Chris Hayes: Trump Has Become 'The Establishment'

Summary

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The Bulwark Podcast

Episode: Chris Hayes: Trump Has Become 'The Establishment'
Date: November 11, 2025
Host: Tim Miller
Guest: Chris Hayes (Host of “All In” on MSNBC, author of The Sirens' Call)

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Episode Overview

In this candid and wide-ranging discussion, Tim Miller is joined by Chris Hayes to break down the latest political landscape in America, focusing on the post-shutdown Democratic strategy, the shifting dynamics of establishment versus anti-establishment politics, and how Donald Trump has morphed from an outsider into the core of the GOP establishment. The pair also delve into the attention economy, trends in electorate sentiment, redistricting, and the dangerous permutation of internet-fueled conspiracies and extremism.

The episode is characterized by a mix of deep analysis, honest critiques, and sharp humor—a hallmark of The Bulwark. The conversation explores the root causes and implications of shifting political attitudes, the rise of crank and conspiratorial thinking, and the complex, often contradictory tides in American public opinion ahead of 2026.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Government Shutdown, Filibuster, and Democratic Tactics

• Main Question: Did Democrats "cave" or make the right choice in ending the shutdown?
  • Chris Hayes: Sympathetic to the view that the Democrats made the only possible decision given the circumstances ([02:01]).
    • “There's an asymmetry that's always in all of these fights... Democratic politicians... genuinely, truly believe their job is to, like, deliver things to people to make the government work. And it freaks them out when, like, federal workers aren't getting paid and SNAP is cut off.” —Chris Hayes ([03:55])
• On the Filibuster Debate:
  • Both agree the possibility of victory on substance (i.e., winning GOP support for Obamacare subsidies) was extremely unlikely.
  • Hayes expounds on his long opposition to the filibuster, critiquing how it’s gutted Congressional power and favored right-wing priorities ([03:00], [10:49]).
    • “You need a simple majority to put in lifetime judges who will rule for right wing causes and a simple majority to cut taxes. And those are the two domestic priorities of Republican party and everything else you want to do, which are the priorities of the Democratic party, you need 60 votes. So, boy, what a cool system.” —Chris Hayes ([11:01])
• On Democratic Messaging:
  • Both criticize the party’s inconsistent, poorly coordinated messaging around the shutdown and the limits of what could actually be accomplished ([06:16]).

2. Redistricting and Electoral Landscape

• Notable positive changes for Democrats due to recent redistricting court decisions in Utah and Virginia, bringing more parity to the House ([13:13]).
• Cautious optimism due to looming SCOTUS cases on the Voting Rights Act that could backfire dramatically ([14:29]).

3. The “Attention Economy” and Political Campaigning

• Hayes discusses his book’s core theme: Democrats must update campaign strategies for an era where attention, not just advertising, wins voters ([17:28]).
  • “You need to have a theory about how you're going to get in front of the voters that isn’t just, we'll raise a lot of money and run a lot of TV ads on local news.” —Chris Hayes ([23:11])
• However, the recent victories of more “boring” Democratic candidates (Spanberger in VA, Sherrill in NJ) show that structural factors and not campaign flashy-ness often matter more ([18:07]).
• Both agree that high-attention Trumpian tactics have failed spectacularly for some Republicans (Kari Lake, Blake Masters), suggesting attention is a double-edged sword ([24:44]).

4. Changing Voter Patterns and Party Messaging

• Discussion on the shifting dynamic: Non-voters, who once pulled Democratic, may now lean right, forcing a rethink of strategies for both parties ([20:08]).
• Ongoing debate about whether Democrats can/should run as outsiders “against the establishment” in 2028, given the historical pattern of successful anti-status quo presidential bids ([28:06]).

5. Public Mood: Governors vs. Washington

• Hayes highlights the unusual disconnect: Most governors have high approval ratings, regardless of party, while the sitting president remains deeply unpopular. Theories include the nationalization and “entertainment-ification” of American politics ([29:03]).
  • “The national political scene is about winning some existential battle for the future of our culture and society and that the governor's job is to make sure schools are okay.” —Tim Miller ([30:29])

6. Establishment vs. Anti-Establishment: Trump’s Shift

• Both agree: Trump, once anti-establishment, now embodies it—hobnobbing with billionaires, embraced by tech and finance, and responsible for the status quo ills he once attacked ([36:17]).
  • “It was always the case that this guy was going to be, is a billionaire, is friends with billionaires and wants to hook them up. That was always the case.” —Chris Hayes ([38:02])
• Hayes contends that the anti-establishment energy has begun to shift back to Democrats, especially as tech leaders and corporate America openly court Trump ([37:52]).

7. Crank Politics, Antisemitism, and Online Information Risks

• Anxieties about the “crank realignment” and rising antisemitism as conspiracy theory and anti-Israel content cross-pollinate between left and right via social media algorithms ([41:51]–[46:24]).
  • “Every conspiracy theory ends up... with the Jews as the secret puppet masters. Marx called it the socialism of fools.” —Chris Hayes ([42:11])
• Hayes and Miller express serious concern about young people being led through algorithm-driven rabbit holes from genuine war criticism into overt bigotry ([43:49]–[45:43]).
• Urgent call for progressives who criticize Israel to explicitly draw lines and denounce antisemitic conspiracy theorists infiltrating their arguments ([48:12]).

8. The Culture of Conspiracy and Tech Influence

• Extended riff on how figures like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and tech leaders are opportunistically chasing the “crank” market, even if it means courting extreme and antisemitic views ([45:50], [54:58]).
• Humor and warning converge as they mock Marc Andreessen’s blasé dismissal of ethical concerns about AI, foreshadowing the potential for profound political backlash if tech bubbles burst ([54:58]–[57:08]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Congressional Dysfunction and the Filibuster:

  “The filibuster, to me, has been part of the process by which Congress has neutered itself, and the vacuum has been filled by the executive.” —Chris Hayes ([03:00])

• On Democrats and Messaging During the Shutdown:

  “We're the only responsible party in this entire governance. Donald Trump's talking about how SNAP is a Democrat program. Russ Vought is Darth Vader. They like hurting people. They like it when people suffer. We don't like that.” —Chris Hayes ([06:17])

• On the Double-Edged Sword of Attention:

  “The high leverage approach often backfires... All attention’s good attention, even if it’s negative, was a disastrous approach for Blake Masters, Kari Lake, Herschel Walker, Doug Mastriano.” —Chris Hayes ([24:44])

• On the Realignment of Establishment/Anti-Establishment:

  “Trump finally owns some of this stuff, finally... Trump, once anti-establishment, now is the establishment.” —Chris Hayes ([37:52])

• On Conspiracy Culture and Antisemitism:

  “It’s like every conspiracy theory ends up... Marx called it 'the socialism of fools.' So there's a relationship here to me, because the enduring power of the Jews as The Secret Puppet Masters as a long running thread in Western discourse and the kind of up for grabs, crank realignment, polarity are colliding to me in this way.” —Chris Hayes ([42:11])

• On Risks of Social Media and Algorithmic Radicalization:

  “I've talked to kids who... are starting to think the Jews killed Charlie Kirk... I'm pretty worried that... some young people that get kind of sucked into this pipeline of the Candace stuff. Because the entry point was this war.” —Tim Miller ([44:44])

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Key Timestamps

• 00:12 – Podcast Introductions and Guest Welcome
• 01:24 – Shutdown Politics and Democratic Strategy Analysis
• 03:00 – Filibuster Debate and Congressional Neutering
• 06:16–07:02 – Democratic Messaging and Shutdown Takeaways
• 13:13 – Dramatic Redistricting Shifts
• 17:28–20:35 – The Attention Economy in Political Campaigning
• 29:03 – Why Are Governors Popular and Presidents Unpopular?
• 36:17–38:02 – The Trump Establishment Paradox and Anti-Establishment Windows
• 41:51–46:24 – Crank Realignment, Social Media, and Rising Antisemitism
• 48:12–49:18 – Drawing Lines Between Critique of Israel and Antisemitism
• 54:58–57:08 – AI, Tech Elite, and Risk of Populist Backlash

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Tone & Style Highlights

• Candid and irreverent, mixing sharp critiques of both parties and the political media ecosystem.
• Balances wonky policy commentary with cultural insight and humor (e.g., extended wallet ad riff, sports banter in closing segment).
• Reflects deep unease about the rise in crank politics and conspiratorial thinking, but maintains hope that political tides can shift.

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Conclusion

This episode offers an incisive snapshot of American politics at a volatile moment, arguing that Trump’s absorption by the establishment opens—if only briefly—a strategic opportunity for Democrats, while also warning of the dangers of unbridled conspiracy culture and digital disinformation. Hayes and Miller deliver both pessimistic diagnoses and practical takeaways for those invested in defending liberal democracy against authoritarian and crank currents.

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Transcript

[Musical Guest]

Foreign.

[Tim Miller]

Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Happy Veterans Day. I'm delighted to welcome back to the show the host of all in on msnbc, which will be officially known as Ms. Now, starting on Saturday. He's also hosted the podcast why Is this Happening? His latest book is the Sirens Call. It's Chris Hayes. What's going on, man?

[Chris Hayes]

How are you, buddy?

[Tim Miller]

I'm doing well. Are you. Do you feel compelled to do Ms. Now like me, or do you have a more. Do you have a more comfortable.

[Chris Hayes]

You mean, like hitting the now?

[Tim Miller]

Hitting the.

[Chris Hayes]

Like, Ms. Now, like New York, Mississippi, Now?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

I don't know. You know, it's funny because for so long, the shorthand that we would use for it is always Ms. We'd say, like, oh, at Ms. At Ms. So I almost kind of want to just say ms, because that's like, anything's going to change.

[Musical Guest]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

I mean, there's no change. Literally, there's no change for anyone except for us. Like, we're the one. We got to move to a new building and, like, you know, you're not.

[Tim Miller]

Gonna have a new outfit on or anything. You're not the only Breaking out the chain.

[Chris Hayes]

The studio. The studio looks remarkable. It's a great studio.

[Tim Miller]

Actually.

[Chris Hayes]

I was just over there, but. Oh, yeah, maybe I'll break out the chain maybe for the first day of Ms. Now.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, on Ms. Now, I think you can be chain friendly. Okay, we'll talk about it. I'm looking forward to seeing it. I'll be up there next week. Is it next week? I don't know. Time's a flat circle. I'll be up there. I'll see you soon.

[Chris Hayes]

The studio's really nice, and, yeah, the studio's great.

[Tim Miller]

We want to start with shutdown. I don't know if this is 100% true, because I've done a full fisking of the entire Internet, but I might very well be the most positive pundit in Americ on the Democrats cave.

[Chris Hayes]

I saw your take.

[Tim Miller]

It's fine with me. This is maybe. This is maybe some vestigial element of being like the establishment Republican when the Tea Party was making crazy demands and me just having to be like, really, guys? Like, we're not gonna repeal Obamacare over the shutdown, so maybe it's just that experience. But I also think the Democrats are obviously on much better turf politically than they were when it started, and so that's a good thing. But I don't know, it seems like you maybe are not quite as positive.

[Musical Guest]

No.

[Chris Hayes]

I'm actually broadly sympathetic to your take. I mean, I think there's a few things to think through. One is, was victory on the substance possible. And I don't. I don't think we really know that. Right. The victory on the narrow substance of, could you have gotten a deal on the subsidies?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And I don't think we really know that, but I'm inclined to think no. I think what likely would have happened is more and more pressure would have built for them to break the filibuster.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

Before you actually cut a deal on subsidies. That's my. That's my insight.

[Tim Miller]

Because of the House. I mean, it's just like Trump would have had to go really all in on. I really want to do this. But that's tough for Trump because Obamacare is in the name. Like, maybe if it was a different type of subsidy, but then.

[Chris Hayes]

And then he would have to. He'd be like, whipping votes in the House for subsidies.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Trying to get Chip Roy to vote for the Obamacare. It's just hard to imagine that happening for me.

[Chris Hayes]

Right. I think it's hard to imagine that. I do think, like, it was interesting to me to watch pressure build on the Senate, on Republican senators to kill the filibuster.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And so to take a little sideline here, like, sure, I am opposed to the filibuster and have been for a long time, and I think nothing has told me that my opposition is genuinely good faith more than the fact that I was excited by the thought of the filibuster being killed under these circumstances. Right. Because, like, the argument that people always say is like, oh, well, you're saying it now, and you're. The Democrats have a narrow majority. But how would you. I'm like, you know what I would like? I would like Congress to reassert its constitutional role in our governance, and I would like to see the Houses pass things like, if they. If Donald Trump wants to raise tariffs, the House and the Senate can pass a tariff bill. If he wants an authorization for the use of military force in Venezuela, you can pass an authorization for the use of military force. Like, I think those are bad substantively, I would oppose both of those, but that is at least constitutional governance. Like, it's like, what has happened is the filibuster, to me, has been part of the process by which Congress has neutered itself, and the vacuum has been filled by the executive. And we see it more and more and more. If you get both houses working again, I think you tip that balance a little bit. So what I think ended up happening was it came down to a question about the filibuster, which made people antsy. The third thing I'll say is this. There's an asymmetry that's always in all of these fights that I've experienced, which is Democratic politicians, if you talk to them, like, off the record, behind closed doors. Tim Kaine said this in public about, like, losing sleep. They genuinely, truly believe their job is to, like, deliver things to people to make the government work. And it freaks them out when, like, federal workers aren't getting paid and SNAP is cut off. It really does. Like, I talk to these people all the time. There's. This is not a thing.

[Tim Miller]

They're.

[Chris Hayes]

They're not disingenuous about it.

[Tim Miller]

No. And they were also making a judge, I think is real. Some of the negative feedback I got yesterday from people about my take was like, but I'm genuinely upset that my Obamacare subsidy is going to go up. I'm not a person who was performatively upset because of an online Twitter war. And I hear the people that say that. I guess what I'm saying, though, is that that was not gonna get fixed by the Republicans.

[Chris Hayes]

And everything flows from that first question in the flow.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. And then if you believe that, like Tim Kaine does, then you're like, well, no, there's also real suffering that's happening on the other side. Right. All these people that are working, that aren't getting paid, the people on, you know, furloughed, people got rift, people lost their jobs, people aren't getting their SNAP benefits. I mean, like, there was real harm happening to people on the other side. And I. That was weighing on these senators, and it was weighing on many of the senators who didn't vote yes because they didn't want to deal with the. With the blowback from constituents, by the way. And I've heard privately from some, not the senators themselves, but people in their orbit.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah. And in some ways, I was surprised and impressed they did it as long as they did because of that, because that's usually the way the dynamics work. The last thing I'll just say on this is I do think the messaging has been really bad. And to me, the best message, to the extent there is one, is, look, we have a minority and we have a little bit of leverage. They are hurting so many people in so many directions that we have been trying to use this leverage to stop them from screwing people on the Obamacare exchanges. Their response to that was to turn up the pain on everyone else.

[Musical Guest]

And.

[Chris Hayes]

And at a certain point, we had to make a calculation. We're the only responsible party in this entire governance. Donald Trump's talking about how SNAP is a Democrat program. Russ Vote is Darth Vader. They like hurting people. They like it when people suffer. We don't like that. We're trying to minimize the amount of suffering and cruelty. And at a certain point, the calculation for eight of our members became that it was too much. And you can say that's the wrong calculation. We could have won. Just say that. That's a. That is a defensible argument.

[Tim Miller]

I even go one step further than that, which is like, we gave them 40 days to come to the table and help their own voters, help their own supporters who are gonna suffer, who are gonna pay higher healthcare prices, who are losing access to coverage. We gave them this opportunity. They refused to do it. We offered them a win.

[Chris Hayes]

I mean, honestly, it would have been a win for them 100%.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, they refused to do it. And so now we'll just have to take that to the voters again next year, just like we did last week and we won and we'll do it again next year. And I think that we're gonna win again. You know what I mean? That's like arguing from strength. Rather than Angus King, who is on Ms. Now yesterday, Trump, Trump. We got to Mr. Trump on this one. So he stood up to the communications director for a senator who's going to say that, please, just give them some meetings all day for the rest of the week.

[Chris Hayes]

Part of it, too, is that there's not a lot of coherence. And like this sort of question of, like, was this really a Schumer operation, an off book Schumer operation that he. I don't think it was. I think it. He knew that they were doing it. It wasn't like he was surprised. This was coordinated by the people who coordinated it because they wanted the shutdown end. So that's part of it too, because it's. I think part of the messaging failure is the fact that it wasn't coordinated.

[Tim Miller]

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[Chris Hayes]

The problem is not everyone in the Democratic caucus is there on the filibuster. And so you need some forcing mechanism to get it there. Yes, you're right.

[Tim Miller]

And you were hoping this would be it, that like, that maybe the scales would fall from the curve.

[Chris Hayes]

I think if the president in the Senate nuked it, it would, it would alter the calculation. I mean, even if they came up with some, you know, face saving, you know, citation to some 1872 precedent. But to me, you know, you're right to point out, like the thing that's so crazy about the modern filibuster is that you need a simple majority to put in lifetime judges who will rule for right wing causes and a simple majority to cut taxes. And those are the two domestic priorities of Republican party and everything else you want to do, which are the priorities of the Democratic party, you need 60 votes. So, boy, what a cool system. It's like, so you've got these carve outs that are like just happen to align with the priorities of right wing governance legislatively. And that's a huge problem. So there's a partisan valence, but there also, to me there just is.

[Tim Miller]

And now we can do appointments by group actually. Yeah, that they decided to do this year.

[Chris Hayes]

Right.

[Tim Miller]

You know, so it's like it's even one at a time anymore. I understand the complaints about the Democratic senators on the filibuster question and what to do going forward. And maybe this is like a way to put pressure on them to be like, guys, if you ever get back in power, like business has to, to be different. Like we need to, you know, part.

[Chris Hayes]

Of the thing I think that people are sensing that they're not wrong to sense is that there's a lot of politicians, most politicians, a lot of politicians don't just don't want to do a lot of stuff. They want to do small stuff that they could. They don't want to do big stuff. Like, they don't, they don't want to hurt people, they don't want to hurt people, but they also don't want to do big stuff. And you know, you saw this around. This is one of the reasons I've done all the kind of write ups of Nancy Pelosi's career like that. Why that moment around the ACA was such a big deal. Because it was like after Scott Brown won, a lot of people were like, let's just not do it. It's just easier to not do it. Let's not do it. And she was like, no, we're going to do it. And I don't care if it's easier not do it. And so what I think people are picking up in their rage at the Democrats is that they're seeing a party that isn't still quite there where the risk profile and the appetite to do stuff is commensurate to the moment. And I think that's a fair critique.

[Tim Miller]

No, I think it's fair critique too. And I share it sometimes I just didn't share it. In this case. It's kind of like not all fighting is good fighting. Here's an example of good fighting. The redistricting thing has changed so much in the last three weeks.

[Chris Hayes]

It's really wild.

[Tim Miller]

There was a court ruling this morning in Utah that the people of Salt Lake City now finally get a representative rather than the old map, which was just like a pizza out of Salt Lake City. Each red corner of Utah had its own representative and Salt Lake City had no representative.

[Chris Hayes]

We're calling it the reverse Chicago because.

[Tim Miller]

There'S a little bit of that in Illinois. Yeah, there is. So now, now, now you. Salt Lake City gets a representative thanks to a judge out there. Virginia, with the massive win, it's obviously going to redistrict and pick up a few more seats. I was looking at Dave Wasserman this morning who analyzed that. Basically right now we're at about a draw, like the way that he, he sort of projects it out. Republicans have like a plus one advantage on like one more seat than they may have had it been status quo. But that is before Virginia and Florida, so we'll kind of see how those shake out. But like it went from something that I literally on this podcast three weeks ago, I was like, the Republicans might end up with like a plus 17 advantage on this if everything goes right and to now being neutralized. I mean, big shout out to Gavin on that and to other Democrats, it's worth noting, like how, how much this has changed over the last few weeks.

[Chris Hayes]

Yes. And I mean, we should say the one huge caveat. Right. Is pending both the timing and the result of SCOTUS Voting Rights act decision.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

Because if they basically kill the last remaining parts of the Voting Rights act, the Southern states can basically, like redistrict out all their black reps. Literally just go back to like a fully all white Confederate. Like all white reps from the former Confederate states.

[Tim Miller]

You have to laugh just because it's so, so dark. Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

It's so awful. So pending that, like, in terms of where we are. Yes. And I think the Newsom thing, you got to give them credit.

[Tim Miller]

Just really quick on the voting rights, though. I mean, I don't know. The folks I talk to feel like this is probably a 28 issue.

[Chris Hayes]

That's why I said pending the outcome and the timing. Like the court rushes when it wants to rush and it's slow when it wants to slow.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

If they want to rush it, they can rush it and be like, yeah, and this is good for 2026. And here's our opinion. Yeah, I think that's less likely. I think more likely. It's a terrible decision. But they say it's for 28 in the decision, so. But pending that, you're right. And it's pretty amazing. I mean, the California thing is huge. The Virginia election, I mean, I, I know that we've like, all talked about it, but like, I've been just going looking at those, like, House delegate races slaughter. Like Republicans got their asses kicked in Virginia. I mean, truly. I mean, everywhere on the map, like, flipping seats, flipping Trump seats. Not just seats that were. It wasn't just that. This is a House delegate seat with a local Republican. Right. That had been. These were seats that were in a presidential year. We're, you know, plus five, plus six Trump. So. Yes. And I think Democrats, to the point that we were just making now about, like, not quite being there on the filibuster and not quite ready to sort of from a game theory perspective, like establish deterrence and go tit for tat that if that's not the case on sort of procedural hardball yet in Congress, it has been the case on procedural hardball with gerrymandering.

[Musical Guest]

All right.

[Tim Miller]

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[Chris Hayes]

Oh, that's awesome.

[Tim Miller]

I wonder, you know, a big part of the Chris Hayes theory of everything in the book the Sirens Call is, you know, how the Democrats need to update their views on how to deal with the attention economy. It's something I agree with. Generally speaking. I do wonder if the, the overwhelming victories from Spanberger and Sherrill, who I think we can just be candid, did not exactly. I mean ran like pretty conventional Democratic campaigns and there certainly were some tactics, like messaging tactics, some things updated that were better than what. But I just meant like on the tactics.

[Chris Hayes]

No, I think it's fair.

[Tim Miller]

Didn't run that different. Does their kind of landslide victories change your priors on the attention theory at all?

[Chris Hayes]

It's a great question. I've been thinking about this a lot and I would say two things. One is that like structural factors are always the most important factors, you know, like. And in some ways what's really interesting is take, take my sort of, you know, attention focus aside and just compare those two races. Everyone in politics and in the states, like when you talk to people, new people in New Jersey, Virginia thought that Spamberger was running a really good race and her opponent sucked and that Cheryl was running a really bad race and her opponent was strong. Everyone said that and everyone expected that New Jersey was going to be close and Spangler was and they were like the same outcome. So it's, it's not like, it's not just like my particular views on attention, it's that the structural factors in both places seem to just be so overwhelming that people are just the combination of the excitement of Democrats to vote. The the fact that people do not like the way the country's going. The thing I will say though on attention is I think that attention stuff is the maxim. The place it's most important are in presidentials with the most marginal voters. So like you're still talking about even in a high turnout off your election you on like the year after. You're still several concentric circles out from like the pool of people that vote in a presidential and just in a presidential. And that's the place that I think this attentional question is kind of the most urgent because you're talking about people that like really don't pay attention to the news. Like they are very insulated from the world of politics. Even someone who's voting in an off your gubernatorial in the grand scheme of Americans is like a pretty plugged in person. I mean you just got to remember how many more people are voting in a presidential. And that outer concentric circle of people totally disinterested from politics was the worst for Democrats and is the place where I think they have to think the hardest about how to reach those people.

[Tim Miller]

Even the more outer was even the worst. The people that didn't vote. Didn't vote. Yeah. Which is a huge switch.

[Chris Hayes]

Enormous.

[Tim Miller]

The number one thing that I talk about when I Talk to goody2shoes democracy people, I'm just like everybody has to update their priors about where we are on the people that don't vote because in the Obama era people didn't vote. If you got them to vote, they're probably going to vote for the Democrats. And now it's the inverse. Or I mean maybe that won't be true in the future, I don't know. But like you have to at least think about it.

[Chris Hayes]

I keep wondering at what point that reality, I mean first of all we should say these things are fickle. Right. So like you know, 10 years ago it was different than it is now. But at what point that reality starts to get into the heads of Republicans who want to restrict people's access to voting. Like right now they tend to be smart enough that it's very targeted. Right. It's like we're going to take away polling prices on college campus episodes and they've run the numbers on this.

[Tim Miller]

But and it's kind of like the lead the, the black voters that didn't vote, you know, if you projected what they would look if you modeled it out until if they voted like they would vote more Republican than black voters have voted, still would vote for the Democrats.

[Chris Hayes]

Exactly. Right.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. So. So, you know, trying to tamp down voting is still a net positive. Yeah. For Republicans.

[Chris Hayes]

I do wonder what. At what point this access question, which has been such a. A dogma for Republicans, starts to change. I mean, you saw it with Vance's tweet afterwards about calling about low propensity voters, and he sounded like a progressive organizer circa 2000, you know, 2007. Like, we got to register our people.

[Tim Miller]

I just want to go a little bit deeper on that question about the attention thing, because I feel I always want to question it the most when I'm so susceptible to a theory. Like, I'm with you very much like that. The Democrats need to change their game.

[Chris Hayes]

And we live in it.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, right. We live in it. But again, you just look at this Spanberg and show race. I look back at like the Colin Allred race in Texas right now, for example, like in last. Last time, and he's so maligned right now, and he's like, in this race right now and there's an open Texas Senate seat and it's like people are excited about Talarico. He could go on Rogan and maybe Jasmine Crockett can get in. She gets a lot of attention and I don't know. I mean, you know, while the getting a lot of attention and being ostentatious and going everywhere thing, like, really worked for Trump. Like, it didn't work for Herschel Walker and Kerry Lake. Right. Like it backfired. And not to compare Jasmine Crockett or James tolerated them, but, you know, like the boring candidate. Yeah, yeah. And the boring candidate, Colin Allred, like, he outperformed Harris by like eight points. Right. And like this year, if the Democrat Senate candidate outperforms the, whatever the Democrat ballot number by eight points, they might be the senator from Texas. Right. So, you know, I mean, maybe in some places and states it does feel like it's a little bit more of a case by case basis. I think not for the presidential year. But thinking about these other races over, learning the lesson of the 2024 campaign about podcast appearances might be a mistake in certain situations.

[Chris Hayes]

I agree with that. I think there's a few things to think about. Right. So the thing that I stress is, part of my point is you need to have a theory about how you're going to get in front of the voters.

[Tim Miller]

You need.

[Chris Hayes]

That isn't just, we'll raise a lot of money and run a lot of TV ads on local news. That's the place you start from. Right.

[Tim Miller]

Which is that's the place I'm the most sympathetic because all those ad guys who are old friends of mine are all building beach houses and getting boats for nothing.

[Chris Hayes]

Third.

[Tim Miller]

Beach houses. Yeah, right, yeah, for nothing. Like for not like literally nobody's watching these ads anymore anyway.

[Chris Hayes]

So that's the fundamental part that applies everywhere.

[Tim Miller]

Right?

[Chris Hayes]

Again, this was a solved problem for 40 years in American politics. We're talking about races that are basically the congressional level and above statewide races and congressional races in like pretty saturated media markets. Below that, it's a whole different world. Like you're running for House delegate, that's just another category, right. So you have to have a theory of how you're getting known to people. And that attentional question is higher for people the further from being known entities. Right. So like Talarico who is just a fairly random, he's a state senator in Texas, he's pursued a kind of high attention strategy which has been effective to get him from this tier to that for sure. And, and again this is an important thing to figure out because part, part of the point I'm trying to make is you'd actually do want to expand the universe of people that are trying to run and can run and they have to be more innovative. But I think you're right that like not over learning the lessons and that the a point that I make consistently in the book and in the writing I've done is that like the high leverage approach often backfires which is the notion of all attention's good attention, even if it's negative was a disastrous approach for Blake Masters, Kari Lake, Herschel Walker, Doug Mastriano, like on and on and on and on. Trump like figures, trolls. Mark Robinson is a great example, right? Like you know, he underperformed the national ticket by I think 10 points. In North Carolina he was you know, running for governor. And then on the other side you got Roy Cooper who's like the most boring man on earth but is like above water in a purple state and about to run for Senate and has got a good shot. So you can't just say hey, be like Trump and that's gonna work in every race.

[Tim Miller]

I wish authoritarianism wasn't on the line here and it wasn't so important that the Democrats win these mid year elections. Cuz I would like to like run the main Senate race twice and just see what happens both times because I actually have no ide, which is a better option between. And I think that they're both, it's like almost the caricature of both Paths. You have, like, a geriatric establishment politician who is very safe on the one side and, like, a guy who, like, I had the Are we the baddies? Tattoo, like, on the other side and.

[Chris Hayes]

Who'S, like, very charismatic.

[Tim Miller]

Very charismatic. Doing selfie videos about firing Chuck Schuber and all that. And, like, I'm kind of open to any possible, like, potential outcome, but we won't be able to. We won't be able to know. I mean, we'll know how one side works, I guess.

[Chris Hayes]

Well, and that's the thing that makes, you know, it makes politics so both sort of enjoyable. Maddening is no one ever gets to run randomized control trials. Like, we just. We don't. And we have very small sample sizes. You know, I mean, even you're talking about presidential elections. It's like, you know, they happen every four years, you know, even in baseball. It's like, you know, there's like 5,000 at bats, right, this year. It's like, you could actually draw some statistical conclusions if you try to, like, look at presidential elections in the modern era. You're talking about what. What are you talking about? 16, like, a sample size.

[Tim Miller]

There have been five since the Internet, basically. I mean, like, Internet.

[Chris Hayes]

So, like, every. We're all just trying to work. Work this stuff out. And in some ways, I think, you know, to go back to the question you were saying about attention is one of the things I think that's interesting about trying to theorize problems, right? So you're not just. You're. You're trying to come up with a theory, right? This is. And that's what the sirens call is, right? There's a theory of attention there. One of the things that's useful about theorizing is that theories can be clarifying frameworks even when they're wrong. You know, like, it's like, there's a reason that everyone still reads Freud. Like, and it's not because people believe in psychoanalysis necessarily. It's that the theory of Freud is an incredibly useful framework, even for pointing out things about the way human psychology works that he was wrong about.

[Tim Miller]

I had Fukuyama on, like, two weeks ago. I think that's a perfect example.

[Chris Hayes]

And so I think with politics, it's really useful for our understanding. Like, even having this sort of theory of attention, then you being like, well, wait, let's test the facts against the theory. And there's like. And you're right. Like, there's some places where they don't match. It's like, okay, now we're Thinking in a kind of rigorous fashion where we're sort of. We're taking a theory that would have. Seem to have predictions, we're looking at outcomes and we're comparing them. And maybe that says something about the theory, like, or not. But we're not just doing the thing that everyone does, which is like, I like it when the people that have my politics win and everyone should have them. Which I think is just the way that too much political discourse happens.

[Tim Miller]

This is my view, this is my example of we'll both pat ourselves on the back one time in this podcast. My version of this for you on the filibuster is like, I look at those five elections in the Internet era and I'm like, basically four out of the five. The person that won ran against the establishment and said that everything that was going was wrong. We need to change. It's a charismatic person running against the status quo. Basically. Like, I mean, Trump won. They both won the election. But even still, it's like these outsider figures with Obama and Trump. And like, to me, if it's just like, there's one thing that a Democrats, like, I want to run in 2028, like, how should I position myself? It's like as an, as an outsider running against the system and it's running against the status quo. And that's like, not me, because I'm. I really sort of think things are like, basically fine. Like, they're bad for a lot of people, but like, I just, I could.

[Chris Hayes]

Be a lot worse.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I'm small c conservative in the way that it's like, it could be a lot worse than the status quo.

[Chris Hayes]

Here's a question I have. I don't mean to take us off into a tangent.

[Tim Miller]

Take it off.

[Chris Hayes]

But here's a question I've been like, very obsessed with. So I was looking the other day because Janet Mills has a very low approval rating in terms of governors. She's basically break even. So I was looking at approval ratings for all 50 governors and I think 47 have positive approval ratings.

[Tim Miller]

I thought it was Kim Reynolds was the only one who had a negative. Who else has a negative?

[Chris Hayes]

And she's really negative. And when you look at Iowa, which has had its GDP contract by 5.6%, you're like, okay, okay, that I can see a signal there.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

But if you look at the top, like, there's no rhyme or reason. Like, some are liberal, some are conservative, some are in red state, some are blue state, some are. Why is it. I think there is a structural question Here that people are so overwhelmingly happy with their governor and the incumbent president going back now multiple terms, has been underwater for almost all of their time in Austin office and Congress.

[Tim Miller]

And just right track, like natural right.

[Chris Hayes]

Track, numbers right track, right track, wrong track. But it wasn't always like that. There used to be a lot more variable ability in the governors and there used to be approval. Like presidents, you know, Bill Clinton's second term, like, had a positive approval rating. You know, George W. Bush was at 90% after 9, 11. Like, obviously, that's an exogenous shock. I just want to get my head around this public opinion reality now. I'm trying to theorize it myself, but I don't quite have the theory for it.

[Tim Miller]

The Internet.

[Chris Hayes]

So that's the question, like the Internet and nationalization of politics and the information environment is that all of the things that are wrong are on the guy in the White House.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. And I haven't quite worked out exactly how this works. I'm just. We're doing this live. But I do. I often think about the Sarah Longwell focus group of. I think it was a Florida. I forget. It must have been during the primary. I forget why we were doing Florida and Alabama voters, because that's a weird mix. But at some point, we were doing a combination of kind of Florida, Alabama. It was like Southern voters. And in the focus group, people were talking about this was, I think maybe before Ron DeSantis. DeSantis, like, got tanked and became Ron DeSantimonious. They're talking about Matt and they're talking about what they like about Ron DeSantis in Florida. It's like, he did this thing. He got this thing done. I liked this bill. These are conservative voters. And then in Congress, they're like, who do you like? And they're like, we like Matt Gaetz, you know, and it's like, why? And it's like, well, who else do you like? It's like Marjorie to. Because they're actually doing something up there. Right. And like, there is some level of, like, the entertainmentification, the nationalization of politics that has made people feel like that the national political scene is about winning some existential battle for the future of our culture and society and that the governor's job is to make sure schools are okay. Yeah, right.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, right. Yeah, right. But it's also interesting to me, too, that there was a period of time in 2009, for instance.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

Which was like, like, you know, wrong track numbers through the roof, when all the governors were unpopular, too. Like, right. Like, you know, they all got their butts kicked in that election.

[Tim Miller]

Now. Now we're in the space of, like, things aren't as bad for people as they really say. And that's, like, something that you get in real trouble if you say that, because, like, again, some people are having. Like, at all times, in all parts of societies, there are people that are going through really bad things, really challenging things. Life is fucking hard. Life is hard. Even real things are going well. Life is hard, totally. But, like, comparatively speaking, like, where are they going so bad that I'm mad not just at this amorphous thing in D.C. but I'm mad at, like, the people that are supposed to make my life better, narrowly. Right.

[Chris Hayes]

A good example of that is the consumer sentiment stuff, right? Where it's like, you keep seeing, like, consumer sentiment is lower than it was in 2009. I was like. I was there in 2009. Like, the economy was so much worse in 2009. It's bad now. And there's, like, again, people are struggling. When you talk about this existential thing. I mean, I said this on Jon Stewart's podcast last week. Like, to me, the really useful thing in all of this is to come back to, like, starting at a whiteboard of, like, well, what do you want?

[Tim Miller]

Like, and.

[Chris Hayes]

And. And to me, it does come back to, like, what people want, I think, in the main is to, like, have a little bit of space, be able to buy a home, have a job they don't hate and doesn't crush them, send their kids to school, feel safe, and, like, take some vacations, go camping, have some friends over. And it is actually pretty hard to get that. It's harder than it should be in America to get that. And there are tens of millions of people for whom that just seems not possible, and that's too many.

[Tim Miller]

And then if you replace that with, okay, now what I want is the people that I don't like, who I feel like are causing this, I want them to suffer, right? That gets you to the national politics side of this, right? Where it's like, okay, so if I don't have that, you know, and I'm. And I'm on the left, right? Then I want. I want to see MAGA people losing and suffering. And so if they're winning, then I'm sad. If I'm maga, I want to see whatever, like, you know, the. I don't know, the trans gal taking off the Bud Light can or whatever. I want to see more white people in the movie. I don't Whatever it is. You know what I mean? Then it becomes this other stuff, like, I want to. I want to win this daily war on Facebook that I'm having.

[Chris Hayes]

But the weird thing about that is I think there's an argument, if you look at the data, that it's the more affluent people who have the more effective politics, like, that. It's like the people who have more money in education who are the more. Like, I want my enemies to suffer, and the people who are more like. You know what I mean? Like, I think that's more or less what the data shows, basically, that, like, the people were like, I really just need enough money that I can, like, get my car fixed when it breaks down to get to my job. Like, are actually less into national politics as kind of, you know, combat sport for. For, quote, the other side.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

And I don't know, again, this. All this stuff is. It's hard to sort of distinguish all this stuff. But I do think, like, to me, there's a combination about the information environment that. That. That speaks to something that JVL is saying that I think is right. There's, like, a structural pessimism in the way we learn about the world that is pretty corrosive. And also there is a structural problem with the way American capitalism particularly functions such that way too many people in a very rich country just feel cut out of the deal.

[Tim Miller]

And this is where, like, my admissions against interest come. In some ways, that should be, like, somewhat optimistic for Democrats and that, like, they. A lot of the people they lost were folks in that second camp. Right.

[Chris Hayes]

That's why Tuesday night was. That's why the election was so important, for exactly that reason, because it was like, it's very. Every. This has been driving me crazy. So let me just rant on this.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, right.

[Chris Hayes]

You're like, wow, the Democrats figured out an affordability message. They're not the incumbent party. It's. It is not a symmetrical issue for the party that has the White House and doesn't. Inflation is out of control. I can't afford anything. Try running on that when you're the party associated with incumbency and the status quo. Like. Like, wow, they really figured it out. Yeah, like, and Donald Trump. Everyone's saying Donald Trump really seems to have lost his mojo on this. Yes. Because he's now responsible. Like, this is not rocket science. It's like, if people are upset with the economy or they think inflation's high, the incumbent party's into rough shape and the challenging party is in better shape.

[Tim Miller]

This takes the other thing I wanted to talk to you about, which we were gabbing about in the hallway the other week, which is it's not just the economy, it's a bunch of other stuff Donald Trump owns now. And you and I both share an obsession with listening to the, whatever you want to call it, conservative maga, comedian space manosphere or whatever, and kind of how that intersects with tech world and all this. And a lot of those guys who are not the right wing ideologues and they have certainly cultural conservative views on certain things, but are not, not political ideologues.

[Chris Hayes]

Right.

[Tim Miller]

Partisans. You hear them now? You hear the Tim Dillon's world now. I played him a little bit yesterday. And they start talking, it's just like, shit sucks. Like shit isn't getting better. Right. So they're not fixing the economy part. Like, they're not doing that. So now he owns that. On top of that, a lot of those folks were like skeptical of the establishment in the sense of the security state, you know, of like the big government.

[Musical Guest]

Right.

[Tim Miller]

And now Palantir. Yeah, right. So now it's. They own Palantir and they are the ones with the masks coming after people in their neighborhood. They're the ones bombing people, naming things, Department of War. And they're also in bed with the tech companies, which I think there's a healthy skepticism about across the partisan divide, but certainly in this kind of space. Right. And so now it's like all of a sudden the ability for Democrats to take back the mantle of being anti status quo. This is the best moment for them to do that in a decade and more. I don't know, since Obama, since 08, maybe, because it's like Trump, Trump finally is owning some of this stuff. Finally. Yeah. And the second time, in a way, he was not during the first time.

[Chris Hayes]

And that's partly because there was. Because the establishment, such as it exists, and there's always a fuzzy term, was kind of fighting him in his first term and it rolled over and folded this time.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I totally agree with that. It's kind of like a gift. We were all pissed that all the tech CEOs went to the inauguration because f those guys, I wanted them to fight him for my own emotional needs, but for the Democratic Party interests. It was this gift actually for them that they did felt that.

[Chris Hayes]

I felt that immediately. And the reason I felt it immediately is because I remembered the Bush years, watching this kind of cultural consensus form around the president that was like, well, we got to change everything. And you know, that it's like Alex Jones. The first time I saw Alex Jones was in a Richard Linklater film. But, but the first time he really came across my sort of consciousness was him with a bullhorn ranting outside of the RNC in 2004.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

And all the, all the low trust skeptic, anti establishment energy was all on the left in 50607 leading into Obama. And there really was this flip that happened particularly around Covid and particularly around, you know, and Biden and inflation, all this stuff. And I completely agree, it's flipping back. And again it relates to the exact same argument about inflation, which is like it's easier to be anti status quo when you're the out party party and harder when you're the in party. But I also think Donald Trump, like the buddying up with the billionaires, knocking down the ballroom in the middle of the shutdown, throwing a Great Gatsby party on the day that snap benefits are going to run out. Like it was always the case that this guy was going to be, is a billionaire, is friends with billionaires and wants to hook them up. That was always the case. And it was maddening that mess, how hard it felt to get that message through in 24. But it does feel now that has penetrated the consciousness of exactly the people you're talking about who are not like the obsessive politics nerds.

[Tim Miller]

And to your point, you call it low trust and there are a lot of other more pejorative words, the cranks, the conspiracists. But there's something to be said that the crank alignment around Trump, because this is your point, that crowd, whatever crank.

[Chris Hayes]

Alignment won him the election 100% because.

[Tim Miller]

There are more of them than there are of me.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Let's just be real. The number of. I'm a college educated, high trust suburban Republican, some of them voted for the Democrats. It was pretty important for Abigail Spamberger in Northern Virginia.

[Musical Guest]

Right.

[Tim Miller]

But nationwide there's a lot more people who for good reason have not a lot of trust in the way the system has worked. And they're pissed. And for a while they were Democrats or maybe they're unaffiliated or not in touch and now and like they're listening to these shows, whether it be Alex, anything from Alex Jones to Joe Rogan to Tim Dillon to like, like barstool, whatever. Right. Like that's a huge range. But anybody in that range now is like, wait a minute, I'm pretty skeptical of the guy that is having a meeting in the Gilded Ballroom with the people that run the spyware for the government. It's exactly what. Yeah, you know, I mean, like the gay guy who's obsessed with the Antichrist who's running spyware on behalf of the government. I think it's pretty natural that you find some skepticism of that among the Alex Jones, Joe Rogan crowd.

[Chris Hayes]

You even see it with Shane. Shane Gillis who. Shane Gillis who, by the way, whose politics I really find fascinating. And like, I'm constantly reading his tea leaves because, like, I think Shane Gillis is. In his heart, he's a lib. Like, he, I think he votes to.

[Tim Miller]

The extent he votes, but he's an art. He's live. But he's annoyed by a lot of.

[Chris Hayes]

He's annoyed and he's. And he's also very much of Trump world and he talks about his dad watching Fox News all the time. But in his, you know, in his heart, that's my, my read of his politics. But, but I just been watching him recently and he's like on that podcast with Matt McGowan where he's like, he's like, I'm back on my lib. He's like, I'm back. He's like, I'm back on my.

[Tim Miller]

He's like.

[Chris Hayes]

And he started with Elon Musk who just like so annoyed be Elon Musk, you know, and so, but you see that everywhere. The other part of this that we got to talk about, if you don't mind, I'm going to bring this up.

[Tim Miller]

No, please.

[Chris Hayes]

I am just fascinated by the sort of anti Semitism, like thing happening in the right. And the reason it's connected is because there's a through line. Right? Because I think in the kind of low trust, like right wing adjacent world, people are very critical of Israel's war in Gaza.

[Tim Miller]

They're very critical.

[Chris Hayes]

The Israeli government. You had like Theo Vaughn coming out and being like, I have to speak what's in my heart. I think it's genocide. And you got Tim Dillon and the people who are courting that same low trust audience in the more hard right spaces. Tucker and Candace Owens, specifically Nick Fuentes are like chasing that. And there has been historically a connection between like crank and cranks and anti Semitism. It's like, it's like the place crank politics sort of always end up. It's like where every conspiracy theory ends up. Marx called it the socialism of fools. It's a great, great phrase. So there's a relationship here to me, because the enduring power of the Jews as The Secret Puppet Masters as a long running thread in Western discourse and the kind of like up for grabs, crank realignment, polarity are colliding to me in this way. I mean, I don't know how much Candace Owens, you're watching right now.

[Tim Miller]

It is a ton.

[Chris Hayes]

It is. So it's both like insane at a level where you're like, I think this is like, I think I need to call like for an intervention here with this individual. But it is all. I mean, partly it's performative, it's also so insidious. I mean, my God, we should have.

[Tim Miller]

Done a whole hour on this. Because I could do. I have like two separate thoughts just on the Candace. First, here's the thing I worry about. We'll do the thing I worry about first and then kind of the watch it get collapse over there, which is the good part. The thing I worry about a little bit about how this stuff connects is like the way people are consuming information right now.

[Chris Hayes]

That's one of my worry too, you.

[Tim Miller]

Know, so that I hear, like, I've done a bunch of college speaking recently. Like, I hear from left kids that like, are mad about Israel, that watch whatever, watch Hasan piker watch, whatever, that have legitimate anger towards how Israel prosecuted that war. And so they're watching, you know, a lot of whatever material on their TikTok feed or Instagram feed that's from a lot of left activists. Right, right. That are talking about the way Israel's bad. And then into their feed pops in Candace and then pops in Tucker, and they're saying the same shit on this one issue. They're saying the same shit on this one issue. Maybe a little nastier, you know what I mean? Like in certain cases, if it's Fuentes, like way nastier, right? Like absolutely. Explicitly in my feed.

[Chris Hayes]

In my feed, personally.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, you get it.

[Chris Hayes]

If you look at stuff that is critical of the war in Gaza, if you look at stuff that's like, here's a report on like a horrible thing that happened in Gaza. The algorithm will give you Candidoans.

[Tim Miller]

Right? And so then I've talked to kids who like, I was literally arguing with a kid like three weeks ago, college kid who was like, you know, starting to think that the Jews killed Charlie Kirk. And he's a left kid, like, you know what I mean? It's like, maybe Mossad did the Charlie Kirk killing. And I'm starting to have questions about Emmanuel Macron's marriage. And I was like, is this a troll? And again, it's one big person Whatever. Like the world contains a lot of multitudes of weirdness. But like, to me, I just, I'm pretty worried that on the one hand the Democrats are going to benefit from this crack up on the right, but on the other hand that there's going to be some young people that get kind of sucked into this pipeline of the Candace stuff. Because the entry point was this war.

[Chris Hayes]

Yes. I mean this. You have articulated exactly my fear and what I've been seeing happen. And there's a very cynical algorithm chasing by the people that are doing. They know exactly what they're doing. You know, I mean, tucker doing a 911 truth special. I mean in the year of our Lord 2025, being like jet fuel can't melt steel beams.

[Tim Miller]

He did chemtrails this morning. Just popped into my feed this morning. We're doing chemtrails now.

[Chris Hayes]

It's like he understands exactly where the bread is buttered.

[Tim Miller]

And Shapiro's critique of him was right on the Fuentes thing, by the way. He had Fuentes on because he felt like he was loot. Because.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, right.

[Tim Miller]

That's his audience.

[Chris Hayes]

And so I think this is one of these places where the reason I bring this up, because it throws this. It's a very complex other aspect in the cranky alliance because in the crank realignment happening now, it's like it was like vax and it's this. And then it was like. And then you saw it online generationally like no one on Tik, like the entire universe of Gen Z social media was basically against the Gaza war. I mean not everyone. There's. There was tons of content on the other side.

[Tim Miller]

But.

[Chris Hayes]

But you know, I think if you looked at the number and this was something that a lot of people talked about that has moved seamlessly into some really nasty stuff. And that sticky wicket of that which is. Is a thing you could do, you know, hours about, which is that like criticism of Israel is flypaper for genuine anti Semites, but they're also not the same thing. And like on and on and on. But where we are right now is. And you see this in the polling, like I have never seen like it's the Jews are the problem as consistently as a kind of like thing people are saying in the media sphere, not in the mainstream media as I am right now. And I find it like unbelievably unnerving.

[Tim Miller]

Me too. And I feel like this is an area where I'm not as credible of a messenger as a former neocon. I'm begging my left progressive Friends who are speaking out on the war to be just brutal and mocking kiddos. Because I'm just like, again, the number of young people online that really are like, I don't know, maybe Mossad was involved in the Charlie Kirk assassination. It's different than in the past. There are always people that believed in conspiracy theories about assassinations. Like, this is that it's a specific thing that the Jews did it. I mean, that's like, yeah, yeah, the Jews did it. And it's like, no, it was a Mormon kid from rural Utah. And like, we have the text.

[Chris Hayes]

Let me say this too. Like, as someone who is. I think my politics are. I was incredibly critical of the Israel war in Gaza. I called for ceasefire, like, seven days into that bombing campaign. I think everything that I warned about and predicted came to bear.

[Tim Miller]

You had a really great interview with the journalist. I was in Gaza. I'm blanking on the Gaza name. Recently. I just listed.

[Chris Hayes]

Oh, in the West Bank.

[Tim Miller]

Sorry, in the west bank, rather.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that. Yeah, I think. And I can't speak. I'm.

[Musical Guest]

I'm.

[Chris Hayes]

I'm not Jewish and I'm not, like, sort of part of the, you know, I'm definitely not part of, like, some ideological formation of sort of like Palestinian solidarity. I think people critical of Israel, people critical even of Zionism as a. As an ideology, which I think is a completely legitimate critique to have ideologically and, and, and, and is not anti Semitic, you know, per se, at all. I think those people have to do really intense line drawing right now, honestly.

[Tim Miller]

And I think intense mockery of the right. Anti Semites, actually. You got to pick fights with the right.

[Chris Hayes]

They're not in. They are like. And I've seen people actually doing this who I really respect. Like, no, no, this is. This is anti Semitic bullshit. This is vile. This is insidious. This is calumny. This is libel. This is all the things that, again, have been overused by some of Israel's defenders to heap on people in a way that I think has also been not very productive in cheapening what the words mean, that the people who have been critical and who are on the left and progressive must, Must draw this line here.

[Tim Miller]

I'm with you on anti Zionism, not necessarily being anti Semitism. I also, I do think it's noteworthy when people, like, only say Israel doesn't have a right to exist because of the way that minority religions are treated in the country. Or I'm like, well, I mean, basically every country in the region is a theocracy. And so I don't, I don't really. I mean, okay, like, that's fine, but then does Qatar have a right to exist? I don't know.

[Chris Hayes]

Right, but the thing about right to exist to me is just like, it's such a weird phrasing. Like, it's like, what does that even mean? Like, so, right, so here's a question, like, does Kurdistan have a right to exist?

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Chris Hayes]

I mean, I think, I think the Kurds probably are owed self autonomy and should have their own state. No one's going around being like, wait, you don't think Kurdistan is right? It's like the Kurdistan has a right to exist is not like an actually extant concept.

[Tim Miller]

It's like, right, I believe that Kurdistan has a right to exist, by the way.

[Chris Hayes]

Right, yeah, well, Joe Biden did too, remember, famously remember his partition plan?

[Tim Miller]

No, of course I do. Maybe decent in retrospect couldn't have been worse.

[Chris Hayes]

Point being that, like, I do think the right to exist construction, and I'm not gonna, definitely not gonna get into like Zionism and anti Zionism, but I do think that like, people who are critical for all these reasons. And again, I mean, the other thing to sort of think about the context here, which I think is brought to you, this point is like. And I try to say this to people who are not on social media and not on algorithmic social media and people who are older is like, I truly can articulate to you the sheer level of horror that I have seen on this phone over the last two years. Like, the worst things I have ever seen in my life as a journalist have been. And not thick, not fabricated, like real images of a father holding his child's body parts in a bag day after day, hour after hour. And so you've got this insane emotional weight that's been packed into this thing and now the fuse is being lit on it. And I just think it's really scary.

[Tim Miller]

Two other things. I just had to get your take on this kind of vaguely in this space. Have you seen the Nikki Haley sun stuff lately? Have you been following Nayland Haley?

[Chris Hayes]

I saw the profile of him. He's got some new book out about.

[Tim Miller]

Oh, yeah, so he did an interview on Fonics yesterday. I've been following him for a while because he was doing some pretty hot anti Desantis tweets or something during the primary that I was like, oh, I'm intrigued by the family. I worked for a couple of candidates who had family members who sent hot tweets that became a problem for Me? Yes.

[Chris Hayes]

Messy family.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. I was like, I want to monitor this. But he did this interview yesterday and I think it's instructive in the sense sense because he's Nikki Haley's son. He is against H1V visas. He wants to cut back on legal immigration. Thinks if you come, you have to fully assimilate. He converted himself to Catholicism. He wants to de. Naturalize mediasan. So. Right. I mean I don't really want to pick. I don't know how old he is. I don't really want to pick a fight with a 20 year old kid of a politician. But I think it's an instructive. That's where it's going to that it's like the most prominent kind of. Of the neocon. Oh like if you have any hope left, it's like, oh, we're gonna. The Republican Party is gonna revert to some kind of normie pluralistic, you know, type small L liberalism, you know, classical liberalism. It's like the son of the most prominent politician that would potentially conceivably lead that effort is a griper.

[Chris Hayes]

Is like griper adjacent.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, it's griper adjacent. Yeah. And I think that is like extremely instruct about this whole conversation and like where things are going on the right in that. In that generation.

[Chris Hayes]

So here's the only thing I'll say to inject a little hope.

[Tim Miller]

All right.

[Chris Hayes]

There was a period where like corporate America was more performatively progressive than I'd ever seen it in my life. And then as soon as the winds changed, they stopped doing it because they were making basically a calculation about the market and business environment.

[Tim Miller]

Like literally the same people that had end racism and the football end zones. Did Charlie Kirk tributes like three years apart?

[Chris Hayes]

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, right, exactly. Three years apart. Exactly right. That's a perfect example. It takes all of us to.

[Tim Miller]

I also want to end racism and believe that we should honor people who are assassinated politically. That said, it was pretty. In both cases, the degree to which you were speaking about both of those as a corporate entity was pretty aggressive.

[Chris Hayes]

Exactly. And I think my point about this is just that when I read the Nikki Haley son profile and when you see it with Tucker, think about all the incarnations of Tucker. Tucker like Bowtie William F. Buckley Jr. Tucker Crossfire Tucker MSNBC Tucker Cable News Tucker 911 was an inside job. Tucker. That's someone who is just figuring out where the zeitgeist is and where the audience is. And I think there's lots of people calculating about where the audience is and where it's going to be right now. And I think they're being rewarded. But I also think that can really change. So I. I just don't want to extrapolate out too far because I think things. One of the things we saw, even to your point before about like who's on the right side or wrong side of anti establishment stuff.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Chris Hayes]

Things can change and events are always the thing to remember is that events have a huge. We don't know what lies in front of us in the future, but things happen and people react to them.

[Tim Miller]

We don't know a lies in front of us in the future, but it seems like the Republican Party is going to be a populist nationalist party for now.

[Chris Hayes]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

For a bit. Yeah. If that's where Nikki Haley's son is headed. Okay, last thing I just want to ask you about really quick because it kind of really saw this is the AI and the anti establishment stuff related to AI leaders. And there's just one funny example that I had to get your response to. Did you see the Marc Andreessen Pope tweets?

[Chris Hayes]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

Marc Andreessen is the VC who was just a normie. Obama led Norman Mitt Romney Republican, then went in with Trump, the Pope Pope tweeted this technological innovation can be a form of participation in the divine act of creation. It carries an ethical and spiritual weight for every design choice expresses a vision of humanity. The church calls all builders of AI to cultivate moral discernment as a fundamental part of their work. I would think that that should be a pretty popular.

[Chris Hayes]

Who can even disagree with that?

[Tim Miller]

We would want moral discernment for those that are creating supercomputers. One such investor in those computers, Mark Henderson, quote, tweeted him with a meme of a woman making a skeptical face. We'll put it up for YouTube just like a mocking face. And he did receive a lot of pushback to that. And I want to close this because my final area of encouragement in the anti establishment sense is I do think that maybe MAGA erred in bringing in all of these guys and I think that there could possibly be a crank realignment against them if they get so close to somebody who's like, I don't actually think that the creators of AI had to have any moral discernment at all. And I'm going to mock the notion that we should have moral discernment. I can understand how there'd be a blowback to that.

[Chris Hayes]

I totally agree with that. And to connect to the point, I was just Making, I don't know. You know, I'm not a trader. I don't make financial bets. But there's a really interesting and open question right now about this huge boom in AI Capex investment, right? And it's, it's, it's bigger in, in, in real terms than even late 90s. And is it a bubble? Is it not? But let me just say this. If the whole thing blows up, which is a possibility, I don't know if it's going to happen. The pitchforks are going to come out for these guys like you have. Not like they thought they, they had them because people had their pronouns and bios. Like that's not nothing. Like if the whole thing blows up and Trump is particularly associated with that, like that will absolutely reorient politics around that.

[Tim Miller]

Occupy Atherton.

[Chris Hayes]

Way beyond that.

[Tim Miller]

Occupy Wall street outside of Dude's house in Atherton.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah, it's not, it's not going to be good.

[Tim Miller]

All right, brother. Next. How are you feeling about the Knicks?

[Chris Hayes]

I'm a Bulls fan, so.

[Tim Miller]

All right, this is a moment. This is. The Bulls have had the best eight games.

[Chris Hayes]

It's really fun.

[Tim Miller]

A couple decades.

[Chris Hayes]

Well, I mean they're now, we're now down six and four. We blew a game against the spurs last night. But they are really, you know what? They are. All I asked for, all I asked for in my sports league life, a competitive team that's fun to watch. Like a playoff caliber team that for the whole season I just hate being like, there's 20 games under.500. I can't watch this team. I just want to watch. I want to kill the voices in my head by watching a meaningless sports game where the ball goes back and forth. And all I ask for my teams is to be competitive enough that I can invest in enough of those games during a regular season to do that.

[Tim Miller]

Would you be able to watch last night it was the web now that you mentioned it was the Wemby last second shot. He did two threes in the last minute. Right.

[Chris Hayes]

To win, which, you know, you lose that weight.

[Tim Miller]

He's an alien.

[Chris Hayes]

What can you do?

[Tim Miller]

He's unbelievable.

[Chris Hayes]

He's an alien. All right, let's do a special basketball podcast.

[Tim Miller]

All right, we'll do a basketball podcast and a Groiper podcast. Next. That's Chris Hayes. He's on Ms. Now. It's called Ms. Now starting on Saturday, so everybody go check him out. What time's your show on? 8 o' clock in the east.

[Chris Hayes]

Yes, 8 o'.

[Tim Miller]

Clock. I'm on it. Sometimes it's hard to keep track.

[Chris Hayes]

It's only been on at 8 o'.

[Tim Miller]

Clock for the last 12 years, but okay, 8 o'. Clock. I got it right.

[Chris Hayes]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

I don't know, you know. Oh, your times are central.

[Chris Hayes]

Is New Orleans central?

[Tim Miller]

Central. I struggle with the time zone sometimes. Eight o', clock, easy. All right, buddy, we'll see you on your show next time. Everybody else will see you back here tomorrow for another edition of the podcast.

[Musical Guest]

Peace. Reading yesterday's headlines nothing new set us all to sell everywhere I'm the fool on the hill and I've been waiting 24 years of anticipating I set changes in my man people I'm here to tell you I've been around since the world began hey, well, Mr. Politicians refund me if you can have an empty establishment I'm tired of your treating all of my children the same everywhere Spending all that money on a stupid world is your name when we needed a home I'm the fool I live and I've been waiting 24 years I'm back I set changes in my man people I'm here to tell you I think it's about time the world began all over Mr. Politician refund me if you can have it established on me and I think it down.

[Tim Miller]

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