1056: Secret Podcast: Trump’s DHS Is Eating Itself Alive

Summary

The Next Level Podcast – Ep. 1056: "Trump’s DHS Is Eating Itself Alive"

Hosts: Jonathan V. Last (JVL), Sarah Longwell
Date: February 14, 2026

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Overview

This episode of The Next Level captures Sarah Longwell and JVL’s signature blend of political analysis and candid banter, taking listeners through the inner chaos at Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the recent ICE developments in Minneapolis, and broader reflections on protest movements and the future of political opposition. The conversation is peppered with personal anecdotes, discussion of media narratives, and critiques of both Republican and Democratic strategies in the current political climate.

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Main Discussion Points & Insights

1. Reflections on Media Perception and Audience Growth

[01:37–09:05]

• The hosts begin with self-referential banter about the Sam Harris podcast episode in which Sarah and Tim participated. JVL jokes about his own media exposure versus Sarah and Tim’s.
• Discussion about misconceptions from newer listeners/readers about their stance toward the Republican Party.
  • Quote:
    "My favorite thing that drives me crazy about you is when I see people say, 'Sarah can't wait to go running back to voting for Republicans again.'"
    — JVL [05:24]
• Sarah stresses the tangible work she’s done fighting Trumpism, countering listener claims: "I have spent over $100 million, okay, trying to defeat Republicans in actual elections for the last 10 years. Like, what are you talking about?" [05:35]
• Both hosts agree the growth in audience means many may not know their background or long-standing opposition to the GOP’s turn under Trump.

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2. The Sam Harris Episode & Personal Dynamics

[03:41–09:09]

• Sarah describes the experience of being interviewed by Sam Harris and delving into the origins of her partnership with Tim Miller and the formation of the podcast.
• Lighthearted conversation about the "best friends" running joke, AI’s characterization of their relationships, and the challenges of working closely for years.

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3. ICE, Minneapolis, and Protest Movements

[09:28–14:55]

• The hosts gear up for their upcoming live events in Minneapolis, expressing solidarity and admiration for the community’s resistance against harsh ICE tactics.
• JVL voices concern over media neglect: "I have felt that the media has been doing that since Homan was put in charge and Buffino was demoted." [10:58]
• Sarah contrasts typical Democratic organizing energy with the intensity required in crisis, recounting her outburst:
  • Quote:
    "Republicans are over here being straight up mercenaries. Democrats give everybody Fridays off and talk about work life balance...Democrats are not built for when the fascists come."
    — Sarah Longwell [12:11]
• Both hosts agree that while activists in Minneapolis set a high standard, the broader party and supporting organizations need to match this commitment.

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4. Implications for Trump’s Political Ambitions

[14:17–15:55]

• Sarah suggests that backlash to ICE’s visible overreach in Minneapolis could harm Trump’s plans to use federal agents as a tool to intimidate voters in 2026.
  • "To me is a big knock on Trump's ambitions to use his private army to chill the elections in 2026." — Sarah [14:55]
• They debate whether the apparent pullback is a strategic retreat by Trump's team to reduce public anger, or simply a pause before renewed escalation closer to the election.

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5. Wall Street Journal Exposé and the Chaos Within DHS

[15:55–22:17]

• JVL introduces the Wall Street Journal’s “huge takeout on Kristi Noem,” reading it as an internal attack sourced from Team Homan:
  • Quote:
    "It is. I mean, this is an absolute dump of everything that everybody inside DHS is seeing."
    — JVL [16:34]
• Details emerge about Corey Lewandowski’s rule-dodging (manipulating entry badges to skirt work limits) and the internal battles within DHS.
• Sarah and JVL dissect the difference between overt, “clownish” authoritarianism (Lewandowski, Noem) and more professional but equally dangerous tactics (Homan).
  • Quote:
    "Having people who are obviously clowns that the American people can see the overreach and experience it...is better than having it done out of sight."
    — Sarah Longwell [20:07]
  • They caution that "under the radar" repression, as preferred by Homan, may be even more dangerous as it evades public scrutiny.

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6. The Importance and Dangers of Documentation

[22:17–24:56]

• Citing Will Stancil's recent appearance, JVL underscores the vital role of citizen documentation of ICE actions:
  • Quote:
    "If you can't get that person's name, then they're just gone. This is like being in...a European country in the 1930s. Right. And the secret police show up and grab somebody. There is no paper trail."
    — JVL [22:55]
• Sarah adds the historical analogy:
  • "We are not making a comparison to [the Holocaust]; we are making a comparison to how it started...the part that everyone tolerated, the part that everyone let happen because they were being slow walked into it and the people that it was happening to didn't concern them at first." [24:09]

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7. Internal Chaos and Survival of Trump Loyalists

[24:56–27:55]

• Sarah analyzes whether Kristi Noem (and others embroiled in scandal) can survive within Trump’s administration, arguing Trump values loyalty above all, and public humiliation does not necessarily spell political demise.
  • "I think that the answer tends to come down to whether or not they themselves can absorb the humiliation and not whether or not Trump will do something about it." [25:15]
• They reference other officials, including Pam Bondi and Lutnick, to emphasize that as long as unwavering loyalty remains, Trump likely won’t dismiss even the most embarrassing figures.

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8. Closing Thoughts: Optimism, Organizing & Community

[27:55–29:07]

• JVL raises some positive polling on the public missing Joe Biden’s economy. The hosts share optimism that public opinion may pivot in the coming election cycle.
• Encouragement for listeners to join the Bulwark Plus community, with Sarah highlighting their nonprofit initiatives:
  • "We're doing two sold out shows. We're giving all the proceeds away to a charity. And you know why we can do that? Because you guys pay to subscribe to this." — Sarah [28:45]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• JVL on audience misconceptions:
  "Have you listened to her? Do you understand the contempt she has for this entire party and its voters?" [05:25]

• Sarah on activism:
  "For every 26 year old who works at a lefty nonprofit, you owe it to [the protesters], actually. Like, that's, that's the energy everybody has to bring. That's what you do when the fascists come." [13:40]

• On the state of DHS:
  "We have these, these rules and laws which are in place for reasons and they're just disregarded and once they're disregarded, like they're just gone." — JVL [17:14]

• On documentation and “quiet” repression:
  "If Homan is able to do that more under the radar, that's bad. And it will require actually more citizen action in order to document this stuff, because the Democratic Party does not yet have the power to exercise oversight and may not..." — JVL [23:13]

• On what people tolerated in the 1930s:
  "We're not making a comparison to [where the 1930s ended]. We are making a comparison to how it started, which is like, the part that everyone tolerated, the part that everyone let happen because they were being slow walked into it and the people that it was happening to didn't concern them at first." — Sarah Longwell [24:09]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:37] – Show Start; banter about Sam Harris podcast and media exposure
• [04:52] – Listener misconceptions about their political allegiances
• [09:28] – Minneapolis protests, ICE, and media attention
• [12:05] – "Democrats are not built for when the fascists come" (Sarah’s rant)
• [15:55] – Wall Street Journal exposé on Kristi Noem and DHS infighting
• [20:07] – Dangers of clownishness vs. quiet authoritarianism
• [22:17] – Citizen documentation and the legacy of secret police
• [24:56] – Will loyalty or scandal take down Trump appointees?
• [27:55] – Positive polling trends, Bulwark community support

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Tone

The conversation is lively, impassioned, and at times darkly humorous. Sarah and JVL weave personal stories and political analysis, maintaining a candid and often self-deprecating tone even as they dissect sobering developments.

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Summary Takeaway

This episode provides an unvarnished look at the current U.S. political crisis, focusing on the brutal realities and unintended consequences of Trump’s DHS. Through smart banter and incisive critique, Sarah and JVL highlight the stakes for Americans under rising authoritarianism, challenge both listeners and political actors to rise to the moment, and emphasize the importance of vigilance, documentation, and grassroots action when democratic norms are eroding.

Transcript

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[Ryan Seacrest]

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[JVL]

Visit your nearby Lowe's on Colorado street in Kennewick. Hello, everyone. This is JVL here with my best friend Sarah Longwell, publisher of the Bulwark Sabra.

[Sarah Longwell]

My guy.

[JVL]

So, you know, I just said to you 30 seconds ago that we were going to start by talking about your Sam Harris podcast. Okay, I'll hold on to that. We will start by talking about your Sam Harris podcast. You and Tim went on the Sam Harris podcast. It was really great, and it's good of you guys to go because he called me first and asked me to go and I said, you know, I just can't make it. And he said, well, I guess I'll just have to get Tim and Sarah instead. So good of you guys to step up.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's funny that you're doing your, like.

[JVL]

JVL eraser, JBL eraser, and over.

[Sarah Longwell]

What is a jvl? First of all, you do this to yourself because you. You don't want to talk to people.

[JVL]

I do podcasts all the time.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay, I'm sorry.

[JVL]

I don't do TV because TV doesn't help the bulwark.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's what I. I'm starting to agree with that more and more. Wait, one thing. I. All right, I'm gonna have to do it after the paywall because I don't think I can just put it on main. But I'm gonna tell you something about something somebody told me about you that is gonna make you so happy. But I will just say, as a broad matter, this person was saying to me, I. I love JBL so much, but he's, like. He's like a secret. He's, like, elusive. Like, you can't. You can't find him. And I was like. I was doing this exact thing where I was like, oh, really?

[JVL]

I answer every fucking email that comes to me from anybody in the world.

[Sarah Longwell]

I was like, JBL feels chronically, like, abused by the fact that Tim and I get, like, TV people treatment and you get writer treatment. But you know what? You're the better. You have the better medium you have, the more fervent fan base.

[JVL]

I'm on YouTube. YouTube counts for something. I did a million YouTube views yesterday. I know.

[Sarah Longwell]

We. I. Yes.

[JVL]

It's not like I don't exist. It's not like I'm Nick Katagio. Nobody's even my face.

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You're the heart.

[Sarah Longwell]

You are the beating heart of the Bulwark. But just to get away from your. This for one second, I will say people should listen to the Sam Harris thing.

[JVL]

They should. It's a very good. It's a very good podcast, actually.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, it's funny to be interviewed by somebody who, like, is zooming out on us as opposed to all of us, the way we talk to each other.

[JVL]

By good podcast, I just mean it's a great conversation with the two of you. I don't listen to Sam's show regularly, so I'm not passing. I'm sure it is a great podcast. I'm not passing judgment either way on it. I mean, that this particular episode with you and Tim, anybody who likes you guys should. Including me, should go listen to it. It's very good.

[Sarah Longwell]

Part of the reason it was good is that I think we. Nobody asks us that often, especially together. Like, so what is. How did all of this start? You know, what did you do? And I think that we told this story a lot in the beginning, and sometimes we get a lot of comments. You know, one of my complaints where you get Sarah being, like, grumpy the way is when people are like, Sarah sounds like she just can't let go of her Republican roots and I'm always like, or maybe this is just my analysis based on listening to voters many times a week. And it has nothing to do with my Republican roots. Because if people had been here since the beginning, they would have heard us churn over there. Like, they have not reckoned with what they've done. I'm like, have you read. Tim wrote a whole book about it.

[JVL]

I've been listening. Here's the thing I see all the time. I've been listening to Tim's podcast for three weeks now, and these people have never reckoned with their Republican. I'm just like, I'm sorry. We've all been doing this for a decade, and we put out, you know, 100 podcasts a week plus 70 articles a week. And you can't just. Anyway, my favorite thing that drives me crazy about you is when I see people say, sarah can't wait to go running back to voting for Republicans again.

[Sarah Longwell]

I'm just like, oh, my God.

[JVL]

What the Are you guys talking? Have you listened to her? Do you understand the contempt she has for this entire party and its voters?

[Sarah Longwell]

It does make me.

[JVL]

That's not a thing that's gonna happen.

[Sarah Longwell]

But actually, the one that makes me the angriest is when they're like, you know, you just sit there and you want to go back to the Republic, and you guys don't do anything about it. And I'm like, I have spent over $100 million, okay, trying to defeat Republicans in actual elections for the last 10 years. Like, what are you talking about?

[JVL]

I sit in 40 hours of focus groups a week so that I can figure out good messaging. And then I fundraise hundreds of millions of dollars to run ads to move voters in key districts and swing states. What do you mean? I'm not doing anything.

[Sarah Longwell]

I just. This is part of it is. It's a. This is great.

[JVL]

This is Festivus. We're doing area of grievances.

[Sarah Longwell]

I know, but the reason. Well, it's for a good. It's a good thing, actually, because what it signifies, and this gets back to my point, is that there's a lot of people who have not been with us from the beginning. Right? We have grown so much. There's a new audience for things. And so, like, they missed an entire era of the bull work where we're like, we did all this stuff, and now we are kind of firmly in a rhythm of the day to day. But that is why when Sam Harris was kind of asking about this, and, like, I forget that a lot of people don't know that Tim and I used to work together, that we've known each other since we were in our. He was in his early. I was in my mid-20s. And that, like, just like, people don't know that when you say my best friend, people are like, oh, are you guys best friends? And we're like, we are very good. We are all very close. We have all been doing this together for a long time. We all have real life best friends that have been our friends for like a million years, like the bridesmaids at my wedding. But yes, we are very good friends. However, the best friend thing was a joke in the beginning because we started a podcast. This podcast was like one of the first ones that wasn't the anchor podcast. And we didn't know each other at all, like, even, like a little.

[JVL]

So I promise we're going to talk about real things. But yesterday I was playing around with Claude. I do not do a lot of AI agenting, but I, I'm. I'm doing it for a piece today. And so I asked Claude, don't just finish swallowing whatever you just took a sip of, because I don't want you to spray it all over the computer. So first I asked Claude who JVL is, and Claude gave me a very good answer.

[Sarah Longwell]

You didn't ask, what is a jvl?

[JVL]

He did not. Claude knew who the fuck I was. Do you know who I am? Then I asked if JVL and Sarah Longwell are best friends. And Claude gave me like three paragraphs from, like, the two of them obviously have a very, very close relationship. They are obviously close and personally connected offline as well as in their work relationship as people who founded a company, blah, blah, blah. And then I asked Claude, who does Sarah prefer, Tim Miller or jvl?

[Sarah Longwell]

It's a jvl, right?

[JVL]

Claude said, you know, I can't really say, you know. And he big, you know, explained the relationship he had with both of us and how clearly the three of us are all very close together and that, you know, you like both of them. And who could say it's like choosing.

[Sarah Longwell]

You guys are like my children. Yeah, you guys are like my children. Who could choose that twin?

[JVL]

Good, because parents always have favorites.

[Sarah Longwell]

You are just. You. You are a psycho and you have favorites. Not me. I love my kids equally. But this isn't even about the psych.

[JVL]

I've never particularly cared for job.

[Sarah Longwell]

Anyway, the point is Tim and I do some origin story stuff that's pretty fun. We also do some much higher level, like, I think because he was drawing. We don't always with each other. We don't spend a lot of him sitting around being like, how do you guys deal with all of these people you used to know behaving this way? It was a good opportunity to be like. Actually it fills me with murderous rage. And I would like to talk a little bit about that.

[JVL]

It was so hot. It was really good. All right, so we're going to talk about only good things this week.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, that's impossible.

[JVL]

What do you think about that? Only good things. All happiness first. Being that you and I and Tim and Sam and Bill and maybe other. I don't remember who.

[Sarah Longwell]

All this is a good thing.

[JVL]

We're going to be in Minneapolis next week and it's possible that by the time we get there, ICE will be an actual retreat.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[JVL]

And I can't even tell you how happy this makes me because it feels like instead of this turning into a. Like we're standing there with solidarity during the blitz, we're going to be there at like VE Day. And I.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's nicer for us. We get, we get to go.

[JVL]

I mean, how lucky are we look? We did as fast as we could, if we could. You're right. Do you believe the Tom Homan thing? Like, hey, we're winding down. The operation is real.

[Sarah Longwell]

So to me, I don't know why you would take the political hit of or not political hit, but sort of the, the like, oh, look at them, they're blinking. Why you would take that without actually doing it. Like, that's the worst of both worlds. Like what you want is to have a one time story of they're. They're on their back foot, they're out and hope that it recedes into people's memories as quickly as possible. So the idea that they would say it and then not do it, I don't see why that would be of benefit to anyone.

[JVL]

But, well, what if because they want to keep doing the things they're doing in this way, the rest of the national media just goes and chases the next thing and says, oh, well, I guess it's over. We don't have to look at. Because I have. I, I'm going to be very real with you. I have felt that the media has been doing that since Homan was put in charge and Buffino was demoted.

[Sarah Longwell]

Oh, like they've kind of been like, okay, adults are there.

[JVL]

Like, yeah, oh, yeah. So Minneapolis is done when on the ground, it has not been done. Like it is still happening. This is. And I, it makes me angry on behalf of the people of Minneapolis who I just feel cannot be recognized enough for the service they have rendered to the nation. And it's part of the reason we're going there. It's actually the entire reason we're going.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's the entire reason we're going there.

[JVL]

To the people who live there.

[Sarah Longwell]

Can I make a separate point on this? So this is. Sorry, this is also self referential to media, but like I. Our friend Mark Leibovich had called me for a story that he was doing about how Democrats. It was. It's a little bit of one of these Democrats in disarray stories. Although not.

[JVL]

Was this the Atlantic piece that you're. The Atlantic where you started shouting and then, but then you apologized. That's like the softer gentleman.

[Sarah Longwell]

I just said, I said I was, I was, he was asking me about Democratic kind of groups and the, the party in its reaction. And I was like, Republicans are over here being straight up mercenaries. Democrats give everybody Fridays off and talk about work life balanced. She apologized for yelling into the phone. Democrats are not built for when the fascists come. She concluded. And I, I've some, A lot of people have been texting me, being like, that was funny. And I did sort of. I know Mark. And I got, I forgot myself a little bit and was like, got myself wound up yelling. Although it's the same. It's not, it's the same thing I talk about all the time. But I want to make a distinction because some people were like mad in the comments. They were like, look what's happening in Minnesota.

[JVL]

Right?

[Sarah Longwell]

And, and I got to say, I.

[JVL]

Know exactly what you're. What you meant.

[Sarah Longwell]

This is a, this is a. The problem, and I, I said this on TV last night too, is there is a big asymmetry, a big gap between what the voters are or what regular people are doing. We want to categorize them as voters because that's a political science term. This is like in human American terms, there are people putting their bodies out in the street every day in the freezing cold after ICE has shown that it is willing to murder people in cold blood for protesting. I'm saying that the energy that Democrats should bring, if you were in any activist group is that if you think that you should be talking about taking Fridays off and you know, starting a union at your non profit organization that's supposed to do voting rights or whatever, or your Chuck. Well, you're Chuck Schumer or you're any Democrats that's like going through the Regular process and talking about stuff. I'm like, no, the energy that everyone wants is what those people are doing. You owe it to them. You owe it to them to stand up. And I'm sorry, for every 26 year old who works at a lefty nonprofit, you owe it to them, actually. Like, that's, that's the energy everybody has to bring. That's what you do when the fascists come. And so that was the point I was making.

[JVL]

Fully agree. So you, you are. Well, you know, I guess we'll see. Like, we'll. We'll get there on Wednesday and, you know, things will either be close to back to normal or they won't be. And, but boy, I mean, if the people of Chicago and then the people of Minneapolis are able to have defeated these DHS thugs, that will be pretty encouraging. Yes, I would say, because it also means then there's a playbook. Now. It comes with a cost. God, it comes with a horrible cost, but it means that the next city will be that much more prepared.

[Sarah Longwell]

Actually, I wanted to ask you this. So my interpretation of what has happened as a. Is that it has ice, is what ICE did in Minneapolis and the way that it has turned public opinion against ICE and against the masked agents in the streets, to me is a big knock on Trump's ambitions to use his private army to, to chill the elections in 2026. But I wonder if you agree with that, because part of me wondering about them finally pulling out is that they want some distance between America's frustrations with ICE before we get to. Or border patrol or just Trump's, you know, goons out everywhere. They want people to kind of forget before the election. They can't remain, have it be so acute. So, like, it's good that they're blinking, but do you think that it's. It then creates a false sense of safety or so.

[JVL]

So this is an excellent segue into the Wall Street Journal piece that's up this morning, which is a huge takeout on Kristi Noam, which I think can only be read as a Team Homan sourced attack. Yeah, Unknown. So it is. I mean, this is an absolute dump of everything that everybody inside DHS is seeing. It is. The headline on it is how Corey Lewandowski fired a Coast Guard pilot after Kristi Noem left a blanket of hers on a plane.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, I saw that.

[JVL]

Which is just amazing.

[Sarah Longwell]

I wonder how it'd be the pilot's fault.

[JVL]

The entire thing. I mean, there's so much in there. And one of the things that Drives me insane is the. And I'm sorry, this is a sidebar. So Corey Lewandowski was, is one of these special political advisors who is brought in, you know, with 130 day limit and they've just lied about it to the point that he has other people swipe to enter the building so that his badge isn't registering his presence in.

[Sarah Longwell]

The building so that he can extend the 130 days.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Right.

[JVL]

And this is like, it's like the Hatch act, you know, which I go crazy. It's. We have these, these rules and laws which are in place for reasons and they're just disregarded and once they're disregarded, like they're just gone. Like you can pretend that like, well, the Hatch act still exists. No, it doesn't. Right. It's gone. The Hatch act is now like a piece of manners. It is. Should you say excuse me after you belch, you know, like it's. Anyway, one of the things that is buried deep in this piece is that Lewandowski and Gnome have wanted from the beginning the ICE and DHS and border patrol people to be taping all of their confrontations so they can use that video on social media. And they want like the most outrageous confrontations possible because they wanted to make, they want it to be war. And Homan's view is we should be doing this shit quietly. What are you talking about? Yeah, and ah, I mean doing it quietly seems potentially dangerous as well for other reasons. Now this is why it's important to have citizens documenting things. But it worries me that the Hohman approach is, is merely going to be, yes, we should be doing all this shit, but we should be trying to prevent people from noticing that we're doing it.

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[Sarah Longwell]

I do think that this is where it's like a corollary to our stove touching, which is in some ways the clownishness of these people is both some of the most alarming elements, like how clownish Kash Patel is, how clownish Pete Hegseth is. Like these are serious roles with serious obligations and to have clowns in those roles is bad. On the other hand, having people who are obviously clowns that the American people can see the overreach and experience it as opposed to having it done out of sight is better. Like, it is better that we can all see what ICE is doing and have a public reaction to it. Because I think Homan is strategically correct and we know this from voters all the time. It's like if you can just, just put it somewhere where it's not in their faces, they'll treat it like it doesn't exist. And so the it is the in the face nature of this, whether it was se cot or everything that has been slowly eroding public opinion, like the miscalculation of Lewandowski and Gnome, is that they're playing to an audience of Stephen Miller sadists and they think that that is the majority of the electorate and they're wrong. Or at least the Republican electorate and they're wrong.

[JVL]

Well, I mean, they may be.

[Sarah Longwell]

I'm not sure they're wrong about the majority, but they're they're not. They are wrong about both independents and some subset of the Republican electorate.

[JVL]

Right. But good for the I mean, Kristi Noem would be Tom Homan for a Republican presidential nomination as a friend.

[Sarah Longwell]

Sure.

[JVL]

With this. Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

And can I also just say Homan is still corrupt. Like this is Mr. Kava Bag taking 50 grand. He's a bad guy but just because he has more than. You're right about this manners piece, but he worked in multiple administrations, and so he has this veneer of. He operates like a regular person in these spaces. And he knows how to talk to the press, which is why he's not so fun for the press. Like, it's fun to talk to Corey and Gnome because they sound like unhinged lunatics, whereas Homan gives them normal politician vibes that aren't as fun. But he's doing the same thing.

[JVL]

Yeah. And this is why the. The documentation is so important. So I don't know if you listen to the Will Stancil episode with Tim, one of the best episodes Tim has done. I hope Will is at the show. I'd like to thank him personally. But one of the things he talked about is how you see ice grabbing somebody off the street, and if you can't get that person's name, then they're just gone. This is like being in. Pick your European country in the 1930s. Right. And the secret police show up and grab somebody. There is no paper trail. There's no, like, place to file a request and find. I mean, that person has just disappeared into the lay archipelago. Right. And I. I mean, that's. It's terrifying. And if Homan is able to do that more under the radar, that's bad. And it will require actually more citizen action in order to document this stuff, because the Democratic Party does not yet have the power to exercise oversight and may not have the power to exercise oversight. I mean, even if they take control of Congress, that's still 11 months away before they're empowered to do those sorts of things. And it is not clear that the executive branch would comply with demands from, say, the House to give us the list of every detention you can show us. We wa. Show us the list of every person you've detained and where they have gone and where they are now and who. You know, like, who's. Who badged them in and out of each part of the system. Like, this is all being done as if it's like a gang grabbing a rival gang member off the street.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. And these are. These are human beings. This is where. This is where, like, I. It's always uncomfortable to make comparisons to the 1930s, because we know how that ended, and where we are now is not where it ended. Right. And so we're not making a comparison to that. We are making a comparison to how it started, which is like, the part that everyone tolerated, the part that everyone let happen because they were Being slow walked into it and the people that it was happening to didn't concern them at first. And so that's the comparison.

[JVL]

Yeah. Do you think Gnome survives this in, in the long run here? I mean, this piece is pretty tough because it makes her look foolish, which is a thing Trump doesn't like. Like she, she reflects badly on Trump in this.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, but so does Hegseth and so does Cash. And here's the one thing on the will, so and so. So you know, Bondi, the thing that Trump seems to be doing differently this is we tend to play the parlor game of will they, won't they survive? And like, I think that the answer tends to come down to whether or not they themselves can absorb the humiliation and not whether or not Trump will do something about it. Because I think for Trump, anybody who's this deep with him now, I think number one, he feels like in his first term, firing people ended up being one of his weak points because it looked like him blinking or making concessions in some way. And instead he was just like, no, I, I'm gonna let these guys, like, I won't, I won't bow to the media. And also they're all, they all have the number one thing he wants out of them, which is loyalty to him. Like, Pam Bondi's performance was professionally and personally humiliating for her. It will haunt her for the rest of her life, but she was willing to do it because Trump's not mad about that performance. Trump's not mad that she didn't, that she obfuscated and, and went on offense throughout the whole thing and called people names in order to filibuster so she didn't actually have to answer questions like, and when you say, like, oh, there's so much embarrassing stuff in here, I mean, you're talking about Lutnick, who is been caught red handed lying about the Epstein files. And like, in the best way where, like he actually gave people a hero's journey version of it that like, was quickly devolved into, oh, no, actually, like, not only did you take your family and your nanny there, but like, you started a business with this guy. Like, you were neighbors with him. You're so like, everyone's like, this is ridiculous. Do you think Trump gets rid of Lutnick when Trump also has been lying about his relationship with Epstein? Like, part of it is for Trump to blink on any of them is to implicate himself and so right to. I don't know. It's. Some of it I think does depend on, I think you end up if Noem goes, it's because someone like Stephen Miller says she's imperiling our whole thing. And. And I hate her personally. You know, like it is probably Kremlin ology.

[JVL]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

Of the inside more than it is Trump. Because as best I can tell, I mean, you think signal gate wasn't one of the most humiliating things for the administration? Like they don't know how to do war plans without putting journalists on a signal chain. I mean, at what point, like they can withstand a lot of humiliation.

[JVL]

God, that's true. Okay, more happy stuff again. This is all happy. I want to talk to you about some poll numbers we've seen about voters really missing Joe Biden's economy, which is Joe Biden.

[Sarah Longwell]

Joe Biden 2028.

[JVL]

And you're going to say something nice about me, but we got to do that on the other side.

[Sarah Longwell]

I am going to say something nice about you guys.

[JVL]

Hit. Like hit subscribe and for the love of God, just come and join Bulwark Plus. And we're growing so fast. It's really nice. And the more people we get into the community, the more we can do.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. The more unemployed Washington Post journalists we can hire, the more we can try to figure out how to give jobs to a cratering industry. Like help us grow. Help us.

[JVL]

The more we can cover important stuff.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, that's right. We are doing. We are flying to Minneapolis. We're doing two sold out shows. We're giving all the proceeds away to a charity. And you know why we can do that? Because you guys pay to subscribe to this. And that keeps us where we need to be so we don't have to, we can say we're not. We don't need to make the profits off this show like where we don't have to be in that mode. And so that's why you should subscribe.

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