Loading summary
Transcript188 lines
- [00:00]
Barack Obama
What's up, y'? All?
- [00:01]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Summer's got a different tempo. Everything's a little looser, brighter. One plan turns into another. You hear something, you stay a little longer. Next thing you know, you're somewhere you didn't plan to be. It's those in between moments. That's where the ideas hit. Conversations stretch out. Little memories sneak up on you. Sometimes it's just about what's in your hand. That color, that chill. The new Tropical Butterfly refresher from Starbucks. Guava and passion fruit flavors with mango pineapple flavored pearl. Yeah, that feels like summer before you even taste it. Funny how one small stop becomes the best part of the day. Start your summer rhythm with Starbucks. Try the new Tropical Butterfly refresher from Starbucks. Big transfer news today. Who's moving me to the couch with Domino's? Best deal ever since they just added stuffed crust. Any pizza, any toppings?
- [00:58]
Tim Miller
Now with stuffed crust for $9.99.
- [01:00]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
It's a long term contract with no release clause.
- [01:03]
Tim Miller
Only $9.99. Yeah, that sounds like the move.
- [01:06]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I'm heading straight to Dom. Price is higher for some locations, excludes Excel and specialty pizzas. Select this offer from 6:15 through 7:26 online only. Size availability varies by crust type. Max 7 topping 6 for pan and New York style crust. Minimum purchase required for delivery. Prices, participation, delivery area and charges may vary.
- [01:37]
Tim Miller
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. I have an exciting guest for a pre taped Juneteenth show. I'm going to the bayou tomorrow. So we're taping this on Thursday afternoon. So if Donald Trump, I don't know, decides to invade Cote d' Ivoire or something between now and then, we'll get to that on Monday's show. In the meantime, he's a contributing editor of Vanity Fair. He's a Sterling Brown endowed chair in the English department at Howard. He's an author with a bunch of works including We Were Eight Years in Power, An American Tragedy about the Obama presidency. And it's ta. Nehisi Coates. Hey, man. Hey.
- [02:12]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Hey, thanks for having me.
- [02:13]
Tim Miller
Welcome back. You wrote a bunch of other books. You wrote too many books for me to list them all.
- [02:17]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
And I hate when people do that. You ain't got to list any of the books, honestly.
- [02:22]
Tim Miller
Well, I just picked out one because it's relevant. Today as we're taping, the festivities at the opening of the Obama library are ending. We've had some speeches from the former president, first lady and others. I may play a Clip from In a minute. I assume you do have Obama legacy takes and you wrote the book. It's been a minute now and so there's been more time to kind of stew in the aftermath. I'm just wondering what hops to mind today on the opening of the library.
- [02:51]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Does he watch this show, the president? If he does, I have to.
- [02:55]
Podcast Producer/Interviewer
Yes.
- [02:56]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I have to tailor my remarks.
- [02:57]
Tim Miller
I have no evidence that he does, which is unfortunate because I've been trying to get him on and I don't know why he won't do it, but I do think he has some friends who listen. So if you're hearing this now, I would love to have him on and have a growing respect for him. Every year. Taanahansey might be going the other direction. I don't know.
- [03:19]
Podcast Producer/Interviewer
We'll hear.
- [03:21]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
No, I bet he does listen. This is his sort of podcast, actually,
- [03:26]
Tim Miller
kind of, which is why it's upsetting. He's not on. I agree with you.
- [03:30]
Podcast Producer/Interviewer
Right.
- [03:31]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
No, this is a sweet spot, man. Do I have. What was the question again?
- [03:34]
Tim Miller
Updated legacy thoughts and he's opening the library.
- [03:37]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Oh, yeah. No, I mean my thing on him is pretty much what it was at the time. And it was that only like Barack Obama could have been the first black president. Only somebody like him could have been the first black president. And what I mean by that is someone who had the kind of historical background wherein they had been in intimate spaces with a white parent, white grandparents who had treated him as equal, who were not racist themselves. And I guess he would say extended white family, also raised in Hawaii, which is not to say that Hawaii is a non racist paradise, but certainly a place. I've been to Hawaii, and the black white dynamic is not the major thing going on on there as it would have been in Chicago had he been raised there. And so what I've thought is that that just gave him a very, very different perspective and allowed him to see the best in the largest voting population in this country. I think he communicated that and I think there really was no other way that you were gonna see a black president. Unfortunately. I think the downside of that was I don't think he could have imagined the past 10 years. I don't think that was really possible for him. He could imagine Trump winning and then Trump winning again, too. I mean, maybe by 24 he could imagine it happening again, but I certainly think the first time he just.
- [05:11]
Tim Miller
How does that lack of imagination. What did not having that ability to imagine that because I guess that was me too. How did that leave his presidency poorer or reflect on his presidency.
- [05:23]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I think he did not see the vulnerability of it. It's so much harder to build things than it is to destroy things. And Trump excels at destroying. Doge was easy. That's easy. You win the president, you bring somebody in. You know what I mean? To destroy Obama came.
- [05:37]
Tim Miller
Well, they didn't save any money.
- [05:38]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
No, he did.
- [05:39]
Tim Miller
No, no, no, no, no, no.
- [05:40]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Let's be clear, right?
- [05:41]
Tim Miller
It's not easy to save money.
- [05:42]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
It's not easy to save money. But I never took that as the intent. You know what I mean? I never took that as the true intent of those to begin with. But Obamacare is hard. Whatever you think of it, that was hard. You know what I mean? Pulling together a consensus to help and build something that's going to be enduring, that's really, really hard. And I think. I just don't think there was an appreciation of how easily things can be rolled back.
- [06:09]
Tim Miller
And so if you had that appreciation, what types of things would he have done differently?
- [06:15]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Like, I guess the reason why this strikes me is because when I was working on a profile of him at the end of the presidency, like he said, and I'm sorry to keep mentioning this, if he does listen to this show, I know he's probably tired of me saying this over and over, but he said, look, Trump can't win. He said the American people, he said, they go for. They are generally a people who prefer an optimism in their candidates, Nixon aside. And so I just don't. He just didn't see it as a possibility. Maybe, for instance, and this argument has been made before, instead of Merrick Garland, you get a Ketanji Brown Jackson nomination, right?
- [06:50]
Tim Miller
And you force it through. You force it through. I think he would even say this like, in retrospect, you have spent political capital making sure it gets through rather than assuming that the norms will prevail.
- [07:02]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Tim, even if you don't get it through, even if you don't, it becomes a rallying cry.
- [07:06]
Tim Miller
That's true.
- [07:07]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
You know what I mean? People who maybe are not as activated become aggravated by this thing. And I just think his way was, can I find the candidate or can I find the nominee who the people that hate my guts will accept? And I just. I don't know that he ever just understood the extent to which he was loathed by the opposition party and how active and how powerful, you know, that hatred was, you know?
- [07:44]
Tim Miller
Well, I was going to skip this clip, but since you mentioned that this is the type of thing that Obama would be into this podcast. I feel compelled to prove you right by playing something that he said earlier today at the library. Let's play the clip where he talks about how great Mitt Romney is.
- [08:02]
Barack Obama
And a belief that qualities of character, honesty, integrity, kindness, compassion, a sense of duty and honor, those things matter in our public dealings just as they do
- [08:21]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
in our private lives.
- [08:24]
Barack Obama
These are not. These are the values and traditions I believe in. And they are not Republican or Democratic values. They are American values we can all share, regardless of party values. Every president here today, as different as we are, has tried our best to uphold values that John McCain and Mitt Romney believed in no less than I did. It is our greatest inheritance.
- [08:59]
Tim Miller
You can see why I'm loving him more and more every minute. All right, what did you make of that?
- [09:03]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I mean, I think I want to, like, what shall I give Shah? I think one has to be sympathetic, first of all, to the work of electoral politics. Right. And to the position of a president. And so. And like, this is what I was kind of alluding to earlier. Like, his politics can't be my politics and be who he is. It just can't. He can't get up there and say what I think. And I don't have that expectation either, by the way. You know, like, I just. So on some level, I guess I understand the politics of saying things that way. I am compelled to also say, in my role, did the past, and I'm speaking, you know, very conservatively here, did the past 10 years of the Republican Party not happen? Is that not what Republican values are? I mean, was J6 not that nominated him three times? Three times, yeah. I mean, three times. I mean, so at what point is this a statement about who people are and what people are? And you also have to say that, like, Mitt Romney tried to go work for Donald Trump. That's not all of who Mitt Romney is. Right. Like, I get it. I get it. That's not all, you know, he's done other things that are worthy. And so I don't want to. But that's also, you know what I mean, part of the story, you know, and so this is not, you know, so much a slam or Mitt as it is to reflect the complication of it, I guess, to me, like, you were asking, what is the danger in this? And what I see in that is still not quite. This is, you know, my critique or my worry still not quite grappling or not quite understanding, like, how bad it is and where we are. But there is A part of me that
- [11:02]
Tim Miller
wants people to feel everyone's better angels.
- [11:06]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I think politicians should do that. I actually do think this kind of. When Trump during COVID said, well, it's only gonna hurt blue cities, that wasn't just bad for blue cities, that's bad for. That is how you get. 50 years from now, a civil war. It starts with that, you know what I mean? And so, like, I guess, you know, like, I'm conflicted myself in that, if I'm being honest, you know.
- [11:35]
Podcast Producer/Interviewer
No, I hear you.
- [11:35]
Tim Miller
I'm also conflicted in it because it's like, I hear those words and I did not. I had the opposite initial reaction to you, which is kind of like, yeah, I love that. Like, yeah, you're right. Mitt Romney and John McCain were honorable. That's nice. And then I heard you talk, and I was like, yeah, but also, fuck these people. You know what I mean? And I don't know. You know what I mean? And maybe there's a way to do both. And that's a little more artful. I don't know. Not to nitpick the speech making, but, like, maybe there's a way to do both.
- [12:02]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Also, Most people are complicated. Like, you're not. Like, they have been honorable. Like, there are moments, you know what I mean, where they really were honorable. And, you know, so I don't know. Look, Tim, as a writer, I am, I guess, much less interested in the heroism or the particular weakness or dishonor of certain people, and I'm more interested in the structures that make them possible, you know what I mean? So I can't sit here and give 10 minutes on why Mitt Romney sucks or why John McCain sucked or why I can't. They're probably very honorable.
- [12:41]
Tim Miller
He threw in some Democrats in there, too, by the way. Joe Biden was on the stage.
- [12:46]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
You know, people are the product of situations, you know, more than anything.
- [12:51]
Tim Miller
I want to play this other clip because it does tie more directly to your article that you had in Vanity Fair that we're going to dig into, which looks into what the next black president could look like. Looks into Kamala Harris's campaign and in particular, her relationship with activists in Gaza and how that interplay negatively impacted her campaign. As a lead into that, though, Obama does start talking about foreign policy and tries to contrast himself with Trump and his views on foreign policy. And I think that the way he does that, he talks a lot about the structures that you're talking about. And so I just want to listen to that and get your reaction to whether this is a workable framework anymore for how the world should work.
- [13:30]
Barack Obama
And what I heard on every continent as president is that when America, when American foreign policy lives up to our highest ideals, when we champion human rights and democracy and the sound stewardship of our planet, when we take the lead in eradicating disease and feeding the hungry and educating children, when we encourage cooperation between nations instead of trying to dominate and bully and squeeze every advantage just because we can, and most of all, when we show through our example here at home that even a country as big and diverse as ours can make democracy work, it turns out all nations, including ours, become more prosperous and secure, and the world gets a little bit brighter.
- [14:31]
Tim Miller
The case for benevolent globalism, benevolent hegemony, I guess.
- [14:35]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Yeah, I mean, that was pretty good. That was pretty good. That's probably generally true. The complication for that is, I mean, and this is what I spent much of the article doing is. And I didn't notice when I certainly, the last time I really wrote about, at length about President Obama, I did not have the requisite knowledge and understanding of the amount of times and a degree to which we have not actually done that, though. And I actually think one of the things that we're really avoiding on the foreign policy front is the extent to which Trump is actually an extension of some of our worst impulses. That actually might be the area where he's most American. Ben Rhodes has a piece of that I won't quote from. It's in New York Review of Books. It's a review of Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War. I really am getting McNamara. It's a review of his biography. And one of the things that Ben, who, you know what I mean, was in the Obama administration as close as anybody to Obama foreign policy. But what he comes to at the end of that is that we have basically allowed ourselves to believe that our mythology of good intentions was enough. But as it turns out, around the world, they remember other things, you know, And I don't know that we grapple with that enough.
- [16:09]
Tim Miller
Yeah, it was interesting. You laid it out a lot in the article. I don't know you and Julian Casablanca on the same page. Because when the Strokes were playing at Coachella this year, they did a little thing where they put up on the video screen all the things, all the people we fucked over over the seas, you know, from the CIS, like, over the last 40 years. And then I was like, reading your list, and I was like, it's kind of similar to what the Strokes were playing at Coachella, going through all of our worst hits, all the Alan Dulles worst hits. But my thought about what it feels like, the case that you made there and Ben Rhodes change of heart is evidence of this, is that the narrative on this domestically is changing. And when you're last on, we were talking a lot about the power of narrative. And I do feel like, I don't know, I feel like had Harris won, the narrative that Obama kind of lays out there that, like, the best of what America has done makes up for our failings and that we're a force for good in the world was still kind of the dominant one. You know, like, there were people who disagreed, obviously, but it was still the dominant narrative. And it kind of feels like to me, certainly on the left, but even in the kind of JD Vance Tucker wing of the Republican Party, that narrative is being challenged and it might be hard to really ever get it back.
- [17:29]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I think that's true. And I think what I think I haven't seen a polling on this, and perhaps I'm being too optimistic about this, but my general sense of Americans is, look, they may not understand the details of this or that may not be up on what argument is being made for what. But I don't think we love foreign wars in general. In general, now we do it. That's not to exempt the country of it. And then Iran is so dumb. It's so, so dumb. The war. The war. Sorry. Not the country. Oh, my God.
- [18:09]
Tim Miller
Well, I mean, the country does some dumb things, too. I mean, so do we. It's not just America that does dumb things. But anyway, the war was so dumb
- [18:17]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
because a lot of countries do dumb things.
- [18:19]
Tim Miller
Yes, the war was so dumb. Yeah.
- [18:20]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
But the war was so dumb that it's hard to mask it. You know what I mean? Like, there's not any sort of narrative. And Trump didn't try really hard, by the way.
- [18:32]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [18:33]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
To provide much. It's just the violence. But here's where I want to push people a little bit. Iraq was dumb, too.
- [18:41]
Tim Miller
Right?
- [18:42]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Was dumb, too. And look, there's a strong argument that Libya was actually dumb, too. That doesn't make Gaddafi a good guy. You know what I mean? That doesn't make him okay. But Obama himself says that's the biggest mistake of his presidency. He himself says that. And so Gaza was a lot of other things besides this. But certainly dumb is one of those, you know? And so in that respect, I think we let ourselves off a little easy. And I think it's easier to accept, like when you Talk about, like, the narrative changing. It's easier to see it with Trump because he's so profane, you know what I mean? And brags about violence.
- [19:28]
Tim Miller
He doesn't even try to wrap it in the flag and in the American spirit because he doesn't believe in any of that. Right?
- [19:33]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
No.
- [19:34]
Tim Miller
And so that. That lays it a lot more bare.
- [19:37]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
That's right. That's right. And so I think that makes it a lot easier for people to see certain things.
- [19:43]
Tim Miller
Hey, y'.
- [19:43]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
All.
- [19:44]
Tim Miller
We're just doing some upgrades out on the back porch. It's looking better. It's a little cozier. Looking a little less like a college frat house vibe. But now we need some additional furniture to be able to really tie the room together, so to speak. So I'm testing out dupe.com and I'm telling you it's making shopping easier instead of scrolling through pages of options. I didn't like the dupe research for Me tool asked me questions about what I wanted. So it only pulled up things that I wanted to see. It saved time. It helped me find exactly what I was looking for. Have you ever tried to buy something online and suddenly you've got like 25 tabs open? It's standard for me. What do I got open right now? Doing a quick count live 23. Got 23 tabs open right now. You're bouncing between all of them like you're a mad scientist. You got Google, you got the promoted SP sponsors, Amazon reviews feel fake. The best of lists are obviously bs, so you keep going Reddit. You don't know what to do. But that's why you can come back to dupe.com. they do the research for you. Instead of wasting your day, just type in what you're looking for and within a couple of minutes, dupe does hours of trustworthy research. Dupe.com is going to save you so much time. You just give it a short description of what you're looking for. Type in something like outdoor dining sets and it goes through a bunch of options, pulls from real sources people actually trust, filters out the sponsored lengths and gives you a straight answer on what to buy. Be prepared to save yourself a ton of time and money. Just go to dupe.com and tell it what you're looking to buy. That's-upe.com to finally feel confident about what you're buying. Let's talk about the article. You start with Fannie Lou Hamer, who was, I guess you describe kind of the heroine of the 2024 convention there's a lot of odes to her. Just talk about why you kind of started with her and how you tie it to the broader critique of the Harris campaign.
- [21:37]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
So I was there in 24, and what I was aware of immediately was the fact that Fannie Lou Hamer was being praised and she was on everybody's lips. But what I remembered is that actually the Democratic Party did not ultimately ceded a segregated delegation and did not allow her integrated delegation to be seated. That was the end result.
- [22:03]
Tim Miller
That was the end result back in 64.
- [22:06]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
In 64, excuse me, of the struggle in 64, that the Democratic Party actually didn't do the right thing. And the reasons why it did not do the right thing is because Johnson was deeply afraid of losing the Deep south, which he ultimately did, by the way, or many of the states in the Deep South, I should say it like that. And then at the same time, I was watching this group of Palestinian Democrats and people who were sympathetic to the Palestinian cause there, who were not asking for delegates to be seated. Many of them were already delegates, but were asking for a speaker. And I was made aware that there hadn't been an Arab American speaker on the stage since 1988. What I saw is I was watching this praise of this person who had been pushed out of the frame in 64 and was being claimed as his hero. Was another group of people being pushed out the frame, too? That was my initial thing. And then after doing the research, what became clear to me was that Fannie Lou Hamer was not just a champion of black folks in Mississippi and not just a champion of black folks at all, but a champion of human rights, spoke out at a time against the Vietnam War when it was still not popular within the civil rights movement, that, in fact, she was not the only black woman that did that, that Coretta Scott King spoke out against the Vietnam War at a delicate moment and against Johnson at a very, very delicate moment before her husband did much to the angst of the sclc. And I guess I was struck by the contradiction of praising people who in their time were radicals or seen as radicals, I should say, but not really living up to their example.
- [23:41]
Tim Miller
So in the article, you talk, and there's a moral critique and kind of historical critique of the Harris campaign slack of grappling with Gaza. But there's also, like, political critique, which is basically that it simultaneously could have been the right thing to do and politically salient for her to align herself more with the protesters who are concerned about what's happening in Gaza before I give any pushback to that, I guess. Do you want to just explain that point of view?
- [24:12]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I mean, look, I'll just take it from Hearst. I mean, look, I heard from numerous people that she pulled folks aside and disproportionately black women told me this, that she pulled them aside and said, and this is before she was running, by the way, before Joe Biden had dropped and communicate her deep discomfort and her deep feeling and empathy. And when I talked to them afterwards, their thing was, I don't know why she didn't communicate this publicly. So let me just start from the perspective of what my reporting told me was like. What she presented publicly was not what she actually believed. Now, I could be wrong about that. I could be wrong, but this was told to me. I heard this numerous times, heard this numerous. It's not like something that I just heard from one person. And so the first thing is, I would say is were you true to your own beliefs and were you true to your own beliefs about the value of human lives? Human life, Excuse me. Secondarily to that, are you being true to the people you claim, as I talked about with Fannie Lou Hamer and Coretta Scott King. And the third thing is, Tim,
- [25:19]
Podcast Producer/Interviewer
I
- [25:19]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
can't give an ultimate verdict on whether Gaza lost her the election or not. And I can't give a verdict on whether they would have won her the election. But I do want to say this. There are some things worth losing for and there are some things that people will remember you differently when you lose for them. And I just think that had Kamala Harris lost and that was certainly a possibility simply because she echoed and stated the beliefs as they were communicated to me, I think people would think about, and I'm just not solely talking about Palestinian Americans. I think the party would think about her a lot differently in this moment.
- [26:01]
Tim Miller
I guess I have two thoughts on that. One is, and this goes to kind of this broader question about like harm reduction and candidates, you know, and I, I was on, I was on Dan Savage before election. He asked me to come on and he was like, I'm hearing from a lot of my listeners. He's a gay sex advice person, he said, and he lives in Seattle. He's like, I've got a lot of progressive, yeah. Activist types. And he's like, I'm here for a lot of my listeners that they might want to set it out because they're mad at Harris about Gaza and they're mad at her about various things. And he's like, I want you to just kind of talk it out with me. And during that conversation, he was making the point that, like, okay, I've had to be a harm reduction voter my whole life, up until just now, right in the 80s, my friends were dying and I was voting for the Democrat because they were less so. And I voted for Barack Obama when he said I shouldn't be right to get married and we don't have to go through the whole list. And so he was, I think, rightly kind of frustrated with this notion that people were not going to do that in this case when the stakes were so high and that the gap between the two candidates was so great. When it comes to harm or potential harm, even, including in Gaza, by the way, there's no sense that Trump was going to be any better. And so when the stakes are that high, does that change that question at all, that calculus over whether there are things worth losing for?
- [27:15]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Yeah, I mean, look, I voted for it. You know what I mean? And I told people, and I went in front of majority Muslim and Arab American audiences and had to explain myself, which I did. Which I did. And pretty much what I said is, look, we as black Americans in general have not had the luxury of voting in presidential elections for people that we felt fully saw our humanity. And that is just what it's been for us. Having said that, I'll never forget, man, I was in. And this is not the only time this happened, but I was in Houston, Texas, and I was with a group of Palestinian Americans, very, very accomplished group, by the way. And the woman's house who was hosting me, beautiful, large, large mansion. And she sat next to me. She said, I'm from Gaza, 200 members of my family have been killed. And she said, I don't go outside anymore. I don't talk to my neighbors about this because they think it's right that my family be killed. I think there are two separate questions. There's one question for people like me about what we should have done with our vote. And the answer for that to me is very, very clear. We should have voted for Harris. I feel the loss of some measure of my humanity, or I felt the loss of some measure of my humanity by turning to this woman and telling her, you have to vote for a member of the administration that was shipping bombs for this to happen. That you have to now, you know what I mean, have a conversation with your family to tell them why you. Tim, I couldn't do that, man. I couldn't do that. And I gotta be honest with you, if I were in her shoes, I don't know what I would do. I don't know. Because I think the thing we also have to face is everybody didn't make the decision that we made. Everybody didn't make like they're Palestinian Americans and Arab Americans who made the harm reduction decision. In fact, Kamala won the plurality of the vote. So most of them did. You know what I mean? The plurality of them made the harm reductionist decision. You know what I mean? But look, I get it. I mean, the thing I would ask you is, and the thing I've been asking myself is, man, at what point do we stop doing this? At what point? What is the point where we stop saying to people, this is the most important election of your lifetime and you must accept things that in this case, you must accept the murder of your family members, the killing of your family members for the greater good. At some point, we have to figure out how to have a different kind of politics. Now, maybe that's not when you go in the voting booth, but I feel like we go in the voting booth and then there's no discussion of it afterwards. It's just, you know what I mean? We ramp up for another four, another four, another four. And it's like, when are we gonna do something different?
- [30:18]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey there, it's Ryan Seacrest for Safeway for you. Save days are here now through June 25th. Find hot deals throughout the store and earn four times a point. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from Kinder, Ghost Energy, Cottonelle, Ben and Jerry's and Popsicle. Then clip the offer in the app for for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more. Enjoy savings on top of savings. When you shop in store or online for easy pickup or delivery, restrictions apply. See the website for full terms and conditions out here.
- [30:49]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
If you're doing nothing, you're doing everything right.
- [30:52]
Ryan Seacrest
Though on a cruise with Norwegian, even
- [30:54]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
if you're doing nothing, you're still basking
- [30:56]
Ryan Seacrest
in the warm sun, enjoying the peaceful ocean waves. You're breathing. Don't forget about breathing.
- [31:01]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Definitely need to be breathing.
- [31:03]
Ryan Seacrest
So you get to do nothing or everything, but you still need to be breathing.
- [31:06]
Tim Miller
It's like really important experience. The difference with cruises to Alaska, the Caribbean and Europe.
- [31:11]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Norwegian Cruise Line it's different out here.
- [31:13]
Tim Miller
Visit ncl.com, call your travel advisor at 188 NCL-CRUISE Norwegian Cruise Line ships registered
- [31:17]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
through the Bahamas and USA.
- [31:19]
Tim Miller
You also tell the story of Dima Shamili and people should just go read the article I mean, you tell some just really heart wrenching, like, brutal stories about people who had gotten out of Gaza and what happened to their family. And I do think that colors the conversation. And I think people would be better served by just reading the whole article. My answer to your question is like, yeah, never. It's never going to be a better politics and you just have to accept it. We live in a system.
- [31:48]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Never do that. Possible.
- [31:50]
Tim Miller
Well, I think better things are possible. I think better things about it. I'm not the meme that's like, oh, that person. They think better things are possible. Fuck them. I think better things are possible. I think we can improve. But we live in a country of 330 million people. I don't know. I look at the way people communicate now with AI and the Internet and how easy it is to manipulate people and how frail we all are and how much fragility, all of the demons that we all have inside of us that we're trying to navigate. And it's just like the idea that we're going to be able to get to a place where you can organize a country this diverse, this big, in a way that is totally pure, I just think is kind of a fantasy. And I think that.
- [32:32]
Barack Obama
Wait.
- [32:32]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
But there's never a pure. I just wanted to separate myself. That makes sense.
- [32:38]
Tim Miller
But like, I don't know, man, I just think that the 2024 election is such a strange prism with which to throw this complaint on, that I'm tired of people telling me that, like every four years it's the biggest election of our lifetime. It's like, sorry, it's the only election that we've had in any of our lifetimes where one of the candidates was a legitimate threat to end the system of government that we have. He was the only one. And so you can tell me, oh, we can look back at 2012 or whatever and say, that was a silly thing to say between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney and it was. Or in 1996 between Bob Dole and Bill Clinton. That was pretty silly. Also, we don't predict a lot of things. I don't know, 2000 looks pretty important. If we start to play in the counterfactual game, Al Gore wins, that we probably don't go into Iraq and who the hell knows, we don't have Trump probably. You know, I mean, a lot of, A lot of little, little blocks fall a lot of ways is the meme where the person touches one block and then something crazy happens at the end of it. Right. You know, like, who knows what happens about Gorwin? So I don't know. I just. I am sympathetic. Like, obviously, I would not look at somebody who has had 200 people die in their family and say, you should do this. I'm going to tell you what to do. I think we can also just, like, say that. But the choice between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump was, like, the clearest choice that we've had in a long time. And we're probably not gonna have a better one after that, I don't think.
- [33:58]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Look, it was clear for me. It was clear for me, but one of the reasons why. Well, I wanna say two things.
- [34:05]
Tim Miller
Sure.
- [34:06]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
It is certainly logically possible that every four years, it really is the most important election of your life. That is certainly logically possible. But what I find is that we have a level of sympathy for certain groups of people and not for others. And in this case, I mean, like, non voters. And so, like, for somebody that's just trying to live their life and go through their day, I guess I understand how at a point that message stops resonating, right?
- [34:37]
Tim Miller
Same dude.
- [34:37]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
You know what I mean? Like, at a certain point, they just stopped, you know, they stop hearing it. But the second thing I want to say is, like, the choice was clear for me with my particular history. But one of the reasons why I went through the history of those events in that article is because I was trying to reconstruct the memories of other people. That is to say, if you are an Arab American or you're a Muslim American, you're a Palestinian American, and you're in this country in 2024, and let's say you're 30 years old,
- [35:16]
Podcast Producer/Interviewer
what you
- [35:17]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
remember is you remember Iraq, you remember Afghanistan, you remember innocent wedding parties being hit by drones, you remember Abu Ghraib, you remember ice. You know what I mean? Like, your memory is, fuck, man. These people have always over here. Like, I get calls from my relatives. You know what I mean? Like, there's violence over there. I come here and the cops are, like, spying on my mosque like this. It's just constant, you know? It's constant. And it was constant for my parents, too, and it was constant for my grandparents. And now here we are with, you know, and I can't. I don't have a stat in front of me. But, you know, with the killing of the, you know, the largest amount of children, you know, of any war in the 21st century, and I see all of y' all waving these flags for Ukraine, and then it's me, and I Can't even speak at the convention. Like, where am I in this party? Where is my life? Where are the lives of my family members? And in this case, look, I'm with you. I'm with you. Kamala was the right choice, but I feel like I could also say that and say, we gotta do a better job. We have to do a better job making people feel like we see their humanity. And I don't think we did a good one.
- [36:37]
Tim Miller
I think that's a totally compelling critique, and I think a critique that unites the fact that Kamala didn't provide motivation to people and just takes us back to Obama at the top. I guess provide that aspiration or that reason to believe that she would help make their lives better. I think that's a legitimate critique of the campaign. I think it ties to other things besides Gaza. There's other things happening, though. There's also the evil side of this. We were talking at the top, but sometimes my critique of the. Of the Gaza folks, not the people there, but like, the pro Palestinian activist crowd, the uncommitted crowd that, like, it's kind of. In retrospect, it's easy to be like, well, she lost because of this. This my pet issue, when, like, all the advertising that went against her was about trans surgeries in prison. So, no, it's like, well, maybe it was that Trump campaign didn't think that's why you lost. Like, Trump campaign thought you lost because this other stuff. Right. So it's complicated. But I do think, I think that you make a compelling point about how to. How to think about these things from the perspective of people that, you know are coming from a different history.
- [37:34]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Hey there.
- [37:34]
Ryan Seacrest
It's Ryan Seacrest for Safeway for you. Save days are here now through June 25th. Find hot deals throughout the store and earn four times the point. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from Kinder, Ghost Energy, Cottonelle, Ben and Jerry's, and Popsicle. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event. Long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more. Enjoy savings on top of savings. When you shop in store or online for easy pickup or delivery, restrictions apply. See the website for full terms and conditions.
- [38:04]
Tim Miller
Early birds always rise to the occasion for summer vacation planning because early gets you closer to the action. So don't be late. Book your next vacation early on VRBO and save over $120. Rise and shine. Average savings $141. Select homes only.
- [38:20]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Can we go back to something that I just. I'm interested in Because I'm not interested in this because I necessarily think you're wrong. You may well be right, man. And so I just want to start with that because I don't have a real answer to this, but I want to go back to this. The extent to which things can get better, okay? It's not some of this. The fact that, and I don't mean this any sort of pie in the sky sort of way, but that in other democracies, not every other democracy, but certainly in other democracies, you're not necessarily put into, not just two parties, but a presidential system that is not really representative of, you know what I mean, of everybody in the country equally because of how Electoral college and how. I just think if some of those structural things were different, I think people might feel differently about their politics and about their vote.
- [39:13]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I have two thoughts on this. One is, I do think in this place, my original. My former. It's been a while now, my former Republican, my small C conservative comes in. This is Edmund Burke in me. That's like, you know, shit can get a lot worse, actually. And maybe just like, focusing on making things incrementally better, making incremental positive change is a safer bet than like trying to make big structural change and not. Not seeing what the unintended consequences are going to be and not being able to predict that, oh, we moved this thing, but then this other thing over here actually made it easier for the, you know, authoritarians to grab power, whatever. So I, like, that is an impulse within myself that isn't always right, but it's just. That's just one. The structural part of this is obviously true, though. This goes back to the narrative question about America and the force for good in the world and how we're the best democracy. I mean, one of the priors that I've changed a lot is like, our system is fucked, actually. And when we went and tried to start other countries, I mean, Iraq, for all the horrible things about the Iraq war, shout out to the Iraqis. They've had nine peaceful transfers of power. They're on a longer streak than us right now. And, like, what did we do with their system? We didn't give them a system that looked like ours. We gave them a system that looked more like Germany after World War II. You know, we learned things about, like, the nature of the system, system. And I do think that's right. I do think fundamentally that's right. But it's like, okay, well, A, how do you get the motivation to change that? And B, if you're like, let's say you're 2028. This takes us 2028. Where you talk about kind of how Gaza will be a litmus test issue in 2028 is something I really agree with you on. But let's say that that person, whoever it is, has said and done the right things on Gaza and has presented themselves in a way that people will leave them. That that is an authentic view. And then they say I'm going to get in there in 2029. What I'm going of fixing the health care system or dealing with inflation or dealing with your particular needs. What I, what I really want to spend my first year on is we're going to do fundamental structural democratic change. You know, we're going to expand the Supreme Court, we're going to, you know, whatever, you know, empower that Congress, we're going to whatever, expand the House. Like we're going to do all these different things. I think most people just be like, I don't, I think that that's really challenging. Like somebody has to really get in there and say I'm going to eat this one one because people are going to feel like I'm out of touch and this is some concern of the elite. And so I think that's where I get kind of pessimistic.
- [41:36]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
The challenges feel such that I don't know that we have another option. In other words, look, I understand that the conservative instinct and to some extent I share it myself. Look, what I don't want a is for another 911 and beef for another 911 where we stand around and look at each other and say why would someone do this to us? I feel that we are doing things in the world and we are empowering things and we are empowering forces in the world that endanger us and endanger humanity. If everything Barack Obama said is true about the positive aspects of America, that people follow us and da da da and all of that, what has eight years of Trump done then? Because the inverse of that is true too. What is that long history that I tried to outline in an article? What did it do? What has it seeded in the world? And you don't need to believe that the United States of America is somehow a uniquely evil power to grapple with that. It doesn't require that. But I don't know how we have a future going pinning our entire lives. It feels like every four years around these presidential elections, it doesn't feel like a good long term plan.
- [43:02]
Tim Miller
Rhodes and I talked about this last time that he was on and I think he's really good on this, which is you can simultaneously be able to talk about the way that our role in the world has been pernicious to a certain extent and that we need to redeem ourselves and reconsider exactly what our engagement is in other parts of the world. It doesn't mean we completely retreat, but reconsider that and simultaneously recognize that there are malign forces out there that would like to take that power. And then it could get worse. And this gets back to my small c. It's like one thing. It's like, is the Chinese run world going to be better? I guess ask the people in Hong Kong, right? Like ask the people in Gwangju. You know what I mean? Like ask the Uyghurs, right? So like that complexity is there. But I don't know, man. I do think politically there's more space for kind of reconsidering this than before. I don't know. When I look back at some of my silly Republican stuff in the past, like the one thing that was the silliest was when we made fun of Obama's apology tour in 08, which was really like 95% rah rah America, if you go look at those speeches and 5% like, you know, but we made some mistakes here, there and I and I just think that people are looking for a different narrative and the one that's more in touch with their experience.
- [44:24]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey there, it's Ryan Seacrest for Safeway for you. Save days are here now through June 25th. Find hot deals throughout the store and earn four times a point. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from Triscuit, Quaker, Reese's and Dots Pretzels. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long saving. Stack up those rewards to save even more in enjoy savings on top of savings. When you shop in store or online for easy pickup or delivery, restrictions apply. See the website for full terms and conditions.
- [44:55]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
It's a cold day here in Alaska, but there's one animal seemingly unaffected, bright eyed and determined enters the husky.
- [45:05]
Tim Miller
Observe as they go up the mountain,
- [45:07]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
guided by pure instinct.
- [45:09]
Tim Miller
They are truly amazing masters of this wilderness.
- [45:14]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
But even these amazing pets can't sign up for Lemonade Pet Insurance. You can sign up now@lemonade.com amazing.
- [45:26]
Tim Miller
Okay, this is your third time on it's every six months so I'm going to get to see you again at Christmas, which is nice.
- [45:32]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Yes, I look forward to it.
- [45:33]
Tim Miller
I want to end with the NBA, but I Do I feel like it's incumbent upon me to at least do one question of woke revisited every time you're on.
- [45:42]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Okay, I'm on.
- [45:43]
Tim Miller
To respect our people.
- [45:44]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I think about it a lot.
- [45:45]
Tim Miller
Okay. Last time we were on, I brought up to you White Fragility, and you were like, fuck you. Everybody brings up this book. You can't make an entire movement answer for this book. And I was like, fair, fair, fair. Okay. So fast forward, though. Since then, James Talarico has become the nominee for Senate. Until Texas. Good man. Interviewed him a couple months ago. Good dude, heart in the right place. And one of the things was like, did anybody even read this book, White Fragility? I don't know if you read the book or not, but here's something that he said in 2020, that it's going to be on TV screens in Texas this fall. White skin gives me and every white American immunity from the virus. But we spread it wherever we go through our words, our actions, and our systems. We don't have to be showing systems like a white hood to be contagious. It's like, man, this is how the fascists get in charge, man. We're telling a working class white dude in Texas.
- [46:44]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Can we back up? No, no, no, no. Actually, the problem is. The problem is not that. I'll tell you what the problem is.
- [46:48]
Tim Miller
Okay?
- [46:49]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Don't talk about human beings as diseases.
- [46:52]
Tim Miller
Okay? Thank you.
- [46:53]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Don't do that. Don't do that. Just don't.
- [46:56]
Tim Miller
Just don't.
- [46:56]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Just don't. Just don't. Look, I bow to no one in my criticisms of white people. You know, Like, I don't pull any punches. I don't. I don't, but don't. You can't talk about people's diseases. Like, I just object to that. Like, if it was just, you know, us and our, you know, that woke sort of secret society we have, you know, where we don't let certain people in. And I heard. I'd be like, man, you can't do that. What was the circumstance in which he said that? Was he running for office?
- [47:26]
Tim Miller
He was in office. He was in the state legislature. Let me pull this up. This was during COVID This was during COVID And he was talking about it, and he's like, one of the ways that we fight the disease is by saying black lives matter. I mean, it's a fucking port. It's a Portlandia episode. I don't have. Can you read that to me again?
- [47:49]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Just read it one more time for me.
- [47:50]
Tim Miller
Yeah, sure. If we could Pull up the next tweet. I thought I would have. Goddamn. Elon Musk has ruined Twitter search. Twitter search.
- [47:59]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
It's actually gotten worse. It makes a conservative Argum.
- [48:03]
Tim Miller
You know, he's ruined a lot of things, but, like, he's really ruined Twitter search. Okay, if we can find the follow up quote, Slack, but here we go. Here is the. Here's the quote that he said. James Talbot, who we love. White skin gives me and every white American immunity from the virus, but we spread it wherever we go through our words, our actions, and our systems. We don't have to be showing symptoms to be contagious. It's like a Covid metaphor about how with COVID you should mask even if you're not showing symptoms, you can still spread.
- [48:33]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Like, I actually don't understand what now I don't understand what it means.
- [48:36]
Tim Miller
So there's this virus of white supremacy and racism out there and you're immune
- [48:41]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
to it because you're white. Correct, that's the metaphor.
- [48:44]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And like you and you could spread it. We'll read it to you from the start. So that was the second tweet in the thread. The first tweet was about Ahmaud Arbery, RIP and he was like, he said he's the latest American killed by the virus of race racism. So racism is the virus.
- [48:58]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Racism is the virus. Okay, all right.
- [48:59]
Tim Miller
Any white skin gives me and every white American immunity from the virus. But we spread it wherever we go through our words, our actions, and our systems. We don't have to be showing symptoms. We don't have to put on a white hood to be contagious. The only cure is diagnosing the virus within ourselves and taking dramatic actions to contain the spread. Two weeks to stop the spread of racism. The first small step is proclaiming loudly and unequivocally that black lives matter. I mean, the guy's heart's in the right place. You hate to dump on him.
- [49:29]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I mean, okay, actually hearing it, I understand it a little better. It's still not what I would say, but for other reasons. Certainly I've seen in other discourse that racism is a virus. Okay, let's just start there. Right?
- [49:39]
Tim Miller
Sure.
- [49:40]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I actually think the error in that is the notion that white people are immune from it. Because I actually think one of the most compelling aspects of my heroes and the writers that I've loved and that I've modeled myself after is the notion that nobody gets out of this unscathed. I mean, look, let me make this very literal for you so that it's not just Ta. Nehisi being nice to white people or whatever, trying to say something nice to Tim, whatever. Although I do say nice things to Tim.
- [50:10]
Tim Miller
I'll take it. Whatever. I can take mean things, too.
- [50:13]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Listen, I believe that if there were one singular force that I had to identify to explain how Trump becomes president and why he's been president for eight years, I would tell you white supremacy in a second, right? I would not tell you that white people have been immune from the effects of that. In fact, I would tell you to count. I would tell you actually, it makes us all very, very vulnerable, that it hurts all of us ultimately. And I don't mean that symbolically, I mean that literally. It literally endangers everyone. It is endangered so much. Listen, January 6th wasn't just an attempted coup. It was an attempt to overthrow the democratic will of a lot of white people, actually. You know what I'm saying? It was like there were white cops who got beat up. And just as a matter of basic truth, I think it's important to say that. Yeah, for politicians, it's probably even more important to say it. But I think, as a basic truth, it's really important to speak in that way. Not because it's accurate, first and foremost, but the damage to this democracy that's been done, which will not be healed quickly. The damage that was done by Doge, which will not be healed quickly. Yes, white supremacy is an explanatory force for how this was able to happen, but the notion that somehow white people are immune to it is just not. I mean, I feel bad for him a little bit, you know, because as I think my way through it, you know, I think I'm kind of being a little too hard on him.
- [51:58]
Tim Miller
Are you? I think your view is a little too nice. Again, I like insomniac. Let me tell you what it's like, man. If you're running for office, I don't. Like, there's no. Your first instinct was correct, Shanasi. I'm sorry. You cannot tell anybody that they got a virus inside of them because of the color of their skin. Like, you can't. Even if you're doing it out of good nature like a lot of people, it's complicated. We're both very educated people. You're a tenured professor. We're trying to translate this. It's like you're just a fucking white kid whose dad beat you, and you can't get a good job. And you're like, man, this guy wants to be my representative, but he Thinks I got a virus inside of me. It's just like. And I just think that there was like too much of this kind of. Of mindset happening, you know, a lot of times out of good intentions. And it's not, you know, the worst people, the white supremacists are worse. But like, we gotta. You gotta self critique.
- [52:52]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I'm with you. I'm with you. I don't disagree with the critique. I don't disagree with the critique. It's not a thing I would first of all write, and it's certainly not a thing I would advise a politician to say. Having said that, I often find one of the privileges of any, you know, for any sort of group is that ignorance, right?
- [53:10]
Barack Obama
Like.
- [53:11]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Like ignorance of other people. Okay? Like when you are regardless of, you know, whether you're gay, regardless of whether you're black, regardless of whether you're a woman, you have to know the people who, you know, rule things and run shit. Like, you have to know their culture and their history better than they have to know yours, right? And so what that means, you know, when you talk about race is white people suddenly become aware of things. You know what I mean? And it's like, holy shit, this was all around me and I didn't realize this. And then you say, okay, so how do I talk about this? And maybe you don't always have A, there's no guarantee you're gonna have the best people around to help you talk about it. B, you yourself don't necessarily have the vocabulary to articulate it. And so I just. I guess the reason why I want to be easier on him is because Tim, he was trying to figure it out.
- [54:05]
Tim Miller
He was trying. And we're all on a journey. I'm trying to figure it out. I'm trying to figure it out. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm trying to figure it out. But I'm also trying to not have a MAGA dictatorship in the country. And it'd be nice if there'd be some people who are trying to figure it out that don't make it as easy as possible. And the bad guys to hit him up.
- [54:25]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
What do you think he should have done? Okay, so I just. If you switch places with him, right? So he's figuring out, like, you wanna, like, Ahmaud Arbery's been killed and you are not. It is only within the recent history of your life that you have started to see these black people killed on camera and just shocked. You're like, oh, my God, the cops do this. Like, how do you.
- [54:43]
Tim Miller
I don't know, man.
- [54:44]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
How do you speak to it? And then at the same time, you
- [54:45]
Tim Miller
know, and I have to get asked about the stuff, like, the thing that I always come back to. Jeb had a lot of stuff we disagreed with. Well, there's one thing he said that I liked, which is that the job of government is that we're trying to make sure people have an opportunity to live a life of purpose and meaning.
- [54:57]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Meaning.
- [54:58]
Tim Miller
And like, that's a. It was a good North Star. Nobody ever lives all the way up to it. But I, like, I would frame it up like that, man. Like Ahmaud Arbery needed the chance to have a life, purpose and meaning. We did. We failed him. We didn't protect him. And. And the fact that he is black contributed to that. And we got to do better, and we got to make sure that people are accountable and we got to stop, you know, I don't know. And. And. And we, like, have a. More of a positive, aspirational way of talking about it rather than. And wagging your finger at the white people who aren't doing good enough. I don't know. I mean, everybody deserves a finger wag from time to time, too. So this is not like a hard and fast rule, but I don't know. I wouldn't have talked about the virus inside their skin.
- [55:39]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
You know, the thing is, like, one of the things that. And I'll agree with you on this is I do think we as a movement, you know, for those of us who, you know, are within that woke movement. I still use the word. So I put myself in it.
- [55:53]
Tim Miller
We got Woke Bill Crystal. Now you've won him over. There's converts everywhere. We're working on some merch. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [56:01]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Well, I'm here. I'm here. I lived here. I'm not going to abandon it just because it got taken. But I do think one thing that would be more useful is when we use language that, as you and I just did, takes five minutes to figure out what it's actually trying to say. We probably have a problem. That's not a rule for the benefit of white people. Actually, that's actually my rule as a writer. Like, as a writer, when I write things and I don't know what the fuck you're talking about. I got it. But it took me. Then I have to rewrite. You know what I mean? Because so much of our job actually is communication. I think there were a number of us during that period who felt that it was not our job to explain things to other people. And I will say that, yes, for a lot of people, it was not your job to explain to other people. If you're a writer, if you're a politician. I'm sorry. It is. It is. That is part of your job. It is. Part of my job is to. And I had some conflicts about this myself, but yes, part of my job is to explain things to white people. It's not my total job.
- [57:09]
Tim Miller
Sure.
- [57:09]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
But that is part of my job and it's actually honorable work. Because what do you want? Do you want people to remain ignorant? Is that what we're saying now?
- [57:22]
Tim Miller
You know, and that's good. All right. Did you see Zoran today at the next round?
- [57:27]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I did.
- [57:28]
Tim Miller
I'm gonna leave you with it. I'm leave people with it. He was so fucking good. The Republicans are so lucky. He was born in Uganda, man. If that guy was born in Queensland, they'd be in a world of hurt. But, well, maybe, maybe it's good he
- [57:43]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
can't run though, because maybe he'd be different if he wasn't.
- [57:45]
Tim Miller
That's true. He was good. Talking about the Knicks, I don't know, you don't have any Nick's deep thoughts for me. You want to leave people with.
- [57:51]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Nah, man. I mean, I'm happy they won. I was a New York Knicks fan before I was in New Yorker because I was a Latrell Sprewell, Allen Houston fan. I was Patrick Ewing, John Starks, Charles Smith.
- [58:05]
Tim Miller
This was part of Zoran speech. This is how you know, if you want to talk to a middle aged guy and get them to feel emotions, all you do is you just name athletes. And Zoran did that. That's not the part I'm gonna play. But there was a period of like two minutes where he was just like. And when John Starks dunked on Yao Ming and Mattel Freewell and Linsanity and he's just like naming people, man. And it's like, that's good. That's a good speech. All right, brother. Well, I appreciate the time as always. We'll leave people with Zoran and we'll see you at Christmas. All right?
- [58:34]
Barack Obama
All right.
- [58:34]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
All right. Thanks, Tim.
- [58:36]
Tim Miller
Everybody go check out his article in Vanity Fair. We'll be back on Monday with Woke Bill Crystal. See y' all then. Peace.
- [58:40]
Podcast Producer/Interviewer
But there is one thing that the pundits just don't get about this team, that they just don't get about this city. It is in that 0.4% that we go to work. It is in that 0.4% that Jalen Brunson, the same guy that so many said was too small, proves that not only is he good enough, he is the new standard for greatness. It is in that 0.4% that OG Anunoby. Watches the ball float from the top of the ark and start running toward the basket, fingers reaching towards the heavens. It is in that 0.4% that Karl Anthony Towns finds the strength to mourn his mother and still pull in rebound after rebound, make block after block. It is in that 4% that Jose Alvarado shows every kid growing up in public housing that a son of Brooklyn and Queens can win for every one of the five boroughs. It is in that 4% that Mitch breaks his finger before game one and says, Go get the tape. It's in that 4% that Josh Hart gets rebounds that break teams, that McCall Bridges proves he was worth every single draft pick, that Landry Shamit pulls up from downtown, that every one of these 18 players transforms the franchise, that Mike Brown keeps this team believing. Most of all, it's in that 4% that the Knicks do what New Yorkers have always done done. When we are told something is impossible, we find a way. We win.
- [60:46]
Tim Miller
The Borg podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.
- [60:57]
Ryan Seacrest
Hey there, it's Ryan Seacrest for Safeway for you. Save days are here now through June 25th. Find hot deals throughout the store and earn four times a point. Look for in store tags to earn on eligible items from Kinder, Ghost Energy, Cottonelle, Ben and Jerry's and Popsicle. Then clip the offer in the app for automatic event long savings. Stack up those rewards to save even more. Enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for easy pickup or delivery, restrictions apply. See the website for full terms and conditions. Identity theft can cost more than you think. Drained investment accounts, stolen tax returns, lost
- [61:32]
Tim Miller
wages, expenses for lawyers.
- [61:34]
Ryan Seacrest
It's a lot. That's why LifeLock is backed by the
- [61:37]
Tim Miller
Million Dollar Protection package, which covers up to $1 million each for stolen funds,
- [61:42]
Ryan Seacrest
fees for experts and lawyers, and out of pocket expenses. Don't face the burden of identity theft alone. Protect your future and finances with LifeLock. Join now and save up to 30%
- [61:52]
Tim Miller
your first year at LifeLock.com iHeart terms apply.
- [61:58]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Big transfer news today. Who's moving me to the couch with Domino's? Best deal ever since they just added stuffed crust.
- [62:04]
Ryan Seacrest
Any pizza?
- [62:05]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Any toppings?
- [62:06]
Tim Miller
Now with stuffed crust for 9.99.
- [62:08]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
It's a long term contract with no release clause. Only 9.99?
- [62:13]
Tim Miller
Yeah, that sounds like the move.
- [62:15]
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I'm heading straight to Dom. Price is higher for some locations. Excludes Excel and specialty pizzas. Select this offer from 615 through 726 online only. Size availability varies by crust type. Max 7, topping 6 for pan and New York style crust. Minimum purchase required for delivery. Prices, participation, delivery area and charges may vary.