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Tim Miller
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JVL
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Tim Miller
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JVL
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Tim Miller
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JVL
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Sarah Longwell
All they do now is cry about everything. Oh the we got to take our ball and go home because the halftime show is getting sung in Spanish. You guys are everything that you ever said. The left was ever worse.
JVL
Worse.
Sarah Longwell
Worse. Oh, of course, worse.
JVL
Hello everyone. This is JVL here with my best friends Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of the Bulwark. Last chance if you are in Minneapolis to come see us. We've got a few dozen tickets left. We are also coming to Tejas to Dallas and Austin coming up soon. Go to the Bulwark.com events to get your tickets now before they're all gone. Guys, I come to you with glad tidings because before we sat down YouGov dropped a poll and I am just going to read some numbers for you. For you, Donald Trump's overall approval rating 37% approve, 56% strongly or somewhat disapprove. When you break down he is underwater with with men, he's 10 points underwater with men, he's underwater. With white people stuff. White people don't like Donald Trump. Minus 8. With white people, he is at 27 approve, 61 disapprove with independence. But here's the big one. Here's the big one. And, Sarah, this is just for you.
Sarah Longwell
Thank you.
JVL
With Republicans, he is at 14 disapprove and only 82 approve.
Sarah Longwell
That's actually pretty good.
JVL
I don't think that's pretty good. I think 82% approval rating from Republicans for Trump is a flashing danger sign.
Sarah Longwell
Oh, no, that's what I mean. I mean, good for us.
JVL
Yes.
Sarah Longwell
Like, it's a pretty good drop because he usually stays high. High 80s, low 90s. With Republicans.
JVL
And, Sarah, the Bush line.
Tim Miller
Oh, please.
Sarah Longwell
Line. Five points away from the Bush line.
Tim Miller
I don't understand why there were complaints about the fingering trio, but I figured about the Bush line. I can't hear it anymore.
Sarah Longwell
Timothy, you think that the Bush line, which, by the way, started out as a very legitimate phrase of analysis, one that I stick by and said on a podcast that Tim and I were on.
JVL
Terrible together. It's terrible phrasing, Sarah.
Sarah Longwell
It refers to a president. I'm just. You boys can't get your heads out of the gutter long enough to just understand my political analysis here, okay?
Tim Miller
It's just a gross phrase.
JVL
Point is, if he is going to head towards George W. Bush territory, which, by the way, I don't know if you guys realize this. I wrote about it today at the time of the midterm elections in George W. Bush's second term. He was only net -16. The real collapse happened after the elections.
Sarah Longwell
Yeah.
JVL
Anyway, point is that collapse was due to Republicans abandoning him. And so if you're going to drive Trump really down, like, below the mid or high 30s, you're going to drive him down to. I think. I think Bush cratered at, like, 27% total approval. That has to be because Republicans leave him. And so this poll, combined with all the other stuff we're going to talk about. Guys, I think we're winning. I'm Ron Burgundy.
Sarah Longwell
I mean, I think that the American public is reacting, which, when you say this is for me, I do want to take a moment to say, like, the idea that no one cares, my friend, my best friend, jbl, that it won't matter. It does matter. He is chipping away at these. And if I could, because I don't want people to just rely on one poll. So I did. Not knowing that you just had that new poll I had pulled the aggregate numbers from Nate Silver, and I'm just going to run through those very quickly because I want to talk about the shift that Trump has not enjoyed doing the opposite of enjoying his general approval. When he. On February. What? No, his General approval in February 1st of 2025 was 5. He was up 5.9%.
Tim Miller
Okay.
Sarah Longwell
He was in the plus territory, almost 6%. At August 1st, it had dropped to negative 8 and a half percent. And today it is minus 14 and a half percent with a total shift of minus 20% in overall approval. So there's been a 20% overall drop. That is, that's a big number of drop. But on immigration, he started at 8%. He had plus 8%. Now he is. The total shift has been minus 18.5. He's experienced a drop of 18 and a half points. On immigration, he's experienced a minus 25. He is mine. His. There's been a minus 25% shift. On the economy, there's been a minus 22%, almost 23%. On trade and on inflation, he is also minus 25.9. Like, that is how much. That's almost 26 points, specifically on inflation. And so I just, when I would argue going into the election that it was around the economy that a lot of people just said, yeah, I know he's a bad guy, but, you know, I need a better economy. None of us liked that as a reason. We all saw the BS in there. But that's. That economy is eating Trump the same way it ate Biden.
JVL
I mean, if I could just sidebar before I throw to you, Tim, I mean, the inflation isn't that bad. It's not great under Trump. It's not. It's not what we want it to be. It's not in a good place. But voters are doing an insane inflation panic thing with him the same way they did about Biden. And I find it funny in its own way. I'm going to cry about it. I'm just going to admit that, like, you know, the inflation under, under Trump is not great. It is a smidge above where it should be. There are persistent concerns because you have this while you also have job contractions, but people are acting like it's at like 9% and that's insane. Okay, Timothy, take a victory lap, buddy. Come on.
Tim Miller
Yeah, I do appreciate your consistency on that, jvl, because it is true, the economy is not great in the sense that Trump inherited like a pretty good, an economy that's pretty good, but kind of annoying for, for people and made A series of decisions to make it marginally worse, you know, which is it has been, you know, I just saw headlines. It was like the average person paid an extra grand last year because of tariffs. That grant's not nothing. The grand managers to people in their lives and their budgets. It's also, you know, I mean, like, it's not as if the bottom has fallen out from the economy or anything either. So I do think there's some interesting socioeconomic kind of discussions to have about why, why people continue to be so negative, have such negative views about things. You know, now that we've had kind of a control trial with both parties in charge and seen a similar type of feedback. Yeah, I think that I just. There's balance in the universe, jvl and like, you're so excited about this that I feel compelled to be the wet blanket. But it's good, it's good. You know, I think that the, the polls going down are notable. The fact that, like, you're looking at what, one in five, basically Americans have changed their view on Trump. We've talked a lot about what we've seen in the special elections. I expect a big landslide from the Democrats in, in the fall. But, like, you know, I don't know, the damage persists. The world is going to still be terrible. I'm trying to do my best. Jvl. It's like, okay, so we win the midterms and so what? And then, well, we'll get to that. Does his authoritarian thing and it spirals. The authoritarian.
Sarah Longwell
Timothy J. Miller. I don't remember what your middle name.
JVL
Tim, let me see if I can. Hold on. Sarah, let me see if I can elicit something from you for this. Yesterday, the White House published an unbylined article, not a press release, not a statement. They listed as an article saying, headline is don't be a panic. I guess that's a word. We're winning and we're not slowing down. When you have to say we're winning, that is not often a sign that you are, in fact winning. I mean, we're going to get those tomorrow, right? So we're going to get unemployment tomorrows, which they are already trying to spin and say, hey, people should understand that, you know, if the numbers don't look so great, it's because we've deported a lot of people. There are fewer people in the labor force. So again, if, if the Republicans and Trump are out there saying, don't panic, unnamed people who may be panicking, we're actually winning. That's a Good sign, right, Tim?
Tim Miller
I do. I did enjoy the don't be a panicking thing. It is. It. It hits a couple of my pleasure centers. Number one, like you said, just on its face, it's such an absurd article to put out. And it's just an admission that they understand, like, things are not going well for them. If they had good news to put out, they would just put that out instead of don't be a panicking. Also, it is reminiscent of things that have caused the Democrats problems in the past. I've been a longtime monitor of this where, like, your team gets way too responsive to things that are happening on the Internet. And this was like a big issue for the Democrats in 2019 and 20 in that primary where like all of the campaigns were very responsive to what the, like, craziest lefty said in their Twitter mentions. And like, Joe Biden didn't even know that the Internet existed. And he kind of cruised through the primary just like talking as Joe Biden had always talked, and ends up winning. I feel like there was a lesson in that. Like, you can just, you can't. The Internet is real life in this day and age. It is. But you can over learn the lessons of it. And this term panic is like a MAGA term. I see it in my MAGA feeds where they like make. It's like an internal. They make fun of the other type of like a maga on MAGA attack. Right? It's like, hey, you other maga, like, don't be. In the Democrat parlance, this was bedwetter. A lot of Democrats you might have seen online say, don't be a bedwetter. Don't be a bedwetter. This is like the MAGA parlance, don't be a panicking. And so it's kind of amusing to me to see them, to see something befall the Trump administration that had already befallen their foes as far as political misjudgment is concerned.
Sarah Longwell
Can I add to that just really quickly, that like you coin a phrase panic in, which is a Republican who is panicking, it means enough Republicans are panicking that they needed a term for it.
Tim Miller
Yeah, that merited a term.
Sarah Longwell
I think that's the big takeaway from that. Also. It is much like that weird meandering speech that he gave right before he went to Davos, which was like the 365 wins that we've had. They find themselves in the unenviable position of having to try to keep saying, no, no, no, look at this little thing that we did that you should be excited about. And he did that again, right? He's like, well, we have stock market success. And that's because our stock market has become entirely untethered from the actual marketers being propped up by AI. And then it's a lot of, like, ICE arrested 650 illegals in West Virginia. Okay. And then ending the barbaric mutilation of children. A reference to getting a Minnesota hospital to stop prescribing puberty blockers because of the Trump administration's relentless pressure. And I. I guess I know from listening to the focus groups that there are plenty of voters who will say, yes, the economy is bad. Yes, I don't really like these aggressive ICE tactics, but I am glad that we're not doing the thing to K trans kids anymore. Like, that's good. So this plays. But also, like, does it have an impact on very many people? I don't think so.
Tim Miller
And it's such a typical politician move. This is what I. This is what I enjoy about it, right? Like, this is Trump dealing with the same problem that regular politicians have always dealt with. And, like, in a lot of areas, he's been able to just sort of break the rules and break the norms and do shit that no other president has done, and he gets to play by a different set of rules as other people. And on this, it's kind of like, nope, if people are unhappy with how things are going, there is no kind of magic tabloid Trumpism that can fix it, right? Like this. The don't be a panic in here are my 365 elements of success is no different than Biden nomics or Mission accomplished with the Bush banner or go back to any other administration through history that was dealing with something that they knew was unpopular and that they were trying to spin it as something good.
Sarah Longwell
There's. There was one other piece in the thing where he was listing, you know, the successes he did the ICE stuff. He did the puberty blockers. And way down on the list was everyday costs. Continue moderating. So not, we've got a great economy. It's on fire. You know, whatever. It's just everyday costs. Continue moderating. And then it's got some very, like.
JVL
Put that in a bumper sticker, put.
Tim Miller
It on a red hat.
Sarah Longwell
President Trump launched Trump rx.gov a transformative new government platform that gives Americans direct access to dramatically lower prices. You know, so he's got, like, his own healthcare thing. That's. That's the prices moderating is that they've Got Trump rx. Now it just to have the economy and affordability be so far down in one's list of accomplishments. To me, kind of, that's the story of Trump. Trump is focused on. I was talking about this yesterday on a podcast. Yeah. That Tim and I were doing. And it's like whenever people are, will it matter about the East Wing? Will it matter about, you know, this or that? I'm like, well, it ma. It all matters. In contrast to prices because. And affordability. If all of those things are solved, if people are like, man, the economy's on fire and I feel great about my future prospects and my 401k is doing great and, and, and you know, cost of housing is coming down, they're much more willing to tolerate the excesses of Trump. But when what he's doing is building the Triumph Day Trump arc or whatever his next big building thing is, what people feel from that is you are focused on the wrong things. You are not focused on the things that matter to me.
JVL
Well, there are other issues as well. For instance, Jeffrey Epstein. We'll get to that in a minute.
Tim Miller
First, just really quick, I need to shout out. That other podcast me and Sarah did was the Sam Harris podcast, and he's a big reader of the book.
Sarah Longwell
I wasn't sure if we were allowed to do that.
Tim Miller
Seems to, yeah, it's out tomorrow. And it seems like he's read the Triad more often than Sarah lately. And he was going to a pretty dark, dark place, I would say. Before I go to add, I just want to get the red hat exactly right one more time. It was everyday costs. Continue moderating.
Sarah Longwell
Every day. Continue moderating.
JVL
Can we be honest? If we sold a red version, a red hat with the. In the font with that phrase on it, I would wear the shit out.
Tim Miller
Of that on the show. Every day costs. Continue moderating.
JVL
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Tim Miller
Artisanal is like an artisanal striptease. That's what you call it when you have a. Yeah, when you have a stripper come over to your house. But not kind of a mass market stripper. An artisanal stripper.
JVL
I would know about that. It's only hot cops or heart cops.
Sarah Longwell
Artisanal strippers. He's messing with our naivete, jpl.
JVL
So let's talk about Jeffrey Epstein, because some more stuff is happening. Howard Lutnick, it turns out. Do you remember when we were early on in this, we were like, look.
Tim Miller
Who are you talking about, Howard?
JVL
You're not going to get me to do it. Oh, you're not going to get me to say it. Because once I start saying it, my brain will never turn it off. Like, I'll just do it all the time. I don't know if you guys remember this, but months ago, when we got the first glimpse of him, we were like, see, even Howard Lutnick is a normal person. He met this guy once. He brought his wife with him. And then he said, I'm never going over there again. I think that may not be the real story. Is that. Is that what you're getting?
Sarah Longwell
Definitely a lie. A Complete lie.
JVL
Because again, the three of us sat on this show and we held him up as the example of like, you.
Tim Miller
Gotta hand it to Howard. Gotta hand it to Howard.
JVL
He behaved like a normal human being.
Sarah Longwell
Here's what I don't understand about Elon, about Nutlik, about any of them. There you go, Tim. Did they not. They must have really thought this stuff wasn't going to come to light. Like they thought that Trump. That Pam Bondi was going to really keep these things because they must have known it was in there. Like, you don't think Elon went and looked and was like, what did I send to Jeffrey Epstein? Let me just go back in my Gmail, see. Oh, no. I said, what wild parties you got going on? Or that Lutnick was like, you know what slipped my mind? The business I started with Epstein. Like, they started a company together. He took his wife and family to dinner there and nanny.
Tim Miller
And it was lunch.
Sarah Longwell
Oh, okay.
Tim Miller
Just to be clear, I think it.
Sarah Longwell
Was at 5pm I'm sorry, I was.
Tim Miller
Just a late lunch. An executive lunch.
Sarah Longwell
He was trying to. He was. Lutnick was trying to parse the dinner from the. It was just an aperitif.
JVL
Is it dinner if it's not after 6?
Tim Miller
Right.
JVL
I was not in my formal wear. So what am I, a farmer?
Tim Miller
Also, my favorite was that he asked Jeffrey Epstein to be involved with an effort to do some NIMBYism on the museum in their neighborhood. Kind of reached out to him. 2018, 13 years after he said that he was so grossed out by Jeffrey Epstein that he could never be in this disgusting man's presence again. Thirteen years later, he was like, sir, would you like to sign my NIMBY? My NIMBYism, you know, what the hell do you call those things?
JVL
Petition.
Tim Miller
Petition. Thank you. My NIMBY petition. I need you to sign that. We can't have this. We can't have this museum in our neighborhood. It's okay to have a child sex trafficker living next door to me. I'm not going to do any objections about that. But if this museum adds on a new wing, the traffic on the sidewalk is going to be a little bit too hard to bear. I can step around the child sex trafficking victims, but the line for the museum might be too much. And so me and Jeffrey need to unite on that. That was 2018.
Sarah Longwell
And just it's worth noting, this idea that Lutnick had one meeting with this guy in 2005 and decided he was beyond the pale, creeped him out. Never going back it's not like he had one encounter, which maybe he forgot the petition for the NIMBY thing, whatever. He was in touch with him the whole time. Like, he went and visited him at the island very shortly after his 2008 conviction. Like, there's a lie thing to lie about it.
JVL
Right.
Sarah Longwell
And I don't even think that it's. It's so weird to me because I don't actually think that Lutnick necessarily did any of the bad things. Like, there's no reason to believe that he was somebody that was trafficked to or was there for the massages. Like, that's right. So why was he lying about it to everybody? Because that's the part. And this is where, you know, when. When Trump's administration wants to tell us anything now. They want to list all their good things that they've done. We don't need to take any of it at face value. They're all lying to us all the time.
Tim Miller
Yeah, yeah. They're all liars. I will say this. There's something. And this is not at all a defensive. I do think that there's, like a mental rationalization is very powerful in our brains. I did a podcast with Ryan Holiday about this a long time ago after I wrote the book in the Daily Stoic. And he was in his book. I'm forgetting what the name of his original book was, but where he talked about leaving the crisis PR business because it's too icky for him. He said that both my book and his had a similar thing in it, which was, we saw this bad thing that we didn't like, and our memory was that we said, okay, no, that's too far for me. This is a red line. I want to be out. And then when we writing our books, we went back and looked at the emails and, you know, and he was like, in his book, it was. He's like, I still was consulting for that guy for like a year or two after I thought in my head I had quit. And I did the same thing. I was looking back through, and I was like, I think I sent that email to Scott Pruitt saying, never contact me again. You know, two months into the Trump term. And then I went back and looked through my emails, and it was like 14 months into the Trump term or something like that, you know, and so you do. I think there is, like, a little bit of that. Like, that's like, if the Letnik thing was, you know, there was one other meeting. You know, it's kind of like you're A hero in your own mind. You remember telling your wife, you're never going to talk to that disgusting guy again. You can understand how that could happen. Like, that's just how brains work. That's not what this is. Like, the meeting, the alleged meeting where he went to the guy's house, where he saw the massage table in lieu of a dining room table. That was the story he told, was so disgusting. He was like, why do you have a massage table instead of a dining room table? I'm so creeped out by this. I never want to see you again. That happened in 2005. The NIMBY petition request was 2018. In the intervening period, he took his boat to his island with his children and started a business with them. It's like, I just. I'm sorry. Like, you're lying to me. I cannot Pause. You cannot plausibly tell me that this was just. You had a slip of the mind. You had a meeting. You had one other meeting with them a couple months later, and then that's when you pulled the plug on him. And by the way, it's the same shit with all these guys. It's the same shit with the entire Trump administration. It's also the same shit with everybody outside. There have been many other people, men in particular, you know, who I've seen in various other settings who, like, said. Who had previously said that they stopped talking to him in 2012 and, oops, turns out 2017 and a half, actually.
JVL
So Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie went to look in at the files. They found six names which they said were improperly redacted. I guess these would be, like, the unindicted co conspirators. Massie, I think, said that maybe I'll have to read these out on the floor of the House, that I'm protected from litigation, which is wild. Massey getting hammered at home by his, like, sort of county gop, I think. Is it too much to ask him to stop caucusing with the Republican Party and switch to being an independent? Who caucuses?
Tim Miller
I love this, jv.
JVL
Is that too much?
Tim Miller
I love this.
JVL
His party wants to murder him, and yet he can't leave it.
Tim Miller
We can't hand it to the guy.
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, I think we should just hand it to him. I think we just got to do both. Thomas Massie.
JVL
Let's do both.
Sarah Longwell
Okay. He has been relentless on this.
JVL
Good for him.
Sarah Longwell
And I don't know, I guess the idea of him staying a Republican while he, like, really burns it all down on this and helping to bring over, like, Lauren Boebert, who. I don't know if you saw them get her right after looking at them.
Tim Miller
I need to say this right now, because that was. Pablo Manriquez has got a great substack. I played that clip on the daily pod today, but I didn't credit him, but. Yeah, yeah, no, he. He questions her on the steps, and she goes off basically like, fuck this. And she doesn't say the F word, but, like, her energy is F this administration for putting Ghislaine Maxwell in that, you know, minimum security prison. She deserves way worse.
Sarah Longwell
She's just way worse. Like, she needs more years in prison.
Tim Miller
Yeah.
Sarah Longwell
And we can get to. To Ghislaine here in a minute because there's.
JVL
We're gonna be there on her.
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, yeah. But I. I just. I look, I kind of don't care about the party switching because I think that Thomas Massie, part of his principled commitment to this is rooted in the fact that he is a very staunch libertarian to the point where if you started rattling off a list of policy issues, you'd go, oh, my goodness, he thinks what?
Tim Miller
He's got some weird ones. I think that just Sarah's point, though, I think it's really important. I just want to put a fine line on it. Is it not more useful for him to do this from inside the Republican caucus at this point?
Sarah Longwell
It is, sure.
Tim Miller
If it was. If. If another Republican dies or resigns or, you know, has a solid Damascus moment, and it's really one. Like, he could switch the Speaker. If he switches, then I'm on board with a pressure Thomas Massey campaign. But for now, I think it's useful. You guys think that he has, by the way, he mentioned the two people and the Lex Wexner thing is everybody kind of assumed Lex Lesnar was involved in this. I. Jeff, he gave Jeffrey Epstein his power of attorney, which is about the strangest thing a billionaire could possibly do. It's basically saying, I'm guilty.
Sarah Longwell
This guy has all my common. Pratt.
Tim Miller
Yeah. It's like, if I had to give one person in the entire world, it's gonna be Jeffrey Epstein. But then there's the Sultan from the UAE that got named, which is, I think, very damaging to Trump potentially. I mean, a. Because the Sultan and Trump have been pictured together a bunch. Sultan was at Trump's first inauguration, and also the Sultan is sultaning in the same country that gave Trump half a billion dollars for his crypto company. And so that's pretty noteworthy that. That. That Massie named him and Julie Brown, we should say, has said that she has reporting showing that two victims who don't know each other have both also mentioned the Sultan.
Sarah Longwell
And this is important actually about why, because I do think it's become, as we get deeper into the Epstein saga, a bit of a like understanding Trump's role is getting more and more difficult to sort of figure out.
JVL
We're going to get to that in one second. But Sarah, first you got to give us a word from our sponsors, our friends at Quince.
Sarah Longwell
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JVL
We gotta unpack the Trump role in all this, because we got a Miami Herald report from our friend Julie Brown that in 2019, he did an interview and he said that Trump called him in the early 2000s when he was investigating Epstein and said, thank goodness you're stopping him. Everyone has known he's been doing this. And then I think maybe called Ghislaine Maxwell evil.
Sarah Longwell
Yes, that is in the report.
Tim Miller
Who is. Who, who is saying that it's a police.
JVL
No, well, it's a police officer to the police chief.
Sarah Longwell
Yes, that's right.
JVL
That's what this is. And the police chief recounted this story in 2019. So that's the game of telephone that's happening here. That strikes me as a little odd.
Sarah Longwell
Well, this is the part, like I was saying before the ad break, and Tim reminded me this gets to sort of Trump's role in it all, which has been befuddling because on one hand we know very clearly they were good friends, like very close friends, party together all the time. Perhaps Epstein introduced Trump to Melania. He was recruiting girls out of Mar? A Lago. And so I do think, and this, again, like Lutnick gets us to the lying piece. The question, I think, for all of us has been not just is Trump in the files, because he clearly is maybe more than anybody else. Like, if you go through the mentions, he's been mentioned like 5,300 times, which is considerably less.
Tim Miller
Did you see Raskin today? Raskin said they went through the unreleased files and he's in there a million times. I don't know if that's true, but that's what Jamie Raskin says.
Sarah Longwell
He is all over these files. It doesn't seem, though, as these guys are going through the unredacted files, that what is in there is some evidence that Trump was part of this trafficking. And so I don't know if I don't know what is true yet, but I do think what is clear is that Trump knew what was going on. He knew the whole time. And if this police chief is to be believed, and Trump called and said they're evil. Well, now that's weird because Trump has done praising of them subsequently. And so at minimum, though, I think what we're gonna find is that Trump knew and Trump did nothing about it and was in the presence of it, much like many of the people who were in there. Like, there is just a high probability that many of the people had a kind of wink and nod way, or like a joking way of being like, oh, this guy gets massages from underage girls. And we all know it, and it becomes part of the jokes we all tell to each other. And so it's unclear whether in this telling that Trump is a. I don't want to go so far, like, not, certainly not the hero in his own telling. But it is possible that as things were starting to come out about Jeffrey Epstein, and as Jeffrey Epstein was looking to be prosecuted, it was becoming clear he was going to be prosecuted, that Trump did try to insert himself in some way and put himself on the side of, oh, yeah, this guy's a scumbag.
Tim Miller
I want to help you with some of the conundrum. I think that there's a lot that we don't know, but I think that there's one element of this that I think is pretty easy to decode, which is that Trump praises people that like him and are nice to him, even if they're evil. And Trump disparages people who are mean to him, even if they're good. And so he will also disparage people that are evil if they're mean to him. And, like, that's pretty much Trump's worldview. And so what I think, what I think is happening here, if you cobble together some other reporting, is that there was a period of time in the aughts where after their bromance, where there was some disagreements, whether that be over land, over property that they're trying to buy, over a young lady.
JVL
Teenage spa employees.
Tim Miller
Yeah, right. Teenage spa employees. Over some young woman or who knows how old that they were competing over. There's some tiff. And there have been different reports on the different reasons for the tif. And so you can imagine a person like Trump during that period getting a call from the cops and being like, oh, yeah, that fucker that has been going against me on his real estate deal or has been causing trouble over the teenage spa employee that I sent his way. Yeah, he's evil. He's been doing it. You should keep looking into him. And then fast forward 15 years later where Jeffrey Epstein is doing a documentary with Steve Bannon about how great he is and telling people that Trump is the real deal and that Ghislaine Maxwell is, you know, partying with him and talking about how great he is. Then he goes and changes his tune to, oh, yeah, these people are great. I love Ghislaine Maxwell. I wish her the best. Right. Like, I. So I think that is the best way to interpret, like, his change of tone that is in line with his character and past Behavior. I don't know that. That. Again, that doesn't answer the broader, bigger question about, like, what, you know, how tied into the sex crimes that Jeffrey Epstein was doing. Was he. I think that still remains a little bit of an open question.
JVL
Do you guys have considered thoughts about Ms. Maxwell pleading the fifth when she was at the House Oversight Committee on Monday?
Sarah Longwell
I do think it's interesting that both Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were asked the same question about whether or not they were ever in the presence of Donald Trump with the underage girls. And in both cases, both took the Fifth. Now, if they wanted to exonerate Trump, they could in those moments. But, of course, Ghislaine Maxwell, which she is doing right now, she is saying, I will give full testimony if I get clemency from Donald Trump. Like, there is a very clear quid pro quo right now happening. And obviously, it's not even remotely hard to interpret this, which is she is saying, if I get clemency, I'll lie under. I'll go and lie for you.
JVL
You know, what's funny is that normally the way this works is that you're pressuring the perp to roll on somebody. And so the idea is like, hey, we'll give you some clemency if you will testify against this person and tell us that they were doing the bad thing. But in this case, it's the opposite. The government will give you good things if you'll simply testify that this other person did not do any bad things.
Tim Miller
Yeah, it's a little on the nose. It's a little on the. As far as some clemency requests are concerned, I would think that somebody who for decades was the point player and a child sex trafficking ring who needed to show, you know, put on a good face and be, you know, deceitful, but also respected, you'd think that somebody like that would have the skills to be a little more subtle, but I guess desperate times call for desperate management.
JVL
Which shows they don't trust Trump. Right? Because in. In an ordinary world, she would trust that, like, some agreement was made behind the scenes so that she could simply say, see? Nothing. No, no, there was nothing there. And, like Steve Bannon, right? Do you remember Steve Bannon, you know, in jail, saying, you know, hey, you keep your mouth shut and he'll do right by us? And he was. He was right. I forget who he said that to. No, you know, it wasn't. It was Manafort. I think it was. It was Paul Manafort, not Steve Bannon. I'm Sorry, Steve.
Sarah Longwell
Don't apologize to Steve Bannon. He is up to his eyebrows in these Epstein files.
Tim Miller
Have you watched any of the Bannon interview of.
Sarah Longwell
I keep meaning to do you tell us what's in it?
Tim Miller
It is so bizarre, Steve. Ostensibly there are multiple videos throughout, so I can just speak to what I've watched, which was essentially Steve Bannon prepping him for 60 minutes. The idea was that Jeffrey Epstein was going to do 60 minutes to defend his honor. And in this case, Steve was supposedly playing the role of, you know, whoever. Wallace. Yeah, Leslie Stahl, like Wallace is probably dead by then playing Leslie Stahl, but he's not having been in media trainings. You appreciate this, Sarah. Sometimes your, your client gets their butt hurt if you're too mean, you know. So I do understand that part of it where you have to be a little bit maybe nice, you got to warm them up a little bit before. But this video goes on for hours. Like I literally, I watched 20 minutes, then forward to an hour point, you know, to see it and it's still going on. And Steve is just asking me. He's just like, Jeffrey, I mean the amount of research you've done into higher mathematics is just so impressive. And tell us about that and your relationships with the Stephen Hawking's of the world and your creative tax accounting strategies and how did you go from being the wunderkind math teacher to the high finance? So it's like Steve is just slobbing his knob like over and over. It's the most obsequious thing I've ever seen. And so it's very, it's, it's jarring, it's like unnerving to watch. Kind of where it's just like, what is Steve's.
Sarah Longwell
What kind of prep is that?
Tim Miller
I think Steve Band was really charmed by him. Maybe, I don't know, it was.
Sarah Longwell
Well, this is where, this is where when you get this elite class and.
JVL
Or like Steve, the Epstein class.
Sarah Longwell
The Epstein class. Well, I like to think of it as the Epstein administration. As you can see so many. Because there's two kinds of people in, in Trump's administration. There's people who are in the Epstein files and there's people who are covering up the Epstein files. Like, that's it. There's two types of people. And so because even if you're Marco Rubio and you are just sitting back being like, yeah, I.
Tim Miller
The State Department would have some purview, I think, over a UAE Sultan who's doing business with the United States, doing Sex, child, sex trafficking. So, you know, Yeah, I think maybe.
Sarah Longwell
He'D have an interest in that. Okay, so yeah, we can put him in the COVID up category.
JVL
Wouldn't want to revoke his visa though because he didn't write any college paper op EDS about Palestine. So.
Sarah Longwell
Yes. You know, I was just thinking about what like losers so many of these people were like in high school and how like, you know, they were just kind of all friendless chuds for much of their career and now they find themselves with these smooth talking Ivy Leaguers. And like, it is funny how they think they get charmed, right, by like a guy who is clearly like handsome and good at, you know, wielding his power in a way that Steve Bannon is like, you know, covered in ash and wearing many shirts. Yeah, yeah.
Tim Miller
Envious for sure. Yeah.
JVL
All right, well, before we move on from this, none of this is good for Trump, right?
Sarah Longwell
No.
JVL
Okay. Just, just making sure that I understand this.
Sarah Longwell
He has done everything he can to make this go away and it is not going away. And this is why Steve Massie deserves so much credit, is like Trump has been putting as much pressure, sorry, Thomas Massie, but this, even Lauren Boebert deserves some pressure. Like Trump was trying to punished her by canceling, you know, some money that her district was getting because she voted against him to release this stuff. And, and like, I mean, look, I don't ever want to hand it to Lauren Boebert at all, but so to speak, she does seem though quite committed to this particular thing.
Tim Miller
And the other thing is just like this goes back to this inflection point. We talked a lot about, a lot about it last fall. But I think it's important to re up it now because it's even more striking now than it was then, which is we just are a long way from February 10, 2020. And you know, and like that wasn't. It was really hard to imagine anybody speaking out against Donald Trump in February 2025. And there was a chill across industry about this. And, and the entire Republican Party was in lockstep. I mean, like the only thing they did between him winning in February of 2025 to check him at all was was not letting Matt Gaetz be Attorney General. Which is really too bad, unfortunately, because like the deep irony of Matt Gaetz being Attorney General right now is so delicious writers that up, like, we should have let Matt Gates be Attorney General. But besides that, like, everyone was like, yes, sir, Mr. Trump, sir, you're the greatest, sir. So to go from that to having multiple factions Inside the party now starting to express concerns, you know, whether it be about Epstein or, you know, the crypto, corruption, etc. Is. Is like it's not nothing. It's bad for him.
Sarah Longwell
And, and Cash Patel lied under oath. Like the. The. If they get their stuff together and Dems take the house in 2026. Like Cash Patel lied. Like he. We know he lied. There are six co conspirators in here. Massie is unearthing them and Cash said that they didn't exist.
JVL
Interesting.
Sarah Longwell
Cash lied. Lutnick lied. Elon lied. Bannon lied. They're all lying. Trump lied. Trump. And this Trump is clearly. I don't know if this, Sorry, this goes back to like what his. His role is. I don't know if it's him. Him for sure with the girls. It's him for sure lying. It's him for sure protecting people. Like the Sultan, I think. Right. Like I just think when he said because he said to the point like people are gonna get hurt. Like my friends are gonna get hurt. This is who he's talking about and.
Tim Miller
It'S him for sure. On the plane with Ghislaine Maxwell and sex trafficking victims.
JVL
Yeah, I, I just want to. Because we do want to move on from this, but I do want to remind people that Lauren Boebert was such an embarrassment to her district that the local Republicans went and recruited Jeff Heard, a normal, honorable, upstanding Republican to come in and. And replace her. And so she had to change districts and Jeff Heard has said fuck all about the Epstein files. So you know what? It turns out that he, Jeff Heard, is a much bigger embarrassment than Lauren Boebert is. Fuck you, Jeff Heard.
Tim Miller
That's a great point. Fuck you, Jeff Heard.
JVL
Continuing on because again, this is the theme of this show is like sure looks like Trump is losing. He posted last Thursday night right before Sarah and I did Secret the He posted a video on his Truth Social which was a minute and two seconds of election conspiracy theory stuff that one minute into the minute Tuesday like flashes a picture of the Obamas with their Michelle and Barack Obama's heads photoshopped onto apes and the Lion Sleeps Tonight. Music in the background. Needle drop in the background. Not the Lion King. The Lion Sleeps tonight. Trump refused to apologize and said he didn't do anything wrong. But they did take down the post again. It just feels weak and it like I don't. I mean it feels like weakness is what. Is what I mean to say here. And I was curious if you guys had thoughts about this. Am I Over interpreting.
Sarah Longwell
I mean, I think he's on the back foot. Right. I mean, he didn't weakness in the sense that they did take it down after they got caught lying about it. He blamed it on a young person to whom he handed his phone to conclude at 11:44 the to complete the truth socialing. Right. It's all a lie. But like Carolyn Levitt lied originally out of the gate about what it was about and Trump, like, has. Yeah. Refused to apologize. So he's doing that thing that he does where he tries to brazen through it and it will probably work because, like the memeing stuff tends is even though it was horrendously racist, lots of Republicans called him about it. This is one of the ones where Trump hopes people just move on from it. Right. That over time it's just, it's like a tweet. They kind of come and go. But no, he's on his back foot. I don't know about weakness, but like, he's on his back foot in a lot of areas. There has been no good news for Donald Trump.
Tim Miller
Yeah. And this is just another example. What I said before about Republicans speaking out. I mean, Tim Scott, no profile and courage, but spoke out about this, which is, which is a change from last year, I guess. I would like for the white. I'd like for somebody in the White House press corps to ask Carolyn again, I know that they do want to move on from this. Who posted it? It is pretty curious. The president didn't post it. They said a staffer posted it. Who, like, is it Dan Scavino, the guy who had a wedding at Mar a Lago on the taxpayer dime that posted it? And if so, is there any repercussions for him? Is there any oversight over him? And it's. I would think that it's pretty concerning that there is like young interns that control the communications channel for the leader of the free world or the once leader of the free world. And that they can just post in the middle of the night and the entire administration will speak in lockstep the following morning about how that post was great until people realized that it wasn't actually the president that posted it. Like, that seems like a pretty big problem. And I know that. But you know, some folks are like, well, it's just Trump being Trump again. But I would like to. A little bit, I'd like to know a little bit about.
JVL
There is a story here.
Tim Miller
The process. Yeah, there's a story here. I'd like to know a little more about. The bleeding process.
JVL
All right, and before we get to the last big loss, Tim, you got to talk to us a little bit about our final sponsor for the day.
Tim Miller
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Sarah Longwell
He used an ad to passive aggressively criticize us.
JVL
JBL I don't think that was criticism. I think that was him trying to help us. That's how I took it. So Bad Bunny. Tim, you discussed Bad Bunny with Bill Kristol? I did a show with Sarah and Adrian about Bad Bunny. I now have seen the numbers. 135 million people watch the halftime show. I guess what I want to say is I think Trump picking a fight over Bad Bunny turns out to have been a mistake. But I wonder if he had any choice in the matter. Like the fact of Bad Bunny as the super bowl halftime act is in itself a provocation. Trump feels as though he has to weigh in on everything because he is America's number one poster and so he couldn't not make it a thing. Except that Bad Bunny again, Bad Bunny is like in deep with wrestling culture and all sorts.
Tim Miller
I don't know, wouldn't a wise Trump have just been like, bad bunny's pretty good actually could have used a little more English and moved on.
JVL
Yes, that is what a wise. But wouldn't that have been again, once TP USA decides we have to counter program this, then Trump is kind of locked in, into.
Tim Miller
Yeah, I don't, I don't think that Trump should feel like he's getting dog walked by tpusa. So I think that's a pretty big mistake for him to put on the collar and let Erica Kirk walk him around the neighborhood because I do think this was good for tpo, say it was bad for Trump, bad for the Republicans. Again on the margins. Right. But just not a good moment for them and, and unhelpful politically. And yet tpusa, I think, has successfully, since Charlie's. Charlie getting assassinated has successfully imprinted itself in the public consciousness. I was, I was watching at the airport and just casual people around me, like just listening to them talk, like knew about the TPUSA halftime show, know what TPOSA is, know who Charlie Kirk is. Like the types of people just via context clues I don't think probably were familiar with with TPUSA two years ago. So I do think that they gained some from this, unfortunately. But that might on the Fortune side that like a net negative influence for Republicans down the line because they don't know that TPUSA's culture is like that appealing broadly.
JVL
I think it's ghettoized. Right. It's, it's returning to a conservative ghetto and it's getting, getting turned off the cul de sac of like, hey, we're going to conquer the mainstream. That's how I took it.
Sarah Longwell
Sarah. Look, I think the way that I personally think that Joe Biden overread the election and his mandate on policy in the 2020 election. And I think that the Republicans have really over interpreted their mandate on culture now where like there was this backlash of culture. I have said for a long time that I think Trump winning in 2024 was like he won the culture by even more than the popular vote in large part that there was just sort of a rejection of everything. Dei Black Lives Matter woke. Like there was sort of a peak woke that led to a backlash. Covid. That's right. Like there was this backlash. And so they like overtook, they took that mandate though, and was like, you know, what everybody wants. They want Kid Rock in jorts with like a bad laser show. And that's not true. That's just not right. And so I actually think it showed that they're not as strong on the culture as they think.
JVL
I mean, it wasn't cool. That's the other thing. It was just cringe. It was just cringe, Cringe. It was cringe and not. There's nothing punk rock about it.
Sarah Longwell
I'm glad you mentioned the word cringe because cringe is often like, cringe is a guardrail in our culture now. Right. It's like when something moves into cringe territory and you're like, well, what does that mean? And it's like, you know it when you see it. It's like the Supreme Court and pornography. You're like. It's when you hit. It's when you are. Your eyes roll accidentally, you're just like, okay. And I think that they are quickly squandering their cultural advantage and walking right into cringe territory in which they are no longer the cool kids table, but like the dorks.
JVL
Yeah.
Sarah Longwell
With Kid Rock.
JVL
All right, final, final piece of Trump losering. And then we're going to move on. So Donald Trump is picking another fight with Canada. I don't know if you guys saw this. He's trying to block the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge connecting the US And Canada. Fun fact. I used to live across the street from, as a kid from Gordie Howe's son, Mark Howe, who played for the Philadelphia Flyers. And my sister babysat Mark Howe's kids. And I could care less about hockey. I have nothing to do about hockey. But I remember coming out on like a Saturday morning to do something in my driveway, and Mark and Gordie Howe are standing in their front yard like, you know, just a dad and his adult son. And they're watering the lawn. Just like hanging out, watering the lawn like any other suburban couple. And I thought, I thought to myself, if I was a Canadian hockey head, this would be a life defining moment. And yet for me, it's like looking at two accountants could not mean less to me. Anyway, nice guy, Mark Howe. So Trump is trying to get Canada to stop this, and he does it by saying that if Canada makes deals with China, China will terminate ice hockey being played in Canada and permanently end the Stanley Cup. It's the saddest, most pathetic threat because it's like there's, there's no again. It's like crazy old person yelling at the moon. Nobody thinks this is possible. Nobody thinks this is a thing that would happen. And also, the Canadians are going to be like, fuck you. Yeah.
Sarah Longwell
Come for hockey.
JVL
Feels like weakness.
Sarah Longwell
Come for hockey, bro.
JVL
Feels like weakness to me here.
Sarah Longwell
You know what it is? And it goes back to the previous topic about the halftime show, which everything that they're doing right now is the snowflake. Iest like, oh, well, I'm. We have to get rid of hockey, because I don't like the bridge they're building, which, by the way, is between Canada and the state of Michigan. Michigan. And, like, all they do now is cry about everything. Oh, the. We got to take our ball and go home because the halftime show is getting sung in Spanish. You guys are everything that you ever said. The left was ever worse.
Tim Miller
The defining meme of this year. Yeah. To think about how they've lost the culture. The defining meme of this year is going to be Zoran and Ms. Rachel doing the wah, wah, wah, wah thing at the manga guys, because that's just all it is. It's just like, they've won everything. They still just cry and bitch and moan about stuff. So I don't know. I'm in JVL territory that's like, take. Please cancel the Stanley Cup, Trump. That's great. Like, attacking.
Sarah Longwell
Attacking Olympians like this. Like, we didn't even talk about this because speaking of hockey, the women's ice hockey team is crushing it right now. And. But, like, so, you know, Trump is, like, going after these Olympic athletes, and they're not even saying. They're not saying. Not attacking Trump is a monster. They're just saying, you know, I love my country. I'm here representing the United States. But, you know, we're having some. Some hard times in the country right now, and I just want everybody to feel good and be included and, like, lead with empathy. These are my values. And Trump's like, you and Megyn Kelly's like, cancel them. They should come home. They should have just stripped of their team membership. Oh, my God. Is this Cancel Culture? I was reliably told that this was Cancel Culture.
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Tim Miller
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JVL
You at higher risk for events like.
Tim Miller
Heart attack or stroke.
JVL
But there's a simple test that can.
Tim Miller
Help spot a hidden signal. Ask your doctor about a urine test called UACR to help detect kidney disease.
JVL
And heart risk early. To learn more, visit detectthesos.com today. Well, I'm sure the Free Press is going to do a couple pieces on how that's bad, right?
Tim Miller
Actually, I just pulled up their page. I'm not seeing anything on it, but I do see that a dark money group that backed Kamala Harris faces questions over a donation. Maybe there's some corruption afoot campaign. I wonder if there's any corrupt donations out happening currently right now.
JVL
Okay, so we. We had some good times this week for the first time in God knows how long. So we'll close with bad things. Nancy Guthrie, the aged mother of Savannah Guthrie, seems to have been kidnapped. It's now been like two weeks. This is a story which is horrible and like out of some terrible movie. We just got ring camera. Or no, I'm sorry, not Ring nest camera of an image of a guy in a ski mask, you know, at her doorbell. He seems to have disabled the camera. It looks like Dwight Yocum in Panic Room. Neither of you have seen Panic Room. If there are five people who are watching this video who have, you'll know exactly what I mean. I don't know what to say except that it's horrible. And I hate that we live in a world where people go and abduct elderly women. I don't know.
Tim Miller
Yeah, I just wanted to talk about it briefly because, you know, we're not doing true crime news around here, like, and so I just haven't had an opportunity to talk about it. But I, I know Savannah a little bit. Savannah's husband I know really well and I worked with him for a long time. And they're the sweetest and like their kid is the sweetest. Their kids at the sweetest. Excuse me. And I just like saw that, that video of the fat guy in the mask, what looks like a mustache outside the window of this 84 year old woman. You just start to think about your own grandmother or mother. And I just like this rage is boiling up inside of me and it's just like I, I, you know, this would be the type of crime that you could get me on board for really Old Testament type punishment, which I, which I'm not for in principle. But like that is my initial, like animal reaction to this. Like the idea that you would abduct an elderly woman like from her home, sitting peacefully in her home in Arizona in a retirement community, masked can take manhandle or take her. And, and now you want crypto money put into your account in order to give it back. And it's just, it's unimaginably horrible. And I just, I'm just, my heart like breaks for Savannah and Mike and the rest of their family. And it's. I just, I hope, I hope that this video, this is the one time I hope these chuds at the FBI get something right because I just hope that this video coming out helps them identify who this person is and bring her and bring Nancy home.
JVL
All right, Sarah.
Sarah Longwell
I mean, I, I don't, I don't know enough about it or. None of us know, right? None of us know what happened. All I know is that the thing Tim said about like you, you imagine your own family. And I just, all I want is for her to get her mother back. I just, I don't want anything bad to happen to anyone. And I, Yeah, I, I always hate when we live in a world where this kind of thing can happen. It's too awful and our hearts go out. I didn't realize Tim knew them so well, but. So I'm just sorry for everybody and I hope it gets resolved because we'll be rooting for Savannah and her family.
Tim Miller
Yeah. Went to arrest that guy.
Sarah Longwell
Yeah.
Tim Miller
Put him away forever.
JVL
All right, guys. I mean, seems weird to say hit the like button. So I won't say that. Just subscribe to the channel and we'll be back. Well, Sarah and I will be here on Friday with a secret show. It's going to be a very celebratory secret show because we have some good things happening. In our relationship. We've taken it to a new level and the three of us will be back next week together.
Sarah Longwell
We're gonna do live show live live show in Minneapolis.
JVL
Is that next week? Is that a real thing that's happening next week? Good Lord. Can't believe that.
Sarah Longwell
Can't wait to see you guys out there.
JVL
Best friends.
Tim Miller
This show will be late next week though. This show will be late because we're going to use the live show for the for TNL next week. So you'll be catching us live on stage in Minneapolis with all our pals. Appreciate everybody coming out in meat space.
JVL
Good luck America.
Tim Miller
A KFC tale in the pursuit of flavor the Colonel made his $10 Tuesday bucket so full with eight pieces of juicy, crispy chicken or tender that it might just last you till Wednesday if you've got that kind of self control. I mean some people want leftovers, others are more into right nowers. The Colonel lived so we could chicken 10 bucks 8 pieces. One big deal with KFC$10 Tuesdays.
JVL
Prices and participation may vary. Taxes, tips and fees extra.
Sarah Longwell
Hi, this is Danielle Robay, the host of Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, a podcast by hello Sunshine and I Heart Podcast. I'm partnering with Simple Mills and I've just found my new go to reading snack. Simple Mills Almond Flour Crackers. Think of this as a quick book style review because these crackers deserve it. The premise? A snack that feels light, not heavy.
JVL
Made with almond flour, sunflower seeds and flaxseeds.
Sarah Longwell
Nutrient dense ingredients your body can use. Not empty carbs. And the taste? Crunchy, classic flavors that leave you feeling energized. For a good plot twist, try Popums.
JVL
Cheesy, airy, poppable crackers packed with veggies. Final Verdict these are a shelf staple.
Sarah Longwell
Find simple meals at your grocery store.
Tim Miller
Every year, people make the same fitness Train harder. But most fail because recovery gets ignored. Especially connective tissue that muscles depend on to grow. Frog Fuel was developed by Navy Seals.
Sarah Longwell
And perfected by a Stanford trained scientist.
JVL
Delivering food 15 grams of nanohydrolyzed collagen protein that digests in just 15 minutes.
Sarah Longwell
It's science backed and ready to drink. No mixing, no sugar, no junk.
JVL
This year, don't just train harder, recover smarter.
Tim Miller
Go to frogfuel. Com that's frogfuel. Com. Stay unbreakable.
Title: Trump is Crashing Out And We're LOVING It
Date: February 11, 2026
Hosts: Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller, Jonathan V. Last (JVL)
Podcast: The Bulwark’s The Next Level
This week, the hosts revel in the apparent political decline of Donald Trump, as indicated by falling approval ratings and a string of public missteps. They dig into new polling data, discuss the shifting political and cultural landscape, the ongoing relevance of the Epstein files for Trump and the GOP, and unpack several recent Trump-related controversies—ranging from racist social posts to quarrels over the Super Bowl halftime show. The discussion is lively, wry, and bristling with their typical banter.
On the right’s new “snowflake” culture:
Sarah Longwell [56:35]:
"All they do now is cry about everything...You guys are everything that you ever said the left was ever worse."
On Trump's dwindling GOP support:
JVL [03:17]:
"I think 82% approval rating from Republicans for Trump is a flashing danger sign."
Sarah Longwell [03:28]:
"No, that's what I mean. I mean, good for us."
On Trump’s claims of economic success:
JVL [14:53]:
"Put that in a bumper sticker."
Tim Miller [14:55]:
"Put it on a red hat."
Sarah Longwell [16:35]:
"Everyday costs. Continue moderating."
This episode drives home how the political winds have shifted since Trump’s re-election and how Trumpism now shows signs of both cultural and institutional decline. The hosts balance schadenfreude with sharp analysis, warning that although the cracks are widening, there’s still much work left for those seeking lasting change.
For a deeper political dive with wit and sharp edges, listen to the full episode or catch up at www.thebulwark.com.