Andrew Egger (2:57)

Welcome back to Earth. And I'm like.

Tim Miller (2:59)

I was like, is this fake? I was like, is this AI? Is it Photoshopped? Like, what is. Is it real? And. And I thought initially I was like, it's fake. And, like, the cobwebs are shaking off. And then I watched it, you know, I scrolled more and I saw, no, this is real. This is real. This is our real. This is Earth one that we're on.

Andrew Egger (3:20)

It's a real picture of a fake newspaper. So I can see where, in addition to being half asleep still, I can see where your confusion came in. But I don't know. We should probably take this from the top, right? I mean, what an afternoon for the mayor of New York.

Tim Miller (3:33)

Yeah, I was confused about it. So basically, he comes down to New York on a secret trip. Some of the news leaks out this morning to meet with Trump. The gist of this meeting, I guess, is that it's a follow on from his first trip where Trump said to him, hey. Or he said to Trump, hey, I want to come with some ideas. And he came back and they met again. And the ideas are basically about building more housing. Plus, he had a few other requests about people that have been wrongly jailed by our government. Unlike last time, we don't have, like, a rollicking Oval Office press conference video to show you. Like, we just have that clip this from Seungman Kim, who's a reporter at the ap. She says that basically Trump had asked Zoan to return with ideas to build big things. He came back with a massive housing proposal. Mamdani's team created these mock headlines we showed you. According to Mamdani's team, Trump was very enthusiastic. Mamdani pushed for the release of a Columbia student detained today. Trump calls him later to say she's been released. Mamdani gave Suzy Wiles a list of four other Palestinian activist students he wants help with. Okay, so that's the, that's a one sided, you know, Mamdani, you know, side's readout, basically. But, you know, Trump looks happy in the picture.

Andrew Egger (4:57)

What a weird, weird, weird time to be alive. I mean, like, I'm excited to kind of chew this over because I still don't really know quite what I make of all of this.

Tim Miller (5:07)

Me neither. Just like, I was confused about whether it's real. I just want to say up front, there's a like two wolves inside of me. And one is like, yeah, Zo, Run. Like, yeah, girl. Like, you did it. Like you cracked the code. And there's another part of me, it's like, I've got some worries.

Andrew Egger (5:25)

It's very funny. It's funny to see the degree to which Zo Run kind of understands Trump just at a very kind of basic level. He understands that Trump, first of all, is always willing to take the meeting and like, almost it's like easier to be a guy who he considers like a far out there lefty wacko than it would be if he were like a, like a neoconservative Republican. Right? I mean, like, like, like Trump. The distance is what makes the possibility of the meeting kind of like attractive and fascinating to Trump. And then when you get in the meeting, he knows exactly how to sort of flatter him and, you know, paint him, like, reflect him back to himself in this light. That makes Trump very enthusiastic about working together. And you remember, like, before Zoran was even elected, Trump was threatening to like, cut off all funding, all federal funding to the city of New York if he got in there. I mean, like, that was the status quo going in. And in just two of these meetings, he has instead seemingly at least got Trump like, interested in the theory of massively increasing federal investment in New York in this like, but you'd be a hero kind of way, right? I mean, and it's just, it's fascinating, if nothing else, to watch that dynamic play out in real time.

Tim Miller (6:43)

Okay, I want to go over the aesthetics of the picture and then I want to talk about the things that I like about Zora Undead. And then my concerns, we'll just go through each section and maybe the end, we'll find, we'll find some understanding or maybe we'll be just as confused, I don't know, aesthetically the picture, two things that stand out to me. Zoran just has so much swag. Like, could he have painted a better picture for himself. He's got this, like, serious smirking. He's frame mogging Trump. Yeah.

Andrew Egger (7:13)

Is he mogging the President?

Tim Miller (7:14)

He's frame mogging Trump. He is. Look at him. He looks very cool. I don't. As a gay man, I can do that. I don't find Zorin that handsome. Like, he's not really, for me particularly, like, objectively, I get it, but, like, he looks hot in this picture, kind of. It's just this. He's got a smirk. Like, he sort of feels like he's dominated. Trump. Trump. Meanwhile, I hate to do this to my father, so I apologize to him, but we had this running joke in my house for years. My father's a big cyclist and he loved Lance Armstrong. They did a picture together, like, right before the height of Lance. Lance's doping scandal. And all this when Lance was still like, the guy. And there was my dad, who's kind of a stoic man, serious man, successful man. In this picture with Lance Armstrong where he is smiling a bigger smile than I've ever seen. And Lance doesn't want to be there. And it's like, you can tell Lance is the alpha in the situation. That's Trump. Trump is my dad. When have we seen Trump smile? This watch, you know, I mean, Trump is giddy.

Andrew Egger (8:15)

No, giddy is the word. It's a kid in a candy store type smile. It's very strange.

Tim Miller (8:20)

So he's been totally mogged by Zoran. So that's where we're at aesthetically. Do you have any other. Any other notes on the.

Andrew Egger (8:26)

On the photo, I guess, on the aesthetics? And I don't want to jump ahead, because I wanted to ask you this as far as not just the. Not just the aesthetics is concerned, but, like, when you compare this, for instance, to when Gretchen Whitmer was in the Oval Office, essentially, she's doing exactly the same thing that Zo Run was there to do today. Right? I mean, she's there to get money for her state. It's like, let's be adults about this relationship. You know, Just because I'm a resist lib doesn't mean you have to, you know, yank a bunch of money. It's in the midst of doge, in the midst of all that stuff. And yet the aesthetics were so bad. Coming out of that meeting with her kind of huddled in the back of the room, holding up the folder over her own face, you know, just plainly, like, so sort of ashamed to be there. I think that's. That might actually. I'm kind of discovering that I believe this in real time. That was the real thing with Zorin. He just looks comfortable. He looks like, I'm here for my own reasons on my terms, and you shouldn't have a problem with that either. Even though you all my fans out there really don't like Donald Trump.

Tim Miller (9:17)

And there's also no sense that he's sacrificing his principles really to be there. Is the other thing that's different from Gretchen. Gretchen kind of felt like she was there to like, oh, I'm gonna meet you in the middle. I'm cut a deal. And she's there also when the Chris Krebs thing happens, Trump's going after Krebs, you know, and signs an executive order and she's high. Right. Like, it felt like in addition to her seeming like the weaker party giving in to Trump, like, it also felt like there was, I don't know, that, that she was more malleable. It doesn't really, at this point, Zoran doesn't really feel malleable at this point. I have a caveat to this. I'll get you on my negatives.

Andrew Egger (9:56)

But yeah, some of that was, was just like she was there and he, he took the moment to turn it into that. He called the press in when she wasn't expecting it and like, Zoran in theory was opening himself up to the possibility of that. And Trump chose not to do it because he sort of like is fascinated by the bromance.

Tim Miller (10:14)

Like, Trump could call, could have called people in and said, hey, Zoran, perfect timing, you're here. We were just about to announce that we're sending ICE into Springfield.

Andrew Egger (10:22)

Yes, exactly.

Tim Miller (10:23)

You know what I mean? And then it's like, it would have been interesting to see how he opened

Andrew Egger (10:25)

himself up to that risk, but Trump chose not to take it. And I guess it worked out well for Zo Ron that he didn't.

Tim Miller (10:30)

So back to the positives. I think that, as I said, you know, the fact that Zoran doesn't seem like he's doing this from a place of weakness, doesn't seem like he's sacrificing anything. That's, that's a good about it. I'm a Yimby, so on the policy level, like, this is like a triple win for me. It's like, it's unbelievable. Like, the Yimbys have gained the most ground of any faction besides the nationalist blooded soil populists. I think recently. Like the Yimby, like the Yimby, we're so hot right now. Okay. Like, you know, there Was few. It was a minority of the Democratic Party and almost no Republicans who were Yimby two minutes ago. And now all of a sudden, like, Zora. The DSA is Yimby.

Andrew Egger (11:11)

The socialist governors.

Tim Miller (11:12)

Yeah. Socialist mayor is Yimby. The president is Yimby. Ish. So that's good. Big win for Yimbys. I like, I like that. I was like, I was on the Yimbys for Harris call. It was like, me, Westmore, a couple California state legislators, you know, so a big moment for the Yimbys that's positive. The release of the student, you know, shows that it's like, that's a. It's Trump that is giving in. You know, again, if you're just, like, looking at this at zero sum. Right. It's. It's a. At some level, it's a concession, at least from Trump. Like, rather than saying, like, no, my DHS can do whatever they want, these massless goons. So on the policy side, it feels like they're real concessions. If you just look at it through that prism and not the political prism of what the implications are of this, I think it's an unadulterated win.

Andrew Egger (12:06)

Yeah. And I think that also speaks. I mean, we were just talking about the degree to which Zoron really does seem to kind of understand Trump as a person. The specific asks, I think really underscore that as well. I mean, the, the positive ask of, like, let's cooperate on, like, building a bunch of new housing in New York. I mean, like, that's like Trump's whole life. That's his bread and butter. Right? Is the real estate developer sort of ethos. And I mean, he loves that. That part of his own narrative. So that part's good. But then also making the negative ask, making the, hey, could you actually, like, do me a favor here, Be releasing one of these student activists, one of these things that Trump doesn't. I mean, that all that stuff that Trump has been doing. Trump cares a lot about, you know, DHS being out there maximizing his own power in this way. But all the, like, student activist arrest stuff was really more of, like, a concession to, you know, extremely pro Israel factions within his party and, like, you know, the Marco Rubios of the world and the Ted Cruz's and the Mike Huckabees of the world and not something that he really felt on, like, a deep personal level himself. Right. So that too is, like, kind of a smart move for him to get in there while he has the mano a mano time and be like, hey, what about releasing these couple of activists?

Tim Miller (13:18)

I agree with that. And I should just say for the non nerds, the YIMBY is an acronym for yes in my backyard. Like, yes, Build, build, build, build, Build More Houses. Don't give in to the people who are concerned about traffic or parking spots or whatever. Anyway, so we generally agree that Zoran mogged him and, and that the policy outcome is good. So those are the good parts. Here are my concerns. One of them is like a political concern and one of them is just something that gives me the ick. Which one do you want first?

Andrew Egger (13:48)

Let's hit the political concern first.

Tim Miller (13:50)

Okay, here's my political concern. Zoron has a lot of power with a certain demographic of person that I'm just gonna stereotype right now. It's a young person that doesn't really like either party, that really doesn't like the Democratic establishment, you know, that feels like they've been left behind. And they like Zoran because part because of his position on Gaza, in part because of his policies, but also just because he seems an outsider. He's not part of the corrupt establishment. That's like the same pitch that Trump gives to his side, right? That he's an outsider, he's not part of the corrupt establishment. And Trump gained a lot of non ideological voters who don't pay attention that closely to the stuff. They liked the idea that Trump felt like he wasn't part of this club that they don't like. And so I worry about a political outgrowth where like, this is good for Zoran, but it's also kind of good for Trump and the, and the, and the mag. And those mag. Some element of maga, right. That it almost gives some credence to this idea that like me and Trump can work together because we're outsiders, right? We're not part of that corrupt establishment. And that is wrong. Like unbelievably wrong and unbelievably dangerous like Trump. Trump could not be like, want to be more in league with the establishment and with the oligarchs and with the billionaires. But like he, he manages to maintain this like, patina of being an outsider because he was a reality show guy and I worry he's, he's a lame duck. So at some level like this doesn't matter that much. But I just worry that like, you know, that there's a certain type of person that is watching this and they're like, yeah, I am kind of a Zoran Trump voter. I like the fact that they're both outsiders, that they're not part of that corrupt Schumer, McConnell, Jeffries, AIPAC establishment. And that worries me. And I think that at some level, it's kind of incumbent upon Zoran at some point to like, distance himself from that notion.

Andrew Egger (15:54)

I have a hard time parsing through my own thoughts about this myself. I do think that you mentioned the lame duck thing. I think that matters quite a to this. I mean, like, Trump has shown us over and over again that he has no power to transfer whatever mojo he has to any other Republican. Right. There's like not, I cannot imagine a voter who, because of a personal bromance, you know, between Trump and Zoran Mamdani is like, you know what? That actually does make me more likely to pull the lever in 2028 for JD Vance or Marco Rubio. You know what I mean? Like, I don't. It's genuinely hard for me to imagine that those neurons connecting psychologically for anybody.

Tim Miller (16:30)

Right.

Andrew Egger (16:31)

And the other thing that I would say is that, and again, I'm really just kind of trying to figure out how I feel about this stuff. The fact that he is, you know, a mayor rather than a governor. The fact that he is a new person on the scene, he can't run for president. Yeah, yeah. That Trump did couch this stuff in such cataclysmic terms for the city of New York. Like, I, I don't know. I mean, I am the farthest person to say, like, any Democrat should be buddying up to Trump. And I mentioned this earlier too, but it's like the fact that he is so far out on the left, like, it gives him almost like a weird permission structure to do it. Much more so than centrist Democrats for almost the same reason that, like, you know, people who are like, on the center right need to like, cling to Trump extra hard to try to get any of their policy stuff done, whereas it's the true lunatics out there. It's like the Candace Owens is of the world who are like, totally comfortable like, like breaking with him on this, that or the other thing because they, they like know where they stand. Right? So I don't know. It's, it's. I don't know how to parse it. I'm not going to fault him for like going and trying to get a bunch of housing built in New York because like you said before, I'm, I am completely like, me neither.

Tim Miller (17:39)

I just want to do a counterfactual for this point. Like, because I've already, You already see this on Social media from the big Zoran fans, which is why is he so much better at this than Schumer and Jefferies? And it's like, well, wait a minute, let's just take the same picture and put Jeffries in it. Right? Just put Jeffries in it. He's also in New York. Jeffries can look swaggy sometimes. He's, you know, he's got a cool look about him and I wake up from my nap and that is the picture. Like it is a five along fire. I mean, like Jeffrey, the speakership, he might not keep, he might not become speaker. If they win next year, people would be going insane on him on social media. They'd be like, look, you, you buddied up to Trump in exchange for some houses. Like really, like with our democracy on the line, right? Like, people would be filleting Jeffries if he did that. And again, so that's because they have different jobs, part of his different jobs. But like, I think that's gotta be frustrating, like politically for the Democrats, like the more mainstream Democrats that they're like, people are like, why don't you do this? Like Zoran is doing it. And it's like, well, if I did what Zoran was doing, you guys would crush me. So unfortunately, life is unfair and Zoran has swag. And as you mentioned, he has the benefit of having these more being more on the extreme side of the party. So there's more credibility. But it's like that's real. And I think that has got to be a frustrating political reality for more of the kind of leadership of the Democratic Party in dc.

Andrew Egger (19:11)

I think you'd have a hard time like plausibly arguing that it comes down to really anything ultimately other than juice, right? I mean, like Zoran has it and Hakeem and Chuck do not. And therefore the second they step into the Oval Office, they are like just sucked into Trump's aura, right? And then they become just sort of an accessory to him. Whereas as we were talking about at the top, that just wasn't what the aesthetics of this first picture looked like. And maybe that's like an insane like, rubric on which to grade any sort of like actual political action. But it, am I, am I wrong that this is basically what it, what it comes down to, how these people are having these reactions to this meeting?

Tim Miller (19:50)

No, that's what I'm saying. It's juice. It's swag. The vehicular gets it. Unfortunately, sometimes that's just what our politics are. Here's the part that Gives me the ick. And it kind of relates to the Jefferies thing. Like, I imagine there's a person out there, this person out there that is watching this right now that is like, they're about to roll their eyes because they're like, tim, you don't do this again. That they're like, tim, I'm so upset at you over your take that the hockey team wasn't a big deal, because Donald Trump is a threat to our society and to the country. And he wants to be an authoritarian, and you can't give him anything. You can't give him one inch. You can't get on a phone call with him. You can't laugh at his jokes. I'm like, that's not a. I've disagreed with that take, but that is a rational view. It's hard to match that rational view with also Zoran's mogging him, you know, because it's like, in. Zoran is so great for doing this. Like, there is, like, a level where if you do believe the Donald Trump is the scale of a threat, it's like, is it worth it for the houses? And my real. What I really come down to is, like, it's kind of a tough call. Like, it's not that easy of a call. And I think that, like, the. You know, for. If anybody was going on and being like, fuck you, Zoran, I'd be like, that's a little much. But also for the people, like, this is really unambiguously the right thing for him to do. It definitely was for the Columbia student that was released, you know, but, like, it's not easy. It's not an easy call. Like, Trump is dangerous. If this picture and this behavior gives him any juice while he still has three years left to create problems, that's not good, you know, and so, like, that's the part of this that is really. As I'm saying this all out loud, I think I'm deciding that I'm coming down on the side that Zoran did the right thing, but, you know, because this seems kind of like a petty complaint, but I think it's not. It's not a crazy complaint.

Andrew Egger (21:45)

I totally see where people are coming from, if that's the way that they feel about it. I think to me, the thing. The danger that Zo Run opens himself up to, like, if this thing sort of, like, progresses, like, the pressure on him to, like, you know, start actually saying some, like, meaningfully, like, flattering things about Donald Trump, like everybody else does, to get anything out of him everywhere in the country all the time, that's going to grow. Right? I mean, it does not seem likely that, that Trump will continue to let this thing, like, tip Zoran's way purely out of like, huh, it's kind of weird that this socialist wants to be my friend and he's like a fun guy and, and all that, like, that's, that doesn't seem likely to, like, last. Right. And so if Zoran does actually start, you know, doing like, the Eric Adams thing, where he's like, actively sort of like helping the President out and like, saying nice things about his policies, saying, saying, like flattering things about him as the President, and personally, I would have a very different take. I mean, then you're aiding and abetting, like, this, this very, very bad, bad, bad president. He didn't do that at all today. He just tweeted out the picture. He said, I had a productive meeting with the President. I'm excited to get to work building housing in New York. Like, he gave Trump nothing on that. He tweeted out the picture. That makes him look good and Trump look strange, you know, like, like, and to the extent that he can continue to sort of like suspend gravity and, and keep this relationship where it is right now, whatever. I mean, cool, like, get a lot of housing built in New York. Zoran, why not go nuts? I don't think that that is necessarily very sustainable, but we're not at the point yet where I'm, where I look at that and I'm like, no, you sold your soul to make this happen.

Tim Miller (23:19)

I'm coming down as pro. We've talked it out. We did. How many minutes we had? 23 minutes.

Andrew Egger (23:25)

23 minutes.

Tim Miller (23:26)

And it took me that long. The cobwebs had to shake loose. But I think that, yeah, I mean, I think that he gave up nothing. I hope that, you know, he makes sure to be very clear with people about the fact that, you know, him and Trump aren't anti establishment pals going after the corrupt oligarchs. I hope that it comes down the line, but I don't know. It seems like another win for Z. What a world we're in. Okay, that's Andrew Egger. I'm Tim Miller. Subscribe to us on this feed and get Andrew's newsletter at thebullork. Com. And who the hell knows what surprises will be in store when I wake up next?