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- [00:00]
A
It would have been better if they had kept touching the stove. I said this. I. Look, if it was up to you and me, I would have said, ride this all the way to the fucking sun. They want to reopen the government. They're going to have to nuke the filibuster or make DC Estate. If it was up to me, I think that would have been a better outcome. Hello, everyone. This is JVL here with best friends Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of the Bulwark. We had a big show for you with lots of stuff, but first, just minutes ago, the House Oversight Democrats released a bunch of documents and we don't need to litigate all of them. We'll just go with the big one, which is an email from Jeffrey Epstein to Yilin Maxwell in which he says, I want you to realize that that dog that hasn't barked is Trump victim, which is the redacted name of one of his victims. Spent hours at my house with him. He has never once been mentioned. Now, I understand we're talking about Jeffrey Epstein and he is not the world's most unimpeachable witness, but big if true, if Donald Trump had been at Jeffrey Epstein's house and done so for hours and spent that in the company of one of Epstein's victims, I mean, gah, Tim, Sarah, tell me why this isn't a huge deal.
- [01:37]
B
This is a huge deal. I mean, but I don't know, I just think good. This email, I think, I mean, and this, I just like I taped a take with Andrew earlier and Andrew was a little bit like, I'm not sure that this is the smoking gun and this is just new information. I do think these emails are pretty gun smoking. This one though, and the date is really important on all three of these emails. But this is from 2011. And so he says in this email, I want you to realize that the dog that hasn't barked is Trump. The victim spent hours at my house with him. He's never once been mentioned. Police chief, et cetera. I'm 75% there. What does that mean? I think it means in 2011 that Trump hasn't ratted out Epstein for the things that he knows that there's this investigation. No. You don't think so, Tim?
- [02:29]
C
I think it's the opposite. I think he's saying that, that they haven't gotten. Trump says, yeah, Trump has never once been mentioned, police chief, etc. It's like, I think he's talking to Ghislaine about, like, who was talking to the police chief about my behavior. And I want you to realize that it's Trump. I don't know. Maybe. I guess it's possible it's the other way around. But, yeah, I mean, to me, it seems, I think they're obviously having a conversation about the local Palm beach police, how they were getting this type of information, you know, and he's saying to Maxwell that Trump spent hours with the victim at my house. And so I read that as. Why hasn't even mentioned. Right. Like these other conspiracy. Mentioned. Yeah. Is he a rat? Right. I read this as he a rat. Yeah. Is he a rat?
- [03:20]
A
Which is what. Wasn't that. Who offered that as a defense of Trump? Wasn't that the Mike Johnson defense?
- [03:26]
C
Mike Johnson did after that?
- [03:27]
A
Yeah, look. And so maybe that's what Trump was doing at Jeffrey Epstein's house with the victim. He was just collecting information to turn over to the police.
- [03:38]
C
Now, I don't know, jvl, you're. You watch more mob movies than me, but I think generally when somebody is a rat, it's because they have been participating in the illicit behavior. So they have information, and maybe they've been participating at like, a. A smaller level than, you know, the nation's most notorious child sex trafficker, but that they were involved at some point, some level, that they might have some information.
- [04:02]
A
I'm pretty sure this would be a case where Donald Trump had heard rumors that Jeffrey Epstein was engaged in disgusting behavior, and he proactively went to police and said, send me in. I can be your undercover guy.
- [04:16]
C
Yeah, yeah, wire me up.
- [04:18]
A
Yeah, wire me up. Because I just, I'm an upstanding citizen and I want to make a difference. Elvis did that. I don't know if you guys remember this about Elvis. Elvis was constantly writing to J. Edgar Hoover saying, you know, I want to go in and send. Send me into the drug gangs and I could be her inside gun. This is a real thing. Elvis 100% did this.
- [04:37]
B
Sure. Because no one would have recognized Elvis undercover. Well, can we, can we keep going? Because here's. I actually don't.
- [04:43]
C
I want to go deeper on it. Elvis.
- [04:46]
B
No, no, no, no, no. I want to get to the second email because to me, these emails, even out of sequence, because there's. There's three of them. One's from 2011, one's from 2019, one's from 2015. To me, one of the most interesting ones is 2015, which is to Jeffrey Epstein from Michael Wolff that says, I hear CNN planning to ask Trump tonight about his relationship with you either on air or in scrum afterwards. Epstein replies to Mike Wolf, if we were able to craft an answer for him, what do you think it should be? Okay, so now this is Epstein and Wolf strategizing about how to help Trump answer as he's running for president in 2015. To which Michael Wolf replies to Jeffrey Epstein, I think you should let him hang himself. If he says he hasn't been on the plane or to the house, then that gives you a valuable PR and political currency. You can hang him in a way that potentially generates a positive benefit for you. Or if it really looks like he could win, you could save him generating a debt. Of course, it is possible that when asked, he'll say, Jeffrey's a great guy and has gotten a raw deal and is a victim of political correctness, which is to be outlawed in a Trump regime. This is a strategy session between Wolf, which is so weird. Right? And he has the. He knows what's going to be asked on cnn. Like, he's in the mix here. He's tipping off Epstein. They're thinking about what Trump should say, but they're also thinking about how to bribe Trump and turn it into a chit for Epstein by saying Epstein has information that would cook Trump. And so, like, if they're thinking about how to deploy that information, to me, that feels smoking gun, like, like, what's the counter to that?
- [06:46]
C
It's definitely a smoking gun against Michael Wolf, who's a piece of shit.
- [06:50]
B
Right.
- [06:51]
C
So I don't know that's really that relevant. But, you know, I mean, this is like many, many years after Epstein has been convicted of child sex crimes, that he's, you know, mobbing up with them.
- [07:02]
A
But anyway, who are these people? Do real human beings actually engage age in the world like this? Because this is like cartoon levels of villainy.
- [07:12]
C
Yeah, it really is the Epstein thing. Yeah, I guess. I mean, who cares about the ranking of the smoking guns? I think it's all pretty smoking gun. Y. But we can talk about that. But this definitely indicates that Epstein thinks that he has information on Trump that could be used against him. I like it.
- [07:31]
A
Minimum, by the way, if you're Jeffrey Epstein and you continually assert your innocence, how can you simultaneously be like, I'm totally innocent. And also if I reveal that this guy was with my underage sex victims, then they'll be cooked.
- [07:47]
C
And then it is worth.
- [07:48]
A
See, it is an admission of guilt on his part.
- [07:51]
C
Yeah, who knows what Wolf is saying back to Trump, by the way, cuz Wolf's working both sides of this thing. So, you know, I'm just throwing this out there. I'm just giving a series of facts. Everyone can take him for what they will. But Jeffrey Epstein does say to Michael Wolf that he has the goods on Trump. And then Jeffrey Epstein goes to federal prison while Donald Trump is president and while Bill Barr is the Attorney general, Bill Barr also had familial relationships with Epstein. And then Epstein dies mysteriously. So just, just mentioning that I don't, you know, I don't exactly know what the run of show was on that, on that death. But I mean, clearly it seems like that the Trump people, because Michael Wolf is just like a little messy bitch who lives for drama. Like, they knew that. I would assume that you know about these conversations as well. And Bannon knew. Bannon's also in these emails.
- [08:45]
A
So, Sarah, what was the third email?
- [08:48]
B
All right, so let me just read you the third email, because this to me is a third smoking gun. This one's from 2019. So this is like we're deep in Trump's term and we're not very far off from, from Jeff, Jeffrey Epstein dying in prison. So January 31, 2019. So early in that year, Michael Wolf. It's, it's an email from Jeffrey Epstein to Michael Wolf and it says the victim's name is redacted and then just says, so victim redacted Mar A Lago. Then it says identifier redacted. So it's identifying somebody in there. But then it said these two lines. Trump said, he asked me to resign. Never a member ever. Of course he knew about the girls as he asked Ghislaine to stop. So this is when the stories are coming out about Epstein and Trump is saying, oh, I kicked him out of the club because he was a creep and everything else. And Epstein's like, this is bs. I was never a member of the club. He didn't kick me out. So this is him in a third party conversation disputing Trump's stated reason for kicking Epstein out of the club at Mar a Lago and breaking with him, which Trump's defenders rely on this piece of information. They say, oh, no, no. Trump knew Epstein was a bad guy. Yes, they hung out when they were younger. We have to cop to that. There's videos everywhere of that, pictures everywhere of that. But. But this, no, this is when Trump realized he's a bad guy and he kicks him out. And Epstein's like, he didn't kick me out. And then he's like, of course he knew about the girls. That's he knew because he asked Ghislaine to stop the recruiting at Mar A Lago.
- [10:35]
C
Right.
- [10:35]
A
And this is because Trump was upset that they had recruited a girl from Mar A Lago and he didn't like them pinching his help.
- [10:43]
C
Right.
- [10:44]
A
Am I remembering this correctly?
- [10:45]
C
So that we knew all that with that we had already known before this email, or at least that's what they had. That was what their state, their stated claim was like, the Trump again, Trump. That's why, you know, I think some Trump people would say this is exonerating, right? Because it's like Trump had heard that they were doing bad things with the girls and he told Ghislaine to stop. Like, which is what he's saying in the email. But, like, again, that only makes sense if you were not also complicit, like, in hanging out with Trump. Right? Like hanging out with the girls as well. Right. So, you know, look, I think that the forest can be lost to the trees here of, like, trying to dissect emails with like, a known fabulous and Michael Wolf. Like, I mean, to me, it's just like, look, we now have a series of things that we know, right? Which is that they said that they were going to release the Epstein files. They reviewed all the Epstein files. They said that they had to list all the times that Trump's name was in them. They have a share drive in the Department of Justice with all the times that Trump has mentioned. And Trump changed his mind. And all of a sudden he's like, no, we're not going to release these. And we've seen a series of things come out since then and there'll be more to come out. Seems like soon. You know, that includes among them things like Trump spent hours with the girls at Jeffrey. With one of the victims at Jeffrey Epstein's home. And the fact that they were like, plotting to, you know, figure out how to spin Trump's relationship with Epstein. Going back to 2015 with Epstein saying that he, you know, had the goods on him on various things. So, like, I mean, to me, like, I think that the issue and I joked about this social media is like, it is too obvious now, right? Like, it has entered a place where it's like, there's not a lot of conspiracy to uncover. And I guess there are still questions about the death of Jeffrey Epstein, but, like, the notion that Donald Trump was palling around with Jeffrey Epstein during this period and knew everything about him is very blatant at this point. Like, what exactly his behavior was and all that I guess there are some remaining questions could be uncovered, but, like, meanwhile, also, there are dozens of women that have made sexual assault allegations against Trump. You know, so you don't really need to get out the string and the pictures and the message board at this point, maybe.
- [13:02]
B
I mean, here's what we know. We know that Donald Trump makes it clear Donald Trump knew what was happening. I think what we don't know. So I think it's. I think there's a lot more to find out about why sweetheart deals were given by Alex Acosta, who went on to become Trump's Secretary of Labor. I want to know how much Trump has done damage control actively around these things. But what we don't know that I think is quite important is whether or not Donald Trump was sleeping with underage girls that were procured in a pedophile ring, America's most notorious pedophile ring. Now, the question is, did he just. First of all, they were clearly all hanging out, including Larry Summers and maybe Michael Wolf. Like, these guys all knew it. Like, I just. I don't want to treat this like it's not a big deal that there was a bunch of these elites. I mean, there's all kinds of emails between Larry Summers and Epstein going up to, like, up to pretty close to Epstein's death. These guys were all hanging out and knew. It's all very clear in the chummy way they talk about it, just like the birthday book, that this was just all fun and games to them. And Americans are going to have to decide if we're just like, yeah, that's fine. We don't care. In the past. So one question is, did Trump actively. We know he's covering it up. We know he spent time with women who were victims. Do we know if he participated in the pedophile ring, as it seems like maybe Prince Andrew did? And also. Well, just. Yeah. Did he kill him? I. Those seem like interesting questions to me about the President of the United States. What? Why can't I get people to be. To freak. This should be a nuclear bomb. It shouldn't be a Wednesday.
- [15:05]
A
Can we just pause for a moment to appreciate that we spent four years in America with like a quarter of the country being obsessed over the idea that there was a secret pedophile ring out there at the highest levels of American society and that it was the locus of all evil in America and that Donald Trump was going to take it out, the storm would be rising, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then it turns out that there is A giant, secret pedophile ring at the highest levels of America. And Trump is in it. Like, this is, this is like full on greatest trick the devil ever pulled. Territory where, you know, like, he, he got the folk story to inoculate him by having it create a funhouse version of reality in which he was the hero, when in fact he's the villain. And I, you know, I gotta confess to you guys, I feel like he's gonna get away with it all. No, Sarah, you're shaking your head.
- [16:21]
B
It's not that. I saw your wife tweet this. Not to bring her into this. Hi, Shannon.
- [16:27]
A
Okay, I don't, I don't read her Twitters and you shouldn't either.
- [16:32]
B
Well, here's the thing. She tweeted this thing that was something like, conservatives aren't going to care. And I was like, you just, Are you and JVL talking about this in the kitchen? You, that sounds like the two of you being like, oh, this isn't going to matter to anybody. And, and I, I, I, this is the kind of thing I'll do to you. But I, I almost replied to her. And just to say we shouldn't say that, I think we let them off the hook a tremendous amount by having our analysis be. They won't care. Our analysis should be a demand that they care.
- [17:04]
A
I'm just asking you, as people who are in the world, let's not do that.
- [17:09]
B
Let's not do, let's just say, like Eric Erickson right now and that guy from Ruthless, whatever. They're all out there being like, this is just a distraction from, from the Democrats cave on the shutdown.
- [17:23]
C
That is such cope.
- [17:25]
B
It's such cope. And we should, we should. They should be ashamed of themselves. They have no interest, they should no interest whatsoever in the way that the President of the United States was involved in a pedophile ring. I'm sorry, but where is that what good Christians do? We just don't care. We just say that everything's a dodge and we don't even want. Don't show me the emails saying that Trump was hanging out with these pedophile victims. Don't show me all these emails of people strategizing how to bribe Trump or use it as a chit. If Trump's in the White House, that you have the goods on him about the pedophile ring that you were running and that he was participating in. I'm sorry, this is a very big deal and nobody should be allowed to turn this into, like regular. No, no one's going to care. It's just a political dodge. Like, we should care. We should demand people care. This is morally disgusting.
- [18:17]
A
Is this kind of thing that a Democrat running for Congress in a purple district could campaign on and say, elect me and I will release all the emails.
- [18:29]
C
Maybe. I don't know. I mean, it's worth shouting out, like, again, all this stuff matters and like, winning the House matters on all this, there'll be more, like, ability to subpoena matters, you know. And so I think it's tied into the broader corruption element of it. And I think that, like, I'm with Sarah in all of this. I think that the part of the frustration you're expressing is like this. There was one thing that the fucking people QAnon people were right about, which is like, there was. There were cabal people that were in league together. It just wasn't happening in the basement of a pizza parlor in Northwest Washington. And it wasn't Hillary Clinton. And yeah, Hillary Clinton doesn't seem to be involved in any way. So those are some pretty key misses, like, within it. But like, I to me, I mean, obviously, like, the. I'll get back to the politics of this with Trump. But like, the thing that Sarah is raging about, which I share the rage about, but it's just like my rage has subsided over the years because, like, you know, you just can only have so much rage in your heart over something is the notion that all these guys are, like, just in league over this for years. I mean, like, to me, it's like sometimes it's hard for people to get, like, people's timelines right in their mind and all this and like, the story. This was going on for decades and the Alex Wexner, you know what I mean? You can go deep on all the Epstein stuff, but it's like by these emails are in 2019. Some of these emails are like, 2015, 2019, even 2011, he had already been convicted. Like, everybody knew. Like, everybody knew. And then he got. And then he's like, back at Harvard doing events with Larry Summers, like, getting honored and having his donating money and having a name, his name be put on the Epstein wing and like, hang out. Like, I. The fact that our society is incapable of shunning people. So be related to the mag conversation in the final segment. Like, we're not able to just be like, sorry, no, I mean, you're. If you served your time and come back into society, like, you're welcome to, you know, become a janitor somewhere or, like, live your life like, without being hassled in a free country. But, like, you're not, you know, you don't need to be. You don't have a right to be welcomed back into, like, the top echelons of society. But, like, Epstein did manage to get himself back into that. And, you know, and I think that, like, Trump, like, the Trump part of this is like, originally kind of separate from that, right? Because, like, Trump is in, like, the Epstein 1.0 story where he's like, hanging out with the girls. TBD on what exactly he's doing with the girls. So that's like, really bad in itself. Also, Trump has a million accusations of sexual assault against him. So, like, this is just another layer on top of that. And then Trump and Epstein fall out and there's like a. There's like another period where there's like a lot of disgusting elites like Larry Summers hanging out with him during that next period when he gets out of jail. And then Trump comes back into the story because he becomes president, and now we know that there are emails about Epstein thinking about what he has over him. And then he goes to jail when Trump is president and then he disappear. Then he dies. So, like.
- [21:27]
B
And there's some tape missing.
- [21:29]
A
Yeah, and there's some tape missing in which he dies.
- [21:32]
C
That's what we know. Anyway, long story. I'm sorry. Circuit back to the politics, though. The guy, like, it's great. Robert Garcia, by, by the way, being an oversight instead of, you know, the geriatric Dems that were in there before. Obviously it's made a big difference. Shout out to Robert Garcia and. And the Democrats winning back the House would make a big difference. But both on this and all the other stuff, which is all tied together, like, all the other corruption stories, like, to me, like, when I have Democrats on the pod, like, my main thing I'm pressing them on is like, what exactly are you going to spend your time on? On oversight. Because, like, there's a lot of fucking scandals out there, right? And, and, and you. This cannot be a Merrick Garland 2.0 situation. Like, the people that are running should be like, we're running to take back the House and we're going to fucking subpoena Maxwell and Michael Wolf and we're going to fucking subpoena all the people involved in Trump's crypto business. And, and we're going to see what we can find out because we know that they're doing crimes.
- [22:26]
B
And also, also, Tim just mentioned another thing. While this is all happening, Ghislaine Maxwell is put in Club Fed and given us some kind of a special deal by the number two at doj. This is insane. It's genuinely insane. It should shock the conscience of the nation. It's like Watergate a thousand times over, but with pedophilia.
- [22:50]
A
It's QAnon. It's actual QAnon. That's all I can say.
- [22:54]
C
Okay, two, this is a pretty funny rapid reply here. Can I just say this while it's all going on? Our colleague Sam Stein pose tweeted about how it's not every day the President is shown to have known about underage girls being part of a sex ring and spent time with them. Exclamation point. The official account of the Trump administration. The rapid response account has replied, I love this. They quote this line, shown to have known about underage girls being part of a sex ring, and then reply with, you're just making stuff up like you always do because you're a fake news hack. And then they link to a quote, quote from a book in which Virginia Giuffre says that she had met Trump once at Mar a Lago and he couldn't have been friendlier. I love that. Like, that is their. Like, here's the pushback that we have for you, is that one of Jeffrey Epstein's many victims said that she'd met Trump like, that they had encountered each other. I don't know. I don't know that. I don't know that we can open and shut the book on this case based on that one, that one anecdote.
- [23:58]
B
Also, she has subsequently committed suicide.
- [24:01]
C
Yeah.
- [24:02]
B
This particular victim.
- [24:03]
C
Yeah.
- [24:04]
B
So that is also part of this. Lot of dead bodies related to this.
- [24:14]
A
Just like Q predicted.
- [24:15]
B
And lastly also, I would just like to say, when Tim says everything's connected, the corruption, like, tell the wider story. This is why Trump is doing mid cycle redistricting. It's to avoid the oversight that Tim just said the Democrats need to impose when they're there. That's why Trump suddenly went to Texas and said, you have to do this. Like, they were looking for any way to keep Democrats from taking back the House so that they didn't have oversight on this stuff.
- [24:42]
A
All right, two codas before we get out of here and move on. The first is that just sad things. And I don't mean really sad things. I mean, like, things to make us laugh in a dark way over all this. Terrible things. Gallows humor. Don't think this is real humor. All of these emails are presented in their entirety, including with, like, the Little disclaimers. And so lawyers have the big, like, confidentiality, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And the emails from Larry Summers include his sort of email sig, which invite anybody receiving an email from him to follow me on Twitter with his Twitter handle.
- [25:24]
C
What is his handle? I think he's off Twitter. I think the moment has passed. Oh, wait, no, there it is. L.H. summers. I follow him already. Oh, 375,000 followers. I've got more. That's too big.
- [25:35]
B
When was the last time he tweeted, Tim?
- [25:38]
C
His last tweet was two days ago. Oh, it was about pushing back. It was pushing back on some folks at Harvard who are pushing for BDS sanctions against Israel.
- [25:53]
A
Oh, good for him.
- [25:54]
C
Certainly an appropriate position while Israel comes up. I mean, like, among the documents, the amount of reporting out there about Jeffrey Epstein's relationship with Israel, intelligence does continue to expand. So.
- [26:14]
A
All right, last.
- [26:15]
C
Noting.
- [26:15]
A
Last funny thing. There is an email From March of 2016 from Jeffrey Epstein to Tom Barack. The email sent Barrick.
- [26:25]
C
I think Barrick, friend of Trump. Friend of Trump, good friend, was a close friend. They've had a falling out, I think.
- [26:33]
A
Send photos of you and child. Make me smile. Now, I saw this and I assumed, oh, Tom must have just had a baby. And so, Jeff, you know, pedophiles are normal people too. He's just like, hey, send me baby pictures, give me a happy. But it hits a little different when you hear that coming from Jeffrey Epstein. Maybe. I don't know.
- [26:58]
C
Yeah, I mean, I don't know. He didn't reply. I noticed he didn't reply. Tom Barrick, friend of Trump Also, just worth. I mean, that is your gallows humor side of this, that Epstein asked Tom Barrick to send a picture of him with the child. But again, as part of this, the broader cover up on the serious side of this, like, element, that's a noteworthy exchange. Like, if there was anybody who was. I'm trying to think about, like, who would have been closer to Trump than Barrick during this period? Like, during the transition period. Like, I don't really think anybody. Like, Barrick was like his closest buddy. And then he's on the transition, leading the transition. I think now. Now, like, my memory, it's. This is. We're in year 10 of this, so my memory starting to get a little bit fuzzy, but I remember for certain. And this is in Maggie's book and a lot of Maggie's reporting, you know, from the time about, like, how he was, like, the close confidant of Trump at the moment. So the fact that him and Epstein are chatting during that time about media strategy as well. Interesting.
- [27:59]
A
Cool. All right, Sarah, time for you to give us a word from our sponsor, Quince.
- [28:05]
B
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- [29:11]
C
I've been with you several times. I mean, you get, people are excited to see you, you get compliments. But I don't. Swarmed feels a little swarmed.
- [29:18]
B
Yeah, that's right. It's even made people stop asking about my haircut. It's gotta be pretty great for that. Thanks, Connor. Good edit. Step into the holiday season with layers made to feel good, look polished and last from Quints. Perfect for gifting or keeping for yourself. I keep them for myself. Go to quints.com thenextlevel for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. We Love Canada. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com TheNextLevel all one word to get free shipping and 365 day returns.
- [29:53]
A
Quints.com TheNextLevel I'm wearing my Quint's cashmere hoodie right now.
- [29:59]
B
Is that right?
- [30:00]
C
Yeah, yeah.
- [30:01]
A
It's very nice, very comfortable. It's become like my favorite thing to wear around the house. Okay, so we are going to do a very, very, very short bit on the shutdown because Tim has already had to endure shutdown talk in 15 different places. Tim and I are basically in mind meld on this. We think that Democrats.
- [30:27]
C
I actually am a little more bullish than you.
- [30:29]
A
Oh, okay. Well, my view is that Democrats are in a better position now than they were when it started and they could have done better. Had we been running Democratic strategy, they might have done better. So they didn't do as well as they could have, but they did avoid catastrophe. And I am somebody who tries to give credit for people for harms avoided. And so I take this as a. Okay, great, good enough. Should have been better, but that's okay. Keep moving forward. Got a million new battles to fight, Sarah. I have no idea.
- [31:08]
C
Just really quick. I want to add one thing to that before Sarah, is because I have talked about this in a bunch of venues, people can go listen to all my arguments for why I think the Democrats played this about as good as they could have given that it was, it wasn't a particularly great hand to start with. You know, since Donald Trump won the presidency and Republicans have the Senate and House, that's an important thing for people to remember. I just think that, like, think about this fight from the perspective of Thanksgiving dinner, not from the perspective of who is winning today's Twitter battle, because I think that obviously the Democrats have lost the Twitter battle for 36 hours, maybe not anymore, thanks to the Epstein revelations, but from the perspective of Thanksgiving dinner, thinking about talking to people who are not online addicts, the question of where do we things stand now? Some of those people presumably will be seeing health insurance premiums rise. Some of them will have dealt with really a lot of annoying bullshit over the past two months, whether it be with travel or benefits or working in the government or otherwise. And they'll have seen a president of the United States be totally incapable of responding to it in any meaningful way that is good. And they will feel, I think the nonpartisans, like, boy, things aren't going very well for Mr. Trump. And to me that's the best we could have done. So anyway, Sarah, there's you go there's my point. You can feel free to tell me I'm dumb or that we should have fought her, fought harder. Fight, hoarder, fight. Kill. Blood in the teeth.
- [32:45]
B
I gotta say, for two guys who love to talk about stove touching, you're very quick to let people withdraw their hands. Is my, it would have been better.
- [32:57]
A
It would have been better if they had kept touching the stove. I, I said this. I, I, look, if it was up to you and me, I would have said ride this all the way to the Son, they want to reopen the government, they're gonna have to nuke the filibuster or make DC estate. If it was up to me, I think that would have been a better outcome. Well, they weren't, they got still pretty good.
- [33:18]
B
So just hold on. So, so I, I, I can, I can rock with you guys on the better than where they started in the sense that they, they were doing well, fighting for something, and people were happy with that. And it did highlight the health care issue. I think they did a pretty good job of staying on message on that. And I do think it highlighted some of Trump's fecklessness that broke through to average people. That being said, it was only just getting to the pain point. We were only just getting to the place, to Tim's Thanksgiving dinner point. If I were them, they needed to go a couple weeks longer. Did you say, that's crazy? Did you just whisper, that's crazy? And I think, is that because it was starting to feel like it was impacting you on, like, flights and things like that.
- [34:10]
C
I think that they started to get like, again, if I felt like there was an actual ability to win. I do think part of the decision tree here is like, is like, do you think that the Republicans would have folded a and kind of sub A to JBL's point is like, do you think that would have even been a good thing if they hadn't been terrible?
- [34:33]
A
That's the danger, the danger of dragging, of continuing to force people to touch the stove, is that Republicans wind up going, wait a minute, let's just give people their ACA subsidies and restore the Medicaid cuts and then just take credit for it, because that would have been the worst outcome for Democrats.
- [34:49]
C
Sure. I don't think, My view is that that was never possible. Donald Trump was never going to sign an extension of the Obamacare with Mr. Obama's name on subsidies. It was never going to happen. I don't think it was never going to happen from the start. And so if you were hoping for that, I get frustrated with people who are like, Tim, you don't understand the pain of the people that are suffering from the higher health care reviews. I get the pain. I'm just like, that was fait accompli when Donald Trump got elected. Donald Trump was never going to extend Obamacare emergency subsidies. Sorry, that was never going to happen. And so at that point, then the only goal was to raise the salience of the issue so people know that it's Trump that wants to raise it and that was achieved. And so I guess my point is we're going to make people suffer and make people lose snap benefits going into Thanksgiving and make the biggest travel weekend of the year be a fucking nightmare for everybody involved to get to what? Like, like what is the end game of that, I guess would be my question. That was different than where we're at today. To me, it feels like Democrats just cave again three weeks later with more people having pain. And I feel like we got everything we were going to get. So what was a better end game? How did it end?
- [35:51]
B
I have, I have one. The one place I thought they were going to get is that Republicans were going to have to fight about the filibuster. Like, you are going to have Trump putting pressure on th and thune having to stand up to him over nuking the filibuster with the potential that Republicans ultimately have to cave to Trump and nuke the filibuster. And it's on them. And to me, that was the one place it could have gone. And, and, and look, I, I agree. Like, I'm the one always arguing against pain for people.
- [36:24]
C
Always.
- [36:26]
B
When you guys are.
- [36:27]
C
And well, see, these are two different things. I actually think this is important. It's fun. We can play this out. I am for pain for people when I have no control. I don't want to be the cause of people's pain. Like, you're talking. A lot of times we have this conversation in kind of an esoteric sense where it's like, do you think it would be good for the country if the economy crashed so that people felt pain? Because on the back end of it, that would be bad for the Republicans politically and for the MAGA movement and we can maybe end the authoritarian threat. And my answer to that is like, yeah, yeah, I kind of think that would be better. Like, I don't, I don't, I'm not like, I don't want to press the button though. I don't want to be the one that's like, I want you to lose your job. It's my fault. I chose it because I want to. Because I think that as a bank shot, that's going to hurt the Republicans. What I'm just saying is like, as a intellectual exercise, do I think that would be best for the country long term is for people to experience economic pain? I do. Do I think that the Democrats should be responsible for that in order to get question mark on the back end of it? I don't.
- [37:32]
B
I have a question, though. This is a genuine one. Part of what the Democrats objection really was was that, like, hey, you actually can't trust Republicans to make a deal. Trump is using the government in entirely corrupt ways. They didn't make these cases. But, like, this is true. Like, should we be funding Trump's government? Should things go on as normal or should it be disruptive? What's happening right now? Like, should we all have to look up and say, actually, what's happening right now is completely out of bounds and completely awful. Like, should we. I understand. Like, I don't want people to lose. And this is, this is the thing is, like, when you say the decision tree. Sorry, I'm just gonna say this last thing. People, people who right now were kind of like, well, where was this gonna go for Democrats? I was like, well, that was a question to ask in the beginning of this. Like, if, if once you're in it. This is what bothers me. What bothers me is that you got into this thing without a lot of cards to play. You played them to a place where you were. You're. Let's say you're bluffing, but, like, you got the other side on the ledge. Like, with your bluffing hand, you've gotten somewhere and then you fold right before. Like that. To me, I just. You don't.
- [38:55]
C
I. But I guess. Let's just play that, that, that metaphor, though. I guess my point is, like, the folding was going to have to happen. Nobody has told me, like, the only thing they should ever mention done it.
- [39:05]
B
In the first place.
- [39:05]
C
Yeah, well, no, I don't think so, because they're in a better. Because we all agree they're in a better place than they were 40 days ago. It was good for focusing the message on what the Democrats are for and what Republicans are against. But now, okay, so now what else could they have gotten maybe besides that, like, narrative advantage? And the only thing people say that I listen to that is anything is the filibuster. Which I'm like, okay, I guess I think probably they would have done some goofy thing. It's not what, like, the Republicans have been like, we're killing the filibuster for this for good. I think probably what they would have done is, well, now we have a rule where if the Congress is out of session for 52 days, you can do 51. You know what I mean? They would have come up with some fakacta pretextual thing to keep the government, to put the government back open. They wouldn't have said, now in the future, there's no more filibuster. And you can. I don't think they would have done that. I just think the fold was inevitable. So if your argument is they shouldn't have done this in the first place, I guess I would disagree with that because I think it was good because it galvanized people, it focused people on an issue. And the end was always going to be this. Even at the beginning of this. In every part I was on, I was like, what's the end game? Does anybody have an end game? Is there a plan? Nobody had a plan. Nobody ever had a plan for the start. And so I think there are people out there that are like, I wanted more fighting more. And I'm like, okay, I guess. But I felt like we fought a lot and it was good. And now we fight again on something else and there'll be another. Another cliff in January.
- [40:25]
B
I think that's an okay take. And I don't, like, I'm not going to actually freak out about it or like, I'm not. I'm not so committed to the idea that, like, they could have gone on inevitably. I just, I think two things. When you do this, I think if you're going to shut down the government and it's like the one lever you've got, you go in with a strong plan of some kind. And if the plan was like, okay, we're going to raise the salience on health care, they didn't actually get that. Like, I do think they.
- [40:53]
C
Look.
- [40:55]
B
I think I'm not like, I. I'm trying to decide whether I agree with the idea because I agree that the Republicans got beat up a little bit and they did raise the salience of the issue. I don't know, though, that it's not ultimately a wash because ultimately they caved, didn't get anything. And Republicans know that Democrats will never take any pain. Like, they always know they can push them around, the Republicans, as long as Republicans are basically because this is where Democrats real Achilles heel is that they can't bear to see people be hurt. They can't bear to see people lose their SNAP benefits. And you know what? Republicans don't care about that.
- [41:38]
C
I'm loving Sada. Sarah, say, this is like, I wanted you to not get a turkey this Thanksgiving. You are not gonna get a turkey this Thanksgiving. I hear, I hear that. I hear it, I hear it. I want it to. I have emotional attachment to that. I just don't. I just.
- [41:53]
A
My frustration with the sort of online left reaction that I've seen is that there is almost no recognition that Democrats are now in a better place than they were 40 days ago and Trump is in a worse place. Like I, I am. I have no problem saying there were more gains to be had.
- [42:17]
C
Their messaging was terrible. Their strategy was terrible.
- [42:21]
A
All for that.
- [42:22]
B
They didn't have a strategy to get out of it and cave without being like, we're caving. Instead, they needed a plan to declare victory.
- [42:31]
A
But it is a question of like, you got a half loaf, but people are pretending that you got that they had bread taken from them instead of saying, you know, same, same. Like, they got a half loaf instead of a full loaf. And yet the online left's reaction is they came and took all of your lunch money and we lost again. And I just don't think that's. I don't think that is supported by any evidence. It's a feeling, it's like a morality that Republicans shouldn't be able to do this. And sure, yes, agree, Democrats could have managed everything better. Yes, agree. But just objectively, you're better off now than you were 40 days ago. And you can be frustrated that you aren't even more better off, but you didn't lose.
- [43:20]
C
I want to add one more spot to that.
- [43:22]
A
No, Is that wrong?
- [43:25]
C
And I am not Mr. Pollyanna. It's funny that I was like, I'm Rain Cloud usually. Right. But I'm just like, I'm just saying, look at this objectively, they are better off than they were 40 days ago. Definitely. They won many elections last week with the Democrats. Did by bigger margins than we expected. The redistricting battle is going way better than anybody expected. Way better than anybody expected. I did a deep dive with Wasserman on that. People should listen to if they want to get dorky on the board. Takes feet. Okay. And the positioning for the next midterm and the next fight is way better. Like, the Democrats have actually have a frame now of like, what are we about? Like, what are we talking about? That's not just like highfalutin democracy stuff in the, in the general. The Democrats have that now and, and Trump is on tv, like, bringing Laura Ingram around, showing her the Home Depot like gold bullion in the White House, talking about how he. How the affordability. Doesn't want to talk about it. Like, I mean, to me, it's just like, I don't. It sucks. They're still in charge. A lot of pain still is going to happen. It's not a fucking. They're going to try to cheat the midterms. It's not a Guarantee the Democrats still don'. A very charismatic leader to take the torch to 28. I mean, like, a lot of problems still, but like, things are. It's the best month that the anti Trump side has had in six years. I don't know, since January 6th, probably. Like, so that's pretty good. And then everybody's still mad about it. And so I get frustrated with that. I'm like, be happy. It's good.
- [44:54]
B
You know, it's, it's a, it's, it's not, it's a, it's a fine position. I do think, like, it's hard when we're in such. I always feel like people are underreacting to the moment.
- [45:08]
A
Right.
- [45:08]
B
And like, there's things that I can't get. There's things I can't get as worked up about as people do. Like the symbolism of the ballroom. I know. Well, no, it sounds true. I can get worked up about the symbolism of it. I don't know that I can get as worked up about, like, go campaign on this thing that I think is going to be out of the news.
- [45:26]
A
Which is not a thing I've ever said.
- [45:28]
B
Okay, okay. You, you said it had to be. You said it was like the prerequisite for anybody is that this is on day one. They were going to do this. Whatever. We don't have to relitigate that part. I just like, I am looking and I think these voters are looking for. I mean, this is the thing I know from listening to Democratic voters all the time is they are so desperate for Democrats to look like they have a plan, like they are meeting the moment in some way, that they are using these moments to talk about how all of this is insane. And it just feels like they walked up to the brink and then blinked. And I don't know. I'm not as mad as everybody else is online.
- [46:08]
A
That's all true.
- [46:09]
B
I was a little surprised at how everybody was like, oh, well, okay. I don't know. I don't necessarily think. It just doesn't surprise me at all. People want Schumer and Jeffries head because they're not approaching this in the way that people want.
- [46:27]
C
Yeah. And the senators are awful. This is a fine agreement. Like, I felt like their messaging is terrible.
- [46:34]
A
I'm not saying keep Chuck Schumer.
- [46:36]
C
Sure. Yeah. Primary Angus King if you want. Or and Gene Shaheen and like replace them with people that have some long, well style cojones. Like, I'm for that. I'm for that. It's like so channeling Anger towards the. That I think is useful and fine with me. It's just like the like irrational. I have been down this road before of seeing what happens when, when a, when a base gets totally irrational about what they want and, and how they just. They're like desperately looking for any type of fighting they can get. And you know, it's. That's not. It's not a great landing spot.
- [47:14]
A
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- [49:09]
B
No, we were done.
- [49:10]
A
Okay, we're done.
- [49:11]
C
That was totally my fault. I was one that was like, I don't want to talk about this anymore. And then I talked about it for 25 minutes. This is typical me. This is. Imagine being my husband.
- [49:19]
A
Okay.
- [49:20]
C
This is very. That's very me coded behavior.
- [49:23]
A
So, all right, there's unhappiness in maga. People are People are coming at each other. All Tucker's fault for. For bringing. Bringing Nick Fuentes on his show. And Tucker being the little instigator here is interesting to me. Things boiling over with Ben Shapiro and Megyn Kelly. Wow. Which of you has been following this most closely? Because I got to say most of this is new to me. Tim.
- [49:52]
C
Tim, go ahead. I'm obsessed with Share me. I've been obsessed with it. I've been. I've consumed the amount of Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly and Candace Owens I've consumed over the last two weeks would shock the conscience. And let me just as quick as I'll get to the maga for the good part. But I'm a little concerned. Me and Chris Hayes talked about this a little bit yesterday and we clipped that for our social media. And one of the things I'm concerned about is like it's so juicy that it's getting into everybody's feeds. Like if you're a consumer of TikTok or Instagram Reels through the to the suggestions page and like a little bit of a concerning number of repliers to the Bulwark feed. We're doing the. I think Candace is making some points so like we're trying to clean you out. No points. She's making no point. She's making some correct points at times about various things. Like anybody. Everybody is right sometimes, you know. But as a general matter, not great. The gist of this is Kirk really. Kirk is really kind of the genesis of this. There's a post Kirk effort to try to take the mantle of his legacy for whatever chaos is a ladder.
- [51:03]
A
Right?
- [51:04]
C
Yeah. Forever decide of the MAGA dispute you're on. This is. This is mostly Israel focused but it's also kind of broader. Like how populist to get versus how, you know, kind of MAGA establishment conservatism to be right as was on girding this and Israel is like the main point. And so you have like Tucker and Candace out there. Candace most explicitly talking about how, you know, Charlie was saying some things about how he's turning on Israel and maybe it was the Jews that did it. You'll never know. I don't know. Just asking questions. Or maybe it was his wife in league with the Jews. Like just like rails off shit. And then she's posting old images of supposed texts with her and Charlie that don't look like they're real texts but you know, who the hell knows where Charlie shit talking Ben Shapiro and Charlie's shit talking the other ones where he Shit talking. The Jewish Jones do seem real. The Ben Shapiro ones seem a little. I'm not a forensic scientist on screenshotted text, but they don't look like my text message screenshots. I guess I'll say on the Ben Shapiro one, but. So Candace is doing that. Meanwhile, Tucker is having Nick Fuentes and invalid anti Semite on his show. Nick Fuentes is trying to like, own. Take ownership of the, of the Charlie space as like the whisperer for young men. Tucker gives Nick Fuentes just a tongue bath of an interview. Does not challenge him on any of his past. Explicitly racist. Not the anti Israel stuff. Like, I'm concerned about Jewry and black people should be in jail and women just want to get raped. He doesn't challenge.
- [52:35]
A
Obviously challenge him on that.
- [52:37]
C
Yeah, it doesn't challenge him on any of that stuff. And so Megyn Kelly decides to. And then, sorry, one, one step in between that. Then Ben Shapiro attacks Tucker and Candace, like really aggressively about how they're being anti Semitic. Now they're advancing all these views that weren't Charlie's views and that are anti conservative. So Megyn Kelly decides to become the peacemaker and she has an interview with Tucker on stage and then, and then with Ben Shapiro the next day or a day or two later, and it is fucking like totally wheels off. I mean, I think she thought that she was gonna like, you know, sort of smooth everything over and be like, you know, we're all on the same side here. We may have some different views about wink wink, the Mossad, but like, besides that, like, we're all rowing together and Tucker and Ben Shapiro are like, no, fuck no. And like, Tucker has. Does no apologies for platforming Nick Fuentes. And he says that Nick Fuentes is, is only allowed to succeed because the neocons and Ben Shapiro and them have done. And the neoliberals have done so much to alienate the young men. And the young men have been left behind. And so no wonder they're offering these heinous views. And then Ben Shapiro is like, says to Megan, he's like, fuck, no. No, I'm not going to. You're. You cannot get me to calm down. Candace is out there blaming Erica Kirk for Charlie's murder. Tucker is platforming anti Semites. I will not. I will not pivot on this. And like. And Megan's like, effort to kind of get everybody to like her has ended up having both sides hate her. Right? Because, you know, the Ben Shapiro side is like, you're not showing moral clarity. The other side is like, you're letting Ben Shapiro smear Erica Kirk because the Candace Erica Kirk thing was a little bit more of a wink and a nod than a direct accusation. Anyway, long story short, it's total food fight, cafeteria food fight over there. Feuds everywhere. Rufo is involved, Matt Walsh, and there is, like, now a, A consensus emerging that maybe somehow Charlie Kirk and Trump were, like, holding this fragile ecosystem together. But now all Trump cares about is the gold bullion in the White House. In the new ballroom, Charlie has been assassinated, and so there's nobody else to do it. People are turning their lonely eyes to J.D. vance. J.D. vance is like, I'm going to wait and see who wins and decide whose side to be on, as I have every other time in my life. And so I think we have more food fighting to come. So there you go. If you don't want to watch those guys, that is the best summary I can provide.
- [55:00]
B
Does Loomer have a role in this? Does she somewhere?
- [55:03]
A
She's the one who could bring peace. Oh, no, she can't. Right. Because she's Jewish.
- [55:07]
C
Yeah.
- [55:07]
A
She can't bring peace.
- [55:08]
C
Yeah. She has popped off on this site. I haven't filed Loomer that close. This is where Loomer's platform of choice is Twitter, which is very useful for, like, manipulating reporters and the conversation. But how should I say this? I don't know that her strong suit is selfie video, short form selfie video. So she is not succeeding as well. Yeah, well, I just don't. I don't think that she's succeeding quite as well with her look on and her mien on. On TikTok and Instagram. So I haven't seen a lot from her on there. So I'm not sure. I'm sure she's been weighing in, but I haven't. I haven't seen it. I'm pulling up her feed right now and boy, does she tweet a lot. I don't know. She's upset about the. It looks like she's upset about the Al Qaeda guy that Donald Trump welcomed at the White House. Isn't it amazing that it's like. That isn't even. That's like story 12. It's like Donald Trump had a former Al Qaeda guy, he's now running Syria at the White House. He asked him how many wives he has. Did you see that, Vinya?
- [56:08]
A
Sure.
- [56:08]
C
Anyway. Sure.
- [56:09]
A
Why not? Sarah, do you have any thoughts?
- [56:13]
C
Lot there.
- [56:14]
B
There's a lot there. And I am. I have been following it medium closely, mainly Look, I took, I took a hard stance on Ben Shapiro last week and did a rant. So I don't need to do that again because I do have a very strong like, hey, you buil this thing. Not in a, not the way people say it to us. Like when you guys were 22, you know, you were, you voted for John McCain in the primary and that's why you, that's had led us straight here. And I'm always like, no, it didn't. Ben Shapiro. Candace Owens worked for him. He helped make her famous. And everyone's like, yeah, but he fired her. And I'm like, yeah, it's like, oh, did Donald Trump finally get rid of Jeffrey Epstein at Mar a Lago? Okay, not before participating in a lot of this stuff. Right. That really led us right here. I think my favorite thing is watching Megyn Kelly get made mincemeat out of because she is trying to not go full Nazi defender, but also not clear eyed condemnation of Nazis. And so people need you to pick people on the right these days. They need you to pick a side on that front. And since she one time on Twitter has told me that she would bully me just for, I don't remember why she decided she wanted to bully me, I would just like to say, Megan, you are doing a poor job and you are finding yourself in the sour spot with your really screwed up coalition. You know exactly what you're doing.
- [57:51]
A
Why do you think she's unwilling to take a side here?
- [57:54]
B
Well, yeah, okay, go ahead, Tim.
- [57:56]
C
No, go ahead. I can, I'll answer next. I'm just raising my hand excitedly.
- [58:00]
B
Okay. I think that Megyn Kelly is on my list of influencers, right wing influencers who think she's going to run for president someday. And I think that she very much needs to keep the entire coalition on side and that for her to have this beer summit type thing is her being like, see, I am the, I'm the kingmaker now. Because I think her star's been really on the rise. And I think that probably for all the young people who are fighting over the Charlie Kirk thing, I think she was probably the most likely to be the ascendant voice on the right. And so she's trying to keep everybody on her side and I think she failed.
- [58:39]
C
The president theory is a great theory because like, really, honestly, if you're looking at options like let's say JD Totally flames out, you know, I mean, she's as good a bet as any, as crazy as that seems. I hate to, I hate to puff her up like that because like there's no other obvious person out there. They're not going back to. Marco. Here's my answer. Jbl though, whether or not president is in her mind or not is back to the algorithm. Like the algorithm right now is. And, and part of this is the fault of the tech oligarch billionaires that want rage bait, right? Like if you are posting right now about, you know, an opinion about, you know, kind of the young boys becoming Nazis or you know, the problem with the international Jewish conspiracy, like you're doing really well on the algorithm right now because there is a big interest in that among young right wing men. I forget what the story was. Recently there were like 30 to 40% of these staffers and Republican offices right now under 30 are Nick Fuentes curious. So like there's a big appreciation Heritage foundation. Like that crowd is watching you. You're getting the left, the far left crowd that is like a little Candace Groiper curious because they're so mad about Israel and the genocide, which I understand being mad about it and I don't understand being mad about it enough to throw yourself in with actual Nazis. But I think you get those people, then you get the hate watchers like me. Like, you get it like this is the way to game the system. Like this is the way to get attention right now. Like if Ben Shapiro is doing a post about how, you know, the Trump tariffs aren't really in line with true conservatism, like that's not doing the numbers that Megyn Kelly talking about the Groiper War is. Right? Like the Groiper war is how you do numbers right now. And so I think part of that is algorithm based is why she's doing it. And part of it though is like people are trying to figure, I got to know which I feel. What do you think? Like, I, I think that it's like if I had to put my money on a side, I'd probably put my money on the NAT on the side of like NAT Con Tucker. Tucker Fuentes, Candace over Shapiro. I don't think it's a clear call because I think that there's a lot of not especially older people who are not online that if they were like really exposed to this feud would side with Shapiro. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I think that probably a Shapiro and Tucker were in a primary, you know, in a place with a lot of old people in Kansas, like Shapiro would win. But I think the momentum is on the Tucker side and I think Megan is sees that and doesn't want to lose her in there.
- [61:21]
A
But yeah, that sounds about right. I mean I, I don't have a thought on who would win or not. I, I mean I would guess.
- [61:28]
B
Let's be, let's be real, we all lose in this.
- [61:31]
C
Right.
- [61:31]
A
I would guess that the gripers win for a bunch of reasons. I would just say this for people who are younger than 45. Conservatism went through a giant con. Series of convulsions before. This isn't the first time. The first time that I paid attention to it was. Was actually long after the fact and I was going back and reading about it and it was like Irving Kristol and Nathan Glazer and Norman Podhoritz and a bunch of intellectuals and they fought it out by starting quarterly journals and writing like 10,000 word essays about political philosophy. And you had Harry Jaffa and the Straussians.
- [62:17]
C
It was the pro Franco side. The proto fascist side back then was like the Bozel was like getting really into Franco, moving to Spain for a little while, learning about Spanish nationalism.
- [62:27]
A
And now it's all being done via Twitter and podcasts by influencers. Because that's the state of the intellectuals in the. I mean they are now the intellectuals of the Republican Party.
- [62:42]
C
Yes.
- [62:42]
A
And of conservatism. Good luck, America.
- [62:48]
B
Like, I don't know.
- [62:49]
A
I don't even know what else to say to that.
- [62:51]
C
I don't have anything else on this. I have one other topic before we lose for Sarah. Just because she's excited, it'll be out by the time we post this. I interviewed Mikey Sherrill. Oh for the pod and with like kind of a week's distance. And I gotta tell you, I mean the degree to which she outperformed. We've already talked about it. But like really now, a week later, like she won by and she went like an absolutely astonishing blowout. And I just think that there's a lot of material there that Sarah's going to really like. I think that if you're a Sarah's always right T shirt person listening, you should listen if you want to be buoyed. Because she was just, she was so blunt. I don't know, maybe there was something about. I haven't really followed. I followed the campaign through clips, right. Like I didn't watch like Mikey Sheryl, long form interviews. So my last time I'd spoken to her for a long time was when I interviewed her during the primary. And you know, she was a little tight just to be fair. Like she was just a Little tight, it was fine. She was pleasant, but she was just a little bit tight and talking pointish. She was loose and I don't know, she felt like she's won the race. I don't know. She was not. She didn't feel like she was being too cautious and she was letting loose. And there were some just encouraging, bulwarky things. Like she was talking about how everybody says all the young people are either socialists are groipers now, ton of young people, ton of excitement for her race. She said there's a lot of excitement about people who are just really concerned about jobs. And again, some of the online dialogue of the left disputes about whether socialism is on the rise and whatever. And she's just like, I don't know. I was just talking about how people should be able to afford shit and how Trump is corrupt. And I think that there's sometimes there are left people who are like, we really need to go after corporations. And she's like, okay, if they want to do that, that's fine. But corporations make jobs in the state and in my state, people needed jobs. It's. I just talked about jobs and affordability and, and sure, going after the billionaires too, but like also just making sure, you know, kind of regular bread and butter stuff. And maybe it's an outlier, maybe it's luck, but it seemed to have worked.
- [64:55]
A
Tim, could you imagine?
- [64:56]
C
I just think that's got to make people happy.
- [64:58]
A
It would represent for Sarah Longwell if both Mikey, Sheryl and Abigail Sprainberger were to run for president at the same time.
- [65:04]
C
I wasn't about to go to the.
- [65:05]
A
President place and Joshua, what would you.
- [65:09]
C
Do to the president place? But anyway, I just think you're really going to like it, Sarah, so you should check it out. It's a, it was a refreshing departure from the discourse, I would say from someone who just won in a landslide.
- [65:21]
B
Well, that's exciting. I don't know if you guys saw my conversation with Shapiro, but I, I do have, you know, I. Here's the thing is that, look, I've been hammering on the affordability and jobs and I think that if Democrats, when they, they agonize about, oh, how do we get working class voters back, whatever, you know, and it's. The answer is sometimes the politics is, oh, it's so complicated. I'm like, maybe it's easy. What do people want in their lives? They want good jobs or they feel like they have upward mobility potential. They want safe streets, they want their kids to have a good education. They want to be able to afford stuff groundbreaking like, like that is it, that's the ball game. And so I think if you don't get and, and you know, I, this is where on a pun, from a pundit accountability standpoint, I do wonder and I'm gonna have to think about this more. It does make them then a smidge boring, right, for the pundits to watch. If they're just saying, hey, I'm thinking about jobs, I would like them to find a slightly more exciting way to say it. But like the boring worked, right? The, the sort of just no, I'm going to be relentless and I'm going to talk about this and I'm not going to be pulled off track by these things. And if they try to talk about transports, I'm going to ignore it. And like, you know, I think I have some criticism of the moderates for not having a more robust, muscular way of doing that. And I would still think somebody to run at the national level is going to need to have a more muscular way. But like what they're doing right now is coming off as normal in a time of crazy town and talking about the things that people want to talk about.
- [67:03]
A
I mean I would just say Donald Trump won a plurality the vote by running on Arnold Palmer's dick.
- [67:10]
C
And I think president is different though. I do think president is different. I do think president is different. I don't think that and I think that that's campaigns are complicated, right? Like the presidential campaign is different in a million ways than running for governor in an off off year, you know, and so I hear, I think, I think both of those points can be true, I guess is my point. Yeah, like maybe you don't want to act like Donald Trump actually if you're running in an off off year election in a state where people are unhappy about prices being high. But maybe you do want to run when you're trying to get as many low info voters as possible out to maximize it. You know what I mean?
- [67:50]
A
I love the low infos.
- [67:52]
B
Very strong for Shapiro. I also thought Shapiro was pretty loose and good. Like sometimes when he's doing speeches he can get into his. I, I sound exactly like Barack Obama.
- [68:03]
C
Baruch Obama. That's a funny one. Baruch Obama, that's all love.
- [68:07]
B
But he was, you know, he's easy to talk to and he's what he says, hits lands for me. I actually thought, I asked him the tough question about Israel and I thought his answer was excellent and he clearly very much cared about it. Like, he wouldn't kind of stopped talking about it. Like, his answer went on for a really long time in a way of somebody who was like, and another thing. And I Like, and another thing. Energy.
- [68:31]
C
I know.
- [68:32]
A
You do.
- [68:32]
B
Yeah.
- [68:33]
A
Good show. Long show, guys. We'll be back next week, and Sarah and I will be here on Friday. Or maybe it won't be Sarah. Maybe it'll just be me and somebody else. I don't know. I forget.
- [68:42]
C
Boom.
- [68:43]
B
I am. I am traveling. I would just like to say I love how Tim was just like, imagine being my husband. I'm like, imagine being your podcast partner. Like, these are. You are. I'm going way back now in the show.
- [68:54]
C
You only got to do it for one hour a week, girl. I mean, and my life and meetings and stuff. Anyway, he's still. You're. I get. We're getting a lot of FaceTime. He's getting more.
- [69:04]
B
Yeah.
- [69:04]
A
Okay. Good luck, America.