Abby Phillip: Governing by Troll

Summary

The Bulwark Podcast – "Abby Phillip: Governing by Troll"

Date: October 29, 2025
Host: Tim Miller
Guest: Abby Phillip (CNN NewsNight anchor, Author of A Dream Deferred: Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Tim Miller welcomes CNN’s Abby Phillip to discuss the latest political headlines, the dynamics of televised debate, the rise of “governing by troll” in politics, and her new book on Jesse Jackson’s overlooked influence in American political life. The conversation touches on the ongoing government shutdown, America’s foreign policy in the Caribbean, the widening use of culture-war “memes” by government agencies, and how media fosters or impedes honest debate. The episode closes with a deep dive into Jesse Jackson’s unique legacy and the continued relevance of populist politics on the left and right.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Government Shutdown: No Easy Off-Ramp

[01:04–04:58]

• Abby reflects on the “weirdest” shutdown she’s covered, comparing it to those under Trump, and sees no clear solution:

  “I think this has been the weirdest shutdown ever. … There is not a great off ramp.” (Abby, 01:36)

• She notes political toxicity for Republicans, as large numbers of their constituents now rely on Obamacare subsidies and safety-net programs:

  “When you look at the chart of where Obamacare enrollment has dramatically increased, it is a huge swath of Republican territory.” (Abby, 04:04)

• Miller and Phillip agree moderates will have to cut a deal, likely first in the Senate—with little appetite for House action.

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2. U.S. Policy in the Caribbean: The Boat Bombing Debate

[05:11–08:55]

• Tim brings up an American military operation targeting boats near Venezuela, with a (weak) rationale of interdicting fentanyl and drug trafficking.
• Abby, who has family roots in Trinidad & Tobago, questions the policy’s basis and whose interests it’s really serving:

  “As an American, you also have to ask … are we just serving as the police force for the Caribbean?” (Abby, 06:20) “There is virtually no fentanyl coming from Venezuela. Most of that is coming from Mexico, nearly all of it.” (Abby, 07:13)

• She also raises concerns about transparency and mission creep in the U.S.’s global policing.

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3. “Governing by Troll”: Memes, Racial Messaging, and Public Discourse

[08:55–12:27]

• Tim highlights government agencies deploying nostalgia-laden, all-white “America First” memes and digital propaganda.
• Abby critiques this “governing by troll” style:

  “This government has been sort of governing by troll from the very beginning … it’s all about owning the libs.” (Abby, 10:40) “They do not like this idea of a multiracial democracy. … They believe that is a sign of our national decline.” (Abby, 11:21)

• She links the meme warfare to real policy impacts, including refugee policy shifts that favor white immigrants.

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4. The Value and Limits of Televised Debate

[12:27–20:47]

• Tim questions the utility of “debate shows” in an era of ever-deeper silos.

• Abby defends panel debates as a way to:

  • Expose real rather than sanitized or “fake” arguments.
  • Test ideas in real time and give viewers a window into genuine disagreements.
  • Ensure the public understands the breadth of viewpoints influencing government:

    “Our goal is … we don’t get brownie points for pretending like half the country isn’t around and doesn’t have viewpoints and doesn’t vote.” (Abby, 13:19) “Having ideas tested is also super important.” (Abby, 16:10)

  • Acknowledges, however, that viral clips sometimes distort perception of the overall conversation.

• Tim airs his reluctance to platform guests who don’t make their real argument, or who “lie” for political purposes.

• Abby agrees, stressing they challenge bad-faith talking points, attempt to draw out core beliefs, and constantly seek new voices—even if the process isn’t perfect:

  “We don’t stop trying to find those voices because I do genuinely think that we need to know what is happening on all sides of this.” (Abby, 19:54)

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5. Drawing the Line on Who Participates: “You Know It When You See It”

[20:47–24:50]

• Discussion on where—and how—to draw lines on acceptable panelists. Abby admits to a “know it when you see it” standard.
• Explicit “no” to inviting white nationalist Nick Fuentes (22:27), and Candace Owens on sensational misinformation (24:02), but open to controversial but influential strategists like Steve Bannon.

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6. Behind-the-Scenes on Panelist Dynamics & a Viral Incident

[24:50–29:56]

• Miller asks about panelist “favorites” (Abby playfully dodges).
• Abby addresses a past on-air incident with Mehdi Hasan and a MAGA troll, defending her handling and reassuring that Hasan was not “banned” from CNN:

  “Calling someone a terrorist and wish that they were killed … is a line.” (Abby, 26:53) “If [Mehdi Hasan] would like to come on our show, I would like to have him on the show.” (Abby, 28:59)

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7. Karine Jean-Pierre’s Book Tour & Biden’s Fitness

[29:14–31:50]

• Brief discussion on Jean-Pierre’s critique of Democratic inclusivity and Joe Biden’s fitness for a second term.
• Abby is skeptical of attempts to conflate internal party grievances with the larger issue of Biden’s fitness or the party’s future:

  “I think that all of that has nothing to do with Joe Biden’s fitness to serve as president for four years.” (Abby, 29:56)

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8. Jesse Jackson’s Overlooked Impact: "A Dream Deferred"

[31:50–50:35]

Why Jackson’s Campaigns Still Matter

• Abby wanted to fill in the “three-dimensional” picture of Jesse Jackson and his two historic runs:

  “If you want to understand the Trump of it all, there is so much of Jesse Jackson’s candidacy that is reminiscent of what Trump is doing right now, except from the other side of the political spectrum.” (Abby, 34:35)

• Bernie Sanders told Abby he saw his own campaign as a continuation of Jackson’s populist legacy.

Jackson’s Historic Gains

• After the 1988 Michigan caucus, Jackson had more pledged delegates than any Democratic contender, but the media instead asked, “What does Jesse want?” rather than “Can he win?”

Lessons for Today’s Democrats

• The panel discusses Jackson’s 1984 convention speech—his call to unity, economic programs, and moral vision.

• Jackson was the first candidate to explicitly include gays and lesbians in a major-party address, as well as Asian and Arab Americans.

  “He spoke to the identities of these people without siloing them, without … putting them in a box, but really saying there’s a kind of a thread that weaves us together.” (Abby, 43:05)

• Jackson’s language was unifying, moral, and comfortable with religious rhetoric, all while reaching out to working class and marginalized groups.

The Antisemitism Controversy

• Jackson’s downfall in 1984 was mishandling revelations about antisemitic comments and his ties to Farrakhan, showing the enduring challenge of coalition politics and the need for both words and actions to include all groups.

Anecdote: Jackson as Maverick Candidate

• Jackson’s unpredictability was legendary—he once left the campaign trail to negotiate the release of prisoners in Syria and Cuba, “puts Trump to shame in that respect,” says Abby.

  “He was such an unusual, unconventional, unpredictable candidate … it would have made him the most talked about person in that campaign.” (Abby, 49:12)

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Memorable Quotes

• “This government has been sort of governing by troll from the very beginning, where it’s all about memes, it’s all about the Internet, it’s all about owning the libs.” (Abby, 10:40)

• “You don't get brownie points for pretending like half the country isn't around and doesn't have viewpoints and doesn't vote.” (Abby, 13:19)

• “There is a lot of resonance for Americans in a candidate that says to them, the system is broken and you need an outsider to fix it.” (Abby, 34:24)

• “He spoke to the identities of these people without siloing them, without sort of putting them in a box, but really saying there’s … a thread that weaves us together.” (Abby, 43:05)

• On Jesse Jackson’s unpredictability: “He kind of puts Trump to shame in that respect. He was the candidate that reporters would literally call up to his hotel room and ask what the schedule was tomorrow and he would tell them.” (Abby, 49:12)

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Noteworthy Timestamps

• Shutdown Analysis: [01:04–04:58]
• Caribbean Policy Critique: [05:11–08:55]
• Governing by Troll & Meme Politics: [08:55–12:27]
• Debate Show Philosophy: [12:27–20:47]
• Line-Drawing in Panel Guests: [20:47–24:50]
• Mehdi Hasan Incident: [26:53–29:04]
• Karine Jean-Pierre, Biden, and Democratic Coalitions: [29:14–31:50]
• Jesse Jackson’s Political Relevance: [31:50–50:35]
  • 84 Convention Speech Excerpt: [38:04–39:42]
  • Discussion of Antisemitism Controversy: [45:22–48:19]
  • Jackson as Maverick: [49:06–50:35]

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Final Thoughts

The episode weaves historical reflection with urgent contemporary analysis. Abby Phillip makes the case for understanding the roots of American populism, the dangers and cynicism of “governing by troll,” and the complex work of keeping panel debate vital and honest. Her portrait of Jesse Jackson invites listeners to reconsider how populist energy, moral vision, and genuine coalition-building have shaped—and continue to confront—the future of American democracy.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome to the show the anchor of CNN Newsnight. She's the author of a new book, A Dream Deferred, Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power. It's Abby. Phillip, what's happening?

[A]

Hey, Tim, good to see you. Thanks for having me on.

[B]

Good to see you. Congrats on the book. We've come a long way since you were an embed or whatever, and I was the flack for the last place candidate in the Republican primary in 2012, Jon Huntsman.

[A]

I was trying to remember how we had met, but it had something to do with that.

[B]

Yeah, I have an image in my head of a sad, half empty town hall somewhere in New Hampshire where I was trying to convince you things were going well, I think. You know, I can't remember the details.

[A]

I knew then that you had a really bright future, Tim. So that was not the end. Neither of us.

[B]

I want to talk about the book, obviously, and I've been kind of ruminating myself on the value of doing debate shows and stuff, so I want to talk to you about your show. But first, if we can do a little news. You're covering the shutdown every night, hearing arguments from both sides. It's a weird shutdown. It's hard to see an off ramp. Trump is in Asia right now. The President, the Congress hasn't. Gop Congress hasn't been in session for like five weeks, basically. What's your sense of who's winning the argument if there's an off ramp? Where things stand?

[A]

Yeah, I'm with you. I think this has been the weirdest shutdown ever. And I covered all the Trump shutdowns and I think that this is the one where, I don't know, I mean, there is not a great off ramp. But the thing that I keep asking my conservative friends is if at the end of the day what they want is to be able to say that they reopened the government without making a deal and then turn around and make a deal. I don't know that that works for the American people. So do I think this is some kind of slam dunk for Democrats? No, I don't think shutdowns are ever a slam dunk, period. I think Americans don't like things like that. And come Saturday when people are not getting their food stamps is gonna be terrible. But I also think having the unions coming out and saying you need to reopen the government cuz our members are suffering also bad. There's probably gonna need to be. And I think there's some indication that this is happening some with Republican leaders and moderate Democrats that get them to an agreement about a real solid commitment to addressing this issue. What that looks like, I don't know, but it feels to me like they're going to have to get some private and public assurances that they're going to address the health care issue, that they're going to have a vote on it, whatever it is that satisfies the moderates. I don't think they're going to satisfy the Democratic leaders and the liberals, but that's how these things always end. It's always gonna have to be the moderates coming to some kind of agreement and then voting with Republicans to reopen the government.

[B]

And maybe that just happens in the Senate. I'm with you. I mean, that you can imagine a path in the Senate and there are a couple of Republicans who wanna vote on this stuff. Josh Hawley is out saying, basically there are a handful of the populist MAGA Republicans and Marjorie Taylor Greene in the House are like, these are constituents that are losing snap week, that are paying more in health care. So we should be responsive. The problem is that the main body of the Republican Party, I don't think, wants to extend Obamacare subsidies again. And the House, it's kind of hard to imagine Mike Johnson bringing that up in the House. You can imagine a deal in the Senate, but it's kind of hard to imagine them. And maybe, who the hell knows, maybe that's just where things die and they fight over this in the midterms. I don't know.

[A]

I don't know. I mean, to be honest, I think that they're gonna have to deal with this. I think this is actually a really.

[B]

Obamacare substance being the best.

[A]

Yeah, Yeah. I think this is a really politically toxic issue for Republicans because when you look at the chart of where Obamacare enrollment has dramatically increased, it is a huge swath of Republican territory. And that is very significant. That explains. People are wondering, why is Marjorie Taylor Greene saying this? Because her state is. Is one of the places where millions more people are enrolled in Obamacare today than they were four years ago. And that fact is gonna mean that it's not just Democrats that are affected by the increases that people are gonna experience. It's Republicans, too. They're gonna call it whatever they wanna call it. But I do think that there's gonna be some coming to the table on the numbers here, because these are their voters, too. I mean, I think the raw politics is that these are Democrats somehow, but it's. That's very much not the case.

[B]

A couple other random news items I just wanted to pick your brain on. I was doing my due diligence and kind of reminding myself your backstory. And I did not realize that you lived in Trinidad and Tobago for a little while as a kid and that was your family. I did not know that.

[A]

Yes, I did.

[B]

The Caribbean boat bombing story is so strange in a lot of ways, because the stated reason for it is just obviously fake. This idea that there's fentanyl coming from Venezuela through Colombia all the way up to America, like, that's just not happening. And these votes are actually a lot of them going from Venezuela to Trinidad and Tobago. And so I was just one. I don't know. I was just wondering if you had any kind of perspective on that, if there's any buzz about that.

[A]

It is interesting. I mean, because, first of all. Yeah, I mean, my parents are from Trinidad and Tobago, so I do hear the scuttlebutt. And this is very heavily discussed down there right now, because the leaders of Trinidad and Tobago have been actually largely supportive of these bombings because these boats are actually headed for them. And so if they're carrying. They're carrying drugs into Trinidad and Tobago and other parts of the Caribbean. And so I think if you can substantiate that there are drugs on these boats, that there's a reason to take them out, whatever it is. Maybe there's an argument there. But I also think that as an American, you also have to ask the question, is that what we're doing now, just serving as the police force for the Caribbean and the Pacific? I mean, I just think it defies the America first logic that we would engage in military activity for that reason. And I also would say that there are a lot of people in the region who do believe that what this is really about is regime change in Venezuela and about having a regime that is friendlier, that gives the United States more access to Venezuela's rich oil reserves, all that stuff. I think where we are right now, from a what do we know, factual perspective, I don't think we have enough information to substantiate any of those theories. But I'm just saying that's what people there think that this is about. And you're right. Like the drug excuse, it doesn't make a lot of sense. There is virtually no fentanyl coming from Venezuela. Most of that is coming from Mexico, nearly all of it. You also should be able to Say, hey, what kind of drugs? Are they carrying anything? I haven't seen any reports that have said, is it cocaine? Is it fentanyl? Is it marijuana? Are we blowing people out of the water over marijuana? I don't know. We might be.

[B]

Is it human trafficking? Is it just human.

[A]

Is it human trafficking? Yeah. Is it just human smuggling? Because that's another thing. I mean, Venezuela's instability has meant a lot of flow of people out of Venezuela and into the Caribbean as well as into the United States. So, you know, all these are legitimate issues, but as Americans, I think it's fair to ask, what are we doing as it pertains to that issue.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, as a former neocon, you can maybe sell me. There was like, I guess a covert deal on. The pilots were trying to bribe the pilot to Maduro's pilot to turn him over. You can maybe sell me on that. I mean, he did lose the election. That seems different than just gabbing boats out of the Caribbean that are headed for Trinidad and Tobago. I mean, I'm like, it's interesting that they don't want drugs in their country, but that just doesn't really. Like doing summary executions on the sea. Doesn't really seem to be an America priority.

[A]

And also, you know, what are the organizations that these people are allegedly a part of? If the argument here is that there's some kind of organized cartel, gang, whatever that we're trying to take out, what is the organized cartel? Gang? Drug. What is it? I just think these are basic questions that there are no answers to, at least publicly, and that there should be. Just on a very basic level, you ought to be able to tell me, I mean, are these people part of a drug cartel? If not, why are we bombing them?

[B]

One other thing I was curious. Your take on. I did a little bonus video with Bill Kristol last night because I was just dying to hear what Bill Kristol thought about Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes. We're gonna get to them in a second, too. But also what he thought about these, like, have you seen these memes that, like, the Department of Labor is putting out and DHS is putting out with, like, it's like the 1950s memes, and it's like a white family, like in a church or like in a. In a bucolic part of New England and maybe kind of by where we used to meet in New Hampshire, and it's always white and they've got, like, muscles, and it's like, bring back America. America is for Americans. I mean, obviously It's a troll, but it's. I don't know. And also kind of in the context of Jesse Jackson, the rainbow coalition. It's not a rainbow coalition on these memes. It's all white people. And I think it's pretty clear what they're doing. I'm just wondering what you think about that.

[A]

I actually kind of am on the fence about what percentage of this is troll versus anything that really signals something real. But there's no question that there's a nostalgia for some time in the past, maybe the 30s, the 40s, when the representations, the visual representations of America are only the heartland or white people or blondes, whatever. It is fine. I mean, I think that some of that is really true.

[B]

It's fine. I guess it's crazy, though. And it's crazy that the government is doing that.

[A]

It's designed to piss people off. It is.

[B]

Should the government be doing things that are designed to clearly not. It's different if it's like a campaign, if it's a Fox News or if it's the campaign or if it's whatever. If you want to be a racist senator, like, okay, but like, the Department of Labor is representing everybody, and we are paying for that.

[A]

Listen, I agree with you totally in the sense that this government has been sort of governing by troll from the very beginning, where it's all about memes, it's all about the Internet, it's all about owning the libs. And. No, I mean, I think that the government ought to be above and beyond that, representing this entire country and also recognizing that even for many of these very people who are pushing these memes, their ancestors came from somewhere else and came to America. And the people that actually were here in America, many of them look like me. And, you know, people who are black and brown have been here longer than many people who are white have been here. That's a fact. And do I think they should be governing that way? Absolutely not. But look, I mean, I do think that the symbolism for this administration is part of the strategy. They do want to reshape how America is viewed and talked about. They do not like this idea of a multiracial democracy. It's been explicit that they believe that that is a sign of our national decline. I. When you look at the comments of many of the most prominent voices in conservatism, they're like, look at Europe. They have Muslims and they have Africans and brown people, and that's why they're in decline. And that's a pretty explicit message. And that is part of it. I think it's a troll. But I also think that it's part of an attempt to reshape culture and using imagery to do that, and it shouldn't be ignored. But I also think that there are lots of real things that are happening that are just as important, if not more important, in terms of what they're doing policy wise.

[B]

And it does tie into the, I mean, just directly into the refugee policy, for example. And it seems like we're taking white South Africans now and not black and brown people, basically. Speaking of the government by troll on your show, you've got some of them that come on to troll you. And I think that's kind of their strategy. Right. Or to troll the other panelists, maybe not to troll you. Like I said in the lead in, I've been, I've been going back and forth like, should I do this Piers Morgan show? I have another debate thing that might be coming out in a few weeks. Is there value in the debate stuff because we've gotten so siloed? On the other hand, it's kind of like, what is the point of all this? So I guess that's my question for you. What's the point of having a debate show?

[A]

What's the point? Yeah. Let me tell you my point of view on this. And I do see that you go on Piers Morgan all the time and there are a lot of characters who show up there. And look, I think that our goal is not to create those moments, but I don't control people's minds, nor do I want to. And I do think that we allow people to exercise their free speech to have their points of view. And the more important goal that we have is actually to say that we don't get brownie points for pretending like half the country isn't around and doesn't have viewpoints and doesn't vote. And I think that goes for Democrats and Republicans. So we bring people onto the table who have different points of view, who have real differences of opinion, not fake differences of opinion that are palatable to television audiences, the real ones that actually reflect the country. And guess what? Some of those things are outlandish or might be offensive to people. But just like we were talking about this governing by troll kind of situation, this is our actual government right now. Some of these viewpoints are shared inside the government. My argument is just simply, don't you think you ought to know that? Shouldn't we know what the point of view is as opposed to pretending that it doesn't exist. And so I don't know. I think there's a misconception that the idea is to have people come on and say crazy things. And it's not. And I don't.

[B]

Viral clips, I guess, because the point of it is to get clips. Because I do think a lot of people engage with your show mostly through clips.

[A]

Because guess what? We don't create those clips. None of them. We don't create any of them.

[B]

Like the CNN account doesn't put out the photo clips, you mean? Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And I also think, look, if you only consume the show through viral clips, which a lot of people do, CNN is streaming now, so you can actually watch the show even if you don't want to have cable. Okay, that's my shameless plug. But if you only consume the show that way, you might think that that is the only thing that happens, but it's clearly not. There is a lot of conversation that happens that is reasonable, that is interesting, that is provocative, where people are on unexpected sides of issues. And that happens more often than not on a daily basis. And I just think that it's sort of, you know, I can't stop people from saying things that might be out there. That's okay. It happens from time to time. But I don't think that's. That I know that's not the objective because I'm there, I'm doing it.

[B]

You feel like what you're saying is that it's a useful purpose for everybody to understand better what the other side is arguing. I guess that's the point of having a debate shape.

[A]

Absolutely. And I also think that having ideas tested is also super important. I agree with this because it's one thing for people to just say things out into the ether, but then to have them actually challenged in real time is also the thing that I think has value as well.

[B]

I agree with that. And I think that's especially true for the left, actually. This is one argument's a rare one these days that I agree with my former friends on the Right on. But they say that a lot of times they feel better capable in debates because they're used to having their arguments challenged more. And I think that that is true. I think that there's a lot of people on the left that have kind of, in the Trump era, just basically blocked out, deplatformed, just said, I'm not even gonna engage with this. Cause it's too wrong.

[A]

And I understand that's a skill that has atrophied.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, I understand that atrophy it really has. Yeah. But if you aren't challenged, then you can't assess your own weaknesses. Here's watching your show and how I think about it with mine here, too. You said earlier that you want to see the real arguments, not the fake arguments back and forth. And it's kind of hard to find Trump supporters that don't at least make fake arguments sometimes that aren't saying something different at the table or on a podcast than they would say if you are in private. Almost all of them have major disagreements with him, whether it be on policy, about tariffs, or whether it be about his behavior or whatever that they won't experience because they don't want to get in trouble. And so for me, it's kind of like I don't want to have somebody on that's going to lie, like, on the show. And I feel like it's not. This isn't just a MAGA thing. Like, I felt this way after the Biden debate. I had to cut a couple people from this podcast because they were saying different things to me on texts than they were on the show. And I'm just like, I don't want that. If you're going to come on and have a real argument, you should tell me what you really think. And I wonder how you think about that.

[A]

We're in agreement.

[B]

Yeah. Don't you feel like we shouldn't pick on Scott? You did a show. I used to work with him. But I feel like sometimes Scott's making arguments he doesn't really believe. On your show, for example, here's what.

[A]

I would say, is that Scott gets challenged a lot. He gets challenged by me. He gets challenged by other people to say what he really believes. And I can't force anybody to bare their soul on television, but I can point out, and I do. Cause if you watch, you've seen me do it. You don't really believe that, do you? Or just to drill down on it? Because I think then it becomes very apparent when there's a desire to kind of squirrel around the issue. Am I saying that it's 100% the case that we have everybody on truth serum every night on television? No. Everybody in politics is, to some degree or not left and right, frankly, saying things that in private they really wouldn't go so hard on. But part of the thing that we do that I think makes it valuable to still talk to them anyway, is that there is an opportunity to drill down on what people really believe, to test the logic of the thing that they're saying. To say that if you are so worried about Burisma and Hunter Biden, why aren't you worried about President Trump's family literally making money off of crypto schemes that he is developing policy around? Why aren't you worried about them making deals in the Middle east while Trump is making diplomatic deals with those very same countries? We have a chance to actually ask that question and get people further away from bad faith arguments. I don't think it's perfect, Tim. There's nothing perfect about this time that we're in. We do have people on sometimes that we're trying out. We're searching for new voices all the time. We are always trying to bring new people into the conversation that you might not normally hear from. And sometimes it doesn't work out. Sometimes they don't have the depth, sometimes they can't handle the conversation, sometimes they don't wanna act in good faith. All that's fine. But we don't stop trying to find those voices because I do genuinely think that we need to know what is happening on all sides of this. And then we also have people who don't fall into those neat little bucke of left and right or liberal or conservative. And we bring those people on too, because they also add a lot of clarity. You know, people like Anna Kasparian, they come on and they blow past some of these rigid boxes that people want to put themselves in and they change the conversation because of that.

[B]

God bless you. Having to talk to Anna Kasparian. You know, you're doing something. It's something somebody has to. You were on Charlemagne. You said you can draw the lines when you need to draw the lines, and you have control over who shows up and who doesn't. I wonder what the lines are. And I have a couple specific thoughts on that. But I just. I'm curious if you have some definition in your head or. It's kind of like the Supreme Court ruling with porn, where you kind of know it when you see it.

[A]

Yeah, I think it's kind of like you know it when you see it. You know, I mean. And I'm curious about what your examples are, because I don't. You know, I don't. Look, we don't have rules written down in stone, let's put it that way.

[B]

Yeah. Let's just start with Tucker. So on the one hand, I think this is a tough call. So Tucker has Nick Fuentes on his show.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Would you have Nick Fuentes on that? Seems like an easy one.

[A]

No, I would not have Nick Fuentes on no.

[B]

And he's been explicitly anti woman. Anti woman.

[A]

It's never been contemplated, but no white nationalist.

[B]

Right. Tucker's a tougher call. And he has, you know, depending on what rankings you're looking at, number one news podcast in the country, maybe it's three or four if you kind of come back. It's hard to, like, judge all the different platforms. And he is one of the most watched podcasts in the country. So on the one hand, to your point of you should hear what the other side's saying, you should engage with them. He would seem like an obvious person. He has influence. He maybe influenced who the vice president was, according to reporting. On the other hand, and he's having people on his pod these days that are white nationalists that are saying that Churchill was the villain in World War II. And so on the other hand, it's like this, Do I wanna do anything to give this person more attention? How would you think about that?

[A]

Yeah, I mean, you know, I think it's less about that for this particular show and more about can this person sit at a table and have a conversation? And I think on that very basic level, I'm not sure that the answer would be yes for someone like Tucker. I think he's the type of person who wants to be in control of the conversation and, you know, may not be willing to sit down and talk to for other people about a topic and have his ideas tested and so on and so forth. So I think that's a big part of it for me, but I think it's a hard question. I mean, I'm not a hard no on people who are controversial, because I just think one of the problems with doing that is that you miss what is influencing our government. And I don't think we want to be in a position where we don't understand what is driving decision making in the White House or in the halls of Congress or what have you. So I think it would have to be in that vein. But also, I think a lot of what happens right now with Tucker is he's kind of off in a lot of cul de sacs right now about conspiracies around Israel, around just things, Epstein. I mean, they're just things that I'm not sure that are speaking to the heart of what's happening in government and what affects people's lives, at least for the average American. And so what about your girl Candace?

[B]

Would you have Candace on to talk about Brigitte Macron's penis?

[A]

That's a no.

[B]

No, allegedly.

[A]

Absolutely. Not. No. I mean, look, no, obviously. I mean, this is kooky stuff.

[B]

But again, that is her rank. She's right above me in the podcast right now. So I actually think that's a legitimate question.

[A]

She's being sued by the government, by the leader of France, over slander. And I mean, I just think. No, no, but I mean, someone like Steve Bannon is actually a very important figure in terms of the sort of intellectual underpinnings of maga. And I think he's somebody who is important to talk to, just in general, because I think what comes out of his mouth is often a reflection of what is being contemplated in the halls of the White House.

[B]

Do you have a favorite among your children? You only have one child in real life, so you don't have to worry about that.

[A]

I have one child. Yes.

[B]

But among your panelist children, do you have a favorite?

[A]

No, I'm not gonna say that I have a favorite. That's.

[B]

Come on. When Nicole was on the show, she admitted that I was her favorite, so that's okay.

[A]

Well, Tim, if you would come on our show, you would very quickly become a favor. I think we've invited you, but if we have not, you are invited.

[B]

I know. It's those stupid rules, Mississippi now rules.

[A]

Take it up. Yeah, I know. That's right. That's right. Yeah. But look, I mean, there are definitely people that I think add a special sauce to our show. I'm not gonna embarrass them by naming them Van Lathan, but there are people who do that. And I think. And it's not who you think. I think it's usually the people who are not from New York or D.C. who are outside of the Beltway, who are different, who are collegial, but have clear points of view that are not necessarily predictable. That's a lot of things. But we do have those people, and when they come on, they add something.

[B]

Well, that's a real person, actually. That's a real human. Most people live outside the Beltway and have opinions on issues that are not predictable. Exactly. That's humanity. And that gets kind of. That does get sanded down on tv. Okay, I want to get to Jesse. One last thing, though. I have to ask you, because it was just out there yesterday. Mehdi Hassan was on your show, I guess, a year ago. And there's this horrible moment with Ryan Jadursky. This is MAGA troll guy that I haven't liked since I met him around the first time I met you, back around the Huntsman campaign. He was A dick back then. But he made this joke about he hopes Mehdi doesn't have a pager. It was right around the time that Israel had done the pager attack on Hezbollah and there were bombs inside the pager. Mehdi tweeted yesterday that a year ago, racist tried to make a joke about me. That night, CNN said they'd ban him. But in the year since, I haven't been invited back on cnn. So was I banned too?

[A]

No, he was not banned. Here's all what I'll say about this, because I don't want to make this a bigger thing than it is. I have talked to Mehdi about this. If you watched that episode, first of all, we just talked about lines that are being drawn. That was a line. Calling someone a terrorist and wish that they were killed in an attack is a line. And Grudowsky was kicked off the show. And despite his claims that he was just fine afterwards, he was actually pretty upset when it happened. And even the Republican other panelists who we had at the table was actually absolutely stunned that he had said it, and everybody was stunned that he had said it. So it wasn't like one of those things where it's like, you can't take a joke. Okay, so that was a year ago. That's done and dusted. I addressed it publicly that night. Mehdi left the show too, and we wanted him to stay, especially because we did not want people to think that we were dismissing both Gardusky and Mehdi, who was the subject of the verbal attack. So he chose to leave, understandably, because he was upset, and that's okay. And we have given him his space since then. And, you know, Mehdi and I have texted before. We're on friendly terms. We invited him onto the show that night and had been working with him for a long time to try to get him on. And so my feeling was something crazy happened on television. I'm gonna wait for that person to be ready to come back on. And I did not get that sense over the last year. There were other reasons, too, that I'm not gonna say, because I just think in terms of, like, does Mehdi want to be on a debate show on cnn? I don't know. You could look in his public statements, and you might get the sense that maybe he doesn't, but it was not. He was not banned from our show. And in fact, if he would like to come on our show, I would like to have him on the show.

[B]

Do you have a band list you want to release right now? Do you have a full. Do you have a little tick list right there underneath your desk? Okay. All right.

[A]

No, absolutely not. It is not a. I do want.

[B]

To get to your book. I lied, though. I have one more question about a different book before we get to your book, because Karine Jean Pierre is doing the rounds. She did my show as well. She did her book. One of the main arguments in her book that she was trying to make is that is that the Democratic Party is not being appreciative enough to black women and to black queer women, and that she felt ostracized and that that's why she's going independent. And I gave her a chance to kind of explain that on this show. And she has continued to do the rounds. And it's hard to kind of pin that down on what exactly she's talking about. I'm just wondering if you had any reaction to what we've seen from Karine on her book tour.

[A]

I mean, I think that all of that has nothing to do with Joe Biden's fitness to serve as president for four years. And I think that maybe you can make an argument that the Democratic Party doesn't fully respect the value of black women or queer people or whatever. I mean, maybe that's the case as an internal Democratic matter. But I don't think that that is related to the central premise of the book or the central premise of what happened to Joe Biden. I think that is that's a separate issue. Was Biden fit to serve for another four years? Most people would say no. And I don't know. I don't think it's a betrayal to say that. And I think plenty of people in the Democratic Party, black and white and gay and straight or whatever, have been willing to say that, not just because, you know, for the good of the Democratic Party, but if you believe that you want to protect those very people, then wouldn't it behoove you to put up a candidate who is fit to serve and can beat the opponent? And I think that fundamentally is what we are talking about here now in terms of Karine and her how she was treated as press secretary or what have you. I think that's her perspective on her own experience. And she's entitled. She's allowed to have that viewpoint. But I also think that the book is predicated on this idea that Biden was betrayed. And I'm not sure that that really checks out when you consider that even to this day, when you ask the question to many of these people, do you think he could have served out another four years. Many of them won't answer that question.

[B]

Won't answer? Yeah, I've tried at least several of them on the show and that's not one that they like to answer. All right, the book why Jesse Jackson? I'll throw a hand up near. So I had Bakari on a couple weeks ago and he was mentioning and I was just kind of asking, which is like big picture, blue sky kind of asking like what who the Democrats could learn from, what they could learn from messaging wise, what are some things they could take. And he mentioned, and he mentioned Jesse Jackson in the 84 speech and I'm going to play some of that in a minute. When he said that I was like I had to put my hand up and like I had a very kind of one dimensional view of Jesse Jackson's campaigns. I know I was a kid during that time, then I grow up and I'm a Republican operative. So I'm only hearing slander about. I did not have a three dimensional view really of Jesse Jackson. So I was pretty intrigued to read what you'd been writing about him. I'm curious, was that kind of why you wanted to talk about Jesse Jackson? Just because he sort of was this figure that memories have started to fade and so folks started to not have a full view of him or were there other elements that made you decide to take on the project?

[A]

I think it was a lot of that. I think some of it is about how he is remembered or what we actually know about what happened in those campaigns which is actually not that much from his side of things. I mean I think we know about what transpired in the general election and sort of the end. Right. Especially for Democrats, cuz they lost spectacularly both times. But we don't really know much about how he ran in particular because he lost and because in the intervening time there was another man who became the first black president. But one of the reasons that I thought this was worth exploring is that I mean I covered 2016 and 2020 in which Bernie Sanders seemingly came out of nowhere with this populist message. He was a socialist candidate and got thousands and thousands of people into arenas to support him. And what I was hearing from a lot of Democrats who came through the Jesse Jackson era was that you can't really understand and a Bernie Sanders and how he ended up campaigning without understanding Jesse Jackson. And in fact Bernie told me when I spoke to him for this book, he said my campaigns were essentially picking up where Jesse Jackson left off. And I Think that's a really important question for us right now. Because guess what? That type of politics isn't going away. In fact, that's where all the energy is in the Democratic Party right now. And I do think, I think understanding it seemed to be something that was worth doing. And by the way, even as a Republican, I mean, if you want to understand the Trump of it all, there is so much of Jesse Jackson's candidacy that is reminiscent of what Trump is doing right now, except from the other side of the political spectrum, both the celebrity nature, the personality and the populism. And I think that that's also worth, worth really understanding is that there is a lot of resonance for Americans in a candidate that says to them, the system is broken and you need an outsider to fix it. The system is rigged against you. There's a line in Jesse Jackson's 1988 campaign speech where he says, the battle of today is economic violence. And that language reminded me of American carnage and sort of that picture of the rusted out towns of the Midwest. And he was literally painting that very same picture. And that is what has worked so well for Donald Trump. So you gotta understand that stuff to really understand where the future of populism on the left and the right is going.

[B]

Yeah. Another thing I didn't really realize was just, and obviously I knew that, that his campaign had juice and that he won some states in the south in 88. After the Michigan caucus, he was actually in the lead in pledged delegates.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

You can really imagine, I think you mentioned this on Charlemagne. You could really imagine if 1988 was 2012 or whatever. I guess would have been Obama 2016, and there would have been more chances for him to go outside the mainstream media, you know, I mean, who the hell knows? Like, it might have, it could have been Jesse Jackson winning in 1988.

[A]

Totally.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That was one of the biggest things to me. I mean, you know, I think there's, you know, I'm loathe to sort of put two thousand and twenty twenty five eyes on the eighties. Right. But you just, you can't help but imagine here you have this candidate who's incredibly charismatic, who is an incredibly famous person in the sense that people just know who he is, whether you like him or not. He has sort of like 100% name ideas, which is kind of what Trump had when he was running. And he wins the Michigan caucus and doubles the lead Democratic candidate in the race and suddenly is in the lead. Had he been able to sort of utilize the power of controlling Media narrative or even bypassing media narrative, I really do think it would have been a different story. But in the 80s, that's not the kind of media environment that they were in. And the narrative that came out of that campaign was, what does he really want? What does Jesse want? Was the title of the Time magazine article that he was on the COVID of. Because people weren't asking, can he win? They were asking, what can we give him to get him out of here? And I think those are very different questions.

[B]

And also just kind of back in how those primaries were won. There were factional, and he's obviously like the inverse of, you know, kind of like the Southern racist candidate that they would have in a lot of those, you know, Democratic primaries going back then. So there were that factional element to it. It's interesting. So I watched the whole. I asked Bakari which speech to watch, and he suggested the 84 convention features. I watched it all last night. It's a barn burner. He's sweating.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

It's like an hour long.

[A]

People are crying. It's a whole thing. Yeah.

[B]

I want to play one little bit for you because I think it's instructive to where we are now.

[C]

If we lift up a program to feed the hungry, they'll come running. If we lift up a program to study war, no more are you youth will come running. We lift up a program to put America back to work as an alternative to welfare and despair. They will come working. If we cut that military budget without cutting our defense and use that money to rebuild bridges and put steel workers back to work and use that money and provide jobs for our shoulders and use. Use that money to build schools and pay teachers and educate our children and build hospitals and train doctors and train nurses. The whole nation will come running to us.

[B]

It's hard not to notice just the stark nature of comparing that to kind of the type of message you heard at the 2024 DNC convention. Right. On a variety of issues. And you listen to them. And a few things that just caught my ear. We're gonna get America back to work, but an alternative to welfare. Right. So he's even playing into, like, I don't. It's not about safety.

[A]

Did you hear that?

[B]

Yeah. It's not about safety. Now use military money. We're keep the defense. We're using the military money for schools, getting steel workers back to work, paying nurses, paying teachers, feeding the hungry. It's pretty noteworthy. And I think there's certainly some lessons that the Democrats who are Trying to capture some economic populism now could learn from kind of how he framed.

[A]

Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, you hear in that message just some slight differences that can be really important in terms of how these things are communicated at that time. I think that you had the sort of Reagan esque, sort of pull yourself up from your bootstraps type of thing. And he's clearly engaging with that idea by also saying we don't, we don't want people on welfare, we actually want people to be able to work. And being unafraid to say that, while also saying that we don't want to fight foreign wars, we want to take that money and use it at home, we want to bring back jobs to America. I mean, he's saying all of those messages and is not afraid to kind of get just close enough to maybe the center right that he offends the far left in the party and maybe this, you know, and I think in a way this was a different time. Right. I think that right now Democrats are just way more. They police the boundaries of the left so much more now than they did then. And that allowed someone like Jesse Jackson to borrow from the center right and still have credibility in progressive circles. And I think it allowed him to speak to a broader audience of people. And that's the goal. I mean, what he was basically saying there was this is a universal message that if you're white or black or yellow or green. I mean, he used to say we're all precious in God's sight. This is a message that can work for everybody. And I feel like Democrats just have such a hard time articulating that right now because there is this fear that if you say something just the wrong, you might offend the people who are policing your language on the left that don't really want you to talk about reducing the number of people on welfare, which actually might very well need to be the goal because the alternative is people actually working and making enough money to feed their families.

[B]

A few other things that jumped out to me, and you can jump on any of these that you felt reflected your observations, but really comfortable talking about God. Obviously, Reverend Jesse Jackson, but more than the Democrats do now. A lot woven through his times and kind of challenging the Republican frame of religion a lot. You know, Jesus should said we should not be judged by the bark we wear, but the fruit we bear. You know, we measure greatness by how we treat the least of these. Jamal Bowie wrote about this in the context of your book. You know, very much it's A call for like collective recognition of helping everybody. And, you know, there's certainly unique challenges that face each group. But he wasn't siloing the groups really, like it was about unifying of the different groups. And one of the things I just felt like I should mention called out gays and lesbians twice in his 1984 convention speech.

[A]

And he was the first candidate to do that. He was the first candidate to do that. And he also spoke at an AIDS march, also the first presidential candidate to do something like that. I mean, so, yeah, he explicitly, not just gays and lesbian, Asian Americans, he brought them into the political process. Arab Americans brought them into the political process. But you're so right. I think the way that you put it is exactly right. He spoke to the identities of these people without siloing them, without sort of putting them in a box, but really saying there's a kind of a thread that weaves us together. That's why he used the analogy of the quilt so often in his speeches.

[B]

Do you see anybody out there that's channeling Jesse Jackson at all at a national level? Yeah, or local. And you think about Trump is very much an inheritor of Buchanan. This is the same era. And so, I mean, I guess maybe Bernie was the answer, but I don't know if there's somebody else on a national level that would be an inheritor of Jesse Jackson.

[A]

I think that there are people who are inheritors of different parts of Jesse Jackson, but I think that there's still kind of not really a person who has the full picture of it. And, you know, I mean, even Bernie. I mean, I think Bernie is the easiest example in the sense that he ran for president and used a very similar model, which is, you know, rallying college students and all of that and these massive stadium rallies and then the populism of the message. But he clearly struggled with the diversity piece. And you can't really be a successful Democratic candidate unless you are able to really tap into the diversity of the party itself. And so that was his weakness in both 2016 and in 2020. TBD on someone like AOC is sort of a protege. I mean, I think we have to see her, can she appeal at a national level. But I also think, you know, look at what's happening in New York City. I mean, as controversial as it is, Mamdani is kind of running a double barreled campaign. And that double barreled campaign is working really well in a very urban environment. And so maybe that's something that works for New York Right now. But I don't know that there's been any politician that's really tried what Jackson tried to do at a national level, and certainly not with the addition of the kind of moral element of it, the faith based appeal that I think also helped him reach across to especially rural white Americans. I think that really helped his message in those places, too.

[B]

Yeah, maybe a weird person to mention because who knows. But I was thinking about Talarico does have the religious element. And can you layer in that economic populism on top of that and kind of do it from a little bit of a different and inverted perspective? Obviously a white guy. But I don't know. Just one other thing, Jesse, I had to ask you about that is relevant to what's happening now. Now he did in his, I guess it was the 84 campaign. He gets in trouble for some private anti Semitic remarks. And so that's another thing now that I think that the Democrats are having to deal with as part of this broad coalition, which is there are some within the coalition who have said some things about Israel or Jews that go outside the lines and make, I think, Jews feel maybe like they're not part of the patchwork. And I'm wondering what, I notice how he managed that in his speeches, but I'm wondering what you thought about how he kind of navigated that, if there are any lessons.

[A]

Yeah. And it's important not to sugarcoat this because this was the scandal of the 1984 campaign. This was largely the reason that he flamed out in that campaign. He didn't address it well at first. I mean, he tried to deny that he said it, then he acknowledged that he said it, and then he delivered a speech. But then he had Louis Farrakhan sort of out there talking, threatening the reporter who revealed these remarks. And Jesse Jackson didn't really want to cut Farrakhan loose, partly because of their long ties in Chicago. And also from what I gathered in talking to people around him and reporting about this, was he just thought that cutting people off because of their mistakes or flaws was not something that he wanted to do as, as a faith leader, as a politician. You would think, well, obviously that would be the first thing that you would do. But he didn't really see himself as a politician for a lot of the 1984 race and perhaps 1988, too. He saw himself as this sort of person who was outside of politics, this outsider religious figure who was coming in to force the political system to operate better. So he made, frankly, a lot of mistakes in Dealing with that scandal and failed to recognize is the extent to which it's more than just words. It has to also be actions that are divvied out to parts of the voting electorate in equal measure. So he wanted to bring Arab Americans into the process, but I think he felt so kind of put upon by the attacks he was receiving from some Jewish leaders that he was sort of at a loss. He was like, what am I supposed to do? Is there anything that I can do to make this better? And I don't know. I mean, I think a politician might have figured it out, but I think he didn't want to throw anybody under the bus.

[B]

Not even Jesse Jackson can solve the centuries old holy wars.

[A]

I mean, it was about that. It was partly. It was about, look, you couldn't say Palestinian practically in the 80s, okay? It just was not something that you could talk about. And so he got a lot of heat just for that. But I also think that, that there are things that politicians would do. I mean, remember the Jeremiah Wright scandal of the Obama years? And that was just so Bill Ayers.

[B]

Jeremiah Wright, you just cut him off.

[A]

Firestorm. But they cauterized that wound as quickly as they could. And I don't think that Jackson was willing to do that in 1984 for a lot of different reasons. And that made it very difficult for him to get past this.

[B]

Any other cute little anecdotes or something that surprised you or a fun little story to leave us with?

[A]

One thing that I thought to the point about what would have happened if this stuff happened today. I mean, when I was sort of digging into the fact that in the middle of a campaign, he got on a plane and went to Syria and brought back a prisoner of war from Syria, and then subsequently got invited to the White House by the guy he was trying to beat beat in the campaign. Some of those things. This is sort of the kind of special nature of this campaign that I think doesn't really get relayed in history, was that he was such an unusual, unconventional, unpredictable candidate that honestly, he kind of puts Trump to shame in that respect. He was the candidate that reporters would literally call up to his hotel room and ask what the schedule was tomorrow and he would tell them he had that kind of relationship with the press that I think is not the way candidates operate today. And he did things like go to Syria, like go to Cuba. He also went to Cuba in that campaign and brought back dozens of political prisoners to the United States and did all that while running for president. And it was a Bit of a sideshow. But in today's media environment, it would have made him the most talked about person in that campaign and would have gone a long way, I think, to helping him succeed.

[B]

All right, Abby. Philip. If I get fired over at Ms. Now, my first stop is at the table. All right. As long as I'm still invited. Depending on what I get fired for, I guess so. I appreciate you coming on the show.

[A]

What you got to do is we got to write a book and then we'll have.

[B]

That's true. I do have to write a book. I have other people on my ass about that, too. That seems hard. How did you do that during all this? I've got a daily show. The idea of writing a book is insane to me. When did you write it? In the mornings. You have a baby.

[A]

It was hard. You have to write it in the middle of the night. I have a baby. You have to write it in the middle of the night. And you have to write it on long weekends or send yourself away on a writing vacation for a week or a couple of weeks. It's hard and it takes time and it's not easy to do on a good day.

[B]

So I'm not doing that. I would like to hang out with you.

[A]

I think you have a book in you, Tim.

[B]

Probably, but I'm not doing it, I don't think. Not anytime soon. We'll see what happens. The future will take, take care of itself, as Mitch McConnell said. Abby, Phillip, the book is a dream deferred. Jesse Jackson, the Fight for Black Political Power. Thanks for coming on the Borg podcast, girl.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

Everybody else will be back tomorrow for another edition. See you all then. Peace.

[C]

Fresh out of school Cause I was a high school grad Got to get a job Cause I was a high school dad Wish I got paid by a rapper Took the nation but that's not likely so here's my application Pass it to the man at a C and C. Cause when I was in school I got the AEE but there's no SC for this youngster I didn't have no money so now I got a punchster Croc got a slave and the apple man but whitey says there's no room for the African Always knew that I would crotch cheese but welcome to McDonald's. May I take your order, please? Goddess of your boob that might give you cancer Cause my son doesn't take no for an answer Now I pay taxes, let them ever give me back what about diapers, bottles and Similac? Do I have to sell me a whole lot of crack with decent shelter and clothes on my back or should I just wait for help from Bush or Jesse Jackson in Operation Push? If you ask me, the whole thing needs a douche of massing Gale, what the hell? Crack a cell in the neighborhood to the corner house bitches Miss Parker, Little Joe and Todd Bridges or anybody that heat know so I copped me a bird better known as a kilo now everybody know I went from po to a nigga that got dope so now you put the feds against me Cause I couldn't follow the plan of the presidency I'll never get love again but blacks aren't too fucking broke to be republican now remember I used to be cool till I stopped filling out my W2 now senators are getting high and you're playing against a ghetto black fly so now you got a pep talk but sorry this is our only room to walk Cause we don't want a truck push But a bird in the hand, it's worth more than a book.

[B]

The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.