← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:01]
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- [00:32]
Lisa (Licensed Psychotherapist)
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- [01:35]
Tim Miller
hey everybody. Tim Moa from the Bulwark here. I went on a live stream called Live and Learn as part of my endeavor to become a streamer. And you know, you get an invite to come on a stream from somebody called Mr. Soy Pill, you really have no choice but to do it, at least in my view. And so I reached back out to Mr. Pill, we're now friends so I can call him Soy, and said yeah, let's do it. And so I hung out with him and a couple other guys and unfortunately I missed one of their other co streamers is, I guess the guy from Pretty Fly for a White guy, which is, I don't know, a millennial bro reference. But anyway, so unfortunately he was gone, but some of the other characters were there, Hutch and Pisco. And so we all just hung out and talked a lot about the Democratic Party. We talked a little bit about the dinner and kind of all the craziness around the dinner. At the beginning, if you've had your fill of that from me, you kind of scoot forward about 20 minutes I was on with these guys for like 90 minutes and then we get into, I think a pretty interesting conversation about how the Democratic Party should move forward. What are things they can do to appeal more broadly. How do you balance kind of the left progressive flank with what people more in the middle want? Is that a sustainable coalition, all that kind of stuff. And so I had a lot of fun vibing out with those guys on that. Hope you enjoy it. It's a little more kind of casual and chatty than my usual fare, so stick around for me. Soy Pill, Pisco, Hutch Characters of the Internet Enjoy.
- [03:26]
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- [04:51]
Tim Miller
Oh, and subscribe to our feed. By the way, we're trying to get to 2 million.
- [04:55]
Soy Pill
Subscribe live and learn the only podcast that starts on time every time. I'm the Soy Pill with me as always, Hutch Pisco and special guest today give a warm welcome to Tim Miller of the world.
- [05:08]
Tim Miller
What's up Mr. Pill? Mr.
- [05:11]
Soy Pill
Pill was my father. Call me Soy.
- [05:13]
Tim Miller
Hey Soy. Good to have you, Tim. How y' all doing? I don't know.
- [05:19]
Bretzky
I'm feeling pretty bad. We don't have a ballroom, and the events that just transpired show that we need it.
- [05:26]
Tim Miller
Yeah, you. You can't be safe without a ballroom on the White House grounds. No one is safe anymore. Right. It is. It's kind of like a Mad Max environment. We all. We all need a ballroom of our own where we can feel secure.
- [05:38]
Soy Pill
Cure a chicken in every pot in the ballroom, on every house is my campaign promise.
- [05:43]
Bretzky
Michael Tracy also. And talking about speaking or being safe. Did you guys see this little side plot that happened with Michael Tracy?
- [05:52]
Hutch
Which one? The one where he showed up to Virginia Jeffries Memorial. The one he picked. Picked a fight with Jim Acosta.
- [05:58]
Bretzky
Jim Acosta and Juliana. Oh, now I'm not remembering her last name.
- [06:02]
Tim Miller
Olivia. Juliana.
- [06:03]
Bretzky
Olivia Juliana. Yeah.
- [06:05]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [06:06]
Bretzky
So apparently, Michael Tracy, who I've had on to talk about Epstein stuff, and he's picking the fights, too. So it's a big security weekend for all the important political parties.
- [06:16]
Tim Miller
I got to tell you, I was. We got Jazz Fest here in New Orleans, so I was partying on Saturday night and checked out. We had other bulwark people who were, you know, on duty, and so, you know, I didn't. It was kind of a downer to be receiving texts and getting content while I was, you know, drinking, watching trombone shorty about what was happening. But after, I was, like, a little drunk, and then people started sending me the Michael Tracy, like, come and meet me outside the Hampton Inn. That was really enjoyable. And I did take a little break from the music just to kind of watch him demand that Jim Acosta meet him outside the Hampton Inn and send the Hampton Inn address, the photo of the Hampton Inn, in case you wanted to get it wrong. I feel like we were really denied a good brawl at. In the. In the Hampton Inn, like, breakfast area.
- [07:05]
Bretzky
We had Dana White at the Hilton. Apparently, they're planning some sort of UFC event on the White House. I just don't know why we wouldn't involve Michael Tracy in that, either with Olivia Juliana or Jim Acosta.
- [07:19]
Hutch
Now, was he trying to physically fight Olivia Juliana as well?
- [07:24]
Bretzky
Yes.
- [07:25]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [07:25]
Hutch
Interesting. Interesting. It's a. It's kind of like, who's the guy that Jim Carrey played? The biopic, the. Andy. Oh, Andy Kaufman. It's very Andy Kaufman like.
- [07:35]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [07:36]
Soy Pill
Well, Tim, I'm curious. I mean, given your experience of how you learned about this news. I had a similar experience where I think after the first assassination attempt, On Trump, I was freaking out. I was like, oh my God, what does our country come to? And this is going to surge him in the polls and just kind of having a breakdown. And after this one, I think after 12 hours I was like, yeah, you know, like it happened again. And it's weird to think of it as like this casual sort of brushed off news event which should in any other case dominate a news cycle for maybe a whole year. So like, how are you viewing this as like, you know, what is this the third?
- [08:12]
Tim Miller
I don't, Yeah, I don't think you have to feel guilty about that. I like, not obviously it's horrible that someone was trying to shoot up the White House correspondent sitter and you can't, you know, give any, anything but just total condemnation to somebody trying to do it. Like, it, I know it kind of feels weird to say this, but like crazy people try to kill the President, like not irregularly. I mean, it has felt like this happened more with Trump and like the situation of Butler, I think was a category difference. I mean like, literally, had he not moved his head, he would have been killed. And that was not something that would have happened. I guess like Reagan didn't die, but that Reagan was the last time somebody got actually hit by a bullet. But like 13, I think of the last 15 presidents have had an assassination attempt against him. Gerald Ford had two in 17 days. Nobody talks about that anymore. It's not like, oh, that was a big historical inflection point the two times Gerald Ford had assassination attempts against him. So I think that's kind of why you're feeling that way. It also, he didn't really get close. Like, I think that there was a moment that night where, you know, just, it was a dramatic scene, right? Like it's on camera, it's live. You see him getting, you know, rushed out of there, you see all the journalists hiding under the tables and it's like, it feels like really, you know, dramatic and serious. But then like you learn that. And I've been to that dinner, it's a, the Hill, it's down the escalator at the Hilton. So if you go into the hinckley Hilton in D.C. you kind of got to go around a corner, then down an escalator and then through a long hallway. He didn't even make it to the floor. You know, like he, so he wasn't even, he wasn't even on the same floor as Trump. So like Donald Trump was very far away from being shot this time.
- [09:55]
Bretzky
Not Wolf Blitzer.
- [09:56]
Tim Miller
Yeah. In theory, I don't know, there could have been other people that were, like, late for the dinner, going down the hallway. They might have been closer to that encounter. So, like, in that way, like, this is more similar to, like, when a crazy person tries to jump the fence at the White House or whatever. You know, then, like, what happened in Butler? Yeah.
- [10:14]
Soy Pill
And I bet there's a lot of attempts that we just never hear about because they're nipped in the bud, you know, like, before anyone even gets close to 100 meters from the president. But I think what's interesting to me is in the same way Republicans were trying to capitalize off of this event back in last year. It's the same kind of thing happening now where you see, hey, this is the left's fault. Look at how they're talking about the president. And if anything, I'm looking at this and saying, like, are we supposed to not accurately describe how we're viewing the most negative aspects of this administration? Because a crazy person might capitalize off of it? And also, how much weight does that really hold when you've got your party calling us, you know, the party of pedophiles? You've got, you know, Donald Trump calling for the execution of his political opponents. Like, it just all rings so hollow now for the third or fourth or so.
- [11:01]
Bretzky
But can I pause you right there real quick? I'm so sorry to do this, but, like, I want to channel this question through the CNN question that. Dana, did you guys see this?
- [11:09]
Tim Miller
Yes.
- [11:10]
Hutch
She.
- [11:10]
Bretzky
She asks Raskin, I think, do you feel anything about the heated rhetoric that your side is using? And then Raskin's like, well, what do you mean? She's like, well, how you call him terrible? I don't. It's such a joke that we live in this world where we're like, people are being called out for saying accurate things about the terrible job that the president, a lot of president is doing.
- [11:35]
Tim Miller
And then Raska kind of backs down and he says, like, well, I don't have anything personally against the president. I just hate his policies. So I just. Then I was like, you don't. I have a lot personal against the president. And that's totally fine, by the way. And it's totally fine to make level personal attacks on him. It is so weird for me on multiple levels, like, people whose business it is to exercise free speech and make arguments, like, always immediately after something bad like this goes to. Well, it's maybe, maybe our words were the problem. You know, maybe we just used a phrase that was A little too hot. And it's like, I just, There isn't any evidence for that, really. You know, I had somebody going after me today, some Daily Wire person who's like, condemn Hassan Piker. Like, he, he said that, you know, whatever Rick Scott deserves. I don't, I don't, I don't know what he said about Rick Scott, but, you know, something violent happened against him. And I was like, the shooter like, was on Blue sky shitting on Hassan Piker like three days ago. So how is it Hasan Piker's fault that then he went crazy and tried to shoot the Trump. Trump, like, you know, words are not violence. And I, I bristled at this when it was like really hot on the left for a little while. The college can't, you know, the cancel culture stuff. We need safe spaces. You know, people can't hear, you know, you know, from speakers that they think are too aggressive. And it's just like, we should be able to live in a vibrant society where people call each other dicks and, you know, say that you're an asshole or you're corrupt or you're a pedophile cover upper or whatever. Like, if it's appropriate, if it's true, if it's appropriate, if it's true, you know, or if it could be true, like, people should be able to make those arguments and that's fine. That has nothing to do with a gunman shooting at somebody. And I think part of this, I do think is it's like we're so fucked in the, on the, in the guns situ. Like, they're just so. The proliferation of guns in the country is so great that it's like people are kind of bored with talking about that after shootings as a problem. You know, I was going back to Butler and immediately we did this after Butler and everybody's like, was it the rhetoric? I'm like, this is like a weirdo kid. I don't think he was watching Meet the Press. I don't think it was to Meet the Press rhetoric that was a problem.
- [13:49]
Bretzky
Wasn't Jamie Raskin.
- [13:51]
Tim Miller
Yeah, it wasn't Jamie Raskin. Then, like, on the way. Yeah, on the way to shoot Trump, he stopped. I used to know what the store was. I forget. But he stomped at like some big box store and bought bullets, like, on the way. And I was like, isn't that actually a bigger problem? Like, shouldn't we have a waiting period for buying a certain number of bullets? It seems like, you know, if we're going to try to stop this, that would have been a more efficient response than, you know, saying maybe the Democrats should, should not say such mean things about Mr. Trump, you know, so, like, the whole thing is really, is really dumb as far as I'm concerned.
- [14:25]
Soy Pill
Apropos of your reply, guys, just a friend of the show and actually founder of Live and Learn, Josiah asks Tim, are you going to talk to Megan Bosham of the Daily Wire? Because she's camped out in your replies and he also is asking me if I'm going to go fight Michael Tracy. But yeah, I mean, what is this beef? Is it specifically that she thinks that you're enabling someone who's enabling a shooter? I don't even know how this connection is being.
- [14:49]
Tim Miller
I don't know. Yeah, it all started because she was like, the bulwark is responsible for this. Because you said people shouldn't even show up to the dinner. And I was like, yeah, I said people shouldn't show up to the dinner, not that they should shoot up to dinner. Those are two, like, those are two very different things.
- [15:04]
Bretzky
The opposite dinner. You have to arrive.
- [15:07]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [15:07]
Soy Pill
Maybe she thought you were, like, warning, like, hey, guys, don't go to school tomorrow.
- [15:10]
Tim Miller
You know, sort of thing. Yeah. And so I don't know. No, I was not. And then she, like, goes through my podcast history and it's like, oh, you one time you said Luigi was hot and so this is your fault. And I'm like, luigi was hot is hot is horrible. And, like, he should go to jail for life like this. Adults do not have, you know, should not struggle to, like, navigate, you know, kind of complex assessments of people. People can be hot and terrible. You know, like, Donald Trump can be terrible and you not want to kill him. So I don't.
- [15:42]
Hutch
Are you saying Trump is hot?
- [15:43]
Tim Miller
I'm not. He looks horrible without the orange. The orange looks bad. But if you see, without the orange looks horrible. So anyway, I don't, I don't think I. Maybe I would go debate her if they wanted to have me on the Daily Wire, but I'm not going to take some, like, C list, right wing media person and bring them onto the Bulwark just because they're obsessed with me. That, that feels, that feels like that's setting a bad precedent.
- [16:06]
Soy Pill
Yeah, you're enabling the, the reply guy behavior. That's, that's apparently how they're going to bait you into media appearances.
- [16:12]
Bretzky
Yeah, I don't think that what you were doing was a cryptic message. The award for cryptic message and the most, like, unfortunate statement goes to Carolyn Levitt, where I forget what it was exactly. Something like, shots will be fired tonight.
- [16:23]
Tim Miller
Shots will be fired tonight.
- [16:27]
Bretzky
It's up there with. Oh, go ahead. Sorry.
- [16:29]
Hutch
Well, I was gonna say, in a time where America is just like, peak conspiracy brain, that was just the most unfortunate sequence of words she could have put together for that moment. Also, the Kim Kimmel joke was just, like, really awfully timed. They're trying to exploit that maximally right now. But I think, like, I think it is worth pointing out that, you know, every time some kind of event like this happens, and I agree with Tim, like, all political violence is, like, pretty horrible for the, like, social fabric and everything. But every single time they. They very transparently and cynically try to, you know, exploit these kinds of events for some kind of boost in the polls or some kind of political benefit, and it never works. Like, you know, Charlie Kirk was largely kind of like out of the. The news maybe like a week or two later. Trump, I think, only got a boost of two or three points after Butler, and that evaporated with kind of an important two points.
- [17:23]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how much it helped him. I mean, he only won by two points.
- [17:27]
Hutch
Oh, no, no, that's true.
- [17:28]
Tim Miller
Yeah, yeah.
- [17:29]
Hutch
No, but I'm saying, like, when you track the polls, like, he went up like a few points and went right back down. But, you know, it is kind of pathetic and sad that these guys can't even manage to, you know, cultivate sympathy from voters after events like these.
- [17:43]
Tim Miller
Yeah, yeah. Who is the voter that's going to change their mind about Donald Trump because of a shooting attempt, though? Like, you know, people have other concerns that they're focused and you can understand sympathy assessment. In the poll, somebody calls you three days afterwards, you don't feel like you don't want to be a dick or whatever. So you have an unfavorable view of the person that was just shot. But I just don't think it's going to fundamentally change people's perspectives, which is why one of my other things, I feel like if I'm on the live and learn pod, I should rant about the libs a little bit. One of the other things that annoys me about the discourse this weekend is like the false flag nonsense. People are like, he did this. He did this because Iran and his polls were flagging. And I was like, well, no, that wouldn't work. Like, that's not going to work. And number two, he just was about to enjoy, like, the, like, this gift that for some reason the D.C. journalist gave him was to allow him in front of cameras to shit on them for an hour and a half. Why would he do the false flag attack right before that? I think that he would have done it after he would had a chance to get his, you know, get a couple shots off, no pun intended. But I, I just, the whole thing is dumb. I, I ran, we did a rant about this on the podcast today and I have inboxes full of listeners being like, are you sure? It seems fishy. There's some things that seem fishy, but you can't put anything past Trump. And I'm like, well, yeah, I guess you can't put anything past Trump. But these guys also haven't demonstrated like a lot of deftness in hiding their behavior. Yeah, you want about Trump, but like all of his malfeasance is pretty much right out there in the open. Like he's not a big secret keeper.
- [19:24]
Bretzky
And I just, Ash Patel's getting like absolutely hammered and we're getting like leaks
- [19:29]
Soy Pill
about it and like he's getting.
- [19:34]
Bretzky
No, I mean he's, he's getting wasted all the time apparently. He's, he's, he's drinking a lot and, and I actually agree with you, Tim. I think one saving grace perhaps for the libs is the administration really has lost all credibility to say anything factual. You know, their relationship with the truth is ephemeral at best. That said, there's like no evidence to suggest that this was a false flag. It really does feel though, with advent of AI, with the right wing all embracing like the Candace Owens style conspiracy theory, you know, slock for a better word. It does feel sometimes that there's like no limit to what people are allowed to allege without evidence.
- [20:14]
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- [20:42]
Tim Miller
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- [21:10]
Tim Miller
of your privacy with IP Vanish. Yeah, I mean like none of these conspiracy theories survive like past a few questions. Like it's all the people messaging me that are like, well, maybe they recruited a disgruntled guy. I'm like, he was like again, he was posting on Blue sky about Will Stancil like last week. Like, you know, this is all part of an elaborate plot. Like this was a CIA thing, they recruited him and they're like, okay, your cover stories, you're going to go into Blue sky for four years, you know, and post lib slop and like then you're going to go try to kill Trump and we're going to tackle you before you can do it and you're going to go to jail for life. Like why would he sign up for that? Like why? Like that is a more compelling theory than like, like a guy went kind of crazy and we have too many guns in this country and like he tried to do something nuts. I just, that seems like a much more, you know, much, much, you know, much more likely from an Occam's Razor standpoint, like the butler thing that people always talk about his ear and stuff. Like we have the photos from the New York Times. They're unbelievable photos right underneath them. They take the picture and it's like a, you know, kind of rapid fire, like multiple click, click, click, click. And you can see like Trump turn his head. Then you see him put his hand up and then you see him put his hand to his ear and then you see him go down and then a guy dies and they all go to the hospital and nurses and doctors see them. All these people are in on the COVID up. Like the nurse at the Butler hospital that did the intake on Trump was part of the CIA plot to do this. Like these guys can't even get the fucking straight of Horvus open. They can't do anything. Like they're like, that's totally, they're totally incompetent. They haven't arrested a single one of their political enemies and yet they pulled that.
- [23:00]
Soy Pill
I don't know, the whole thing, it stretches credulity. They have to be so competent that they can pull off a multi year fall guy like fake assassination attempt, but also that no one leaks this. And that just screams 2020 election fraud claims. It's like you are the people that are able to rail against these people for these insane claims. That rely on affidavits from people who as soon as you put them under any scrutiny, they completely fall apart in front of a judge. And now you're saying that this, the same thing is happening on the other side. Like, you have to understand that. So maybe just some things are going to be capitalized and like trying to make the left look bad. And that has nothing to do with whether or not they faked it. They're always going to try to capitalize and try to.
- [23:39]
Hutch
Yeah, I follow like a decent, like, spectrum of people ideologically and pretty consistently. I see conspiracy theories on the timeline from, you know, folks on my side of the aisle or thereabouts. I would say, like, it's probably a lot more intense with right wingers. I mean, it is like a lot more, sure, intense and there's more of them doing it. But, you know, there's a lot of people on the left that are prone to conspiracies. You know, Kyle Kalinsky is out here just like day one, just pumping out content, you know, just asking questions about things not adding up.
- [24:10]
Bretzky
Never let a good crisis go to waste. Okay, you doubters, it might be the case that they didn't plan this specifically to happen, but maybe they're going to use it as their right stock fire to implement a horrific policy agenda like building the ballroom White House. And that's what I found. Like, so. Because in the previous actual successful assassination of Charlie Kirk, they were talking about like, oh, we're going to go after every leftist group, all these Democrats, we're going to target all of their, like, institutions. None of that happened. But this time they're really just the limit of their ambition is building this ballroom and justifying it to the public. So I think it's a, a missed opportunity for them, perhaps. But to be honest, I don't really think it's that big. Like, the American people, like Tim said, care about other stuff. But it was, I think, fascinating to see Ashley Sinclair talk about how this unified messaging would happen in these chat groups and then everyone is on the same page, like minutes after it happens to talk about the ballroom.
- [25:11]
Hutch
She is spilling some quality tea on the timeline. She spilled some tea today about Corey Mills. Is that his name? Republican representative from Florida. Some crazy stuff. Yeah.
- [25:20]
Soy Pill
Well, Tim, you are a Republican and you worked in campaign.
- [25:25]
Tim Miller
Oh, you're not.
- [25:25]
Soy Pill
You don't identify that way anymore?
- [25:27]
Tim Miller
No. I wrote an article about leaving in the period between Trump losing in 2020 and January 6, when everyone was going along with the stop the steal nonsense, except for Like Liz Cheney and Adam and Mitt Romney. I was like, this is over. I don't want to be part of, of the party anymore. But anyway, I was until 2020. Fair enough.
- [25:46]
Soy Pill
Excuse my mistake. What I was going to ask is you worked on campaigns in the early 2000s for Republicans and I wanted to know your perspective on this dissemination of information through pundits or any sort of spokespeople. Obviously it didn't exist to the same extent because we just didn't have phones and the Internet to the same level. But was there this media apparatus, these talking points being kind of spread out or can you speak to that a little bit?
- [26:12]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I mean the, the degree of cultishness that they have and like the like kind of the NPC quality of some of these like big MAGA accounts I think is a category difference from what we have seen in the past. I mean, I. Look, I. When I was at the rnc, when I was a jeb, you know, we had lists of people that we'd contact and try to seed stuff with, but a lot of times they wouldn't do what I wanted. It's like usually people, especially back then journalists, even if they were bloggers, had at least a minimum level of dignity and would maybe post something kind of like what I'd asked, or if it was really good, they would flag it. There were some that didn't. And the process that I used to use was, you know, pick one of the more pliable Republican blogger hacks and like have them write something and then send that link around everybody and maybe some of them would tweet it. But I do think that the like and Elon incentivizes this now. Like a big change is now with on X you got like they're monetized, right? So you're being incentivized to just post the. The Trump slop. You know what I mean? Like if they. If you get a text from whoever is the point person in the White House that's like, hey, Ballroom, you know, you're better best suited to just go ahead and do that so you can get all the retweets.
- [27:46]
Soy Pill
It's not even just the like, you know, the usual suspects who have the direct lines of connection. I know that they just added this location feature and you see, oh, here's like all the Indian and Malaysian and offshore accounts that are just capitalizing off of like this gets clicks, this causes people to be ang. Just blow it up and throw it out there. So yeah, it's very transparent how it's it's really not about anything. But can I get this to go viral? Because I know it'll make people angry
- [28:10]
Hutch
and yeah, Tim, I want to dive into your politics a little bit more, if you don't mind. Yeah. So we've, we've had a ton of discourse in our spaces in recent kind of weeks. Some of it has related to Hassan, but it's more been about like a bigger conversation about the future of the Democratic Party. You're obviously like a Republican defector. And so I'm curious to know what you think should be the playbook for Democrats in the short term to sort of maximize electoral wins and also like what you personally want to see and do those things overlap?
- [28:41]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Can I just say one of the. On just Hasan briefly when I engaged in that discourse very early, which in retrospect was maybe a mistake because who the hell, the hell did I know that? It's all everybody want to talk about for weeks. But one of the points I made when I first engaged with it is that like the establishment Republicans or excuse me, the establishment Democrats talk about a Freudian slip. The establishment Democrats are going after him were like stepping on a big rake like this. This was a massive cell phone like putting out a memo that's like people shouldn't talk to Hasan is going to absolutely backfire on them. And you know, the base or like the active kind of Democratic voter, it's not, does not want that. And you know there's some category of people that do. But if anything it will end up empowering him more to like as an anti establishment figure who's fighting them because that's what people are looking for right now. Look at Graham Platner and Janet Mills and and that's exactly what's happened. And it was really dumb of the third way to do it just as a strategic matter. What's up baby?
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- [31:09]
Tim Miller
My, my thinking and I feel like I have good credibility on this because like what I'm about to suggest the Democrats do goes against what my personal political preference would be. You know, if I could wave a magic wand to make somebody president, I would want like Jared Polis or somebody like that who has no, no viability as a national figure. But I think that the Democrats need to put forth a candidate. I guess we're doing this in the 2028 context, but even in statewide candidates and federal level who has some distance from the Clinton Biden Harris triumph. Brit. And they need some distance from them. And it needs to be comprehensible and understandable to people to dumb dumbs like what the difference is. And I think probably it is a little bit more economic populism. What that exactly looks like, I think is up to the person. But mostly it is that they need to offer a critique of the Democratic Party establishment for being too cozy with corporate interests and saying that they're going to fight it at some level. Some of the, some of those proposals will be very stupid. But like there are some that are, that are good. And I think the framing is more important than the actual policies.
- [32:27]
Hutch
I imagine you vibe a little bit with Talarico then, right? Because he's leaning into some populism, but he's not fully committing in the same way that Platner is.
- [32:34]
Tim Miller
I do, I do vibe a little bit Talarico. I think that then on foreign policy they need to be very clearly anti the stupid war, bluntly and clearly not like, well, ayatollah was bad and you know, this doesn't mean they need to be isolationists, but they need to say, hey, you guys are heard you thought Trump was going to be anti war. You're betrayed by him. We are. You can trust us. Like, we are not going to get into stupid Middle east wars. It doesn't mean we're isolationists. We support our allies in Europe. We're going to try to mend fences with the countries, ornament fences with us, but no more stupid wars we're going to pull. Get us the hell out of it. I think they should do that. And I think it would probably be beneficial for the Democrats to try to demonstrate some type of distance from their past to those two are kind of moves to the left. I'd say move to the right just slightly on either immigration or public safety, like demonstrating that there's some feeling of, hey, things got a little out of control with the, you know, far left prosecutors in San Francisco and some of these places. And we need to make sure that violent criminals are put behind bars and that we need sure as shit need to make sure that violent illegal immigrant criminals are behind the bars or sent home. And you know, that doesn't mean going, being, becoming like bigoted or nativist, but just demonstrating that there's like a little bit of a pivot from where things were. I think that combination is probably the sweet spot for them.
- [34:05]
Soy Pill
In your view, who's the most posed to do this? That's on the playing field right now because so many of the current candidates I see are either linked. I mean, Harris might run again to some of these things that you need, say we need to distance ourselves from. And some of them, she's 1000% going to run, right?
- [34:20]
Hutch
Thousand percent, yeah.
- [34:21]
Soy Pill
And so, so, like, yeah, who, who is like, then able to both distance themselves and make these shifts that you're, you're.
- [34:28]
Tim Miller
I think it's tough. I think it's pretty concerning, you know, because the answer is to that question is going to people that haven't really been around. I mean, one of that is okay, maybe one of these guys wins a surprise Senate race and just runs again immediately, like for president. I know there'll be a lot of push against that, but that could be Talarico, could be platinum or the people find that crazy. But I don't. I mean, if Obama and Trump were both crazy and they're the last people to win twice, and then, you know, maybe more reasonable to that would be somebody like a Wes Moore or one of the two Georgia senators, Ossoff and Warnock, both kind of demonstrated they've won in the south in a swing state. Those are kind of the names that come to mind. I don't. Nobody's really knocking my socks off right now on this front. I like Pete personally. You know, again, like, I think if this was like a wave the magic wand and let Tim have somebody he likes, like, I would be totally happy with Pete. I just, if. If the Democrats biggest problem is working class men, I don't know, I just think a gay polyglot, it's like a tough pitch.
- [35:44]
Hutch
The is a polyglot, what is that?
- [35:46]
Tim Miller
Somebody who speaks a lot of languages. Exactly. Yeah. I think that he would use a lot of words that they wouldn't know. And so John Kerry coded. Yeah, maybe that's wrong. Pete has. Pete has exceeded my expectations at every step of the way politically. So I don't know.
- [36:03]
Hutch
If he becomes president, I feel like he would have to be VP first and then, you know, following like a popular Democratic presidency that could segue into that. But it's hard to see just him winning the primary in 2020.
- [36:15]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I don't think it's a zero percent chance, but it's a little tough. Yeah.
- [36:18]
Bretzky
I actually see a connection between what you just said about Pete and your thoughts on Hassan, namely that it's not necessarily the case that your personal preferences, ideologically, personally, are going to determine what you think is most politically useful, such as appearing on people's shows with whom you disagree tremendously, or you know, picking a candidate that perhaps you even differ with greatly because of their ability to win. So talk us through that sort of practical, pragmatic sense of your politics.
- [36:54]
Tim Miller
Yeah, there's only two parties, you know, and if I was a podcaster in a European country where there's like kind of a, you know, the FDP in Germany or something, or there's like a social left party and like fiscally kind of conservative party, like I would go all in for the party that most matches me. We have two parties and one of them is a right wing authoritarian party which is a grave threat to the country right now. And so as far as I'm concerned, the best thing to do is try to encourage and advocate for an alternative to that that can be successful. And I think more than just being successful, that can wipe it out. I always go back to Biden 2020 the morning after. I was sad. I was very sad because I didn' know exactly how bad it was going to get ahead. But I knew that like this wasn't over, like that we needed to beat him way more. Like that was too close and that if that either he would reemerge or some facsimile of him would. Would emerge and that we are going to be in this for a bit
- [38:01]
Soy Pill
and you didn't warn us about January 6th. That was very selfish of you.
- [38:04]
Tim Miller
Yes.
- [38:04]
Soy Pill
It sounded like you knew it was going to happen.
- [38:06]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I didn't know exactly though. I did, I kind of did. I, I did a lot of alarm sounding and some of my never Trumper friends who are on the more conservative side were like, you guys are being alarmists. And I was like, no. And I will tell you on our Bulwark livestream the night of January 6th, so I like to dunk my colleagues over them. Many of them were talking about how like Trump was over and I was like, by Valentine's Day these guys are going to come back around February 14th. And I was wrong. I was sooner, like we didn't even get through January before those guys came back around Dunham.
- [38:37]
Hutch
So anyway, as soon as McCarthy took that photo op with him, I was like, oh no. I was like, oh no, they're still behind him. This is not good.
- [38:44]
Tim Miller
So because of that threat, I just think it's important to be practical. And I kind of laugh. I was like, if you graded how close a candidate to me was from 0 to 100, McCain, Obama, both of them were decently close to me in various ways. They weren't too far apart from each other and both of them were way closer to me than Trump and Harris were. You know, I mean, like just, just if you're like doing a checklist of like policies and I, I just, I didn't know how good I had it back in 2008. I was kind of like, I don't really like, you know what I mean? I didn't really think I liked either of them. And so it's like, I just, I have just accepted that, like we're going to go through a period where there's not going to be a like very Tim coded candidate ideologically and like that's fine. Like we're in a democratic system and like there are only two options and you know, maybe, maybe an outside person could emerge sometime. It's not going to be this next time. And you know, and so I just think it's important to like give honest analysis of that and also give honest advice based on that. Like for me to come on and be like, you know what people, you know, what they should really do is we should have a Tim Miller coded candidates who's for open borders and gay supremacy, low T, red tape, cutting, just like that'd be awesome if there was a majority of the country that was for that, but like, I just don't, I don't think there is.
- [40:12]
Soy Pill
You're talking about it like it's a, like an arranged marriage. Like, look, I'm not happy about it, but this is what's, what's best for the families. And then the dowry is so big that we can't.
- [40:20]
Tim Miller
Wrong though. No, I'm not kind of wrong. I mean, I mean, you know, I know the people, some people, they get politics and they get very, I don't know, starry eyed about it and like it should make, you know, I feel like politicians should make me sing and I should, and I should be very passionate about advancing my ideals. Like, I think all that's nice and stuff. I just, I'm just more practical about it all.
- [40:43]
Hutch
You're speaking my language, Tim.
- [40:46]
Soy Pill
I have to ask though, because this is kind of an extension of this is the point of the coalition and who's in the 10 and who's helping us. And like to me, quite obviously you are right. Like you are fundamentally aligned with fighting Trump and the fascist wave that's happening right now. But it's clear that at a certain point as the Overton window shifts, you will be opposed to the liberal candidate. Now you won't be like, you know, tearing them down and backstabbing or doing some crazy Gen 6 stuff, but you will be saying, hey, like this isn't who I want. This person is not my politics. So at what point I guess this is idealistic because like, oh God, what a world I would love to live in where we have to worry about whether or not Tim Miller is not on our side instead of the fascists. But at what point do the people that are currently in the coalition, the Never Trumpers, the super far leftists, at what point are we supposed to say, okay, and now we're opposed? Is it as soon as now both parties have a candidate and they can separate from that tent? Or is it before that?
- [41:41]
Tim Miller
Yeah, and I think that there'll be obviously some disagreements in 2028, but I like, you know, assuming it's J.D. vance or Tucker or Trump again, I
- [41:50]
Bretzky
think people are discounted that he runs
- [41:51]
Tim Miller
again or Trump Jr. Like I'll be for whoever. Like it was, I don't know. I did an interview back in like when Bernie was winning in 2020 where I said where the interviewer is like, well who'd you be for in Bernie? And Trump's was like, Bernie. And they're like, really? And I was like, yeah, I'll be for. I mean I, I don't want it to be Bernie. I would rather be someone else that ended up being Biden. And, and I kind of hate Biden now. So, you know, I don't know. Maybe we would have been better off with Bernie. What the hell do I know? But, like, I just. It's not a close choice against these guys. I mean, they're trying to turn us into a right wing autocracy. It's, it's, it is like, it is completely unacceptable. It's the worst possible option. Like, we can lower the marginal tax rates again if Bernie raises them too high. Like, that's not. I don't know. Like, I understand how if you're a corporate business owner who's worried about, you know, the narrow financial interests of your company, that might have, that might be different. But, like, that's not me. I'm happy to pay a little bit more in taxes. That's the only thing that a Bernie administration would do to me. Now. He's gonna be too old to run next time. So I just, like, obviously there'll be arguments and everybody will making a case for what they think is best during a 2028 primary. But I don't really see a path towards, like, me feeling passionately against the Democratic candidate until, like, the Republican side is defeated. Like, or obviously if a Democrat is a specifically bad thing. You know what I mean? Like, or there's, I mean, there's obviously uniquely corrupt people like endorse RFK Jr
- [43:22]
Bretzky
like Jared Polis or the party people. Who can we get? So I want to talk about that real quick because there are, there's a kind of centristy or more, I don't know, enlightened candidate that is trying to paint themselves as being above the fray in a way. I'm thinking people like Jared Polis or John Fetterman who's willing to say, oh, my party's a little bit crazy here. It seems that no one is, other than perhaps some Republicans. No one in the Democratic coalition is buying the Fetterman act, this enlightened centrist act where there's some kind of synthesis trying to be made with MAGA ideology. I kind of agree with the base on that. I don't think that MAGA is something that we create a synthesis or a dialectic with. But why is it the case that you give a pass to Polis on
- [44:06]
Tim Miller
the RFK stuff on the part in Fair Question? I. I'm dispositionally opposite almost of Jared Polis. I don't know. We text. I text and shit, talk him over Stuff when I disagree with something that he says. Like, I don't. His tweets are not particularly great. I was more just. I was speaking like more about the way that he's governed Colorado.
- [44:30]
Bretzky
Got it.
- [44:30]
Tim Miller
It was like really good. I mean, you know, and there are certain things that, like state level legislative, you know, compromises that are. That are kind of needed. I mean, there's some crazy, you know, in Colorado, for example, you know, there's a lot of natural gas pipelines and that kind of stuff. There's some left sides side of the party that wanted to like totally shut all that down. And Polis kind of brought people a compromised position. That's one kind of example of that. I thought he was pretty good on. Covid was an example. I thought that there was a lot of left crazy stuff. I mean, at fucking my neighborhood in Oakland, California, before I moved to New Orleans, they had the. They had the parks boarded up. They had the fucking parks boarded up in the basketball court. Like I couldn't take my kid to the damn playground, which was moronic. And like Polis was doing the policy that everybody wanted, which was, you know, you have some rules around masking and distancing. Initially we get the vaccine, then people can do whatever the hell they want. And they're pro vaccine needed, advanced vaccine disinformation. So, you know, the economy's doing good in Colorado. He's pro immigrant. So I was more speaking about that. I share your aversion to kind of this centrist, above the fray attitude and like, I'm dying for. I'm dying for like a centrist that has some, you know, blood in their teeth. Not literally, but, you know, somebody's willing to just like really fight and gnaw and. And, you know, maybe they'll show up sometime. We'll see.
- [46:01]
Hutch
How do you feel about. Jeffries came out today and said that they're not focused on impeachment. I think that there's like an obvious logic there. You don't want to galvanize the opposition and fire them up to like defend their president, especially when we have some slam dunk issues like Iran and the economy. But I imagine that's going to piss off a lot of the base. I mean, that's something that comes up in this podcast a lot. The kind of disconnect between the Democratic voter base and, you know, the more political center and just how that's. That gulf is sort of widening and it seems like the political. The party base is. Is demanding, you know, political blood, not real blood, but like, they want fighters like you're talking about. Do you have thoughts on the Jeffries impeachment thing?
- [46:41]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I'm, I'm pretty torn about impeachment as a question just for the reason of, like, if you're going to use it as a vehicle to investigate various things, then great. If you can do the investigations without the impeachment vehicle, I think that there's an argument for that. Impeachment is a political question, really fundamentally.
- [47:05]
Hutch
Say more about that. What do you mean?
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- [47:38]
Tim Miller
Well, it's like, I mean, there are some people look at it like George Conway's on the other side of me from this, right? He think he sees impeachment as a legal question. Has he committed impeachable acts? And so if so, we should impeach him. And there's a logic to that. Right? But like, in reality, in the real world, impeachment is a political question because it's like, you know, it's not a legal question, this isn't a court of law. And if we can impeach him but can't convict him, then what is it? It's kind of just no different than the sternly worded letter that has a historical stamp on it. It's like, you've been impeached. And to me, I think the most important thing that the Democrats have to do when they take back power, and I'm obsessed with this, is just absolutely max out on oversight and investigations. The amount of corruption that he has undergone in this two years is just beyond people's imagination. And if you look at the four years, everybody picks on Merrick Garland. But I just think that the oversight, you know, they decided that when the Democrats took the House back during the Biden years, they decided to stop investigating Trump and what had happened before. And I, and I just, like, did not understand that I wanted a Bengal. This is where my, like, fighting, moderate person that I want to emerge as, like, I want a Bengal. I want to Trey Gowdy. I want a Democratic Trey gowdy. Gonna have 30 Benghazi hearings. I want 30 hearings on the crypto corruption and 30 hearings on the business comp. The companies that Don Jr and Eric are on the board of that are getting government contracts and on everything.
- [49:13]
Hutch
They're for sure gonna do that. They're for sure gonna do that. They did that during the first term. I mean, like when they took back the House. I mean, they were pretty aggressive in
- [49:21]
Tim Miller
terms of nothing compared to Benghazi and Hillary's laptop emails. Like, who did a better job job that them are the. The Democratic oversight folks. And I have some evidence. The Epstein thing, they've been good on. Shout out to Robert Garcia. The Epstein thing they've been good on. But I. I just. They need. Like, to me, that is like the key. And if you do that through impeachment and that's. I'm okay with that.
- [49:44]
Bretzky
You're open to impeachment. In other words, as a vehicle to. For oversight. I kind of see that there's an ability to reconcile your and Conway's view. I'm a lawyer, so I initially think that as a threshold, as a necessary condition for any impeachment proceeding, there ought to be at least some legal lawful basis to charge them with impeachment. But obviously it's resolved by the political branch of Congress in the first case of the House of actually impeaching and then in the Senate. And I think that everything the Democrats should be doing, assuming that they take the House or. And even if they get a better majority in the Senate, should be trying to bog this administration down. And oversight is one way that you do it. Subpoenaing and getting information is another way that you do it. Look at how we're able to manage people's social media feeds, manage the discourse through revelations of information, and we're going to just have way more access to that when we have subpoena power, etc. Yeah, and he deserves to be impeached. And so I'm glad that you're not against it. One reason why I think the base gets frustrated and here is me, like, Hutch is like the last samurai for Chuck Schumer, and I'm over here trying to channel what he's feeling. But I'm just joking. I'm fucking with it.
- [50:55]
Tim Miller
It's new on.
- [50:56]
Hutch
I think he should retire for the good of the party. I think he should step.
- [50:59]
Tim Miller
I'll samurai for Hakeem Jeffries for you in a second. After this. Go.
- [51:03]
Bretzky
The final thought on it is we just want someone to reflect back the anger, the Passion and the feeling of that some members of our Congress are not taking it super serious and are kind of just like going along, get along and doing the same kind of thing that a lot of the institutions were doing in the first few weeks of Trump 2.0.
- [51:24]
Tim Miller
Was that about your self actualization or is that about.
- [51:27]
Bretzky
No, no, it is. It is partly, I think, psychological and probably about actualization, but I also think that it's an indicator that they get it. It's an indicator that they're on the right path.
- [51:40]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [51:40]
Bretzky
Like these votes on the budget or whatever or these votes on Israel. Stuff like you're not going to be able to stop the funding to Israel. You're not going to pass a war powers resolution in this Congress. But why do people care when there's defectors? Why do people care when Democrats sometimes even like sign on to a Republican proposal that it's going to pass anyway? It's because it shows or doesn't show crucially that they get it and that if they were getting power, they would take the right approach. And so that's what I think is the concern for people like me is it's not necessarily the thing itself, but one we want people to seem like they're fighting. Like, what is Trey Gowdy doing in your example? Trey Gowdy is totally ineffectual at actually showing that Hillary Clinton did anything criminal. But he's able to get energy, he's able to get good optics. That's a tangible win. And then also it's confidence in the future that you'll be able to do the right thing.
- [52:30]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I understand that. Having those concerns about the Democratic leadership and Chuck, I can't. Samurai for Chuck. I'm sorry you're going to do that. But on the Hakim side, you're never. I'm going to say that's like, I don't think any. Anybody's ever going to really vibe with Hakeem. What did, what did Chris Matthews say about. About Obama? He gives him. He gives me a thrill up my leg. I just. I don't know. He's corny. He's a little corny. Okay. And he just doesn't even when he is mad, I don't know, I. I'm not feeling it. Right. And so unlike a performance, WWE figure skate judging kind of thing, like a game's not gonna have it, I don't think thing. But I mean, the two shutdowns were like, pretty crazy. I mean, like the first shutdown was over nothing, basically. And then he was like we're going to make it over the healthcare extensions. Okay. Which they know they're never going to get. And we're going to inject this topic into the conversation and we're going to do it and succeed. And they all unified, they shut down the government. They pointed out the fact that your health care premiums are going up. It's Republicans fault. And then when the moment came, they got the off ramp. Most people thought that was a failure. I thought that was a huge win. Then this next shutdown is still going. People aren't even talking about it anymore. But we're still not funding ICE and cbp. That's a good. And they're in the minority. That's real. They're in the minority. They got the Epstein files released. Not all of them, but some. They got Epstein back into the news. And to me, if I look at the House Democrats right now, and then obviously they were behind the scenes pushing what was happening in Virginia, California to a lesser extent, but these redistricting fights, that has been a huge win. So I don't know, I mean, I don't know what more like the base wants. Like what do people want? Like they're in the minority and they've, they've I think demonstrated some real fight, particularly on the House side, have some wins out of it. I'm being, you know, that's, that's my kind of tepid, defensive.
- [54:35]
Hutch
I'm with you, Tim. I share your perspective and I think like, yeah, Pisco is going to disagree here in a second. But like, yeah, but, but I think like the tension and the anger that exists right now between the base and the party, or more specifically the party leadership, I think that's kind of more or less baked in until we get the gavel back in January. And it's not going to completely fix all that anger, but that gavel will enable the Democrats to actually do thing with, do things with that institutional power you talked about, like that vital oversight role. And I think once the base sees those kinds of actions, then they'll feel better about it. But, but there are a lot of people right now, you know, prominent voices on the left that are expressing frustration about things that the Democrats can't really stop. Like they just like when you're the party out of power, you just, and they have the votes to pass things. The party that's in power, you really can't do much. You have these budget shutdown fights and that's kind of it. And so hush, real quick.
- [55:29]
Soy Pill
Josiah wants you to ask Tim if he knows what Green Lantern theory of politics. He also wants Pisco to ask him what his favorite color is. Yes or no. But you can do that if you want peace.
- [55:37]
Hutch
Do you know what the Green Lantern theory of politics is?
- [55:40]
Tim Miller
I, I. Not off the top of my head. What is it?
- [55:42]
Hutch
Damn. Okay. It's, it's just, it's, it's a whole thing. Ezra Klein wrote an article in like 2014, and it's basically a theory of politics that, that suggests that presidents, through either sheer force of will or charisma can basically like force the Congress to give them anything they want. And so any, any president that doesn't meet that standard, which is like every president, it. But mostly it's to talk about Democrats. It's like a way to, to suggest that because Biden couldn't do what like LBJ could do, you know, that means it was like a, you know. Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
- [56:15]
Tim Miller
You know, that is similar to kind of just like the get like the idea that like you can just do things, I guess is more of the updated version of the Green Lantern theory of politics, that you can do things theory. And I'm for, I'm sympathetic to that. I guess my point is as just a media commentary and I'll be interested in Pisco, you and Soy's pushback on this, but there's a whole eco. There's like two entire ecosystems out there that are built around talking about how Democrats are pussies and there's not a lot of air cover for people. There's only three ecosystems. Right. Like the mainstream media has to knock Democrats from time to time to feel like they're being even. The right wing media exists to tear Democrats down. And there's this huge left wing media ecosystem that's all about how the Democratic establishment sucks. And so it's like, I don't, you know, I just don't kind of know what all these people want exactly. From Akeem. Like, you see Zor, like just using Zorin as a counter example. Like Zoron will go up there and they'll be like, hey, our new grocery store is going to be here in 2029. And everybody's like, yeah, you know what I mean? Or like he'll put up on like, look at this meme. Like, we did a meme about how the, how the roads have been are going to fill the holes. We did a, we did a gay joke. We did a fill the holes meme about potholes. And like the left wing media is like. And then meanwhile, Hakeem Jeffries gets the Epstein files out there, and he's like, what are you doing, Hakeem? He's like, why can't you be more exoron? He's filling the holes. I just think that there's, like, a little bit of that.
- [57:49]
Hutch
And then you also have examples like Spanberger, who is, like, pumping out enormous volume of bills, like, meaningful bills, and she doesn't really get talked about as much as Zoran. And I. I like Zoron.
- [57:59]
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I do.
- [57:59]
Hutch
I like him a lot. I'm really impressed by him. But, like, you know, you're right. Like, a lot of his rins or. Well, pretty much all of his wins so far have been pretty symbolic. Even the child care thing that they unveiled, that was. Hokel had been working on that for years with the state legislature, and she decided to, like, rope him in on that and, like, you know, give him, share that credit with him. And so it is frustrating to watch that.
- [58:19]
Bretzky
A bunch of categories of things that. Oh, God, sorry.
- [58:21]
Soy Pill
Well, I was going to say, like, yeah, with the mom Donnie thing, I actually do understand the double standard of, like, yeah, we haven't seen the direct effects of the best thing he's promised. And people cheerlead him far more than they'll cheerlead Spanberger, who's getting these really awesome bills passed. I think the issue is that, I mean, Madani is speaking to things that in a positive manner that I think a lot of Democrats aren't right now. You know, they have their sort of messaging as this. We can't do much, which is true. But when you are the average citizen and you're looking at these things that are, you know, coming out, it's like, guys, we did it. We released the Epstein files. And it's like, oh, all of them. Like, the law said no. Oh, is Trump going to get punished also?
- [59:00]
Bretzky
No.
- [59:00]
Soy Pill
And it's like, okay, well, why should I care? And, you know, as much as people like us who are more tuned in and informed can say, like, this is meaningful, and this is shifting the conversation. It just falls so flat. For the average voter who looks at this and says, did anything actually meaningfully change? You know, how many Five months after January when we released the second batch? Not really. I mean, it might have inspired some guy to try to do a crazy assassination attempt, which is not good. That's just turning up the rhetoric.
- [59:27]
Tim Miller
So his poll numbers are down.
- [59:29]
Soy Pill
That's true.
- [59:30]
Tim Miller
It is.
- [59:31]
Soy Pill
And, like, I don't know if maybe the Democrats, I'm sure that, you know, they do this but like, how do you make it salient to say, guys, we need to, you know, win in the midterms to be able to do the stuff you're asking us to do? Because that sounds so feckless. But it's true. You can't impeach until you win the midterms. You can't pass these laws. You can't block the legislation you want to. You can never get a filibuster approved majority. Like, how do you translate that into enthusiasm for Democratic voters? Like, it's almost impossible. It's what Chuck Schumer said. He's like, guys, we're not going to do the shutdown until Trump's more unpopular. And he did it when he was, and it worked a lot better. So he was kind of vindicated with that. But like, God, that messaging sucked. You know, some old geriatric coming out and saying, oh, we're going to win, guys, we'll do it it in a few months. And it's like, what is this supposed to inspire me? How do you do that?
- [60:19]
Bretzky
A bunch of categories I want to respond to. The first is like, the box that I'm trying to create here isn't all Democrats. I think in general, Democrats have performed adequately. A lot of them rank and file members, a lot of particular members impress, I think, John Ossoff with his rhetoric and also in some of these votes and some of the sort of policy achievements that you've highlighted, including the Epstein files, as well as some of the sort of takes that the leadership has been given on things like the. Or some members of leadership, I should say, because they've been pretty bad in the Iran war. But Hakeem Jeffrey specifically, I think has been better on it than Chuck Schumer. So I'm not talking about all Democrats. It's also not necessarily. It's not like ideological. I'm not saying that they need to pursue Medicare for all or some kind of leftist media messaging. That's not what I'm alleging either. What I think people are frustrated with is, number one, the. And this is, I think, first and foremost a kind of cringeness about a lot of Democratic leaders. When people go out and say, we need to fuck Trump or Chuck Schumer with his kind of like, cringe. Yeah, so. So there's one aspect of that in terms of this is 50% of your job now is being a good spokesperson and messenger and you can say whatever you want to say about, oh, we're out of power or whatever. They're not good messengers. And not the base isn't like all Dem haters all the time. It didn't used to be this bad in terms of the polling for Democrats in terms of their approval. And there has to be something there in terms of how the public is responding to Democratic leadership, specifically in terms of how they're talking to them.
- [61:56]
Hutch
So that's one thing the case Pisco that that isn't like an integral part of like the Senate minority leader's job to eat. I mean, I, I don't, I can't think of a single not to like, not to dismiss your point entirely because I don't like, I, I don't disagree that there's some really big messaging problems and cringe problems when it comes to like, Schumer specifically. But I can't think of any Democrat right now that would be like, popular in that role. I, I think they're always going to have to, like, absorb a lot of the anger from the base when they
- [62:24]
Bretzky
get angry, it seems like in your on your View, Hutch, I'm sorry to get into this in front of our guest. What would it take for Schumer to do something wrong?
- [62:33]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [62:34]
Bretzky
Because if his poll numbers are wrong, well, that's just what's going to happen if you're a Senate minority leader. If he keeps like the caucus together for a vote, you're like, oh, great, wonderful. Schumer kept the caucus together. But when he doesn't, it's like, well, he doesn't control these senators. So it really seems like it's an unwinnable scenario with Hutch. There's nothing to assess for when Hutch is going to say Schumer's doing a bad job job. And I want to get into the shutdowns because I think that those were losses. We have to think about these in terms of opportunity costs. Yes, the Democrats are relative to Republicans doing better in polling in the matchups. But the question isn't, did we survive? Okay, are we well positioned to, you know, meet the midterms? It's how much better would we have been if we stood tall? And I actually think we would have been better if we stood tall on the shutdown. But let's just take one moment, Hutch, the moment of the second, the actual first shutdown fight, right. During November, Schumer comes out and says, I'm going to vote against ending the shutdown. Right. So the official Schumer position is we're not going to let these Republicans walk all over us. We're not just going to end the shutdown that's the official Schumer position.
- [63:38]
Soy Pill
Right.
- [63:39]
Bretzky
And yet you have these quote, unquote defectors, Tim Kaine and friends, who go and make this separate side deal where there's no benefit whatsoever. What are we meant to believe from that, that Schumer really was, and there's reporting that he was not even like, like trying to lobby the senators who are doing the negotiations to vote in favor of the Democratic position. Are we meant to believe that Schumer wasn't leading the way on that vote, or is he lying when he says, I'm going to vote against the shutdown and he's operating behind the scenes? Which is it?
- [64:06]
Hutch
I think either is more plausible, but I think, like the more relevant question is why do you, you know, is it, is it a reasonable standard to expect that a political party is going to have perfect unanimity all the time? And I feel like that's the standard that you measure the Democratic Party against. And when you look to a historical precedent, this has just never been the case. There's always, there's always been defectors at times in political parties.
- [64:28]
Bretzky
That's just the one issuer doing a bad job. So on your view, when would you know that Schumer's doing a bad job?
- [64:32]
Hutch
Well, I think he should resign for other reasons.
- [64:35]
Bretzky
That's the one I'm asking. Like, when, when would it, what would it take for you to be like, oh, that's a bad job that Schumer is doing when he's voting, like with the seven against the, the funding or whatever, the deals for the bulldoz or whatever, what does it take for Hutchinson, Schumer is doing a bad job.
- [64:48]
Hutch
But would you need to say, I didn't like that vote. I did not like that vote at all.
- [64:52]
Bretzky
Whether you like the vote or not, what is the kind of thing that you would see to be like, Schumer is failing at his job?
- [64:57]
Hutch
I mean, I don't know. That's a pretty broad question.
- [64:59]
Soy Pill
Well, let's get Tim in here. Tim, what would you say? Yeah, you know, you're not, alas. And I think when did you flip on him?
- [65:07]
Tim Miller
Well, this is a complicated question and I think that just policy wise, like, Schumer has been a disaster on the Iran war and has led his own views which are out of step with where the party is, where the country is, on the threat of Iran, which I think he very much overstates, cloud what was the right political move here? And so to me, I think that if there's that, that would be my answer to your question of, like, I didn't think there was any last straw until the Iran thing. And it's just, it's been a total. His handling of it, I think has been atrocious. My criticism of Schumer would be more on the performance side. Back to the perform. Like, I don't, I don't really share your criticism about the shut. I think folks needed an off ramp. They needed an off ramp at some, at some point. But like, I agree with the criticism on, like, where is the rallying of the base? You know, like, where is the non cringe messaging? And I have, I'm kind of of two minds about it. Right. Because on the one hand, isn't this really a Kamala problem, not a Schumer problem? Like in Kamala 1, would anybody be caring about this? Like, I don't think so. Right. Like, John Thune isn't exactly lighting the world on fire. Mike Johnson is walking cringe. And like, you don't see in the MAGA world, like a lot of criticisms of them because it's like, well, Trump's doing everything. You know what I mean? Like, they're just functionaries in Trump. And so since Trump is the president and the Democrats don't have a leader, kind of it magnifies the weaknesses that Schumer and Jeffries have on the messaging standpoint. And I think that I'm starting to change my view on all this. I used to make fun of this anecdote, but I was on our focus group podcast years ago, like three or four years ago, Sarah was asking some MAGA voters, and I have no idea, I can't remember why she was doing Florida and Alabama, but it was Florida and Alabama MAGA voters. And like, one of the questions was, who is doing a good job in your state? And they both said, like, kind of pragmatic Republicans who were fixing the schools or doing, you know, whatever, doing something they liked that was tangible. And then when it got to the federal level, they're like, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz are doing well. And I listened to that and at the time I really mocked it, you know, because I was like, this is stupid. Like, Marjorie Taylor Green, Matt Gates aren't doing anything. Like, they're, you just see them a lot. They're just fucking trolls and they're loud and like. But now maybe they were onto something. Like, maybe that is kind of the job of Congress in this day and age. I don't, I'm not saying that it should be, but maybe it Just is. Is. And the Chuck Schumer workout videos need more people. Like, more fire brands, more people that are good at messaging, more people. And, and I. And. And. And maybe that should be part of the job. That's part of the job assignment for president now. And that wasn't always, you know, I mean, and before the TV era, that wasn't the job of the President. And I think that we went through a period of time where people were like, oh, the president's the TV job. And then the Senate and House, like, those are more. Senate in particular is more of a. A functional job. Maybe that's changing now, and maybe the Democrats need to kind of adapt with that. And I think that's kind of how I'm coming around on it.
- [68:20]
Soy Pill
Well, you've kind of spoken on this, but what are your views on the Mamdani and his kind of, like, very clearly effective social media campaigning that is just super salient to people. These constant updates, like, here's the new tax I'm implementing. Here's where the status of this policy is this more of the direction we should be headed in?
- [68:37]
Tim Miller
Yeah, a plus. I mean, like, part of it is just that he's a natural, you know, not everybody has it. I don't. I was. I had Morris Katz on his advisor on the pod and was asking him about the Trump visits and kind of asking about, like, what the prep was for all that. And, you know, they did prep, but it was just, you know, like, it just was natural for Zoran. Like, like what? You know, him going, like, you saw what happened to Gretchen Whitman Whitmer. She goes in there. Like, some of this is just an instinct, right? Like, she's in the Oval Office doing basically the same thing as Zoran, right? Like, hey, can we find something to work together on? I still disagree with you. And she ends up, like, hiding behind the folder and everybody shits bad luck, you know, and everybody shits on her, rightly, by the way, for. For being too accommodating to Trump and for not standing up to him when he, like, starts talking about how Chris Krebs should be hung or whatever he was saying, and the fucking in the Oval Office. And like. And then Zoran goes in and just like, kind of smiles and buddies up with them and everybody's like, you know, so it's like, you know, some people have it, some people don't. So I don't think that everybody can just copy Zoran, but I do think that, like, the principle of more is more. More updates taking credit for Shit, like, whatever the example is, you said Hochul really did it. It's like, okay, well, like, who cares? Like, take credit for it. You know, the old. There's the old line. If you got a shotgun and you're kind of shooting pigeons, it's like, shoot what flies claim what falls. Like, maybe it wasn't your cartridge that hit the bird, but you're gonna count it, you know, if the bird goes down, you take credit. And, like, I just think that that is the right mindset. And I think that the other thing Zara has done really well, and I've talked about this a lot, because this is the thing I'm obsessed with, is that so many Democrats lately have gotten in the sour spot where, like, moderates, like bulwark people think that they're too progressive lib crazy. And the progressive types think that they're establishment shills. Like, that was Hillary, that was Kamala. That is Schumer, that is Jeffries. Like, there's so many Democrats are not really. I guess nobody thinks Schumer is the far left, but, like, there's a lot of big Democrats that this fits. And Obama was the opposite. Progressive studies, progressive, moderates, not conservatives. Like, moderates thought that he was one of them. Progressives thought he's one of them. Until then, eventually.
- [71:01]
Bretzky
And also from Platinum kind of code that way, too. It's not necessarily ideological. It's. It's what your vibe is a bit. Yeah, I think that they're lacking vibes.
- [71:08]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Done that very well.
- [71:12]
Hutch
It's not just natural charisma with Zoron, because his mom is a film director and you can. You can tell, like, that his. You can tell the production value is. I can't even begin to describe how important I think that was to his campaign. Just having all that polish in the videos that they produce with the different angles and just, like, really good cinematography and all the good, like, things that they didn't post. I mean, all that stuff matters. And so in a way, I think he's a little bit similar to Trump in that I think Zoran understands the value, the function of the camera, I think, like, really, really well. And that's just been a huge strength to him as a politician.
- [71:43]
Tim Miller
Agree.
- [71:45]
Hutch
You sound a little bit like Pisco, because Pisco's been proposing the idea of, like, a hybrid politician about. I like, like, you know, he basically, in different words, expressed the exact same thing that you were just saying. And Pisco, I mean, if you want to.
- [71:56]
Bretzky
Yeah, 100% on that.
- [71:58]
Soy Pill
And.
- [71:58]
Bretzky
And I just want to say, really, I want to stress all the time I have ideological takes. You know, I'm certainly someone who has my own views on, you know, I believe that we should have, if not Medicare for all, a public option. I have my own like, particular views on, on foreign policy, etc. But for me, what matters a lot more is doing what Biden did not, which is fixing the soul of this country. And for me, me fixing the soul of the country is defeating the empire, defeating the MAGA elites who are taking over our nation. That's what I think victory looks like. And so in that respect, I will praise and I have someone like Gavin Newsom on my Twitter feed when I see him be a leader on redistricting and actually take a calculated risk and win and fight back, I'm all for it. And I see even downer leftists who I grown at that say, oh, begrudgingly say, okay, this was good that Gavin did that. And also by the way, shout out to Spanberger and I'm now forgetting her name, which is a crime. The Senate majority leader of the Louis Luke. Yes, yes. And I don't know who was running her feed, but some of it's on edge. But it's awesome. But these kinds of wins, whether it's Mom Donnie putting his name on stuff or reaching out and being effective in the rhetoric department with selling whatever this policy was from Kathy Hochul, or whether it's state leaders doing awesome stuff and undeniably based things, even when it's just partisan and not necessarily ideological, I think that you get the kudos that you deserve.
- [73:27]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I agree with that. And I also just think again, this goes against what my preference would be. But one thing that Zoron's doing well, that and I just don't know who would even fit this bill for 2028. But he has so much credibility with the progressive left in particular, I think over the Israel issue, but also, you know, some of the public services stuff and healthcare and that he's been able to do things like keep Jessica Chish and like do some abundancy housing stuff. Stuff.
- [74:01]
Bretzky
He, he backed down on the cops
- [74:03]
Tim Miller
stuff and like, and sure, or some crazy Brooklyn leftist shit on him, but like nobody cares. Right. It doesn't impact him at all. Right. Like he has a lot more room to maneuver and I do think that like model could make sense for a national politician, somebody that is whatever formaticare for all and against the Israel funding and like passionate about that and cares about it and like those are their issues. And the Bernie people Like him or her. But then also they're like, you know, what we should also do is, like, have a border. Like, I don't know. You know what I mean? Maybe they'd have some more room to maneuver that way, and that might be a better way to kind of get at the heterodox or more moderate voters. I don't know. But I do think that that model is working for Zorra.
- [74:52]
Soy Pill
Well, speaking of elections, the last thing I wanted to get into. I don't know if you guys saw the recent Reuters article about Trump. I mean, you know, they couldn't pass the SAVE act, but they're still making moves to have federal control over elections prior to these midterms. And we often talk on the show about the guardrails and what Trump will be able to get away with. To what extent do you think the fucking with the midterms from this fascist administration is going to directly affect our chances, or is it just going to fall by the wayside like every other dumb thing they've tried in the past couple months?
- [75:23]
Tim Miller
Yeah, my alarmism is on the upper end on basically everything except this of people in bulwarky democracy circles. I'm not saying that I'm not worried about it. I am. I just think that they are, like, they're a lot less effective at this than they are at other stuff. You know, like, Russ voted as an efficient bastard when it comes to tearing down the government. They don't have anybody that is that good at this. I. They tried with the gerrymandering that backfired. They tried with 2020. Like, failed every lawsuit. I mean, you know, they ended up getting some people killed at the Capitol. But, like, they didn't, like, they didn't really get that close to pulling it off. They're still trying now to go find 2020 stuff and go. Cash Patel is promising like, last week to arrest the 2020 perpetrators. It's like, okay, like, let's. We'll see. We'll see how that goes.
- [76:18]
Hutch
So he's fighting to keep that job. Yeah.
- [76:22]
Bretzky
Did you see him in the Southern Poverty. Just real quick on the Southern Poverty Law center lawsuit. So Todd Blanch comes out, gives his report. It's middling, it's whatever, but it's functional. And then Cash Patel just comes on right after him after he's in this, like, media storm and basically says the exact same thing. And they just trotted him out just to repeat what Todd Blanche said just previously. So, yeah, he's fighting for his job.
- [76:46]
Tim Miller
I don't you know, and a lot of times voter suppression stuff backfires, draws attention to things, it can work. But like there's, there are lots of examples of a backfiring too. So I just, at a broad level of them stealing the midterms or canceling, it's like that stuff I don't think is going to work. I worry about the Senate in a very narrow outcome situation. I really do think we could be staring down the barrel of a 5149 Senate and where that 51st seat is in a state where Republicans control everything. And so like, to me, you know, I think that that is like, is.
- [77:30]
Hutch
You mean something that would qualify as. But it would be done through a legal mechanism.
- [77:34]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Or who the hell knows? They challenge the votes and they've got like some MAGA election denier, you know, Secretary of State. And like that 51st seat could be Montana, Iowa, Alaska, basically a repeat of 2000.
- [77:48]
Soy Pill
Right. I mean, it's, it's less, you know, fascistic, but you get the supreme to essentially say, like, hey, stop counting the votes.
- [77:54]
Tim Miller
And I've declared we're not going to count these votes, the mail votes we're going to throw, you know, well, we're going to now go through the mail votes and if your signature doesn't match the signature that you signed the card with 10 years ago, we're going to throw it out, you know, and who knows, there's a bunch of different stuff that they could do, you know, on certifying on the back end after the election. So like, I worry just mostly about like those, the red state inflection point, you know, tipping point, Senate states, which is bad and something to be really concerned about, but like different than some of the more over the top rhetoric you sometimes hear about them just, you know, canceling the midterms, martial law, that kind of stuff.
- [78:39]
Hutch
Tim, how bullish are you on America in the next 10 years?
- [78:44]
Soy Pill
America, yes or no?
- [78:46]
Hutch
Well, honestly though, I mean, how do you, how do you see this playing out realistically over the year, next, next five to 10 years? I mean, is there any chance that the Republican Party could, if not go back to Mitt Romney levels of normal, but like drift in that direction?
- [79:01]
Tim Miller
Zero percent chance. Yeah. I'm like, so I am short term, like pretty alarmist and pessimistic. We just have. I just, I think Trump is like aging and he's. His increase. He's increasingly gonna have his numbers tanking and he's erratic. And I just, I think that like, like it's hard to even imagine what the kind of crazy he's going to get in his mind when he's 81 years old. And like the, you know, the curtain is about to come down on all this. Like, I'm very, I'm very concerned about the next two years. I'm kind of medium term optimistic. Like I, I do think that like the, the American economic engine is still like super powerful. I mean it's kind of crazy to think that like. And I saw something today. It's like anthropic is like a trillion dollar. Has a trillion dollar valuation already. And like we do. The American innovation machine does just still keep kicking, you know, and we have a lot of like natural resources domestically. It's, you know, there's the joke about how it's like every kind of rare earth mineral, you know, that they think that they only have in Alaska. It's like one day a guy's in his backyard in Pennsylvania and starts digging. It's like, oh, we got it in Pennsylvania too. Like I said, just, we do have just a resources and innovation ingenuity level enough to kind of like keep things rolling. And I think that these guys are be. I think that they're so stupid that they're beatable. And you saw Orbon being beatable like we should have beat him last time. I just think that there's some bad luck, like there's bad Covid the timing of things, you know, and some horrible choices by Biden anyway. I just think there's like a confluence of events that really worked against us and, and I think that they're beatable and I think that in the medium term that in theory we could find a quasi normal Democrats, you know, that can kind of get things a little bit back on track. But I'm pretty sure they get rid of the filibuster. I think probably. Yeah. Then I'm back to kind of long term negative though. I don't know. The AI stuff's pretty scary. I'm pretty concerned about the youth not being able to read. I don't think, I think that the. I don't think the Republicans are going back to Mittens rom rip m ever. I think that they're. I think that they're going to be a right wing populist authoritarian party that kind of like vacillates between maybe like a Boris Johnson in the best case like all the way over to. I'll take, you know, Bolsonaro Trump or Trump Jr. In the worst case. Right. I just think that's like the trajectory over there and you know, I think that we've demonstrated a lot of weaknesses in our system, and I don't. Yeah. So I don't know. That's kind of. That's. That's my trajectory. I think that America is salvageable right now and worth fighting for. I have some concerns about the long term, but, like, I don't know, the future will take care of itself.
- [81:51]
Bretzky
I totally agree with Tim, your outlook in terms of the white pill for the midterms in general. I'm not as concerned that they're going to be competent enough. I certainly think there's a legal basis, as currently stands, to fuck with the elections in the way they seem to be indicating they want to. To then maybe they'll try to get ICE to different polling stations, but I even think that could backfire on them in terms of public sentiment. I am, though, however, concerned for the country. I am concerned for the direction of the Republican Party. I like you think it's 0% chance that we're going to see them go back to, like the old Republicans of old, back when you were a Republican. Literally zero percent chance. I am happy to see that. J.D. vance, his chances are on the decline, but I don't think that we should consider for someone like Marco Rubio, for example, to be the Marco Rubio of 2015 or 16. I mean, he's changed significantly and the party has changed significantly.
- [82:40]
Tim Miller
What I'm concerned about Trump, but like, yes, he has fully gone in on the populist right stuff and. And I think might be also suffering from some megalomania with the venezuela Success. Yeah, yeah.
- [82:55]
Bretzky
100. I go back to 2020 a lot, and even though it was a great victory, I was not happy during the election. I remember it was taking place and it took like three days or so to get an actual announcement. And that time lag where I was glued to my television, just refreshing all the time, it felt awful. It felt almost in a way worse than 2024 that it wasn't a resounding defeat for Trumpism. And I want the country to deliver that. And so I am concerned for the scenarios in which Democrats eke out this kind of like, marginal victory and that we don't ever get a full resounding repudiation of Trumpism.
- [83:40]
Soy Pill
Yeah, Tim, you're too agreeable.
- [83:42]
Tim Miller
I don't like the debt either. I'm concerned about the debt. I'll sound like a Republican again.
- [83:47]
Soy Pill
Yeah, I was going to say last minute. You said you hate Biden.
- [83:50]
Tim Miller
Biden.
- [83:51]
Soy Pill
We're a lib podcast. What's the worst thing you can say about those damn libs.
- [83:54]
Tim Miller
Hit us about any libs. I mean, I could just go off all day on the Bidens. I mean, just these selfish.
- [84:00]
Bretzky
You said the border was open. That doesn't make any sense.
- [84:02]
Tim Miller
Right? The selfishness. It's not anymore. The selfishness and the narcissism of the Biden family is insane. The identity obsession of the libs. I just. Like, it's possible the original sin of all this was Joe Biden, like, feeling like he had to name a black woman as his vp. Like, I like Kamala personally, but, like, why did he feel that way? Like, why I. Shouldn't he have picked the best person? Like, really as old as Biden was? Shouldn't he pick someone else old so that, like, they would have not been the next candidate or someone that said that they weren't going to run? Like a Dick Cheney type? But, like. But good. I shouldn't have done Dick Cheney. But anyway, you end up with Kamala, and so now you end up like Biden through his selfishness and narcissism. Stays well past. It was obvious that he could be the reason that we lose our democracy and that he was not. Like, obviously he was not capable of being president until 2028. Like, anybody with two eyes could see that. And so he sticks around anyway, embarrasses himself, and then he drops out way too late. And then it's like, well, we have to go with Kamala again in part because of the identity thing. Because it was like, oh, if we have an open process, then it'll look like we're passing her over, and that's racism. And it's just like, I don't. I'm not. I think that sometimes, like, the libs, like, get too wrapped around the axle around all this stuff, man. It's just, you know, it's like, hey, this was. This was. This was big boy business here. This was big boy business. We need to make sure we had the strongest possible person. Maybe that was Kamala. I don't know. But, like, shouldn't we have. Shouldn't we've had the best. Sorry to sound like Elon Musk caring with the meritocracy, but shouldn't we have had the best vice president possible and the best candidate possible?
- [85:45]
Bretzky
You sound like Charlie Kirk. You're not going to trust a plane because it's a black woman.
- [85:50]
Soy Pill
I wouldn't.
- [85:50]
Tim Miller
Like, I'm just saying, like, what. Why would. Why is that the reason to do it? You know, to pick. To do it anyway.
- [85:57]
Soy Pill
So we overlooked because of they didn't want to appear racist or they didn't want to not overlook her. It to me it was just, hey, you've got 100 days. We don't have time for a freaking primary right now. Just that she's the only one anyone even knows.
- [86:10]
Tim Miller
Right. Right. I guess. I don't know. I think there was time. I, I don't like most. Most countries elections aren't 100 days. I, I just feel like this, the short day thing is if anything, K probably would have done better if the election was 40 days after she was picked rather than 100 days. I, I don't think maybe good. Yeah. And she was good in those first 40 days. And so maybe she would have won the nomination anyway. I just don't know. I guess my point is that like, I like a lot of the this I just, I think that there's too much like stepping on China the libs. We don't want to hurt anybody's feelings. You can't hurt old man Biden's feelings, you know, by talking about the fact that like he can't talk. Like he sounds like marble mouth when he's talking. Like talking is kind of an important part of the presidency or else we'll be ageist. Like, we can't, we can't at least discuss the idea of whether we should have an open process because that's going to be misogynistic. I just, you know, I don't, I'm not for anybody being racist or misogynist or ageist. But like I, I just am for honesty and truth and balls and that's. And the libs sometimes are a little short on.
- [87:17]
Bretzky
And so that's also, by the way, the take of the Obama staffers. I don't know if you've like noticed the subplot about. Of the Obama staffers versus the Biden staffers and the pod say people against. Yeah. So you take the, the firm stance of, you know, you're with John Levitt and with.
- [87:31]
Tim Miller
Well, they're right.
- [87:31]
Bretzky
Right.
- [87:32]
Tim Miller
They're just right. And but those guys, I mean, I love those guys. They were saying it and there was. Right. Right. Ezra was. But he's not an Obama staffer.
- [87:44]
Soy Pill
So take the same malice to him with, with the Kentaji Brown Jackson pick because I think that was even more blatantly Idpole from Biden and I think she's done a great job and all of the she's given.
- [87:55]
Tim Miller
I think that's fine. Again, like, I'm A balance in all things Guy. It's not. I don't think that all identity politics is bad. I think that people want to feel, represent, presented and seen. And I have a black daughter. And I like, I think that, like, the great part of the bloke was that, like, it's way easier for my mom to buy her like, Black Girl Power action figures and shirts and stuff than she could have if it was 10 years ago. And like, that's, you know, I was complaining. She was looking for like a, what they call it, the little box with the ballerina inside. Whatever. Yeah. And she. I couldn't find one with a black girl and it was making her mad. And I was like, 10 years ago, you couldn't have found it. Anything with the black girl, like, really, like, right. And 20 years ago. So, like, there's good parts to all this. The Supreme Court only has nine people. Like, having a qualified black woman on the Supreme Court, like, totally makes sense. So. I know, I don't. That didn't. That doesn't bother me. It's not, I don't. It's not that. It's. It's just like, I don't like the. When it gets centered so much that, like, that the debate is silenced about it. You know what I mean? Like, I think that, I think. And I think that that was true.
- [89:00]
Soy Pill
Well, woke 2.0, we won't be silencing anyone. We'll just be so aggressively woke that no one could disagree with us because it's just the best possible version.
- [89:07]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [89:08]
Bretzky
Before, before we end, we have to, we have to ask Tim to be fair and balanced. Say something nice about J.D. vance.
- [89:14]
Soy Pill
Oh, okay.
- [89:18]
Tim Miller
I would never have learned the phrase recessed side profile clavicular describing J.D. vance's face. And I love the phrase recessed side profile. I'm using it all the time now. So I guess I would say that about J.D. vance. He is the most unappealing person I've ever encountered in my life. And it's not really. I can't think of a close second. I, I don't, I can't. I mean, I guess it was nice that he served his country, unlike Donald Trump. There we go.
- [89:48]
Soy Pill
We got, we squeezed out a win for JD we should just end the
- [89:52]
Bretzky
podcast saying, I like balls.
- [89:55]
Hutch
That's. That's some low hanging fruit praising his mom.
- [90:00]
Tim Miller
I do like balls.
- [90:02]
Soy Pill
Well, Tim, thanks so much for coming on at the end here. We just do. I mean, shout out. I mean, I, I doubt anyone in our audience doesn't know who you Are. But you know, what, what, what do you got coming up other than the bull work? I mean, do you have any media appearances, book plugs? What's going on?
- [90:15]
Tim Miller
I'm not writing another book, man. That's a. That's, that's a burden. You know, the bulwark is what's happening. I'm on every day. We've got Jazz Fest weekend, too. This weekend. We in LA. What is it? May 20 and 20, San Diego, May 20 and LA, May 21. So if you got any SoCal people, come hang with me right here. It's all good, baby. Cool.
- [90:38]
Soy Pill
Thanks so much. My shout outs are. I'm releasing a video this week, but on topic of voter suppression midterms, I've partnered with some former people in Progressive Victory, and there's a link in my pinned comments. Go rally, Win soybean pill. And you can enter your information and go check your voted registration. Make sure you haven't been kicked off voter rolls. Make sure you're, you know, geared up for the midterms. Anyone could click on it. You know, I'm not going to sell your information. The only reason my name's in the link is because they're tracking, like, who clicked on it from where. But just go make sure you can vote because I, I'm. I'm more scared than everyone else here. And that's good.
- [91:12]
Tim Miller
By the way. Being vigilant is important. Being vigilant is important. We appreciate that. Soy. Yeah.
- [91:18]
Soy Pill
What about you, Hutch? What's on?
- [91:19]
Tim Miller
Going on.
- [91:20]
Hutch
Same old regular stream. I just want to use this outro, Tim, to tell you my favorite clip of you was your exchange with Carrie Lake. The famous exchange where she touched you and you said, don't touch me. I told my chat I was so excited to have you on because, like, like you, I'm very emotive and expressive and I like that you are very like. You kind of always know what you're thinking.
- [91:42]
Tim Miller
You know what?
- [91:43]
Hutch
I'm thinking that about you and the contempt that you showed for Carrie Lake in that moment was so appropriate. And it was just. Yeah, that's just one of my.
- [91:51]
Tim Miller
I was gonna say people. I really appreciate that. People always do. Remember that me telling her not to touch or asking her why she's touching me. But I. I mean, my personal favorite part of that was after that moment, then she tries to, like, recover it, and it's like, hey, well, at least. At least one thing that we can agree on is that we both love the country. And I've said I don't think we can agree on that. Actually. I don't think that. You love the country. It was great.
- [92:18]
Hutch
Thanks for coming on. Yeah.
- [92:20]
Tim Miller
All right, we'll see. Everybody.
- [92:22]
Bretzky
I just wanted to say real, real quick.
- [92:24]
Tim Miller
Yeah, yeah.
- [92:25]
Bretzky
Just before you leave, shout out Iri he couldn't make it today because he has to. He has to do some things with
- [92:31]
Soy Pill
his side gig famous.
- [92:32]
Bretzky
He's too famous for us. But I know he would have loved to to speak with you, Tim, because we all are huge fans of the Bulwark and it really is an honor for you to show up and and grace with your presence. I recently did like a longer car ride and I was listening to you and Ben Rhodes. I think you guys did a collab or something. It was really awesome. So everyone, I'm encourage you please check out the Bulwark and Tim's content. It's really good.
- [92:53]
Tim Miller
Thanks so much.
- [92:55]
Soy Pill
Have a great day.
- [92:56]
Tim Miller
Seeing you around.
- [92:58]
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