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- [00:00]
Sam Stein
Hey, guys, it's me, Sam Stein, managing out at the Bulwark, joined by Sarah Longwell, our fearless publisher. I'm live in El Salvadorian prison. You can tell from my backdrop. It's horrible.
- [00:11]
Sarah Longwell
Is your family keeping you in the basement? Like, what is going on?
- [00:14]
Sam Stein
I'm at an Airbnb. I'm out in Chicago about to go to Wrigley Field. I just want to be clear, I'm doing the hard work here. I'm not being detained by Bukele. I don't think so. Yeah. I'm so glad. Thank you. I hope you will bail me out when it comes to that. We're going to be talking about. Don't answer that question. We're going to be talking about Times, Trump's Time magazine interview. Before we get to that, subscribe to the feed, as always. So, look, I woke up today, I saw this, posted this transcript posted. I read through it. There's like four or five totally remarkable parts of it. I'm going to save my favorite one. But when it comes down to it, when you read it, like, and you step back, it's kind of like the man's brain is a little bit fried, I think. And he just goes and weaves. I know it's. He thinks the weave is a form of art, but it's like a, it's like a deranged weave at this point. What were your big picture takeaways? And then we can get into the specifics.
- [01:09]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, I mean, look, the, the. So first of all, part of what's funny when you read it is like you can hear it in Trump's voice of him being like, this is a very nasty interview. You and your fake news. You know, he's like, he's getting mad at him as he's doing it, because the guy's asking, I don't know, perfectly reasonable questions, like, did you talk to Xi about this deal? Because the Chinese say you haven't.
- [01:29]
Sam Stein
So nasty. So nasty.
- [01:32]
Sarah Longwell
What is funny to me is, like, whether he's being asked about sort of immigration or his promises about groceries or whatever, he keeps just going back and saying, we're going to have so much money, we're going to be so rich. This country is going to be so rich and beautiful. And, like, he just kind of says that over and over. And so it's less of a.
- [01:48]
Sam Stein
We tries to create. He tries to create a reality. Right?
- [01:51]
Sarah Longwell
Like he, he, like, he lapses into some groove that has formed in his brain where he just talks about how it's all Going to be rich and beautiful, and you can't let them rip you off.
- [02:00]
Sam Stein
And did you notice that on four times he mentions trade as the United States is a department store. On four separate occasions, we're a department store.
- [02:09]
Sarah Longwell
Keep saying, he's like, I'm like a store and I'm open for, I'm a big, beautiful store open for business.
- [02:14]
Sam Stein
Come and do business in my store.
- [02:17]
Sarah Longwell
I, I, yeah, no, it's bananas. It's, but I mean, we're not, we're not breaking any news with like, the whole thing is bananas. But, but this whole point about, you know, he creates his own reality. I mean, I real, I will read some of it. So, for example, he says the price of groceries have gone down. The only price that hasn't gone down is the price of energy, the cost of energy. I'm sorry. Well, energy has gone down. Excuse me, let me change. That is the, that is the interest rates and interest rates have essentially stayed the same. But almost every other thing, I mean, you take a look at what's going on, and this is, we're taking in billions of dollars of tariffs, by the way. And just to go back to the past, I took in hundreds of billions of dollars of tariffs from China. And then when Covid came, I couldn't institute the full program, but I took in hundreds of billions and we had no inflation. That was a question about groceries.
- [03:04]
Sam Stein
I don't, yeah, it just, we don't know where it goes. There was one part, there was one.
- [03:08]
Sarah Longwell
Part, but grocery prices aren't going down like whatever all the rest of that was, and their grocery price is not going down.
- [03:14]
Sam Stein
There was one part similar to that. I'm trying to find in transcript, but I hope I can find it in time. But where he, he talks about, well, you know, Joe Biden would never do something like this. And they're like, actually, we did interview Joe Biden. And he's like, oh, yeah, how did it go? And they're like, oh, here it is. They go, we spoke to him a year ago, him being Biden. And Trump goes, how did he do? He said, you can read the interview for yourself. And Trump goes, not too good. I did read the interview. It's like you just said, you don't know what you just said you didn't know about the interview. And now you're like, yeah, I read it. You didn't do it again. It's like, where are you, where's your.
- [03:45]
Sarah Longwell
Brain to keep reading some of this fun stuff? One of my favorite lines was, he's talking about immigration. He just starts talking about the wall. And he goes, I completed the wall, what I was doing, but we have. I wanted to build additional. Because it was working so well, an extension, first of all. So he finished the wall, but now.
- [04:05]
Sam Stein
But now you got to build it.
- [04:06]
Sarah Longwell
You got to build the extension because it's working so well. If you built the wall, bro, how did they all get in when Biden was president? How did they get in if your big beautiful wall was up? There is no other thing?
- [04:19]
Sam Stein
No, there's no. And the other thing that was, that stood out, got a lot of attention was they were talking about these trade deals, right? So we have this 90 day pause of the tariffs, partial part of the tariffs. And Peter Navarro says, yeah, we're gonna do 90 days. 90 deals. 90 days. And so they asked Trump about it and they said, well, why haven't you. There's been zero deals announced. Like, what's the deal with that? And Trump goes, no, there's many deals. And they're like, well, then why announcement? He's like, I've made 200 deals and no one's talking about 200.
- [04:48]
Sarah Longwell
I've got this. I've got this right in front of me. This is your trade advisor. Peter Navarro says 90 deals in 90 days is possible. We're now 13 days into the point from when you lifted the reciprocal, the discounted reciprocal tariffs. There's zero deals. Deals so far. Why is that? He says, no, there's many deals. When are they going to be announced? You have to understand, I'm dealing with all the companies, very friendly countries. We're meeting with China. We're doing fine with everybody, but ultimately I've made all the deals. Not one has been announced yet. When are you going to announce them? I've made 200 deals. You've made 200 deals? 100%. Will you call President Xi if he doesn't call you? No. You won't? Nope. Has he called you yet? Yep. When did he called you? He's called and I don't think that's a sign of weakness on his behalf. But you would think it's a sign of weakness if you called him. I don't. I just. Look, well, what did he say? If people want to. Well, we all want to make deals, but I am this giant store. It's a giant beautiful store and everybody wants to go shopping there. And on behalf of the American people, I own the store and I set prices. And I'll say, if you want to shop here, this is what you have to pay.
- [05:53]
Sam Stein
Like, look, honestly, it's. Obviously, I think it would be different if we watched it because he has this way of sort of projecting confidence. But when you read it, you think to yourself, boy, like, imagine Joe Biden speaking like that. We would be in a collective shock. This man's brain is totally fried. Like, what is he talking about? This is insane. This is inane. But Trump.
- [06:13]
Sarah Longwell
Joe Biden said, I beat Medicare.
- [06:15]
Sam Stein
We were all like, oh, boy.
- [06:17]
Sarah Longwell
Oh, no, you're short circuiting. But Trump says this, and we're all like, well, that's how this guy.
- [06:21]
Sam Stein
The United States is a general story. And that's just it. Now, there was some. There was a couple. Tim and I talked about this for the video we did on the FBI arrest of the judge. But there was a part in this that I thought was actually kind of notable one. When they started talking about immigration, talks about Abrego Garcia in the case there. He basically is like, look, I'm fine with him coming back and getting retried. I don't really care. Like, let's do it. But I'm going to defer to my lawyers. Now, two things about that. One is he's using his lawyers as a human shield, which is strategic. But two is he kind of is undermining the entire case that Stephen Miller's out there saying, which is like, this is totally illegal. Of course we can't bring him back. We would never do such a thing. You have Trump saying, yeah, bring him back. I don't really care. If they want to do it, do it.
- [07:04]
Sarah Longwell
This is my favorite version of Trump. My favorite version of Trump is the one that throws his underlings under the bus repeatedly by making them defend absolutely insane things. And then him being like, yeah, well, it'd be fine if we. If we do this. Let me. Let me just read this part of this. It says the guy asks him. The Supreme Court ruled 9o that you have to bring back Kilmar Abrego Garcia. You haven't done so. Aren't you disobeying the Supreme Court? Well, that's not what my people told me. They didn't say it was. They said it was. The nine to nothing was something entirely different. Let me quote from the ruling. The order properly requires the government to facilitate Abreu Garcia Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador. Are you facilitating a release? I leave that to my lawyers. I give them no instructions. Give them no instructions. They feel that the order said something very much different from what you're saying. But I leave that to my lawyers, if they want. And that would be the Attorney General of the United States and the people that represent the country. I don't make that decision.
- [07:56]
Sam Stein
It's unbelievable. Sure, sure, boss. Later in the interview, he did say that he instructed them to go after Chris Krebs, just for the record. So, you know, it's selective, very selective stuff. But, yeah, I think that that one was notable. And then the other one that stood out to me was how he talked about the law firms, because it was, you know what actually appreciated this from Trump, because the firms acquiesced him. They bent over, totally capitulated, and then he just decided to rub it in their faces a little bit more because they're like, well, don't you think that's authoritarian and wrong of you to do? He's like, well, they wouldn't have done it if they didn't do stuff that was wrong. They wouldn't have paid me if they wouldn't like, yeah, you know what? I have no sympathy for the firms. They deserve all this humiliation that they're going to get, and rightfully so. You earned it. Congrats, Mr. President. Honestly, I feel that way. It's like you absolutely rub it in their faces because they absolutely deserve that stuff.
- [08:46]
Sarah Longwell
So anything else, him saying that the money is a. Basically an admission of guilt on that part. Also, like, they do deserve it for being stupid enough to pay his ransom money, thinking it's going to buy them something.
- [09:00]
Sam Stein
Yeah, that's my point. It just is so clarifying. They thought they could get out from under his thumb. And of course, you can't do that with this guy because he'll always hold it against you. Last bit that I want to talk about is he mentions what was it? The. It was the war in Ukraine. And let's talk about the style of interview after we talk about this, because I think the interviewer in this case did a really good job. They said, you know, look, you said you would end the war in Ukraine in day one. And his. This is the other default that he guys. I was just joking, you know. Well, it's just a punchline that you guys took literally. So, yeah, this is a classic Trumpism.
- [09:33]
Sarah Longwell
He said, well, I said that figuratively. And I said that as an exaggeration because to make a point. And, you know, it gets, of course, by the fake news, obviously, people know that when I said that, it was said in jest, but it also. But it was also said that it will be ended. Cool, cool, cool.
- [09:51]
Sam Stein
Yeah, totally. You just.
- [09:53]
Sarah Longwell
He was Also joking about grocery prices. Guys, can I have, I have one more to throw in to your thought that jumped out to me that I thought was fun. He said you asked President Bukele of El Salvador to build out the CSOP prison to house American citizens. You said you send homegrown criminals. There you are our homegrown criminal, Sam.
- [10:12]
Sam Stein
Okay. It's beautiful, smooth criminal.
- [10:15]
Sarah Longwell
And Trump says, no, I didn't say that. He was on hot mic like he was on a microphone. You can hear him say. He said, no, I didn't say that. I said if it were permissible according to the law, I would like to do that. Yes. Do you remember as part of that conversation him saying if it's permissible according to law? Do you hear him following up?
- [10:32]
Sam Stein
I don't recall that little, little addendum to the statement now. Didn't. Definitely. All right, so what do you think of the interviewer style? I really liked it. I thought this is how you do it. It's like, no, you actually said this or no, like you made this promise. And they're like interjecting and you know, obviously this person had a lot of time with Trump, which is great, but I really thought that this was like one of the few interviews where you actually penetrated Trump's bullshit.
- [10:54]
Sarah Longwell
Do you know who this person is? Like, who did this, conducted this interview?
- [10:57]
Sam Stein
Yeah. Okay, so the, the interview says it was conducted by Times senior political correspondent Eric Cortal Yesa and editor in chief Sam Jacobs. I wish I knew more about past interviews they've done, but they did a really good job.
- [11:11]
Sarah Longwell
He did. So that that cordless guy did the one of Trump, the Time magazine that Trump did, that was pre election where Trump was like, no, I'm going to put troops in the streets. Like that Time magazine article was also notable. And so I think in both cases, this particular reporter, it's interesting that Trump sat down for a second interview.
- [11:30]
Sam Stein
He loves Time. He loves Time, just loves magazine.
- [11:33]
Sarah Longwell
That's right. And so I think the reporter did a good job. Yes. I think of just saying, like these are the things you said. And a lot of it is like Trump being Trump, but there it is. It is always revealing when he does these things with not Fox News toadies that hold up the mirror to him and obviously he weaves his way out of it. But it's still, yeah, you can, you can tell where he has no plan.
- [11:58]
Sam Stein
Look, and I think it's, I think it's fair to say that he's very good at evading, being held down on specifics. And so when you get him for 10 to 15 minutes and it's just TV and, you know, you're crunch and you're trying to squeeze in all these topics, it's not going to work. When you get him for an hour or something like this, and you can sort of say, you know what, I'm going to just hone in on this part. And you push him. That's when it works. And we saw that. We see that every now and then. Like Jonathan Swan's famous interview. In the first term, he had a fair bit of time and he just decided, you know, I'm going to focus all on Covid. And that was great. And it's really. I don't envy people who interview Trump. I've talked to a bunch of people who've done it. It's really hard. He's. He's very, you know, he's just hard to pin down. But in this case, this is one of those rare interviews, and same with the earlier one that they did where you get news, you get an interesting insight into how his brain is kind of operating, if you want to use that word. And it was just well done. That was well done. Melting is another way. No, it was a well done job. Kudos to Time. I encouraged the president to go on the podcast. You know, it could be Tim's. It could be yours. Yeah, it could be yours. Do focus group, whatever, anything. Oh, yeah, it'd be fun to have him react to a focus group of people reacting to him. So. All right, Sarah, thanks for doing this. I appreciate it. Thank you guys for watching. We, you know, consume the Time interview transcript so you don't have to, and then we give it to you. Subscribe to the feed in exchange for that, and we'll talk to you later.