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- [00:01]
Sarah Longwell
Honey, the power's out.
- [00:05]
Tim Miller
Flashlight's dead. Can't find batteries.
- [00:09]
Sarah Longwell
Hey, neighbors, want to borrow my Star Patrol spotlight?
- [00:13]
Tim Miller
That flashlight lights up the whole house. Watch. The Star Patrol can light up the whole neighborhood.
- [00:18]
Sarah Longwell
It can illuminate up to a half mile away.
- [00:22]
Tim Miller
A half mile? That's insanely bright.
- [00:25]
Sarah Longwell
And the turbo boost increases brightness up to 100%.
- [00:29]
Tim Miller
Whoa. Now that's insanely bright.
- [00:32]
Sarah Longwell
With 10 illumination modes, the Star Patrol.
- [00:34]
Tim Miller
Is a flashlight, spotlight, floodlight, emergency light, and more. And with an ultra fast USB power bank, you can even charge your phone with it. Plus, the Star Patrol is fully rechargeable.
- [00:45]
Sarah Longwell
And backed by a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So how do I get one of these Star patrols? Go to getstarpatrol.com and you'll get it with free turbo boost, free shipping, and a money back guarantee.
- [00:56]
Tim Miller
Again, that's getstarpatrol.com getstarpatrol.com hey everybody, this is Tim. We taped the Next Level earlier this afternoon before the news that Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at an event at Utah Valley University today. A lot more information will be coming out on that if you go to our YouTube feed or the Block Takes feed. As we get more information, I will have expanded thoughts with likely Sarah and JVL where we will get into that. Obviously it is extremely tragic and distressing. This is not where we want to be as a country when it comes to this type of political violence. It doesn't really doesn't serve any good. And I just my disagreements with Charlie, but I feel just so bad for his family and his wife and his two little kids. And it's just brutal news. So if you want more on that, like I said, go over to Blorg Takes or check out YouTube and I'm sure I'll be discussing it on the Daily Pod tomorrow. What's up next is the Next Level podcast, which taped earlier today, so stick around for that.
- [02:15]
JVL
Hello everyone. This is JVL here with my best friends Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of the Bulwark. Guys. It is Wednesday and things are happening. Just moments before we sat down, Donald Trump commented on the Article 4 action which transpired last night where a bunch of Russian drones invaded Polish airspace.
- [02:41]
Tim Miller
Oh, I haven't seen it. I haven't seen it. Is it.
- [02:43]
JVL
I'm going to read it to you live.
- [02:44]
Tim Miller
Is it peace through strength? Is it Reagan? Is it tear down this wall? What could it be?
- [02:50]
Sarah Longwell
Or does he just make warping noises with his armpit?
- [02:54]
JVL
What's with Russia violating Poland's airspace with drones. Here we go.
- [02:59]
Sarah Longwell
Burping sounds with armpits. Yeah, that's right.
- [03:03]
Tim Miller
Was that in a press avail or in what forum was that?
- [03:06]
JVL
This is Truth Social.
- [03:08]
Sarah Longwell
Wait, hold on.
- [03:09]
Tim Miller
Here we go.
- [03:09]
Sarah Longwell
Can you read that again?
- [03:11]
JVL
What's with Russia? I'm reading this as if I'm Jerry Seinfeld. I'm sorry, what's with Russia violating Poland's airspace with drones.
- [03:19]
Tim Miller
Here we go.
- [03:20]
JVL
At which point like Kramer like throws the door open and comes in.
- [03:23]
Tim Miller
Oh, hey, don't try to make Trump into Seinfeld. I don't want anything that might make Trump appealing to me in any manner that doesn't, that doesn't feel like a tough alpha male response to me. And that's just me. I don't. Maybe my awareness of what makes an alpha male these days or a Sigma male is a little bit off. I don't know what MAGA people think, but. So Russia attacked NATO, our NATO ally.
- [03:49]
JVL
Well, I mean Russia sent a bunch of drones through Polish airspace. Maybe it was an oopsie. I don't want to say it was an attack.
- [03:55]
Tim Miller
They've landed a couple in Poland over.
- [03:57]
JVL
The last couple of years again. Could be an oopsie. We're going to find out. I'll tell you who's not thinking it's an oopsie. Poland. Their experience with Russia violating their airspace, not good.
- [04:08]
Tim Miller
Well, and they called the European other their actual NATO allies, not us, you know, and sent planes. I mean it was a serious crisis last night. Donald Trump was a Joe Stone crab. Me and Sarah have had lunch a few times or Joe's Crab House, whatever it's called. Not exactly. You know, he's going stone crab. Joe Seafood and stone crab. He's going there to demonstrate how the streets of D.C. are safe now because that was, that was a real high crime area outside of Joe's Stone Crab. It's where like 70 year old lobbyist men go to have like lengthy lunches and martinis. So it was a very dangerous area before.
- [04:40]
JVL
Is a high crime area. But all the crime is happening inside the restaurant.
- [04:45]
Tim Miller
To be fair, the protesters, that's white collar crying inside.
- [04:48]
Sarah Longwell
What the protesters did find him there and yell at him.
- [04:52]
Tim Miller
That's right.
- [04:52]
JVL
He did not like. And he's like a scared old man backing away from them. If you look at the video, he's.
- [04:57]
Sarah Longwell
Like, oh no, there's a lot of college age girls suddenly in my face. What do I do?
- [05:01]
Tim Miller
So Anyway, it's not 1985. Not anymore, buddy. It's so The Stone Crab. He's there at Stone Crab having a leisurely dinner while Russia sends the drones into NATO airspace. And then this morning, you're telling me 12 hours later, he writes, what's the deal?
- [05:21]
JVL
What's the deal with Russia?
- [05:23]
Tim Miller
Violent.
- [05:24]
JVL
Yes. Here we go. Which is going to be like Kafave or super cool and very cool and very legal. It is like he's not president sometimes. Right. Like he breaks the fourth wall and he's just America's top comment. Oh, these things are happening. It's amazing.
- [05:46]
Tim Miller
Whatever happened to Joe, the war in Ukraine never would have happened if it wasn't for him.
- [05:50]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, guys, what is happening right now, both in Israel and in Russia? These people do not think Donald Trump is a serious person. And his tweet or whatever demonstrates obviously why they don't take him seriously. But this notion that Trump is such a wild card, such a tough guy that he was, no new wars would start because no one knew which way he was going to go, how crazy he would be. These guys have been pressure testing him for a while. Bibi knows that he can go bomb cutter and that Trump can be mad because that's. So far what we've seen. President Trump is displeased. He said, I'm very angry about this. That's it. No follow up, like a parent without any consequences.
- [06:34]
JVL
And with Russia, Bibi know they gave me a plane.
- [06:37]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. Putin clearly knows Trump is just complete weak sauce, more on his side than on NATO's side. And so they feel like they can start, like people are starting to pop off feeling like the United States is now on the sidelines and not a real player.
- [06:54]
Tim Miller
Your point on Israel is good. I just throw in there. And, and I know I don't want to feign expertise on, on the merits of all of these various attacks, but it is noteworthy in the context of Donald Trump acting as if he was going to be the peace president, the top cop is back in charge. People respect us again. They're going to do what he wants. You know, these, all these crazy wars that were happening with Joe Biden and like all that happened because he was so feeble. And like, if I once I'm in there, that's going to stop. In the last 48 hours, Israel has engaged in military action in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Qatar. Yeah, Assassinations, like bombings inside. Well, I guess not five other countries because Gaza, but, but four other countries in Gaza. I mean, like, it is expanded a lot. I don't know. That's really like seeped in with people, I don't know, because it isn't quite as dramatic as, like, the Iran bombing or whatever, but Israel's actions throughout the region continue to expand, violent actions, and. And then now Russia is like, has. Is acting with impunity right now, moving, moving, and does not worry at all. There's no concern. There was no concern in Moscow that was like, ooh, you know, we need to put a statement about how this was an oopsie because maybe the Americans, you know, might retaliate against us. Right? Like, there was no, like, no worry about that. You know what I mean? Like, that's not. And Bill wrote some of this really well in morning shots this morning, just about how, you know this. There were some hawks out there you know, from like, like a month ago that were like, you know, you guys just don't appreciate what Trump's doing here. Okay. Like, Trump's tougher. Yeah, Trump's tougher than you think. And these guys. And it's like, I mean, no, the most crazed lefty who, like, believes that Trump is Krasnov and that Putin owns him, like, their projection about what had happened, what would happen, you know, over the course of this first nine months was much closer to accurate than Hugh Hewitt's or like Marco Rubio, for that matter, Secretary of State. Right. Like, Trump is just totally folded on this stuff.
- [09:02]
Sarah Longwell
And this was always, you know, again, I think when Tim says we don't want to feign expertise, I always try to be mindful of the fact that I'm not a foreign policy expert. That being said, I do think that we all sort of knew that going into a dangerous world, Donald Trump was one of the worst people to be in charge. Because if you know him like we do in America, and you know that it's all bluster and none of it is steeped in any understanding of the world or love of people. Like, he wants a Nobel Peace Prize. He doesn't want peace. And as a result, you're going to get like, he's going to say, no, we're going to pursue peace through strength, and instead we're going to get war through weakness. Because that's what he's projecting. That's what he's shown Putin. I'm at this point, jbl, I wanted to ask you. Bibi is starting to act like a person who needs the United States less than a United States Republican president needs. Bibi, like, I know we bring a lot from, in terms of money and arms, but, like, I don't know, he doesn't feel like he's saying to himself, boy, we've got to be really careful about how we like he didn't give America a heads up, like we found out because we saw the planes, the American military saw the planes, took a while to get confirmation from Israel and then we end up talking to Qatar first and like, yes, we've got a relationship with Qatar, like a strong diplomatic relationship. It's not like, I mean, you know, American presidents don't routinely go to Qatar to demonstrate anything the way that they do to Israel. So like, what is Bibi thinking right now?
- [10:49]
JVL
So I have a theory on this, which is that Netanyahu has decided that he was going to tie himself to the Republican Party and as a result tie Israel to the Republican Party, which was going to shatter the sort of American bipartisan consensus on Israel, which has existed pretty durably for, you know, 60 years, 70 years. And he's done that, I think, like he's, he's made Israel itself and certainly his administration like a partisan, polarized issue, which is something Israeli governments had long tried to do. But what I don't think he understands really, and maybe I'm wrong, maybe this is unfair, maybe he does get it. I'm not sure he gets the existence of anti Semitism on the right in America. Like I, I, it seems to me that he really believes that like every anti Semite in America is a, you know, free Palestine, college age protester, lefty type. And this sort of thing is not like there is a fairly sizable faction within Trump's coalition which tolerates Israel at best. And this sort of stuff puts Trump in a harder spot than I think Bibi realizes. I think Bibi thinks that he's got Trump by the short hairs just as a political matter. You know, like he, he thinks, well, you know, Republican voters are, they, they are super duper rabid about Israel. And so Trump, Trump has to stick with me no matter what. I'm not sure that that will always be the case.
- [12:33]
Tim Miller
Yeah, you're right on the Trump part. And he does believe that he has it. He's probably right because it's just like, well, we'll just do the Trump Tower. Gaza Riviera will be so beautiful, right? He knows how to play Trump. Trump's not that hard to play. So I think that part is right. I mean, he has to be aware of the anti Semitism issue on the right. He went on the Nelk Boys, which are the Canadian manosphere podcast bros, and the, and the, and that turned into like a massive controversy after he was on that. And like the guys had to like apologize and, and try to be like, we're learning, we're trying to do better. It was like these two 24 year old Canadians and their dad's suits, you know, whatever that usually do podcasts about like farts and stuff. And so like anyway, he went on that show and there's a huge backlash. So like he had to be aware of that. So I don't know, I. Maybe there's.
- [13:21]
Sarah Longwell
Maybe the backlash was because they had Trump on.
- [13:24]
Tim Miller
No, because they had Bibi on.
- [13:25]
Sarah Longwell
Oh, they had BB On.
- [13:27]
Tim Miller
Yeah. There's a lot of people in that kind of like maga, Right. Manosphere, whatever world that were like, whoa, like, what are you guys doing? Because that wasn't a. It was a typical Joe Rogan style interview, you know, it was like, hey, B.B. what's happening there? And it's like, oh, wow. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like the questions were not. They didn't really challenge him on anything.
- [13:45]
JVL
They were just BB Thinks that JD Vance is on his side all the way. Because that probably strike me as a miscalculation actually.
- [13:55]
Sarah Longwell
Well, you could be right. I mean, here's the thing. When you say so, I don't think that Trump thinks at all about who hates whom very much. He only cares about who likes him. Right. So he is nice to people who like him. So as far as he's. And he has these like his, you know, he, he has his biases. His bigotedness always manifests in these like funny. Not funny, but like they like silly cultural ways. Like he just had, you know, he thinks Jews are good at math and money and you know, black people are good at sports. And he just has these very cartoonish views of people. But I don't think that he. I think other than immigrants, where he understands like, oh, I can wield this hatred. I think Donald Trump. Yeah. Anyway, he has to be aware of the anti Semitism on the right though, because Candace Owens, who he's had to the White House, Tucker Carlson, like, these are not. This isn't a fringe. I mean these people are fringy, but they are super mainstream and like Republican. They speak at the convention or they are invited to speak at CPAC or Turning Point usa. Like these are people are integrated into the coalition. Nick Fuentes got invited to Mar A Lago.
- [15:12]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [15:12]
Sarah Longwell
I mean he loves. As long as they like him, you know, if it's Diddy abusing women, if it's. What was Kanye being like a black Hitler? They're like all invited in the coalition.
- [15:28]
JVL
What I think Bibi probably misunderstands here is that I think he views like that schism that exists within MAGA on the subject of Israel and the Jews as being like two sides, both of whom are totally committed. I don't think that's true really. I think if push comes to shove, Candace Owens is going to stay where she is. The Israel hawks within that movement, I think those commitments are much lighter than the Netanyahu government may believe it to be. And yes, and the commitments are on the parts of the, you know, the, I don't want to say anti Semitic, but the people who are Israel skeptics on that side, those things are, are done in some.
- [16:14]
Tim Miller
Yeah, and this is why he's in such. So again, when I said at the beginning that I could almost speak outside my expertise, I guess my point is like, I don't know if it was necessary to attack Yemen or to do a strike inside Yemen today. I don't know. I haven't seen the intelligence or the strike inside Syria or like the, you know, that's what I'm talking about. The US Politics side of this we can talk about. And I, I just think that like the, like right now, as it stands with the way that DB has played this, assuming we have an ex president and it's not Baron, you know, I, it. I think it's more likely than not whether it's either party that they're hostile to.
- [16:50]
JVL
Hostile to Israel. Yeah, no, I think it's enormous strategic miscalculation, by the way.
- [16:54]
Tim Miller
I think, Yeah, I think that he tried to create a partisan wedge, wedged out the Democrats and then he's going to lose the Republicans from within. I think, I don't, I'm not saying it's 100%, but that I think that the most likely outcome right now based on their action.
- [17:08]
Sarah Longwell
Well, in part too, because the America part of what's happening as I think public opinion is really shifting on Israel and Gaza like it is now. I think. What was it? There was a YouGov survey that found a plurality of the electorate believes that Israel's continued attacks on Gaza are unjustified. So only 27% are supportive of Netanyahu and 84% favor an immediate ceasefire and 7 out of 10 believe there's a huge crisis in Gaza. So, like, this is. The politics are getting away from him and Americans are like, and Trump, Trump, you said you were going to come in and solve this. You said you were going to come in and take care of this. And instead it is all getting worse. And I think I'm just going to put in a quick plug for my guy. Shapiro can't stop, won't stop. He said on Aug. 5. It's awful what's happening in Gaza and we all have a responsibility to be there for those children. I thought it was also quite abhorrent what Prime Minister Netanyahu said roughly a week or so ago when he said there is no starvation in Gaza. He is wrong. So we can all be unified in our desire to see the hostages come home and also want these children to be fed. Those feelings are not mutually exclusive. So my hope is these hostages come home immediately that the war ends, these children in Gaza are fed, and I think the United States of America has a moral obligation to see to it that they get to. And I think like, that's the median position of voters right now, maybe.
- [18:32]
JVL
All right, well, there's our foreign policy. You know, nothing, nothing gets people going like foreign policy on this podcast.
- [18:40]
Tim Miller
It is pretty noteworthy. You know, how about this? We can give some, we can give some resistance porn to close the foreign policy section. I think it's funny. Trump comes in and he's like, oh, I'm going to stop the wars on the peace president. We've put in Steve Witkoff, the outer Borough real estate magnate in charge of stopping both of the wars that people have heard of, you know, and those are both escalating, frankly, now out of Trump's control. And yet Trump's talking point for the, for his very, very brilliant and well read supporters is, well, I've brought peace deals to like five wars and it's like, what one source is he talking about? And it's like Azerbaijan, Armenia and Ethiopia and Egypt. Most of these are bullshit, which Mark Kirtling detailed very, very well last week on the podcast. But it's like if you think that you' sell people on, on the fact that, like, that the world is calming down because the, you know, hostilities have abated periodically in Azerbaijan while the Middle east is on fire and Russia expands its incursion. I don't, I don't know if that's going to work for Donnie and Steve W. But we'll see. I don't know, we'll see. Maybe Steve W's got, got a final deal up his sleeve.
- [19:51]
JVL
It is amazing to me the way that Netanyahu manipulated Trump so he, he basically drags Trump into the Iran bombing. Trump does it like, you know, it's not clear that he wants to. There's a lot of internal debate, but Bibi kind of forces his hand. Trump then does the the great. Some are saying this is the greatest partnership that has ever been held, right? You know, two nations walking hand in hand. And as soon as he's gotten what he wanted out of, you know, oh, great, we got the JDAMs, we got the bunger busters out of you. Great. Next we're going to keep going without you, and America gets totally cut out of the loop. And your Israel is just like running its own foreign policy. And it's great. Heck of a partnership. Okay.
- [20:38]
Sarah Longwell
Quite the world power we've got here.
- [20:40]
JVL
Quite the world power. Sarah, would you like to give us a word from our first sponsor, the good people at Naked Wines?
- [20:49]
Sarah Longwell
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- [22:36]
JVL
Let's go to the birthday book, which is what we were going to start the show about, but then events took over.
- [22:42]
Tim Miller
What.
- [22:43]
JVL
I guess we should just start with our audio of our president explaining what we were really seeing yesterday.
- [22:56]
Tim Miller
It's not my signature and it's not the way I speak. And anybody that's covered me for a long time know that's not my language. It's nonsense.
- [23:04]
JVL
And frankly, you wasted wasting your time.
- [23:07]
Tim Miller
All you do is trying to get off the great success of D.C. and about 200 other things we've done that are so successful.
- [23:14]
JVL
This is a great, great success. And we have so many.
- [23:17]
Tim Miller
I don't think any president in their first eight months has anyone near the.
- [23:22]
JVL
Success that we've had. It's not his signature. I didn't. They float this with the Access Hollywood thing.
- [23:30]
Tim Miller
Oh, yeah.
- [23:30]
JVL
It wasn't the first reaction like, oh.
- [23:32]
Tim Miller
That wasn't my voice.
- [23:33]
JVL
That wasn't my voice.
- [23:34]
Tim Miller
My voice.
- [23:35]
JVL
And then it became like, well, I don't talk like that. That's just, you know, that's just locker room talk. That's. So we're doing that. Sarah and I teased this a little bit yesterday. Or not teased it, but like, teased. Teased it out a little bit yesterday. I'm very curious to hear if she has changed her mind and where you are on this, Tim, Is this a defensible position? Like, can he dig in here and make this work?
- [24:00]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. The question is, is can he just muscle through on the. That's not my signature. I will just say on the Access Hollywood thing, what was funny is at the time he said, it doesn't sound like me, like people who were in the room, he genuinely thought, that doesn't sound like me. I have no doubt. Perhaps he thinks it genuinely doesn't sound like him. The big words and things used in that card.
- [24:19]
Tim Miller
Enigma sounds like a trump word.
- [24:21]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. And like, honestly, that was a little bit my first reaction to it, too. I was like, this sounds too erudite for the president, but it's possible that he just forgets what he sounded like 35, you know, 30 years ago.
- [24:35]
Tim Miller
His vocabulary has shrunk over the last few decades because he's 80 years old. Yeah.
- [24:41]
Sarah Longwell
So, yes.
- [24:42]
JVL
But.
- [24:42]
Sarah Longwell
But to the question of do I think he's going to try to. That's their line and they're sticking to it. I think. Yes. And I think the reason is he thinks that he can Dodge with and we're going to see them in court. And he thinks, much like, I will release my taxes when I'm done with the, you know, like, he has this stalling capability that he does. And I think by kicking it to, you know, well, we're suing them. That's how we're going to do it. He will do nothing to move that case forward while he's President of the United States, because I'm sure he knows that that is his signature. It is obviously his signature and he is counting on the stupidity of many of his voters and the cynicism of many of his supporters.
- [25:25]
Tim Miller
So here's the question about whether it should work at some level. Like, polarizing this is maybe is his best play, right? Just being like, right, this is the fake news media. It's a hoax. It's the Democrats. They don't actually even care about this. There's that white lady that got murdered on the subway the other day. The Democrats don't care about that. They care about this. They're terrible. That's like the best thing for them to do. I'm great. They're terrible. They're lying. They're fake news. It's a hoax. It's fake. And, and, and hopes that that provides enough cover for the people who do care like that. That if the MAGA voters, the MAGA vase in Mass. Decides that this is just a way to get their president, then they'll gladly stop caring about the pedophile stuff that they either did care or pretended to care about in the past with QAnon and they'll move on to their, their top issue and that maybe that's his best play, right? Like, it's just, it's just polarizing this. The questions, though are about the weakness of the play is does it, does it work with the softer voters? Right? Like, does he start to get mocked in the comedy space? I'm not talking about like the late night liberal comics, but like the MAGA comedy space. Like, do that. Like, I think that's something to watch this week. Like, do those guys start to be like, oh really? It's not your signature. It just looks exactly like you. Like, oh, really, you don't love young women? Like, if that was your whole brand for your whole life, like, talking about how much you love young women, right? Like, it's a preposterous defense and does that lead to mocking and is that something that might unravel kind of that portion of his support? I think maybe. And the other thing is like, and you and Sarah talked about this, and people should really just listen to the full secret podcast on this. But the strategy reveals that he thinks there's more there or knows there's more there. You know what I mean? And, like, that's the other reason why, like, it's kind of doesn't work. Like, it might work if this was it. I'd say, yeah, maybe that works. Right. But, like, it's obviously not it. Right. Like, I mean, as before, 36 hours ago, we didn't know about the big check that. About the depreciated female assets that. That we don't have. Trump actually gave it to Epstein if it was a gag. But they. That kind of relationship where he was like, you know, there's a gag gift. You know, espn, you know, college football. You make. Oh, that.
- [27:47]
JVL
That was also forgery. The. The big check signature, also forgery. I'm sure, Tim, we haven't gotten to that yet, but I'm sure he will tell us that. Also a forgery.
- [27:56]
Tim Miller
So that was something we learned. My point. Yeah. My point is that there's more like that.
- [28:01]
JVL
You're kidding.
- [28:02]
Tim Miller
Sarah. Yeah.
- [28:02]
Sarah Longwell
Carolyn Levitz.
- [28:03]
Tim Miller
No.
- [28:03]
Sarah Longwell
Yesterday I did this whole thing with Edgar. We watched. I watched that whole press conference because I thought, the American press corps is going to ask about Epstein. They must. They must ask these things. Unfortunately, the Cutter thing had just happened, and so they.
- [28:20]
Tim Miller
Maggie asked. Maggie asked.
- [28:21]
Sarah Longwell
Well, hold on. Yeah, yeah. Yes. She's the only one who got in a clean question on this, because the first person who asked the question, he. She said, hoax, hoax, hoax. Nothing to see here. And then Maggie did later, she picked it up and said, what's the hoax? Are you saying that the Epstein documents from his estate are fakes? And she. That was the only time Carolyn Levitt got flustered. The whole press conference was to say, no, I'm saying the whole conversation is a hoax. Democrats don't care about this. And so it is. Look, it. It looks. This is the question. The question is, are people stupid enough? Are enough people not. Because obviously there are some. But are people either stupid enough or polarized enough to let this go? Yeah.
- [29:10]
JVL
You know the answer to this one. You're asking the question, and I know the answer. Call on me, teacher. Call on me.
- [29:17]
Sarah Longwell
I don't know why I just walked myself into that.
- [29:21]
Tim Miller
I. I think, look, I was feeling better about it till you framed it that way, Sarah. Now, that was the question, is, are the people stupid enough to accept this? Oh, well, here's.
- [29:29]
Sarah Longwell
Here's the one thing I'll I think that all signs point to. He is freaked out about what else could be out there and what else could come out. And the American. I couldn't tell you how lame the American media was, the exception of Maggie Haberman in this press conference. It is also stacked with pro Trump toadies who start their questions with, it's just so great to walk the safe streets of Washington D.C. now that you've made them safer for us, Mr. President. Like, it is a straight up North Korean exercise in there. I actually was losing my mind. You should go watch the thing with me and Edgar after we. It was insane. These questions.
- [30:09]
Tim Miller
Some.
- [30:10]
Sarah Longwell
There are real media people left in this country. Please pull on these threads. You go through that book. My team went through the entire book. Call all the people in it. Donald Trump isn't just in the letter. He's all over this book. His name's all over the book. The victims who are included in the book, like, very darkly, scarily all say, like, they met Donald Trump, like his number. And like whatever the list that's at the beginning, like, it's all. He's all over the place.
- [30:38]
Tim Miller
Let's do a quick rant of the media. The media fucking, like, it is so bad it doesn't get mentioned because nobody watches it. This. It is North Korea. It is so bad the way that the, that they've stacked this with mag reporters asking these questions. And like, there is. It almost feels stupid to say, but like, there was a whole cottage industry of conservative media criticism our whole lives. It's like the mainstream media is biased. And there were some points, there were times in which the mainstream media was biased. But like, you never had this during the Obama administration. It's not like you had in the front row, you know, the AP reporter raising their hand saying, sir, you've really. Obamacare. I'm on Obamacare now. And it's really so much better for me personally and I really appreciate the work. You know what I mean? It is crazy how just lick spittle. They all are. And it doesn't. Yeah, maybe they don't care about media honesty. That's a good point. Sorry, Jabil, what was your question?
- [31:37]
JVL
Here's my question, because I, I do think that this is a case where Trump does have one card on the table, face down. And that is, what if he knows that.
- [31:51]
Sarah Longwell
Maxwell, your accent is going on point today.
- [31:55]
JVL
I'm, you know, I'm everywhere. Studied at the Royal Shakespeare Academy, Pepe Le Pew. What if he knows that she's gonna say, oh, yeah, I did that.
- [32:10]
Tim Miller
That's not a card. Sorry, you don't think so? That's a two card. That's a two card underneath the table. Is that any better than his current. His current argument? His current argument of it's not me.
- [32:20]
JVL
Is, well, she could just say, yeah, it isn't him.
- [32:23]
Tim Miller
Yeah, sure, but who cares what she says?
- [32:25]
JVL
I put it together for him.
- [32:26]
Tim Miller
Because she's in. She's in a prison for running a grooming ring of young women that she, like, essentially brought into sex slavery. So I just. I don't know that her. Her testimony seems like this is a.
- [32:37]
JVL
Signal to her that if she wants to get upgraded again to a better Club Fed, that there's. There are ways she can.
- [32:44]
Tim Miller
I just don't think maybe he thinks that helps him, but I don't. I don't. I think Trump saying this is not me, as preposterous as that is, is better for his supporters than having his supporters having to be like, well, did you listen to what the child rape lady had to say about Trump? You know what I mean? It's better. Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think that's right. I mean, I just don't think that helps him any. I think that the car. He has got cards, but I like his current. The card that he has that he is a cult. That's the card that he has. So he can say, what then about.
- [33:16]
JVL
The FBI informant line that Mike Johnson trotted out?
- [33:20]
Tim Miller
He had to walk that back. He walked that back.
- [33:23]
Sarah Longwell
And in, like, a way that he realized he'd made a big oopsie because an informant's a pretty specific thing. You make a claim like that that is based entirely.
- [33:34]
JVL
Trump isn't a rat.
- [33:36]
Sarah Longwell
No, he had to come back and say it wasn't true, that he just meant, broadly speaking. It's just common knowledge that Donald Trump would have been helpful to the police if they'd asked him to. Like, he just.
- [33:51]
Tim Miller
This is the point. Like, Trump has no argument on the merits. It doesn't matter what people say. Like, truly doesn't matter. There's no point in analyzing it because it's like the whole point is a. Is a humiliation ritual and a. And a cult development exercise where it's like, you guys are going to say whatever ridiculous shit I say about this and that you're going to do it because you don't want the libs to win and you want me to win, and you don't want to give the other side any. Any quarter. And so I'm Going to say whatever I want. I mean, it's not, it's, it is definitely from a place of weakness. Like, it'd be better if he had a compelling argument. Right. Like, I think they would rather use a compelling argument, but they don't have one, clearly. And so they're going to do what they've done several other times with Trump before, like the fact that he didn't lose the election and just gut it out and assume that the cult stays with them. And I think it's not too bad of a bet, really.
- [34:42]
JVL
Well, if it's a stupid conversation, Tim, I'm sorry for wasting 12 minutes of our lives on it.
- [34:48]
Tim Miller
Did I say it was stupid?
- [34:49]
JVL
Yes, you said it's stupid to even talk about what people are saying.
- [34:54]
Tim Miller
Well, yeah, I mean, it kind of is. Right. Like the strategic arguments about his fucking spin on this. I mean, it's like preposterous. The thing is preposterous.
- [35:03]
JVL
Constructive criticism. That's, that's fine with me.
- [35:05]
Tim Miller
Was. I, I, I feel like you're, like, taking it as, as a personal attack. I was not meant as such.
- [35:11]
Sarah Longwell
Hey, guys, can I just say.
- [35:13]
JVL
Yeah.
- [35:14]
Sarah Longwell
Here's this, this Epstein stuff, and just. Why I continue to make a case that it's important is that I think he did something pretty bad at some point and he knows it. Like, he seems really. There's a lot of stuff in his past. I'm not saying he was like a participant in the island and the, the sex ring, but, like, that he's done a lot of. He was clearly culturally enmeshed in a world in which they were all abusing, or by abusing, they were all having. It's not clear that he was abusing underage girls, but, like, there's no reason he, There is nothing in. Well, like, when Donald Trump tells this lie, you have to be like, ah, yes, you lied when you said you were going to release the Epstein files. You lied standing next to Pam Bondi saying that your name wasn't in the Epstein files. You lied saying you had nothing to do with the letter. You've lied about everything in your life. You've sexually assaulted people all your life. So what is it about your life, your character, that makes us go, ah, yes, I'm sure he's telling the truth, that 22 years ago somebody forged his signature and put it in this book. And then all the rest and all. He's in all the other places in this book because it is a plant and a hoax. Like, it defies all credulity. And I think that. I know we like to. And by we, I mean jbl likes to postulate to this guy's going to run again. And, you know, 20, 28 when he's 82 years old. I think this is the chance. Like, I think this is the thing. He. He gets away with Access Hollywood. He gets away. I mean, he gets away with Eugene. Like, I mean, not exactly with Eugene, Carol, because at least he was held civilly liable. But, like, he's gotten away with so much. I. I don't know. I still think people should try to push on this. I think you can't have another election with him. Something if, like, this is, to me, one of the last best hopes for how you actually take him down, so to speak. That and crashing the economy.
- [37:21]
Tim Miller
You're here, here. I don't agree with that, by the way, but I know you fully in support of you in that effort. And I think that trying is important. And I guess that's. That's all that I have to say about that. I just. I wish it was true, but I don't expect it will be.
- [37:37]
JVL
Tim, would you care to give us our second sponsor?
- [37:41]
Tim Miller
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- [38:17]
Sarah Longwell
Not Creepy Crepey.
- [38:19]
Tim Miller
Creepy. And I'm not sure that's better.
- [38:23]
Sarah Longwell
It would be better, jbl, I think.
- [38:25]
Tim Miller
I'm not saying you look creepy, jbl. I'm saying I don't want you to start looking creepy.
- [38:30]
JVL
HR is good for me.
- [38:32]
Tim Miller
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- [39:23]
JVL
I have never once in my life moisturized. Yeah, not once. I know. I feel very self conscious about it never to start. Maybe Oneskin should send me some stuff. Send me some product. One skin.
- [39:36]
Tim Miller
I agree with that. All right, what else are we going to talk about?
- [39:40]
JVL
So I have a triad coming out hot in about 30 minutes.
- [39:45]
Tim Miller
Oh yay.
- [39:46]
JVL
Assuming we ever finish this show and.
- [39:50]
Tim Miller
It is titled is it about people suffering the consequences of their actions?
- [39:54]
JVL
Adventures in Stove Touching.
- [39:57]
Sarah Longwell
We're not even going to do the jobs numbers. I did a whole transition. I talked about Donald Trump crashing the economy thinking I was going to give you a perfect transition.
- [40:04]
JVL
It is in fact about the job revisions down 991,000 jobs through March, mostly from 2024. Not good. Not good. And this fantastically interesting piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer over the past weekend about Hazleton, Pennsylvania, which is basically where you grew up. Sarah.
- [40:30]
Sarah Longwell
It is not far from where I grew up.
- [40:32]
Tim Miller
Oh really?
- [40:33]
Sarah Longwell
But it's, I mean Pennsylvania is a very big state.
- [40:36]
JVL
I was your neck of the woods.
- [40:38]
Tim Miller
Yeah. That's why I thought it was kind of far.
- [40:40]
Sarah Longwell
It's, it's far. It's close. It's far relative to like it's not wasn't my neighboring place, but it's close as in it's closer to me than I am right now.
- [40:51]
Tim Miller
Field hockey tournaments there or softball.
- [40:54]
Sarah Longwell
No.
- [40:55]
Tim Miller
Ax wielding competition.
- [41:01]
JVL
Wow. So I, I, I don't know if we want to do the whole thing, but the thumbnail version of this piece is that Hazelton is a heavily Hispanic majority city. 67% of the of the the town is Hispanic. It also went plus 28 for Donald Trump. And the the piece is a couple reporters from the Inquirer going to Hazelton to talk to people to see what they think about their, their support of Donald Trump. And basically every Trump voter they talk with is like, yeah, no, I'm sticking with him. And their reasons are interesting. So first of all, Hazelton seems to be suffering some, some real deportation problems. The street's empty like a ghost town. One of the people interviewed says that the town kind of looks like it did during COVID because there's nobody out and around, because a lot of people just don't want to be in public.
- [42:08]
Tim Miller
Don'T want to go outside.
- [42:09]
JVL
And you have essentially four types of answers. You have one older retired gentleman who's like, yeah, that's right. This is good. This is what I want. This is Trump. This is Trump doing what, what we sent him to do. And, and he's perfectly fine with his town looking like a ghost town. You then have a woman who says, no, everything is fine. I think all this ICE stuff is just overblown on social media. And, you know, like, I, I've heard from people that things are, are smoother than ever in immigration, which is like, oh, interesting. Okay. Then you have a gentleman who owns a barber shop, which is empty, who says that, yeah, yeah, it seems to have really hurt his business. And a lot of Hispanic folks are just staying indoors and staying out of public life because they're afraid of getting roused up and arrested by people in masks and deported. But he's confident that Trump is only actually going after real criminals, and he's looking forward to all of the good effects of Trumpism coming in the next year. And then you have a lady who says, yeah, this is all really bad. And it's, you know, like, if people are afraid to leave their homes, and it's awful. And I just, you know, but I don't blame President Trump. It's just that there is these extremists surrounding him and these overzealous ICE officers and, like, if only he knew. Anyway, I just wanted to open this up for conversation. Tim, why don't you go first, buddy?
- [43:56]
Tim Miller
Sometimes I just, I'm glad that we covered up the window in my second floor studio, you know, to create better lighting for me, because occasionally I just want to just jump out at, do a little swan dive. I do go back to the David from thing that he's been so good on for however many years we've been in this nightmare, you know, eight years now. Kind of always compared Trump to, to being like a con man that if you have a friend that gets caught up by, by one of these, you know, property deals and they put some investment in and it turns out to be a fake, and they lose their shirt and you go and, you know, try to warn them that they're being conned, they get mad at you instead of the person conning them. Like, there's that, like, that is just human nature, right? Like it's human nature to not Want to say, you know, this was a miss by me. Luckily not for me. I have many, many personal weaknesses. I love saying that I'm wrong. It's fine with me. But most people really dislike that. That goes against a lot of people's. People's just core human nature and experience. It's very hard to get people to say that they were wrong. But, like, I get depressed when I hear these stories because I got what's the case out, Right? Like my case out. Sarah offered her Epstein case out earlier, which I would love to be wrong about that. And for her to be right, my case out was always like, the economy. Like the economy really gets bad. Then enough people will be like, okay, fuck this, all right? Like, I care too much about my own self interest to let whatever my feelings about the last. I'm just, I'm just going to pretend like that's, you know, I'm just going to move on and just not make this such a part of my identity. And that obviously that won't be 100% of the country, but that you get to a high enough number of the country that feels that way, we can move on from this and go back to real world. But if it didn't happen during COVID and it's not happening in a town where there's a micro version of this, where the town economy is really struggling as a result of the ICE raids and you're seeing maybe what might be coming to the rest of the country and micro here, and you go there and people are still like, well, Mr. Trump's doing his best. You start to really grasp for other paths out, and that's the part that gets me to want to start smoking a cigarette. So there you go. That's my reaction.
- [46:17]
Sarah Longwell
I have a different reaction.
- [46:20]
JVL
I know it.
- [46:21]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. One is just as a quick matter. It seemed to me when I started reading the piece, the fact that they couldn't find a lot of people meant that the people they ended up talking to were the ones who were not hiding. And so perhaps if you talk to the people who were hiding, you might get a different answer.
- [46:41]
Tim Miller
All right. Okay, now we're talking.
- [46:43]
JVL
The Hopium Chronicles, brought to you by Sarah.
- [46:46]
Sarah Longwell
Not about Hopium. I'm just making a logical observation about selection bias.
- [46:52]
Tim Miller
All right. Okay. Yeah.
- [46:53]
Sarah Longwell
Because if you're sorting people, as I do, for qualitative stuff all the time, and you sort and you say, give me the people who currently aren't afraid of Trump, the Hispanics who currently aren't afraid of Trump, and versus the Ones who currently are probably get two different answers or from those two different groups of people. Right. They sound very different. My second point on this. Okay, so besides selection bias is Hispanic support for Donald Trump is actually cratering. I understand they found these people to talk to in Hazleton, but nobody young people and Hispanics are the ones who came late to Trump and are abandoning him. First, I think the latest YouGov poll it took me that I had seen, but this is all over the data. Oh, sorry, it was Reuters. Trump's support among Hispanic voters is at just 32%, the weakest level recorded since he returned to his to the White House. The decline is mirrored in the latest YouGov economist poll which shows Hispanic respondents breaking 28% approved and 68% disapprove. So I also think like the. And, and, and then I'm going to bring you my third piece of of what I think is has always been good news for Trump but very bad news for Republicans. And it is in the words that that last woman said, which is it's not Trump himself, it's the rest of these people around him. Which it's how I felt listening to Kevin McCarthy brag about Donald Trump's Saddam Hussein like numbers and all of these places just these Republicans speak in awe of him and his turnout machine. And I'm like, yeah, Kevin McCarthy and you don't have a job anymore because they hate you. They like him. But Donald Trump has spent his last 10 years all over the Republican Party. They don't like you. They don't. They all. Trump was a celebrity. Trump has a gold toilet. Trump did a bunch of things that have endeared people to him, but we don't understand it. We find him repellent. But maybe it's because he hates. They think he likes them and supports them and is really who he hates are these trans people that they don't like. Whatever it is, I do think Donald Trump is unique in that regard and that this does not redound to the long term benefits of the Republican Party.
- [49:10]
Tim Miller
I am. I. That was nice. That was the buck up I needed. And those are both accurate points. The thing that I still have felt leaving a little hollow about and still desiring a cigarette over is like, and I know this is just more about me than about anything, but whatever. It's our podcast, it's our channel so you have to get to listen to my feelings. I want them to be fucking mad. I want people to be mad. I don't want his Hispanic approval number to be Dipping down from this to that. Like I want the, I want two people to. I want a reporter to go to Hazleton and to be like, I'm at the barbershop and the people in the barbershop are fucking pissed. Did I break the Internet? When I slammed it down, what happened there was.
- [49:56]
JVL
Tim was so mad that his hate fire actually knocked out his Internet. Tim is back with us on his phone now. But before we move on, this show is sponsored by the Wild Alaskan. It's a constant battle for all of us to find the highest quality food we can get. But for seafood, I look no further than Wild Alaskan company. I'm a tough customer when it comes to seafood, but let me tell you, the co host salmon and Pacific cod from Wild Alaskan tasted like I was in a remote cabin in Saskatchewan, not in my brownstone in Manhattan. Wild Alaskan is 100% wild caught and never farmed. This means there are no antibiotics, GMOs or additives. Just clean real fish that support healthy oceans and fishing communities. Wild Alaskan fish is frozen off the boat to lock in taste, texture and nutrients like Omega threes. Wild Caught from Alaska. Every order supports sustainable harvesting practices and your membership delivers flexible shipments, expert tips and truly feel good seafood. If you're not completely satisfied with your first box, but you will be because it's amazing. But if you're not, Wild Alaskan company will give you a full refund. No questions asked, no risk, just high quality seafood. Not all fish are the same. Get seafood you can Trust. Go to wildalaskan.com NextLevel for $35 off your first box of premium wild caught seafood. That's wildalaskan.com Nextlevel for $35 off your first order. Thanks to Wild Alaskan Company for sponsoring this episode. That's how you do a professional read their kids.
- [51:37]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I made some pollock fish tacos last week from Wild Alaskan.
- [51:40]
Sarah Longwell
Woo.
- [51:41]
Tim Miller
Positive reviews. Were happy.
- [51:44]
JVL
All right, so we got to talk a little bit about some big news from Kamala Harris's book. I got many many people who were very unhappy with me a couple months ago when I said that that I didn't want to hear a self justifying campaign book from Kamala Harris. All respect to her and that I thought she did actually an excellent job. I'm sad she's not president. I thought she waged a great campaign and helped hold on to a bunch of seats that would have been lost had Joe Joe Biden been running. But we now have our first Excerpt in the Atlantic and I'll just read the money quote. It's Joe and Jill's decision. We all said that like a mantra, as if we'd all been hypnotized. Was it grace or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness. The stakes were simply too high. This wasn't a choice that should have been left to an individual's ego. An individual's ambition should have been more than a personal decision.
- [52:41]
Sarah Longwell
Yowza Hardcore Team Kamala Hardcore. She's right. I read the whole excerpt. I don't want to. I'm going to use this word. I'm going to use it advisedly. So everybody chill out. Like, it's a little like she's complaining. She is complaining about her treatment as vice president and there's a lot of that in it. Yeah, I mean, and so it's, it sounds complaining. On the other hand, I read the whole thing and I was like, show me the lie. Like the idea that they both set her up for failure did not defend her when people were coming after her, that they hung her out to dry in all kinds of ways. And so like actually, I don't know, after reading the excerpt, I'm sort of more in favor of her at least getting to. Because I learned even just in this excerpt. Now, I don't necessarily think, I think this is exactly the right way that they were going to go about things policy wise, but it sounds like she wasn't the border czar. Like she was trying to figure out how to go to Mexico and boost their industry there so that people had.
- [53:46]
Tim Miller
Money, Guatemala and El Salvador and got.
- [53:48]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, like she was working on economic. And, and I don't know, this makes some sense. And, but like that is a totally untold story. And, and she's like, why weren't they talking about these. Why weren't they talking about her successes? And I think the answer very clearly is, and will be elsewhere in the book. She says this. If she shined, they assumed it dimmed him. And so like the level of ego that it took, I mean all it does is re. Enrage me about like this. I, and, and you know, but it does enrage me about everybody else who was present too because this idea of it's up to Joe and Jill is an abdication of responsibility of the other people who are around him. But she's right that she was the worst person to make that argument. Right. Because it looks self serving if you're her. Anyway, that was my first impulse.
- [54:36]
Tim Miller
I mean, Sarah Said, show me the lie. Everything in there is exactly right. I think there's something that we were saying last year, I was saying before that, for that matter. I, I just. Joe Biden's treatment of her from the beginning was unconscionable. It was maybe a bad choice also, by the way, for her, not necessarily because of anything about Kamala, but like, another thing she mentions in this excerpt is the fact that she was especially sensitive about anything that might feel like a criticism or a distancing from him because of their backstory, how he had. She had attacked him personally during the 2019 debate and how, like, there was sensitivities around that and how Jill was sensitive. And that's all fine. Like, that's all I'll make sense on a human level. But it's like, guys, everybody's gonna put on their big boy pants and big girl pants. And it's like you're the president and vice President of the United States, and you need to be able to give the president your best advice and your best counsel, and the president needs to be able to give you the room to help him and be successful. Right. And if he picked her because he, like, felt like he got cornered by saying he's going to pick a black woman or. I never really got a good rationale for why he picked her. Actually. Joe Biden didn't give really long form interviews ever, and where he talked about these sorts of things. So maybe there's another reason. But if you cannot pick somebody to be your vice president and then resent them or be concerned that they're going to come for you, right? Like, you know, maybe you could imagine a situation where you might want to do that. You're like, you know, back in the 60s civil rights era, you had to, you know, a Democrat had to pick a segregationist to balance out the ticket or whatever. Like, sure, there may be some reason. Reason to do it, but this wasn't one. Joe Biden could have picked anybody and he would have won. It wasn't like Kamala Harris was a critical key cog in him winning in 2020. I don't think anybody would say that. So you would think that he would pick her then as a governing partner or as a pass the torch type person, at which point he needs to set her up as a governing partner and a passenger past the torch type person. He didn't do that. He did the opposite. He saddled her with shitty work. They didn't do anything to, to, to buck her up or buff up her. Her Profile and. And his treatment then. And then obviously his behavior in 2024. Statistical. And. And there's just no other way around it. And. And so I just. I. I don't think that there's any reason to object to any of it. It's exactly right. His behavior was just, frankly, appalling when it regards to her. And then regarding the choice to run again in 2024, and my only nitpick of it, some people's critique will be like, why are you doing this now? I don't. There's not another election till next November. I feel like it's as good a time as any to go out there and. And do this. I. I don't. You know, I think that. That be like, oh, well, this news cycle will distract from Trump's thing, and it would be better. I guess we were just talking about Trump being terrible the whole time. But I don't begrudge her doing this right now, frankly. But my nitpick is, like, I don't know. The stakes were really high when she took over, and she had a really tough job. I get it. She was thrown into a tough spot. She only had 107 days right there in the name of the book. But, like, if you felt like in order to win, you needed to distance yourself from Biden more, you needed to distance yourself from him on Israel, Gaza, or you need to distance yourself from his policy on the border. Like, you needed to do it in September of 2024, not September 2025. Right. Like, and that's, like, my critique. Like, you're. I get it. I understand why you're sensitive, and I think he put her in a bad place. But also, you're running for President of the damn United States. And, like, And. And I think that, frankly, especially given Biden's capabilities from a communication standpoint, I. I think that she could have done the same thing back to him that he did to her.
- [58:24]
JVL
Right.
- [58:24]
Tim Miller
Like, he put her in a box a lot of times. And I think that she could have done the same thing just by going out and doing interviews and being like, Joe Biden is wrong about this. Like, what. What was Joe Biden gonna do? Go out and do an interview and say, I'm pissed at Kamala or whatever? I don't think so. I think. I think he would have grumbled privately. And so anyway, like, that's my nitpick. Yeah.
- [58:45]
Sarah Longwell
Because they were not treating her well publicly. Like, right. This is where, look, she's. She is complaining about her treatment, but I think her complaints are Valid throughout this thing. And, and I. Your point about, you know, this is the problem with books is you're always like learning things. We're like, well, but if you knew this, why didn't you behave differently? The stakes were so high and like, you just, you beg people to sort of have realized this in the moment. But I just think, like, when it comes to blaming people for 2024, she gets the least amount of mine. Like, I actually, I think that same.
- [59:22]
JVL
Oh, I agree with that completely.
- [59:24]
Sarah Longwell
Like, it's like, not even close. Like, I don't think she should run for president again in 2028. I'm not sure that's. I'll be interested to see if that is kind of how this book is positioned. But to me, actually, it just feels like, no, I get to have my say about how this went and especially because Joe Biden has been out there. I just don't begrudge her when Joe Biden's gone out there being like, if it was me, I would have won. Like just the most insane, insane takes possible. And yeah. Anyway, no, I.
- [59:58]
JVL
So I am Joe Biden super fan number one, right. I think fair to say yes if.
- [60:05]
Tim Miller
You still want to keep that title. I don't think there's a ton of competition out there for it, but not.
- [60:10]
JVL
A lot of competition. No, I'm, I'm just saying that I come to this as somebody who thinks that he, on the merits, generally did an outstanding job as president on all the things that turned out not to.
- [60:22]
Tim Miller
Matter.
- [60:25]
JVL
And that he was catastrophically wrong on like the single big issue, which is how do you stop Donald Trump from being president again? And when I read it was Joe and Jill's decision, that fills me with rage because there are this, there is a cult of the presidency which sees like the presidency as the, the president is the decider, right? And it's because he was elected. And I understand that. And that is true for normal times and normal issues. And ultimately the final call has to be the president's, because somebody. But the truth is these things are institution level decisions. And like, who was, who were the people at the table making the argument to Biden that he shouldn't run, Right? And like, there should have been a, a very vociferous conversation around him led by him saying, so what do we think here, guys? Is this the right decision or not? And the fact that that does not seem to have happened is a scathing indictment of him. And it's fine in normal times for the president. Just assume that he's going to run and to not want to hear dissenting voices on this. But this was not normal times. The polling was all very bad for him. Right. I mean, it isn't like nobody knew that things were, were.
- [61:55]
Tim Miller
Bill Crystal was writing about it every day.
- [61:59]
JVL
Yeah. You know, like the polling was grim. And the fact that he approached this as a. Well, it's me and my wife making this decision for America. And I'm not even like, like asking other people to give me other inputs. That's bad. That's very, very bad. That is malpractice.
- [62:19]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah. And like, can we just take a look for a second at the way Trump and J.D. vance are. Like, just think about the difference in how much you see them, how much they're talking, how much JD Vance is out there building up his own brand. And Trump is supporting him. He's supporting Trump. He gets tons and tons of airtime, tons and tons of visibility. He just sits down with Lara Trump. Everybody pretends like it's a real interview between an actual interviewer and the Vice President as opposed to the President's daughter in law and his top stooge. But like. And shitposter in chief, but whatever. Like, they didn't do any of that. None of it. Like, when I was banging on and on and everybody's like, Sarah's so negative about Biden because I was constantly bitching about their communications thing. Like, you can just see it flex side by side. It's like not even close. They're not even in the same universes in terms of the way that they talk to people. Like, you want to know why Trump won? It's because people saw him all the time because he seemed better. Biden was hiding and they hid her. They should have used her to elevate him. She was better than than him. And instead his ego was so afraid of her outshining him that they wouldn't let her be out there. And I just.
- [63:28]
Tim Miller
So for what reason? You're the President of the United States. Like, what reason was he worried? But like, what was. So who cares if outshined you? You're the president. You got everything you ever wanted. You got your life's dream. Like what? So what, you worried that David Ignatius on Face the Nation is going to talk about how much more spry Kamala is? Like, what are you even worried? Like, the whole thing is just so shallow.
- [63:51]
Sarah Longwell
And I got to tell you here, I'm just going to say one last thing. It's not the problem with Biden and his age wasn't just Biden's age, it was that he had a bunch of very long time people around him who were his advisors, who. It was their last shot at power. It was their last chance to be in the room and they didn't want to give it up either. And a bunch of people made incredibly selfish choices and the entire like the American experiment hinged on it. And like we gotta deal with, with the. Joe Biden's ego. Joe Biden's ego. Like what's his name's ego? The guys, Mike, Donald, Mike Hunter.
- [64:29]
Tim Miller
Hunter.
- [64:29]
JVL
Hunter. The guy who's. Whose judgment is historically awful. Right. What gotta say in this? Like it just it. I don't know. Like I think about how we make decisions at the Bulwark just Institute at institutional levels and for the things that are the tiniest level, you know, they're important for us at the Bulwark but, but have nothing to do with like the fate of liberal democracy. It's like, well, we get a bunch of people with opposing views in the room, we sit around and hash them out. Like it's, it's. We don't just say. Well, it's really, you know, Sarah, Tim's decision.
- [65:02]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah.
- [65:02]
Tim Miller
It's going to hurt Tim's feelings.
- [65:05]
Sarah Longwell
I got a final thing that I want to say that's again, that's not actually about this jbl. You totally skipped over the jobs numbers and the revision. Like we hit it, we said it but like we didn't dig in on it. I had one thing I wanted to say on that.
- [65:17]
JVL
Go ahead.
- [65:17]
Sarah Longwell
Remember how I kept telling you that people were deeply, they were not feeling a positive economy and everybody was like the economy's good. The economy is good even under Joe Biden. Like Donald Trump is doing his own job to kill it. But like those revisions I think demonstrate that they were. We were not dealing with nearly as strong an economy as people thought. And therefore I think that the people who were feeling like they were living in a crappy economy were a better indicator than the top level expert numbers that we were getting or the way that economists were talking about it because they were totally over interpreting or they did not have good jobs data. Like the number revisions down means that the economy was in a much worse place than people were acting like it was going into that election.
- [66:04]
JVL
Agree to disagree.
- [66:06]
Sarah Longwell
No, that's it. Agree to disagree. Come on.
- [66:09]
JVL
This is a. An excellent show but an incredibly long show. And it's like to say like the unemployment numbers were soft at the very, very softer than we realized at the Very, very end is almost nothing to do with the insane perceptions that people had where they believed it was 2008. Okay, for three and a half years.
- [66:31]
Sarah Longwell
We're going to go deep on this on Secret on Friday.
- [66:33]
JVL
No, we're not.
- [66:34]
Sarah Longwell
This is.
- [66:34]
JVL
No, we're not.
- [66:35]
Tim Miller
You might if you don't. It's kitchen. We do something even better. And that's why people need to sign up for the Bulwark plus so they can get the Secret podcast.
- [66:42]
JVL
Yeah. Sarah, you have a special message for people before we get out of here?
- [66:47]
Sarah Longwell
I do. If you'd like to see us all fight like this live, you can do it. Because we bicker. We don't fight. Friends don't fight. Love means never having to say you're sorry. But the Bulwark upcoming live shows are happening. You all know one of my favorite parts of this thing is that we have built a real community here. And when you come to these shows, you get to see what that community is like, and it is our favorite thing to do. So we have a live show in Toronto later this month. It sold out immediately. We are sorry to our Canadian friends. We are working on a way to see more of you. We took a much too small of a venue. We did not. And we didn't realize how intense.
- [67:22]
Tim Miller
Canadians love us too much in Canada. The Canadians love us too much. And JVL is not there, which might help. I don't know, who knows?
- [67:30]
Sarah Longwell
But we are also going to be in America, so you can join. Oh, yeah. JVL is not coming to the Canada show.
- [67:36]
JVL
That's right.
- [67:37]
Tim Miller
He's scared of the Mounties. He's scared of the Mounties. He thinks he's like, the nightmare are going to detain me.
- [67:44]
JVL
I'm not crossing any borders.
- [67:46]
Sarah Longwell
Okay, well, luckily for JBL, we've got some America shows. Tim, JBL and I will be in D.C. on October 8th and then on October 11th in New York City. Put them on your calendars. Tickets. Yes. As JVL has been saying, one of the best ways we can. We can combat the darkness is to experience it together. And I hope you'll come join us. And if you really want to get all the time with us, you can. VIP tickets are included in the sale. That will give you an early entry to the show to sit in the audience for an intimate Q A with Tim, jbl and myself where you can flip the script and ask us your questions.
- [68:24]
Tim Miller
What. How intimate are we gonna get?
- [68:27]
Sarah Longwell
Just. I think they can. We can be close. We're gonna let people touch jbl. We're gonna let them lay hands on you.
- [68:33]
JVL
You're gonna use me as a human shield. That's great. You know what? That's funny, because I'm gonna be Xanaxed off up. I'm gonna be loving it. I'm gonna be loving contact with everybody.
- [68:42]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, you do love your Xanax before a show. Okay, guys, check out the Bulwark.com events for more and to figure out where you get tickets. That is the bulwark.com events. Come hang.
- [68:54]
JVL
Good show. Long show, everybody. We will catch you next week.
- [68:58]
Tim Miller
Bye.