Charlie Sykes (2:05)

But Khrushchev took, really takes it on the chin here. Interesting evolution of the character throughout the movie. We'll get to, we'll get to that in a second, though. So I, you know, it's interesting, though, to think about the difference between this and Veep, right? Because Veep ran into this problem in the mid 2010s where a lot of people were trying to figure, they were trying to figure out the politics of it. They were like, what's, what's the, what is Selina Meyer, Selena Meyer, Democrats? She a Republican? Is she like a, she one of those lady Republicans who is pro choice? But, you know, she, she gets into the Veep slot or she a Democrat? She's just a straightforward Democrat. And one of the nice things about death, Stalin, is that you don't, you don't have that issue really, with the distance of history, the distance of country. You don't have, you don't have people arguing about that sort of thing with this. You can just look at it on a broader, like, more general level, which then I think helps people bring it back to the current moment better. Right? Like I, I, I, I was watching this movie and I kept thinking, like, oh, that seems familiar. Oh, that sure seems familiar.

Sarah Longwell (3:06)

Well, you know what I thought you were just about to say? I thought you were going to say Veep ran into trouble because the world started to be as stupid as the show and it became like our politics. It, there's no room for parodying the politics of Washington like Veep does, when the politics of Washington looks just like Veep, because then it's not a parody, it's a documentary.

Charlie Sykes (3:32)

Well, remember, there was always, remember there was always, always this fight between people who were like, is DC More like Veep or like House of Cards? Is it like the scheming House of Cards or is it the ridiculous absurdist Veep? And Veep won that pretty handily, I think, I think by the end, by the end of Veep's run, no, there was no question as to what was, what was the winner.

Sarah Longwell (3:51)

But I'll say, and this will be my sort of central observation up front about Death of Style and the reason I think this one works so well today. And I noticed it, it came out in 2017, which meant it was in the works before Trump came on the scene.

Charlie Sykes (4:04)

Yep.

Sonny Bunch (4:04)

Yeah, well, based on a graphic novel. That's a comic book, Sarah.

Sarah Longwell (4:07)

Is that right? Oh, I've heard of those. I've heard of those. Okay, interesting. Maybe we could talk about them sometime. The most. The thing about that works about Death of Stalin perfectly for this is that it blends murderous menace with buffoonery, which I feel like tracks for the moment about as well as anything else. Like is better than Veep is better than anything. Because Veep leaves you with like. Well, it's all we can laugh about, all of it. Because it's just a light touch. This doesn't.

Sonny Bunch (4:39)

Well, the reason, the reason we can laugh at Veep is I, I. This is one of the things I wanted to, to, to prompt you guys to discuss propose Veep. The world of Veep and the world of Death of Stalin are identical with only one difference, and that is that in the world of Death of Stalin, Jonah has the power to make lists of people who can be abducted and murdered.

Charlie Sykes (5:10)

Jonah is the Berea figure, right?

Sonny Bunch (5:12)

No, do you see what I'm saying? Like, in a world of Veep, where the state has the power to simply abduct and liquidate people, then Veep plays exactly like the death of Stalin.

Charlie Sykes (5:25)

That's the only difference. Maybe I do. I. What's, what's interesting about the Death of Stalin is that it does. Iannucci does an incredibly good job of demonstrating in like the first 20 minutes the stakes of everything involved, right? Which is, which is, you know, he kind of cuts between three different sequences. One is a orchestral performance that Stalin calls up the performers and, or calls up the control room is like, I would like to have a recording of this, please. I don't think he says please. We don't see, we don't hear him at his end. He's like, I want a recording of this. And so the guy in charge, the head of the Russian BBC, whatever it is at the time, says, we recorded that, right? And they didn't record it. So they have to get everybody back and re record the thing, which leads to a whole different whole. They got to run out to the street, they got to get peasants in to fill up the seats to make the acoustics right. They have to convince the piano player to play and she doesn't want to play because she hates Stalin, etc. That is cut intercut with the scenes from Stalin's Dasha where you have Stalin with his, like, crew of cronies, including Khrushchev. Jeffrey Tambor plays Malenkov Lenti Bria is Played by. Oh, who is that? That's Simon Russell. Simon Russell Beal. And you see the menace from that side of things where even people who nominally have lots of power in this society are falling all over themselves to avoid winding up on one of lists. One of the lists. One of the bad lists. One of the.

Sonny Bunch (6:58)

Because one of those guys is on the list at dinner.

Charlie Sykes (7:01)

Yes. Which Molotov. Molotov of the Molotov Ribbentrop pack gets put on the list. He gets put on the list and doesn't know it yet. Of course, he is played by the. The alum from Monty Python, Michael Palin.

Sonny Bunch (7:17)

Palin, right. Yeah.

Charlie Sykes (7:18)

Just fantastic. Fantastic role there. And then all of this, of course, is intercut with shots from an actual purge. Like the people going into apartment buildings and rousting people up and putting them in vans and taking them off to either be at. At the best, sent to the gulag. At the worst, tortured for a bit and then at the really worst, tortured for a bit and then shot like it's, you know, it's. It's. It's. It is a. It's a masterful. Just 15 to 20 minutes of putting us back in time into a place that is absolutely terrifying. It is absolutely terrifying.

Sonny Bunch (7:58)

Yeah.

Sarah Longwell (7:58)

And. And this is where. This is a deft move because it is. It allows it to both play for laughs. Right. It's doing two things as the characters are walking through and barking orders or having side conversations. Those are funny because they are behaving that, you know, everything that they're saying is sycophantic and silly and over the top. And the backdrop as they walk, like, if they're doing a walk and talk, which they are, is just people being shot in the head and screaming. And if you took out the walk and talk, it would look like a Schindler's List genre show in which people are being imprisoned, murdered, tortured, taken out of their bedrooms, but with the main characters in front of them saying funny things.

Sonny Bunch (8:46)

Faulty towers. Yeah, faulty towers in the front, Schindler's List in the back.

Sarah Longwell (8:51)

Yeah.

Charlie Sykes (8:51)

A movie. A movie. It calls to mind for me, which again, is another kind of Monty Python alum film, is Brazil. I don't know if you guys have seen Brazil, but Brazil is also about a kind of police state where people are getting captured, but then there's also just like bureaucratic knife fighting and people making fun of each other. But no, the conversations in the background are the best part. My favorite is when they're coming out of the. The. They're coming out of Stalin's dasha. And one of them is making fun of Malenkov because he was like, where's. Where's Polnikov? What's he been up to?

Sonny Bunch (9:26)

And everyone goes.

Charlie Sykes (9:27)

And they're like, oh, what about the Czar? Where's the Czar been? You know, it's just like. You can just imagine it. You can just imagine somebody coming out of the White House today being like, what happened to Mike Pence? Where's Pence? You know, And Jeffrey Tambor, who is.

Sonny Bunch (9:40)

Playing Malinkov as if he is. Oscar Bluth said, just sort of says, I can't keep track of who's alive and who's dead.

Sarah Longwell (9:49)

He's like, I'm very tired. How am I supposed to keep track of.

Sonny Bunch (9:51)

How am I supposed to do that?

Charlie Sykes (9:53)

Yeah.

Sonny Bunch (9:53)

And one of the things I find is it's wonderful. So in. In that. And in that moment, as they're coming out, Steve Buscemi. It was Khrushchev was trying to help Mellon Gov out, says, when you get home, you got to tell your wife all the things that you can remember saying, since we're all drunk now, because Stalin demands that everybody drinks.

Charlie Sykes (10:12)

Yeah.

Sonny Bunch (10:12)

And you, like, don't quite understand it until later in the movie. You get a sc. Where it's the morning and Steve Buscemi. Not Steve Buscemi, but Khrushchev's wife is reading back to him her notes of what he said. And they're trying to. He's like, I made a joke about the army. He laughed. Okay, more jokes about the army. I made a joke about the Navy. He didn't laugh. Okay, no more jokes about the Navy. And it's. It's funny.

Sarah Longwell (10:35)

She's also reading them back to him, and he's like, what was I talking about? What did I say?

Charlie Sykes (10:39)

There's one where she's like. She's like, mal talks.

Sonny Bunch (10:45)

No, she's like, ch, Ch. Ch. And he's like, ch. What does that? And he goes, oh, Molotov. Like that.

Charlie Sykes (10:59)

That whole sequence is so funny. And like, again, it's. You have to reorder your world and your universe to meet the whims of this insane person, which, again, feels about right.

Sonny Bunch (11:12)

Well, that's what it. I mean, at the end of the day, that's what it is, right? You feel as though you're trapped inside a mental hospital where it's an insane asylum. Everybody, like, the entire country is having a nervous breakdown because there's this one guy with ultimate power over everybody's life. And death. And also another hallmark of it is everybody thinks that every place they are is bugged. And so they think that everything they say, no matter where they are, could wind up being used to have them killed. And so there's a very funny scene in the studio where they are, the producers are trying to make this recording happen and somebody says, well, if we don't, if we replace the pianist because the pianist doesn't want to, don't play. If we get a new pianist, he says, even Stalin will be able to tell the difference. Everyone stops. What do you mean?

Charlie Sykes (12:08)

He goes, even Stalin?

Sonny Bunch (12:10)

Even Stalin, Even Stalin. No, Stalin has a great ear. And his assistant goes, he has two great ears. Because they all think there's a chance that he's, that he's, you know, listening to them because everything is bugged. And even when Stalin is first discovered being down, the Politburo members, all of these, these guys, they aren't sure if he's really dead or if he's acting. And so they, they are play acting and talking about, oh, great comrade.

Sarah Longwell (12:41)

Right?

Sonny Bunch (12:42)

Because they're not sure, wait, is this gonna be used against us? And that is. All of that stuff made me think about Trump's cabinet meetings.

Sarah Longwell (12:50)

Yes.

Charlie Sykes (12:51)

Yeah.

Sonny Bunch (12:51)

Honestly.

Charlie Sykes (12:52)

Well. Oh, there was. God, there was. Egger had a great. Egger had a great observation the other day on Twitter or someplace, like, there was Tom Rose. It was Tom Rose who was saying, like, Donald Trump is too good for the Nobel Peace Prize. They've given the Nobel Peace Prize to Yasser Arafat. Another assorted bad people. We don't. Donald Trump shouldn't even want that. He's better. He's better than all of this. And, and God, what was it? What was it? I could say the best way. This is. I'm quoting from our, from our friend and colleague Andrew Egger. Right now. The best way to distinguish yourself in right wing politics today is by finding new and ever more theatrical ways to glaze the big guy, which is leading to real innovations in the form. Truly, it is a golden age of throne sniffing. And that is. That is exactly what is happening throughout this movie, is that they are trying to figure out, like, new and great ways to talk about the great father of the nation, Joseph Stalin.

Sonny Bunch (13:48)

I mean, you remember the point where his Attorney General says that Stalin saved 247 million lives. Oh, no, that was. Sorry, that was a cabinet meeting in America.

Sarah Longwell (13:57)

That was Pam Bond.

Sonny Bunch (13:58)

That was different.

Sarah Longwell (13:58)

That was Pam Bond.

Charlie Sykes (13:59)

That was different. No, and it's like, it's doubly funny because Iannucci has this perfect ear for like both high toned ideas and low toned vulgarity and language. Like he paints with, with vulgarity in a way that no, nobody in the world of, of TV or filmmaking is able to. But he also has these guys like kneeling in a puddle of Stalin's piss as they're saying it. They, they all like bend down and like stand up immediately, like, ah, God, gotta look out for that because when.

Sarah Longwell (14:27)

He had the massive hemorrhage, he pissed himself. And then they've all got to kind of lean down to, to talk to him, touch him. And then they all are like, ew, gross, my knee. What is this? This is urine. I do think when you talk about the high tone, low tone, to me, the way that this is the brilliance of it, and I'm going to try to explain this as best I can, is that there's a self awareness among the characters. They both are being sycophantic because they need to, while being both self aware and aware with each other, that they are going through a kind of pantomime of theatrics and display of their love for sound. So when they're out of earshot and they think, they make fun of each other's different modes of sycophancy. But when they're together, they compete to see who can be the biggest sycophant. And so playing it off where you both are being a succubus like this while also being self aware as you do it is succubus, right? Am I making like that?

Charlie Sykes (15:37)

Succubus is technically, I believe, a sex demon, but, you know, a suck up?

Sarah Longwell (15:42)

I think it's not a plant that, that, that, that sucks to you.

Charlie Sykes (15:46)

Succulent. Is that what you're, is that what you're thinking?

Sonny Bunch (15:49)

Sucks to you? Sucks to your bus? No, it's different.

Sarah Longwell (15:52)

Can I Google this? I'm pretty sure I'm right. I'm sure I'm using it correctly.

Sonny Bunch (15:56)

What's, Go ahead. What's funny though is of course that that is also how our current nomenclature elites perform. As we have discovered from some of the materials uncovered during discovery of some high profile lawsuits where they talk about Trump in one way when it's in private and they, they talk with each other about waiting to be rid of him in private, but that in public do this sort of over again. Like, this is just.

Charlie Sykes (16:30)

What was, what was it that Tucker Carlson was saying? Trump. Trump introducer. Tucker Carlson was saying at, in, in the text mess. I can't wait to be rid of him.

Sonny Bunch (16:40)

Can't demonic force.

Sarah Longwell (16:41)

Can't wait to not think about him at all.

Sonny Bunch (16:44)

Hate him with a passion. Something like that.

Sarah Longwell (16:47)

Speaking of demonic force, you guys are right. I don't know. It's a demon assuming female form to have sexual intercourse with men in their sleep. That's not what I meant.

Charlie Sykes (16:56)

I'm well aware of succubi. Don't worry, Sarah. Succubi occupy way too much of my mental space. The kayfabe aspect of it all, it always comes back to kayfabe. It always comes back to kayfabe. And one of. I want to. I want to get a ranking. I want to get a ranking of best versus worst kayfabe. But before we do that, it's worse. It's. It's interesting to think about the characters who don't actually succumb to that, right? Like, Michael Palin's Molotov character throughout is so broken by the experience of having his wife taken and having denounced his own wife. He has to denounce his own wife. And, like, he never breaks character. He never breaks character. And it's very confusing to everybody else in the film. Film who were like, we're trying to vote on this thing. Is he done? Is he being serious? Is he not being. What. What is the. What is. What is going on here? And Palin again. Palin, of course, for a long time, Monty Python guy has been in a ton of other stuff, but he. He does this kind of perfectly British thing of being both absurd and genuine at the same time that so few actors can pull off. And he just nails.

Sarah Longwell (18:09)

And I would say the.

Charlie Sykes (18:10)

The.

Sarah Longwell (18:10)

The scene in which that is demonstrated the best is when Baria is like. One of the funny things about what they do as soon as Stalin's dead is they're trying to figure out how to become the next leader themselves. And so they want to curry favor with the people by letting everybody out of prison, stopping the executions. Like, they're like, wait, quick, we need to stop murdering everybody. Like, we should quit this. We've been doing it this whole time for Stalin, but we should stop doing this. And so they get Molotov's wife out of prison where she is being held, because you hear them say early on in the movie, he's on the list. We're gonna kill Molotov makes. Get his wife, shoot her first. So he sees it, and it's like, tossed off. It's like this incredibly casual. Make sure his wife sees him shot, then shoot him. Or, no, sorry, make sure he sees his Wife being shot, then shoot him, right? They want. They're inflicting maximum pain on this guy and including his wife. And so the Barry goes and lets the wife out. And you've got Molotov in his house and they're asking him about his wife and he's saying they're trying to tell him that they're bringing his wife to him.

Sonny Bunch (19:18)

Yeah, we have a gift for you, a fabulous gift. Do you remember your wife? And he's like, yes, that traitorous bitch.

Sarah Longwell (19:24)

What a traitor.

Sonny Bunch (19:25)

Traitor to the party, to the movement, to the people.

Sarah Longwell (19:29)

And then they walk her in and.

Sonny Bunch (19:30)

He'S like, well, sometimes mistakes are made.

Charlie Sykes (19:35)

It's that. That sequence too, where Baria goes to her prison cell is really interesting because the way it's shot, right? You. You just see him at first, you just see him and he's clearly talking to. He's clearly talking to a prisoner. And we can tell it's a female prisoner. And we've. And from what we have seen of Baria and his proclivities so far, you know, he's. He's like. He's a. He's a pervert, he's a rapist, he's a real rape rapist. He's sexually assaulting, like, young girls, etc. We assume that that is what is happening here. And then the reverse shot is this kind of like old broken woman who is learning that she is about. She's. She is. I forget, does he tell her Stalin is dead?

Sonny Bunch (20:16)

He tells her Stalin's dead and she cries out in. In just, you know, agony, anguish at it. And Barry is like, he put you in prison. You know, like Barry. Even Barry can't quite get his head around how committed some of these people are to ideology, right? Like, because Barry is just about power.

Charlie Sykes (20:39)

But it's not even. But it's not ideology. It's not ideology. It's the cult of personality. It is. It is the. It is the idea of the great man, the one leader, the father of the nation, the person who we cannot betray because he is leading us all to greatness. And it is interesting too, because, you know, there's such a difference between.

Sonny Bunch (21:01)

We are 2 million bear cubs, Lithuanian cubs, Ukrainian cubs.

Charlie Sykes (21:08)

It's so different, though. It's so different, though. The. The reaction that these guys all have to Stalin and the people around him, because their power comes from Stalin, right? This is all about power. This movie is about power. It's about maintaining power. It's about accruing power. It's about maintaining power, finding a way to climb that, you know, greasy ladder or whatever. Right.

Sarah Longwell (21:29)

Greasy pole.

Charlie Sykes (21:30)

And greasy pole. Thank you. And then. And then you. An hour into this movie, we were discussing this a little bit on. On Slack, but an hour into this movie, Jason Isaac shows up as Zhukov and just brings an entirely different energy to it. You know, he like. Like, all these guys are kind of wormy bureaucrats and, like, kind of like lame cockneys, et cetera, except for Buscemi, who's just playing Steve Buscemi kind of. And then Zhukov shows up and, like, throws off his jacket in slow motion. He's like, total. Like the total frat bro, like, ball player jock. He's like, I'm here, I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm here, and I'm taking. But that's because he has his own basis of power. He's got the army. He's the Red Army. He has the Red Army. And he can, for instance, punch Stalin's son in the stomach and tell him to man the up and get. You know, get. Get himself straight, because he is not. He is not subject to all of the political pressures and having to maintain the kind of cult of personality of Stalin as a way to consolidate and maintain their own power, which is just interesting. It's an interesting little insight into how these things work.

Sarah Longwell (22:39)

Yeah. And it's not unlike Elon Musk. Now, granted, Elon Musk ultimately didn't have the same kind of juice, but he did have his own army of sorts, which led him to be more of a peer to Trump than somebody who simply works with him around the cabinet table. And somebody who Trumps sort of felt like he had to deal with a little bit with kid gloves. Like, remember when they were getting him out of there because they had to get him out of there. They still held that press conference in which he was feted and lauded for his contributions.

Sonny Bunch (23:08)

Again, you could see this having happened in death of Stalin.

Sarah Longwell (23:12)

Yes, right.

Sonny Bunch (23:15)

Like that crazy press conference. Do you remember that? With the medal that they gave or the whatever. The key. Didn't they give Elana key? And here, Seer General Zhukov is a key to the Kremlin. You can come anytime you like.

Sarah Longwell (23:29)

He also had a plan. It's unclear why. Remember, Elon, like, everything about it was weird, but he had his own base of power, which made him a different kind of person. And that is exactly the. Because you're right. Stalin's son, who is played by the guy from Homeland. Good friend.

Charlie Sykes (23:47)

Yeah.

Sarah Longwell (23:48)

Oh, my gosh, is he great to See, he's wonderful. But he plays Stalin's, you know, ne' er do well son who's just drunk all the time. And yeah, he goes in and beats him up. But everybody else has to listen to Stalin's kids. Right, Right. And you and the kids thing resonates, too, like with the Jared and the Don Jr. And the Ivanka, because he's got a daughter and a son in the movie.

Sonny Bunch (24:12)

Do you know the real story of the Stalin girl?

Sarah Longwell (24:17)

No.

Charlie Sykes (24:18)

No.

Sonny Bunch (24:19)

So Stalin's Door.

Charlie Sykes (24:20)

The.

Sonny Bunch (24:20)

The movie. So the movie plays fast and loose with a bunch of history in ways which I personally have no problem with. I. It does not bother me at all. I. Like, this is.

Sarah Longwell (24:31)

I'm not even surprised how much of it was. Was historically accurate. Like the part where people get trampled. That happened.

Sonny Bunch (24:39)

It was like a hundred people, I think, not 1500. And unemployment unimportant. Like, you're compressing time, you're compressing events. Like, this is. It has larger truth to it. It is not a documentary. But her. So the. I gotta find the daughter's name. I'm forgetting it. I want to say it's Anastasia.

Sarah Longwell (25:01)

Svetlana.

Sonny Bunch (25:02)

Svetlana. Svetlana.

Charlie Sykes (25:04)

Yeah.

Sonny Bunch (25:05)

So the movie ends with Khrushchev telling her, you're going to Vienna. And she's like, but I would rather. And Khrushchev's like, nope, you're going to Vienna. Because by the end, Khrushchev is in charge, and he. And Khrushchev is the hero of the movie. I think we can all agree. Yes.

Charlie Sykes (25:22)

Yes.

Sonny Bunch (25:24)

So that is not what happened to Svetlana. Svetlana stayed in the Soviet Union and worked as a translator until she was sent to India. And when in India, she decided to defect. Now, the Indians, she first went to the Indian government, and they wanted no part of her because they did not want to anger the Russians. So she then walked herself over to the American Embassy and said, I want out. And she wound up coming to America. She became an American citizen. She lived in. Where'd she live? She lived, I think, mostly in Wisconsin, but she did a little bit of time in New York City. She sort of bounced around at some point later on, she went back to Russia in the mid-80s, like, you know, kind of like four years before the wall fell. Got her Russian citizenship back, then came back to America, Wind up dying, you know, settling and living out her last years in America. And she seems like she was an absolute batshit insane person.

Charlie Sykes (26:25)

Well, I can imagine. Yeah.

Sonny Bunch (26:27)

But. But clear again, just the movie has Her. Right. If that makes sense. Like, she was clearly. And I guess, how could the daughter of Stalin not become an insane person? Like, I don't know how.

Charlie Sykes (26:39)

Well, and it's so funny, too, because there's that scene. She's played by Andrea Riseborough in this film, who's great.

Sonny Bunch (26:46)

She's wonderful.

Charlie Sykes (26:47)

Riseborough is so good.

Sonny Bunch (26:48)

Should have been Judy Greer.

Charlie Sykes (26:52)

I could see Judy.

Sonny Bunch (26:53)

I could have seen Judy Greer in this role. So good. Yeah.

Charlie Sykes (26:56)

There's really only, like, two roles for women in this movie. I know this is. I was afraid Sarah was going to yell at me because this is a lot of guys in this movie.

Sarah Longwell (27:04)

Movie.

Charlie Sykes (27:05)

But this.

Sarah Longwell (27:06)

I'll yell at you a different time because this movie's pitch Perfect for the moment. So go ahead.

Charlie Sykes (27:10)

Okay. But Judy Greer would have been good. Andrea Risbeller is so great. But there's that great scene where she goes to Berea and was like, hey, I would like to have somebody brought back. I would. I would like. I would like to have a Google. I would like to have a person brought back.

Sonny Bunch (27:26)

He knows that this person's already dead.

Charlie Sykes (27:28)

And he is like, well, she was still alive. And she doesn't quite pick up on, you know, she. She was. And just not understanding that. There's this. There's this almost. I mean, I don't want to say innocence, but there is this kind of childlike naivete about what was actually happening in the Gulags amongst certain subsets of people, certainly, like Svetlana. I think that that naivete does not extend to just about anybody else in the movie, which is why you get scenes like the great. The great shot of the old. The. The old doctor running with his dog, trying to get away from the van. That it's just. It's such a little moment, but it's so perfectly. Kind of like this guy realizes he's being followed by a van and he's walking his dog, and he starts walking a little bit faster, and then when the van stops, he just starts running. He starts doing his old man run. And they get him immediately. But it is like. It is, you know, this idea of needing to kind of constantly be on your toes because God only knows when and where it's going to come from.

Sarah Longwell (28:34)

So. But this is. This is again why I thought. And why I'm not yelling at you for the other reasons, because I think this movie is getting something very specific about our moment. Very right. Because there's the great man. There's the people who. We were talking about the great man theory earlier Stalin is seen by many of the people who, they say that you can't tell whether they think he is a great man and it is a cult of personality or whether the fear is so deep and the, and pathological, like the fear rules them so completely that they have devoted themselves to these fictions because that is how they keep themselves safe, right? And so you see them constantly, like, like they come in to get a new conductor, a new conductor for the thing. And he immediately says to his wife as they're getting him, he's like, save yourself. You know, tell them whatever they want to know. Because he thinks they're coming for him for something else instead of just grabbing him. So anyway, so it's not just there are people, and I think this is really true of right now. There are people who think Stalin is a great man and an incredible leader and who love him for that. And then there are people who are aware of what he's capable of, aware of the level of power that he has, aware of the fact that he is. And I even liked in the first, when you meet Stalin, he's sort of trumpy, like in the sense that he's a little bit of a goofball, right? Like, he's not a menacing figure really. He's a kind of a goofball. But they're putting together.

Sonny Bunch (30:08)

Go watch a cowboy movie with me.

Sarah Longwell (30:10)

Yeah, that's right.

Charlie Sykes (30:11)

He's explicitly, I mean, again, he has that cockney accent, right? He is explicitly like low class British, you know, like kind of a thug, but not without charm. Like, he's, he's, he is, it's, it's hard to, it's. I, and this movie does not play up like charming Stalin at all. This is not like, what was the young Stalin movie that came out a couple, a couple years back? There, there, there was a young Stalin movie. And I was just like annoyed the whole time watching it. I was like, don't, don't do this. We don't need to, we don't need to do young, sexy Stalin. But the, but the, the, the, the portrayal of him here by the guy who, who plays him is again as just like kind of low class British thug. And it's perfect, it's pitch perfect because those people are scary. Look like you. I don't want to get cornered in an alley by a guy shouting cockney at me. Come on. That's not, that's not what I want.

Sarah Longwell (31:13)

Can we just talk about the accents for one second? Because you're totally right that the British accent there is meant to convey something specific, but they're all supposed to be Russian. But one of the real deft touches in this movie is that everyone keeps their accent, whether they're American or British.

Sonny Bunch (31:29)

Like, I love that.

Sarah Longwell (31:31)

Like, Jeffrey Tambor is just talking with his. An American accent. Like, he sounds just like he does. On what Jason.

Sonny Bunch (31:39)

Jason Isaacs is almost playing like he's Irish.

Charlie Sykes (31:45)

I don't know. I don't know. I don't have a good enough ear for British accents to pick up on that. But it's kind of a boisterous.

Sonny Bunch (31:53)

It's a different accent, and it's clearly meant to mark him off as being entirely alien to everybody else we've met so far. Yes, I think. Right.

Sarah Longwell (32:02)

I do think that's true. Like, he is meant to be something separate and apart, and so his accent is different. But it was interesting to me how much. Because I just watched him in White Lotus because he is the dad in this most recent season of White Lotus, but I'm also watching Harry Potter with my kids. And so he's sort of much closer to Lucius Malfoy than the character from White Lotus.

Charlie Sykes (32:25)

Yeah. Kind of imperious, but he's less. Again, he's less imperious in this role and more just like, here's a guy. Like, here's a guy I'll have a beer with.

Sonny Bunch (32:36)

He's a cowboy.

Sarah Longwell (32:37)

He's like a cowboy. Yeah.

Sonny Bunch (32:38)

This is my. Maybe my favorite scene of the mo. Of the movie is as they're plotting the coup at the end, where they're going to get rid of Barria. They ask Zhukov if he can handle it, and he goes, I fucked Germany. I think I can handle a little fart in a waistcoat.

Charlie Sykes (32:57)

Fat lump and a waistcoat.

Sonny Bunch (32:59)

Fat lump and a waistcoat.

Sarah Longwell (33:00)

It's just like, lights.

Charlie Sykes (33:03)

Yeah.

Sonny Bunch (33:04)

I was dying.

Charlie Sykes (33:04)

This. I mean, this movie does have one of the best casts. I like the. The cast from start to finish. Like Patty. Like Patty Considine we haven't even talked about, really, as his role as the. The. The director of Radio Moscow is just like this kind of perfect. The. The moment where he is debating with his. Where he's debating with his assistant. Like, all right, was it 17 minutes from when the call started or 17 minutes from when the call ended? That. That, you know, Stalin says to call.

Sarah Longwell (33:32)

Back in 17 minutes, but they're trying to figure out what 17 minutes means. Beginning of when he called, end of when he called.

Sonny Bunch (33:38)

That is like straight out of Fawlty Towers. You could see that conversation between like Manuel and John Cleese and Faulty Towers.

Sarah Longwell (33:47)

One of the things you just think of that guy as British butt chin guy. That actor.

Charlie Sykes (33:52)

John Cleese.

Sonny Bunch (33:53)

John.

Sarah Longwell (33:53)

No, the guy from the. The guy.

Sonny Bunch (33:58)

Oh, yeah.

Charlie Sykes (33:59)

Well, he's also. He's also in House of the Dragon. Did you. Are you watch. Are you a Game of Thrones?

Sarah Longwell (34:04)

I watched Game of Thrones, but I didn't go through. I didn't. Couldn't take it to the next level.

Charlie Sykes (34:08)

Okay.

Sonny Bunch (34:08)

All right, sorry. The other. The other thing I wanted to mention is the. The fight, the institutional fight between who is going to be the muscle for the state, right? Because this has the nkv, NKVD versus the army, which again, feels a little bit like our current moment. ICE versus the FBI.

Charlie Sykes (34:32)

What is icd?

Sonny Bunch (34:36)

ICE is just allowed to do what it wants, right? ICE versus the normal police. ICE versus the state authorities. But there is a. Again, like, because we are living through an actual authoritarian power struggle. Part of it is about which agencies are going to be the favored agencies in. In terms of the allowance of use of force on the part of the state. And that's a. That's a real fight we get to have here.

Charlie Sykes (35:02)

Yay.

Sonny Bunch (35:03)

In America.

Sarah Longwell (35:08)

That's a very good observation about the. The nowness and what's in the movie. I've got another one which is just going back to the. They. They stage a coup and kill barrier. It's not a coup exactly because Barry is not strictly in charge. I actually think one of the things I wanted to ask you guys that I wasn't quite sure of is that the way that they put Georgie. Georgie Malinkov, right. Who. Who takes over? Brie and I looked this up.

Sonny Bunch (35:36)

Georgie.

Sarah Longwell (35:37)

Historically accurate. Yeah, historically accurate. He takes over, but he seems very much to everyone seems to anoint him so that it's not them right away. Like, nobody wants to be the guy right then. And so he's this figurehead that they sort of make fun of and is a bit of a pawn, but they also need him to do things like sign off on the execution of barrier. Because along with sort of Georgie and then Khrushchev, Barry is like the third most important powerful person. He runs the secret police. They decide he's got to go, they got to kill him. And partly because he's got dirt on all of them, partly because he is the main. That's a power play, right? There's a. There's a power struggle between Steve Buscemi's Nikita Khrushchev and Baria. What's interesting is when they go to kill him and they've. And this happens with Molotov, too, like, he's gonna die. They have that sense of not, hey, if you can do this to Barrier. If you can do this to Molotov, they can do it to us. Which is a thing I always think about when you're like, why does someone want to work for Trump? He is. He humiliates and fires everyone who's in his cabinet. He does nothing but. But drop derision and ridicule and awfulness. Everything Trump touches diesel. And yet everybody still wants those jobs. Everybody still wants that power. And in this movie, that's. That's. That's a really potent undercurrent of. They seem to drift more toward the idea that it is better to get these people out of the way so that they have more power than it is to be fearful that that same fate could befall them.

Charlie Sykes (37:27)

Well, and it's funny, too, because Malenkoff. Malenkoff himself, the. The Jeffrey Tambor character does not understand the moment he is in, because there's this. There's this bit in the. In this. In the run up to this, where he starts saying, he's one of us. Barria is one of us. He needs. We need to give him a fair trial. We need to give him a fair trial. And he needs to. If he's committed crimes, he needs to answer for them, but he has to actually stand trial. And again, the idea, like, what does a fair trial even look like? What. What do these people even think a fair trial looks like at this point in Russian Soviet history? Right? Like, what does. What. What is a, quote, fair trial? But the. The. This. This thing that they are all struck by is that. And this is, I think, getting to your point, is that they all. None of them think that they are part of who is being governed here. All of them see themselves as the main character. We're all the main character. We're all the main character of our own story. And these guys in particular think they're the main character of their stories. And I think, as the kind of final coda really puts across, like, none of them are the main character, really. There's always a guy right behind them ready to take power literally in the.

Sarah Longwell (38:42)

Way that it's shot.

Charlie Sykes (38:44)

Right?

Sonny Bunch (38:44)

So this is. I. I do think there is a mix of personalities in the Politburo here in the same way there's a mix of personalities in our reality. There are true believers. Like Molotov is a true believer. Molotov believes in the Revolutionary will of the great people. And that the Communist Party must express that will. That's why there must always be unanimity in the Politburo, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Khrushchev is not like that and neither is Barria. They are just realists, right? And they are there to try to get power. And they also both understand that one of them is going to die. Right? I mean that like they're, they're just clear eyed about this. And you know, when Georgi Malinkov starts having cold feet at the end, Khrushchev puts it to him, he's like, you signed this or he's going to kill you. Right? And this is. Melkov hasn't even really thought of it that way. And Khrushchev is really like, look at what time it is. Don't you understand? We don't have to pretend in the Communist stuff anymore because that's what everybody was pretending. We got to be real about what the moment is and where power is and who's going to have it. That's fascinating. And I think that's a lot of what like, I think that's what J.D. vance thinks. Right? I think J.D. vance is all about the power there. This is. Did you see, by the way, that J.D. vance in the last 24 hours released some statement about how God forbid, God.

Charlie Sykes (40:16)

Forbid he's ready to take over anything.

Sarah Longwell (40:17)

Would ever happen or did that just.

Charlie Sykes (40:19)

It was in an interview.

Sarah Longwell (40:20)

I think it was an interview and he just said it like it, but.

Sonny Bunch (40:24)

God forbid it would. I mean, he's ready. And the last 200 days have been the best education he could possibly. I just thought, geez, Don, between that and JD saying that people should give the President the benefit of the doubt, dude, if you don't see what JD's got cooking, then you really have lost a step, old man.

Charlie Sykes (40:47)

Well, so, but this, this raises, this raises a secondary question, which is that none of the people. All right, so if we're, we're thinking of death of Stalin in our current moment, is, is Trump Stalin?

Sonny Bunch (41:02)

Yes.

Charlie Sykes (41:02)

Or is he, is he somebody like Khrushchev? Because if he's Stalin, then there's no machinations that will be able to like nobody, none of those people would have been able to usher him out the door. He was there until he was dead.

Sonny Bunch (41:16)

Right.

Charlie Sykes (41:17)

And if J.D. vance thinks of himself as somebody who can kind of nudge Donald Trump off the stage, I think he's making a very big mistake.

Sonny Bunch (41:26)

I.

Sarah Longwell (41:26)

That's right, because Trump is Stalin. Because Trump is Stalin.

Charlie Sykes (41:29)

Yes. Yeah.

Sonny Bunch (41:29)

Is that where you are, Sarah? Because that's. I'm there 100%.

Sarah Longwell (41:32)

100%.

Sonny Bunch (41:32)

I think JD is in a world of pain.

Sarah Longwell (41:35)

The thing that I loved that the movie brought up for me, besides be feeling deeply resonant to the political moment, was the allowing you to sort of say, okay, well if this feels very similar to Trump and his cabinet, what happens if Trump dies? How do people behave like, I think that is the question it begs when you do the. How does this relate to our current moment?

Sonny Bunch (41:58)

And so JD Is Mellonkov. I mean, it's such a clear thing, don't you think?

Sarah Longwell (42:03)

I do. But tell me, do you have other parallels from other people?

Charlie Sykes (42:09)

I know a guy who has lists of people to round up.

Sarah Longwell (42:12)

That's right.

Sonny Bunch (42:13)

Stephen Miller. Steve Miller is barrier.

Sarah Longwell (42:15)

Yeah, I think so. So that, that was the, the Stephen Miller of it all felt because he's the sinister, the real sinister plotting like person who seems to.

Sonny Bunch (42:26)

And the guy with no political skills. Yeah, right. Like, like Baria. Again, Barry is an institutional guy, not a press the flesh charismatic guy. This is true. Historically, he was just like the guy who could get stuff done. Sounds a little bit like Stephen Miller.

Sarah Longwell (42:45)

I thought this, I thought Stephen Miller versus kind of J.D. vance. But like if Trump died and let's just say like in the middle of his term, so he's in power, do they what. Part of what struck me is this idea that. And they have a whole discourse about it where they say he was a. I don't think the word is revolutionary, but they say he revolutionized what politics was like, he changed the game. There's a word they use. But I'm, I'm not conjuring it to the point of we can change the game too.

Sonny Bunch (43:24)

But that's being really true to him.

Sarah Longwell (43:27)

Really true. He, he, he, he pushed through radical change. He changed what everybody thought the status quo was. And then they're like, so for us to do that, the way we'll do that is by re. Liberalizing. Like, we're going to stop shooting people, we're going to let people out of jail, we're going to free the doctors.

Sonny Bunch (43:44)

And that's let people get their COVID 19 shots.

Sarah Longwell (43:47)

And so, but that was such an interesting turn where I think that we think that to be like Trump, to, to be the successor to Trump, you have to maintain Trumpism. But what if the second Trump is gone? The way that they curry favor is by sort of running from Trump really fast.

Sonny Bunch (44:07)

Well, so here's one of the funny things about Russian history. And I, I'm pretty sure our colleague Ben Parker will confirm me in, in this sense, Stalin was regarded by the Russian elites, even within the party, as a tremendous mistake. By the end, like, Stalinism was seen as a, like, holy. I can't believe we did this. And they all went along with it because they had to, you know, not get shot. But that's what I mean. Khrushchev started, you know, releasing them, releasing the reins. And from there on, I mean, it's almost a straight line to, to Brezhnev and then Andropov and then Gorbachev. I mean, you know, it's them, everybody trying to back out to the point where in, in Russia, I think by like the early 2000s, like, no, there is no. Stalin is no longer revered.

Sarah Longwell (45:02)

But then they got put today.

Sonny Bunch (45:04)

No, no, that's the thing. When this movie came out, its license to be shown in Russia was revoked. And so Stalin is now rehabilitated in Russia. But as Russia became more liberal, even before the Soviet Union fell, Stalin, like, people felt the ability to say, yes, that Stalin guy, that was no good, bad, bad idea. And now that Russia has moved away from liberalism again, Stalin has regained his place in. In Russian.

Charlie Sykes (45:37)

Yeah. I mean, the broader question here, and one I kind of struggle with, I don't actually know what the answer is, despite having lived in this world for the last 10 years, is I'm still not 100% sure what Trumpism is beyond Trump himself. Right. And there are elements of it. We could talk about immigration. I think I've long argued this, that his superpower was understanding that people don't like immigrants. That's, you know, he bucked the two party consensus on immigration reform and that is what kind of swept him into power and has kept him there. So, like, as far as there is a, an idea of Trumpism, I really think that is kind of it. But, like, what do you jettison. What do you keep. I mean, it is bizarre to me, frankly, given all that we know about Trump and his feelings about germs and that sort of thing. The fact that he actually does think that, that the COVID vaccines were a great accomplishment and is like annoyed that he can't take credit for them. Does. He does actually seem annoyed by this, which is one of the kind of interesting undercurrents of his, of his presidency. Like, I. Is. Is anti vaxism a tenant of Trumpism now? I don't know. Like, he clearly feels like he can't tell those people to fuck off. Like he should.

Sarah Longwell (46:56)

Well, speaking of somebody who has their own base of power, you know, he's got his own movement, he's got his own four letters. Maha. Right. And so it is adjacent to Trump. Right. It. And, and, but. But he does have his own base of support. And Trump made an unholy alliance with RFK because he saw his big fear was that RFK would run as an independent and pull from him because, you know, as RFK's people are Trump leaners, but RFK is the pure heroin, and they want that.

Sonny Bunch (47:30)

Do you think Trump could unperson him the way he did Elon? I kind of do, yeah. I'm not asking if he will, but I feel like. And do you think he could win as decisively against Kennedy as he did Elon? Because I. I think he probably could do that.

Sarah Longwell (47:47)

I think he could. I. But I don't. What I don't think he could do is I don't think he could do it over vaccines like Trump. Trump, to some degree, does have to pantomime a little bit the man. I don't know the mandates for the vaccines were what was wrong with them or whatever, because it has become such a deep tenant of his supporters, which is an interesting and maybe slightly different element than Stalin, which is that there are a lot of voters for whom, when Trump, When Trump says this is what I believe, like tariffs, he can get people to move to him because they don't feel that strongly about tariffs. Vaccines, where they're very against them, they move Trump a little bit, like he's afraid of them on that or doesn't want to buck them on that.

Charlie Sykes (48:48)

I think that's basically right. I. I think that's a. Like, I also. And it's weird because again, like I say, he. He seems like he wants to take credit for all of this and refuses to because he does it. I mean, I. There's no way to put it other than, like, fear. He. I think he's afraid of losing that group of people. And I don't. I. I actually don't think he could do the same thing to RFK that he did to Elon. But like we were discussing with Elon, Elon got very nicely moved out the door. Elon did not get unpersoned. Elon still has Twitter. He still has his car company and his rocket company. Like that. He does. He does not get. He did not get, like, humbled and thrown out the door.

Sarah Longwell (49:28)

No. And the re. And actually, that's a really good point. That's not what. Because what happened Was Elon over overstepped what he thought his power was. He did have his own base of support and that keeps him completely safe. He doesn't lose anything in the hole Doge fiasco. But the fact that he. The fact that, that Trump, like, he's the one who went after Republicans and said, I'm going to primary everybody if they vote for the big beautiful bill. He was going after Trump over. He's the one who said Trump was in the Epstein files. Right. He went hard at Trump, not the other way around. And then Trump was forced to do something. And so I do think that Trump could push out RFK Jr. And he should. I don't know why he's not, because I do think he's annoyed about his, like, good legacy on Covid to the extent that he thinks he has one. But I don't know this time around, I also noticed that Trump is very reticent to push, push out anybody who rode with him to come in. Like, he didn't go after Elon until Elon, like, came for him. But like Bondi, probably, if it was the first term and he was firing people the way he did in the first term, Bondi'd be gone. Like, he would. He'd be throwing people under the bus. But Hegseth would be gone over signal gates. But he's not doing that this time.

Charlie Sykes (50:49)

No, no, but. But it was interesting. The difference between the first and second term is the first term appointees all felt like kind of compromise picks, right? Like, a guy like Mattis, who is not a Trump guy, was like, all right, well, we'll have Mattis come in and he's the grown up in the room and Trump has. And like. But Trump never liked Mattis. That was not a. It's not like he was. It's all. None of these people are compromised picks. They're all, they're all Trump people. I mean, even Rubio, like, there's nobody who's a bigger disappointment than Marco Rubio. Even Rubio is like, yeah, yeah, I'm here. I'm your guy. Give me more jobs. I can do it.

Sarah Longwell (51:26)

I know, but they're. Some of them embarrass him. Like, they make him look incompetent or whatever. And I guess he just doesn't care anymore.

Sonny Bunch (51:32)

So we got to talk about Vasily.

Charlie Sykes (51:35)

So.

Sonny Bunch (51:35)

Because one of the, One of the complications of Stalin and his reign was that there really was, by design, no succession plan. And you couldn't even have a dynastic succession, like assumed succession plan, because Vasily was such a total fuck up, right? I mean, Vasily was such a fail son that could not be even remotely plausible that you could be like, well, maybe Vasily would take over, right?

Charlie Sykes (52:08)

He was such a fail son that he fucked up the Russian ice hockey team. Do you know how badly you have to fuck up to fuck up the Russian ice hockey team? It's all those people do.

Sarah Longwell (52:16)

Yeah, but they all went down in a plane.

Sonny Bunch (52:18)

Plane. No, no, they didn't. There was no plane crash because Soviet planes don't crash.

Sarah Longwell (52:23)

I know, that was a great scene.

Sonny Bunch (52:25)

It's like, get me better data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So. But I don't think that's the truth with Don Jr. This has been my pet theory, which is that if J.D. vance is Malinkov, Don Jr. Is not Khrushchev, but he might be a Vasily who's competent and who is interested in taking over for dad.

Sarah Longwell (52:50)

Interested? Yes. Competent, no.

Sonny Bunch (52:52)

Competent enough.

Charlie Sykes (52:54)

I don't think he has, I don't think he has the personal appeal. I don't think people like him. I mean, this is the thing about Trump is that his voters like him. His voters like him and they find him amusing and they like Don Jr. Too. I don't think it's the same. I don't think it's the same way though. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. I mean, Sarah, you talk, have you ever, have you ever talked to the voters about how they feel about Don Jr. I mean, I'm kind of curious if.

Sarah Longwell (53:18)

They talk about the kids at all. They talk about her, they talk about.

Sonny Bunch (53:23)

Ivanka, but not because they like her. They see her as a like deep state. Right.

Sarah Longwell (53:29)

No, I, I, I people, I don't know if you've noticed this, but Ivanka is attractive.

Charlie Sykes (53:34)

Ivanka is a physically appealing person, as.

Sonny Bunch (53:37)

Her dad likes to say.

Sarah Longwell (53:38)

Yes, it's very gross. She also, I think she and Jared come off as the sort of responsible ones. And so no, I, Don Jr. Is the kind of person that J.D. vance sidles up to, like he's inner circle for sure. And you've got to make them like you to some extent if you want to be, if you want to bro out with the, with the Trump team. But I don't think that the voters are clamoring for Don Jr. They don't like dynasties. And I do. My, like, your theory counters my theory, which is that to your point, it's not that Trump is sui generis in that he just appeared out of Nowhere. Right. There was, There was a populist gene in the Republican Party that led to him. But he's also pretty unique in that he lived in people's living rooms for 14 seasons on that show playing a businessman who fired people.

Charlie Sykes (54:39)

And before that. And before that, he was in the popular imagination. He had bestselling books. He had, he was on Oprah all the time. Appearances on Today. Right.

Sonny Bunch (54:48)

John has had bestselling books. He's on TV all the time. I mean, I just think his connection with the Republican base is deeper than you guys maybe give it credit for being. Not with the general public, like, not with swing voters, but with a Republican base. I think if Don Jr. Put himself forward as the inheritor of his father's chair, I bet he can win a Republican primary.

Sarah Longwell (55:15)

No, I, Well, I can win a Republican primary. Well, that's a different question than can he become president?

Sonny Bunch (55:23)

Yeah, that's not what I'm talking about. I just meant could he. I could still be the one who claims the, the mantle.

Sarah Longwell (55:28)

It depends on who he's running against.

Sonny Bunch (55:32)

Melancholy.

Sarah Longwell (55:32)

I mean, if he's running against a bunch of mini Trumps. Because let me tell you, I do think one of the things JD Vance kind of has going for him is that he is ideological, and he's not ideological in the same way Trump is. Like, he does have his own ideas. And if Trump is out of the way, J.D. vance is going to start talking about things in a much different way than Donald Trump does. Still quite a sinister one, I think. But he is going to focus on working class populism in a way that is more rooted in, in his Ohio roots than, than Trump does in the. Where he connects with people as something completely unrelated to politics.

Sonny Bunch (56:16)

He does have that face, though, J.D.

Sarah Longwell (56:18)

Vance.

Sonny Bunch (56:19)

Yeah, that's going to be hard to overcome.

Sarah Longwell (56:22)

I think we're. I think. I think we're not always the best judges of this. Like, I find Trump unbelievably repellent and.

Sonny Bunch (56:30)

Oh, see, I, I totally understand Trump's appeal. Like, I get why people think he's funny. Like, I, like, I just look at J.D. vance and I think he's got to make people's skin crawl a little bit. But he is inauthentic.

Charlie Sykes (56:43)

Yeah, I. He makes my. He makes my skin crawl. I know, but I think, I think we are. I think we're not the best, not the target audience. I just can't. I can't. I can't read them because I can't read them because I can. I can just Never forget what he actually was in 2014. 15. And then what he changed into. He just. He didn't change.

Sonny Bunch (57:03)

He was always that guy. I said that back then. The number of people who were like, oh, what are you talking about? He's so great. And I said, no, I was like the joker. I always know a squealer. And the tv.

Charlie Sykes (57:17)

Okay, well, all right, fair enough, fair enough.

Sonny Bunch (57:21)

I don't know what else you guys want to talk about. Go ahead.

Sarah Longwell (57:23)

As the sun Vasily there. Part of it is like. Part of what happens with kids in these situations is that they are. And of course this is true of like the monarchs. And there's always kind of a screw up and then one that, that has sort of internalized the lessons of their parents. And so in this movie, she is the one who has more. She loves her father. She has. She has taken on certain elements of him. Like, she knows she's in charge. She knows everybody has to should work for her. Whereas the sun is just like a wimpy muling, you know, ne' er do well black sheep drunk. And I would say Don Jr. Is kind of like that.

Charlie Sykes (58:06)

Yeah.

Sarah Longwell (58:07)

And she is more Ivanka, like. But no matter what that second generation of the. Let's call them great men in. In quotations, meaning that the big men that people fall in love with that, that, that. That next generation is always too diluted. I think George W. Bush. I. I do think there is a Republicans or people are just over dynastic politics in America a little bit too.

Charlie Sykes (58:36)

Yeah. And also George W. Bush had a very different kind of appeal from his father.

Sarah Longwell (58:40)

Yeah.

Charlie Sykes (58:41)

Like H.W. had the kind of like. I don't want to say academic, but he had, he had a different kind of appeal than George W. Bush, who was like more like kind of down homey, like gonna go to the ranch and clear some brush, you know, that's not, that's not what HW was. I don't know.

Sonny Bunch (59:01)

Before we get out of here, Sonny, you and I had talked a little bit about Jeffrey Tambor. Do we have time for a Jeffrey Tambor discussion? Or is that something that nobody is really here for?

Sarah Longwell (59:12)

I care about it. Is this about his. Me too. Do you got me too'd?

Charlie Sykes (59:16)

Well, it was just. It's just kind of interesting because there was this. There was this controversy when the movie came out. He. So the movie, the like the movie is about to come out. You know, Jeffrey Tambor is on all the posters and stuff. He gets me to'd. Right. He gets. He gets fired From Transparent. There's a sexual harassment lawsuit and then he gets airbrushed out of all of the promotional materials from Transparent.

Sonny Bunch (59:38)

Kind of.

Charlie Sykes (59:39)

No for, For Death Over Death of.

Sonny Bunch (59:41)

Stalin, which is so perfect.

Charlie Sykes (59:44)

Which is, which is literally. It's like, it's the most perfect thing that could have happened with the, with, with the movie. He gets, he gets just like literally taken out of the posters and like off the DVD cover and stuff. Despite the fact that he is I think credited as the second lead after Steve Buscemi. I think it's like Stevie Sami, Jeffrey Tambor, then Simon, Russell Beal, I guess. But it's, it's, it, it was very funny. It was very funny.

Sarah Longwell (60:12)

But this, this was. I was thinking about Jeffrey Tambor in this. Just because that, that period of time for Arrested Development, Transparent, this movie, like he was having a real thing. Has he done anything since? Like did that, did that put him. That, that he was, he pretty much. He did a bad. I, I can't remember what he did.

Charlie Sykes (60:34)

He was, he was accused of. So I, I believe it was on, on the Transparent set. Getting too handsy and familiar with some of the actresses on that show is my very half assed remembering of what happened there. But yeah, no, it was just a very funny kind of reflection of the subject matter in real life, which is a thing we have been discussing today.

Sarah Longwell (61:04)

Yeah, I just bet when this came out there was an element of people at the time saying that it was resonant then.

Charlie Sykes (61:11)

Well, this is. Well, so this is it. So this is what Iannucci. So Armando Iannucci did an interview with Scott Tobias in the Rolling Stone magazine and he, Scott asked, was there something resonant to you about this story in our current political moment? And remember this was, this was. The movie was written, I think in 2015. They didn't start shooting until 2016. But this is what Iannucci said. Yes. I was thinking of democracy now and how it's going through this strange phase, the strong personality becoming elected and then amassing power so that even though they've been democratically elected, they start using democracy to just reinforce their own position and it becomes more and more difficult for them to be removed. So you've got the likes of Putin, Berlusconi, Erdogan in Turkey, in Eastern Europe you have constitutions that are being changed so they can stay in office for longer, things like that. I was also looking at the mass movements across Europe. Nationalism, populism, the unpredictability now in elections, people really being disenchanted with politicians, new parties, and an extremism emerging. We shot the film in the summer of 2016, so it was before Donald Trump was elected and the whole Russia America thing became news. But that in. In itself is also part of that trend that I'd been noticing. Anyway, so it's definitely. This is like it. This is all baked into the movie. And this gets back to my. The point I was trying to make with V and this, which is that, like, when you. When you watch a show like Veep, you inevitably get wrapped up in arguments about, is she a Republican, is she a Democrat? And this movie, I think, is. Is a little bit better because it just kind of transcends all that. You don't get wrapped up in that. You just look at what's happening and you say, yes, I see that. I can see that. I see that happening now in certain places and in. In what we're going through.

Sonny Bunch (63:00)

All right, can I. Can I have my say about Jeffrey Tambor or.

Charlie Sykes (63:03)

Did you Google Sarah?

Sarah Longwell (63:04)

Yeah, sorry.

Charlie Sykes (63:04)

I'm sorry.

Sonny Bunch (63:06)

I. I did not really track the Jeffrey Tambor cancellation. The me too thing from Transparent. It was all very complicated to me, and I. I'm sure that if I wanted to spend an afternoon, like, really ironing it out, I could, but who has the time? We have a republic falling all around us. I'll tell you what I did clock. It came out that Jeffrey Tambor was a dick on set to Jessica Walter, and that is something I will never.

Charlie Sykes (63:36)

Forgive, because Jessica Walter did not abide.

Sonny Bunch (63:40)

God rest her soul, was an angel sent to us by heaven. One of the funniest and most talented actresses of her generation. A national treasure. For Geoffrey Tambor to, like, make her cry on set. I am sorry. F you, dude. That is. That is unacceptable behavior. You can't be mean to Jessica Walter. It's like being mean to Betty White or something. I won't have it.

Sarah Longwell (64:05)

That is a great.

Sonny Bunch (64:06)

Sarah, you are a Jessica Walter super fan.

Sarah Longwell (64:08)

I'm a Jessica Walter fan, but I also watched Transparent. I bet you guys didn't. And I'll just tell you, Jeffrey Tambor got a lot of like, you're so brave for doing this and blah, blah, blah. I thought he was the worst part of that show. Unlike Arrested Development, where he is quite funny, in Transparent, the children and Judith Light plays his ex wife, the surrounding cast is much, much better than he is.

Charlie Sykes (64:39)

Fair enough. That's fair.

Sonny Bunch (64:41)

All right, can we just quickly go around the horn and all agree that Jessica Walter in Arrest Development, which is the great comedy of Our time with maybe the best ensemble ever in a comedic group.

Charlie Sykes (64:52)

Very specifically, we limit this to the first two.

Sonny Bunch (64:54)

That's all there was. I don't recognize.

Charlie Sykes (64:56)

There was never anything else. Just three.

Sonny Bunch (64:57)

I don't recognize anything past season three. But Jessica Walter was the ace in that unbelievable group. Yes, we all agree.

Charlie Sykes (65:07)

Ooh, that's a great question over Jason.

Sonny Bunch (65:09)

Bateman, and I love Jason Bateman. Believe me. Nobody takes a backseat. I take a backseat to nobody in my. My admiration for Jason Bateman as an actor. But Jessica Walter, man, Sonny, he's the.

Sarah Longwell (65:22)

Straight man in that. So he just. He's fine. He's funny. But she. The lines. The lines that you quote from that show still are hers and busters. But like I said, I love all my children. I don't care for job.

Charlie Sykes (65:40)

I don't. I could not disagree. I quote Jason Bateman saying, I don't know what I was expecting a hundred times, 100 times a week. That was looking in the dead pigeon bag. The. The. No, the. But the best. The best Jessica Walter role is her voice work on Archer. Are either of you guys.

Sonny Bunch (65:59)

Oh, that's right. She did do Archer. I am not. But I caught her. She was an introvert.

Charlie Sykes (66:03)

Archer. It's on Netflix. You can. You can watch the whole thing now. It's this kind of, like, Pitch Perfect James Bond spoof type show. It's very. It's very funny. It's animated. It's adult animation, which I know nobody. Nobody really likes, but it's. It's a very funny show, and she's very funny on it.

Sonny Bunch (66:20)

I don't know about you guys, but when she passed, like, I had a. Like, a very real, like, oh, I didn't want to live in a world without Jessica Walter in it.

Sarah Longwell (66:30)

All right, great. Great. Bulwark Movie Club, guys.

Charlie Sykes (66:32)

We should ask people what they want to. We should do episodes on, because I have ideas, but, you know, I kind of want to do that. I want to do the 1970s invasion of the Body Snatchers. The Donald Sutherland one.

Sonny Bunch (66:45)

Oh, that sounds pretty on point as well.

Charlie Sykes (66:47)

Certainly does not. Does not have any relevance to our moment. And also Contagion. I want to do a Contagion episode.

Sarah Longwell (66:54)

Here's what I would just say to our audience. We would love to take recommendations. I do think we're going to put, like, slight parameters around this where it has to be, for now, a movie. I think maybe at some point we'll talk about shows, but, like, I can't. We can't do French Village. You can't do five seasons something. So unless we've all just recently finished something or watching but mainly like let's go back and watch movies that have political resonance or taught us something or are relevant today. So think about those and send us your recommendation.

Sonny Bunch (67:23)

Yeah, and also you guys got to make this show happen so like share it with your friends, leave comments, hit the likes, all those things. Please continue the discussion in the comments. We would like to hear what you have to say about the death of Stalin. Specifically I would like you to go through and tell us what which figures from death of Stalin are the figures in the Trump administration. That's your homework.

Charlie Sykes (67:44)

All right. Well thanks, thanks for, thanks for doing the show guys. I really appreciate it. This is fun. We should do it and we should do it next week, do it again.

Sarah Longwell (67:52)

See you again. See you next week guys.