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- [00:00]
Sarah Longwell
Hey guys, Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark here. I just jumped off with Nicole Wallace. We were on there talking about Epstein. This was actually a really great conversation, especially because we have so many new bleeds from Donald Trump, especially this incredibly long one today. Actively going after his base, actively calling them names, actively calling them past supporters. Really good discussion. Check it out.
- [00:25]
Nicole Wallace
How do Trump's supporters feel about being treated, one, as stupid and two, as replaceable and disposable, Being called, quote, weaklings by Donald Trump?
- [00:37]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, well, nobody has more contempt for Trump voters than Donald Trump himself. Nobody thinks Trump voters are stupider than Donald Trump does himself. I mean, these are people who are really deep on this conspiracy. They can work out pretty quickly that the timeline doesn't include Trump, Joe Biden writing the Epstein files, or James Comey writing the Epstein files. Donald Trump, I don't know about you guys. Donald Trump seems pretty scared to me. He's acting awfully squirrely. These are some really long truth social posts with a lot of capitals, kind of capital letters, a lot of weird, you know, phrasing structures. He seems panicked. Now I want to talk a little bit though about who Trump's base is and who cares about the Epstein files because not everybody does. And I think you're going to start hearing people saying don't. Do people really care about this? I mean, a lot of Trump voters, they just care about the economy. And let me tell you, that is true. Okay, Sort of normies who are not terminally online, they voted for Trump because they wanted prices lower. That's not happening for them. But the base that we're talking about here, these are people who either are part of the manosphere, so let's say people who came to Trump a little bit later, they are red pilled, they tend to be more libertarian, anti woke folks, free speech warriors. These are people who believe that the establishment covers things up and that Trump was going to be a guy who was going to tear down the establishment and show them the things that everybody has been hiding. The other group of people that cares about this a lot is the activist class, the podcast class, right? And these people have already been kind of frustrated with Trump. They don't like the bombing of Iran, they don't like if he's sending weapons to Ukraine. They didn't like the spending on the bbb, the big beautiful bill. And he's been tweaking some of these voters now for a bit. And so on top of that to come in and say nothing to see here on Epstein, which Not only did everybody in my Cabinet, including the Vice president, including the Attorney general, including the head of the FBI, all say was going to be an enormous deal. I mean, these people, Cash Patel is in charge of the FBI in part because of Epstein, because he went on every right wing podcast to fan the flames of this particular conspiracy. So they have nobody to blame but themselves for the fact that they are in this situation. Pam Bondi didn't say, I have explosive material on my desk. When she was out of office, when Biden was running, she was the acting Attorney General. Everybody has a right now to demand answers on this. Not because of the Democrats or anybody else, but because of what Trump's own members of their Cabinet said while they're in office. And so their voters want answers, and you can't blame them.
- [03:27]
Nicole Wallace
So when I worked on campaigns and would do this, Matt Dowd was the chief of polling and he would sort of wince. So I made one of my little data charts. But it has these categories. I think you're talking about the people that voted for him for the economy. And it has a big zero, right, because they're getting tariffs and inflation. Things are not cheaper, they're more expensive. Everything from food to things you need for your kids to sporting equipment to people raising prices preemptively and people raising prices because things are more expensive. And then you have the people that want to know war, right? And they're mad about the bombing of Iran, they're mad about funds and weapons for Ukraine. So big X big nothing, big survey says. And then you have this third category, which includes the people that believe the conspiracies about 2020, that believe the conspiracies about COVID shutdowns. They may not be the biggest, but they're certainly the most fervent. And they are the ones making all this noise. And that's the group that he, you know, seems to be telling to go pound sand, Sarah. That seems like the most politically perilous group to antagonize.
- [04:33]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. And I think in part you've got to sort of understand the layers of influence on this, because the people who really care about this make up sort of the middle layer of mediation between Trump's, you know, really intense voters who love to get in deep on the conspiracy stuff, and Donald Trump himself. So we're talking about Benny Johnson, we're talking about Megyn Kelly, we're talking about Alex Jones and like the tinfoil hat wearing crowd. But this is an enormous media ecosystem and they have. This is. And this is a thing That I think it's tough for the mainstream media and even Democrats to understand cuz they don't live in this world. But if you are an observer of this world and you see how, how much content got churned out on Steve Bannon's room, how many times Cash Patel was on there while they just jawboned it up about how deep this conspiracy could go and how they were going to be the people who were going to be the voices and the eyes of regular Americans who were going to blow the lid off the deep state elite, like the global elite cabal conspiracy. There are a lot of people who think that. And for Trump to say Trump can't do it and nothing to see here is an enormous betrayal to all of them. And Trump, he really is vulnerable here to an enormous people with megaphones really turning on him. I do think that there is a sense of, hey, maybe this is the thing. I mean, Donald Trump now, for almost a decade has been in our faces saying, if I shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue, I won't lose any votes. And that increasingly started to feel true. And so I think part of what this is is people saying, what? Wait, is this the thing? I mean, if you live by the Epstein files, do you die by the Epstein files? You know, so I think that there's, it's not celebration so much as it is a sense of, wait, wonder, this the thing, could it be the thing that actually moves the base away from him? And I think though, the question becomes, is it just something that exists between Donald Trump and the base and the rest of us are all observers? Or, or do we as Americans also say, hey, wait a minute, is the Attorney General lying to us? Or were they all cynically ginning up Americans by telling lies in order to get them to vote for Donald Trump? We have an interest in this too. I think that there's a sense from people that because Trump pulls politics into the gutter that everybody should ignore it because, well, that's what the conspiracy theories theorists over there believe. No, this is the Attorney General of the United States, the top law enforcement officer. We all have a reason to care about this and we should continue to press for answers, not just the base. We as Americans should do it.