Sam Stein (2:49)

First. First of all, he got it. He got the call wrong last time, which, by the way, lots of people. It's difficult to predict the future end elections. It was tough, technically.

Sarah Longwell (3:00)

Actually, the keys might have been right, but he just misapplied them. He didn't know how to turn them. One of the keys was like, which candidate has more charisma? And he was like, kamala gets that key. And I was like, she had more charisma for me personally, but maybe it turned out for the population. No. So the keys might have been right, but Allen might have been wrong. So something to think about.

Sam Stein (3:22)

So you think he's been fine tuning the keys and now he is. He has an announcement. There's nothing to do with the keys right now.

Sarah Longwell (3:27)

I don't know.

Sam Stein (3:27)

Are supposed to not get this guy for another two and a half years.

Josh Barro (3:31)

I'm looking at his Twitter feed right now, and I just want to be clear. He's. It's not that this is him, like, resurfacing after a period of dormancy. He. He's been going live randomly, and we just.

Sarah Longwell (3:42)

Well, it's just the first I've seen it. All right, well, I don't know. Maybe he's going to have his bones and chicken entrails out, and we'll see what's happening.

Josh Barro (3:48)

He's got some interesting thumbnails, but it's mostly him just doing this.

Sarah Longwell (3:55)

Sam, it's delightful to be with you instead of JBL today, but we're going to start with. We're going to start with Sarah.

Sam Stein (4:01)

I told you, I told Sam before in the green room, I was like, are you ready to be, like, super negative for this? Because somebody's got to sit in for jbl. And he told me he couldn't do it even for the show.

Sarah Longwell (4:13)

Okay, great. I'll be the negative person then. I'll. I'll play that role for today's podcast.

Sam Stein (4:19)

No, not negative. Nihilistic.

Sarah Longwell (4:21)

Nihilistic. All right, sure. State of play. I want. I want to hear what we all think about Trump's political situation right now. Because I was being unjvl. You know, I was in California. Sun is shining. Prices of everything are very high. And I'm thinking to myself, boy, I'm happy because the wind is in my face. And if the prices are this high everywhere, like, people are not going to Vote for Donald Trump. And so that's also makes me happy. And so like I was starting to get a little amped and then, you know, I woke up this morning and I was like, maybe I was getting a little high on my own supply out there in California. And I talked to Josh Barrow this morning and he was, he was like, I don't know if we're actually going to be in a recession here. It's like, feels like just a slow economy. And, and a lot of the commenters really didn't like Chuck Todd's take yesterday that the economy was why Trump won. And they were like, you know, maybe it's to the racism. And I don't know, I'm starting to think maybe I was getting a little too amped. And so I'm curious. Sarah, I'd like to start with you. I mean I know that you're still doing focus groups even though it's summer vacation. What, what's the, what's the mood out there among the people?

Sam Stein (5:26)

It's not great. And it is all cost related. People do think things are too expensive and they also feel like, so we, we were asking people, you know, we always do. There's just the opener. How do you think things are going in the country? And the number one word that people kept using was, was either wasn't keys. It was uncertain, which is a thing. The keys also are uncertain. So people, there were two main complaints. The how high prices were and the job market people. And, and I will say we have been hearing about prices. I'm sorry, people were mad about Chuck Todd saying that prices in the economy were a big part of why Joe Biden lost. They are 100% a big part of why Joe Biden lost. Not 100% of why he lost, but they are 100% a major component of why he lost. Hear that distinction.

Sarah Longwell (6:21)

The percentage thing is getting very complicated these days. Trump said we are going to cut prescription drug prices 1200%. That math, that's good.

Sam Stein (6:29)

The pharmaceutical companies are going to pay us to take the drugs.

Sarah Longwell (6:31)

Okay, that's amazing. Okay, so it is part of the reason.

Sam Stein (6:34)

Yeah, it's a, it's a main part of the reason. And JBL and I had this fight a lot and I don't even feel a little bit, I feel completely vindicated on the prices thing. It's all, it's all what people were.

Sarah Longwell (6:44)

Talking when he's not here to challenge it. We'll just give it, we'll just give it to you.

Sam Stein (6:48)

Yeah, thanks. But the job market was interesting. That is new. It's coming from a lot of young people. And you know, I do wonder both the BLS numbers getting the jobs revisions way, way down and showing that we're in a slowed economy. There's. There's two reasons. One is I think the uncertainty and the hiring are related. Right. Businesses don't want to hire in an environment where they don't know what things are going to cost, whether it's because of the tariffs or, you know, Trump is tacoing left and right. And so that uncertainty is just a real problem. The other thing is that I do think we're going to start to see the impact of AI not so much in firings, but in new hires. So I think you're going to start to see first that college educated entry level jobs, a lot of which are research or compiling things, you know, those like first jobs, those are going away.

Sarah Longwell (7:48)

Because Thompson's been writing about this a bunch. Have you been on his substack or. I haven't mind melding. Yeah.

Sam Stein (7:54)

It actually comes more from what I have seen from or listening to the voters. Just these young. It's like 24 year olds talking about how they're like the job market sucks and it's really definitive. And so if you recall, in Joe Biden's economy, we still had lots of job growth, very low unemployment, but we had high inflation. And I think those costs did him in or and really impacted people's perception overall of that administration. So anyway, I think that things are negative there. We also had to bring up Epstein, but when we did, there was deep frustration over just the lack of transparency. Like the expectation of Trump is that he was going to be a more transparent president. People say outright he's not supposed to be like a regular politician, he's supposed to be one of us. And so we expect more transparency. So like it's not that they're like Trump's a pedophile, they're just very. What is going on? And so there is confusion about Epstein and then there's unhappiness with the economy.

Sarah Longwell (8:53)

And so these groups are we're talking about Biden, Trump voters or.

Sam Stein (8:58)

Yeah, so these are Biden to Trump voters. Although I will say these are people who are dissatisfied generally with Trump. And so we've been trying to understand kind of in the doldrums here for people who are dissatisfied with their vote for Trump, why. And it's almost 100% the economy. Now I will say if I'll give Trump one thing, one positive thing that he has been able to do is whether it is Sydney Sweeney or the BLS numbers, he's been able to. And him going on offense on Obama, he has been able to change the vibes around Epstein for his people. Like, there is less chatter coming from them, less pushing coming from them about releasing the Epstein files than there was. And so he is. Nobody changes the conversation better than Donald Trump.

Sarah Longwell (9:47)

Sam, this is, I wonder, another kind of thing I noticed my travels. I'm trying to kind of get a sense for how people that are not obsessive sickos like us think about all this stuff. And, you know, like, on the one hand, a lot of the signs are bad. Like, the economic signs are bad. Even the stock market's good. A lot of the other economic signs are bad. Epstein stuff's bad. The news environment's bad. That people yelling at Mike Flood, like, doesn't feel bad, feels bad for Trump. On the other hand, like, you know, I don't know, it does feel like the, like outside of our bubble, you know, when I'm. I'm talking to people that are not, you know, really engaged, really engaged in kind of anti Trump whatever media or advocacy, like, I don't know, things seem kind of like, whatever. Like, this is fucking crazy what's happening over here. Like, this is like, it's crazy. Like, it does seem wild again. Like we're back in the old days, like, always some crazy happening. But, like, you know, it doesn't really feel like people are like, turning on him. To me, I don't know.

Josh Barro (10:49)

I don't know. Why do you say that? Is it just because there's not. Like, I just.

Sarah Longwell (10:54)

I felt like in April, I guess this is all anecdotal. I don't trust polls right now. I just think that they're very noisy. I think his numbers are directly going down, which is good. But I just, you know, we all have people in our lives who are like, you know, whatever flippers, as Sarah would put them. You know, people that are kind of soft Trump or whatever. And I just, when I check, like in April, like around Liberation Day or whatever the fuck he called it, like when people's. When the market was tanking, I was starting to hear from people that are like, oh, fuck, like, what did I get myself into? And I do think that he has managed to kind of zoom himself out of that space. And, like, the Epstein thing isn't. Is not good for him. But I don't know. I guess you think his political situation is pretty bad, or how would you assess it?

Josh Barro (11:37)

I don't know. I mean, I, I understand what you're saying. Maybe I can try to resummarize it in my wording, which is like, we've become so accustomed to him at this point, he's been such a fixture for us for so long now, that this crazy that's happening on the regular is now just a feature. And, and we've become sort of like, oh yeah, like if you kind of step back and you think about all this stuff, like it's so crazy, some of it. Like even the Epstein thing, if you're like, wait a second, he's like hiding files of him potentially being buddy buddy, like sex trafficker, pedophile. Like that's crazy, right? Like, so, you know, so there is something to it where it's like people are just kind of resigned to this being what it is, even though they shouldn't be. And I guess that's the Overton window shifting. On the flip side though, it's like, I don't know, I mean, I, I'm not totally sure that the anger is less or that the protest of him is like less fervent. I mean, that Mike Flood town hall might have been just a bunch of like high end liberals who decided to show up in Lincoln, Nebraska for an evening, but they showed up right, like in the. And Mike Flood's supporters didn't. They had the option of going. They didn't get there. I, I drive by in Rockville, Maryland, like, this is again, bubble, bubble, whatever, but like on, on the way to kids activity, I drive by Tesla Station all the time. And Elon hasn't been part of the administration for months. And yet every Saturday there's people out there with Elon signs. And it's like, I was like, you got you guys, he's not around anymore. You don't need to do this. But they, you know, honk if you hate fascism and, you know, you honk, right? So it's like, are you honking? No, I like fascism. So the, the thing is like, there is like clear anger. And you know, I think the other thing is like, you look at the polls and they're not great for Trump, but they're probably about where he was, you know, in his first term. And that wasn't great either. So who knows what that means, right? But everyone's like, well, you know, the Democrat brand is so shitty too. Like, maybe that's problem. It's like Democrats hate Democrats. They just, but they're super energized right now to get rid of this guy. And what does that mean in a year and two months? I don't know, but I. I don't think his situation is particularly great. I'm actually. I've actually marveled at how he's managed to hold his coalition together even when all this shit is hitting the fan. I mean, I remember 2010 or 2009 and these protests in the town halls over Obamacare, and, like, the party was flipping out. Like they were flipping out and trying as far as hard as they could to get some distance with Obama. And you don't see any of that right now among Republicans. Trump's real strength, I suppose, is that he's just. He's really perfected the idea of being the party boss, and he keeps people in line.

Sarah Longwell (14:31)

Yeah, I talked to Chuck about that a little bit. I don't know if you have any thoughts on this area, but, like, I was asking him, I guess that really is the sign that Trump's in real political trouble is as if people, as if Republicans start feeling like it's okay to start to, you know, give, give, do, do a little bit of distancing for him. What you're not, what you're not saying at all. Because that means that they're starting to make a determination. Like, my political survivability, like, requires me being distant from him. And, and right now they're all making the calculation that. That my political survivability requires me, you know, being attached at the hip to him. Right.

Josh Barro (15:06)

And so primary season first.

Sarah Longwell (15:07)

Yeah. Right. When does that, when does that calculation change? And, and, and we're not, you know, we're not there yet. But that, but, like, we could be on a. Could we be on a trajectory towards it, or is that never going to happen? Sarah?

Sam Stein (15:20)

So I, I talked about this with jvl, I think, on the secret podcast, where I do think there's an element of bottom's gonna fall out. Right, that, like, one day. And I think that's where it felt a little bit like we could get there on whatever. Independence Day, Liberation Day, in part, because.

Josh Barro (15:41)

The bottom was, what did Alan Lickman say about liberation?

Sarah Longwell (15:45)

I don't know. You're the one going back through his archive.

Sam Stein (15:48)

But, but let me, let me throw a couple things at you, Tim, that just respond to what you're saying and what Sam's saying. One is, it's August. August. Yeah, you're right. Nobody cares because it's August, everybody. That's like the one month every year that people are like, can you just leave me alone? Like, I Know things are crazy, but just give me a break. So I think that's part of the doldrums here is. And it's. August has its own vibe. I want to challenge something Sam said, though, about his. His numbers. Okay, so I've got them because I pulled them before we came on. So in his first term, on August 6th of 2017, he was at minus 19.9. So he was underwater by about 20 points.

Sarah Longwell (16:30)

Really?

Sam Stein (16:31)

Yeah.

Josh Barro (16:32)

That's brutal.

Sam Stein (16:33)

Do you guys. I think. I think people forget this, that Trump people. Actually, people don't forget it because they keep making the mistake where they're like, well, Trump is doing much better than his first term. They see that because right now.

Sarah Longwell (16:45)

So is that an average or is that Gallup or what are you looking at?

Sam Stein (16:49)

I'm looking at Nate Silver's trackers, his approval trackers. So if you go back to August 6, 2017, he's got him at minus 19.9 on inauguration.

Sarah Longwell (16:58)

I fucking hate the people that voted for Hill, that voted for Trump over Hillary, and then said that they hated him by August of the next year. You fucking people. Did this give a chance. We were going back to, like, who is the real original sin? How did we get here? Those people are the real original sin. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Josh Barro (17:17)

Sarah, finish the numbers, please.

Sarah Longwell (17:20)

Minus 19. That is insane. He won the election and nine months later, minus 19.

Sam Stein (17:25)

So the one caution I would put on that, that something. If you recall at the time, there was a lot of conversation about whether or not they were doing a good job in the polling of capturing more Republicans and whether the weighting was correctly. So I do think you could probably get a few points out, even if.

Sarah Longwell (17:39)

You are an seltzer level off. And it was minus six.

Sam Stein (17:42)

That's true.

Sarah Longwell (17:43)

That's a loser, the election, although. Go ahead.

Sam Stein (17:45)

Well, when you compare it to today, though, so on Inauguration Day, his general net approval was 11.7. So in the. In the black, positive. Now, on May 1st, he was at minus 8.8, and then today he's at minus 8.9. So he is very much down relative to himself when he started. He is doing somewhat better or he's better than he was at the first term of last year. And this goes to the question of our nervous systems adjusting to Trump. I actually think the reason his numbers were so low after last time is, remember, people voted for him thinking, well, the presidency, he'll get in there and he'll be normal. And then quickly, in those first six months, what they realized is he was not going to be normal. He was going to be Trump. People have adjusted to what Trump means now. And I think that's another reason for thinking about those numbers the way they are. So he lived in the, in the kind of high 30s, low 40s in that first couple of years and maybe throughout his entire presidency that I don't have at my fingertips, which is why. And I think the reason he's now lower is the red pilled people. Right. Those are the ones that are dropping off first. A lot of the young voters who voted for him about the economy who do not see it improving. Hispanics, independents, like those are the people that are really dropping away right now because they were very loose Trump voters to begin with. And I'll tell you, the disapprovers of Trump that we're talking to in the focus groups, the thing that makes me, just kills me listening to them is how much they could have gone. Like they would have voted for somebody else over Trump if it hadn't been Biden or Kamala. Like they're not against voting for it. They weren't against voting for a Democrat exactly. They were sort of gettable. They just. It was the economy for Biden.

Sarah Longwell (19:30)

Yeah.

Sam Stein (19:31)

They thought Trump was gonna fix it.

Sarah Longwell (19:32)

Maybe could have got them. That does make me sad. So wait. My one takeaway of that though, to the question that Sam brought up that I was asking about how Republicans. The real red flag is will there ever be a moment where their calculus starts to change on how aligned with Trump they need to be? The answer to that is no. I mean, if they were in minus 18 and they were sticking by their man in 2017, they're certainly not going to start abandoning him if he reaches -11 next week or whatever.

Sam Stein (20:06)

Yeah, I think it is less. Well, I do think there's, there's probably, if he's, if he gets below, like I've always put the magic number at 32% because that I think you're starting to peel away like at the real base level voters.

Sarah Longwell (20:16)

But the other thing, like that's like minus 30. He's a 32. 30, right. Yeah. So that's a long way to go.

Josh Barro (20:23)

32. That's crazy.

Sam Stein (20:24)

That's what George W. Bush was at when he left.

Josh Barro (20:26)

Yeah, that was after, that was after a recession. Like.

Sam Stein (20:29)

Okay, you don't think we could get a recession here?

Josh Barro (20:32)

Yeah, sure. I think we'd have to get a recession. We'd have to have a war that went terribly, terribly wrong. A major city probably would have to flood and they'd have to botch the disaster response. And yeah, then you could get to 30.

Sam Stein (20:42)

Texas is flooding. He's best friends with a pedophile. The job market's slowing. Like, what do you want, Sam?

Sarah Longwell (20:49)

Justice for W. Those are only three.

Sam Stein (20:51)

Keys just for W. I got more keys. The economy's in the shitter. Trump is going to have to. He's going to have to manage his way through the rise of AI here. And, like, being bullish on crypto is not going to fix the problem. Anyway. I am bearish on the Trump presidency and its trajectory. Oh, but this is the one place where I do think people will start to feel more permission to walk away from him is after the midterms. He gets clobbered in the midterms and people start to say he's not going to be president. And, like, in two years, somebody else is going to be president. And I think that's where you start.

Sarah Longwell (21:24)

He wish he could run. And then he did float JD Marco, he loves doing the reality show stuff.

Josh Barro (21:29)

He loves that it's going to be an Apprentice type shit. Right.

Sarah Longwell (21:33)

All right, I want to do a little redistrict. Oh, actually, one more thing on just the national politics. Really do redistricting. Since I mentioned jd JD is meeting with Susie Wiles, Pam Bondi, Todd Blanche and Cash Patel tonight at the Vice President's residence, going to reports to discuss the Epstein matter. It does feel like they've kind of broken down the wall between the DOJ and the executive branch.

Josh Barro (22:04)

I was just gonna say a little bit highly independent justice.

Sarah Longwell (22:07)

Remember that Loretta lynch tarmac meeting? I was like, has Fox done anything on tonight's meeting yet? Can we check in? Can someone get a check in on Bret Baier? Has Brett Baer done any reports on the DOJ and the Vice President meeting about Trump being in the Epstein files? Cause I do remember a couple segments on Special Report on the tarmac meeting between Loretta lynch and Bill Clinton, but I don't know any. I mean, I don't even know what they do. Like, they're kind of in a box. I. Do you have any thoughts on the.

Josh Barro (22:34)

I do. This is going to be. I'm borrowing like a George Conway bit here, which is. I'm not going to do it in the. In George's demeanor, but I find this to be so incredibly. I think these people are so incredibly dumb in the way they're handling this. Like, why would you let it leak that you're doing this meeting? It's like, we are. You're entirely the entire problem here is being accused of a orchestrating a cover up. And then you decide you're going to have a secretive meeting at the residence involving the FBI director and the ag. Like what. How does this work for you? I, I've been perplexed about all their strategic decision making here. Like cozing up to Jalaine Maxwell. I've still not heard a persuasive case for how that ends well for Trump. Like, is she going to come out and be like, oh, Donald's not in the files. And anyone would believe that when you're out there floating apart and like none of this really reeks of strategic brilliance to me. That said, I would love to know, maybe they could live stream the meeting tonight or whenever it is with JD.

Sarah Longwell (23:30)

And, and Cash probably should discuss what to do with the ringleader of the child sex trafficking ring, Ghislaine Maxwell, who's gotten moved to a Club Fed in Texas. Maybe that'll.

Josh Barro (23:43)

They don't know anything about that.

Sarah Longwell (23:44)

That'll come up in the meeting tonight. I don't know if JD has thoughts on that. I don't know. Sarah, do you have any, any insights on their, their strategy session, their brainstorm tonight at the.

Sam Stein (23:55)

I mean, other than the fact that I think they are orchestrating a cover up. Like if Donald Trump's name is redacted, as many, like if once they believe that. Here's the thing, she, she had them redacted. They had the, the DOJ redact his name. If with his name redacted, you could read it and be like, oh, I don't think Trump did anything wrong here. They would release them. Like the, the main thing is that there can't release the files. It seems like they absolutely can't because from something. Because there's some reason. And so the rest of it now is about a cadence to orchestrate a PR situation that weasels them out of this, which is why they're going after Obama, which is why they're talking about the Clintons. Like they, they have a strategy for going on offense about this, but it's all a misdirection thing. And at the end of the day, release the Epstein files remains the most potent thing. But can I just add one. Sorry, I'm just gonna add one thing. I know, I know we only want to talk strategy, but can we talk about the moral component for one second?

Sarah Longwell (24:58)

I would love to.

Sam Stein (25:01)

I would like to know how Pam Bondi and the like, if they're looking at this and it's got Trump early Days. Even the stuff that he's done already that we know about, shouldn't she. As a law enforcement person, and dare I say this is. I don't even. But, like, as a woman, do we not. Do we not have a problem with this? Just as a straight moral matter? Like, how does one sleep, Susie Wiles, knowing that this guy, like, I know Megyn Kelly, wants to just say, this is like boys being boys, but one guy ran a legit pedophile ring while the other guy said they were really, really good friends and that pedophile guy was a great person. Wished well his. The. The ring leader of the. Of the. The pedophilia ring. Like, isn't that gross enough? Isn't what we have already gross enough? And then presumably whatever's in those files is even grosser.

Sarah Longwell (26:02)

You know, it's really bad. I. I brought, I brought this up with Zerlina today on, on the Daily Pod. And yeah, her point is, like, are they even. Like, there's not even any pretense that they're discussing in this meeting? Like, you have the Vice President, United States, the Chief of staff of the White House, the Attorney General, the head of the FBI, and the deputy Attorney general. There's not even a pretense that, like, the purpose of this meeting is justice for the victims.

Josh Barro (26:22)

No.

Sam Stein (26:22)

Yeah.

Josh Barro (26:23)

It's messaging. How do we message out of this? But I go back to the idea again, I think they're dumb. Dumbs. Like, this doesn't really. You look at this and you're like, this is just part of a. Even like, Jamie Comer, who, like, put out those subpoenas yesterday, like, couldn't bring himself to subpoena Alex Acosta. Like, the absence of the Acosta subpoena just adds to this entire perception that they're covering something up.

Sarah Longwell (26:46)

Moscow wants to point out, Chris Ray, they didn't subpoena who, like, was FBI director, who would have seen these documents. Right? Like, and again, I was just looking at the dates this morning. I didn't really realize this when I saw it first come across, like, the Clinton subpoenas for, like, late October. It's like, you really want this in the news in late October? Like, that's the strategy they do if.

Sam Stein (27:05)

Talking about Clinton is preferable to them having to release it. Like, they have decided that the. That they cannot release the files. And so what they have to do now is extend everything and try to make the storylines about this about Democrats.

Josh Barro (27:22)

But again, I don't want to be George Conway here, but I will be George Conway. Which is like, they should just be like, we're not releasing the files. We're done with this, and just take the hit. And they're not doing it.

Sam Stein (27:31)

You know, it's. That's just. That is interesting to think about for a second because I would say it's not that they're dumb dumbs, it's that they're wildly hubristic about. About what they think they can get away with. But you're making a good point that if they're my only. What I think probably is the case is that they think they can get away with that if they extend it, but they didn't think they could get away with it in the moment. Like, the pressure was too much from their own base. Dan Bongino was freaking out. Cash Patel was freaking out. People are calling for Bondi's head. And so they're like, we need a different strategy. And the way that we get out of this is to low boil.

Sarah Longwell (28:10)

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Josh Barro (29:19)

Got it. But just make sure to get zebiotics.

Sarah Longwell (29:21)

If I have zebiotics, that's good. It won't be as stressful as. I mean, what do we think? What do we think? JD Drinks Pinot gris. Pinot Grigio. Kind of a.

Josh Barro (29:32)

He's a merlot guy.

Sarah Longwell (29:33)

Sav Blanc. You think he's a merlot guy? It won't be quite as stressful as their drinks tonight. But either way, if you have to have a night of stress drinking or a night of fun, drinking Zebiotics beforehand is the way to go. Go to zebiotics.com nextlevel to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use Next level at checkout. Zebiotics is backed with 100% money back guaranteed. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they'll refund your money, no questions asked. Remember to head to zebiotics.com next level and use the code next level at checkout for 15% off. I want to talk about the redistricting stuff in Texas. Abbott has now threatened to arrest or not? Not threatened, I guess Abbott has said that he's going to arrest the ringleader, I guess, of, of this, of this effort to take, to take you out. Gene Wu. Is that his name? Gene Wu, yeah. Democratic Rep. Jean Wu. Ken Paxton's also saying that like to me, the biggest takeaway from all of this is just like there, the pretense is totally gone for anybody for like trying to play by the rules. And I don't know, I don't know how, how that makes you feel, Sarah, as a rules follower. But you know, there was a period of time, right. Where like there was hardball tactics but was all within. But like we don't even go through a period of that. These guys are like, the Democrats are like, we're going to Illinois. Abbott's like, we're going to arrest you. You know, like, I feel like we've really escalated things.

Sam Stein (31:01)

Well, it started earlier than that, right. Like the first rule that's being broken here is the redistricting in mid decade. Right. That's not done. It's a pure political power play and they're not hiding that like you asked them. Somebody did ask one of the Republicans, why are you doing this? And he was like, it's good for my party. Like that's it. Right. Trying to pick up seats again, they.

Sarah Longwell (31:20)

Don'T even have a pretense. Like it wasn't like, oh, well this thing happened in the state and you know, like the old redistricting was unfair because of some arcane legal thing. Like they're not even really Doing that.

Sam Stein (31:29)

Yeah. And I would say this is a big difference of. Sarah 1.0. Sarah during Trump 2.0. Is that in 1.0? Well, they. They were more. They were trying to break the rules, but they had. They were. It was more like tweaking, whatever, versus now where it's so corrupt and outright. And so, like, in the first term, where I might have said to Democrats, based on the, you know, I don't know if you guys should have just, like, run away. Like, leaving. That feels pretty extreme. Now I'm like, I don't know. That seems fine. What else are you gonna do? And then the. We're gonna go arrest them. I'm kind of like, make them arrest you, Democrats. Make them arrest you. I might not have gone to some of the places that they went. I would. Just from a PR standpoint, Dems don't go to places where you have done lots of gerrymandering yourself to make an anti gerrymandering case. Those are kind of gimmes for your.

Sarah Longwell (32:21)

Opposition to New Mexico right next door there. You know, nice. Nice little road trip through West Texas. I guess they might have had to worry about the sheriffs coming for.

Josh Barro (32:30)

Yeah.

Sarah Longwell (32:30)

I don't know. Sam, what do you think?

Josh Barro (32:32)

Well, let's just. I asked James Talrico about the Illinois thing.

Sarah Longwell (32:37)

What'd you think about James Talarico? Let's just do a quick aside on that. Sidebar on that. Like, there's a lot of people out there that really are like, this guy has the juice. I don't know what you think about it.

Josh Barro (32:47)

What is the juice? Did I take a zebiotic before I talked to him because there's so much juice? No, it's not that type of juice. He. He's a. He's a very smart guy, incredibly articulate. He has some gift that a lot of people in politics don't have for going viral. I mean, I don't know. Prior to his Rogan run, I was seeing him all the time for his, like, tick tocks and his Instagram reels where he would talk about school choice down in Texas and things like that. And he'd be like, wow, this guy's got, like, a capacity to take a fairly sort of wonky school policy issue in a state capital and, like, make it into a national, you know, social media thing. So I.

Sarah Longwell (33:27)

But young Sam got a tingle up his leg for Obama. Were you getting. Were you getting a tingle?

Josh Barro (33:32)

Was I getting the tingle? I think I'm too jaded at this point to get the tingle, but he, but he certainly's got, look, I think he's 36 years old, something like that. He's smart, he's thoughtful, he's got a really interesting story. He's religious, he's been a teacher or he might currently be a teacher. Like, he's got this incredible story to share and he's got a perspective on politics that I think is told through the prism of his own story, which I think is actually quite valuable. I thought his most interesting comment to Rogan was just sort of why are you a Democrat? And his answer to that was, is really interesting on the Texas restriction stuff. They decided to put him out front and center. Like, Gene Wu is obviously the person who's running this, but Telerika is just the guy who's talking through it. And look, I, I get why they ran away from the state. It's the only tool they have. That's literally the only thing they can do to stop is to deny quorum. And I get why the Abbott is saying he's going to arrest these people because that's what happened in 2003. But you know, you have the state lines, they can't legally do it. And so now John Cornyn, who's in a primary against Ken Paxton's like, oh, get the FBI on this. And Trump's kind of flirting with that. And you know, like, this is a real, I don't want to come off as like, you know, everyone needs to have a kumbaya moment. But like it's obvious we're having a real race to the bottom here. Right? Like, this is like, I mean it's just mutually discretion, dist. Destruction. We're going to have House races where it's like, maybe there's like a handful that are, you know, contested in any given election and that's it. I mean, it's just, I don't really see how this ends particularly well for the country.

Sarah Longwell (35:09)

No, a long term term of the House into just a Senate, essentially.

Josh Barro (35:14)

Someone brought up an interesting points. Like it's not just that they're gonna, it's like the ultra partisanization of the House. Like if you wanted to get into public service, there's so many things that you should think about doing otherwise other than public service at this point. But like this absolutely drive me crazy. It's like, oh wait, I'll join this institution and then my district will just be redrawn every like three years. Like that sounds cool. Like no one, only psychopaths will want to do this.

Sarah Longwell (35:40)

Did Talarico. I did it feel like they have any end game. Like, what did you, what do you think?

Josh Barro (35:44)

No, and I asked him. It's because like here's the, here's the deal about it. So they're trying to run out the special session, which is 30 days by statute, but after that Abbott can just call another special session. So the end game really is to bleed time and in the interim have California move which Tyler goes like, you gotta go now because they're already going and get it to a place where somehow I guess Abbott's like, you know what, Is this really worth it if California's just gonna do this? And maybe New York. Well, New York's got some issues. They have to do it not in this cycle, but the next cycle. But you know, there's. Is this really worth like all the hassle? Like maybe we should just agree that we both won't do it. Right. No one expects that's going to be the case. We're going to end up with a situation probably where Texas goes. And I talked to a couple California Democrats because I was very skeptical that they could do it. But they're, I mean they, they seem totally convinced that they will get, they.

Sarah Longwell (36:43)

Got to do it through a ballot initiative though, right? I, I do.

Sam Stein (36:45)

In November.

Sarah Longwell (36:46)

Yeah.

Josh Barro (36:47)

Right. So there's two ways to do it, but that's the main one. And they, I'll just say from the confidence level, like, because I've been skeptical that California Democrats can pull it off, they were like, no, this will happen 100%. This will happen. So we'll see.

Alan Lichtman (37:00)

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Sarah Longwell (38:59)

Sarah on the California thing, Newsom's been pretty good about this. I mean Newsom has been pretty compelling and tough when you compare him to some of the other what we've seen from a lot of other folks out there just purely from a tactical standpoint. He's been doing a lot of the things that many of us have been asking for Democrats to do. Neither of us are like huge Newsom people. I think your anti Newsom feeling is like even a little greater than mine, a little more intense.

Josh Barro (39:27)

I don't know are you feeling what's the anti Newsom?

Sarah Longwell (39:29)

I don't know. He's just slick and there's some elements of it and like California doesn't run that great. You know we have our old Republican juices still come out with Newsom that like there's just some and also just the you know he dated Don Juniors.

Sam Stein (39:42)

Or he was married to, he was.

Sarah Longwell (39:44)

Married to you know there's just a.

Josh Barro (39:46)

Lot of why you hold that against him.

Sam Stein (39:48)

Okay, here's why I can answer this.

Sarah Longwell (39:51)

Okay but are you feeling any newsome momentum Answer Sam and them also answer you.

Sam Stein (39:55)

I can answer both of these things. Was feeling yeah, I'll answer both. First of all he didn't just, he wasn't just married to Kimberly Guilfoyle because hey we all do crazy things when we're younger but they would do a lot of there's a photo shoot of them.

Josh Barro (40:08)

Yeah.

Sam Stein (40:09)

Like lying together in a bare skin rug and I think that you know you haven't done that not lately. The, the, the you know people talk oftentimes about when your ambitions showing and they do It. I think they overdo it on women, but they. They like every. His is outrageous. Like, it's just. He's so slick and everything he does has a political calculation, which means you.

Sarah Longwell (40:35)

Can smell the gays early, though.

Sam Stein (40:37)

He was good for the gays early. I remember that when he was mayor of San Francisco. I do remember. It was my first thing with him. And so here is my overall feeling on Newsom. I think in a world where the voters are chasing two different things, one is not a regular politician. I think he is the most politician y politician that's ever existed. I think California governorship in a, In a. In an election in America, a general election, a presidential election, is a disaster. The. The depth of voters sense that they do not want to become like in Pennsylvania, that they do not want to become California. So deep. And so my anti Newsomeness tends to be this is a guy who desperately wants to be president, who I think is going to blow it for the Democrats because voters will not like him. I think he comes off as smarmy, which Trump does, too. So there's that. Here's the thing I like about Newsom and here's what I'll give him. And one of the reasons that I think, I worry that he's very likely to, like, he's in strong contention for the nomination already, because people are also desperate for a fighter, right? They don't want a regular politician, but they do want a fighter. And he has from. From not just. I have given him kudos in the past, despite not liking him, for the fact that he will go on Fox News and he'll sit in the spin room and he'll argue with everybody. And so I am not. Can maybe this is it. The most specific thing I could say is it is a moment for a fighter. It is a moment for somebody who goes on Fox News. It's also a moment for somebody sort of deeply principled to sort of be fighting from their gut. Like, you want to feel like they recognize the moment and they're gonna go like hammer and tong because they love this country and they care about people. Whatever. Everything about him screams. I'm doing this because I think Gavin Newsom should be president. Not the things that I think give that sort of the moral heft, but on points, he's doing a lot of good things. And so I don't write him off. I'm not going to be like 100% anti Newsom, but I would like to see somebody else emerge who can also do some of those things that doesn't have the same baggage.

Sarah Longwell (42:52)

I'm softening myself. I just want to let you know he's slowly winning me over. And I hear you. I agree with every single word you said of everything you said. I'm just saying, like, every time he is out there, like, again, this is the old. This is Tim 1 point overs, Tim 2.0. Like, you really, eight years ago would have had me on. And I, and I still, like, there's a part of my brain that's still, like, I love what Josh Shapiro is doing. He's out there. He's just governing Pennsylvania well. He's not getting into the national fights right now. He's doing a good job. There's a part of my brain that likes that, but the fucking. The angry lizard part of my brain, every time I see a new thing from Gavin, it's like, oh, well, you're the one that's a little bitch. I'm like, yep. I'm like, agree. Like, did you like it when he.

Sam Stein (43:36)

Had Charlie Kirk as his first podcast?

Sarah Longwell (43:38)

No, he's not perfect. No, no, I did not like that. And I said. Said as much. I'm just saying, like, the social media game has been strong and I don't. And, and I, and I wish could we blend them? Because anytime that, that if I. And I, and I do. And they probably. And some of them listen, like, if a Gavin partisan called and said, like, what advice would you give? Or if Gavin called me, I would say simply, you should do what you're doing on the politics still and also govern California better would help. Like, making California better would be the best thing. Way to help yourself in the next three years. Like, again, I said, I was just there. It's insane. The cost of living in California is insane. And for Josh Shapiro, if they called, I'd say keep doing the governing well thing, but maybe do a few of the Gavin things. Like, you know, do it from time to time. Like, you don't have to just, you don't have to just decide, like, you're above the fray. Right. And I, And I don't. Nobody's like, nobody. None of the governors out there are giving me that perfect balance of what I'm looking for, which is owning Trump and Gov and governing well. So, you know, there's still time.

Sam Stein (44:35)

Well, I would also say, like, my, I am deeply pro Shapiro and he has been out there. He came out and beat up on Netanyahu the other day. I think that he is doing a pretty good job on figuring out how to walk the the line on the Israel and Gaza was. Sam, what do you think on that?

Josh Barro (44:50)

I think I'm gonna channel, Tim. I think going after Netanyahu is one thing, but, like, Josh's. Shapiro has been very quiet on the. On the Trump stuff, and I think deliberately so. He's keeping his head down. He's doing his thing. But, you know, like, you have, like, J.B. pritzker, Kathy, Okl. Like, they're, like, very active in this moment.

Sarah Longwell (45:08)

Yeah, but they fit the same thing.

Josh Barro (45:10)

I don't know. I'm not. I'm not praising these people. I'm just saying Shapiro could maybe turn a little more.

Sarah Longwell (45:17)

We got to move on. We have a lot to get to and we're already long. It's a good show. Long show already. Rfk. Just really quick, Sam, I just want you to cook on this. So if you have anything bad, you can. HHS is terminating 22 MRNA vaccine development investments according to them because the data shows that vaccines fail to protect effectively. One of the projects being canceled was aiming to develop an MRNA vaccine for the bird flu, which is considered a potential future pandemic agent. Seems not great. I mean, I don't know. Canceling vaccine development. I thought that Bill Cassidy was assured that this was not gonna happen. I don't know, Sam. What. What do you. You spend a lot more time in this world than me. Like, what's your man?

Josh Barro (46:02)

It's a fucking disaster. It's. It's horrible. I can't fathom that we're doing this. It's the most important medical technology that we have. It has the capacity to unlock incredible breakthroughs, and not just in bird flu, but like, cancer research and things like that. And the idea that you would just be like, you know what? This fucking quack over here has some weird retrograde thoughts about vaccines, and therefore he gets to decide that we're going to pull $500 million in research from this incredibly important vaccine technology is ludicrous. It's madness. People will die, or I shouldn't say unnecessary deaths will happen because of this. And, you know, we. I remember you and I had a conversation early during the cabinet confirmation proceedings where we ranked which one we thought would do the most damage. And I forget where you came down.

Sarah Longwell (47:03)

You. I think you. This was our big dispute. You had Kennedy first, I think, and I was. Yeah, again, I'm not. I don't. I wasn't liking it, but it's a competitive category. You know, I had other people that I thought were going to do more damage much. This.

Josh Barro (47:16)

This Is like, this is the Olympics of, you know, competitions here. Anyways, I, I, I stand firmly by my pick. This, this, as much as any decision any cabinet member has made, this one will have horrible repercussions. And Bill Cassidy, that, like you said you were going to get clearance on any vaccine decision RFK made. That was the whole point of this confirmation yes vote was you said he would clear with your office, that you would get the heads up. And you dumb, dumb, like you just got played. And it's just, I wish there were more repercussions for people who allowed themselves to get duped or just decided they weren't going to have skin in the game around this stuff. Because it's not Bill Cassidy who's gonna bear the burden, although he probably will lose, but whatever. It's people who could have preventable diseases that won't be prevented. It's a shame.

Sarah Longwell (48:08)

Yeah, he also got totally cucked. Like, it's also like, what happened to the alpha males? I thought Republicans wanted alpha males. It's like they want to be alpha, except for when standing up for something might plausibly, you know, create a bad news item for them in the MAGA media. If they get some mean tweets about it, then they can't be, then they're, then they're no longer so tough.

Josh Barro (48:28)

Exactly. Imagine the universe in which Cassidy says, you know what? This is a bridge too far and I'm not going to vote for this guy. What are the next steps? Oh, you get some MAHA influencers that are mad at you and, oh my God, like, you know, whatever. That big tree guy who's friends with RFK throws a million dollars at you, like, cool. Deal with it. Like, that's the cost of the game, right? People would have applauded that stance and would have rallied behind you. Either way, you're cooked in fucking Louisiana. Probably so who cares?

Sarah Longwell (48:55)

Also, you can do the stuff Tuberville is doing in the last administration now. Like, now, now that you've already been cucked, Cassidy could go out there and say, okay, sorry, yeah, no, I'm not going to sign off on this recess appointment or whatever, like, you know, gambit until, you know, my, the initial agreement is upheld with regards to vaccine, whatever, you know, I mean, there are a lot of options anyway, Sarah, he has agency.

Sam Stein (49:18)

Yeah, I'd like to go back to my moral argument here for a second. My, like, how do you sleep at night, sir? Argument. Let me just read you a few of Cassidy's quotations from when this happened.

Josh Barro (49:28)

Nice.

Sam Stein (49:30)

It's he's he. First of all, he said if confirmed, he Kennedy will maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's advisory committee on immunization practices without changes. Didn't happen, right? That was his red line. Then he also said if there's someone that is not vaccinated because of policies or attitudes you RFK bring to the department and there's another 18 year old who dies of a vaccine preventable disease, it'll be blown up in the press, said Cassidy, referring to a young woman he treated who experienced liver failure as a complication of vaccine preventable hepatitis B. The greatest tragedy will be her death. But I can also tell you an associated tragedy that it will cast an absolute shadow over President Trump's legacy. Do we think a shadow is being cast over President Trump's legacy?

Josh Barro (50:15)

No.

Sam Stein (50:16)

No. And you know why? Because people like Bill Cassidy aren't standing up right now and saying this Cassidy, you want there to be news stories Senator Cassidy talk and they'll cover it, say what we're losing. Because here's the thing. It's not just the things that we prevent that people have right now. It is when the MRNA vaccines came out around Covid, there was article after article about all the exciting things that might be able to do cancer, malaria, tuberculosis, hiv. Like we haven't even begin. He's cutting off studying it so we can't even figure out what it could do. It's a, it's, it's a national security risk for when people unleash biological like whatever, like Covid was, however it came to us.

Sarah Longwell (51:00)

Are you saying the Chinese release Covid?

Sam Stein (51:02)

I say it could be.

Josh Barro (51:05)

Can I add, I want to add one thing. I know we're going long, but, and I do think Cassie shoulders so much blame here, but I don't want to let Donald Trump off the hook either.

Sam Stein (51:14)

Sure.

Josh Barro (51:14)

Donald Trump. Donald Trump at one point in his life, in his political life, was very proud of the COVID vaccine, was very proud of Operation Warp Speed, thought it was one of the great achievements of his administration and touted how many millions of lives this technology had saved. And he was right to do that. And then for total expediency to win over like that weird contingent of ex libs who were maga curious, he decided to turn over. He not only decided to align himself with RFK Jr. He decided to turn over our health agencies to RFK Jr. He allowed this. He made the choice that it was more important to win over that block of voters than to prevent these diseases from spreading and to introduce groundbreaking technological vaccine development. So this is on Trump's shoulders too. I mean that his 180 on this, on vaccines and on MRNA specifically is a catastrophic mistake of his presidency.

Alan Lichtman (52:15)

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Sam Stein (54:15)

Yeah, I'm again competitive category.

Sarah Longwell (54:18)

Yeah, please.

Sam Stein (54:19)

Congratulations.

Sarah Longwell (54:20)

All right, now we're moving into the fun topic that was not really exactly now we're moving off of. Well you know, we'll, we'll tell you where we're moving. We're moving off of this plane of existence. Friend of the show Jim Acosta. A lot of things, you know, like that he stood up To Trump stunned, his has come on the pod. We had a nice chat, but even our friends sometimes go a little astray. Here's a tweet he sent yesterday. I was like, I literally thought it was fake when somebody sent it to me. I thought it was like an AI generated thing. And he writes this. At 4pm Eastern. I'll have a one of a kind interview with Jacqueline Oliver. He died in the Parkland school shooting, but his parents have created an AI version of their son for a powerful message on gun violence. Plus, Texas Rep. James Talrica also interviewed with him. Not just you, Sam. See you soon. I don't. I think that we can just right now, like, you know, just kill this in the crib, which is necromancy. Interviews with teenagers that have been murdered. I don't think we need to speak to the dead. If you watch the thing, it was very creepy. They've not done a good job. It was the uncanny valley. If it was a good AI, I actually think that probably would make it worse, not better. But it was a bad AI. Kind of looked like one of the shows where you have a real person's mouth and a cartoon face kind of situation.

Josh Barro (55:45)

It was horrible.

Sarah Longwell (55:46)

It was horrible.

Josh Barro (55:47)

How long did you make. Make it till you had to turn it off?

Sarah Longwell (55:50)

All right. Like 47 seconds. And then I. And then I rewatched one other clip later because I knew we were going to talk about it, but, like, literally, I. It was. I felt a chill down. I. I felt. I felt. I felt the existence of Lucifer in the room with me.

Josh Barro (56:06)

It was so bad and I was so uncomfortable. I think I watched it like this. I was like, ah. And then I finally found the off button. It was just. I couldn't deal with it. It was so bad.

Sam Stein (56:18)

You know, the content game is hard, and when you're an independent substacker, you got to do things to stand out. But I would like to implore fellow sub stackers, do not do things like this. Don't do it. It is. I understand the parents gave consent. You know, independent media has a role to play now, and we should take that responsibility seriously and not do things that are so ghoulish. This. I will just say the uncanny valley. When something is 85 there, but 15 off, I think it's worse. Like, there's something about it that I offends, like, the deep part of our humanity. And, and, and we don't want people doing this as an. Like, just imagine if Trump was. What was her name that got shot during January 6th.

Sarah Longwell (57:08)

Riley oh, no. You're talking about.

Sam Stein (57:12)

But any of them. Can you imagine if. If what we would say if they did that with one of the. With a lake and Riley. But what I mean is the woman who was shot during January 6th, Ashley Babbitt. Thank you. Like, don't do it. Don't open this Pandora's box.

Sarah Longwell (57:29)

Lincoln is also just a relevant comparison to. Came by head because she was underage. Right. She's a child. Like. Like, this was a teenager. This is a guy at school. And. And so it's just like. I'm sorry, like what? Parental approval. Like what. Like, I. Like, humans have in. Humans have dignity and like, they, you know, like, let the dead stay dead. And like, you can't. You don't. You don't have parental rights to, like, exhume bodies. So. I get it. Raising awareness, okay? There are a lot of ways to raise awareness. This is not it. This did not do anybody any good. And like, having a dead, like, doing, you know, like kind of a fucking Lazarus necromancy, where he's like, talking about the policies in the Hill. It's like, hey, also, no policies are going to change. The fucking Republicans have Congress. So having, like a dead child, like, start talking about what sort of bipartisan reforms they want just across every metric. It was a no. It's a no for me.

Sam Stein (58:24)

You know that Veep meme where Selena Myers is like, nervous laughter. What the fuck? That's how I felt. Like, what the.

Sarah Longwell (58:32)

Okay, great. Well, I didn't know what other podcast to bring this up on besides the next level, so here you go. I have a list of. I have like, a bucket of topics. Like, you know, I don't know. I don't know if I should bring this up with Chuck Todd and a.m. applebaum, you know, so you guys. You guys get it. Also on that list, though, I have brought this up on the Daily Pod. Sarah, you got into a fight with Megyn Kelly on the Internet. Megyn Kelly, who is upset that she thinks that Beyonce is inauthentic. And Megan only respects authenticity and somebody's look, she did not like. The Beyonce had fake blonde hair. That's why everything on Megan's face is totally natural and totally authentic. Okay? There's not anything there because she does not like inauthenticity. And. And that's why everything that she says comes out of her mouth is always authentic. So you. You and her had a disagreement authentically. And I'm curious what it was over.

Sam Stein (59:30)

I'm not going to get into any back and forth on looks because I hate that this is like a way that some women are. I don't. I think Megyn Kelly is a very beautiful person. That's not that. Here. Here's. Here's my. I don't mean on the inside. I think on the inside, she's deeply broken. And one of the things. The thing that I tweeted, when she said this thing about Beyonce, it had a couple components, and I'd like to unravel them for you. One is Megyn Kelly has been somebody who in an. In the early days, was calling for Pam Bodney's head over the absence of the Epstein files. She subsequently has kind of bounced around on Epstein because she'd been pretty dogged on it, but clearly got a call from her buddy Trump. And so she's been leaning hard on the Sydney Sweeney piece. And she. I think the Beyonce tweet was a actual strategic thing on her part to extend the Sydney Sweeney storyline, because that has been the number one go to for Fox. Look at all these libs who are crazy about Epstein, which I think is also why she engaged with me and Jon Favreau in fighting. Yeah, the nasty.

Sarah Longwell (60:37)

Just real crazy about sweet Sweeney. Just for context, I know anybody who's made this for the next level knows, like, yeah, there's a Sydney Sweeney jeans ad. Like, you know, some random libs, which we'll get to in a second. We're like, this is. This is what. This is not. This is a Nazi ad. Because they're talking about her jeans. It's a pun. Get the pun. And then Beyonce also had a jeans ad. I think, by coincidence that.

Sam Stein (60:55)

That, well, she's been doing Levi's ads. There's a song on her new album, Cowboy Carter, about my Levi jeans. It's a pretty good song. I think it's with Shaboozi. I'm not. I can't. But I'm not positive that one's right. I think so anyway, but. Or maybe it's with somebody else. But anyway, she's got a Levi G song. She's doing ads for Levi's jeans. Actually, the Levi's jeans post Malone is that one. There's a different song she does with Shabuzzi. The ad that she does. Actually, I know. I know this because when I saw the ad, I went, whoa. It is an ad where she is playing pool with the guy from Justified. Very handsome man. And they are shooting her from behind as she bends over the pool table to shoot the cue ball. And I said, this is quite a Suggestive ad. It actually isn't unlike the way that Sydney Sweeney. Other than the jeans pun her. Megyn Kelly's point.

Sarah Longwell (61:48)

She. Look there was also. I noticed Nancy Mace tried to do.

Sam Stein (61:51)

She also did well so did. So did Pete Hegseth. They're all jumping into the jean story. You know the Sec Def. The official Sec Def Twitter account put out Pete Hegseth has her jeans.

Sarah Longwell (62:06)

Yeah, yeah. He was wearing mom jeans while they were posted that Whatever.

Sam Stein (62:11)

It doesn't. Who cares about the jeans?

Sarah Longwell (62:14)

I'm just. I'm just trying to make sure everybody understands the facts. You know, I'm laying in on the sartorial side of this.

Sam Stein (62:20)

Okay.

Sarah Longwell (62:20)

If Pete I said look great in jeans, I'd be the first one to say it. We like to. You know, I like to give up, throw him a bone where I can, but he doesn't.

Josh Barro (62:26)

Feels like we're going a far field.

Sarah Longwell (62:28)

Okay. Sorry. I'm sorry.

Josh Barro (62:30)

Sarah. Go back to Sam.

Sarah Longwell (62:32)

I'm hosting. You could have hosted if you wanted.

Josh Barro (62:34)

I'm here to just.

Sam Stein (62:35)

I should have hosted. I just should have hosted. I. Then we wouldn't have the same the. But her point. So she just. She's like the contrast between Sydney Sweeney where it's all authentic and amazing versus all the fake stuff about Beyonce. I think it was just a way to extend the story. The thing about Megyn Kelly though, and I might have picked the wrong thing to time to point this out, but it just like it was my straw that broke the camel's back or going after Beyonce. She's so nasty on Twitter. She's just nasty in general. Like the. The pipeline from serious conservative to shitposter is a. Is a well worn path now. But nobody shit posts harder and with more like gross nastiness than Megyn Kelly. And I've just watched her do this and I'm like, why are you going so hard at people in such a horrible way? She's horrible to trans people, horrible to immigrants. Like just nasty. And I seen something else really nasty from her like preceding this one. And so this is the one where I pointed out that I think there is something about people who got bullied by Trump who then became major bullies themselves. Which is just an under discussed dynamic that happened in the Trump era. Right. Like he broke people and they in turn resurrected themselves as Trump toadies and try to break other people. Right. There's just a lot of that going around. And she got mad at me and came back and said how could she bully Beyonce? Because bull. You know. But Beyonce. And she. So she was really zeroing in on the word bully, when really what I wanted her to understand is, like, you're broken and you're cruel, and you are taking your brokenness and being cruel to everybody else. So she decided to engage, and I was just like. But she was like, I can't bully Beyonce because she's too rich and famous, whatever, but I can bully you, and. But I won't because your TDS is, like, got you so wrapped up that why would I bother bullying you?

Sarah Longwell (64:28)

I was kind of like, I thought her material against Favreau was a little bit better than her material against you. It was. She was grasping a little bit. And she. You can't just. I mean, just as a matter of fact, though, like, the point wasn't that she was actually bullying Beyonce. It's that she was bullying, like, black people. She's bullying people that, like, decide that they want to, you know, have their hair look a different way. Like, the whole point of her. Of her thing was to, like, tear people down and be like, the only thing that we should be actually honoring is somebody who's authentic and. And like. Like Sydney Sweeney. Like, we should honor the. The. The blonde, white archetype.

Josh Barro (65:04)

Why are people so angry all the time?

Sarah Longwell (65:06)

She is so angry. Could you imagine being this angry after, like, no. NBC paid you 67 million or something to just disappear, and you did, and then you start a podcast, which. Fine. I don't know. I would be bored, too. I'd probably. I would probably do something. You know, some. Some people say, like, oh, if I got 67 million, I disagree. Disappear. I don't know if I would. I might do something still. I don't know. I can. Something. I can just sit around and read gay fiction all day. You know, I'd want something else to do. And, yeah, so maybe I'd still do the podcast, but, like, I would certainly wouldn't be so bitter and angry and cruel and mean all the time. It's just like, really. It's just like, it does infect your soul if you have to be.

Josh Barro (65:39)

I would never recommend. Yeah, I wouldn't recommend this to people. But, like, first of all, this is a disease that's caused by social media.

Sarah Longwell (65:47)

A lot of it.

Sam Stein (65:48)

It.

Josh Barro (65:48)

And, you know, like. Like I said to you guys, I sometimes I do call people up in person just to, like, talk to them. I wouldn't do this to make them come about this.

Sarah Longwell (65:56)

It was not in the outline. I wanted to talk about this. We're going to end with that. Okay, go on. Keep going now.

Josh Barro (66:01)

Well, no, I mean, this happened to me the other day where we put up. We put up the. What was the pieces from Adrian. It was about the carpenter named Jesus. Jesus who got arrested by ice. And we had a fun headline with it, like. And everyone was online accusing me of blasphemy. And, like, I just, you know, just absolutely desecrated Jesus Christ and all that stuff. And so I was just like, oh, come on, guys. Just. You're supposed to be the party that can, like, you know, resurrect humor, just have a little fun. And then I just called a few of the folks to talk about it.

Sarah Longwell (66:31)

I'm not just, like, strangers, just, like, random people. Like, like reporters. Like, you call, like, reporters for Newsmax, like, Newsmax personalities, or, like, Joe operatives.

Josh Barro (66:44)

In the Republican field. Okay. People who work in that space who were, like, going crazy. And I was just like, you know, first of all, did you read the article? Like, this is actually based on someone named Jesus who was a carpenter, not the actual Jesus. And they're like, yeah, yeah. And then we just sort of talked. It was like, you know, it was just, like, a play on words. Like, you don't. You don't. It was not a big deal. And they're like, yeah, we know. I was like, none of the people.

Sarah Longwell (67:08)

None of the people you called said, no, you are a blasphemer, and you're going to hell. Actually.

Josh Barro (67:14)

No, it's all that. I mean, that's the thing. Like, so much of this is just theater. It's just theater. And I'm not saying you should call Megan Kelly, because I think something is, like.

Sarah Longwell (67:23)

I think. I was gonna say, I think Megan Kelly is a separation. I think she's broken inside. If her and Sarah ended up at some accidental, like, one of these panels or something, and, like, you ended up, like, going in onto the next panel that she was on, the one before you or something, and you saw each other backstage. I think she would be nasty to you. I think that she's become. Yeah, I think this is the one area where her authenticity is real. Like, they think that she's become a nasty person.

Josh Barro (67:43)

Yeah, I agree.

Sam Stein (67:44)

I. I mean, I, I. I follow her on Twitter. I think she follows me, so. Which is why she must have seen it. But, like, this is where I just see how cruel and nasty and awful she is. And I do think that the humiliation of what. Because there was a whole movie based on her called Bombshell about sexual, where she got a hero's narrative, like a hero's arc. And so the thing is, is I used to think kind of, well, of Megan, Megan Kelly. So part of it is like this general thing that happens where she was somebody that I saw, you know, 15 years ago and thought like, man, that person's a star and she's smart and she's good and, and she also used to be pretty normal. Like people will who haven't didn't clock her back then will think she's always been terrible, whatever. And I'm not saying she didn't have some bad moments. She had like a black Santa. Santa can't be black, which is okay. Santa's not. I mean.

Sarah Longwell (68:41)

Don'T say it.

Sam Stein (68:42)

Yes, he can.

Sarah Longwell (68:42)

One of my high school bestie said he can't listen to the pod in the car because of his kid. And I was like, stop being a.

Sam Stein (68:48)

No.

Sarah Longwell (68:49)

But anyway, we also shouldn't do that. We shouldn't do that with kids in the car.

Sam Stein (68:52)

So my point is she, she's. But she, she was not. She had, she had a lot of good stuff going for her. And who she has become is, is very different from who she used to be.

Alan Lichtman (69:01)

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Tim Miller (70:00)

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Sarah Longwell (71:01)

I want to do a spin off pod now of Sam calling trolls. I think I just, I feel like we're wasting the content. You've never done it off air. No, I don't troll call trolls.

Sam Stein (71:13)

Tim. The whole point of him doing it is to not. It's not for content. He's doing it to be a human.

Josh Barro (71:20)

I want to make sure humanity still is preserved.

Sarah Longwell (71:22)

Can't we preserve humanity on YouTube?

Josh Barro (71:27)

You know, there is some content possibilities around this. I will expose for you offline.

Sarah Longwell (71:31)

We talked to Edwin. I talked to Edwin on YouTube. I felt like he sent us a very nice note after the Christian nationalist DACA guy who might get deported. Okay. Oh wait, I had one thing. Just one more. I'm sorry, I have to get this off my chest because I haven't done it on any Sydney Sweeney stuff off my chest. Pun intended. Charlie Wartzel, another person I like had been on the pod in the Atlantic, was writing about this controversy and he wrote this sentence. Even her figure has become a cultural stand in for the idea pushed by conservative commentators that Americans should be free to love boobs. And I just want to say, let's not make boobs partisan. I don't like boobs in particular, not for me, as any of you would know. But I think that it seems to me most people like boobs. Democrat, Republican, commentator, not commentator. Black, white, yellow, Latino, Asian. Like a lot of people like boobs. And I just think it's a bad idea for people to try to say that it's just a function of the conservative commentariat that, that boobs are a good thing.

Josh Barro (72:46)

Was there an age when people did not like boobs that I missed? I feel like, I feel like I missed this anime.

Sarah Longwell (72:51)

I don't know, it just concerns me a little bit about what's happening inside the lib bubble.

Sam Stein (72:56)

Yeah, I do think that boobs should bring everybody together. They are life sustaining as well as just, you know, J.R. has them, Don.

Sarah Longwell (73:06)

J.R. has them.

Sam Stein (73:10)

Yeah.

Josh Barro (73:10)

You've seen the pics, right?

Sarah Longwell (73:11)

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Doing gender affirming care.

Sam Stein (73:14)

I. I always just want to use the line from Meet the Parents. I have nipples. Jim, can you milk me that? De Niro says to Ben Stiller. Anyway, yeah, we should not. We can be partisan about so many things, but we should not be polarized on. On. Not just. But on general. Like, this is where I think a lot of this stuff is off the rails. I'm sorry. Like, beautiful. You can. We can talk conversation with standards of beauty or whatever, but, like, they're going to use beautiful people to sell clothes and everybody should, like, relax about the rest of it.

Josh Barro (73:54)

This seems like the perfect platform for no labels to bring the country together. Just like boobs.

Sarah Longwell (74:00)

Sam, do you have any final thoughts about boobs that you want to share? A heterosexual male on the podcast?

Josh Barro (74:05)

Yeah.

Sarah Longwell (74:06)

As a lib, do you feel like it's a conservative commentator construct that Americans like boobs or.

Josh Barro (74:14)

I just. Again, I don't recall the time period, apparently fairly recently where boobs were, like, not something we cared about or liked. I just. I must have missed that. It probably was around the COVID pandemic or something.

Sam Stein (74:27)

But no, we couldn't have anything good during the pandemic.

Alan Lichtman (74:30)

In 2020.

Josh Barro (74:32)

We just. Enough with the boobs. We're suffering. Get rid of boobs.

Sarah Longwell (74:36)

Just, you know, take your joys where you can get them. All right, sure. Motorboating. Whatever it is. Beyonce, Cowboy Carter, whatever it is that works for you. I was going to talk about. We've gone way over, though. So just for another day, we'll discuss my statement that you really should not take children under 10 to amusement parks.

Sam Stein (74:56)

I'm taking my. What are you talking about? I'm going to take my kids to Disney any second.

Sarah Longwell (75:00)

You should not. We did get a message in the comments from somebody. So if you made it this long that was upset that I went to Universal instead of Disney because they're Disney exec, you can get a VIP tour. So maybe check out that guy in the comments. Yeah, check out. I think his name was Bruce. Shout out to Bruce. Okay, well, great. We'll then hold this when you get back from Disney. We'll compare notes. That's all. We'll just leave it there. Everybody else, thank you so much. This has been the Next Level podcast featuring Sam Stein. And we'll be back next week, I think, with the main crew. We'll see how it goes. Good luck, America.

Alan Lichtman (75:36)

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Tim Miller (76:35)

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Josh Barro (77:37)

Hmm, it's gotta be when I'm really craving it and it's convenient.

Sam Stein (77:40)

Could you be more specific when it's cravenient.

Josh Barro (77:43)

Okay, like a freshly baked cookie made.

Sam Stein (77:45)

With real butter available right down the.

Josh Barro (77:46)

Street at am, pm or a savory.

Sam Stein (77:48)

Breakfast sandwich I can grab in just.

Josh Barro (77:50)

A second at a.m. pM.

Sarah Longwell (77:51)

I'm seeing a pattern here.

Alan Lichtman (77:52)

Well yeah, we're talking about what I.

Sam Stein (77:54)

Crave, which is anything from am, pm.

Josh Barro (77:56)

What more could you want?

Alan Lichtman (77:57)

Stop by AMPM where the snacks and drinks are perfectly craveable and convenient. That's cravenience am, PM too much good stuff.