1026: Raze the White House Ballroom?

Summary

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The Next Level – Episode Summary

Podcast: The Next Level

Hosts: Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller, Jonathan V. Last
Episode: 1026: Raze the White House Ballroom?
Date: October 22, 2025

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Overview

In this episode, Sarah, Tim, and JVL dissect the recent "No Kings" protests, the public and media reaction, and the symbolism of Trump’s White House renovations. With their trademark mix of humor, insight, and candid reflection, they grapple with the meaning of grassroots activism, how the mainstream media fits (or doesn’t) into the moment, and the broader question of who the White House really belongs to. The second half veers into symbolic and practical debates over Trump’s proposed demolition of the White House's East Wing to build a grand ballroom, delving into precedent, civic stewardship, and architectural symbolism.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The "No Kings" Protests: Personal Experiences and Significance

• Sarah’s First Protest Experience
  • Sarah describes her surprise at the turnout in her small New Jersey neighborhood—expecting “maybe 25 people" and encountering over a thousand.
  • She highlights the intensity and commitment shown by attendees: “The signs honestly really impressed me… the higher that barrier to entry becomes, the more committed and intense the…level of energy is.” (01:40)
• JVL’s Perspective on Protest and Conservative DNA
  • JVL notes he attended with his children and how protests have never felt natural for conservatives:

    "How do conservatives even protest? What are we supposed to say? What do we want? Incremental change. You know, when do we want it? In the due course." (03:29)

  • He reflects on the “Normie” vibe and notes shared values among Republicans and Democrats participating.
• Tim’s Meta Take and ‘Normie’ Energy
  • Tim didn’t attend but relays his household’s participation and photos from New Orleans. He stresses the importance of not minimizing the meta impact of these protests, emphasizing inclusivity:

    “The goal is simply a show of force. Like, we will not be beaten down by this. And so people should not roll over for Donald Trump.” (08:21)

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2. Critiques from Both Right and Left

• Both hosts and attendees online have critiqued the protests:
  • The right disparages the lack of a specific policy ask, calling it “brain dead.”
  • The left complains about the protests not being radical enough, mocking signs like “If Kamala had won, we’d be at brunch.”
  • Tim quips about the discourse:

    “Some people are going to have signs that are kind of lame. But that's the human experience, right?” (08:14)

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3. Media Coverage and Its Relevance

• Discussion on New York Times Coverage
  • Sarah asks about the underwhelming print coverage of the protests.
  • Tim, dismissing the significance, argues:

    "The only people that read the hard copy of the New York Times are, no offense...old liberals that don't really have anything else to do on Sunday morning because they're not going to church and so they don't have kids' soccer anymore." (10:46)

  • All agree the mainstream media is rapidly losing centrality to these movements and that real influence comes from turnout:

    "What matters is the bodies in the streets...Nobody's coming to save anybody but the people who are getting out there." (11:40)

• Media Industry Change
  • JVL: "We are intense consumers of news, and we do not know who sits at these desks anymore...not an indictment of anybody, only a statement of where things are and where they're going." (14:35)
  • Tim: “The front page of the newspaper and who's the host of the news is just a little less important than it was in 1994.” (13:52)

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4. Protest Tactics and State Response

• They reference Nick Katojio’s argument that the peaceful, even whimsical (e.g., inflatable frog costumes) approach precluded the Trump administration from invoking the Insurrection Act.
  • Quote – Sarah:

    “If you're at a point where protesters have to put on inflatable frog costumes in order to deny the regime an excuse for invoking the Insurrection act on them, aren't you already in a place that's really horrifying?” (09:51)

  • JVL: “Yes, yes.” (09:51)

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5. The Trump White House Ballroom Controversy

• Sarah Raises the Demolition Issue

  • Surprised that construction for the new presidential ballroom requires "ripping the facade off of the East Wing of the White House." (17:35)

• Should Democrats Promise to Bulldoze It?

  • JVL’s Triad article proposes that future Democrats should pledge to demolish the Trump ballroom and restore the East Wing.
  • JVL:

    "The stated policy of every Democrat seeking the presidency should be that the first thing they will do is demolish the Trump Ballroom and restore the East Wing of the White House to their pre-Trump state." (22:27)

  • Sarah:

    "You take the oath of office before you even go to lunch, sign the EO." (22:48)

  • They debate the symbolism: Is the White House the president's personal property or the American people's? Is tearing down the East Wing not a literal metaphor for Trump's approach to American democracy?

• Differing Levels of Outrage

  • Tim admits he can only muster so much outrage about the building, but agrees in principle.
  • JVL emphasizes the symbolism:

    "The tearing down of the East Wing is an on the nose metaphor for what Donald Trump is doing to the country." (21:28)

• Practical Barriers and Satire

  • Tim jokes about the headaches and delays that would attend any real demolition:

    “…there'd have to be Nine months of environmental study. We'd have to make sure that a BIPOC woman of color was on the contracting team for the demolition.” (24:20)

  • Sarah and Tim riff on how the Trump approach—just “doing stuff”—contrasts with Democratic bureaucratic caution:

    "One of the lessons that Democrats can learn from Trump is that, like, you can just do stuff." (24:55)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Protest Signs and Commitment
  • Sarah: “The signs honestly really impressed me because I just think of everything as an investment of time… the higher that barrier to entry becomes, the more committed and intense the…level of energy is.” (01:40)
• On Conservative Protests
  • JVL: “How do conservatives even protest? What are we supposed to say? What do we want? Incremental change. You know, when do we want it? In the due course.” (03:29)
  • Tim: “Slowly.” (03:57)
• On Critiques from Left and Right
  • Tim: “It's just like, guys like, you know, you want people to get together and…organize. Like, that is the whole thing of the far left...This is organizing.” (07:57)
• On Media Relevance
  • Tim: “I just think that, you know, the front page of the newspaper and who's the host of the news is just a little less important than it was in 1994.” (13:52)
• On the East Wing Demolition
  • JVL: “The tearing down of the East Wing is an on the nose metaphor for what Donald Trump is doing to the country.” (21:28)
  • Sarah: “They didn't leave the statues of Saddam up.” (20:01)
• On Doing vs. Planning
  • Sarah: “If I wanted to build an addition on my house, it would have taken me probably 18 months to go through the process…” (25:02)
  • Tim: “Oh, you want to build a train? How about you just build a train, train people?” (25:39)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment Description | |-----------|-----------------------------| | 00:10–02:44 | Sarah and JVL discuss first-hand protest experiences | | 03:09–05:05 | JVL on attending with kids, generational attitudes to protest | | 06:49–08:21 | Critiques from left and right; ‘cheugy’ signs | | 09:51–11:40 | Katagio’s critique/Insurrection Act threat | | 10:16–14:35 | The decline of mainstream news, NYT coverage | | 17:35–20:12 | Trump’s demolition of the East Wing and responses | | 22:27–25:03 | Should Democrats pledge to demolish the Trump ballroom? Symbolism vs. practicality |

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Tone & Style

• Conversational, irreverent, and incisive
• Frequent in-jokes and playful asides, even when discussing grave political realities
• Openness about what they don’t know (e.g., current NBC anchor, process intricacies)

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For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

This episode is a reflection on the evolving nature of American civic action, what it means when even “normie” suburbs are galvanized onto the streets, and the broader battle over symbols—both in protest and in architecture—at the heart of America’s political divide. Whether you’re obsessed with meta-political discourse or just want to laugh about “cheugy” protest signs, Sarah, Tim, and JVL deliver sharp, accessible, and often funny insight on a chaotic week in politics.

Transcript

[Jonathan V. Last]

I'll cop too. Haven't read the Triad yet on this front, but I will.

[Tim Miller]

I got it in front of me.

[Sarah Longwell]

Hey there. This is JVL here with my best friends Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of the Bulwark Guys. We had the no Kings protests. I went to my very first protest over the weekend. Seven million or so. Yeah. I'm not a protest guy.

[Tim Miller]

You've never even accidentally attended a protest or been to a march for life.

[Sarah Longwell]

Or no, thank you, Mass.

[Jonathan V. Last]

You've met him, right? You know how he met people?

[Tim Miller]

I mean, I don't know. He's like 50, you know, it's a life as long, you know, I don't know. There might have been one occasion before Saturday to. No, thanks. Express your dismay with the state of affairs.

[Sarah Longwell]

Pass. I think I told you, I don't even like shaking hands of sin, of peace at Mass. Anyway, I am just interested in closing the loop on this. Hear what you guys thought, because the three of us have not been together to discuss them afterwards. I was pretty shocked by it. I, you know, my little. My little new neighborhood in New York City, New Jersey, had like a thousand people show up, which it was probably more than that. Again, I'm just like doing rough eyeball account. I thought, hand to God, I was like, oh, they're gonna be 25 people here when I show up, because I know exactly where it is. It's by the little public library. There's a little gazebo and a tiny park. I, you know, and I thought it would be like, you know, cul de sac potluck dinner or something. And I was shocked by it. It was really something.

[Tim Miller]

Tell me more.

[Sarah Longwell]

Huge numbers. People lining the streets, both sides of the streets. Very normie. I would say about half the people there had signs of some sort. Most of the signs handmade. And this is. I. That the signs honestly really impressed me because I just think of everything as an investment of time. You're already asking them to give up basically one quarter of their weekend, right? And once you factor in travel time, then walking around for two hours. It was beautiful day. Everybody's got stuff to do. And the signs, like, you got to go to Michael's. You got to buy the poster board. You got to sit there with your Sharpie. You got to think of something clever. Like you're just. That's like another hour or two hours that people are putting into this. And the higher that barrier to entry becomes, the more committed and intense the. The level of energy is around the thing so that those are my thoughts about it? I. I mean, maybe this is like, silly, but I don't know. What did you guys think?

[Jonathan V. Last]

Tim, where did you go? Where did you. Did you.

[Tim Miller]

I didn't. I was flying to California. My husband and daughter represented me and in New Orleans and, And they sent me photos. And so that's why I've not been on any of our no Kings content. I'm not going to do Stolen Valor for the actual protesters who are out there. So I have thoughts, meta thoughts, but I think you should go since you were actually a human in meatspace.

[Jonathan V. Last]

I was in meatspace. I did go out, although I will say, and I did a whole thing on this with Bill on Sunday, the day after. But I went to. I didn't go to the main big one down in dc. We did the one where we lined the streets kind of on Connecticut Avenue up in Upper Northwest.

[Tim Miller]

Agoraphobia or just.

[Jonathan V. Last]

No, I wanted to take the kids, honestly. And I, I didn't. Also, as somebody, you know, I was trying to explain to people about conservatives and protests. I know they look at the Tea Party and think, no, the right protests. And I was like, not our kind of right. Like, there was always this joke that people we would tell about, like, how do conservatives even protest? What are we supposed to say? What do we want? Incremental change. You know, when do we want it? In the due course.

[Tim Miller]

Slowly.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Yeah, that's right. And so it's not part of our DNA. And unlike I have been to. In my life, I had been to one march, which was a gay rights, one gay marriage thing back in the day that, you know, my friends were.

[Tim Miller]

Doing and if God hates fags, why are we all so cute?

[Jonathan V. Last]

That's.

[Tim Miller]

Those signs.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Those kinds of signs. That's right.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Jonathan V. Last]

But other than that, my. I hadn't done one until I did the dc, The Free DC March, you know, a few weeks back. And I, I even didn't do the first no Kings. I kind of drove around and honked at people, but I didn't stand there and I. This time. But you're right about the signs. Like my kids and I've always had weird feelings about kids at protests because I'm like, they don't have a political opinion. You know, don't use them as political props. But on the other hand, I was like, let me. I want to talk to you about what's happening in the country. And, and. And they wanted to make their signs. And I, I was like, great, you.

[Tim Miller]

Show them Trump pooping on people as A way to get them mad at them.

[Jonathan V. Last]

I didn't.

[Tim Miller]

Something that resonates with children, I've heard.

[Jonathan V. Last]

I try hard not to show them things that appear on the Internet about our political discourse. But, but just to finish off in where I was in D.C. i gotta say I, I want to double stamp Normie. But also, like, there was a guy in salmon pants protesting. I was like, that guy, that guy voted for Mitt Romney, just like me. And we're out here now and I gotta say that the thing about no Kings that really works as a frame is where it pushes people is to. Is into the democracy space in terms of what they're doing. And actually some of the criticism from the right, which is all so lame and stupid, but one of them is like, there's nothing specific that they're asking for. And I'm like, what, a brain dead, like, analysis of what's happening? No, they're saying we don't want the guy to act like a dictator. And many of the things he is doing do that he is abusing his power and we'd like him to stop. That is the, that is the frame of no Kings. But, you know, so people are out there with their, their. Just their flags, their pro America signs, and it was a very sort of wholesome, peaceful even. There was like some boomers singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic, you know, waving their flags. And I was like. And to the extent that if you had shown me that kind of protest in my younger days, like, you'd think that perhaps this was a bunch of conservatives out there because that, that frame, the frame is very pro America. And so kudos to the organizers.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, that annoyed the lefties too. And their critique was as stupid as the. Well, maybe as stupid. Not as stupid because they weren't you calling the no Kings protesters antifa Hamas terrorists. So less stupid than the Republicans critique of the protesters, but. But stupid nonetheless. And you saw a lot of this kind of discourse in the Internet. And I, One of the things that we do when I was out here is some college stuff. And I've, I heard some of that. The, the college kids I heard to their. Their points were not stupid. They were talking more about, you know, liberal arts college discourse about how it was liberals out there and, you know, they're more of a leftist and you know, and then whatever the, the Internet though, critique for the left, like poor Doug Emhoff got piled on as he took a picture with some lady that said if Kamala had won, we'd be at brunch. And they're like, it just shows how decadent these protests are that they're not serious about overthrowing the capitalist system. It's just like, guys like, you know, you want people to get together and. And organize. Like, that is the whole thing of the far left. It's like always, like, it's organizing, organizing, community organizing. It's like, this is organizing. You know, some people are going to have signs that you find a little chewy or distasteful or whatever. Like, some people are going to have signs that are kind of lame. But that's the human experience, right? Everybody's going to use cheugy. Yeah.

[Jonathan V. Last]

What's that?

[Tim Miller]

It's what the kids call us.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Cheugy.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's a new one for me.

[Tim Miller]

C H. C H. There you go. C H E U G Y so anyway, but like, to me, I think that has been the success of it, that it was able to broaden it out, make a lot of people feel comfortable, make people feel like they could fit in there and be a show of force against what is happening. And the goal is not organizing in the ends of, you know, unionizing a company or like, some tangible thing. Like, the goal is simply a show of force. Like, we will not be beaten down by this. And so people should not roll over for Donald Trump.

[Sarah Longwell]

I got a question for this. Our friends Nick Katojio wrote about this yesterday, and he said, you know, one of the important things the no Kings protest did was it accomplished, showing how foolish and wrong and the lies about what the protests were coming from the. From the administration. And it denied the Trump administration a pretext for invoking the Insurrection Act. And what. What Nick said, though, was if you're at a point where protesters have to put on inflatable frog costumes in order to deny the regime an excuse for invoking the Insurrection act on them, aren't you already in a place that's really horrifying?

[Jonathan V. Last]

Yes, yes.

[Sarah Longwell]

Right. I mean, like, the.

[Jonathan V. Last]

The fact that. Listen to this show, jb.

[Tim Miller]

I. I guess.

[Sarah Longwell]

I guess I. I don't mean to. To bring the room down, but it, like, you know, on the one hand, yes, that was lovely, but it was all. It was all boring. Can I ask. I mean, I don't want to cap on the New York Times too much, because I don't want. I don't want.

[Tim Miller]

Sarah, how many newsletters have you popped about that over the past month?

[Sarah Longwell]

But did you guys have any thoughts about the front page of the New York Times and the day following the.

[Tim Miller]

No Kings I don't, I mean, I, and I, and I don't mean this as a, as a critique of the topic to be brought up in the podcast. I mean it just simply as an expression of a take about some discourse that's out there. I don't care what's happening in the CBS News morning meeting or I don't care who the anchor is of C. I don't know who the anchor is of CBS Evening News. I literally could not tell you the name. Nora o'.

[Sarah Longwell]

Donnell.

[Tim Miller]

I don't believe so she left a while ago. She's been replaced. I'm not sure about who. And I don't care what's on the New York Times because you know what? Nobody reads the hard copy of New York Times. The only people that read the hard copy of the New York Times are, no offense, I don't mean this as a pejorative. Any listeners that fit this bill, old liberals that don't really have anything else to do on Sunday morning because they're not going to church and so they don't have kids soccer anymore. And so they're reading their hard cop New York Times. That's it. And so maybe the New York Times, I guess my. As a business strategy, they should probably be appealing to that demo because that's the group of people that is reading the hard copy of their paper. They should probably be doing a little bit better customer service from a capitalism standpoint. But like, who cares who's on it? It's not undecided voters picking up the hard copy. New York Times, I don't believe so. That's my take on it.

[Jonathan V. Last]

I. And I think that's a, I think that's a good, a good take. I, I want to. Because not only does it not matter, like, what matters is the bodies in the streets, but it also goes to the point of the mainstream media. Nobody's coming to save anybody but the people who are getting out there. And like, the no kings thing is good. And here's what it does. You start with 5 million that come out and then you get 7 million and then you get 10 million. And over time you, Then you get the Insurrection Act. No, I don't think so. I mean, jbl, you, you pointed this out and I think we should be incredibly grateful that people seem. And I, I talked about this a lot at the live shows, but now that we're on the other side of one of the largest protests in United States history, people understand that he's looking for pretext. They really do. Like these People that come out, they get it. And, and they are not taking the bait. And to Katagio's point about, well, they're wearing dinosaur costumes, whatever that is. Them emphatically not taking the bait and just showing. And so I think that the ability to build a turnout apparatus to get people to do a thing, to normalize doing a thing, to show other people, like, this is what offense looks like. And the New York Times, like, part of the reason you want to do this is. And I think they achieved this, everybody had to talk about no kings, including Donald Trump. Right. They set the agenda. You need more of this. And if the New York Times wants to ignore it now and put it on page 16, that's fine.

[Sarah Longwell]

You just look at 23, page 23.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Sure, that's fine. But I do think part of it is saying, all right, we're going to keep doing this so much that you cannot ignore us. That is the goal.

[Tim Miller]

Just while we're having a little fun, does anybody know who the NBC Nightly News anchor is? Just as a quick quiz, pop quiz for a political podcast.

[Jonathan V. Last]

It's that man. His name is.

[Tim Miller]

There's. There's a man.

[Jonathan V. Last]

He has brown hair. I've seen him.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. And I, I know this isn't meant to be mean to Tom Yamas, who I love, but I saw him in the elevator when I was at.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Is that his name? I've never heard that name before in my life.

[Tim Miller]

Well, I, I had and I. And I know good reporter. And I saw him in the elevator and he was talking to me about the bulwark at 30 Rock about a month ago. And I was like, oh, hey, Tom. Cool, cool, cool. Didn't congratulate him because he had recently taken over the host chair of NBC Nightly News. And I only didn't congratulate him because I didn't know. So I apologize to Tom Yamas. I congrats on taking over the chair. I just think that, you know, the front page of the newspaper and who's the host of the news is just a little less important than it was in 1994.

[Jonathan V. Last]

And look, JBL, I know you want to move on, but I'm just going to quick say I did this conversation with Dylan Byers on the grow room about the bulwark and its growth and about where media is going.

[Sarah Longwell]

He crushed.

[Tim Miller]

You're way better than me on that part.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Well, we, this is what we divide and con. You are way. As we joked at the beginning, you are better at cutting 17 takes a day. And nobody can crank out 2,000 words like JBL. Okay, but. But part of this is we are intense consumers of news, and we do not know who sits at these desks anymore, which is not, I think, an indictment of anybody, only a statement of where things are and where they're going. And so for all the obsession, because one of the things Dylan, like, just cannot get over is Barry Weiss. Like, the Kremlin ology around Barry Weiss. I was like, day four, Barry Weiss. What does the meeting look like? And I'm like, guys, like. And I just. Look, I'm not here to. To go after the Free Press or CBS or anything else. It's just sort of like, if the decision is, I'm going to. Because he was obsessed with this idea of, like, who would buy you? How would you. What is your exit strategy?

[Sarah Longwell]

How do you get out?

[Jonathan V. Last]

Yeah, like. And I'm like, that's not going anywhere.

[Tim Miller]

Get out there.

[Jonathan V. Last]

But. But most importantly, if you want influence in the conversation, which we absolutely do, the idea that you want to be eaten by one of these dinosaurs that no one's paying attention to anymore and to me, does not seem like the best strategy for how you communicate with people, because that is a dying model, and we do not want to recreate the dying model.

[Sarah Longwell]

All right, quick word from our sponsor, Sarah.

[Jonathan V. Last]

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[Sarah Longwell]

The Ballroom. Did either of you guys understand that the Trump Presidential Palace Ballroom and Casino was going to involve tearing down big portions of the east wing of the White House? Because the renders I had seen, it looked like it was just sitting next to it, like Sim City style. And then all of a sudden, we got pictures the other day of like, oh, they've got a demolition crew there just ripping the facade off of the east wing of the White House. That's cool.

[Tim Miller]

I want to come clean on something before we talk about this.

[Sarah Longwell]

Jb, you're going to say you don't care about this either.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. And I want to come clean with you about it. I have pre taped today's daily podcast already with Jon Favreau and I read at length from your triad. And, and I think the people are going to be on your side. But I just was like the idea that the Democrats should now promise to bulldoze the Trump Ballroom and replace it with something else, I just, I only got room for so much anger in my heart, you know, I only got room for so much anger.

[Sarah Longwell]

Not me, Tim.

[Tim Miller]

The east wing, where I've never been, that I've never breached because none of my candidates ever won. I just. Whatever. I don't know. That's, that's. I know this is making for bad podcast, but tell me, make the case.

[Sarah Longwell]

So the, the president. So, so is it, is it the case that the President is the owner of the White House?

[Tim Miller]

No.

[Sarah Longwell]

And so if he wanted to simply bulldoze the entire White House and replace it with a 10 story brutalist cube, he could do that.

[Tim Miller]

Seems like an Obama question. But no, because it, it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, why not then? Right? If he can knock down one thing.

[Tim Miller]

He can do it, right? This is, I guess, what's the question? Could he do it legally?

[Sarah Longwell]

I'm just trying to like, no kings, right? So who does, who does the White House belong to? Is the White House a piece of the American government that belongs to all of the people who comprise America, the citizenry? Or does it belong to the K who resides there? Because the Trump version of this seems to be. Well, it's mine. And so I can do whatever I want with it. And that's why I think it has to be knocked down. Because you have to show people that, no, no, no, no, we don't tolerate this shit. They don't, they didn't leave the statues of Saddam up.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Josh Shapiro is going to give a barn burner speech. He says, I will tear down this ballroom.

[Sarah Longwell]

I'm not saying this should be the centerpiece of the campaign, but in the same way that Trump would say, yeah, and we're going to do like, I don't know, we're going to put Jim Comey in jail or whatever. You know, one of his applause lines like this ought to be a staple of every person who's running for president as a Democrat in 2028. Right.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Is it possible to agree with both of you on this?

[Tim Miller]

I think so. I think it's just. Yeah. Because our disagreement is only to the degree of our, of our rage. Like JBL is objectively right. I guess I agree with him. Yeah. The president cannot, should not be able to like redesign massive sections of the White House on a whim because he thinks it's his house and he wants to put his ugly ass name on shit. I hear you. I'm for that. I just, I don't know. I don't know. I'm just, I'm not, I'm not. There are a lot of people that on the right who spend a lot of time talking about architecture, you know, Tucker Carlson's like fashy architecture stuff about how certain the brutalist architecture depresses the spirit and we need things that alive in the spirit and all this. I just, I don't know that none of that. I'm just not an architecture girly, I guess.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Dork girly. Where are we gonna go with this? Wait, so JBL, you are 100% right. And one of the things, because it is not his and he is a steward and every under it. Part of what is happening is that the tearing down of the, the East Wing is an on the nose metaphor for what Donald Trump is doing to the country. Yes. Right. It's like you watch him do it and it's, it's not because this was a novel.

[Sarah Longwell]

We would say, oh, that is so hacky. Come on, you don't need to. The subtext can remain subtext. You don't have to make it the text.

[Jonathan V. Last]

We get it, guys. He's tearing down the fabric of American democracy. But he is. And this is where Donald Trump, you know, we take him seriously or literally and where he's being real literal in the tearing down of sort of American democracy and behaving. And I got to. I'll cop too. Haven't read the Triad yet on this front, but I will.

[Tim Miller]

I got it in front of me. The stated policy of every Democrat seeking the presidency should be that the first thing they will do is demolish the Trump Ballroom and restore the East Wing of the White House to their pre Trump state. Jonathan Victor Last Day 1 okay, and.

[Jonathan V. Last]

So this is the part you raise.

[Sarah Longwell]

Your hand, you take the oath of office before you even go to lunch, sign the eo.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Well, what I was going to ask you, since I have not read it, is ask you if part of what you were saying is. Because this is what I would imagine a JVL would say about this is that somebody who builds this ballroom, who tears down the east wing. The other part of it, and this is a real JVL thing, is like does that person seem like they're leaving or does it seem like they're remodeling things to their own personal specifications?

[Tim Miller]

He did say that. Good, good, good call.

[Jonathan V. Last]

Feels like that's a thing JVL would.

[Tim Miller]

Say, you know, your name.

[Jonathan V. Last]

And, and so the part where, and so I, I almost, I, I actually, like I've said, I'm very much disagree with we should in any way create the narrative that there is some actual way for him to stay. But I do agree with the point that it is so strange for a president to build all of these things. Now it could be for posterity, like Donald Trump likes to build things. It's also just put his name, he knows how to do. But there is the part of it that feels like this isn't yours. You don't get to do all of this stuff. So agree with that. The idea though that somebody should run on, because here's the thing, because it is symbolic, I think, because like I look at it as a very serious metaphor of what he's doing. I would deal with the aesthetic things later and focus on the real things. I understand what you're saying about the, the toppling of the Saddam and things. And if there are statues of Donald Trump somewhere, I would, I certainly think people can go ahead and topple them.

[Tim Miller]

Two thoughts. Maybe instead of bringing it down, Democrats should make the new ballroom an orphanage for Venezuelan migrants. Now. Okay, how about this other thought? My other hot take on this is there's One problem with JBL's theory is that the Democrats could not tear down the ballroom on the first day that they took back over because there'd have to be Nine months of environmental study. Yeah, we'd have to make sure that. We'd have to contract that out. We'd have to contract that out. We'd have to make sure that a BIPOC woman of color was on the contracting team for the demolition. And so that's going to take a little bit, I think. So, Tim, that's a problem.

[Sarah Longwell]

You've, you've talked about this. One of the, one of the lessons that Democrats can learn from Trump is that, like, you can just do stuff.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

Is this not a good. I mean, this project has moved much faster than I would have been able to move on putting an addition on my house. If I wanted to build an addition on my house, it would have taken me probably 18 months to go through the process of, like, all this stuff.

[Tim Miller]

And here it's working on a little permitting issue. Backyard.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. Right. You got to line up your financing. You got to get an architect, go back and forth over designs. The, the, the speed with. And, like, was anybody asked, was this bid out? Like, what. It's just like, oh, it's happening. Well, I guess if that's the real precedent. Tim, is this not a good precedent for Democrats?

[Jonathan V. Last]

The voters, like, yeah, no, I agree.

[Tim Miller]

This is what I'm like, this is the one thing Democrats should take from him, should learn from him. They, you know, oh, you want to build a train? How about you just build a train, train people? I don't have a train fetish, like all of my new friends on the left, but if you. But they've been talking about trains since I've been in high school, and they can't be.