1044: When Fox News Starts Saying "Trump is Bad" (and Other Wild Predictions)

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Next Level

Host: The Bulwark (Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller, Jonathan V. Last [JVL])
Episode: 1044 – "When Fox News Starts Saying 'Trump is Bad' (and Other Wild Predictions)"
Date: December 31, 2025

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Main Theme

The Bulwark trio—Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller, and JVL—reflect on the tumultuous state of U.S. politics and media as 2025 closes, focusing on anxieties and hopes for the coming year under Donald Trump’s presidency. They discuss the erosion of institutional norms, the growing influence of media tech oligarchs, and the unpredictable political, economic, and cultural landscape. The format is a roundtable where each shares two major concerns for 2026 and two sources of hope, punctuated with signature wit and candor.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Financial System Instability & Federal Reserve Politicization

• JVL opens by voicing concern over the “slow breakdown of the financial system,” especially with Trump preparing to appoint a new Federal Reserve Chair who will “slash rates.”
  • Notable Quote:

    “Kevin Hassett is like a fucking sock puppet. He actually looks like a Muppet when you think about it.” (JVL, 02:24)

• They anticipate Trump allies and tech billionaires embedding themselves into this rebuilt system, further muddling trust in economic data.

2. Cryptocurrency Deregulation & Billionaire Power

• Tim raises worries that total crypto deregulation will entwine unstable assets with the financial system.
  • Notable Quote:

    “Our friend Palmer Luckey is creating a new crypto bank which I’m sure will go real well.” (Tim, 03:15)

• Sarah highlights the emergence of “a class of billionaire/trillionaire… who are both allied with Donald Trump” and “have no vested interest in the American experiment surviving.” (04:24)

3. Trump’s Mental State and Leadership Risks

• Tim is especially anxious about the unpredictability stemming from Trump’s age and possible cognitive decline:
  • Notable Quote:

    “I worry a lot about an unwelcome change with an already deeply unstable president that has very few checks on him.” (Tim, 06:51)

• The group jests grimly about the quality of Trump’s inner circle ("Stephen Miller… JD Vance, and Cash Patel"), doubting the nation could rely on them if Trump is incapacitated.

4. Media Consolidation & Tech Oligarch Control

• Sarah's principal fear is unprecedented media consolidation, with tech billionaires acquiring traditional news companies (e.g., Elon Musk owning X, Oracle buying CNN):
  • Notable Quote:

    “At some point, the American people are going to need to wise up to see that these are people who divide us intentionally so that we don’t notice what they’re doing and how much they are consolidating power… This will live on after Trump is gone.” (Sarah, 09:02)

• They debate the impact of captured media on democracy, with Tim distinguishing between legacy media and the "algorithms running people's lives."
  • Tim:

    “Maybe this is Pollyanna, but I’d love to see a populist lefty person that focuses their anger on Zuckerberg and Musk…” (Tim, 10:14)

5. Information Ecosystem & AI Disinformation

• Tim paints a dystopian vision of the next decade’s information ecosystem, dominated by AI and algorithmic feeds designed to “divide them or advance [the oligarchs’] personal financial interests.”
  • Notable Quote:

    “It is possible that we are raising an entire generation of people who are unable to read and are unable to tell truth from fiction…” (Tim, 14:33)

• JVL muses about the radical idea of banning algorithms altogether.

6. Foreign Policy Hotspots: Venezuela and Greenland

• JVL is worried about Trump’s saber-rattling over Venezuela, predicting either a messy regime change or a protracted crisis.
  • Quote:

    “He’s basically committed to regime change…” (JVL, 16:02)

• Tim satirically wonders about Trump’s obsession with Greenland, proposing a not-so-remote possibility of an attempted annexation led by dubious state officials.
  • Quote:

    “Is it possible that the governor of my state might actually invade Greenland?” (Tim, 17:08)

7. Supreme Court’s Impact on Trump and Economic Fallout

• Sarah fears that only “economic pain” (e.g., damage from Trump's trade tariffs) can drive Trump’s popularity below the “Bush line,” but the Supreme Court might protect him from his own policies’ consequences.
  • Quote:

    “My biggest fear is that the Supreme Court is going to save him from himself.” (Sarah, 22:57)

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Hopes for 2026

1. Accountability for Trump’s Allies & the Epstein Scandal

• Sarah:
  • Hold out hope that the Epstein case still has legs and might force Trump to answer meaningfully.
  • “Epstein gets worse, not better… Trump eventually has to answer for his Epstein relationship in meaningful ways.” (Sarah, 24:15)

2. Sudden Political Collapse – “The Assad Model”

• Tim:
  • Draws parallels to Assad’s sudden downfall in Syria, hoping a similarly swift unraveling could befall Trump’s power, with allies and right-wing media flipping on him for survival.
  • Notable Quote:

    “People on Fox start to mention it [Trump being bad], and then… we get to the midterms, and his numbers are so bad… that creates like a chain reaction.” (Tim, 26:09)

3. Republican Succession Struggles – Trump vs. JD Vance

• JVL:
  • Foresees a collision between Trump and would-be heir JD Vance, arguing the scenario will be messy because Trump, unlike W. Bush, will never let go.
  • “I really do believe that JD’s entire thing is focused on hoping that Trump isn’t alive come 2028.” (JVL, 30:09)

4. Democratic Overperformance and Building for the Future

• Sarah:
  • Optimistically predicts Democrats will “overperform even the big expectations going into the midterm elections,” laying groundwork for a stronger future.
  • She urges hearings and oversight (not just impeachment) to hold the Trump administration accountable and avoid rallying support around Trump.
  • “This is about more than one election and we have to do rebuilding that goes well beyond just 2026.” (Sarah, 32:09)
• Tim: Wistfully hopes for non-political joys—like a Denver Nuggets championship.

5. The Mask Comes Off: Accelerationism

• JVL:
  • Somewhat darkly, he welcomes the “mask coming off” the MAGA/Griper right, believing a quicker, dramatic split will be less dangerous than a steady decline.
  • Quote:

    “I think it would be good for the mask to keep coming off. The more the mask is off, the better it is for America.” (JVL, 35:28)

6. Future Leadership Fights

• Tim: Hopes for a charismatic, non-extreme right figure to challenge MAGA, lamenting the lack of appealing options:
  • “I want someone new… the non-groiper could use a standard bearer who is not Ted Cruz.” (Tim, 36:20)

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Memorable Quotes

• “Kevin Hassett is like a fucking sock puppet. He actually looks like a Muppet…”
  — JVL (02:24)

• “There is a new set of overlords… These are people who divide us so that we don’t notice what they’re doing and how much they are consolidating power.”
  — Sarah Longwell (01:08, 09:02)

• “I worry a lot about an unwelcome change with an already deeply unstable president that has very few checks on, on him. I think could get even more crazy.”
  — Tim Miller (06:51)

• “It is possible that we are raising an entire generation of people who are unable to read and are unable to tell truth from fiction…”
  — Tim Miller (14:33)

• “My biggest fear is that the Supreme Court is going to save him from himself.”
  — Sarah Longwell (22:57)

• “People on Fox start to mention it. And then… we get to the midterms and his numbers are so bad… politicians start to distance and pundits start to distance from them.”
  — Tim Miller (26:09)

• “I really do believe that JD’s entire thing is focused on hoping that Trump isn’t alive come 2028…”
  — JVL (30:09)

• “This is about more than one election and we have to do rebuilding that goes well beyond just 2026.”
  — Sarah Longwell (32:09)

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Emotional State & Closing Reflections (39:14–42:39)

• The hosts feel slightly better than a year ago, mainly due to Trump’s camp showing signs of internal strife:
  • “We’re in a worse place than I had thought we would be in, but… I did worry that we wouldn’t actually make it, and here we are. So there’s that.” (JVL, 39:42)
  • Courts are holding up, some hope for democratic resilience.
  • “It feels like we’re still in the fight now.” (Sarah, 42:39)

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Important Timestamps

• 01:08 – Sarah on the rise of oligarch overlords
• 02:24 – JVL's blunt assessment of Federal Reserve picks
• 03:42 – Tim & JVL on crypto-dominated futures
• 06:51 – Tim’s fears about Trump’s cognitive decline
• 09:02 – Sarah on media consolidation dangers
• 14:33 – Tim’s AI-information ecosystem doomsday
• 16:02 – JVL on Venezuela crisis
• 17:08 – Tim humorously floats “Governor invades Greenland”
• 22:57 – Sarah’s Supreme Court & Trump’s popularity concern
• 24:15 – Sarah’s hope: Trump and Epstein
• 26:09 – Tim’s “Assad model” hope for Trump’s collapse
• 30:09 – JVL on JD Vance as GOP's conflicted heir
• 32:09 – Sarah on Democratic renewal
• 35:28 – JVL: Letting the “mask come off” on the right
• 36:20 – Tim on the need for appealing non-extremist GOP leaders
• 39:42–42:39 – Outlook for 2026 and personal optimism

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Tone

As always, the tone is darkly humorous, cynical yet weirdly hopeful, blending gallows humor (“accelerationism,” “Sock puppet Federal Reserve”) with earnest argument about democracy’s fate. Their banter carries through even the bleakest predictions, making for an engaging and thought-provoking listen.

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Transcript

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[Sarah Longwell]

These are people who divide us so that we don't notice what they're doing and how much they are consolidating power.

[Tim Miller]

Hello, everyone.

[JVL]

This is JVL here with my best friends Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of the Bulwark. And we are riding with you guys one last time in 2025 with a look ahead how terrible things are going to be next year when everything just keeps getting worse. That's how it is, you know?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[JVL]

That scene in Office Space where Ron Livingston's like, this is the worst day of my life. And every day after that has been worse. So every time you meet me, you're meeting me, I'm on the worst day of my life. That's kind of. I feel like America's doing, wow, that's messed up. We're gonna play a little game. We're gonna go through and each tell you, yeah, it's gonna be great. Two things that we are concerned about for 2026, and then two things that we're hopeful about. I'll just start us off. I'm pretty concerned about the slow breakdown of the financial system in America. Donald Trump is going to name a new chairman of the Federal Reserve in 2026. He has made it very clear that he has litmus tests and. And that he will not appoint somebody who's not going to slash rates. Got Kevin Hassett Sitting right there. Kevin Hassett is like a fucking sock puppet. He actually looks like a Muppet when you think about it. And breaking down the political wall between the presidency and the executive branch and the Federal Reserve, the central bank is a huge deal and the kind of thing that takes decades to recover from, because what you have to do, all the financial markets globally have to decide that they trust you again and that it's not going to happen. And I think Trump is going to want a chairman who's going to push rates back down to zero. He's going to want Zerp, and we're going to be doing this in an environment in which we can't trust any economic data coming out of the United States government. And the combination for that is just like, who the fuck knows?

[Tim Miller]

I'd like to throw a little topper on that we've completely deregulated cryptocurrency, which is going to entwine itself into the actual financial system with the stable coins, et cetera. Our friend Palmer Lucky is creating a new crypto bank which I'm sure will go real well. And this is a little. I'm a little outside of my depth on this stuff, but for a while. Peter Thiel has been saying for a while that he wanted to basically replace the dollar with a different world reserve currency. One's just kind of Bitcoin or some.

[JVL]

Version of crypto, preferably one that he owned 5% of the global supply of.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. So I just think that, like, you throw a dollop of that on top of what you're talking about in the traditional banking system and, you know, maybe you'll get what he wants.

[JVL]

Peter Thiel, before we move on from this, this is like everything else, like with the QAnon and the pedophiles. This is a thing where if you go and just talk to, like, random republicans circa 2022, one of the things they would tell you is that Joe Biden is trying to rep the dollar with electronic money, which of course was this insane thing. It came from nowhere. It's like a thing from the Internet. But Trump is actually kind of open to. Trump is actually setting up alternative currencies.

[Tim Miller]

Great.

[Sarah Longwell]

I. Sorry, I have to throw on top of that, too. And I don't know if this is where Tim is going, but it is worth noting that the end result of what JBL is talking about and that Tim just threw that dollop on, the end result is a class of billionaire slash trillionaire that have no vested interest in the American experiment. Surviving that we have Created a new class of people who are both allied with Donald Trump in large part because they like that Donald Trump is transactional and will give them things like a totally unregulated crypto market and just let them do the deals they want to do as long as they're nice to him. And this will relate to the things that I am most afraid of. But one of them is how rich a cadre of very bad people are getting.

[JVL]

I've got something else.

[Tim Miller]

We'll kind of go around and around you go round the circle. Come on, Daisy Jane. Here's mine. I'm worried that dementia makes them go actually crazy. And I want to sit here with this, which is one place that I find myself parting ways sometimes with other people and resistance media, broadly defined. And some of our listeners, some people I meet is like a lot of, a lot of people think maybe they're right, maybe I'm right. Neither. None of us are Trump's personal psychologist. Like he's already gone crazy, right? And I just, I look at Donald Trump and see like a, just like a slightly deteriorated version of the same person from the 1980s. Like, I don't, I don't really see somebody that has had a total psychotic and he's always been crazy, right? But I see it kind of like a, you know, sort of like a very, like, like a green on the ski slope, you know, going down. And the thing that worried me, like, like one of my things that worried me when, before he's elected. I would say to people is like the tail risk of an 82 year old when we don't know what happens to him. Or maybe he starts to panic and he deteriorates more quickly, maybe. Luckily my father's nowhere near the age of Donald Trump, but I don't know if you guys noticed this. A lot of times with old men, some percentage of them get like a lot grumpier really when they get really old. And then another percentage get like soft and like start. My dad seems to be getting soft, which is like a huge gift to me. I'm so grateful. He's like, you know, talking about his feelings with me now, which I really. Which I. It's a change, but it's a welcome change. Some people in my life, their friends, their fathers have made an unwelcome change. And I worry a lot about an unwelcome change with an already deeply unstable president that has very few checks on, on him. I think could get even more crazy.

[JVL]

The good news is power is distributed pretty broadly throughout the Executive branch. And we had a lot of independent agencies which are just going to function with experts running them. And so, yeah, he's surrounded by people. Chief executive is a little bit out there. You know, it'll be okay.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, he's got Stephen Miller around him, and he's got Susie Wiles and J.D. vance and Cash Patel, and he's got a bunch of people you can really trust to act in America's best interest if Trump is sidelined.

[JVL]

Sarah, what do you got?

[Sarah Longwell]

So mine is around the media consolidation. That's why I said it relates to the power centers that have grown up in the last 10 years. The thing that is happening, and we all know this, we talk about it a lot while it's happening in real time. But we are just today, this is the day of as we are taping, the day that we all found out that Barry Weiss killed the 60 Minutes episode about Seekat and the terrible things that were happening there. It had been promoed, it was going to go to air, and then it got pulled very suddenly, and she pulled it. For some reason. Unclear. But the people who gave her the bag of money to come run cbs, which is a job that. It's like putting me in charge of CBS or Tim or jbl, like, not.

[Tim Miller]

Saying they're probably closer to me than you. Really. I think you'd do a better job. You'd be a little more competent.

[Sarah Longwell]

But imagine just dropping into this massive media conglomerate, right, with, like, the legacy ways of doing things that 60 Minutes has everything else. Like, we would be so in over our heads.

[Tim Miller]

I walk in, I'm like, hello, Scott Pelley, I'm your new boss. Okay. I've got a few things to tell you, all right. About how to do a story.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's right. And so the idea that Elon owns X and all of these media oligarchs now own the distribution mechanisms, right? Like Meta F, Facebook. They.

[JVL]

All the tech oligarchs also own the media companies. That's. The tech oligarchs also own the media companies. Own CBS now.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's right.

[JVL]

Oracle and cnn.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's right. So the consolidation among these, like, there is a new set of overlords. And at some point, the American people are going to need to wise up to see that these are people who divide us intentionally so that we don't notice what they're doing and how much they are consolidating power. And I worry that this will be the kind of thing that is unrelated to Trump, that will. That will live on after Trump is Gone. That will make it more difficult. Like this is why I don't care about Trump can put his name on the Kennedy center and we can take it down. What do we do about an entirely consolidated media system that has been built around Trump's allies?

[JVL]

Why, Sarah? What do we do?

[Sarah Longwell]

We have to build new things. We have to be the ones. Like where are the patriotic billionaires? Like Bezos acted like a patriotic billionaire and then sold out to Trump and gave him the post. The post is a shell of itself. We're going to have to build entirely new media ecosystems and billionaires who care about America are going to have to step up and start helping to both build and bring back these media.

[Tim Miller]

We probably need to regulate them too. And I don't know, maybe this is Pollyanna, but I'd love to see a populist lefty person that like focuses their anger more on Zuckerberg and, and Musk and Altman than on whatever Trump because they are bigger long term threats. I think it's more of a unifying thing. Maybe not, not Bezos per se. Sometimes people get certain things Wrong. Amazon and YouTube are popular, but some of these other guys are unpopular. AI is unpopular. Twitter's Musk's unpopular. I don' I worry about them and I think I just. The one thing I'd add to this is just I have said frequently because I do resent that I have to care about what's happening at CBS News because I don't care. It's a dying, it's a dying brand and nobody under 100 watches it and it doesn't matter actually. So I do think it's important to bifurcate that because I share your concern about the Trump trillionaires that own the algorithms that are running people's lives. And I think it's a related, slightly separate thing to what we're seeing from Barry. It's related through the Ellison's. Ellison's going to own part of are now going to go over TikTok too. Right. So it's super related in that sense sometimes. I received, I received a text just earlier telling me I should should be less dismissive of it. And I'm like I, I'm being narrowly dismissive of caring about what's on CBS Evening News and extremely concerned about the broader ecosystem.

[JVL]

Will you care when CNN is folded into CBS News or vice versa? Because that's coming. The Ellisons are going to get cnn.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, maybe, maybe not. I don't know. Literally nobody watches cnn. I nobody CNN is being watched in airports. I guess at a given hour more people are watching on YouTube than CNN and and certainly all the YouTubes combined and the eco.

[JVL]

But it's not really about watching. It's about the government having its mouthpiece state sponsored media.

[Tim Miller]

So that state I'm plausibly concerned. I would say I would be plausibly concerned, but not hair on fire about it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Can I just throw One reason why I would be concerned about it is that it would be great if 60 minutes, this storied institution, was doing stories about Peter Thiel and Elon Musk and that they weren't big wet kisses. Like you need something that is big enough to push back and instead there will be no pushback mechanism that we don't build anew because everything will have been captured that existed Are you starting the New Year with a Wardrobe Refresh? I've got to tell you about the brand that keeps my wardrobe perpetually refreshed. One of my favorite podcast sponsors, Quince. Quince's pieces are perfect for layering, mixing and building a wardrobe that lasts. Their versatile styles make it easy to reach for them day after day. Quince has all the staples covered from soft Mongolian cashmere sweaters that feel like designer pieces without the markup to 100% silk tops and skirts for easy dressing up to perfectly cut denim for everyday wear. Their wardrobe essentials are crafted to last season after season. The quality shows in every detail. The stitching, the fit, the fabrics. Every piece is thoughtfully designed to be your new wardrobe essential. And like everything from Quint's, each piece is made with premium materials in ethical, trusted factories that are then priced far below what other luxury brands charge. Pretty soon you guys, my wardrobe is just going to be all quints and bulwark gear with my Italian wool coats and leather jackets and other vests, this has become my go to uniform. I love quints. Refresh your wardrobe with Quint. Don't wait. Go to quint.com the next level for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U I n c e.com thenextlevel to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com thenextlevel can I tell you what.

[Tim Miller]

Scares me a little more that's related to all of this, which is I just don't know how if people have wrapped their minds around like what the information ecosystem incoming will look like in 2028 or 2032. And with the AI like so like AI social media like Sora and all that sort of stuff like this is all changing extreme fast. And it is possible that we are raising an entire generation of people who are unable to read and are unable to tell truth from fiction and are consuming an algorithmic feed that is controlled by billionaires in China that is made to either divide them or advance their personal financial interests. I mean, that's obviously the worst case version of the scenario. The most dystopian version. My worry about that is at 11, and my worry about whether the 3pm hour on CNN is a little friendlier to Trump is like a two.

[JVL]

My, my most extreme policy wish is to figure out a way to legally ban algorithms. We can excavate that other time. All right, Number two for me is Venezuela, because I am concerned that Trump has backed himself into a position now where he can't back down from Venezuela. He's parked like half of our Navy assets in the Caribbean, and he's basically committed to regime change, I think. And I just, I don't know how this ends. Right. I mean, you can overthrow Maduro, who's a very bad guy, but he doesn't seem interested in standing up a new government. He just wants a different strong man in there who will be more pliant for him. And that's going to cause all the same problems that Maduro has caused.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[JVL]

You're still going to have huge refugee crisis, you're still going to have a broken economy and what should be a successful part of South America anyway. I just, I just don't see a clear way for him out of this. I am concerned that in 2026 he's going to feel like he needs to do something to, to put an end to it, because he can't just keep all the ships there indefinitely.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's a fair concern and obviously I think it's bad. But I also think that there's an element of stove touching with that that I think is potentially important for exposing the fact that Trump is a fraud as a peacetime president.

[Tim Miller]

The thing that I'm legitimately concerned about as my second item is just all the money that's going to be flooding into ICE and CBP in the next year. But I'm kind of bored talking about that. And it's a downer and everybody knows what I think about it. And so I'm adding, as my second concern, something a little cheekier for people for the new year. Is it possible that the governor of my state might actually invade Greenland like that? He might have his little Cajun butt boots on the ground. And that Trump. It's kind of related to my dementia thing. Yeah. What percent chance is there that there are active measures in Greenland and that my governor is the point person for that? 18%. I don't know. It feels like not. It's not five, is it? It's five. You think?

[Sarah Longwell]

No, I think it's a volunteer position.

[JVL]

I. Look, I want them to do it like the President. United States says that Greenland is vital to America's national security. And so if that is true, then he has to invade it and annex it. And if it's not true, then he's placing the United States in grave danger. And so I. I want one of the. Either he. He retracts his statement and says that Greenland is not vital to our national security interests, or he invades one or the other.

[Sarah Longwell]

Also, I got to say that Trump is starting to have a little bit of a pattern. It's like, you know, Epstein files are coming because he starts suddenly, does something weird on Greenland. He names a new thing. Like, he forgets about Greenland periodically. Also, if you were real serious about doing something in Greenland, Jeff Landry, who.

[Tim Miller]

You go grab, you would say no, unless you're thinking to yourself, this is ridiculous. And I need somebody who is a total clown that will go along with this without question, because I think it will be fun, and I think it's important for my legacy that we do territorial expansion. Who will go along with that? This 45 IQ do from Lafayette I think is possible.

[JVL]

Let me throw something at you guys. So Trump has done.

[Tim Miller]

Were you on the 18% higher or lower than, I think lower. I think lower active measures in Greenland, Sarah.

[JVL]

But on the other hand, what is to stop Trump from simply saying that he has annexed Greenland in the same way that he said, like, so the Department of Defense is still called the Department of Defense. It's not actually called the Department of War. They change the name on the.

[Tim Miller]

The building.

[JVL]

They can print up whatever letterhead they want. But the US Code is, like, written their laws passed by Congress, which named it same thing for the Kennedy Center. He could say that we now own Greenland.

[Sarah Longwell]

Name a Trumpland.

[JVL]

Greenland is now a territory of the United States. And everybody else could say, what the fuck? Like, it's like the Gulf of Mexico.

[Tim Miller]

Right?

[JVL]

They get the rest of the world just keep calling golf. Nope, it's the Gulf of America. Could just say he did it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, but it's also like, he could say he pardons Tina Peters and she's still sitting in jail because he can't actually do it. So unless he's gonna send boots on.

[JVL]

The ground, we've got a military base there. He can just say they're in control.

[Tim Miller]

It's kind of like Theseus's paradox a little bit, you know? Would Greenland still be Greenland if we just called it Greenland ourselves? Who knows? I don't know.

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[Sarah Longwell]

This is really short because everybody will understand it. My big one of my big fears. I think one of the only ways we really get Trump below the bush line is can we change that?

[Tim Miller]

That's not a. That's. It's some personal troll of me. Like, you're just trying to like, you feel like for. After years of me making you uncomfortable double entendres. You have to make. Yeah, you have to make me uncomfortable.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's right. I mean, because you took my perfectly innocent triangle of doom and made it dirty and I. That is my, like, signature theory about how and yeah, 32%. Otherwise known as the bush line. That is where George W. Bush left office. Deeply unpopular, so unpopular that the Republican Party never recovered. You need the tariffs. In order for Trump to be that unpopular, people have to feel the level of economic pain that is caused by his signature economic project. My biggest fear is that the Supreme Court is going to save him from himself.

[Tim Miller]

So your fear is not that the economy collapses. Your fear is that the Supreme Court saves Trump from. From.

[Sarah Longwell]

Here's the thing. I believe that the only way we really rid ourselves of Trump and Trumpism is for there to be a Trump session. It is probably one of the things.

[Tim Miller]

And I'm not like people said, JVL was the dark hearted one. Talk about the Grinch over here.

[Sarah Longwell]

Listen, you guys talk about stove touching all the time. I want there to be. I don't want it to be people getting measles and dying. I don't want it to be kids, cancer, research.

[Tim Miller]

I don't want.

[Sarah Longwell]

I want it to be that there is an economic downturn. That is lives in a normal place. That happens cyclically sometimes doesn't. Isn't. You know, it'll be bad. It'll be bad. It will be because of Trump's policies.

[Tim Miller]

Well, I just wanted to be very clear of what you were saying. We got it now. On the record, jv. Were you fantasizing on something over there you wanted to add?

[JVL]

No, I was just saying that I also don't ever wish for bad things to happen to people.

[Tim Miller]

Hopeful things.

[JVL]

Would one of you like to go first or do you want me to lead us off with hopeful things?

[Tim Miller]

Serra, go for it.

[JVL]

Do you want to go, Sarah?

[Tim Miller]

We'll go in reverse this time. Yeah, JBL can bring us home.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay, I will start with Epstein. I think Epstein gets worse, not better. This is what I'm hopeful about. And that it becomes the tentacles of which are everywhere. And Trump eventually has to answer for his Epstein relationship in meaningful ways.

[JVL]

Yeah, I'd never heard that Epstein was into the tentacle thing.

[Tim Miller]

That's more of a. I kind of feel like that's a 20, 27 thing. But I'm hopeful for you too. Here's what I'm kind of hopeful for.

[JVL]

Don't Google that one, Sarah.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, let's just times a flat circle. Was it this year that Assad fell? Was that this year? Yeah, last year. Yeah, this year. No, last year.

[JVL]

No, it was last year.

[Tim Miller]

Last year. Okay. Who could say? But the thing about the Assad collapse, right, is like for our whole like adult life, he was. His power felt tenuous. You know, he's like an authoritarian tenuous power. There were different groups, you know, ISIS and ISIL and different kinds of all kind of Syria, like different groups were vying for power and Israel was going after him. And like he just stuck around, you know, he stuck around and stuck around, held on to power and things got worse and worse. And then all of a sudden like a ragtag group of Turkish backed rebels started pushing their way towards Damascus and everything like collapsed in two days. All of a sudden it was like, wait a minute, like this guy, it felt like he was very powerful, but the wheels just came off really fast actually. And that's what I'm hopeful for for Trump. I think that that's possible. I'm not saying that's likely. I did not put that in my predictions video for 2026. I don't think it's crazy to imagine that, that like some confluence of events happens and Trump just loses the rope and you see some little signs that that's possible.

[JVL]

If it happened, what would that look like?

[Tim Miller]

Well, I think we've seen the start of it with now. Like right now, there's the infighting within each other. You know, it's Ben going at Tucker and Megan going at Ben and JD what it would look like would be Trump becoming so erratic and the decisions being so bad. And you saw with Marjorie Taylor Greene speaking out against Trump that all of a sudden people start to say, no, actually it's Trump. Trump is bad. People on Fox start to mention it. And then all of a sudden we get to the midterms and his numbers are so bad. And you see Republicans running for Senate and House in September and October start to say, if I want to survive, I got a distance from him. Actually it's opposite. My calculus has flipped for 10 years. To survive, I need to stick sidle up to him. But like now to survive I might need to go arm's length. And that like there is some. That creates like a chain reaction, right, of like politicians start to distance and pundits start to distance from them.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's the reverse triangle of doom. It's the triangle of hope.

[Tim Miller]

Hope, yeah, right. I can't like paint a picture for like exactly how that happens. This is why I think it's been interesting that he's kind of backed off the 2028 stuff. The way for him to protect against that was to be like, no, I'm running again. You know what I mean? Like the more people think that, if they think that he's a lame duck and he's unpopular and he's seeming ridiculous, you know, increasingly out of touch, and they all need to move for their own survival. You could see a chain effect, a chain reaction against him. Again, not a prediction, a hope that Trump falls like Assad.

[JVL]

My hope is that. That Vance and Trump are on a collision course. One of the things that is interesting about the 2008 election, when George W. Bush was so tremendously unpopular, was that he did not have an heir apparent. Bush never created an heir for himself. His vice president was. Dick Cheney was never going to run for president. He just sort of like, let the party figure it all out. He didn't care.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[JVL]

Not my problem. No more. JD Vance is not in that position. So we're going to have midterms. The midterms are either going to go middling well or poorly for, for Republicans. And after that, JD Is going to have to start making some moves on his own. The only way in which this works out for JD Is if Trump says, hey, buddy, you're my guy. Do what you got to do. It's okay, I know it's your time. That does not sound like a thing that Donald Trump is constitutionally capable of doing. And so JD Is going to have to both stay on side with Trump while also triangulating to a close off any primary challenges to him, but still keep himself viable for 2028. And I don't know how that circle gets squared.

[Tim Miller]

You know what this is similar to? Actually not. I mean, it's a, it's a very extreme version of it potentially, but not 08 is 2000 is Clinton and Gore. So Clinton is going through impeachment and scandal, and yet he's still kind of popular with certain demographics and his approval is still kind of surprisingly high. And Gore has to navigate like, ugh, do I distance from him, but then do I piss off people that feel like that it was unfair, you know, the witch hunt, the white wing conspira, vast right wing conspiracy against him. And Gore was kind of paralyzed by that. In a lot of ways. Vance is kind of Goresque in his performance. Like, he's not particularly nimble. And Clinton was not like Trump, but not like, not super excited for Gore to distance from him. Right. Like, but at the same time wanted to be. Wanted him to. Right. But he didn't.

[JVL]

He was a good soldier. I mean, Gordon sat in the back and he ground his teeth and let Gore do his thing, even though he was behind the scenes saying, use me more, use me more. Run on our record.

[Tim Miller]

Now imagine the Trump.

[JVL]

If Donald Trump is alive he can't do that. This is, I mean, I, I really do believe that JD's entire thing is focused on hoping that Trump isn't alive come 2028, because if he is, like, it's just a very, very hard thing for him to make work, I, I think that we could have a lot of, a lot of heartache for JD come November of 2026.

[Tim Miller]

Your lips to God's ears.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay, I'm going to wrap this all up with the big thing that's going to happen in 2026 that I'm hopeful for is that Democrats overperform even the big expectations that we have for them going into the midterm elections. And here's, here's something that I have been noticing and I talked about this a long time. Like, I always thought that the Democratic 2028 primary contest couldn't start early enough, in part because I was like, nothing else is going to get these guys out there making a proactive case than thinking they're going to run for president in 2028. I feel like we're starting to see that happen. We're starting to see more, more Gallego, more Shapiro, more, more, more, more, more, more Newsom. People are starting to throw punches. They're starting to get out there. And I think that if the Democrats both overperform, this contributes to the thing that Tim is talking about. Trump can't come back. And this is so I think that both Dems are getting a little bit better. My hope is that they understand what their mandate is if they win and they very likely will at least take back the House, there will be oversight. They have to think really hard now about things like do we impeach or do we just elevate things that have happened through hearings, which I would argue very much for more hearings like Benghazi and fewer that are not like Benghazi, around Epstein, around other things that put more things up into the public domain, but that do not cause the rally round Trump effect that impeachment does. And so my hope is, is that Democrats are starting to find their footing a little bit and they will be rewarded politically, but that they understand that this is about more than one election and we have to do rebuilding that goes well beyond just 2026.

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[JVL]

Zoe, this thing weighs a ton.

[Tim Miller]

Drew Ski, lift with your legs man. Santa. Santa, did you get my letter?

[JVL]

He's talking to you Bridges.

[Tim Miller]

I'm not.

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[Tim Miller]

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[JVL]

I'm six three. What everyone wants is iPhone 17 and at T Mobile. You can get it on them. That center stage front camera is amazing for group selfies.

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[Sarah Longwell]

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[JVL]

Nice. My side of the tree is slipping.

[Tim Miller]

Kimber. The holidays are better.

[JVL]

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[Tim Miller]

Visit t mobile.com well my prediction in the predictions video is that the Democrats are going to underperform the midterms. So I'm excited for your hope though. I want hope. You know there's nothing false about hope.

[Sarah Longwell]

A lot of it depends on whether those tariffs are still in place. They'll underperform if the where people are excited about now if they take the tariffs away.

[Tim Miller]

So I was out of political hopes Maybe I'll be surprised. And so I'm just. I'm just hoping that Jokic brings me another championship this year. I'm hoping that the Nuggets give me a distraction from the, from the terribleness. And so I have some basketball hopes. Jvl, why don't you take us home?

[JVL]

I. I think I'm hoping that. That the Gripers really press their advantage in 2026. I've become an accelerationist, I think, and I think become good, become an accelerationist. I think it would be good for the mask to keep coming off. And the more the mask is off, the better it is for America. You know, like, I think that's just where. Where we're going eventually. And so the faster that happens, rather than being a slow slide, I think it's more dangerous if it's a slow slide. Look, my rooting interest doesn't affect any of the outcomes. So, you know, we'll just see what happens.

[Sarah Longwell]

I just think it's funny that the second that I become a consequences person, I'm like, yes, people are going to need the consequences. We can't keep protecting them from themselves. You have to ratchet it up to let the Nazis free, let them be themselves. Accelerationist, maximalist.

[Tim Miller]

I have an ancillary hope, I guess, related to that. I don't hope that the growth of Van der Jar win, I feel like inevitably. I just think that the trajectory is pretty obvious about where things are going on the right. So my hope is, though nothing is inevitable in life, history is contingent. Leaders matter. I do believe we have agency. And to that end, I would like somebody who is more appealing than Ted Cruz and Ben Shapiro to lead the fight against the Gripers. Somebody. Could someone emerge that has some charm, that has a little panache, that seems like they, you know, you could hang out with them and enjoy their company. This is. Again, we're in the hope section. I'm not predicting that, but I don't. I'm glad that Ted Cruz is out there, but I kind of feel like, you know, the non groiper. Right. Could use a standard bearer who is not Ted Cruz. We tried Ted Cruz as the non maga standard bearer in 2016. That did not work. He fell off a stage with Carly Fiorina. He's extremely unappealing. He sold out his life.

[JVL]

The most plausible person to fill that role is Don Jr. No, no, no, no. Yes.

[Tim Miller]

He is in with them. He's in with J.D.

[JVL]

No, he's basically in with them, but he's also his old man. And he's got Jared whispering in his ear. And I. I honestly, I do think maybe.

[Tim Miller]

Have you seen. Have you seen the Ivanka. She's reading a lot of books. You see the picture? She did a picture of herself. She's sitting there, she's reading.

[JVL]

That's how I read.

[Tim Miller]

She was kind of like in a chaise. She was like in a chaise lounge, reading.

[JVL]

I didn't actually see her list, though. What were the books?

[Tim Miller]

There was a lot of serious stuff. She's reading some Marcus Aurelius. I forget.

[Sarah Longwell]

Sure.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, exactly. But maybe it could be her. Maybe Ivanka could care. She's more plausible than Dungeon Arrow. I don't know. Maybe this person doesn't exist, but it can't be Ted Cruz. He's disgusting. He's gross looking. He's a jinx. Every sports event he goes to when he's rooting for the team, they lose. We tried it 10 years ago. I want someone new.

[JVL]

I think Ted Cruz is just sad at this point.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[JVL]

Like we've gone past the point of oleaginous. So now kind of just sad.

[Tim Miller]

Sad. Dad, we're way past oleaginous.

[JVL]

At least he's still married. If Ted Cruz ever got divorced, that would be the worst divorced dad energy ever. But, you know, they're not going to. And here my Hope is that Mr. And Mrs. Cruz stick together and have another year of married bliss.

[Tim Miller]

Maybe it could be mtg. That's the problem, that she's kind of on their side. MTG's not going farther enough. I know it's tough. There's not a lot of good nominees.

[JVL]

Guys. We made it through this year. There were times I wasn't sure if we would.

[Tim Miller]

Are you feeling. How can we end with this? How much better are you feeling today than you were a year ago today? I understand that as we started. We don't need to repeat what we started. The country is worse off. Like, we've had a year's worth of damage done, but, like, trajectory wise, how do you feel today versus.

[JVL]

Things are worse than I imagined they would be, but I feel better than I imagined I would because we didn't make it through. Like, we're in a worse place than I had thought we would be in, but. But we did. I did worry that we wouldn't actually make it, and here we are. So there's that.

[Tim Miller]

I'd have to go back and look. Sometimes your memory plays tricks on you. I. I don't know that we're, like, dramatically in a worse place than I Thought we'd be. I was expecting pretty bad. The degree, like the Doge stuff is the one thing I come back to just like the degree of dismantling of, you know, in the long term, like kind of hard, kind of intangible potential loss of like, what was this, this smart researcher that was working on something that could have, you know what I mean, in the future. So in that way it's probably a little bit worse. Besides that, it's about what I expected. But I don't know, man, I was pretty gloomy like just about his ability to have a stranglehold on power. And those worries were really coming to fruition for the first few months. And I feel like it's unraveling. I'm still pretty pessimistic about trends cultural, you know what I mean, generally, but I'm more optimistic about surviving the next three years and countering him and being able to reverse it and muddle through. I'm more optimistic about our muddling ability than I was a year ago. I get to point and laugh at them a little more. I wasn't ready to point and laugh yet a year ago. And I'm enjoy little bit of pointing and laughing.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, they just went so hard right out of the gate, right. They understood that the damage they were going to have to do or dismantling, they were going to have to do a lot of it was going to come up front. Like they did come in loaded for bear on that. And I think that caught us. We expected it to be really bad. I'm not sure we expected it to be such an immediate concentration of badness. But I know that I feel considerably better today than I did last year at this time, in part because there has like a. They are in a phase of self immolation. And when you mean survive, right. You don't mean that like the nuclear button was going to be pushed, but that like he would be able to grab so much power to such a degree, there'd be no mechanism for like fighting back.

[Rob Gronkowski]

Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

And like the courts have actually held quite a bit while we've been sitting here. The Supreme Court ruled against him once again, you know, on whether or not he was able to send the National Guard into Illinois. And so it's another Christmas hopeful thing that maybe they will be better than, than you thought. I think it was hard to see a year ago how it might all look. And now you can see both the bad things which we outlined in some of our fears, but also you can see how, how you could get to a place where we could get through the next three years. 2024 felt like the fight might be over, and it feels like we're still in the fight now.

[Tim Miller]

Optimism.

[JVL]

Happy New Year, famous. We'll catch you on the flip side.

[Sarah Longwell]

Bye.

[Tim Miller]

Peace.

[Sarah Longwell]

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[Sarah Longwell]

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