George Conway (4:54)

A former Republican, now a Democrat. I fought Trump publicly in every way I could, and I paid a price. I'll never regret standing up to Trump or for the victims he abused. Helping Eugene Carroll sue Trump for raping her and lying about it. Now Trump owes Eugene $88 million. He doesn't like me. I don't like what he's done to our great country. And now I'm running for Congress to take the fight directly back to him on your behalf, on the behalf of New Yorkers to whom I owe so much to protect the fundamental rights and basic economic needs of all New Yorkers to make our nation better than it was before to write new laws that will safeguard our democracy so that we don't end up facing autocracy ever again. This is no ordinary time, and I will not be an ordinary member of Congress. Let's do this together.

Tim Miller (5:51)

George Conway, welcome back to the show. You're running for Congress now, full disclosure, I've donated to your opponent because there are two former bulwark podcasters in the New York 12 congressional race. How is that happening? What's going on up there?

George Conway (6:05)

I'm back in New York. It's like the Thomas Jefferson coming back. I always. I'm just.

Tim Miller (6:10)

Is that a Hamilton reference? I don't do theater.

George Conway (6:12)

That's a Hamilton. I saw. We saw Hamilton over the weekend. So I'm very. Hamilton.

Tim Miller (6:16)

Is Broadway in your district? I don't know how they covered it.

George Conway (6:18)

I'm like, ah, Broadway's in my district. My old law firm is my district. All of my apartments are in this old district. Penn Station is in my district. Everything's in this district.

Tim Miller (6:29)

You're in a Rangers. Rangers jersey.

George Conway (6:31)

Yeah. I was a Rangers season ticket holder for a while back in the 90s when I was at the firm. At the law firm.

Tim Miller (6:38)

Mark Messier.

George Conway (6:39)

Mark Messier, that's right. The Captain Mess. The Mess. And this was their third jersey back in the day. And now I live, like, three blocks away from Madison Square Garden, and it was great. So I'm going to go to the Rangers game on Thursday night. Having a lot of fun. And I'm sorry that you gave to my opponent, but it's.

Tim Miller (6:57)

Yeah, well, it's just important to. Radical Candor is the ethos of this podcast, wanted everybody to know.

George Conway (7:02)

Radical Candor. I know. And the radical candor is when I ran into you after I started thinking about doing this in November, you looked at me like I had five holes in my head.

Tim Miller (7:10)

I still kind of think you have five holes in your head. So make the case. Tell me, why are you doing this? You have a good life.

George Conway (7:16)

I do have a good life. And look, somebody's got to do this right. We have a criminal president. He's running the country like a mob boss is running it for his own benefit. And we need lawyers in Congress to do something about this. We need experienced lawyers. We need people who are not regular politicians. And I'm 62 years old, and I'm not going to do this for very long. But my view is that we need skilled, smart lawyers who aren't afraid of this to go in and do two things. One is to hold him Accountable through investigating his misdeeds and all the miscreants around him, and to impeach people, including the president, for their high crimes and misdemeanors, because Congress has a moral and constitutional obligation to do that, that the Republican majority has forsaken for almost a decade now. And that's why we are where we are. And we can't screw around anymore, because this is it. I mean, this is a guy. He tore down the East Wing because he's thinking that he wants to have his grand palace to hold his unconstitutional and illegal third inauguration. And I'm literally talking about that. And then the second thing that we need to do is to pass laws to make sure this never happens again. And that requires more lawyers. And so what I. You know, I view myself as being. As being someone who can really fill that mandate in a way that other people cannot. I want to be Jamie Raskin's wingman. And this is how I think I can get back to this district that gave me so much. It gave me my entire legal career, and that's why I'm doing it. It does seem crazy. I should. I'm a retired lawyer. I should be out skiing somewhere, enjoying myself, walking. Clyde, who you just heard bark. Oh, he loves Central park, and of course he's excited. The corgis are very excited. Corgis for Conway. We're gonna have a special affinity group there.

Tim Miller (9:22)

So you don't hear people say too often, we need more lawyers in Congress. So I assume where you're going with that is we need more good lawyers, good prosecutors.

George Conway (9:31)

Yes.

Tim Miller (9:32)

People who get a finer point on.

George Conway (9:34)

That for me, people who can interrogate witnesses and know how to conduct investigations, who are really smart and know how to convey what they're finding to the public. And these are the. You know, I mean, this is explaining things, which is what I did on a podcast on some place that I used to have. I explained legal stuff, and I think I'm pretty good at that, and I think that I'm good at all those things that are required to explain to the public what we're doing, what we found, why this is illegal, why it's unconstitutional, why it's hurting you, and why it's destroying the country for your children. And I think we need a lot more of that right now. I mean, there are a lot of Democrats who I greatly admire who are fighting, fighting the good fight in exactly the way it needs to be fought, like Chris Murphy's of the world, Jasmine Crocketts, the Jamie Raskins, the Dan Goldmans, all these people. But there are a lot of people out there, and I think they're sort of like reading consultants, talking points, who basically say, well, we don't want to talk too much about Trump because we. That keeps us from talking about affordability and talks about that, yes, affordability is important. The ACA substance subsidies being yanked is important. All those issues are important. But they are inextricably intertwined with this fucker in the White House because he was running the government for his own benefit. You know, he doesn't give a shit about people out there. He's, you know, he's a guy who lied his way in back into office, talking about and complaining about inflation, and now he's telling people that affordability is a hoax. And what's he doing? Okay, what's he doing? You know, we're worried about the armrests at the Trump Kennedy center and outfitting of a Qatari 747. And now we're talking about Greenland. We're taking Venezuela's oil. You know, he's behaving like Nicolas Maduro would if he had had the fucking US Navy backing him up.

Tim Miller (11:29)

The most compelling part of the pitch for me is particularly when it's focused on the oversight responsibilities, presuming that the Democrats get back in charge next year.

George Conway (11:37)

They will.

Tim Miller (11:37)

You hear a lot of lamenting on podcasts such as this about Merrick Garland. Well, for good reason. We can talk about that if you want. And just the speed with which he moved with regards to Trump. But a related complaint you don't hear about as much is I think that the Democratic oversight work was not up to the standard of what we saw from, say, Trey Gowdy going after Benghazi or going back to the 90s going after Clinton. I just. With all of the corruption coming up next year, I do think there needs to be a different mindset in the Democratic Congress about how to look at the crypto corruption. Epstein all down the list. They're doing a little bit better on the Epstein stuff, I would say, since Robert Garcia has got in there. But they're talking about. Talk about that and, like, what that would look like for you from an oversight perspective.

George Conway (12:22)

Look, I mean, it shouldn't be that hard to be aggressive here, right? Because this is like shooting fish in a barrel. Okay. I mean, the corruption is so rampant. There are so many forms of it. I mean, there's. There's a smorgasbord of illegality and criminality to pick from. And what we need to do What Congress needs to do is to staff up, staff up the House Judiciary Committee and the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee and just really crank it up and do it nonstop. People are ready for this. Not just people in the 12th congressional district of New York. As I walk the streets here and people are saying, they've been saying for. Thank you, thank you. I listened to the Bulwark. These are Democrats.

Tim Miller (13:09)

Duh. Yeah, right.

George Conway (13:10)

I mean, and it's not just them. You know, we have people out in the heartland in red states, in red districts. They're starting to get it, that this isn't about them, right? No. Foreign wars. Oh, look at what we're doing. We're bombing the shit out of Venezuela. I mean, it's crazy. And I think people are starting to get it. Your new friend Marjorie Taylor Greene gets it. And, you know, one of the things you can't do with Donald Trump is just assume he's going to fucking go away. That's what Garland did. That's what, frankly, Joe Biden did. They just assumed, oh, after January 6th, he's going to go away. These psychos, malignant narcissists, narcissistic sociopaths have been writing about this here. These demented, deranged, personality disordered people do not go away. They don't. You have to make them go away, okay? And you have to call them out and you have to go toe to toe with them. And you, you know, you can't ignore them. Don't give him oxygen. Don't give him oxygen. Excuse me.

Tim Miller (14:10)

He's got plenty of fucking oxygen.

George Conway (14:11)

Yeah, exactly.

Tim Miller (14:14)

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George Conway (16:11)

I think you need to do a medical show on the Bulwark. A special ask doctor so and so.

Tim Miller (16:16)

You know, yeah, the yellow is seeping through the arch. I guess it was creating a strange color. But at that speech to the House Republicans, he said, basically, look, if you guys lose, they're going to impeach me. And you've mentioned impeachment. I want you to make the pitch to me because I'm kind of on the fence. Part of me is just like, impeachment obviously didn't work the last time. Maybe the right thing to do is instead just do oversight across a bunch of different variables. Saudi Arabia deals, Qatar deals, crypto Epstein, and maybe try to impeach Kristi Noem instead. I don't know, but there are a lot of different things that could be done. Okay, this is my answer to why you think impeachment.

George Conway (16:51)

Bullshit. It's not about politics. It's not about, oh, are we gonna offend people by impeaching Trump as opposed to maybe we should start small and impeach nomenclature. It's like, no, no, no. When you swear to uphold the Constitution as a member of Congress, as a member of the House and a member of the Senate, my view is you have a constitutional obligation to remove to Impeach and to remove executive officials who are committing high crimes and misdemeanors. That is your job. It's not a question of what the polls say. It's not a question of maybe it wouldn't be prudent.

Tim Miller (17:29)

That was.

George Conway (17:30)

Maybe it wouldn't be prudent. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm showing my age. That I remember. Remember that.

Tim Miller (17:34)

I don't even know the reference.

George Conway (17:36)

The references. They. That was the Saturday Night Live was. That used to be the Saturday Live impression of George Herbert Walker Bush do. That wouldn't be prudent.

Tim Miller (17:45)

All right. Yeah.

George Conway (17:46)

It's not a question of. Yeah, you're too young. See, I'm 62 years old. I can't do this for very long. You have to absolutely point out this is an obligation. This is an absolute obligation. And if you pretend it's, like, something that you can hold back on that, oh, it's on the laundry list of things to do. You immediately. You're basically telling people this is okay. And that's what happened with Garland. And the other thing about this is this guy is like a vampire, okay? These malignant narcissist psychotypes are like vampires. You cannot lift them off the mat if they're on the mat. Okay? I'm not gonna use the stake through the heart metaphor, because some people will say, oh, he's talking about violence. But you cannot stop with this guy, because he doesn't stop. And if you sit there and say, oh, and you wring your hands, it's, oh, gee. Oh, well, you know, we have to talk about some other things. We. Looks like we're talking about Trump so much. It's like Trump is causing everything bad. Trump is bad. He is a criminal. He is ignoring his oath of office. He is doing bad things that cause bad things to people around the world, including ordinary people who are going to the fucking grocery store.

Tim Miller (19:03)

That's a compelling pitch, George. That's a compelling pitch.

George Conway (19:06)

No, I mean, I get to use the F word all I want on.

Tim Miller (19:08)

This podcast, which is on this podcast. It's allowed. When you're out in the streets in New York, when you're on the Upper east side. No, no, no.

George Conway (19:15)

You can use the F word in New York. On the streets of New York. You absolutely can. I know this from having lived here for decades.

Tim Miller (19:21)

What a great district.

George Conway (19:22)

It is. The effort. Iowa. No, they. You know, they actually do use the effort. I hate to tell you.

Tim Miller (19:28)

It's like.

George Conway (19:29)

But usually, yeah.

Tim Miller (19:30)

Oh, that's compelling. And it's very rare that I'm the one who's okay now.

George Conway (19:36)

Are you going to contribute to your campaign?

Tim Miller (19:38)

Yeah, we're going to see. We got 30 minutes left in the podcast.

George Conway (19:42)

Have I sold you yet? Have I sold you yet?

Tim Miller (19:45)

Yeah, I'm going to donate $1 less than Cameron. I donated to Cameron. Depending on how dep. On how we do and then Sarah can even it out.

George Conway (19:51)

Well, I'm gonna check. I get to check that. I check the list though. You know, we get, we get lists now. I didn't. Never knew how these works.

Tim Miller (19:57)

You're taking a list, you're checking. I'm gonna get coal in my stocking next year if I don't donate enough to George's campaign.

George Conway (20:03)

You know, I don't know. I don't know. You may have to listen to me sing a, sing a, sing a song or something on the guitar that I could.

Tim Miller (20:09)

I love that I'm the only one around. Loved your guitar performance on our bus tour last year. But we've got news we gotta do. You saw the website yesterday. This is one of those things where it's like some people are like, you just roll your eyes, it's Trump. Why get outraged about it? And I'm trying my best this year on the podcast to not be outraged about things I'm not genuinely outraged about. I'm genuinely outraged about this. On the White House website for our country. It has, among other things, Ashley Babbitt was murdered in cold blood. And it names the police officer, probably the wrong one, actually, that they were accusing of shooting her. They say Mike Pence did a betrayal of the president. They talked about how a stolen election was certified on the five year anniversary of January 6th. That's what they put up on the. Not on his campaign site, on the official White House website. That is totally appalling and unimaginable in any other world.

George Conway (21:02)

These people are deranged. They're all deranged. I mean, one of the things that happened here is, okay, Trump is a sociopath. Trump is a psychopath. Trump is a malignant narcissist. He is unwell. He is unfit for any position of power because he is mentally ill. But one of the things that's happened, like in, during the first administration, he was surrounded by people who were not so afflicted, right? And they would try to tamp him down and they would say, no, you can't do that, Donald. They would take papers, like, remember the Goldman Sachs guy would take papers off Trump's desk and then they would slow Walk the craziness. All those people are gone. If you are in some way normal, you can't work in that administration. So he's surrounded by people who do nothing but do his bidding. And not only just do his bidding, anticipate his bidding, they are just as bad as he is. I mean, look at Katie. You know, Katie Miller, she's not in the administration now, but, you know, she's posting things about Greenland with an American flag on it. I mean, these people are kind of.

Tim Miller (22:06)

In the administration because she's like that character for the Hunger Games. I forget his name. The interviewer who, like, takes everybody from the regime and gives them softball interviews and talk about how amazing they are. That's kind of her role. So that's sort of. It's kind of in a propaganda arm of the administration.

George Conway (22:22)

I mean, basically what's happened is, I mean, you know, at the center of every galaxy, there is a supermassive black hole, okay? And because of the gravitational pull, it's surrounded by other black holes that swirl around it. Donald Trump is the supermassive black hole of cluster B personality disorders under the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. And he is surrounded by all these smaller black holes. And that's the problem we have in our government right now. We have elected a man who's just so sick that he can't have anybody around him who gives him sensible advice. And he has people around him who are as unwell as he is or people who are just so beholden to the grift and so desirous of maintaining their hold on power that they will do his bidding and there are no restraints. And it's going to get worse. Even if his poll numbers are declining, even if Republicans defect, even if the wheels are falling off the bus, they don't know when to stop because he doesn't know when to stop. And this is the danger we're in, is that, you know, we saw Merrick Garland and the Dem and the Justice Department say, oh, he's going to go away. The danger we face right now is people saying, oh, look at Marjorie Taylor Greene. Look at Thomas Massie. Look at the poll numbers. Look at the wheels falling off the Trump bus, okay? He's still President of the United States. He still has control of the United States Armed Forces. He still has control of the government. And, you know, as I was talking before, it's like, we can see, get him and join, but sooner or later, he might just say, I'm not going to obey the courts. And, you know, he was In. In that crazy ramble yesterday where he was oozing jaundice out of orange, as you said, right at the Trump Kennedy Center. You know, he's saying, I'm not going to talk about postponing the election because if I talk about postponing the election, they're going to. They're going to call me a dictator. He said something like that. Did you hear that? Yeah, yeah, he said something like that.

Tim Miller (24:34)

He always does that.

George Conway (24:35)

Well, he always does that. But it's like, okay, but why are we talking about postponing the election? Why is that even in your fucking brain? Okay? He talks about this stuff because that's how he thinks. And if he can do it, he can get people to go along with it. If he can go find. You know, he did this in 2020. He was talking about postponing the election when he started to realize he was going to lose. But then at that time, everybody came down on him. Like, he's not surrounded by people who are going to tell him no.

Tim Miller (25:04)

Yeah, and this is where I was talking to JBL about this yesterday. On the next level, about the Greenland thing, it's like he is an open book. I mean, there are secrets. What's the dated Frontline? There's secrets, but no mysteries. He basically shows you what he wants to do. And so that was what worries me about the Greenland thing, which does seem ridiculous, obviously, on its face, but it's like, look, he told you in the lead up to the 2020 election and last time that if he lost, he was going to call it rigged to try to challenge it. He told you he was going to invade Venezuela and then he did it. Told you he was going to send people to El Salvador. He did it. Why wouldn't he do it?

George Conway (25:40)

Well, yeah, see, here's where people. Here's where people kind of get fooled by Trump.

Tim Miller (25:44)

Yeah.

George Conway (25:45)

He's a pathological liar, right?

Tim Miller (25:47)

Yeah.

George Conway (25:48)

He lies about everything.

Tim Miller (25:49)

But.

George Conway (25:50)

And this is one of my Conway fortune cookie lines about Trump.

Tim Miller (25:54)

Okay?

George Conway (25:56)

He is at his most truthful and in fact, is truthful when he's at his most malevolent, when he is talking out of malevolence, saying bad things that he wants to do, that's when he's actually telling the truth. That's when you see him speaking from the heart and. No, I mean, laugh, but it's true.

Tim Miller (26:16)

No, I'm chuckling because of the fortune cookie. It's like the fortune cookie from.

George Conway (26:19)

Yes. Yeah, it is the fortune cookie from hell. Yes. He would call it the kung FU fortune cookie because he's such a racist. But.

Tim Miller (26:28)

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George Conway (28:07)

Yeah, I mean, the Don Row doctrine. I mean, he doesn't even know what the Monroe Doctrine is and he's the Don Roe Doctrine. I mean, that's just like, I mean, to me that's like that was right out of a Saturday Night Live cold open Don Rowe Doctrine. But, you know, he's way past the comedy writers now in terms of piracy. You cannot take a ship on the high seas. The United States of America through its entire history has been all about freedom of navigation of the seas. One of our first big naval engagements after the Revolutionary War off the Barbary Coast. It's in, I guess, from the Halls of Montezuma. And it's was fighting piracy off the Barbary coast of what is now Libya. You cannot just seize a ship on the high seas unless under international law you have some basis to do it. If you are at war, a legitimate, actual shooting war, you can have a blockade under certain circumstances, and there are all sorts of things you can do under international law, but you cannot just take somebody's ship because you want the oil or because you just decide, I just want to stop all traffic in and out of this country because we are running it, okay? And that's piracy. I mean, I can be stand corrected. Maybe there's some admiralty expert and some international law expert who's going to tell me otherwise, but I don't think there's much of a case to be made that this is not piracy. And the US has always been very strongly against piracy. And one of the things I litigated as a lawyer was the presumption against extraterritoriality of American law. And I won this big securities case, nine nothing, eight, nothing in the Supreme Court. But this statute, 18 USC 1651, basically says, if you fucking commit piracy anywhere on this planet and we find you in the United States, we can prosecute you and put you to jail for life. This has been the American position on piracy from basically the Adams administration, if not the Washington administration.

Tim Miller (30:17)

Well, maybe another country should come arrest our president then. That's an idea. That's what we're doing now.

George Conway (30:23)

If they have a law similar. If they have a law similar to that, I think they might actually have a case. I mean, you know, I mean, unless the Supreme Court of the United States thinks it can somehow create presidential immunity.

Tim Miller (30:35)

In Japan, I don't know, the broader Venezuela case. And the thing seems so stupid, it's just so stupid to me that I kind of hate even talking about it in these ideological terms. But you know, you used to be a Republican, as I did. We had some affinity, long time ago. It's been a long time. But somewhere in our bones is affinity. This idea of like we should get rid of communist dictators and try to give people of these countries freedom and opportunity. That's just not what is happening here. Here's what Trump posted yesterday. The interim authorities in Venezuela, who's the same people as the Chavistas, are Now turning over 30 to 50 million barrels of sanctioned oil to us. Now, I have two thoughts about this. Number one, since I watch Landman, I'm not a Landman myself or an oil man, but I watch enough Landman to know that that's actually not that many. That's not that much. That's like a week of the Permian basin in total oil. And number two, it's like we're doing land piracy. We're not bringing freedom to the people of Venezuela. We're stealing their oil.

George Conway (31:39)

It's extortion is what it is. And Trump is very good, as we have seen, at extortion. The tariffs are extortive. What he did with the law firms is extortive. And what he's doing here with Venezuela is extortive. The only thing about it is he loves to claim victory. So the price of paying off the extortion isn't necessarily that high, which is what we saw with the tariffs. He basically will cave on tariffs. And if somebody comes and says, here, here's a nice award or here's, here's a little token of our appreciation. And here's, we're cutting this just by a little bit, you know, he will cut the tariffs. And the law firms, you know, we, I mean, I'm second to no one in criticizing these law firms for caving. But, you know, to some extent, they thought the law firms thought they were winning by paying him funny money. Okay. But the problem is, is that it encourages him. It's like the bully. You give the, you give the bully a nickel, even though you have $50 in your pocket, he's going to come back and he's going to bug somebody else for a nickel. And this is all just extortion. It is all extortion. He is instinctively a guy who runs a protection racket, and this is. He's running the US Government as a protection racket. And now he's going to make these people who are every bit as bad as Maduro and Chavez, you know, part of the, of the family at a low price.

Tim Miller (33:06)

You mean the people that are now running Venezuela? Yeah.

George Conway (33:10)

And that's what he's doing.

Tim Miller (33:11)

Well, the new anchor of CBS Evening News had a different view of kind of the role of Trump and his secretary of state in South America. I just want to play a little clip from that. This is last night, but for Rubio's.

George Conway (33:23)

Hometown fans, which are many around here in Miami, it is a sign of how Florida, once an American punchline, has become a leader on the world stage. Marco Rubio, we salute you. You're the ultimate Florida man. Wait, this was on the CBS Evening News.

Tim Miller (33:39)

That was the end of the CBS Evening News last night. Marco Rubio, we salute you.

George Conway (33:44)

I have not been following the cbs the travails of Barry Rice. I remember. You know, and that's the way it is. Tuesday, January 17th, 1977. I'm Walter Cronkite. You know, I mean, we've come a long way from that. It's just obscene. It's just obscene. I mean, just. That's basically state owned media. I feel bad for the people at Fox News now. They have competition, but no, I don't.

Tim Miller (34:09)

Yeah, we salute you. Is that's a little much.

George Conway (34:13)

We salute you. Whose hands were bare? Or is it with a little hand or a big hand? I forget who has the big hands on here.

Tim Miller (34:19)

I guess there's some reports yesterday which they didn't tell us, obviously, because they're not, they're not briefing Congress. But there were several American troops injured. We don't exactly even know how many Venezuelans were killed in the process. And now we're leaving the Chavista mobsters in charge. I don't know if it deserves a full salute.

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Tim Miller (36:38)

Rapid fire isn't really your strength, but I want to get to rapid fire. But I did have one. What is rapid fire means I ask you questions and you give rapid answers.

George Conway (36:47)

Okay. But usually I want to say, well, I want to think about that. And there are pros and cons.

Tim Miller (36:51)

Well, I'm going to let you think about the rap fire is coming next, but we've invoked the Trump Kennedy Center a couple times. So I just want to let you cook on that for a second and then we'll get to rapid fire. This is Rick Grinnell, our old friend. Last night, Bella Fleck of Bella Fleck and the Flecktones said they weren't going to play at the Trump Kennedy Center.

George Conway (37:08)

Sad.

Tim Miller (37:08)

And Rick Grenell wrote this. You just made it political and caved to the woke mob. The Trump Kennedy center believes all people are welcome except for trans people and migrants, Democrats and Republicans and people uninterested in politics. I kind of want to enjoy this one for a second because the cobwebs in the Trump Kennedy center are going to bring me a little bit of joy.

George Conway (37:31)

I know.

Tim Miller (37:32)

And they bring Claude some joy, it seems like now.

George Conway (37:34)

Clyde, sorry about Clyde. Clyde, come here. Hey. Anyway, no, Clyde's not going to the Kennedy center, the Trump Kennedy center anytime soon. I had this great idea that reminds me of this. I had this great idea for Sarah, like, where we would do some kind of hidden bull work event at the Trump Kennedy center where we were made fun of him, but we do it like with a secret group and they think it was like, but it never came to fastball.

Tim Miller (37:56)

Okay, that's a good idea. If you're booked or you're an agent that's booking somebody.

George Conway (38:00)

Swap.

Tim Miller (38:00)

Yeah, we can do something where they kind of bring us in under the.

George Conway (38:03)

Cloak of darkness, bring the bulwark in and you can do a guest interview of me on, on stage. And, and, and we can make fun of Trump and let's see how long it takes before the Unwoke mob takes us off the stage. Yeah, I don't think it'll be very long.

Tim Miller (38:20)

Like, they think that they're going to get Bella Fleck and the Fucktones, but instead we just have, like, pictures of his tiny mushroom penis, like, all over the place.

George Conway (38:28)

Like it's the backdrop always wanted to do. And everybody. Every time I tried to get the Lincoln Project to do it, I tried to get some other people to do it. I always wanted on his birthday to get Stormy Daniels to dress up like Marilyn Monroe and do a take ON Happy birthday, Mr. President.

Tim Miller (38:47)

Stormy would be good.

George Conway (38:48)

What better place to do that than at the Trump Kennedy Center?

Tim Miller (38:52)

We should get Stormy. You connect to your running a campaign.

George Conway (38:55)

I think that would be a suck. I think that would be a suck.

Tim Miller (38:57)

You're running a campaign, so you've got other things to focus on. All right. I'm sure the Lift listeners are anything like me. We're like, we know George is a dog on a bone with Donald Trump. We know he's going to go impeach him and do oversight and make fun of him. And that's good. That's important. We need more of that in Congress. Jamie Raskin does need a wingman.

George Conway (39:13)

Yes.

Tim Miller (39:14)

But I don't, you know, some of this other stuff, I'm like, I don't know where George is at on all this. So I have a few things for you. Number one, what do you think the Democratic Party has screwed up over the last few years, policy wise? Not. Not like, oh, they're too weak. Like, obviously, we know. We wish that they had stronger backbones and arrested him and all that. But, like, what? Policy wise, what do you think the Democrats have screwed up over the last.

George Conway (39:32)

Few years, policy wise? I mean, what policy have we been talking about over the last few years.

Tim Miller (39:40)

Other than Trump, the Biden administration? There are plenty of things you could look into. Too much. There's too much stimulus.

George Conway (39:45)

Student loan thing, the student loan thing. I didn't understand that. I mean, I understand it's great to give people stuff, and I think it's great. If I were a student, I would have loved to have my student loans paid off. But it just struck me as a little overreaching. I mean, I understand that it helps people and it promotes the economy to have people not have to, you know, pay off their student loans so they can take the money that they make when they leave college and they come to the big city and work. On the other hand, it's like, politically, I didn't understand. Like, why are you just pitching to a very small subset of people when a lot of other people who didn't go to college, who are older than that. They have to pay off their loans for various things that they have. I didn't understand the politics of that, and I thought it was a misstep because I didn't think. I don't think it helped them. And I didn't think it was necessarily the best expenditure of public money. That's one thing.

Tim Miller (40:45)

I'm with you. That's fair. And they lost some ground with non college folks. That's just. That's like a crazy thing. It's like you're losing ground with non college folks. So why are you, why are you doing giveaways to college guys?

George Conway (40:55)

And I don't mean that we shouldn't be helping kids who have, you know, who come from poor backgrounds to get college educations. There are ways to do that while allowing people who are able to pay off their student loans. Let them do that. And they should.

Tim Miller (41:11)

That reminds me, I meant to ask you at the top, we got distracted. I saw after you announced some of kind of the lefty social media types, particularly younger folks, saying, look, this is a blue district. Why would we have this guy? Why would we have a Republican run? A former Republican? Like, what do you say to that? And obviously you'll get some of that.

George Conway (41:30)

Yeah, I think that's sort of. I do think. I mean, you point out that they're.

Tim Miller (41:34)

Young and maybe there's some old people who said that. I just happened to see younger people.

George Conway (41:38)

No, they're usually the older people, you know, are the ones. The older Democrats in this district are the ones who walk up to me on the street. The younger ones don't remember a time when Ronald Reagan talked about how important immigration was and how, like his last speech in office about how, you know, what binds us together as Americans. He said it so eloquently. That day in 1989 isn't ethnicity or race. It's a shared belief in freedom and democracy. They don't remember that. They don't remember the Tax Reform act of 1986 where a democratic Congress and a conservative Republican president, Ronald Reagan, raised taxes and made the tax system fairer. They don't remember a time when there was a Republicanism that wasn't fascistic. And they don't remember a time when, frankly, there were conservative Democrats who were to the right of liberal Republicans like I do in the 1970s. And they don't remember that somebody like me who became a Republican in the fall of 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan. That's 45 years ago. That's a long time. In politics, 45 months is a long time in politics. 45 days can be a long time in politics. That was a whole different world. And Republicanism means to me something different than what we have today. And it even means something different to, you know, the 70 year old Jewish female Democrat who lives down, you know, probably lives in this building that I'm in right now. Okay. Because they remember Republicans that they liked. They may remember John Lindsay, the mayor of who was, you know, I'm not John Lindsay. They may remember, I think of. They remember Arlen Specter. They remember, you know, on the east side there was a Republican assemblyman named Roy Goodman who everybody liked.

Tim Miller (43:42)

And Democrats voted for John Lindsay. John Lindsay is a good reference. He was, he was a Republican who switched. He was a Republican who switched. He is fresh and everyone else is tired. I think was his.

George Conway (43:50)

It was different. Yeah. I mean, I didn't want to go. John Lindsay is like, he's. Even before my time.

Tim Miller (43:54)

Yeah.

George Conway (43:55)

It's just like it's a different time. And they remember, they remember a, a sober Rudy Giuliani. I mean, he had a lot of problems.

Tim Miller (44:03)

Oh boy, that's a long time ago. It's, he's wet now.

George Conway (44:05)

He was elected overwhelmingly as mayor here because he, the Democrats in this city thought he did a good job. Okay. Now he wasn't perfect. He did some stuff people didn't like and he, you know, he was always an asshole. Not the way he is today. But, you know, it's a different era. It was a different era.

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Tim Miller (45:25)

I had two others just kind of on like New Yorky type issues that are out there. This is going to be the question that determines how much I donate to.

George Conway (45:33)

You versus where do I get that extra dollar.

Tim Miller (45:35)

Yeah, where are you at on YIMBY vs NIMBY? Okay, where are you going to be on that? You know, allowing more buildings? You know, I think that in Congress, like we're going to need to do stuff to make it easier for people to build is my opinion. But maybe you're. Maybe you're nimby.

George Conway (45:49)

No, I'm not. I'm not nimby. I've never been nimby. I, I do think that we have to be. Look, Zoran Mamdani got elected talking about affordability. And that's always been an issue in the city of New York. It's an issue throughout the country. It's always been particularly housing has been an issue in this, one of the most, probably the most expensive housing market east of Hong Kong and west of London. You know, as a matter of basic economics, which I still believe in, I've always believed in, it was really reason why, one of the reasons why I became a Republican 45 years ago. You have to increase supply. Okay. And you have to figure out ways to help increase supply. And so you can't do things that constrict supply. And that's kind of where there's a fault line there. So, yeah, I'm not a NIMBY person. On the other hand, you know, I do understand that my favorite mayoral candidate of all time in this city was the Rent is Too Damn High guy. Remember him?

Tim Miller (46:51)

Yeah, yeah. The rent is too damn high.

George Conway (46:53)

You know, talk about message discipline. He was great. Rent is too damn high. Well, what is your position on taxes? Rent is too damn high.

Tim Miller (47:02)

You mentioned Zoran. Where are you at on the mayor in the mayor's race?

George Conway (47:06)

You know, I have to say he's a remarkable figure. I mean, he really is a political talent of, you know, not Obama level, but he's, he's pretty good there. I hope something good comes of him. I mean, the shit he said about Israel, you know, makes. Makes you want to pull your hair out and understand how people feel about that. But, you know, New York needs him to be successful. And I think in order for him to be successful, he may have to trim his sales in some ways. And he's got to reach out to Jewish people and he's got to. It can't just pitch to the DSA types in Brooklyn. All right, so. But we'll see how this goes. We'll see how this goes. He's a very smart guy and he's surrounded, I think, by smart people. And we'll see how this goes. And for the sake of the city of New York, I hope it goes well.

Tim Miller (47:54)

Last one there and then we'll get to some New York rapid fire fun questions. But you mentioned the Jewish issue. Cameron is running and the district was just over in the west bank. And he has been very vocal about saying that the US Is supporting Israel too much. It's kind of weird that that became a hotly contested issue in the mayor's race since the mayor of New York doesn't have a huge oversight over US policy towards Israel, but Congress does. So, like, where, where are you at on that?

George Conway (48:19)

Look, I mean, I support Israel. I always strongly supported Israel. I am not a Bibi fan at all in the slightest. And you know, I think Hamas is absolutely evil and I think Israel has the absolute right to defend itself, to exist. On the other hand, I think some of the conduct of the Gaza war, particularly as time went on, cross some boundaries that I think were wrong, A and B was not in the best interest of Israel to cross. And I don't think it advanced. I mean, again, I, I'm thousands of miles away. But I was following along and listening to some, lots of Israeli military experts and talk about this and, you know, I don't think they help themselves. And I'm glad it's sort of at least over, at least for now. And we'll see how it goes.

Tim Miller (49:08)

Here's my fun one. So you had someone tweeted, I saw this, that George Conway has the confidence of someone who's in month three on GLP once. And so I want to know if you have a response to them. Are you fit? Are you ready? Are you confident? Because you're looking trimmed.

George Conway (49:29)

I'm like, do you ever see those Nixon for President, 2000 things. Tan rested and ready after he died.

Tim Miller (49:36)

Tan's rest and ready.

George Conway (49:37)

Tan rested and ready. I guess that's. That's more position.

Tim Miller (49:39)

Your New York favorite musician. You're a guitarist yourself. You're now in New York. I want a New York City musician from you.

George Conway (49:47)

A New York City musician.

Tim Miller (49:50)

You can't have the boss. He's Jersey.

George Conway (49:52)

No, I mean, I just associate New York with and you know, I singer is music. I mean, I just listen to a lot of Frank Sinatra and I know he's from Jersey, but I dissociate it with New York. I think of him when I come to New York. I think of him at the end of every Yankees game when they win and they play, you know, New York, New York. So I'm just going to. The first name that comes to my head is Frank Sinatra.

Tim Miller (50:15)

Are you Knicks at all or just Rangers? Are you monitoring the Knicks and what's happening?

George Conway (50:18)

Knicks? Yes, I do. Knicks as well. I am not as much of a basketball fan as I am a hockey fan. I've always been a hockey fan.

Tim Miller (50:27)

Why is that? Did you play hockey as a kid? What was it about hockey?

George Conway (50:29)

I did play. I played hockey in Massachusetts. I played high school hockey, hockey as a kid. And then one of my. I was talking to a friend of mine who's in this district who maxed out, who helped with anti psychopack, gave a lot of money to ICOs anti psychopath. And he lives in this district and he was just telling me that he plays ice hockey at Hudson Yards. And that's one of the things, like when I worked at Wachtel Lipton, I never had time to do anything like that. And now it's like, you know, I have more time as I'm retired, even though I'm running. I was. I'm going to get some gear and suit up and play over so stuff.

Tim Miller (51:07)

You know, Our FBI director is a hockey player. Do you want to challenge him to kind of a skate off?

George Conway (51:11)

He can come up one on one. Yeah, he can come up. We can have a little. We can have a little contest up here at Hudson Yards, at the rink here.

Tim Miller (51:17)

I would love to see that. All right, here's my last thing I forgot to ask you to mention. I wanted to leave you with this because I think this is something that you've talked about in your launch and what you want to do.

George Conway (51:25)

Oh, by the way, my consultants will absolutely, absolutely fire me if I don't say at least five times. Www.georgeconwayforcongress.com www.george conwayforcongress.com did you get that?

Tim Miller (51:38)

And you don't. You don't. You are. You don't need consultants. Don't be pushed around by these people. Okay, George, you've been out there, all right?

George Conway (51:44)

You know, consultants are great because you're bullied. What's great about the consultants is I don't have to figure out where I'm going at any given moment. That isn't like they told me, you have to talk to Tim at 10 o'.

Tim Miller (51:56)

Clock.

George Conway (51:57)

If nobody hadn't told me that you'd be looking at a blank screen.

Tim Miller (52:00)

That's correct. As somebody who had to deal with scheduling you for podcasts before you had consultants. Massive upgrade.

George Conway (52:06)

No, I was a massive upgrade. I was a total nightmare. I mean, the poor people, Sarah's people used to pull their hair out of me. It's like, oh, I'm sorry, I have to brush my teeth at 12 o'.

Tim Miller (52:15)

Clock.

George Conway (52:15)

I don't know.

Tim Miller (52:16)

My last serious thing I want you to leave people with is we are aligned, that this guy's a vampire and you got to keep fighting all the way till it's over, till the last dog dies, so to speak. Metaphorically, yes. After that, though, you've mentioned this about how what is an important thing for your role, if you got into Congress as a lawyer, is like figuring out how to put some new rules in place to prevent this from happening again. Just give us a brief pitch on what that would look like, because that's something that I struggle with.

George Conway (52:44)

Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, obviously the War Powers act, we need to figure out a way to make it more self enforcing than self executing. I haven't thought about exactly how you do that, but I'm sure there are proposals over the years that we can kind of resurrect. Another is we have to really, really create some of these rules about the, how the White House interacts with the Justice Department have to really, really be put into, into legislation. So we don't have, we can't have a president ordering up prosecutions of political enemies. And that has a, there's a correlative effect will be that when people who are political enemies of the president get prosecuted, you can point to these protections to say this wasn't political. So that's something that's, that's very important. Another one that comes to mind has to do with the application of Section 4 of the 25th Amendment. Section 4 of the 25th Amendment, if you go to. It basically says that the cabinet is the default body to determine whether the President is a psychopath, a psycholunitic, or physically unfit to carry out the duties of his office. But of course, no Trump Cabinet will ever. This guy could be hauled in drooling on a stretcher and they're going to say, Mr. President, you are so powerful and wonderful. You know, they're never, ever going to make the finding. Even if it's apparent to anybody with half a brain that the guy is done, which I think he is now, frankly. He's just totally, he's just a babbling dribbling fool. And he's totally incapable of carrying out his duties in office. But anyway, back to Section 4 of the 25th Amendment. It allows Congress to legislate a different body, create a body that makes that determination. It could be, for example, a body of psychiatric and medical experts can make that determination. And you'd have some kind of an appointment system for them so that they would be apolitical and they could make a judgment at any given time that, wait a minute, we gotta haul this guy in here to conduct an exam and bring them up the wall to read and check them out and say, sorry, bye. Next. And that's something. We need that now. We absolutely need that now. And all for all these fucking Republicans who are talking, including Trump, who are talking about sleepy Joe Biden and Joe Biden, this is like. Well, that would apply to. That would apply to the next Joe Biden, too. If you think. If you. I mean, I don't believe the comparison. I mean, it was bullshit. They're trying to equip, make Biden the equivalent of Trump, where Trump is clearly way beyond any measure of sanity. But, hey, this is something that we should have no matter who the President is. And there are lots of things like that that we can. We can work on. And that requires, as I say, lawyering.

Tim Miller (55:38)

It does. And it's going to require people that are focused on it in Congress because, you know, the next Democratic president can't run on this kind of thing. And you can talk about it, but, like, it can't be the main thing. They got to run on things that are more broadly important. But you need people in Congress who are going to focus on, who are.

George Conway (55:53)

Going to push this. Right. Okay. Www.georgeconwayforcongress.com There he is.

Tim Miller (55:58)

He's George Conway. He used to do a podcast with Sarah Longwell. He's running podcasts with me. So a lot of tensions in the Bulwark Office over this. There are a couple other folks running in the race as well. Check them all out. Choice is yours. He's George Conway. We'll see y' all back here for another podcast tomorrow.

George Conway (56:16)

Thank you, Tim. Always, always fun.

Tim Miller (56:18)

I'm looking forward to it. We'll see y' all then. See you back here soon, George. Bye. Bye. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper, with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

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