1078: This is The Stupidest War You Can Possibly Imagine

Summary

The Next Level Podcast – Episode 1078: "This is The Stupidest War You Can Possibly Imagine"

Date: May 5, 2026
Hosts: Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller, Sam Stein, with guest Bill Kristol
Producer: Sam Stein
Podcast Description: Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller, and Jonathan V. Last (JVL, absent this week) discuss the week’s political news, campaign developments, and pop culture feuds with their signature sharp analysis and trademark banter.

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on the unraveling situation between the United States and Iran, with the hosts dissecting President Trump’s handling of the ongoing military conflict, the economic and political fallout, congressional evasion, and the administration’s chaotic messaging. The crew also covers domestic political scandals, the mechanics and importance of the DNC, pivotal Senate races, and the shifting strategies in the 2026 campaign season.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Iran Conflict: "The Stupidest War You Can Possibly Imagine"

• The hosts react to the latest escalation between the U.S. and Iran, namely missile and drone attacks and the U.S. intervention in the Strait of Hormuz.
• Discussion of Pete Hegseth’s press conference and his now-infamous coinage of the “red, white and blue dome” – a purported U.S. defensive project.
• Skepticism abounds regarding the administration’s attempt to frame the conflict as a “new operation,” rather than a continuation of the existing war in Iran.
• The group analyzes the war’s PR spin, focusing on the strategy of redefining missions to avoid Congressional approval under the War Powers Act.

Notable Quote:
“It is about the stupidest war rationale that you could possibly imagine. Everyone is 12, including the people running the war.”
— Sam Stein, [08:48]

2. Congressional Evasion and Linguistic Gymnastics

• The administration’s rebranding of operations is critiqued as a ploy to reset the 60-day War Powers clock and avoid a formal congressional vote.
• Hosts question why Trump’s team is so desperate to avoid congressional approval, when it’s likely Republicans would bear the bigger electoral risk.

Notable Quote:
“I just think this is an attempt to evade Congress again… This is about just rhetorically messing with the timetable in which the first operation was declared.”
— Sarah Longwell, [08:53]

Memorable Moment:
Discussion devolves into laughter as they debate if “kamikaze dolphins” mentioned in right-wing media are actual trained dolphins used in attacks or some kind of code for a weapon.
— [06:49–08:13]

3. Economic Fallout: Gas Prices and Domestic Pain

• Gas prices have soared: from $2.86 before the conflict to over $5/gallon in some areas.
• The hosts highlight the ripple effects: supply chain delays could keep prices high for the next year or more, especially for jet fuel and air travel.
• European and Asian reactions increasingly include hedging away from reliance on the U.S., exacerbating diplomatic strains.

Notable Quotes:
“It fucking sucks. Filling up your tank is a bitch right now… I looked over and it’s $70. And I was like, what the hell’s going on?”
— Bill Kristol, [12:46]

Insight:
International relations are suffering: Allies question U.S. reliability, and Canada is making deals with China as countries adapt to the unpredictability of Trump’s foreign policy.
— [18:15–20:21]

4. Political Consequences: Trump’s Bubble and Cratering Polls

• Trump shields himself from negative feedback, living in a closed information loop that filters out criticism.
• The Atlantic’s “YOLO Presidency” feature is cited: Trump views himself in the mold of great leaders (Alexander the Great, Caesar, Napoleon), and increasingly disregards public opinion or polling.
• National poll numbers are dire: 37% approval, significant negatives on virtually every issue.

Notable Quotes:
“He’s got this kind of closed-in echo chamber. The advisors don’t tell him bad news, they just feed him good news. He watches only conservative media…”
— Bill Kristol, [23:35]

Memorable Moment:
Discussion about Trump’s internal meetings being “slob fests”—everyone just flatters him.
— [26:28–27:12]

5. DNC Leadership & The Modern Political Machine

• Debate over whether the DNC, under Ken Martin, is failing or if national party committees simply matter less in 2026.
• Arguments that modern campaigns are more about individual candidates’ fundraising and digital-first organizing, as opposed to centralized party infrastructure.
• State-level investments and candidate-level fundraising are crucial, especially in less-glamorous or smaller races that fly under the national radar.

Notable Quotes:
“I just don’t think these jobs really matter anymore… The campaign committees matter more.”
— Tim Miller, [33:32]

Counterpoint:
“But secondarily it’s about coordinating messaging, infrastructure needs, investments, resources…having that sort of centralized coordinating entity that’s well funded and can drive messaging is still important.”
— Bill Kristol, [35:07]

6. Domestic Policy: Senate GOP Reconciliation Bill

• Senate Republicans’ reconciliation proposal is panned for prioritizing billions for immigration enforcement, a billion for Trump’s ballroom, and little else of meaningful benefit to average Americans.
• The group calls the measure political malpractice, especially given economic anxieties.

Notable Quotes:
“72 billion for immigrant detention centers and a new ballroom for Trump and more money for the Justice Department to go after political foes… That’s it. That’s what they’re going to do.”
— Tim Miller, [41:00]

“They don’t care about the ballroom per se. They care about the idea that he’s focused on the ballroom while he’s not focused on reducing their prices.”
— Sarah Longwell, [44:42]

7. Senate Races: Maine and the Rise of Graham Platner

• Janet Mills has dropped out of the Maine Senate race; Graham Platner is now the presumed Democratic nominee.
• Hand-wringing over Platner’s tattoos and online history ("Nazi tattoo" controversy) is dismissed as irrelevant by both local voters and the hosts.
• The group notes a shift in what voters want: age and a willingness to throw punches at incumbents outweigh biographical baggage.

Notable Quotes:
“There’s no evidence that he’s a Nazi. He has one skull tattoo and people are like, Nazi… I just don’t think that works anymore.”
— Sam Stein, [51:05]

“…Voters are just in the mood for somebody who is going to light up Susan Collins…They just see him as being able to do that.”
— Sarah Longwell, [54:01]

Memorable Moment:
Focus group insight: Democrats care more about Platner’s energy and ability to attack Susan Collins than about his past online posts or tattoos.
— [53:54–55:59]

8. Texas GOP Runoff and the Resource Race

• Discussion on whether Democrats should focus fundraising on Texas, given the likely bruising GOP contest between Ken Paxton and John Cornyn.
• Calculus involves weighing the high cost of competing in Texas against cheaper (Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska, Montana) or potentially more winnable states.

Insight:
“The amount of garbage on [Paxton]…I want Ken Paxton to win because number one, that gives Tal Rico the best chance in like an incredible year to eke something out.”
— Sarah Longwell, [68:59]

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Featured and Notable Quotes

• “It is about the stupidest war rationale that you could possibly imagine. Everyone is 12, including the people running the war.”
  — Sam Stein, [08:48]

• “Filling up your tank is a bitch right now… I looked over and it’s $70."
  — Bill Kristol, [12:46]

• “He’s got this kind of closed in echo chamber… He watches only conservative media… That allows him to do things like build a ballroom and an arc and… talk about how he’s the peer of Julius Caesar…”
  — Bill Kristol, [23:35]

• “You’re pinching pennies now because the gas is…$70 to fill up your tank. And this is what we…do with your money.”
  — Sam Stein, [42:26]

• “Gas is at 7 bucks for over a month. I could see it (Trump hitting ‘the Mitch line’ in approval).”
  — Sarah Longwell, [30:57]

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Memorable Moments & Banter

• Extended riff on “kamikaze dolphins” and absurd war propaganda [06:49–08:13]
• Multiple callbacks to poll numbers—“the Bush line,” “the Mitch line”—and gallows humor about presidential unpopularity benchmarks [30:22–32:17]
• The group speculates how negative attention from party elites can sometimes strengthen outsider candidates rather than harm them (Trump/Platner parallels) [59:02–60:32]
• A running joke about being “12-year-olds” and Sarah not getting any laughs for her “below the bush line” polling joke [32:03–32:16]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Iran conflict and press conference breakdown: [03:41–09:34]
• Evasion of congressional war vote and political consequences: [09:34–12:44]
• Economic impacts—gas, travel, global repercussions: [12:44–20:21]
• Trump’s bubble and polling, Atlantic’s “YOLO Presidency” piece: [21:05–24:58]
• DNC discourse and modern campaign mechanics: [32:17–39:32]
• Senate Republican reconciliation bill takedown: [39:47–46:15]
• Maine Senate Race & Graham Platner analysis: [48:57–57:52]
• Texas, Senate races, resource allocation: [63:56–68:59]

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Final Thoughts

This episode is a sharp, signature mix of political analysis, gallows humor, and campaign insight. The hosts are deeply skeptical of the administration’s Iran strategy, paint a dire picture of the economic/political costs, and eviscerate both the shallow branding of military operations and the GOP’s domestic legislative priorities. The conversation then turns to the nuts and bolts of political infrastructure—how the DNC is viewed in the modern era, why some races may defy conventional wisdom, and how voter attitudes are evolving in real time. The hosts’ banter and cultural references, along with focus group data, keep the episode lively and relatable amid the grim news.

Takeaways:

• The war with Iran is seen as both farcical and perilous, with dire strategic and economic repercussions.
• Trump’s administration is portrayed as insular, unresponsive to negative feedback, and obsessed with vanity projects.
• Old models of party power are fading; candidate-driven campaigns matter more.
• Voters are hungry for authentic, combative candidates—even those with baggage—if they’ll fight incumbents.
• Senate, and especially down-ballot, races may hinge more on local mood and individual candidate profiles than national narratives.

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For more episodes and Bulwark live events, visit thebulwark.com.

Transcript

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[Tim Miller]

Nixon hit 24

[Sam Stein]

of August of 74 okay.

[Sarah Longwell]

See, it's doable.

[Tim Miller]

The dick line, the tick. We got it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Hello everyone and welcome to the next level. I'm Sarah Longwell, publisher of the book. I'm here with my best friends Tim Miller and Sam Stein. Sam the producer tried to make me say colleague, but after JBL shift us in the heart last week by calling Tim and I colleagues, I wasn't going to do that to you and I

[Tim Miller]

was just going to say JBL is

[Sam Stein]

not here so we're just going to do it.

[Tim Miller]

I think he should be pretty nervous about losing his best friend status to Sam. Sam is in the office with you.

[Sam Stein]

I've been noticing you guys getting chummy. I've been hearing about some out of

[Tim Miller]

office hangs I think should be nervous about where his standing is in the best friends ranking. And frankly, I have a bone to pick with him a little bit today because his newsletter, his triad today, which

[Sam Stein]

I know Sarah didn't read, I read it.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's about my focus group is pro

[Tim Miller]

stoking the flames of conspiracy around the correspondence dinner and I've done like eight content activations against this and he did not tell me it was coming. He's skipping TNL today so I don't get to fight with him over it. And I'm a little, I'm not really hurt, but you know, I'm a little, I'm a little, I don't know, I'm a little hot under the collar. I'm a little hot under the collar about it. So there we go. So jvl, watch out. Third best friend status.

[Sarah Longwell]

I could have told you this was Coming because he did this with me on Secret last week.

[Bill Kristol]

Why are we starting on this? Note of friction. Let's not.

[Tim Miller]

There's no friction. JVL's not here. All of us. This is great.

[Sam Stein]

This is the best friend circle now. So sorry, jvl.

[Bill Kristol]

Okay.

[Sarah Longwell]

We love you, jvl and we miss you. Okay, guys, it's Tuesday, which means we have to talk about Iran again. Because the ceasefire that we had supposedly is unraveling again after a series of missile and drone attacks that appear linked to Tehran. The US has also reportedly destroyed seven Iranian small boats because they were trying to stop the US from helping commercial vessels navigate the strait. Pete Hegseth held a press conference this morning. I'm going to play a clip in a second. But he said the US Would be establishing a red, white and blue dome that to protect ships going through the Strait of Hormuz. I've got questions about that. If it's a real dome or if that was a figure of speech, which I'm not sure really.

[Bill Kristol]

Red, white and blue, though. I don't know.

[Sarah Longwell]

I got questions.

[Tim Miller]

I figure a speech would be a

[Sam Stein]

little NC17 if we were still in college in the early aughts.

[Sarah Longwell]

Oh, I don't understand that joke.

[Bill Kristol]

Don't Google it. Giving dumb my batter. Oh, God. Why? Why did I do this?

[Tim Miller]

Just a little Elder millennial here.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's right over my dome. He also said, this is my favorite part. Pete Hegseth said that this operation was a separate and distinct effort from the other operation we started when we went to war with Iran. I want to play this clip. We'll hit you guys on the other side. Seth, last 24 hours or so. Iran's fired at us. We fired at Iran. Just going to ask you more directly. Is the ceasefire over?

[Pete Hegseth]

No, the ceasef is not over. Ultimately, this is a separate and distinct project. And we expected there would be some churn at the beginning, which happened. And we said we would defend and defend aggressively, and we absolutely have. Iran knows that. And ultimately the President is going to make a decision whether anything were to escalate into a violation of a ceasefire. But certainly we would urge Iran to be prudent in the actions that they take to keep that underneath this threshold.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay, we're not getting distracted. This is a separate. And is this. What is this? We're not getting distracted. We're starting a new war. Like what? What is this? What is this? What is this attempt to tease apart Operation Epic Fury and Operation what Is this Red, White and Blue dome? It's got a different name.

[Tim Miller]

Project Freedom.

[Sam Stein]

Project Freedom.

[Tim Miller]

Project Freedom. Which is such an offensive fucking name because it's like they originally started this with a. At least, I mean, had it been competent, at least a noble neocon notion

[Sam Stein]

that the people of Iran needed to be free because they're being killed by the Ayatollah and the regime. That was how the war started. They like to pretend like that isn't how, but it was.

[Tim Miller]

And now we have a new mission in Iran which is called Project Freedom. That has nothing to do with the freedom of the Iranian people or the freedom of the American people. It's about freeing South Korean ships. That's what we're freeing in Project Freedom. We need a dome, a red, white and blue dome to free ships of oil for South Korea. Ships that were moving very freely without a dome before this started 10 weeks ago. And that's the project. Now we're doing Project Freedom.

[Sam Stein]

We need to free the South Korean ships.

[Bill Kristol]

There was a point in there where he was talking about how we just need to get back to the status quo that existed prior to the war. And I just had to scratch my head. Being like that can't be the objective. Just returning to the pre war status quo. But it is the objective. We need to get back to having ships moving through the Strait. Also, I'll just say I, I quickly Urban Dictionary Dome. While we were playing that clip to make sure I understood the right connotation. And I did.

[Tim Miller]

And.

[Sam Stein]

And you shouldn't.

[Tim Miller]

Good job. I know things are getting a little rowdy.

[Sarah Longwell]

Said it, I remembered it. I was, you know. We all heard rap music.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, it's been a while. I wasn't getting any in college.

[Sam Stein]

I was just hearing about it.

[Tim Miller]

Just to be clear, the another thing, the Daily Wire. We don't have any real journalists in these briefings.

[Sam Stein]

We had the Daily Wire this much smaller.

[Sarah Longwell]

He was basically. Hegseth was mostly taking questions from right wing outlets at this press conference.

[Sam Stein]

Almost surprisingly, this guy didn't get fired like everybody else at the Daily Wire.

[Tim Miller]

But he says, can you clarify these reports of kamikaze dolphins that we've heard about? Hexat's response is I can't confirm or deny whether we have kamikaze dolphins. I can confirm that Orion does not. And like that is just. I just encapsulates how fucking stupid and childish. Timeout this whole thing is.

[Sarah Longwell]

Time out. They don't mean the animal dolphins. It must mean it's a weapon of some kind.

[Bill Kristol]

I think they actually mean the dolphins.

[Tim Miller]

No, honestly.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

I believe they're talking about dolphins. I'm not reading the Daily Wire.

[Sarah Longwell]

You think this is.

[Bill Kristol]

Dolphins are very smart, Sarah. Okay? They're very smart.

[Sarah Longwell]

Whether we're. Whether one side has access to dolphins who do kamikaze missions, as opposed to it being the name of a weapon that we have and they don't.

[Sam Stein]

I mean, the New York Post article,

[Sarah Longwell]

I assume it's some kind of submarine missile.

[Tim Miller]

No, it's a picture of a dolphin.

[Bill Kristol]

It is a submarine missile attached to an actual dolphin.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. I mean, this is. But yeah, there's a dolphin on Fox. You've been watching your Jesse Walters Waters World lately, or Secretary I only watched

[Sarah Longwell]

the clips of Jessica Tarlov.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. And so he's. Yeah, that's dolphins. Like kamikaze dolphins. And it's just like they do.

[Sam Stein]

They're doing this.

[Tim Miller]

Like, they're leaking this nonsense because they want the memes and they want to do the GI Joe Rambo thing. And it's like, you know, we. It's like Trump, we won the war.

[Sam Stein]

We won the war. We won the war.

[Tim Miller]

Because they don't have any plan.

[Sam Stein]

They don't have a strategy. They don't know what they're doing.

[Tim Miller]

They're just like, we have this military that has cool toys that can do

[Sam Stein]

cool shit, and we can make things go boom. And they can't make things go boom quite as much. We have more boom making things.

[Tim Miller]

And so that means we're stronger and we win. And it is just an unbelievable. It is about the stupidest war rationale

[Sam Stein]

that you could possibly imagine. Everyone is 12, including the people running the war.

[Sarah Longwell]

I think it's in some ways stupider and in some ways more sophisticated than that. But let me throw this at you, because here's what I think is happening. I just think this is an attempt to evade Congress again, Right? This is about if they reset the timetable. This is all about just rhetorically messing with the timetable in which the first operation was declared. Right. And then that's only the War Powers Acts as that can only run for what is, I think, 60 days without congressional authorization. And so now they're saying, no, no, no, this is a new mission, thereby resetting the clock so that they don't need Congress again for this. Now, this phase in the Strait of Hormuz, doesn't. That is.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah. And he was back. Trump was back today to calling it a skirmish, which he had not been using that word for a little while. So they clearly are trying to evade the idea that we're in a war Obviously, it's silly because we have a blockade going and that's an act of war. And then, you know, there's been fire exchange between the two sides. And the Iranians bombed a facility in uae. I mean, if any, by any definition, we're in hostile confrontation with Iran in a war. But I don't think they want to have a vote for obvious reasons. Although I guess, you know, I was talking with Bill about this. Like, why don't they want to vote? Like, do they think they'd lose the vote?

[Sam Stein]

They don't. Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Or even at a bigger level than that, why do they care? What is this? Finally, Donald Trump cares about following the letter of the law, and it comes to this situation with the war. It's a really good point.

[Bill Kristol]

Why do they care? Is it embarrassing if they lose two Republicans, which would probably be the most, or three, maybe? Like, is that a big, big hurdle for Donald Trump? So I find it a little bit perplexing that they're just trying to evade this vote.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's a good point, in part, because the vote, it actually puts Democrats in a tougher position.

[Bill Kristol]

If you force Dems at this point would just say no, you think that.

[Sarah Longwell]

You don't think anybody would.

[Tim Miller]

And there are only like four of them. And it was Moskowitz who I think

[Sam Stein]

has come back around over the stupidity. It was Landsman. I haven't heard much from what he was wanting lately. It was Gottheimer, who I had on, who I think is still for it, even though he doesn't know why we're doing it. And so that was kind of it. Right. Like, there were only four. I think there were maybe, maybe one or two others. I'm forgetting. So, no, I think it's a harder vote for the Republicans, for sure, because you have.

[Tim Miller]

At least there's another layer of Republicans, like on kind of both wings of

[Sam Stein]

the party that don't want this.

[Tim Miller]

Like, if you're Michael Lawler, like, maybe you are for the Iran war, but

[Sam Stein]

like this, you're already very vulnerable. Do you really want to have to vote on it if you're a MAGA person? Right. Like, if you're Anna Paulina Luna, like, who's pretend. Who's pretending like you're America first and do you really want to vote on this?

[Tim Miller]

I think that's probably why.

[Sam Stein]

And there's probably some people, particularly the MAGA people, that don't want to vote

[Tim Miller]

on it,

[Sam Stein]

but I don't. You know, I mean, they're doing the rhetorical, like, the rhetorical Nonsense is ridiculous. Like, this is a new skirmish, like the war.

[Tim Miller]

The clock stopped when we did the ceasefire.

[Sam Stein]

Why?

[Tim Miller]

Why did the clock stop? War is still going on. Gas prices are still going up. We're still sending people over there. Clock seems like it's on to me.

[Bill Kristol]

It's a soccer match. You add the minutes at the end

[Sam Stein]

of the extended time, you get the extra time. Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

Let's talk about gas prices for one second, because, let's see, one week ago, we were at four dollars and, well, yeah, four. Over four bucks. Four, one, seven five. Right now we're at four, four. 83. So it's jumped week to week. I don't know if you guys been looking. I mean, I saw gas in D.C. for five bucks that was over the $5 threshold. But in late February, 2023, before Trump started this war, the average was $2.86.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, it sucks.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's a big jump.

[Bill Kristol]

It fucking sucks. Filling up your tank is a bitch right now. I, you know, like, I was talking about this the other day. I was just sort of casually checking my phone, looking at slack while the gas was rolling, and I looked over and it's 70 bucks. And I was like, what the hell's going on?

[Sam Stein]

I need to add it. You. You never casually check slack.

[Tim Miller]

You're.

[Sam Stein]

You're intensely checking slack, aggressively checking slack, not noticing it.

[Bill Kristol]

My habits.

[Sarah Longwell]

Tim, you had the gas buddy guy on, didn't you?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I mean, the gas buddy. The interesting thing the gas buddy guy said, and this is in line with

[Sam Stein]

what when I. Joe Weisenthal on, who's more of, like, on the markets, finance side.

[Tim Miller]

And basically the rule of thumb is they think that, like, for every day

[Sam Stein]

the straight is closed, it'll take a week to get supply chains back to the level that they were before. Right.

[Tim Miller]

And so, you know, like, we have

[Sam Stein]

now been in this war, what, 65 days or something?

[Tim Miller]

And so it's like, think about 65 weeks is over.

[Sarah Longwell]

52 weeks in a year.

[Tim Miller]

Exactly.

[Sarah Longwell]

I can do this.

[Tim Miller]

You don't have to be that good at math to do it. It's like, it's over a year.

[Bill Kristol]

Someone checked Sarah's math. Hold on one second.

[Tim Miller]

And. And then these, These morons at FDD

[Sam Stein]

that he's listening to, we can talk about that more if you want to. It's that, I don't know, it's called Mark Dubovitz runs it. They just brought a guy from this group onto the, Onto the negotiating team with, With. With.

[Tim Miller]

With Kushner and Witkoff and, And The FDD guy, you know, if we keep the blockade in place for eight to

[Sam Stein]

nine more weeks, the Islamic Republic will have total economic collapse.

[Tim Miller]

And I'm like, eight to nine more weeks? Like, that's. Do that math Fast, Sarah. That's 60 days. It's another 60 or so days, which means another 60 or so weeks, 120 weeks. I mean, like, we're into 2028 election

[Sam Stein]

season before the gas prices are back down to where they were before.

[Tim Miller]

And that is not. That is. That is if it doesn't hit, like some people are saying that if, if it goes long enough, you know, and. And there are enough gas shortages, then the price is going to hit exponential

[Sam Stein]

growth because there are shortages. So people start bidding up more because they don't want to be the ones that are. That are short.

[Tim Miller]

So, I mean, I. It is.

[Sam Stein]

It's insane that these guys are still

[Tim Miller]

listening to people that are. That are pushing him a direction that is going to cause just major economic pain. And I joked about it on Twitter. I was like, this is. If they keep listening to Mark Dubowitz and fdd, like, we might.

[Sam Stein]

The Bush line is going to be in the rearview mirror.

[Tim Miller]

Like, we're going to get Trump down into single digits.

[Bill Kristol]

I mean, think what's coming up, too. Got Memorial Day, big travel weekend. Got obviously summer travel coming up, all the vacations and flights that people book. July 4th, obviously, big travel weekend. I mean, like, it's been bad, obviously, for obvious reasons. I think it's going to get even more acute for people when they actually have to book these trips and take these trips. And I don't know if I. It's hard to say apples to apples, because I. I kind of vaguely remember the sort of obsessive news coverage about gas prices during the Biden administration, but I do remember a lot of, like, news cameras out at the tank. Obviously, there are the stickers all over the. You know, Joe Biden did this. I don't feel like we've had that type of saturation on the news about gas. I know. It's definitely been in the news. I'm not going to say it hasn't, but I feel like it could get worse for him.

[Sam Stein]

Definitely.

[Tim Miller]

It's definitely getting worse. I think it's coming. And the other thing you mentioned, the air travel. So, like, jet fuel is different.

[Sam Stein]

You know, we're all pretending to be.

[Tim Miller]

I'm not a control engineer.

[Bill Kristol]

The gas buddy, buddy.

[Tim Miller]

You know, anytime this stuff happens, I'm. I am a. I'm a crammer. I was a crammer back in college

[Sam Stein]

and I'm a crammer now.

[Tim Miller]

So if something happens like this, I'll get nerd. I'll follow like five different gas buddies

[Sam Stein]

and petroleum accounts and I'll read everything that they write for like four weeks. And then I'm going to forget it by Thanksgiving. But like right now I'm up to

[Tim Miller]

speed and like the, the jet fuel

[Sam Stein]

prices are such now and now I'm going to, after I bragged, I can't remember exactly it is, but it's a

[Tim Miller]

certain type of Boeing jet.

[Sam Stein]

But just like just using as a

[Tim Miller]

rule of thumb, just like it costs so much to fill that up now that the gas prices alone, the fuel

[Sam Stein]

prices alone, excuse me, are like $400 per person on the plane, right? So if you're flying a certain length, right, like not like, not like D.C. to New York, but like D.C. to New Orleans or whatever, like it's going

[Tim Miller]

to cost them basically 400 bucks ahead. And so just like think about that.

[Sam Stein]

And you haven't paid stewardesses, you haven't paid the pilots, right?

[Tim Miller]

Like you haven't paid the idea that

[Sam Stein]

you are getting these $300 plane tickets to go to Disney World or go see grandma or to go whatever, to go to Yosemite.

[Tim Miller]

Like, it's not, if you haven't booked those tickets, like, it's not happening.

[Sam Stein]

It's getting worse.

[Sarah Longwell]

I saw that. I can't remember which country it was, but somebody, one of the major countries is like rolling back the flights, like they are not going to let people fly.

[Bill Kristol]

Germany definitely canceled flights.

[Sarah Longwell]

You know, America, it's both our, we are the ones who initiated this. We will also be the, some of the most insulated people on the globe. But it's still getting quite bad for America. And this is what Iran knows. They know that the American public's threshold for pain on gas prices is not high at all and that that is putting a ton of pressure on Trump. And they think they got the time, they got the time to hold us there.

[Tim Miller]

The other interesting thing about this is

[Sam Stein]

when you mentioned the geopolitics in those other countries. I was with our friend David Fromm last night. I don't think he'll mind me saying

[Tim Miller]

this like he's saying it publicly, but like we were just talking about around

[Sam Stein]

a couple months ago when there was,

[Tim Miller]

I forget what was that big confab

[Sam Stein]

in Europe where AOC gave a speech and Marco gave a speech. They had all the speeches that were being given. And Mark Carney gives Munich Security. Yeah. Munich. Thank you.

[Tim Miller]

It was Munich.

[Sam Stein]

Mark Carney gives a speech where he's like, we need to start thinking about a world without trusting the US that

[Tim Miller]

was all over these kind of more soft geopolitical choices. Can we trust them? The tariffs, NATO, they seem a little more erratic.

[Sam Stein]

Like this is exacerbating that to a major degree. Right?

[Tim Miller]

Like, if you're in these countries and you're like, Trump didn't even call us. We get into this stupid war.

[Sam Stein]

He's been tariffing us, he's been shit talking us.

[Tim Miller]

And now it's like my citizens are pissed at me because it's like my

[Sam Stein]

fault, you know, because people get mad at their local politicians, like, why is my, why are my energy prices up?

[Tim Miller]

And it's like, fuck this guy. And I was talking to from about this and it's just like from could not be more of like a free

[Sam Stein]

market, anti communist person in the entire world, like most free trade anti communist imaginable.

[Tim Miller]

And he was basically just like, it

[Sam Stein]

is rational for the Canadians where he's from now to look at this and say, hey, I. They cut, they just cut some deal with China. It's like they're getting Chinese electric vehicles in now, so they're cheaper for their, you know, for Canadians. And in exchange China's buying some Canadian whatever they make up their Mounties or wheat or something and maple syrup.

[Tim Miller]

And it's like, and it's like, he's

[Sarah Longwell]

like, you're going to hear from our Canadians.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah, I was just going to say I've. I endorse this message.

[Tim Miller]

And he's like, that makes sense. He's like, that makes sense now. And that is all like, that all has.

[Sam Stein]

Anyway.

[Tim Miller]

So it's just, I do think that like the, the other kind of unpredictable

[Sam Stein]

ramifications about the ways that people, you know, are going to react to like the amount of pain that we're causing them, like over the stupid war where we have our Secretary of War out there talking about kamikaze dolphins and, and domes red, white.

[Bill Kristol]

Well, and he's coupling, he's coupling it with reintroducing auto tariffs. Trump is. So it's like, you know, the trade war shit's not over. It's. And I'm a little confused about why and how he's doing it because the Supreme Court smacked him down on the tariff stuff. But maybe that's for another receipts newsletter. But like, you know, he's just at a time when he really could use international alliances and help in figuring this out. He's not taking any proactive steps to rebuild those relations. He's just making them worse.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, you know, Pete Hegseth did say in remarks today that the red, white and blue dome was a gift to the rest of the world from the United States. So why aren't they more grateful? Hey, as we're talking, part of what is crazy about all of this is that for a normal presidency, Donald Trump would be really sweating the fact that his poll numbers are tanking, that gas prices are up, that people are unhappy. And in fact, you know, I think he just came out and said that they were fake polls when he was talking about, I think the Washington Post poll from this week, which has his approval rating, his total approval rating at 37%. His cost of living is at minus 53% approval. Inflation is at minus 45%. The situation with Iran is at minus 33% approval, which means 33% approve and 66% disapprove. Our relations with the US allies are minus 32%. The economy minus 31%. Immigration's minus 19%. The quarter is even minus 9%. Guy has nothing. So he's calling them fake polls. But this is where you start to think, is there nothing that would convince him that the choices that he is making are perilous? But then you remember, Trump doesn't have to get elected again. Trump doesn't really care. And the Atlantic had this great piece this week. I don't know if you guys saw it, the, the great man of history stuff.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, it was my friend Ashley Parker.

[Sam Stein]

She was the one who. Please clap by Jeb. So, you know, we'll just, we have, it's like a friend of me situation with Ashley.

[Sarah Longwell]

Let me just read a couple of key passages. And though Trump has long compared himself to America's two greatest presidents, we were recently told by two people who are in a position to know such things, a senior administration official and a longtime Trump confidant that the president had, in private conversations, begun thinking about himself less as a peer of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

[Bill Kristol]

Okay.

[Sarah Longwell]

And more. In addition to Hagel's immortal trifecta, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Napoleon Bonaparte. And I read this whole piece, and honestly, part of it is a little bit of a joke about whether or not Trump would actually read Hagel, which, of course, I don't think Trump's sitting there thumbing through his Hagel.

[Bill Kristol]

Does Trump know how it ended for Caesar and Bonaparte?

[Sarah Longwell]

I mean, but what do you make of this idea? It's sort of like the YOLO presidency Where Trump is Trump's whole MO now is does Trump get to be in the pantheon of sort of great leaders because he does things that are, that would shake up the status quo, that other people would see as, as having political downsides, but he just cuts right through that. Like, if that's his theory of how he's behaving, I suppose at least that makes sense as to why he's not reacting to the negative stimuli he's getting back.

[Bill Kristol]

Okay, let me take this one and then Tim can tell me if I'm stupid and wrong here because you, you, the last thing you said, I think is the most important, which is, is he reacting to the negative stimuli? And my contention is one way to explain this, maybe not the most persuasive way, but one way to explain this, is that he's not actually getting subjected to the negative stimuli, that he's got this kind of closed in echo chamber. The advisors don't tell him bad news, they just feed him good news. He watches only conservative media. He gets the clips that tell him how great he's doing. Even Fox News programming, which maybe in a prior, the prior administration would have gone and tried to like, you know, subversively send him messaging that things aren't going well. They don't seem to be programming in that way. And so when he does see the occasional negative stimuli, he thinks it's just fake or he bursts out and reacts in childish ways. So like he goes after Jessica Tarlov or Van Jones randomly on, on, on his True Social account. And that allows him to do things like build a ballroom and an arc and you know, focus on the reflecting pool and then talk about how he's the peer of Julius Caesar and then not have any sort of recognition that the path he's crafting is politically treacherous, problematic for his party and for him. I really do think he doesn't get a lot of exposure to anything other than reaffirmation. And that's a huge problem here.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. And he is also even self selecting

[Sam Stein]

the affirmation in a way where before

[Tim Miller]

I do think that he was doing

[Sam Stein]

the thing where he was at Mar a Lago and he's having different people giving different opinions. He's pitting them against each other. Maybe there's a little bit of that,

[Tim Miller]

but there's that article by your boy Max Taney at Semaphore about how he's

[Sam Stein]

talking to Marc Thiessen now all the

[Tim Miller]

time, once a week.

[Sam Stein]

Mark Thiessen is like who writes a horrific column, just literally unreadable like whatever

[Tim Miller]

you think about him. As for his ideology, like the prose

[Sam Stein]

styling is unreadable and, and his like a CD tier Fox guest, you know, he does not even. He's not even getting like the power panel at the Bret Baer slot.

[Tim Miller]

And, and so, but, but he is for the war.

[Sam Stein]

And so Trump's calling him, you know, and he's calling Micropenis Mark Levin, I think, and Lindsay and like that.

[Tim Miller]

And so like he's, you know, Tucker

[Sam Stein]

said that he's not talking to him anymore. So for.

[Bill Kristol]

When's the last Trump had a conversation with someone who didn't suck up to him. When's the last time he left the White House and encountered a voter who did not praise him as the next coming of Jesus? It may have been when he went to that Joe Crab Shack and the Code Pink protesters were like capturing him. That literally could be the last time he was exposed to anyone who didn't absolutely worship the ground he walked on. Every time you have people at the White House, they tell him how great he is.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I think I told the story in this one source. I'll just feel really fast, but I got a friend who was working for

[Sam Stein]

somebody that went to visit Trump and

[Tim Miller]

Trump walks this person around and they

[Sam Stein]

go in to see the Cabinet and

[Tim Miller]

it's like they walk into Besson's office and he's like, hey, Scott, how are things with the economy? Scott's like, great, sir. You're doing wonderful. Everything is great. We're having a golden age.

[Sam Stein]

And they walk down the hall and

[Tim Miller]

they're like, hey, Marco, how are things going around the world? Great. We're respected again, sir. Thank you, sir. And the first thing I knew was

[Sam Stein]

like, what is this?

[Tim Miller]

We thought we were here for a meeting and we're going around. And so to me, that just little anecdote says that's kind of what's happening internally, Tim.

[Bill Kristol]

They do it in public. The cabinet meetings are slob fests.

[Tim Miller]

It's a little more concerning. It's happening in private. I want to kind of think. And we have such smart listeners that

[Sam Stein]

will listen to that.

[Tim Miller]

What was it called, that Hegel's Trio. Hegel's, yes, Hegel's Trio. I want to put him at a.

[Sam Stein]

In a different kind of group, you know, a different foursome of a different kind of trio.

[Sarah Longwell]

What kind of trio?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, well, like the people that ended empires, like Nero, you know, Perseus Marcos. Like, he'll be in history. Like, you'll be on the names of those people. You know, Mugabe maybe. I don't know.

[Sam Stein]

I'm not as good at Eastern Asia history. I don't know. I don't know who's responsible for the death of the Han dynasty, but I

[Tim Miller]

don't know, like, maybe kind of a

[Sam Stein]

four, you know, four leaders that oversaw the fall of empires.

[Tim Miller]

And maybe it's. And maybe that could be him.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. When we committed super power suicide, Donald Trump was there to usher us off this mortal coil. I don't think he appreciates how bad his polling position is. I mean, he's like, yes, he's at 39% in the aggregate for Nate Silver, but like Pew had him down to 34% and a people had him at 33%. So, like, if he keeps this up, I'm gonna have to start talking about how what we do below the Bush line.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, we're gonna go low. That's what I said. The water table.

[Bill Kristol]

There must have been in history someone below the Bush line. Right. Or is Bush the real bottom of the barrel?

[Sarah Longwell]

He's the modern history bottom, I think in modern polling.

[Bill Kristol]

So where was Hubert Hoover? Do we have those poll numbers from like 1930?

[Tim Miller]

I mean, that's, that's kind of anything

[Sam Stein]

before Dewey defeats Truman, I think.

[Bill Kristol]

Sure.

[Sam Stein]

Kind of.

[Bill Kristol]

Okay, fine. Fair enough.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

All right, before we move on to our grab bag of political topics next, I have an ad for us to read. We got to pay some bills. This show is sponsored by Upwork. We know a thing or two at the bulwark about scaling a business and how crazy it is you're trying to keep up with intense demands and in our case, neck breaking news cycles. And finding the right people makes all the difference in the world.

[Sam Stein]

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[Sam Stein]

I've got your new line, Sarah, and it's ambitious.

[Tim Miller]

It's ambitious.

[Sam Stein]

Tell me In August of 2023, Mitch McConnell's approval rating was on. YouGov was 14% favorable, 74% unfavorable.

[Tim Miller]

So that's a minus 60. It's minus. I think getting down to 14 is tough, but could he get to minus 60? That would be. That'd be like 2080.

[Bill Kristol]

2080 is not 2080.

[Sam Stein]

We'd have to get to.

[Bill Kristol]

That's not happening.

[Tim Miller]

Technically 2179.

[Sam Stein]

We could count it at 2179. The Mitch line.

[Bill Kristol]

That doesn't count. That's 58.

[Sarah Longwell]

Gas is at 7 bucks for over a month. I could see it. Okay, all right, well, we'll see. Dude, if I had told you that Trump would be this low, would you, you know like, you know six months ago that we'd be at this stage in polling 30%.

[Bill Kristol]

Six months ago we were talking, I remember, with JVL, about the firmness of his base, the immovability of that 35, 36%. And it looks like we're kind of pushing it a little bit lower here. It would take a lot. I mean, Nixon in the worst days of Watergate never got down the 20. So it seems like that's.

[Sam Stein]

My grandmother never left Nixon.

[Tim Miller]

Our grave.

[Sam Stein]

She defended Nixon to the grave. So she was there.

[Bill Kristol]

Look at Sarah's got to pop another bottle here.

[Sarah Longwell]

I do. I. You're making me. You're forcing me to drink multiple Topo Chico's here.

[Tim Miller]

Nixon hit 24%. It's always in August. Something to throw out there. August 1974. Yeah, Nixon hit 24% of August of 74.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay, see?

[Bill Kristol]

Doable.

[Sarah Longwell]

Maybe it's doable.

[Tim Miller]

We got it.

[Sarah Longwell]

I can't believe I didn't get. I didn't even get a smile from you out of below the bush line. I. I can't believe I got nothing. I like, I did it with a straight face and everyone just let it happen. Okay.

[Tim Miller]

Straight man for that.

[Sam Stein]

Sorry.

[Sarah Longwell]

Speaking of 12 year olds. Speaking of 12 year olds. All right, I want to move on to the dnc. That's going to be our new one. When he was living at 32%.

[Bill Kristol]

It's a low hanging dick.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay, so everyone is still. I don't know if you guys have been following the bit of the. The freak out over Ken Martin's leadership there at the dnc. Lauren Egan had a great piece this past weekend that you guys should go check out. This is really about a couple things. One is lackluster fundraising for the dnc. I think that the. I can't. I don't have the numbers right in front of me. But my recollection is that Republicans. The RNC has raised about $109 million to the DNC is like 23. Like it was something like a 7x Republicans are 7x what the DNC has. But it's also about this, not releasing the autopsy. And so he sat down with Favreau over on Pod Save, gave an answer that didn't seem to satisfy people. What do you guys make? Is this warranted? Do we care? What do we make of the freak

[Tim Miller]

out about point of view? So I did. So I'll be quick because Bill and

[Sam Stein]

I did this yesterday and I just.

[Tim Miller]

And I think it's possible that I'm

[Sam Stein]

biased from having worked at the RNC and seen too much of the sausage.

[Tim Miller]

I just, I don't think these jobs really matter anymore. He's not doing a great job. Does the. Whether he has a. Does a good job. Does that impact elections? Not really that much. The campaign committees matter more.

[Sam Stein]

And I think the DSCC has a really mixed bag.

[Tim Miller]

They made the.

[Sam Stein]

Some really bad mistakes, I think going in with Janet Mills and Haley Stevens in Maine of Michigan. But then they kind of redeemed themselves a little bit recruiting Mary Peltola and

[Tim Miller]

some of the other recruits in some of these other states. So like the DNC just. I can almost just exist as a punching bag and so like sure he should do better.

[Sam Stein]

Like his, his interview on Pod Save America was, was bad. But I just, I don't know how much it like actually matters. At the end of the day.

[Bill Kristol]

That's a really fun. It's funny that you mentioned that because just to sort of pull back the curtain a little bit on Lauren's piece. The origins of the piece were Sheenar talking about Kemar and what was going on. And initially I was like, hey, just go check out what he's doing in terms of expenditures to red states and the 50 state project that he said he's going to do because I want to see if he's actually fulfilling the mission. And she came back and she looked at the numbers and they were like, they weren't. There was no real story there. And then we started talking about. To Tim's point. I was like, maybe the piece is like, does this even matter? Like in the modern age of politics, why do we need the DNC? Like, candidates can raise money on their own. Super PACs can raise a lot more money than the DNC can. You know, do you need this stuff? And I think we came back with a little bit more of a conclusion that doesn't completely jive with what Tim was saying. So the DNC is. And obviously the lead of her story was that the DNC members are not happy. There's been this effort to potentially replace him. Then the question is, well, why replace him with what? And they couldn't find anybody and then replace him. Why? And the why is because the DNC's function is to, yes, raise money and yes, support the state infrastructure and other entities that may not get support from the big time donors because they're concerned about the flashy races. Whereas for instance, the Mississippi State Party is not going to get a lot of money. Sentence way by the DNC can help that. But secondarily it's about coordinating messaging infrastructure needs, investments, resources. You can't talk as a campaign to a super pac. You can signal and they do in creative ways. But like having that sort of centralized coordinating entity that's well funded and can drive messaging is still important. And Martin has not hit the metrics by any stretch of the imagination. I'm not trying to be mean to the guy, but he has not. They are severely outraised, they aren't driving messaging. And honestly the state investments are there, but they're not at like this incredible robust level that it could be materially different. So that's where we ended up with

[Sarah Longwell]

the item that is interesting. I did a take on this a while back when the Q1 numbers came out for the candidates, because to me what seemed very clear is that it is not oftentimes people take the money not really as a reflection of money per se, but as enthusiasm for the party. The candidates, the Democratic candidates, your Tao, Rico, Mary Paltola, I mean Cooper, they're all putting up BAFFO numbers. They are wildly outraising their Republican counterparts at the candidate level, which to me makes perfect sense listening to voters in terms of the mood that they're in, which is not to give to the institutions of the Democratic Party, but to give to the candidates they like themselves. And so I'm not sure I understand your point about that. The DNC could have an important role in coordinating messaging if they were good at that. And I'm not sure that they are. And I'm not sure you're not better off at this point with having James Talrico decide what James Talrico's message is going to be in Texas.

[Bill Kristol]

Except James Talrico can raise $27 million. And it's great for James Talrico, but there's a host of state legislative races in Texas where those candidates aren't going to go viral and get the same type of attention that a James Tal Rico is. And the fact remains that Democratic donors, you know, they've been educated more on this and they are funding more lower level races, including judicial races, which was a big problem back in the day.

[Sarah Longwell]

They raised a ton of money for

[Bill Kristol]

those, you know, but that's because those races all kind of broke through on the cultural zeitgeist. And that's just not possible across the board. They still chase shiny objects. And when you do have that, you do need an entity like the DNC to actually say, hey, you know, we need to make concrete investments, we need to do the type of candidate recruitments, we need to do the type of party building. All the stuff that's the grunt work that won't go to a, you know, that James Tal Rico cannot handle.

[Sarah Longwell]

Right.

[Tim Miller]

I guess, like, the truth is that what I really think about this is

[Sam Stein]

just a little bit of a middle ground from my maximalist position. This doesn't matter.

[Tim Miller]

It is that the role is really

[Sam Stein]

overstated by people on the Internet. Like there's this view that like the DNC represents the party as a whole and they have all this power and like, they kind of don't, but like

[Tim Miller]

there are things they can do.

[Sam Stein]

And I'm pretty sure I said this back when the DNC campaign was going,

[Tim Miller]

which is like, like a party chair

[Sam Stein]

in this day and age, like somebody that's good.

[Tim Miller]

Can I ideally do both of these things well, but would do one of

[Sam Stein]

these things really well, which is either be a spokesperson for the party and go on TV and drive a message and get people excited and raise the salience of crazy stuff the Republicans are doing whatever and, or be really good as an operator behind the scenes and ensuring that the Mississippi state party or

[Tim Miller]

whatever example you have of a state

[Sam Stein]

where the Democrats might be able to swing the state Senate, but it's going to be harder for them to raise money that they can go and ensure that they have the resources to do so. And it's, it does kind of feel like Ken Martin is bad at both of those things. So that's not great.

[Sarah Longwell]

Ben Wickler would have been good at this. My, my Buddy Ben Wickler. That was a missed opportunity, folks. All right, I want to move on to reconciliation because this is an. This is an important one. You've just been waiting for reconciliation.

[Tim Miller]

I have actually been waiting for this. I've actually been waiting for this. It's insane.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's just. Let me set it up. Okay, so Senate Republicans, they released the text for a reconciliation package that would provide billions in funding for immigration enforcement, as well as a billion for the Secret Service for the purposes of security adjustments and upgrades related to the President's ballroom project for those at home. Budget reconciliation allows for budget related bills to pass with a simple majority. And it's how a lot of the big legislation is getting passed these days, like the big beautiful bill and the Inflation Reduction Act. According to Punchbowl, this package includes 38 billion for ICE, 26 billion for the CPB offices. That's Border Patrol. 5 billion for DHS overall, another 1.5 billion for the Justice Department. So they can go prosecute seashell cases, I guess, and 1 billion for the Secret Service. Okay, Tim, this was you.

[Tim Miller]

And that's it. That's what it's funding.

[Bill Kristol]

That's just the DOJ component. That's just the doj? No, no, that's just the Judiciary. No, that's the Judiciary. That is. The Judiciary Committee's.

[Tim Miller]

The 72. It's a 72 billion reconciliation package from the Judiciary.

[Bill Kristol]

Each committee is going to add their own components.

[Tim Miller]

Right, okay, but, like, that's what they're going to do. Yes, 72 billion. Like, this is a midterm election year. We just were talking about how people are upset about costs, how the economy is shaky at best. It's going to get worse. Trump's numbers on the economy are terrible. And they're like, we have this opportunity this year to put forth one bill that we can get passed without the pesky Democrats. And that can be. That can reflect what our priorities are for the American people. And, like, the first thing they've put out is 72 billion for immigrant detention centers and a new ballroom for Trump and more money for the Justice Department to go after political foes. Like, that's. That's it. That's what they're going to do. Like, what. Who, who is. Who wants that? That is not for anybody. If it was a primary and he's back in the primary, it's like. But in this context now, or if it was in 2025, in the context where we are. They have this big midterm up where people are fucking pissed. About prices and costs. Like, we're going to take your money this year and our plan for it is to disperse it to Alligator Alcatraz and. And Todd Blanche and whoever is building the Gold Ballroom.

[Sam Stein]

Like, that's what we're doing with your cash this year. You're harder and taxpayer dollars and you're

[Tim Miller]

pinching pennies now because the gas is. Cost you 70 bucks to fill up your tank.

[Sam Stein]

And. And you're paying a gas tax on that, actually.

[Tim Miller]

And this is what we.

[Sam Stein]

That's what we want to do with your money.

[Bill Kristol]

I will say the. The. The Seashell investigation. You laugh, but it took 11 months. Okay, that doesn't.

[Tim Miller]

It was expensive.

[Sarah Longwell]

It was expensive to. It's a big investigation.

[Bill Kristol]

Those things don't just fund themselves. On the ballroom, I thought I was like, incredulous. The ballroom thing. Can we just like focus on the bomb for a second?

[Tim Miller]

A billion a bill.

[Bill Kristol]

Let's remember where this thing. Let's just remember how he funded. Yeah, he said he was going to fund it privately. It started at $200 million, went to $300 million, went to $400 million. Then Lindsey Graham put together a couple bill for members of Congress for Congress to pass a $400 million appropriation. Now they want a billion dollars. And the funniest thing was is that when this broke last night, Chuck Grassley's spokesperson. Because this is Chuck Grassley's committee that put this out. Like, no, no, no. This is not nothing to do with the ballroom. It's about Secret Service. And we're just getting all these upgrades. And then the White House today is like, thank you for authorizing this for the ballroom. So they just completely stepped on. And I'm shocked, like, legitimately shocked to Tim's point, that they're doing this. It. To think that this is what you would spend. I mean, a billion dollars. If you were thoughtful about the politics of the moment, you would say, you know what? Let's give a million dollar. $1 billion. Let's just do a rebate so people can buy gas. Like a gas rebate.

[Tim Miller]

Some sort of some gimmick. Even if it's stupid, even if Katherine Rampel would be like, that doesn't actually help. Whatever. At least that would be good politics.

[Bill Kristol]

Yeah.

[Sam Stein]

This.

[Bill Kristol]

And I was talking with Bill Kristal this morning about this. Sometimes you ask your party to take uncomfortable votes in an election year because you're trying to further an ideological project. Right. Like, and my example of this was Democrats in 2009, 2010, voted on CAP and trade they all knew it sucked politically, but they did it because it was furthering an ideological project. This is not furthering an ideological project at all. It's furthering Trump's vanity and he's making them vote on this and they're getting nothing out of it.

[Tim Miller]

It.

[Bill Kristol]

Nothing.

[Tim Miller]

It's like the California high speed rail budget. I thought that the Republicans were doing these things efficiently. It's like the number keeps going up, the amount of time it's going to take to do it.

[Sarah Longwell]

I got to tell you, these ads right themselves, because this is what voters are upset about. They don't care about the ballroom per se. They care about the idea that he's focused on the ballroom while he's not focused on reducing their prices. And so to me, every Democrat right now should be caterwauling about the idea that Trump is making you pay for a ballroom while you, you are paying for it. You regular person are paying for his ballroom while you can't afford gas because of the war he started.

[Tim Miller]

The rest of the money is going

[Sam Stein]

to make sure that the masked thugs have more, have more money for, for deeper deportations.

[Tim Miller]

We got to make sure we have

[Sam Stein]

more prisons and detention centers for people

[Bill Kristol]

and a red, white and blue dome.

[Tim Miller]

It's very critical we find the detention

[Sam Stein]

centers and make sure we're holding more people in detention centers that you're paying for that with your tax dollars.

[Sarah Longwell]

And I just want to refer you really quickly to his numbers on border on, like the border and immigration, which are not, it's down. And so it's not even like he's doing it at the point where this is a really politically popular proposition.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, no, it's like, what are you guys getting? Are your schools getting better? You know, are you getting more job opportunities? Are there things coming to your community?

[Sam Stein]

No, no, no.

[Tim Miller]

The only people that if they were,

[Sarah Longwell]

it's the, from the infrastructure bill that Biden passed.

[Tim Miller]

So you're not getting anything. But, you know, the little Nazis running cbp, like they're going to get fancy

[Sam Stein]

new weapons and we're going to have more detention centers and we're going to have a fancy gold ballroom. That's what their priorities are this year in the election year.

[Tim Miller]

I just want to mention for Sarah, I could tell you're about to move on, but I'm a, I'm kind of a keen observer at this point.

[Sam Stein]

We've been working together for a long time and I know when you're pocket vetoing an idea.

[Tim Miller]

And so I just want to say

[Sam Stein]

to the listeners out there.

[Tim Miller]

If, if you happen to have done

[Sam Stein]

well in life, you know, if you're not one of the people who are tightening your belts right now because of gas prices and you want to fund yourself.

[Tim Miller]

The jvl you did it stickers. And you want to bring them to the events.

[Sam Stein]

I land them out. I like that.

[Tim Miller]

We can do it. We can do. It's kind of like at the panic shows where people have the lot tees we can create. Yeah.

[Bill Kristol]

Where do you hand these out?

[Tim Miller]

What do you think about the San Diego. We have live events coming up in San Diego. Get your [e-mail] events San Diego, May 20th.

[Bill Kristol]

But I thought the idea here is to go to red states and just hand people stickers saying you did this.

[Tim Miller]

Well, that's true. Well, I live in Louisiana, so then I'll take them to Baton Rouge.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's not to hand them, it's to put them on the gas. It's about sticking them on the gas tanks so that when people are filling up their gas who voted for Trump, they JBL wants to make sure.

[Bill Kristol]

Oh, I get it. Don't get the concept.

[Sarah Longwell]

I thought you wanted to like hand

[Bill Kristol]

them out distribution is what I'm thinking.

[Tim Miller]

I don't know. They could create a network. We have a community. They could create a network where people mail them to each other. People live in red states and organized out there.

[Sarah Longwell]

All right, yes, I do want to move on. But first, Tim, you have an ad to read from our friends at Green Chef.

[Tim Miller]

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[Sam Stein]

like day one came to visit us for Jazz Fest this year. It was so nice and so special.

[Tim Miller]

She's vegetarian. When we lived in California, that was easy. Louisiana, that created a little bit of a challenge. Created a little bit of a challenge. We did it. We found. And there's some great vegetarian spots, but you got to work for it. And one night it might have been easier just to cook at home using

[Sam Stein]

our friends at Green Chef.

[Tim Miller]

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[Sam Stein]

Wow.

[Tim Miller]

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[Sam Stein]

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[Tim Miller]

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[Sarah Longwell]

Thanks, Green Chef. Okay. Last week, Janet Mills dropped out of the Senate race in Maine, leaving Graham Platner as the presumptive nominee against Susan Collins. This is one of the most important pickup states for Democrats in the Senate. We then proceeded to do what we did do a whole weekend about Graham Platner's tattoo. The, the, the Totenkampf, the Nazi tattoo. How are we feeling about Platner as a general election candidate?

[Tim Miller]

Boys, I wish we were trying this

[Sam Stein]

out in a different state.

[Tim Miller]

You know, I keep saying to the populist lefties, if you want to try this idea, maybe it works. Maybe they're right.

[Sam Stein]

I don't. What the hell do I know?

[Tim Miller]

Maybe the right thing to do is to go after the Obama, Trump voters. Go after working class voters. Have a rough around the edges, working class socialist adjacent guy with some, some kind of strange Reddit posts and weird tattoos. Like, maybe that would work. I don't, I'm open to ideas.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

I'm a little nervous about it in Maine. Susan Collins is pretty tough and she

[Sam Stein]

knows what she's doing, and he's going to give them a lot of fodder for advertising. I think Trump's making the world really easy for him right now and making it tough on Susan Collins. Like, I was watching a Graham Platner clip where he is. He was like, watch.

[Tim Miller]

Susan Collins is also looking old, I should say. Like, it wasn't just Janet Mills. Susan Collins, she was never really the best speaker. Like, I remember, like, meeting her in person in 2016.

[Sarah Longwell]

And I think she's got a paralyzed vocal cord is what it sounds like to me.

[Tim Miller]

She's kind of halting, but, like, as you get older, like, you just look at it. So anyway, it's Platner watching this kind

[Sam Stein]

of one of these reaction videos. And just aesthetically, she, it's just, you know, she's looking old and, but like, the content of it is she's trying to explain the Iran war vote that she's, she supported. And, and she's, it's, it's not really that coherent because it's hard to come up with a coherent defense of what Trump is doing. And then Platner just, you know, flays are like, knocks the COVID off the

[Tim Miller]

ball and, and replying and it's like, that's good. I don't. That's a good contrast for him. I think that I thought that I was much more nervous about this race

[Sam Stein]

before the Iran war than I am right now of presuming it's platinum. I think that he's certainly the favorite. It's not a guarantee. I think that we've done this a million times, but I think that the Nazi discourse is for the Internet only and totally stupid. And there's no evidence that he's a Nazi. He's never done anything that's Nazi. He has one skull tattoo and people are like, Nazi.

[Tim Miller]

And I'm like, I just don't think that that works. I don't think that works anymore. It didn't work in the Democratic primary.

[Sam Stein]

We've seen all his Reddit posts. He was pretty mean to, like, rural people and talked about how black people didn't tip. And, you know, he said he had

[Tim Miller]

some other off color comments. No other evidence that he's a Nazi. Like, I'm going to kind of need

[Sam Stein]

a second and third data point for him being a Nazi and that doesn't ever come up. So I don't.

[Tim Miller]

I think that he's probably in good shape, but tbd, that's where I'm at on it.

[Bill Kristol]

Off the top of your head, do you remember who ran against Susan Collins in 2020?

[Sam Stein]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

Sarah.

[Sarah Longwell]

Sarah Gideon. Sorry, you're talking, you're talking to some real nerds here. So did you want us to not remember?

[Bill Kristol]

Did you remember anything she did on the trail?

[Sarah Longwell]

I remember how much money she raised.

[Bill Kristol]

There's a lot of money. He'll raise a lot of money too. I guess the reason I'm bringing this up is the case for Platner is what Tim's talking about, which is it's, you need someone who has got a stylistic contrast, not an ideological contrast. And for better or worse, the guy is definitely distinct from Susan Collins. He's younger, he's male, he codes differently. He's definitely ideologically different than she is. And he's gonna run a far more aggressive campaign than Sarah Gideon never did. Did, but obviously more than Susan Collins ever did and, or will. And I just, I don't know if it works. But you can see the path for it working. Right? Like he's just an innate. He's just gonna have a real contrast with her in a way that certainly Sarah Giddy never did. And I, I, I mean, very clearly Janet Mills never would have, because Janet Mills, you know, they had to kind of drag her into the race. Then she did it and then, and she spent a lot of time sort of praising Susan Collins. And frankly, I don't think that's going to cut it this year. I just don't think that type of approach is going to cut it even in Maine. And so, again, no one's going to, I'm not going to like, make a prediction or anything like that. But I do think the people who are saying this is like a real fumble by Democrats are probably wrong, because I do think he's got a stylistic case to make against Susan Collins that's both generational, attitudinal. And then in time, when people are just kind of fed up with Trump and want something different, he's going to, like, hold her to it in a way that I don't think Gideon could have and I don't think Janet Mills would have.

[Sarah Longwell]

We did a focus group that about the Democratic primary that we ended up having to scrap because there's no primary anymore. So I did a take that'll be out later today where I went really deep on what the voters in the Democratic primary said, both about why they weren't feeling Janet Mills. And it really comes down to two things. One is age. And I think that Democrats really need to internalize this, which is younger candidates are just it now. Like, people are not interested in older candidates, not just because they're old, but because they don't feel like the older candidates are talking about things that are relevant to their lives in the same way. So that's one. And then two, you know, I think a lot of people kind of are framing this up as a moderate versus a progressive. Certainly the all very online progressives are like, see, you know, a really progressive message is what wins. That's not really how voters are thinking about it. They're not, they don't think in terms of this, like, more moderate, more progressive, necessarily. Like that's how activists think about it. Voters are just in the mood for somebody who is going to light up Susan Collins. Right. They're in the mood for someone who is going to go hard, and they just see him as being able to do that. And so we asked, you know, about the tattoo about because, you know, a lot of misogynistic comments, like all the Reddit stuff. So all the baggage kind of went through it with the voters and they all had the same reaction, which is, you know, like they have heard him explain it, which is, you know, he was young, he was in the military, you know, and. And he says, you know, he said he's sorry. He's, you know, he. He's grown up. And like they just see it as the. And they also talk about him as like a character they know from Maine. Like, oh, he seems like a guy from down east. And this is kind of how they talk. And. And so like, he does not the way national politics is talking about him in all across all different vectors, both progressive versus moderate, as well as, you know, Nazi, not Nazi is like, that is just not how main voters are thinking about it at all.

[Bill Kristol]

Can I ask. This is a forced analogy and it's odd and ironic because they now appear to really despise each other. But the Fetterman corollary here, where you had when he was running and he had the stroke and, you know, there's questions about whether he was brain was rotting and if he was just like we can at burning it. But like Pennsylvania voters sort of trusted him and knew he knew that knew a guy like that. And, you know, it wasn't really ideology. It was sort of attitudinal again and just the way that they wanted a different type of politician. Is there some sort of analogy to be drawn there?

[Sarah Longwell]

Sarah, it's great that you bring this up, because what was funny is the one thing that was giving the Democratic voters in the focus group pause about Platner was that they were worried he might be like Fetterman. Like, that was the big concern. It wasn't about in what sense. It was about this idea that the coding, the authenticity that they feel like he's bringing more that he could just turn on them. And they were saying, you know, Fetterman is more like a Republican now. And I think when you get these guys are at the bottom of the horseshoe a little bit right there is the. The more populous candidates sometimes seem a little bit like also the populists on the right. And so they worry slightly that like, actually they could be part of that.

[Tim Miller]

We should just say to the populist lefties, if you look at who are the Democrat, the Democrats that have gone most towards Maga In Trump 2.0, it's not the establishment Democrats.

[Sam Stein]

It is Fetterman.

[Tim Miller]

It's Tulsi Gabbard.

[Sam Stein]

It is rfk.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. So it's not a rational fear.

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[Tim Miller]

i don't know my there's two other

[Sam Stein]

things I'm platinum one thing, just as

[Tim Miller]

a political science observation, I'll be interested to see how much he does actually improve the turnout with working class people and people that don't, you know, aren't

[Sam Stein]

as engaged in politics.

[Tim Miller]

These Trump people like and part is, is that just branding or does it actually work? Because when I watch the videos, I've

[Sam Stein]

now watched quite a few of his town halls.

[Tim Miller]

Like, the audience doesn't really seem any

[Sam Stein]

different than the town hall would have been for Janet Miller Bell's town hall. It doesn't seem that different to me. Like, it's like kind of older, white, liberal, progressive main voters.

[Tim Miller]

So that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Can he expand out?

[Sam Stein]

I think he's a tbd.

[Tim Miller]

The thing I would say to the

[Sam Stein]

establishment folks that don't like Graham Platner, having lived through this on the, on

[Tim Miller]

the, on the Republican side, is I'm seeing a lot of actions that are

[Sam Stein]

like, like, meant to be attacks on

[Tim Miller]

him that are actually empowering him and not to complain.

[Sam Stein]

Compare Platner to Trump because I don't think that they're similar.

[Tim Miller]

But like a lot of times the establishment types like me, again, this comes

[Sam Stein]

from personal experience, would drop OPPO on

[Tim Miller]

Trump and it would make him stronger. It was not necessarily because the people

[Sam Stein]

agreed with whatever crazy thing Trump had said in the past, but it was

[Tim Miller]

like they're coming after my guy. Like, this is my guy. Like, he's fighting the other side.

[Sam Stein]

Like, he's built trust with me.

[Tim Miller]

Like, you don't seem like you're fighting

[Sam Stein]

the other side that hard.

[Tim Miller]

You seem like you're a little bit

[Sam Stein]

of a wet noodle.

[Tim Miller]

And this guy over here, he's fighting the other side and you're fighting him. And so what that means is that

[Sam Stein]

makes me want to come to his

[Tim Miller]

defense, you know, and like, I honestly, I think about it in like a

[Sam Stein]

family member context or a friend.

[Tim Miller]

It's like somebody goes at somebody you like, it makes you get your backup. And I think that Trump in a

[Sam Stein]

lot of ways, like built a lot of power actually by having the Mitch McConnell, the Mitch line wing coming after

[Tim Miller]

him because voters didn't trust Mitch. And, and I see this a little

[Sam Stein]

bit, this mistake happening from the Democratic establishment where they're like, oh, we're going to attack Platner, we're going to attack so and so. And it's like, I don't know, you might be creating,

[Tim Miller]

you might be creating

[Sam Stein]

your 2028 nominee if you keep this up.

[Tim Miller]

So maybe for better or worse, I don't know, we're in strange times. We're at a time right now where people are looking for outsiders.

[Sam Stein]

And I think that going after Graham for something he did 20 years ago is, is probably not, it's probably going to make him stronger, not weaker.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, let me just, I'm just going to throw one thing on top of this because I, I watch, you know, the online discourse and people fighting about the, the Nazi tattoo versus and what is, what's interesting to me is just how much that discourse is not like these were doc like in this focus group it was like a doctor, it was a lot of women, like middle aged women. And this was not a, like nobody's having that debate in Maine. Like, they're not debating whether nobody thinks he's a Nazi. It's like not just not a, they think he got a. And, and I, I, you know, you read sort of the Republicans thing on it and they might be right. Like they might be right that he has changed his story about the toten confident. But like, and I think he had an aide that left and said, but like the voters, and I think they are like throwing, they see Republicans as having thrown out the rulebook when it came to Donald Trump and they are simply not going to be lectured by anyone about any foible on like the Democratic side. Like, they're like, no, you guys have tolerated all of this stuff. Like we just don't care. And that's why there's like a Republicans online try to kind of be like we're going to shame you with the Graham Platner stuff. And none of the voters that might like be, that's online discourse that the voters are totally cut off from.

[Tim Miller]

Also, again, I got in this fight with Phil Klein about this online but I'm like, we ended up being a

[Sam Stein]

Laurel and Costello meme.

[Tim Miller]

But I was like, okay, what are

[Sam Stein]

the implications of you thinking he's going to be a Nazi?

[Tim Miller]

It's one of these things. It's like if somebody had a Nazi tattoo and then we think they're going to do Nazi stuff. Like they're going to try to put Sam in a camp or something, then I will be against them.

[Sam Stein]

Extremely vociferously.

[Tim Miller]

I'm against that.

[Bill Kristol]

Thank you.

[Tim Miller]

What is like. What is it like?

[Sarah Longwell]

We'd be Nazis, too, if they're Nazis.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. I was like, is there anything else he said? Are there there other evidence that he has racist feelings? And it's like, there's nothing. And so it's like, okay, well, then it's a skull. It's like if it was a swastika. I don't know. The whole thing to me is just like, you can understand why voters are just like, okay, well, he doesn't seem like a Nazi. He's not saying Nazi stuff. Like, you guys are just screaming Nazi. And again, it's such a parallel of the other side. I mean, and I don't understand why Republicans don't get this. Like, how often did Republican voters feel

[Sam Stein]

this way, where it was liberals, like,

[Tim Miller]

screaming at Republican candidates, like, Nazi racist. And they're like, I don't know. I see this person and he seems like a good Christian person to me. Like, you know, I just. It doesn't work. Like, there has to be something else there.

[Sarah Longwell]

All right, last thing before we get out of here. I want to talk about Texas, just really quickly, because the runoff in Texas is pretty fun. There's a new poll out in that Senate runoff showing Ken Paxton up three points over John Cornyn. You know, and Cornyn obviously got sort of surprisingly, the narrow plurality during the first thing. And then Trump was supposed to endorse. He was going to endorse Cornyn. And then Paxton kind of headed him off by saying he would only he would drop out himself if the SAVE act was passed. And then sort of nothing happened. And so, like, why do we think Cordon's hanging in there? Why doesn't he get out?

[Bill Kristol]

Why do you think Cornyn's going to lose? I mean, I think he'll lose, but it's not totally out of the realm of reason that he wins the runoff, right?

[Sarah Longwell]

I don't know, but this is so much money. Like, it's a lot of money. It is so much money to spend in. For them to spend, because then they're going to have to play in Texas. Like, they're going to have to actually compete. I do wonder, though, this is actually a question I had for you guys. This is a political question. Tim, put your political hat on. They've got. Got Alaska, they've got North Carolina. Like, they're gonna focus on Maine. Like, there's a bunch of places.

[Bill Kristol]

There's 70 million in Ohio.

[Sarah Longwell]

In Ohio with Sherrod Brown. Right.

[Bill Kristol]

Like, yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

Should they, should they focus. Should Democrats focus on Texas or is Texas fool's gold? I mean, they could even focus on Nebraska maybe, like more so than.

[Tim Miller]

Well, I think Tal Rico is going

[Sam Stein]

to raise a lot of money himself. And as you say.

[Tim Miller]

So that, that makes that, that changes

[Sam Stein]

the dynamic a little bit. You know, I had Ossoff on last week. I'm interested to see if Republicans play in Georgia might be doing so well that they end up just seeding that, which would be pretty remarkable.

[Bill Kristol]

No?

[Tim Miller]

You don't think so. You think they're. You think. I mean, the campaign is that good. You think the NRSC is going to spend or the SLF is going to spend their money in Georgia?

[Sam Stein]

Maybe.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, I think. Or maybe early, but I don't know. I think it's possible.

[Sam Stein]

You get to the fall where that

[Tim Miller]

looks out, the of.

[Sam Stein]

Of out of reach.

[Tim Miller]

I think that Michigan is going to be another thing. The NRC is that pretty hard enough to look at, depending on who wins that primary on the Democratic side. So, you know, there's a lot of options out there. And I do think it would certainly

[Sam Stein]

be appealing, I think if you're a Democratic super packer D SCC to look at the field and say Ohio, Iowa,

[Tim Miller]

Nebraska, Alaska, Montana, those are all pretty cheap states.

[Sam Stein]

Ohio's pretty expensive.

[Tim Miller]

But so if you look at that, it's like, could you compete with the

[Sam Stein]

same amount of money?

[Tim Miller]

Could you give yourself many more outs

[Sam Stein]

by going into Iowa, Nebraska, Montana, Alaska? That probably costs as much as Texas.

[Tim Miller]

Right?

[Sam Stein]

Those four states, I would think.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

And so I do think that there'll

[Sam Stein]

be real, real questions there.

[Bill Kristol]

Back to the Republican side for a second.

[Tim Miller]

Okay.

[Bill Kristol]

I am waiting to see when, when or if the reporting will drop about what they tried to do behind the scenes to get one of these guys to leave the race. So, like over the weekend in Kentucky, Trump just bleeded out that he'd given one of the candidates, Nate Morris, I believe his name is an ambassadorship just to leave the race. And surely they have dangled something in front of either Paxton or Cornyn. There's, there's a cabinet position open for AG I mean, surely they've dangled something in there to get one of these guys to cut bait. And we haven't seen it yet.

[Tim Miller]

Paxton. That's why the Paxton thing is such a while.

[Bill Kristol]

Can't get Paxton confirmed.

[Sam Stein]

Can't get Paxton confirmed for anything.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, right. And Cornyn's already in the Senate. And so I don't know. I mean, Cordon said this tweet Yesterday. He's like gas 369 in Austin today. It's just like, like, I don't.

[Sam Stein]

These guys are in really tough straits, no pun intended, on having to defend this stuff right now. And Trump has not given them a lot of good outs. And I think that they obviously would have felt a lot better if Paxton would have just got out. But this is kind of a. You created the monster situation, Dr. Frankenstein.

[Bill Kristol]

Trump could have ended this whole thing by just endorsing Cornyn. Right? I mean, like, it's kind of odd. He's hand. The way he's handled this.

[Sarah Longwell]

I think he doesn't want to go against his base with Cornyn.

[Bill Kristol]

Right?

[Sarah Longwell]

But Paxton, but he did that in Kentucky. Who knows what's going to come out about Paxton and like, I don't know,

[Tim Miller]

Cordyn is just like Bannon and that crew.

[Sam Stein]

When he was talking about doing this, when he soft launched that people were in, were very upset.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, Cornyn never goes anywhere near

[Sam Stein]

far enough for us, right?

[Tim Miller]

But like, if you just package together

[Sam Stein]

his eight most Trump skeptical quotes from the past 10 years, you know, he doesn't.

[Tim Miller]

He sounds a little bit. He sounds a little bit squishy. You know, he sounds like you can make him. You could do an ad that makes him sound a little bit Romney.

[Bill Kristol]

Ish.

[Tim Miller]

You know, he never in the big

[Sam Stein]

moments showed backbone or did anything that merited praise from, from me.

[Tim Miller]

But I just think that, like, that, that was a pretty.

[Sam Stein]

That was a hard one for TR

[Tim Miller]

because it was like a guy that's

[Sam Stein]

very MAGA versus somebody that was like very not. And so to endorse the not guy,

[Tim Miller]

I think he probably could. Again, this is why his political standing, this is why the punchline matters. Because. Right, like, because I think he could

[Sam Stein]

have done this in 25.

[Tim Miller]

Right? He could have bullied him out. He could have bullied him out in

[Sam Stein]

25, but he's a weaker position.

[Bill Kristol]

The shit on Ken Paxton is unreal. I mean, unreal the stuff. And I don't think it's like really gotten to the level that people actually know the entirety of it. But I mean, the scandals upon scandals upon scandals are incredible.

[Sarah Longwell]

I want Ken Paxton to win this primary. I'm not gonna lie. I want him to win because number one, that gives Tel Rico the best chance in like an incredible year to eke something out. But also, that's going to be a fun general election. Just the amount of garbage on him. Okay, guys, good show.

[Tim Miller]

Long show, 110 minutes, 70 minutes, 60 minutes, an hour.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay, but did I say I meant an hour and 10 minutes? An hour and 10 minutes.

[Bill Kristol]

I got the calendar. Two weeks is a year thing, right?

[Sarah Longwell]

That's right. That's right. I also forgot to do the housekeeping up front and say tickets are on sale now for the Bulwarks upcoming live shows in San Diego on May 20th and Los Angeles on May 21st. If you liked this show without JBL and you want the three of us, we, the three of us are going to be in California. So come see us go to the bullwork.

[Tim Miller]

Com events.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's it.

[Sam Stein]

Love you guys.

[Sarah Longwell]

We can find it. All right. Thanks, everyone. Good luck, America.

[Sam Stein]

By.