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- [00:00]
Autotrader Mom
Are you really buying a car online on autotrader right now? Really? At a playground? Yeah, really. Look at these listings from dealers. Wow, your search can really get that specific. Really? And you just put in your info and boom, car's in your budget. Mom needs a second. Honey, you can really have it delivered. Really? Or I can pick it up at the dealership. One sec, sweetie. Mommy's buying a car.
- [00:23]
JVL
Mommy, look.
- [00:24]
Autotrader Mom
I think kid is walking up the slide again.
- [00:27]
Will Sommer
Really?
- [00:27]
Autotrader Mom
Autotrader, buy your car online. Really?
- [00:30]
CrowdHealth Advertiser
You work hard to stay healthy and want the freedom to make the best decisions for yourself and your family. So why does healthcare still feel expensive and frustrating? Crowdhealth is a different approach built for entrepreneurs, families and independent minded people who want a simpler way to pay for healthcare. More than 28,000 members have already joined and over 40,000 medical bills have already been funded. No restrictive networks, no corporate middlemen. Just real people helping each other. Learn more@joincrowdhealth.com that's joincrowdhealth.com hello, everyone, this is JVL.
- [01:02]
JVL
Donald Trump is at it, inflating his size again.
- [01:07]
Will Sommer
This weird obsession with crowd sizes.
- [01:12]
JVL
We're back to where we were on Inauguration Day, the day after Inauguration day in Trump 1.0 with Donald Trump bragging about his crowd size. He held an event to kick off the Great American State Fair on the National Mall on Wednesday night. And then he immediately today rushed out to defend his enormous crowd that was very into the speech and that nobody left at all. I'm JVL here with my bulwark colleague Will Sommer. To break it all down, here is the tweet from President Donald Trump on Truth Social today. The crowd was incredible last night, packed to the brim. At least 45,000 people were there with a huge television and online audience. I wish we were able to have an even larger area, which we will be able to do on July 4th when I'll be speaking again. The airplane flyovers and music were fantastic. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Everybody stayed right until the end of my speech because they loved hearing about a truly successful, successful America. See you again on July 4th. That's in less, less than two weeks. I'm sure you can't wait for that. Will, Will, do we think there were 45,000 people there?
- [02:28]
Will Sommer
No, not at all. You know, Trump has, you know, crowd size can be tricky, but Trump has a way of like, always reaching for a number that is like so clearly a lie. You know, like it seems like a few thousand people were there. If he had Said, let's say it was 3 or 4,000. If he had said 8,000, I'd give it to him. But he always multiplies it by, like, a factor of 10. You know, I'm in D.C. you can tell when there's a big event because there's just more people, there's more tourists walking around, whatever. In this case, I did not feel that at all. I was downtown right before the rally started. Didn't look like all that. More, many more people. So, I mean, clearly it was not 45,000.
- [03:06]
JVL
The most interesting part about this to me is his insistence that everybody stayed until the very end for people. I want you to understand, this was, by Trump standards, a very, very short speech. He did about 30 minutes, and we had our Bulwark colleague Jared down at the mall taking some video during the speech. Take a look.
- [03:28]
Jared
They're doing great.
- [03:30]
JVL
So this is Jared just standing there.
- [03:34]
Jared
Historic victory after the next.
- [03:35]
JVL
They're streaming, droning on, and all these people watch the people as they just start board, streaming up. A lot of them have red hats, lot of MAGA hats. They're just like.
- [03:48]
Will Sommer
Just crowd is dissolving, staring at their
- [03:51]
JVL
phones as they walk away. If there was 45,000 people there, people would be pretty packed together now. A lot of walking room people. Not like, ass to elbows in that.
- [04:03]
CrowdHealth Advertiser
Yeah.
- [04:03]
Will Sommer
Pretty easy egress, as it were. I think that point, based on what he was saying, I think that was maybe like the halfway point, maybe three quarters the way at most into the speech. So to be clear, not like, okay, you know, we're about to start YMCA and do the dance. Correct. That is, you know, we're very much in it. And, you know, it's. We're 50.
- [04:24]
JVL
We're only 15 minutes in, Will.
- [04:26]
Will Sommer
Right. It's crazy. And so the fact that he said, oh, everyone was there. Don't worry about it, that suggests to me, I mean, Jared, that Jared video is kind of the one that's circulating. That suggests to me that maybe that video in particular got under the president's skin.
- [04:39]
JVL
Boy, it's nice to dream, isn't it? I would like to, at the risk of taking words the President of the United States says, seriously, analyze a couple of the things that he said. Because it was an interesting speech in that it was mostly on script. So you. You listen to it, and you can see there's a handful of times where he deviates. And you and I were both surprised, Will, that he does not attack Democrats by name. He attacked previous administrations of the presidency, which I Think tends to correct me if I'm wrong. Well, that is not normal for nonpartisan national celebrations.
- [05:19]
Will Sommer
Yeah. Needless to say. I mean, it's crazy. It's gotten so far with these. I mean, this is an official government event. Yeah. And he's giving a campaign speech.
- [05:28]
JVL
So among. I'll just, we'll, we'll just go through some of the highlights here. As you know very well, a short time ago, we were a dead country. We were dead. Now we're the hottest country anywhere in the world. I wonder how dead we really were, though, if we can go from being dead to the hottest. Were we really truly dead or only kind of sincerely, like Mad Miracle Max in Princess Bride, like, he's only mostly dead.
- [05:53]
Will Sommer
You know, it is striking that, yes, the country has managed to come back completely to life despite tariffs, despite a failed war in Iran. So things couldn't have been really that bad.
- [06:03]
JVL
So he, he did the reflecting pool. This was sort of wild. So he talked about how great the reflecting pool is, how terrible the vandalism is, how it's going to be fixed immediately. Don't worry how all the people who did the terrible vandalism are going to jail. But also it's already perfect. Here he is.
- [06:24]
Jared
And the reflecting pool that you've heard so much about, which is so incredible, it's been gruesomely vandalized by thugs, bad people. But soon we'll be looking as beautiful as it looked just two weeks ago. In fact, I looked at it just a little while ago. It looks perfect already, but we're fixing it. The vandals got to it. They've largely been caught and are being prosecuted. We can't let that happen to our country. Can't let that happen.
- [06:54]
JVL
So there you go, Will. The vandals got to it. They've largely been caught and are being prosecuted. We can't let that happen to our country. Can't let it happen. But it looks beautiful.
- [07:03]
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- [07:17]
Will Sommer
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- [07:18]
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- [08:36]
Will Sommer
yes, it's still amazing and it's so interesting that now you know, we will be draining the pool and the contractor will be redoing the work under warranty. But I mean, surely it's all due to the vandals and not kind of any sort of botched installation there.
- [08:50]
JVL
So we talked about the ball. Of course it wouldn't be a Trump speech without talking about the ballroom. He called it the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world right at the White House. He said it's going to be completed very soon. And he framed this as a gift that he was making for America. So he said, for our 150th anniversary, we built Colonial Williamsburg. For the 200th year, we built the National Air and Space Museum and renovated the US Capitol. And for the 250th anniversary, he's building the new monument to American greatness to serve every future president First Lady. The ballroom, I will point out too, will, that those other things that were built on the 50 year anniversaries were for citizens. This is just for him.
- [09:40]
Will Sommer
Yeah, I think it's a great point. And you know, in the speech he says we're building these things for future presidents and first ladies to enjoy. Oh, okay. Well, what about everyone else? I know the speech is obviously about it's kicking off this fair, so it's kind of, you can understand some focus on dc, but it struck me how much of the speech was just about things that were being built in D.C. in like a two or three mile radius. I mean, it really was very little about like actual success he's having domestically in the rest of the country. If I was, you know, somewhere else, I'd say like, okay, a lot. All this money is being redirected just to improve at best, D.C. he said, oh, you know, we fixed the fountain. Great.
- [10:21]
JVL
So he did a. There was a foreign policy component to this speech, Will. So he, he. I'll just read you guys a little bit from this. So he says, how good is our military? One week, Iran was essentially finished. I wonder why. We did it for four months. Then in one hour, Venezuel was finished. And I guess we have other things in store, but we don't want to get carried away. That seems to be a threat of future military action against other nations by America issued at the opening of the Great American State Fair. Am I misinterpreting that? I guess they have other things in store.
- [11:04]
Will Sommer
No, it's, it's very ominous. I mean, I think, I don't know if it's Cuba or who knows what, but it's a weird tone strike. Well, Greenland, of course, we could take that.
- [11:14]
JVL
Greenland is vital to America's national security. And if it is vital to our national security, then we have to annex it.
- [11:21]
Will Sommer
Well, and yet the issue appears to have been dropped. You know, that makes you wonder. You know, the thing overall, it was just a very strange tone for part of the America 250. You know, we're supposed to be coming together as a country. And then you're saying, oh, I can't wait for our next military strike.
- [11:37]
JVL
We're going to. We've made our military so strong to celebrate the 250th and now we're going to go beat the shit out of some other countries who are poorer than us. That's great. That's great. There's a great transition here. This really. I love this. He's talking about the Venezuela raid and he concludes this one of the great military raids in history, if you remember. And here at home, we abolish DEI across the entire federal government.
- [12:04]
Will Sommer
Just.
- [12:05]
JVL
He seamlessly goes from the invasion of Venezuela and the kidnapping of their, their head of state to abolishing dei. I will say there was one other interesting thing here. I'll, I'll just read this out from the speech. While this also in the realm of foreign policy, last week we signed a historic agreement to end the conflict with Iran, fully open the Strait of Hormuz and accomplish what no America has ever been able to accomplish before. We have a news flash from the Wall Street Journal today. Headline ran, a tax cargo ship testing Trump's deal to reopen strait attack takes place hours after the rainy morning to ships not to use routes that the regime has not sanctioned.
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Will Sommer
Well, you know, actually every other American president previously had accomplished keeping the Strait of Hormuz open with no effort required. And so, I mean, as you say, it is unclear whether it's even open now. I mean, it's, you know, I think Trump is still kind of struggling to explain this war.
- [13:02]
JVL
Yeah. And then, and then we have the obligatory swipe at the fake news. So he, towards the end, when he's wrapping up, he was teasing his July 4th speech and also the Patriot Games coming in August where we're gonna take two tributes from each state and put them against one another. By the Cornucopia, he says, your favorite president will be speaking, so please show up because if we have two empty seats, you know what's gonna happen? The fake news is going to say he didn't fill out the arena. Will, are we supposed to take any of this seriously? Or literally? Or neither. It just, it seems. So here's the thing. To have a guy like Trump standing there with a sparse crowd, with people wander away because they're bored, insisting in his speech that we are beginning a new golden age of America and is it self proof that the end of the American empire is unfolding in front of us?
- [14:02]
Will Sommer
Yeah, I mean, I think that's very real. I mean, between the combinations of things, like, you know, being unable to make a reflecting pool work at all. I mean, all these things you would think are pretty basic. This weird faux Arc de Triomphe that was set up by the state fair. Yes. I mean, you have the state fair. Many states are not participating. I mean, all of these symbols of, like, it seems like things are not going very well.
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JVL
Is anybody noticing out there, Will? Because my sense is that actually this will all work out for him because the only people who are dialed into this will see Trump and say, Trump, good. And because it's such a flop and a nothing burger, nobody else will even notice that it's a flop and a nothing burger. And so, like, you know, he wins both ways.
- [14:51]
Will Sommer
Yeah, I mean, I think in the case of the state fair or the kind of July 4th celebrations in general, I think you're onto something. I think these things that are related potentially, like reflecting pool, that is something that sticks in people's heads also, like just knocking down the east wing of the White House. These things that are kind of become these debacles. I mean, it is striking that, I mean, we didn't mention this, but this, this event where Trump spoke, this was supposed to be Milli Vanilli and Vanilla ice and Martina McBride already. Not exactly the greatest concert I'd ever heard of. But then even those people bailed and instead you get Donald Trump and Cash Patel's girlfriend singing. And so, you know, there's a certain sense of decline to it.
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JVL
Yeah, well, there's a certain sense of decline to America.
- [15:33]
CrowdHealth Advertiser
Yeah.
- [15:34]
JVL
Harper's has a fantastic piece about this entire thing, the America 250 and Freedom 250 thing. The author is Christopher Hooks, but the headline on it is Happy fucking birthday. And it's, it's, it's one of the most perfect pieces of journalism I've ever read. I encourage people to go, go seek it out and read it. We'll put a link to it in the show notes. It's about what I feel. It's about how I think much of us feel in the reality based community. But you know, this is just where we are, Will. This is our reality.
- [16:08]
Will Sommer
Yeah, I mean, I don't think people are in a very celebratory mood. I saw one of the guys last night who did go was saying he just hopes he can live long enough to see Baron Trump become president. So I think that is sort of like gives you a sense of who is showing up for these things.
- [16:22]
JVL
I too hope to live long enough to see Baron become president. Who among us? Everybody. He's Will Sommer. I'm jvl. Hit like hit. Subscribe. Follow the feed. We'll be back with more terrible news about the decline and implosion of the American empire. Good luck, America.
- [16:38]
CrowdHealth Advertiser
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