Loading summary
Transcript144 lines
- [00:00]
Rocket Money Advertiser
Lets do the 60 second savings challenge. Step 1 Download Rocket Money. Step 2 Link your accounts and see every subscription you're paying for. Tap one you don't use and cancel it. That's money back every month. Step 3 Create a financial goal $50 every paycheck. Or let the app automatically move small amounts of cash. When you can afford it. In a week, you'll forget you set it up. In a month, you'll see real dollars piling up. In a year, you'll be shocked at how much money you've saved. Upload an Internet or phone bill and let Rocket Money try to lower it. You only pay if they find you savings. On average, Rocket Money members can save up to $740 a year when using all the app's premium features. Users love the app with over 186,000 five star ratings. Make saving money the resolution you actually keep. Start the 60 second savings challenge at RocketMoney.com cancel that's RocketMoney.com cancel RocketMoney.com cancel
- [01:00]
Venmo Advertiser
rewards programs are a lot like pop culture. They can be hard to keep up with. But with Venmo's new rewards program, Venmo Stash, rewards are so easy because the more you do, the more you get. And you choose the bundle of brands you get cash back at. It's giving Fiscal Queen, it's giving Star. It's giving up to 5% cash back at your favorite brands. Just pick a bundle of your go to spots to shop with your Venmo debit card and earn cash back at them. Do more, get more with Venmo stash. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank NA Venmo Stash bundle terms and exclusions apply. Max $100 cash back per month. See terms at Venmo Me Stash.
- [01:58]
Tim Miller
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Friday. Delighted to welcome back our former friend. She's now a writer and editor@projectdemocracy.org, which is pretty important. And this week she was a guest host on the View. It's all caps. Amanda Carpenter. What's up, Amanda?
- [02:12]
Amanda Carpenter
Wait, hold on. Former friend?
- [02:15]
Tim Miller
Well, did I. Is that what I said formerly to Bowler work?
- [02:18]
Amanda Carpenter
Yes, friend.
- [02:19]
Tim Miller
Just it's Friday.
- [02:20]
Amanda Carpenter
That's a demotion. Like, you guys have best friends. You have all kinds of things. And I'm former friend, current friend, former colleague. Okay.
- [02:28]
Tim Miller
Close ally, partner in crime, whatever you want to say. You were on the View this week. Can I indulge you for a second in the audience with something that you were replacing Alyssa Farah.
- [02:38]
Amanda Carpenter
I was filling in. Let's be clear. I was a guest for three days. But, yeah, it's your show, dude.
- [02:44]
Tim Miller
You're filling in for Alyssa. Farah had a new baby, Justin. Congrats to her and Alyssa. You know, look, Alyssa worked for Mike Pence. Alyssa was in there, and Trump 1.0. So for fair skepticism about Alyssa, sometimes from people. And let me tell you that fair skepticism extended to me when I was writing why we did it. I was trying to analyze the psychology of people who knew better but went along with Trump anyway. So it's kind of hard to pick representative people because I didn't want to do a Mean Girls burn book where I was just slaying random people and just choosing based on past slights from campaigns of yore. And so what I decided to do was choose the group that did the autopsy with me, because me and one other woman were basically the only people that didn't go along with Trump, the core autopsy group. But the problem was none of those people really fit one archetype. And so I needed somebody else to offer to participate. And I called around to different people. And I didn't know Alyssa at all. I never met her. And we met in secret. It was very furtive. You know, she was nervous at the time. You don't wanna be seen with me.
- [03:56]
Amanda Carpenter
With you? She didn't wanna be seen with you.
- [03:58]
Tim Miller
She didn't wanna be seen with me. Well, right, because, you know, she's still in a transition period, Right? Like, this was like, right after she had quit. Okay, it was right after, you know, it was after January 6th. But, like, you know, she was like, do I still wanna work in Republican politics? Do I just wanna burn it down? Do I wanna go be a shepherd?
- [04:16]
Amanda Carpenter
She's going through it.
- [04:16]
Tim Miller
And so we're keeping optionality meeting in a random hotel in secret. We start talking and we vibed out. We both had the Lebanese thing going. And, you know, my impression of her was that initially was that, like, maybe this was. She got over her skis. It's kind of fake. I don't know. Anyway, I started interviewing her. We met once, we met twice, met a third time, go to our house in Georgetown and went for hours. We're just talking, drinking wine. And the thing we kept going back and forth on, which was the whole point of the book was like, why did you go in and why'd you quit? Right. Those are the questions we're trying to answer. Why did you really do it? Not like the lip service reason that you said at a deep level, why did you do it?
- [05:01]
Amanda Carpenter
So you got her all liquored up.
- [05:02]
Tim Miller
So we got her all liquored up. And at the time she doesn't have a kid, and they're trying to have a kid, but they were struggling to go through the whole IVF thing. She's talked about this and she just gets very emotional and starts talking about her dad had just had a stroke and her dad was like a maga. A pre. Maga. A Proto Maga. Media.
- [05:26]
Amanda Carpenter
Well, was it Worldnet Daily? It was one of the wild ones. And of all the ones I worked at Human Events, that was wild for me. They were all in on the birther stuff, as I recall.
- [05:37]
Tim Miller
Yeah, correct. So her dad was really out there.
- [05:39]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah, big time.
- [05:40]
Tim Miller
And. And she starts to get kind of. He just had a stroke. It starts to get emotional. She says this to me. She's like, since then, I've been thinking about mortality and legacy and marrying into a family where I'm so proud of who they are. Thinking about my dad and what he could have been. I don't care about money or different things, but I want my kids and grandkids to look back and be like, she was someone who did the right thing. I don't need anyone to pat me on the back. I just want my kids to remember me the right way. And at the time, I was like, wow, we were both a little drunk, so I was getting a little emotional. But at the time, I was like, you don't even have a kid. That's one thing to say if you
- [06:17]
Amanda Carpenter
have a teenager about this.
- [06:18]
Tim Miller
What? Right.
- [06:19]
Amanda Carpenter
No, I mean, she knew she wanted to have a kid.
- [06:21]
Tim Miller
She knew she wanted to have a kid. But, like, that is crazy.
- [06:23]
Amanda Carpenter
My point is, this is what women think about.
- [06:25]
Tim Miller
Yeah, it's what women think about. Yeah. So the men are from Mars, women from Venus thing. This goes back to Charles Duhigg. Emotional conversation versus practical. But that was a good thing. I was just thinking about that for her this week, and I was just like, she wanted to have this kid so bad. And the specter of this, the prospect of this and wanting to be a good parent weighed on her. And that resonated with me at such a level because it's something that I kept coming back to a lot after January 6th in this time, which is like, you people know your kids are going to go to school someday and they're not going to care about your spin. Right. They're going to be in high school, and there's going to be a picture of people storming the Capitol with Confederate flags and Trump flags. And it's going to be two paragraphs in the chapter, and it's going to be like, Donald Trump tried to overturn the democracy. They stormed the Capitol, police officers died. That's what your kids are going to learn. And they're not going to care that you said, well, you know, the Democrats they woke got a little out of control, you know, and I. And I bring that up to people all the time. And most of them, you know, hum and hum and humidity. And she cared about it at a deep level. So, anyway, I just. I love this for her. I'm happy she. She's on a little maternity leave. And, you know, we all make choices in life, but that's something else to be a good mom.
- [07:45]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah. Congratulations to her. I hope she's getting the time to really enjoy the time with her baby, because there's nothing else like it. But on the idea of, like, you know, what it means to be complicit, you know, this isn't about Alyssa at all. Let's remove that from the conversation before somebody tries to read and something into that. But, you know, I've really struggled with the Mike Pence types because, you know, we've had this debate at the Bulwark, like, was he a hero that day or not? And I've always firmly come down on the side of not because he had so many opportunities to stop it before the last minute. It was my working thesis that people like Mike Pence and Bill Barr really didn't bolt from Trump until the responsibility landed right on their plate. Mike Pence issued that statement at the last minute before members of Congress were taking their seats on January 6. If he had done that a week before, a day before, there's a chance that the mob may not have materialized because they wouldn't have thought the plan to pressure Mike Pence would have worked. And so I just. I really struggle with that. And I really think this is the key to explaining why people break. They go along with it while it's good for them, until they realize the consequences could blow back on them. And I've thought so deeply about this. I wasn't planning to talk about this, but I've actually, I've written and I'm shopping around or trying to shop around, a whole dark satire novel about complicity. And the person that's a prototype in my head is like, maybe he looks like Mike Johnson, but these heritage types who go along with all of these things because of opportunism, because they think they are still protecting their family. There's all kinds of reasons. I'm really glad you did your book, because I think we have to understand why people go along with this in America specifically. And I think the absurdity of Trump provides a lot of plausible deniability, which makes the story I write funny, I think, to me, but also really dark. But, yeah, this is a subject I am endlessly fascinated by. And one thing in your book, when it comes to how people cope, and maybe this is funny, but I can't not think about it. I think about it probably every other couple days.
- [10:01]
Tim Miller
My book.
- [10:02]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah, I do. You talk to Caroline Wren, who was a donor. She was adjacent to the donor and Bannon people.
- [10:08]
Tim Miller
She was like a fundraiser type, and we had worked together, and I think
- [10:12]
Amanda Carpenter
she's still in it. But is it true, am I remembering it right, that she took nine Xanax on January 6, or, like, a tremendous amount?
- [10:20]
Tim Miller
I don't remember the number.
- [10:21]
Amanda Carpenter
Off top of that. Yeah, I just read it, and I was just like, these people are in. And I don't feel sorry for her, but they're in huge emotional distress. Right. And so they have ways of coping through it to really just numb themselves to the consequences of what they're doing. And I just. Like, that's a lot. Right.
- [10:42]
Tim Miller
Somewhere in there, you would think that a light bulb would go off, which is like, man, if I need to medicate that heavily to deal with the consequences of something that I went along with, maybe I should reflect upon that or get out. And maybe that's. Maybe something in my body is telling me that I'm on the wrong path.
- [11:01]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah.
- [11:01]
Tim Miller
Just really quick, before I think back to Alyssa, then we'll talk about the news. But this was. I should have said this at the start. The archetype I was talking about, the archetype I needed was somebody that went in and left. Because all of the other people that I had talked to or talked about, some of them refused to talk to me. Hi. Elise Stefanik. But who I'd worked with, all of them stayed. All of them reluctantly went in and then stayed and even got enthusiastic in some cases. Alyssa was the one that was reluctant to go in and then left. It demonstrates that she had a deep caring inside her about something and that maybe you can compartmentalize, you can rationalize, you can justify fraud ways, but if in your heart, if somewhere inside there's this thing that is saying to you, no, I need to do the right thing. I want to make sure that my kid and my grandkid looks at me and says, okay, well, they weren't perfect, but when the chips were down, they did the right thing. That's an important trait. Like trying to figure out how to find that trait. Like, you would rather have people that have that trait than the other trait. And that's where I come down. Maybe a little bit more generous than you and Mike Pence. Not as generous as jvl, who thinks he's a great American hero. But it's like, what if J.D. vance was the vice president then? What are we doing now? Do we have our country at all? Like, do we have a democracy at all?
- [12:20]
Amanda Carpenter
No.
- [12:21]
Tim Miller
How many people died that day at the Capitol? Just. Who knows that Counterfactual. Anyway, we could do hours on that podcast, but we should talk about the news. Where should we start? I want to start with the DHS stuff. We're still in a partial shutdown with the Department of Homeland Security. Every day reveals, like a series of new atrocities that we're learning about that is being committed by these goons. The one that Andrego wrote about in Morning Shots this morning, it was this case of Nurul Shah Alam. Who is this? Rohingya refugee was mostly blind. Not totally blind. He was stopped. Border parole agents scooped him up in Buffalo. They learned that he was in the country legally. He was a legal refugee. And that's not deportable until Stephen Miller changes those rules to make it so we don't accept any refugees except for white Africaners. But since he was legal and not deportable under our current system, they released him. But not at home in the parking lot of a closed Tim Hortons five miles from his home. And then in the next couple of days, he died. He didn't. He never made it home. Doesn't seem like it was very chilly in Buffalo, to say the least, in the past couple months. So that's one example I've got a couple others want to talk about, but I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that and how to think about this current shutdown fight. Because it's very different than the last one. Right? It's sort of like, since it's so narrow, it's not really impacting anything except for people that want to go faster through the TSA pre check line, you know, which isn't. Which isn't exactly an urgent crisis.
- [13:56]
Amanda Carpenter
DHS is running inhumane programs that have no respect for dignity in human life because they're trying to meet quotas I mean, where have we seen. Where have we seen this movie before? It's awful. It's really awful. And these stories are just coming out in rapid streams, happening all over the country. But the idea of the DHS shutdown and how people aren't really noticing, it seemed like the Trump administration was actually threatening to take away the be clear TSA status. I don't have any of this, but I understand it's highly important to people who travel a lot. And that was starting to generate some backlash. And I was kind of wondering, is this going to be the thing that breaks Democrats or breaks the public over a fight to fund mass agents in the streets who are kidnapping people? Like, what a decadent society we are if we actually think that's a pain point, you know, like, I heard people complaining about it, and I understand, like, it's an inconvenience. You. You paid for this status. You were supposed to get it. You have plans this weekend, but, my God, you can't give up tsa. Be clear. For the sake of people getting kidnapped and blind people thrown out in the street. Like, what. What kind of bubble do you live in? And, you know, the Trump administration did roll it back because apparently it was too painful. But I just. The populace needs to be ready for this fight. And I just think it is incredible. It is incredible how people cannot see outside their bubbles to understand what is happening in these communities and will come to theirs and will affect someone they know at some point in time if it is not stopped.
- [15:40]
Tim Miller
If Chuck Schumer called you after this podcast, he listened. I don't know if he listens, actually. That's a joke. And he was like, amanda, I'm having a roundtable of people and I'm asking them how we should deal with this negotiation, getting people different perspectives. What would you tell them?
- [15:56]
Amanda Carpenter
The baseline ideas they have? No masked agents, no surveillance of Americans. Protesters are free to conduct free speech. I mean, these. Yes, fight on those things. Like, I just don't think this should be that difficult. Make it very easy to message. And, you know, I'm not afraid of a shutdown fight. I work for Ted Cruz sometimes, and this is a narrow one. Go fight it. Go fight this. And go to the floor every single day and say, these are our three demands. You know, I actually thought Abigail Spanberger did a really good job in the Democratic response to the State of the Union, even though the format is still, like, so far behind. Giving that canned, scripted speech is just. I don't know why they haven't adapted it's no fault on her. She gave a good address. But they needed somebody to go out there and just talk about three things. Ice Epstein and elections. That's it. Like, can we just put these front and center? And they always want to leave. Affordability. I understand, like, that's consultants speak. But if you want to animate people and understand why the people in power are bad and how they're going to take away your rights, those are the three issues I would lean into super hard.
- [17:09]
Tim Miller
I thought it was pretty interesting how much Spamberger talked about ice and good. That was positive and noteworthy. So I had a friend last night that told me they had a hot take because I've not exactly been blown away by the campaign that Jasmine Crockett is running for Texas Senate. They offered a role for her, which got me kind of interested and excited, which was maybe instead of running for the Senate, staying in the House and being the permanent State of the Union response person that is like that. Like, let's find somebody that can just, you know, throw some punches, you know, has a lot of energy and just do that and just. And have a designated responder. I like that idea.
- [17:50]
Amanda Carpenter
I don't even want a responder. I want somebody to go throw bombs as a pre. Bottle.
- [17:54]
Tim Miller
Yeah, there you go.
- [17:55]
Amanda Carpenter
Right. Because it was pretty clear to me in the first, like, 20 minutes, he's just going for records and trying to tire people out. I'm not sure how many people stayed around to watch Spanberger, but if somebody was saying, I want time beforehand and this is what he's not going to talk about, and this is what's important, I think that might help frame it a little bit more. But I just. We've got to be a lot more innovative when it comes to responding Trump. I just can't believe we've been at this, Tim, for 10, 12 years now. I've lost count. I really liked what you did through State of the Union with the Mystery Science Theater. That was a tour of duty. But, like, that's how I want to watch State of the Union. I want to have some context for all this time. We wanted people to do live fact checking, which is incredibly hard. But I think what you did is what the future of covering these events needs to be, because we can't. How many people tell you I can't listen to him anymore? It is very difficult to listen to his voice?
- [18:52]
Tim Miller
It's a more boring presence. Who wants to listen to two hours of that stuff? Nobody wants to listen to it.
- [18:56]
Amanda Carpenter
So I liked it more thank you.
- [18:58]
Tim Miller
I appreciate that. For you people, for you people that live in the Midwest or the north this time of year, a good hoodie is essential. For me, it's gorgeous. This weekend, just a comfy little T shirt is essential. Either way, American Giant has got you. The American Giant Classic full zip hoodie is made to last a lifetime. So you can count on it to bring you comfort and warmth year after year. Even before they were a sponsor, we are loving the American Giant hoodie in this household. It was the coziest, sturdiest, best hoodie that my man ever bought and having it back since. I don't know shit. We lived in California. I think we got a bunch of other American Giant stuff now. A lot of staples, a lot of basics as mentioned. You know, kind of normcore. Normcore is back. And I got some American Giant normcore staples that I might be wearing out and about this weekend. American Giant makes those staples, but they're anything but basic. They got the premium slub crew tee, a no BS high rise pant, and a slim roughneck pant born from a commitment to support the communities that create its products. Every American Giant piece is made in America and designed to last. No exceptions. Love that this season, snag the hoodie. They'll bring you comfort for life. The American giant classic full zip and save 20% off your first order at american-giant.com when you use code bulwark at checkout. That's 20% off your first order at American-giant.com code bulwark. Back to the DHS stuff. Just a couple of things because you guys have a lawsuit in Maine.
- [20:40]
Amanda Carpenter
We do.
- [20:40]
Tim Miller
It was one of those issues that you talked about that you said that Schumer needs to negotiate over, which is the surveillance of Americans. Talk about that.
- [20:48]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah. So we filed a lawsuit on behalf of Maine residents earlier this week because what they are doing is that they are collecting facial recognition data and license plates to follow protesters to their homes. There was an incident where one of the people in the lawsuit. You can. I'll link the complaint online where an officer essentially held a camera to her face and said, if you keep coming out here, you're going to be put on a domestic terror list and we're coming to your house later. Crazy for just exercising her legal right to observe these agents in a public space. And this is something that my organization feels very strongly about, is that we have to protect civic public spaces in order to protect elections. Because if you cannot be out in the streets not only protesting ice, but Monitoring and recording what these federal agents are doing. Recording is probably the most important act of resistance that we have right now, because, as you know, if there weren't people in the streets of Minnesota, we would not have known how Renee Good was killed. We would not have known how Alex Preddy would kill, because Kristi Noem would have got up before those cameras and been believed by too many people when she said that they were domestic terrorists. So we know this is the game plan, but this whole data collection that DHS appears to be doing as a matter of policy is something that has to be challenged extremely hard. You know, I think a lot of people are worried about the surveillance resources that are being unfurled by the government because we've given this agency so much money. There's so much they can do with, you know, the AI stuff that's happening right now. You see the big dispute that the Department of War is having with Claude. And so this is a huge frontier. And so we're really laser focused on it. I know a lot of other people are. But if we can't protect those public spaces, our ground to stand and run, a free election becomes dramatically winnowed. And so you cannot give an inch on this.
- [22:54]
Tim Miller
Another thing that I saw you posted about that I didn't talk about this week, I just wanted to mention in this area is this testimony from the ICE lawyer, Ryan Schwank. One of the things that he testified to on the Hill earlier this week was pretty stark and direct. And I just want to read exactly what he said. I received secretive orders to teach new cadets to violate the Constitution. It's a direct sentence from him. And those orders were about basically these warrantless searches and how they could go into places that they shouldn't be.
- [23:26]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah, this is something that appears to be a policy. I mean, the guy was testifying in front of it. And so there was a lot of concern about how DHS was rushing these agents to the streets with not enough training. Not only are they not receiving enough training, they're receiving unconstitutional training, it seems like. And this is happening all over the place. Just today was the president of Columbia was going on a video to say that they snatched one of their students and refused to provide a warrant. This is their operating belief that they do not have to provide warrants in order to get people who are suspected of being illegal aliens. And so, you know, we've kind of had these discussions earlier, like, isn't it true that people who are undocumented do sort of have fewer rights, but not. Not when it comes to this because they have to provide a warrant so they know they're not seizing Americans. Right. Like you have to know why you're going in there. So you really can't just say like
- [24:22]
Tim Miller
it isn't really about the undocumented person's rights. Actually in this case it's about all of our rights.
- [24:26]
Amanda Carpenter
Right. This is why we have this as a rule of law in America, because it's to protect everybody, to make sure that the government is actually seizing who they're supposed to be seizing and have a clear reason why. And they've just wiped the table with that. And so lots of Americans are getting caught up in this. People are being disappeared. You can't find them, they're not getting adequate legal representation. And so thank God you're talking about people who have come out to do the right thing. It's my understanding that this guy was like a training officer down in Georgia. The incredible risk that he is taking to say yeah, this is a policy is courageous but also tremendously helpful because we need to establish that these aren't just one off mistakes by under trained officers. That this is a, this is a policy as we've suspected because that's the only way we can hope to get any kind of accountability because this is clearly unconstitutional.
- [25:21]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Amen. Shout out to Ryan Schweig. And you guys are pushing, you mentioned what states can do this. Universal Constitutional Remedies Act.
- [25:27]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah. So this actually isn't election related, but it is super, super important. It is moving in a number of states. Let me tell you about what it does. So in a lot of states where say an ICE agent murders your spouse, you don't have the ability to sue a federal officer like you would someone from the state or local police. There's reasons for that has to do with something that's called as a cause of action that was winnowed by the Supreme Court. But what states can do and should do now is address that accountability gap with some legislation that provides residents that cause of action. And so we call it the broad kind of reform bill is the Universal Constitutional Remedies act in the states. Many times they have different names. I think the acronym for the one in New Jersey is F U C K ice, which is very innovative on their part. But we're moving In I think 15 states, California, Massachusetts. I can put a link in my social media for people that want to learn more. But this is something that can be done now. It is being considered. There's strong legislation. A lot of times it's committee, but people who want to do something. You should push your state and local legislatures to be active on this kind of bill because stuff is going down now and it's going to continue to go down. And these federal officers need to know that they are not immune from accountability because right now they think they are. Right now they think these ICE officers that are doing terrible things are still on the job. Citizens need recourse not only to get justice, but also to put these officers on notice that they will be held accountable for their actions.
- [27:11]
Intuit QuickBooks Advertiser
This episode is brought to you by Intuit. QuickBooks Bill Pay Growth is the goal, but the paperwork is a trap. If your accounts payable feels like a second job, you're doing it wrong. Enter QuickBooks Bill Pay Reduce manual data entry, automate your approvals, and track 1099s in one place. No more chasing signatures, no more spreadsheet headaches. Just control over your cash flow and a back office that actually scales. Automate your accounts payable today at quickbooks.com/bill pay terms apply. Money Movement Services are provided by Intuit Payments, Inc. Licensed as a money transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services.
- [27:45]
Rocket Money User Testimonial
I didn't even realize I was wasting $415 a month until I downloaded Rocket Money. I thought I had my finances under control until the app laid out all my spending and categorized it for me. Takeout shopping and unused subscriptions were quietly draining my account, and as a result, my savings took a back seat. But Rocket Money doesn't just tell you what you're wasting money on, it takes action to save you money. First, the app looks at your income and monthly expenses and calculates how much you can safely spend each day to stay on your budget. Rocket Money also finds and cancels unwanted subscriptions for you, and even negotiates better rates on your bills so you have more money in your pocket. On average, Rocket Money members can save up to $740 a year when using all the app's premium features. Users love the app with over 186,000 five star ratings. It's time to simplify your financ and take control of your Money. Go to RocketMoney.com Cancel to get started. That's RocketMoney.com Cancel RocketMoney.com Cancel.
- [28:46]
Tim Miller
You mentioned the Columbia student that's now been released after the Zoran Trump meeting. I want to talk to this about the Zoran Trump meeting here, but this story is crazy. The Columbia president There was five DHS agents. They entered a dorm with no warrant and lied they told the RA or whatever was at the front desk that they were police looking for a missing child. The campus officer repeatedly asked for a warrant, evidence of that, or asked for a chance to call their boss. These agents ignored that person, went into the dorm, grabbed the young woman from Azerbaijan, who I guess apparently the notion was that there was some issue with her student visa, grabbed her, detained her crazy insane behavior inside a private university. That was one of the things that Zoran started to talk to Trump about. So we might as well talk about the Zoran Trump meeting. Me and Andrew Egger hashed this out for about 25 minutes last night. Because my honest view was I woke up from a nap. You can maybe hear I have a little bit of a cold. And so I took one of these naps where you wake up and you're just like, you've got cobwebs and you're like, have I been asleep for two minutes or three hours? Like, what happened? Where am I? And I looked down at my phone and I have like three text the picture of Zoran and Trump holding up the fake newspaper. And I was like, am I still dreaming? Am I awake? It was real. In this photo, Zoran is like smirking, holding up a fake New York Daily News that says, I don't have in front of me, but like, Trump to city, we're going to build a bunch more houses. Trump is smiling, shit eating grin like he's next to the biggest celebrity he's ever met. Like so crazy. Just getting totally framed by Zoran. Reportedly based on what the Maudani camp says, the request was basically a bunch of new housing for New York, federal funding for new housing, and then gave Susie Wiles the name of several Palestinian activists, mostly who've been wrongfully detained and this young woman from Azerbaijan. And after Trump made a call or something and the one woman has been released that we don't have anything yet on the others. So that's basically what happened in that meeting. I had very mixed views on it. After thinking about it and sleeping on it. I've come more to a good on Zoran view, but my view is a little nuanced. What do you think about it?
- [31:09]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah, I mean, this is a thing that authoritarian leaders force you to do. You have to go sort of kiss the ring or be friends with them or make good and then maybe you can get a special request granted. Like Vladimir Zelensky, when he would have to go to the White House to try to. He knew he was gonna be humiliated. He had to sit there and Take because he wanted to save his people. This is the position that people are forced in. They're in a subservience position where they have to beg for things that they should not have to, that should already be given. I mean, so, yeah, I'm glad the woman is released, of course, of course. But when there's a policy coming like this from DHS where people are being snatched, there aren't enough White House meetings to save people individually. And that's the real problem.
- [31:59]
Tim Miller
Here are my two political concerns about the Zoran being that I just want to bounce off. Yeah. Like I said, I think unbalanced. He did the right thing. It's kind of one big political concern, which is, I feel like the main body of the Democratic Party, the brand is so in tatters. Right. And Zoran has this kind of outsider appeal based on his youth and the social media and his positions on Gaza and a wide variety of reasons, and having been dsa. And so this narrative starts to form, right. Which is like, the Democratic establishment party is so weak and ineffective and in league with the corrupt corporate billionaires and blah, blah, blah, and they can't get this done, but Zoran can. And I think that a lot of that resonates with a lot of people. I think, particularly younger people, they like this idea that there are these anti establishment people that aren't the boring Washington people that aren't part of the. And that's just wrong. Like, it's wrong. Like, Trump is more in league with the corporate billionaires than anybody. Right. And the flip side, if Hakeem Jeffries had gone to the White House and taken that same picture, everybody would be up in arms like, what are you doing? You're the minority leader in Congress. You're going to normalize Trump and buddy up with him and smile with him in exchange for 10,000 houses and one person being released. And people would be fucking enraged at Hakeem for doing the exact same thing that Zoran did. And so that's not really Zoron's fault. He's in a different role. He's the mayor of New York. He's not the leader of the party in dc. That's my one thing that I worry about is that when you play the Trump game, you start to be a little bit complicit. Back to your word. In the narrative that he's putting forth. These guys are outsiders and the real issue is the corrupt establishment people like Chuck Schumer.
- [33:47]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah. I mean, when I see this situation, aside from all the things I Said previously. I mean, this is just New York wheeling and dealing, right? Like, large part of the affinity, because they're New Yorkers at heart. And I'm not, like, disparaging New York, but Donald Trump was always very dealt into the real estate market, trying to do things there. And this is another thing I'm always, like, wondering about is how are so many people so eager to ingratiate themselves with Trump in his New York days? Because you could see what he was then. But everybody went to lunch with Marla Maples, and he was right into that and hanging around with Ivana Trump. And I just look at that. Like, why, why, why did you guys want to hang out with him all the time? You guys all knew that he was this narcissistic kind of sleazy real estate dude. So why, why were you always hanging around, going to lunch with them and inviting him to your parties? And so I just see this as another expression of that. And I don't know if that's right or wrong, but that's where I am in this case.
- [34:48]
Tim Miller
Zoran played him, right? And so I just think those things are both true. Like, Zoran fundamentally played him, and he's got a job as mayor of New York. And also, it feels a little ick.
- [34:58]
Amanda Carpenter
It is, it is.
- [34:59]
Tim Miller
And I just think that's kind of where I landed. Speaking of Trump being the one that's in league with the corrupt oligarchs, some big media news yesterday after we took the pod, which was that Netflix dropped out of their bid with Warner Brothers Discovery because they were outbid by Paramount and the Ellisons. The Ellisons both offered more money, but also basically made the case. Warner Brothers Discovery, which owns cnn, is most notable for this conversation, made the case that they could get regulatory approval and Netflix might not. And like earlier in this week, we talked about how the administration was going after Netflix because Susan Rice is on the board and said something. So this is. This is just a straight, corrupt deal, like, straight down the line. And the end game of it is going to be that the same people that are running CBS also are running cnn. And Barry Weiss said to Cheeky tweet about that last night about how she hears there's media news. You know, look, now you start to put it all together. You've got Fox by the Murdochs. CBS and CNN run by the Ellisons. TikTok run by the Ellisons. You've got Twitter run by Elon Musk. Facebook, Instagram is. Zuckerberg is maybe a little more malleable. I Think he'd probably go back to being lefty friendly if a lefty took power. But he's less ideological than the others. We're on YouTube here. Hey, that's some oligarchs still. But they have not demonstrated to be as pliant as those others. But you put TikTok X, CNN, CBS, Fox. It's a lot of propaganda.
- [36:40]
Amanda Carpenter
It's a lot, it's a lot of power. It's a lot of propaganda. It's a lot of control that will be accelerated through AI and maybe other forms of censorship. But I guess I could be very wrong here.
- [36:54]
Tim Miller
Okay, I love this. Give me a different take.
- [36:56]
Amanda Carpenter
But, but my gut feeling is when it comes, I have a lot of love for cnn. I was working there as a contributor for years. They were good to me, but there was a time to move on because one, I want to work in other fights. But it was very clear to me that cable is dying. We all know this. And so on one hand, I think you just have to let the dinosaurs die. The only reason that Donald Trump is able to exercise this degree of influence and control over these mergers is because they're legacy media companies. I mean, the FCC stuff that they're threatening investigations only apply to this old form media. And that is not where the growth is. It just, it isn't. Period. And thank God, thank God the growth is with the streamers where there's much more independence. I mean, it's the reason why the Bulwark is so extremely successful is because it's been innovative and nimble and taken advantage of the new ground that's being plowed. And this is like always the story when it comes to not only media, but America, invention in general is that we evolve. And this is clearly evolving. And so, you know, it's terrible. It's absolutely awful what happened to CBS News. It's awful what's going to happen to cnn most likely. But there's got to be people who are ready to plow time and energy into the new ground. And that's places like the Bulwark. I mean, there's no reason there can't be news gathering operations with the same degree of editorial excellence in news reporting determination as existed in other places. And so that's kind of where I am. And if the government was going to stamp down on these old dinosaurs, let them die and let's just start the new era.
- [38:40]
Tim Miller
I'm not that far from you on this take. I think there are people that are a little more hair on fire than either of Us. Here's how I would kind of split the hairs on it. It's just at the top level, this is a corrupt deal. This is not how things should be working in a free country. And so any discussion of the particulars of what happens underneath that come under the umbrella point that this is a corrupt country right now and the President is doing corrupt deals with preferred billionaires. The outgrowth of it on the media. There's a little bit of this. Hungary started this 20 years ago and it's kind of like, thank God that we started this 20 years later. Like if this was in 1998, like this would be like a real crisis.
- [39:23]
Amanda Carpenter
Oh, we were a smaller country with fewer people.
- [39:25]
Tim Miller
Yeah, right. You know, you'd be talking about they control 60, 70% of the news gathering operations, you know, and they got their eyes on Disney next. Right. You know what I mean? Like, that would be the situation that's not really the case now in this country. Like people get their information for better or worse. Worse in a lot of cases from like very diffuse outlets. Right. Like that's a lot of consolidation they have. I don't, I don't want to underplay it. It's a lot, but it's like, is it even half? You know, I don't, I don't think so. Maybe, maybe a little over half. It depends on how you measure everything. So it's a lot that's going to be in controlled with mega aligned leaders. It's a big problem. I worry more about the algorithms than I do about the cable news. Right. To your point, I just like, yeah, like half the people watching CNN right now are at the airport and like 25% are not going to be alive for the 2028 election. God love you all, we appreciate it. But like, you know what I mean? It's just like the audience, it's not like a really engaged audience. TikTok is extremely. X is smaller, but it's radicalizing. The algorithmic side of this to me is the bigger concern. And if I'm the Democrats, what I'm trying to regulate and look into, if I get back in charge, but it's not great. It's not great. Not great. Good news for the bulwark, though. Bad news for the country. I hate that though. I want to get into a world where I can align things where good news for the country is good news for the bulwark. That's not going to be for a while, I don't think.
- [40:55]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah. But I will say the one thing where bulwark was really wise is that the membership protects the stream. Right. Once you are a member to these new media outlets, you are protected from what the algorithm may give you. So subscribe, subscribe to the blog.
- [41:12]
Tim Miller
Thank you, Amanda.
- [41:12]
Amanda Carpenter
Good pitch.
- [41:13]
Tim Miller
Subscriptions. That's true, right? Yeah, yeah. Because if you're advertising based, then you're all susceptible. Like we're not. We have a little bit of advertising, obviously, but like we're subscriber based, the advertising could go to zero and we could still succeed. The one other caveat I wanted to make, the one other bad part of the news is that something that's hard for us to do. Speaking of the bulk. The bulk is great. Appreciate it. Please subscribe. You know the scale of reporting around the world and investigative reporting. Right. Is like you can't match. We can't match. Right. Like we can do certain things, we can pick certain specialties. Adrian's doing great work in immigration. John cone and healthcare is like there's, you know, and there are other outlets that have similar expertise. So you can do some things, but the scale international, very hyper local. You know, what's happening on city councils in your community. Like we're obviously not going to cover, you know what I mean, like the lost Washington Post. Right. So that is the other thing that is worrying.
- [42:04]
Amanda Carpenter
And I will say I'm gonna bring up your girl, Jasmine Crockett with the winnowing of independency of the free press. You're gonna see more reduced press access. Right. So this is becoming more common.
- [42:17]
Tim Miller
She kicked out an Atlantic reporter because she'd written a negative profile about her.
- [42:21]
Amanda Carpenter
Exactly. And so what is it? You're kicking out the Atlantic from covering a public event. And so I think that that's something that's happening not on both sides to the same degree, but is becoming more commonplace.
- [42:33]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And you're referencing there, Amanda. Elaine Godfrey is the Atlantic reporter that got kicked out of a Crockett event after she had written a profile of Jasmine that she didn't think was favorable, she didn't like enough. Interestingly, we have Elaine on the focus group podcast, which is out this weekend, where you get to hear what the voters think about the Texas Senate race. And you know, sometimes we're in a little podcast bubble. The voters seems like the voters like both of them. So There you go.
- [43:03]
Rocket Money Advertiser
Five years ago, I was paying $65 a month for my subscriptions. Today those Same subscriptions cost $111 and I don't even use half of them anymore. That's why now I use Rocket Money to manage my subscriptions for me. The app gives you a list of all of your subscriptions and reminds you of upcoming payments so you're not hit with any surprise charges. On top of that, it also sends you alerts when subscription prices go up, so you always know the price you're paying. If you decide you no longer want a subscription, you can cancel it right from the app. No customer service needed. And the best part is, Rocket Money even reaches out and tries to get you refunded for some of the money you lost. On average, people that cancel their subscriptions with rocket money save $378 a year. And overall, Rocket Money has saved its members $880 million in canceled subscriptions. Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Go to RocketMoney.com Cancel to get started. That's RocketMoney.com Cancel RocketMoney.com Cancel Are you
- [44:04]
LifeLock Advertiser
a fraud paying American? It's a fact that one in four honest, hardworking tax paying Americans has been a victim of identity theft with Lifelock Identity Theft Protection though if your identity is stolen, they fix it guaranteed and get your you your money back. Last year the IRS flagged over $16 billion in refunds for identity fraud. That's billions of dollars that could come from your salary, overtime or second job. But this year you don't need to stay a victim. LifeLock monitors millions of data points per second for your personal information and alerts you to threats you could easily miss on your own. And if your information does fall into the wrong hands, only LifeLock has US based REST restoration specialists who are backed by the million dollar protection package. Because this tax season, fraud paying American is something no American should have to claim. Visit lifelock.com iheart and save up to 40% your first year. That's 40% off. @lifelock.com iheart terms apply.
- [45:04]
Tim Miller
The other big news item is around what's happening with the Department of War and Anthropic. People get mad at me. I get feedback. They're like, you should really just call it its real name, Tim. The Department of Defense. And I was like, I think it's funnier to make fun of the Department of War. I think the point is made strong more strongly by mocking their fake name than by doing the real name. That's one man's opinion. Your mileage may vary. The Department of War is pissed at Anthropic, which is like positioning itself at least. I don't want to claim expertise on this. They're positioning themselves at least as the most socially responsible, the AI companies. We'll continue to monitor whether the actions match the rhetoric on all that. Google's motto is don't be evil for a while. So things evolve, but they're positioning themselves as most responsible. Dow has been using Anthropic and Claude, which is their app for some of their war plans, when they're not using Signal and putting Jeffrey Goldberg on there. Dario Amaday, who runs the company, has said, basically, they have two red lines. You know, you can't have fully autonomous weapons, so we're not going to let Claude bomb things. Like, you got to have a human's got to do that.
- [46:16]
Amanda Carpenter
Okay, good idea.
- [46:18]
Tim Miller
Yeah, good idea. And you can't use this for domestic surveillance. Mass domestic surveillance. You could use it for surveillance if there's a warrant or a specific isolation. The Trump administration's response to this. It's a shame that Dario Amadei is a liar and has a God complex. He wants to control the US Military and is okay putting our nation's safety at risk. Elon and Hegseth then were posting about how Dario hates Western civilization because they had previously their guidance and their model. If you looked at their internal guidance, like how the LLM works, one of the pieces of guidance they had was the AI. The LLM should encourage consideration of non Western perspectives. And so that shows that, I guess they hate Western civilization. So big fight there between Anthropic and the government. You got anything on that?
- [47:09]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah, but not only that, they're threatening to designate them some kind of threat to the supply chain, which is normally only reserved for foreign nations with bad, I don't know, plans for the U.S. i don't, I, I want to say terrorism, but I don't think that's quite right. But honestly, you depend on this resource so badly, you're making these threats that you're going to designate them a threat to the supply chain in order to make them do what you want. I mean, this is just insane authoritarian behavior. It's bullying. Like, you could go to another AI company, but this one is the best, clearly, from their perspective. So they want to just bully them into violating the rights of Americans. I mean, those are the two red lines. We don't want to survey Americans and violate their constitutional rights, and we don't want to have fully autonomous weapons. And they are going crazy because they want the right to survey Americans and use autonomous weapons that are not tested yet. I mean, that's, that is. It's dangerous. I mean, it is so insanely dangerous that they want to use this untested technology to do both of these things. I'm actually an AI enthusiast. I think it's here. I think it has the potential to make life saving leaps for medicine and all kinds of other technology, but not if it's going to be abused and misused by governments in this way. And so I am very happy to see Anthropic take a stand on this and make it known to everyone that these are their red lines because we need them.
- [48:45]
Tim Miller
Interestingly, OpenAI, which has been in a feud with Anthropic, just this morning, Hadas Gold asked them what their take was on this and they said they have the same red lines as Anthropic. That's intriguing that they decided to weigh in on that.
- [48:58]
Amanda Carpenter
That's great. That's great. Honestly, if what came out of this fight is that the entire AI community was in alliance on these two issues, that would be a really great thing because we're through our work at Protect Democracy, we're always looking to build these coalitions and usually it's really hard to build unity among competitors. Right. And these people are fiercely competing for the future of technology and how we live. And if they could get on the same baseline in these issues, that would be tremendous.
- [49:32]
Tim Miller
The way that the government is treating private enterprise, the combination with, okay, we are going to bully CEOs, okay. Into letting us flout the law. Basically, like use their products to flout the law. And we're gonna bully them. We're gonna trash talk them. It's thuggery, right?
- [49:49]
Amanda Carpenter
It's like the God complex joke was funny considering it's coming from the Department of War.
- [49:54]
Tim Miller
Exactly. It's total thuggery in service of a desire for mass domestic surveillance.
- [50:02]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah.
- [50:03]
Tim Miller
So there are a lot of people that don't like mass domestic surveillance.
- [50:06]
Amanda Carpenter
Who does? Oh, hold on. Who is in favor of it? I wanna. Are there two?
- [50:10]
Tim Miller
Take Lindsey Graham. Yeah. Lindsey Graham, I think, is a big champion in some ways. This is very dangerous in the short term, but I do think if the Democrats can take it, it's a political gift for them. Because I've said this several times and I want to keep repeating it. The Democrats after Obama from the period after 2008, after the Iraq war, got into the position where they were kind of always on the side of the man and of the institutions and a lot of times for good reason, because they're under threat. But being able to use this as a way to kind of recapture the spirit of like, wait a minute. No, it's the other guys that want to fucking spy on you, and they are the deep state. Actually. It's a way to kind of win back some cranks. And winning back some cranks is very important because you can't win elections in the country if you don't have any cranks. The other concerns we have related to this, the spying around the elections.
- [51:00]
Amanda Carpenter
Yep.
- [51:00]
Tim Miller
This is obviously what you guys are really focused on, protect democracy. There was a story reported this week that pro Trump activists who say they're in coordination with the White House are circulating a 17 page executive order draft that claims that China, China interfered in the 2020 election as a basis to declare a national emergency that would unlock more power over voting. So that's what they're working with. It's not the Venezuelans anymore. It's not the Italians with their satellites. It's not the wokes. It's not the deep state. The Chinese put Joe Biden in power.
- [51:39]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah.
- [51:39]
Tim Miller
And so now they need to take control of elections. Why didn't the Chinese do that again in 2024? Unclear. I have to read the memo.
- [51:45]
Amanda Carpenter
Very unclear. But, yeah, this is the big setup that's coming. The big setup is going to be some kind of national emergency on false pretenses. They're going to target some immigrant community that they say is responsible. They're gonna scream voter fraud and then they're going to try to find a way to deny the results. I assume you got this question, but is Donald Trump going to cancel the upcoming elections? No, they're not gonna be canceled, but they're going to mess with the playing field so much that it's going to be very difficult to win in certain areas. That's what I see happening. And it's the same playbook that they ran before. They're gonna tell all these lies to deceive voters about what is happening on the ground to disrupt the process, whether that's through mail in voting, whether it's messing with Election Day times to deny the results. And so we know the playbook, we know how this is going to look. And so people are always asking, well, what can we do about it? The states have to be very active in protecting their constitutional rights to run the elections. The Trump administration is desperate, desperate to get voter data. If you look at any kind of legislation that they have been pushing, the lawsuits that they're filing against states on a frequent basis, it's to get the voter rolls. They have no business having voter roll data. There was a press conference a few weeks ago where it was Supposed to be, I kind of think of it as a three headed monster. Kristi Noem representing dhs, Pam Bondi representing Department of justice, and Tulsi Gabbard representing Intelligence. And they were supposed to speak to Secretaries of State about election threats. Now that visual is so bad I think that they, they didn't end up showing. And that's because none of those people have any business with election administration or process. Kristi Noem is the head of dhs, has no business getting involved in voter rolls or what Secretary of States are doing because there's no threat at all. And if you look at the SAVE act legislation, which Donald Trump made a huge push for after he declared J.D. vance the new head of the War on Fraud, there's a provision in the SAVE act to give DHS access to voter rolls. I mean, it's supposed to be about voter id, but it's just if you look inside, any effort that they're pushing, they're trying to find a way to do that. And sure enough, J.D. vance is going to end up targeting the Somali communities, the Haitian communities, because they think if they can find an immigrant population to scream voter fraud, that is their access into those states and cities to do bad stuff.
- [54:23]
Tim Miller
One of the things that has made me a little less alarmist on this is that like a lot of these key states are run by Democrats. And so how do you think about that? Right. I mean, there's going to be a lot of races in California, New York, at least in the House, Pennsylvania, a lot of the target districts. You know, the Senate's a different kettle of fish, as David from kept saying, which is now stuck in my head because most of those are red states. But what do you see as potential opportunities for Democrats, Democratic states on protection?
- [54:54]
Amanda Carpenter
The biggest threats are going to be blue cities and red states for the reasons that you outlined. And so I think it's incredibly important for the mayors of those cities and other people in election administration to be very clear. Yeah. To understand what is going to come at them. But in terms of what Democratic states can do, it's just you really gotta be on the ball about the election process stuff, really be protective of voter data. Anything that can be turned against you by the federal government. And I think people are pretty keen on this. But being fiercely protective of your data and keeping it secure and not giving any kind of opening, be very clear about the process. If you're going to do mail in ballots, understand that those are going to be more closely scrutinized than anything else. And just be really active talking with people about the process and how it's safe. Because I think the bigger threat through this, Tim, is actually is that people, when we talk about the threats, they get scared that their vote won't count and so they need to communicate with them. Turn out your vote will be counted. This is why you can trust us to do this. Do your best to keep those lines moving fast, efficiently. Those long lines, people should, that helps restore trust in the process when they can get it processed quickly. But just don't be in hiding. I mean, this is the big theme I think for the midterm elections is that if you want to have ground to stand on now, if you want to be able to exercise your rights on election day, you have to exercise them now. This isn't like this is a use it or lose it situation.
- [56:36]
Rocket Money User Testimonial
The holidays are expensive. You're paying for gifts, travel, decorations, food, and before you know it, you've blown way past what you were planning to spend. Don't start the new year off with bad money vibes. Download Rocket Money to stay on top of your finances. The app pulls your income, expenses and upcoming charges into one place so you can get the clearest picture of your money. It shows how much to set aside for bills and how much is safe to spend for the month so you can spend with confidence, no guesswork needed. Get alerts before bills hit. Track budgets and see every subscription you're paying for. Rocket Money also finds extra ways to save you money by canceling subscriptions you're not using and negotiating lower bills for you. On average, Rocket Money users can save up to $740 a year when using all of the app's premium features. Start the year off right by taking control of your finances. Go to RocketMoney.com Cancel to get started. That's RocketMoney.com Cancel RocketMoney.com Cancel
- [57:36]
Tim Miller
Quick choose a meal deal with McValue, the five dollar McChicken meal deal, the six dollar McDouble meal deal, or the new seven dollar Daily Double meal deal, each with its own small fries, drink and Four Piece McNuggets. There's actually no rush. I'm just excited for McDonald's for a limited time only. Presence of participation may vary. Not beldermic delivery. Just because we get to do right wing stuff when we're together, can we do something fun?
- [57:57]
Amanda Carpenter
I feel like it's been heavy. It's Friday. We gotta send people off. Yeah, yeah.
- [58:01]
Tim Miller
So I have potpourri of various crazy right things we could talk about all Right. We could talk about my friend Clavicular and the looks maxing he's done and how his grandmother told him that he needs to be nicer to J.D. vance, and he said, no, Grandma, I'm not going to do that. Because he's subhuman and has a recessed side profile. We talk about that. We talk about Candace and Erica Kirk. We could talk about, I guess isn't really that fun to talk about the little Nazi guys. So we're probably Candace or Clavicular.
- [58:36]
Amanda Carpenter
Let's see who looks maxing because I'm happy that men are sort of getting into Mar a Lago phase. Okay, how old are your boys?
- [58:43]
Tim Miller
How old are your boys?
- [58:44]
Amanda Carpenter
I have one boy and he is 12. My daughter's 14.
- [58:47]
Tim Miller
Okay, that's right. So we're not there yet. But I do wonder what you would think if he came to you and was like, I'm considering bone smashing.
- [58:57]
Amanda Carpenter
Oh, my.
- [58:58]
Tim Miller
I'm considering bone smashing, Mom. I want my cheekbones to break and then grow back stronger because it's critically important that I mog the other boys in my class. How would you think about that as a mother?
- [59:14]
Amanda Carpenter
I would cancel the Internet. I would take him to an Amish farm, and he would never go online again.
- [59:21]
Tim Miller
Haven't you already done that already? Don't you basically do that already?
- [59:25]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah, but that's kind of my answer to everything. My take on the whole looks maxing thing is just women have been doing this insane stuff to their bodies for a long time, and so I'm kind of humored by the fact that men are getting into it, and then they're acting like, oh, this is something new and cool and edgy and masculine. Like, no, you're doing crappy plastic surgery to yourself. That's what you're attempting. But also just the idea of, like, I gotta tell you this. So, you know, there's the Mar a Lago face. It's real, right? You used to be. You can recognize it. The thing that I can't get out of my head, I want. Your reaction to this, is that when you see it on women, it's like women impersonating drag queens impersonating women.
- [60:13]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [60:14]
Amanda Carpenter
Right?
- [60:14]
Tim Miller
Yes. Yes, there is a drag.
- [60:16]
Amanda Carpenter
Because they do what? Drag. Like, the big eyelashes, the bit. All the same kind of enhancements.
- [60:22]
Tim Miller
There's a drag aesthetic to it, right? For sure.
- [60:25]
Amanda Carpenter
Yeah. It is totally drag.
- [60:27]
Tim Miller
For sure. And straight women are really into drag. I actually went to a drag thing last night.
- [60:31]
Amanda Carpenter
You're not a straight woman. And I've never been to drag.
- [60:33]
Tim Miller
No, no, I know. I know. I'm not a straight woman. I'm very comfortable with my gender identity. Amanda, just let me finish what I was going to say, which was that 10 years ago, if I went to a drag thing, it would have been, like, mostly gay dudes with, like, a couple of. We're going to have to beep this out for YouTube. But what we would, at the time have called fag hags, which I can say. But some of the rest you can't say. That would have been the Kraut at a. Kind of, like. At the thing that I went to last night, an alternative drag show that I was like, flit now. It was like, all women there. And, you know, there are, like, five gays and that. Whatever. Okay, that's fine. So I. There's something about this. I think that, like. And Kari Lake was very. Was one of. Was one of the leaders here in the Arizona space of being a woman who was very interested in drag and then now is, like, doing her face like she's a drag queen. And I think that that has proliferated. I think this is a smart observation by you. I think that for some reason, conservative women are. Are interested.
- [61:41]
Amanda Carpenter
I think. I think it's a maga conservative woman, though, because, I mean, but it's in the.
- [61:46]
Tim Miller
Here's my.
- [61:47]
Amanda Carpenter
I think is humorous, though, the women who do mar a lago face, which you can. You can see in your brain, right? Like, big cheek implants, the thick eyelashes, the heavy foundation, the lip liner. You can see, like, penciled on. They don't like drag queens, right? They're the whole. The ones, like, we can't have transgender people. They are the ones doing the war on transgender stuff, and they're the ones impersonating drag queens. I just think there's something deliciously funny about that.
- [62:17]
Tim Miller
What is the psychology of that? I'm interested. Give us your feedback. Give us your theories, listeners. What is the psychology of that? Yeah, I don't know. They're definitely impersonating drag queens.
- [62:27]
Amanda Carpenter
The hair pieces.
- [62:27]
Tim Miller
It's funny that you said that about the looksmaxing boys, about how they're just doing what. And I do feel like for women, there has to be, like, an element of, okay, well, I don't want my sons to do this, but, like, there's something a little delicious also just about like, oh, you're being judged on your looks now. Oh, there's a. There's a kick. Like, you guys might try to bro it up by saying that there's a kick ranking for the most moggable chads in America. But like all that is is fucking the swimsuit edition for a different generation. It's like women have been judged just based on shallow side profile percentages forever now. And now the boys have self selected into doing that. Enjoy. Enjoy how that goes. We'll see if how you like that.
- [63:16]
Amanda Carpenter
These supposedly hyper masculine boys are expressing all the most angsty insecurities of any teenage girl in taking the most dramatic action you can to rectify something that is only a problem if you are insanely insecure about your looks. So have fun with that, boys.
- [63:39]
Tim Miller
Good luck. It's not as great as it seems being judged only on your cheekbone circumference and the cheekbone to. What do they call the. What do you call the.
- [63:52]
Amanda Carpenter
There's some like asymmetric. The perfect triangle or something.
- [63:56]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I don't know.
- [63:57]
Amanda Carpenter
Go starve yourself skinny like all the girls had to do in the 90s. Have fun with that.
- [64:00]
Tim Miller
Bulimia's back.
- [64:02]
Rocket Money User Testimonial
All right.
- [64:02]
Tim Miller
That is Amanda Carpenter. What a show. We covered a lot of territory. Y' all have a wonderful weekend. Don't bone smash your face.
- [64:12]
Amanda Carpenter
No.
- [64:12]
Tim Miller
You know, find some joy out there in this world. It's my husband's birthday, so I'll be out and about on Saturday, so maybe I'll see you around in New Orleans. Yeah, everybody else will be back Monday with Bill Crystal. See y' all then. See Amanda Peace. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.
- [64:50]
Venmo Advertiser
Rewards programs are a lot like pop culture. They can be hard to keep up with. But with Venmo's new rewards program, Venmo Stash, rewards are so easy because the more you do, the more you get. And you choose the bundle of brands you get cash back at. It's giving fiscal queen. It's giving star. It's giving up to 5% cash back at your favorite brands. Just pick a bundle of your go to spots to shop with your Venmo debit card and earn cash back at them. Do more, get more with Venmo stash. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank NA Venmo Stash bundle terms and exclusions apply. Max $100 cash back per month. See terms at Venmo Me Stash terms.
- [65:34]
LifeLock Advertiser
Are you a fraud paying American? 1 in 4 tax paying Americans has been a victim of identity fraud with Lifelock. If your identity is stolen, they fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Last year, billions in refunds were stolen could be from your salary, overtime or second job gone. But this year you don't need to stay a victim because this tax season fraud paying American is something no American should have to claim. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com iheart Terms apply ever notice
- [66:06]
Cradle Pet Advertiser
your dog acting totally out of character? It might be stressful. My dog Max used to lose it every time I grabbed my keys. The second I'd reach for the door, he'd be pacing, whining or tearing up the couch. His separation anxiety was stressing both of us out. So I tried Cradle. They make vet formulated calming products with premium ingredients, chews, bars, tinctures, whatever works for your dog. And here's the thing. They help dogs stay calm and relaxed without making them drowsy or zoned out. Whether it's separation anxiety, thunderstorms, car rides or just the chaos of everyday life, Cradle helps support balanced behavior. And the best part? You can try Cradle risk free. If it's not a good fit for your pup, you get your money back. No stress, no hassle, no hard feelings. So if you're ready to help your dog find their calm, head to cradlemypet.com that's k r a d l e my pet.com that's cradle with a K. Try it risk free today because a calm pet is a happy pet.