← The Bulwark Podcast
Loading summary
Transcript149 lines
- [00:02]
Ad Host / Sponsor Announcer
Not sure how to tackle your taxes? Are you sweating the small print? You may be experiencing FOMO. The fear of messing up the answer using TurboTax on Intuit credit Karma, they help you get your biggest refund and then we help you do more with it with a personalized plan designed to help you hit your money goals. It's time to take your taxes to the max. Start filing today in the Credit Karma app. Uh, are you stuck staring at your W2? Are tax refund worries holding you back? You probably have FOMO. The fear of messing up the fix. Using TurboTax on Intuit credit Karma, they find every credit and deduction to help you get every refund dollar you deserve or your money back. It's time to overcome your fear of messing up and get your taxes done right. Start fil today in the Credit Karma app.
- [01:16]
Tim Miller
Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome back one of our faves. He's co host of Ms. Now's the Weeknight, which airs Monday through Friday at 7pm he also was the chair of the Republican National Committee, Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, it's Michael Steele.
- [01:31]
Michael Steele
What's up, baby boy? How you doing, man?
- [01:35]
Tim Miller
I know it's Friday, so we want to end with the fun stuff. So I just want to start with, like, you and me have to kind of reflect, right? I mean, you know, we are out.
- [01:44]
Michael Steele
I'm ready.
- [01:45]
Tim Miller
Okay. We were never Trump from the jump, you know, and we warned people, we said that we don't think this is going to go well. You can't trust this guy. And I don't know about you, but I was laying in bed last night thinking maybe I was wrong about this. I mean, things are going so well. The economic situation is good, you know, foreign affairs, geopolitics. We're going to have a nice new ballroom.
- [02:08]
Michael Steele
Yeah.
- [02:10]
Tim Miller
You know, we may get an aid
- [02:12]
Michael Steele
arc in the middle of the city. I'm loving the Arc de Trump. Yeah, I love it.
- [02:16]
Tim Miller
We might get an Arc de Trump. Are you starting to have any doubts as well? Are you just kind of looking at the landscape out there thinking, man, this guy's knocking it out?
- [02:25]
Michael Steele
You know, I thought about that too, Tim, and I've thought about it a lot. And I came to the conclusion that I'm the only one who's got his shit tight. The rest of these motherfuckers, they don't know. I have no idea what the fuck they think they doing, but they have ruined a once great party. They are in the throes of taking down a great nation. We don't need to make this country great again because we've always aspired, aspired to be great. That is what's made us great, is the aspirations of generations of individuals who wanted to be Americans. And this iteration of the Republican Party, this leadership, from Thune, who I always admired and enjoyed working with over the years, to Mike Johnson, who was the backbenchers backbencher. I mean, backbenchers didn't know who the fuck he was. So you had that. These guys for the grift, the graft, the bullshit, the lies, the culture war that is utterly meaningless, sacrificed a great nation. And at the end of the day, I put it on us because they are a reflection of who we are. The American people, at least 78 million of us, decided, let's do this shit again. After everything we knew, after everything we saw, they got hung up on the cost of, you know, a piece of bread or tank of gas or whatever, whatever bullshit they wanted to make up about Joe Biden that they didn't like. Yeah, he was old, but Donald Trump was just as old and actually in worse health. Now folks are sitting around going, well, I just didn't know. I didn't realize. Bitch, please. We told your ass back in 2013, 14 and 15, we watched Marco Rubio get his ass handed to him on a stage in 2016 by a guy who was at 2% in the polls at the time. So, yeah, Tim, here we are, let's get started. I gotta tell you, that out, I'm still in it. That's because I'm high on something. I should sell whatever it is because,
- [04:44]
Tim Miller
yeah, that's cathartic to review. I guess I would just say we warned them all, but I don't know about you, I want to come on and just kind of do a victory lap and be like, hell, yeah, I was really right. And I was right. We can just kind of say that I was right. And I do like to text my MAGA friends sometimes and remind them that I'm right. When I wake up in the morning and I'm feeling a little feisty, it's kind of even worse than I thought, like, the scale of destruction. We'll start with just the economy, because since you mentioned that people are worried about the cost of bread, I was listening to Christine Lagarde this morning. She's the head of Europe Central bank, and she said this. We're facing a real shock that's probably beyond what we can imagine at the moment. And she lists out helium and all these other commodities, and she basically says she thinks that the markets have not even come close to pricing in the damage that's coming, and that the cost of goods globally is going to skyrocket. You would have thought that would have been the one to steal from jbl, the one stove that he wouldn't have wanted to touch. You know, like, it was the one area where I was like, you know, I can do all this other stupid shit. I can steal money. I can have the. The Middle Eastern Sharia states pay me off in cryptocurrency. I can make. My wife can have a coin that we can, you know, rug pull stupid people with. You know, I can. I could do what. I can build my ark to Trump. I can do all these things as long as I don't fuck this one thing up, which is making everybody's lives worse, tangibly financially. And he's doing it. He's. He's doing, like, the one thing and he's doing. And he's like, pedal to the metal on it. It's like, 10 more days. We got 10 more days. We're gonna keep this thing closed. Don't worry. Here. 10 more days, the straight's gonna be closed. We'll check in with the April 6th.
- [06:27]
Michael Steele
I'm really surprised the man couldn't.
- [06:30]
Tim Miller
I mean, I'm just surprised because I'm like, I thought he was the stupidest guy in the world, and he's being even dumber than I expected.
- [06:37]
Michael Steele
There's never been anything in Trump's business model that says success. He wasn't a developer. I mean, this was a guy who put his name on other people's shit, and that's what he's doing now. I mean, there's nothing about Donald Trump that. Which is why his daddy told him, don't go to Manhattan, stay here in Queens. You can be a king in Queensland. No, there's nothing about him that has ever said success. University stakes casino properties. I mean, it all ends in bankruptcy. It all ends in someone else paying the legal bills. It all ends in someone else carrying the full brunt of his destruction. And what makes it work. This is going to be the case study for sociologists. What makes it work is that I classify him as the P.T. barnum of our day. He knows you're a sucker, and he plays you for one, and you allow it to happen. You see it happening in front. You see what he's doing, and you're like, yeah, I want that. You want to be a part of that you look at the people in his orbit who protect him and stand around him and will defend him to the day. And this man don't give two shits about any of them. He will turn on all of them if it meant that he could get one more crypto coin, he get one more side piece, human or otherwise. And the reality, the reality is we fall for that. We fell for that. Despite the warnings from the. I worked with Trump in 2013. I was like, no, this is. Nope, thank you very much. No, this ain't right. This doesn't even pass any smell test in politics or business. So, you know, that's why at the end of the day, it rests back on us when we, when we look for something and we think we find it. And then all of a sudden you realize that ain't it. There is a hubris, there's a pride, there's a. Whatever you want to call it, this. Oh, I just can't admit that I was wrong. No, you can say I talked, that I was wrong as hell about that shit. I mean, come on, Tim, if you are a father of a 12 year old girl and in 2016 you're sitting there watching a videotape of a grown ass man who wants to be president, someone that in this country we tend to hold up as a role model and example, and he says he loves to grab women by the pussy and you're going to say to your daughter, I'm voting for him.
- [09:28]
Tim Miller
Yeah, well, I think that dad was the guy that got grabbed. I think you mentioned about how he bankrupted everything, something I haven't been able to get to this week. There's a report about how the treasury we have, our balance sheet is basically insolvency for the country right now. Countries broke Treasury, 30 year yield this morning is up to, it's about 5% highest in September. So just like the cost of everything. I was talking to my friend that owns a local pizza joint down here in New Orleans I just bumped into on the street yesterday, and he was just talking about the costs and everything. And it's like imagine you're a restaurant owner right now. Like you own an actual business. You own an actual business. Okay. You dealt with this 2022 inflation shock that was like kind of out of everybody's hands. Probably the Biden administration juiced the economy a little too much with the stimulus. But mostly this was like this external shock from COVID and everybody's trying to muddle through it. Okay? Then Trump gets in, you get this nut punch from the tariffs, you know, depending on, you know, what kind of ingredients you got. Labor costs are up because of a tightening market. They're bragging about how in major cities now, a population is down, net migration is out. They posted a bragging about that this week. So labor costs are up, your rent and mortgage is up. Like, that was already high, Interest rates are high. And like that, those are now going back higher. It was finally coming down. It was like the one thing he was doing to alleviate costs was like bullying the Fed. And the economy is so shitty that eventually, like, interest rates are coming back down. Well, now he's fucked that up. Interest rates are back up against your mortgage is up, or if you're renting, that person you're renting from's mortgage is up. And now on top of that, it's just like, here we go. Global energy shock. Global energy shock. Price. Everything's up, everything's up. We're just at the start of this. But I don't think that people have, like, just accepted, internalized the scale of the economic problem.
- [11:21]
Michael Steele
Can I put an exclamation point with all kinds of red flags around what you just said? Because what makes the description of the economic landscape so daunting is you're talking about right now. If you are a businessman or businesswoman, an entrepreneur, you're going out, you're looking downstream, you're looking at what you're, what you can afford three months from now. And when you see tankers sitting in the, in the Strait of Hormuz not moving, when you see supply chains weakening, becoming more expensive for the things you need, from tablecloths to the food that you will serve people in your restaurant, all of a sudden you're looking at your margins and you're going well, in the restaurant industry, the margins are already so paper thin that any type of shock has a direct impact on your ability to stay open and to keep your staff. And so where do you think we're going to be when we get into the throes of summer? Where do you think we're going to be in the fall? Because all of those are lagging indicators. This isn't real right now. This is all stuff that's going to be coming home to roost in 2, 3 months, in the next quarter, in the next 2 quarters, that's where you're going to run into the shock. It's not like gasoline. And this is where people get confused. Okay? Gas prices go up, you know, a dollar today get, I mean, you know, a barrel. You're Going to see it at the pump tomorrow morning.
- [13:16]
Tim Miller
All right.
- [13:17]
Michael Steele
Even though that gas, that's. That you're going to that gas station has been in the ground for 30 or 60 days. Right. You're going to pay the higher price right now. That's not how it works for the restaurant industry. That's not how it works for the retailer. That's not how it works for the wholesaler. Right. And so because they don't know what that price is going to be because they haven't gotten it off the ship yet. Yeah.
- [13:40]
Tim Miller
And not only that, they don't have a plan. I was laughing this morning. Let me pull this up. They're talking about a reconciliation bill now because that's the only thing they can do where they jam stuff through on 50 votes. So I was looking in punchbowl like what they plan on putting in that, you know, and, and given the economic issues that we're facing right now, like you would think that if they were going to jam in one more thing that they would have some kind of plan to ease afford costs for everyone. It's the biggest issue everybody cares about. No. Here's the list of things they want to do with reconciliation. They want Iran war funding. Okay. They want ICE and CBP funding the Save America act, which is about trans kids, sports and making it harder to do mail in voting. And they're hoping that's a party line vote. So that's the plan right now. The plan is not, hey, we understand that this war happened and it's causing pain for you and we have this plan for relief, whatever it is. You know, there are a lot of different economic levers you could pull. They're saying none of that. No. What we're gonna do is we're gonna take more money from you and we're going to put it into this stupid war and we're gonna give it to the isis.
- [14:45]
Michael Steele
We already have the largest budget in the world.
- [14:49]
Tim Miller
Right. And then on top of that, we're gonna make sure. We're just gonna make sure it's as hard as possible for you to vote and that we deal with the only pressing issue that we feel we need to deal with this year. And that's trans.
- [15:01]
Michael Steele
That is the most incredibly important thing that, you know, the farmer in of Iowa is really concerned about as he's looking at his soy crops with her. He's going to blame it on the trans kids. That's basically what the Republican party wants you to believe.
- [15:16]
Tim Miller
Good luck with that.
- [15:17]
Michael Steele
Let me ask you this. They going to do that. The reconciliation.
- [15:23]
Tim Miller
That's what they're. That's what they know.
- [15:24]
Michael Steele
That don't fit into reconciliation. That's not how. Reconciliation. Bill, you just can't shove anything. The parliamentarian is going to lose her mind when see this shit coming in.
- [15:35]
Tim Miller
Yeah. So let's just explain this to people. Okay? So we've had this DHS shut down for a while now. The Democrats have been offering, hey, let's just fund the rest of. Let's fund tsa, fema, okay? Trump's been saying, not gonna do that deal. Not gonna do that deal. Yesterday, I don't know, one of his buddies was waiting too long in line at the Miami airport and called him up on the phone and he was like, fuck it, fine. Okay. So then he changed his mind. He's like, we'll do the thing Democrats have been asking for for weeks, Right. He said he'll do it in an executive order. And then somehow, a couple hours later, they're like, whatever, we'll just do it by unanimous consent in the Senate. So that's where the Democrats have won a second straight shutdown. So kudos to them. And they have passed that through unanimous consent in the Senate. The House has to deal with that. That's gonna be a little bit more complicated. This isn't a congressional nerd podcast. But needless to say, if you're flying this weekend, you're still in a boatload of hurt. We'll see. The House has got to figure this out. Maybe probably Monday. Then what's left is the ICE and CBP funding. And every year you get this thing called reconciliation. We talked about this last year where it's a financial vehicle for funding the government. You can pick a number and say, hey, we're going to add another trillion to the debt. We're going to put these things in reconciliation. The parliamentarian, as you mentioned, looks at it all and says, hey, is this going to add up to 1 trillion? And if so, it's a way around the filibuster. Basically. You can do it on a party line vote in the House and the Senate. And you're not supposed to do stuff like, you know, the Democrats couldn't have put in. I'm going to make D.C. a state inside the reconciliation. Right. It has to be a financial, you know, tax and spend type issue. How are they going to get the Save America act in there as a tax and spend issue? Do they actually care about this? Do they even have the votes for this? I don't even think they have the votes. Like, my point is, like, yeah, I don't think they have the votes for it. My point is, I just think it's crazy given, like, the scale of domestic disruption. And they're like, we got one card left to play here with our reconciliation. And it's like, we're going to do mail in, voting trans youth, and funding the mass. That's their agenda.
- [17:35]
Michael Steele
Every last one of them need to be unelected. Folks there are a threat to everything. I don't mean. Look, I don't care what you're feeling are about the country on this day or that day. At the end of the day, you want a country to be there tomorrow. And the fact of the matter is, we're not handing that off to our kids and certainly not to our grandkids. When you have this kind of disregard for the process, the rules, the idea of a Congress that is a check on executive authority, a Supreme Court that is a check on both congressional and executive authority, when all of that is fundamentally of no value to you anymore, this is what it looks like, and I'm telling you, it looks worse. You think Stephen Miller, if he gets his way on this Save America, is just going to stop? You think that son of a bitch is just going to stop when you know they have rounded up 100,000 more immigrants? Nah, bitch, they coming for your dumb ass next. That's the problem. That's what people are starting to figure out, that everybody is on the menu in this world. Donald Trump wants to remake Washington in his image for a reason. He floated. Shit. What? A few days ago, he posted a little thing. Well, I deserve a third term because they stole my second term. Bitch, you in your second term. What are you talking about? And how dumb are we to fall for that?
- [19:15]
Tim Miller
All right, y', all, spring is here. I'm a social butterfly. You should look at my calendar. When am I sleeping? If you're noticing my aging, it's just because I got too much to do. You know, I need human contact. I can't just sit up here in my podcast hole talking to you guys at the screen. I got to get out there and, you know, if I'm going to be out in the streets. You want to update the wardrobe? And I'm turning to our sponsor, Mack Weldon, for clothes that help me beat the heat and enjoy being outside. You can discover upgraded basics, fresh styles, and more@mackweldon.com plus 20% off your first order of one. 25 bucks or more. With the code, the bullwork. I'm really enjoying Their ace collection. You got some comfy sweatshirts for wearing around the house. You guys only get to see what's above nipple level on YouTube. A lot of times I got the sweatshirts on underneath there. Very nice. Very comfy. A couple of the short sleeve button ups I've been wearing. You've been seeing me in those. Those are from Mack Weldon. Sometimes I like to put on a. A tank top, then have an unbuttoned Mack Weldon button up on top of that. That's something I'd look into if I were you. Mac Weldon clothes are designed to fit your style and the demands of modern life. They look like regular clothes, but they feel like the latest in modern comfort. Get moving with Mack Weldon. Comfortable anywhere. Go to mackweldon.com and get 20% off your first order of one. 25 bucks or more with promo code the Bulwark. That's M A C K W E l d o n.com promo code the Bulwark. Let's talk about the third term thing for a second. This is Franklin Graham at CPAC yesterday,
- [20:50]
Michael Steele
and I love Donald Trump. Is he perfect? No. But I love that guy. I love him. And we'll only have one chance at this. We'll never get another president like Donald Trump. Never. And that's why it's important that we do everything that we can to try to get him reelected.
- [21:20]
Tim Miller
Okay, so maybe I'm wrong about this. Okay, so I want to be scared. But I don't know, I look around at this, and to me, this is. This is like the last gasp of a dying movement. To me. It's just like. I don't know. The third term stuff, a year ago was having me. I was locked in on this. I was like, I didn't even like the jokes. I didn't like that people joked about it. I said, this is unserious. This guy's gonna try. You look around at the wreckage right now. You have this doddering Nepo baby evangelical pastor speaking to a. To a CPAC that's like totally desiccated, run by a guy that has sexual assault allegations against him. Trump isn't even showing up. Trump's joking about it now. It's like, I don't know. I mean, we should be vigilant. But is pointing and laughing at this more the correct approach or being scared the correct approach?
- [22:21]
Michael Steele
I think both right now. I think you. I think you point and you laugh with fear in your voice because you need to be. I mean, yeah, okay, that's cpac. But then there's Turning Point usa, okay, which is going to have three times the people showing up who are going to be much more like, rah, rah, let's go get them. You know, you know, I love the KKK bullshit. And so I, I think that you've got to be vigilant about all of it, because that's the sucker move to get you to think it's not dangerous, to get you to think the problem has recessed. Look, I grew up in Washington D.C. and the one thing I learned about cockroaches is that they hide very well. Right. You think you've eradicated the problem. No, you haven't. It's still going to be a problem. And it may not rear itself up right now because they know you coming after them. But when the table turns and it's on their turf and it's on their time, it's a different matter. And so you just have to be, you have to be vigilant. You have to continue to use the bud spray. You know, you have to.
- [23:31]
Tim Miller
No, I'm with you on vigilant. I'm obviously with you on all that. This movement isn't going anywhere. Just the Trump third term element in particular. I don't know, it just hit me yesterday when I watched the Franklin Graham thing because I'm only speaking about my own feelings. You know, you can only know, you can only really be solipsism. You can only know what's happening inside of you. But when I heard Trump joke about that when he put the hats on earlier in the year, I was like, this is fucking bad. This is bad. And I watched that Franklin Graham thing and I was like, this is sad.
- [23:58]
Michael Steele
It's Sad because remember, 78 million people put him back in power. What makes you think 81 million people won't give, give him a third term?
- [24:10]
Tim Miller
I mean, because, I don't know, I mean, I'm just going to be pissed. I mean, because look, they're going to be right.
- [24:16]
Michael Steele
But when you live in it, when you create a grievance bubble and you pack as many American Americans inside of it as possible. Yeah, this is what you get. People, people want people to put a salve on the pain that they feel. Our elected officials aren't doing that. They're not trying to be honest and say, hey, this is the cost of solving this problem. These are the things we have to do collectively. Culture wars are bullshit. Because guess what? Immigrants aren't going anywhere. They're always coming. Just like your great granddaddy got Here and your granddaddy got here. The next generation is coming. So, you know, you're not going to be able to hide from the world. So why don't we place ourselves in a right way in it, as we've always strived to do. No one's having that conversation. So tell if all I wanted to make you as a happily married father, gay man living in New Orleans fear. What am I going to do? I'm going to find the thing that scares you, and I'm going to pick at that. I'm going to go with that. And it could be the assault on, you know, in a reverse universe, assault on the trans community, it could be assault on something. And what do you. You become protective and defensive of that. That's. That's what they do. And what. What you forget in the process is the US The US and you're thinking about the me. And that's. That's the America even in with racism and slavery and all the things black folks learned a long time ago that I have to survive in the U.S. okay, all right. Yes, it's about me. But I have to survive in the US and you cannot give in to this sort of myopic view that it's just my story, my neighborhood, my family. When the family down the street is being hauled off by ice because it ain't a problem for them to move their ass up the block. At vrbo, we understand that even the best of plans sometimes need a little support. So we plan for the plot twists. Every booking is automatically backed by our VRBO care guarantee, giving you confidence from the very start. Whenever you need help, it's ready before your stay, through the moments in between and after your trip. Because a great trip starts with peace of mind and maybe a good playlist, but we've got the peace of mind part covered.
- [26:50]
Tim Miller
I can't believe they're having a gender
- [26:52]
Michael Steele
reveal for their dog. No, no, no, no.
- [26:54]
Ad Host / Sponsor Announcer
This is a breed reveal.
- [26:55]
Michael Steele
Oh.
- [26:56]
Ad Host / Sponsor Announcer
So, yeah, they're finding out the breed of the puppy they're rescuing, so they
- [27:00]
Tim Miller
could just be spending all their money
- [27:01]
Michael Steele
on, like, pet insurance.
- [27:02]
Ad Host / Sponsor Announcer
Instead, we got lemonade for Roscoe, and it covered vaccines, microchipping. We.
- [27:06]
Tim Miller
We save 90% on vet bills.
- [27:09]
Ad Host / Sponsor Announcer
Oh, here we go.
- [27:12]
Michael Steele
What do you think beige confetti means?
- [27:15]
Ad Host / Sponsor Announcer
I don't know that we'll never get this Saturday back.
- [27:18]
Tim Miller
Get a quote for any breed@lemonade.com pet speaking of black folks trying to manage living in this world, living in this American society, did you see the Times story this morning about what was happening at the Department of War. Let me read a little bit to you from that one. Pete Hegseth dropped two black and two women army officers from the promotion list to be general. One of the black women in particular was a flashpoint. I'm just going to read this directly. Last summer, Hegseth Chief of Staff Ricky Beria chastised Army Secretary Dan Driscoll for selecting a black female combat engineer to serve as the head of the Military district of Washington. Mr. Buria told Mr. Driscoll that President Trump would not want to stand next to a black female officer at military events. The official.
- [28:11]
Michael Steele
I don't know why that shocked the shit out of anybody. Because Donald Trump does, first off, a strong woman and a strong black woman. Oh, hell no. That is not what Donald Trump was.
- [28:26]
Tim Miller
This is Omarosa Erasure. This is Omarosa Erasure. Michael Steele.
- [28:30]
Michael Steele
And so Donald Trump in no way on this planet is going to stand next to a black woman in uniform at a ceremony and has to salute her and acknowledge her. Oh, that's just not. There's nothing in his makeup that would ever tell you that that would be something he would be for. So, yes, his little. His little pet project. And Pete Hegseth is going to accommodate that. Not what's best for the military District of Columbia, not what's best for the army, not what's best for dod, not what's best for that soldier, but what's best for Donald Trump. Donald Trump doesn't want to be reminded of his weaknesses. He doesn't want to be reminded of his insecurities. He doesn't want to be reminded of his failures of leadership in his capacity to be anything other than a racist. He doesn't want to be reminded of that. And he likes the coloring that guys like Hecseth give him to sort of put a veneer on it, to whitewash it. That's why they're taking, you know, black history and stripping it down. We don't want to talk about slavery. So when we find a Negro that's going to go out and parrot that. Byron, Donald. Right. And make me feel good about my racism. So, yeah, I'm not surprised about that.
- [30:01]
Tim Miller
No, not surprised. The bluntness, though, of it is certainly notable. We should say our name, Major General Antoinette can't as the woman who got her promotion. But now Pete Hegseth is trying to intervene again. You mentioned Byron Donalds. He's running against our old friend David Jolly. You and David are. David was Republican congressman. Never. Trumper went independent, was on running for governor of Florida. Yeah. Running for governor for the first time. And you know, I don't like opium. Michael Steele, you know that I'm rain cloud. I don't. I don't.
- [30:37]
Michael Steele
I get it from you.
- [30:38]
Tim Miller
So it's all good. Yeah. You're not coming to me. K. If you want to feel like, you know, things are about to turn around any minute right now. Okay. This is the home for catastrophizing. But for the first time this week, when those state legislative races specials happen in Florida, I started to think, I started to look at the math. We've now had 30 state legislative seats in a row that have flipped, and they've all flipped from Republican to Democrat. That has not happened since before and they've been measuring since Democrat to Republican. No, that was the last wave when you were there in 2010. No, I was about to say your wave in 2010. You guys didn't even get 30 in a row. It was like 27 or something. Your record's been broken. Your record's been broken now. So now this is the longest streak. The flip, the average flip in those Florida districts is in the low teens, which is about what Trump won the state by. Byron Donalds is a very weak candidate in Florida. There's a lot of dissension within the Florida Republican Party, maybe more than any other state, because there's still the raw feelings about the DeSantis Trump of it all. I think Casey DeSantis was kind of going to be the heir apparent, but the Trump fight cost her that. Now you end up with Donald's is our guy David Jolly. Is that crazy to think that that is in play?
- [31:56]
Michael Steele
I don't think it's crazy. I think the trend line speaks to the common sense of it. I think a lot of voters look, at the end of the day, Tim, you know this very well from your days in politics as a comms guy, as an operative. The one thing you learn about communication is listening. And Jolly is very good at that, always has been. Byron is not a listener.
- [32:28]
Tim Miller
What is Byron? He's not really a listener. He's not a thinker.
- [32:31]
Michael Steele
He feels the need. He feels the need. He makes a whole lot of white folks feel good about themselves. As I just said, he does not hold the mirror up. He does not reflect back to them the culture from which he comes to say, this is part of your history as much as anything else. Why are you trying to wipe it out? Let me help you help you.
- [32:51]
Tim Miller
Right?
- [32:52]
Michael Steele
And so the reality of it is that Florida race in Trump's backyard, in his district, legislative district, losing that is a big warning sign for Florida Republicans. It's a big warning sign for national Republicans. And they don't want to listen. They don't want to listen to what the voters are telling them. And in many respects, it cuts along two grains. And you know them well. One is still Epstein. Epstein is not just about justice for the victims here, but it's also for a lot of the folks in the Trump orbit. And I'm not just talking about that MAGA corner, but the rank and file Republican who believed that they were going to get to the bottom of this because they were told that the other is the economic, who believed that their lives, as we started this conversation discussing, would not get worse, but better, their costs would not go up, but go down. Democrats appropriately framed that as affordability. Right. And the American people, and Republicans, who are still Americans. Right. Bought that. They also bought that idea of affordability, which is why Donald Trump stopped making fun of the concept because his own base believed in it. They thought it was a real thing for them because they're looking not just at this before gas prices, they're looking at their grocery bills, they're looking at, you know, how much it costs to put clothes on their kids backs. They're looking at this fact that the tariffs were in fact a tax.
- [34:38]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [34:39]
Michael Steele
And so. Yeah. And Florida is not immune from that. And I think, I think David Jolly has been making a good case. Now that has to translate as, again, you and I both know, into how you turn that vote out. Right.
- [34:56]
Tim Miller
Sure.
- [34:56]
Michael Steele
And how you sustain the momentum that has been gained on a win like we saw this week, not just in Florida, but in other wins around the country. Tapping into that idea. It'll be interesting to see the turnout of this weekend of the folks on the no Kings rally.
- [35:14]
Tim Miller
The no Kings.
- [35:16]
Michael Steele
What does that look like in a state like Florida? Because that also could be a leading indicator of where the people in that state are.
- [35:24]
Tim Miller
Yeah. You look at that. Florida, the first DeSantis election, 2018, which is the first Trump midterm. This pulled this up. He beat Andrew Gillum, who had some problems, by 32,000 votes.
- [35:38]
Michael Steele
But for those problems, Andrew Gillum would have won that election.
- [35:42]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And I think it wasn't a Gwen Graham that was in that primary. Someone else probably could have won that election. So DeSantis wins by 0.4%. Now, Florida said some turnover since then. We had Covid. There were a lot of blue state refugees, whatever, going down to Florida. You know, they wanted to, you know, they wanted to go to their Covid parties and, you know, hang out in close quarters together without worrying about the virus. So, so the makeup of the state changed a little bit. Anyway, if you're in Florida and listen to this, I think there's been a lot of despair about the Democratic Party's chances there. And I think that maybe this is an opportunity to turn it around.
- [36:19]
Ad Host / Sponsor Announcer
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. Every day the world gets a little
- [36:57]
Tim Miller
weirder and a lot more awesome.
- [37:00]
Ad Host / Sponsor Announcer
Cool Stuff Daily takes a look at everything from mining in space to the latest in the fight against cancer to how AI is, well, basically changing everything. It's all the cool stuff you didn't know you needed to know.
- [37:14]
Tim Miller
Join us for Cool Stuff Daily as
- [37:15]
Michael Steele
we take a quick look at science tech and the.
- [37:18]
Tim Miller
Wait, what stories that make you sound way smarter at dinner.
- [37:22]
Ad Host / Sponsor Announcer
Subscribe to Cool Stuff Daily now because
- [37:25]
Tim Miller
the future's happening fast and it's way too fun to miss. We got so kind of fired up about everything that I kind of breezed over the details of the Iran war and what's been happening. So can we just go back? Oh, yeah, yeah. So here's the latest. Trump did announce, as I joked about earlier, that 10 day extension of his deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz or face the destruction of its energy plants. That takes us to April 6th and
- [37:51]
Michael Steele
that's going to move too, which it's
- [37:54]
Tim Miller
going to move too. And that really does matter. And when we had Wiesenthal on earlier this week to talk about the economic stuff about this, it's like for every day it's closed, it's like a week that it's going to take to fix the supply chain stuff. And this is just exponential. So anyway, 10 day extension, we're moving additional troops into the area, so it's something to keep monitoring. Israel this morning, right before he came on, said that they vowed to intensify and expand their war in Iran. And then Reuters, right before he came on, has a report saying that we can determine with certainty that we've destroyed about a third of Iran's vast missile arsenal. There's another third we don't know about, and then another third that's buried in underground tunnels and bunkers we haven't been able to get to. So, I mean, putting that all together, there's been, yes, some degradation of the Iranian capabilities, but maybe not as much as we thought. The gap between our objectives in Israel's seemed to be wide.
- [38:49]
Michael Steele
How do you get led into a war with a partner you can't control? I mean, the conceit about this war, the lie about this war, was told to us within the first 24 hours by Marco Rubio himself, who could not explain with a straight face or with any credibility as Secretary of State, what the hell his department of state was doing, who's been largely cut out of any negotiations. Why is it, Marco, are you sending Witkoff and Jared Kushner? Dumb and dumber choose which is which. Right?
- [39:19]
Tim Miller
Yeah, yeah. Or corrupt. Dahmer and corruptor.
- [39:22]
Michael Steele
I mean, sitting down at a table, what are you negotiating? They're negotiating a land deal and you've got Bibi Netanyahu sitting there going, yeah, send the putzes in the room. We'll let them divvy up the spoils. But I get off on going after Iran, defeating this enemy and blowing the shit out of everybody and killing him. And so call me crazy, call me wrong, but what did you just say? The Israeli government announced they vowed to
- [39:52]
Tim Miller
intensify and Donald Trump was saying, what?
- [39:54]
Michael Steele
We want to bring it down. We want to de. Intensify and we want to contract because we want the Straits of Hormuza to Oprah. Yet why are we sending now that. Now what? Late last night, possibly 10,000 more on top of what's already, young men and women who are already being sent overseas. So what are we doing here? And is it your kid? My kids. They pass draft age. They pass. All right, all right.
- [40:23]
Tim Miller
Not my concern in that regard.
- [40:25]
Michael Steele
My concern is for your 18, 22, 27 year old child.
- [40:30]
Tim Miller
Right, yeah.
- [40:31]
Michael Steele
What are we doing? Why are we allowing this to happen and allowing ourselves to get browbeat into this? Oh, on top of that, Tim, Russia is helping Iran.
- [40:45]
Tim Miller
The amount of money that Russia is bringing in a day like when you look at who is benefiting from this war. Right.
- [40:52]
Michael Steele
Make it up.
- [40:53]
Tim Miller
It's the. It's the Landman characters. You know, people in Midland, they're doing real well. West Texas is doing great. And Russia, they are printing money right now. Their economy was teetering. China has internal capabilities. It is crazy. The Israel thing, I just want to say, and this is the problem with a not being honest about the war, not selling us on the war, not explaining what the missions and objectives are. Israel's objectives are clear. Like in that statement where they said they're going to intensify attacks. They said it's because the Islamic Republic has not heeded warnings to stop firing missiles at Israel's civilian population. Like Israel has a legitimate security concern. Like there can be different views on whether what their strategy is and whether they're exacerbating it with their own actions, etc. Etc. But they have a legitimate security concern. We don't. So it was obvious from day one to anybody with eyes that eventually like we were going to become come at crossways on our missions and objectives because Israel has a legitimate security concern.
- [42:02]
Michael Steele
Yes, they do.
- [42:03]
Tim Miller
That's intense and short term and real. And we don't.
- [42:07]
Michael Steele
And we don't.
- [42:08]
Tim Miller
So like so, so how so it creates an uncomfortable partnership.
- [42:13]
Michael Steele
It creates a very uncomfortable partnership. And in this case the tail Bibi is wagging the dog Trump. And that is one of the most obvious facets of this in that when you look at the situation before the level of restraint that other administrations, Republicans and Democrats have used in this regard with respect to Iran was justified. Right. You just can't go yippee ki yay into the Middle east because of the very thing you just noted about the security concerns being of one nation outweighing the security of the region. And so there's always been this delicate balance. I know this firsthand. I worked on the original Iranians claims tribunal at the end of the Iranian hostage. The firm was Surrey and Morse back in the early 80s.
- [43:12]
Tim Miller
That is impossible. You were working on that in the early 80s. Were you an intern?
- [43:16]
Michael Steele
I, I was. I just gotten back from. I just gotten back from the seminary and after I left Augustinians, moved back to Washington, landed at Sur Morse and you know who I worked with at the firm. Mark Ginsburg was a young associate at the firm. Jane Frank Harmon was a young partner at the firm. And the former senator of the great state of Ohio Republic was a young associate at the firm. And I got tasked with pulling the. This had never been done. Pulling the initial research on how we frame this tribunal to deal with resolution of the issues outstanding regarding the Iranians and the impact that they had on Americans and the claims that Americans had against the Iranians. And I learned a lot about the Iranian people, learned a lot about the government and a lot about the history. And that history is fraught with US Intervention. That history is fraught with the US Playing king and the people having a different idea, which is why we wound up with the Shah. And so when you understand all of that and you look at the buffoons that are now in the Middle east who don't appreciate that history, who don't are not coming to the table with the storylines that have held somewhat imbalance, how we play ourselves, our role in that region, we are now in a very precarious spot. And when you have bad actors like China and Russia benefiting, it's not going to be good for us in the long term if we continue down this road. So I think there's a lot to be concerned about here. I think you're right when you say, you know, we're going to get to April 6th and then what, you know, what, and what does it look like between now and then? You know, it's not just the, it's not just the military, but it's also the economic impact that we're going to have to contend with.
- [45:21]
Ad Host / Sponsor Announcer
Hi, this is Alex Cancerwitz. 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 to 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 podcast.
- [45:57]
Tim Miller
This is Mike Borlow of Lexicon Valley and I'm Bob Garfield. Are you one of those people who sometimes uses words?
- [46:04]
Michael Steele
Do you communicate or acquire information with, you know, language? Hey, us too.
- [46:11]
Tim Miller
So join us on Lexicon Valley to chew over the history, culture and many
- [46:16]
Michael Steele
mysteries of English, plus some wisecracks. Find us on one of those apps
- [46:23]
Tim Miller
where people listen to podcasts. We like to be fair and balanced on this podcast. So I do want to play the counter view for you. Sure. About how we had to do this because the threats were so great. And you should actually be kind of scared if you live in this country right now just going about your daily life because the threat was so great from Iran. Let's listen to the Vice President of
- [46:46]
Michael Steele
the United States and its options to
- [46:48]
Ad Host / Sponsor Announcer
ensure that Iran never has a nuclear weapon.
- [46:50]
Michael Steele
You talk about people who walk into a crowded supermarket and have a vest on and they blow up the vest and a couple of people get killed. And that's a terrible tragedy. What happens when what's on the vest is not something that can kill a couple of people, but can kill many, many tens of thousands of people. That is the most important American national security objective that exists for any administration at any time is you don't want the worst people in the world to
- [47:13]
Tim Miller
have a nuclear weapon, a nuclear suicide vest in your local Harris Teeter. That's something that J.D. vance is saying we are concerned about and that's why we're in this war. Because there might have been an Iranian with a nuclear bomb on their suicide vest. Don't know how that would work exactly. I think that that'd be pretty conspicuous.
- [47:33]
Michael Steele
Okay, I'm sorry, America. This is, this for me is, and I know it is for you, Tim. It is too fucking serious to have such unserious, such politically driven, such politically motivated and biased assholes sociopathic running this war and running our country. What the vice president just said was bullshit. It makes no sense. We always live in the fear of someone in a vest that nuclear otherwise, I mean, take the nuclear shit off the table. That, that's just crazy.
- [48:17]
Tim Miller
I mean, it's kind of important though.
- [48:18]
Michael Steele
I don't know.
- [48:18]
Tim Miller
How's it going to work? They're going to go to Ishtahan.
- [48:21]
Michael Steele
Thank you.
- [48:21]
Tim Miller
And get some new material, fissile material, put it on their vest. Playing us for stupid. Toledo.
- [48:28]
Michael Steele
They're playing us for stupid. They're mixing these images and sort of creating this space in which this thing could happen. No, that will not happen now. If he said talking about chemical warfare, okay, that's a different conversation. But that can happen now. You don't have to go to war with Iran to be worried about that. The fact of the matter is Iran was at the table negotiating the Obama and the Biden administration. We had a deal. Trump took the deal off the table, tore it up. Right then we were living in the wild, wild west of nothing. Donald Trump at the coming into a second term. There was the beginning of the negotiation of a new deal and Donald Trump tore it up.
- [49:19]
Tim Miller
And the key man he put there was a son in law who doesn't actually work for the government who is on the take from Iran's top regional rival.
- [49:28]
Michael Steele
Thank you.
- [49:29]
Tim Miller
Probably not the guy that you want there if you're trying to negotiate a
- [49:32]
Michael Steele
deal, not the guy you want there in the room. And so to hear him now say this is just mind numbingly stupid and it's insulting because what this administration is not talking about in all of that if everything. Okay, Mr. VP, I'm going to take everything you're saying as true. A, why didn't you say that on the first day? B, why is your story about why we're there in the first place changed 3, 4, 5, 7 times? C, why can't you tell us how this ends? What's your plan to get out? What does that exit strategy look like? D, when you start to implement that, what the fuck are you leaving behind? Right? Because like Venezuela, all you did was take out, decapitate the leadership. Like any good little writhing thing on the ground that can regenerate its body and grow a new head. That's what's happening here. You didn't take out the. You didn't take out the Guard. You didn't take out the leadership. You didn't. Because why that leadership? If you. If you read the intelligence, would tell you that a lot of it is underground. A lot of it is dispersed all over the country, just like the damn nuclear weapons you're trying to find. Tim, what are we doing?
- [51:05]
Tim Miller
It's good to know they're looking out for us. Hey, they just. They just don't want a nuclear weapon on a suicide vest. That's why we're at the war. That's why everybody's paying more for everything. That's why Americans are dying. That's why people in the region are dying. That's why everything's destabilized.
- [51:16]
Michael Steele
I have a solution. Yeah, I have a solution for the administration.
- [51:18]
Tim Miller
Stop the war.
- [51:20]
Michael Steele
No, let's just get rid of all this. All the vests.
- [51:24]
Tim Miller
Oh, oh, okay. Ban vests. Vest control.
- [51:28]
Michael Steele
Ban vests. Let's ban the vest.
- [51:30]
Tim Miller
Vest control. That's something to look into.
- [51:32]
Michael Steele
Vest control.
- [51:32]
Tim Miller
All right, while we're being nice to them, one last thing and then I'll let you go. Because I do again. Sometimes when you read more Trump affiliated outlets, they offer these kind of 4D chess rationalizations for what's happening. I was looking at the Free press this morning and they had somebody in the free press talking about how this
- [51:50]
Michael Steele
people who don't play chess is that
- [51:51]
Tim Miller
the war was really about China. Actually. Now the administration isn't saying that, but. But Iran was working with China. And by closing the strait, we're gonna destabilize Asia. And that's. It was kind of. It was hard to follow.
- [52:05]
Michael Steele
But China's making money into a fist.
- [52:08]
Tim Miller
Yeah, but that's what. Anyway, that's what the Bari Weiss outlet was telling you. So I was thinking about potential 40 chess things that they could be doing okay. And I'm sure you saw the news about how Trump is gonna put his signature on the dollar. It's gonna be the first time that a sitting president has signed the bills themselves. This is obviously Kim Jong Un esque and wrong and horrible. But I'm wondering, they couldn't think about a way to take prices down. But if you have bonfires of money, if people are so upset about the dollar that at scale they're burning it, then that can lead to deflation. Actually, you could get deflation if you're taking a lot of currency out of the market. And so maybe that's the plan. Maybe we're looking for. Maybe we're looking for a deflationary thing where he wants the protest.
- [53:00]
Michael Steele
He put his signature on the dollar, and people are like, oh, hell, no, I won't. I just don't. I'll just burn this shit. I'm not. No, I'm not spending. Just burn it. Look, if y' all haven't figured out now, by now, Donald Trump wants his name on everything, because that's what a megalomaniac does. Everything is them, and they are everything. If they could redefine the laws of physics, literally, they would. All right? And they try politically telling you up is down and down is up. And so it doesn't surprise me. It's like we mentioned before, the damn arc he wants to build in Washington, what he's doing with the East Wing, renaming the Kennedy center after himself. And look at what's happened. Nobody wants to perform at the Kennedy Center. And I guess we can listen to Kid Rock for the next three years, but who the three hobos in the audience? I mean, what. I don't know what you're talking about anymore. Because what Donald Trump is doing, again, he wants his name on a dollar. Because now when you look pick at the dollar, you see his signature. He wants that ugly bullshit signature of his that he never learned how to write cursive, right? Never learned how to actually write his name. So he just scribbles it because he's lazy. You can't even write out your damn name. You can't even write your name out in a way that we can understand what it is. So we have to. We have to have our brains process the symbolism of your name, because otherwise you can't read that shit. You take someone who has never seen Donald Trump's signature and showed it to them, they go, what the fuck is that? Did the 3 year old get sick? What is that?
- [54:41]
Tim Miller
It's on our money. That's representative of our fallen empire, though. Three year old signature in so many ways.
- [54:48]
Michael Steele
In so many ways. So, yes, put your signature on the damn dollar. I like a good bonfire. I don't mind like burning the bills, baby. Burning the bills.
- [54:58]
Tim Miller
I got bad news. I just asked Claude if that would work and they said technically it could reduce inflation. Yeah, but it's inefficient compared to central bank tools like raising interest rates. So I don't know, probably not going to work. Just an idea, though. No bad ideas. In a brainstorm, that's the chairman, Michael Steele. You can catch him at 7:00pm that's right in the east.
- [55:19]
Michael Steele
Nice, baby.
- [55:19]
Tim Miller
Miss now.
- [55:21]
Michael Steele
Yeah.
- [55:22]
Tim Miller
And I hope to see you in person soon. All right, sir.
- [55:24]
Michael Steele
You got it, my friend. You take care. Enjoy yourself. The best to the family. Stay out of trouble.
- [55:29]
Tim Miller
All right, back at you, everybody. Have a wonderful weekend. Cheers. We'll see you on Monday with Bill Crystal. The Borg Podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Koop, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.
- [56:02]
Michael Steele
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 the sun shining, birds are singing, and all feels right in the world. Until the season changes and suddenly you lose your motivation to get out of bed.
- [56:43]
Ad Host / Sponsor Announcer
In fact, one in five people experience
- [56:44]
Tim Miller
some form form of depression, no matter the season or time of year.
- [56:48]
Michael Steele
At the American Psychiatric association foundation, our vision is to build a mentally healthy nation for all. Because we want you to live your best life and be your best you all year round.
- [56:58]
Ad Host / Sponsor Announcer
Please visit mentallyhealthynation.
- [57:00]
Tim Miller
Org to learn more.