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- [00:01]
John Lovett
This is Mike Borlow of Lexicon Valley
- [00:03]
Tim Miller
and I'm Bob Garfield. Are you one of those people who sometimes uses words?
- [00:08]
John Lovett
Do you communicate or acquire information with, you know, language?
- [00:13]
Tim Miller
Hey, us too. So join us on Lexicon Valley to chew over the history, culture and many mysteries of English, plus some rice cracks.
- [00:24]
John Lovett
Find us on one of those apps where people listen to podcasts.
- [00:29]
Alex Canceroitz
Hi, this is Alex Canceroitz. I'm the host of Big Technology Podcast, a longtime reporter and an on air contributor to cnbc. And if you're like me, you're trying to figure out how artificial intelligence is changing the business world and our lives. So each week on Big Technology, I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech and outsiders trying to influence it, asking where this is all going. They come from places like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon and plenty more. So if you want to be smart with your wallet, your career choices, in meetings with your colleagues and at dinner parties, listen to Big Technology Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:17]
Tim Miller
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back to the show the co creator of the short lived TV sitcom 1600.
- [01:26]
John Lovett
Wow.
- [01:27]
Tim Miller
Last place finisher on Survivor 47 and my co host on Speech center, the video series Taking the world by storm on the Love it or leave it YouTube channel, which you should subscribe to today, it's Jon Lovett. How you doing, man?
- [01:40]
John Lovett
I'm doing great. As a great president once said, it's not whether or not you get knocked down, it's whether you get back up again.
- [01:49]
Tim Miller
That's true. Way to pander to the eight Bush lovers left listening to this podcast. Don't worry, everybody, we've got good. Okay, we're going to get to the bimbofication of Kristi Noem's husband at the end of the program. All right. And, and, and this might be coming out a little later than usual today because Lovett likes his beauty rest. It's, it's, it's farm workers knee Cesar Chavez day in California, something I was just informed of this morning. And so it's, you know, it's taking us a little bit longer to get going today, but it's going to be worth it because had we done this on time, we would have not had the bimbofication topic to give you at the end of the podcast. So stick around.
- [02:26]
John Lovett
That's right.
- [02:27]
Tim Miller
Love it. Here's where I want to start. One year ago, you were last on the podcast. That feels like too long. So we're going to have to do that. The title of that show was A Worst Case Scenario Comes into View. And I was kind of curious what I thought we meant by that. And I went and back and read the transcript and here's what you said. You said it's hard to imagine a version of the Trump administration unfolding in which they're doing more and bad things without getting the blowback that might hurt them. And I thought that was interesting to reread that, thinking back to March of 2025, that the worst case scenario was not just their behavior, which we expected, but the behavior of everyone else. And that's something to be positive about. In the ensuing year, a lot of bad behavior has continued, but that has changed somewhat, wouldn't you say? It's not enough.
- [03:12]
John Lovett
Not enough. I mean, look, the full co opting of the Republican Party has continued. The idea that we would have gone to war in Iran without a debate, without a vote, without a plan is extraordinary. We're going to talk about what he posted today, about what Europe should be up to and the incompetence and chaos and silliness and idiocy of this. It's like such a staggering, unacceptable and obvious degree and there's still so many people on the right defending it. I think the optimistic part to me is I do think he's finally crossed some Rubicon and lost a lot of people that he needs or what you would have thought his coalition needed. And so I do think there is a crack up happening and I think that's a reason to be hopeful. But I think what we said there still is, right?
- [04:15]
Tim Miller
But for you, the worst case scenario is still in view for you right now.
- [04:19]
John Lovett
So I think what we were talking about in March of 2025, which first of all, I can't believe it feels like that is a long time ago. But also I can't believe we were having that conversation so early in the administration was that we were seeing the worst possible version of Trump and everybody was really caught off guard. Right? That's what was happening. He was doing DOGE and he was destroying USAID and he was weaponizing the Department of Justice. He was the worst version of himself. And the question I think is, okay, we've had the worst version of Trump, are we in the worst case version of America? Right? Like he's doing his damnedest right. That I think is true. And I think the answer there is no. Like, yes, the weaponization of DOJ has been absolutely terrible and dangerous, but there are ways in which the courts are holding their ways in which, you know, juries and judges are kind of holding the line. Also, just the, the fact that Trump is so unpopular and has never really had the populace behind his right wing populism means that there are these natural Democratic checks that include leaks to the press, that include the fact that they can't get the lawyers they need that are competent enough to do what they would have to do to actually successfully weaponize the Department and of Justice. So there are ways in which Trump at his worst has not resulted in the worst case scenario for all of us. He's doing a lot of damage, but he's deeply unpopular. There's chaos in Congress, they can't fund the government. He's, you know, losing parts of his coalition, a lot of empty seats at cpac. There's a lot of ways in which the lack of Democratic legitimacy is creating checks along the way.
- [06:00]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I'm teetering as I think about this. That's why I wanted to start with the deep question with you, because there's a big part of me that when I went back and read that transcript, I was like, whether it be no kings, whether it be the fact that Don Lennon walks free, there are all these ways in which he has been pushed back on. In March of last year, everyone was folding, the lawyers, the universities. And so that is good. And we now even see, even within his coalition, even if it's just too few people but Thomas Massey, a bunch of MAGA podcasters now are starting to be like, this war is stupid. Laura Ingr Night on Fox was shooting on the war. It's like that part gravity is holding and this moment that we had, which was like, oh my God, maybe he can just do whatever he wants and everybody's just going to curl into a fetal position and we'll end up with some sort of Trump permanent Trump autocracy, that seems less likely. The other side of that, though, is the weaker he gets, maybe the more dangerous he is. And I kind of vacillate on that back and forth over the past couple of weeks as I think about this, where it's like he seems weaker. And I do wonder if that means that maybe he acts crazier because we got a long time left. You know, the N word starts to come into my mind. The other N word, as Trump likes to say. You know, start to think about that.
- [07:16]
John Lovett
Yeah, well, I hadn't been thinking about that. Now I am. Thank you. Yeah, well, look, like his attention careens, right? Like, what is Brendan Carr going to get up to? What kind of Prosecutions, is Pam Bondi going to bring what is the next phase of immigration enforcement? We are a bit, like, yoked to his kind of capricious attention. And so we did just run through a huge cycle of him unleashing chaos in Minnesota. The deaths of two Americans, that kind of ebbs because Noem is fired and we're going to get Mark Wayne Mullen to right the ship. And then all of a sudden, we're at a. We're in a war. We're in a war in Iran, Right. Like the version you're describing, where he's cornered and doing terrible and dangerous things is happening in front of us. We're seeing it. And then. And then. Now we need. Now you. Now your mind goes to nuclear weapons. But meanwhile, we've created chaos in the Middle east and caused all kinds of global economic problems that will certainly, like, ripple and hit us. So, like, you know. Yeah, I think you're right. Of course that's something to worry. Yeah.
- [08:32]
Tim Miller
You know, I was just thinking to myself, I was like, you know, if you'd asked me five years ago, who's the most likely to use a nuke, I would have been like, the bad countries, like North Korea, right? And, like, as of today, like, if there was a cal. This is the dystopia we live in. If there was a calci market on, like, what country is the most likely to use the nuke next? I feel like US and Israel would be at the top of the list. But anyway, we can talk about that later. You can just marinate on that. Maybe we can come back to. At the end of the podcast, the Iran latest. Trump bleeds this this morning, all of the countries that can't get jet fuel because of the Strait of Four moves, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran. I have a suggestion for you. Number one, buy us. We've got plenty. Number two, build up some delayed courage. Go to the Strait and just take it. You'll have to start learning how to fight for yourself. The USA won't be there for you anymore, just like you weren't there for us. Iran is a spin essentially decimated. Wrong use of that word. But anyway, the hard part is done. Go get your own oil. President djt. Mm. It's very Trump. It's about one of the Trumpiest things that he's kind of done. You know, it's sort of like, hey, I'm going to get into a, you know, a casino business with a couple of other rich guys. You know, we're to put my name on the casino, and then we're going to lose a lot of money because I did something really stupid, and I'm going to declare bankruptcy, and you guys go figure out how to pay for it. It's kind of one of those things. It's like, I started the war with Iran. Everything was fine. The oil was going and everything wasn't fine for the people of Iran, but oil was traversing through the Strait. People of Europe and Asia were able to get access to this. Trump starts this war. Doesn't really explain to them why, doesn't ask them to sign up for it. And then he's. Then he's like, now I've created all this damage, and, like, good luck, go fix it.
- [10:25]
John Lovett
President djt what a strange few weeks in terms of what he's been asking from people. So he starts the war. Who knows what they thought would happen? Obviously, the fact that Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz was an extremely predicted and predictable result. So whether he was told that and didn't understand how serious it would be, whether he was convinced by, like, Hegseth or someone else that you would never get that far because they would so quickly eviscerate the regime that it would be like Venezuela, and we'd just be kind of talking to new and more reasonable people and everything would move on, who knows? But after the fact, he goes to all of these countries and says, we got a real problem. The straight Hormuz. Need you to jump in there. And they're like, no, thank you, sir. No, thank you. You started this war. We're not. We have our own domestic politics also. We don't want to put our people in harm's way for a war we didn't start. You started this war with Israel. You can fight it to the end, and that's that. Then he says, oh, we don't need anybody. Meanwhile, in that interim, the goals go from regime change to preventing Iran from projecting power in the region. Then it becomes basically the Rubio version, which is, you know, just destroy the Navy, destroy their capacity to make missiles nuclear. Doesn't really come up. Now Rubio is on the. On the tarmac at the end of last week saying, after this war is over, we're gonna have a real problem in the Strait of Hormuz. And so you have Trump then saying kind of on the plane, you know, there's actually much more reasonable people in charge of Iran now, and we can really work with these people. And then you have. And now and Rubio saying that the Strait of Hormuz is going to be a problem, and what Iran is planning to do after the conflict is unacceptable.
- [12:18]
Tim Miller
Rubio also being like, we can't tell you who the reasonable people are that we're working with because it might harm them internally. Which doesn't seem like that's the most stable counterparty when you have to do it in secret.
- [12:28]
John Lovett
And Trump said, I'm not going to tell you who they are because they might get killed by their people or they might get killed by us, which. And us, I assume, includes Benjamin Netanyahu. So. But tough, tough negotiating chair for the, for the Iranians. But, but, but he's clearly, like, kind of internalized this idea that. And, and there's truth to it, which is the US Is more inured to the consequences of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. We have. We have liquid natural gas like we have helium.
- [12:58]
Tim Miller
We're not bad in nerds, but we're more. Yeah, more.
- [13:00]
John Lovett
I'm just more than. And so what he. It seems like what he's trying to do is signal that he's really, really serious about leaving this problem for others, that whatever is going on in these talks that Rubio has been having at the G7 and elsewhere, that he needs to signal to the world that he's really, really genuinely willing to fuck everybody over.
- [13:20]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Which people will buy. I mean, Trump does bullshit a lot, but I think that is in line with his kind of character. I don't think it achieves the end. Again, not a military strategist, but if your goal is to try to limit or prevent Iran from projecting power in the region, going from a very weakened regime, which how they were a month ago, according to all accounts, to a regime that now controls the global supply of energy. And it's going to put a toll booth up there, and people are going to have to beg them to be able to get through. It seems kind of like we had the reverse impact on their ability to project power. One man's opinion.
- [14:01]
John Lovett
Yeah. And just. Especially when the head of the regime that you're now claiming was changed was going to be killed by God in just a short while. He was quite old. The Ayatollah was 86, something like that. You took out the leader of a regime that would have died and left a power vacuum, and instead you started a war in order. To what? To what end? What have we done here? My God.
- [14:25]
Tim Miller
I've been intrigued by the coalition of the unwilling in Europe. UK was mentioned. Spain was the first one, Spain was like, you can't use our Air Force base. Left wing populist runs Spain right now. Then France was next up and Trump was mad about that. Shouting at the French. They're not as helpful as they could be. That's run by a centrist technocrat. And Macron and his wife, wife Brigitte. And now Italy this morning, run by Melanie. Right wing populist saying, you can't use our bases and you can't fly over here as part of this Middle east incursion you're doing. My reaction to that reading all that was simultaneously like, wow, how bad has Donald Trump fucked this up in our relationship with our allies? We've talked about that ad nauseam for a decade now. The other thought I had was it kind of shows that we have sort of a unique problem with this corrupt sphincter who is very unable to president well. And we also have a problem with right wing populism. But it seems like we kind of have a unique problem with Trump individually and that, like, you know, there's a lot of conversation out there. It's not really cool, particularly on the left, to be like, you know, the biggest problem that we face right now is Donald Trump and that the Orange man is bad. That's like a little out of vogue right now, but that does seem like the case to me.
- [15:47]
John Lovett
Well, right. The hope would then be that his unique collection of talents are what held the whole coalition together and that someone like a Rubio or a Vance couldn't do the same. I think that's like, maybe true. I do think, what part of this is the whole world, including most Americans, learned that preemptive or sort of wars in the Middle east, wars of choice in the Middle east are terrible policy and terrible politics.
- [16:15]
Tim Miller
Including supposedly Trump.
- [16:17]
John Lovett
Right.
- [16:17]
Tim Miller
He got elected on that.
- [16:19]
John Lovett
And so of course, leaders of these countries don't want to sign up for it and want to signal to their electorates that they want nothing to do with this. I think that's probably good politics for basically every politician in Europe. In the US there's in some big coalition behind this. The president launched a war and it doesn't have popular support. That hasn't happened in our lifetimes and, or any lifetime. And even inside of the Republican Party, it's not as popular as, I mean, it's, you know, it does better because their sort of older base is getting kind of the red, white and blue 1990s style pro war from Fox and on Facebook. But even like the MAGA crowd, that's
- [17:04]
Tim Miller
consuming you know, Yeah, a little bit.
- [17:07]
John Lovett
Freedom Prize, baby. Freedom prize are back. But, like, even the big chunk of the base that's younger and more online is consuming a bunch of big media that's saying that this is fucking stupid. Younger Republicans, younger Trump voters don't think this is a good idea. So the whole world basically learned the lesson, except for a tiny cohort of people inside of what? You know, even the neocons, they're not in the administration. They're at the bulwark.
- [17:34]
Tim Miller
Well, no, the neocons who are for it. We're at the bulwark. And we should just say the bulwark thing, which is the thing that the bulwark has been right about, which we do like to say as often as possible, which is that you shouldn't have put an erratic lunatic in charge of the most powerful country in the world. That was probably a mistake. And doing it twice, especially after he tried a coup, was really dumb. And I think that's the big takeaway here. And I think that there's a lot of people who try to come up with other takeaways. There are many other political implications, but the big one is kind of the big one. There's an existing other cadre of neocons who are the biggest cheerleaders of the war. Trump's go to chorus right now is Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro, Hugh Hewitt, Thiessen at the Washington Post, the Commentary magazine guys. I mean, there's like, a group of people who just. I can never see enough blood spilled in the Middle east for their taste. Like, well, not. I don't know, I guess until, you know, Israel controls from the river to the sea and beyond, as Mike Huckabee said, like, you know, into the Levant, like, until that, they won't be happy, I don't think. But, like, no one else is for it.
- [18:40]
John Lovett
Yeah. The fact that the Lindsey Graham school, like, that they got control, that they got the helm for this, even though they represent a vanishing minority in the country in terms of views at this point, it's pretty staggering. The critique from the kind of soft Trump supporters who are like, this is what he said he wasn't gonna do. Why are you letting these people do this? They're sort of using him. I think that's true. I think that's true.
- [19:04]
Josh Spiegel
Every day, the world gets a little
- [19:06]
Tim Miller
weirder and a lot more awesome. Cool stuff.
- [19:10]
Josh Spiegel
Daily takes a look at everything from mining in space to the latest in the fight against cancer to how AI
- [19:16]
Tim Miller
is basically changing everything.
- [19:19]
Josh Spiegel
It's all the cool Stuff you didn't know you needed to know. Join us for Cool Stuff Daily as we take a quick look at science, tech and the.
- [19:27]
Tim Miller
Wait, what?
- [19:28]
Josh Spiegel
Stories that make you sound way smarter at dinner. Subscribe to Cool Stuff Daily now because
- [19:34]
Tim Miller
the future's happening fast and it's way too fun to miss.
- [19:38]
Josh Spiegel
Hey, I'm Josh Spiegel, host of the podcast Lunatic in the Newsroom. If you enjoy journalism that drifts into mild panic, wild overthinking, and a guaranteed nervous breakdown, Lunatic in the Newsroom is for you. It's news like you've never heard before. The only newsroom with a panic button. You'll laugh, you'll cry and gasp in horror as the show spirals completely out of control. It's not just news. It's emotionally unstable Lunatic in the Newsroom. Listen, today I want to play a
- [20:10]
Tim Miller
little bit from Pete Hegseth, who's also not really been very impressive, I don't think, as Secretary of War. I don't know where you're at on that, but he did a press conference this morning. I don't know if this was a speechwriter or if he asked Grok to kind of write him, like, a novel, like a romance novel of the war, but during the press conference, he gave us this I'd like for you to react to.
- [20:36]
John Lovett
I did the same with his boss, a colonel with a heart the size of Texas and a beautiful deployment mustache to match. I witnessed lethality. I met a junior airman as the sun was going down and a chill was setting on the tarmac, who, when asked what they needed, she simply looked up at me with a sly smile on her face and said, more bombs, sir, and bigger bombs. We will happily oblige her.
- [21:15]
Tim Miller
I'm sorry, what do you even do with that? He saw lethality and a man with a mustache. I thought they had to cut their mustaches and beards. I don't know.
- [21:24]
John Lovett
I don't know where we landed on with the mustaches. Maybe just the beards. Yeah, that. I looked up on the chill, you know, a frost on the tarmac, a sly smile on the face. Why was it sly?
- [21:37]
Tim Miller
I looked out at the horizon. The Persian Gulf, the sun rising in the east, the crows at dawn. Like, what the fuck is he. What?
- [21:50]
John Lovett
More bombs are bigger bombs, sir. And. And even take it at face value, right? Like, just take what he's saying at face value, which is so. What do you mean you're finding out? Like, what are you talking about? What is that supposed to tell us? Like, a person on the Ground is saying they need more bombs and you're going to oblige their request for more bombs. Like, it doesn't make. None of it makes sense. It's like it's his impression of what he thinks someone's supposed to sound like, but he's also like, not really aware. What, like an actual leader. Would you talk to Jeffrey Goldberg about this? And I thought it was what he said about it was smart, which is like, hey, you're the Defense Secretary. You are powerful. You need to talk this way. You don't have to keep kind of reminding people that you're in charge. You're in charge. It's like Joffrey saying, I am king. I am king. You're in charge, my guy. You did it. You're the boss. As plainly and straight, in as straightforward a way as you can tell people what the facts are. That's what like projecting genuine strength would look like. But these people are so like kind of self pitying and insecure and on some level know that they're doing something wrong or in the wrong jobs and don't belong where they are. So it all becomes this sort of like this sort of sort of show because they don't know what to do, I guess. I don't know.
- [23:08]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I think that's right. He knows it's a shit show. I think out there this morning, it's like, what can you talk about? Like, what are the things that you can talk about that you can point to as far as success is concerned? You know, if I'm sitting in Pete Hegsest chair, it's hard to get inside his brain, but I'm going to try. And it's. We've bombed a lot of shit. We've been pretty good on the bomb scorecard. You know, we've hit more of their shit than they've hit of our shit. Okay, so that's good winning. That's lethality. That's winning. We did accidentally hit an orphanage, but we're also, you know, hitting their missiles so we could talk about that. And I can also kind of like borrow the valor of the people that I'm sending there. You know, I've got this. I can, you know, kind of paint this gauzy chat GPT version of, you know, an Americana story of the, the soldiers and, you know, the mustachioed man from West Texas and the woman who volunteered to fight and, you know, like he's trying to do that,
- [24:07]
John Lovett
that kind of thing.
- [24:08]
Tim Miller
Yeah, yeah, right, exactly. And he feels like maybe I can will into Existence something that is heroic about this or something to be proud of about this. If I focus on how many people were bombing and the courage of our people, and maybe then people won't be able to undermine me and point out that this is the stupidest war that we've gotten into in a long time. And that's a competitive category because we've been in quite a few dumb ones.
- [24:40]
John Lovett
Yeah. And the feeling he must have in these rooms with, you know, he's outmatched in every room he walks into, even places where he's meant to be in charge, how that must feel to look at these generals in the eyes and.
- [24:53]
Tim Miller
Yeah, well. And then he gets outmatched to the briefing room. Then he gets outmatched in the briefing room because he's like, that's why he
- [24:58]
John Lovett
doesn't do the briefings anymore, really.
- [24:59]
Tim Miller
Right. You know, because the questions are about all the ways in which they failed. My view on it is, I think that it's already far worse than people have really accepted internally and that the medium term damage is hard to predict, but it's going to be across economic, geopolitical, militarily. This is just an unimaginable quagmire that is going to be impossible for them to disentangle themselves from. And even if Trump runs for the exits, as we are talking right now, like, the ramifications are going to echo for the rest of his presidency. That's where I'm at on it.
- [25:39]
John Lovett
Donald Trump is a short term thinker
- [25:41]
Tim Miller
who
- [25:44]
John Lovett
borrows against the future in everything he's ever done, and he has been throughout his life and his time in politics, protected by the kind of cowardice of Republicans and the resilience of America, like the resilience of America has been his great protector through all of this. Right. And the resilience of our institutions to kind of push back against his worst excesses actually protects him in some sense. That's a, that's a lot of what happened in the first term. It's part of what's happening in this term, but also the resilience of the American economy. I think there are a lot of people that were surprised by how, how much the economy was able to withstand these global tariffs. I think there are people that predicted the impact would be worse. That's the truth. Right. Like people said, oh, these are, these, these are going to be. And they have been terrible for prices and they've had a negative impact. But I, I, but we weathered it. We have weathered it. That's just absolutely the Truth, they're bad costs. We shouldn't have done it. And I think he's counting on the same thing here, that we can weather the implications of this. Our alliances can weather Trump's like mercurial bullying across the world. But at a certain point that's just not true. It stops being true. There's only so much we can take and like he just pushes it and pushes it and pushes it and we'll just pay. We're just gonna pay for years to come.
- [27:00]
Tim Miller
But I think this is unweatherable, I guess is my take. This is not a popular thing to do because you don't want to be the never Trump pundit. That's like, this is the end. The walls have closed in. A lot of carcasses in the desert of the walls are closing in on Trump takes. But I don't think that this one is weatherable. I mean, who knows? He's not ever running for anything again. So I guess it depends what you mean by the definition of that. But I just, I think that he's permanently politically damaged by it in a way that at the other times he wasn't.
- [27:38]
John Lovett
I agree with that. I think this is more like Bush after Katrina or Biden after kind of inflation hadn't resolved quickly enough and people determined that he was too old and were shocked that he was considering to run again and there was no coming back from it and they were self perpetuating. I think this is the chaos of this. The failure to address prices, the fact that gas prices are now going to hit $5 a gallon across the country, plus him going around showing people the ballroom like, I think this is locking him in, but he still remains popular on the Republican side. That's the.
- [28:09]
Tim Miller
I notice you didn't pick a Obama flashpoint like Obama after he failed to do Simpson Bowles or Obama after Solyndra or something like that.
- [28:17]
John Lovett
Yeah, Solyndra. Could you say, I listen, I'm sorry,
- [28:23]
Tim Miller
so I did it to trigger you. So go ahead.
- [28:26]
John Lovett
Republicans spent a decade talking about Solyndrin. And if you're not caught up on your 2010s, if you turned into politics after because of Trump, whatever, or if you're a kind of independent, spirited person who maybe isn't familiar with the great, the great political battles of the late 2010s, just claw at it.
- [28:44]
Tim Miller
Just claw at it.
- [28:45]
John Lovett
Lender was a loan, part of a loan program. The company failed. The government lost $535 million. That was a scandal. There were investigations, there were hearings. It was the great Waste of taxpayer dollars. Government picked winners and losers. That program ultimately turned a profit. We made money on that loan guarantee program. Donald Trump last week gave a billion dollars to a French company to make them not build windmills. They'll never be a fucking hearing from these people. That's it. That's all I wanted to say. He paid him a billion dollars total energy.
- [29:15]
Tim Miller
And I mean, we lost a $535 million plane on the tarmac in Saudi Arabia this week, too, because of a. Because of a war that we started for. No. No reason. That is going to actually probably have the reverse effect of what they're hoping for as far as Iran's ability to project power. So we move forward.
- [29:32]
Josh Spiegel
Hey, I'm Josh Spiegel, host of the podcast Lunatic in the Newsroom. If you enjoy journalism that drifts into mild panic, wild overthinking, and a guaranteed nervous breakdown, Lunatic in the Newsroom is for you. It's news like you've never heard before. The only newsroom with a panic button. You'll laugh, you'll cry and gasp in horror as the show spirals completely out of control. It's not just news, it's emotionally unstable. Lunatic in the Newsroom. Listen, today I want to talk to
- [30:03]
Tim Miller
you about some immigration stuff. I saw you. This came on my algorithm, okay. And there it was. It was John Lovett on the street outside of the beautiful crooked media offices. It was John Lovett in the world. Okay. And you were at, I believe, the no Kings rally.
- [30:18]
John Lovett
That's right.
- [30:19]
Tim Miller
And you were talking about the MAGA rights, immigration agenda, what's happening right now with the deportations, with DHS not being funded and how they were and the weakness of their blood and soil nationalism. And I was like, that's pretty good off the cuff bit, but I love it. So I don't know if that's a shtick you've been working on, that you've been kind of workshopping in various podcasts or any place, but I want to explore it with you. You were basically talking about the hollowness of the Niagara Rides. Blood and soil nationalism.
- [30:50]
John Lovett
Yeah. So something I felt there, out there. We were downtown in la, it was a bigger no Kings protest than the one that came before. And, you know, look, it's a big coalition of people showing up. There are a lot of people.
- [31:04]
Tim Miller
I walked in, like, the first people I saw where she was a lady, she was like, do you want to know what the communists think about the Epstein files? And I was like, I don't actually, but I appreciate that. You're out here and, you know, good luck.
- [31:14]
John Lovett
I have a feeling it's, it's actually a, like that's a one, maybe the one spot where you and the communists find some lines, but that's.
- [31:22]
Tim Miller
We probably have some alignment on it. I just, you know, I had to move forward. I was with my kid, my husband, you know, we were gonna go up to hear the speakers.
- [31:30]
John Lovett
Like blood and soil nationalism, it kind of depends on having people kind of not just online, but in the world. Right. It's meant to be people that take great pride in their country. And this is our country, this is where we belong. But you'd think if that were a genuine, deep felt political ideology, it would exist in the world. There'd be people walking around on soil, you know, blood in their veins. But that's not really what MAGA is. There are people that'll go to a Turning Point USA event. There are just, you know, people that'll show up at a Trump rally. But millions and millions of people are showing up for no kings. They're leaving their house and their phones and their computers to bring their phones with them, but they're leaving their screens and they're going out and having a real experience with people in the world. MAGA doesn't really do that in the same way. Like MAGA is a movement of people watching screens and consuming content on social media and on television. That is what it is. It is, it is, it is people angry online. It is people riling each other up via right wing misinformation and like right wing propaganda channels. And that can be enough to get people to show up and vote, as we've seen. But it's not a movement of people like with actual blood on the actual soil. It just isn't. And it makes it really brittle and it makes it really ultimately weak like that. Like we were talking about this before. Like, like Donald Trump is a right wing populist right, but it's not popular. And he's never had. He is not the part of a popular front. He's not leading millions of like men with PTSD who feel abused by the French. Right. Like they just don't have the fucking guys. And that's part of what makes the Republican capitulation so pathetic because they're like surrendering to this guy because he's got 80% approval among Republican voters, but he doesn't have the strength. The political movement that should make them actually afraid for the country just isn't real. It's all digital.
- [33:33]
Tim Miller
Yeah, there's Also just this like, you call it brittle. And there's a shallowness to it because it's just like it's anything he says. It's like if you look at the polls now about Iran and it's like the MAGA Republicans are more supportive of the Iran war than the Republicans who don't define themselves as MAGA Republicans, which is strange. You would think it'd be the opposite, right? You would think that it would be the Wall Street Journal Republicans or whatever that are the most into the war. But it's the MAGA Republicans are willing to go along with whatever. It's a lifestyle brand. And a lifestyle brand is different than kind of a blood and soil tradition. And I guess both have their strengths and weaknesses. But as far as political movements are concerned. But if you look at Orban and God willing, he's going to lose here next week or in two weeks. We're going to talk about that election coming up next week on the show. But there is something real about it. It's gross, but it's obviously not for me. This kind of Magyar Hungarian, we have these immigrants who are coming in. They don't share our values. They're trying to make us cosmopolitan. They're trying to make Budapest the same as Paris. And we don't want that. That's a real complaint, whether or not you put any value in that complaint. And that is what undergirds a lot of the other right wing nationalists around the world. Modi in India, et cetera. Anyway, I was interested that you said that because I was like, I don't know, you can see them trying to do that here with the heritage American shit that you sometimes see online. But it does feel like the good parts of America do make that a little more challenging. I mean, not so challenging that he hasn't won twice, but about making it sustainable.
- [35:10]
John Lovett
Yeah, we're not hungry. I like, there's people like, oh, you know, Donald Trump is trying to turn America into Hungary. It's like, well, you know what? I think it'd be harder to turn Hungary into Hungary if it were filled with fucking Americans. There's a little bit of a lack of like, hey, like we're, we're America. First of all, we're a big fractious place with multiple levels of government. We are a rebellious and freedom loving people and we don't like being told what to do for good and for ill. Right? Like, that's who we are. And we talk a lot about the grievance part of what, like a fascistic government offers. Right. Like, you can point at the right enemies, you can. You can galvanize people to, like, turn against the other. We talk about that a lot. Yeah, but there's another part of it which is like, meaning and purpose. Right. This only can happen if there's a. There's a real gap of, like, meaning and purpose in a. In a society. And I do think, like, that we are in that. That is a feeling people have. If you talk to people, there is. You can. You can see it in. In whatever you want to talk about. Loneliness. You talk about, like, the ways in people feel, like, kind of disconnected from each other, the lack of community. People stopped going to churches and started doing horoscopes, whatever. But Trump doesn't have an answer for that. Like, Trump doesn't have a. Can't speak to that. He doesn't have any kind of library, is the answer.
- [36:22]
Tim Miller
It's Penis Tower with his name on it. Like, that's the answer. It's like, you sign up to my lifestyle brand, you can wear the shirt if you want, the hat.
- [36:30]
John Lovett
Yeah. And that's going to. And that is just not. It's not going to work for most people. It just isn't. And so he's not. There aren't millions of people signing up to put on a uniform and walk around the streets. Being a proud member of the Trump Party just isn't what's happening. Because he's not offering them anything. He's not offering them. There's no positive part of the bargain. He's not even doing the shit he said he would do for the people that voted for him, even though they don't like him.
- [36:53]
Tim Miller
It's like a Stan Culture thing. I need a New York magazine article on this. It's like being a Belieber or whatever. What are Billie Eilish's fans calls?
- [37:04]
John Lovett
I'm not sure, Tim.
- [37:06]
Tim Miller
You're not sure?
- [37:07]
John Lovett
I don't know what they're called.
- [37:08]
Tim Miller
Are you part of any Stan Culture? What about Nicki Minaj?
- [37:12]
John Lovett
I'm really not. I'm not part of any of those.
- [37:15]
Tim Miller
No, that's what it is.
- [37:17]
John Lovett
I've been occasionally under a withering attack from the K hive, which is never
- [37:23]
Tim Miller
like, yeah, you've raised the ire of
- [37:26]
John Lovett
the Kive once in a while, though. They took off their uniforms and distributed themselves amongst the. The civilian population.
- [37:31]
Tim Miller
The barbs is the Nicki Minaj groups. I still don't know what the Billie Eilish Group is called. We're not going to. I do not Want to die or the K hive on this show. So we're going to move on. Let's do a little Dem figure skating. And judging you are always. So we'll just caveat with the Levitt caveat about it is unfair that Democrats are the only group with agency in our world. And so it's frustrating that, you know, you nitpick the Democrats while meanwhile, Lindsey Graham, like, started a war with Iran and then said, hey, I'm going to Disneyland. I'm going to wave my Little Mermaid bubble wand. I'm going to walk around. I'm going to have the characters sign my book.
- [38:12]
John Lovett
He found the only place on earth where the French are happy to see
- [38:14]
Tim Miller
him wait in line for a picture with Woody, you know, meet some of the evil queens. That's right. Anyway, so that's like, what Lindsay's going to do. No agency. We can mock him, we can criticize him, but there was no expectations that Republicans will ever do the right thing. The Democrats, though, unfortunately, do have responsibilities. And I'm curious what the right thing to do is. Both across this DHS shut down in the war. I was talking to Bill Kristol about this yesterday, but you being a Democrat in good standing and lifelong Democrat, I think your wisdom is probably better suited for this. But I don't know. I feel like I want more. And I don't know if this is about my hierarchy of needs personally or whether this is political strategy, but shouldn't. Shouldn't they be having fake hearings about the war? Shouldn't they be chaining themselves to the White House fence? Shouldn't there be screaming people outside of the airports advertisements? There's some people that are satisfying my needs. Ruben Gallego's been really good. There are others. I don't want to leave him to be out, but I have a little bit of feeling of an emptiness in the vigor of the response, given the scale of the destruction. I wonder what you think of that.
- [39:24]
John Lovett
You know, I'm conflicted about it. I have the same feeling you do. So let me just play it out. We talked about this yesterday on Pod Save America, about how you had Graham, Lindsey Graham.
- [39:34]
Tim Miller
What was Graham on? What?
- [39:35]
John Lovett
It's called Pod Save America.
- [39:37]
Tim Miller
Okay, I'll check that out.
- [39:38]
John Lovett
Lindsey Graham is at Disney World on Space Mountain. And then TMZ caught Congressman Robert Garcia of California in Las Vegas. And then Robert Garcia said, yeah, we should be in and we should be voting, but they sent us home. I'm visiting my father in Las Vegas, and I'm not apologizing for that. And he posted a picture. That's the right way to handle that. I think that's right. But then you think, okay, I understand that you're not really in charge of when Congress is in or out, but what would an opposition look like if everyone was so incensed by the fact that they were being sent home that they refused to leave? Not because they were even necessarily that focused on the politics of it, but so outraged by the fact that they were being sent home without having had a vote on DHS being told that they're going to leave for two weeks while people are working for the Coast Guard without being paid, while Trump is illegally paying tsa because that's what's drawing the most headlines. And just stayed in Congress. Stayed there. Yeah. Called fake hearings, stood in front of the Capitol, walked to the White House, whatever it looks like. And I don't know which of those kind of strategic things are the right thing to do to get the most attention, but I think what you're getting at is this feeling like, where's that? Where's that instinct, that sort of outrage that drives you inescapably towards standing on the stairs and refusing to go back to your district? And that to me has been a problem with the Democratic response to Trump from the beginning.
- [40:58]
Tim Miller
I don't feel like they're as mad as me, and maybe they are, but I don't feel like they are. And so to me, that's like, there's the two parts. This one is like the emotional hierarchy of needs pyramid. And maybe that doesn't actually matter, but it would be nice to think that your leaders are as mad as you are. Like, that would be nice. And I think that that's a potent political tool, actually, when people believe that you reflect their upset anger. But then I also think there's just the strategy of this too, which is like they're as weak as they've ever been right now. Like, I want boot on the neck. Not literally. Right. Like, this is the moment to invite yourself on Laura Ingraham show. This is the moment to go into their spaces and point at them and be like, look at the destruction they have wrought. Right.
- [41:40]
John Lovett
Yeah.
- [41:41]
Tim Miller
And like there are other times where Democrats try to that where like the topics are these kind of democracy and, you know, norms that esoteric things that actual people don't care about as much as we wish they would. But this shit people care about dumb wars, recessions, higher gas prices. Like, people care about that.
- [41:58]
John Lovett
Yeah. You know what, Tim, you're waking me up. You're waking me up. What are we doing here? Let's go.
- [42:03]
Tim Miller
Let's get up. What are we doing?
- [42:04]
John Lovett
Let's go. Go. Go on. Go to their spaces. Go on Fox News this week, gas prices. Gas prices are over $5 a gallon. Fighting a stupid war in the Middle East. He's showing diagrams for the fucking ballroom on Air Force One.
- [42:21]
Tim Miller
Let's go. What?
- [42:23]
John Lovett
What?
- [42:23]
Tim Miller
That's what he's focused on. Pete Hickseth had his broker try to invest. And it's a military companies. He's the Secretary of war. Before he started a war. We started the dumbest fucking war that you could possibly imagine. And Pete Hegseth, rather than coming up a with plan for Howard to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, is trying to figure out how he can make a few bucks in his Charles Schwab account.
- [42:42]
John Lovett
And I don't even think he made the money. I don't even think he managed to turn a profit on this thing. Did he even do the investment?
- [42:47]
Tim Miller
No, because he's too stupid to run the war or to be corrupt. He's stupider than Eric Trump. Eric Trump is at least doing corruption. Correct. He's getting rich. The Secretary of war is dumber than Eric Trump. That's the problem.
- [42:59]
John Lovett
Pete says was never meant to be rich. I don't think he can handle it. I think he needs the constraints. I think he needs to get up and go to a job.
- [43:08]
Tim Miller
That's what I think about the fake RuPaul style hearing. You don't. Were you not on board with that idea? I'm brainstorming ideas.
- [43:13]
John Lovett
I'm into it.
- [43:15]
Tim Miller
Costumes. And they have the gavel. And they interview former military leaders.
- [43:23]
John Lovett
Chuck Schumer.
- [43:24]
Tim Miller
We're just spitball Chuck Schumer.
- [43:27]
John Lovett
Gas prices go up. Some. Some little alert goes off in the. In the. In the Schumer verse. And he. And it's a Sunday night and he trudges down to the gas station. He stands in front of the gas station. He points at the prices and he goes bad. This is bad. And I hate this. And we're gonna do something about it. Look at that number. Terrible. This is gouging. They're gouging you. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Where's that Schumer?
- [43:53]
Tim Miller
What about that poking finger? I want him poking the finger. Part of the problem is that we just say it. Because I was saying it on day one. And I hate to do I told you so because I'm wrong a lot. But there were even too many Democrats up to it, including Chuck Schumer. That were kind of at the beginning of the war being like, let's see. I know maybe they'll turn out okay. I know they weren't for it. It's not their fault. I'm not blaming them. But there was a little bit of a sense of, let's see how this goes. There are a few exceptions. I mentioned Rubin, Chris Murphy, aoc There were exceptions, but, like, there was a little bit too much of that energy. And I think it's kind of hard to transition from the energy of let's see how this goes. Maybe it'll turn out okay. Maybe it'll be good to. The energy of this is so fudgeing. Stupid. I can't believe it. My hair is on fire. Can you believe these guys are this stupid? Please vote them out. Don't let them ever have power again. You know, even on that.
- [44:41]
John Lovett
Even on the supplement, even on the supplemental, Lauren Boebert was like, no supplementals. No fucking way. We send more money to the, To. To a foreign war. We have needs at home. And she said that with more clarity than a lot of Democrats were like, well, I got to see the package and I got to see. I got to get the briefing and I got to see if we're. I got to support the troops and like, yeah, of course. Support the troops. Support the troops by, by putting a fucking leash on Donald Trump.
- [45:03]
Tim Miller
Yeah, take off the leash that Bibi has on him and put on one yourself.
- [45:08]
John Lovett
Yeah, it could be a harness so that, that, that, that, that he can jump around without having to worry about, you know, you give him the harness. I don't want to. You know, it doesn't have to be kind of restrictive in a kind of feat, like it just has to kind of hold him back.
- [45:20]
Tim Miller
Have you ever tried a harness? You know anything about harnesses?
- [45:23]
John Lovett
Are we at the Christine Ohm section or what?
- [45:25]
Tim Miller
We are. We are. Yet. Okay, two more things before I get to Christine Ohm. I have a limit on the show on how much 20, 28 I can do because I don't like it. It's too early.
- [45:33]
John Lovett
Too early.
- [45:34]
Tim Miller
But this exact topic ties into why I don't like it, which is why I feel okay bringing it up. And I feel like it's in my integrity to bring it up right now. There were two rom stories out this week. Ron Emmanuel, one about how he eats a salad, and he seems to eat a salad the way everyone else does.
- [45:51]
John Lovett
Puts the dressing on, he shakes it up.
- [45:52]
Tim Miller
Puts the dressing on, and then he shakes it up. Okay, whatever. I Understand it. It's tough to be a profile writer in this day and age. You're trying to find an angle, whatever. A lot of posting about that. I don't know how much more there is to say about it. If you have any thoughts, you're welcome to share. I know you're eating a lot of salads right now to prepare for the wedding. The other story was out this morning. It was exclusive by Axios. Axios exclusive. Rahm rolls out an ICE funding plan. He's going to take the money from ICE and give it to community colleges. And here's like, fine, that's a fine plan. I'm fine. That's a fine. It's a whatever. Like if a Democrat became president and did that, fine, you know, I would not have a segment talking about how stupid that was. I don't think on this podcast it would be a totally a fine plan. Would it be my favorite one? But like right now ICE is terrorizing people in America. Like right now DHS is shut down because we have an actual fight that is happening over the funding of this organization that has like a real impact on people. TSA agents aren't getting paid. People are getting menaced outside of quinceaneras. This is a acute fight right now. And doing 2028 footsie stuff where you're leaking white papers in March of 2026 is fucking stupid. And if you do want to be president in 2028 and you're a Democrat, I would think that the best thing for you to do right now would be to do what we were just talking about a minute ago, which is yell and scream about how terrible Donald Trump is and how terrible the establishment is that has got us into this situation.
- [47:28]
John Lovett
Yes.
- [47:28]
Tim Miller
Or do nothing. Or wait. I don't know.
- [47:31]
John Lovett
I don't want anyone to wait. I don't want anyone to wait.
- [47:33]
Tim Miller
Look, yeah, I retract that. I don't want nothing either. I don't want white papers. I don't want like little. Here's my little Politico scooplit in March of 2026. It's triggering.
- [47:46]
John Lovett
Yeah. It's very old school.
- [47:49]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [47:49]
John Lovett
You start kind of like doing these sort of policy pronouncements in the run up to create a kind of intellectual framework for the kind of campaign you're going to run. It just feels like it's from another era. I don't have a visceral reaction to it. Part of what I hear was like, okay, you're going to take the money from ICE and give it to Community college or just like, okay, you think community colleges should have more money and should. And you think ICE should have less money. I agree with that. I, I agree with that. But we're still, there's something about the way Democrats, like move money around, like with the, like, you know, it's priority signaling. I agree with that. But how big should the tax base be and what should the government do with it? Right. Like what is our ideology? What is our view as Democrats? Because so many of the, I think the like, like symbolic battles and, and you can. Whether it's, it's like how Democrats should be signaling, right. On how angry they are about the shutdown or what should Democrats do to signal they're against the war in Iran. So much of it flows from the fact that people generally know what Democrats. They fully and clearly know what Democrats are against. And I'm not going to be go so far as that. People don't know what Democrats are for. I think they actually do, broadly. Right. But they don't understand what they're fighting for. They don't know what really drives them. And I think part of that flows from like, there's just no clear ideology outside of the left of the party. Now Rahm comes from the era, the Bill Clinton era, when there was a clear center left, small l liberal, pro market governing ideology that was animating and interesting to people and interesting to them. They could talk about it. If you asked a novel question to Bill Clinton about an issue he hadn't thought that much about. He had like a way of thinking about the world, a framework that he could use to apply it. And the left has that. I think some pro democracy, like the Chris Murphy's of the world, I think do have kind of, they're on their way to that, but most Democrats just don't. They don't. I don't think Chuck Schumer does. I don't think a lot of like mainstream Democrats have that. And so they kind of careen like through politics figuring out what's the best way they can kind of represent the party, signal to the base they're on their side, like kind of not be too far to the left, whatever. And it kind of leaves them straitjacket. I think that's like kind of Kamala's campaign is a signal example of that. So yeah, I'm not super interested in these kinds of signaling policy pronouncements.
- [50:06]
Tim Miller
I'm glad I asked you about that. That's more insightful than what I said. I do think that short of coming up with that framework screaming about how much damage Donald Trump is doing would be good. It's better than nothing. It's certainly better than leaking white papers. While you were talking, I just Googled ICE raid community college. I was curious. It's like ICE unlawfully arrested a Minnesota community college student. ICE is taking students into custody at campuses like elgin Community College, September 2025. This is shit that's happening right now. And I think that there are plenty of opportunities to go engage with the world and show what you care about, even if you haven't come up with a broad ideological framework. But show where your passions are and signal that, like, without playing the stupid, doing it in the stupid DC Way.
- [50:58]
John Lovett
The governors have a little bit of advantage here because, you know, we've seen Pritzker out there, and he's having to make decisions about how to fight Trump in his state while doing the best he can, you know, to get the federal dollars he needs, what have you. Same for. For Newsom and some of the other governors. But, like, if you're not currently a governor, if you're a senator, or if you're not in power, like, if you're not going to be showing up to lead this fight now, nobody's interested in you showing up on a white horse in Iowa in 2027.
- [51:28]
Tim Miller
Speaking of Democrats not knowing what their North Star is and how to move money around, you've been weighing in a lot on California local stuff I've noticed about when I follow your feed. One thing that you are upset about is local governance in Los Angeles.
- [51:41]
John Lovett
I am.
- [51:41]
Tim Miller
You're upset about Donald Trump. You're upset about immigration, upset about the third star democracy. You're also upset about local Democratic governance in Los Angeles. So I'm curious if you're thinking about maybe a future in local Los Angeles politics, or if this is just an outlet for you to scream into the ether, into the void.
- [52:02]
John Lovett
I want Democrats in this big, rich Democratic state to govern successfully. I want us to prove that we know what we're doing, because it is a pretty tall order to tell the country we're here to save you while people are fleeing from California to Texas. And that is a legitimate, valid criticism of how Democrats govern. It'd be one thing if I thought, oh, that's so unfair. The problems in the Democratic coalition in California have nothing to do with the problems that Democrats have nationally. And I just don't think that's true. I think the same kind of pathologies that we see locally in California are part of the problem nationally. They're different. It's a big country, different issues, all that. But when I see the ways in which California Democrats, especially in Los Angeles, aren't taking the housing crisis seriously, aren't doing enough to deal with the fact that Hollywood is making fewer and fewer television shows and movies in Hollywood, and it's with people's livelihoods. It's. It's. It's destroying people's dreams. It's making people give up on what they. They imagine their lives would be because we can't get our shit together and figure out how it's more affordable to make television shows in London, in fucking London than it is in Los Angeles in the tmz. TMZ is named for a big zone where you could shoot things without paying for hotels. That's the gist of it. That's what the name TMZ comes from. From this big region that has been the core of American. That has been like the place from which American culture, cultural hegemony around the world came from. And we're just giving up on it. People can't afford to live here. People can't afford to make shit here. We can barely build a fucking train in under 30 years, and it's just not acceptable.
- [53:52]
Tim Miller
Even your local train, this is what you were tweeting about. They're trying to build some, I guess, public transport, and 80, 18 people complained about it. Now it's not being buil.
- [54:02]
John Lovett
Well, so that's an example where the pressure worked. And we can potentially build it faster now. Currently, the timetable is to begin construction. What year do you think it is, Tim? When will we begin construction?
- [54:13]
Tim Miller
What is it? It's like a. It's like a monorail.
- [54:15]
John Lovett
It's light rail. It's light rail.
- [54:16]
Tim Miller
It's a light rail. When do you think construction begins construction? We're March 31, 2026, I'd say you begin construction, I don't know. Probably like after the Olympics. So October of 2028, probably
- [54:31]
John Lovett
2041, Tim. 2041, no plan. Begin. Dig a hole. You're going to dig your holes in 2041. The reason this vote was important, we
- [54:42]
Tim Miller
might not even have a country in 2041.
- [54:44]
John Lovett
The hope. The hope was that if they could get this approved, you can unlock some funding and start construction sooner. That's what this fight was about. It was the possibility of maybe, if everything goes right, building before 2041. This is why I'm incensed about it. This is why I'm bothered by it. And, oh, my God, we need more people to get in it here in
- [55:06]
Tim Miller
Los Angeles, Donald Trump, nuclear weapon. Lots can happen before 2049. The governor's race. I'm not that enthused about either, fellas. Like, in a state like California, there could be some better options.
- [55:16]
John Lovett
But are you excited about anybody right now in polling? We do this jungle primary out here where top two go on to the general, and there's a legitimate possibility right now that the top two finishers will be the Republicans. And so do you feel like the state deserves that?
- [55:32]
Tim Miller
Kind of. Like, do you feel like this might be a Catholic thing for me, but like there's some sort of cosmic. Like you deserve punishment?
- [55:41]
John Lovett
No, I think that the California Democratic Party deserves it, but I don't think it's worth giving them the pain because we'll all have to live through it. Katie, Porter, Swalwell, Steyer are basically kind of in a different category than all the other candidates that are polling in single digits below them. The question is when those candidates will start dropping out. Their names are already going to be on the ballot because none of them dropped out in time to have their names not be on the ballot. People are going to start getting their ballots. I think May 3rd, May 4th, May 5th, something like that. These people need to drop out and endorse because what California should really have is two Democrats duking it out in the general because that's what the majority of voters are going to be deciding anyway. At the very least, we need to make sure one Democrat is able to get more votes than these two Republicans that are splitting all the Republican votes. Now, that shouldn't be that hard unless people don't do the right thing. So I don't really like. I would love to have the luxury of having a favorite. We need a Democrat to be in the election, and so we need some of these Democrats to start talking about
- [56:36]
Tim Miller
the San Jose mayor. I don't think it's gonna happen for him, though. Okay, last topic. We saved this for everybody. All right, here's your dessert. Love it. Looks pained that I kept him this long. Okay. Love it looks.
- [56:46]
John Lovett
I'm good. I don't feel pained at all. You're projecting that onto me. I'm happy to be here.
- [56:50]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I just. Your whole body language shifted once I started talking about the California governors race.
- [56:55]
John Lovett
I'm just mad. Like it's unfucking believable. I spent so long doing national politics and talking about national politics, and I really didn't pay enough attention. I've been in California for over a decade, and I really didn't focus on it enough. I was too focused on. On what we're building here. And obviously that's what I think about most of the time. But I love Los Angeles. I do. I genuinely love living here. It is infuriating to me how many people are kind of struggling to make a life here because of how expensive housing is and because of what's happening to the industry. And it is an emergency. It is an emergency, and they don't treat it like it. And it makes me fucking nuts.
- [57:32]
Tim Miller
Love it. For city council. That's the passion I'm looking for. That is the passion I'm looking for, for congressional Democrats about what's happening in Washington. There are a bunch of congressmen in California and Congresswoman who. I don't even know who you are. I wouldn't recognize you on the street. That's insane. It's 2026. Make me know who you are. I'm in the political podcasting business. Scream into your phone. Do something. Show. Protest. Show up. Final topic. Kristi Noem's husband today was revealed as a secret cross dresser who dons gigantic fake breasts and pink hot pants to chat with online fetish models. While his wife operated at the highest echelons of government handling matters of national security. In her recent role as Department of Homeland security, Brian Noem, 56, has been dressing up and paying adult entertainers to talk dirty. The Daily Mail has reviewed hundreds of messages involving three women. From the bimbofication scene where people transform themselves into real life Barbie dolls by pumping colossal amounts of saline into their breasts. Bry Osman has been bimbo fying himself. Thoughts? John Lovett.
- [58:40]
John Lovett
Not gonna kink. Shame Brian. Is it just Bryon? Is it Brian? How do you pronounce it? B, R, Y, O, N. It's just Brian. Or is it just Brian? It's just an interesting spelling of Brian. Again, not gonna kink shame the man. You know, however you get your rocks off, you know, not hurting anybody, just putting in a pair of big fake boobies and it looks like maybe some lipstick. I don't know. It's hard to tell. Talking to the galaxy, talking to the gals, wanting the biggest tatas possible. Just magnificent, gigantic yabos.
- [59:12]
Tim Miller
I think that's a beautiful thing. I have no problem with that.
- [59:14]
John Lovett
I don't have a problem with that. There is something deeply dark about the whole thing because there's a moment in the Daily Mail story in which he says something like, I need to get better. And then he stops talking to them for a while and then he comes Back. This doesn't feel like a Dan Savage monogamish. This feels more like Lindy west canceling the book tour. You know what I'm saying? There's a darkness to this. There's a darkness to this. You have Nome on a plane with Corey Lewandowski doing kind of glamour shots in front of prisoners at Sakase. And then meanwhile, Brian is at home putting in the big magnificent bazumbas to pay women to talk to him.
- [59:57]
Tim Miller
You could see the PT Anderson send up of this like I want a magnolia style kind of dark biopic of Christie and Corey. Corey doing the. Doing the eight hour shift with her in the airplane coming home from El Salvador with his stank breath and the terrible face while his wife is at home texting him, when are you going to come see your children? And you know, she is getting alerts on her phone about the torture that is being inflicted upon Venezuelans under her watch. Then like the camera scene pans to Brian in South Dakota on the webcam with the tatas, the saline. It's bleak. It's a bleak.
- [60:43]
John Lovett
It is bleak life.
- [60:44]
Tim Miller
And I agree with you. I want happiness for everybody. If that brings you happiness, bimbofication, that's fine. But in the broader kind of context of her life, it's a pretty bleak kind of film. It's something that they could film in the TMZ if we were still making films.
- [61:00]
John Lovett
I think my initial reaction to the story, which I feel like is right to tell you, is you can't hide from your own soul's brokenness. Really. That's what I would just that you can go and you can pretend you're happy and put on a cowboy hat and ride the horse and never apologize, never admit wrong. Act like everything you're doing is right. Act like you've got it all together. You're powerful, you're strong, you're tough. You're doing it. You're the leader. You're the one. You could be president someday. But there's a darkness in you. And it's why you thought when you killed that dog, it'd be a story worth telling. And whatever that darkness is, you can't hide from it. It's gonna infect your whole fucking life.
- [61:41]
Tim Miller
Circles out through the cracks.
- [61:42]
John Lovett
I'm not one to say a person is or isn't evil. There are plenty of evil people in the world. But I do think there's evil inside of us. And I do think that that evil, that darkness, right, like if you don't face it, if you don't deal with it. You end up leading the shield of America while your husband is at home putting in fake boobs to pay women to talk to him while he says he doesn't know what to do about his own wife's affair. So the whole thing makes me quite sad. It's quite.
- [62:09]
Tim Miller
To answer the why Corey question, it's interesting you brought that evil. You recommended a book to me recently that I read one chapter of, and I was like, you know, I'm gonna save this for summer vacation. I'm gonna save this from summer vacation.
- [62:20]
John Lovett
But I told you that I.
- [62:22]
Tim Miller
It's fine. No, it's good. I'm interested in it. But I just. I got a chapter in the story anyway. Why don't you share? Is it supposed to be private?
- [62:32]
John Lovett
No. I saw a Catholic priest talking about a definition of evil by an author from, like, the 70s or 80s. I was like, oh, I've never heard that before. And I also love stepping out of our current time and just finding old books that people aren't even talking about anymore. I just, like, want to get out of the algorithm. I want to get out of the words I'm sick of hearing. And so this guy named M. Scott Peck, who I hadn't heard very much about, didn't know anything about, and I started reading the book, and it was just interesting the way this guy was so kind of able to weave, like, a spiritual idea of good versus evil and his own experience as a psychotherapist. And I thought. Or a psychologist. And I said, oh, that's interesting. I'm enjoying this. That's something Tim might like. And the further I got into the book, the more I'm like, oh, he does exorcisms. I gave him a bad steer. Now there's an exorcism.
- [63:17]
Tim Miller
All right.
- [63:17]
John Lovett
Okay.
- [63:18]
Tim Miller
Even before the exorcisms, you know, it's. It's another dark tale, which is why I easily transitioned from Christie. You know, we're talking about a man in the Exurbs in North Carolina, like, leaving his family and having these dark visions and blackouts, and he engages in these behaviors. Anyway, it's an exploration of evil, which is important for our time, and I appreciate you recommending to me, and I will finish it. On summer vacation, maybe. I can't promise to finish it. I will give it a second try on summer vacation this summer. Finally. I just want to check in on the light inside of you. I mentioned your wedding earlier. How are you feeling? How are you processing every day? You've got to Live in the news. You've got to watch the worst people in the world ruin society. You've got to get feedback from viewers about your pimples. You can't just exist. It's challenging. And then meanwhile, you have all this good stuff happening in your life. And I'm just. I just want to check in with you.
- [64:18]
John Lovett
You know, it's. Authoritarianism rising. Never been happier.
- [64:21]
Tim Miller
Happy for you.
- [64:22]
John Lovett
I remember because, you know, John and Emily got married in 2017. And when I think about that wedding. Right. I do not connect. Oh, Trump just won. And, oh, John and Emily are getting married besides right now. Except right now. But really. But, like, when I think about that, when I think about that wedding, there's no politics in it. There's no, like, oh, we had a good time, despite. There's no despite. It was just a lovely, like, awesome time. And I'm sure at that wedding, there are conversations I no longer remember about what was happening in the country. But for the. But truly, it was just. That is life, and that life can be good, and you don't have to let politics ruin it. In fact, you sort of have a. I think a duty to yourself and your friends and your family to not allow that because they can't have even one more thing. So that's how I think about it. I'm very excited that we're getting married. I also feel like having a gay wedding and just like that, they're not gonna keep us down at all. And I feel a bit overwhelmed by how much between now and then, between, like, there's like, this sort of overwhelm of, like, doing the wedding stuff and doing the job, whatever, but, like, it's good problems to have. So I feel good. I'm like, Trump being so unpopular, and in the last year, the fact that it turns out that even Trump at his worst is not so strong a force as America can't stop it, I think, is, to me, where I'm at, which is why I am in a better place about what's happening than I was a year ago. Not to say things can't get worse. Not to say they can't try to steal the election. Not to say a lot of terrible shit can't happen and things can't take a turn. But right now, that, to me, is the story of the last year.
- [65:58]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I agree with that. Though occasionally I have to internally combat the evil inside of me and wonder whether I'm. I'm rooting for the bad stuff to happen. But okay, that's for another podcast Probably. Unless you had a thought you wanted to share about it. Unless you wanted to absolve me of my sins.
- [66:13]
John Lovett
Inside of each of us, everyone has. There's an ice agent in here. There is. Everyone had that. There's a little Kristi gnome inside of all of us that wants to preen and be loved despite all the terrible things that we do. Right. There's a little darkness in me.
- [66:31]
Tim Miller
I don't know if there's a Christie in me, but there's definitely a Brian. All right, everybody, we will see you back here tomorrow for another edition of the podcast. Hope you enjoyed that one. Sorry it came out a little late. It's Lovett's fault. Love it. I'll see you in May. Everybody else, we'll see you.
- [66:46]
John Lovett
You're bring those beautiful yabos I see in those big, magnificent yabos, Tim.
- [66:50]
Tim Miller
I'll have them.
- [66:50]
John Lovett
I love saying yabos.
- [66:52]
Tim Miller
I like it. I know you do. See you tomorrow, everybody. Peace, boobies. 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.