Jane Coaston: Pod Save Michigan

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Bulwark Daily

Episode: Jane Coaston: Pod Save Michigan

Date: August 5, 2026
Host: Tim Miller | Guests: Jane Coaston, Tommy Vietor
Main Theme:
A deep dive into the Michigan Senate primary results, discussion on poll accuracy, the evolving Democratic coalition, lessons for the general election, and commentary on recent political dramas (Max Miller, Chuck Edwards, and more). Plus, reflections on storytelling in politics and the fate of podcasters in public life.

---

Michigan Senate Primary: Surprising Results & What They Mean

[02:00] – [09:17]

• Result Overview:

  • Expectations were for Abdul El-Sayed to win Michigan’s Democratic Senate nomination by double digits; instead, he won narrowly (~1% margin).
  • Tommy Vietor: “Michigan is a weird state. It’s a state in which Democrats can hold a trifecta and, and Trump can win it…” [02:41]
  • The polls once again misled expectations, leading to a meta-discussion on media narratives and poll reliability.

• Democratic (and Progressive) Tension:

  • Both guests critique the simplistic framing of “progressives vs. establishment” and urge focus on deeper voter dynamics:
    • Jane Coaston: “I see this less as like, progressive versus establishment and more about, like, the establishment being everybody in politics right now who everybody seems to hate.” [04:53]

• Polling & Narrative Fallacies:

  • Tim Miller brings up the historical consistency of close Dem primaries in Michigan:
    • “Here is the Results of Bernie vs. Hillary in 2016. 10 years ago. Bernie 49.6. Hillary 48.2. At the time of this taping… Abdul 48.4. Haley 47.5.” [05:53]

• Regional and Demographic Insights:

  • Surprising urban/rural splits: Abdul underperformed in rural Michigan, but did well in the UP.
  • Discussion of older Black voter turnout favoring Stevens and hitting back against left-populist themes. Spending disparities noted (Stevens’ significant advantage in ads, especially featuring Barack Obama).

• General Election Outlook:

  • Republican Mike Rogers characterized as uninspiring and evasive, particularly on national issues:
    • “No model for like a Mike Rogers to overperform the rest of the party… he’s not distancing himself, really. He’s just kind of trying to avoid having to answer for all Trump's unpopular shit.” – Tim Miller [17:10]
  • Emphasis on unity: Dems (including Buttigieg, Schumer) coalescing for the general.

Timestamps & Quotes:

• “We love storylines. We want there to be a story of how this is all happening. And the story has an obvious beginning, middle and end.” – Jane Coaston [03:12]
• “I want punishment for my foes.” – Tim Miller [08:03]
• “Black voters are less interested in the DSA populist left stuff than maybe they’d be in New York City.” – Jane Coaston [09:02]

---

Abdul El-Sayed's Strengths and Challenges

[11:24] – [16:41]

• Underappreciated Skills:

  • Jane Coaston and Tommy Vietor highlight El-Sayed’s energy, campaign stamina, and ability to avoid alienating mainstream Dems.
  • Comparison to grassroots progressive campaigns in NYC (“Amdani” as a model for tenacity and outreach).

• Potential Weaknesses:

  • Concerns about poll errors, underperformance, handling of sensitive identity/race issues (Bradley effect), and the threat of Republican attacks.
  • Tim Miller notes concerns over possible “racialization” by Republicans and oppo research.

• Foreign Policy Surprises:

  • El-Sayed is less “lefty isolationist” than anticipated:
    • “[On Ukraine]: I think we’re involved in a righteous struggle to protect a sovereign nation from being invaded by their neighbor. That’s completely consistent with international law. Hell, yeah.” – Tim Miller quoting Abdul [19:19]

• Israel/Anti-Semitism:

  • Discussion of Abdul’s media handling on AIPAC money/Israel, with praise for his skillful distinction between Israeli government policy and Jewish identity:
    • “Judaism and the Jewish people are a light unto the world. Beautiful faith, beautiful people…” – Abdul El-Sayed [20:54]
  • Panel agrees Republican attacks on this front will likely backfire in the general.

---

Notable Moments: Michigan Eighth District and Republican Troubles

[27:40] – [29:52]

• Michigan 8th GOP Primary Oddity:
  • The candidate who had dropped out (Thomas J. Smith) won after voters ignored both the Trump-endorsed Amir Hassan and the rest of the field.
  • Underlying discussion of implicit bias, racism, and Islamophobia within the GOP base:
    • “I don’t think that it takes a deep investigation to identify some racism and Islamophobia still percolating in the Republican base.” – Jane Coaston [29:54]

---

Max Miller Scandal & Trump’s Response

[30:05] – [38:29]

• Summary:
  • Max Miller, facing allegations of spousal and child abuse, goes on a media blitz to defend himself—awkward interviews, damning quotes, and lack of Republican condemnation.
  • Donald Trump: “I feel badly for him.” [36:50]
• Notable Quotes:
  • “I mean, could this guy look more like a wife beater?” – Tim Miller [33:22]
  • “He is saying… his former wife was so unwell that Bernie Moreno tried to pay her $5 million to just go away. Which… the host on Newsmax had to… be like, ‘what?’” – Tommy Vietor [34:54]

---

Chuck Edwards’ “Creepy” Congressional Exit

[39:09] – [41:49]

• Summary:
  • Chuck Edwards, GOP Congressman from NC, exits after stories surface about giving pink handguns, creepy poems, and awkward advances to young female staffers.
  • “Can something be like off the charts creepy and just a little sad, make you feel a little sad for them at the same time?” – Tim Miller [41:28]
• Comic relief: Office prints texts, draws hearts next to them—a sad, cringe sequel to “Death of a Salesman.”

---

ICE and Free Speech: Government Overreach

[42:14] – [48:22]

• Debate on “Free Speech”:

  • Panel calls out the hollowness of GOP claims to care about free speech, contrasting Trump era “censorship” claims with current ICE overreach.
  • ICE contractors scour the Internet for “anti-ICE” speech, create dossiers, surveil and intimidate private citizens for critical emails and Reddit posts.
  • “They [ICE] are showing up at the houses of people who posted something they don’t like and saying that you have to sign a letter saying that you know that you may have violated federal law.” – Tommy Vietor [45:35]

• Memorable Exchange:

  • “He sent an email. He sent a mean email to a federal employee. Like, come on.” – Tommy Vietor [47:58]
  • “Most of my trolls are like, fag breath. Like, gay.” – Jane Coaston [46:53]

---

Rapid-Fire: Reflecting Pool, Doug Burgum, J.D. Vance, & More

[48:22] – [53:57]

• Reflecting Pool & Doug Burgum:

  • Scorn for use of state power to target protesters, and for cabinet members who participate.
    • “You’re a monstrous human being. You need to go home to North Dakota, reconnect with Plains values…” – Jane Coaston [49:24]

• JD Vance, Iran War “Jokes”, and GOP Subtweets:

  • JD Vance’s veiled social media shots at establishment GOP figures and the Trump administration’s conduct of the unpopular Iran war.
  • “JD Vance is very mean on the Internet at people he believes he can be mean to without consequences.” – Tommy Vietor [52:54]
  • Trump allegedly admires Vance’s weight loss; lampooned as “our most gay coded president ever.” – Tommy Vietor [52:06]

---

PODCASTER POLITICS: The Future of the Medium in Government

[54:05] – end

• Game: Which Podcaster Will Run/Win/Flame Out?
  • Most likely to win: Dan Pfeiffer (Crooked Media)
    • “He’s the most serious, the least concerning things in his oppo file…” – Tim Miller [55:05]
  • Most likely to lose: John Lovett (unanimous)
    • “His campaign would be like, great and inspiring and he would lose, but the speeches would be fantastic.” – Tommy Vietor [56:35]
  • Who’d have the worst ‘content creator’ moment? Jane Coaston and possibly Tommy Vietor, for selfies in shades at night.
  • Most likely to get a crony appointment: Ben Rhodes nominated as potential Kash Patel of the left [58:43]

---

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On narratives: “Maybe there is a story here and it's the never ending story. There is no beginning, middle, and end. It's the forever war.” – Jane Coaston [05:37]
• On Michigan Dems: “They are at the ramparts and they have axes and they're mad. Like, they are unbelievably mad.” – Tommy Vietor [07:11]
• On the state of political scandals: “There are many people I think should shut the fuck up. Like, just like a long and healthy list of people who should shut the fuck up. But Max Miller will not shut the fuck up.” – Tommy Vietor [31:03]
• On the modern GOP: “I don’t think that it takes a deep investigation to identify some racism and Islamophobia still percolating in the Republican base.” – Jane Coaston [29:54]
• On the future of podcaster politicians: “People are looking for the wisdom of podcasters when they turn to future levers.” – Jane Coaston [54:36]

---

Takeaways & Tone

• Blend of Serious Analysis and Sarcasm: The hosts toggle between dry humor, righteous indignation, and insightful, inside-baseball analysis.
• Cynicism about both parties’ storytelling obsessions and the political chattering class, with a dash of hope for genuine, energetic candidates.
• Running themes:
  • Narrative addiction in politics
  • The limited power of polling
  • The two parties’ fights over free speech
  • How intra-party drama shapes/reflects broader cultural divides
  • The gradual transformation of podcasters into political protagonists

---

For those who missed the episode:
This is a boisterous, sharp conversation dissecting one of the year’s key swing state primaries, with detours into the absurdities and pathologies of modern American politics—and a winking acknowledgment that, in today's climate, even Pod Save America might spawn a Senator.

Transcript

[Tommy Vietor]

Foreign.

[Tim Miller]

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. A few scheduling notes. The pod was out a little late yesterday and I think it might be out a little bit late today. We're back from vacation. We're working out the kinks. Today's guest had a personal issue. We're scrambling. It's like, who do I call in an emergency? A big Michigan moment.

[Jane Coaston]

Many people. But who answers the phone at 6:30am Pacific Time?

[Tim Miller]

Jane Coston, host of what a Day

[Jane Coaston]

podcast, friend of the show. Thank you Jane. Greatly appreciate it.

[Tim Miller]

Go blue.

[Tommy Vietor]

Absolutely great to be back. And yeah, it is, it is the first week of August, which I think we forget about in terms of like, you know, that that's summer. That's like, you know, if you are like chomping at the bit for a Politics podcast on August 5th at 3:30

[Tim Miller]

in the afternoon, well, we salute you

[Tommy Vietor]

and we're really appreciate you.

[Tim Miller]

We appreciate all the listeners to the Bulwark Daily. Every day it's daily. But you know, 3:30 comes out of 4:30.

[Jane Coaston]

It's okay.

[Tim Miller]

We're gonna do our best.

[Jane Coaston]

We'll get it back going once school's in, you know, because you're gonna need it for school pickup.

[Tim Miller]

Because you need to listen to a

[Jane Coaston]

real human podcast during school pickup instead of the Sam Altman chatgpt AI podcast, you know, so we gotta make sure.

[Tommy Vietor]

I still love that he's. At no point has he been like, you could talk to your kids. Like all of his proposals sound kind of like, you know, on the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip how like Calvin's dad is always like, we'll just set up the Christmas tree in the garage and you can pretend it has lights. Like all of Sam Altman's suggestions sound like that.

[Jane Coaston]

It's concerning.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's very worrying.

[Tim Miller]

But you know, it wouldn't be that concerning if he was just weird. There are a lot of weirdos that are a little weird out there in the world. It's just, it's a little concerning when

[Jane Coaston]

they hold the future of society in their hands.

[Tim Miller]

Obviously the big news of the morning

[Jane Coaston]

here of the day is the results in the Michigan Senate race yesterday.

[Tim Miller]

People were expecting because of the polls,

[Jane Coaston]

a significant win from Abdul Al Said, maybe double digits. I was expecting that.

[Tim Miller]

That did not happen.

[Jane Coaston]

There was an Ann Seltzer style poll error in Michigan.

[Tim Miller]

The way that these polls control the narratives and the discourse is probably something

[Jane Coaston]

we should reflect on as commentators because

[Tim Miller]

it's kind of like had the poll's

[Jane Coaston]

been showing Haley up in Abdul wins.

[Tim Miller]

It would just be like progressive DSA shock, earthquake. And now it's kind of like, ooh,

[Jane Coaston]

is there some weakness?

[Tim Miller]

But anyway, Abdul is up by 1%

[Jane Coaston]

at the time of this taping. The race has been called ap, but it's just going to be a much narrower victory than expected. I've got a bunch of takeaways. What are yours?

[Tommy Vietor]

I've got some micro and some macro thoughts. Micro thoughts is that Michigan is a weird state. It's a state in which Democrats can hold a trifecta and, and Trump can win it like that. That's the state of Michigan. And so I kind of expected this race to be tight, especially with so much attention, as much money going into it. I think that, again, to your point, I think polling does a disservice in how we talk about this race and especially how we talk about what this race means for people in the state of Michigan, the most majestic, wonderful state that there is. Like, what does this mean for Michiganders? What does this mean? You know, going forward? I'm interested to see the pivot towards the general election. You have a Republican, Mike Rogers, who told Semaphore that he no one asks me about the Iran war. And I don't know how I'd vote on anything. Cause I don't care. I mean, I do. And so I'm interested to see what that pivot looks like. But I think overall the challenge we have is, and this is the macro, and this is kind of more of a meta point, is that we love storylines. We want there to be a story of how this is all happening. And the story has an obvious beginning, middle and end. There's kind of heroes and villains. Yeah, exactly. And so we want a story of like, progressive big win or progressive loss to establishment. Like, I think the top three stories in Politico right now are like, progressives are anxious. And I'm like, well, I mean, everybody's anxious all the time. That's how we are. But, like, is that actually what we should take away from this particular moment? I. I don't know. I think that what I'm getting from this is a anti establishment rhetoric. I think it's, you know, Abdul spent a lot of time talking about how he wanted to get away from Democratic politics. As usual, his opponent was being supported by Chuck Schumer, who now has come out with a statement being like, we're all united in fighting Trump, which is the right way to be. Like, you get like, whoever it is, you also Saw that from Pete Buttigieg talking about, like, we're all coming together, we've got 90 days to go. Beat Trump and beat the Republican Party. That's what matters. But, like, I see this less as like, progressive versus establishment and more about, like, the establishment being everybody in politics right now who everybody seems to hate.

[Tim Miller]

Which in the majestic Michigan. Which part of the state is it? Where the trees are just the right height, I believe.

[Tommy Vietor]

Let's see. I have to do the mitten. It's like up here. Ish. And then you got the up where no one knows what happens up there.

[Tim Miller]

I know. I was like, can I think of an emergency UP guest?

[Jane Coaston]

I was like, I have no idea.

[Tim Miller]

Because Abdul did pretty poorly in most

[Jane Coaston]

of rural Michigan, but did well in the UP And I don't understand how to explain that. Listeners, if there are UP listeners there, please come. And I'm trying to understand the ways.

[Tommy Vietor]

Please answer all of my questions about how many wolverines you have seen. They are still up there. They are angry. And I want to know more.

[Tim Miller]

You said we like narratives and we like storylines.

[Jane Coaston]

I want to posit an idea. Maybe there is a story here and it's the never ending story. There is no beginning, middle and end. It's the forever war.

[Tommy Vietor]

It's the 2015 Democratic presidential primary.

[Tim Miller]

Are you ready for this? Here is the Results of Bernie vs. Hillary in 2016. 10 years ago. Bernie 49.6. Hillary 48.2. At the time of this taping, there's still some votes to trickle in. Abdul 48.4. Haley 47.5.

[Jane Coaston]

Abdul plus 1. Bernie plus 1.4.

[Tim Miller]

It's the same. It's the same everything.

[Jane Coaston]

All of the.

[Tim Miller]

What was the line that Rick Tyler did? All the takes and the trivia, all of the events and the two Trump terms. And it's just like the Democratic electorate in Michigan is basically like, yeah, you know, some of us are looking for radical left wing change and other of

[Jane Coaston]

us, others of us are looking for, you know, just kind of middle of the road suburban mom trying to fight for liberal values and America's role in the world.

[Abdul El-Sayed]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, the thing is in Michigan, a lot of those suburban moms are like, all of you also ice. Also, like, we hate all of you. Like the general. I think this is a sentiment that, like, you, you don't get enough of in mainstream media. But, like, when I talk to, like, older Dems, Dems living in, like, suburbs, Dems who like, previously would have been, you know, like, you know, they were Hillary supporters. And they were Obama supporters and you know, they voted Dem like all these cycles at this point. They, they, they are at the ramparts and they have axes and they're mad. Like they are unbelievably mad. Like people are posting things on Facebook where I'm like, maybe keep that, keep that on signal.

[Tim Miller]

And that's why I thought actually Abdul

[Jane Coaston]

was going to win by more than he did in addition to the polling.

[Tim Miller]

But just because I have anecdotally people

[Jane Coaston]

in my life who are just, who are more mainstream Dems but are like, I want to give these the dsa, but we should say Abdul does not identify as a socialist or as dsa but like just in the kind of broader, you know, definition.

[Tommy Vietor]

Colloquial.

[Jane Coaston]

Yeah, the colloquial. The factional kind of definition.

[Tim Miller]

You know, I want to give this

[Jane Coaston]

kind of left populist brand a try because I'm so outraged, I'm so enraged and I just, I just want punishment for the my foes. And you know, I want to, you

[Tommy Vietor]

want to hear the lamentation. You want to hear the lamentations of their women and their children. And I'm like, I understand same.

[Tim Miller]

So I was expecting more black voters. Older black voters are kind of countervailing point on this. In particular, Haley last night when we

[Jane Coaston]

were live is down six or seven points and then the urban precincts of Wayne county come in and she gets landslide numbers there. And so that in addition to kind of rural, the rurals is another reason. And I guess obviously she had a 9 to 1 spending advantage. And I think that there is both

[Tim Miller]

a lot of evidence that outside of

[Jane Coaston]

the big metros, black voters are less interested in the DSA populist left stuff than maybe they'd be in New York City. And also Haley Stevens spent an ungodly amount of money on ads with Barack Obama saying nice things about her. And that obviously helped.

[Tommy Vietor]

Right. I also think that there might be the same phenomena that we saw back in 2020 in South Carolina where you had African American voters saying we know what white people like, like we know what white people are going to vote for and we know that white people are going to want 2020. Joe Biden.

[Jane Coaston]

Right.

[Tommy Vietor]

They don't know that that's a strategic

[Jane Coaston]

right now as much as Right.

[Tommy Vietor]

So I think that there's an understanding, I mean, I think that that was also kind of this underlying thing from Stevens campaign was that, you know, Abdul can't win with independent moderate voters. That it just, you know, he, it's this, I am the safer choice if you actually want to win the Senate race.

[Tim Miller]

August is National Wellness Month, but most health trends mean buying random gadgets guessing

[Jane Coaston]

at what actually works.

[Tim Miller]

I want to stop guessing and look

[Jane Coaston]

at the data behind what's happening in my body.

[Tim Miller]

Your daily resilience leaves a clear data trail in your blood and function tracks the exact markers behind your energy and immunity. Not a generic overview. They look at core biomarkers like your white blood cell count. That's nice. Which maps your frontline defense against invaders hscrp, which has its hidden energy draining inflammation and vitamin D and zinc levels which are essential immune anchors but are often too low. Plus they cross reference secondary metrics like the iron levels behind your energy.

[Jane Coaston]

Your B12 levels for energy and nerves.

[Tim Miller]

Your cortisol clavicular warned us you don't

[Jane Coaston]

want your cortisol to spike too much.

[Tim Miller]

I wanted to look under the hood of this muscle car before the busy travel season. Function Health gave me real data driven

[Jane Coaston]

insights and brought me some peace of

[Tim Miller]

mind because the best way to stay healthy is to really understand how your body works and what's happening in there. Check your health the way I do. Function provides 160 plus lab tests for $1 a day and member pricing on advanced imaging. [e-mail] the Bulwark Use gift code thebullwerk25

[Jane Coaston]

let's talk about those concerns then. I want to talk about a couple of things about Abdul that impressed me recently because I do think he's a

[Tim Miller]

little bit undervalued in some quarters. The concerns right there.

[Jane Coaston]

I'll just kind of list the concerns that people might have and that I

[Tim Miller]

am thinking about is the underpolling performance

[Jane Coaston]

just that Michigan's hard to pull. Is it just that we're just still

[Tim Miller]

not that good at this?

[Jane Coaston]

Is it something else? Is it an updated Bradley effect? Is there some kind of feeling that, you know, people didn't want to say to pollsters that they don't feel comfortable voting for Abdul? The Republicans are going to try to kind of racialize this, of course. Or is there something else about him that caused the under polling performance? That's something that concerns people.

[Tim Miller]

They're going to have a unity breakfast tomorrow morning, which is exciting. Love a unity breakfast. But is he going to put in the energy to go and get the Alyssa Slotkin voters?

[Jane Coaston]

And it's important to remember Alyssa Slotkin one in 2024. She gets a lot of shit from

[Tim Miller]

the left for some reason. But Kamala Harris lost his lock in

[Jane Coaston]

one like that happened just Two years ago.

[Tim Miller]

Can he go get those voters? And also, I think the oppo questions is everything out.

[Jane Coaston]

You know, are Republicans holding stuff on him? Those are kind of, I think, the concerns. Do you share any of those?

[Tommy Vietor]

I mean, let me put my cards on the table. I've known Abdul for a while. He had a podcast here at Crooked Media.

[Tim Miller]

Indeed he did.

[Tommy Vietor]

Indeed he did.

[Tim Miller]

It's called America Dissected. We have more on that at the very end of the show.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yes. And so I've known him for a while. He and I have discussed such matters as weightlifting and working out, which, you know, bonds a person to another person forever. I think that he has the energy and the willingness, and I think that that's something else. That is. I just said that we don't need to start an overarching narrative. But I think that what I am expecting to see from him is something similar to what we saw from Mamdani in New York. Obviously, very different race, but a big thing that Mamdani did, which is underestimated, is that he tried really, really, really, really hard. He was all over the place in New York. There was not a bodega in New York City that Mamdani did not wander into with a camera. He was in the streets. He was talking to people selling stuff. He was all over the place.

[Tim Miller]

He also wasn't strident. Like, he wasn't above. Like, he met with the rich finance guys. He tried to. He met with Jessica Tisch, the cops.

[Jane Coaston]

When he came on my show, he

[Tim Miller]

had a list of red tape that he wanted to cut.

[Jane Coaston]

Knowing how to please the host.

[Tommy Vietor]

Exactly. And so, in comparison, Andrew Cuomo did not try in the same way. Like, there was not the same. Like, I am here to win this race. I will talk to everybody and their dog, and I will shake their dog's paw and the person's hand. I will do everything. Again, part of the anti establishment attitude is also kind of an anti gerontocracy attitude. I'm aware Haley Stevens is not a elderly person, but I also think that the kind of let's go after every vote, let's talk to everybody, let's go everywhere. Let's do everything. The kind of thing you saw from Amdani and you've seen from candidates who are doing well in a bunch of different states, Democratic candidates who are doing well. Like, you know, we're going to talk about this, but, like, you know, Josh appears in a Meek Mill video. They will, you know, you got to go everywhere and you got to do everything. Even if it doesn't seem like it's going to make sense, like, I think that Abdul has shown a willingness to be in the fight and be completely aware of what people are going to say or what people are going to pretend that they are going to say or something like that. Because you're already seeing kind of like, oh, like, you know, can he possibly win in this environment? And it's like, yeah, he's doing it right now. And I think that the intersection of people who are mad at the establishment, people who are curious about a candidate who is talking so much about health care and is talking so much about healthcare in a state where that's a giant issue, I think that that will be an advantage for him. I think also again, I keep thinking about this, how sometimes, like, more centrist outlets will talk about progressive Dems and pretend that progressive Dems are going up against bizarro Paul Ryan or like bizarro, whatever generic Republican meant in like 2013. They are not. Like, Abdul is going up against Donald Trump. Abdul is going up against Stephen Miller. Abdul is going up against J.D. vance. Abdul is going up against the war in Iran. Abdul is going up against a massive rise in the cost of living while some dude in the White House is like, I want an arch and everyone will be able to see it. And you can't avoid my arch. And I want it because it would be nice. Like, we are in an environment that is about, as I mean, to your, your colleague Sarah Longwell's point. Like, we are below the Bush line.

[Jane Coaston]

Oh yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

At this point, we haven't even had a massive hurricane, but we're like, we're in like Bizarro 2006. But the person at the center of it doesn't seem to know that and still thinks that what everyone wants is to hear from Donald Trump all the time when they don't.

[Jane Coaston]

Well, he might know and not care.

[Tim Miller]

And the Mike Rogers fund with the Republican Senate candidate. I do think a lot of people

[Jane Coaston]

are grading this race through a 2014 or 2010 lens where it's like, Mike

[Tim Miller]

Rogers seems like he might be pretty

[Jane Coaston]

good at getting those crossover Mitt Romney voters. It's like, oh, he has a national security profile. He's not crazy. He's not posting QAnon stuff, whatever. He doesn't seem overtly racist, but it's

[Tim Miller]

like he also is just not particularly talented. I mean, think about the politicians that

[Jane Coaston]

have managed to get out from under Trump and the Republican side.

[Tim Miller]

It's like Susan Collins with this longtime

[Jane Coaston]

reputation locally in Maine of separating her brand from the party. We can all roll our eyes at that.

[Tim Miller]

But she worked hard at it over

[Jane Coaston]

many years, and obviously the people of Maine know her. They all have better. Brian Kemp, who, like, literally stood up to Trump on the insurrection and is a Georgia good old boy, like, right

[Tim Miller]

wing cultural Christian conservative. There's no model for like a Mike Rogers to overperform the rest of the party. And like you said, he's not. He's not distancing himself, really. He's just kind of trying to avoid having to answer for all Trump's unpopular shit. And I think Abdul will be very

[Jane Coaston]

talented at taking that on in a debate, et cetera.

[Tommy Vietor]

If you have someone who literally said. I wanted to double check. Who literally said to semaphore about where he stood on Trump's anti weaponization fund, and I quote, I'm not talking about any of that stuff. I don't care. I mean, comma, I care. Like that. Really? That's what we're doing.

[Tim Miller]

I'm not blown away by the political skills there.

[Tommy Vietor]

No, no. And for, you know, for Michigan people, like, this is somebody. Like, this dude makes Rick Snyder look like some sort of, like, heretofore unseen genius. Like, this is. We are not talking about 2010, and we're not talking about 2014. We're talking about a wildly unpopular president who is in the midst of a wildly unpopular war. The most unpopular war since that we started polling how wars do. And, like, that's the environment we're in. That's just what it is.

[Tim Miller]

The other thing about Abdul, I just

[Jane Coaston]

want to mention, just from a foreign policy perspective, I have to admit, like,

[Tim Miller]

me and Abdul have not shared workout routines.

[Jane Coaston]

I have met him once, but I don't really know him that well. And I had kind of projected onto him that he had the full suite

[Tim Miller]

of lefty isolationist foreign policy views. And a couple of things I saw

[Jane Coaston]

this week as I was kind of digging deeper on that just surprised me. Pleasantly surprised me.

[Tim Miller]

He's asked about Ukraine. He said this. When it comes to Ukraine, I think

[Jane Coaston]

we're involved in a righteous struggle to protect a sovereign nation from being invaded by their neighbor. That's completely consistent with international law. Hell, yeah. Like, that's not him dabbling any of the lefty horseshoe stuff about how we shouldn't support Ukraine.

[Tommy Vietor]

No, no, no. Like, he's not like, code pink. Like, no. Like, he's not. Like, that's not what we're doing here.

[Tim Miller]

And then obviously, this big issue in

[Jane Coaston]

the race is, is all this APAC money that comes in for Haley Stevens, I talked about that much on Monday and I just, I'm not any group trying to come in and put 30 million into a race is going to come under criticism. Obviously there's a lot of sensitivities around AIPAC because of anti Semitism, et cetera. But I don't think that it was

[Tim Miller]

surprising that there was a backlash there

[Jane Coaston]

given what we've seen from the way Israel's prosecuted the war and just the scale of that money in the primary.

[Tim Miller]

But sometimes some left populist Democrats, including one that's been mentioned earlier who was on this very show and struggled a

[Jane Coaston]

little bit with handling anti Semitism questions.

[Tim Miller]

Finding the right tone can be a challenge. This is a longer clip than I usually play, but I think it's worth

[Jane Coaston]

hearing all of it. Abdul this weekend was on Ms. And was really pushed on questions of whether his rhetoric has some anti Semitic undertones. Let's just listen to it and then we'll get it on the other side.

[Interviewer]

Are you worried that that framing juxtaposing the Jewish funding for the Jewish state against the needs of, in your own words, our own people echoes an old anti Semitic trope?

[Abdul El-Sayed]

Let me just be very, very clear. You know who benefits from guaranteed health care in this country? Jewish Americans. The idea that somehow we are going to use the specter of anti Semitism to defend what a foreign government is doing actually has, does a deep disservice to the well being of Jewish Americans in this country. Judaism and the Jewish people are a light unto the world. Beautiful faith, beautiful people. The contributions that they've made to this country alone are staggering. And I'm looking forward to standing with the Jewish community against anti Semitism. After all, anti Semitism and Islamophobia are one in the same and we need to take them on. But we cannot sit idly by and ask why is it that our $3.3 billion a year at baseline is used to fund apartheid at baseline, genocide over the last several years, a war we have no business fighting with, the attempt to annex the southern part of a neighboring country and then wonder why our kids schools look like they did 50 years ago. The reality of, respectfully, you haven't made

[Interviewer]

that same trade off argument with regards to other items in the US is $800 billion.

[Abdul El-Sayed]

Oh, I have to cover it.

[Tim Miller]

That's.

[Abdul El-Sayed]

No, no, no, I have. You just don't cover it. I'll say the same thing about the money we send to Egypt, which is where my, my family comes from. So if you want to go ahead and call me anti Egyptian, go ahead and do that. But the reality is, is that on principle I don't think we should be Sen. Sending unconditional foreign military aid to any government because none of us actually

[Interviewer]

pay our tax dollars. Or on principle then are you against military ethno religious states writ large on principle?

[Abdul El-Sayed]

I absolutely am.

[Tim Miller]

I mean I think that there are

[Jane Coaston]

going to be people that are very big Israel supporters that are obviously an equivalent the way that he characterized their actions. But outside of that, I think that's going to be a median voter view. And I think he was very skillful and earnest and he was doing talking

[Tim Miller]

points, but it felt very natural.

[Jane Coaston]

Anyway, I was impress with that exchange.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I mean you have at this point the, and I've talked about this before, the conflation of Judaism and the Jewish state, which I'm aware that that is a long and complex history. I mean something that people keep missing. And like you already see like right wing commentators being like Jews will never support like this Democratic candidate.

[Jane Coaston]

And I'm like they did already.

[Tommy Vietor]

Most Jews are Democrats in the US like that's like, you know, some nice Reform gu is obviously voting for a Democrat. That's like, I will say this, the most people I know who are in DSA are Jewish American. Like that's just a thing that exists. And so I think the part of the clip that I was particularly taken by was how he made the point that like we shouldn't be giving unconditional aid to anyone like that. You know, we shouldn't be doing this in Egypt. We should not be doing, I mean especially we're in the midst of, you know, giving so much money to the Saudis, giving so much money to a host of countries for reasons and especially as the Israeli government made the calculation, a very clear calculation that it needed to appeal to America's right and it needed to do that over and over and over again. Like Netanyahu's, you know, there's been some really great reporting talking about like Netanyahu speaking before Congress and basically going after Obama while Obama is in office. And like that being a very clear calculation to make. I mean the fact that you have the settler movements in Israel, you've got Ben GVIR being one of the shittiest people in global politics. He just is.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Jane Coaston]

And he's standing up.

[Tommy Vietor]

I know. And so I think like there are a lot of people in Michigan and elsewhere that can well understand the difference between Jewish Americans and a particular Israeli state. Like, we are not talking about the Israeli state of Yitzhak Rabin, we are talking about the Israeli state as it exists, doing this stuff, which we do not like.

[Tim Miller]

This would be different if it was

[Jane Coaston]

20, 24, maybe, and we're coming off of October 7th. I just think it's a strategic matter. Just even if you just kind of separate out moral or personal views on what's happening in the region, with the Iran war ongoing, if the Republicans decide to try to use this issue to go after him, I think it is a massive backfire. Kind of like reminds me of us establishment Republicans going after Trump for being racist and like attacking him over that. And Republican voters are like, oh, you're telling me he's racist.

[Tim Miller]

I feel like if the, if Mike Rogers wants to be like, oh, you know, Abdul El Sayed doesn't support our

[Jane Coaston]

ally Israel, though, a lot of voters are going to be like, oh, really?

[Tim Miller]

Oh, thanks.

[Jane Coaston]

I appreciate that.

[Tim Miller]

So anyway, I just think that's where we are. When we were kids, you know, way

[Jane Coaston]

back in the day, in the halcyon

[Tim Miller]

days, the beautiful early 90s summer meant freedom. We frolicked, were ponds, trampolines. We were bored. It was boredom, but it was. You learn to love the boredom because

[Jane Coaston]

there were no homework, no teachers, no school.

[Tim Miller]

As adults, you still get some freedom in the summer, but you have to look for it. You got to try to find a

[Jane Coaston]

little bit of freedom for yourself.

[Tim Miller]

And you can do that with our friends at Mint Mobile and their summer sale. Right now, all of mint's plans are 15 bucks a month, even unlimited. So free yourself from Big wireless and their gimmicks and gotchas and switch to Mint for high speed data and coverage on the T Mobile 5G network.

[Jane Coaston]

Billy Bob approves.

[Tim Miller]

We're negotiating with our daughter about the phone situation. But one thing. There's been some discussion of a. What's it called?

[Jane Coaston]

A tin can phone. I don't know, I'm gonna have to Google about it.

[Tim Miller]

But one thing I know for sure is whenever you hit that point, not this year, girl. I'm not gonna spend a lot of

[Jane Coaston]

money on my kid's phone bill.

[Tim Miller]

So we're checking out Mint Mobile reliable coverage at a reasonable price. Mint Mobile took what's wrong with wireless and made it right with Premium Wireless for 15 bucks a month. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talking text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You can even bring your current phone and your phone number to get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month. Go to mintmobile.com bulwark that's mintmobile.com bulwark cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com bulwark that'S it.

[Jane Coaston]

There's no catch.

[Tim Miller]

Upfront payment of 45 bucks for three months, 90 bucks for six months or 180 bucks for 12 months. Plan required 15 dollars a month equivalent taxes and fees. Extra initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes. May slow when the network is busy. Includes up to a 20 gigabyte hotspot cable device required availability, speed and coverage. Various cmipmobile.com for details. I want to move on to another

[Jane Coaston]

very important race that happened in Michigan last night. It was the Michigan eighth Republican primary. The Democrat in that seat is somebody I really like, Krista McDonald rivet. People should check her out if they don't know her. They represent Flint and Saginaw. The primary was between a guy named

[Tim Miller]

Amir Hassan, who Trump had endorsed.

[Jane Coaston]

I want to repeat that. Amir Hassan, Trump endorsed him. U.S. navy vet, former federal law enforcement officer. There was another candidate whose name I don't remember. And then there was Republican Thomas J. Smith.

[Tim Miller]

Thomas J. Smith.

[Jane Coaston]

Raised no money, had no endorsements, dropped

[Tommy Vietor]

out of the race, endorsed someone else. Endorsed Republican Al Lemo.

[Jane Coaston]

Yeah, Lemo.

[Tim Miller]

Mr. Lemo.

[Tommy Vietor]

And a Facebook video wearing a Lemo for Congress hat. Who won this Republican primary? Tim?

[Tim Miller]

So there's Al Lemo, who was endorsed

[Jane Coaston]

by Thomas Smith, and then Amir Hassan, who's endorsed by Trump. Thomas Smith won it in a landslide.

[Tim Miller]

Thomas J. Smith. And I don't want to pretend like I'm an expert of what's going on in the Republican primary in Michigan 8th. But I'm a person who has been an observer of the Republican base over the years, and I do wonder if

[Jane Coaston]

they looked at Amir Hassan and were

[Tim Miller]

like, no, no thanks. I guess I'll just vote for Mr.

[Tommy Vietor]

Thomas J. Smith, who submitted his effort to withdraw from the contest in like, a written letter because he couldn't, he couldn't log into the portal to figure it out. And I'm like, whomst among us has been unable to log into a portal to drop out of a race or do anything?

[Jane Coaston]

God, I spent an hour trying to log on to the Minecraft portal so I could play with my daughter on two different computers. And let me tell you, I've never

[Tim Miller]

felt older in my entire life and just put me in the grave. So Krisnaft has Thomas J. Smith up? I don't know. There are a few little anecdotes And I think that the NRSC put out a statement today calling Abdul Said, like

[Jane Coaston]

Abdul Rahman, like his long Muslim name. Amir Hasan gets the Trump endorsement. It's not enough to overcome, let's say,

[Tim Miller]

the implicit bias, to be generous. The people of Michigan ate.

[Jane Coaston]

The Republican voters of Michigan ate.

[Tim Miller]

I don't think that it takes a

[Jane Coaston]

deep investigation to identify some racism and Islamophobia still percolating in the Republican base.

[Tommy Vietor]

There might be gambling in this establishment, Tim. There just might be some gambling happening in this establishment.

[Tim Miller]

Want to talk about our friend Max Miller?

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh, boy.

[Tim Miller]

I'm going to tell you the Max Miller story. This piece of shit has been a

[Jane Coaston]

piece of shit for years.

[Tim Miller]

And it's one of those things where I wish I'm glad he's getting his comeuppance, but I've been ranting about Max

[Jane Coaston]

Miller for months now.

[Tommy Vietor]

You and George Santos.

[Jane Coaston]

Oh, God, no.

[Tommy Vietor]

George Santos, he yelled that Max Miller was a wife beater like years ago.

[Jane Coaston]

Yeah, okay, well, George might even beat me to the punch. I never said anything nice about George on this podcast.

[Tim Miller]

I was hoping you were to say George Conway, who's back in the fold.

[Jane Coaston]

Max not just throws scalding hot water. And all the accusations about his ex wife, daughter of Senator Bernie Moreno, but there was a previous accusation by Trump's spokesperson. Yeah, Stephanie Gresham, who said that she was roughed up by Max Miller.

[Tommy Vietor]

She was terrified of him. And she reportedly told President Trump and Melania about this and they did not care because of course they didn't. But here's what gets me, and I will say the quotes from Bernie Marino that he gave to TMZ totally made sense of him being like, I haven't said very much about this because my daughter does not want this. She does not. You know, she hasn't made any public statements. But he makes a point like, Max Miller is doing a publicity tour and you know, there are many people I think should shut the fuck up. Like, just like a long and healthy list of people who should shut the fuck up. But Max Miller will not shut the fuck up. And he went on Tapper yesterday.

[Tim Miller]

I've got a clip from Jake Tapper. Do you want to play that or

[Jane Coaston]

do you have a broad thought before we do?

[Tommy Vietor]

No, no, we should play the clip from.

[Tim Miller]

There are so many clips to choose from on tnl.

[Jane Coaston]

We chose the one where he was asked to respond to Bernie Moreno's claim that he would not let his daughter have her beloved bunny. Max Miller denied the two year old daughter the Bunny. But this other clip was, I think, even more alarming. Talking about what the daughter allegedly said about Max Miller.

[Tim Miller]

Let's listen.

[Jake Tapper]

Now, your ex wife stated to police that your child told her in the days leading up to the discovery of the injury, quote, daddy kill you. And your ex wife also said your child had said, daddy angry and daddy's house is scary. Now, according to your wife, your daughter articulated these statements to Children and Family Services. So can you explain why your child may have said those things?

[Max Miller]

Jake, I. I wish you could talk to my beautiful baby girl. She can't string together sentences like that. She's two and a half years old.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Max Miller]

She doesn't have the ability to articulate any of what you just said. That is an entire fabrication of the truth. I have actual video, actual documentation.

[Jake Tapper]

But didn't you just tell me that through two investigations, told me that she had said that she was scared to go to Mommy's house?

[Max Miller]

She is, and I have video of it.

[Jake Tapper]

But now you're saying that she's not capable of saying, daddy kill you. I mean, it seems like she's either able to say one, but not the other. That doesn't make sense.

[Max Miller]

Jake, to be very direct, this is incredibly disturbing. I am not going to my child to say, daddy kill you. You have to look at the timing of everything that is taking place.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Max Miller]

What about due process?

[Jane Coaston]

Good for Jake.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, could this guy look more like a wife beater?

[Tommy Vietor]

He's doing a thing where he is, like, already bored. Like, he's already bored with whatever Jake Tapper is going to ask him. He's already like, like, how dare you ask me about this woman who I keep portraying as being deeply mentally ill. So to that point, he went on this sack of shit, like, let's take aside the allegations that have been made by Emily Moreno. We already knew, based on Politico's reporting from 2024, that people in Trump's orbit were like, this guy kind of sucks and he's drunk all the time. And so we already knew this. So he goes on Newsmax Today, where, you know, the best and the brightest go. And he claims that his former wife was so unwell that Bernie Moreno tried to pay her $5 million to just go away. Which to. To his credit, the host of Newsmax, Rob Finnerty, had to, like, stop the interview and be like, what? What? What are we even talking about? So he is saying, and let's also keep in mind that Max Miller keeps saying, like, oh, you know, I've got all this dirt on Bernie Moreno and he doesn't want that out. And that's why doing all of this. And I'm like, what you're sack of shit? What?

[Jane Coaston]

That talk made sense for when he was silent. That doesn't make any sense now.

[Tommy Vietor]

No, it doesn't make any sense now. And it didn't really make sense when

[Tim Miller]

he was silent, but it was at

[Tommy Vietor]

least especially because we know that based on the court documents that Miller has been threatening both Moreno and also his ex wife and also his ex wife's attorney and also his ex wife's attorneys fiance. Like all of this is just baffling to me. And I think it was Sam Stein who tweeted a couple days ago, I understand better why Marino wasn't saying anything because you know, he wants to protect his family. Why Mike Johnson, who has the worst job in the world and lives in hell of his own making, why Mike Johnson is like, well, this isn't really for me to get into. This isn't really for me to take part in. This isn't really a thing I need to worry about. Apparently he told Politico, quote, there's all sorts of domestic events going on with 435 members of Congress all the time. It's not my business to get engaged in it.

[Tim Miller]

What? We have an allegation that a two year old girl was saying daddy kill you to their mother.

[Tommy Vietor]

A man allegedly broke the collarbone of a child.

[Abdul El-Sayed]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vietor]

And you're like, nothing to see, nothing to do with me.

[Tim Miller]

I don't know if this change since

[Jane Coaston]

yesterday so somebody we can correct it and post if needed but like I

[Tim Miller]

don't think a single House Republican has still called on Max to leave. There have been several Senate Republicans now, you know, I think who followed up on Moreno Johnson, to your point, said that the claims are serious, but he

[Jane Coaston]

wanted the House Ethics Committee to run its course.

[Tim Miller]

I mean he's running for reelection right now. Do you like, how could you possibly support this person for reelection based on these allegations that if you think Mike Johnson is bad, it's impossible to go

[Jane Coaston]

any lower than the President of the United States, who's the most. Also the most despicable person on the planet.

[Tommy Vietor]

Can't be done.

[Tim Miller]

Last night he was on the tarmac and was asked about this. Here's what Trump said. I hope he's able to work it out.

[Jane Coaston]

I feel badly for him.

[Tommy Vietor]

To your point, Trump only feels badly. He only has empathy for the shittiest men in the world. That's it. Oh, and Ghislaine Maxwell I feel badly for him. Why?

[Tim Miller]

Have you ever heard Trump say that about anybody? I feel badly. I mean, maybe as an insult, but, like, as a genuine. I feel badly for him. He didn't say, I feel badly for her, for his daughter, for Bernie. I feel badly for Max Miller.

[Tommy Vietor]

Like, that's the other thing is that Bernie Moreno is a Republican senator from the state of Ohio. He is like, right. Very right wing. I remember his race. Yeah, it's an intra gop, intra Ohio drama. Sounds stupid. Like, this is not drama. This is like a horrible family situation involving allegations of both spousal abuse and child abuse. It is terrible. And for Trump to look at the situation and be like, house rep in tight race, who. You know, we could probably find somebody else by the deadline and figure this out. Or seated Republican senator who's been one of my biggest supporters. Shitbag guy. I gotta go with the shitbag.

[Tim Miller]

I feel badly for the shitbag.

[Jane Coaston]

Anytime somebody gets accused of shitbaggery, that's the one thing that strikes my inner empathy cord. If you're Donald Trump, he's just such a sick person. We'll see what happens with Max Miller. But all these people are so sick. And all the people getting on their fucking high horse Overgraham Platner are just so disgusting.

[Tim Miller]

You mentioned that there still is time

[Jane Coaston]

to move on in certain cases, and that's happened for another candidate, Chuck Edwards.

[Tim Miller]

Real quick, before we get to Chuck Edwards, I got distracted when you were talking about Newsmax. Did you see the story that Newsmax has entered into a partnership with Meta AI?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, I did see that. I did.

[Jane Coaston]

If you didn't already have concerns, yesterday's podcast was about AI, about, you know,

[Tim Miller]

kind of how this advanced intelligence is going to kind of learn things and educate your children and.

[Jane Coaston]

And educate you. They want to make sure that they're, like, really kind of locked into the mainframe of Newsmax.

[Tommy Vietor]

I can't wait to ask Meta AI who won the 2020 presidential election and just have it just be like, back to Chuck Edwards.

[Jane Coaston]

This one's a little goofier. I mean, it's dark in its own way, but it's not really quite Max Miller dark. How could it be?

[Tim Miller]

Chuck Edwards is a congressman in western North Carolina. There's a great.

[Jane Coaston]

One of my favorite Democratic candidates this year is a guy named Jamie Egger, who's running in that district. Check him out. If you guys haven't, shout out to him.

[Tim Miller]

Chuck is the incumbent, but decided last

[Jane Coaston]

night that he's not going to run again.

[Tim Miller]

This comes After a series of stories discussing some pretty strange behavior that he

[Jane Coaston]

engaged in with female staffers.

[Tommy Vietor]

He is alleged to have given his female staffers personalized guns and creepy poems.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, pink hand guns, which you know.

[Tommy Vietor]

No. He attempted to invite himself over to a female staffer's house to decorate her Christmas tree and was like, where's your key? I'll just come on in. As is tradition, he posted on Social at 3:32am Eastern on Wednesday. After much prayer and reflection, I've decided to withdraw from my reelection campaign. I'm very curious about all the prayer and the reflecting. The other thing about this, I mean to. I think Jake Tapper made this point. I recommend if you do not know what Chuck Edwards looks like, I recommend just googling him. Just imagine.

[Tim Miller]

And for the YouTube viewers, we'll just

[Jane Coaston]

put him on the screen right now.

[Tommy Vietor]

Just imagine like this person being like, I'm going to give my 22 year old female staffer tickets to go see Adam Sandler with me.

[Tim Miller]

Just like I'm going to decorate her Christmas tree. I'm going to go over into her.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yes, to Tapper's point, like, what did

[Tim Miller]

you give her? A pink handgun. In one of the cases he booked and paid for massages and spa treatments for a staffer.

[Jane Coaston]

Took her to the casino, paid for her to gamble. After the casino trip, she texted thanking Edwards.

[Tim Miller]

He printed out the text, drew a heart next to it and wrote perhaps my proudest personal moment. When that staffer later left the office,

[Jane Coaston]

he hand wrote her a note that included the following. I only wish that I could find the time and words to describe how much I will always cherish what I consider a deep friendship.

[Tim Miller]

Can something be like off the charts creepy and just a little sad, make

[Jane Coaston]

you feel a little sad for them at the same time?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, yeah. This is the first act of Death of a Salesman kind of real.

[Jane Coaston]

This is a tragedy.

[Tommy Vietor]

Dislike.

[Tim Miller]

Well, Chuck Edwards is gone, North Carolina.

[Jane Coaston]

Eleven Republicans in their wisdom, love meeting an anointed successor who hopefully will get schlonged by Jamie Aker and who hopefully will not be the type of person to print out text messages from young staffers and put hearts next to them and the cringest boomer behavior in history.

[Tim Miller]

I want to talk to you about this ICE report in the Wall Street Journal because it's something we, I think talk about every time you're on because it's something that both of us are passionate about. We care about free speech.

[Tommy Vietor]

We do.

[Tim Miller]

I'm a free speech. Maybe even am I an absolutist I don't know. I'm certainly an evangelist. And so it was frustrating.

[Jane Coaston]

Big fan.

[Tim Miller]

Frustrating in 2024 when all these people got on board Trump and they're like, we have to be for Trump because he's going to be the Free Speech President. Because Joe Biden was against free speech. Because something, something like a mid level staffer wrote to.

[Tommy Vietor]

There's always like, something, something, Twitter, something, something. COVID 19.

[Tim Miller]

It was like a mid level staffer wrote to a mid level staffer at

[Jane Coaston]

Facebook and was like, could you please take this down? And like, the Facebook staffer could have just said, no. But they, they did take it down. And that was like the greatest assault on free speech in history.

[Tommy Vietor]

Mm. Well, it's terrible that all of these deeply impassioned free speech advocates have largely, I don't know, like, gotten extremely busy. I'm wondering what they're doing. Like, what are all the people who told us about the critical nature of Trump's protections of free speech and how this is going to be the Free Speech Administration. Administration. Like, I remember, Remember when Turkish PhD student Romina Ozturk was arrested for co authoring an op ed in the student newspaper?

[Jane Coaston]

Co, authoring, co authoring.

[Tommy Vietor]

That was the thing that got me. It wasn't just her. She co authored an op ed, which I have now read multiple times. It is like Marco Rubio trying to pretend like, oh, there's other stuff you just don't know about. Like, no, no, it was the op ed and I was the stupidest fucking thing that. One of the stupidest fucking things that has ever happened. But, like, you know, our valiant free speech defenders, I think around that time seem to have gotten, like, super busy. I'm sure, you know, they're like, knee deep in a law and order rewatch Whomst Among Us. You know, they'll come back around, like, 2029.

[Tim Miller]

As for you. Yeah, well, who knows? Maybe they'll comment on this Wall Street Journal report. I'd like to read some of it. ICE has deployed a round the clock digital dragnet to scour the Internet from Facebook to Instagram to X for speech that could endanger the agency's mission. The government's paid millions of our money to private contractors to surface everything from

[Jane Coaston]

potential threats to agents and activities that could disrupt ISIS operations and other criticisms of the agency.

[Tim Miller]

The program ensnared US Citizens and activist groups. Contractors prepared daily reports and dossiers on threat actors and identifying the poster's name, location, date of birth, workplace, Social Security number, vehicle registration, and criminal history if, if available to unmask anonymous critics. DHS has sent hundreds of subpoenas to social media companies like Reddit.

[Tommy Vietor]

We're talking about Reddit posts also, let's be very clear. We are talking in part about someone who posted three times on Reddit that ACAB includes ICE or something like that.

[Tim Miller]

Here's one from our friends at fire, the only legit free speech organization out there. They're representing a client named David Striever. Striever wrote an email to ICE director Todd Lyons after Alex Preddy's death and said, you are a monstrous human being. Five months later, he was harassed by a special agent on his vacation. He's tracked down on a vacation. They didn't come to his house. They're, I guess, surveilling him.

[Tommy Vietor]

Oh, they did go. They went to both his hotel in New York and went to his home and gave his wife a notice saying that he may be in violation of federal law. That's what the feds are doing now is that they are showing up at the houses of people who posted something they don't like and saying that you have to sign a letter saying that you know that you may have violated federal law. Like, let me read the email that he sent to Todd Lyons. And Tim, you tell me if this is an email. Like, let's say if you received it, if you would be thinking I should send agents of the state after this man. Tim, you're a public figure. I'm assuming you get emails from crazy people all the time.

[Jane Coaston]

I do.

[Tommy Vietor]

Okay, so this is what David Striever sent. You are a monstrous human being and will go down in history as America's Reinhard Heydrich the Butcher. The way you are protecting the obvious execution in Minnesota, even as we see the videos, will lead to your downfall. Even Trump will turn on you before the end. And you will be a sad, despised man who eats himself alive with shame at your own pathetic weakness. You will never know peace. You will seek to lose yourself, to escape the burden of knowing the truth about yourself. But wherever you go, you will find yourself. You will torment yourself until your last day on earth.

[Tim Miller]

Now that is a great email. I wish I had trolls like that.

[Jane Coaston]

Most of my trolls are like, fag breath. Like, gay.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, yeah. Like, at a certain point. Yeah, like, this is like, even Trump will turn on you before the end, probably. But like, that is the email that was sent. And when Striever. Strive is on vacation. Let's say Strive's on vacation. He's in Finland with His daughter. And he sees a ring camera, or actually the NEST video shows these agents, like, showing up. His wife is an Episcopal priest, so she's wearing her, like, clerical collar. When they show up, they give her this warning notice that explained in underlined capital letters printed on the official federal stationary from ICE and DHS with respect to Striever that you may be in violation of federal law. The notice insists that he should, quote, promptly discontinue his behavior and warns that the notice will be, quote, taken into consideration if he, quote, continues to be involved in, quote, criminal activities. He sent an email. He sent a mean email. He sent a mean email to a federal employee. Like, come on.

[Tim Miller]

And that's what these guys are doing. I mean, you know, it's like, it's a reflecting pool case, you know, going after a guy falsely. So anyway, I don't know. Come at me, bro. I guess I would say to the

[Jane Coaston]

ICE and DHS people, I echo everything that was written in that email. I do think that these are monstrous beings who will never know peace.

[Tim Miller]

So you wanted to do reflecting pool talk, but we are running out of

[Jane Coaston]

time, and I really want to do JD Vance talk.

[Tim Miller]

So you just want to do hot, rapid fire on reflecting pool?

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, Just very quickly, Janine Pirroult. She may not lose her job over this, but it would be the idea that you would fire this woman because she cannot manufacture a case against individuals. Let's keep in mind we're talking about civilians. This is not like, it's bad enough when you're trying to get Letitia James or James Comey. You're just grabbing random people and threatening them with 10 years in prison for doing something that you're well aware they did not do. And Trump is like, no, no, I want that. I've decided that we built a whole permission structure for you to do that. Chris Hayes showed some of the footage of Jesse Waters being like, you know, protesters who destroyed the reflecting pool. You're on notice because Jeanine Pirro's coming. Like, these are, again, terrible people, and this is a sick, sad world. But let's talk about JD Vance on Mark Thiessen and insults.

[Tim Miller]

Well, I'd like to add to this really quick. Speaking of monstrous human beings, Doug Burgum,

[Jane Coaston]

you're a monstrous human being. You need to go home to North Dakota, reconnect with Plains values, talk to your family and think about your actions.

[Tim Miller]

Because smearing a person that the federal

[Jane Coaston]

government was going to put in jail for 10 years for something he did not do, want to put in jail for 10 years and you're out there going after this random Olympian from the perch of the federal government. It's disgusting what he did.

[Tommy Vietor]

And then still afterwards being like, we know that this happened and we're working on. No, no, you don't. Because, you know, it didn't.

[Jane Coaston]

It's, I think, the grossest thing that, that Doug Burgum has done and it's affecting his position in the cabinet rankings.

[Tim Miller]

J.D. vance. I just thought this was funny. There's a tweet this morning. It's not really that good of a joke. At first I laughed because I'm susceptible

[Jane Coaston]

to any jokes at Marc Thiessen's expense and JD Vance made one and so I laughed.

[Tim Miller]

But then I kind of read it

[Jane Coaston]

again and I was like, the joke doesn't actually make any sense because JD Vance is not good at jokes.

[Tim Miller]

But I just think it's interesting because it speaks. There's a lot of subtext here, right?

[Tommy Vietor]

It's actually about foreign policy somehow.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, it's actually about foreign policy. Seems like it's about burritos. On the surface it's about burritos, but

[Jane Coaston]

it's actually about the Iran war.

[Tim Miller]

Andrew Colvett at tpusa wrote that one

[Jane Coaston]

of the college students there is upset about affordability. A burrito shouldn't cost $20.

[Tim Miller]

Mark Thiessen, quote, tweeted him. Marc Thiessen's the Washington Post columnist who loves war.

[Tommy Vietor]

He loves war. He believes that we are at the 20 yard line of the Iran war and that what we need to do is war harder because war is great. He loves war.

[Jane Coaston]

Big fan, Trump advisor as well as Washington Post columnist. I'm not exactly sure how that works

[Tim Miller]

over there at the Washington Post called Jeff Bezos, but he's been calling Trump giving advice on the war. Thiessen quote, tweeted Andrew talking about the

[Jane Coaston]

college student upset about burrito prices and wrote this.

[Tim Miller]

Cry me a river. The burritos in the college cafeteria are

[Jane Coaston]

included in your meal plan.

[Tim Miller]

JD Vance then tweeted Mark Thiessen and wrote, I'm surprised to hear Mark say this. If you've ever met him in person, it's quite obvious the man has never missed a burrito. I think it's.

[Jane Coaston]

I want to shout out Andrew Egger, who on the on the office slack wrote this.

[Tim Miller]

JD Vance is taking GLP1s and then

[Jane Coaston]

pulling up the ladder behind him so that.

[Tim Miller]

No, nobody else can take Ozempic after me. Okay. I was a fat boy until three years ago.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah. Which apparently Trump is very impressed by this. This is a genuine thing that there is some reporting that. But as Trump decides if he's going to support Vance or support Marco Rubio for 2028, part of the appeal of Vance is his weight loss, which I have said that, you know, Donald Trump is a deeply heterosexual person, but also our most gay coded president ever by far.

[Jane Coaston]

Well, in the last two centuries.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah, we don't need to get into that.

[Tim Miller]

It's just interesting because J.D. vance deeply, deeply wants to signal to the world that he knows that the

[Jane Coaston]

Iran war is stupid.

[Tim Miller]

But he can't make fun of Donald Trump. He cannot criticize Marco Rubio, he cannot criticize Pete Hegseth, he cannot criticize our war fighters. So he's kind of limited in the way to let people know that this dumb war that everybody hates, that's not

[Jane Coaston]

on him, even though he's the vice president.

[Tim Miller]

And so he's trying to look for ways to do it. His effort here is to say that,

[Jane Coaston]

I thought this war was dumb and I'm against it through the vessel of making fun of Marc Thiessen for being fat.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yes. And this is like, again, J.D. vance is very mean on the Internet at people he believes he can be mean to without consequences.

[Tim Miller]

The classic. Was a classic doughy wuss boy, you know, let's see it. JD have some balls come out. Say that you think that Donald Trump made his fake. You got on your high horse and was like, donald Trump is not like

[Jane Coaston]

the dumb presidents we've had in the past. He's a smart president.

[Tim Miller]

So I'm sorry, you can't pretend like you're against the Iran war. You did a whole tour where you

[Jane Coaston]

were like, we're gonna do this the smart way. The past presidents did it the dumb way. But now we have a really wise, great president who understands our blah, blah.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, buddy? Sorry, doughboy.

[Tommy Vietor]

Also, all of the clear leaking that is happening to all outlets about how this war happened, where it's like, just, just make it very clear, JD Vance did not want this. He was in the room and he kept saying no, but then Benjamin Netanyahu said, we gotta do it. And Trump was like, okay. Like, every single piece like this. I just love imagining that. Like, just to be clear, just keep saying JD Vance didn't want this.

[Jane Coaston]

It's like poor Maggie and John Swan. Every interview they did, because I was listening to them to prep for the podcast, people were, so J.D. vance is your source, Right?

[Tim Miller]

They all be like, we can't talk about our sources. All right, final Topic. You mentioned at the start that you knew Abdul because he was a colleague of yours. He co hosted America Dissected, which was a poorly rated crooked media podcast. He did that prior to becoming the Senate nominee, which gives hope for all

[Jane Coaston]

of us in the podcast space.

[Tim Miller]

Think about this administration full of podcasters.

[Jane Coaston]

FBI directors become a podcaster.

[Tim Miller]

Now the Democrats are getting in on the action. You know, you might have thought the

[Jane Coaston]

Democrats were better than this. The Democrats would look for serious people,

[Tim Miller]

but this is the way the country is now. People are looking for the wisdom of

[Jane Coaston]

podcasters when they turn to future levers.

[Tommy Vietor]

Everybody's saying, we need more podcasters in politics.

[Tim Miller]

That's what people are saying. They've all been saying, so congratulations to Abdul on winning. And I wanted to end this podcast with a little game in the podcast, Spirits, which kind of looks ahead to the future. I want Jane to get into her crystal ball to put on her swami

[Jane Coaston]

hat, the Chris Berman swami hat, and

[Tim Miller]

say which podcasters, ideally in the crooked media world, but if you want to expand it out to bulwark or elsewhere, that's fine.

[Jane Coaston]

Would best fit each of the following categories. We'll both give our opinions and then see what the listeners think.

[Tim Miller]

Number one, who is the podcaster that is next most likely to run for office and win? Current podcaster most likely to run for office and win?

[Tommy Vietor]

The win part. That's the question. Run for office. I want to hear your thoughts first, because the win part, I'm like, okay, where are they running and for what?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, the win is tough. I think within the crooked bandwidth. I think Dan Pfeiffer.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Because he has the yes, we Dan slogan already right there for the taking. He's the most serious. I think he's got the least concerning things in his oppo file, and people

[Tommy Vietor]

don't seem to have weird beef with him. That's actually about the 2016 Democratic primary,

[Tim Miller]

so I would say him. Is there anybody else that you.

[Tommy Vietor]

No. I think Aaron Ryan could also win because what type of office would you

[Jane Coaston]

see her running for?

[Tommy Vietor]

I could see her. She could do literally anything. She is formidable. And her campaign would be terrifying. It would be like watching Soviet tanks go across the step. It would be. I would be frightened. I'd be impressed, but also frightened.

[Jane Coaston]

Good pick.

[Tim Miller]

All right, next. Who is the most likely to run for office and lose? My guess is that we're going to nominate the same person, so we'll do it at the same time. On the count of three. One, two, three.

[Jane Coaston]

Love it.

[Tommy Vietor]

Yep. Yep. The thing is, like, his campaign would be, like, great and inspiring and he would lose, but the speeches would be fantastic.

[Tim Miller]

Love it. Mrs. Moment. He started to engage in LA politics,

[Jane Coaston]

and the LA mayor's race is a shit show. And I think that had he got in, look at Nithya's performance, he could have gotten into the runoff.

[Tim Miller]

Probably would still end up losing to Karen Bass.

[Jane Coaston]

Would have trouble kind of expanding his demographic base, but might have had a puncher's chance.

[Tim Miller]

But now I think he sees a

[Jane Coaston]

possibility for himself, and I see a failed city council race ahead for John Lovett.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, next. Abdul said right before the election, kind of interestingly decided to have a content creator party where he was photoed with sunglasses at night under the bridge of his nose in a muscle shirt, showing off his guns with two girls pointing

[Jane Coaston]

their fingers at him like this.

[Tim Miller]

And so my question for you is, which podcaster would be most likely to

[Jane Coaston]

run for office and find themselves in that setting?

[Tim Miller]

Tommy, I was gonna say you.

[Tommy Vietor]

No, no, I am not you.

[Tim Miller]

Jane Coston. I could see for you. Maybe we'd be drag queens, but like, you know, you showing off your guns.

[Jane Coaston]

What do you think, Tommy?

[Tommy Vietor]

It's more the sunglasses at night thing. It's more like sunglasses at night.

[Jane Coaston]

You wouldn't do.

[Tommy Vietor]

No, I would not.

[Tim Miller]

You would not do sunglasses at night. Okay. Finally, the podcaster most likely to be

[Jane Coaston]

appointed to the next Democratic administration in the cabinet level, following in Kash Patel's shoes, who would be the Kash Patel of the crooked Universe?

[Tommy Vietor]

That's actually the most devastating insult I could possibly give someone, because I think there would actually be numerous people in the crooked universe, I think would do quite well as appointees, the whole strict scrutiny crowd. But I mean that as they would do great and be very effective at talking about the law, I would be down for that. But also, the moment you said Kash Patel, I just kept thinking, I don't dislike any of my colleagues that much. I actually quite like everyone I work with.

[Jane Coaston]

It's Ben Rhodes.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, thank you to Jane Koston.

[Tommy Vietor]

We're over.

[Tim Miller]

I appreciate everybody so much. We'll be back tomorrow for another edition of the podcast.

[Jane Coaston]

Jane, we'll have you back soon.

[Tommy Vietor]

All right, sounds great.

[Tim Miller]

Go check out.

[Jane Coaston]

What a day. We'll see y' all soon. Peace.

[Tim Miller]

I wear my sunglasses at night so I can. So I can watch you with and breathe your storyline. The Bork 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

[Jane Coaston]

audio Engineering and editing by Jason Brown.