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- [00:00]
A
Hello, everyone. This is JVL here with my best friend Sarah Longwell. And the two of us are coming to you today. Sick. Playing, hurt, playing through the pain to produce content for you, our family.
- [00:16]
B
I don't know how you got sick. I got sick of doing the live shows, man. Going cross country, doing the time change. And then like I hugged. I wouldn't give it up. I wouldn't change anything about it. But I did hug maybe a thousand people. And so, you know, somewhere in there I picked up a bug.
- [00:32]
A
So I don't know if we have this in the budget, but I was thinking, could we set up one of those plastic, like contaminant tents?
- [00:41]
B
Yeah.
- [00:41]
A
For these things that when we, when we do meet people, I could be completely ensconced in it and I just have like those little rubber arms through them. Right. And hug people that way. Like the bubble boy. I could be the bubble boy from Seinfeld.
- [00:54]
B
At the shows they're all like, oh, you know, we really miss jbl. And we're like, you know, guys, he's serious. He's serious about how he struggles, you know, but they understand because they know you.
- [01:05]
A
Yeah. Now, okay, so we, it's gonna be a good show, short show because we are under a time crunch and also we're both barely upright. We're going to talk a little bit about America 250.
- [01:16]
B
Yeah.
- [01:16]
A
I've got so many topics and we're going to talk about 60 Minutes and what else do you have for.
- [01:22]
B
I've got giving Iran 300 million ballrooms, Eugene Carroll Bondi and her closed door hearing. And then I. Any, any, I want some thoughts on Harambee and aliens, which is what the White House is currently posting about as we try to figure out how we're going to end this war.
- [01:42]
A
Posting through it. Okay, well, I don't know anything about any of those things, so I'm excited to hear you explain them to me. Start with the important things.
- [01:50]
B
Yes.
- [01:50]
A
The Freedom 250 debacle is unraveling in real time as of this morning. First it was Morris Day and the Time and Young MC who said, what the. No, we're not doing this. Then we had the Commodores and last night Martina McBride was like, yo, peace out. And today Brett Michaels said, this is not what I signed up for. No, thank you. So I think they've lost close to half of their musical acts over the course of like 72 hours.
- [02:23]
B
No, no one. Half of the alive. Half of Milli Vanilli said no. I think they're only left with Vanilla
- [02:31]
A
Ice and Flo Rida.
- [02:34]
B
Flo Rida.
- [02:36]
A
Wow.
- [02:37]
B
Cool.
- [02:38]
A
I mean, do you need anyone else? If you've got Vanilla Ice and Flo Rida, Kid Rock is going to have
- [02:44]
B
to come in and really save this thing. Thing, because you can't get enough Kid Rock. I will say, as a country music fan, Martina McBride is like an OG for me. And I was shocked when I saw her on that list. She was the biggest name to me on that list. Maybe Flow Ride is a. Maybe he's still back in stadiums, I don't know. But I was genuinely surprised because Martina McBride's music's very feminist, actually. Like, she's a real girl power singer. And yeah, reading her thing. So I read her whole statement. So I. Otherwise I was just sort of doing the general show schadenfreude of ha. Look at all these people dropping out. If you read her whole statement, though, and this sounds like it is the case for everybody. They all said that they misrepresented like that the White House lied to them about what it was they thought because there's. There is now an official government commission that is doing America 250 things to celebrate. But then there's a White House one like a Trump specific one. And they kind of tried to sell them on. It was the bipartisan this is just celebrating America. And then of course it was, you know, on the White House lawn with a UFC backdrop. And it's coming from Trump's personal thing. So they all say, well, we were lied to about this because Trump is having to lie to these artists to get them to say yes.
- [04:01]
A
I mean, it's the most of. Of course this is how Trump did it thing. Right? I mean, instead of going to the acts and being like, just so you know, like the president is doing this giant thing on the White House lawn is going to be part of. They seem to have been sold it as there is an event called the Great American County Fair. And you know, come be a part of this. It's just like any other booking con man is going to con, I guess. Do you have thoughts about. Do you have. We have not talked about the UFC fight. Do you have thoughts about cage fighting to celebrate the America's founding?
- [04:40]
B
The main thing is, you know, when we were. When we. And we got to bring this back after the elections when we were doing the movie club, I watched Idiocracy for the first time and the like actual. This is when. When Idiocracy, when people make the joke Idiocracy feels like a documentary. This is what they're talking about. Because in that there was, like. It was a. The President had turned the whole thing into a sort of circus of fights and insane things. And that is exactly what's happening. I don't watch a lot of ufc, except if I'm in, like, a. A bar or a restaurant or. What's that place with all the video games? I go with my kids sometimes.
- [05:20]
A
I would assume that you would never watch ufc.
- [05:23]
B
Well, it's on. On the. If you go to one of those places that has all the big TVs.
- [05:26]
A
Dave and Busters.
- [05:27]
B
Yeah, Dave and Buster's is what I was looking for. I go there occasionally with my kids, and it is. It was up. So this just happened. So I remember it, and I was like, oh, this is like. They put them in a cage and they kick each other. And also now that UFC has become vaguely political because Trump, remember, he sent J.D. vance to go negotiate with Iran while he took his favorite Marco Rubio to the UFC fight.
- [05:50]
A
Very close with Dana White, who owns the ufc.
- [05:53]
B
Who's not a good guy, right?
- [05:56]
A
I mean, he seems to be questionable.
- [05:59]
B
I don't know. I can't remember.
- [06:00]
A
Not. Not a.
- [06:01]
B
Not.
- [06:01]
A
Not a great guy, maybe. Maybe he's an okay guy. Kind of doubt that. Relative to others, relative to other people in the Trump orbit, he seems to be about the median. How about that?
- [06:12]
B
Yeah. Well, anyway, just the fact that they're doing it, it is also, like, it's part of the way that Trump sort of culturally connects with more workingclass voters and to sort of shake off his elite. This is that kind of signaling that he does, but I don't have bigger thoughts than that, do you? This is your world, not mine.
- [06:35]
A
I was very early to UFC. Like, I watched UFC 1, 2, and 3. Like, the very, very first.
- [06:43]
B
What's the difference between it and the other wrestling you like?
- [06:48]
A
Well, it's real.
- [06:48]
B
It's real.
- [06:50]
A
I mean, there are lots of differences, although there is also some Crofts crossover. One of the great UFC champions, Brock Lesnar, also did a long tour in professional wrestling in WWE land, and he's. He's a champion of both. So I. You know, I am not anti ufc. I'm actually quite. Quite pro, but I'm reasonably pro UFC as a thing. I think making UFC the avatar of America is grotesque. Like, to. To say that. That ultimate fighting is, of all the sports that exist, the thing that we're gonna do on the lawn of the people's House, the White House, is watch two men try to. Try to bloody one another. That's grotesque. And I like ufc, you know, Like, I, you know, I. I mean, what that says about America. I mean, this is a. Like, what you should be watching with kids, you know?
- [07:59]
B
Yeah, right. Do we not. We don't let kids watch? Because actually, this was my thing at Dave and Buster's. We were sitting down, there was all the things, and the boys were both. I had, like, my son and a friend, and they immediately started watching, gravitating to the ufc. And I was like, hey, women's college softball's on. On that tv. You know, like, they're playing the basketball game on that tv. But of course, you know, I mean,
- [08:24]
A
brutal things happen in UFC sometimes. Like, you will see guys who, like, faces just bust open and stuff, you know, Like, I. I don't think it's appropriate for. For young children. I also think this.
- [08:36]
B
Com. This is all wrapped up to. In. In the conversation about masculinity and the way that the Trump administration And this sort of takes us into the Tal Rico stuff. Right. This is how they project their masculine energy.
- [08:49]
A
Yeah.
- [08:50]
B
And it's also how they tried to create a narrative of the strong, weak fl. Framing. Right. They're the dominant people.
- [08:58]
A
Right. But also, it's a niche thing. I mean, this is. So if you. If you watch Capital Fourth, right, which is, you know, if you wanted to understand what is Median America, I think Median American culture now is like the PBS broadcast of Capital Fourth, which is. It's a bunch of over the hill acts from every, you know, you have over the hill, pop over the hill country. Over the hill, R and B Over the hill. Sounds like classic.
- [09:24]
B
Love your Macy's Day Parade.
- [09:25]
A
No, it is. It's more. It's. It's. Yes, it is more. More Middle America, more broad cultural share than. UFC is very niche. Like, it's growing and it's big, but it is still niche. It is nowhere near as popular as, like, baseball. It's probably not as popular in terms of, like, raw viewing as, like, Premier League Soccer, honestly.
- [09:50]
B
You know, that's interesting because that's another frame, right? This is another frame for the whole thing, which is to say also, Trump just wants to help out his buddy. It's just another corrupt way.
- [10:02]
A
It's much more like crypto. UFC is the crypto of sports. You know, like, it's. It's there. It's real. Like, there. There are people who are really into it. It's growing in popularity, but it's still niche. Like you know, your average American does not watch ufc and your average American does not own crypto. I. Again, so just every. Both from a moral thing, from a pure, like, shared culture. Is this something the kids can watch with you? Is this something that. I mean, I am sorry. UFC is heavily male coded in ways that even like the NFL and football are not. This really does tell, I don't know three quarters of the women in America to off. Like, this is not for you. You know, like, it's just. It's weird. It is weird to pick something for such a. I mean, 250th anniversary of America celebration on the White House and long you get one shot at this to do something that like, everybody. It's like a Super bowl halftime show. Yeah, right. And I don't know, it's the equivalent of picking some incredibly niche polarizing act for the super bowl halftime show.
- [11:11]
B
Do you know why I think I hadn't quite spent much time thinking about this is because I don't know about you, but I have not been in the mood to celebrate America's 250th anniversary. I am. Hey, I love me some America. I love America.
- [11:29]
A
You can have it.
- [11:31]
B
But it is. I am not in the mood to celebrate it. I'm not in the mood for Trump to be. He ripped off some 250. He's going to have a 200 new $250 bill.
- [11:42]
A
Maybe they're trying to block it. Yeah, they want to block it. $50 bill with his name on it. But also it'll be in red, white and blue.
- [11:49]
B
Oh, my. I mean, this, this stuff, this is. Can I not to just jump into the. Some of the politics of stuff here. But I was thinking about. Because, you know, I promise I'm gonna stop. But I was fighting this. This week. I'm fighting with the anti. Antis, the baseball crank and the. Eric, Eric, I'm sorry. Sorry, but I have to argue about this Paxton stuff. Right? They've all. You know, Paxton is like, forget his personal infidelity, which is clear. Like his. He is accused of bribery. He was impeached by his own caucus. He cost the taxpayers $6.6 million in Texas for, you know, he had to pay restitution for something he did or some kind of settlement. He had to pay a settlement for his office. Like he was accused of abuse of office. Like, so many things, so many corrupt things. And they're all like, well, but Tao Rico is kind of gay and his. His religions kind of lib. And so, you know, I Mean like Stephen Miller. There's been this. If people who aren't on Twitter, and I am so sorry to, to bring this into the discourse, but the Democrats have their own Twitter handle and Stephen Miller posts that James Tal Rico is trans. We have our first trans senator. It's like, you know, just whatever ridiculous trolling. And the Democrats handle was like, tell your kids I'm about to swear. Sorry, turn it down. But he, it said like, Stephen Miller's ugly or is an ugly or something like that.
- [13:24]
A
You know, just like your face. You ugly or something.
- [13:26]
B
Yeah, or something like that. Yeah. Pretty good.
- [13:28]
A
It was aggro. I liked it.
- [13:30]
B
Sure. I mean, this is where, I mean, you've got whatever Chung, that guy, Stephen Chung who's out there, you know, telling Mike Pompeo to go fuck himself. Like, like just the, the stuff online. Again, we don't have to go too much, but the White House is currently posting about aliens. It is currently posting about the 10 year anniversary of the death of Harambe RIP but it is just, it is all ridiculous. But watching, you know, the baseball cranks in the Erik Eriksons be like, well, yep, got to support this super corrupt guy. And then the. When you call them out on it, their retort is, will you support a Nazi? And what they mean is Graham Platner. And I got to say, in addition to this, part of their evidence for my support is something that someone said to me on a podcast, like Adam Gentleson said something.
- [14:22]
A
Someone says something to you that is in fact your opinion and you're on the hook for it. Sarah, I'm sorry, Those are the rules.
- [14:28]
B
And obviously, look, Graham Platner is not for me in a vacuum. In a vacuum. Graham Platner is very much not for me, on the other hand, to be consistent with my own values. My own values. And the reason that the Bulwark exists and the reason that we're all together here is because Donald Trump represents a very unique threat to American democracy, American liberal democracy. And because I believe that people who enable that threat, who help prop that threat up, who make him more capable of doing the fascist work that he does, I want to see them leave office. And that includes Susan Collins. Didn't used to for me, but because I really thought it was important that we had Republicans who were going to stand up to him. And she has intermittently, however, in Trump 2.0, she has been a. If not a rubber stamp, she has been. She's putting on the Trump 2028 hat in the office. Like, forget it. She's Got to go. She's got to go. But I was thinking about this idea of. So that there's a. There's a moral connection that people are sort of making where they're. They're trying to sort of cancel out their Paxton support with Platner saying that they sort of equal out the moral failings. And to me, with that, there's a few.
- [15:41]
A
Look, if they. If they will say I. I don't support Paxton, and I think people shouldn't support Platinum either. Like that. You know what I'm saying?
- [15:51]
B
All right, that's. David, that would be fine. I would. That's it. That's right. Well, this is the thing is. Right, I'm not going to let. I am never, ever going to let people who have lost all moral. Moral authority, of course they can support Paxton. He's just as corrupt as Trump. Like, for the people who just went on and on about Hunter Biden's laptop, the amount of money being funneled into Don Jr. And Eric's businesses right now, and it is infinitesimally more than what? Than the Biden crime?
- [16:21]
A
Infinitesimally smaller.
- [16:23]
B
Sorry, what did I mean. I mean, you meant bigger. Exponentially.
- [16:26]
A
I meant you're hopped up on cold medicine. Nobody's holding you. Holding you to strict things here. We're playing hurt guys.
- [16:32]
B
But I. But I started to think about the retort. Is this like, he's a Nazi? Okay. You support a Nazi. So leaving aside the fact that it's less support and more thinking that, like, Susan Collins has to go, okay, he's the nominee. Whatever.
- [16:48]
A
He's not a Nazi. If he was a Nazi. Right. This is the. Right.
- [16:52]
B
So. So this is. So I'm like, okay, well, let's take the argument for a second.
- [16:56]
A
It's like, has you really hashed this out on Twitter? That's good.
- [16:59]
B
No, no, I'm gonna hash it out with you. I haven't even said this. This is just. It been in my brain. Has Graham Platner suggested rounding people up and sending them to torture prisons in other countries?
- [17:12]
A
Not to my knowledge.
- [17:13]
B
Okay. Is he talking about ripping off the American people and, you know, stealing their tax dollars to build arches, to drape his face on government institutions, to build a ballroom? Does he put. Does Grand Planner suggest that he's going to put his name on. On other people's memorials? Like, to me, as I was thinking about it, I'm not one to call Trump a Nazi. I do think he does an awful lot of things that resemble fascism and. Or not resemble. Are Our fascist.
- [17:52]
A
Like, our fascist dined with a Nazi.
- [17:54]
B
He dined with.
- [17:55]
A
We were then told that that was okay. He was like, fuentes may be a Nazi, but he's not that bad. It's like, now all of a sudden, Nazis are bad. These are the people who've been defending Nazis for 10 years. And now that there's maybe a guy on the Democratic side who might. You might be able to smear as a Nazi, they're like, oh, actually, right now, being a Nazi, super bad.
- [18:14]
B
No, but. But here's the thing. If I thought Graham Platner was a Nazi, if I thought there was anything, the fact that he was a Nazi, I would have to support Susan Collins. Like, if I genuinely thought that if this. If he was like that Galindo person that we saw in that House race, that one Democrat, she ended up getting, like, 36% of the vote. Still too much. But she's talking about rounding up Jews and putting them in ICE detention centers. Like, if he was doing that, I'd support Susan Collins. You'd have to. Like, that is like it. But. But here's the thing. But let's talk about Graham Platner for real. So, number one, he gets that tattoo when he's 23. Do you know the things that I was doing when I was 23? Thank God there wasn't. Like, then. This is your point. 23 is the age at which most people get tattoos that they don't. They are Chinese caricatures or characters that mean, you know, booty call, and they think it means peace. You know, like, this means two artists are messing. Yeah, that's right. So look. And I don't know. I was talking. I've been taking some. Some incoming. And so someone that I like was texting me and saying, well, this normalizes platinum. And I was like, you know, one of the things about Platner is that he's apologized, which is the other big thing. He has disavowed the past statements, and he talks about his growth. And here's the thing. Let's say there was a nominee who was actually had been a skinhead at some point and went. Because you see these people, right? They're now like public speakers. They're like, I was drawn in to this awful way of life, and I reject it. Whatever. We don't sit there and say, like, we don't morally condemn the person they are. We want to. We want to celebrate the fact that they were able to see. Same with people who left the Westboro Baptist Church or whatever. People who escape these sort of cult like things. Anyway, the point is we need to celebrate apologies, celebrate people changing and growing. And so like, if I was going to normalize anything, it would be that. And like, I have, I've read a bunch of the stuff he said. Like, it's awful, it's reprehensible. And if he was saying anything like that now that would be one thing. But he's not. He's disavowing all of it and talking about having PTSD and his time in the military and how broken he was by it and like, do is that how sincere is he and all of that? I can't judge that. I don't know him. I do know that that ARC makes sense, that that ARC is the reason that voters in Maine roll their eyes at the implication. Because they're like, he was a guy, he did a bunch of weird stuff when he was young and had a bunch of terrible opinions. And now he's grown up and he's apologized for it. He's disavowed that he doesn't think that anymore. It's not what he's talking about on the trail. And so I'm just like, what a kind of a brain dead argument is the Nazi thing. Like, anyway, that's one.
- [21:10]
A
I think I just wanted to vent
- [21:11]
B
my spleen on that.
- [21:12]
A
That's fine, I would say, and this is actually a nice segue, people who say, like, oh, he's a Nazi, that's just bad faith. Now, I am open to the possibility that we may learn in the course of the campaign that actually his repentance is insincere and he's secretly been doing Nazi chat groups the whole time and this is all some insidious, deep game that he's been playing. Okay, fine. If we find evidence of that, great. We'll all learn about it. Yeah. Until then, the he's a Nazi thing is just. I do not dismiss the argument that. Glad he has recanted. Glad that he doesn't do that anymore. But I'm sorry, I question the basic judgment of anybody who at some point fell for that stuff and was doing it.
- [21:55]
B
Sure.
- [21:56]
A
And I get that, and I absolutely get that on questions of judgment. John Cornyn went to Twitter today. Did you see this?
- [22:06]
B
I did.
- [22:08]
A
He posted the story of the frog and the scorpion as if it was some deep lesson that he just learned about Donald Trump at age 74. How about that for judgment, right? I mean this, this is a grown up, a guy who's not a Nazi guy who is just A normie, respectable politician whose judgment for the last decade has been terrible. Yeah, terrible. Without any of the markers. He doesn't have any bad tattoos that we know of. He doesn't have any terrible Reddit threads that we know of. And his judgment is horrible. And I, you know, I read this, the frog and scorpion, I thought to myself, does he not understand that the frog and the scorpion and the snake poem are the same story? And Donald Trump has been telling the snake story on stage for every day for a decade.
- [23:00]
B
Yeah.
- [23:01]
A
Donald Trump said all this stuff out loud about himself, and Cornyn is now like, oh, look what happened. I guess the scorpion stung me. He took me in.
- [23:13]
B
This is one of the reasons that whether it's Cornyn, Dan Crenshaw, anybody who are sort of maybe very preferable slightly to the people who, like John Cornyn, is clearly a better person than Ken Paxton. Like, there's no doubt about the fact
- [23:32]
A
that he has let John Cornyn watch your kids.
- [23:34]
B
That's right.
- [23:35]
A
You would not let Ken Paxton babysit your kids.
- [23:38]
B
But they, they do need to learn the lesson. This is, this is the leopard face eating party. They where they're like, oh, I never thought the leopards would eat me, would eat my face. You enabled. Like, this is like, they enabled Trump to change their voters to want people who were corrupt. Like, they made themselves obsolete. Like they didn't realize this. And same with Susan Collins. They are making themselves obsolete by going along with this because they are still, because they don't seal clap always for it. They are seen as not sufficiently maga, not sufficiently loyal to Trump, and they've trained voters to want that. And now those voters are throwing them out for being insufficiently loyal because they want somebody like Paxton who's so corrupt, he will make sure Trump can do his corruption.
- [24:34]
A
All right, I, I want to talk about 60 Minutes. Did you by any chance read the piece that I wrote this morning? I sent it to you. It's not out yet. So by the time we were taping, the piece was not out. There's no reason you should have read it.
- [24:44]
B
I'm sorry, I haven't.
- [24:45]
A
That's okay. It's about the importance of independent media.
- [24:50]
B
Yes.
- [24:50]
A
And the dangers of corporate media in this moment. But I wonder if we should do that on the other side. And let me make this as a pitch to people. Support independent media. If you want to give David Ellison and Barry Weiss the finger, come join Bulwark Plus. That's how you do it today.