1054: Secret Podcast: Divorced Guy Energy Is Ruining America

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Next Level – Ep. 1054: Secret Podcast: Divorced Guy Energy Is Ruining America

Date: February 7, 2026
Hosts: Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller (absent), Jonathan V. Last (JVL)
Podcast: The Bulwark – The Next Level

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Episode Overview

This episode explores ongoing political developments, centering on a shocking racist video posted by President Trump featuring Barack and Michelle Obama, critiques of Republican responses, especially Tim Scott's, and a discussion on Trump's obsession with personal vanity projects (renaming public institutions). The hosts analyze what these incidents reveal about the GOP, voter attitudes, and the Democratic Party’s strategic choices ahead of the 2026 elections. Throughout, the conversation is laden with the trio's trademark mix of biting humor, exasperated disbelief, and moments of earnest political analysis.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Trump’s Racist Truth Social Video

[03:04–07:44]

• Incident Details: President Trump posted a conspiracy video on Truth Social with Barack and Michelle Obama’s faces photoshopped onto ape bodies, complete with “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” as background music.

• Reaction: Universal agreement on the grotesqueness and overt racism of the act.

• JVL’s Recap:

  “But what this is, is this is a ... minute long conspiracy theory video showing how these secret WI FI chips were embedded in voting machines ... And then all of a sudden at like minute one ... you get this freeze frame picture of Barack and Michelle Obama and a needle drop of The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” (05:48)

• Sarah’s Critique:

  “It’s meant to be racist ... specifically meant to be like, here’s the racism, guys, take a look at it.” (06:34)

• The hosts agree—there’s no “context” or subtlety: “It’s not like you’re reading too much into it ... they just do it.” (JVL, 06:44)

2. Tim Scott’s Response and GOP Tolerance for Racism

[04:14–13:31]

• Tim Scott’s Quote: As a Trump supporter, he lamented the video and called it “the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House.” (03:56)

• JVL’s Irony: Questions why Scott continues to support Trump if this is merely the latest “most racist” incident.

• Sarah’s Take:

  “He gives the game away in his own quotation … there are gradations of racism.” (04:26)
  “Trump is racist all the time. Not ... in a dog whistle way—in like a bullhorn way.” (04:46)

• Discussion of GOP figures who “tolerate” Trump’s racism for political expediency.

• Notable Quote:

  “It is so overt and grotesque.” (Sarah, 10:14)

• They ridicule hypothetical scenarios, e.g., what would it take for Tim Scott to actually quit—and would Trump then post a racist meme about Scott himself?

  “Do you think the odds are … impossible to one or more like 50%? ... That Trump would do that about him?” (JVL, 11:19)

3. Trump’s Vanity & Institutional Renaming

[13:37–16:13]

• Trump is attempting to withhold infrastructure funds until Penn Station and Dulles Airport are renamed after him.
• Sarah’s Serious Point: She expresses concern about Trump’s disregard for the dignity of public institutions (like the Kennedy Center, which is a memorial funded by a murdered president’s family).
• JVL’s Sarcasm:

  “Okay, sure. Why not, right? Why not do it that way?” (14:33)

4. Polling, Public Fatigue, and Economic Discontent

[14:33–20:44]

• Discussion of Trump’s slipping approval numbers and what drives voter discontent.

• Sarah:

  “For all the things he does ... it’s that he’s doing that instead of doing things on the economy. ... This is where the frustration is really growing from voters.” (18:27)

• JVL Relates: Many voters are still willing to “live with the mean tweets if” the economy is good (20:44). But as the economy falters, Trump's “bad parts grade quite a bit more.”

• Anecdote about a churchgoer’s “Mean Tweets 2024” bumper sticker illustrates MAGA nostalgia.

5. Should Democrats Normalize Trump’s Behavior for Policy Wins?

[21:07–25:46]

• JVL’s Provocation: “Should Democrats go along with the renaming? ... All he wants you to do is put his name on it. Doesn’t cost you anything.”

• Sarah:

  “Absolutely not ... Democrats have their own constituency that they need to attend to ... The cosmetic stuff can be dealt with in a post-Trump world. ... We will not normalize what he’s doing.” (21:31–22:28)

• Discussion of whether voters care about these issues (e.g., infrastructure renaming or the East Wing). Both agree: voters care about the economy and basics, not symbolic name changes.

• Sarah:

  “Anything he’s doing that is not focused on that [prices, affordability] is also aggravating to voters.” (25:04–25:46)

6. Media & The Washington Post

[26:01–27:37] (Lead-in to Subscriber Segment)

• JVL wants to vent about threats to major media institutions like the Washington Post, which he argues is being “killed” for standing up to Trump.
• Sarah appeals to listeners who are concerned about press freedom, suggesting they support The Bulwark if they’re abandoning legacy subscriptions:

  “If you had a post subscription and you don’t want it anymore, like transfer that to us. Come hang with us.” (26:44)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the video: “It is so racist. It might be one of the more racist things I’ve seen on the internet.”
  — Sarah Longwell (04:46)

• On defense of Trump: “There are people who may have voted for Trump, have nothing to do with race ... They are all willing to tolerate this racism.”
  — Sarah Longwell (08:30)

• On economic priorities: “For better or for worse, the truth is, people will tolerate a lot of Trump’s garbage ... for a good economy.”
  — Sarah Longwell (19:56)

• On not going along with Trump’s vanity projects: “We will not normalize what he’s doing. We will not roll over for his vanity. We will not let him ... embed himself in America’s.”
  — Sarah Longwell (22:15)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:04] – Trump’s Racist Social Media Post Unpacked
• [04:14] – Tim Scott’s Response and Commentary on GOP Racism
• [13:37] – Trump Attempts to Rename Penn Station & Dulles Airport
• [18:27] – Voter Fatigue: Economics vs. Trump’s Distractions
• [21:07] – Strategic Dilemma: Should Dems Just Let Trump Rename Things?
• [26:01] – Washington Post, Free Press & Bulwark Appeal

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Tone & Style

The conversation is irreverent, earnest, and often exasperated, balancing sharp political critique with in-group banter and personal asides. Sarah’s “moments” combine principled seriousness with a gift for distilling complex political pathology into pointed, relatable examples. JVL’s wisecracking tone anchors exchanges in dark humor even as topics get heavy. The show is informal, but grounded in insider insights and ethical concerns about the country’s direction.

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For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

• The episode is a sharp, sometimes scathing, but ultimately grounded look at how the Trump era’s culture wars, overt racism, and political vanity are both tolerated by much of the GOP and increasingly wearing thin on the public, especially as economic anxieties persist.
• The hosts reject normalizing Trump’s corrosive antics, emphasizing the need for both parties—and all citizens—to hold the line on basic decency in public life.
• If you care about institutions, press freedom, or democratic resilience in ugly times, the second half promises a deep-dive on media battles, starting with the future of The Washington Post.

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(End of summary)

Transcript

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[JVL]

Hello everyone, this is JVL here with my best friend Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark. Sarah, how are you?

[Sarah Longwell]

Hi guys. I hope everyone's ready for just 45 minutes of ball discourse.

[JVL]

Do you want to talk about it now or do you want to save it for the back of the show?

[Sarah Longwell]

Let's do it while you have that look of the catch canary on your face.

[JVL]

Make people wait.

[Sarah Longwell]

Is it a deadpool pinball machine?

[JVL]

Sure. Shit is. We will. We will make people wait. We're going to have a lot of pinball discourse. Lot of. A lot of feelings, a lot of life stuff and a new chapter in our friendship which is coming soon.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, we're not going to talk about that right now.

[JVL]

Okay. So I have been in a hole for the last 48 hours working on another project. People may have noticed no triads for the last two days. That's okay. Sometimes that's going to happen. I have other things to do and.

[Sarah Longwell]

I will just say that he's doing something for me that I greatly appreciate. And for those of you who wonder about our relationship in real life, what you see on this show, actually I forgot we weren't taping before when we were talking. It is just like you see. And he is doing something for me that I really appreciate.

[JVL]

I texted you yesterday something and I was like, I've never loved you more.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[JVL]

And it was a. It was something that you had written and I saw that line and I was just dying over it. It was so good. Okay. Anyway, so I've been off the news. Basically I really have shut everything down. I haven't looked at emails, I haven't looked at news, et cetera. And then this morning I woke up and the President of the United States has posted on Truth Social a video which includes a picture of Barack and Michelle Obama's head photoshopped onto apes. I don't know if you have have seen this.

[Sarah Longwell]

I did see it.

[JVL]

Okay. Have you perchance seen what Tim Scott, Senator Tim Scott said about it?

[Sarah Longwell]

No. Oh no, I haven't seen this. What is it?

[JVL]

Okay. Tim Scott, a tremendous supporter of the President, says praying it was fake because it's the most racist thing I've seen out of this White House. The president should remove it. Oh, I'm sorry.

[Sarah Longwell]

Great.

[JVL]

If this is just the most recent race, the most racist thing you've ever seen from the. Why is. Why do you support the guy?

[Sarah Longwell]

That's such a great point. He gives the game away in his own quotation. It's the most racist thing out of this White House. Meaning there are gradations of racism.

[JVL]

There's lots of racism that has been.

[Sarah Longwell]

Tolerable to Tim Scott in a way. I mean, to be fair, to be fair, it is good that he is doing this. This is. I'm sorry, but this is going to be a Sarah moment where I am glad that Tim Scott is at least saying. And it would be nice if the Republican Party had like more than five black people in it so that more people could explain to the president how grotesque. Actually, why would they explain to it? Actually, this is. I'd have a different. I want to make which is, please look in a Trump is racist all the time. Not even a. Not in a dog whistle way, in like a bullhorn way. We all know that about Him. Tim Scott might be right though, that it is one of the most overtly racist things I have seen. Like, it's like so racist. It might be one of the more racist things I've seen on the Internet.

[JVL]

Tell people. What, Tell people. Anybody who's listening to this, who may not have seen the, the video, tell them.

[Sarah Longwell]

You did tell people. It is that Michelle and Barack Obama, they are, they are, their heads are superimposed on, on, on ape bodies, gorilla bodies together.

[JVL]

Right. And. But what this is, is this is a. So it's a video that Trump posts on Truth Social, which is just like a minute long conspiracy theory video showing how these secret WI FI chips were embedded in voting machines and we now have proof. And then all of a sudden at like minute one, because it's a minute and two seconds long, you get the video interrupts, you get this freeze frame picture of Barack and Michelle Obama and a needle drop of the lion sleeps tonight in the back. And it just. That's the other thing. It's gratuitous racism.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. It's meant to be racist. It's not.

[JVL]

Right. It's not like it's all very hard.

[Sarah Longwell]

Specifically meant to be like, here's the racism, guys, take a look at it.

[JVL]

I mean, I shouldn't laugh at. But again, it's not one of these things where it's like, well, you're reading too much into it or in the context. It's like they're talking about something else and they want to say that, that the Obamas are monkeys and so they just do it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. And Trump is like, share, share, share.

[JVL]

And not a retweet. Not a retweet even. Like he took the video and embedded it himself in his Truth Social post and hit publish.

[Sarah Longwell]

Which by the way, it's not like somebody else is running Trump's Truth Social. Like he does that himself. It's not like there's an intern doing it. Like that's what he does at 3am is get on Truth Social and post stuff.

[JVL]

This was 11:44pm yesterday. So you know, he did it before midnight.

[Sarah Longwell]

Little, little, little bedtime. It's not like he was drunk, he just was like, you know what? Before I go to bed, let me post this incredibly insane ra racist video. And here's. I haven't, I've seen it on Twitter. I had kids stuff this morning and so I haven't been able to really engage on it. But my. In the way that I oftentimes see things and immediately formulate a tweet in my head, it is. You know, I do not believe that everyone who voted for Trump is a racist.

[JVL]

I don't believe that either, Sarah.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yep. Okay, great. We're agreed on that. I do.

[JVL]

What percentage of them would you say are racists, though?

[Sarah Longwell]

It's impossible to know. But not an insignificant.

[JVL]

Just a guess.

[Sarah Longwell]

Not.

[JVL]

You say it's more than 2%?

[Sarah Longwell]

Yes.

[JVL]

Okay. More than 6%.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay. Are we going to do this?

[JVL]

The whole price is right. We're going to do the prices right?

[Sarah Longwell]

No, there are some very racist people in this country. Just. We're not. And my point is, is like the people on Twitter, though, who. Stan for the president. You're Mark Thiessen, you're Eric Erickson's. You're so. They are the kinds of. You're. Well, but this is always. Look, this is an old point. I just want to make it clearly, though, which is you. There are people who may have voted for Trump, have nothing to do with race. They're not themselves racist. They are all willing to tolerate this racism. And Tim Scott, actually, even as I'm thinking about it, now that you've just showed it to me, it's not enough. Or what is he. What does he say? It must be a accident or it must be removed.

[JVL]

I pray it's a fake because it's the most racist thing to ever come out of the White House. It must be removed because that will make it better.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, I was going to say that's sort of not enough.

[JVL]

If you delete a tweet, that means it never happened. Right?

[Sarah Longwell]

Isn't that how it works?

[JVL]

Take backsies? They should.

[Sarah Longwell]

Now that I'm. Now that I'm actually contemplating this even more, like, yeah, Tim Scott should be like, I quit. Like, right? Or like, I, I. Can you imagine? Although I can imagine. Like, part of it is. I was trying to think about another example of. But like, poisoning the blood. They're poisoning the.

[JVL]

Like, he has been using iq, these low IQ people who should go back to where they came from.

[Sarah Longwell]

Take the American. The American Congress, people of color. And he's like, go back to where you came from. And you're like, do you mean Michigan?

[JVL]

They're very low IQ individuals. That only. He only thing he only says when talking about black women.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay, I. Yeah, I. Well, I mean, Mexicans are rapists and drug dealers. Yeah, he's so racist. And you guys are willing to tolerate that racism. And like, you shouldn't. Like, that's bad. You're bad. It is. It is. And it is so overt and grotesque.

[JVL]

Here's what I would like to ask Tim Scott. If I could just sit down with Tim over a wine spritzer or whatever drink he favors, a Cosmo, I would ask him. Senator, out of curiosity, if you were to break with President Trump publicly over this, let's just pretend that you did a Lindsey Graham and you said, that's it. I'm out. I can't do this. What do you think the percentages are?

[Sarah Longwell]

Do you think Tim Scott and Lindsey Graham have apparel, have spritzes together?

[JVL]

I mean.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay, sorry, go ahead. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

[JVL]

What do you think the odds are that the President would post a picture of your face on a gorilla? Do you think the odds of that are impossible to one or more like 50%? Because I would think that Tim Scott would have to admit that, like, yeah, there's probably like a 1 in 5 chance that. That Trump would do that about him. Right?

[Sarah Longwell]

Sure.

[JVL]

Yeah. Hey, it's all cool, bro.

[Sarah Longwell]

It is. I mean, I have not seen any of the discourse on the discourse. I just, I saw it all over. But I will be desperately interested to hear how the president's defenders. He is making. Honestly, this is a little bit where I start to like Trump just a smidge. Where I like Trump same is that Trump really humiliates the people who stand for him. You know, he is there. He is going to in this second term, make sure that by the time he leaves, these people have not a shred or an ounce of credibility left to be taken seriously.

[JVL]

Would you have imagined that By February of 2025, Marjorie Taylor Greene would be a more honorable person than Tim Scott? Because that's the thing, right? I mean, like, she was able to escape with her honor intact, basically.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, buddy, now let's. This is where I can't quite. It is true. She is saying things that are true. And, and, but also, like, Marjorie Taylor Greene is an anti Semite. Like, I just. I'm not gonna get Jewish space lasers that control the world. I understand that she's like, cranking a bit less these days.

[JVL]

She.

[Sarah Longwell]

She was a main person storming the Capitol. Like, I just. I will forgive a great many things. I really will. I am the good. I am the one who argues for the re. But like, let's just not go overboard.

[JVL]

I'm just trying to meet her where she is. Sarah.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, okay.

[JVL]

I'm trying to feed the good wolf, okay?

[Sarah Longwell]

So stop putting me back to myself.

[JVL]

Here's the thing. The. The Michelle and Barack Obama as apes was maybe only the second craziest thing about Trump to emerge this morning. Crazy being that the president seems to have proposed to stop holding infrastructure funding, which is legally mandated by. By law, I think, for some big infrastructure projects, if the people associated with those projects will rename them for him. And so for Penn Station and Dulles Airport, he is withholding funds, and he says he'll release those funds if Penn Station and Dulles Airport will both be named for him. Okay, sure. Why not, right? Why not do it that way?

[Sarah Longwell]

Trying to decide if I should make a serious point here. But I do have one serious point that I would really like to make, and it is this. Are you satisfied at all? Satisfied? It's not the right word. Are you moderately encouraged by the fact that his numbers are, in fact, starting to drop pretty heavily?

[JVL]

I am in a position where they are not where I think just objectively they should be, of course. Concerns me. But also there. There are undeniable and clear signs of movement.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yes.

[JVL]

So I'm in that mushy, like, too soon to tell. Is that where you are?

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. Although I have a pretty specific thing I'm seeing. There's a lot of people, right? They call me up and they ask me about the focus groups and they say, are. Are you seeing that people care about the Kennedy center, your order? And I'm like, no, nobody cares about the Kennedy center or like, Trump naming it or whatever. Although. Sidebar. I did a show with Elliot Williams for the Illegal News, in which he reminded me of something that I. Maybe everybody else has already thought of, but I have not. Or maybe this point has been made, but it was it. It struck me, which is the Kennedy center is a memorial. It's not just like a. What would it be? Like a. A monument to Kennedy. It is a memorial that was paid for by his family to a president who was murdered. And Trump just, like, slaps his name on it and then shuts it down because he's going to do some massive reserv renovation because he needs to, you know, put distance by the fact that nobody will go there anymore now that he's put his name on it.

[JVL]

Nobody will perform there, and nobody will buy tickets to go there.

[Sarah Longwell]

No one likes you, Rick Grinnell, and nobody wants to go to Donald, so. But, like, he's going to mess with it. But here's my serious point.

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[Sarah Longwell]

It is not just that Trump is destroying the East Wing, all of these D.C. institutions, you know, Washington Post burning to the ground. Not literally. It is that people feel it is always comes back to the economy. But for all of these things that he does, the naming of stuff, the ballroom, it's not that people care about that, it's that he's doing that instead of doing things on the economy. Like this is where the frustration is really growing from voters is people are like do they care about the East Wing? And I'm like not super a lot as a matter of like I care what happens in the East Wing. They care about it because Donald Trump is focused on the things that do not matter to them right and that this is opening up a real problem for voters where they have been promised things. And instead he is obsessed with naming airports, Christopher Columbus statues. And it's not like people care about that part so much. It's that they care about what he's not doing, if that makes sense.

[JVL]

Yeah. And I can see where it could be, like, an accumulation of things, right? And it's, do they care about the East Wing? No. Do they care about the Kennedy Center?

[Rocket Money Advertiser]

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[JVL]

But when you put it all together.

[Sarah Longwell]

With the corruption, with the corruption, with.

[JVL]

The slowing economy, with the unemployment rate, etc. Etc. Yeah, I could see. I could see that.

[Sarah Longwell]

And with ice. And with ice. I mean, it is a. It is a look. They're, like, dragging people out and putting people in the streets. Like, why are they doing this? And, like, everything's still super expensive. Like, this is. I, I, I. For better or for worse. The truth is, people will tolerate a lot of Trump's garbage. This is where you hear people say all the time, like, I'll live with the mean tweets if. And like, this, of course, makes us. Our heads explode. Because to. To reduce what Donald Trump does to mean tweets is an insane way of looking at things, but it is the way people who are quite removed from politics absorb this. They're like, I will take that for a good economy. Right? They're like, I will take Trump's bad parts for the good economy. When they don't get the good economy, the bad parts. Great. Quite a bit more.

[JVL]

Yeah. There's a. There's a gentleman who goes to my church whose car has a bumper sticker on it for says mean tweets 2024. He's had that for going for two. I always find that interesting. The guy's like, yeah, I'm here for the mean tweets. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, I'm into Jesus. Anyway, I, I have a question for you.

[Sarah Longwell]

Hit me.

[JVL]

Should Democrats go along with the renaming? I mean, kitchen table issues just get things done, right? Like, why? All he wants you to do is put his name on it. Doesn't cost you anything. People are being hurt by your intransigence to just let him have it. Have his name on it. Shouldn't they just let him do it?

[Sarah Longwell]

Absolutely not.

[JVL]

Why not?

[Sarah Longwell]

Absolutely not. There's two reasons. One is partly because Democrats have their own. Just as a political matter, they've got their own constituency that they need to attend to. And I don't know if you've. You don't have to listen. I've Been saying this for a long time, but there's lots of other information coming out now that I would say supports my general thesis that the Democratic Party is not. That interest is not. Doesn't care that much whether the party becomes more progressive or more moderate, which is the fight that happens on Twitter between the various parts of the party. They just want the party to be more aggressive. Right. Like, they're like, would you do something? And watch out. Yeah. The thing about the Trump naming, what they want is for people is for their members of Congress to say, we will not normalize what he's doing. We will not roll over for his vanity. We will not let him do.

[JVL]

All.

[Sarah Longwell]

Of this insane stuff to lionize himself. And like you embed himself in America's. Now look again, I've always kind of had a bit of a. The cosmetic stuff can be dealt with in a post Trump world.

[JVL]

It won't be, but sure could be.

[Sarah Longwell]

I don't. We'll see. We'll see. Jbl My main goal in life is to make sure that he is below the Bush line and that. That he leaves office disgraced and with the lowest approval rating of any modern president, and that the entire experiment is seen as a failure and that we spend 20, 29 taking down his name off of anything that it was put on. That said, I am. I. Like, this is a. This. He needs Schumer for this. Like, I'm not going to get all exercised about it when, like, he has this authority and what are you going to do about it? And so, like, this is just not where you can burn energy. But she needs Schumer, and Schumer shouldn't give it to him.

[JVL]

All right, let me. Again, I'm just.

[Sarah Longwell]

Or, or he could give it to him, but he has to get way more than what Trump is offering. Like, he's like, all right, you can rename Dulles the worst airport in the country. And when you do that, you have to make sure, like, you have to tell me that The FBI and ICE can be nowhere near any polling place going into 2026.

[JVL]

So here, here's my question. If you were to sit down and focus group, and I hear exactly what you're saying about, like, there's a Democratic base problem. Right. Which is that any Democrat who went along with this would probably be done in politics.

[Sarah Longwell]

The Democratic voters already want Schumer gone.

[JVL]

Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

Like, he's on real thin ice with them.

[JVL]

But I, I just want to imagine we're in a focus group and your screen for voters is they are independent voters who are, like, slightly dissatisfied with Trump. So, like, you know, they're like, this, this should be going better. Right. Maybe some of them voted for Trump. Maybe some of them stayed home.

[Sarah Longwell]

A lot of those.

[JVL]

Would they say, why are Democrats playing games on this? Like, just, just given. It doesn't cost anything. Change the name. I want you doing the business of the American people.

[Sarah Longwell]

I'm not sure.

[JVL]

Results.

[Sarah Longwell]

This is not one of those things people are following much at all.

[JVL]

Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

This just isn't like, to get, to get their opinion. You would. This is. I know.

[JVL]

Read the whole story.

[Sarah Longwell]

You'd be like, can I, can I explain this whole thing that's happening?

[JVL]

And let me read you five stories.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. And I think people, I do think that they're. I mean, I hate, I hate speculating. Exactly. Because sometimes voters will surprise you. But I do think if you told them the whole thing, they would be like, like, people are pretty annoyed with Trump with the. Anything that he is doing. Like, I think they would go immediately to, why is he focused on that? That is not the thing he should be focused on. He hasn't done anything about prices. Everything's still too expensive. My housing is still. And that is the rub. It's like when I say everything is about the economy and about prices and affordability, it's that it really is everything. Because anything he's doing that is not focused on that is also aggravating to voters.

[JVL]

Yeah. All right. I am. We're going to have to go behind the paywall in a minute.

[Sarah Longwell]

What are we going to talk about behind the paywall? You and I didn't even talk beforehand. You seem to have a plan, though, which is great.

[JVL]

I did make a plan.

[Sarah Longwell]

You're the best.

[JVL]

I am the best. I want to talk about the Washington Post.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay. I do, too. Great.

[JVL]

Because I have a tremendous number of thoughts about this because this is, like, my industry and my business, and, And I know a very great deal about it, and it makes me really, really angry.

[Sarah Longwell]

Can't wait to put a quarter in the machine on this one.

[JVL]

Yeah. Yeah. So we'll do that in a minute. And if you, if you're just, like, along for the ride on the TNL feed. Come join. Come sign up. We don't ask. We don't ask for much. And surely you would like to hear all about the pinball machine.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, you should definitely sign up because you want to hear about the pinball machine. But let me just give you another reason to sign up, which is they, they. They're taking the post from us. Like they are, they are killing a great American institution because it said bad things about Trump during his first term. And like you can't count, like CBS has been taken over for like the independent media. That is not going to let a merger get in the way of saying the truth is more important than, I mean it is just more important than ever. And like we want to grow and become. We want to take that space. We don't want to just let it die. So if you had a post subscription and you don't want it anymore, like transfer that to us. Come hang with us.

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[Sarah Longwell]

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[JVL]

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[JVL]

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