Suspension of the Rules. - Ari, Kmele and Will talk about Megyn Kelly, Will's take on James Comey, the government shut down and more.

Summary

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Tangle Podcast Summary

Episode: Suspension of the Rules
Date: October 3, 2025
Host: Ari Weitzman (filling in for Isaac Saul)
Co-hosts/Guests: Kmele Foster, Will K. Back

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Episode Overview

This episode of Tangle delivers an in-depth, multi-perspective conversation on current political controversies and institutional dynamics shaping the U.S. political sphere. Without regular host Isaac Saul, Ari Weitzman leads a rotating cast—Kmele Foster and Will K. Back—through candid, critical discussions on Megyn Kelly's podcast controversies, the indictment of James Comey, the latest government shutdown, the Democrats' position against Trump, and the broader state of political strategy and media discourse.

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Key Topics & Insights

1. Megyn Kelly Controversy & Independent Media

[04:43 – 13:23]

• Background: Megyn Kelly faces criticism for associating with figures like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, accused of conspiratorial and anti-Semitic rhetoric.
• Kmele’s Take: While Kelly is under pressure to denounce or distance herself from controversial figures, she demonstrates a commitment to open, measured dialogue rather than succumbing to categorical condemnation.
  • Quote:

    “There’s a special value in really being measured, taking your time to understand what they’re saying, however insane it seems, and deconstructing it… But you’re not going to tell her what to say, you’re not going to tell her who to condemn.”
    — Kmele Foster [09:10]

• Media Dynamics: Kmele reflects on the differing nature of podcast conversations (measured, nuanced) versus the “WrestleMania” performativity of cable news, drawing from his CNN appearance.
  • Quote:

    “I’ve soured on cable news a little bit… I don’t really want to be that guy if I’m going to be in these spaces. I want to try to bring a different sort of energy.”
    — Kmele Foster [12:07]

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2. Will’s Take on the James Comey Indictment

[15:10 – 39:17]

• Summary: Will authored a piece asserting the Comey indictment is a “plainly political prosecution,” telegraphed by Trump and detrimental for the long-term health of U.S. governance.
  • Quote:

    “This was a plainly political prosecution, and Trump broadcast this in no uncertain terms… it’s a lose-lose in the long run for everybody.”
    — Will K. Back [16:35]

• Reader Responses: Conservatives argue it’s overdue accountability for Comey; progressives see it as authoritarian overreach. Though united in seeing political motivation, the stakes are debated.
• Debating Precedent: Ari is less alarmed, seeing unique circumstances unlikely to set broad precedent, but Will counters it’s the “follow-through” that matters—Trump’s willingness to pursue political opponents.
  • Quote:

    “The indictments, the prosecutions, the threats are one thing. The climate of concern that is created, the compliance … All of it is the sort of thing that creates a dynamic that feels very uncomfortable.”
    — Kmele Foster [33:02]

• Domino Theory: Comey’s indictment may represent a ‘first domino’—of potential concern if more targeted prosecutions follow (Schiff, Letitia James, Bolton); if isolated, it's alarming but not catastrophic.

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3. Government Shutdown: A New Normal?

[41:59 – 62:38]

• Kmele’s Framing: Shutdowns have become normalized tactics in legislative brinkmanship, but real concern lies in systemic budgeting dysfunction—not just the shutdown “drama.”
  • Quote:

    “Shutdowns have just become endemic and we don’t actually do budgeting anymore in a serious way… most of what’s happening at this point is just kind of this messaging exercise.”
    — Kmele Foster [42:13]

• White House Position: Will highlights that the Trump White House is uniquely embracing the shutdown for ideological goals, seeing it as an “opportunity to grab additional power.”
  • Quote:

    “The White House’s embrace of the shutdown … that to me feels unique.”
    — Will K. Back [50:01]

• Democratic Response: Ari critiques Schumer and Senate Democrats’ lack of strategy, stressing that without bolder stances or proactive legislative maneuvers, their leverage evaporates.
  • Quote:

    “Why is this the hill you chose to die on? ... He's mentioning ACA benefits, Republicans aren’t going to approve them—he’s willing to fold and hasn’t pushed for a whole lot before.”
    — Ari Weitzman [55:18]

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4. Democratic Strategy & Leadership

[59:12 – 73:53]

• Leadership Void: Panel laments the absence of effective, creative leadership among Democrats—caught between resistance and compromise, resulting in an “incoherent strategy” (Will).
• Compromise vs. Outrage: Kmele and Ari argue that Democrats’ penchant for outrage and performativity is insufficient, suggesting a pragmatic approach—finding common ground, and reserving outrage for substantive issues.
  • Quote:

    “They have a weird issue where … maybe not fighting them on everything, finding places where you can work together … is a strategy that is worth Democrats actually thinking about and trying here.”
    — Kmele Foster [59:12]

• Base Outrage Cycle: Ari muses on the political limits of perpetually running on outrage rather than policy delivery, notably on issues like abortion or the “Trump third term” meme.

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5. Institutional Norms & Journalistic Responsibility

[72:17 – 73:53]

• Tone of Conversation: Kmele reflects on the value of sober, non-hysterical discourse—contrasting “this isn’t normal” refrains with the necessity of adapting to new realities and upholding journalistic integrity.
  • Quote:

    “This is normal. We’re not normalizing things… but the executive branch is determined to press the limits… as journalists, our responsibility is to have a clear-eyed view of these things and to not devolve into hysteria and cheerleading.”
    — Kmele Foster [72:17]

• Empathy Across the Aisle: Will reminds listeners that for many, the Biden years felt equally tumultuous—urging empathy and multi-perspective analysis.

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6. Memorable Quotes & Lighter Moments

• On Outrage and Political Messaging:

  “Just show us you doing something, don’t show us you feeling something.”
  — Ari Weitzman [71:10]

• On Podcast Chemistry:

  “I appreciate just how level headed the conversation is. There are so many people who survey this stuff and who cover it for a living, who see things that make them uncomfortable… I’m just grateful to be in an organization where that is the attitude.”
  — Kmele Foster [72:17]

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7. The Airing of Grievances

[75:06 – 81:29]

A lighthearted closer where each host shares a personal grievance:

• Kmele laments Apple’s focus shift from Vision Pro to smart glasses.
• Ari complains about friends scheduling inconvenient weekday weddings.
• Will is “grieving” the persistent autumn humidity in New York.

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Important Segment Timestamps

| Segment | Time | |-------------------------------------------------|-------------| | Megyn Kelly controversy & independent media | 04:43–13:23 | | James Comey indictment discussion | 15:10–39:17 | | Government shutdown discussion | 41:59–62:38 | | Democratic strategy and leadership | 59:12–73:53 | | Airing of Grievances (lighter closing segment) | 75:06–81:29 |

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Episode Takeaways

• The Tangle team delivers uniquely measured, critical dialogue, modeling how contentious issues can be explored with both passion and civility.
• They caution against normalization of performative outrage, partisan retribution, and dysfunctional institutional habits—urging instead for prioritization, strategy, and empathy.
• Above all, the conversation underscores the value and rarity of good-faith argument and level-headed journalism in a polarized media landscape.

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Transcript

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[A]

Coming up, I'm running the show without Isaac. Will joins us. We talk Megan Kelly and Camille Will. Peace on comey, some government shutdown discussion and the Democrats stance on Trump. It is a good one.

[C]

From executive producer Isaac Saul.

[A]

This is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening. Welcome to the suspension of the rules podcast. The place where the takes are hot but the heads are cool. How's that feel? Did that feel all right? I'm your host for today, managing editor Ari Weitzman. Well, Tangle executive editor Isaac saw it's off gallivanting in Italy. Camille, welcome. How Are you feeling.

[B]

I'm feeling great. I'm feeling great. That was pretty good. I think we should probably mention tangle in the intro, though.

[A]

We should probably also mention the third chair for today too. I think that's something we're doing, actually. We are joined by senior editor Will K. Back, who is up in the big leagues today with the boys. A little.

[D]

A little pinch hit spot for the senior editor. I'm feeling good. I am excited to be back. It's been a little while since I was on the pod. I don't know if I've actually been on since Camille joined, so.

[B]

You have not.

[D]

Yeah, no. It's a special occasion for me.

[A]

The first time you two have ever spoken as far as our listeners are concerned.

[B]

Yeah, pretty much movie magic.

[A]

And we. Yeah, we're playing a lot of musical chairs here. So Camille's in New York. Will, I think you're in New York, too. I'm in New Jersey today, so I'm one of my good friends Andrew, who is a co host on MKBHD's Waveform podcast, which is a pretty highly reviewed tech podcast. Friends of the show, the MKBHD people. Brilliant. Set up here. Like they. Obviously a tech reviewer because I'm in heaven. This setup is incredible. His office is amazing and big. Thanks to Andrew and the MKBHD team for letting me sit in on their studio or this little office today. It's really cool. But we're all like metro New York area sort of today.

[B]

Well, I literally just landed at SFO about an hour and a half.

[A]

Never mind, never mind. I'm back in California.

[B]

Yeah, but I was there last night. I taped with Abby Phillips at 10pm which is crazy. And got a 6am Flight out of.

[A]

New York this morning. You've been busy.

[B]

It's been a crazy couple days. I interviewed Megyn Kelly yesterday, who's been going through some interesting things. And I also interviewed this brilliant young director, Nico, who made the new Kanye west documentary, which is actually quite good. And that interview will drop in a couple of days, actually.

[A]

You want to tell us about what happened with Megyn Kelly? She's been in the news a little bit for saying things. And I know that she's a friend of yours and a friend of the whole team at Fifth Column. So what's been up with her?

[B]

Well, we've had a long relationship with Megan almost since she launched her independent show. I mean, we both worked at the News Corp. Building together, so I'd see her around the hall there. Back when I had a show on Fox Business. But we really didn't get to know each other until afterwards. And we knew that the Fifth Column was doing its first video launch or first video episode drop, and we invited her to be the guest. And she agreed to do it three or four weeks ago. And it so happens that this particular week, she's in the midst of a bit of controversy. A lot of people criticizing her because of her association with various conservatives, particularly Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, who have been under fire because they've been exceedingly conspiratorial and by some accounts have said things that have been. Has been regarded as anti Semitic. And people were imploring Megan to distance herself from them or condemn them. And there was even an encounter that was, you know, friendly but pointed, where we were on her show, the Fifth Column guys, and my co host, Michael Moynihan, had an exchange with her that got not so much testy, but did, like make the rounds. And we ended up revisiting that. But it's also the five year anniversary of Megan's show. I mean, Megan's show is near the top of the charts on itunes. I think yesterday it was at like 6 or 7. The thing is, like, Candace's show today, I think is at around 3 and has been in that kind of stratosphere with respect to just podcast reach. So we talked about a lot of things. We talked about independent media, we talked about the party, we talked about the Republican Party. That is, we talked about the evolution of Meghan as a political commentator who for many, many years, I think, even though she was on Fox, was regarded as someone who was kind of calling balls and strikes. Everyone remembers that infamous encounter during the debates where Donald Trump talked about blood coming out of various orifices of hers. And it was a really interesting conversation. I will say we did get into the Candace stuff. We talk about it for quite some time and folks can go check out the whole thing. I won't characterize her comments because I don't want to misrepresent anything. But I will say that for me, coming out of the conversation I probably went in, I had one opinion when we talked about this a couple of weeks ago with respect to, like Tucker and Candace and having that affiliation and feeling a sort of obligation if it were me feeling an obligation to speak to those things. But I also have a slightly different sensibility. And I suspect it may actually be colored by the Kanye west documentary, if you can believe that. Cause there's a moment where Kanye and Candace are together on film in the documentary and it's fairly normal. It's normal, er, times anyways. And watching them have a fairly normal interaction and seeing where they both are now, which is to say both of them are engaged in all sorts of conspiratorial musings and surrounded by controversy constantly and generally seem somewhat unglued. And I don't want to play armchair psychologist, but that is what it looks like to me. I've become increasingly not so much worried, but willing to entertain the idea that what's important isn't so much condemning people individually as much as addressing the things that they're saying and addressing specific ideas that one believes perhaps are dangerous or misleading or just not factual and explaining why. And I do think that those kind of categorical denunciations, calling people various names, whether it be, you know, bigot or racist or anti Semite, that has its place. But it's also true that to the extent people have just become used to hearing those kind of allegations thrown around, there's a special value in really being measured, taking your time to understand what they're saying, however insane it seems, and deconstructing it. And I think we did some of that work in our conversation and Megan didn't shy away from doing some of that work. But I do think that she just being someone who's been in the public eye as long as she has, she's developed a particular perspective and you're not going to tell her what to say, you're not going to tell her who to condemn. And people, people may not like that. I wonder if there is an also. And now I'm just kind of commentating a bit, if there isn't also a kind of no enemies to the right perspective there. And I don't know that that's entirely fair because there are certain people, certainly people she has criticized on the right, even during the podcast, but not particularly vociferously. But I do think that that kind of no enemies to the right disposition, which I've seen a lot with the new right that's emerged, is one that can be exceedingly dangerous because you can find yourself justifying just about anything. And I don't think Meghan is there yet, and I don't know that I have any expectation she'll get there. She's still someone who can find things to criticize about. The administration will offer those criticisms up. And even more than that, she's still very happy to publicly associate with people, people like me, with whom we have some agreements on some things, we've got forceful disagreements on lots of other things. And I just think there's something really special about being able to have a sober, level headed conversation with someone when you have a disagreement. Because the goal may not be to persuade each other one way or another, but to at least expose people to the conversation and to the discussion. And it's much easier to hear when I'm not shouting at you and calling you a moron and hanging up and storming out of the room and ripping off mics and I suppose that's a spoiler. She didn't storm out of the room and neither did we.

[A]

What were their mics being ripped off? Was that a thing?

[B]

Well, eventually, I suppose.

[A]

What, like at the end when people are just saying goodbye? Sure, that's a little bit clickbaity, but I guess we'll allow it.

[B]

We didn't let it stand. We didn't let it stand. But no, it was fun and we try to have fun and we try to be informative. I mean, I think when you are doing media as frequently and for as long as I have, I've certainly been involved in some dust ups on different occasions. But there wasn't any of that in the conversation with Megan. I will say when I did the CNN appearance later the same night, maybe because I was just a little worn out, there was a moment where someone was saying something and I kind of mocked them on air. And it was part of the game.

[A]

Though, a little bit. I mean, that's kind of what the CNN show is meant to do a little bit.

[B]

Yeah, it's true. I mean, this is Abby Phillips show and I actually have come to like Abby a lot. I appreciate what she tries to do. Like she really is Dr. Trying to convene a table of people with different perspectives and get into it. And it's the best rated show on the network. Now I'm performing really, really well and that success is well deserved. But at the same time I find myself. I've soured on cable news a little bit, just personally and I haven't soured on Abby. I haven't soured on the aspiration of her show. But I do sometimes wonder about that medium and the degree to which it can sometimes have a kind of WrestleMania dynamic. And I didn't like that. There was a moment where I felt, you know, someone had said over and over again over the course of the show, you're cutting me off. And he cut me off. And I said in a voice that was meant to sound somewhat like his, you're cutting me off. I got quiet quickly and I immediately felt bad. And I thought to myself, that's, I don't actually want to do that. I don't really want to be that guy if I'm going to be in these spaces. I want to try to bring a different sort of energy. So I'm maybe oversharing here, but I, yeah, it's interesting to do the stuff that we do for a living, commentate, and also to engage in these kind of public conversations. But I don't expect this to get remotely acrimonious.

[A]

We'll see. We'll see why.

[B]

I will start wrapping up.

[D]

Yeah, I'm ready to go.

[B]

We'll be right back after this quick break.

[C]

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[A]

Want to ask Will a little bit about some stuff that he was writing about this week? Because one of the things that we've been doing the past week is sort of a rotating author's chair on the stuff we're we are covering in Tangle. So without Isaac here again traveling in Italy, we're sort of going back to the mode that we were in in January, February when he was at home with his wife and his newborn and we were at home with our nascent presidential administration and trying to give it the love and care it deserved. And Will wrote something about the Comey indictment. And one of the things that we've been doing in the last couple weeks is just trying to pick one of the things that we've covered and go in a little bit more on some of the reader responses and engagement we've gotten. And this is a little bit of an area where to be frank and we'll get more into this. I kind of don't have a feel of the lay of the land for the way people think about James Comey, but I think you've got a little bit more of an idea of just the general public's like the contours of opinions across the spectrum, Will. And just curious the see how you felt about the responses we got and kind of what the tenor of the responses were from our readership that week or that edition.

[D]

Yeah, I so far have found that the responses have not voiced any significant disagreement with the position that I took, which was essentially that this was a plainly political prosecution and Trump broadcast this in no uncertain terms for the weeks and months leading up to it. And in my take, what I essentially was hoping to do was give that sequence of events to demonstrate just how clear that was to me and then offer some thoughts on why, even if you have a personal dislike of Comey or think he may be guilty of other crimes, the course of action that Trump and the Justice Department are taking here is a lose lose in the long run for everybody. And I haven't seen many people disagreeing directly with that conclusion. I think the criticism that I've gotten from conservative readers mainly deals with that element of, well, you know, Comey is responsible for X, Y and Z, things that were clearly out to get Trump and in some cases people believe were illegal. And this is just accountability in a different form for that. I think, you know, my response to that is pretty straightforward. You know, that's not what he's being charged with here. And we can only focus on the facts of this case and the facts of this case don't support an indictment from readers on the left. The response outside of, I think, agreeing with the conclusion, which isn't surprising, a lot of people on the left will tell you that this is a political prosecution and go further than that, is just talking more writ large about how this is clearly an authoritarian style of government and that we need to be more forceful in calling it out, even in this case. So I wouldn't say there's been a Massive kind of response or polarized response. I think that this is like something that most people can agree on, but they kind of just want to make arguments around the case and not so much directly about it.

[A]

I have a. I have a question, I guess, about the case. Maybe it's around the case and you can be the arbiter of whether or not I'm being direct. But I have a hard time, I'll just admit, personal bias here. I have a hard time really feeling invested in this one. I think with other cases that we've covered. Take the Abrega Garcia case as an example. That's something where I could see a concern about precedent very clearly. There's a bright line that I could draw from. You accuse somebody of being a gang member or an illegal immigrant or breaking some law or other, and then that accusation is supposed to do the work in and of itself to justify whatever the punishment is without a trial, without a charge, without any sort of due process. That is, I think, a pretty clear precedent that could be extended to anybody. When it comes to James Comey, the precedent I feel a little bit harder caring about because it's. Yeah. So if you are ever going to be the head of a department that's leading an investigation into a president that then makes report that says there's no prosecutions it wants to raise, which justifies another report which says no prosecutions, and then that president loses an election and then comes back four years later and then wants to prosecute people who are leading these investigations that we've now been over and over and over on for 10 years, like you might be indicted. That's like. I don't know how many people that precedent's going to apply to other than James Comey. And frankly, I just want this to go away. And like, I know that we've talked about this prosecute them all mentality of if there's wrongdoing, we should investigate it and anything comes up, then there should be people held accountable. That's something that maybe. Maybe is like a little bit at loggerheads here with what I'm saying of like, maybe James Comey did something that was illegal. Probably not. I think almost certainly we can. I don't know. I wouldn't want to say, certainly. But based on the evidence we've seen so far that's come out of the grand jury indictment, doesn't seem like there's going to be a whole lot there to indict based on what they're asking for. So it does feel sort of like Theatrical. And I just feel like a. I don't know. I feel like a patsy when I'm like, let me care about this theater. That doesn't matter. That should have been put to bed years ago. Like, I feel like we're just continuing this thing. That should go away.

[D]

Yeah. I think I would disagree with two points there. First, about the Abrego Garcia case. I think that, to me, stops short of the alarm you describe over this could happen to anybody. I think I would need to see something like that happen to a US Citizen before I would truly be alarmed. I think the fact that Abrega Garcia is not a citizen and was in the country without authorization is. It changes the focus of the case for me, where I don't become alarmed that this could be applied writ large.

[A]

Sure. I think the concern is that we didn't know that before he was sent out of the country. There's no process that proved that he was not a citizen. So you can say, this person's not a citizen. Trust me, bro. And then that's enough.

[D]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's true initially, sure. I think the facts that we've learned after the case, the fact that it was caught and identified as an error, and the Trump administration even admitted to that just sitting here now, that's less concerning to me than just an arbitrary or not so arbitrary, but a prosecution directed at the behest of the president on extremely flimsy evidence. Again, Comey, in itself, I did not find to be a particularly sympathetic character, or I don't agree with his actions necessarily as FBI director or the political positions he's taken since then. It's more so that Trump has directed these prosecutions against Adam Schiff and Letitia James and other political opponents, and now we're actually seeing follow through on that front. So it is the specter of what this could become that alarms me more, I think, than the case you described.

[B]

And John Bolton, another prominent Trump critic who has found himself in the crosshairs of criminal investigation. And interestingly, the prosecution and Ari, I can appreciate where you're coming from, and I think certainly the case that with the immigration prosecutions, we didn't have a lot of context for what was going on there. There was so much uncertainty about who was getting arrest, under what circumstances. The administration was obfuscating with respect to their responsibility and even ability to bring people back from El Salvador. So there were so many questions there that it really did kind of heighten the level of attention that was given to that case and is still the case, I mean, right now we are still. And we may not get to it today, but we certainly will in the future. The ICE raids that are taking place now in Chicago are making headlines, and it's been months. Comey, Interestingly, I expected this to be a much bigger deal than it has been. And it's just that there's so much news with this administration and there are always so many different things happening that this just doesn't really seem to be capturing people's attention. It's also the case that Comey has adopted a kind of bring it on perspective. Like, he wants this, he wants his day in court. And quite honestly, I'm not sure I blame him. It does seem to me that this prosecution almost certainly doesn't have legs. I think the folks over at National Review View, hardly a bastion of progressive thought, are deeply skeptical of what the administration is doing right now and have leveled very credible skepticism and concern with respect to this case and its prosecution, and importantly, the investigations themselves. Even a frivolous prosecution, even one that ends up getting kicked because the Trump administration has just been so haphazard in the way that it's done so many things that they end up kind of own goaling. It can be hugely consequential for a regular person and for a civilian of any sort. It could completely ruin your life. And Comey is a guy who was not quite in public service anymore, and that's probably expected. An Obama appointee probably isn't going to survive several administrations later, but he was a prominent and among the most prominent Trump critics, as is John Bolton. And to see the apparatus of our legal system turned on them for what seemed like, at least, again, appearances do matter here, what seem like political reasons. And with the Comey thing in particular, it's really hard to deny it. The president publicly encouraging, not even encouraging, insisting, I would go so far as to say commanding his district attorney to go out there and actually make cases against these people, because we're beginning to look silly. And he says he's guilty as hell. But the thing that he also says is they did this to me. They came after me. It is really hard to escape the appearance that this is just pure retribution. And there's something about that that is particularly bad. This is actually something that came up when I talked to Megan yesterday as well, and her perspective was, are these prosecutions bad? Well, to the extent real crimes have been committed, even if they're crimes that they're kind of looking for, the mortgage fraud stuff, then, okay, you can prosecute people for that. But if there aren't crimes and they're manufacturing them, that is a different matter. And it's going to be hard for me to get particularly excited. And this is, again, Meghan talking, but I can understand the argument she's leveling because of the things that I saw happen to our candidate when he was running for office. Multiple prosecutions that similarly had some sort of political taint to them. Odd leaks that were coming out of the Justice Department, the Biden Justice Department at the time. Does that mean Biden was ordering things? I don't know. Was Biden commenting on the cases? Occasionally. But there were plenty of other Democrats who were vociferously doing so. And those cases in many instances, from my standpoint, didn't look particularly good either. So this does, however, still seem like an escalation. And I think those escalations can be very dangerous. And that sets a precedent for future administrations, even a future Democratic administration that might actually indulge in some of the things that were openly talked about in prior years, like getting Fox News off the air. I mean, the things that the Trump administration has done with the fcc. Like, why wouldn't they take another shot at that next go round?

[D]

And AOC administration. And AOC administration. I mean, that's something that she's talked openly about. Maybe not Fox explicitly, but it would not be hard to imagine something like that happening.

[A]

But here's I think what my point is, listening to all of that is all of the reasons to be concerned about this prosecution or, sorry, the indictment against Comey are all other things, though. It's because it's part of this broader trend. It's because look at what he did with McIntarfer and the BLS, and look at what he's doing with a person who wouldn't prosecute out of the district attorney out of Virginia. Like, do what I want, go after my enemies or get out of the way. And that's the trend. And yeah, that's the trend. And that's a thing that I'm also concerned about. But I also like and to Will's point, because I want to make sure I say this briefly, one of the things that you said in your take, Will, was even if the prosecution, the investigation to Trump was frivolous and was just a total witch hunt, like, let's just say that it was and we'll know that, you know, it wasn't totally a witch hunt. There's reasons for the investigation. Did it go too far? Yeah. Were they following false leads? Yeah. Were they politically motivated? Most likely. But if not, for sure, but most.

[D]

Likely in some cases. I mean, I would argue there were cases like the Georgia election interference case in which we have phone call audio of him telling Raffensperger to find votes.

[A]

Right.

[D]

But here, here we're doing credible prosecution.

[A]

Right. But here we're doing the thing where we're talking about other things. Again, it's like there's like lots of cases where Trump wants to get retribution for reasonable investigations into him. And even if all of those investigations were bs, which was the thing that you're saying in your take, this is still not a thing we would want the government to do is go after frivolous retribution. It's all of the individual retributions that I want to be concerned about on their merits. Like, Trump does these things and it sucks and it's an abusive authority, but when it comes to Comey, it is. So even though it's a trend, it's that isolated part of it that he's going after one person for this huge Russia collusion thing that is, in his mind, a witch hunt. And it's tough for me to, like, get up in arms about it knowing that it's. We're at the end of this five year statute of limitations for any prosecutions to be brought. And the thing that annoys me the most is just that we're still talking about it. Like, I'd rather be focusing on the other things I'd rather be focusing on, like whether or not there is reason for us to trust the Bureau of Labor Statistics, whether or not we are pursuing people outside of due process to try to deport people who allegedly have entered the country illegally. Like, we want to know whether or not those things have happened. And I mean, I think I'm agreeing with the, and the John Bolton indictment. Here's another critic. We want to try to prosecute people who are critical or just the raid.

[D]

He hasn't been indicted.

[A]

Sorry. Right.

[D]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

But, like, although we kind of expected.

[A]

Any moment potentially administering the apparatus of the state to go after people who the president sees as critical of him, like that, that is, I think, the headline and that maybe I'm talking against myself here, so I can see how, like, it's not a. Maybe it's tough for this to come out cogently, but if that's the concern, if I'm seeing this is what the President's doing, using the apparatus of the state to go after critics, when I ask, okay, what are the examples, what should my level of concern be? And it's Bolton and Comey. I'm like, okay, is that all we have, though? I'm not saying it's good.

[D]

Letitia James, Adam Schiff, I mean, these are the ones who are imminent in my mind, like Lisa Cook, a little bit different there, but I just think it's the fact that he has named these people for a long time, Comey among them. And now the Comey domino has fallen, and they've shown that they will actually follow through. Because I think with Trump, a lot of the times you have to see the follow through before you start taking it super seriously. And to me, this is the follow through now. And I think it's totally reasonable to believe that Tish James is next or Adam Schiff is next in some form. And then I think you get to the place where you have to raise the alarm and. And so to me, it's the significance of this step and what it symbolizes going forward.

[B]

That point about follow through is interesting because I think, Ari, maybe I was talking to Isaac about this, or maybe we were all talking. I know we weren't recording, but at some point I'd said Trump has mentioned all of these people. Nothing has happened. And this was before the Bolton raid. Nothing has happened yet. It would be interesting to just kind of examine whether or not there's been any progress towards actually moving forward or whether it's just Hillary empty, lock her up rhetoric. And no, it is something else entirely. And importantly, Will, I think you're correct. The indictments, the prosecutions, the threats are one thing. The climate of concern that is created, the compliance that you're able to generate because you are willing to do this sort of thing. And when you combine that with the other things that he's done, like going after law firms, the interventions on university campuses, which, again, ostensibly about addressing antisemitism, but have run afoul of various speech issues and have looked like pretty strenuous arm twisting. All of it is the sort of thing that creates a dynamic that feels very uncomfortable, that ought to be concerning. And when folks show up at the White House and they give the President a gift and they're speaking in these glowing terms about him, it's hard for that to not read as a kind of sycophantic compliance. And that isn't really something that we want to see. There's always the kind of possibility of that sort of thing, like a subtext. The federal government is regulating you. You're there talking to the administration. There's a delicate dance there. There's a necessary tension.

[A]

Perhaps.

[B]

The tension is far greater than it has been at any point in my recent recollection on a broader number of issues and areas of interest. It's not just something like fracking that they happen to be talking about now. It's pretty much anything. And that does seem different. But Ari, I mean, again, you mentioned yesterday when we were talking a little bit about just getting ready for this conversation that you were perhaps a little less concerned about this. And I do think you're correct in a very important respect. There are so many things going on. It is essential for us to be level headed and thoughtful as we're surveying the landscape and to attach some priority to things. And I've said what I just said a moment ago about the specter of kind of corruption and intimidation and how that's not good, but that's, you know, it's norms, it's feel, it's vibes. And that's very different than what's happening with active ICE raids that are taking place, with conversations about troop deployments at various places in the United States, which again, just saying all these things all together, it makes it sound like total madness. But we do have to try and understand this. And we also have to try and understand it from the perspective of people who aren't super critical of it, who do see this as something that is good and valuable and worthwhile. So, yeah, it's complicated.

[A]

Yeah, I'll take that, I think. Thank you for sort of making my point a little bit better than I was about prioritization of issues. I think the domino framing is interesting here. And saying we had a bunch of threats and we had some bluster, but not any individual prosecutions against individuals until the Comey indictment came down. And that framing it as a domino is, I think, the interesting way to look at it. Because if there are indeed more prosecutions from the Justice Department that follow, then we can, I think, make this larger claim about this specter of litigation, because as of now, I think there's a specter of government threatening you again and using whatever force it has or methods of persuasion. I guess we can say, especially if you're a university and the NIH has the power to choose where it's going to approve its grants, then that's something that I think is happening. But when it comes to litigation against individuals. Right, Like Will, I think, saying there could be more to come, I think that's important for us to, as we're trying to say, like, okay, what's the thing for me to Watch, if this is gonna be an issue, if things are, is Letitia James gonna face an indictment? And I think maybe also just the last thing that I'll say before turning it back over to you, there is sort of, to Camille's point, when we're thinking about what the precedents are and the prioritization of these things, the precedent for the. This is what I was trying to say earlier. The precedent for the case is this could be anybody that gets this accusation of, you're not a citizen, so we're going to put you away. But it can't just be anybody who's accused of doing some high profile, biased thing against the president and a former administration. That group is much smaller. And this is not me saying, therefore it's not an issue. Right. It's just me saying when we're talking about the issues, help me rank this one, because right now I'm seeing it as comparatively lower than others.

[D]

Yeah. I think in the interest of intellectual honesty as well, I would say that if in three months or some undetermined amount of time, the Comey indictment is all that we've seen come about out of the people that Trump has named or targeted in the past, then I think it's easy to view this indictment as Comey is somebody Trump harbors unique resentment against. And this indictment was throwing him a bone to cool Trump off. And there is no broader plan to indict more political enemies. And Comey is a bit of a sacrificial lamb, likely won't be convicted of anything here. And this ends up kind of just being something that's disappointing and not what should have happened, but far from a five alarm fire, I think that's totally plausible. I just do see this as a significant step that we haven't seen Trump take so far. And that's why it did raise some alarm bells for me, I think.

[A]

Okay, I can agree with all that. I think that that all sounds reasonable. And yeah, I think I'm with that. And I also think one of the things that was a sort of subtextual criticism from you that was broader than the current administration was how easy it is to get a grand jury indictment anyway. That's something that's more systemic. And if, if grand juries were a little bit more discerning systemically, then probably this issue just dies in the crib.

[D]

Sure, sure.

[A]

And.

[D]

But at the same time, I mean, I wrote in the take, there could be evidence that just hasn't been publicly released yet that points to some degree of guilt that you know, we just don't know about and the grand jury saw and that's how they made their decision. So I'm certainly in favor of letting this play out through the legal system and I don't think that Comey will face any significant consequences for this and it may even be somewhat of a triumph for him. Like you said, he may want this. So yeah, to a certain degree, as with many things with Trump, he's taken this step, but we certainly don't have the end of the story and don't want to overreact.

[A]

That's a good call to remember that we are all agreeing on our read here, that we think this is a political prosecution, but we don't have all the evidence and until we do, we should make sure we're staying mentally open to possible scenarios that are different than what we're seeing.

[B]

We'll be right back after this. Quick break.

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[A]

And with that I think I want to turn to another issue that somebody else on the call said they didn't think was as important as the rest of us, which just the government shutdown, Camille says, no big deal, I don't care.

[B]

Well, it's. Yeah, there's some nuance here, and I may make the case in a way that's a little more strident than I perhaps even am certain, I believe, not for kind of the purposes of performance, but in order to try to illustrate the point a little bit better. But we've seen these a lot. Government shutdowns have just become part of the way business is done in Washington, D.C. both parties have known that this possibility was on the horizon. Both parties are familiar enough with it to know that it's not always clear who's going to end up getting the blame for this and why. This might end up being bad for you and perhaps bad for Americans more generally, but they permit it to happen anyways. And I think what's more concerning for me than the actual fact of yet another shutdown is the fact that these shutdowns have just become endemic and we don't actually do budgeting anymore in a serious way. And relative to concern about the national debt and the deficit, it seems to me that the shutdown itself is perhaps not the most important thing here. The dynamics are a little bit different because we have an administration who for the first time, in the context of one of these shutdowns, is committing to we're going to gut programs that are important to you. We are going to use this as an opportunity to grab additional power and is once again kind of pushing the boundaries, are testing the boundaries of what is acceptable, what is legal under these contexts. And again, other administrations have done that. No other administration in my memory has done it on quite so many fronts at the same time for a sustained period in the way that this administration has. I think the closest we might get to that is the George W. Bush administration during that kind of war on terror period. But again, it was very focused. It was specific to national security stuff. And here we see it on virtually every issue. And I think that dynamic is important and worth paying attention to. I think to the extent there are costs there, they're likely going to be for pet projects of Democrats. But it could also be things that happen at the Justice Department. I mean, to the extent from the previous conversation, things aren't worse. It's because of a lot of the kind of bureaucracy that is built up there. That deep state, as folks have become accustomed to calling, is a check on the ability of the executive branch to do absolutely whatever it wants. And that check could be somewhat diminished, that informal check perhaps could be somewhat diminished by this. So that's worth paying attention to. But again, I sent you guys a link actually to a video, and it's this video by Paul Ryan that some people might remember. And it was one of several videos that were produced just charting the deficit. And I believe it was called like A Tale of Two Futures. And I was actually in the room for the first of these when they were producing it. Cause the team that I was a part of at the time was responsible for helping to produce the video. And I just, I was watching it again thinking about the debt picture now, which is tremendously worse than it was at the time, but also just thinking about how much our politics has changed. At the time, government shutdowns and conversations about the debt were normal. And a great deal of concern about government shutdowns was palpable and expected. Now we've passed legislation that says, hey, if there's a shutdown, all the federal workers, they get their money, they're gonna get paid, they'll be made whole. Some contractors, not so much, and some people will be forced to work without pay for a period of time. Those things are concerning. But we've effectively tried to normalize this in some ways, begun to normalize it. And most of what's happening at this point is just kind of this messaging exercise and a lot of the fundamental things that are actually hugely problematic for the country and potentially consequential, like they're there whether or not the government is shut down. And I think that's the perspective that I would bring to it. And that makes it. It's actually surprising to me that people are talking about the shutdown actively and they're not really talking about the Comey prosecution. And I'm not sure that's the right, that's the right trade off.

[D]

It all comes back to the hierarchy of concern.

[A]

No, it can't.

[B]

I'm just saying. Yeah, if there's a hierarchy of concern, is that, is that really the right hierarchy of concern? Maybe.

[A]

Well, let's, let's, let's maybe try to just like, just for my sake, maybe try to move on from Comey and we could talk about the point that you.

[B]

We don't care what happens to Comey. I'm kidding.

[A]

Right? That's, that, that's the takeaway. No, that based on the first, like 95%, 98% of that response. Camille, I think you're raising a very similar argument to the one that I was saying about Comey, which is let's look in this problem space, when we talk about government shutdowns, it's because of Congress not being able to agree on a continuing resolution to fund the government at its current levels until the next time they pass a budget.

[B]

Right.

[A]

That's what happens when there are government shutdowns. So what you're saying is in this problem space, the thing that is less concerning to you isn't that Congress couldn't agree in time to pass a criminal. What's concerning to you is that the thing that should purportedly be at the baseline of these conversations has gone completely unaddressed, which is the level of spending at the government generally. Right, okay, yeah, I think that's correct.

[B]

And even the crs, they're sort of new too. We used to pass budgets at a regular interval and the CRS weren't so important. Now the continuing resolution and the shutdown are both just features of how business gets done in Washington. And I should be using air quotes there because that's not really getting business done, it's actually not doing your job at all.

[A]

And we should. Yeah, I mean that's. It's so easy and correct, I think, to be critical of that process. But I will edit, I think and say I do not think that actual follow through. To extend another theme here is a aspect of business as usual with this style of brickmanship, this Congress or congressional method of problem solving of let's wait until the last minute of essentially a 19 year old trying to do their term paper by crushing red Bulls at 11pm but they've still turned their term papers in for the most part. Like when we look back at the government shutdowns in the last 20 years, not been that many. We had three during the Trump administration in a relatively like in the same year, all in 2018 and then we had one during the Obama administration in 2013 and then before that it was 95 when we had the last one. So it's not as if they happen all the time. I think the threat of them happening all the time is there. Just like the 19 year old has a deadline all the time and they're always waiting until the last second to turn their paper in. But that 19 year old missing the deadline is not a thing that's always happening. So when it does, I think it's very fair for us to say, yeah, Congress has this baseline of dysfunctional problem solving, but something about this current dysfunction is worse than usual because they couldn't even do that one thing. And let's look at that. Let's look at what's going on and try to talk about who's responsible for it, because we should be demanding more. Yeah.

[D]

Something else in that vein that feels unique to me is the White House's embrace of the shutdown. And they, you know, the argument put forward by Russell Vaught and OMB and President Trump and others that, oh, this is great, this can actually help us advance the work of Doge even faster and, you know, antipathy perhaps, but also embrace. And that, to me, feels unique. I mean, I don't have the same level of historical knowledge, but I'm not aware of the time in which, which the White House was so welcoming of a shutdown in that sense. And does feel like that robs Democrats of quite a bit of leverage.

[A]

I mean, it does feel like a sort of oppo wisdom of Solomon kind of parable where the federal government, the executive branch, is saying to Congress, to the Democrats and Republicans, we have a budget, we have this baby. If we can't agree on it, I'll divide it in two and give you each one. And when Republicans say, yeah, that sounds fair to me, then the president, rather than saying, I give the baby to the other person, says, all right, you get the baby because you agreed to chop it up. So it does feel like for Democrats, it's tough to try to navigate those waters when OMB is saying, awesome, shut down the government. I'm going to take care of.

[D]

Here's a detailed memo about everyone we're going to lay off as soon as this happens. But, Ari, I had a question for you about something you wrote in your take. And your take took an interesting structure in highlighting three individual actors and their role in this shutdown. And you led with Chuck Schumer, and I would say dedicated the most space to him. And I'm curious to hear your thoughts and also, Camille, about whether you feel like the Democrats have just been completely feckless throughout this process and what you would make of their performance. Because I think for a lot of people, both on the left and the right, it just feels like even when they try to resist, they're completely useless.

[A]

Yeah, I think that's sort of the thing, is that Democrats don't have a good strategy for what to do here. I think when I chose to dedicate the most amount of time to discussing Chuck Schumer, the reason is that there's just the most complication and most nuance with his position because it's easy to understand House Republicans here. So I talked about three people said Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats, then Mike Johnson, speaker of the House and House Republicans, and then President Trump. And I think that's an increasing order of simplicity. So with Trump, it's really, really easy to just make the claim. Of course, you're not going to be able to negotiate in good faith with the minority party when you're saying, look, whatever you guys do, whatever you pass. When it gets to me, I'm going to revise it. I'm going to tell the Director of the Office of Management, you know what, let's just cut a bunch of these jobs. I'm going to create a whole government department that's just in charge of canceling contracts that Congress has already approved. I'm going to send a rescissions package back to you that requires fewer votes to pass, and we're just going to do it all over. Of course, that's not going to be an environment where there's going to be good faith negotiations. So it just feels really obvious that that's the point. And I don't have a whole lot more to say about it than that. Like, that's, that's kind of open and shut to me. The, the issue with Mike Johnson and House Republicans was that he was somebody who came to power in the House because he was critical of the right thing, in my opinion, which was this whole style of not being able to pass appropriations bills on time. He wanted to approach it where they bucketed them, they tried to pass them in tranches so that they could ladder the budget appropriations on top of each other. Granted, this was under the Biden administration. It was a little bit of a different context for what Republicans wanted to do, but it was still seemingly a good approach to me. And it's not something we've heard at all. I've heard no focus on getting appropriation bills through committee, on time, through the House. And it's something that purportedly Johnson said he'd cared, that he had cared about. And now that didn't start with him, but it's certainly continuing with him, even though it was something that I think he was supposed to try to resolve, just try to, and instead he perpetuated it. That also feels somewhat simple to say with Schumer. It's a little harder. And that's why I think I wanted to talk about him the most also because the process kind of ends with him where the President will say, I want this. Republicans who are in control of both chambers will take their cues from the party leader, the House pushes its or sends its CR through to the Senate, where it requires 60 votes, and the last person to sign off is going to be Democrats. So Senate Democrats, we'll just say Chuck Schumer is the person that sort of represents that caucus. And in that case, you have those options of now just in a vacuum. I'm either going to be voting for, yes, let's continue to fund the budget and just keep the government open, or say, this is one of the few times I have leverage. I'm going to try to do something, even though I know that back of the White House Russ fought is like rubbing his hands together, thinking about what he's going to be able to trim off, but that he'll trim with a hatchet and thinking that's a risk because there's something I want to fight for. So I'm thinking through that lens, okay, you have some leverage, you want to use it, you want to press forward. That's your job as minority leader. Ultimately, you're not super responsible for what the president's doing in the executive branch. I assume that there's going to be court challenges to these firings, as there were before when Rus fought, tried to dismiss people en masse. Labor unions challenged that a lot of the rollbacks at Health and Human Services, for instance, were. Or, sorry, a lot of the layoffs were rolled back. So that's sort of a problem that I don't think Schumer's in charge of solving. The thing that I'm questioning is one with your leverage. Why is this the thing? Why is this the Hill you chose to die on? Why is it ACA benefits that are set to expire at the end of the year? Why is it not any of the other executive overreaches that people are concerned about? Like, here's just the first thing that comes to my head is, why not say, you know what, we'll pass this budget, but we're gonna say we want the president to pledge he's not gonna run for VP next year. Like, that's something that actually there's a lot of reasonable concerns and grumblings about. Trump passed out Trump 20, 28 hats when they had their negotiations. So clearly he's trolling about that in the sort of wink, nod, but what, what if kind of way. So that again, that's just one thing. What about, like, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and passing putting forward legislation to say, we want this funding to be protected. USAID saying, we want this funding to be protected when those things were being Put to the ax earlier, Schumer sent words back to the Republican Party. And I know that if you introduce a bill on the Senate floor when you are in the minority, that bill is gonna die. But having not done that before, that means that in this moment, when he's trying to push for something, the thing that he has to push for isn't, look at this bill that I co sponsored. I found, like, maybe a senator, maybe like, Murkowski was able to play ball with me on one of these things. We have this bill. We want this to move forward. If we're going to pass the cr. He doesn't have the ability to do that because they didn't take any stances earlier. And that, like, there's multiple things that he could have been doing that were going to be more like recalcitrant, where he could have just put his flag in the ground, and instead it was this, like, I'm going to go on MSNBC and talk about my strongly worded letter. And it's just. Just. It feels like he didn't do a lot then, and now it feels theatrical. Like he's mentioning ACA benefits. Republicans aren't going to approve them. He's saying, look, just come to the table. As if all that he wants is to make a show so Republicans can come to the table, say, no, maybe sign something for NIH grants, Which sort of proves my point, because they're saying, we want ACA benefits and NIH grants to be insured, which means if you'd asked for more things that were possible, then maybe you would have gotten more things. But instead, he's sort of taking the stance late in the game and not pushing for a whole lot and indicating he's willing to fold and hasn't pushed for a whole lot before. So you wonder how much he cares now. It just doesn't seem like he's really doing a lot to push back in the way that you would hope a minority leader would, which is the reason why I think I spent the most time there. The other thing's very clear this. I think it takes a while to get to that point where you can see, all right, these are the things where I think Schumer could be doing more, and that's why I spent the most amount of time.

[B]

Yeah, it's super illuminating. And I'm actually curious about something we talked about earlier, about kind of prior moments and what's happening in our politics and how it's different from previous years. And one of the things that stands out to me is there's no, you know, Gang of Eight kind of situation. This focus is all on resistance and opposition and obstruction and the power of compromise to actually bring your adversaries a little closer, to find ways to get what you want, to work together on places where, even if it wasn't what you ran on, it's clearly popular with the American people. And by being involved, you might actually be able to moderate some of the kind of over the top grandstanding that the administration is doing to the extent you're not just being obstructionist and you're actually trying, at least some part of your faction are trying actively to work with the administration on things that they're doing that are constructive. I wonder if that might not put Democrats in a slightly better position. They have a weird issue where in places where the troop deployments are happening, for example, and they're happening with the consent of the governor and the citizenry is saying, you know what, it does seem like crime is like improving a bit, or at least there's a possibility that it might improve. And this has been a huge problem for us. This isn't a bad thing. Maybe not fighting them on everything, finding places where you can work together and perhaps finding ways where you can moderate some of the worst impulses of the administration is a strategy that is worth Democrats actually thinking about and trying here. And maybe that would actually give them more currency to negotiate in circumstances like this. Now, that's one thing. The other thing I'd say is I do wonder what things might have looked like if they had just been messaging about the debt limit and knowing that we're coming up against it in a very prominent way for months in advance and saying at the same time, consistent with what I just said a moment ago, we want to find ways to work with you on this. How can we do this? How can we avoid a calamity? How can we avoid a kind of messy situation that could be bad for the American people. It just feels like that is an opportunity that isn't being taken advantage of here. And I think it's perhaps just the nature of our politics at the moment. But it's impossible for me not to wonder about the actual political possibilities here. And when I say politics in that way, I'm emphasizing the compromise dimension of our politics, which we just, again, aren't really doing these days. You get taken to the negotiating table here and your arm is twisted behind your back and they've got a bag over your head and they've roughed you up already and they're going to extract maximum pain from you. And that may be how they want to do business, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's how you have to approach the negotiations and how you have to approach politics. And I wonder if anyone among Democrats is going to figure that out. And there are some people who perhaps might be good candidates for that, but not so sure.

[D]

Yeah, I mean, I just think the leadership that the Democrats have right now doesn't understand what you're describing, Camille, or isn't interested in it. I think they just need new leadership if they want any hope of being effective. It seems like they can't decide whether to pursue a path of trying to get some kind of a foothold or just being, you know, the resist liberals that the base is calling for them to be. And I think the result is just kind of an incoherent strategy and situations like this where they're just being publicly mocked by Republicans and seem pretty hapless to do anything about it. So I'm curious to see if a genuine challenge to their leadership will arise in the next six months heading into the midterms, particularly if it seems like Democrats aren't as in as strong a position as they should be, given what the polling indicates about Trump's popularity right now and the unpopularity of specific actions that he's taken. It does feel like the groundswell for some kind of disruption within the party is there. But I'm not sure what it looks like because I couldn't tell you another person who's in the wings who I think would necessarily do a better job of what we're talking about.

[A]

You know, that's a really perfect tee up to what I was about to ask you, Will, which was you a couple months ago, went to D.C. with John and Isaac and followed a representative from Massachusetts, Jake Auchincloss, young Democrat, around just to produce that Day in the Life video, which was awesome. And one of the moments from that is Jermaine here, which was he was about to go for an MSNBC interview, I believe, and was running some prep with an aide on the way. And they were talking about the Posse Comitatus law of the military can't be used as a police, Military can't make arrests. And I wanted to see if there's any more maybe that you heard in that conversation or if you had any thoughts about how somebody who's positioned in the same way or similar way that as like a moderate left member of Congress that Auchinclaas is that showed a stance of, look, we're not saying there isn't crime here. We're not saying there's no reason for a better enforcement mechanism. Maybe there's some room for common ground on that, like Camille was referencing. But just saying, hey, the National Guard has its hands full and they aren't trained to do policing and it's probably illegal. So we're going to work with you to find another solution. Did you hear anything that was sort of in that line of messaging when you're in dc?

[D]

I can't say that I did, honestly. At least for the conversations that we were a part of. I think. I think something that Auchincloss raised that felt interesting and unique to me is just referencing his own service and like being a part of the National Guard that would have been deployed to LA in that situation, and his perception that those troops have no desire to do that and were probably resistant to it internally. And I thought that that's a place where having somebody with a service record, somebody who has been on deployments, who's still in contact with people in the ranks and in the service, could have been an interesting opening for Democrats to explore here. But to the direct question you asked, no, not much more than was revealed in the video.

[A]

Interesting. Yeah. I mean, I wonder if that's sort of what you were thinking of there, Camille, is like that's a kind of middle ground approach that you would expect Democrats or suggest that some of them try.

[B]

I mean, yeah, I think, again, anything where you're not putting yourself in a position to overreact, to take the bait. Every single time Trump is trolling you, every single time he talks about or suggests that some people are saying that I should run for another term. You know, I know I can't, but maybe there's a way we could look into it. But, you know, it is only so helpful to you to imagine that you can simply win by fomenting sufficient outrage. It didn't work the last time around. And I suspect that people are particularly interested, especially as the economic headwinds start to really take shape now. People are going to be looking for actual plans. They're going to want to believe that you can actually get things done. And I think that the Democrats have a very difficult time from a messaging standpoint on so many issues because they're simultaneously saying there's not much we can do because we're at the opposition and we have our hands shied. Also, we're gonna fight. We're gonna fight like hell. Which is it? What exactly is going on here that you actually have to be strategic in the way that this administration is willing to kind of pull out all the stops and push the limits in every context. And I think I've seen a lot of Democrats try to ape Trumpian rhetoric, to become more caustic, to swear more frequently. And quite frankly, I just don't find that particularly impressive. And it doesn't really seem like a winning strategy. In fact, I saw Jasmine Crockett yesterday give an interview on cnn, and she was elevated. It was some decorum on display. And this is someone who I've seen code switch in ways that I've found, like, kind of shocking and surprising, like, just purely theatrical. You're not talking like someone who's, who's been well educated at university right now. You're doing something else. And I just don't know that that's, that's a winning strategy in the long run. I mean, but perhaps I'm wrong because to the extent there is going to be some challenge to the current leadership, as Will alluded to, who is that going to be? Is it aoc? Is it Jasmine Crockett? These are some of the most prominent people in the party at the moment, at least some of the most visible.

[A]

So, yeah, this is in no way a novel thought here, but as we're talking about what are helpful comments and whether or not Democrats should take the bait, I think that maybe I'll run for another third term. And the way that Democrats are responding is an illustrative example of this, which is outrage, I think, is a useful emotion for politicians to promulgate amongst their base. But it can only be. It's motivating. It gets people to show up, but it can only be used when nothing has been done about it, whatever the issue is. So Democrats saying, like abortions may be the best example of Democrats are in power for a long time, or at least two years, when they have split control of Congress and the presidency. And they got into office in part because of their stance on abortion. And in that time, no meaningful laws were passed at a federal level. Not to open up a whole debate about abortion here, but just to say if you solve the problem that you say you want to solve, then you can't run on it in the future. And again, that's not novel. But with all the Trump outrage, if Democrats were to say, look, ha, ha, ha, nice hat, but we're here to talk about this continuing resolution, we can do that. But listen, this has got to stop. We're not gonna do this, like, third term thing anymore. We just want to. We want to try to deal in terms that are more useful. And at the same time, maybe that's going to risk not having that outrage button to press for your base. But maybe that's better, right? Like maybe it's better to just say, look, we're doing something. We get that you're mad. We don't want you to be mad anymore. We want you to see that we're doing something. And one of the things is we're going to talk to the president and say, don't do this third term thing. And we're going to put something in writing and say, sign this and then we'll talk about crs, at least doing that instead of going to the media and saying, I'm disgusted that the president would share a meme. Just like, yeah, we get it, it's emotional. But just show us you doing something, don't show us you feeling something.

[B]

Yeah, we've seen a lot of low brow memes from the administration, from official government social media accounts. That's how they operate. He's making jokes in all sorts of weird contexts. One can say that it's not presidential, but it feels it has a little bit of that Obama tan suit vibe to it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And that wasn't particularly effective for conservatives either, and in retrospect made them look somewhat ridiculous. And given the plethora of very real challenges that actually need to be addressed, actually choosing your targets wisely just makes a heck of a lot of sense. I wonder if I can say something and I think I'm still sufficiently new that I can get away with saying it and won't sound too self congratulatory.

[A]

Because we're trying to move towards the end of the podcast. Let's see if we open a big can of worms at the end.

[B]

I'll be brief. I'd just say that having conversations with you guys and certainly Isaac as well. But Will, you're filling in, I mean, just wonderfully today. I appreciate just how level headed the conversation is. There are so many people who survey this stuff and who cover it for a living, who see things that make them uncomfortable. But I think the fact that we can have such a sober conversation is actually hugely valuable, even for me as I'm thinking through these issues. The this isn't normal refrain that has become very familiar. Sure. Okay, now what is the appropriate response in my estimation? Actually, it kind of is our new normal. This is normal. We're not normalizing things. That Donald Trump is the President of the United States. The federal government is operating in the way that it currently is. And the executive branch is determined to kind of press the limits as much as possible. And one has to hope that the institutions hold and everyone does their jobs. And I think as journalists, I think our responsibility really is to have a clear eyed view of these things and to not devolve into a kind of hysteria and like cheerleading. I just think that's a really, really important role for us to play. And I'm just grateful to be in an organization where that is the attitude, and it was the attitude before I got here.

[D]

Aria, if I could add one quick thought before we move on. I think that an important part about maintaining that balance and on paper the ability to evaluate these issues in a clear headed way is also remembering that for many, many, many millions of people, the Biden administration did not feel normal and they were having these exact same feelings every single day. Now, we may not agree with the things that they took such issue with, but I do think it's worth remembering that the way that we may feel, not even anything to do with our political beliefs, the way that we feel about the actions Trump is taking, many, many, many people felt about the Biden administration. It's not a single direction kind of experience that we're having. And I think you have to be able to hold both of those at once.

[A]

So much to say with that. Yeah. Taking over in the pandemic when he did after that election and then the last couple years that he had, I think that there's a lot of meat on the bone there that we're going to have to leave for another day because it's time to complain about stuff. John, that's your cue, bud.

[B]

The airing of grievances.

[A]

Between you and me, I think your country is placing a lot of importance on shoe removal. All right, Grievances zone. Will, you're the guest here, so I think you can bat first, as they say in the baseball world, Right?

[D]

Bat first. Yes. Can I, can I have a baseball related grievance?

[A]

You can, but you don't have to.

[D]

Maybe not. I don't know. I don't know how relatable it's going to be. Well, I guess I would say. Could we go, could we, could we.

[A]

Go to me second?

[D]

Could we go to me second?

[B]

Yeah, I've got something. I've got something. And I mean, I think this is in the spirit of grievances. Like this would be pretty. Pretty. Yeah, I saw that Meta is releasing their new display AI powered glasses. And they're not just sunglasses. Cause they have the transitional lenses in them and I think they look very cool. What I'm upset about today as an owner of an Apple Vision Pro, which I bought pretty early and I've been pretty bullish on.

[A]

I didn't know that.

[B]

And I travel with everywhere because it is the best cinematic experience you can have. I was very disappointed to hear that Apple is moving resources away from developing the next generation Apple Vision Pro to develop some of these spectacles like the ones that Meta just rolled out in a pretty botched presentation. But they do look cool. And I have been trying very hard to get a demo so I could check them out for myself. But I'm just. I'm licking my own wounds here because I'm sad that I'll have to wait longer to get the next generation of the Apple Vision Pro headset. And, you know, it's just. It's a bit of a bummer. So, yeah, that's my grief.

[A]

You're not going to. You're not going to wear these high tech glasses, though, Camille, and have them shipped to you directly. Done with some other things.

[B]

I mean, I'm looking for them. I want to try them on. I want to try them on. I am. I will look, if you want me to extend the grievance, I could and say, why is it so hard for me to get an appointment for. For one of these demo places so I can try this device? Why doesn't someone at Meta reach out to me to maybe get me a pair? Maybe that could happen.

[A]

This is really, really interesting because here I am sitting in the studio.

[D]

I know.

[A]

So if. Maybe I'll leave a note on a desk for you and we'll see what happens.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Maybe we do some collab crossover event and I will be happy to travel. So.

[A]

Okay. KBHD. You were 10. All right. I got a grievance for you. And it's simple. And it's about the way that my friends and extended network are declaring their eternal love for one another. Weddings are inconvenient. They should be checking with me first. So I love returning to Clinton, New Jersey. Clinton's great. It's one of the most beautiful towns in Jersey, and it's great to be here. But it's another Thursday wedding. It's the second Thursday wedding I've had this summer. The third of the three. I guess it's fall now, but the season and all three have been neither Friday nor Saturday. It's been Thursday, Sunday, Thursday. And I get it. Economy must be kind of bad, huh? If we're looking for those Thursday Sunday wedding times. But, and it's great. Like I, I'm trying not to be like, judgmental. I got married at the most inconvenient time, which was in August 2020 during COVID So I'm really glad people came to that. But, but it's just check with my schedule first, maybe because I, I, I've had a busy day and it's tough for me to commute out to join you in your celebration of eternal love, which is going to be beautiful and I'm sure a moving ceremony. I love weddings. I'm not even mad. It's just, you know, run it by me first, I guess. Check with my calendar.

[B]

I like that. I second that, actually. Although I'm not as big a fan of weddings in general. I even eloped. I mean, kind of when you do a destination wedding and you make it impossible for anyone else to attend, I think that's pretty much an elopement. That's how I feel about it.

[A]

Yeah. We can maybe see how Isaac feels when he comes back from the wedding he's attending in Italy and. Yeah.

[D]

Ooh, that, that is an interesting thought, Camille. I think that would be great fodder for a future episode. This is the first year for me in which I feel like I've stepped into the wedding season among my peers. I've got five weddings this year, including one this weekend. And before that I had had one as an adult. So it feels like now that train has left the station and I'm acclimating to what you're both describing. So it is, yeah, it's definitely a new phase of life when that starts happening. My grievance, age old weather related grievance. We were in Vermont last week when we were all together and it was so perfectly not humid and chilly in a great way in the mornings and just the exact kind of weather that I love. And I've come back to New York and it's October and it's still humid, still 80s every day. I'm very happy that it's sunny, but I have just had it with humidity after five to six months of it in a row now. And I would just love the temperature to come down and to have some crispy fall mornings. I'm headed to North Carolina this weekend, so I'm hoping maybe I can get a little access to that there in Asheville.

[A]

But we'll see up an elevation then, right? Asheville, yeah. Yeah, that's, I mean I, I hear you. That's. I based my whole life around moving away from humidity.

[D]

So it just, it's, it sucks waking up in, in a damp sweat and there's just nothing you can do about it because yeah, it's it's six in the morning and it's 75 degrees outside and it's October 1st.

[A]

I'm remembering that I don't miss it. Sorry, bud.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

All right, boys, been a nice hour. We've once again filled a lot of time putting some beautiful wisdom into the ears of our friends. But it's time to go. So another suspension of the rules in the books. Camille, Will thanks guys and talk to you later.

[B]

Talk soon.

[D]

Thanks. Bye guys.

[B]

Our Executive Editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our Executive producer is John Lowell. Today's Episode this episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman with Senior Editor Will K. Back and Associate Editors Hunter Casperson, Audrey Moorhead Bailey, Saul, Lindsey Knuth and Kendall White. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our [e-mail] this episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.

[C]

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