← The Bulwark Podcast
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- [00:01]
Tim Miller
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Jon Favreau
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Tim Miller
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Jon Favreau
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- [01:07]
Tim Miller
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Jon Favreau
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- [01:29]
Tim Miller
Explore Autodesk@autodesk.com. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to the show. Co founder of Crooked Media, co host of something called Pod Save America. He also has the podcast Offline with Jon Favreau. That's been a good nap podcast for me lately. It's Jon Favreau. What's up man?
- [02:00]
Jon Favreau
What's up? Has that replaced Pod Save the World is your nap podcast?
- [02:03]
Tim Miller
Because I know they're kind of going back and forth. I was getting bored with the Iran war talk on Pod Save the World. Going to Offline. I like both. Usually the first 25 minutes are good and then kind of dips in and out. Then I kind of roll back in around minute 50. Apologize to people for number one. This could be a long podcast itself that you might want to nap to. And I'm sorry if it came up a bit late, but Fabs was working out this morning and he had to, he had to get his pump in. And I was just hoping, since neither John Ossoff nor Raphael Warnock would tell me what their workout routine is, I was hoping that since you're not running for Senate, you could do that. You could just tell us what you did this morning?
- [02:39]
Jon Favreau
Well, because, Because I am. Yeah. Because I'm old now. I've, like, stopped running. I used to run all the time and now I just lift and I just do, you know, not too heavy because again, I'm old. But I'm trying to do like lower weight, but more reps. That's what I mean.
- [02:51]
Tim Miller
More reps on what, though?
- [02:52]
Jon Favreau
You do back one day.
- [02:53]
Tim Miller
Back.
- [02:54]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, you do. So you do, you know, you do all the groups. You do. You do front of your body. Front of your body one day and then you do back the other day.
- [03:00]
Tim Miller
So what was today?
- [03:01]
Jon Favreau
Today was back. Yeah. So I did some back stuff. I did some, some deadlifts.
- [03:06]
Tim Miller
My hammy start hurting during a deadlift.
- [03:09]
Jon Favreau
Some triceps.
- [03:12]
Tim Miller
My ladies weights class. They've got me doing the deadlifts and I'm the, the moms are mogging me on the deadlifts. My hamstrings get a little tight. All right.
- [03:21]
Jon Favreau
You can't skip leg day.
- [03:22]
Tim Miller
You can't, you can't. It's one, it's one of the down and upsides, I guess, depending on how you look at it, to the fact that I do a ladies weights class is that there's a lot of glute work. It's important for women. I understand. I don't know. You would know better than me. But that, it's like, you know, it's something they're interested in and molding and so I feel like my glutes have gotten kind of a disproportionate amount of attention lately. Let's move on to Iran. I'm done. This is why John Osloff didn't want to do it. That's why John Osloff didn't want to talk about.
- [03:51]
Jon Favreau
He's smart. This is why you could run for president.
- [03:53]
Tim Miller
He's smart. All right. We have a deal, according to the Iranians. Do we? Here's what the Iranians said this morning. You know, they put it out into their state news media. So their version of Barak revision the deal says this. A permanent and immediate cessation of all war on all fronts, including Lebanon. Great US Commitment to not interfere in Iran's internal affairs. Full lifting of the naval blockade. The US and its allies will be required to present reconstruction plans for Iran worth at least 300 billion. Suspension of sanctions on oil. Reopening of Strait of Hormuz within 30 days under arrangements determined by Iran. And a 60 day negotiation period aimed at reaching a final agreement. So Trump said yesterday they Had a deal done. And that's what the Iranians said the deal was this morning. He wasn't thrilled about that. It turns out he posted a bleep that's saying these terms are fake. News bears no relation to the truth. Iranians are very dishonorable people to deal with. They better get their act together and fast.
- [04:54]
Jon Favreau
That's going to work, too.
- [04:56]
Tim Miller
Yeah. So I don't know. I mean, last night felt like there was a deal. I mean, you know, you taped Five America yesterday. We had a deal. When you got staped with Alex Wagner.
- [05:04]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. I was trying to think about, like, how we get out of this cycle and why we're in this cycle.
- [05:10]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [05:11]
Jon Favreau
And I think it's because the sort of the press around this and the perception of the deal is almost more important than the deal itself.
- [05:19]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [05:20]
Jon Favreau
And what you realize when you're in government and you're doing diplomacy is that sometimes if you want to actually make progress, you're just going to have to eat shit, like in the press, and you're gonna have to take a hit and people are gonna have to criticize you. And by its very nature and definition, a compromise is gonna have something that pisses off both sides. But for Trump, he cares so much about perception and so much about sort of the narrative and the show around this that every time they get close and then the Iranians spout off all this bullshit about how the deal is so great he can't just sit there and eat shit for a while until the deal is signed and then go tell his story. He has to immediately go and bleed something like that. And now what are the Iranians going to do? Well, the Iranians aren't going to sit there and be like, oh, Donald Trump, everything he said is wrong. They're going to now be like, okay, well, I'm going to try to hold out from war, or maybe we're going to try to make sure that our deal points are included in there. So, like, this is why we just keep going in the around.
- [06:22]
Tim Miller
The path out of this would be just to let Trump say one thing and the mullahs say a completely opposite thing and let them lie to their people. And then like, all of us who live in reality could, like, yell about that, but then they just kind of move forward. That does feel like his best path out. The problem with that, the hold up on that strategy, which Trump has been able to get away with similar versions of that in the past, is that, like, he has some people who have genuine things they want out of this around him, you know, his allies in Israel, Bibi in particular, and then the American supporters of Israel, the hawks, they're not going to let him get away with the, oh, I really won the deal on this in the way that they did on stuff that was lower stakes for them.
- [07:03]
Jon Favreau
No, in Trump's mind, what he wants is the strait opened, and then he. He's fine lifting the naval blockade if the strait is opened, and then he wants to kick these negotiations over the nuclear material and everything else, Israel, Lebanon, all of it down the road, because he realizes, probably correctly so, that once the strait is opened, everyone will stop paying attention to this. And if he doesn't get a good deal on the nuclear stuff, no one's going to fucking care and he can just move on with his life. The Iranians, of course, know this.
- [07:32]
Tim Miller
Yeah, right, right.
- [07:34]
Jon Favreau
They're not stupid. And the Israel, Lebanon situation is interesting, too, because yesterday when someone contacted Netanyahu's office, they were like, this is surprised. Israel. Israel is not part of this deal. Israel didn't know what's going on. Now the Iranians are saying Lebanon is included in the deal. So that seems like it would come as news to Israel. And so, like, I don't think Netanyahu is going to let him, let Trump just be able to turn away from this, even if they reopen the strait, because he's got an election coming up in the fall at some point, and Netanyahu's incentive is to show how tough he is on Lebanon and Hezbollah. And so that's going to keep going. And then the Iranians, if their proxies are in a war with Israel, you think they're just going to sit back, or might they close the Strait again? Might they start firing rockets into Israel again? And then we're right back into it. So the problem is, like, there's no, there's no deal unless all the parties are involved and everyone's a little pissed off. And the fact that we're doing this, like, skinny deal, right, where maybe we
- [08:30]
Tim Miller
just open the Stan as the middleman, like, we're not even talking really, you know, to them. I don't. Doesn't seem like Trump's even actually talking to any of the Iranians.
- [08:38]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. And they want, they want to call it, like, the Islamabad Accord, of course, because, like. But again, just like Trump and bb, there's, like, Pakistan is very interesting in getting some good PR for Pakistan.
- [08:47]
Tim Miller
I loved this. They did the briefing this morning that they've been doing for, like, the maga Influencers and then all the mag influence then post on the acts. Like, Cyren, senior administration official tells us, no dollars of that dust. And Kayleigh McEnany, former spokesperson, posted this morning, 75%. Their president's instinct is to give them five, six, seven more days. I like that, especially because Kaylee two weeks ago was on Fox talking about how they're 95% of the way. So we've gone, we've gone backwards now, but it's, it's, it's okay. It's right around the corner. I'm sure it'll be done by Sunday. I got kind of a political question about how the Democrats should deal with this for you. I was dozing off to POD Save the World on Sunday, and Tommy and Ben were talking about this, and you could tell they, like, really want to call Trump the P word, you know, and just be like, you got into this thing, but you don't want to follow through on it. And now you're stuck. And this deal is humiliating and it sucks and it's embarrassing and you're weak. And like, Tommy was saying that basically. But then it's like, there's always a caveat in the progressive circles. It's like, well, but I don't, I don't want him to actually escalate, you know, Like, I don't want to scare him to escalate. Ryan Graham posted this this morning. Just tell him he did great and he won bigly and we can get out of this lefty kind of populist Graham who's on a couple months ago. I feel like Democratic senators kind of have this in there. They're not as explicit about it as podcasters, but you can kind of tell it's in their internal, you know, monologue. Like, they don't want to mock him. And I just, I don't know, I kind of want to. To give Trump the Jimmy Carter treatment. Like, how would Fox have treated Jimmy Carter? You know, like. And I just, I feel like Ms. Now, and you guys and Democratic senators and everybody should just be like, you're a fucking little bitch. Like, you saw, this is humiliating. Like, this is so embarrassing. Like, you started a war and you can't finish it. Like, why? What's the case against doing that besides, you know, humanitarian political kicks against it?
- [10:45]
Jon Favreau
My view on these things is you always start with what is true and what you actually believe. And what I genuinely believe is that, of course, I don't want. I want the hostilities to end. I want the strait to open. And so if a Deal does that great. But he has fucked up so much to get us to this point and cost us so much to get to this point. And it seems like this deal is going to leave so many questions unanswered and so much possibility for future disaster and catastrophe that I don't think. I think you can rightly criticize Trump for every, like, deciding to go to war. Everything he did leading up to this point, all the money he cost us, all the higher fuel prices he cost Everyone, the 13Americans who died, the thousands and thousands of other people in Middle east who died. Like, there's plenty to criticize him on and still say, like, you're glad that the war is, is over and that hostilities have ended. And I don't think that's like being soft on Trump or that we should, like, congratulate him. I don't think you have to do either of those things. I think you just, like, like, I cannot believe we just went through this fucking catastrophe that has set this country back on every possible front because of this idiot.
- [11:57]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I kind of feel like we just need to nominate one person to be the one carrying the Trump's a bitch line. You know, like, there needs to be one prominent Democrat who's going to run into. Because the other. The counter argument to myself on this is I, yeah, I simultaneously want Democrats to give Trump the treatment that Fox would have given your boss if he did this and that Fox did on the red line in Syria. The red line in Syria is such a tiny, quaint compared to this. We weren't even really involved. That was just Obama saying, if you do this, we would get involved. And then we didn't. In this case, Trump started it and then said, you need to give us unconditional surrender or else I will end your civilization. And then he didn't do anything. And then he kept, like, tweeting about how, please give us a good deal, Mr. Gay Ayatollah. And it's like, okay, so I want him to be mocked on that. I simultaneously to that think that the Democrats should be using this as an opportunity to, like, regain the anti war mantle. And it's kind of hard to do that when you're trying to, you know, bully him into, you know, being tougher. Right. So that's. I guess I want one or the other, though. And I kind of. I feel like I'm getting a little bit of wishy, you know what I mean? Like, I want either code pink, you know, anti. Right. Like this. Trump's war for oil is raising your Gas prices. Like, I want that, or I want Trump's, you know, a little girly boy. Right? Like, they can't follow back up what he. What he offers.
- [13:24]
Jon Favreau
I think we have come to think that painting Trump as weak, you know, unlocks some kind of political benefit that we have been missing for so long, just because their side is all about, you know, making their opponents weak and that they're strong. But I think that, like, I still think in a way that's playing on their field. Like, the vision of government we want is not a strong man or an authoritarian who makes all the decisions and just fucking runs into wars all the time. Like, we don't. We don't want that vision of government. We want a vision of government where, like, people cooperate. And I think what most people in the country want is they don't want a war like this. They do want America protected, but they don't want unnecessary wars that cost American lives and taxpayer dollars and killing a bunch of civilians all over the world. Like, that's. That's what most people in the country want. That's where they are. So Democrats should be there, too.
- [14:15]
Tim Miller
That sounds right. What I'm just trying to do is as. I feel like it's my role as a former Republican to kind of inhabit the skin of what Sean Hannity would do. So, like, I'm not saying that I want, like, misogynistic attacks on Trump and talking about how he's basically a eunuch, you know, Like, I don't. Like, I don't know that. That's. Like, I really want the Democrats to do, like, I. People would bristle at that. But, you know, there's just something that's a little bit unsatisfying that it's not happening. You know, when I know that it would happen, it's not the shoes on the other foot.
- [14:43]
Jon Favreau
You know, the guy's. He's at the. What? He's at the Bush line. He's. He's gonna head down to the dick line. Yeah.
- [14:49]
Tim Miller
Thank you.
- [14:50]
Jon Favreau
People are thinking about him in some way. That's not great. And if it's not that, like, he's a. A weak pussy, then it is like, he's a unbelievably corrupt narcissist who doesn't give a shit about anyone by himself. Like, that's fine. Yeah, that's a. That's a good thing.
- [15:06]
Tim Miller
He doesn't want to care about you. He blundered his way into the stupid for war, and people don't like that either. Yeah.
- [15:10]
Jon Favreau
You know, and also, like, he tried to be strong, but like, is the, is his version of strength working out for anyone?
- [15:16]
Tim Miller
I don't think maybe stupidity is right. Like, this is really dumb, you know, like, this is the stupidest war imaginable. You don't know why he's doing it. He doesn't know why he's doing it. You're being hurt people.
- [15:24]
Jon Favreau
You said you're bored of listening to the war, about the war and around like he's, he's bored. The President who took us to war is now bored because he has no attention span. Because he's an 80 year old fucking, you know, narcissist and doesn't know what he's doing. So like, and he just wants to like work on his home renovation projects like that. That is enough.
- [15:43]
Tim Miller
An 80 year old narcissist with a nipple fetish. I want to talk about that a little bit.
- [15:47]
Jon Favreau
Oh, boy.
- [15:48]
Tim Miller
Have you been in the Situation Room?
- [15:50]
Jon Favreau
I have.
- [15:51]
Tim Miller
You got to go in there. I never, I never won, so I never. I don't know what it's like, not a lot.
- [15:56]
Jon Favreau
But I went in there sometimes when there's crises that aren't necessarily national security, like when Gabby Giffords was shot and we had to write a statement in there, we actually went into the Sit Room for that because it was sort of a domestic attack. So I was in there for that.
- [16:11]
Tim Miller
So when you were reading the New York Times story, Maggie and John Swan's story about how J.D. vance called a Situation Room meeting to discuss the Epstein cover up, and he brought in the Attorney General, deputy Attorney General, who's not the current nominated to be the successor to Attorney General. So the Department of Justice heads are in there, the Twitter posters are in there as well, the rapid response team, Stephen Chung, big boy. And JD Calls everybody around the table and he's like, this is kind of a problem. We should discuss what our strategy should be. And he's like, maybe we should have Tucker Carlson interview Ghislaine Maxwell. So maybe she might exonerate us a little bit. Maybe she released some documents. What was your reaction to that meeting happening? But then also it happening in the Situation Room?
- [17:03]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, well, I mean, look at who's in the administration. Like you got a bunch of shitposters and idiots. So they've got to all sit somewhere. They've sort of like degraded the White House like everywhere else. So like, might as well do the Sit Room too. My big takeaway was, of course, the JD Van stuff was fascinating because what a window into his 2028 presidential run with the kind of communications strategic mastermind that J.D. vance has to offer the group, which is to have Tucker interview Ghislaine Maxwell. And then later, when they were going to put Todd Blanche on Joe Rogan to talk about everything, that was going to be the big interview. And then Rogan was like, I don't want fucking Todd Blanche. I want JD Vance or no one. And fans is like, you know, I could do Joe Rogan. And the thing is, if I do it and I'm the Vice President, he'll only ask me about the Epstein files for a few questions and then the rest of the time I can talk about the working class tax cuts that we passed and the progress we're making on the economy.
- [18:02]
Tim Miller
Sure.
- [18:03]
Jon Favreau
That's brilliant. Brilliant, sir, brilliant. I also liked when, when the White House counsel, the White House counsel raised the idea of pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell, you know, the piece made sure to note that everyone around the table registered their strong disapproval. But then big boy Steven Chung, his quote was just fantastic, which is, pardoning Maxwell, a trafficker of young girls would create a huge PR problem. You don't say, wow, this is why he was picked for the job. Also goes right to that. Right. Like, not even a shred of like, moral appropriation. Appropriation.
- [18:40]
Tim Miller
Before we get to the nipples, these are the two things I just don't want to gloss over. Number one, there's a very long article. I get no point anywhere in the article is anybody like, you know, we really probably should take seriously the idea that we should go through the Epstein files and identify people that were involved in the child sex trafficking and that were complicit in the child sex trafficking and have investigations of them, or that we should try to find justice for the victims, the girls who were raped by these powerful men. That does not come up at all in the Situation Room meeting. The pardoning of Maxwell is brought up and Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan podcast interviews are brought up, but nothing at all even remotely approaching any consideration about the actual underlying crimes.
- [19:24]
Jon Favreau
Nothing. And we can talk about, you know, Nipplegate and everything.
- [19:27]
Tim Miller
We're going to.
- [19:28]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, even on that. It's like we now have an allegation that the President of the United States potentially had sex with an underage girl that was part of the, the trafficking ring that Jeffrey Epstein led. Child trafficking ring. But we don't, we don't know for sure. Right. All this is uncorroborated, but, like, is that an allegation? Anyone, Anyone who works for the President is going to take seriously. No, we're not. We're not going to. We're just going to figure out how to cut with the fastest way to cover it up. Best way to cover it up.
- [19:52]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And then the other thing I want to just get to just explicitly is like how insane it is that the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General in this meeting. And I know that like at this point where we've just become accustomed to the idea that the Justice Department is totally corrupted, but it is great. I was like thinking when I was reading the story about the Bill Clinton tarmac meeting, you don't remember this? This was during the Obama administration. Hillary's emails are being investigated. Clinton is on the same tarmac as Loretta lynch is in the Justice Department at the time.
- [20:19]
Jon Favreau
Bill Clinton.
- [20:20]
Tim Miller
Yeah, Bill Clinton, not Hillary, gets off his plane, gets onto lynch, the plane that lynch is on. They talk. We never really figured out what.
- [20:28]
Jon Favreau
A couple minutes.
- [20:29]
Tim Miller
Yeah, a couple minutes. Or accusations that he came on and told her, like, you know, go easy on Hillary or whatever. That's the worst case scenario, right? That there's some conversation about telling the Justice Department to chill out on Hillary on the email scandal, which by the way also this entire administration, administration has, has no interest or accommodation at all. And FOIA requests and making sure all their emails are on government servers. And so even that investigation looks ridiculous. But like this was a campaign issue. Like Brett Baer covered it nightly on the Straight News Fox News show.
- [21:00]
Jon Favreau
Just why it's why Jim Comey did the press conference himself because he thought Loretta lynch was too compromised because of the tarmac thing. And so that asshole went out and did that horrendous press conference and decided to characterize the investigation which you also don't do in the Justice Department. And the reason he did that is because they thought Loretta lynch has to. Must recuse now. She. Because Bill Clinton said hi to her.
- [21:27]
Tim Miller
Where there's a perception of corruption here, like the Justice Department needs to be totally separate from any political considerations. Perception is bad here. The fucking Attorney General, deputy Attorney General in the situation Room being included by this Vice president in the COVID up plan.
- [21:46]
Jon Favreau
If Trump was Obama and Loretta lynch was doing this, it wouldn't have been a like go onto the plane and say hi or pressure in private. It would have been a bleat. There would have been a bleep that said, hey Loretta, drop the case against Hillary. Because you know what happens to people who prosecute my friends? Treason. Death. That would have been it. It would have been a death threat. It would have been a thinly veiled death threat over truth social media.
- [22:10]
Tim Miller
So a total corruption of the Justice Department. Okay, now that we've got that down, I want to read the section about the nipples. I think because it's an uncorroborated accusation and because of the prurient nature of it, I don't feel like it's gotten as much attention in the news as it's same. So I'm going to read it. So this is from the Virginia Giuffre case file. This is tragic story. She was a young girl that worked at Mar A Lago and then Epstein and Prince Andrew and others raped her and assaulted her. She ended up killing herself subsequently. So in that case file, there's another woman girl at the time, Sarah Ransom. And she wrote this to a journalist. Ransom claimed that she knew a girl in Epstein's sex trafficking ring named Jen who said she had sex with Trump. Ransom also claimed that Jen had told her that Trump had a predilection for nipples and that he had aggressively flicked and sucked her. As Ransom wrote that she had seen evidence when she shared a bathroom with Jen. They looked incredibly painful. They were red and swollen and I remember wincing when I looked at them. So that was discussed in the Situation Room. Trump's alleged nipple attack on a young girl that was in Jeffrey Epstein's child sex trafficking ring.
- [23:25]
Jon Favreau
Yes.
- [23:25]
Tim Miller
Like, I mean, I do feel like there would have been some coverage for that and like a little more, you know, maybe would have been higher in the story. In other.
- [23:35]
Jon Favreau
You think that's a serious allegation, right? Yeah, partly because this is, this was not like Trump in his bachelor days with like a consensual sex. If that's like something he was into, like, who cares, right? Like, that's, that's his business and I
- [23:49]
Tim Miller
don't really want it. It's really his business because, like, I'd rather not know like what his kind of nipple interests are.
- [23:55]
Jon Favreau
If they're in the Epstein files and knowing what happened to Virginia Giuffre and this other girl gent like that, it's, they're underage here and this is part of a trafficking thing. And like that is an incredibly serious allegation. And the team in the sit room, they immediately say, oh, it's wrong, right? Like, oh, she made it up because I guess this woman Jen rescinded her some other allegations because she said she was afraid for her life. And so they said, oh, she's not reliable because she recanted some other allegation so no worries. Let's move on to how we keep this out of the files that we put on the website, which goes back to then the incompetence. Because by keeping it out of the files that they put on the website, obviously people were going to realize that there were some files that included Trump that were missing from the website. So once again, you have the malevolence and then you have followed by the incompetence. And that's, that's the Trump administration in a nutshell.
- [24:48]
Tim Miller
We're going to start to stop talking about Trump making nipples get swollen. And I don't, I don't know that we need any more. Unless you do you want to do any more on Trump's nipple?
- [24:59]
Jon Favreau
You know, our friend Tommy brought up when we talked about this this week that he's like, you know, remember the Stormy Daniels stories were like the spankings and everything. Like, there's, it's, it's clearly, there's a, there's a pattern here. If you're just trying to figure out whether to believe it or not, there's a pattern of these allegations about Trump, sort of.
- [25:15]
Tim Miller
I only really remember the mushroom dick description from the Stormy Daniel stuff. I don't remember all. And the Shark Week we forget. The bulwark is brought to you by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. You hear us talk a lot on this show about democr Democratic guardrails, the things that keep a free society functioning. And as America approaches its 250th anniversary, one of those guardrails deserves a lot more attention. The separation of church and state. This country began as a rebellion against monarchy and divine rule. And the founders responded by creating a secular constitution. No religious test, no state, church and government accountable to the people. That framework made pluralism possible. You know how much I love pluralism. Big pluralism guy. But right now, there are growing efforts to blur that line between religion and government in ways that affect policy, public education, and individual rights. We're seeing that up close and personal. Here in Louisiana, the Freedom From Religion foundation is working to protect the First Amendment because it protects all of us as we head towards America 250. This isn't just about celebrating history. It's about deciding what kind of country we want to be. If that matters to you, go to FFRF U.S. religion or text RELIGION to 511511. To join or learn more, go to FFRF US RELIGION or text RELIGION to 511511. Right now, it's about deciding what kind of country we want to be. Text Religion to 5 11, 511 today. Text fees may apply. Speaking of trying to do a transition into John Cornyn, do you have any areola or nipple themed puns that we can use to get over to John Cornyn? So you have somebody who's got spanked by Trump? There we go. John Cornyn did an exit interview with Carl Hulse, the New York Times. Want to read a couple of the quotes after his defeat. He says it does give some of us a little more freedom and certainly leverage. Didn't realize he didn't have freedom before. I thought he was a united senator. He didn't have any agency before. As the president, I like this, too. As the president told President Zelensky when he was in the office a year ago, he said, you don't have any cards. Well, we've got some cards to play. So I guess he was impressed with Trump's cards analogy there. Mr. Cornyn says he reserves the right to choose where I'm going to or going to, not defer to Mr. Trump. He still reserves that right. That's nice. As a free man in a free country, he says things are never going to be good enough for Trump other than 100%, you know, slavish adherence to whatever he wants. But obviously that's not what the senator's role is supposed to be. You don't say Big John.
- [27:53]
Jon Favreau
Big John. Unfortunately, that is the position that I found myself in for the last several years. And what did I do about it? Nothing, really.
- [28:02]
Tim Miller
My final quote, my favorite one, I've always said that former senators look happier, healthier, and they're certainly more prosperous. So I'm kind of looking forward to what comes next. So just in case you feel sad for big bad John, who got utterly humiliated in the most, like, embarrassing S and M way fashion, like, he wanted to rename a highway after Trump. Pretend like he was reading his book. He had to rub Trump's little tiny toe digits, and he did everything he could to get Trump to love him. Trump said, I don't care about you, and left him on the side of the road. And now here he is and he's like, you know, good news is I'll get to make money as a lobbyist after this. And so you better know that I'm not going to be too hard on Mr. Trump now. I mean, I might not defer to him totally like I was before, but, you know, I'm going to defer mostly because I do want my calls returned.
- [28:52]
Jon Favreau
This is, this is probably off the topic of what you're asking about here, but when I see things like that, it's like, this is why I don't invest a ton of time in like, despising people like John Cornyn and thinking that, like, at some point they are going to retire in some kind of. In misery and be all torn up about this. And, you know, like, we're rooting against these people because, like, Donald Trump. But like, you know what? Probably Donald Trump is going to at some point leave office, and no matter how he is remembered and no matter how much of the country turns against him, he is going to be like, well, I'm rich. I think I did great, and he's probably going to die happy. And it's like, so. So just doing this so that we hope that these people are going to feel bad someday is just like, not a good motivation. Like John. Like John Corrin. How's he going to retire?
- [29:49]
Tim Miller
I worked on this a lot at Yoga Love in Oakland when I was there in 2017-2019, and just kind of accepting that internally, right. That like, they are gonna, you know, we can model, they're gonna be fine. Yeah. But at the end of the day, they're kind of happy about the choice that they've made.
- [30:05]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, they're happy about the choice they made.
- [30:07]
Tim Miller
Be happy about the choice that we've made.
- [30:08]
Jon Favreau
You know, that's exactly right. And so we just gotta. We just gotta beat them because we can't count on John Cornyn to ever do anything. Like, I read that interview and I was just like, like, yeah, what? I'm not surprised by anything. I'm not surprised by any of this.
- [30:20]
Tim Miller
It is funny. They all called us cucks, though. It's like Carl Hulse might as well have been in a Motel 6 interviewing John Cornyn while he was sitting in a cuck chair while his wife was getting fucked by Donald Trump or Ken Paxton. Like, honestly, like, what would have been any different about this interview if that. If that would have happened, it would have been a better scene setting.
- [30:39]
Jon Favreau
I guess the thing that they don't want to say but is true, and this is. JVL would certainly go here, which is that, like, their voters prevented them from having a spine and standing up to Donald Trump. That's what Cornyn's saying right now. He's a free man now because he doesn't have to face his voters who he clearly.
- [30:59]
Tim Miller
A little more freedom. A little more.
- [31:01]
Jon Favreau
A little more freedom because he doesn't have to face his voters who he clearly believes are slavishly devoted to Donald Trump. And Trump wants 100% agreement, and guess what? So do his core base of voters. And so if you find yourself in that party, like, what are you supposed to do? You either agree with Trump or you lose your job and you go make money. And for a while, Cornyn thought, and then some of them, they can do both, right? And Cornyn probably thought he could do both for a while, and then now he realized he can't do both, and so he's just going to go make money.
- [31:32]
Tim Miller
Reserves the right to choose. Just what? He's just so disgusting. Is that right how you say it? It's slavish, not slavish. Is it slavish or slavish?
- [31:41]
Jon Favreau
I don't know. I pronounce everything wrong.
- [31:43]
Tim Miller
One of the worst parts about being a podcaster is that you find out how many words you don't know how to pronounce.
- [31:48]
Jon Favreau
You know, a ton of them.
- [31:50]
Tim Miller
I guess I was saying scourge wrong. I've been told I was saying scourge wrong. I don't. I score. I received several messages.
- [31:57]
Jon Favreau
See, that's a tough one. See, that's scourge.
- [31:59]
Tim Miller
I know. I received several messages about that one this week. Every week, I get messages about different words I pronounce wrong. So there's a single hill where I will die on in defense of Candace, which is there's the funny X account that, like, makes fun of her for all the words that she mispronounces. And I'm just like, you know, that's how I am. She means she read like she learned the word at some place that's better than. Anyway, that's my only defense of candidate.
- [32:21]
Jon Favreau
The funniest one I have heard recently is on your podcast, our friend Sarah, who calls Rob Flaherty Flardy, Flardy Farty. I'm like, it's Flaherty. You've never heard the word Flaherty?
- [32:32]
Tim Miller
No. She's not a fucking mick like you from Boston, you know?
- [32:36]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, that's true. Flaherty's was probably like the, like, 10 bars that we went to.
- [32:40]
Tim Miller
Flaherty's a very common name in Boston. Well, let's do a little politics talk. I have an article out today, a newsletter. I signed up for jbl, and I did a big prologue about how I think donating to campaigns is mostly stupid. I think having been on the inside of campaigns, a huge percentage of the money is wasted. Most of the testing and metrics tools people use to determine whether things are Effective messaging is basically looking at chicken bones and like bringing in a shaman to tell you, like, what ad is better. I like, literally, I was like shocked when I sat through a first ad, an ad test for the first time. And I was like, this is how we decide. It's like 20 random people are like playing video games and then watching an ad and they need to vote on it before they get to continue their video game. And I'm like, nobody knows themselves. It's like, have you ever gone to a philosophy class? It's hard. It's a huge journey to actually know yourself, to be able to say, I watched this ad and it motivated me. The whole thing is crazy, crazy. And there's no incentive to save money if you're on a campaign. You got to spend it all. And there are a lot of grifters out there. So usually people ask me what to donate to. I'm like, donate to a food bank or like, go treat yourself to a spa day. But I understand how that's not satisfying, right? Especially for people who are, who want to use their resources for good and help democracy. So after this long wind up of how donating to campaigns is stupid, I wrote about where I think, think you can make some difference on the margins. And I was really pushing towards these stretch House races in red parts of the country where Democrats have not done well lately, but might be able to do well now because of the wave, particularly Hispanic ones. Talking about Bobby Polito down in the Rio Grande, that Republican won by 17 points last time in the poll I'm seeing now is that that's tied some of these Senate races that aren't going to have as much money in them. Iowa, I had Josh Turek on this week. You know, some of the more stretch races, you never know how you could expand the map. Maybe in some of these Senate races. So anyway, people can read the article. I'm just wondering where you are on that concept. If there's any candidates, campaigns that are catching your eye, how you think about where it's worth people's time to get involved.
- [34:59]
Jon Favreau
I will say your diagnosis of the problem is one that I share, have come to share especially after the last couple cycles, which is I think know the majority of these budgets go to ads. And I think that in the Democratic Party, like especially we could use way more creative ads, ad makers types of ads, the way we place them, the way we deliver them to people. Like, I just think we need a lot of innovation there. And so I think we're spending just wasting a Ton of money. And it drives me crazy. On the question of where to donate. I remember in 2018, with Vote Save America, what we tried to do is the closer we got to Election Day, we worked with one of these Democratic data groups who we knew from the Obama days, and we had, like, a list of 10 candidates that we updated every week. House candidates who were like. Like, the formula for how we picked the candidates was how much money do they have on hand? How much money does their opponent have on hand? What's the polling look like? What's the partisan lean? And basically, like. Like, what's the most bang for your buck? Right. Like, if you're going to. It's like Moneyball for politics. Like, that's. That's sort of what we need. What we've been trying to do with V. Save America is that you don't want to tell people to either donate to someone who is the marquee race that is going to have, like, more money than God anyway, but you also don't want to tell someone to donate to. Like, Amy McGrath and Kentucky and Jamie
- [36:23]
Tim Miller
Harrison are always the ones that people mention. I know. I do feel bad. Amy's a good person, but, yeah, she's a good story.
- [36:29]
Jon Favreau
True.
- [36:29]
Tim Miller
A lot of money was wasted in that race. Just is what it is.
- [36:31]
Jon Favreau
Right.
- [36:32]
Tim Miller
That's why I picked on Ron Desanctimonious and Tom Stier as my examples in the article, you know, to try to mix it up a little bit. But that's a good one. Yeah. Okay. Well, people should get.
- [36:40]
Jon Favreau
So I would do. I would do these House races that are, you know, like the R7s to R9s to R10s.
- [36:46]
Tim Miller
That's exactly the list that I put together.
- [36:48]
Jon Favreau
And then in the Senate, like, I would. Again, in the Senate, I would look at not just what they have, how much the Senate candidate has raised, but like. Like, what kind of cash their opponents have, you know, And I think, like, I mean, it's funny you say this today. Like, we're holding a fundraiser at our home tonight for Sherrod Brown.
- [37:03]
Tim Miller
Congrats.
- [37:04]
Jon Favreau
Because. Because, you know, my wife Emily worked for Share. That's how we met when she was. She was a deputy.
- [37:09]
Tim Miller
That's an important race. But Sherrod's not.
- [37:12]
Jon Favreau
Super PACs, especially, like, crypto super PACs, which did this to him last time, are going to dump just an insane amount of money into Ohio. And so some of the donating is just to, like. It's just for defense. Right. Because even if you can say that like our ads can be bad. Like if their ads are running and ours aren't and we can't match that, like that is going to have an effect on your low engagement voters.
- [37:30]
Tim Miller
Well, this is why I didn't include Jared Brown on the list, because the Richie Riches of west Hollywood are handling that. Okay. Like you guys got that covered. All right, we do, we do. So, you know, let me know what kind of bold face names you're going to have. You might want to leak the party list to not many. Not many politico playbook. You know, want to get your names in there. The people that showed up. All right, people, go check out that article. Put the link in the show notes. I mentioned this yesterday, but I'm only five weeks away from my summer vacation. I can't wait. We're going to be in Europe for a little bit of it. And normally about this time before a big international trip, I'd be getting nervous about my language skills. I might start cramming, but this time I'm a little more prepared, thanks to our friends at babbel. If you're traveling this summer, here's a real hack. Don't wait until you land to start learning the language. Instead, try babbel. Even just 10 minutes a day with babbel can help you start having real conversations in as little as three weeks. Instead of memorizing random vocab, you're learning phrases you'd use ordering dinner, asking for directions, or talking with the lokes. Babbel works the way I like to learn. No memorizing vocab lists or verb charts, just real conversation. Practice lessons are quick, practical, and built by more than 200 language experts. We've got interactive dialogue, personalized reviews, all designed to get you speaking quickly and confidently. Me and tolose have been doing it together at the dinner table a couple minutes a day. It's fun. If you got summer travel coming up, now's the time to start so you can actually use what you learn on the trip. Right now, babbel is offering listeners up to 60% off. Go to babbel.com bulwark that's Babbel. B A B-B-E-L.com bulwark for up to 60% off. Rules and restrictions apply while talking about moneyball for politics. I want to do a little bit with you on 2028. I have a self imposed limit of 15 minutes per week on 2028, but I've done zero. So we can go for as long as short as you want.
- [39:23]
Jon Favreau
Great.
- [39:23]
Tim Miller
And there's a poll out that created a lot of follow up. Dan Pfeiffer wrote about the poll and Messagebox G. Eliot Morris wrote about the poll data analytics. But the nuts of it was this. Democratic voters are a little schizophrenic on what they want. They want the party to move to the middle, but they also want socialism. I don't know if they want socialism, but they like socialism. And so G. Eliot Morris was trying to. I understand that. And there's kind of some jokes about it on social media, but I don't think that's that confusing to me. And for me, if I was going to do a Frankenstein candidate for 2028 and just build one out of a lab, I would have you be the speechwriter for it. So we'd move you off the field of my podcast competitor back into the campaign space. Sure. So just prepare yourself for this. And I would have them, basically it would unfortunately probably be a guy. I think a woman could be a great president, but just for the purposes of having to deal with the realities of living in American society. Maybe Hispanic or a black guy. And I would have them kind of be able to do long form interviews such as this, be able to communicate. I would have them talk as much like a normal person as possible. I would have them move to the middle a little bit. Not we want to build the wall even higher, but just move to a little bit. A little bit on immigration and crime and talk about how criminals should be punished, migrant criminals should be punished to the full extent of the law or sent home or a combination of both. Right. And actually talk about that. Not just have that as one line on their website, but have that be where they strategically make a decision that I am going to show people that I'm moving to the middle. And whatever your perception was of the Democratic Party fair or unfair on immigration and crime. Also I'm going to eschew some of the silly cultural woke stuff that you see. And some of that is racial, some of it's not. Like for example, in New Orleans this week, my phone Alarm blared at 6:10am I had a siren go off of my phone. It was an updated version of what's the Lost Child's Law?
- [41:28]
Jon Favreau
Amber Alert.
- [41:29]
Tim Miller
Yeah, it's an updated version of the Amber Alert called Brian's Alert and it's for autistic kids. I'm concerned about autistic kids kids. But there was an autistic kid that was lost and the phone blared. Every phone in New Orleans blared at 6:12am and the kid was not even lost. Turned out they found it like when that happened, like his brother said, wait, no, he was at my house, that's 7:10. You know, it's kind of like sometimes like there's just like we're going a little bit overboard on the social justice and cultural care. I think we can care about autistic kids and not have people's phones blare at 6:12 in the morning. It could have been a text, you know, so anyway, just various things like this, like just kind of some common sense moving to the middle on cultural stuff. And then simultaneously my Frankenstein candidate is going to do like extremely creative, painful, punitive rich people taxes. Like, I don't know, you know, I don't want, I don't know what a private jet costs to rent. That's not my, I don't have that kind of money. Let's say it costs 20 grand. Okay? So if you're going to take a private jet flight that costs 20 grand, we have a new private jet tax, it's 300%. So it's 60 grand of taxes. So now it's an 80 grand flight. So if you're a billionaire and you want to fight there, like we're going to take a 300% tax on all private air travel. And so if you, otherwise, you know, you can take commercial air, you can be on Delta with me. Right. You know, just like creative things such as that punitive socialist left wing taxation and as we mentioned earlier, maybe chilling out a little bit on wars. I feel like that's my Frankenstein candidate. And so I'm asking how you react to that, how you would message that person and why you don't think that person exists.
- [43:04]
Jon Favreau
Exists. I think that's a pretty good candidate. I think that now you're, it's interesting you said Frankenstein candidate. I think the challenge is we can't, and I know you know this, but we can't Frankenstein a candidate because the first thing that has to happen is you have to think to yourself, why am I running for president and what do I want to do for the country? And the other side of the really creative rich people taxes is like, what are we going to do with the money? And I think where you get sort of the economic populist sentiment among the, the electorate, it's not just in the, like let's punish the rich people. It's, let's make sure that if we are working then we can see a doctor and like we're Going to be able to live somewhere and afford rent and a mortgage. Just like basic shit. And if people can't do that and the government can't deliver on that, then they're not going to trust the government. Then we're going to get more Trumps. This is just the basic. And like someone's got to tell the whole story and someone's got to also like be honest in a way too, which is tricky because Trump has done so much damage that. Okay, well, a lot of the money that we get from the rich people is going to, at some point we are going to have to deal with the debt. You know, I'm not just, not just doing, not just doing fan service here on the board.
- [44:21]
Tim Miller
Welcome to the board.
- [44:22]
Jon Favreau
Not just doing fan service, but no, and like think.
- [44:25]
Tim Miller
And you know, there's that clip of you and you and I are on Jon Stewart where you talk about how we meet in the middle. I still see that they, they fucked you. Jon Stewart's people fucked you. Like they clipped that and put it on Instagram. It still gets sent to me. People are like, I told you Jon Favreau was a corporate shill. He see, he says on Jon Stewart show, he's even to the right of Jeb Bush flunky Tim Miller. I get that in my social media, like one of the weeks now.
- [44:49]
Jon Favreau
None of this phases me anymore. Anymore.
- [44:50]
Tim Miller
Okay, great, that's good, that's great.
- [44:52]
Jon Favreau
But yeah, no, like, so I think that, I think what we are lacking is our candidates who, who know first what they want to do and why they're running and what they believe and then second, go figure out how to sell that to people, which is still important. I'm not going to be like all fucking West Wing about it. And you can just like go out there and say what you believe. Like you still need to figure out how to sell it. But people are just, everyone is so scared and so cautious probably because they're listening to us too much, reading too many polls, looking at too many focus groups that like, they think that they have to sort of walk on eggshells to run. And I think that ironically becomes the biggest weakness of most of the candidates is the caution. Because they have, you know, they've had all these ad people who are like, we focus grouped this ad and this and that and other thing. And so like you get this Frankenstein monster of a campaign and it doesn't work for people. Right. Like again, no one would have said.
- [45:50]
Tim Miller
You're right, I'm sorry, no one would have said that.
- [45:52]
Jon Favreau
The. The state senator, black guy, Barack Hussein Obama from Chicago, who lived for a time in Indonesia, was what, the Democratic. Like, on paper, that was fucking crazy. Crazy for the Democratic Party to nominate Barack Obama after we just lost with John Kerry, war hero. And yet we did it, and it worked because Obama knew what he wanted to say and knew what he wanted to believe and knew what he believed, and that was that. And wasn't afraid to lose.
- [46:23]
Tim Miller
You know, this is why you won presidential campaigns and I didn't. Because you're right about this. You do need to have, like, honestly, like, it has to be believable, right? And, like, this is, like, what I just offered is a fair critique of Kamala's campaign, right? Like my stupid private plane tax. It's, like, not any different than, you know, they felt like they were doing this. I'm going to reach a different part of the electorate by we're going to have this proposal that's going to help. What was that, the sandwich generation? Or if you have, you know, you're taking care of your parents and your kids so you get a certain tax break. I don't even remember what the exact proposal is with some gimmick proposal for that group. And that's a legit thing. Like, it's legit that, like, they're. I'm starting to have friends in this boat, you know, taking care of kids and parents, and that sucks. And it's hard and. But, like, the rationale people need to buy, right? There needs to be a broad story that they need to buy, and that is kind of more important than the gimmick. So I do like my private plane gimmick, but, you know, you got to do both kind of.
- [47:16]
Jon Favreau
Well, I was going to say, because it's not like we weren't above gimmicks on the Obama campaign. And in terms of the moderation you talked about, like, if you listen to Barack Obama talk about immigration, it's like, exactly the way that you just talked about immigration. And that was just his view on it. It wasn't like where he. But he also knew what the politics were on immigration. But he could talk about his beliefs about why it was a more complex, nuanced issue than many people perceive it to be, or at least that the media talks about it and pundits talk about it. He understood that. And so he just sort of talked about why he believed what he believed and trusted people and trusted the people were going to be okay with that. Now it's harder now because of the information environment. It's way harder because all the incentives are to get attention. And everything you do to get attention is by definition more black and white, cut and dry than it should be in the context of politics governing a country of 300 plus million people. And so all the incentives are pointing in the wrong direction for these candidates. It's the problem.
- [48:20]
Tim Miller
And so that is the answer to the question. I guess that's what I don't. The Democrats have done, I think, sometimes get a bad rap on recruiting the cycle. They've recruited some good people. Mary Peltola is a good candidate. Like I said, I had Turk on. He seems like a good candidate. Roy Cooper seems like a good candidate. But there just is the caution across the board. I don't see anybody doing what I just said or what Obama did. Even on some cultural issues, it's hard to find a Democratic candidate at a statewide level in a swing seat who has a policy platform on cultural issues that's meaningfully different from Clinton, Biden, Harris,
- [48:58]
Jon Favreau
I think, because I think even if they do, it's because whatever that platform is, as soon as people hear a soundbite of it, it's like touching the hot stove. And then suddenly everyone descends on you and says, oh, you're like the worst person. And you, you, you hate marginalized groups and you know, and even Seth Moulton
- [49:16]
Tim Miller
on the Transports thing.
- [49:17]
Jon Favreau
And even if, even if you are more nuanced about it, even if your actual belief and record show that you very much stand up for trans, you know, just to use that example, trans rights or immigrant rights or whatever it may be, it doesn't matter. And so everyone's like, what is the, what is the benefit of saying what I really believe on this? If it's just going to be taken out of context and used to screw me even in my own party? It's not.
- [49:39]
Tim Miller
I wish somebody would try. They're going to be.
- [49:41]
Jon Favreau
That's.
- [49:41]
Tim Miller
You need someone to try 2028. And it would be nice to have somebody try some different stuff.
- [49:46]
Jon Favreau
And I will say, like, on the other side of it, because I've seen. And I, and I. Rahm is great, but I've seen Rahm do this. You also can't look like you are. You're. You're purposely poking the left because you're like, look, I'm not like these crazy lefties. And so I'm gonna say that like Rom's line about people talked about bathrooms not. And too much and not enough about classrooms. It's like, no, like, no, we didn't they talked about bathrooms. We were put on the defensive. We didn't have anything to say. And so that was that. Of course we want. Of course Democrats want to talk about classrooms and education and. And all the good Democratic issues. But, like, yeah, so there's a way to go.
- [50:24]
Tim Miller
This is funny. It's like the Trump issue, right? Like, this is why Trump was able to do this. And it's like. And maybe this is just like, his sociopathy makes it possible in a way that it isn't for other people. But it's like, Trump was so hard on going after the left on various things, unfairly a lot, and lying and blah, blah, blah. But, like, he was. And he's so extreme on immigration and race issues mostly, but on some other stuff, stuff he could make fun of Paul Ryan's stupid Social Security, Medicare cuts, and people would yell at him online. He's like, who cares? And then all those people ended up getting in line. And it's like, that is the path to doing, and that is the failure of the model. I agree. That's why that isn't going to work. And this is, I think, why. Zoran, I've talked about this a couple times recently where, Zoran, if you have the credibility of, hey, I'm going to fight for you on economic issues, and I am against the stupid foreign wars, then you can also say, well, like, you know, we should hire some more police, right? And it's like, some people might yell at Zoran and be like, you're a pig now. And it's like, but nobody buys it. You know what I mean? And so you have to have credibility.
- [51:26]
Jon Favreau
The key is how you respond to the first wave of criticism. And whether you back off or you just say, like, no, this is what I believe, right? Like, take abolish ICE for example. You know, I mean, you and I on our respective pods have been talking about how horrific ICE has been now for a year, and at least, like, makes me sick. And I, like, lose sleep over it. At the same time, like, abolish ICE doesn't make sense to me. Not just because I read a poll and say that it's like, not enough people support it, but it doesn't make sense because it's like, we need immigration enforcement in this country. I. I never said that we didn't need that. I just said that we didn't need, like, masked, unaccountable men in the street beating the shit out of people and murdering protesters and throwing people in detention centers with subhuman conditions. Like, we. We'd still have to have an enforcement system in this country. And if, like, you're upset that I didn't go all the way to abolish ice, then, like, that's fine. But I just believe we need immigration enforcement, and I just need. We need to, like, rip up the system we have. Start from scratch, but, like, we still need it. Man, whenever I use a sports book during the soccer world championship, I feel like I'm getting robbed.
- [52:27]
Tim Miller
Dude, delete that app. You need to be using Polymarket.
- [52:30]
Jon Favreau
Polymarket. Polymarket is a prediction market, not a sports book. You trade against other fans, not the house.
- [52:36]
Tim Miller
That means means more money for you
- [52:38]
Jon Favreau
and less for greedy sportsbooks. Even during the World Championship?
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Tim Miller
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Jon Favreau
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Tim Miller
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Jon Favreau
No catch.
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Tim Miller
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- [53:19]
Tim Miller
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- [55:08]
Jon Favreau
I feel it, too. I mean, there's days that we do the pod where we talk about, like. Like, just a parade of horribles that, like, I genuinely, you know, off mic, makes me sick to my stomach. But, like, you have to survive and you have to get through your day without being miserable all the time. And so then you use gallows humor to laugh at Trump, and then you. You do, like, the whole thing, like, don't normalize. I'm like, no, no, He. It's. It's normal. It is normal. We're here, we're living through it. And I don't know that it has a, Like, a positive effect or a big enough impact to. To be at an 11 all day long. I think the reason you see people start punching at each other is because, like, we all want to believe that we have agency. We all want to do something about the situation that we're in. The truth is, we can't for a while, at least not the solution that we want, which is no more Donald Trump and a Republican Party that isn't like this. We want to just live in a better political system that's going to take a long time, even under the best case scenario. And so. But, like, the human. The human brain isn't made for just sitting back and being like, all right, we're going to relax and wait till then. Like, we want to be able to do something now. And the thing that you can do now is to argue with people on your side about how to beat. How to get rid of. Yeah. How to fix it.
- [56:24]
Tim Miller
And I think some of that comes from a genuine place. I do think about that sometimes, right. Where it's just like, people channel their anger at Trump, at something that feels more. Something that they feel like they can control more. So you talk about your agency, right? Where it's like, I'm fucking mad about all the things that are happening in this country. And if you're. I'm just caricaturing. But, like, if you're a left person, you're like, you know whose fault it is? The wimpy establishment, like Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. And they want us to continue down the same failed path. And I'm so mad at them. And why don't they get it? Like, maybe they're even on the other side, kind of. Maybe they don't even think it's as bad as I do. Right. Like, you can imagine somebody, like, getting yourself riled up and thinking that, like, that's not irrational. It's not true, but it's not irrational. Right. Or like, the inversion of that would feel like.
- [57:07]
Jon Favreau
Like Hassan Hasan Piker is ruining the whole party and the whole left is in parallel.
- [57:13]
Tim Miller
Kamala. Which is true, by the way. Like, Jill Stein people. Some of these people voted for Jill Stein. And, like, they didn't even try hard the last election. I was out there in the streets. I was volunteering, I was working hard, and they were shitting on us. And so it was their fucking fault that we're in this place. And now they want to control the party. Fuck them. And I understand that feeling, like, from if you're a centrist or middle regular Democrat looking at get more populous Bernie Hassan type, I almost feel like, you know, it's part of a therapy process, which is like, acknowledging this, that that is happening in your brain is a clock. Yeah. To start to have productive change going forward. Right. Like, this is an anger thing that I have in my heart that has some truth to it. But, like, what am I really angry about? Like, what is Andre not lying it? And, like, what I think everybody is really angry about. Maybe not every single person, but mostly everybody is really angry about is what Trump is doing to the country. Right.
- [58:04]
Jon Favreau
And.
- [58:04]
Tim Miller
And we should try to figure, like,
- [58:07]
Jon Favreau
I think the key. The key is a lib term. This is advice that. That I need to take and try to tell myself all the time. And I don't always follow it. But, like, you need to offer Everyone the presumption of good faith, which is that the reason they are angry could be the reason that you're angry and you're just manifesting it in different ways. And maybe, you know, a lot of us want the same things, and not everyone's perfect. And so. And we're all struggling and we're all under a tremendous amount of stress because of what this man has done to the country for the last 10 years. And a lot of that's very real. And so a lot of people are acting out in ways that we all act out. Right. Part of it is recognizing that, like, you do this too, Right? Like, it's like, I'm not perfect the way I do this. I'm failing at this all the time. And so. And I want someone to extend that presumption of good faith to me when I'm having a bad day or tweet something awful. So I want to. To extend that to someone else. And I realize, like, this is very out of fashion now because when they go low, we're not supposed to go high anymore. But I do think that, like, that is the. That that is both in line with our vision of what American democracy should be and good for our mental health.
- [59:17]
Tim Miller
That's why I like listening to you, Jon Favreau, because, like, that's right. And you're putting words to something. I feel I do have to quibble with one point we have to offer the presumption of good faith. It's not indefinite up until a point where they have demonstrated that they don't earn it any longer.
- [59:34]
Jon Favreau
When they slap it away like the 10th time, then you're good.
- [59:39]
Tim Miller
Maybe you are a bad. And just to give one prime example of that, just for fun, it's Friday. We're having some serious talk. So just for fun, why don't we listen to Kellyanne Conway and the rest of the Democrats. And they said, is there anything else, ladies and gentlemen? What else do you need? Is there a magic number in the Scandalabra that would make you stop?
- [59:56]
Jon Favreau
Would it do with.
- [59:57]
Tim Miller
Would it have to do with Nazis or putting upon women? Perhaps underage women, but definitely women. Not your wife of two years. Would it be that you're lying about that you're insulting heroes that you're not. He's not even fit to lick their combat boots. So I'd ask the Democrats, Is power really worth that to you? Because power for power seems is the definition of corruption. I did like kudos for Scandalabra. That's good. But besides that, that is Insane. How does she. I think she really doesn't realize it. Or does she? It's a troll.
- [60:32]
Jon Favreau
I think she does. Because there's another clip that I was wondering if you were going to play, because I saw that one, the other one, she said, look, I'm a Christian, I believe in second chances. But I think that Graham Platner should, like, go home with his family and get right with them and seek forgiveness there first. Because the Senate, when you're just one of a hundred people representing this country, that is not the place for this kind of redemption. And I thought it was an interesting tell because she does get that. I think most Americans do want to give people second chances and they. Because they want to be given second chances themselves. And she does think that, like, this is her. And she realizes that people are giving Donald Trump quite a few chances. The second part of the argument is so off because it's like, but the Senate's not the place for that. Oh, yeah, a bunch of fucking moral heroes. And then like, what about the White House? Is the White House the place for redemption? It's like, no, you gotta, you actually gotta pick one. You either gotta say that no, the Senate, the House, the White House, those must be places for absolutely perfectly moral, upstanding citizens. Or you can say that no, everyone is broken in some ways and we just have to decide who is better and who's gonna help us and who's gonna abide by the laws that we've written and who's going to fight for people the most. And that's how we're gonna elect people. But you can't have both. You can't have both.
- [61:59]
Tim Miller
I just love the balls on her that it's like, you know, the Nazi thing, okay. The cheating on the wives, okay. Throwing the potentially underage. There's no evidence of underage. Your grandfather, though. We mentioned Donald Trump in the nipples then I just feel like the icing on the cake is the insulting our heroes. And he's not even worth, he's not even worthy to lick their combat boots. It's like, grandpa did have combat boots. Like, Trump insulted the heroes.
- [62:29]
Jon Favreau
Trump insulted our heroes. Not in a post 30 years ago. Trump does it like all he was doing it. You want to believe multiple four star generals who worked for him told stories about this multiple four star general. Not one four star general. Two four star generals, one of whom was the chief of staff, one of whom is his defense secretary, would talk about Donald Trump denigrating people in the military while he was president.
- [62:55]
Tim Miller
Fucking kill Ian, I have a deep question for you on this.
- [62:58]
Jon Favreau
Sure.
- [62:58]
Tim Miller
Should we care about people cheating on their wives at all if they wanna run for the Senate? What is the extent to which we should care? I'm like, I'm kind of serious about this because people do throw this at me. I know you, but me in particular, Trumpers over Trump. And I was always, like, on the list of. I cared about Trump about. It was always at the bottom. I, I don't. I make fun of him for it because, like, why not?
- [63:17]
Jon Favreau
Look, I am. I am consistent on this because the, the just happened to be. The week before all the Platner stuff. Was Paxton winning?
- [63:25]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [63:25]
Jon Favreau
And I sat on multiple pods because I believe this. That, like, the whole attack on Ken Paxton as an adulterer, I mean, I talked about it from a political angle, but I'm like, I think it's the weakest attack on Paxton. And I actually don't want people to hit it too much because I don't think that most people are going to be like, oh, well, he cheated on his wife and therefore he's disqualified, like,
- [63:44]
Tim Miller
for being the Senate.
- [63:45]
Jon Favreau
I don't think cheating is a good thing. I saw Jerusalem Demsis wrote about this in the argument. And like, you know, most Americans, like, it really bothers people when someone. She's like, yeah, cheating bothers me. Like, infidelity bothers me. But in terms of the fact that someone. And every situation is different, which we, again, like, no one can. No one can keep in their heads that different situations are different. Right. But if, like, there was a. You had some kind of infidelity and then you worked it out with your partner and you've gone through therapy and, and that's it, then, like, okay, that. I don't know, it doesn't bother. Of all the, of all the Grand Platner things, that maybe is at, like, the bottom of the list for me,
- [64:25]
Tim Miller
I just don't know what it has to do with being a senator. That's the lying, the dishonesty, maybe that's.
- [64:31]
Jon Favreau
And this is what I've said about Planner, the thing that, that I think he has to work on. And the thing that bugs me the most is, like, because honesty and the ability to trust someone, like, that does relate to your job as a public servant. Right. And it is. Look, it is, it is clear now that, like, I don't believe he knew what the Nazi. What the tattoo was when he got it. And the people who he got it with. His other. The other Nazi knew before October, though, right? Yes, exactly. And it. And it, like. And clearly he's not being honest about that. And that sucks. Like, I think that sucks.
- [65:01]
Tim Miller
But, like, can I have a counterpoint for you for this from a person? I don't. This is a private message, so I don't want to out them, but it's somebody that I think that we both respect, listeners will respect. We were talking about this topic on text and they said, this isn't a certain amount of tactical lying important in politics. I know, I know, I know, I know. And so the clipping of this will be terrible and social. So I'm going to try to protect you. I'm going to have a lot of rambling here of me talking before we get to you talking. But isn't that something worth grappling with? I don't know. Like, doesn't. Don't. Doesn't. Like, did Barack Obama really oppose gay marriage in 2008? No, he did not. He did not. And so could he have won while still opposing. While still supporting gay marriage? Yeah, maybe. I think kind of actually maybe he still would have won. So maybe this was a lie that served no purpose. But I don't know. How do you react to that?
- [65:53]
Jon Favreau
I went through. I've gone through this in my head a few times, and it's like, so Graham Platner, when first presented with the fact that, you know, it was. It was going to be public, that the tattoo. One answer was like, I got this tattoo with Marines and it was a skull and crossbones, and we thought it looked tough. And then at some point along the way, I realized it was a. Had this Nazi association. But at that point, like, I was. I never thought I was ever going to run for office. And my shirt was off in front of all kinds of people. And the army scanned me for bad tattoos before I went off to Afghanistan, after I had come home from Iraq. And no one has said anything about it, so therefore I wasn't going to go get a tattoo covered up. That only that, only I. That I only read about online was this association. But now that I'm running for office and you're all talking about it, fine, I'll cover it up. No big deal. Now, would that have solved his problem politically? No. Like, clearly because of everything. Like, everyone still would have been like, well, you should have covered up. And the fact that you didn't and you admit that you didn't expect, like, like, he would have still got shit. But, like, then he would have been coming from the primary, still won the primary. Would have been coming at it from a more honest position. But I, but I do put it in the category of more of it is, it is sort of tactical. Like, he, he lied for the purpose of not having a bigger political problem than he did. And I don't think that worked.
- [67:12]
Tim Miller
Or as one of the great scholars of our time, Hunter Biden, said, I've not heard anything in any way that would say that he's misogynistic, anti Semitic or racist. I've heard that he thinks we should all have free health care care. Yeah, somebody wants to radically change our politics. Not a bad take from Hunter Biden. Feels like that's what's resonating.
- [67:28]
Jon Favreau
And of course, that is the take from Hunter Biden, who has gone through this himself. My position on this is, I think, like, I have a personal. Everyone's talking about, like, moral values and don't have Democrats given up moral values. And I don't love to play whataboutism on this all the time. Like, it is fun to do and it's hard to avoid because of how they are. But I just, I, I also want to come from a position of, like, what, what do I believe? And like, what are my values and can they be consistent across both parties? And people who seek forgiveness, I believe should be offered grace. Like, that is a, that is a foundational value for me and I, and again, that is not, like, that is not infinite. You could, you could extend someone grace and then they could continue to lie and cheat or do whatever and go back to them. And then you know that that's a situation that you have to deal with. But like, like when someone says, I was wrong, I made mistakes, I lived a tough life, I fucked up, and now I'm trying to change and become better. Like, I want to be open to that. I want to give that person grace to change. And that is true. And so if there are a bunch of Republican politicians out there, if Ken Paxton wants to make a big speech and say, like, I am so sorry that I've done all these things and either committed adultery, if Donald Trump wants to get up there and be like, I'm sorry for my past sins, if all, like, if they want to do that, then I'll listen. But, like, I don't see any of that.
- [68:53]
Tim Miller
No, they're running on the sense we're way over. And I promise you, we could do Spencer Pratt talk. So before that, I just want to give you the floor for a brief Jon Favreau stirring commentary on America 250, the Star Spangled Jumbo claw that we have in front of the White House. I know that you were invited to go to that event and sadly had that invite rescinded. And then you're going to go to the Obama library the next day and so you'll kind of had some time to ruminate about what, what it means.
- [69:23]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, it's almost like it's like too much symbolism. It's like it's a little, everything's a little too on the nose. The fact that we have a, like a 700 foot octagon on the South Lawn of the White House right next to the rubble of the East Wing. Just a little too. Little too Roman Coliseum. Yeah.
- [69:43]
Tim Miller
Idiocracy. It's a little too Hector Mountain Dew Camacho.
- [69:46]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. And look, I don't want, like, I don't have a problem with, like, I'm not a UFC person, but I don't have a problem with like the White House holding a sporting event like that or the, even the fact that they're holding a fight like that. Like, what I, what I have an issue with is that Donald Trump has clearly decided to combine his birthday with America's birthday. And what does he have to say about America's 250th birthday day? He doesn't have anything to say about it because all he can think about is himself. And so what the country has to celebrate for America 250, is just Donald Trump. It's Donald Trump and a completely airbrushed version of history where every step and every moment in America's history has led us to this final moment with Donald Trump prevailing, which is all he thinks about because he's at the end of his life. Life and is gonna die soon anyway. And so he's like, my term, and especially this birthday should be a celebration of me and everything I've done for America and how I'm maybe the greatest American who's ever been. And like, that is my problem with Trump and America. 250 more than any of the details of the celebrations or who's in or who's out. Like, there is a version of this where someone who I, a president who I very much disagree with politically and policy wise still gets me to feel a little patriotic because for America's 250, they decide to say, like, we're going to make this nonpartisan. We're going to make this about sort of the values that bring us together. George W. Bush would have done that.
- [71:15]
Tim Miller
The wheels of the country would have done that.
- [71:17]
Jon Favreau
Right.
- [71:17]
Tim Miller
I Mean, literally every president before this one, every.
- [71:20]
Jon Favreau
Every single president would have done that. And that is what really bugs me about the. The America 250 thing.
- [71:26]
Tim Miller
My worst take related to all this will be sure to make everyone unhappy is I think that the UFC claw on the south lawn is cool.
- [71:33]
Jon Favreau
It looks fucking cool.
- [71:34]
Tim Miller
It looks cool.
- [71:35]
Jon Favreau
I mean, it's weird that it's on the south lawn, but it looks cool.
- [71:38]
Tim Miller
Yeah, the Democrats should do cool shit like that. It's fine. And the corruption, I don't like, like, you know, the company, they're making money of all this. Like, it should be a non profit, but. But just the look, the aesthetic, it's cool to do cool stuff. I think the Obama library looks cool.
- [71:52]
Jon Favreau
You do?
- [71:52]
Tim Miller
Everyone hates the Obama library.
- [71:53]
Jon Favreau
I haven't been inside yet. I mean, I'm not seeing the outside.
- [71:56]
Tim Miller
I think it's cool. It's different. It's interesting. It's weird how the speech goes around so you can't really read it. I guess that would be my one architectural note, but other than that, I think that it looks cool. Cool.
- [72:05]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. I see.
- [72:05]
Tim Miller
I'm not, as people know, I also like the Oval Office with stuff on it.
- [72:08]
Jon Favreau
Yeah. Like, I'm. I'm not a. Not a modern architecture guy. I'm just a.
- [72:12]
Tim Miller
Sure.
- [72:13]
Jon Favreau
Just a douche from Boston. So.
- [72:15]
Tim Miller
So, like, something a little more like.
- [72:17]
Jon Favreau
I would never.
- [72:17]
Tim Miller
You wanted, like, brick. You wanted, like a brick building with, you know, the flag out front. You know, I'm much more Republican. That sounds right.
- [72:26]
Jon Favreau
But I. But, like, you know, I'm excited to look inside. Obviously. I'm excited to. I'm excited take the kids.
- [72:31]
Tim Miller
Love to hear your readout. All right, we're going to close with Spencer Pratt. You said that you'd come on the show if we could go through the worst takes about Spencer Pratt. So I've pulled some together. Yes. But before we get to all of the worst takes, I wanted to play one in particular, since it invoked your name. This is from Nepo, daughter, podcaster, wife of one of the worst people in America. Her name is Meghan McCain. Let's listen.
- [73:00]
Jon Favreau
He was handily in second place last
- [73:02]
Tim Miller
week, and now a bunch of mail in ballots come in and he's pushing way low to third.
- [73:07]
Jon Favreau
I just don't understand why Spencer Pratt was such a.
- [73:09]
Tim Miller
Why he was so offensive to the Obama bros. Like, he's so offensive when your candidate that you're famous for had no background at all before he became president. They of all people should know that
- [73:21]
Jon Favreau
magic can happen in Politics and sometimes
- [73:23]
Tim Miller
people just come from.
- [73:24]
Jon Favreau
From nowhere.
- [73:25]
Tim Miller
Magic can happen. John, why were you offended?
- [73:27]
Jon Favreau
You know, I was offended by Spencer Pratt because I thought about why it was making me so angry. Is that like, he gave this interview to Us Weekly where, you know, he said that this is my destiny to be mayor. And they asked him, like, you know, they said, one of the questions is, I wrote this down because I. It really bugged me. You were a political science major in college. Do you have any other qualifications? My number one qualification is I'm not corrupt. My biggest skill is being an actual outsider. That's it. That's it. He doesn't. And that was the whole campaign. He didn't. None of the things he proposed or very few of the things he proposed were doable, even within the confines of the law. Like, I'm going to force people into treatment. I'm going to, like, can't really do that. I'm going to like, build a. Build a camp on the outskirts of LA where I'm going to move all the homeless people. I'm going to ship them to Seattle. All this kind of stuff. Like, like, doesn't have the power, forget about it being cruel and obscene. Doesn't have the power to do any of that. The mayor doesn't have the power to that. So he went around and what he did was he realized that a lot of people in LA were angry at Mayor Bass and angry because of the fires and angry because of the homeless situation. And what can I do with that anger? I can capitalize on it and run a campaign and scream about the people in charge, how they're corrupt. And that's all I have to do. I don't have to think about that at all. I'm. I'm staying at the Bel Air Hotel for fifteen hundred dollars a night, even though my whole campaign was predicated on the fact that my house burned down in the Palisades and I'm living in a trailer. Also, I have a reality TV crew that I've signed on to so that when I, if I'm mayor, that me and Heidi can have a t. We can get back to basics and the TV crew can, can follow us around. And so it's like, no, I don't believe, like, I, I, of course, like we said, I wanted to get. Give Spencer Pratt the presumption of good faith, but he doesn't seem like he has grown at all. Learned anything, has an idea about why he wanted to run. All he wanted to do was say, like, I'm an outsider. I'm pissed. And so I'm going to get more famous because of that. That's it. And you know what? That's why he got the vote.
- [75:31]
Tim Miller
He did some of the worst takes. I don't know if you have any that you want to nominate, but I just pulled some. And you know, this is friendly fire here. All right, so nobody took this personally. I've had some bad takes before. Not on Spencer Pratt. Pratt.
- [75:44]
Jon Favreau
I have them every day.
- [75:46]
Tim Miller
Obviously had no chance to win the LA mayor's race and people had their brains totally broken by the Internet. But I've had bad takes on other things. Here's some of the worst takes on Pratt. Jeb Bush, my friend Jeb Bush. On one of Pratt's AI ads. Maybe the best political ad of the year. I think it was maybe a bad sign that his political ads were appealing to elderly Republicans in Florida as opposed to Los Angeles voters. One note. Christopher Rufo. Spencer Pratt has had more airtime than any right coded mayoral candidate in recent memory. He's charismatic and his video marketing has been on par with the left. Most viral campaigns like AOC and Mom Donnie, Jesse Waters. Wow. Democrats thought California was a lock. Then the numbers rolled in. Spencer Pratt just turned the LA mayor's race into the biggest surprise of the night. Bombshell Karen Bass. Karen's gonna have to fight for her political survival. True. Not at the hands of Spencer Pratt. Rick Grinnell. It's Pratt. Summer? Nope. Was Pratt Spring. Red Steez. Congrats. 2028 presidential nominee Spencer Pratt. Guess not. Bethany Mandel. Sorry. For people who don't know these Internet characters, this is just setting. Spencer Pratt was doing this well because he was calling out a crooked and flawed system. If this is how they think they're going to stop him. Buckle up. They're going to unleash something much bigger. Caitlin Flanigan at the Free Press. Pratt. Daddy's Revenge. Puck's Peter Amby. Spencer Proud was authentically passionate. But it's also clear he did a lot of prep before the debate and he's open to taking advice. Growing as a candidate. It not just doing the volume 11 social media thing on stage. For all the Trump comparisons, Pratt is more likely to invoke San Francisco's popular Democratic mayor Daniel Lurie, who has run central plaudits. Centrist plaudits for cracking down on homelessness.
- [77:45]
Jon Favreau
Oh, no.
- [77:45]
Tim Miller
Peter. Yeah, a lot of we love Peter. He had a Great article on America. 250 people should read the show. Notes so good. Just misses all over the place on Pratt. Do you have any others? Or is any. Anyone particularly tickly you?
- [77:56]
Jon Favreau
Yeah, well, so, no, I would just say that I put like the MAGA people aside because, you know, for them to be excited about Spencer Pratt and to get. And especially the online MAGA people, and for them to like, convince themselves that he was somehow going to either win outright, which some of them thought, or at least, you know, beat Nithya by like double digits. It doesn't totally surprise me because that that's sort of how they live their lives in the Trump era online. But I do think, like, there is in terms of the media pundits, other folks like, there, Donald Trump has sort of broken all of our brains. And there's this tendency to look at like fame seeking populists on the right who call out things that are pissing people off and do it in a real, like, authentic viral way is like, like, that's a genius. And my problem is I just don't think it's that impressive. Like, I think you or I.
- [78:57]
Tim Miller
So if I ran a New Orleans mayor campaign based on that alarm that went off at my phone at 6:12 and talked about how annoying that was, that would be something that people would agree with, but it probably would not propel me to the mayorship.
- [79:07]
Jon Favreau
Right. But I think that you and I could figure out how to run a campaign where we attacked leadership, whether it was Democrat or Republican in some city about fucking everything up. And we would do great. Like, in terms of getting attention, in terms of getting. It's an easy thing to do. It is much harder to get people's attention for some kind of an agenda. Right. Which is, by the way, why Mamdani did great. Or one of the big reasons why Mamdani did great. It's not just his viral videos. It's because everyone can remember, like, exactly what Mamdani wanted to do. And he was also like. The other thing about Spencer Pratt, too, is there was a path where he could have tried to reach out to Democrats or centrists or whoever else in the city, and instead he got more MAGA as the campaign went on. He spent the last weekend in New York on Fox and Friends talking about dog raping and calling for Nithya Raman and Karen Bass to be jailed, to be in prison. Like, that's how we ended the campaign in New York. So it's like, I don't think that. No, I don't think that's that impressive. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Like, I know the Democrats. We're all supposed to like, learn from Spencer Pratt and do this. That's like, I don't find that impressive.
- [80:21]
Tim Miller
Counterpoint. Dwayne Patterson, Hugh Hewitt's producer the bottom line is Pratt's ads were too good. Too good. Hopefully this SCOTUS decision will mean that this is the last time California can pull this this stunt. Spencer Good show. Long show. Jon Favro this was fun. Anything else? Any anything you want to leave me with? Final words of wisdom, critiques, comments?
- [80:50]
Jon Favreau
I got nothing. I got nothing. Spencer Spencer Pratt For President.
- [80:54]
Tim Miller
Pratt 2028 Pratt Daddy.
- [80:56]
Jon Favreau
Pratt daddy Sad.
- [80:58]
Tim Miller
Sad that Pratt's summer was over.
- [81:00]
Jon Favreau
Just over before it began.
- [81:02]
Tim Miller
Brat Summer two for me. All right, that's Jon Favreau. Everybody else will be back with his buddy Bill Crystal on Monday. Have a good weekend. Enjoy the fight on the White House lawn. Or don't. Or maybe God will have something to say about us. We'll thunderstorms. We'll check in on Monday and find out together. See y' all then. Peace. Spend all our time watching a bad cartoon in an ill fitting suit Grabbing women by the fruit. That ain't the problem. Just a distraction for all oligos. Get the Borg podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.