Loading summary
Transcript104 lines
- [00:00]
Sam Stein
This podcast is sponsored by IQ Bar.
- [00:03]
Will
I've got good news and bad news. Here's the bad news. Most protein bars are packed with sugar and unpronounceable ingredients. The good news, there's a better option. I'm Will and I created IQ Bar plant protein bars to empower doers like you with clean, delicious, low sugar, brain and body fuel. IQ bars are packed with 12 grams of protein, brain nutrients like magnesium and Lion's Mane and Zero Weird Stuff. And right now, you can get 20% off all IQ Bar products, plus free shipping. Try our delicious IQ Bar Sampler Pack with seven plant protein bars, four hydration mixes and four enhanced coffee sticks. Clean ingredients, amazing taste and you'll love how you feel. Refuel smarter, hydrate harder, caffeinate larger with IQ Bar.
- [00:49]
Sam Stein
Go to eatiqbar.com and enter code BAR20. To get 20% off all IQ Bar products plus free shipping. Again, go to eatiqbar.com and Enter code BAR20. Hey, guys. Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bulwark. I'm joined by Sarah Longwell, our publisher, and Tim Miller in the back of an Uber. We are recording our second video, maybe third video today on Trump Elon because it's a continuous shit show, Just a cascade of shit happening. Tim, you're on the run. You talked about this with medical ac. I'm going to set this up. The last we're recording about 3:20pm on Thursday. The latest salvo from Elon Musk is. Can't even believe I have to say this is that the reason that Trump is going through this is that he is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, djt, exclamation point.
- [01:42]
Sarah Longwell
Time to drop the really big bomb.
- [01:44]
Sam Stein
Sorry.
- [01:44]
Sarah Longwell
Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, djt. Have a nice exclamation point.
- [01:53]
Tim Miller
So, Tim, I have been saying this. I have been saying this. Go through our archives. I am on this. Trump is in the Epstein files. The real conspiracy theory here is that Epstein killed himself while Donald Trump was the president. Okay? And so for all of those people out there with their theories that Hillary Clinton or the Deep State or the Jews or whatever were behind Jeffrey Epstein's death, let me tell you, there's only one person that's been covering it up. He was president when Epstein died. He's president now. His name's Donald Trump. And you notice Cash Patel and Dan Bongino have to be in on the Game. Now, why did they go out there? Why did they go do an interview to talk about how Epstein didn't really kill himself? I don't know. I'm just saying I think Elon's making some good points. And I hope that Joe Rogan and Theo Vaughn and Andrew Schultz and all the other people that are in the Elon's manosphere who have been asking serious questions about the Epstein case might want to dig into this a little bit further, because I got to tell you, all arrows are pointing one place. Donald Trump.
- [02:58]
Sam Stein
Yeah, Tim, the way to do it is you just have to. You're just asking questions. You're not making accusations. You're just asking questions.
- [03:03]
Tim Miller
I am. Not only am I just asking questions, I'm pointing to a series of evidence that points to Donald Trump. I don't know what happened. You don't know what happened. All I'm saying is if you think there was some foul play, it's hard to say that Hillary Clinton, who was a former. First. Former first lady sitting at home in Chappaqua, was the one that did it. I'm just saying if you have questions, there's a lot of reasons to think Donald Trump. And now you have the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, former shadow president, saying he's seen some stuff. I don't know. Maybe we can ask Elon. I'm sure he'll be tweeting more about this. And I think this is interesting. I think that this should be. There should be a lot of news coverage about this, and I'm excited to see how it plays out, as they say. Anyway, guys, I got to go to the airport. Good luck analyzing this. We'll see you guys soon.
- [03:51]
Sam Stein
Yeah. Okay. I'll just say, Tim, before you sign off, Elon has tweeted a second time. Great saying, mark this post for the future. The truth will come out. The truth is out there anxiously waiting.
- [04:03]
Tim Miller
And Elon knows it. And it's something that I've been thinking. So we will see. Tell your friends about this. You got friends that are on the Epstein beat. Let's make sure to send this. Tweet the video around. Just make sure they, you know, do their research, so to speak. All right, see you guys soon.
- [04:19]
Sam Stein
All right, so that was Tim with his Alex Jones conspiracy hat on. Thankful and grateful for his work. Definitely won't get sued over that. And on the real, though, I did not have it on my bingo card that Elon was going to drop the Epstein bombs. But this has been a totally freaking crazy Day. I've. I mean, obviously I've never seen anything like this. What do you make of what the hell is happening here? I'll do a recap after I get your take, but I'm just sort of curious, what the hell?
- [04:47]
Sarah Longwell
Well, obviously it's awesome and I haven't liked Twitter this much in a really long time. I think that, you know, Elon's return to the private sector, where he's going to try to improve his companies. I think he's doing a good job of improving X today by dropping this. Joe. He's tweeted over 50 times today about the bill or Trump and, like, either replied or tweets. And I mean, he's got a kill bill meme. He's not returning Mike Johnson's calls. Here's the thing. Elon as a scorned. Like hell hath no fury than an Elon scorned. He is burning it down, the Epstein file stuff. Because I don't. I'm gonna. I'm gonna really distance myself from Tim's, like, whatever that implication is. What, what is interesting about this, the idea that Trump tried to bury the Epstein files because he was on Epstein's plane because. Because he was going to the island. That. That is known. I think there is probably. My guess is, is there's more information about the extent of their relationship, maybe the extent of their travel. And so, like, that would be real. Part of what's interesting to me, though, is was Trump discussing this stuff with Elon, because if Trump gave Elon that, he's given him a lot of stuff.
- [06:05]
Sam Stein
Put aside the Epstein files for a second. Like what? I. We all knew that this was going to end in some acrimony, this relationship. I didn't expect. I mean, and we knew it was going to happen at some point. I didn't. I expected to be faster, but I didn't expect to be this violent and. And emotional. It's like they just went from 0 to 100.
- [06:27]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. I mean, I gotta say, I was. I always thought that Elon posed too much of a risk for Trump to have a big rift.
- [06:35]
Sam Stein
Yeah. Yeah.
- [06:36]
Sarah Longwell
And so I am shocked that the way this was handled. I mean, I do think Trump was trying to be conciliatory on the way out the door. Elon will always be with us.
- [06:47]
Sam Stein
You know, they gave him a key to the fucking White House.
- [06:50]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah.
- [06:51]
Sam Stein
Like, here's your little gold key. Elon.
- [06:52]
Sarah Longwell
He was trying to be. To keep things on a. On a nice thing. But Elon, like. And the White House is Now doing this thing where they're saying the reason that Elon is hacked off about the big beautiful bill is because it cuts the incentives for evs. Right? They no longer get the cash incentives to buy an ev. And so Elon on, he tweeted about this, though, and he said, you know what? I think that is garbage because I think it's unfair relative to what you're doing for the fossil fuel industry. But forget that this is still a disgusting pork addled whatever. And so, like, it is interesting that Elon seems to be so. I don't. He just. He must be so angry at them.
- [07:32]
Sam Stein
This bill is a proxy. This bill is a proxy, right? It's a proxy. He doesn't care about the. I mean, maybe he cares about the debt and the deficit in theory, but I don't think he's it. This explains the level of emotion he's bringing to this. I mean, he's just throwing. I mean, this is a proxy for feeling like he got screwed over somehow. And maybe it's not the EVs, maybe it's something else. But I'm curious about the reporting that comes out on this.
- [07:55]
Sarah Longwell
My guess is that it's something to do with the reputational damage that Elon has incurred. And also the fact that my guess is is they probably early on were like, yeah, man, we're going to cut $2 trillion using Doge and Trump puts him in charge of it. They elbow out Vivek, and then suddenly everybody's like, there's not a real thing Elon's doing with Doge, is he? And so I think that reputationally, he feels burned by the whole thing.
- [08:24]
Sam Stein
Yeah. All right, let me, let me run through. Just because we cut a video this morning after Trump's press conference, and I was like, wow, this is really a lot of drama. And then in the subsequent, like, hour, it just got crazy and crazy. So just a few little things. One, Elon decides randomly to stop following Stephen Miller on Twitter. Random. Elon decides to stop following Charlie Kirk on Twitter. Totally don't understand why, but he just did. Elon tweets at Laura Loomer, who says she's on the Hill talking to people who are torn between him and Trump. He tweets. Oh, and some food for thought as they ponder this question. Trump has 3.5 years left as president, but I will be around for 40 plus years.
- [09:04]
Sarah Longwell
Okay, actually saying, I talked about that on the next level, about the fact that the Republicans are going to have to choose between a lame duck president and a Guy with almost infinite money who was talking about primary them for voting for this bill.
- [09:17]
Sam Stein
And I mean, that's the. That's not the subtext. That's the text.
- [09:20]
Sarah Longwell
That's the text.
- [09:20]
Sam Stein
Yeah, exactly. All right, Ashley St. Clair, who has allegedly a child with Elon, tweets at Donald Trump. Hey, at real Donald Trump. Let me know if you need any breakup advice. I enjoyed that one. Elon tweets, is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% of the middle, the bulwark. Slack Channel jokes. Oh, no label's gonna jump on that one. And no label jumps on that one. Trump. Trump goes on his social media, and this is the frustrating part for me. Can't he just get on Twitter so we can just condense our social media feeds? Oh, I know what.
- [09:54]
Sarah Longwell
We've got to go to Truth Social and Twitter.
- [09:57]
Sam Stein
Yeah, it's so annoying. All right, so he's on Truth Social. Trump says Elon was, quote, wearing thin. I asked him to leave. I took away his EV mandate that forced everyone to buy electric cars that nobody else wanted that he knew for months I was going to do, and he just went crazy, all caps. Then he bleats again. The easiest way to save money in our budget, billions and billions of dollars, is to terminate Elon's governmental subsidies and contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it. All right, let's pause there for a second. That one, I actually.
- [10:23]
Sarah Longwell
Wait. I didn't see that. That's amazing.
- [10:26]
Sam Stein
He threatens the contracts. That one, I. That one perked my. My ears up a little bit. Would he do it? Oh, boy. That would really crimp. That would, like, really fuck up our space program in, like, profound ways. Would he do it?
- [10:41]
Sarah Longwell
I mean, it's getting pretty vicious. This is a bad divorce. This is bad.
- [10:46]
Sam Stein
Who gets someone asked, who gets David Sacks in the custody battle?
- [10:50]
Sarah Longwell
Elon does. Elon does.
- [10:52]
Sam Stein
What if David doesn't want to go back with Dad?
- [10:56]
Sarah Longwell
I mean, I don't know. This is. This is why this is the best day. The only winners are us, and the only losers are them. Like, this is we.
- [11:08]
Sam Stein
I disagree strongly, but go ahead.
- [11:11]
Sarah Longwell
What do we lose?
- [11:12]
Sam Stein
Okay, you do your. You make your point, and I will do my rebuttal. I totally disagree.
- [11:17]
Sarah Longwell
Okay, here's what we win. We get great content.
- [11:21]
Sam Stein
Oh, that's true.
- [11:22]
Sarah Longwell
Elon's going to spill the tea on Trump. Trump's going to spill the tea on him. Their fragile coalition between dark MAGA and populist Bannon Mag is going to fracture, which I think creates a weakness in the coalition. They will spend more time infighting Elon. They've lost Elon's muscle. The fact that you're talking about unfollowing, let me tell you what the purchase power of an Elon Musk retweet for somebody who wanted to be influential. If you're Charlie Kirk, you are sad that Elon's not following you. If you are Steven Miller, you are worried. If you saw. I saw Stephen Miller tweet to try to defend the bill and talk about all they were doing on immigration. And it was just. He got lit up all through the comments.
- [12:06]
Sam Stein
Yeah, he did.
- [12:07]
Sarah Longwell
Because Elon's people are there to tell them like, no, you are lying about this. So it might scuttle the actual bill, which means that the Republicans will have a total inability to move their one piece of legislation that they were going to move this session. I think it creates the potential for Elon to do big spending against Trump and his people in the 26. I don't know what. Sorry, tell me the downside. Is it about the space program? Is that what you're gonna tell me about?
- [12:36]
Sam Stein
Okay, all. I concede all of that. Upsides galore in, in respect to the tactics and the politics here, except for a small matter, and this is crazy of me to think about this, but like there's real danger, I think, in Donald Trump, like in this position, not like world danger. Like he's gonna inflict like severe harm to the world when he saddled with this. Let's say in theory there is some truth to the Elon accusation that he's in the Epstein files, the Trump's in the Epstein files. Like this is like Nixon in the last moment stuff, right? Where he's like kind of boozing up and he's out of control and we just don't know what kind of insane stuff he might do in, in that time period. If this is true. You don't want a president who's got this over his head and who's distracted.
- [13:22]
Sarah Longwell
Of course I didn't want this guy to be president. Yeah, you're right.
- [13:26]
Sam Stein
I don't want him to be president, period.
- [13:28]
Sarah Longwell
I would like him to be beach and I would like to get rid of him.
- [13:31]
Sam Stein
This ratchets is up to a level that we are not familiar with. Who knows what this caged animal is going to do. It's, it's. I think there's badness here. No, disagree.
- [13:41]
Sarah Longwell
No, I think, I think that people.
- [13:44]
Sam Stein
Listen, I'm Enjoying the spectacle. Don't get me wrong.
- [13:48]
Sarah Longwell
Let me make a serious. A serious. And because it actually is a through line, I think in our theory of change, meaning how do you avoid America sliding full tilt into an authoritarian moment? And the number one way is for Donald Trump to be a failure in this term. It has been about people. And for that to happen, people need to feel the negative personal consequences. Like, I get frustrated that Trump keeps reversing course on the tariffs because I want.
- [14:15]
Sam Stein
Because you want it all.
- [14:16]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, yeah. He is a bad person with bad ideas who does bad things to the country. And we need to. Americans need to understand we should never make this mistake again. And so I think on lighting him up. And if Donald Trump has a nervous breakdown about it, okay, well, go in the graveyard with Joni Ernst. That's where people are having nervous breakdowns right now. I'm fine with that.
- [14:38]
Sam Stein
Let me. Let me press you on Bill Kristol's column this morning, because I had differences of opinion on that column. Should Democrats try to strategically reel Elon back into the tent and use him? No, no.
- [14:51]
Sarah Longwell
Elon's. Elon's.
- [14:52]
Sam Stein
Wouldn't that. But wouldn't. Hold on. Wouldn't that sort of go to your point, though, like, weaponize Elon against Trump a little bit?
- [14:58]
Sarah Longwell
There's no tent for Elon. This is just. This is. This is about Elon.
- [15:01]
Tim Miller
Elon.
- [15:02]
Sarah Longwell
And this. There was. I watched Mountainhead last night.
- [15:06]
Sam Stein
What is.
- [15:07]
Sarah Longwell
It's the. It's the new HBO movie. It's got Steve Carell, and it's about 4 tech.
- [15:15]
Sam Stein
Oh, yeah.
- [15:15]
Sarah Longwell
Dominant people. It's by the people who did succession.
- [15:18]
Sam Stein
Is it good?
- [15:18]
Sarah Longwell
It's mediocre. But there's some very, very interesting stuff in there that, that Tim had made a point, or maybe JBL made this point. But in any event, one of them made the point that the fact that these guys have so much money and so much access, like one of the things that happens in the movie is they're like, oh, well, I can shut down the grids in places. Like, I can do this and this and this. They have so Elon has so much money and as a result, so much power, and it is too much. We have allowed these tech oligarchs to have too much power and control. They now control our politics. Peter Thiel, J.D. vance. And so I think both of them destroying their credibility against one another is important. I think Americans have to find a way to reject this.
- [16:09]
Sam Stein
Yeah, I'm into that. I think two things to add to that. One is, and I know this is non controversial, but it's worth stating. Imagine if this was a woman in this leadership position. I mean, they'd be laughed out of the boardroom. They would be like called hysterical and emotional. Men are too fragile. We need, we need, we need to get rid of men, leader, male leaders. It's a problem. Two is, I'm not so sure Elon's gonna have that much money anymore. I mean, obviously he's gonna have a lot of money. His stock is down significantly. It was at down 17 when we started talking. It's now 13.5%, but that's a huge loss in one day. If you're on the board of Tesla, I mean, you gotta be looking at this. Be like, you just shot 55 tweets off about a government bill and you're pissing off the president and threatening our contracts. Like, let's get this guy the fuck outta here. This is nuts.
- [16:56]
Sarah Longwell
I do think that's true. I mean, look, Elon has enough money and clout to go it alone in a lot of ways. But like, Elon's not doing himself any favors. Like, he's gonna, he's gonna end this whole thing alone. Like, he, he. When you say, like, do the Democrats reel him back in? Like, no, Elon gets no home. Let Elon, like, he has a lot of things. He has a platform, he has many companies, he has enormous government contracts. Like, I would love it if Trump canceled. It's insane that our government relies on Elon to the extent that it does.
- [17:30]
Sam Stein
Yeah, it's crazy. One person, one contractor for so much.
- [17:35]
Sarah Longwell
You cannot exist like that.
- [17:36]
Sam Stein
Yeah, well, that'd be an interesting outcome if this is where it ends. All right, final thoughts. Anything you left on the cutting block.
- [17:44]
Sarah Longwell
I just, I wouldn't want people to miss the fact that I try to be a person who. Look, I don't want harm to come to any, but whatever. But these are bad people hitting each other with their mutual badness. I am so here for it. I love it.
- [18:00]
Sam Stein
Do we see the Epstein files? If they actually.
- [18:03]
Sarah Longwell
Like, like, I. This is because, you know what? Donald Trump was traveling with Epstein. Like, we as a society just like, let it go. It's like we all, not we, us, because obviously the bulwark, we didn't. But like, average people were just like, whatever. I don't care if he's an adjudicated rapist. I don't care if he was on that plane. But the fact that his coalition has allowed themselves to become Epstein conspiracy adult as Though it were somebody on the left, like, they need to drink the tonic of truth that is Donald Trump was the one doing that, like, on Epstein's plane.
- [18:38]
Tim Miller
They.
- [18:38]
Sarah Longwell
People need this.
- [18:41]
Sam Stein
Everybody's getting. Are you. Are you going full.
- [18:43]
Sarah Longwell
Everyone's getting with.
- [18:43]
Sam Stein
Are you going full, Tim?
- [18:45]
Sarah Longwell
Well, so I don't actually. You'd have to explain to me the conspiracy theory about Epstein dying.
- [18:50]
Sam Stein
And like, like, Tim's theory is that Trump had the president, Bill Barr was the attorney general. Epstein was killed when they were in power, and therefore, I don't know, two and two. It's crazy. Let's not. Let's not dip our toes in those waters.
- [19:05]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, I don't. I don't even know enough to have a conspiracy theory on this. What I do know is, like, the real part, the part of Trump being on Epstein's plane going to that island where they were abusing young girls is real and which should matter.
- [19:17]
Sam Stein
And there's video of the two of them, like, dancing together. It's weird. All right, well, we're gonna be watching. We'll probably end up cutting another video tomorrow because this is just never ending.
- [19:26]
Sarah Longwell
Tweeting through it. Elon, keep tweeting through it.
- [19:29]
Sam Stein
Yeah, Trump, get on Twitter so we don't have to check Truth Social, please. All right, Sarah, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Really do. Thank you guys for watching this. Subscribe to the feed where you get all this great, juicy content. We'll keep you posted and we'll talk to you soon. All right, so we took, I don't know, 20 minute, 30 minute break, and I knew this was going to happen because in the. In the interim, we've had two things occur. One is that Elon has now said he's gonna decommission some of his government contracts for SpaceX in light of Donald Trump saying he was going to cancel the government contracts. Great. But the big one is that Elon has, it seems, embraced impeachment. He is retweeting Ian Miles Chung, Elon fan influencer online guy who says, quote, president versus Elon, who wins? My money's on Elon. Trump should be impeached and JD Vance should replace him. Elon just responds with, yes, yes. So, Sarah, it seems like your theory of the destruction is happening in real time.
- [20:33]
Sarah Longwell
Sarah's always right in the 20 minutes that it took us to get here. So, first of all, Ian Michael Chong is like some weird MAGA influencer that I think lives, like, not in this country. And.
- [20:45]
Sam Stein
But he is foreigner.
- [20:46]
Sarah Longwell
Yes, but he is followed by the MAGA Universe. And this is where the splitting of this coalition right now in two sides, like we are watching it happen in real time, is an enormous development in how this plays out. But also, okay, so calling for impeachment, I mean, the Epstein thing was nuclear. Calling for impeachment is nuclear. Getting MAGA double nuclear to start saying he should be impeached. Get J.D. vance in there. Which it does expose that tech, tech, techno, fascist side. Maybe they're not advanced people.
- [21:19]
Sam Stein
Maybe they're not as attached to Trump as we thought. I don't know. I, I, when I started the day, I was like, well, Trump's going to win them all over. And maybe the, I think the congressman, the elected officials probably are most.
- [21:29]
Sarah Longwell
Marjorie Taylor Greene has written a long missive about how she is still holding fast with Trump.
- [21:35]
Sam Stein
Yeah, I think those people are Trump. But the influencer crowd, the breakdown is different much.
- [21:41]
Sarah Longwell
Trump can influence whether or not someone wins an election and how money is allocated in those elections. But Elon, this is where Trump in many ways won the culture, but he won the culture because he won the Tech Bros.
- [21:54]
Sam Stein
Right.
- [21:55]
Sarah Longwell
And, and losing this crowd crowd is a problem for them. Like, it just is.
- [22:03]
Sam Stein
So Tim had a theory yesterday when we were talking about this, and this is when it was like, you know, the beginning stages of the war. And it seemed so quaint yesterday. It was just like a little volley here and there. But Tim compared this to when he was on the Jeb campaign. And by that he said, you know, we were on the Jeb campaign and we were like, well, we gotta like, you know, craft our press releases and make sure they're nice and like, you know, we don't want to overstep it and so on and so forth. And Trump would just fire like rapid fire tweets, just going crazy and it was moving at a speed that they weren't accustomed to.
- [22:33]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah.
- [22:33]
Sam Stein
And what's interesting now is that it's reversed. Like, Trump is out there putting out a bleat. And Elon, by the time that bleak gets sent out into the ecosystem, Elon's fired off 25 tweets, including, you know, he's in the Epstein files and impeach.
- [22:47]
Sarah Longwell
The and, and we're decommissioning the dragon. I don't even know, I don't even.
- [22:51]
Sam Stein
Know what the that is. Doesn't sound good.
- [22:53]
Sarah Longwell
Sounds, sounds like a problem. Like, is Elon going to start pulling like this? This is, this is why I always thought they couldn't afford this blow up. The intertwining of the sort of Elon both. Both culturally and in terms of actual infrastructure that Elon both provides and then, like, needs. Like, everybody knows Elon was digging around. Not just like, I think Kerry's Swisher's theory was always like, he's hoovering up people's information. And, like, maybe, but, like, more importantly, he could get every tweak to things that make it easier for Starlink. He could look at all of the information that the FTC had on his competitors. Like, there was a million ways in which getting under the hood of the federal government benefited, and he.
- [23:41]
Sam Stein
And he was trying for it, like, he was looking for all that information. He got more power, more power, more power, even as he got less popular, and now he's wielding that power against Trump. Fascinating. By the way, Tesla stock ended the day down 14.27%. Not great.
- [23:59]
Sarah Longwell
So, you know, wealth destruction there, clearly.
- [24:02]
Sam Stein
All right, Barry wants us to go live. We're not going to do that yet. I'm sure he's going to pitch us on doing it later tonight, so we'll think about it. In the meantime, enjoy this video. Maybe we'll come back and do an update in 20 minutes. We don't know. Crazy things are happening. Sarah, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Talk to you.