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- [00:00]
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- [00:59]
Tim Miller
Book with Verbo they like Marco because he's bilingual, because he's calm, because he's level headed, because he's strong character. They think JD is too aggressive. It's like Avi voted for Trump three times. Trump has terrible character. He's not calm, he's not level headed, he doesn't want to mend fences. He can barely speak one language.
- [01:25]
Sarah Longwell
Hello everyone and welcome to the focus group podcast. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark and this week we're going to Louisiana, which in all of my years of doing focus groups I have never done to cover an election. So why start now? Well, because Senator Cassidy is really on the ropes as he runs for reelection. You may remember him as one of the seven Republican senators who voted to convict Donald Trump after January 6th Congress. Good for him. I was a big Cassidy Stan in the wake of that because that meant he wanted to bar Trump from ever holding office again. Unfortunately, after Trump won his reelection in 2024, Cassidy has been now a force for sort of rubber stamping. A lot of Trump's worst impulses, not the least of which was giving Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The key vote he needed to become HHS secretary in which was a pretty obvious self serving tactic to try to get back on Mag. Good side, but it does not look like it's worked. Sadly for Cassidy, Republicans in Louisiana have a very long memory about his impeachment vote and he may finish third in this primary, getting locked out of the runoff in the back half of the show. We also have some surprising focus group audio about the Marco Rubio boom lit that we have been watching because we're seeing a lot of it in our focus group. So stay tuned. Russ going to test the waters the Don Jr presidential run that JVL talks about so much. My guest today is adopted Louisianan Tim Miller, host of the Bull Work podcast, my co host on the Next level, and my, you know, friend in all things. Tim Miller. What's up buddy?
- [03:06]
Tim Miller
What up, Sarah? Thank you for the invite. I was happy to do it. I love hearing the Louisiana accents, the best accents in the country. I will say for listeners like me
- [03:16]
Co-host/Producer
who find the focus group podcast a
- [03:18]
Tim Miller
torment at times, listening to the entire focus group unedited without Sarah's takes in the middle, just listening to all of it, being in the room with these people for hours at a time is a torture only Sartre could imagine.
- [03:37]
Co-host/Producer
It's brutal and I honor you in all things for continuing to do this.
- [03:43]
Sarah Longwell
You don't love it. You don't listen to them and still see. You don't find glimmers of hope. You don't find places where you humanity.
- [03:52]
Tim Miller
I'm closer to you than I am
- [03:53]
Co-host/Producer
to JVL on this question.
- [03:54]
Tim Miller
I love being on the people of being at a jazz festival, of talking to people. Here's what I don't really love. Hearing idiots tell me what they think
- [04:02]
Co-host/Producer
about politics for two or three hours at a time.
- [04:04]
Tim Miller
You know what I mean? I would love to listen to this group talk to me about their favorite gumbo recipe, what they think about Lane kiffin, anything, how their kids are doing, what their life aspirations are. Having to listen to their politics takes.
- [04:20]
Co-host/Producer
It's a specific torture and it's tough for me. But I did it for you and for those.
- [04:26]
Sarah Longwell
I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I will say, and this is my rejoinder to everyone who makes a similar point to you, that democracy is made up of these voters. I know this is what we're working with and I think it is essential as we navigate this moment to understand what it is we are dealing with in terms of people across the political spectrum. Quick housekeeping note. If you like this episode and you want to see us in person in California, go to the bullwork.com events. Tim, Sam Stein and I will be in San Diego on May 20 and LA on May 21. Come hang out with us. Okay, Tim, we're going to start with.
- [05:04]
Tim Miller
You know how I've started to do
- [05:05]
Co-host/Producer
that Now I have this tick.
- [05:06]
Tim Miller
I do. Okay, okay, okay to you. I have this tick. I've picked up your tick.
- [05:11]
Sarah Longwell
I know people in the office here do it too. It's one of the. It's just a Sarah ism that like gets contagious Sorry.
- [05:18]
Co-host/Producer
Okay, okay.
- [05:20]
Sarah Longwell
Since you are there in Louisiana and actually before I even get to Cassidy, just give us a quick primer on Louisiana politics now that you're down there. Like, what kind of state is it?
- [05:31]
Tim Miller
It's so interesting because the local politics is like very vibrant, you know, I mean, and it's a little less so now.
- [05:38]
Co-host/Producer
I think now the Democratic Party has become so weakened and eviscerated.
- [05:42]
Tim Miller
Like, but there was a period of
- [05:43]
Co-host/Producer
time where you had, I mean, John Kennedy was a Democrat. They talked about this in the, in the focus group, right.
- [05:48]
Tim Miller
Like where you had these conservative Democrats
- [05:50]
Co-host/Producer
and then you had kind of the
- [05:51]
Tim Miller
black Democratic faction and Creole and Cajun voters and you had the social conservatives. Then it's Louisiana. So you have a, like more so
- [05:59]
Co-host/Producer
than like Alabama or whatever.
- [06:01]
Tim Miller
You have people who are conservative impulse
- [06:04]
Co-host/Producer
voters but are also, you know, partiers and cussers and all that.
- [06:09]
Tim Miller
Right. You know, so it's, it's very, it
- [06:11]
Co-host/Producer
was, I think at one time very dynamic. And you know, I had a bunch of friends that worked for Buddy Roemer and various things who'd worked for races down here who tell stories of tales
- [06:19]
Tim Miller
of yore to JBL's newsletter recently from the Triad, like there's been an insidification
- [06:24]
Co-host/Producer
of Louisiana politics too.
- [06:26]
Tim Miller
It's just like Trump has overtaken everything.
- [06:28]
Co-host/Producer
The state has become so Republican. It's become like a one party state where it's like not that interesting really.
- [06:36]
Tim Miller
I remember going to, I went to
- [06:37]
Co-host/Producer
the Louisiana Republican convention a year or two ago just to kind of get a sense of what's happening on the
- [06:41]
Tim Miller
ground and people feel, there just was a lot of energy. People feel very kind of checked out. Like I do feel like it's kind of ripe for disruption in a way. It was interesting listening to the focus groups. You hear a lot of these people
- [06:52]
Co-host/Producer
that they don't really love any of
- [06:53]
Tim Miller
the candidates are kind of frustrated. I think at least that's kind of ripe for some kind of Louisiana ish Trump to give. John Kennedy wasn't so old.
- [07:02]
Co-host/Producer
Like maybe that could be him because
- [07:03]
Tim Miller
he's kind of distancing from Trump in ways. And so it probably wouldn't be something that like I would like in particular, whatever that person was would emerge. But I do think the state is
- [07:13]
Co-host/Producer
this kind of ripe for it.
- [07:14]
Tim Miller
And then here in New Orleans it
- [07:16]
Co-host/Producer
is much more dynamic politically. And like there's like very big like New Orleans versus the rest of the state, you know, type dynamic which you see in a lot of kind of Southern states. Where, you know, there's a lot of tension between city politics and state politics. And. Yeah, and for a while that was. There was a lot more comity there and I think now less so. Like, the current governor is very hostile to New Orleans. And. And so I think this is kind of new that I. That dynamic has become much more acute recently. So I'll kind of see how it plays out.
- [07:46]
Sarah Longwell
This is not what we talk about in this episode, but it's probably worth noting that one of the other things that has got me looking at Louisiana lately is that they're one of the states where the VRA that was just sort of gutted by the Supreme Court, they're like holding off on their primaries so that they can redistrict really fast and try to get.
- [08:04]
Co-host/Producer
They're nullifying votes.
- [08:05]
Tim Miller
42,000 people have voted. I could go vote right now as
- [08:07]
Co-host/Producer
we're taping this, and the House races would be on the ballot and they're going to cancel those votes and move on. We don't talk about this.
- [08:16]
Tim Miller
It's interesting.
- [08:16]
Co-host/Producer
One of the dynamics of Louisiana politics is, as I was just talking about all those factions,
- [08:23]
Tim Miller
part of what they're
- [08:24]
Co-host/Producer
doing and this attack on New Orleans is the second majority minority district that they had added. They drew around Baton Rouge. Big black population in Baton Rouge, too, in part because a lot of the MAGA Republicans here hated this guy Garrett Graves, who was in the Kevin McCarthy kind of wing of the party. And it was just a little too Rhino ish for everyone. And so they drew him out. And now what they're talking about in
- [08:50]
Tim Miller
this map is to keep that new
- [08:52]
Co-host/Producer
district that prompted the lawsuit around Baton Rouge kind of somewhat intact. And Nat representative was more moderate black congressmen and carve up New Orleans so that New Orleans doesn't really have a representative anymore. And I think that's part of the dynamic that's at play here.
- [09:10]
Sarah Longwell
So Cassidy, I want to. I want to set the stage because we're going to get to the voters, but it's. It's not going to be a surprise. Spoiler alert. The voters are down on Cassidy. Let's have a. You and I like a real accounting of our feelings about Cassidy, because both of us, I have some guilt around Cassidy in that I desperately wanted Republicans to vote for impeaching Trump. I wanted to protect all of the Republicans who took those votes. I thought that was really important to try to help people who took that sort of brave stand. The problem is the way not all of them, but some of them have sort of re engaged with Trump after his election. Like, they've basically all run in this direction of, like Cassidy has of trying to protect their own political careers from that vote by showing just how onside they are subsequently. And Cassidy's been particularly difficult for me to swallow because he's a doctor who knew exactly how dangerous RFK Jr. Was to medicine in this country, health in this country. And he took what I consider to be like one of the, one of the worst votes in the Senate. How much can we demand of these people? And like, should we, should we stick with someone like Cassidy and continue to support him because he took that brave vote? Or do we have to judge him? Should we judge him by the things he's done subsequently? How do you think about it?
- [10:33]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I'm going to free you. I'm going to give you a Louisiana Catholic penance here on this. And it's because the people that took a vote to convict Trump or to
- [10:44]
Co-host/Producer
impeach Trump in the House deserved defense and cover.
- [10:49]
Tim Miller
They did. It was a very challenging vote.
- [10:53]
Co-host/Producer
A brave vote, really. And there have been several of them that have since gone on to do things that annoy me, including Peter Meyer in the House, who's now like on CNN saying the most annoying things all the time.
- [11:04]
Tim Miller
And so, you know, it doesn't mean that you did one brave thing.
- [11:07]
Co-host/Producer
We get to shower you with praises forever in life.
- [11:11]
Tim Miller
You know, you have to continue to act with integrity. And I thought that Bill Cassidy did. I think I would have given a lot of leeway to somebody like Bill Cassidy to do various things to demonstrate that he still was a conservative, you know, but that this was a principled stand. Like, they're just limits to that leeway. And what Bill Cassidy has done, which
- [11:32]
Co-host/Producer
we're going to find out in these
- [11:33]
Tim Miller
focus groups, is I think really tank his credibility with everybody. It was a choice that he made. It wasn't a choice that he had to make. And I don't. Yeah, I think that it would have been very challenging going any route for
- [11:48]
Co-host/Producer
him to be reelected to the Senate.
- [11:49]
Tim Miller
There are greater things in life than being in the Senate your entire life. But had he wanted to try, I do think that there was a path
- [11:56]
Co-host/Producer
of running with integrity and trying to do like an Evan McMullen style thing or Dan Osborne, Right, where he could
- [12:02]
Tim Miller
have said he was going to be an independent or John Fetterman.
- [12:06]
Sarah Longwell
How about.
- [12:06]
Co-host/Producer
Fetterman is a decent example.
- [12:08]
Tim Miller
Fetterman votes with the Democrats 91% of
- [12:11]
Co-host/Producer
the time, but just on key things
- [12:12]
Tim Miller
doesn't and the Democrats don't like him and that's never going to change. Cassidy could have tried that approach, voted his conscience on conservative issues, said he was going to run for elect as an independent.
- [12:23]
Co-host/Producer
The Louisiana Democratic primary is it's maybe
- [12:27]
Tim Miller
the weakest recruitment field in any state
- [12:30]
Co-host/Producer
in the country and even Alabama, Mississippi have have decently credible candidates running this time.
- [12:35]
Tim Miller
We we don't are the people that are good, I've met them, they're nice people but it's just there's no juice. And so imagine had he decided to do that like let this MAGA primary play out. Run as a conservative independent. Follow up his integrity on RFK Jr.
- [12:50]
Co-host/Producer
He was a doctor, he was a vaccine advocate.
- [12:52]
Tim Miller
His wife is as well opposed rfk, opposed Trump when he does corrupt things but still support whatever conservative MAGA policies you wanted to vote for the stupid beautiful bill, whatever. Run as an independent. I think he probably still loses but I don't maybe not though. Who knows like how bad the economy gets. We'll see how things go in red states. That would have at least been a path.
- [13:14]
Co-host/Producer
I think they would have had an
- [13:15]
Tim Miller
equal chance of success, maybe slightly less
- [13:17]
Co-host/Producer
chance of success but more chance of being able to look yourself in mirror at night. And he didn't do that.
- [13:22]
Tim Miller
He chose to do this. And his ads are disgusting. I guess the one other thing before
- [13:25]
Co-host/Producer
we get to the focus groups and you hear this in the focus groups
- [13:28]
Tim Miller
like the ads here are just they're everywhere.
- [13:31]
Co-host/Producer
You can't get away from them. And it is just entirely Julia Letlow
- [13:35]
Tim Miller
is a moderate squish rhino and Bill Cassidy is the real maga. Bill Cassidy betrayed Trump and Julia Letlow is the real maga. That's the only thing the ads are about. It's just they're spending tens upon millions of dollars to do TV ads about how the other person is a RINO and how they love Trump the most. And so if you're going to run that kind of campaign, fuck him.
- [13:55]
Co-host/Producer
That's where I'm at.
- [13:56]
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- [14:24]
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- [14:56]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, I mean, this is, I guess this is where I am, which is you took that vote because you knew it was the right thing to do, which means you know all the rest of this, how wrong it is. And you can lose swinging. Like you can go down swinging and saying like, this stuff is wrong or you can lose the way he's losing now. Like, you've, you've actually done harm to the medical community that you, that like you swore an oath to, you have done harm to our, to America. And like you're going to get crushed and they hate you. Like, I don't know, I guess I, I can't quite find it in my heart to be sad for him because of the damage that he's done, but sometimes I feel guilty about that. I'll just. So I'll just name that. All right, let's listen to how the voters talk about Cassidy right now. Just to be clear, for, for this, for this episode, we did two groups of Louisiana Republicans who are voting in their May 16 primary. Let's start by listening to how they talk about Cassidy.
- [16:01]
Focus Group Participant 1
Bill Cassidy, outdated.
- [16:05]
Focus Group Participant 2
He's slimy in my opinion.
- [16:07]
Focus Group Participant 3
He reminds me a lot of a lot of the 80s politicians where he's very two faced, well, let's just say it that way. A lot of guys, and it's one face for the media and then it's another face for the public. That's one of the reasons why I'm kind of turned off a little bit
- [16:26]
Tim Miller
by him right now. Anybody trying to impeach my man Trump
- [16:29]
Co-host/Producer
doesn't have my boat.
- [16:31]
Focus Group Participant 4
I just don't feel that I can immediately just go vote for Bill Cassidy again. There's something holding me back to like investigate more of the other two people that are running. And I don't know if I necessarily call it slimy because like I'm saying, I haven't really paid attention to everything he's done.
- [16:53]
Focus Group Participant 5
I've worked with Cassidy and I was 100% behind him for every election for it all. But lately it started with the impeachment of Trump and a lot of other things where he changes his mind. He's just changing too much to, you know, if he believes in a certain thing and he doesn't believe exactly what Trump does, then it's okay. He's changing wishy washy because he wants to stay in the party. He's not. It's like he's not performing as in his beliefs. He's more performing to just keep the job. And I want somebody in that job that believes and wants to work for his beliefs, not anything else.
- [17:36]
Focus Group Participant 6
If you look at Bill Cassidy 10 years ago as opposed to today,
- [17:42]
Sarah Longwell
it's
- [17:42]
Focus Group Participant 6
like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
- [17:45]
Focus Group Participant 3
Like she said, he's slimy. He just seems to be very full of himself. Like he, you know, he's an expert. And whether it be, you know, political field, medical field, or whatever it may be, always seems like he's got the facts behind him, but rarely does he back himself up.
- [18:08]
Focus Group Participant 2
He was also very vocal during COVID about how, you know, the importance, like, wanting to mandate the vaccine, the isolation, things like that. So, I mean, I get he has, you know, a medical background, but he was just. He kind of followed Fauci's, you know, trust the science mantra. And I don't feel like he really had the best interest of the people. He had the best interest of his pockets at the time.
- [18:35]
Co-host/Producer
Okay, when you say best interest of
- [18:38]
Focus Group Participant 2
his pockets, he was getting paid. I mean, like, I don't know of a better way to put it. He got paid.
- [18:46]
Co-host/Producer
Paid by who?
- [18:47]
Focus Group Participant 2
Big pharma.
- [18:49]
Focus Group Participant 7
I've proudly been waiting six years to not vote for him for other reasons as well. He now says these positive things about Trump, and he is trying to ingratiate himself with Trump supporters, and there were just too many of us. I wrote him a letter after he did that and promised him that I'd be voting and told them a lot of people would be voting against him. And I think he thought six years we'd forget. We didn't forget.
- [19:21]
Sarah Longwell
So, Tim, do you feel what. How, like, how do you receive those clips? Is it a little bit of schadenfreude at Cassidy kind of seeing, like, you know, this is what you get for running into maga, or is it a like, man, you buck Trump in a place like, there's no room for bucking Trump, and that remains alarming. Like, tell me how you receive it.
- [19:42]
Co-host/Producer
Yeah, for sure there's some schadenfreude.
- [19:44]
Tim Miller
That last guy, me and him are going to agree very much on politics,
- [19:47]
Co-host/Producer
I wouldn't think, as he defines himself
- [19:49]
Tim Miller
as a loyal Trump supporter, but he was right. Like, show me the lie. And that's how I feel about these Cassidy ads. It's like, you literally voted to bar him from running again. And it's not as. It's one of these things where it's like, I don't know, you know, had you voted, you know, had you bucked
- [20:03]
Co-host/Producer
Trump on some big tax policy thing
- [20:05]
Tim Miller
or, you know, had you spoken out
- [20:07]
Co-host/Producer
against the corruption of his. Of his sons or something, and then you still ran for Senate and said you still think on balance he's good for the.
- [20:16]
Tim Miller
Okay, you can imagine a way to do that. Cassidy voted to bar him from ever running again. And now his ads are all like, we love you, Mr. Trump. You look so handsome. That's like, fuck you. It's fake. It's fake, and everybody can see it's fake. And so the MAGA guy's right. The thing that made me feel a little bit of sadness or whatever listening to all of it is just nobody's
- [20:41]
Co-host/Producer
even open to the idea that, like, what Donald Trump did on January six was meriting of some censor, you know? And, like, that is, to me, the. The most depressing part about all of
- [20:53]
Tim Miller
it, that people had a lot of
- [20:56]
Co-host/Producer
disagreements, a lot of takes, obviously, but
- [20:58]
Tim Miller
generally speaking on that, one lady had
- [20:59]
Co-host/Producer
the crazy theory about how gas is being paid by pharma companies.
- [21:03]
Tim Miller
But generally, there are people that follow
- [21:07]
Co-host/Producer
the news for the most part, and
- [21:08]
Tim Miller
there are a couple of examples, but there are people who seemed relatively smart, but just having misguided views, I think,
- [21:14]
Co-host/Producer
on AGA and foreign policy and other policy matters.
- [21:19]
Tim Miller
But they just. There's something about Trump, like, he has
- [21:22]
Co-host/Producer
that hold on them that they just can't even abide. Like, the idea that him trying to
- [21:31]
Tim Miller
overturn the election and sending a mob
- [21:33]
Co-host/Producer
to the Capitol that killed police officers is something that requires criticism. Like, forget impeachment, like, anything.
- [21:38]
Tim Miller
Like, there was just.
- [21:39]
Co-host/Producer
No, there's just no brokering of any critique of Trump on that. And that's just kind of the partisan, tribal brain poisoning that you see. And that part is sad.
- [21:48]
Sarah Longwell
Look, I think that one of the things that is. I don't know if sad's the right way to put it, but it is. It is a thing that we have to contend with, which is that as deeply unpopular as Trump is, like, as we tape this, he is hitting new lows all the time. We talked on the next level when we were taping yesterday about just how bad his polling is. Like, there's. And there's sections of, like, lots of Trump voters abandoning him. Certainly right. Leaning independents abandoning him, Hispanics, young people. It is this grip, though, that he holds on what is a minority of people very much in the country and perhaps half of the Republican Party. Because like you again last night we watched him in Indiana. He decided to seek retribution against the state Senate people who would not redraw the lines to gerrymander Indiana. So he set up a pac, spent tons of money against them for not doing it and he beat them like, and so this morning you've got reporters being like, see how you know how incredibly strong Trump is and whatever. And it's like, yeah, like he still does. He grips the party, he can hand, he can win just about any Republican primary that he wants to. And that's still the state of the Republican Party.
- [23:00]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And I guess this is kind of the point of the Bush line, so to speak. Like, and it's a little different.
- [23:05]
Co-host/Producer
That's why it kind of has to get a little lower than that. Because, because Bush was like dropping with Republicans at the same time, at the same rate he was dropping the independents and Democrats. And that isn't happening with Trump really. But that's the point about getting, is
- [23:17]
Tim Miller
like how can you get lower enough
- [23:18]
Co-host/Producer
where his hold is not great? Like there will be obviously people that are with him to the bitter end, but where that number starts to, to dissipate.
- [23:26]
Tim Miller
You see some evidence of that in the conversation that you tease, which we'll get to about like how the party should look in the future. There are a couple of lines that just caught my ear, maybe we can mention as we go along. So you know, there's like on the outer edges, like you can feel like a little bit of discontent in the groups, but like the fundamental question of
- [23:47]
Co-host/Producer
like Trump the man. Nada.
- [23:49]
Sarah Longwell
That's right. Okay, so there is not a lot of public polling in a race like a three way race in a Republican primary in Louisiana. But it does look possible that as I said before, Cassidy could finish third in this primary, which would trigger a runoff between Representative Julia Letlow, who is the person that Trump has endorsed, and the 74 year old state treasurer, John Fleming. So I'm going to go through how the voters talked about both these guys, starting with Fleming. Let's listen.
- [24:16]
Focus Group Participant 7
Abc, Anybody but Cassidy. I'd be fine with Let Low instead of Fleming. I plan to vote for Fleming, but I'd be fine with Let Low. I think he's a little bit more of a conservative than she is. I don't, I guess we don't really know how they are until they get into office, how strong they're going to be. But from what I'VE read of him. I also had an early impression of him from a couple of years back. I've been following him where I haven't been following Let lo.
- [24:48]
Focus Group Participant 6
I was at the doctor's office, the other document the other day, and there was a group of gentlemen that were sitting in the waiting room and they were talking about Fleming and they had one of them knew him from when he was younger and they were talking about how he's very steadfast and everything, but the fact was that his age was up there and they all concluded that the reason why he was running was that he felt that the state really needed him to at least get through one more term to find younger politicians.
- [25:31]
Focus Group Participant 1
John Fleming, where they say he, he wanted open borders. I was against that. So, I mean, you look at these candidates and it's like they don't vote for the people once they get in. Right now all they doing is telling you, oh, I'm going to take care of this, I'm going to take. Have they ever enacted a bill? I mean, it's like they got a free lunch. That's all I have to say. I look at Fleming, he doesn't look too promising. It's just that when we go to vote, we really don't have really good candidates anymore. It just seems like they all have some kind of skeleton in their closet. They took money from somebody inside, trading, had affairs, stole money. You just get sick of when they have an election because it's just all it is is just smear campaigns to me. I just wish we could get somebody different, totally different new ideas.
- [26:34]
Sarah Longwell
I'm going to play the let low sound next, unless you have something specific you want to talk about from that sound.
- [26:39]
Tim Miller
No, I just Flem. There's Fleming that doesn't have the money and Trump endorsed Let Low.
- [26:44]
Co-host/Producer
It does feel like that there was appetite and obviously there's appetite for a more true MAGA type candidate here that just didn't emerge for various reasons. But yeah, I mean, I think that
- [26:56]
Tim Miller
it was funny listening to everybody.
- [26:57]
Co-host/Producer
I thought maybe there was a path where Fleming sneaks through just because Cassidy and Latlo are crushing each other so much. But I don't know, I suspect the Trump endorsement probably prevents that from happening.
- [27:10]
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- [28:10]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, I mean, we'll play the lot less sound. But to me, what was interesting is we selected these groups because they said they were going to vote in the primaries, right? And so they are actually kind of plugged in in the sense that they're following politics. They're going to vote in a Republican primary. At the same time, they did not have a great sense of the candidates like they seem to. This is one of those where sometimes people are like, do ads make a difference? And I'm like listening to these voters. They're just repeating stuff they've seen about the candidates from the ads that they're getting bombarded with. And so the candidates themselves don't seem to have broken through in a way that has connected to these people. All right, let's listen to how they talked about Julia Letlow, the one that Trump endorsed.
- [28:51]
Focus Group Participant 8
I'm for let low for sure. I haven't really done, I don't really know a whole lot about Fletcher, but let low, I think, you know, I think she has more of a presence.
- [29:01]
Tim Miller
I've heard more.
- [29:03]
Focus Group Participant 8
Not, not in trying to dig information up. But you know, she comes up more so than, than Fleming has.
- [29:10]
Focus Group Participant 4
On my end, there's a commercial on where Trump is supporting her. But then I saw from one of the other candidates, maybe it was from, from Cassidy's camp, she had done some things that were very much on the socialistic side. I was thinking about why would Trump do this? She's pretty much a newbie, right? She got into politics because her husband passed away, that whatever. And then I thought no. And Trump, maybe he wants a weaker link there who would definitely be a true hundred percent follower and not question or not give any, any blowback at all. And if that's the case, then that's sort of a negative because I want someone who can be their own person, especially a woman. But only from literature that I read that came through direct mail that I see anything about her Liberal dealings and her liberal voting. So again, just because somebody prints it doesn't mean it's necessarily true.
- [30:34]
Focus Group Participant 9
I can't vote for Cassidy after he voted to impeach Trump. So then I'm left with Fleming and Letlo. And Letlo seems like the better option. I'd like that.
- [30:44]
Sarah Longwell
She's a woman.
- [30:45]
Focus Group Participant 9
I feel for her being a mother and a widow, and I think she's the middle ground of the race.
- [30:54]
Focus Group Participant 10
I feel like she's more left leaning and she's somewhat deceitful when she gives her speeches out to the public. But behind closed doors, I think she votes more liberal, more like DEI and other things and lb, G, whatever, all those kind of issues. I think she's more left leaning when it comes to those things. So she's not a solid Republican, as far as I can tell.
- [31:33]
Focus Group Participant 3
I do like Ms. Letlow.
- [31:35]
Co-host/Producer
I have a.
- [31:36]
Focus Group Participant 3
Some of the things she's focused on. I think for me personally, there's two issues in particular is crime and education. Trump might be looking at hers, you know, a possible candidate, simply because of that she might appeal to more woman voters.
- [31:55]
Sarah Longwell
Okay, I, I hear a bunch of things in here that I, that I find interesting. One of them is as I try to explain to people all the time who kind of want to pick apart how voters talk. And I'm like, guys, this is not linear. Like, this is. If you're looking for like a real linear through line, oftentimes you're not going to get one. And one of the obvious things is Cassidy is getting bombarded with hate because he went against the team. The rest of the criticism for some of these other guys is that they're, they don't think for themselves enough. They're like, they're. And to me, this is, this is classic when people are like, well, what do voters think? I'm like, guys, like, there's not a, it's not always a through line here.
- [32:33]
Tim Miller
They're not thinking that much. It's like, ah. And then they've got a lot of deep theories about what might be happening. Maybe it's the pharma company, maybe Trump has a hold on her. Maybe it's because he wants women voters.
- [32:46]
Co-host/Producer
That's just kind of like, guys, it's
- [32:48]
Tim Miller
not like, maybe try to read up on what's actually happening, but it's, you
- [32:54]
Co-host/Producer
know, it's easier to concoct theories. You get in this focus group, you
- [32:57]
Tim Miller
got to come up with something to say.
- [32:57]
Co-host/Producer
I don't know.
- [32:58]
Tim Miller
But the DEI or lgb, lbg, whatever
- [33:02]
Co-host/Producer
one stood out to me.
- [33:03]
Tim Miller
Some great accents, though. You know, it's not the Hee Haw
- [33:07]
Co-host/Producer
Southern accent in Louisiana.
- [33:08]
Tim Miller
That lady sing again. You know, you got the Cajun. A lot of, A lot of differentiation in the accents.
- [33:14]
Co-host/Producer
I like. No, they're not like Julia let my
- [33:16]
Tim Miller
really like, there's not a lot of excitement for. They really, they dislike Bill Cassidy and, and kind of what I said at
- [33:24]
Co-host/Producer
the top about like the incidentification and me going to that Republican event.
- [33:29]
Tim Miller
There's just not a lot of energy, like enthusiasm you don't see. There's not this deep bench of people. It's different. You kind of need.
- [33:37]
Co-host/Producer
This is where our old free market Republicanism comes in. You kind of need competition and creative destruction to get, you know, if you
- [33:43]
Tim Miller
look at like, where are the exciting Republicans coming from?
- [33:47]
Co-host/Producer
At least Republicans that they're excited about it.
- [33:48]
Tim Miller
It's states that are like, kind of red but like there's still some competition
- [33:52]
Co-host/Producer
there and that's not happening here. And so it's kind of dying out in a way. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, she's probably going to win, but there's no enthusiasm.
- [34:03]
Tim Miller
And the whole thing feel. They're right to think it feels like
- [34:05]
Co-host/Producer
a charade because it kind of is a charade.
- [34:07]
Tim Miller
Like, she's not a MAGA person, Fleming's not a MAGA person.
- [34:10]
Co-host/Producer
Trump has to endorse one of them.
- [34:12]
Tim Miller
They kind of want a MAGA person. And I think what they're trying to say when they want independence is they
- [34:16]
Co-host/Producer
like, is what John Kennedy does.
- [34:18]
Tim Miller
Like, they want somebody that's gonna like,
- [34:20]
Co-host/Producer
spout off when they, you know, disagree about something, but almost in a populist direction.
- [34:25]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah.
- [34:25]
Co-host/Producer
And like that's sort of what they're looking for. And there's none of these options are given it to them.
- [34:30]
Sarah Longwell
Not to take us in a whole crazy direction, but I've been, I've been spending a lot of time with Democratic focus groups lately too, and watching how they are shifting in ways that feel in some ways. I don't know how. How to say this except for the same but different familiar. It feels familiar. That's right. Feels. It's an echo of what we saw during the transformation of Trump, which is basically the sense of Trump is not far right people describe him as far right people. Trump is. And that's because he's fascist. He's fascistic. But he doesn't exist on this left to right spectrum in quite the same way. And so people who are having an argument over on the Dem side About whether they should be more moderate or more progressive, sort of misunderstand what's happening with the voters. And another way to talk about it is sort of establishment versus insurgent. But the insurgent doesn't need to be progressive. The insurgent could be sort of whatever on policy side, as long as it looked like they were going to show up and fight like crazy. Right. Because this is the, the appetite that you can feel. And this is like what it is for these voters too. They don't want normal politicians. Like, the best they'll get is the Trump endorsement because at least Trump is the non regular politician picking somebody. But like it does feel as though if somebody came in as an independent and ran a super populist working class campaign that never mentioned dei, never mentioned lgb, whatever, like they could get really far in a place like Louisiana. Like that's the shift in the politics. Is this like anti elitist, anti people controlling things? I mean, you hear this is everywhere. And it's not just conspiracies. It's just like the grammar of hidden knowledge is what I call it in the book with this idea that there's like cabals out there, people pulling the strings. There's something they're not telling us that is replete. It's like money and politics. How do, are you shifting anything that you think about? Just how we talk about politics or how we think about the political coalitions?
- [36:39]
Tim Miller
I'm going to answer that question. But there's a specific example.
- [36:41]
Co-host/Producer
There's a gal named Liz who has a great, we call a New Orleans. Yeah. Accent. And she's saying, I won't try to
- [36:48]
Tim Miller
imitate it, but she goes, is crime better? Is education better?
- [36:52]
Co-host/Producer
Is the economy better now? And we don't pay our TSA workers.
- [36:57]
Tim Miller
I don't think they care about the people.
- [36:58]
Co-host/Producer
I have to vote Republican, but they don't vote for the people.
- [37:01]
Tim Miller
And I think that that really kind
- [37:03]
Co-host/Producer
of encapsulated it for me.
- [37:04]
Tim Miller
Like that woman was there was among the people in the focus group we
- [37:07]
Co-host/Producer
were watching, like, felt like she was following news the most. And I think she ended up saying she'd be for let low.
- [37:12]
Tim Miller
But like that there were head nods.
- [37:16]
Co-host/Producer
Like, that idea, I think is out there on, on both sides. Right.
- [37:20]
Tim Miller
Like now what they want, you know,
- [37:22]
Co-host/Producer
what that woman Liz would want is probably very different from what somebody in like a Michigan Democratic focus group. They could say the same sentence basically, but want largely different, you know, policies and candidates.
- [37:34]
Tim Miller
But that is out there.
- [37:36]
Co-host/Producer
I think that it's ripe for the taking.
- [37:39]
Tim Miller
And I don't, I don't know, I just. There's something about maybe the Internet age where things spread so quickly, like conventional wisdom becomes. Everyone accepts the conventional wisdom so quickly that you end up getting people that sound a lot the same, you know, on both sides, or maybe a couple
- [38:01]
Co-host/Producer
different types of the same. You know, like you have the populist guy and the establishment person on both sides and then that's it. They're like four different brands and people
- [38:09]
Tim Miller
want something that changes it up and mixes it up. And I do think, I don't know, I don't actually know what the answer is, but the more I listen to
- [38:17]
Co-host/Producer
stuff like this, the more I'm like,
- [38:20]
Tim Miller
you know, I do think that someone
- [38:23]
Co-host/Producer
could in this moment or soon reorient the coalitions in a way that people don't expect.
- [38:30]
Tim Miller
And that could backfire too. But I think that it's possible with
- [38:36]
Co-host/Producer
the right type of, you know, populist or populist adjacent type of messaging.
- [38:40]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, I mean, I'm trying not to talk about my book too much because really I'm trying to dial it back. I'm trying to dial it back, okay, because nobody, it's. I could keep talking about it, but people can't actually read it. And so this is like an annoying little juncture here where it's not out there. But like, I know what I said in it and like the thesis is kind of this is that there is a world for a political. This is why it's like people are like, Sarah's a centrist or you know what? I'm like, this is not the politics. Yeah, but, but this is not the politics of Sarah Longwell. Like, it's just not my. It is the politics of the people that I have listened to. And what is so clear to me is like people are pitchfork at the ready on the right and the left against elites, against people they think are controlling these. But what they want is that they're kind of filling in the gaps with that. What they want is for everyone to focus on their material well being and the opportunities to get there, which is education, which is the jobs, it's the economy, it's how do I afford, how do I make the trade off choice between child care and having a job. It's how do I afford health care in an environment where health care is becoming increasingly unaffordable. Like, that's what people talk about and think about. And so when they get mad about the ballroom or when they get mad about lgbt, whatever, most of that is just like a. Why are you talking about that? I don't care about that. It's not even that they're hostile. Like the number of Democrats in the focus groups who are like, I, I'm cool with trans people. Trans great. I don't care. They're grown ups. Let them do whatever. But can we stop talking about it? Because it doesn't do anything to lower the rent prices of me and my friends. Or like the job opportunities are like, what are we going to do about AI? Even the Gerontocracy. Right. The down with the gerontocracy feeling is related to that too. It's like, be strong enough and vibrant enough and, and young enough that you understand this new world we're living in and the technology that's advancing and the way that it's impacting the economy that affects me. And so like there is a whole world for the taking there. In my opinion, if somebody would just do like, I'm going to focus entirely on people's material well being. Like that almost doesn't matter about what the precise solutions are. While saying we wanted a closed border, but some plan to allow immigrants to come here the right way. And like, don't talk about the dei, lgbt, lgb, whatever. Like, doesn't mean that you don't have it. Just like it shouldn't be what you lead with because the vast majority of people don't. Like, they'll fight about it if you throw it as chum in the water, but that's not what matters to their lives.
- [41:17]
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- [41:47]
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- [42:16]
Sarah Longwell
lost an average of 12 pounds. This has been bubbling up. I wrote a piece for the Atlantic. Usually I write pieces for the Internet just to make JBL mad about this, about the fact that I am hearing in groups pretty regularly a lot of praise for Marco Rubio. Now I can't tell quite if that is because people hate J.D. vance as an alternative, if it's because Marco seems like the one grown up in this idiotic administration. I think it kind of has to do with that meme where Marco ends up with every job because he's the one person they give stuff to. He's the only one who knows how to do anything. So I've got a mash up here of the Vance Rubio sentiments we've heard.
- [42:50]
Tim Miller
Before we get to it, can I just say my shout out my mother?
- [42:53]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, why not?
- [42:54]
Co-host/Producer
I was on the phone with my mother last night.
- [42:56]
Tim Miller
She was listening to the Next Level
- [42:57]
Co-host/Producer
this week and she had written down notes.
- [43:00]
Sarah Longwell
I'm so embarrassed. She listened to that, to us do all that Bushline dick line stuff.
- [43:05]
Co-host/Producer
It is, I, it's kind of weird. I try not to.
- [43:07]
Sarah Longwell
Sorry, Mrs. Miller.
- [43:08]
Co-host/Producer
I know, I know. She, she's not, not a cusser or
- [43:11]
Tim Miller
a sex talk person.
- [43:11]
Co-host/Producer
So I'm, I'm grateful that she's listening.
- [43:13]
Tim Miller
But she said I was very, I
- [43:15]
Co-host/Producer
was too positive about J.D. vance's prospects and too negative about Marco's. And she was like, with my friends, she just like, I need to tell them that it's like people are ready, are moving to Marco.
- [43:27]
Tim Miller
And so she tells me that last night.
- [43:28]
Co-host/Producer
Then I listen. Then I listened to these focus groups this morning. So anyway, shout out to my mother for her political analysis.
- [43:35]
Sarah Longwell
Let's listen to the clips. I think it's amazing that Marco Rubio, he's bilingual. I think that's neat to have someone with that ability.
- [43:41]
Tim Miller
Okay.
- [43:42]
Focus Group Participant 4
He comes across like he, he knows what he's talking about and he seems confident. I would definitely vote for him over J.D. vance. He's a good vice president. I just don't know that I, he definitely wouldn't be as strong a leader as Trump is.
- [44:04]
Focus Group Participant 11
I wouldn't put all my eggs in Vance's basket. So of course I don't want to hear Rubio has to say, I know J.D.
- [44:09]
Focus Group Participant 2
vance has experience, but I find that Marco Rubio is just very polished and poised. He's very quick witted, so he, he's able to react quickly, but I don't feel like he reacts with any kind of like. I feel like his reactions are very well gauged for the situation. Marco Rubio has just done a phenomenal
- [44:31]
Focus Group Participant 7
job
- [44:34]
Focus Group Participant 2
with like all of the, I feel like he's going to every hostile country lately and negotiated peace treaties and tried to just make people be friends almost, but, or at least just be civil to each other. So I feel like he's done a really, really good job with that as vice president.
- [44:54]
Focus Group Participant 1
He really is just a spare when he's needed. You don't see him doing as much as Marco Rubio. So that's why a lot of attention isn't on him. If there's a vote breaker, he goes in, he may travel, he may do speeches. But I just see Marco Rubio as a person that as far as he's more level headed and can speak to somebody without really putting them down. J.D. vance, I like him, but sometimes he appears too aggressive when he talks.
- [45:37]
Focus Group Participant 3
I think he's also going to be a great candidate, you know, not only because he's Latino, which I think he'll go much further towards maybe mending a lot of fences, I guess, you know, because of, you know, you have the immigration policies and then just a lot of the policies that have taken place in the last couple years as far as, you know, the big cities with the immigrants. I think he'll, he'll mend a lot of fences that way.
- [46:06]
Focus Group Participant 9
J.D. vance is going to have the same problem that Kamala Harris had right now. People are kind of struggling with the economy, the cost of living, stuff like that. And I think that maybe a failure to distinguish that if it continues all the way into 2028, he's going to lose because people want change. And then, and then Marco Rubio, he doesn't really stand out as a person.
- [46:30]
Focus Group Participant 12
I just think America's blessed to have either one. So I'm not, that's kind of a toss up and no telling what issues could come up or changes in the next couple years. But it's just all pros and no cons for both of them. For me, I'm just amazed at the quality of people that are attracted to work for Trump. I think the key, they both represent the great American story from their backgrounds, where they came from as young people and how they built themselves up in to this. It's just, it shows you the quality of the bench of the Republican Party. So I don't think you can lose
- [47:07]
Focus Group Participant 10
with either one like Vance. But I think Marco Rubio has a stronger character and I think more people would probably, more Republicans would definitely vote for him than for Vance, maybe him. As for running as president and Vance as vice president again.
- [47:33]
Sarah Longwell
So to be clear, plenty of Republicans we talk to still, like J.D. vance, vine. Like, there's a lot of people just see him as like heir apparent. Like, that's in there. But Rubio's entire brand has become sort of like toughness and competency, while Vance is like mini Trump kind of angry.
- [47:49]
Tim Miller
I don't. This is the part that's enough to
- [47:53]
Co-host/Producer
make you start cutting.
- [47:55]
Tim Miller
They like Marco because he's bilingual, because he's going to mend fence with Latinos, because he's calm, because he's level headed, because he's strong character. They think J.D. is too aggressive. It's like all of you voted for Trump three times. Trump has terrible character. He's not calm, he's not level headed. He doesn't want to mend fences. He can barely speak one language.
- [48:21]
Co-host/Producer
What?
- [48:22]
Tim Miller
What? And so, like, this is where it's
- [48:25]
Co-host/Producer
just like, we know nothing.
- [48:26]
Tim Miller
Nobody knows anything. We can pretend to know, we can think. But, like, the power of rationalization is so strong. And I think that just a lot of this is like people backfill, like they decide they like somebody for whatever
- [48:38]
Co-host/Producer
reason and then they backfill reasons.
- [48:40]
Tim Miller
Right. And so it's like, I like Trump and I like him because he's gruff and he says what he thinks and because he's whatever and, And I like Marco, and it's because he's calm and he's. And he's level headed and it's, you know, and so, I don't know, it'll
- [48:57]
Co-host/Producer
make you pull your hair out.
- [48:58]
Tim Miller
But that's the part that it's like, okay, well, that rationale for Marco cuts
- [49:05]
Co-host/Producer
against what you're saying earlier.
- [49:06]
Tim Miller
If people, you know, maybe, maybe Republican voters at some level get, you know, not that they want to go back
- [49:13]
Co-host/Producer
to the old Republican Party, don't get me wrong.
- [49:14]
Tim Miller
But maybe they've gotten enough of a
- [49:16]
Co-host/Producer
fill over 12 years with Trump as
- [49:21]
Tim Miller
the outsider that they're like, as long as it's a Trump person, maybe we
- [49:25]
Co-host/Producer
could use something that's a little bit more whatever, you know, calm, a little bit less crazy.
- [49:33]
Tim Miller
I'm just throwing out a theory, you know, that that's possible and that's a rationale for kind of an establishment handover.
- [49:39]
Co-host/Producer
A magna establishment. Yeah, handover.
- [49:43]
Tim Miller
Not like a populist uprising. And maybe that's where the right is headed and, and, you know, less interest
- [49:50]
Co-host/Producer
in some populist replacement like Tucker Carlson. I don't, I don't know.
- [49:53]
Tim Miller
I just think that's something to continue to monitor. I think that overanalyzing this stuff maybe
- [49:58]
Co-host/Producer
can be a little bit. Because like I said, I think that a lot of them are just like,
- [50:00]
Tim Miller
they like Marco right now.
- [50:01]
Co-host/Producer
He seems like he's doing a good job and now they're just kind of telling us why.
- [50:04]
Sarah Longwell
That's right. And I, so I don't, I do not want to over like read into this. Exactly. I guess the reason I'm so fascinated by it is for two reasons. One is I actually think people liking Rubio has, even though some of these people are like, what an embarrassment of riches, these men, you know, these great people that Trump has around him. But I think for a lot of people, it's just them souring on JD and they're like, the other one sort of in the offing is Rubio. The other thing that I think is interesting just to track is that as we watch the Tucker Marjorie Taylor Greene America First Wing sort of break with Trump and become a thing of its own. And then versus the MAGA establishment, you can see a world where J.D. vance, in an attempt to try to be over both of those and sort of bring them together, actually ends up in the sour spot. And it's sort of a MAGA establishment versus America first head to head. And J.D. vance, like, there's no place for him. So it's just an interesting thing to watch. It's just possible other things. Okay, well, you know, this is why I listen to voters. They often know where things are going a little bit more than a lot
- [51:20]
Tim Miller
of Trump voting friends.
- [51:21]
Sarah Longwell
Yep, that's right. Okay, so JBL has been talking about Don Jr. As like the obvious replacement. And I push back on this all the time because I just don't see it. Also, it never comes up. Like, I've never heard a voter be like, you know who I'm really got my eye on?
- [51:40]
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- [51:58]
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- [52:08]
Sarah Longwell
of Weight Watchers program lost an average of £12.
- [52:10]
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- [52:40]
Sarah Longwell
But since JBL and I've been arguing about it, I've started asking it specifically in the groups what people think of the idea of Don junior Running. And so this is those two groups of Louisiana Republicans. We talked about it with both of them. Let's hear what they had to say
- [52:52]
Focus Group Participant 8
about Don Jr. We don't really know a whole lot about him politically. You know what I mean? Just be like based on that Trump son, depending on what our other options would be, you know, I wouldn't be against it.
- [53:11]
Sarah Longwell
You know, hard pass on him.
- [53:16]
Focus Group Participant 2
You didn't really hear much of his name before Trump became president, even as a business person. I mean, I know he's had his own personal successes, but most of them had been because of who his father is. You hear more about his struggles with drug addiction and you know, his downfalls than you do any positive. I think he's a really good public speaker, but I also, I don't feel like he really has the knowledge behind him to lead our country and do what would need to be done.
- [53:46]
Focus Group Participant 9
I feel like not in 28, maybe
- [53:48]
Focus Group Participant 6
down the road, but yeah, most definitely
- [53:50]
Focus Group Participant 8
farther down the road.
- [53:51]
Focus Group Participant 3
I think if you give Junior, I will call him Junior. If you give him another 10, 15 years with the right experience and, you know, following his father's example, I think he'll be a good candidate. I really do. You go back, look at the Kennedys, look at the Bushes and all the, the issues we've had with both of those families over the years. And we've had some, some pretty good politicians or leaders come out of that. So give him a fair shake and I think he'll be all right.
- [54:25]
Focus Group Participant 7
You know, I think maybe Eric Trump, I think he's sharp. But I agree not in 28. Not in 28.
- [54:36]
Focus Group Participant 11
At the end of the day, he still to get elected. But I don't know, like, what are his qualifications? Like, is it just because his daddy was president? Like, sadly now, like he, I mean, of course Donald Trump didn't have many either, but yeah. So I guess I'm just a little skeptical.
- [54:51]
Focus Group Participant 4
Rather than Don Jr. I think Jared Kushner has more experience and is getting more experience these days. And I'd prefer to vote for him than Trump just because of the Trump name, because he's the son of Donald Trump, as far as that goes.
- [55:09]
Sarah Longwell
So, Tim, your thesis on Don Jr. Was that he comes across as the idiot kid. How do you think these clips jive with that particular analysis?
- [55:17]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I think that.
- [55:18]
Co-host/Producer
Look, my one caveat to this is
- [55:21]
Tim Miller
we're not in a campaign. And if we ended up in a campaign and the chips fell, where for whatever reason,
- [55:32]
Co-host/Producer
there was not a compelling case being made to these voters by the other Republicans, and Don Jr. Decided to run, and his dad got fully
- [55:39]
Tim Miller
behind him, and who knows? This is crazy.
- [55:44]
Co-host/Producer
Our country's crazy. The Republican Party is crazy.
- [55:47]
Tim Miller
You could imagine a bandwagon effect occurring. It's not a zero percent chance, but the weakness of the case is just laid out there. And you know, the woman who made
- [55:58]
Co-host/Producer
the casual point, well, Donald Trump didn't have any qualifications either.
- [56:01]
Tim Miller
It was the one woman who's, like,
- [56:02]
Co-host/Producer
the most hostile to Trump in the whole. In both focus groups, like, she was the closest person to contributing to the Bush line, and she just felt like things were going poorly.
- [56:10]
Tim Miller
And everybody else, though, I think that they think that Trump was very successful businessman, and that was exactly what we needed for the country. Right. And so, like, they don't see Trump
- [56:21]
Co-host/Producer
like we see Trump.
- [56:22]
Sarah Longwell
That's right.
- [56:22]
Tim Miller
So, you know what I mean? I think that that's like the weakness of the JVL case is that I think that JVL sees Trump Jr. As he sees Trump. And so it's like, why not?
- [56:31]
Co-host/Producer
They're both clowns. They both had to use daddy's money. Like, they both appealed to the MAGA Volk. Maybe you could do it. And there's not nothing to that.
- [56:42]
Tim Miller
But I think that, like, the. The problem is a lot of the voters and MAGA voters look at them
- [56:47]
Co-host/Producer
and see very different things. They see the dad as somebody who is very successful on his own and the son who's whatever, you know, kind of a little bit clownish.
- [56:56]
Tim Miller
And so, you know, I think you
- [56:59]
Co-host/Producer
saw that in that group, and you start to see.
- [57:02]
Tim Miller
I wouldn't see a little bit. I wouldn't see fatigue. There's not really Trump fatigue, but it's subtle. But you do hear the not in 28.
- [57:12]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. You know, it's like a Trump break. We could just. Little break here.
- [57:16]
Co-host/Producer
Yeah.
- [57:17]
Sarah Longwell
See what else happens.
- [57:18]
Tim Miller
Let's give somebody else a truck. You know, if we put up some stiff and the Democrats beat them, maybe we're gonna have to go back to the Trump family and 32.
- [57:28]
Co-host/Producer
So I know that now everybody's breaking out in hives.
- [57:30]
Tim Miller
But like, you could in that, just using that group as an example, you
- [57:33]
Co-host/Producer
can kind of hear that.
- [57:35]
Tim Miller
Like you could imagine that world, right,
- [57:37]
Co-host/Producer
where the Democrats win a blowout in
- [57:39]
Tim Miller
2028 over somebody and it's like maybe
- [57:41]
Co-host/Producer
we do need to turn back to the, to Trump. He was the one that could win. I don't think that's crazy to think about, but I think it's a tough row to hoe for him in 28.
- [57:51]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, I do love just the casual, like after all the hostility to dynastic politics that we saw, like, you know, political dynasties were good. Actually, we just got rfk.
- [58:04]
Tim Miller
The Kennedys were great. You know, we had a period. We had a period of bad ones. But then we came around. We got this great one with the
- [58:10]
Co-host/Producer
brain worm in his head.
- [58:14]
Sarah Longwell
All right, Tim Miller, thank you so much for coming on the show. It was great to talk to you and thanks to all of you for listening to another episode of the focus group podcast. We'll be back next week, but in the meantime, remember to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe to The Bulwark on YouTube and become a Bulwark plus member at the Bulwark.com come to our live shows. We'll do all the things. Come see us next week. Bye, guys.
- [58:34]
Co-host/Producer
Bye.
- [58:35]
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- [59:05]
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