entire campaign was going to be.

[Sarah]

And then he couldn't even endorse her. He was like, they're both fine.

[Gillian]

I don't think I've heard of him. But, you know, it's a great person, too.

[Sarah]

You know what? Donald Trump has only one good quality, only one. And it is that when people sell their souls for him, when they give up everything on his behalf, he does not care. And he will happily humiliate them in the process. And he's done that to Elise Stefanik. Nobody deserves it more, and I'm thrilled for her.

[John]

Jbl hit me.

[Gillian]

There are a couple people who deserve it at least as much. And I'm waiting for the slow knife. Marco, this one's a nice one.

[Sarah]

Just let me have a nice thing. Jvl.

[Gillian]

You can have a nice thing. I want to read you guys my favorite part from her statement.

[John]

Oh, please.

[Gillian]

While we would have overwhelmingly won this primary.

[Sarah]

Sure.

[Gillian]

It is not an effective use of our time or your generous resources to spend the first half of next year in an unnecessary and protracted Republican primary, especially in a challenging state like New York. Well, if you were going to win it overwhelmingly, why would it have been protracted?

[Sarah]

What a great point. Great point.

[Gillian]

This is the most loser talk ever. I would like to read you a list of people at least. Stefanic. Harvard educated. She's a Harvard girl, right?

[John]

Harvard, yeah. Made a big stink when she wasn't invited to some Harvard thing.

[Gillian]

Yeah.

[John]

Now about how their woke lives.

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[Gillian]

Great Republican. Been a little Republican Tracy Flick her whole life just trying to climb that pole. And here. Here are some people Usually the ladder.

[Sarah]

Is the greasy pole. The greasy pol.

[Gillian]

Cash Patel got to be director of the Cash Patel got to be director of the FBI. His name will be etched in American history. Christy Noem, the weird woman who went to the dentist and did a video about it. Got to be a Cabinet secretary shot her dog. Tulsi Gabbard, who was a Democrat until five minutes ago. Got to be dni. Yeah, he's like in the middle of the Five Eyes, you know, doing James Bond shit. She wasn't even Republican. Jeanine Pirro, a drunk from TV who's already 25 years past her prime. Got a fancy attorney position. Pete Hegseth Another drunk who wasn't even very good at tv.

[Sarah]

Let's take it easy on drunks right now for that.

[John]

Secretary of War, a quack.

[Gillian]

Got to be Surgeon General of the United States. Just an influencer. Just a woman who's an influencer from the Tiktoks and the Instagrams. Dan Bongino, a man with a podcast. Got to be Deputy Director of the FBI and Harvard Educated. Check all the boxes, brown all the noses. Do. Do all the things that you have to do to get ahead in Republican politics. What she got was her ass run out of town, bupkis.

[John]

On the other side of that greatest thing ever. And how about this? No profile. Encourage, no love for John Thune. But, like, you know, I didn't utterly debase himself in every imaginable way to the. To the degree that Elise Stefanik did. He got to be majority leader of the Senate.

[Gillian]

Yup.

[John]

You know, like, I mean, she completely sold every iota of dignity that she had for literally nothing. For nothing. Cole in her stocking. Yes. That's the.

[Gillian]

The thing here.

[Sarah]

Let me ask you guys this, because this is my first thought after being like, this makes me happy. This is nice. Happy Christmas. I thought, what. What is it that this Elise Stefanik, somebody like her, who is a rising star in the Trump era, tapping out. What does it tell us? The only thing I could think is because one of the people JBL didn't mention is JD Vance. JD Vance and Elise Stefanik are extremely similar creatures. Right. It's exact same type of person. They were like the never Trump set, people who were kind of moderate Republicans. They were on the up and up. We were gonna have a more moderate Republican Party that reached out to Hispanics, that reached out to minorities. Different kind of Republican Party. And then they turned on a dime and went for Trump. He gets to be vice president. She gets nothing. She taps out. Does that mean, though, that her confidence in the future of this Republican Party in which she has invested her entire soul, that she thinks it's going down post Trump? No.

[Gillian]

No. What do you think this is purely a function of. JD Had Peter Thiel's money behind him, and then he was smart enough to realize that he needed to ingratiate himself with Don Jr. And the Trump kids so he could make himself like a. I mean, JD Is essentially like Owen Wilson's character from the Royal Tenenbaums. Like, you know, he's the. The poor kid who lives across the street who's always hanging out in the Tenenbaum household until, like, they just consider him one of the family, you know, and. And Elise thought she could run the inside game. You know, she thought she could just do the thing, work her way up through the party infrastructure, and I'll take all the jobs in the House. And, you know, that's the way she came up, basically, in the world that was still Kevin McCarthy's world, you know, where those sorts of things mattered. It turns out you just have to, like, go on some hunting, go do some blow with Don Jr.

[John]

I like to do. Well, this is good. So I'd like to make another point about the JD And Elise comparison that speaks to, like, how you got to be careful with the kind of devil you're making the deal with. And it does tie a little bit to the Epstein case and the type of person, the type of man Donald Trump is. Like, let's be honest, if Elise was hotter, she might have been the vp. Really? Really. Like, if she looked the part better. She looked at the part. Like, she and JD Are the same. They did the same stuff. Like, j. Like, you know, Trump convinced himself because J.D. and Don Jr. Were buddies. Like, you're saying they were, like, hunting buddies. I don't think they did coke, but I'll just say that. So, you know, just. Just nobody.

[Sarah]

He put on the eyeliner and he debased himself.

[John]

Yeah. Like, you know, new beard. He went. He looked the part. Like, he made himself look the part of vp. And if you're going to be a woman that is going to totally throw in with somebody that was Jeffrey Epstein's best friend, that is a stated misogynist. He says one. He likes to grab women by the. You know what?

[Sarah]

He hires lawyers that he picked up at Mar A Lago who are now the people defending him in court, or like, former beauty queens that he picked up at Mar A Lago. I think this point. I think this point stands.

[John]

That you threw in with the. I'm not saying it. I got it. You know what I mean? I wouldn't take my VP based on that. I'm just saying that you threw in with a guy who picks his VPs based on how they look the part. And so I do think that's something that, like, you should feel bad about. Like, that is how you ended up in this situation. Like, you threw in with a disgusting misogynist pig and you got nothing, in part because he's a disgusting massage.

[Sarah]

That. That's part of it. The other thing, though, that I was thinking about is, you know, JD Vance tweeted recently that there's a difference between being anti Zionist and anti Semitic. Whereas Elise made her bones. Like, her big standout thing last year was pushing back on Harvard and Yale, on the. The protests right around Palestine. The problem is they are starting to realize that their base is not a fan, actually, of defending Israel. And so they need more of J.D. vance. Who can say, actually, I'm gonna. I need to welcome the groipers in somebody who has made their bones on I'm gonna stand with Israel not as good for this version of the Republican Party.

[John]

That is a good point, Sarah.

[Gillian]

Yeah.

[John]

And they. And by the way, that's an important point to make a lot for people in our circles also who like do this thing with the Democrats. It's like they could never pick Shapiro because he's Jewish and the Democrats are anti Semitic. Like to the degree that that is, you know, there's any truth of that. Like the same can be said really in this situation. Like JD Yeah. JD is a built like willingness to play along with the anti Semite crowd is a. Is a key part of his sustainability.

[Gillian]

Have you guys read the giant Manhattan Institute focus group?

[John]

I started to and I haven't made it all the way through.

[Gillian]

Okay. Because this is the Monday Triad, the Manhattan Manhattan Institute, very Trump friendly, did something called Everyone wants to know what Gen Z Republicans think. We asked them and so they talked to 20 GOP Zoomers. A lot of Hitler talk came up.

[John]

Yeah, pro, anti, anti, anti. I mean pro.

[Gillian]

You know, look, he was a strong leader. You know, you could say what you want about him, you know, of course it was probably terrible. But you know, like he really knew and he believed in the good of his people. And.

[Sarah]

And this is jd. JD Vance understands this particular impulse on how you vice signal to be based because he is our poster in chief and he understands that being based and vice signaling means you take Nick Fuentes and you give him a wink. Not even a wink. You put your arm around him. And for Elise, she was willing to embrace. And this is Mac. This is actually this, this goes to my theory of the, the difference between the America First. Oh, right. That's the American first establishment. That's what she is. And she's starting to see that that is fading. That without Trump directly having his hands on you, that doesn't have the purchase. In the same way the MAGA establishment versus the America first world.

[John]

Right.

[Sarah]

Which is where jv JB understands she's.

[Gillian]

Also handicapped by being in New York State, where the griper stuff doesn't really fly in New York State. Right. Even among Republican circles. Whereas like nationally it's a little different. Right. And so she, she was at a natural disadvantage. But I'm sure she would have done all this stuff if she had figured it out sooner. But I don't think she did.

[John]

Like, I don't think she was relying. And this is, I've said this before for people are just kind of joining. Like this is because I have firsthand knowledge of this. As Sarah mentioned, she was never Trumper. A lot of my friends, like, when I was, were the people that worked for her were her consultants. And it's like I knew, like, a lot of people on her inside circle, closer than I did, and like, some others, and she threw them all out and had like a 24 year old, basically an intern who is a MAGA intern named Alex DeGrasse, who, like, went with it from two years from being an intern to her top political strategist. And he, like, took over the Twitter feed and started. She started tweeting like Trump because he was just like a MAGA kid. And she saw that he understood the base and that all these, like, old Romney advisors she had did it. And that guy, that same guy. This is probably the reason why I get so much joy about this. It's not just. It's just not just that I take pure joy from Elisa's pain, which I do, but, like, they deserve it because they trafficked in the worst disgusting elements of MAGA to win over. And that guy DeGrasse was one of these guys yesterday or this week, who was. Who had, like, picked out the random brown student who was. Who was, you know, gender fluid or whatever, was posting his picture. It's like at least a phonic staff, like, staffer is posting this wrong, the wrong picture of someone and trying to blame them for the shooting because they're trans and a Palestinian activist or whatever. And like, that is the shit they. It's just. And that is, like, totally gross and irresponsible, but that's like the type of shit that she was willing to do to get into Trump's good graces. And it was gross and not legal.

[Gillian]

Advice, but that seems potentially defamatory.

[Sarah]

Yeah, yeah, but, but, but, but not even that. It's not enough. Like, this is what's crazy about the Elise thing is that despite everything she did all the way, she debased herself. All the gross stuff she was willing to do, it is not enough to stay in the good graces of the America first types that are taking over now.

[John]

Okay, two more things when we got. We do have some video, I think, of Elise that I do want to show. And we're.

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Nick stepped up to address the crowd twice. Both times the protesters booed her.

[Gillian]

Get the tomatoes.

[John]

Okay, that's true. That's enough. Do we think she's gonna go home to our district? Let me raise your hand if you think Elise Stefanik is gonna go home to upstate New York after this. It's all over.

[Sarah]

Prediction question though. What does she do in the wake of this?

[Gillian]

Doesn't she get the Paul Ryan Memorial chair at Fox News's board?

[Sarah]

I do think it's something like that, right? Yeah.

[John]

Yeah. It's like all these people hate the elites and hate blue cities. She'll live in, she'll, you know, either live in Alexandria or in Manhattan. She'll come.

[Gillian]

Manhattan. My question is, if there is a schism as Sarah is, is predicting between the MAGA establishment and the America Firsters, whose side will Elise take?

[Sarah]

She'll take establishment. Yeah.

[Gillian]

You think?

[John]

Here's the, here's what I think and I think they're wrong.

[Sarah]

I think that's why she's leaving.

[John]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree. I think that they are wrong and luckily we'll all get to hang out together for three more years and, and assess this. I think the America first side wins. I just think that's where the mojo is. Yeah, that's, that's it. The MAGA establishment side, I think think they have the advantage actually. It's funny, it's a lot of quick Choose a meal deal with McValue, the five dollar McChicken meal deal, the six dollar McDouble meal deal or the new seven dollar Daily Deal, each with its own small fries, drink and Four Piece McNuggets. There's actually no rush. I'm just excited for McDonald's for a limited time only.

[Gillian]

Presence of participation may vary. Not Doweld McDelivery.

[Sarah]

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