← Bulwark Takes
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Transcript28 lines
- [00:00]
A
What do you think makes the perfect snack?
- [00:02]
B
Hmm. It's gotta be when I'm really craving it and it's convenient.
- [00:06]
A
Could you be more specific?
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B
When it's cravinient.
- [00:08]
A
Okay.
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B
Like a freshly baked cookie made with real butter, available right down the street at a.m. p.m. Or a savory breakfast sandwich I can grab in just a second at AM pm.
- [00:16]
A
I'm seeing a pattern here.
- [00:18]
B
Well, yeah, we're talking about what I.
- [00:19]
C
Crave, which is anything from AM pm.
- [00:21]
B
What more could you want? Stop by AM PM where the snacks and drinks are perfectly craveable and convenient. That's cravenience. AM PM Too much. Good stuff.
- [00:31]
D
Hey, this is Steven. Sarah. Look, I'm standing out front of a.m. p.m. Right now and, well, you're sweet and all, but I found something more fulfilling, even kind of cheesy. But I like it. Sure, you met some of my dietary needs, but they've just got it all. So farewell, oatmeal. So long, you strange soggy.
- [00:49]
B
Break up with bland breakfast and taste AM PM's bacon, egg and cheese biscuit made with K tree egg, smoked bacon and melty cheese on a buttery biscuit. AM PM too much. Good stuff.
- [01:00]
A
Hey everybody, it's Tim Miller from the Bulwark from Sam Stein's office. And I am here with our. What is your job? Publisher. Sarah Longwell. You're the publisher. It's Friday afternoon. People are very pissed at the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, that little twerp, for good reason. He was over on Fox and Friends talking about the protesters and I think it's probably better just to listen to him in his own words and then we can react. Sarah, unless you have a Mike Johnson hot take, you want to get off first.
- [01:27]
C
Now let's put it in. Let's put it in.
- [01:28]
A
Here we go. Here is the speaker of the House. They have a Hate America rally that's scheduled for October 18th on the National Mall. It's all the pro Hamas wing and the, you know, the antifa people, they're all coming out and I just. I'm beyond words. I can't believe they're actually doing this I Hate America rally. Sarah. I Hate America rally. It's all Hamas and antifa. I don't know if it's just me having just done that interview with George Reddes, you know, the American citizen and veteran that got thrown in jail for three days. Seems like to me the people that hate America are the people that are menacing the American. The American people and are threatening our free speech rights and Threatening the rule of law and not the people that are exercising their protest rights. But that's just me. What do you think about the Hate America rally that's happening next Sunday?
- [02:12]
C
A few things. Number one, let's pray for a Streisand effect on this. Right? Oh, okay. Are they mad that people are going to march? Sounds like they're scared that people are going to march. They want to get out there and define it before it happens because they're worried the marches are going to be big, there's going to be a big pushback and they don't like it, so they're trying to define it. And I hope that by them doing this, it just raises the salience for people of the fact that this is happening. There is a no Kings protest.
- [02:36]
A
Yeah, me too. Just really quick on the no Kings protests. You know, I do think there obviously are people that have been very engaged and wanted to go to those protests. And the protests have been real and, you know, both of us have attended them. And yet I think, like in the broader culture, right, like, just like the energy around it, sometimes for a protest to really get energy, you need to be really mad about something in particular, you know, not just like, I'm mad about all the things and, and, and this sort of thing maybe, maybe spikes people's juices up enough to say, fuck you. I'm going to attend one of those so called hate America rallies and I'm going to wear my fucking American flag pin and I'm going to bring my sign. I don't know, I think that there's something to that.
- [03:18]
C
I. Yeah, absolutely, Number one. Number two, I have attended these. Like you just said. Like, I've gone. I just did one of the free DC ones. The idea that this is Hamas and antifa. No, it's not. Let me tell you what it is. A lot of patriotic boomers in, in. In. In their reef sandals or I don't know what kind of. But they are lovely. And when I was at one, somebody had just listened to the focus group podcast. Okay, you know who's Hamas is not listening to the focus group podcast. All right. Yeah, our audience has not grown that wide. It's not even. It's not even like angry college kids. Like, it really is. It was a lot of people with strollers and like. So this idea that they are trying to frame it as Hate America and say that it is, you know, these are basically terrorists. Like, go check one out, guys. See how many fanny packs you see. Because it's a lot. Because People need a place to hold their chapstick and their sunscreen.
- [04:15]
A
That's just, it's just not a hit that's going to take either. You know, it's one of those things back in the old World bank protests or like, you know, even, even some of the Black Lives Matters protests were at least the most, the ones where there's the most public unrest, like Kenosha, for example, like that attack landed because there was like a hint of truth to it in some places, you know, where there real violence and disorder. That hasn't been the case at the no Kings rallies. Like there is no hint of truth to it at all. And you know, I had Jacob sober off the pod today and he was at the Chicago protest last night that was like spontaneous on Thursday night. And the video from that is kind of cute. Like, it's a lot of people that wish they were at the Cubs games. You know, they wanted to be watching the Cubs games. There's a lot of regular folks that were just out there just speaking out. And I just, I, I don't think this is going to take. Okay, so those. That was one and two. Did you have another item on.
- [05:08]
C
Only that I think it belies a certain being afraid from him. You know, I think that the, the idea that they feel like they've got to get ahead of this, it's just a real tell. But also what, what I got to tell you, Mike Johnson has turned out to be like a, it's like a very banality of evil type guy where there's nothing worse than somebody who, who touts his Christianity while being not just supporting a perverse liar, but really willing to go to bat for him. Like, Mike Johnson sort of doesn't get enough discredit for how significantly he is abating or he is. He's allowing Donald Trump to carry out his mission of making Mike Johnson's body, his governing body of Congress, irrelevant. And never has it been more true that somebody serves at the pleasure of the president, which by the way is not true of Congress. Not true. He serves at the pleasure of the American people, actually. But Mike Johnson very much himself serves at the pleasure of the president, does not feel like he has a job without Trump. And so he has been told to go be a good foot soldier and say that these protests and just that language, I mean, the idea of just calling average Americans who don't like the idea that you're putting the National Guard in the streets or absconding with people and sending them off to tortured gulags Both Americans and people who have immigrated here. Uh, you know, this. This, like, what a. He's a. He's not a good person.
- [06:38]
A
Couple of thoughts on that, on the Mike Johnson, just on the him not being a good person and just his little affect. I'm about to make a cultural reference that is aimed at the boomers that will be there at the no Kings rally. This is a little bit of an out of date cultural reference, but it's an Eddie Haskell vibe. Leave it to Beaver, you know what I mean? Just like, oh, Mrs. Cleaver, like, I went to church yesterday and I was. But he's. But it's all. It's in service of this just horrible. A president that has actually no moral compunction at all. And he's just trying to put this like, 1950s church boy, altar boy face on all of it. And it's very ick to me. The other thing, just on a serious level about this whole talking point, Trump has always kind of believed that disloyalty to Trump is disloyalty to the country, ever since the first term, since he was president. But at some level, he's kind of an outlier in that way and is part of his megalomania. But that has now infected all of them. All of MAGA basically takes that posture, and Mike Johnson is taking that posture. This notion that you are anti American if you are speaking out against the president and the president's actions, when obviously the exact opposite is true. The thing that is American is the ability to go and speak out against your political leaders. And that's something that we can do in this country, unlike China. And I think it speaks to just the warped worldview of maga, that that is a talking point that has spread not just from Trump's megalomania, but now has spread throughout the political leadership of the party.
- [08:17]
C
Yeah, you just reminded me of something. Two things, really. One is. And I can't remember the quotation exactly, but it's like when fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and wearing the cross, and that is Mike Johnson's the real embodiment of that. And then the second thing is that I've been thinking a lot with the. We had this conversation at the live show about the Civil War of it all, and they're sending the National Guards into these cities. And the more I've been thinking about it, and I did a bunch of focus groups, and so I was listening to them, and it occurred to me the way that people are taking this is they're turning us against each other. Like, and this is what Mike like this, this is the real insidious thing. They want us to hate each other. They are trying using pretext, using provocation to get us to be at war with each other. And there is something sinister and disgusting about wanting to like kindle the fire between Americans. And that's what he's doing though. This is like, it's part of what they're doing right now. He's saying the people who are going to attend these events are Hamas and they're terrorists. He is putting the people who are going to those protests. I thought, I thought we were not doing that kind of rhetoric. I thought we were worried about incendiary rhetoric and whether or not that that.
- [09:29]
A
Endangers target on people's back.
- [09:30]
C
Yeah, that's right. And so he is trying to do that with these protests. He is trying to say to people, it's like it's worse than actually, as I think about it, it's worse than just the original thing that he said. It is like his goal is to make it so. People say, oh the worst. People are about to be in the streets. I better get out there too. It's not just, it's not just denigrating the Democrats. It easily could be interpreted as a call to action among the MAGA types to get out there and like be in the streets as well.
- [09:59]
A
Well, hopefully they won't be doing that cowards. But you guys should be get out there next Sunday. No Kings rally October 18 Appreciate the folks that have been putting those on and doing the work and I think that there's much to protest in this moment. So shout out to those folks Google for your local no Kings protest. Sarah, thanks for jumping on with me. We'll be seeing you tomorrow. We'll be in New York City for our live show Saturday night. Look forward to being on stage with you.
- [10:29]
C
Love it. See you guys.
- [10:30]
A
Bye everybody. Subscribe to the feed. Talk to you soon.
- [10:33]
E
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