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- [00:00]
Poetry Reader
Foreign.
- [00:13]
Tim Miller
Welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. I just taped this morning with my FYpod colleague Cam Caskey, who I thought had a really kind of moving perspective on the news from yesterday, having been a young student leader, political leader who put himself out there and got a lot of hate mail and death threats. So go check that out in the FYpod feed if you're interested. But today we have a doozy one for you. I made a note. This is a Death of Civilization episode. Maybe she's a writer as well as co host and executive producer of Crooked Media's Hysteria podcast. It's Erin Ryan. How you doing, girl?
- [00:47]
Erin Ryan
Oh, you know, it's been a weird 24 hours, but here I am.
- [00:50]
Tim Miller
It has been a weird 24 hours. Thank you for doing this with me. It was kind of an accident. We had already planned to have you on to discuss some womenly topics because I had some women who didn't want me mansplaining to them about various things. And so we will get to that. But I was happy, actually, that we had this scheduled and that you stuck with me because I think that we can have a meaningful conversation about what happened yesterday. So just before we get to that, the facts of where we stand as we're taping this. Charlie Kirk was assassinated yesterday at an event at Utah Valley University. He is 31. He leaves behind two kids age 3 and 1. At the time of this taping, a manhunt is underway for the shooter who fired from a nearby roof. Police have not released a suspect at this time. So, so much to discuss. Aaron, I guess just first, what was your kind of initial reaction yesterday and this morning after having a night to sleep or not sleep on it?
- [01:48]
Erin Ryan
Well, you know what, it happened yesterday. It just, it happened so fast. These things happen so fast that you kind of like, are trying to play catch up with, like, the facts on the ground and like, your actual emotional response to said facts. I saw the video of it happening. I wish I hadn't seen the video of it happening.
- [02:06]
Tim Miller
I stopped before. I stopped it before it got to the bad part. I just, I didn't.
- [02:11]
Erin Ryan
I. It was like seconds after it happened and the video was posted and I watched it and it was horrible. It was just a horrible thing. And my first thought was just, we knew there was a shooting event right, at a university, and I thought that there would be a lot of people who had been killed. And when I found out that only one shot had been fired and it was the shot that I saw the video of. It was just. It kind of. I was like, what's going on? Like, why would anybody do this? What's happening? I really feel for his kids. His kids are exactly the same age as my kids, like exactly the same age. And I feel like that sucks. They lost a dad. And whoever Charlie Kirk was in public is not necessarily who he was as a dad. And I feel like that's really sad that those kids lost their dad. And then as time went on, I kind of saw how the kind of anger sphere was really champing at the bit to make this like their next, their new cause. It seemed like there is a backed up desire to unleash just ultra violence on anybody who is deemed an enemy of mega. And by the evening I was pretty scared. I was like, oh, I do a podcast. I talk into a microphone sometimes. I do live events where like, what level have we reached of things being like untenably divided that now assassination has to be something that people are concerned about. Okay, so then next stage. Overnight I started thinking about like Charlie Kirk, who he was.
- [03:49]
Tim Miller
Can we just get to that in a second? Like, just really quick, I want to say on the first two points, because I just also, the stuff with his kids is just tough. And I just. I mean, I think it's just important to say that I know that there's also a school shooting yesterday.
- [04:02]
Erin Ryan
Yeah.
- [04:03]
Tim Miller
As of this time, as we're taping it, I think there's one person still in critical condition. The shooter killed themselves. So hopefully they all come out. But, you know, I'm sure like you and like some listeners, and I was like telling my. Making sure my kid knows I love her last night, you know, and that is like, that's really hard. And the videos I did see were in my feed of him with his kids. You know, MAGA accounts I follow were sharing. And you know, I just. It's too. It's too much for them. In addition to those kids, the other kids that were traumatized by this yesterday, where the kids had to watch it. Right. We're talking about watching it on video.
- [04:36]
Erin Ryan
But they were there.
- [04:38]
Tim Miller
You know, he has an event there that the point of the event is to have people debate and disagree. So it wasn't even just all of his supporters there, not that would have made it any better, but like there was a diverse array of students on that campus that just are now traumatized by now being part of a school shooting, an assassination, and they had to watch it and be scared. And I think that is not a world that we want to be living in. So, anyway, I just wanted to sit on that for a second. Well, I guess one more thing, actually, before we get to Charlie. You talked about the reaction in the magasphere and the rage reaction, and I think it's scary. It's no doubt scary. I also saw a lot of rage coming Charlie's way, which is a little scary. And JVL wrote this last night for us in the Triad, which I think, which I liked. He wrote this. He said, if we're lucky right now, our leaders will understand that Charlie Kirk's assassination was not just evil, but profoundly dangerous for all of us. I just want to sit on that statement for a second. Profoundly dangerous for all of us, because that is all of us, right? And I don't mean even all of us podcasters, but like, all of us Americans, right? Like that. If we get into a place of escalating violence on this, which we're already seeing, of escalating power grabs, that takes us to a bad place. And I guess, you know, I wanted to play just a couple of clips of reactions, try to model behavior, if that's okay. We have Jesse Waters. I'll put this in your angerverse category. Let's listen to Jesse first. We're going to avenge Charlie's death in the way Charlie would want it to be avenged. They are at war with us. Whether we want to accept it or not, they are at war with us. What are we gonna do about it? How much political violence are we gonna tolerate? And that's the question we're just gonna have to ask ourselves. Saw another guy, Matt Forney, who had 2 million views on this post. Charlie Kirk being assassinated is the American Reichstag fire.
- [06:38]
Erin Ryan
Well, you know what? You're not supposed to say that wasn't the Reichstag fire, like, pretext. It was like pretext used by the Nazis to seize total control.
- [06:48]
Tim Miller
I mean, also, just to be clear, that is a MAGA account. It's time for a complete crackdown on the left is the next statement. It was not. Because in theory, that I guess could have been a lefty conspiracy theorist trying to make it seem like that. No, no, that was a MAGA count. Bragging about it.
- [07:03]
Erin Ryan
Well, first of all, not to be pedantic, but wouldn't it be more like the Ernst von Rom.
- [07:08]
Tim Miller
Thank you. I don't know that they go that deep. Maybe. I guess I was gonna say, I don't know if they go that deep on German history, but it might be the one area of history where they do go very deep on.
- [07:18]
Erin Ryan
So it's good. Yeah, it's like there's a lot of enthusias enthusiasm about German history. Jesse Waters statement could have been shortened to three words. Just get him, boys. Like, I don't think Jesse Waters is personally planning on going out and avenging Charlie Kirk's death. Jesse Waters is trying to incite people to go out and avenge Charlie Kirk's death.
- [07:36]
Tim Miller
No, he's got his second wife, the producer that, you know, in his penthouse in New York. Yeah, he's cool.
- [07:43]
Erin Ryan
He's gonna be above the avenging or whatever. But the thing about Charlie Kirk's death that really hit, that really got to me was I don't think Charlie Kirk thought that he would ever be somebody who would be on the receiving end of political violence. Like, I don't think Jesse Waters thinks he's someone that would ever be on the receiving end.
- [08:00]
Tim Miller
You don't think so? Even after Trump?
- [08:01]
Erin Ryan
No, I don't think so. I mean, why would he be doing an event out in like an open field with that level of security? It just feels like why would he be doing a campus tour? He was like kicking off a giant campus tour. I think he had just gone to Texas A and M and he was going to a couple other. You know, he's going around the country basically taking a victory lap for conservatives, like cultural and electoral victories in recent years or MAGA conservatives. I don't think that he thought that he would ever be somebody who would actually be caught up in it. I don't think any of these insiders in the anger sphere actually think that they're going to be the ones that have to deal with it. And that is the thing that I think goes with what you were saying about it makes sense. You know, the world is more dangerous for everybody. This country is more dangerous for everybody because nobody is above it. You know, Charlie Kirk wasn't above it.
- [08:55]
Tim Miller
You could say it about the anonymous commenters too, from all. You know what I mean? Anybody, like the anger spirit's the leader, obviously they hold more responsibility. The jealousy, waters. But like, the same premise is true, right? Like a notion for anyone that is out there posting, you know, about whatever.
- [09:08]
Erin Ryan
Their bloodlust this morning and just.
- [09:11]
Tim Miller
They don't think that it's. They're coming for them.
- [09:14]
Erin Ryan
No. All it takes is one person who is unhinged enough and angry enough and whipped into enough of a froth to take action. Like the person who shot those four lawmakers in Minnesota and killed Melissa Hortman. And her husband and their dog, like, that was somebody. That all it takes is one person. And I think that when there's this much rage and this much angry, divisive rhetoric and dehumanizing of the other side, which, you know, talk about, like, I know that it's, like, lame to compare things to Nazi Germany, but talk about Nazi Germany, the dehumanization just happening when it comes to the left. And the aftermath of this is, like, very, very scary.
- [09:56]
Tim Miller
I said this to Sarah yesterday. I kind of have two minds about this whole thing. I got very frustrated after the Trump assassination attempt attempts about the kind of, like, rhetoric policing efforts. Actually, not the rhetoric policing. That doesn't really frustrate me. The police, nobody should be calling for people's death. It's just. It doesn't do any good, okay? Like, it doesn't do any good. And, you know, you might not have to share my view that all humans have value, but it still doesn't do any good for people to have that type of rhetoric. It's the blaming that I got uncomfortable with, right? Like, this notion that it was like, because somebody said this or somebody said that this happened. And it's kind of like, well, I mean, we have easy access to guns in this country, and we have a lot of crazy people, and there's a lot of crazy people in any country. And if you have crazy people and easy access to firearms, that's really the main problem here. I mean, we can all try to be our better selves, but that's the main problem here. And so, on the one hand, I feel that way and get frustrated. On the other hand, it's like, we should be calling on people to model better behavior. We should be calling out assholes that are anger, you know, fucking that, you know, make money or get following based on riling people up. Right. You know, so I sort of vacillate on. On that topic. Where are you at on all that?
- [11:14]
Erin Ryan
Well, I think that it is. I understand why a lot of people seem like they're kind of tiptoeing around what they really want to say when they're talking about this, because it's like, a scary time and nobody wants to, like, you know, you're in a room with, like, an angry.
- [11:28]
Tim Miller
You see a lot of tiptoeing. I would like to see a little.
- [11:30]
Erin Ryan
More tiptoeing mainstream media. I'm talking, like, msnbc, letting somebody go for kind of saying, like, pretty anodyne comments, like, maybe we should say, since.
- [11:40]
Tim Miller
You brought that up, that Matt Dowd suggested on TV that the assassination of Charlie Kirk might have been a fan of Charlie Kirk firing off a victory shot.
- [11:50]
Erin Ryan
That was a dumb thing to say.
- [11:51]
Tim Miller
Regardless of what you think about the moral valence of that statement, that is a very stupid thing to say.
- [11:55]
Erin Ryan
It was a stupid thing to say.
- [11:56]
Tim Miller
As somebody who's on TV a lot, and that's, hey, there but for the grace of God go I. That's still really dumb. That's all.
- [12:03]
Erin Ryan
Okay, but there are dumb things that on TV all the time that are not like, we're throwing.
- [12:07]
Tim Miller
Jesse Waters wasn't fired, for example.
- [12:09]
Erin Ryan
Maybe a worthwhile, like inciting actual violence, not a fireable offense. Saying something about someone in Utah shooting off a gun in celebration. It doesn't quite make sense. I'm a little bit tired of a demand for, like, sympathy or empathy from the right. I do feel empathy for those children. I feel sympathy for those children. I feel for people who are his friends. I feel sad for them. But I also can't talk about Charlie Kirk's death without talking about the role that he played in help building a rhetorical architecture that was eager to scapegoat people, was eager to villainize and demonize people. His last words before that shot was fired were trying to blame trans people for mass shootings. In the past, Charlie Kirk has been a mass shooter apologist. He's described the deaths of six people in a school in Nashville as part of the cost of the Second Amendment. He's a professional talker. He used those words deliberately. I feel like we need to talk about the fact that he helped build the machinery that ultimately led to his demise and that a lot of people who are, you know, in the trans community are less safe because of rhetoric that he used to, you know, spout and that others in that space used to spout. Trans people are less safe. LGBTQ people are less safe. Like, people have a terrible view of women. Like Gen Z. Men especially have a terrible retro view of women. Like misogyny, racism. Being normalized as part of a way that normal people speak to each other is not something that leads anywhere good either. And I'm not blaming him for what happened. I wish Charlie Kirk had not been shot. It was a tragedy. But I think the world that people like Charlie Kirk are trying to build or were advocating for is one where that would happen more often. Does that make sense? I don't want to sound like I'm.
- [14:11]
Tim Miller
No, no, it does make sense. And look, I think it's important we talk about that and Hash it out. Because Charlie Kirk said a lot of fucking gross shit. You just search my Twitter feed, Charlie Kirk and see all the times that I criticized him. Or I could show you my text from his PR guy who I became kind of friends is the wrong word. But we had a. We kind of had a relation, an open dialogue relationship. And you know, he's kind to me and, you know, we text. We text back and forth, right? Shit on Charlie and tell him that what he's doing is irresponsible. And he text me and say, oh, look what Emma said. You know, I have no quarter for Charlie Kirk's political agenda. Here's my problem with kind of like the response sometimes is that what happened yesterday helped his political agenda, period, full stop. And so I don't think that it's wrong to say, here are the dehumanizing things that were advanced by Turning Point usa and we should fight against those and we should try to challenge those and beat them politically and beat them rhetorically and win young people back. Sure. But when that bleeds over into some of the other stuff I've seen about whether this was deserved, whether he asked for it or all that, I just a. I think that that is morally reprehensible and wrong. Even if he did it, I don't aspire to be like him just because he did false shit. After the, like, you know, this stuff after the Minnesota killings. I don't want to be like that. But like, also, just even if you disagree with the morally. I guess my point is this is a political disaster for the anti Charlie Crick movement. What happened yesterday is a disaster. Like he is empowered now or his movement is empowered now. He's dead. He is a martyr now. You can see people rally around him. I saw a bunch of people in my feed who are like non political, you know, raising him up and raising up his movement yesterday, you can see a righteousness building on the right. You can imagine young people rallying around this. Like, martyring Charlie Kirk is the worst fucking thing that could happen. Even if you're not trying to be a good person or care about empathy, theorem, reality or whatever, just as a purely political matter. It's like, I see things in my feed that are like fascists deserve. Like what? You're not fighting fascism, you're helping fascism. By killing Charlie Kirk, you're helping fascism. You're making fascism more likely because Donald Trump is going to use this to try to gather more power. So I guess that's my point.
- [16:30]
Erin Ryan
I see what you're saying. And I agree. I want to say I think you and I probably have, like, different following groups, you know, in our social media. My social media was populated with a lot of people who felt angry and betrayed by the fact that so many people in, like, the mainstream media, like your CNNs and your MSNBCs, et cetera, seemed so afraid of acknowledging who Charlie Kirk was as part of his job and what he did as part of his job and what harm he caused people as part of his job. Like, I think that, like, people are so afraid of endangering themselves or their workplaces or their co workers in this moment that they're not really, like, they're kind of backing away from it. People that I follow not like, celebrating his death, but they were kind of just like, why aren't people being more honest about what his legacy is? And I think that's something that I'm noticing. I want to say one thing that I haven't seen discussed very much when it comes to Kirk. That's like, the culpability of Silicon Valley in helping kind of bring about the world that we're living in right now. Yes, Charlie Kirk got very rich and famous exploiting algorithmic engagement that rewards rage and rewards outrage and anger. And he took advantage of a system that is designed for people like him to rise in it. So I feel like social media, I know social media is an easy thing to beat up on, but we should not let it off the hook. It is culpable in this.
- [17:59]
Tim Miller
It's an important thing to beat up on, though, because it's like, my colleague Andrew Egger, I thought, wrote a really nice morning shots this morning. Folks should read about this. And this was one of the sentences he said about the social media stuff. Maybe I'm participating in this right now by elevating some of the terrible shit I saw. But he goes following what you expect from political leaders, which was mostly condolences to Kirk's family. Below that seethed an inescapable culture war, each side excoriating the other. It barely mattered how representative of their broader political cohorts these posters were. Every American social media algorithm made sure they got to see whichever ones would make them the maddest. And that's true, right? And like that is. That is true. Right? In addition to, as you said, Charlie Kirk leveraged us quite well during his career. But, like, if the stuff that gets the most engagement, that gets the most put in your face is the stuff that's going to piss you off the most, then again, all it takes is One crazy. And you live in a country with just unlimited access to firearms. Firearm power unimaginable like fucking even three decades ago with the amount of AR15s that have proliferated. So if you live in that country, we have the social media feeds trying to make you as mad as possible. Easy access to firearms, and all it takes is a couple insane people to do this. That is just a powder cake. This is a disaster. It is a disaster. And that big tech oligarchs are absolutely accountable for this. In addition to the gun manufacturers, everybody is accountable for this. And we're setting up a society where people are going to be afraid to speak their mind. And that's really fucking bad.
- [19:33]
Erin Ryan
Yeah. A prerequisite for participating in society or like, for being a professional communicator is basically to live inside an anger machine all day long, every day. And it drives people nuts. And even people who are semi normal can be just driven nuts by it. I think it is something that, like, I wish if we were going to try to, like, unite the left and right on this, we should be like, hey, guys, this is bad. It's making us unhappy. It's making us feel terrible about ourselves. It's making us feel terrible, terrible about everybody else. Like, what are we doing? What is the upside?
- [20:10]
Tim Miller
Going after the phones. The phones definitely feels like a safer enemy than the guns, unfortunately. I mean, I'm all for still going after the guns. I don't think. I know people are sick of talking about that. I'm not. But the phones, like, the whole premise, like the Elon Musk premise that Twitter is the town square and everybody has the right to. Twitter's not the fucking town square. Like, you're making millions, billions by trying to piss people off, by finding the most insane people you can find anywhere in the world and then giving them a global town square to radicalize people. That is what's happening in these moments. You see it so acutely.
- [20:46]
Erin Ryan
Yeah. I mean, Twitter is like a town square where you can just stand there and you scream the craziest thing you think at the top of your lungs, and then somebody is like, I think that too. And then they find you. And then you sit, you join together and you scream it together. And soon there's like five of you screaming the craziest thing at the top of your lungs. It's like, it emboldens people. It lets people think that their fringe beliefs, their unexamined fringe beliefs, are more mainstream and common sense than they actually are. But, like, let's talk about the Guns a little, too, because they were in Utah. There are, like, no gun laws in Utah. I've spent a lot of time in Utah. I've been.
- [21:17]
Tim Miller
They tackled a guy because he had a different. It was a different guy with a gun. They assumed it was him.
- [21:21]
Erin Ryan
Yeah, yeah. And professors in Utah are. College professors are terrified today because there's. I think in Utah, there's a law that students are allowed to open carry in the classroom and teachers can't stop them. So, like, they're. They're of age. They're adults. Right. So, like, college kids are able to just, like, go into their lecture halls with guns. And that's not something that, like, professors can ask them to not do. Like, there's guns everywhere. People open carry. Like, it is. It is jarring to be pretty much anywhere outside of Salt Lake City. You'll sometimes see it in Salt Lake City, but like most of the rest of Utah, there's just like, guns everywhere. And the fact that Charlie Kirk Security did not, like, operate with that assumption.
- [22:01]
Tim Miller
Or maybe they did.
- [22:01]
Erin Ryan
I don't know.
- [22:02]
Tim Miller
I feel like this is the thing. I was texting with Ryan Bussey this morning, who's a gun control advocate. He used to work for a gun company. He's a. You know, he's come around, seen the. Seen the danger of firearms. And so he's like a real expert on this stuff. And he was like, dude, the scary thing about all this is, like, to somebody who doesn't shoot guns, which is me, like, I fucking grew up in suburban Denver and guns scare me. And I never was a gun shooter. I don't know anything about guns. I can't tell you anything about guns. He's like, it might seem like it was really. Like, it took real skill, right? Like. Like, it looks like the guy's really far away. Like, to naked eye, he's like, man, so many people can do that. Shot he was too. I forget if he said 200ft or 200 yards, whatever it was, he's like, so many people can do that. Sh. They had security there, obviously. Trump had Secret Service. He's like, the scary thing about this is, like, with the type of weapons that we have in this country, how easy that is. He's like, that's the scary thing about this. Like, that security really isn't. I mean, sure, people should have security.
- [22:56]
Erin Ryan
And stuff, but, like, yeah, what could.
- [22:59]
Tim Miller
They actually do if anything, like, the proliferation of guns is the fundamental problem?
- [23:04]
Erin Ryan
Well, guns and people team up to kill people. And so we've talked about the phone thing, which is like people's brains being turned into Swiss cheese and then they have access to guns. It's just, it's. It's an inevitability. And I feel like. I feel like this is going to make it difficult for people who tour college campuses and speak to do outdoor events, or it's gonna make people question whether or not to move things indoors.
- [23:26]
Tim Miller
You know, like, which means we're not in a free country. That's the point. And I made this point yesterday with Sarah, and it's just like, I know that the gun people like to talk about how they want to own guns so they can live in a free country, but you actually aren't in a free country if you don't feel free to go into a college campus and say what you think.
- [23:38]
Erin Ryan
I agree. Even if it's like, really awful stuff.
- [23:42]
Tim Miller
Even if it's bad stuff, even if.
- [23:43]
Erin Ryan
It'S really awful stuff that demonizes and dehumanizes people who have done nothing wrong in order to become rich and famous, which is what Charlie Kirk did in life.
- [23:53]
Tim Miller
I just had one more thing I wanted to say about the phones. I'm in an and another thing mode today, so hopefully you can also feel free to be in that mode if you want and not answer my questions and just rant. But in my feed this morning, I have simultaneously people saying that I'm responsible for Charlie Kirk's death. And also because I do anti Trump media, and also people who are like, whatever, you're too nice to him. He deserves it. And like, again, if this was really the town square, like, imagine I'm sitting, like, I'm thinking about, like, sitting out. I don't know, where was I? I was on vacation this year in Spain. And there's this. In the gay neighborhood in Barcelona. There's this beautiful square that people sit out in and have wine. It's a nice life. You know, people smell cigarettes and drink wine, and we're sitting out there just kind of watching the gays frolic back and forth for a couple hours one day, a nice vacation day. And like, imagine if I'm in that town square and instead people are coming up to me going, you're. You're complicit in murder. Like, fuck you, you're a Nazi. You're antifa. I'm just like, okay, well, I'm not going to sit in this town square anymore. Right? You know what I mean? Like people. Or if you're at a restaurant, the manager is going to come over and be like, sir, Ma', am, like, please, like, you need to go. Like, I'm going to call the police. Right. Like that isn't true. Like that isn't how society is actually supposed to work. But we have now emboldened these guys, become the richest people in history, making a completely toxic environment that breaks everybody's brain and makes everybody upset at each other. And there's no. And we've decided, and the government, not we, but our government decided to make no rules around it at all. So there you go.
- [25:23]
Erin Ryan
Yep.
- [25:24]
Tim Miller
So that's fine.
- [25:24]
Erin Ryan
I. I agree with you there. I think it's. It creates a town square where the only people there are assholes. Can I say that? It's like a. It's like a.
- [25:33]
Tim Miller
Is that. Does that include me?
- [25:34]
Erin Ryan
No. I mean, I go, I'm at kinda me. I mean, I'm there. I'm there sometimes too, just being an a hole. And like, it doesn't contribute to anybody's like, mental health well being. It doesn't make me feel good to be in fights on Twitter. It does. Like, I go on rarely now because it's just. It's a gross. Feels like a gross place.
- [25:54]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Unfortunately, the other apps weren't really much better of a place for me yesterday. All right, guys, we have a new sponsor in the clothing space and I've got some of their clothes and I could not be more thrilled about it. It's Mack Weldon. From the gym to work to a night out or summer adventures, you're going to want clothes that feel comfortable anywhere. Mack Weldon has breathable clothes to keep you cool, comfortable and stylish. I availed myself of something from their new tech linen line, which combines the easy charm of classic linen with their CoolMax technology. I was in a white linen shirt the other day. I was looking good, feeling good. It was breathable in the New Orleans air. Could not have been more thrilled. Mack Weldon balances classic pieces with updated details to keep you looking sharp. They're a go to choice for guys who want to look good without trying that hard. You know, one time back in college, a girl in my dorm said to me that I had. What was it? What did her say? That I had the best choices of clothes worn the most poorly because I didn't try. I was always wrinkled and shit. So anyway, if only I had Mack Welton, then I could have looked good without trying hard. Just what I always tried to do. Get breathable clothes you can feel comfortable in all summer. Go to mackweldon.com and get 20% off your first order of one. 25 bucks or more with promo code the Bulwark20. That's M A C K W E L-O-N.com promo code thebullwork20. All right, two other things on this, and I want to move on to some other topics. We kind of already threw the rhetoric modeling portion of our podcast, but I feel obliged to at least play a little bit. I had saved some of what James Talarico played yesterday. We don't need to listen. It's kind of long, so I'll put it in the link in the show notes for people. But I want to play Zoran. This was Zoran last night. Charlie Kirk is dead. Yet another victim of gun violence. In a nation where what should be a rarity has. Has turned into a plague, it cannot be a question of political agreement or alignment that allows us to mourn. It must be the shared notion of humanity that binds us all to the point of the plague that he brings up. I thought that was really nice. In May, two young employees of Israel's D.C. embassy were killed in June. Shooting of two Minnesota state lawmakers who've talked about this and their families. Firebombing of a march that was for the hostages in Israel. In Colorado, the guy that shot at the CDC, the security guard died. Shot 500. Thank God. That could have been way worse. I mean, there's so many.
- [28:39]
Erin Ryan
Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania was. Molotov cocktail was thrown into his house on a Jewish holiday, I believe. Yeah, it's bad. I think political violence and gun violence are a plague that are one in the same in the US because that's where we're at. And I think characterizing Charlie Kirk as a victim of that is also a very smart way to put it because he is a victim of it and also a promoter of it, but he's also a victim of it and it's very sad.
- [29:09]
Tim Miller
Final topic on this. You kind of referenced our unreliable. Would that be the word we would use? How about incompetent? How about incompetent leadership of the FBI? Kash Patel, former January 6th children's book author and podcaster, is now headed the bureau. He was live tweeting the investigation yesterday. He posted that they had got the suspect, got their guy, had to post again that they'd freed him later. We should also point out the cash and fired Mehtab Syed. She's a Pakistani American who's a counterterrorism expert. She was recently forced out as special agent in charge of the FBI's Salt Lake City bureau, which is the one investigating Kirk's shooting. The acting agent in charge was a cybersecurity person, Kyle Seraphin, who's actually maga, but I think had a falling out with Cash over some internecine war I don't know about. He was an FBI agent. He was yesterday calling Cash a screw up, a moron. This is the most embarrassing thing I've ever seen from a former FBI director. I mean, at some point, there is some dark comedy in this, just how incompetent Cash Patel is. On the other hand, it's fucking serious. Like, this is serious. I'm not blaming the FBI's incompetence on Charlie Kirk's assassination, but the fact that the FBI is firing people who are good at protecting people and replacing them with other stooges, the fact that they're firing people that are specialized in actual domestic terrorism, white supremacy, far radical terrorism, whatever the ideology, domestically, they're getting rid of those people, replacing it with immigration, you know, enforcement. It's bad.
- [30:46]
Erin Ryan
Yeah. I mean, I feel like the administration is like DEI for idiots in a way. People who are just loyalists and they don't really have any other skills besides following marching orders and doing whatever the President says. Can we speak very briefly about that video that the White House put out last night?
- [31:04]
Tim Miller
Oh, my God. Yeah. I should have had. Yep. Thank you. Please. I don't like playing Trump's voice on this podcast. We play it as little as possible. So I had not. I had not pulled the audio, but. So for folks who haven't seen it, tell him more what they put out.
- [31:16]
Erin Ryan
So Donald Trump gave the audio and the content of the statement was predictable. Right. It was what you would expect Donald Trump to say in the wake of Charlie Kirk's death. But what. What stood out to me was that it did not look like a video. That was like a real video. It looks like it was AI generated. And I don't know if I'm just completely like Epstein pilled at this point.
- [31:38]
Tim Miller
I don't know. I'm telling you this. Donald Trump Jr. S written statement about the. About the assassination was, I guess, I can't say definitely. I strongly suspect it was chatgpt written because it had all of the marks of it, the em dashes. It didn't sound like Donald Trump Jr. He started it by saying he's not good at this, which felt like kind of a confession anyway. So that's my. If you're going to be Epstein pilled, I'll be Epstein pilled on The Donald.
- [32:04]
Erin Ryan
Trump Jr. AI is the shadow ChatGPT should have an official cabinet post at this point with the amount of AI AI that's being used to generate statements, executive orders. But if you watch the video, the video is strange. The color is, like, hyperpigmented. His hands move strangely. His face moves strangely. It, like, rung some bells for me, some alarm bells. I was like, this isn't real.
- [32:28]
Tim Miller
He's also blaming the radical left. I don't know. I had several. I text with a couple of your colleagues actually over there at Crooked Media about this, where they're like, this is ominous because he's talking about how it's the radical left's fault and all this in addition to being weirdly taped. And I don't know, I'm so. I'm so catastrophizing about the. The state of affairs. I looked at it and I was like, well, yeah, and thank God he hasn't called martial law yet. I don't know. And I referenced this earlier. But regardless of what we find out over the next little bit, based on what we've heard of, what they're saying is on those bullets, I'm pretty concerned about. And we saw from Big Balls what they did in D.C. after he got beat up, I think that there's some potentially ominous power grabs coming from the federal government.
- [33:12]
Erin Ryan
Okay, fair. I'm gonna say this. Maybe I'm Pollyanna Ing this. There's no problem.
- [33:18]
Tim Miller
I love that this podcast listeners need a Pollyanna. So please.
- [33:21]
Erin Ryan
This happened in a very red state, in a very red county, in a. Like, there is a Republican governor, Republican super majority in Utah legislature, the county, the city. Like, there is not a single drop of blue in any position of power in Orem, Utah. So there is no blue city to invade. If this had happened in Atlanta, I would be terrified for everyone that lives in Atlanta.
- [33:49]
Tim Miller
Great point.
- [33:50]
Erin Ryan
But is Donald Trump going to invade Utah? Like, I don't know how there is a plausible justification for a martial law crackdown. And I also don't think that the President has the resources to do what he did in D.C. on a nationwide scale. He is going to run out of goons. Right? Like, there are not enough people to do. ICE is having trouble recruiting. Like, they're off. I'm saying, like, there are. There is a limited number of MAGA goon resources at Trump's disposal. And I don't think that there is a clear geographic target for retribution. But that doesn't mean that, like, they couldn't crack down in Some other like non geographic way with like restricting speech, restricting travel, something like that.
- [34:37]
Tim Miller
But in terms of like after lefty groups of some kind.
- [34:40]
Erin Ryan
Exactly. I'm just gonna say if you are somebody who is progressive on the left or anti maga in any way, shape or form, just be very careful with yourself for the next couple weeks. If somebody is speaking to you about something in a way that feels like insighty, don't do it. Like don't talk about violence. Don't do violence. Don't, don't. Just do not do it.
- [35:05]
Tim Miller
Here's my final and another thing on this is like I think that especially in our world, people who pay really close attention to this who know everything Donald Trump's doing, there's a lot of people who rightly myself top of the list, are like deeply concerned about where we are at in the state of the country and where our trajectory is. But like, you know, we're at like a 64 on the way to Haiti or whatever, you know, Cambodia, this shit can get a lot fucking worse than it is now. And like that is my other caution about all of this is that like sometimes people are a little flip about like things are already so bad, it's already authoritarianism, it's already done, you know what I mean? And like they can make things a lot worse. So there's my Auntie Pollyanna, which is in the spirit of the podcast, right y', all, we got a double dip on codes today, but we've been talking about this brand for a while now. It's American Giant. American Giant is about keeping things simple and close to home. They aren't affected by tariffs because their products never left the usa. Buying from American Giant supports American manufacturers. And damn, do you look and feel good too. I think I mentioned this before, but my husband is favorite favorite hoodie when he wants to get cozy. We're getting in cozy season if you live up in the northeast. Sorry Northeasterner, sorry producer Jason, but you're getting the cozy season up there and you're looking for a cozy hoodie to wear. And the American Giant hoodie is absolutely the coziest out there on the market. It feels good, it looks good, it fits, right? Couldn't recommend it more highly. Choosing American Giant means taking a stand for hardworking people, local communities and quality clothes. Support American made tariff free clothing with American Giant Get 20% off your first order when you use promo code bulwark@american-giant.com. that's 20% off when you use code bulwark@american-Giant.com. louis, you've mentioned Epstein. I want to move. We're doing a hard pivot.
- [37:02]
Erin Ryan
Is it that hard of a pivot, though?
- [37:05]
Tim Miller
Not for a.
- [37:06]
Erin Ryan
Not if you're a conspiracy theorist like me.
- [37:08]
Tim Miller
Not if you're a conspiracy theorist, which I am not. I wish I was. I was watching Candace Owens's podcast yesterday. She has this theory that the Stanford Prison experiment in the 70s, one of the prisoners was Brigitte Macron. I swear to God. And she's like. She's doing this thing where she's like. She's done all this research, and she's like, prisoner number 2603 was this person in prison, and it was. It's a code. Prisoner number 706 was Brigitte when she was a man. And I'm like, man, fuck, I am jealous of you. Like, this is why your engagement is so much better than mine. Like, I wish I had that conspiracy bone in me that could pull that off.
- [37:46]
Erin Ryan
Oh, I do. So.
- [37:48]
Tim Miller
Okay, great. Well, here we go.
- [37:49]
Erin Ryan
I'm like a litter.
- [37:49]
Tim Miller
I'm like, you're not doing any dick checks on Worldwide Global First Ladies.
- [37:54]
Erin Ryan
I'm not giving a crotch cup to anybody. No, I'm not doing that. I don't believe in any of that. But I did just get done researching this project I'm working on about Ghislaine Maxwell.
- [38:03]
Tim Miller
Okay.
- [38:04]
Erin Ryan
It's for work. It's not just like. I'm not just, like, doing it for fun.
- [38:06]
Tim Miller
Great. And on this topic, I want you to tell me about it, but I should just say. Breaking news this morning. Bloomberg has released an email cache of 18,000 emails from Epstein, which goes very deep on his relationship with Glenn. And so it's back in the news.
- [38:19]
Erin Ryan
Interesting. Well, I'm gonna be reading all 18,000 of those emails.
- [38:22]
Tim Miller
Okay, great. What have you found?
- [38:23]
Erin Ryan
I am Epstein pilled. The Epstein thing continues to get pretty hot for President Trump. I believe it was this week. Earlier, the House Oversight Committee released a page from Epstein's birthday book that Donald Trump definitely probably drew. And, yeah, it seems like it's just not going away in any way, shape, or form.
- [38:45]
Tim Miller
Can you tell us more about your Glenn research project?
- [38:48]
Erin Ryan
Oh, I'm making. We do a series at Crooked called this Effing Guy. Can I say the F word?
- [38:53]
Tim Miller
Oh, of course. I'm a little hurt that's. You're not a daily listener to the podcast because I'm fucking this fucking, fucking, fucking. My poor child has just dropped the F bomb at my husband yesterday. I'm like, oh, man, I hope Grandma isn't listening to this podcast. But anyway, continue.
- [39:11]
Erin Ryan
I hear the F word so much that I don't think it registers to me, because I do listen to your podcast on the day.
- [39:16]
Tim Miller
I'm just joking. Same. Thank you.
- [39:18]
Erin Ryan
Okay, so we do a series called this Fucking Guy. And it's like a deep dive into the sort of biography of somebody who is kind of like making America worse. It's a very simple concept, right? But usually I do a lot of the research for it, so I end up having to just, like, go deep into, like, newspaper clippings from the 90s. And, you know, I feel like I'm in one of those super cuts of somebody, you know, learning something at the library and microfiche and all that stuff.
- [39:43]
Tim Miller
Yeah, sure.
- [39:44]
Erin Ryan
So we just completed shooting Ghislaine Maxwell, and it's really crazy how her life and how many ties she's had to, like, intelligence, like, foreign intelligence for her whole life. Her father died mysteriously by falling off of a yacht off the Canary Islands. He was buried in the Mount of Olives in Israel. There's a book about him called Robert Maxwell, Israel's Super Spy. There's also a theory that he was working with the Soviets, as he allowed his printing press to be like a mouthpiece for propaganda from the Soviets in the 80s, including Nicolae Ceausescu, which is a crazy person to promote. As soon as her father died, she started working for Jeffrey Epstein, but the nature of their relationship has always been very strange because she was working for him, but they were sleeping together, but they broke up, but she kept working together, but she kept sleeping in his bed. It is very odd. And she also told feds in July that they broke up because of 9 11, because on 911 he didn't want to come over and hang out with her. So they broke up. But then she kept working with him till 2009. None of it makes sense. It all just feels very odd. And then a lot of people who have been close to either Robert or Glenn Maxwell or Jeffrey Epstein have died mysterious deaths. So there's that, too.
- [40:50]
Tim Miller
I'm excited to watch this.
- [40:52]
Erin Ryan
Oh, I lost my marbles.
- [40:54]
Tim Miller
I guess I should just say me calling you out for not listening to this podcast was my Jeb please clap moment. It was like, please tell me that you're fan. I am a watcher. You know, like Jeb, like son. I am a fan of this series that you're mentioning. One of them we're going to end with talking about as a little dessert for everybody. If they made it this far in the podcast. So. So stick around. The other it is. It's very serious. I mean, I guess it's the state of the generation and whether we procreate as a species. So it's another serious topic that I want to get to. There's this poll that was going around this week that I have given my manly thoughts on that some folks gave me negative feedback on and I was like, you know, Aaron would be the great person to talk to this fall about. I noticed you did a long thread on it, but for people who missed it, I was talking about like the question was essentially how do you define success in life? And young male Gen Z voters who voted for Trump rated having children as one of the first two things that were most important to them. Gen Z women who voted for Harris ranked this is the least important thing. The only thing less important was being famous, which I thought that was. I took a deep breath of sigh of relief at that. At least that the Gen Z folks are not just mostly focused on TikTok fame. So that's good. So thumbs up to Gen Z for that. But the Gen Z Harris voter is ranked having kids and a spouse as least important to self definition of success. So I am concerned about this for a variety of reasons, but I guess I want to hear your reaction first.
- [42:21]
Erin Ryan
Okay. So the definition of success is the way that it was like the question was asked. But I think a different way to think about it is like what benefits you? What is something beneficial to you? What is something that would be fulfilling for you?
- [42:33]
Tim Miller
Sure.
- [42:33]
Erin Ryan
Yeah. And what we're seeing is that women are like getting married and having children would not be something that is fulfilling. And men are saying that it is. Right. I think that women see, I think women don't want their mother's lives and dad and men want their father's lives. Like, and we're talking like broad brushes with like heterosexual couples. Right?
- [42:55]
Tim Miller
Yeah, sure. This whole conversation is going to be. We should just have a big caveat right here. There are exceptions to everything.
- [43:00]
Erin Ryan
Right.
- [43:01]
Tim Miller
Of course, I'm not generally, we're generalizing, Right?
- [43:03]
Erin Ryan
Right.
- [43:04]
Tim Miller
We're generalizing across a very big diverse society.
- [43:07]
Erin Ryan
I think that the amount of labor that is expected of women in the context of marriage that is not compensated, or marriage and childbearing that is not compensated, recognized or even respected, especially by people on the right, is something that women are onto. Young women especially, they see what their mothers have gone through. I think most women I know at one point got pulled aside by a female relative a Mom, a grandma, an aunt, somebody, and said, you go to college, you don't let guys do this. You know, you don't want to be doing this. You should do something different than what I'm doing. And I don't know that men had the same thing happen to them different.
- [43:42]
Tim Miller
Than what I'm doing. In what way? Can you just expand on that a little bit?
- [43:45]
Erin Ryan
So like, I think that a typical, the typical breakdown of like how much housework is done by women versus men and what is expected of women in the context of the home. It's disproportionately seen as a woman's job and a woman's role to like clean the house, raise the kids. It's also like 100% women's biological labor to be pregnant and have children and deal with all of the biological aftermath of that. Like I mentioned before, I have a one year old and a three year old. And like, you cannot downplay the physical cost of having a child on your actual body. Of course, men are like, yeah, have a kid. Yeah, have a kid. That's not anything that's like, on his body. He doesn't have to be pregnant, he doesn't have to give birth.
- [44:28]
Tim Miller
I would say this even as a dad. I'm gonna say one of my eye opening moments when my daughter was born was. I wouldn't say I got chastised is not the right word, but I got my horizons expanded when I was kind of talking with some of my girlfriends about how like, yeah, I mean, whatever, like, kid doesn't sleep that much at night. But. But we're doing pretty good, you know, like, we're taking turns on doing the nighttime feedings and they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, but you aren't experiencing like, this changed my body. That changed my body. I learned a little bit too much about all the changes to women's bodies in the fallout following birth. So, like, no doubt, like totally hurt.
- [45:04]
Erin Ryan
And that's something that can't be overcome. Like, we cannot erase the toll.
- [45:08]
Tim Miller
The physical money doesn't even solve that.
- [45:10]
Erin Ryan
Really.
- [45:10]
Tim Miller
No. And you can have a night nurse, but it doesn't. That helps, makes it better.
- [45:13]
Erin Ryan
It doesn't save you from the hormone crash or like lactation and all this stuff. Like the painful things that happen to you when you give birth, like a C section is like one of the gnarliest surgeries that exists. Giving birth the regular way, also not a walk in the park, you know what I mean? The only way out is through something very bloody and costly on your Body, right? So the way to make. To get women to care more. If we're trying to focus on family formation, right? If we believe that family formation is good, then what we need to do as a society is, do you.
- [45:45]
Tim Miller
That caveat makes you think maybe you're on the fence on that? Do I think family formation is good at a value that we should be.
- [45:55]
Erin Ryan
I think it is. I think that it's something that should be accessible to everybody who wants to do it. But I think the reason that people. I think the reason that people don't want to do it is because it's not worth it to them. And the reason it's not worth it to them is because of all the labor and the toll it takes on their body and a lack of a social safety net. A complete lack of a social safety net. Like, there is. There is no, you know, we don't have. Childcare is, like, crazy expensive. It's like, for two kids, every month, we pay, like, twice what our rent is in childcare. Like, it's crazy. There is basically no paid maternity leave or parental leave in this country. You're lucky if you get even a few weeks of paid leave. Like, there's just systemic issues that are like, why would I do this? This sounds like a huge logistical pain in the ass. But then I think that there are cultural issues around the value that men add to their households beyond just earning a paycheck. Do you know what I'm. Do you understand what I'm saying?
- [46:56]
Tim Miller
Yes.
- [46:56]
Erin Ryan
Like, value, like participating in raising the child, like, participating in doing housework, participating in being a good roommate. Like, I think that there are a lot. I have friends. My husband is, like, you know, one of the good ones. But I have a couple friends that married guys that are, like, allegedly progressive, and they went to college and they're super smart, and you'd think that they would be, like, groovy. But the expectations that are on my friends who went to the same college as they did earn just as much, if not more, money than they do. The expectation is still that my female friends are doing the child rearing. They're scheduling everything. They're managing the house. They're doing all the housework. And it's kind of a raw fucking deal. Why would you aspire to be made into a servant and contribute much more than half of the resources? And by resources, I mean emotional, fiscal, and, like, you know, time resources to your household? Like, why. Why would that be appealing to a woman? So in order for that to change, we need to Change the culture around young men and teach them that it is very important for them to be useful to their households in ways that transcend financial. They need to be emotionally useful. They need to be able to like, do things around the house. Can you prepare a simple meal? Can you fix things? Can you, like. Everybody should aim to be a product member of a household. And here's my giant swing in this, like, you know, and another thing rant I'm going on. I think everybody, every American student in all schools should be required to take four years of home ec. Four years of home EC in four years.
- [48:29]
Tim Miller
Four years.
- [48:30]
Erin Ryan
Four years. Every single year.
- [48:31]
Tim Miller
I could have used four weeks.
- [48:32]
Erin Ryan
No, well, exactly. But I think it should be four years. Teach you how to do things like how to live in a house and be a useful member of a household. Like, these are things that people are not being taught and especially, especially men. And I just think that that is probably one of the two pronged ways into more women who want to have kids finding a suitable partner and feeling supported enough to have kids. So that's. Those are my thoughts.
- [48:58]
Tim Miller
That's a good rant. I would add on to that, that, and maybe this cuts both ways because you're trying to encourage men to be better husbands. They shouldn't need this. But like, also the social credit men get for doing parenting.
- [49:07]
Erin Ryan
Holy shit.
- [49:07]
Tim Miller
Is much greater. So that's. So it's like not surprising that men would be happier about having kids. Like, I gotta take like, not as much anymore because she's 7, but when I go on an airplane with my daughter, like between ages of baby and like three or four maybe, I mean, you would think I was Mother Teresa. And people are asking to help me hold my. Do you need help with your bag? Do you want me to hold her a little bit? Do you want me to buy you a drink? I mean, I was. I've never been treated so well in my life. Life anywhere. And so that is definitely. I mean, that's just one example of a broader trend. But maybe that's good at some level because we want to give men positive encouragement. But maybe that's counterproductive, frankly.
- [49:46]
Erin Ryan
Because it's counterproductive because also, like, women are at the same, like they were kind of demonized for taking kids in public. Like, I think that this kind of like anti child thing that we're seeing in like especially child free spaces online, which I understand are kind of a hornet's nest, there is a real like anger at children being in spaces like, you know, restaurants and grocery Stores and breweries or whatever. And I think that there is something to be said for like kids being well behaved or whatever. But like this, I've seen like threads where people are like, yeah, there should be child free flights. I would pay for a child free flight. It's like, yuck, fuck you, yuck.
- [50:25]
Tim Miller
Like, yeah, so this goes to my. This is what I want to get to. This is where my. I don't even know if it's pushback, but I guess I want to get your perspective on this of something that I think could live simultaneously with your accurate critique of our society, which is being a mom always kind of sucked a lot of things that you just said. Some of it is particularly true now because women are working more and so it's kind of a double. They're getting a double whammy. But a lot of the other things that you said were always true, maybe even worse, frankly, in past times. We're at a moment now where women born in the 2000s are having like half as many children as the previous cohort. So, like, that's not a poll. Like, that's like actual data. The amount of people who say they want to be child free, not childless, to your point of these child free spaces, like, not, I wanted a kid, but just didn't happen. I didn't find the right partner, we had medical issues, whatever. But like, I'm choosing to not. Like that number is skyrocketing right now. And I just think that, like, at some level I agree with you that we need to do it from a policy wise, like things to make parenting more appealing and better. I agree with basically every recommendation you had, except maybe four years might be a little much. But why don't we just settle on one? We'll start with one and see how it goes. But besides that, I'm with you. But like, I just think somewhere there's a cultural thing that I see, particularly on the left, particularly with younger people, about how like, I can't bring a kid into this world. The world is so terrible, climate is happening. Being a mom is terrible. I need to have a home and a mortgage and a 401k and stuff before I'm ready to have a kid. And I think that there's like a cultural message that's being sent to young people that's maybe setting them up to fail. Because all of the challenging parts about being a parent, it's also like an unbelievable blessing. And if you look at studies of people older in life, older people are happier when they have grandkids around when they have a spouse around. And I just worry that people are being pushed to a direction that is harmful, particularly young women, because they're focusing on the negatives and the challenges, which are real and we should ameliorate rather than, like, getting a story, a narrative told to them about, like, the value. What do you think about that?
- [52:35]
Erin Ryan
Well, I have a little bit of pushback there. I think that young girls and women are a little bit more socially adept. They're raised to, like, form their own social groups. That's like. I think girls are better at, like, forming communities. Generally speaking, young women are better at, like, forming communities. And actually, the forming community thing is, like, a lot of times within a heterosexual marriage, it is, like, the woman's responsibility to, like, manage the social life of the household. Like, men who are single don't. They're not really great at, like, making friends or forming a friend group.
- [53:05]
Tim Miller
That is true. I noticed that I'm carrying the woman's role in my household in that one. You know, the nice thing about a gay is, like, the stereotypes. We can trade back and forth. You know, I'm carrying that one. But. Yeah, I hear you. That is true. I noticed that.
- [53:16]
Erin Ryan
Yeah. So that's something. And I don't think men are as good at making friends. And so I think that the loneliness in old age is not something necessarily that. I would say that women are necessary, that are going to suffer. I think that there are a lot of fulfillment.
- [53:28]
Tim Miller
Lack of fulfillment, though, or whatever. I don't know.
- [53:31]
Erin Ryan
Yeah, there's like, there are going to be a lot of.
- [53:34]
Tim Miller
I'm not saying you can't. I just want to say this because people are going to get mad. I'm not saying you can't be a fulfilled single older woman, or man, for that matter, that didn't ever have kids. You absolutely can't. I'm just saying that, like, that maybe people are not hearing the positive side of the fulfillment that can come from making the sacrifices to do it, I guess is my point.
- [53:53]
Erin Ryan
Yeah, I think that being a mother is, like, very costly in many ways. And the way that it benefits you, it's costly in tangible ways and beneficial in intangible ways. And so I think that it is easy for someone to wrap their head around the fact that, like, okay, here's something. So I got two little kids. It was a choice I made. I wanted to have two. My career is, like, completely all I can do. All of my time is spoken for. Right. I can't, like, write a book Proposal. I don't have time. Like I go home and I take care of my kids. My husband and I take care of the kids. Like I don't have time to develop more like hobbies. I haven't been to a concert in years. I used to love going to shows. Like, I don't really get to read as much as I like to. Like, all of these things when it comes to like personal development are kind of on pause. While I deal with this very demanding phase in motherhood. It's difficult for me to socialize. It's difficult. Like I have to plan my entire day. I feel very like constrained. And I think that that's something that a lot of women don't want to have to deal with even in a short period of time. Because it's like I live in a neighborhood in LA with a lot of like moms who are my age, a lot of older moms. And it's very easy to make friends at the playground. It's very. But I think in other places it's, it's kind of a lonely existence. Like you don't have time to socialize. You only are taking care of your kids if you're a stay at home mom. Like, when are you getting to hang out with other people? I think that there's a lot of like, people can see the drawbacks in the short term and they don't really think that it's worth the upside of like fulfillment in the long term. Also, I'm just gonna say this. I got two kids. Love them, think they're great. They're so cute. This morning my little one was like taking one of my makeup brushes and putting it in her mouth and then running away when I tried to take it away from her. So that was, that was cute or gross. I love that.
- [55:46]
Tim Miller
Is that a case for children or against. I don't know, it's for Eye of the Beholder story.
- [55:52]
Erin Ryan
She thinks it's funny. She loves this Ms. Rachel sketch where they do the sign language ABCs and she gets really excited when they get to Z and she makes the Z sign language. It's just so cute. I think that it is a perfectly valid life path to not have kids. The thing that is upsetting to me is that the reasons that people may not want to, that women may not want to are not because they don't like kids or they don't like, think it might be good, but it's because they lack the support and they don't think that they could find somebody they can rely on to help them do it in a way that isn't completely like self immolation. Also, I think that there's a lot of people that have one kid that would like to have two or people that have two that would like to have three and can't because this country is shitty to parents, like absolutely no support. So I think that's a factor as well.
- [56:39]
Tim Miller
Well, here's where we have an agreement and Josh Hawley agrees with us too. We should be supporting parents more. At least he says that he does. All right, well, good. This is why I had you on. It's important for me to challenge myself. Some of those answers hurt me on the inside. But I realized I need to expand my. I just need to expand my worldview. And some listeners want to hear from all the worldview, hear from folks that have different backgrounds, perspective. I don't know, I just, you know, look, we're all sopsistic at some level. So I'm just going to just talk about my own life and experience and this is all you can really know. But like, you know, my mother had me when she was kid baby, she was a child. They had no money. We were in a tiny duplex. Like her life was very challenging. She was still a nurse at the time. And I just think that that is a common story of a lot of people throughout a lot of history is that it was challenging, it was hard, it was financially hard, it was physically hard. But it also is really fulfilling and important and meaningful and brings love to the world. And I love little babies and hopefully I brought love to my mother most years. There were some years where I didn't, I think. And you know, on b balance in the end it's like it's worthwhile and that's not for everybody. And I think it's for everybody. But it's. I hate sometimes when I feel like the worthwhile part of the story is lost and I worry, I think that for people who are like 22 right now, they're hearing a lot of why it's not worthwhile. That's the part that pains me a little bit.
- [58:02]
Erin Ryan
Yeah, I mean it's not apples to apples here, right. Because back when you were a kid, a minimum wage job would get much closer to paying rent on an apartment than it does now. Right. There was, I think, a lot more opportunity for people who are like middle and working class to have a life with children that worked. But I don't think that's the case now. Housing is so expensive. Minimum wage has not gone up since, like, I don't know, since what, 1997 or something like that. It's like, it's been so long. Like, the financial demands.
- [58:35]
Tim Miller
I agree with all that. I'm just thinking you also hear these arguments from people that are, like, from pretty privileged families. Sure. Like, I'm just saying it's a widespread feeling. I am totally with you. Particularly like. Like, it's very hard right now for, you know, working middle, lower middle, working class, young Gen Z folks in cities.
- [58:54]
Erin Ryan
I mean, you do have to give up creature comforts. You have to give up creature comforts. Like, when I have these. These kids and this massive childcare expense so that I can go to work every month, it's like, you know, we can't really go on vac. We used to go on really cool vacations. We can't do that anymore. Like, we used to.
- [59:10]
Tim Miller
Yeah, Mykonos sounds nice, you know.
- [59:12]
Erin Ryan
Yeah, I used to, like, wear Mykonos. Mykonos? You're still doing that?
- [59:17]
Tim Miller
I don't know. I was just picking the first one.
- [59:21]
Erin Ryan
That came to mind. Yes, Eos and cos are better. No, it's like people are happy with the amount of pleasure and leisure that exists in their lives. And when you have kids, you really have to dial that back for logistical reasons, but also probably for financial reasons as well.
- [59:40]
Tim Miller
I've taken too much of your time, as you already mentioned. You have a lot of time, but you had one provocative tweet I absolutely have to ask you about. I cannot let you. You go if we do not. I did not ask you about it.
- [59:47]
Erin Ryan
Okay.
- [59:48]
Tim Miller
And so what that means is we have to cut the time where we are going to discuss crazy Nancy Mace. And that is because I just watch the video. I'm going to say I'm putting the video to the link in this episode. People can. We can promote hysteria. You can go to the hysteria YouTube feed and watch one of Aaron's deep dives on Nancy Mace. As insane as you think Nancy Mace is, it's a whole different level. I mean, it is wild. This, this. So anyway, I'm just going to leave it that it's a cliffhanger for people. Here's your tweet. I think I agree I might be in trouble. I think I agree with it.
- [60:19]
Erin Ryan
Okay.
- [60:20]
Tim Miller
Surrogacy should be so regulated that for most people, it's illegal. That is a controversial statement. Yeah.
- [60:27]
Erin Ryan
Yeah.
- [60:28]
Tim Miller
I want to hear why you said it. And we'll leave it at.
- [60:31]
Erin Ryan
Yeah, okay. Well, I said that because there was this Wired article that Ran, I think last week. And it was about a venture capitalist in San Francisco who hired two surrogates to carry her babies at the same time because she wanted twins. And the baby boy died in utero because of a placental issue. Like the placental. The placenta detached and the pregnancy was no longer viable and the baby died. Which is very sad. But this biological mom, bio mom went absolutely rip shit on the surrogate, absolutely rip shit. Like trying to ruin her. She called the FBI on her like 12 times. Like, I think that there's something that, that feels very exploitative about for profit surrogacy being a thing that exists. Like you can't sell organs legally. Right, Right. I don't think you should be able to sell. I think that buying another person's body is like, is unethical and it kind of talk about catastrophizing as like a kind of like, you know, late stage capitalism, like post Roe catastrophizing person. I think that where this is leading, where unregulated surrogacy is leading, is a world where poor women's bodies are for rent by rich women. I think that surrogacy should be allowed for people who physically cannot have their own children. And it should be very, very regulated. Like it should be available to people who are medically unable to. And I don't mean like by age, I mean like, like you're 35, you have cancer, you gotta get chemo and you can't have your own kids. Or if you're like a same sex couple and neither of you could carry a child, I think that those are acceptable, but I think that it should just be so regulated and surrogate should be very protected because what happened to this woman in the Wired piece is like super fucked up.
- [62:20]
Tim Miller
I'm happy you said it. I don't know. Look, I again honor people that have surrogacy and that do it the right way and that love those babies and the birth moms that are doing it. But I agree, I think that it can veer into an area of creepiness and people are kind of afraid to say that because they don't want to hurt the fee, I think. Right, for good reason. They don't want to hurt the feelings of like friends in their life, whatever that have gone the surrogacy route. And I don't want to, but we need rules around shit, you know, because there are people that abuse everything. And I don't know, that's been something that's been like creeping in the back of my head for a little while that I just sort of, you know, keep in my household. But since you tweeted it, I was like, all right, let's do it. Let's. Let's hear about it. I think that's a fair.
- [63:04]
Erin Ryan
I mean, eventually, I think we're on a collision course with that conversation. Like, eventually it's going to be something that everybody's talking about, because, like, this case that was written about in Wired is, like, egregious. And for every story that you read about something like that, you know that there's some stories that have gone untold and that are just kind of like these small, terrible things that are happening in people's lives.
- [63:26]
Tim Miller
Oh, man. Thank you so much. We had so many fraught topics today, and I appreciate you putting yourself out there, being willing to do this and being honest with us, and who the hell knows what we'll talk about next time, But I'd like to do it again. All right.
- [63:41]
Erin Ryan
Yeah, thanks for having me.
- [63:42]
Tim Miller
All right. Boy, that was a heavy one. But I really appreciate Aaron coming on to do that and working through it all with me today. We have one of our favorites tomorrow, thank God, so hopefully he can give us some wisdom and guidance. We've got a bunch of other stuff to get to, particularly the latest out of NATO, I guess, and Russia's attacks on Poland. So it'll be a good episode tomorrow. Hope to see you all then. Hang in there. Love each other, hug your kids. Peace.
- [64:13]
Poetry Reader
Words child crawling underneath making mama so proud but your voice is too.
- [64:25]
Tim Miller
Loud.
- [64:30]
Poetry Reader
We like to watch you laughing you pick the insects off plants no time to think of consequences show yourself, take only what you need from it A family of trees wanted to be haunted Enjoy yourself, take only what you need from the A family of trees wanted me haunted the water is warm but send me shivers A baby is born cry it out for attention memories fake like looking through a far mirror Decision to decisions all made and not fault But I thought this wouldn't hurt a lot. I guess not. Show yourself, take only what you need from it Family up dreams wanted be haunted show yourself, take only what you need from it A family of dreams wanted to be haunted.
- [66:26]
Tim Miller
The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.