Sarah Longwell (3:12)

Here's the thing. She's supposed to be the smart one. And so I just.

Tim Miller (3:15)

I want to lay she's not.

Bowen Yang (3:17)

I mean, this is like, the main thing to take away. If you, like, actually read the full interview, there are ways to kind of COVID this, which is like the five most outrageous things she said, and they are outrageous, and we should go through them. I think if you actually read it, she reveals herself to be very simple minded, honestly, and not a very deep thinker about what the administration is doing at all. I think that there's certain things that she's savvy about politics wise. But, I mean, she positions both, both externally and just, like, implicitly by how she talks. She positions herself as somebody that's like kind of a glorified secretary. Like, really, like, kind of a. Or a glorified, like, manager of Trump's schoolmarm.

Sarah Longwell (4:03)

Like, I'm here to wrap knuckles if things get too far off the rails.

Bowen Yang (4:08)

Exactly. Like, not, not. And not an advisor, not a Svengali. And she says specifically at times that, like, she has not really fought with Trump about anything big. Like, they've had little fights about little things. She says, like, on any of these big matters that Whipple brings up, she's like, we haven't disagreed about anything. So, like, I, I don't. So I don't think that she is. Is particularly savvy in the sense. I think that what my. My estimation on what happened, and it's not one interview, it's 11, is there's this combination of things. Donald Trump and all these people pretend like they hate the mainstream media, but they love it. And like, the idea of doing. Of getting the Glamour shot, Annie Leibovitz treatment and Vanity Fair is just too.

Tim Miller (4:47)

I love how that worked out for Caroline. Leave it.

Bowen Yang (4:50)

Yeah. Maybe we get a jump scare this morning.

Tim Miller (4:54)

Maybe we could put that up on the screen. But that sometimes a photo editor or an art director will do a person dirty.

Bowen Yang (5:01)

Yeah.

Tim Miller (5:02)

Oh, what they did to Caroline. Leave it.

Bowen Yang (5:05)

That's tough. Yeah. I woke up to that screenshot being texted to me by one of the show, which I did not appreciate multiple people. Yeah. We were both. We were both.

Sarah Longwell (5:14)

We were both on this text. We were both on this text chain, and it was like, first thing in the morning.

Tim Miller (5:19)

Without me. Right.

Sarah Longwell (5:21)

Well. And what is a jvl? And the person who texted to us had gone even deeper in to, like, show us the lips and the zoom. It was quite a thing to see.

Bowen Yang (5:35)

First thing in the morning. So, anyway, so there's that. I just think that this is too enticing and, like, the idea of being like, this is why they won. You know what I mean? Like, this whole notion that they hate the establishment or whatever. Like, no, it's like the opposite of what they say. They, they, they, they won, and they're thrilled. Now. They get people to bend the knee to them, and they get the tech oligarchs to come through and wear their tuxedos and be in the first row of the inauguration, and they get their picture in Vanity Fair, and they get to rub it in the noses of the people who said that they, you know, were unserious or rubes or whatever. I said that is. That's the. Why Whipple? Why choose?

Tim Miller (6:09)

Susie doesn't want to get profiled for Breitbart or the Minnesota pundit guy or whatever his name is. That's not. They don't care.

Bowen Yang (6:21)

You don't frame that and put that up on your wall. I mean, there's just that element of this, this trip. The other thing is. And this Whipple is more of a freelance person. He's not like a Vanity Fair beat person, and he's written books on a lot of chiefs of staff. And so I think that was the other kind of element to this. That wouldn't have done this either for the New York Times or Breitbart, like, where it would feel like, oh, I'm doing something for, like, the liberal, the enemy of the people. Like this. I think you rationalize, again, this is not a sign of a deep thinker. You rationalize it. This is like, oh, this is the man that does books. And they're going to do our glamour shots for Vanity Fair. And I can talk to him. And it's not scary, like, you know, talking to Matt, Rachel Maddow or Peter Baker and Susan Glasser or like, whatever. And, and I think that is, again, this is not a defense of that position or an idea of that that is smart or strategic or whatever, but I think that's the pretty simple explanation of how this came.

Tim Miller (7:21)

They also all seem to have participated. They said to the president, they.

Sarah Longwell (7:27)

It does appear that they interviewed everyone. However, it seems like maybe she was the one off message. I mean, people. People keep calling it a candid interview, but I don't think that's what happened. And I asked him this in part because both of us have managed, I think, things like this. And one of the things that is very striking to me, and it's striking because I'm going to read you before we go into all of the things that are in the piece. I'm going to start, actually with her response this morning to the piece's publication where she says, the article published early this morning is a disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest president, White House staff and cabinet in history. Significant context was disregarded, and much of what I and others said about the team and the president was left out of the story. I assume after reading it that this was done to paint an overwhelmingly chaotic and negative narrative about the president and our team. The truth is the Trump White House has already accomplished more in 11 months than any other president has accomplished in eight years. And that is due to the unmatched leadership and vision of President Trump, for whom I have been honored to work for the better part of a decade. None of this will stop our relentless pursuit of making America great again. Okay, a few things about this. 1. She knows the story's really bad. Really bad for her. Really bad, publicly. Really bad internally.

Tim Miller (8:49)

Talk to me a little bit about this because I. Well, I want to. I don't want to derail you, but I do want to ask you to, to unpack that a little bit, because I think it is bad for her internally with some of her colleagues, primarily JD And Margot. But I don't think for her vis a vis Trump. Like, I think if you're Trump reading that and all you think about is, is she on? Is she on my side? She's very loyal and she's very protective of him, and she does basically everything you would want her to do.

Bowen Yang (9:22)

And you notice the other replies this morning is a wagon circling from people inside the house. Right. And so, you know, that signals to me that, like, that people perceive at least that Trump still sees her as somebody that's loyal and is going to be around. Right. Like, you know, I mean, when these stories happened the first time in 2017, when Ryan, when Scaramucci called Ryan Lizza back in the news this week, you know, and, like, there was no circling the wagons around Scaramucci, like, back then of, like, Kelly had Conway and Cabinet secretaries and Mike Pence being like, oh, we really love Scaramucci. He got screwed here by the fake news. But, like, that's what you were saying today. Like, Susie was being defended by JD By Caroline Levitt, by, you know, very vote, I think, sent something about her, like various insiders. And I think that's very telling.

Tim Miller (10:14)

Yeah. So would you guys tell me, I guess this is the first question, like, is it bad? From the perspective of the people inside the White House looking at this, do they think, oh, this is bad for us? And why?

Sarah Longwell (10:26)

I think so. And the reason I think so is that my guess is, is that. So like we said, this is over 18 months, 11 separate interviews. Okay. And so what the reporter. And when she says that they are leaving out important context, my guess is, is that all of them talk to this reporter on the record at tremendous length. And so when she says they left that important context, my guess is she spent tons of time, there's all kinds of things on the cutting room floor of her talking about all their success, of her talking about all the great stuff, but she clearly forgot from interview to interview what she had said previously. And so this reporter, when she's like, she's mad because the reporter probably not did her dirty because these are all things she said. Right? It's like on a reality show when you said a bunch of stuff and they only use the incendiary stuff, and you're like, but that leaves out all the good stuff. I was saying that's like, well, you said it. But this, this. I'm like, just sure this is true. That there's an enormous amount of content on the cutting room floor that she thinks provides the broader context, was telling the positive story. And instead, though, she slipped up in a number of places. Like, this is an interview in which the interviewer clearly had her trust. And even some of the back notes you get where they're like, well, she was folding her laundry while we were talking in her D.C. you know, penthouse or whatever that is the reporter saying, she's being so cavalier, she's barely thinking about what she's saying. She doesn't have a comms person with her. She's doing this on her own.

Bowen Yang (12:02)

And.

Sarah Longwell (12:02)

And so I don't know if she's thought she was being a little tongue in cheek when she says things like, J.D. vance has always been a conspiracy theorist for the last year. Or says that his turn to liking Trump was political because he wanted to run for the Senate, in contrast to Marco Rubio, who is a principled person who arrived at a belief. That's right.

Tim Miller (12:26)

He had to get there.

Sarah Longwell (12:27)

That's right. And so I think he earned her trust. And she said a bunch of things when her guard was down and Those things are deeply revealing about how insane this administration is.

Bowen Yang (12:41)

And you can't do, like, let's just say 11 interviews. Let's just say two hours a pop. I mean, you can't do 22 hours of interviews about the Donald Trump administration and not have 10 terrible quotes. You know what I mean? Like, Donald Trump leaves her in such a horrible situation across every issue, you know, which will take through, but.

Tim Miller (13:01)

Right.

Bowen Yang (13:01)

Like. And so to me, that's why it's like, there were some people, I think watch this and is like, this is Susie, like, on her way out. Like, this is Susie, like, knifing some people in the administration. It's like, no, this is like a. A woman from. An elderly woman from Florida who has Donald Trump's, you know, loyalty and Trust, speaking for 22 hours about a lot of uncomfortable things. And over the course of that time, she said a few things that are deeply embarrassing, because the administration's doing a lot of deeply embarrassing things. And it's hard not to say something deeply embarrassing if you're talking for 22 hours about it. And you're not like a sociopath like J.D. vance. J.D. could probably handle 22 hours, you know, without saying, but. But she's like a. I don't know how kind. She. Actually, she's like a kindly old woman. I mean, that. And not in the literal sense that she's kind, but, you know, as a turn of phrase.

Tim Miller (14:00)

Yeah. I don't know. Again, I look at this, and to me, if I'm Trump, I think, yes, she's a good soldier out there defending me on all of these things. She is saying that I had nothing to do with the Ghislaine Maxwell stuff. She is saying that I was barely involved with Epstein, and it was just when I was a young playboy. She throws the reporter a bone by saying that I was wrong about Bill Clinton being on the island. She. She. She defends all of the worst immigration stuff and as just, you know, hey, we're gonna break a couple eggs while we make the omelette. Like, this is. She's. She's being a good soldier on all that. She's saying that I don't do retribution. She's saying that I had nothing to do with the USAID thing. That was all Elon. I mean, this is. Again, I look at this, and people are like, oh, my gosh, can you believe what she did? I'm like, yeah, what she did is she. She went and told a bunch of lies, and many of them were done in service to covering up for Trump and putting the best face on his administration.

Bowen Yang (15:13)

Yeah. A few accidental truths, which are the ones sort of get into the bigger part than the lies. The few accidental truths that she told. And the other thing I'd say just about like the meta, you know, kind of what does this say about the administration? Like, they all sat for pictures. I mean like the Vanity Fair picture set. So that also gives her some cover, you know what I mean? Like, it's not like it's a Susie on the COVID of Vanity Fair thing. It's just she's quoted the most because she gives the dumbest quotes. But like the picture is like, is JD Is Marco? Is Stephen Miller, Is Carolyn Levitt, Is Dan? Yeah, they all go in and you know, in one of them, JD Makes the weird joke to the photograph photographer. Did you see this one?

Tim Miller (15:55)

Yeah.

Bowen Yang (15:55)

Kind of buried in there that he's like 100 everybody.

Tim Miller (15:58)

Yeah, you make a little worse than me.

Bowen Yang (15:59)

100 bucks for everybody you make look worse than me. And I'll give you a thousand if you make Marco.

Tim Miller (16:04)

Of course, I hope the photographer gets his money or her money because that happened. That literally happened. All right, we gotta pause here for a word from our first sponsor today. This episode is brought to you by Green Chef. Annoyed with misleading healthy meals, Tired of locking in for another new Year's trend, Green Chef cuts through the noise as the trusted authority in clean eating, delivering only real farm sourced ingredients. Everygreen chef box delivers certified organic produce and responsibly sourced proteins and seafood. That means avoiding ultra processed fillers. You can reach your wellness goals with options like Mediterranean, high protein, high fiber, plant based and more. All clinically proven to support healthier habits and you can take control of your health without the stress. Let them do the research, meal planning and grocery shopping. Then you can enjoy low prep, low mess meals for every lifestyle. Maybe you're resolved to cook more at home this year and I know I am. We'll see how that resolution actually works out. Maybe you're committing to eating healthier, but don't know where to start. Green Chef can help you make good on these goals all while you truly enjoy eating tasty meals that will feel like a gift you're giving yourself right now. Go to greenchef.com nextlevelgraza and use code next levelgraza to get started with 50% off Green Chef plus a free Grazza olive oil set in your second and third boxes. This 50% off offer is only available for limited time, so don't wait. That's code Next LevelGraza@GreenChef.com NextLevel Graza. All right, so can we start with the lies before we get to the. To the truths? Sure. Because I feel like this is important. So what Susie said, among other things, she says a lot of things, but she tells us she spoke to him about the retribution stuff, and they had a loose agreement that the score settling ends before the first 90 days are over. And. And then Whipple keeps coming back to her, like, you know, as these interviews. Well, he's still doing that. What do you think? Is this score settling? What about the Letitia James? Well, comey God, you know, and she's just like, no, it's not retribution. Okay, that might be retribution. Well, I could see where you might think that this is retribution.

Bowen Yang (18:38)

Then she admits on the Tis James one, she does say on the Tish James one, she's like, I'll give you.

Tim Miller (18:42)

That one when there's an opportunity.

Bowen Yang (18:43)

Yeah, but she took his money. She took his money. So what did you expect from him?

Tim Miller (18:49)

So she, not the state of New York, did not. She says that Trump, quote, operates with a view that there's nothing he can't do. Nothing. Zero. Nothing.

Sarah Longwell (19:00)

That sounds. Doesn't sound like a lie. That sounds like a truth.

Tim Miller (19:04)

Then she says, no, he didn't fall asleep in the Cabinet meeting. He's not asleep. He's got his eyes closed and his head leaned back, and, you know, he's fine. Then when asked about what's gonna happen in the 2026 elections, she says, we're going to win the midterms. And then she says, oh, absolutely no chance it's gonna run for a third term. We talk about this all the time. And he says to me, you know, it's time for somebody else to have a chance. Which really sounds like a thing that Donald Trump has said before in his life. I've had enough of this. I want to let somebody else have a chance. So, I don't know. I just feel like we have to treat everything she says with, like, the Kremlin illogical essay of, huh? Is this misinformation? Is it disinformation? Is she playing an angle? Is she just lying?

Bowen Yang (19:59)

Yeah, I guess I'm going to speak for myself here. This didn't seem like somebody was playing any angles. And, like, a couple times she gets caught in a lie. Like the Maxwell thing, if we want to talk about that first. But she gets caught in a lie there. But, like. But it seemed honestly to me, like, in the beginning, she was kind of like, out to lunch. I. This seems. I. Anyway, I, I don't. I. There's nothing. If she's playing an angle in this story, it's not a good one, I guess I would say. But on here, here's the Maxwell part. Let's just use this as an example. Weil says that neither she nor Trump has been consulted about Maxwell's transfer to the less restrictive facility. After Blanche's visit. She says, quote, the President was ticked. The president was mighty unhappy. I don't know why they moved her. Neither does the president. But she said, if that's an important point, I can find out. Then in parentheses, at press time, Weil said she still had not found out. So that's the one that is like. I mean, that feels. Yeah, and I guess there's a. There's an Epstein. The Epstein tentacles goes so deep that there's somebody inside the Department of Prisons that are doing prisoner transfers outside the purview of the White House Chief of Staff. Anyway, I don't know. That was the one that jumped out to me as, like, the obvious lie.

Tim Miller (21:21)

Sarah.

Sarah Longwell (21:22)

The rest of the Epstein stuff was also amazing because, like, do a little Epstein. Then she also says, just. Just drops in here casually, oh, yeah, Bill Clinton. There's no wrongdoing. Remember, there's an active investigation that is supposed to be going on against Bill Clinton that is supposed to be the reason for why they cannot release more things because they have this. And she says on the record, no, he did nothing wrong. There's nothing in there about the Clintons. This is where. This is the story.

Tim Miller (21:58)

She says he didn't visit the island. I mean, she says there's no evidence he visited the island because Trump says that Clinton was on the island 28 times.

Bowen Yang (22:07)

Yeah, right.

Sarah Longwell (22:07)

Well, that's the other part. The other part is, yes, Trump's in the files. We know he's in the files. Bondi whiffed by releasing a bunch of stuff to these people who care about it that contained nothing. She said it was on her desk, which was a lie. She says that Bondi was lying. It was never on her desk. I have seen it. Yes, Trump's in there. It's not him doing anything.

Tim Miller (22:33)

He's on the manifest for the Lolita Express.

Sarah Longwell (22:38)

And then that's new news. Not. Yeah, that is new news. So much breaking news in this. She also talks about how, like, they're caught off guard a little bit by the fact that people were really going to care about this. And so part of it is this interview is dropping at such an interesting time because there's many other things happening that contextualize it for us. I mean, just in the last 48 hours. Okay. Within the window of this article dropping, we also have Cash Patel on Katie Miller's podcast, which he apparently taped Sunday, so before this all started happening. But it's like dropping while there's an active shooter that the FBI has or.

Tim Miller (23:24)

Yeah, but they've caught the shooter at large.

Sarah Longwell (23:27)

They haven't got the shooter.

Tim Miller (23:28)

The FBI's got the shooter. Right.

Sarah Longwell (23:29)

But he can go on Katie Miller's podcast with his.

Tim Miller (23:31)

When the shooter. When the shooter's parents don't turn him in, the FBI's out of moves. They rely on the parents of murderers to turn their kids in. And if you don't do that, I mean, how do you expect them to catch anybody?

Sarah Longwell (23:45)

But he's got to sit. He's sitting there with his girlfriend, who's getting Secret Service protection, who he keeps taking the FBI jet back and forth.

Bowen Yang (23:53)

On.

Sarah Longwell (23:55)

I would say, just in totality. Oh, and it comes after Donald Trump's Rob Reiner tweet, which is with a bar so high, for degradation, for a bar so high. When you say, how do you clear the bar of the worst tweet that Donald Trump has ever sent? And maybe he does it with this, like, he's had.

Tim Miller (24:17)

It's in the conversation.

Sarah Longwell (24:19)

It's in the conversation for the top five worst things that he has ever said to take somebody who is murdered.

Bowen Yang (24:25)

My head. I'd go, the active tweet encouraging people to kill Mike Pence during the insurrection. That's a competitive.

Tim Miller (24:31)

Also in the conversation.

Sarah Longwell (24:33)

We'd have a long fight about this. Yeah, yeah. That I got. I got to say, that was at least related to something that was going on, like Donald Trump's ability to take Rob Reiner, who. Who he and his wife have been murdered. A person who is culturally significant to the country. And his response is, he was murdered because he had TDS and, like, the. A grave stomping. When this is, like, just happened. When people are in the truck, he can't even say, God, what an awful tragedy. I'm so sorry. It has to be about the fact that Rob Reiner was mean to him sometimes, and therefore, that's why he was murdered, even though it had nothing to do with it. Like, that's part of what's so crazy about that. But anyway, the point is, is that this is dropping at a time when they are already. I mean, you've got Hegseth not showing the video. He was Just refusing to show the video to Congress of his potential war crime. Where they killed the guys in the water, that, that murder. And so the level of ineptitude that it demonstrates across the board. For what? For who Trump is and what they're all doing. Like, oh, he knew Epstein when they were young, but like, yeah, he's all over the plane. Yeah, they hung out a ton. Yep. He's in the files. Yep. He was lying. Like, this is the thing Donald Trump said. Remember he was asked by a reporter, did, were you told by Pam Bondi that you're in the files? No, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, he is. And everybody knows it. They've all seen it.

Bowen Yang (26:06)

This, to me, is why the Maxwell thing is maybe the most significant in all of this. Because it's like, well, there are a couple of other items, but just within the context that the topics we've been discussing so far, there's something like actionable about it. Right. It's like, okay, you know, like, it's one thing, there's an element of the story that's like, this White House is a mess. Susie is like trying to explain that it's a mess and like failing miserably. And like, that's something we've all seen and witnessed before.

Tim Miller (26:34)

And this was Todd Blanche's idea. He's the one who came up with the genius idea himself. And he was just freelancing.

Bowen Yang (26:40)

Yeah, I mean that to me. So that's like a new additional news item. It's like Donald Trump is taking questions all the time. I assume that the next time he's asked a question by somebody that besides Marjorie Taylor Greene's boyfriend, or maybe him now fiance. Excuse me, they're engaged. Brian Glenn. I assume when next time he gets a question from somebody normal, they would say, well, your chief of staff says that you were ticked and upset that Maxwell was moved to this other prison. So why don't you do something about it? Shouldn't you fight her back? Shouldn't you send her back? What's the reason? Right. I mean, to me, that really opens up a can of worms. And the fact that she clearly. And again, they went through a fact checking process on this. The fact that she went back to him on several of these other things and not on that, I guess it just yielded leaving me with some additional questions about what exactly is happening with Ghislaine Maxwell and why she's is where she is.

Sarah Longwell (27:40)

Let me just read you some of these.

Tim Miller (27:42)

Can I read you?

Sarah Longwell (27:43)

Okay. So WS told me she'd read what she calls the Epstein file. And she said Trump is in the file, and we know he's in the file, and he's not in the file doing anything. Awful. Awful. What's. Can we do awful? Yeah. What. What do we mean, awful? Who's. Who. Whose moral, like ruler are we using for this?

Tim Miller (28:05)

Jeffrey Epstein didn't think anything that Trump did was. Was terrible.

Sarah Longwell (28:08)

Yeah. So basa. The Trump was on Epstein's plane. He's on the manifest. They were, you know, sort of young, single, whatever. I know it's a passe word, but sort of young, single playboys together. Is Jeffrey Epstein a playboy? Is that how we define him? That's fun, considering he's the most notorious pedophile in modern American history. So, okay, this seems significant that that's who the President of the United States was flying around with. And then she goes on to say Trump. Well, this is the report. Trump has claimed, without evidence, that Bill Clinton visited Epstein's infamous private island, Little St. James, supposedly 28 times. There is no evidence those visits happened, according to Wiles. As for whether there was anything incriminating about Clinton in the files, the President was wrong about that.

Bowen Yang (29:00)

Hmm.

Tim Miller (29:02)

Huh.

Sarah Longwell (29:03)

Okay.

Tim Miller (29:04)

Wow.

Sarah Longwell (29:05)

But that is interesting, considering that that's the investigation we're supposed to be having right now that's keeping us from releasing them. And then she goes on to say, the people that really appreciated what a big deal this is are Cash, Dan Bongino. Okay. And she said, because they lived in that world. And the Vice President, who's been a conspiracy theorist for a decade, for years, Cash has been saying, got to release the files. Got to release the files. And he's been saying that with a view of what he thought was in these files, that turns out not to be right. Which I guess also means that there's a lot of Democrats in there that would get in trouble.

Bowen Yang (29:45)

Susie doesn't seem to like J.D. vance very much. I mean, I take all your point about that.

Tim Miller (29:49)

Find me someone who does stuff.

Bowen Yang (29:51)

Yeah, the Epstein stuff is interesting there, obviously. I mean, we'll see again, like, that. This is the one part that it's hard for me to translate. Like, is. Does Susie just have, like, a 1950s view of, like, how men can act with young women? Like, it's hard to translate, like, what she even means by all this stuff. I mean, as the things that we know for sure is that Trump is in there. We've seen now some of the pictures because the Democrats have released it of him with very young women who are Epstein accusers. Like, we don't exactly know what he did with them, but he's in pictures with them, which is pretty creepy to start with. So that we know, and Susie's confirmed it. She assesses maybe, I think, differently than maybe some of the rest of us, the degree to which that's bad. She confirms that it's in there, but then when she kind of says that, like, the good. I think she's trying to pivot to, like, how she's trying to position herself as kind of as, like, the Sarah Longwell. I haven't really been following this that closely, actually, and I'm just starting to learn more and more. But over here, you know who's really been deep in the conspiracy world, my friend? The Vice President. It's like, what? And it's like. Like you mentioned earlier that she was talking about how the vice President came around to Trump and it was just political because of his Senate run, whereas Marco is more principled. And these are. These are some pretty. Pretty notable digs from her at him, I think, which is. Which is probably something that we'll learn a little bit more about as we. As things go forward.

Sarah Longwell (31:20)

Okay. I would just like to state for the record that I resent you saying that I'm the Susie Wiles of this podcast.

Bowen Yang (31:28)

Not on the podcast of the Epstein story. Oh, of the Epstein story. When the Epstein story first emerged, you were like, I'm, like, learning more and more about this as it comes up. And you're like, you know who's really in this creepy world over here? It's Will. Summer and Tim have been, like, paying attention. You know what I mean? That's, like, what she's doing. And she's like, I didn't know anything. You know what I mean? And it's just interesting who, like, how even within that context, she's, like, kind of signaling out Cash and Dan Bongino as being good examples of this. Like, it's good that they're on it because we're in conspiracy world. And I should also notice the vice president's kind of been over there with the weirdos as well. I don't know.

Sarah Longwell (32:05)

She also says that they're all wrong about what's in it.

Bowen Yang (32:08)

Right.

Sarah Longwell (32:09)

Which is wild. She also says in this segment that the birthday card is fake.

Tim Miller (32:16)

That's what I wanted to ask.

Bowen Yang (32:17)

Yes.

Tim Miller (32:18)

So she says that letter is not his. Well, how does she know that? This is a weird Donald Trump. Tell you, this is a weird factual assertion of somebody who can't possibly know whether or not the letter is his. And it's weird to me that that's where she draws the line. And she's like, yeah, I mean, we're going to find out where it comes from because we're going to do discovery on this big lawsuit we've filed.

Bowen Yang (32:43)

She's like, it doesn't sound. Can I posit something? Is Susie Wiles in love with the president, do you think?

Tim Miller (32:52)

What she does mention that she's divorced and doesn't have a lot going on in her life personally.

Bowen Yang (32:57)

I'm just saying this sounds. It's not to bring up a sensitive subject on the podcast, but this sounds kind of like Olivia talking about rfk. She's just like, that doesn't sound like him. You're like, what do you mean that doesn't sound like him? Like, it sounds. Sounds like him. Like the letter. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing that's in his. It's like you just. You're the one that just said that they were kind of playboys. I don't know. I just. I. It does. Like Susie, again, as you mentioned, throughout this process, she's making all these gaffes, but the whole time she's very defensive and protective of him. Maybe that is just like a survivor's ability to understand how to survive in Trump world. But. But I don't know, maybe. Maybe she's just really smitten by him and doesn't. Doesn't see the dark side that everybody else sees, you know? You seem not convinced by.

Sarah Longwell (33:45)

Well, it's. What I was sitting here thinking about is, I don't know if it's because I'm a lesbian or it's because I'm like a normal person. I'm not sure. But like, these people like RFK and Olivia, these men are so deeply repellent that the idea that somebody would. Would be in proximity to them and find their psychotic musk attractive. I can't. I can't grock it. Like, I can't get my head around this idea. So. So maybe I can, but I can't. I can't engage with that analysis.

Bowen Yang (34:20)

You can.

Tim Miller (34:21)

We got to. We got a pause so you can bring us a word from our next sponsor, the good people at Soul.

Bowen Yang (34:27)

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Tim Miller (35:42)

As we move on to hour two of our breakdown of the Susie Wilds Fair piece.

Bowen Yang (35:50)

You thought about the love might be in love with him?

Tim Miller (35:54)

You know, I think probably. I mean, she strikes me as utterly soulless, like a perfectly amoral nihilist. Maybe I'm wrong.

Bowen Yang (36:04)

I think she might be in love.

Tim Miller (36:06)

Maybe it's love. I'd like for it to be love.

Sarah Longwell (36:09)

I agree with you, Dave. I thought, I actually thought there was something psychotically detached from the world in the interview. Like when you think about the banality of evil or like what a monster sounds like to me because I know we're sort of laughing at all of it because it is, it is shocking and revelatory in all of these ways that it feels like it must have been a misstep. But one assumes that they did this because they had their reasons that she wanted to go in there and say, no, I'm going to set the record straight on a bunch of things. Or there's stuff that I need to get aired out there. Like maybe she wanted that Clinton stuff out there that was like that. Maybe they did that on purpose. I don't know. But the way that she talks is that she is clearly enamored of her own power over Trump. Completely divorced of any interest to the country. Completely divorced of any interest to what's happening with Americans because. Or even what he does in here. Yeah. What's not in here at all is. And again, I don't know what's on the cutting room floor, but it is shocking the degree to which there is no attempt to frame a worldview attempt at what they're doing, a sense of what they are meant to stand for. It is all about her power with Trump and then her kind of there's like some score settling in there like to Tim's point about J.D. vance. But it's interesting. I think she's probably pretty good at doing that off the record. It is striking for her to do it on the record.

Bowen Yang (37:49)

Can I, can we just focus on the detached from the consequences of their of her behavior for a little bit? Because I had three quotes that I pulled up that really just dial in on that side.

Tim Miller (37:59)

Hit me.

Bowen Yang (38:01)

Here's one. I hear stories from my predecessors about these seminal moments where you have to go in and tell the president what he wants to do is unconstitutional or will cost lives. I don't have that. Haven't had a single moment where she's had to go in and tell the president what he is going to do will cost lives. Let's just sit with that for a second. And now I want to pair it with a second quote. He wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle and people way smarter than me on that say that he will. So that's her just kind of, well, a casually saying we're doing a regime change war in Venezuela, which is against the stated position. But also again, in the previous quote, she had said she's never had to mention that anything he's doing is unconstitutional or will cost lives. And then later she just explains that she's too stupid to understand what the plan is with us bombing people and killing them in the Caribbean. And then one more. She was surprised to find out that Trump and Putin weren't friends. Actually, I thought that there was a real sort of friendship there or at least an admiration. But on the phone calls we've had with Putin, it's been very mixed again. So to me that speaks to the detached to my analysis of just not a very savvy. This is a person that is detached in a way that is immoral in certain ways, does not seem to be thinking or caring deeply about the impact of the choices. These are some very serious geopolitical life or death matters that she does not seem to care about the impact on people at all. But also I think would debunk kind of the Svengali side of this. This does not seem like somebody who's a Svengali. It seems like a very gullible person actually to me.

Sarah Longwell (39:49)

Well, yes, except there's also a parenthetical there where she is saying that. And right behind her is a picture of Trump and Putin together. A framed photograph that is signed by Donald Trump. That's like, Susie, you're the best.

Tim Miller (40:05)

Ah. But it's not also signed by Putin.

Bowen Yang (40:09)

So, you know, so that's what I'm saying. It's like if Ralph Wiggum was the White House chief of staff and the President giving him a signed picture of Putin and she. And she's like, look, it's Donald. It's my Donald and Vlad. And then he says, thank you, Susie, you're the best. Isn't that sweet?

Sarah Longwell (40:27)

Look, here's an international war criminal murderer.

Bowen Yang (40:31)

Yeah, yeah. She's not thinking.

Tim Miller (40:32)

Kidnapped 20,000 children from Ukraine and stole them and pushed them off into Russia and pushed them into adopted homes where they're being raised as Russians.

Sarah Longwell (40:41)

And I keep his photo on my desk because it's got the President in it. This is psychotic. It is madness. These are not small things. Like, that is so deranged. I'm just like, what mass murdering dictator can I deify and just like put on my wall with pictures of my kids? It's lunacy.

Bowen Yang (41:04)

I mean, it's probably next picture of her dad, Pat Summerall, rather than her kids.

Tim Miller (41:08)

No.

Bowen Yang (41:08)

Okay.

Sarah Longwell (41:09)

I'm glad you brought up her dad.

Bowen Yang (41:11)

Trump and Putin.

Sarah Longwell (41:12)

I'm glad you brought up her dad because one of the other insane quotes in here, and this is, this is not a flattering quote of Trump, although maybe it is meant to be. But just on she says so her father is. This, of course, this is something I didn't know, but apparently Pat Summerall, her dad is a well known sports guy who.

Bowen Yang (41:33)

The most famous football play by play announcer in history. Maybe second most famous.

Sarah Longwell (41:36)

Yeah. So I don't, I didn't know who this was.

Tim Miller (41:38)

Who's frequently sauced while he called games.

Sarah Longwell (41:42)

But this idea of Trump. And so she's saying how there's this, like this amplification of a person's personality. And because she dealt with her alcoholic father, she can deal with Trump's, you know, insane personality because he's like a functioning alcoholic. That. Look, I don't want it. This, this might be too nice or it might be too psychoanalyzing, but that sounds like a person who is like a trauma victim in her life is Used to having an insane, megalomaniac, alcoholic father in her face who's now like. And this is how Trump reminds. This is what Trump reminds me of. And so it's. It's just like family.

Bowen Yang (42:19)

Sorry, I just thought of something. I'm not allowed to say sorry. I'm sorry.

Sarah Longwell (42:24)

What is it?

Tim Miller (42:25)

Just write it down because I want to hear it when we're done taking.

Bowen Yang (42:30)

I just think maybe Susie Wiles daddy issues connect with her love of troubles.

Tim Miller (42:34)

Did you guys clock the moment in the profile where they're sitting in her office? And Whipple notes that to the left of the fireplace was a freestanding video monitor, a live feed of Trump's Truth Social posts. Can you imagine being the Chief of Staff to the United States, The President of the United States. And in order to keep up with what the President of the United States is thinking or doing, you need a live feed of his. His Twitter timeline at all times, because otherwise you don't know what the policies of the United States are. That's amazing.

Sarah Longwell (43:10)

I don't know. Does she. She must have one in her bedroom, too, since he's doing most of his tweeting at 3am right now, because he's a raving madman who wakes up in the middle of the night, tweets, and then falls asleep in cabinet meetings.

Tim Miller (43:23)

Can we. Can we talk briefly? I. I just wanted to have one other moral monster like to talk about.

Sarah Longwell (43:29)

Marco Ruby. Elon Musk.

Tim Miller (43:30)

Oh, we'll get to Elon Musk. We'll get to Elon Musk. So I want to talk a little bit about, just for a moment, Marco Rubio, because there I. ProPublica this week is doing a big thing about the destruction of USAID and how the people who did this in the United States government went and had a party with a sheet cake after they blew up this program which saves lots of lives, lots of poor people's lives across the world, and also, you know, furthers America's interests by making our intelligence apparatus more effective and promoting global stability and all that stuff. But. So she talks about. Susie Wiles, talks about the destruction of USAID and says that she was horrified because, you know, as far as she concerned, that did a lot of good. Didn't seem to. She. She was taken totally by surprise, couldn't believe that somebody was doing this. Whipple then goes to Rubio, and I don't have him in front of me. But Rubio rejects the premise and is like, no, we didn't destroy usaid. We just reapportioned its functions. And by the way, by the way, why aren't other countries doing this? Where's China providing immunizations to sick people? And I just, I think Marco might be the most evil of them.

Matt Rogers (44:46)

I don't know.

Tim Miller (44:47)

I mean, it's a close. It's a close call, but it's one of the most immoral things that I could possibly imagine. I mean, it's utterly soulless. He and JD deserve one another. Did that catch either of you, or is this just me on my little moral high horse about usaid?

Bowen Yang (45:03)

No, it's bad. And Marco, I guess, gets called by W. Yes.

Tim Miller (45:10)

Not pepfar. Yep.

Bowen Yang (45:11)

Yeah. Who expresses alarm about pepfar? And then it's like, oh, well, this is the one thing that we're going to try to change. I mean, like the, there's this, like, it's related to the Maxwell thing. There's at moments of convenience, there's this like, feigned helplessness that you see from, from Wiles about herself and then about Trump and then also about Marco. Like, Elon and J.D. she doesn't like. So at times they have, they have accountability. But like Marco and Trump and her, it's just like, what, you know, what we're going to do. And then it's like Elon comes in here and starts running roughshod over everything. And then we start looking at it and it's like, well, you know, some of these programs aren't run that well. You know, we recognize and we're going to put Marco in charge of it now. And it's like we told Elon, this isn't how you do things. And like, meanwhile, what, tens, hundreds of thousands of lives, more maybe hanging hundreds.

Tim Miller (46:10)

Of thousands by hundreds of thousands of people have already died.

Bowen Yang (46:13)

And there just is not like any, like, moment of, oh, man, we are, we have responsibility. Like, this is like, this is on us. Like, I'm carrying the weight. I guess I'm carrying the weight of this job with me. Like, there's not none of that. Right. It's kind of like, well, whatever. That's kind of a thing that happened.

Tim Miller (46:37)

Whipple says to her something like, you know, Rahm Emanuel told me that he hated everything about this job. And she's like, no, I don't understand that. She seems very happy.

Bowen Yang (46:47)

Yeah.

Tim Miller (46:48)

She's living life well.

Bowen Yang (46:49)

Yeah.

Sarah Longwell (46:49)

Because if, if you don't care about what Trump's doing to the country or to the American people, then why would you be unhappy? She has an open door policy. Nice lady. I. I'm with you on the Marco Rubio stuff. I got to say, though, that part about George W. Bush made me lose my ever loving mind. The idea that. Because it's. It. It says in there that, well, Bush is really committed to staying out of things, but he. He calls, you know, he calls Rubio behind the scenes. And I gotta tell you guys that. I know I talk about this a lot, but the silence of these people, the silence of people who were once entrusted with all of America, with all of these. Like, he built Pepfar. We invested 15 billions of $15 billion to start a program that would save lives by helping people who have aids. And it was one of his greatest achievements. They are cavalierly tossing it aside, and Bush won't say anything publicly.

Tim Miller (48:02)

You know, like, I could understand the. He wants to work behind the scenes if the outcome was that and he saved it, but he didn't.

Bowen Yang (48:11)

Right.

Tim Miller (48:12)

And so what?

Bowen Yang (48:13)

They had cake, as you mentioned, and this wasn't in the Vanity Fair. This was a ProPublica article. They had a sheet cake.

Tim Miller (48:19)

Sheet cake, yeah.

Sarah Longwell (48:20)

They celebrate getting rid of usaid.

Tim Miller (48:23)

I really. Yeah, no, the whole. The whole lot of them are rotten.

Sarah Longwell (48:27)

Well, that's because Park, Marco Rubio does know better. Like, reading this. I have. I have been. I read the whole thing twice because I was trying to decide, is she very, very stupid? Is she. Is she. Or is she smart and trying to get something out of this? But it's like a mistake. I. And I genuinely don't know. But Marco Rubio absolutely knows better on these fronts.

Bowen Yang (48:50)

Yeah. And I don't think it is an either or. I guess that's the point I'm trying to get across. We're in, like, went up 50. I'm hoping I can get it exactly right this time with her is like, she's just not a deep thinker. Like, she's not an idiot. You know what I mean? She's not sad, she's savvy. Like, at times. Like, I'm saying, at times, she knows what she's doing. Like, at a couple of times, like, throwing a little jab at somebody or defending Trump on something that she knows will get him in trouble. It's just like whenever it gets to one of these moments where it's like, well, what about the actual consequences of the U.S. action or the bombings or the women who are the victims of Epstein or, you know, whatever. It's just, I. She kind of just seems to think, like, well, that's not really my problem. Like, it's my job to kind of, you know, be the office manager. And like, I'm like the Joan in the Mad Men, managing the egos of these men. And like, that's really my job. And like, all of that stuff, the dead people, you know, there's a great.

Tim Miller (49:49)

Great moment where she's being pressed on, well, you know, at least some of these people we're killing must be innocent fishermen. And she's like, no, no, no. The CIA assures us that every one of them are drug traffickers. And, you know, this CIA. The CIA is amazing. Do you know how great the CIA is? And I was like, I'm sorry. I remember the President of the United States standing up on a stage with Vladimir Putin and saying that our CIA sucked and we couldn't believe a war word. They said, no. Is that not how it is anymore?

Sarah Longwell (50:20)

It's their deep state. Can we talk about Elon just for a second, though? Because it relates to USAID.

Bowen Yang (50:26)

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Tim Miller (52:23)

Sarah, would you like to drive on this one?

Bowen Yang (52:25)

Yeah.

Sarah Longwell (52:25)

Let me just give you some of these quotations because this is where, you know, if Elon hadn't been destroying the apparatus of the federal government and crushing usaid, these would be hilarious quotations. She said. When I asked her what she thought of Musk reposting a tweet about public sector workers killing millions under Hitler, Stalin and Mao, she replied, I think that's when he's microdosing. Oh, we all just, oh, we all just know he's microdosing on Kevin.

Tim Miller (52:58)

It doesn't count if you say it when you're drugged up.

Sarah Longwell (53:01)

That's right.

Tim Miller (53:01)

That's a. You get a hall pass.

Sarah Longwell (53:03)

Yeah, no big deal. If he's just saying that federal workers are actually, they're genocide, they're genociding. But if you're on ketamine, no problem. Wiles described Musk as someone akin to a jacked up Nosferatu. The challenge with Elon is keeping up with him. She told me he's an avowed ketamine user and he sleeps in a sleeping bag in the eob, which is the executive Office building, in the daytime. And he's an odd, odd duck, as I think geniuses are. You know, it's not helpful. But he's his own person. Like, this is what I mean about the detached thing. It's like, yeah, he's an odd duck. Yeah, he's using drugs. Yeah, we just put him in charge of the entire federal government when he wasn't even Senate confirmed or anything. Yeah, he's sleeping in a sleeping bag.

Tim Miller (53:55)

And because he was doing, he was doing drugs while he was in charge of the entire federal government.

Sarah Longwell (54:00)

And it's just like, isn't that, isn't that a kick? Isn't he just an odd duck? This is psychotic stuff.

Bowen Yang (54:08)

I'm sorry to just dial in on this, but I do feel like I should mention that ketamine is a downer. Kind of means a downer. Okay. It's a horse tranquilizer. So I just like this whole. This theory of Elon as like, like he's like, he's on meth, he's hopped up, you know, and he's on drugs and he's up all night and he's all the time and he can't control himself and it's the drug's fault. Like, the ketamine is a horse tranquilizer. It's a, It's a downer like that. I mean, say what you want about microdosing ketamine. To me, it feels like the pro. That's actually kind of excuse for, like, this seems like something that is Elon's responsibility. Not the ketamines, you know, the mass, the mass murder that he's responsible for. That's just me.

Tim Miller (54:58)

I. I have my own little Elon snippet I'd like to share with you. After the USAID thing, Wiles says she called Musk on the carpet. You can't just lock people out of their offices, she recalls telling him. At first, Wiles didn't grasp the effect that slashing USAID programs would have on humanitarian aid. I'm sorry, what? The chief of Staff to the President didn't realize what feeding USAID to the woodchipper would do to humanitarian aid. Are you fucking kidding me? Anyway, etc. Etc. Etc. Thousands of lives are in the balance. Here's Wiles. Elon's attitude is you have to get it done fast. If you're an incrementalist, you just won't get your rocket to the moon. Two points. First of all, Elon Musk has never put a rocket on the moon, hasn't done it. Secondly, the only American organization which has ever put a rocket on the moon is NASA, which was a government program run by a thousand engineers who were insanely careful and incremental. In fact, they ran all of these pilot programs for years and years and years beforehand in which they first just tried to get a rocket into orbit, then they put a chimp on it, then they put a person on it, then they did one orbit, then they did many orbits, then they put a. Well, can we take a capsule and have it separate and reround and couple? Okay, we could do that. Now, literally, incrementalism is how they got a man to the moon. And this sort of ahistorical bullshit would be one thing if she was just trying to like, cover for Donald Trump, her boss. But she's trying to use it to excuse again, the intentional causing of deaths of hundreds of thousands of poor people. I don't even know what to say about that. Well, this is like von, say conference level shit.

Sarah Longwell (56:59)

I'm going to read you another quotation of hers. Actually, it's not from her. It's from Vance talking about her that speaks to this point that JBL is making. Vance says that Wiles is different than others who tried to influence the President's decision. Instead, Wiles, this is Vance, now takes the diametrically opposite view, which is that she's a facilitator, that the American people have elected Donald Trump and her job is to actually facilitate his vision and to make his vision come to life. This is interesting because if you have some in the first Trump term, Kelly and other people who are around Trump who felt an obligation to the country, they felt like their job was to constrain Trump, was to curb his worst impulses. But she is a.

Tim Miller (57:54)

Prevent him from breaking the law.

Sarah Longwell (57:56)

Yeah, that's right. Well, this was something you were, we were talking about this earlier when it was. Well, I've never had to say anything to him about the Constitution, you know, about something being, you know, extra constitutional. That's not because Trump is not trying to violate the Constitution left and right. It's because she's choosing not to say anything about it. She's choosing to facilitate his vision, which is retribution. I mean, this is the whole thing of her as a facilitator. I'm, I'm glad that's the frame because that's an honest frame of you are to bl. Not to Trump is to blame. But she's saying, I'm going to be here to make sure whatever deranged thing he wants to do gets done.

Tim Miller (58:38)

There is a way in which actually this is incredibly, an incredibly revealing interview in that the theory behind America has always been that each branch of government may make mistakes and will be self interested, but is at least theoretically self correcting. Right. That there is, you know, whether it is Congress or the Supreme Court or the executive branch, they won't intentionally break the law. And if they realize they're intentionally breaking the law, they'll stop it. And the net effect of these two, you know, these 11 interviews and these thousands of words is to show that this executive branch, this administration, has no capacity to self limit and has no interest in self limiting. They do not believe that it is their duty to find any limits to what they can do. And that they should only be constrained by. By other forces to the extent that the other institutions can exert the power to constrain them. And that's fucking terrifying. Right? I mean, this is a regime.

Bowen Yang (59:52)

Yeah, please, can I make that same point, but in a more positive light?

Tim Miller (59:56)

Sure.

Bowen Yang (59:57)

I do think that the Susie Wiles, Susie Vance, she's Susie Trump. She's Susie Vance. The Susie Wiles and J.D. vance worldview of how to handle Trump is actually meaningfully different from most of the people in the first term and even some in the current term. I think that if you probably got Marco Rubio on Trist Serum, he would say that Trump brings some special sauce that allows me to get my. Allows us to advance our conservative vision. And, and like, I didn't understand that at the beginning, but it's important to align with him because of Trump's unique political skills. You know, he's able to bring people on board for what Marco sees as like, you know, like a slightly adjusted version of what his Be able to.

Tim Miller (60:47)

Go back to times New Roman font in official times.

Bowen Yang (60:50)

We can do regime change. Yeah. We can do regime change in Venezuela. Venezuela, you know, we can do it.

Tim Miller (60:57)

I can bomb Iran. Netanyahu's bitch.

Bowen Yang (61:01)

Exactly. Yeah. I think that's Marco's view of things. Right. And that was view of everybody in the first term. JD I think because he was in the Trump is Hitler camp, you know, because he was in the Trump in the polar camp, which the Trump is awful. In order to like make this transition, in order to kind of like have his face fully, you know, become one with the mask that he put on, doesn't give himself the ability to make those kind of distinctions anymore. Right. Like, I think that whether or not he believes it, like, he has come to tell himself he has to believe that Trump really did have some. Trump has some special sauce actually, that like, there's something about Trumpism that is good and that we need to let the animal spirits of Trump run wild. And Susie Wiles, like, J.D. you know, maybe it's less about the transition, but it's just more about like, that is how she survives. And Trump wise world where she's like, I'm not going to be the one that puts bumpers on them or tells him what he should do. That was those other guys. Like, I'm going to facilitate. I will be the facilitator for Trump. As JD Said that that worldview is what is leading to their political demise right now. Like, and, and frankly, that's what I wanted from the first term, I was in the minority, but I was of the group that, like, responsible people shouldn't go in. Like, we should let Corey Lewandowski run things because it's important for people to see Trump and we are starting to see the consequences of the J. D. Van Susie Wiles worldview. The only thing that brings me any joy about this article is that if they continue a pace on the same pace they've been on for the first 11 months, JD is like, Donald Trump will at the end of this, not receive any comeuppance for his behavior, as we wish he would. But J.D. might, you know, the whole, the whole system might not work for him. And that brings me a little bit of joy because these guys, you know, just across the board, there's no coherent explanation for the strategy on Epstein, on Venezuela, on tariffs, on anything. Like they don't have anything because they're just like, we're going to let the Mad King. We're going to do what the Mad King wants because we believe that the Mad King has some special sauce. And I think that's, yeah, dangerous. Jvl but it's also potentially what is going to lead them down a path of destruction. And that makes me happy.

Tim Miller (63:18)

Sarah, what do you think about that? I kind of like that. That does bring an interesting question about what would be different if this had. If Susie Wiles had been chief of staff in the first term. Right. And Mike Pence wasn't VP but JD Vance was and all that. Maybe we'd be in a different timeline.

Sarah Longwell (63:36)

Yeah. This is one of those life can only be lived forward but understood backward. I mean, you know, I'd love to run that counterfactual in which like, we don't get Trump because nobody put guardrails around him. So he failed spectacularly. Maybe. I mean, it's so dangerous. It's also dangerous, right, to have a president doing this. And so like I've always been in kind of the touch the stove in ways that make people believe that Trump is a failure and that Trump is a failed experiment that America ran and that the people who are associated with him are never allowed anywhere near government again. I, it is and I sort of want that more in the, you know, now we're in a recession because of Trump's tariffs and that causes real pain that will cause. I like, I don't, I don't wish it on anybody, but those are real consequences that people can feel that I think would move us out of this versus no American is going to recognize the loss of USAID for 25 years when America is a completely declined superpower and China is the one that everybody looks to for leadership because we took away all of our soft power levers like Americans won't notice that. That is not the thing that will make them think Trump is a failure.

Tim Miller (65:10)

I mean they can choose to not notice it. It's. It's happening. It gets reported all the time like.

Sarah Longwell (65:16)

This is, but they can't.

Tim Miller (65:17)

It's all there. They could see it if they wanted to.

Sarah Longwell (65:21)

Sure.

Tim Miller (65:21)

They choose not to. We're going to talk a little bit about we have some real life consequences that happened right before we started taping with some amazing jobs numbers. But first, Sarah, talk to us about Naked Wines.

Sarah Longwell (65:34)

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Tim Miller (67:18)

Labor Statistics finally did some work. Put out some numbers today and unemployment is up to 4.45%. That seems bad. Let. Let me, let me go to the financial analysts. See what they say here. The analyst Charles Schwab. The US unemployment rate is now up by 1.2 percentage points from its trough 30 months ago. We have never seen that kind of increase without the economy already being in recession. Huh. So far in the back half of 2025, the economy has created 113,000 jobs. In the full history of payroll data, that is so far the weakest semiannual gain we've seen. Excluding the rebound periods after recessions. Percentage of Americans holding multiple jobs is now at a 25 year high. And manufacturing, Manufacturing jobs for the forgotten men and women of this country.

Bowen Yang (68:18)

That's got to be doing well.

Tim Miller (68:19)

Crashing. So if you were hoping to live in a world where Americans could work in the same factories that their grandfathers worked in screwing tiny little screws into iPhones, that's not happening either. Fuckers. I'm not happy about this yet.

Bowen Yang (68:35)

Yet. Okay. Yet. J.D. was out there giving a speech and I couldn't watch all of it because I hate the sound of his voice. But I did see a line where he said that Rome wasn't built in a day. Okay. Jbl. And so at some point the tariffs that we have put on bananas and on coffee will end up resulting in some factories being built in Scranton.

Tim Miller (68:59)

We're going to grow our own bananas right here in Scranton.

Bowen Yang (69:03)

There'll be a banana factory in, in Wilkes Barre. It's coming any minute now. So I. So it's possible there's just a delay on that manufacturing number because that does not sound right to me.

Sarah Longwell (69:18)

They also revised the jobs numbers down from previous months which they'd already revised down before. And I have this. Tim's talking about J.D. vance. But I'm watching all of them. They're all hitting the airwaves to say the first six months of next year are going to be bangers. Guys. Just you wait. It's all coming.

Tim Miller (69:42)

They do understand that the job losses are going to exacerbate the health care cost problem that is going to really kick in starting the first six months of next year as the premiums on the exchanges all go up. Do they not?

Bowen Yang (69:57)

They don't. They don't understand that. And Mike Johnson just said today he's not bringing up a vote. So there had been some people in the House and Republicans in the House were talking about getting a patch, buying some time on this. Mike Johnson said he's not going to bring that up for a vote today. So it doesn't look like they're interested in fixing that. No, I don't think that they do recognize the connection there because it's not.

Tim Miller (70:15)

Going to get better.

Bowen Yang (70:16)

There's magic golden age is coming. There's a golden age. Something, something, something. You know, deregulating crypto and AI that will create a lot of jobs still. There's still some growth in the private prison industry. The home health care industry should, should do a little bit better and you know, as people lose, lose work and benefits and need, need help taking care of their family members. So I don't, you know, I don't know, it seems pretty, pretty not great and totally self inflicted and they don't really seem to have a plan. I guess that's the most striking thing to me. And we'll see. The President has a big speech tomorrow night. I, I've offered blind, I have no prediction that I think that he's going to try to give people Trump bucks, that that will be his plan. Oh yeah.

Tim Miller (71:04)

Maybe give you all $2,000.

Bowen Yang (71:06)

Yeah.

Sarah Longwell (71:06)

Well that should be good for inflation. That should help.

Bowen Yang (71:08)

Tariffs have yeah the tariffs money is coming in and so we're give you a check. That's possible. That's what I'll do. But, but so we'll see but as we sit here today, as we tape here today, Tuesday afternoon, like they don't have a plan. Like they don't, they're not offering any. They don't have a coherent vision for how things are going to get on a different trajectory. And maybe there's a hope that the Supreme Court will save them but they keep saying that they're going to just find other mechanisms for their tariffs. So it's bad and it's particularly bad for is new college grads. The market is going to be so bad for new entrants. And I think that should complicate and make interesting the big discourse from the last year over, you know, young men who'd been abandoned during the Biden era and had to turn to Trump. I think that there's going to be.

Tim Miller (72:02)

It had to turn to Trump because you know, they were all employed and the economy was good, but they felt like they couldn't say the R word anymore. So they had no choice to.

Bowen Yang (72:12)

There was a little bit more to it than that. But it's going to get, it's getting, it's going to get really bad that in that demo I think.

Sarah Longwell (72:17)

Well and because they're not even talking about AI and what it's like nobody's grappling with what's going to happen because those, the entry level jobs are the ones that go first because it's the stuff that you would hire a 22 year old to do that AI can do now. And so, yeah, they have no plan on health care. It seems like they're now in the sour spot where they can't extend the Obamacare subsidies because that's going to be seen as political malpractice. But if they do nothing, premiums are going to start going through the roof. They're already starting to spike on top of inflation, on top of the job loss. Like, I don't, I mean, I don't know where they think this great six month where everything's going to happen in the first quarter of next year.

Bowen Yang (73:02)

Maduro is going to fold. Maduro is already feeling the pressure. So we'll have a successful regime change in Venezuela and then all the money that we gave to ICE is going to kick in. So that's going to create some new jobs for people, the new ICE agents that we're handing out money to and.

Tim Miller (73:19)

I don't know, we'll seize the oil from Venezuela.

Bowen Yang (73:23)

New ballroom, too. There'll be a new. Nice.

Sarah Longwell (73:26)

I forgot about the ballroom.

Bowen Yang (73:27)

I forgot about some construction jobs.

Sarah Longwell (73:29)

Amazing.

Bowen Yang (73:31)

Because we just fired the old construction guys. So we gotta bring in some new construction people and they will not be undocumented immigrants. So the American citizens doing the work.

Tim Miller (73:42)

Hammering heritage Americans only.

Bowen Yang (73:45)

Heritage Americans only. Hammering the nails in the new ballroom. Yeah.

Sarah Longwell (73:48)

Yeah. I hope all those strapping young white men in their ads are applying for jobs to be home health care workers because that's the growth sector.

Bowen Yang (73:57)

I might need an assistant, so.

Sarah Longwell (74:01)

Oh, yeah. You think he's handsome in their ads. You think the clip art. The clip art propaganda. Those guys.

Bowen Yang (74:08)

One of those clip art men come by my house. The podcast business is exploding. We do kind of need some interns. By the way, if you've made it to 1 hour and 20 minutes of this podcast and you're in college right now, we want your resume. Okay, email me timotheball work.com if you're. If you've made, don't. If not, don't clip this social media team. I don't know, cheating. I want somebody that listened to 80 minutes of this. And if you're a minute 80 and under the age of 24, please email me.

Tim Miller (74:36)

All right. Is any of this going to matter?

Bowen Yang (74:39)

Yes.

Tim Miller (74:41)

All right. Is the Rob Reiner stuff going to matter? I just, while we were Taping. I saw that. This is going to mean nothing to either of you, but Mick Foley, who is a legend in professional wrestling.

Bowen Yang (74:53)

Manimal. Mankind. Mankind Manhunt was a gay sex actor in the. In the 2000s. Never on there. Don't know where that came from.

Tim Miller (75:04)

You read about that on Wikipedia.

Bowen Yang (75:06)

I read about it. Mankind.

Tim Miller (75:11)

Mick Foley, he is absolutely one of the most beloved figures in professional wrestling ever, but especially over the last 30 years. He just parted ways with the WWE because of its closeness with Donald Trump over the Rob Reiner thing.

Bowen Yang (75:27)

Wow.

Tim Miller (75:29)

That. That's the kind of, like, little invisible thing that won't be paid attention to by anybody. But, like, wrestling people will notice it. And wrestling people tend to be Trump people, present company excluded. And, I don't know, like, Marjorie Taylor Thomas Massie coming out hot mtg. By the way, mazel tov. Congratulations. I think those two crazy kids are going to make it really excited for her and her engagement. Is it possible? Am I Lucy with the football? Is it possible that this stuff is going to accumulate and matter?

Sarah Longwell (76:09)

Yes. Yes. I mean, maybe it's not going to.

Tim Miller (76:12)

I need more than that.

Sarah Longwell (76:14)

It's not going to.

Tim Miller (76:14)

I need you to explain why.

Sarah Longwell (76:18)

Well, look, at the end of the day, the economy, the things that are going on with the economy are what is going to matter most. I do think so. My barometer, my hate barometer for people who have sort of thrown in their lot with Donald Trump after January 6th is Eric Erickson, and he is suddenly talking about Trump using the passive voice, meaning people who voted for Trump are frustrated as opposed to. As though he weren't never a good sign. Yeah. I think that there is a real sense right now in this moment that the wheels are coming off of the Trump thing. Now, we've all been here before, and so we should be circumspect on this. We shouldn't. But I think we are somewhere between jvl, your kind of morose, nothing matters thing, and the walls are closing in. It's all over, but it is absolutely showing up in the polling. He is in enormous trouble with young people. I mean, they're in so much trouble with young people that JD Vance tweeted yesterday that Israel, you don't have to. Israel is different from Jews. It's okay.

Bowen Yang (77:34)

Anti Zionism is not anti Semitism.

Sarah Longwell (77:35)

That's right. To which Nick Fuentes, quote, tweeted, it's okay to hate Israel, but JD Vance. Here's what JD Is doing with that.

Tim Miller (77:44)

Wait a minute. Is that a thing now? Because I would like to send that to some friends of mine.

Sarah Longwell (77:49)

Oh, yeah.

Bowen Yang (77:49)

I mean, he didn't say it exactly that explicitly, but yeah. And he basically, like he was essentially saying anti Zionism is an anti Semitism.

Tim Miller (77:57)

Wow.

Bowen Yang (77:57)

Not use the exact phrase.

Tim Miller (77:58)

Good to know.

Bowen Yang (77:58)

That's what he said.

Sarah Longwell (77:59)

Yeah. Guys, what is this? Okay, I talked about this last week, but this is my new framework that I really want. This is my. Instead of the Triangle of Doom, now we have the MAGA establishment versus America first. And JD Vance has.

Tim Miller (78:13)

I'm well aware that this is your new framework, Sarah.

Sarah Longwell (78:17)

What are you laughing?

Bowen Yang (78:18)

Wait a minute. The Triangle of Doom is gone?

Tim Miller (78:21)

No, we've still got the Triangle of Doom.

Sarah Longwell (78:22)

We've still got the Triangle of Doom, but I.

Tim Miller (78:24)

Or the diamond you're looking for, Tim.

Sarah Longwell (78:26)

Yeah, but I was going back and forth about this with Dan Pfeiffer because somebody recently asked this question. Would you consider yourself more a MAGA Republican or a, an establishment Republican or a regular republic Traditional Republican was the phrase they used. And it was 50.

Bowen Yang (78:43)

50.

Sarah Longwell (78:44)

And I said, you can't ask this question anymore. This question doesn't make sense to people because the New party is split between the MAGA establishment and America Firsters. And JD Vance has his eye on those, on those America Firsters. And America Firsters don't like Israel. And they are young people. And so they are. J.D. vance, because he's thinking about his future, is hyper focused on young people where Trump is cratering right now. He's cratering with Hispanics, he's cratering with young people, and he's cratering with those economic swing voters.

Tim Miller (79:19)

You know, if we were, if we were looking, I'd forgotten about this. One of the things in the wilds profile is she talks about trying to make sure that these people who are Trump voters become Republican voters.

Sarah Longwell (79:32)

Yeah, I loved this part.

Bowen Yang (79:33)

And she said, and she cites Epstein and Israel. She literally is just like, here's, there are these, there are these new people out there that we've brought in to the coalition and what they really care about is the Epstein theories about whether Epstein killed himself and whether Israel's behind, you know, some of the recent assassinations. Like, like that is, that's the group we really like. That's our growth area.

Tim Miller (80:00)

Right. That's the one thing I could see Trump not loving. Right. Because he thinks they should be Trump people, not Republicans.

Sarah Longwell (80:09)

Yeah. Well, this was her quotation, which was very interesting, was these people voted for Trump. We need to make them Republicans. But of course, these voters are red pilled. These are Not Republican voters. And these are the kinds of people that don't necessarily stay in the Republican coalition without Trump. And Vance, I think, thinks all the time about how Trump's red hat creates a big tent that holds this fracture, fractious community together. And that is, you can see him changing in real time to try and address that.

Tim Miller (80:52)

Maybe he'll get it done. Guys, this show is now in our seven. And we talked about Candace.

Sarah Longwell (80:59)

Tim's like, and another thing.

Bowen Yang (81:01)

No, I'd say to the parents, I just, I caught myself. I know it's going to happen to me on the 23 year old emails in my inbox. Don't, don't. If you're, if you're a mom out there, God, I appreciate, I appreciate everybody, okay? But you can't go telling little Johnny at Loyola to email me now with the email. If it was Johnny's mom. Eunice. Lori, Lori, I appreciate you, but it doesn't work like that. I'm gonna know. I'm gonna quiz them. I'm gonna quiz them about what happened on the podcast. All right? So I'm only accepting emails from actual youth that listened to the entire podcast. Do you want to talk about Candace? We can talk about.

Tim Miller (81:43)

I just want two minutes of what on earth Candace and Erica Kirk could have spent four and a half hours talking about because according to them, they spent four and a half hours in their deep conversations.

Bowen Yang (82:00)

It's just hard for me to wrap my head around why Erica Kirk would want to be in a room with this person. And like, the only potential answer to that is, I guess, hoping that you can shut her up, which is not gonna work. And other than that, it's like political machinations of some kind. Like trying, you know, trying to, you know, trying to make sure to solidify political power and control. And, you know, everybody has a right to do. That's fine. If that's what she decides she wants to do with her life is kind of like, make sure to grab control of tpusa and I'm Charlie's political movement. But it's like, it's very, it's a very strange deal. You know, it's like Candace Owens is out there being like, maybe you killed your husband or maybe you knew about it or maybe you're on the inside or maybe it wasn't. You may have somebody underneath.

Tim Miller (82:49)

A Saad has an agent in the country right now trying to, trying to assassinate me.

Bowen Yang (82:55)

Yeah. Or maybe it was the Egyptians and it's like you decide, no, I'm going to get on my jet and go meet with that person and spend four and a half hours at their house. You know, doesn't. Doesn't feel healthy, I guess.

Sarah Longwell (83:07)

No, guys, here's what's happening. I don't even. I don't have to follow this closely to know that this is what's happening, which is that Megan Kelly and a bunch of who. Whoever's around Erica Kirk right now is like, you've got to go directly to Candace and you've got to make this stop. Like, she's killing us. And the only person who can talk some sense into her and get her to back off of this stuff is you. But my guess is. But my guess is that she went in there and the reason that Erica Kirk was in there for four and a half hours is because Candace was like, let me show you. Let me show you my board.

Tim Miller (83:43)

She had the always sunny board with the Pepe Silva.

Sarah Longwell (83:47)

Yeah. And so, you know, and I'm sure.

Bowen Yang (83:50)

There'S a lot of time Googling and asking ChatGPT because Candace is like, do you know about the legionnaires? You know, and do you know about that Stanford Prison study? Because the Stanford Prison study, there's some involvement there. And, you know, McCrone. And so you have to spend a lot of time doing ChatGPT to figure out what she's talking about. You're right, Sarah. You're right. That's. That's what happens. It's not going to work, though.

Sarah Longwell (84:11)

No. Candace and also the other. You know how powerful Candace has gotten and Dick Fuentes by all the mini maga types who are out there right now being Candace Owens. Doesn't matter. No one listens to her. I'm like, literally, almost everybody listens. Like, she has.

Bowen Yang (84:29)

No one listens to you? No one listens to you? No. There's a New York Post hit piece on Candace today, which I. Which is right, by the way. So, like, I am on the side of the New York Post. Right. I don't know who wrote it. I'm on the side of that person on the merits. But, like, as an analytical manner, it's funny. It's like, so reminiscent of Desantis's defuture. Do you remember the New York Post headline of, like, Desantis is the future, where it's like, things have gotten a little hairy with Trump here. When we signed up for this, we didn't really mean the militias and the storming of the Capitol and it might be time for the Murdoch regime to sort of. Okay, that's been nice. We're not gonna go after Donald Tuhart, but let's sort of move on from this. It's very reminiscent of that. It's like, can we point people from Kandas? Can we point you over to somebody a little bit more responsible? Can we. We sell you on Jesse Waters? He also has some kooky thoughts, you know, but isn't fully, you know, doing blood libel. I don't think it's gonna work. I think it'll be as successful as the DeSantis is the future strategy.

Sarah Longwell (85:33)

You know, I'm just actually as. As we. As we get out of here. I'm glad you brought up DeSantis. Cause it reminds me of a point I wanted to make back during the Susie Wiles thing, which is sometimes I wonder about the alternate timelines of things. Like if Joe Biden had just invited Elon Musk to the, you know, ev. Summit.

Tim Miller (85:54)

Summit.

Sarah Longwell (85:55)

Yeah, Right. So that Musk didn't feel so, you know, kicked out and then decided to use his bill. You know, like, whatever. If Ron DeSantis just hadn't been mean to Susie.

Tim Miller (86:06)

Wild Susie says this herself.

Sarah Longwell (86:08)

If Susie says this, then she wouldn't have gone all in to work for Donald Trump and help him get elected and now be facilitating everything that he is doing in the White House. All you had to do, Ron, was not on the person who helped you win that election when you are a politically talentless meatball. But you had to be mean to her. And now here we are, you're not the president, and the rest of us are suffering.

Bowen Yang (86:37)

What children. These people are all such children.

Tim Miller (86:41)

Guys, this has been the greatest Festivus ever. Thank you both for making it so special for me. If you are still listening to this show at hour nine, you owe it to hit the like button, because these things actually do matter. And for the love of God, hit the subscribe button, too.

Bowen Yang (86:59)

Or subscribe to Bulwark this holiday season.

Tim Miller (87:02)

I mean, you ought to subscribe. I wrote a banger of a newsletter today. I don't know if either of you have read it. Probably not.

Sarah Longwell (87:07)

I read it.

Tim Miller (87:07)

You spent all your time reading Matt Iglesias. You didn't have time to read me?

Bowen Yang (87:11)

Sarah, I skimmed both you and Matt Iglesias. I've skimmed both. And Matt Iglesias complimented you, and I agreed with both of your points. I haven't read either with any rigor.

Sarah Longwell (87:20)

I also forwarded that to JBL first thing this morning. I was like. He was like, I cannot believe. Like it was a double whammy. Not only was iglesias all over JBL's stuff in a positive way, but also it made it clear that I read Iglesias newsletter as soon as it comes out.

Tim Miller (87:39)

You are the worst Burr. Guys, we'll do this again next week. Good show. Long show?

Bowen Yang (87:46)

Why not?

Tim Miller (87:46)

Good luck, America.

Matt Rogers (87:51)

This is Matt Rogers from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

Bowen Yang (87:55)

This is Bowen Yang from Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang.

Matt Rogers (87:58)

Hey Bowen, it's gift season.

Bowen Yang (88:00)

Ugh, stressing me out. Why are the people I love so hard to shop?

Matt Rogers (88:04)

Probably because they only make boring gift guides that are totally uninspired. Except for the guide we made in.

Bowen Yang (88:11)

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Matt Rogers (88:14)

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Bowen Yang (88:21)

Or Best Gifts for Me that were so thoughtful I really shouldn't have.

Matt Rogers (88:25)

Check out the guide on marshalls.com and.

Bowen Yang (88:28)

Gift the good stuff at Marshalls.

Matt Rogers (88:30)

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Sarah Longwell (89:01)

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Sarah Longwell (89:26)

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