Loading summary
Transcript256 lines
- [00:00]
JVL
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway this new year. Don't forget about the little ones in the family. Now through January 27th. Shop in store and online and save $10 when you buy two or more your favorite baby care items. Shop for items like Happy Baby Formula.
- [00:14]
Sarah Longwell
Pampers Pure Diapers, Pampers Baby Wipes, Pampers.
- [00:17]
JVL
Swaddler's Diapers, Pampers Cruisers Diapers, and Similac Powder formulas. And save $10 when you buy two participating products. Offer ends January 27th. Restrictions apply.
- [00:27]
Tim Miller
Offers may vary.
- [00:28]
JVL
Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.
- [00:31]
Sarah Longwell
Five years ago, I was paying $65 a month for my subscriptions. Today, those Same subscriptions cost $111, and I don't even use half of them anymore. That's why now I use Rocket Money to manage my subscriptions for me. The app gives you a list of all your subscriptions and reminds you of upcoming payments so you're not hit with any surprise charges. On top of that, it also sends you alerts when subscription prices go up, so you always know the price you're paying. If you decide you no longer want a subscription, you can cancel it right from the app. No customer service needed. And the best part is, Rocket Money even reaches out and tries to get you refunded for some of the money you lost. On average, people that cancel their subscriptions with rocket money save $378 a year. And overall, Rocket Money has saved its members $880 million in canceled subscriptions. Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Go to RocketMoney.com Cancel to get started. That's RocketMoney.com Cancel RocketMoney.com Cancel hello everyone. Welcome to the next level. I'm JVL here with my best friends Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller. And you guys know what I always say, right? Life's greatest delicacy is that if you wait long enough, eventually you get to see bad things happen to bad people. Yesterday, bad things happened to Gregory Bovino, Ober Group and Furor of the Border Patrol. Lover of Nazi regalia. Nazi style regalia. And he was too short to ride.
- [02:06]
Tim Miller
The rides at Universal.
- [02:08]
Sarah Longwell
First he he had his Twitter feeds taken away from him by the White House, which is. I gotta say, it makes me very nervous. As a champion of free speech, I do not like it to know that the White House is preventing one of our public service servants from communicating with us, the people that seems. That seems bad. I wonder if Barry Weiss has something to say about that. And and secondly, he has been demoted and is being pulled out of Minneapolis and returned to California and supposedly will retire shortly.
- [02:45]
JVL
I hate it when this kind of thing happens to old lesbians.
- [02:48]
Tim Miller
I know one of your people.
- [02:50]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah.
- [02:51]
JVL
You know, there was one of my memes that I used to love was aging rockers that look like old lesbians. And. And they had that Bevino look. You know, I don't know. I have tried assiduously to stay away from any Nazi comparisons at all, but I don't know what we're supposed to do with that haircut. Like, are we not supposed. Like.
- [03:11]
Sarah Longwell
And the trench coat.
- [03:12]
Tim Miller
Yeah. I mean, the hands, hand motion, tiny shoes.
- [03:22]
JVL
I. It's nice. It's nice to see him getting demoted. I think there's a. There's that we're going to be at this weird, ignorant interregnum. He here for a bit, where Trump is going to get to act like he's taking this matter in hand and, you know, getting the really bad people out. Like, I think it is pretty clear what is happening, that Tom Homan is becoming the guy again, which I don't know about you guys, but every time somebody mentions Tom Homan's name, I just, like, think, should I order kava tonight?
- [03:59]
Tim Miller
I think the Ho man.
- [04:01]
JVL
No, no, I think. I think kava sounds good. Anybody got a bag of kava around?
- [04:06]
Sarah Longwell
But anyway, he's not the adult in the room, Sarah.
- [04:09]
JVL
He's the adult in the room because he very much wants to deport people. But he is a political guy home in, like, he. He's worked in the Obama administration, he's been around, and so he knows what a political shit show looks like when he sees one. And so Trump is sending him in to get Nome, Lewandowski, and Bevino out of there. And I think there's no way to read this other than a real blow for, like, their version of how to do deportations. Because I don't think that. I don't think we should give Trump too much credit here. Like, he's let them do this. J.D. vance has encouraged them to do this. This entire administration has been lying about all of this. But it means that the public backlash is enough, that Trump is going to try to take some action.
- [05:01]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [05:01]
JVL
And look like the good guy.
- [05:02]
Tim Miller
A little more optimistic than me. I hope that's right. I think we remain to be seen whether it's an actual blow to the way they do deportations. I think it's definitely a blow to Trump that we've seen over and over again. Trump doesn't like, you know, bad feedback. All right? Like, Trump is a, is a megalomaniac. He wants people to praise him. And so if he has people even on his side saying that this is the things are bad, then he wants to kind of seem like he's fixing it. And I think, like, seem is the key word, right? It's like, will they actually change anything? You know, I think that remains to be seen. I, you know, I think that we can take our small pleasure and Lil Greg Bevino, you know, getting defenestrated and you know, having to take his, his little elf shoes back to California and maybe to retirement. What do lesbians do in retirement? So Sarah, what's like, is there like a.
- [05:51]
Sarah Longwell
He's gonna start a podcast.
- [05:52]
Tim Miller
It's like a cabin. Is that a cabin Retirement, like hang.
- [05:55]
JVL
Out, you know, you wander the, the, the woods, what aisles at, at Home Depot and you know, purchase things to go fishing with.
- [06:03]
Tim Miller
I hope he's not going to Home Depot and menacing the poor people there. Again, like he started. Hopefully you can find somewhere else to, to wander. But you know, I think that's good news. And you know, like, at some level, Trump loves to like throw a fall guy under the bus, you know, and I think he's an easy one here.
- [06:23]
Sarah Longwell
Brings people back.
- [06:24]
Tim Miller
Yeah, right, exactly. He's brought people back. Corey Lewandowski. This takes us to Lewandowski and Nome. Lewandowski got pushed out of Trump world and he was Persona non grata after. This was a story I covered very closely. The time that he sexually harassed a Trump donor's wife at an addiction awareness fundraiser at a Benihana in Las Vegas and told her that he had killed people in his past. After that event, Corey was on the outs for a while.
- [06:55]
Sarah Longwell
He was on the outs when he got fired. His campaign.
- [06:57]
Tim Miller
Yeah, he's been out on the outs twice.
- [06:59]
Sarah Longwell
Michelle, what's her name?
- [07:02]
Tim Miller
And so he's back now again. And him and Christy Noem were in the Oval Office. There's very few Oval Office meetings that I feel like I wish I could have been a fly on the wall of. Like the only two that I could think of really are Trump and Zoran. And this one just cuz it's like, how does Trump not make jokes about the two of their alleged love, like the whole time? Like how does he talk about it? They said it's a two hour meeting. And I was like, yeah, it was a two hour meeting because like 90 of the minutes were Trump making uncomfortable jokes about why Christie is Letting him touch her. And so, anyway, he's back. He's in the Oval Office. They don't. Trump was asked on the tarmac today if she's out. He said no. And he's lied about that stuff before. We'll all see. So, like, and I think that in Trump's world, it's like Homan's more of an actual law enforcement agent. We put him in there. The worst stuff, you know, the worst outrage is calm down, calms down. We diffuse it. We send these thugs into other cities, you know, and, like, it's kind of. We're just kind of back a little bit to where we were two months ago, which wasn't great, you know, which is bad. And so I guess maybe there's a broader shift that I definitely think it's too early to say that. And I guess my last point on that, about why I'm skeptical of the fact that it's a broader shift and feel like we really have to continue to keep the pedal on the metal of the opposition here on this in particular, which I know you guys agree with, is, like, their budget, fundamentally, they have the biggest budget of any federal law enforcement bureau. The budget's the size of a large country's military. And so whoever it is, Homan or whoever replaces Nome, or Nome herself, they're still gonna have to give these people something to do. And so unless Congress goes back and claws that back and puts limits on them, some of this stuff is just on autopilot. There's inertia. If you have that much money and these many untrained people out and they have a mission of going to go after undocumented immigrants on the interior of the country, there's going to be more of this stuff happening, even if Trump kind of wants it to be a little more chill. So that'd be another concern.
- [09:15]
JVL
So. So. And I agree with all of that here. Can I just. The one thing that I think has changed from before, and I was. I was on NPR this morning, and they were kind of like, well, why do Republicans kind of seem like they're different on this one? And they're pushing back not a lot, but a little bit. You know, they want an independent investigation. And I said, the difference is, is that the public opinion has shifted on this, and this matters, right? So the basis that Trump gives, even in court, around why they don't have to abide by lots of the rules is that they say, Trump was elected to do this, not you unelected judges, you know, not this person that they elected Trump on this mandate of deporting these dangerous criminals. You now have not a majority but a plurality of voters who think you should actually defund ice, like who are done with it. And so I think the public opinion has shifted to such a degree now after this that like it's going to be tough for you've got, you know, Suozzi and Democrats who just voted for the funding bill are apologizing to their constituen after doing. After, after their vote. I just think like the political reality is going to shift on this a little bit from the public opinion side.
- [10:40]
Sarah Longwell
So I, no surprise, I take a slightly darker view of this stuff than you guys and you know, swerving a little bit. I know. So I, so it's good, it's. I don't want to say that the developments the last 18 hours aren't good. They are. On the other hand, you see what you often say, which is a lot of headlines like you know, Trump softening, Trump re triangulating, etc.
- [11:08]
Tim Miller
Etc.
- [11:08]
Sarah Longwell
You don't hear anything from Trump himself. Right. He did like a gaggle. And even the gaggle, all he did was basically say the second amendment doesn't exist. We'll get to that. You may have some of the officers being pulled out of Minnesota, but for all we know the ones being pulled out of Minnesota are the ones who are potentially facing criminal charges. And so all they're doing is getting like getting out of town ahead of the law. Right. Stephen Miller is still in charge, still the most powerful man in the White House. They still have all of these guys, the thousands of people that they have hired in the last year and the budget for that, the budget to keep hiring more and more. And now that everybody has seen what ICE is, the only people who are going to apply for those jobs are people who want to do that. There is going to be an incredible self selection here. And I don't know, is anybody, is anybody even talking about doing a deep audit of the agency and looking at standards and practices and how they are trained and hey, we hired all these guys and we didn't look at it closely. Let's, let's stop and go through all the people who've been hired and really try to vet them and see if.
- [12:33]
Tim Miller
They should be going to demand warrants. We're going to take off masks like structural actual changes. Right.
- [12:40]
JVL
I just think they are demanding it. I mean just, I'm not whether or not it really remains to be to be seen. Yeah. But for the last couple of days you've had some legislators. I can't remember his name. It starts with a C. He's a member of the Progressive Caucus. But he did come out with a five point list of demands that included things like you can't wear your masks, you know, they do have to be better trained. And that the fact that Democrats, despite having no actual power, are now in a position to both make demands to negotiate on the funding package that is up on Friday. Right. They need seven Democrats because you know why they need seven Democrats? They could only need because one of the Democrats is an automatic yes and already said he's an automatic yes. Do you know who that is?
- [13:31]
Tim Miller
Fetterman.
- [13:31]
JVL
Fetterman.
- [13:32]
Tim Miller
So they need six then?
- [13:34]
JVL
No, no, I was taking. I was basically, I think I've included Fetterman as a Republican vote. So if you take Fetterman out, they need seven more Democrats or seven Democrats. We did the math on this earlier. I double checked. 7. 7 is what they need. Here's the thing. And I think that they won't get them at this point until like what they have to do legislatively is the way that this is put up as a, is a funding package that includes a bunch of different agencies, six agencies. So like FEMA's in there, the education is in there and Schumer is pushing to basically disaggregate them so that they will fund the other things, but not homeland security and that. So that is setting up a real fight in which we will see if Democrats feel like the public opinion shift on this is sufficient for them to take a stand.
- [14:32]
Sarah Longwell
Should they?
- [14:32]
Tim Miller
Yeah, obviously.
- [14:34]
Sarah Longwell
Not morally. Yes, not morally. Politically. Should they?
- [14:38]
Tim Miller
Yes, obviously. And I think the issue is I have a couple of things before. But we'll also go back to them. But just on the shutdown talk like the, the hesitant. The only hesitancy I would have, which hopefully the Democrats don't have after last time, is that like what is your off ramp? Right. And at some point you do reach a point where there's pressure from your own supporters that are like never back down, you know, and, but like, you know, people, veterans aren't getting checks, you know, flight people can't go anywhere because the flights are like eventually Democrats back down just basically because of like prevent things that were needed. I mean part of the DHS funding, even if the House comes back and passes everything except dhs, it's not like you're just defunding ice, right? Like there's other stuff in dhs, Coast Guard, you know, fema. So Other things could happen. Right. That would require other emergencies. And so, you know, like, as long as they're okay with saying, okay, we're going to fight this, knowing that we might eventually just have to say, all right, well whatever, if you guys want to keep being Nazis, you can keep being Nazis and we'll just fight live to fight it again in November. That's fine. And that's what they did the first time with the health care thing, which was a win as I was the only one to say correctly. And they would just have to do it again. Right. Because I don't really. I mean, maybe the Republicans give them face saving concessions, but I don't expect that. I mean that's hard to imagine that they're going to make any of these fundamental changes. And the Democrats would need a lot of, they would need a lot of votes on that. I mean, it's the inverse of what Sarah just said. I mean if there are 47 Democrats voting on something, you need 13 Republicans to sign, you do need 13 Republicans. That's a lot. Find me 13 Republicans who are going to demask ICE. That's hard for me to imagine, but we'll see. But you know, the point is this is just circling back to this broader point of do we know if they've changed their behavior? Just before we got on, I saw this. This is from Matt Little who is running for Congress in Minnesota. I had him on FY pod a while back and he just shows this video. It's ICE is circling the block outside a school. His friend is a teacher at the school called him. It's just like, I don't know what's happening. It's freaking people out a little bit. There's an ICE car. It just keeps circling the background the school. Little being a local politician, goes up to the car, knocks on the window, you know, to say, hey, what's, what's up? What's the deal here? This is scaring people. Cars. Car agents are masked. When they roll down the window, car drives away. So he doesn't know who they are. Right. And it's just like so things didn't change immediately overnight. I don't know, maybe Tom Holman is going to come in and immediately change that type of behavior. Maybe Tom, maybe they think that one of the elementary school kids are the worst of worse that they want to deport. But like there's just a long way from getting rid of Greg Bevino to, to doing regular type of immigration.
- [17:24]
Sarah Longwell
But in fairness, it has been 72 hours since they executed An American citizen.
- [17:29]
Tim Miller
That's true.
- [17:30]
Sarah Longwell
So, like, you know, let's.
- [17:31]
Tim Miller
They didn't shoot Arizona today. Actually, somebody. We don't have the details yet, so maybe, you know, TBD on that, but they did fire their weapon in Arizona today and shoots great.
- [17:40]
JVL
And just to be clear from my perspective, like, just because they goose stepped Bevino out of there, doesn't. It doesn't. We don't know that they're going to change their tactics. My only point is that I feel what is remarkable to me, listening to voters all the time is there's not that much that breaks through in a real way. And as last night, we did a focus group, but we've been doing lots of focus groups. And what has been incredible is how when it was Renee Goode, everybody had seen the video. And with Alex Preddy, everyone had seen the video. And that is a. That is. That is a much different level of attention. And then even though when it came to Renee Good, there was more like, I don't know, it's a tragedy. But with the car, he couldn't have known. You know, maybe he got scared. There was like a little more of that. That is not how people sound about Preddy. They are like, they killed that guy. They need to get one of them was just like, they need to get rid of Kristi Noem. These are Trump voters. These are swingy Trump voters. They voted for Biden and they voted for Trump. And I think that that is why you're seeing Trump try to change the. Like, I don't know about the actual changes in policy exactly, but I do know that Trump is trying to change the optics of this situation and that Democrats have more leverage than they have had previously because they have public opinion at their back.
- [19:11]
Tim Miller
I think this is really important, though, because I agree with that. But it's because, like, the fundamental underlying issues of how they're acting is the problem that, that it is, I think, important for people not to give them that, to not say, hey, we're going to take a W on the octa, right? Because, like, that doesn't necessarily do anything. And I think that if you let this thing, the energy from this die down and they go back to kind of the whatever you want to ever you want to call it November status quo of ICBP or the Chicago status quo going back to middle last summer. Right. Like, that is still unacceptable. Right. And that is still an affront to people's rights. And it still risks somebody else dying, frankly. And so being killed by them just because, like, the nature of the way that they're doing the police work. Police work is what's, is what's, what has caused both of those deaths. So, you know, that's why I'm just like, I think that there's a natural instinct for people to want to be like, yeah, we got Trump on this one. Right. But like what he wants is that face saving. I think to your point, the point, Sarah, about how this is like resonating outside the bubble. You know, this is more anecdotal than like the focus group material. But like you were seeing outrage on this in non politics world in a way that we have not seen for anything during Trump 2.0. And you saw it a lot of times during Trump 1.0. And it started day one with the women's march, basically. And we've complained about this over and over again, you know, basketball players, like random subreddits that you're in about fishing or you know, like, just like this conversation is going on outside of the politics spaces. And we've even seen some very tepid and embarrassing CEO statements that start to at least tiptoe back towards the last. What they were doing last time, right, where he was more constrained. And there's the Sam Altman statement today that was like pretty mean about ice, but then also includes Mr. Trump is a strong leader, a very strong leader, and I'm sure he'll do its best being bad advice. We're not quite in a free country yet. If the leader, the CEO of probably what will eventually be the most valuable company in the, in the world feels the need to do like a North Korean tribute to Donald Trump. But like this is all happening and it's important to like keep to, to keep that vibe going is all I'm saying.
- [21:41]
JVL
Do you think that elected officials should go to Minnesota? Yeah, because so it's so funny. I was having a conversation at a thing, I was at a thing with a bunch of high level people and I made this case. I was like, they should be going there. Like, and this was before my newsletter.
- [21:59]
Sarah Longwell
In front of her.
- [22:00]
JVL
I didn't, you know why? Because it was before pretty. It was before pretty. I was saying, you know, here's what Republicans do, right? They went camp, they all like grew beards, put on camo and went cameras down to the border. And they were like, see, see, you know, Ted Cruz is like stomping through some bronze.
- [22:16]
Tim Miller
They're on little boats in the Rio Grande binoculars.
- [22:19]
JVL
And so, yeah, after Renee, good. I was like, why aren't Democrats going to Minnesota. And there was this. The initial reaction from these folks who are just sort of responsible people were like, well, you know, that might. You know, that might look. Well, not. Well, it was like, not even incendiary. It was more like. It might look like self aggrandizing. You know, if you, like, see Gavin Newsom rolling up, being like, Gavin's here. Is that. Is that. And I was like, well, he doesn't have to do it like that. You know, like, people could just all go stand behind Frey or Fry. Sorry, Fry. And say, like, we're here in solidarity, or we're here in solidarity with the people of Minnesota, or go stand behind Amy Klobuchar. I don't care. But, like, just go out on the.
- [23:04]
Sarah Longwell
Street with your phone and tape people and have a whistle. You don't have to tell anybody.
- [23:07]
Tim Miller
You are.
- [23:07]
Sarah Longwell
Believe me, if you are a member of Congress from California, nobody there will recognize you, especially not with all your cold weather gear on.
- [23:15]
JVL
That's right.
- [23:16]
Sarah Longwell
Just go and be an observer. Maybe. Maybe ice attacks you. That would be good.
- [23:20]
JVL
The point is that Tim is right here about. And this was my first instinct, too, is like, you need to center people's attention on this. What People think that because it organically broke through, that they don't have to do anything. And the point is they should push for Kristi Noem's impeachment. They should.
- [23:38]
Sarah Longwell
Even when they don't have. Well, go ahead.
- [23:40]
JVL
Sorry.
- [23:41]
Tim Miller
Before we get to Christy. No, I just want to say. And there's still time. Like, the House is not in session this week.
- [23:47]
JVL
Yeah.
- [23:47]
Tim Miller
What are you doing? If you're a Democrat in the House Representatives, literally. What else are you doing? I should say Seth Moulton is there. Ro Khanna is there. I apologize to any others that are not. There are a handful of them that are there, but more is more. And just closing the loop on this. It's like there also are still more things to protest. I think that might be the fundamental question here. Some people feel like, oh, well, they've made the change now, you know, so now, like, there. There isn't as much to protest as I discussed with Waltz this morning. We don't know who killed him. There's no. You can't have a. You can't have reconciliation without accountability for the people that killed them. We have to at least know if we're gonna have investigation. You have to at least know who they are. Right. Like, they are still in their masks. They're still in the streets. Right. Like, there are still a lot of Things to protest.
- [24:36]
Sarah Longwell
I'm sorry, Tim. I want, I want to, to make sure that people listening to you understand. You are not saying that we, the public, don't know who killed him. You're saying that the governor of Minnesota doesn't know who killed him. The mayor of the city of Minneapolis doesn't know who killed this resident of his city.
- [24:57]
Tim Miller
And it's not because it's a cold case. The federal government knows. And they're like, oh, we're so we're working with you now. Okay, we've had a change. We've had a change. We're sending Tom home and he's a pro. We're working. We're going to work with you now. It's like, okay, well, that's a two way street. So for starters, you're going to work with us. Let's, let's, you know, you've shuttled the anonymous killers out of the state. They're apparently on the streets working in some other city. Like, we need to know who they are. At minimum, they need to meet with investigators. You know, I'm not talking about doxing and targeting these people. They just got to go through the normal process. That happens if somebody, if a somebody that we pay a public servant kills one of us.
- [25:39]
Sarah Longwell
So here's one of the things that I am interested in. So after shootings, traditionally law enforcement agencies write reports, write incident reports, not just shootings. I feel like every sort of interaction, they'll write up an incident report. These things are supposed to be the equivalent of sworn statements. Right. You cannot file a report with lies in it and falsehoods in it. I would be interested in seeing the report that DHS employees filed on that shooting. What do you think they said happened? Right.
- [26:09]
Tim Miller
This is his phone, their body camera. Like, we, you know, there's still a bunch we don't have. And that's. Yeah. And it's stuff that they would not give us if there wasn't pressure. Right. This is the other key point. Like, it's not as if, oh, you know, this isn't that important because that'll all come out anyway. And that would have been true in normal times, but if there wasn't backlash to this, they wouldn't give it to us. For example, here's a great example. They've been bombing random boats in the Caribbean and there hasn't been a public backlash. And up until right before we taped it, sounds like two of the dead folks are going to take them to civil court over this now. But they haven't revealed Anything. We still don't know who got killed or what the reason was or who did the order, even because Pete Egg says that he left the room so they wouldn't tell. So the pressure just needs to be kept on.
- [26:58]
Sarah Longwell
All that.
- [26:59]
JVL
Yeah, 100%. And this is. This is. I think I'm making that point, coming at it from the other side a little bit, which is that if you have been feeling like public opinion isn't with you on these things or that you can't move public opinion on this to be more in your direction, I think you can. People are paying attention. It has become a visceral issue. You are seeing more people speak out. You are seeing, I think, nerves coming from people who have backed Trump, thinking, like, yeah, maybe this is all, you know, going to fall apart. But to Tim's point, and this is. This is always sort of how I feel about public opinion, which is you can't just walk away and hope it takes care of itself. Like, you've got to stay put. You've got to stay pushing on it.
- [27:50]
Sarah Longwell
All right, talk to me about Christine. Would it be worth attempting to impeach her if you're House Democrats?
- [27:59]
JVL
Yes.
- [28:00]
Sarah Longwell
Tell me why. I think so, too, but I don't.
- [28:03]
Tim Miller
Know, by the way. So we'll get on both sides.
- [28:05]
Sarah Longwell
All right, well, you guys, you guys do your thing then.
- [28:10]
JVL
You know, I think that doing this against Kristi Noem is much better than doing it against Donald Trump. Here's why people are ready to throw some member of this cabinet out. I thought it was going to be Pam Bondi because of Epstein, but I think that Kristi Noemi.
- [28:29]
Sarah Longwell
Pam Bondi.
- [28:30]
JVL
Yeah, we can, we can get to her. But look, I'm not sure that I've seen anything. I'm trying to even remember, like, since January 6th, that has captured the attention of Americans. And, and January 6th should be a cautionary tale for everybody about just assuming public opinion will stay with you. Right. Like, the other side will work overtime to throw sand in the gears of what you thought you saw with your eyes and take the fact that time. Right. Because people's attention spans and their nervous systems can't stay at 11 all the time. Right. They will try to use that as. As their distance of time to basically, like, get back to where they want to be. And you can't let them. You have to be on offense. And I think one of the ways you do that, and to Tim's point, about all the things we don't know, like, you put that under a microscope by going after Kristi Noem. And so, and I just, part of it is I'm so swayed by the fact that I was listening to people who voted for Trump actively say, like, yeah, get rid of her, Timothy.
- [29:36]
Tim Miller
Yeah, okay. I'm not like, this is sort of relates to what I've been talking about already, just about making sure that we, that the opposition, like, gets meaningful concessions before they, you know, declare any victories from the opposite side. Right. And so it's sort of, it's sort of of a piece with that because, like, getting Kristi Noem to be impeached and resigned is a standalone, like, does basically nothing for me. Like, Stephen Miller is still there, JD Vance is still there, Tom Homan is still there. And I assume that the next head of DHS will not be, you know, a moderate somebody, a compassionate conservative or whatever. Right. And so this is a standalone. Yeah, it's not going to be Jeff as a standalone. It does nothing for me now if the argument is, hey, we're going to impeach Kristi Noem because that is going to be our vehicle for investigations against these guys. Yeah, okay, fine, great. I'm on board with that. That's, that's fine with me. But I just, I just want to focus. All I'm trying to do is just direct energies towards anything possible that defunds these guys. The claws backs the budget from the obb that makes them show their faces, that forces them off of people off of the streets, that makes them stop harassing people, expressing their First Amendment right, First Amendment rights, or Second or Fourth Amendment rights, makes them use warrants. Right. Like, you know, I don't think it's very, it's not hopeful, right, that they will stop that like ICE will be abolished during the Trump term. Right. So, like, that's not a hopeful goal, but I think there are a lot of goals short of that that I think could potentially be wonderful and are important. And I just, and so I just think that, like, grasping to like, impeach Kristi Noem, it's kind of like an easy thing for people to sign up for because they're just like, yeah, great, impeach Christie Noem. But part of the reason it's an easy thing to sign up for is that, like, there's not really, you know, there's, it allied some of the tougher questions. So anyway, if you, if you told me that they were doing it as part of, like, this is the vehicle for investigations and like, impeaching Trump, like, gets people to roll their eyes and part polarizes it that I'm fine with that.
- [31:56]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah.
- [31:56]
JVL
So let me just. Two quick things on this front. One is that if you are trying to exact the kind of change that you want, I think through an impeachment of Kristi Noem, if she were to be impeached and there was an investigation and public opinion continued to grow angrier at their tactics, like that creates the conditions, I think, to make the changes that you want. The second thing is the American people. I'm always like, one of the things that I keep thinking about, and this is why I get so upset about the elite capture. And when no one is held accountable for things, the American public assumes that they must have done nothing wrong, because the average American thinks, well, if it was so bad, somebody would do something about it because they have not caught on to what, like, how depleted our federal government is, how, like, bereft of accountability it's become. But the fact that Trump, for example, wasn't convicted in a lot of those lawsuits, they're like, well, he would have been convicted if he'd done something really bad. And so I think that.
- [33:07]
Sarah Longwell
But he was also convicted. They didn't believe that.
- [33:11]
JVL
Not on the. Not on the big cases, but, like, it was the Stormy Daniels one was the one he was convicted on. But I do. I just think that is a way that you. The. One of the ways you get through to people is for them to see that there are consequences to somebody. And that, that. And it also. Then your point, Tim, about. It doesn't get you to Stephen Miller. It doesn't get you to J.D. vance. I don't know if we're impeaching somebody who said the same things they. They did. Right. It is an indictment of. Of the things that they did. It brings those things. It makes us like we are. We should be talking more about the fact that Stephen Miller called Alex Preddy a domestic terrorist. Like, there's a whole bunch of things, an assassin. And J.D. vance amplified it, retweeted it, the heir apparent. And so, like, this is why you can't just let these things rest. You've got to go on offense. Because they're wrong. They lied. We can prove it. Americans believe it. But, like, right now, Americans believe that what happened to Freddie was wrong. They don't yet know that J.D. vance was lying about it. You have to be. You have to be a much more closer observer to, like, know those things. And that's why, like, this story is a place to take a stand and help the public see that, like, Stephen Miller is responsible for this, too. And I feel like to do that, right, you've got to take some kind of action that draws it out, tells the story.
- [34:45]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And J.D. vance. This is his program. I guess this is just part of my frustration with the Kristi Note thing. I'm with it as part of this broader effort and, like, not letting go of this, but like this. J.D. vance is totally on board with this program. After they killed Renee Goode, he was out there talking about how great police work it was. And then he went to Minnesota.
- [35:03]
Sarah Longwell
Brave Patriot ICE officers.
- [35:05]
Tim Miller
He went to Minnesota and said that the local police are liars, actually, and they were lying and smearing the ICE agents when the local police said that they were victims of racial targeting by the ICE agents. And J.D. van said that wasn't true, that that was a story. And he said that the poor ICE agents were the victims because people were mean to them at a. At a lunch counter. And. And then ever since, you know, the. His. His agents killed somebody else, he's. He's kind of done a little bit of a strategic silence. But it's like J.D. vance was as much the frontman for this program as Christine Elmo.
- [35:41]
JVL
Yeah.
- [35:41]
Tim Miller
And so. Yeah. And. And like, I. I just don't see any reason to. To focus it on somebody who's kind of. I mean, this is a manner of speaking, dead woman walking, you know, rather ra. Like politically, like, rather than on the heir apparent.
- [36:01]
Sarah Longwell
You know, who's been really good on this stuff.
- [36:05]
Tim Miller
Marjorie Taylor Green.
- [36:07]
Sarah Longwell
Marjorie Taylor Greene.
- [36:07]
Tim Miller
I haven't been monitoring her material, what she's been. What's she been up to?
- [36:10]
JVL
She has been good.
- [36:12]
Sarah Longwell
It's terrible. And like, the whole point of the Second Amendment is to prevent things like this and, you know, imploring her fellow Magas to look at this and understand that this guy was executed.
- [36:23]
JVL
Oh, we need to talk about.
- [36:24]
Tim Miller
Let's do the Second Amendment. So let's.
- [36:28]
Sarah Longwell
Let's go to the Second Amendment. It is interesting to me that. So we are. We are finally getting to a point where we are getting some clarity on conservative. True conservative belief about the Second Amendment.
- [36:43]
JVL
Yes.
- [36:43]
Sarah Longwell
Because there are some conservatives who who seem to genuinely believe in the Second Amendment and other conservatives who seem to believe the Second Amendment does not apply to the groups they don't like. Yeah, that is very interesting to me.
- [36:57]
Tim Miller
The first. Yeah. I'm interested in Sarah's take on this. So. Because I've been. I've had this in. I've had the two wolves inside of me fighting on this. Like, on the one Hand, I want to take this moment to say Democrats should press forward and be like, see, they're full of shit. The Second Amendment is bullshit. And like all their arguments are bullshit. And once we get back in power, we're no longer going to take any of their arguments at face value and we're going to press forward. Right. So that's one. I know. So I'm saying there are two ways to look at it. And I think that the most compelling side of that argument is just, I never can look with a straight face again at a single conservative who tries to say that the Second Amendment is there to protect people from government tyranny. I will never again look at that with straight face. If you have another argument for protecting individual gun rights, that's fine. But we have the test case here and you actually think the opposite. You think that people should comply or die with federal government tyranny.
- [37:53]
Sarah Longwell
They love tyranny when they're the tyrants.
- [37:56]
Tim Miller
Okay, so the other side of this right is to try to win people over. And that's, I'm sure the Sarah, where Sarah is going to go and say, hey, you know, like, we actually, you know, the Democrats, they might have some different views about whatever high capacity magazines, but like, we also, but we do actually respect fundamental individual rights and if you want to carry a weapon, you should. And look at what these other guys are doing.
- [38:20]
Sarah Longwell
Sarah could not, a Democrat, not everywhere, but in some places say, yeah, I'm actually a real Second Amendment supporter and I think it's deeply important that Democrats be allowed to arm themselves too, because we're, these are dangerous times. And you know, the truth is my Republican opponent only wants Republicans to be able to have guns. If you're a Democratic gun owner, he's going to come to take your guns.
- [38:45]
JVL
Yeah, I think so. What I, I am doing already is like, because Trump today said, you can't have guns, you can't walk in with guns, you can't do that. And I just said, wow, Trump is abolishing the Second Amendment.
- [38:59]
Sarah Longwell
I think your thread on this the other day, by the way, was amazing.
- [39:02]
JVL
Yeah.
- [39:03]
Sarah Longwell
So you tell the people about your thread.
- [39:06]
JVL
Well, when Trump, or when, when Republicans started to advance these arguments, Trump immediately was like, if you recall, over the weekend when we were going live, images are coming to us quickly, but the image that the government wanted you to see was a gun sitting in a car seat. Right. Just bereft of any other context. It is in, I guess, the back of a police car. And they're like, he had A gun. Trump's like, he's carrying a gun.
- [39:32]
Tim Miller
And people and Fox News had that exclusively. Fox News was on board with it. Look at this.
- [39:36]
JVL
Look at this. He had a gun, guys. And this is where I do think being a conservative for so long. There was someone in the comments a second ago who called me a bitch for having been a Republican. I would like to remind everybody, we were all Republicans at one point. Not JVL exactly, but we all were in, like, the conservative.
- [39:54]
Tim Miller
I was watching some archival JBL the other day. We could pull out some hits that the commenters won't like.
- [39:59]
JVL
That's right.
- [40:00]
Tim Miller
Oh, I'm sure there's a lot of.
- [40:01]
Sarah Longwell
Stuff they wouldn't like, so I love.
- [40:02]
JVL
How people just throw that at me, but whatever. Okay. The. The thing that I sometimes can be helpful when you do have this past is you really did grow up with all these people telling you. We. There is a. There are two tiers to how people think about gun rights. On the right, there are the people who actively have the guns. Right? They're hunters, they're sportsmen. They're people who like to shoot at hay bales with AK47 and walk around with them, like a very small amount.
- [40:28]
Sarah Longwell
Of decals on the back of their trucks.
- [40:30]
JVL
Yeah, but, like, there's. It's. There's like a sort of a cultural one, and then there's this intellectual framework where it is about, no, Our right to have guns is a rooted American tradition against the government ever being able to oppress us again. We were born as a country against oppression from an unfair, tyrannical king. And we will let our people be armed. Unless, of course, they're exercising their First Amendment rights, in which case, what? You can't be armed. Like, they're still doing this today. You can't go into a protest. And so all I did was go and find every Covid protest January 6th. I mean, even today, I was just. Trump was like, take down the magnetometers. They're not here to hurt us. Which is the point. They're okay with their side having guns and not with liberals. What is breaking the brains of Republicans right now is they don't expect these weak soy boys who are ICU nurses to be packing heat. And when they are, they're all scrambled. It's like, what do we do about that? And the NRA and the people who are like, where it really is their M.O. they're like, wait, wait, wait, what is everybody talking about all of a sudden? But regular Republicans, it's like, they Forgot which side they're supposed to be on. And so they immediately went to the gun. Makes him guilty. And the government said he was an assassin. He was there to do maximum damage. They accused him of things. By the way, if I was Alex Preddy's family, I would sue Stephen Miller and J.D. vance for defamation because not only did they murder him, they then smeared him as a domestic terrorist in the aftermath when he was just a law abiding citizen exercising his first and Second Amendment rights.
- [42:19]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I don't think it'd be a bad time for Democratic candidates who are gun owners to do little, little social media videos about how I do have this weapon, I carry it. And I believe that you should have a right to carry your weapon as well, as long as it's permitted without the government firing 10 bullets into you. Like, like, maybe that's how the Republicans think. The Republicans think that you having the gun means that you might get 10 bullets fired straight into you by masked anonymous goons. But I'm against that. I think that, I think that'd be smart. I do think. I just don't. I think there are some limits to that politically, you know. Right. Just in that I don't know how to fix this part. Right. Like the counterfactual inverse. That's like literally had Barack Obama said what Trump had said on the tarmac today, could you imagine you could not find a bullet. You imagine Fox tonight and you know, you could not. More importantly, like the market response, you would not be able to find a bullet in the country. Like any time Biden or Obama said anything even like mildly, you know, interested in some modest reforms, you know, to go, yeah, there would be a run on gun, gun, gun stores. Like, people would go and you know, because they're like, they're going to disarm us, they're going to ban them. I got to go buy everything right now. And like, you're not going to see that now because this is. Now we get into JVL mode because a lot of those voters just fundamentally know that Donald Trump's not going for their guns and that there's a whom element to it and that they like it and they're signed up for it. And so I just think that any political messaging should just be, should just recognize that those aren't folks you're trying to reach, those folks you're trying to.
- [44:03]
Sarah Longwell
Beat always want heterodox Dems. That's why I'm saying, couldn't you have a Democrat who I think could hold his anti Gun left flank in place. By framing it as a. We got to protect ourselves against these fuckers over here who want to kill us all in the streets.
- [44:19]
Tim Miller
I think tried that. It's just kind of half heartedly. If it's genuine, I'm for it. I don't want people faking it. I don't want cosplaying. But if it's, if you know, for, for the Democrats who are genuine, I think I'm certainly for that. All right, I'll ask Bobby Polito about that tomorrow. I've got a good heterodox dem on the pod tomorrow I want to talk.
- [44:42]
Sarah Longwell
About Walz because you sat down with Governor Tim Walz today. But before we do that, Tim, can you give us a word from our sponsor?
- [44:50]
Tim Miller
Sure.
- [44:51]
Sarah Longwell
Just one ad today, guys.
- [44:52]
Tim Miller
All right, great. Just one ad. Here it is. And it's a great one. If you love great food but hate cooking or cleaning. I actually like cooking. I don't like cleaning though and I just don't have much time to cook because you know, I'm doomed. Scrolling. So if you're like me, listen up because this sponsor just made my weeknight meals about 10 times easier. It's Tovala. Tovala is a smart meal delivery service. Fresh meals at a smart oven that does the cooking for you. Tovala makes it so easy. You can just scan the meal's QR code, pop it in the oven and it cooks everything perfectly, steams, bakes, broils automatically, no guesswork needed. You can save up to 300 bucks on the Tavala smart oven when you order meals six plus times by heading to tavala.com nextlevel using my code next level for a limited time. Tavala's meals are chef crafted and taste just like homemade meals you'd make yourself without all the headache. Plus all Tuvala's meals are made with real fresh ingredients. And Tavala's smart oven isn't just for their meals. You can also use the oven to scan store bought groceries like Eggo Waffles. Don't let go. My Eggo, Pillsbury Cinnamon rolls, Amy's Frozen meals to name a few. And it knows how to cook them too. You know, to me, I don't know if the sponsor knows that I say this or likes it, but whatever, it just is what it is. When we were growing up it was all the George Foreman grill was the rage but there was some problems with it. It was really messy and it really didn't cook that great. So it was Kind of like for me, like the next gen version of that. You know, I've tried it very easy. It is clean and it tastes nice. For a limited time because you're a next level listener, you can save up to 300 bucks in the Tavala Smart oven when you order meals six plus times by heading to tavala.com next level and use my code next level, that's up to 300 bucks off. When you head to tovala.com nextlevel and use promo code next level one last time, that's T O V A L A dot com and make sure you use my promo code next level for up to 300 bucks off the Tovala Smart Oven. Remember what Tovala dinner is taken care of.
- [46:48]
Sarah Longwell
All right, before we go to Waltz, actually, I have one other thing that I want to ask you guys about. Did either of you glitch over the weekend when Pam Bondi sent the letter to I guess it was to Tim Walls saying, sure, we'll take all of this occupying force out of your streets if you give us access to your state's voter rolls?
- [47:12]
JVL
I did say that.
- [47:15]
Tim Miller
What did you have thoughts on that you want to share?
- [47:18]
Sarah Longwell
I mean, it's like the political version of the kava bag. Like, I mean, it's such obvious corruption. Like, oh, you don't like us having the Gestapo in your state killing your citizens? Well, we could pull them out if you just give us access to all of your voter rolls so we can make sure that we are able to figure out how to make the next election work out the right way.
- [47:41]
Tim Miller
Cleaning them up. Yeah, that's not great. I guess my one sentence take on that is I think that they have done enough to ensure that Michelle Tafoya and the pillow man and whatever other freaks are running on the Republican ticket in Minnesota aren't going to be winning in November. I think that the Democrats just borrow a line from Donald Trump. I think it'll be too big to steal for the Democrats at least in Minnesota in November.
- [48:09]
Sarah Longwell
Okay, so Tim, tell us about Governor Wallace. I have not listened, but only because the your show dropped like mere minutes before we got to hop on.
- [48:21]
Tim Miller
You know, I'll say this about Tim Walls. I've said some mean things about Tim Walsh over the past year. Wasn't my favorite choice for vp.
- [48:30]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah.
- [48:31]
Tim Miller
And did you bring up Josh Shapiro? I didn't bring up Josh Shapiro. And there have been some politicians who have not wanted to come on the pod because I've said mean things about them. Thin Skinned types, mostly Republicans, but not only who we've invited. And he was the opposite. He'd seen the covers he'd been doing of Minnesota, wanted to come on, wanted to talk about it. I think he is very clear eyed. You could tell him kind of battling between not wanting to do anything that undermined or potentially hurt his own people by like unnecessarily trolling Trump, you know, and like even kind of verbalized that at one point. Like, I don't want to make this worse for people, but on the other hand, I do need to just be blunt about what's happening in our state and the assault on our state and what we need for it to stop. And I think that this is an area where he has shined. Look, every politician has different schools. My main issue with him as a VP pick was I just think that the Democrats, like pick somebody who was really good at kind of like resistance fighting and being a leader and a fighter, but, like thought that they were picking somebody that was going to be like winning over swing voters. Right. And so he was mismatched for the role in a lot of ways. Right. It was like if they went in saying, we need somebody to rally the troops, he would have been as good a choice as any. There could have been some others. Right. But they kind of framed him as like, oh, he's going to be the code switcher to moderate men in the Joe Rogan crowd. And like, that's just not his crowd. Like, for better or worse, it's just not. And so I think in this moment, like, it really does play to his skills. Like, I think that he is a good person, a good man, he's moral, and he was, I just think, totally spot on on everything that I asked about today, up to and including why do you have regrets about the way that you handled the J.D. vance debate? And she said, indeed.
- [50:28]
JVL
I saw that clip.
- [50:29]
Tim Miller
Indeed.
- [50:29]
JVL
Good, that was interesting.
- [50:31]
Tim Miller
Yeah. I was like, what does he say? I said, I can't do a whole 20, 24 rehash with him. But I was like, I can't have him on and not ask about the debate. But, but anyway, look, I think he's handled all this stuff extremely well and it's tough and he's had a. The other thing I think I should say is he's had so many threats and there was some news he made, but I think this was the most poignant part for me. So when I asked about these masked guys and he's just like, that's part of public life. He's like, think about all the threats I've had in my family, what they've called me. He's like my best friend or my good friend once a Hortman was killed. And he's like, I deal with judges. The public servants in Minnesota understand that this is risky, and we choose to do it because we have courage and we want to do it, and that's part of the deal. And to have these guys try to do the anonymous when they menace people is just totally wrong and un American. So I thought for this moment, I think he's been good.
- [51:31]
Sarah Longwell
Okay, well, you know, I. Well, last, last thing. And then we'll leave Minnesota. Do we think it's possible that this could realign things inside Minnesota? So there was. There was this guy who was running for governor, Chris Medell. He was. It's very early in the race. There's a lot of people running. He was like, you know, top three in a couple polls, but not like a big favorite. And he not only dropped out of the race this week, but he said, like, I can't be part of this party. Is that a thing that we might see elsewhere or.
- [52:11]
Tim Miller
I wish. I don't. I unfortunately, I wish I followed that race more closely, because I didn't. I. It was kind of a weird thing. He was like the pro bono lawyer for Ross.
- [52:21]
Sarah Longwell
He's Jonathan Ross's pro bono lawyer. When the guy who's defending the guy who shot Renee Good looks at this and is like, what the fuck, I'm out.
- [52:33]
JVL
So my theory on this guy is so one of the ways when you are defending somebody in a criminal investigation, one of two things can happen. You can see them and say, you know, you're. They can become very humanized to you and you can feel empathetic toward them, or you could see them and be like, oh my God, like, these people are running around my state. And my guess, I. I don't know this for sure, but it is possible that up close, as he was doing that defense and then saw what Preddy was doing. And to be clear, this guy was always a long shot candidate. He probably didn't have a real shot. But I do like the fact that he basically. And this is what more people should do. I always, when somebody is like, I'm getting out. He did it by making a moral stand and a moral point. And so, like, I don't know the whole reason, but when I saw that he was the guy's lawyer, that was my first thought, was like, actually, he's been seeing this up close, and he thinks it's really bad.
- [53:35]
Sarah Longwell
Thom Tillis could have done this, right? All these people could have just. Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, you could just not too late. It isn't too late.
- [53:45]
Tim Miller
What.
- [53:46]
Sarah Longwell
What does it matter to you, right? Am I crazy? Oh, it's just fantasy politics. They would never do that.
- [53:53]
JVL
No, no, not now. Hold on. In the first term, talking about Lisa Murkowski switching sides was fantasy politics. I think now today, Lisa Murkowski has betrayed and so has Bill Cassidy. They are betraying all of the people who helped them win their races, believing that they would be responsible checks that we needed to have these responsible moderates. And you guys know, in the first term, I really ascribe to this, but they have all shown themselves that, like, there's no point. Like, I'd rather at this point have an honest MAGA in there who helps the whole country see how terrible it all is than a moderate who is rubber stamping these things and giving normies permission to think it's all fine.
- [54:48]
Tim Miller
I'd add to this. I agree with all that. I'd add to this. We haven't seen a single resignation from a political person. It feels like nowhere in the entire administration. Yeah, prosecutors, you know, we should say prosecutors and, like. And I don't, you know, rank and file, CBP folks, whatever. But, like, political people, you know, cabinet appointees, spokespeople, you know, whatever. Nothing. Not a single one of them looked at this and was like, we did a murder, and that's two. And then we smeared the person that we killed. And that's too far for me. It's pretty shocking that not a single person felt that that was too far.
- [55:28]
JVL
Or to resign in solidarity with the people inside the FBI who've resigned or the people inside some of these district attorney offices who've resigned over being asked to do these political prosecutions. Like, none of these people are standing up. And again, I'll just go to. When you get really mad at the voters. One thing that voters do look for is elite cues. And none of these people are giving the cues that what is happening right now is beyond normal and beyond the pale.
- [55:59]
Tim Miller
Unless he count Bavina, he kind of quit out of the principle that he was annoyed that right wing people were mad at him for not releasing the Epstein files. Oh, sorry.
- [56:12]
JVL
I was like you said, Bavino.
- [56:13]
Tim Miller
All right, got it. Oh, God. Little. The two little. Two little angry guys.
- [56:18]
JVL
Gino was like, if I stay in the government any longer, I won't be able to return to my podcast.
- [56:22]
Sarah Longwell
Audience will leave me.
- [56:23]
Tim Miller
Yeah, well, he had. That's a principled stand, you know, to. Well, yeah, sure. He's. He's principally committed to his audience. I'd like to think we're the same. We love all you guys.
- [56:35]
JVL
Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway this new year. Don't forget about the little ones in the family. Now through January 27th, shop in store and online and save $10 when you buy two or more of your favorite baby care items. Shop for items like Happy Baby Formula, Pampers Pure Diapers, Pampers Baby Wipes, Pampers, Swaddler's Diapers, Pampers Cruisers diapers, and Similac Powder formulas. And save $10 when you buy two participating products. Offer ends January 27th. Restrictions apply.
- [57:02]
Tim Miller
Offers may vary.
- [57:03]
JVL
Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details. Five years ago, I was paying $65 a month for my subscriptions. Today, those same subscriptions cost $111, and I don't even use half of them anymore. That's why now I use Rocket Money to manage my subscriptions. The app gives you a list of all of your subscriptions and reminds you of upcoming payments so you're not hit with any surprise charges. On top of that, it also sends you alerts when subscription prices go up, so you always know the price you're paying. If you decide you no longer want a subscription, you can cancel it right from the app. No customer service needed. And the best part is, Rocket Money even reaches out and tries to get you refunded for some of the money you lost. On average, people that cancel their subscriptions with rocket money save $378 a year. And overall, Rocket Money has saved its members $880 million in canceled subscriptions. Stop wasting money on things you don't use. Go to rocketmoney.com cancel to get started. That's rocketmoney.com cancel. Rocketmoney.com cancel.
- [58:06]
Sarah Longwell
All right, let me freak you out. Let me freak you guys out. Do you realize it was only last week that we were on the cusp of waging war against Denmark?
- [58:14]
JVL
Oh, I remember.
- [58:15]
Sarah Longwell
This is the most important thing that had ever happened. The president was like, yep, I'm going to go over to Switzerland and I'm going to tell them about my big plan. I'm going to hold my big press conference and tell everyone that it's absolutely crucial to America's national security. We must have complete and total control of the entire landmass. And gone. Just gone. It's like it Never happened. Is this like the Usual Suspects and Kevin Spacey and, you know, the great, the great.
- [58:44]
JVL
It's not like it's ever happened.
- [58:46]
Sarah Longwell
Blade was making you happy.
- [58:49]
Tim Miller
People in Greenland.
- [58:52]
Sarah Longwell
That'S the thing. Everybody. But it's just in America that everybody's like, oh, good, we're done with that one. We're on to the next episode of the show. And the rest of the world, I don't know if you guys noticed today, the EU signed a monster trade deal with India today. One of the largest trade deals ever. They, they, Germany and France were reaching out to China. Last week was all, I mean, the world is just moving on without us. And here in America, it's just like, oh, thank God he's not talking about invading Greenland anymore. We're all good, guys. Everything's good here. Don't worry. Situation normal. He tacoed. How clever is that?
- [59:29]
Tim Miller
He tacoed. Part of the deal, actually.
- [59:32]
Sarah Longwell
Part of the deal.
- [59:33]
JVL
We'll come back. We'll come back to Greenland. But actually, sorry, that, that is, that is what they're saying. They sort of, they feel like, no, no, no, Trump got these concessions and, and now, so now look at, look at how good of a deal maker he is. The cost for us to get. So first of all, by the way, there's been no real concessions. There is no deal on Greenland. There's nothing there in two weeks.
- [59:58]
Tim Miller
We get it.
- [59:59]
JVL
Oh, can't wait. He'll say, he'll say that for a long time. However, the consequence was that none of our allies trust us anymore. And the world views us as a hostile superpower that could invade people just because we want to.
- [60:15]
Tim Miller
Yeah, the people of Greece, you know, there are a lot of commentators here that are, you know, the self serious types, like, I don't get my hair on fire. Like, those never Trumpers. And they're like, we did. I knew that this was, you know, this is all part of Donald Trump. Like, if you just looked at his history, you can see that he makes a maximalist demand and blah, blah, blah. This is part of his mo. It's like the people of Greenland thought they were going to be invaded. Like, and, and whether or not that was rational, it's real.
- [60:50]
Sarah Longwell
And so NATO started sending troops there.
- [60:53]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And so they need to know them. They're going to act accordingly. Like these other countries are going to start acting accordingly. Like, just because, you know, a handful of people around Trump like, say, oh, take them seriously but not literally and we can not work worry. That's not how everyone Else thinks. And in some ways, it kind of doesn't even matter if the. Seriously, not literally people are right. Like, even if Trump was never going to invade Greenland, the process, like, words do matter when you're the President of the United States. Like, the prospect of invading Greenland is going to have real consequences. So there we are. Whatever.
- [61:33]
Sarah Longwell
I mean, he did say the Greenland does. Denmark does not have a legitimate claim to Greenland. So the official position is that the, The. The. The status of Greenland as it exists right now is illegitimate and by rights should belong to America. Now, whether or not he invades eventually, that is his stated policy of the President of the United States.
- [61:57]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [61:57]
JVL
Yeah.
- [61:58]
Sarah Longwell
Okay.
- [61:58]
JVL
You're.
- [61:59]
Sarah Longwell
You're not crazy.
- [62:00]
JVL
No, you're. Of course you're right. This. I mean, this is one of the most insane things. It has enormous geopolitical consequences. And also, so Europe is watching what is happening in Minnesota right now. They're watching the Greenland stuff. And as far as they're concerned, like, we have lost our ability to have any moral credibility when it comes to liberal democracy. Like, certainly not as purveyors of liberal democracy. I mean, our, Our ability to exercise it at home are like, Trump has changed for a very long time. The way the world sees us and reacts to us, and it is going to have major consequences that other people are going to have to deal with.
- [62:44]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Police don't kill people at this rate in other countries, by the way. Just like, broadly speaking, this is another thing that really. Yeah, they look at. There's a reason why they look at it differently. You know, it would be pretty shocking to have a masked agent of the state murder someone in, for example, Denmark, because I just pulled this up in Denmark. In 2020. 2020, two cops killed zero people. In 2021 cops killed zero people.
- [63:10]
Sarah Longwell
Zero.
- [63:11]
Tim Miller
Zero. In 2020, cops killed two people. So in the last three years on record, it's killed less than a single person a year was killed by a police officer. So, like, this idea that. That in America, I did that in.
- [63:26]
Sarah Longwell
Six weeks in Minneapolis.
- [63:30]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Less.
- [63:32]
JVL
It was the most. It was the most murders they committed two thirds of the murders that happened.
- [63:37]
Tim Miller
In Minneapolis, The Minneapolis Police Department fired their weapon zero times. Last year, in 2025, the whole police department, not a single cop discharged their weapon one time. That's a little bit of an outlier, I think, after George Floyd, there's a lot of sense, but, like, these guys fired their weapons 10 times in five seconds, emptying their clip into a dude laying on the ground.
- [64:01]
JVL
And one guy clapped one of the ice agents clapped.
- [64:04]
Tim Miller
So. Yeah, so people are going to be horrified when they see that because that's just, like, not how things work, you know, it's not really how things work here, but it's really how things don't work in other cultures. Who just said that? It's crazy. People make it seem like the murder of civilians is acceptable.
- [64:18]
Sarah Longwell
So, you know Wembayama is on this. This live stream.
- [64:22]
Tim Miller
No, he just said it on. On. I just got texted to me.
- [64:25]
Sarah Longwell
Oh.
- [64:26]
Tim Miller
Oh, really? Yeah.
- [64:27]
Sarah Longwell
That's very cool.
- [64:28]
Tim Miller
Okay. Not watching. It would be cool if he was. I don't know. That's all right. We'll keep going. Sports ball.
- [64:34]
Sarah Longwell
All right, so last thing, and then we're gonna take some questions. Alexander Vindman has announced that he's running for Senate in Florida. And I'll just tee this up. This. This one comes from one of the questions, uh, which is. Is Vinyan one of those kinds of candidates that you like in Florida, Tim?
- [64:54]
Tim Miller
I hope so. I like Alex a lot as a person. We know each other, you know, I. We have not. I didn't hear till this morning that he had decided to run. He messaged me this morning. Wish him well. I think he's a good guy to support, I think.
- [65:08]
Sarah Longwell
Shouldn't he have run in New York 12 with all the other people?
- [65:11]
Tim Miller
Yeah, maybe. I think. I think in general, 2026 is a good year for people to try to run in places where they haven't won before. Republicans haven't won before. I just think it's worth a shot. There are always surprises and wave years. I expected this will be a wave year. Is Florida Senate too far out of reach at this point? I don't think so. It's not like a zero percent chance. Right. It's worth. You want to have as many options as possible. You know, Sarah's a Vegas person on the roulette wheel. You know, you want to. You want to be on a lot of those numbers so you can. In case you hit one.
- [65:45]
Sarah Longwell
And that's why the Vision campaign running in Texas, right?
- [65:49]
Tim Miller
Yeah. I mean.
- [65:50]
JVL
Wait, what'd you say?
- [65:52]
Tim Miller
I mean, there's some. There's some other examples.
- [65:55]
Sarah Longwell
Being a dick.
- [65:55]
Tim Miller
He's kind of like Jasmine, kind of having that. That chip on the table. Unclear what. This is actually a good example. Again, as I've said before, I'm going to take this bait. Jasmine is talented. And so if she was running a campaign to win in Texas, that speaks to the Texas electorate, which would include, obviously focusing on all the things that Trump is doing to fuck over Texas and talking about that, doing it passionately. It obviously includes rallying people who are not always, you know, frequent voters who might be responsive to her skills. But like, it also includes having a message for people that voted for Trump. It's unclear what that message is from her at this point. Still time to come up with one. And that would be my same thing for Vindman. Man, his bio is good. You know, his anti Trump credit is good. He's an honorable person. It's the type of person we want in office. And if he called me this afternoon, I'd say the same thing I'm doing right now is you have to have a message for people who voted for Trump. Besides, Trump is bad. And hopefully he has one of those and develops one of those. And I know for a fact from having talked to him that he does have some heterodox positions on various things. Will they be the types of things that resonate in Florida? I think that remains to be seen, but I'm hopeful for it.
- [67:14]
JVL
You know, we talk about New York and the fact that, you know, it's the Bulwark primary, although Cam is out and it's just George left there. But there's actually a number of kind of our types of people who we know, right. Alex, when he messaged me this morning, I went immediately and looked up, up to say he was running. I was like, immediately went and looked up all the numbers from the state to be like, how, how, how big a hill to climb is it? You know, Trump in 2024 was plus 13. Harris only got 42, almost 43%. In the 2024 Senate race, Rick Scott was at 55 and a half percent to mark Ucarcel Powell at 42%, almost 43%. There does seem to be this like 40ish, 41, 42, 43%. In 2022, Rubio crushed Val Demings by 16 points. DeSantis crushed, crushed Chris, who was a former Republican by 19 points for the governor's race in 2022. So Florida is a tough place, but here's what it would take. Vindman, Jeff, Duncan, George, a bunch of these guys who are sort of Alabama.
- [68:28]
Tim Miller
We got the RV guy running in.
- [68:29]
JVL
Alabama, we got Kyle Sweetener Sweetser, he was, who is an excellent guy. A bunch of our people are running places and they're basically testing this theory. In a wave year where the people who vote for Trump and put up the Saddam Hussein type numbers, those are real low propensity voters. In fact, many of Them didn't vote before Trump came along. And when you take those people out and then you really focus on the college educated suburban voters, a lot of whom go along with Trump for like economic reasons or they just when it's a local race they treat it differently. The question is, is Jeff Duncan in Georgia, which is a much bigger state. Yeah. More winnable state than, than Florida. But like can you do better? Can like where can you improve your margins on that? I think it's an interesting experiment in that regard and worth doing like it is worth Alex taking this shot and giving it a run because I do think there's something about in a state like Florida actually where it's so Republican, assuming he can, you know, assuming he's the Democratic nominee against Ashley Moody who has one state wide before on the Republican side, like could he improve, could he do better by in a wave year maybe.
- [69:53]
Tim Miller
I think and this is kind of related to. We have another question. Jbl, if you don't mind, please. We'll kind of lump them together. This is an email from Jim and he asked should more moderate Democrats follow Dan Osborne and run his independence? It seems to be a candidate such as Sherrod Brown, McMorrow, Ossoff, Tellarico, to name a few, would be have a better chance at winning if they reclassified as independence and provided a home for all the double haters out there right now. You know, I don't to me, I think that being independent is interesting, particularly in a deep red state like Nebraska. I think that Osborne makes a lot of sense. I saw a recent poll with Osborne versus Ricketts where Osborne was only down 1, just one poll margin of error. But I think that Osborne race in Nebraska is not unwinnable. But I also think that Paltola race in Alaska is not unwinnable and she's running as a Democrat under the we discussed this I think last week or two weeks ago under the Fish family and freedom platform, like very narrowly focused. And so to me the drum I just want to keep banging is I think that there are different ways to get there. There are different models to win some of these states. Osborne is kind of doing more of the like populist lefty. Like I'm taking a little bit from Platner, but I'm also moderating a little bit on immigration thing and I think that's an interesting model. You know, Vindman, I assume, and David Jolly, who we also should have mentioned is running in Florida in the governor's race. I think they might try the more Kind of center Democrats where you're sort of moderating. You're more conservative on fiscal or military issues, a little bit more moderate on social issues. I think that's probably a harder hill to climb than the Osborne one, but potentially doable. Peltola is doing it as I'm really focused on local issues. Like, to me, all of those are interesting. The ones that. And where I get kind of frustrated on the Crockett question or some of these other questions is like, you're running in a red state and you're running as a generic Democrat and you're saying, I'm going to win because there are all these imaginary people out there who've never voted before that are going to come vote this time. And like, I just think that is a recipe for failure. Right? Like, you have to. Yes, you can. You can turn out some new people, some. But, like, you gotta win. There's gotta be both. You gotta have persuade, you gotta have a message and then whether it's okay, you know, I'm more, you know, like you on. On social issues or economic issues or local issue. Like something you have to have a rationale to give to people. And I think Osborne has developed one and I think that's why he's doing the best of the bunch right now. And I'm hopeful that Vindman can and can and will do something similar.
- [72:26]
Sarah Longwell
All right, you got any more questions?
- [72:28]
Tim Miller
I don't.
- [72:29]
Sarah Longwell
Okay.
- [72:30]
Tim Miller
I have a question for you. Yeah, you're looking a little better. What's happening over there? Are you. What's happening with your skin tone?
- [72:38]
JVL
We did this on Secret.
- [72:39]
Tim Miller
We did.
- [72:39]
JVL
We checked in on JBL's.
- [72:42]
Tim Miller
It's all lighting. This is literally all light. It's not. You're not being Peck. You're not peaked. Isn't wasn't a vaccine.
- [72:49]
Sarah Longwell
Those are. No, I put off my. My second shingles shot. I've got like. Like three months to do it. So I. We've got some other stuff going on at home.
- [72:56]
Tim Miller
All right.
- [72:57]
Sarah Longwell
As you guys know that I'm trying to get through before I incapacitate myself for 48 hours. Shingles.
- [73:02]
Tim Miller
What did you think about the fan, the super fan that sent in the hat that said JVL is always right. It's an acronym, so it said JV Liar.
- [73:11]
Sarah Longwell
So not a great acronym. Not a great. Not. Not as good as, like the Attackums, which is one of our all time great, great acronyms in America. So jv, JV Liar. Not great.
- [73:24]
JVL
I think you image a varsity liar.
- [73:27]
Sarah Longwell
Thank you. Thank you. The image on his T shirt is amazing and horrifying and it will haunt me in my dreams, but also arouse me. And I have to say I need to get a high res version of that because I feel like you were.
- [73:46]
Tim Miller
Aroused by a rendition of yourself.
- [73:49]
Sarah Longwell
I mean, who, who isn't at some point in their lives, right? This is, this is a Jack donahue joke from 30 Rock, right? You know, fulfilling the, the every man's fantasy of being able to make love to himself. This is. Anyway, you had to be there. It's an amazing, amazing. Again, I don't know how that image was done. I don't know if he was working in charcoals or if he just had AI make it, but it's. I was like, oh, my God, do I look like that?
- [74:15]
Tim Miller
You're hot, jbl. You're so hot.
- [74:18]
Sarah Longwell
Middle aged dad hot. Maybe. Yeah.
- [74:21]
Tim Miller
More today than last week, but thank you.
- [74:24]
Sarah Longwell
Thank you.
- [74:25]
Tim Miller
All right, guys.
- [74:26]
Sarah Longwell
Well, we did it live. We made it through another week. I'm excited that at next week's show we'll be on to some brand new crisis and we'll be having a conversation in which I say to you, can you believe all that Minnesota stuff was last week?
- [74:43]
JVL
It does feel like a life. We podcasted through much of the weekend and so like in podcasting years, it's.
- [74:49]
Sarah Longwell
Been a long time, but Greenland feels like it was a month ago.
- [74:54]
JVL
I know we did this live last week because it was after Trump's insane.
- [74:58]
Sarah Longwell
Oh, the dog 300. No, no, no.
- [75:00]
JVL
It was before Davos.
- [75:03]
Tim Miller
Really? We did a live tnl about Greenland last week. Week, yeah, one week.
- [75:07]
JVL
No, not Greenland. It was before he went to Davos. It was the day before. Remember he gave that rambling 365 accomplishments. Yeah, it was January 20th. It was the first is the year anniversary of him being sworn in.
- [75:19]
Sarah Longwell
It was one week ago.
- [75:21]
JVL
That was one week.
- [75:23]
Tim Miller
Yeah. No wonder I'm looking so wrinkly.
- [75:27]
Sarah Longwell
Good luck, America.
- [75:29]
Tim Miller
Bye.
- [75:31]
JVL
The new year brings new health goals and wealth goals. Protecting your identity is an important step. Your info is in endless places that could expose you to identity theft leading to lost funds. Lifelock monitors millions of data points per second. If your identity is stolen, Lifelock's restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Resolve to make identity, health and wealth part of your New year's goals. With LifeLock, save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com iheart Terms apply.
- [76:01]
Sarah Longwell
This is Julian Edelman from Dudes on Dudes with Gronk and Jules. Sunday mornings, I'VE got my game day ritual, coffee, lucky socks, and now New Morning Uncrustable Sandwiches.
- [76:15]
Tim Miller
It's all about that 12 gram protein.
- [76:17]
Sarah Longwell
Boost with the new Uncrustables Bright Eyed.
- [76:21]
Tim Miller
Berry or Up and Apple flavors.
- [76:24]
Sarah Longwell
Bright Eye Berries got a feisty receiver energy up an apple.
- [76:30]
Tim Miller
Your classic Do it all tight end.
- [76:33]
Sarah Longwell
Soft, pillowy, packed with protein and easy enough for Gronk to grab from the freezer.
- [76:40]
Tim Miller
Whether you're on the couch, driving to the tailgate or heading to the locker.
- [76:45]
Sarah Longwell
Room, New Morning Uncrustable Sandwiches are the MVP of snacks. Your new Sunday kickoff ritual starts here with New Morning Uncrustable sandwiches packed with 12 grams of protein.