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- [00:00]
A
Hello, everyone. This is JVL here with my best friends Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of the Bulwark. I will be doing the entirety of this show and all of the rest of the shows for all eternity from behind the glorious spring of triumph. I'm the people's champion, the people's choice, the winner of the.
- [00:21]
B
If we tell you how proud we are of you. Oh, God. If we just heap you with praise, like one time, like, is it over?
- [00:31]
A
It's never over.
- [00:32]
C
Talk to me about the design here. It's a little Obama library esque, the spring.
- [00:39]
A
My children are like, what is that? They just want to play with it. They're like, you know, I'm like, stop, you're gonna break it.
- [00:45]
B
It doesn't slinky, right? It doesn't slinky down the stairs, but it does go.
- [00:49]
A
Look.
- [00:50]
B
Oh, look at that.
- [00:52]
C
That's nice. Who designed that for you?
- [00:54]
B
Congrats, bro.
- [00:56]
C
No, this was.
- [00:56]
A
This is an actual official, official Webby award. This was not the championship belt. We can get into that at the end of the show if you like. Friends, we are doing this show live today. And so what that means I need to remind you, if you are a Bulwark plus subscriber or YouTube Premium subscriber,
- [01:16]
C
we love you and appreciate you so much.
- [01:18]
A
We do. We love you so much. Normally, that means you don't have to listen to ads with the exception of when we are doing live shows, at which point you will have to listen to us read our three ads live during the show an hour and listen to this after the fact. Those ads will be gone. Our crack team will make those ads disappear. You'll never have to listen. It's only during the live.
- [01:45]
C
Ran some bits we're already working on during the live dad reads. So, yeah, we're going to be part of the chat.
- [01:50]
A
Some good stuff. With all of that out of the way news, I'm not sure if it's good news or bad News. As of 12:38 today, the President posted that I have just been informed by our great military that last night the Iranians shot down one of our highly sophisticated Apache helicopters while patrolling over the Strait of Hormuz. There were two pilots involved. Both are safe and uninjured. Nevertheless, the United States must of necessity respond to this attack. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump.
- [02:25]
B
Is this a cease fire?
- [02:28]
A
So the wars may be back on? However, however, there is some dispute of this because Kelly Mayer of News Nation.
- [02:40]
C
Also you've got. It's important Again, it's important to read the tabloids in the Trump era. They get the real news sometimes.
- [02:47]
A
She claimed that this is that CENTCOM has said the cause of the incident is under investigation. It wasn't immediately clear whether the Apache was shot down by Iranian fire or experienced mechanical problems. Now here I do have to ask you guys, I'm not sure who to believe because on the one hand the president said today, on June 9 that the Iranians shot down an aircraft. On the other hand, this past Sunday the president said. Let me, I'm going to quote from his interview with Meet the Press on NBC. Their anti aircraft is gone. I've demolished the Navy. Sorry, there's a dot, dot, dot here. These are not all ones. I've demolished the navy, the Air force anti aircraft, they have no radar, they have nothing. And so I don't quite understand how it could be possible that the Iranians could have shot down our very sophisticated Apache helicopter. Maybe it had to have been mechanical problems, I don't know. Sarah, what do you think, what am I to make of this?
- [03:59]
B
Well, the only thing, and again not a foreign policy expert here, but it looks like it was a drone. I don't know how drones stack up against their more conventional weaponry. That he's saying is gone. I'm not sure it matters though. Like the point is the word cease and ceasefire has ceased to have any meaning. And I just.
- [04:20]
C
The fire part still has meaning though. The firing is still happening. So it's half right.
- [04:25]
B
That's true. But, but here's if, if he says so this is what I heard in that we don't have an investigation yet over whether this was an accident, a mechanical failure or an active attack on our military. But Trump is already saying he has to respond. And so if we have to respond, we are at war still. And I mean we. And look, every day that this goes on, the Iranians increase their leverage. But this is why the more that you're involved in this, the more things can happen that draw you in. And so if they can't get out out, this kind of stuff will keep happening and we will continue to be not an ACS fire.
- [05:09]
C
Yeah, this is like a 10 layer cake of stupid though. Cuz there's like levels that are even stupider beyond this for starters. Today Trump is simultaneously saying that there's a deal on the table. Again, the Iranians never seem to say that there's a deal on the table but we keep saying that there is, there's a deal. So he is signaling cause the Markets are tanking right now as we speak. Just epic market collapse right now. So he's like simultaneously saying, well we do have to return fire because I don't want to be a namby pamby boy, you know, and we have to return fire maybe because our helicopter was taken down by people that don't have any anti aircraft or maybe because that's, that feels less embarrassing to me than saying the truth, which is that we just crash. Like whatever, like whatever his rationale is, he's simultaneously saying we have to respond to this as like a face saving measure because his kind of his ego element of this. And then also simultaneously saying that the deal's still right around the corner. I mean I just talked to Barrick Ravid about this and it's like any second now really, they're going to sign the deal so the markets can chill. Like you don't have to crash as much as they do. And so the whole thing is it's just all nonsense. And then once you even wade through the nonsense, it's like let's say that what the President's saying is true. Historically usually that was just something we could kind of take. Like what the President was saying is trying, sometimes it would exaggerate or use hyperbole or whatever. But like very rarely was a President out there saying like up is down. But that happens all the time with this President. But let's say in a rare case that he's right and we are going to reply with a response and a deal is coming soon. Even in that case, like, even if in that best case scenario this would have been the stupidest endeavor imaginable. Like for it would have achieved nothing, would have caused ungodly amounts of harms. Like before his bleep saying that he needs to respond in the previous comments when he's saying that he's excited about the deal, he was basically talking about how he doesn't want to have to go back in and bomb them more and restart the war. That's what he was saying this morning on the tarmac. And it's like, well why did we do this then in the first place? You were negotiating already. Like there was already negotiations happening. And so like he like the Apache helicopter costs what? I don't know JVL, this is more your wheelhouse than mine. Eight figures. Eight figures. We would say though, eight figures. I mean definitely more than 9 million. I mean tens of millions for an Apache helicopter, I think.
- [07:48]
A
Depends on which variant. Depends on what?
- [07:50]
C
What I do have the total cost
- [07:53]
B
of the war in front of me, which has risen to almost 29 billion.
- [07:57]
C
29 billion. 29 billion. So that's the cost to us, the taxpayer, to the government. And then on top of that, there have been myriad costs and taxes and increases in people's day to day lives. People are dead, people are injured. And it's like the best spin he's got is like, well, you know, Ayatollah Junior, the gay ayatollah that is incapacitated right now. He's about to do a deal with me that is like basically what his dad could have done. And there we are. That's it.
- [08:30]
A
Total acquisition costs about 52 million per unit.
- [08:32]
C
52 million. There you go. For the helicopter.
- [08:34]
B
Okay, so but then here's the next question is. So let's say the deal's on the table. What do we think's in that deal? Do you think they're going to stop making nuclear weapons? Do you think that the Strait of Hormuz is now free and open to everyone? Like, are we better off than before he launched this war? The chances that this deal is going to look like anything that doesn't end with us offering them a bunch of cash, like on top of the 30 million we've already spent on the war, the pallets of cash that will be infinitely more than anything Obama did.
- [09:06]
C
Yeah. And also, by the way, even if they were to say, yeah, even if they were to sign the deal, it's like, how could you actually. Because Israel is out there. You know, Iran keeps saying that they want part of the deal to be that Israel is going to stop attacking Hezbollah and Lebanon. They're not going to do that. And it' just like a funhouse mirror of stupid all the way down. It's like they're lying in service of nothing. I gave this, I told the story yesterday on the pod. Yesterday or two days ago. It was like, it's when I changed my report card grade from a B plus binas to a B plus, you know, and it's like, why? It's like, why did I do that? Like I was a child for starters. But like the lie, like you do this lie that like served you no purpose. Like, who cares? I bet some people like, he's doing all of this lying, but instead, and to make this analogy, right, it would be like D minus to D plus. Like you're doing all this lying in service of not something that nobody wants, that nobody's excited about. The only person excited right now is Mark Levin. Micropenis Mark Levin tweeted that once again, we're bombing. So he's. And we've got a primary tonight. Lindsey Graham, Lindy Graham. Lindsey Graham's got a primary tonight. So microprocess Penis. Mark and Lindsey can get kind of, you know, a little hot and bothered about the fact that we might bomb again. But besides that, like, who. This is terrible.
- [10:20]
A
I was post. Can we have the. The stock market slide? Because there's. There's something interesting that happened today. You'll notice at 9:45, we hit another great high. The S and p surging high, 1.5% at the Open. And starting at 10:40, all of a sudden a big selloff starts and, oh, less than two hours later. It's almost as if the market knew something was coming. Probably just the wisdom of crowds, though.
- [10:55]
C
Well, the helicopter also got shot down last night. That was the other thing in the Kelly Meyer tweet that she said she thinks it's weird that Trump posted that he just found out about this. He's taking a rather liberal use of the word just since it happened, like last night while he was falling asleep at the Knicks game. So, you know, I mean, I don't know.
- [11:12]
A
Seems like somebody in the White House who knew this stuff and knew the president was gonna tweet about it coulda. Could have come out and short of the market and done okay today, you know, like it. Good thing we don't have any rules about any of those things anymore ever again.
- [11:30]
B
Hey, somebody needs to retroactively plot the Trumps. We're going to make a deal that happen on Sunday nights before the markets open on Monday, because it happens every weekend, like the same thing. And this is where you watch these guys, you know, credulously tweet or incredulously tweet. Barack Ravid being like Trump says we're gonna do. I'm like, he says this every Sunday. I could get AI to do this.
- [11:56]
C
Yeah, he blocked me.
- [11:58]
B
Remain the same all the time.
- [11:59]
C
Really sad. I won't know. Barack blocked me. Not Obama Revit. I don't know. I won't know what's. How I know what's happening in the world because I kept mentioning about how he was wrong about the deals. Do you know how many times he's
- [12:10]
A
just reporting what the president tells him?
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C
Yeah.
- [12:13]
A
Newsworthy, Tim. It's newsworthy because the president said it.
- [12:16]
C
Yeah. And you have to. You have to exist like you're the character in Memento that does not remember anything that happened one second before you completely.
- [12:23]
A
Context. True journalism means imagining there is no context to anything in the world.
- [12:30]
C
Nothing that happened before. Can you learn from. Do you know, this was, I guess, yesterday, so it's probably been up since then. Do you know how many times cnn, cnn, how this. Trump has said that the Iran deal is imminent.
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B
How many?
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A
Boy.
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C
Yes. Just guess. It's just fun to guess.
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A
20.
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B
So if the war has been on for six months. 15, that is.
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C
It felt like six months, but it's. It hasn't really been six months, I don't think.
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B
How long has it been?
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C
15 weeks. It's been 50. So that's almost four months.
- [12:58]
B
Well, then 15 times they reported it.
- [13:00]
C
37. 37, it'll be right. Trump has said a deal is imminent 37 times. Yeah.
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A
Yeah.
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C
That's kind of like.
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A
Remember in the early days of Twitter when people would.
- [13:18]
C
Thank you, Stephanie.
- [13:19]
A
When people would do a bazillion tweet predictions that were crazy, and then like when one of them came true, they'd go back and all the other ones. That's kind of the, the, the way that Barack and Trump are working this, I love that for them. I think it's a, it's ingenious. All right, so the president not having a great run. He's got the war back on because of the Apache helicopter.
- [13:44]
C
He got.
- [13:46]
A
Got booed. I, I do have to say, Tim, I was at once shocked when you started down the road last night of saying, I'm a simple man who likes simple things. A lollipop in his mouth and. But then you trailed off and didn't finish the colonel's quote.
- [14:04]
B
And I, I know the end of that quote.
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C
Do you.
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B
Where do you like butter, Tim?
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C
It was just a little Easter egg for elder millennials. That's all. It's a little boy.
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A
Thank you.
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C
I just like lollipops in my mouth and Trump getting booed.
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A
So Trump got booed at the Knicks game last night, and he had a rough go on Meet the Press. And I'm sure everybody has. Has heard about this by now, but maybe didn't see. See it.
- [14:35]
B
I saw rigged.
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A
Your network knows that they're rigged. You know that I won an election in a landslide And I got 94% bad press. But, Mr. President, you know why I got that? Because you have no credibility.
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B
But you've never presented evidence that it was rigged.
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C
Let's keep talking about.
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B
I want to talk about.
- [14:52]
A
Todd. You have more evidence. There's more evidence than ever presented your elections in this country. We're like a third world country. Your elections are crooked and you're crooked and Meet the Press. ABC And CBS and CNN, Mr. President. Your one sided crooked network. So let's call it quits because I've had enough.
- [15:14]
B
Thank you, darling. Have a good time, Mr. President.
- [15:16]
C
Thank you, darling.
- [15:18]
B
All the way to Wisconsin.
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C
All I know, I travel an hour
- [15:24]
A
on and off in the rain.
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C
And I've sat in the rain.
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A
Cuz you know what? A country can never be great with a dishonest.
- [15:33]
B
Listen, we traveled all the way to Wisconsin for this interview.
- [15:38]
A
He almost falls there. Here's reaches out touch her shoulder. And the reason he reaches out to touch her shoulder is because he feels himself going over.
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B
Yeah. Like he's steadying himself.
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C
Yeah, right.
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B
Yeah. Some of the, some of the Trump sycophants were like, see how kind Trump is? Even while walking out of the meeting, he's being gentle with her. I'm like, if you are using that
- [16:00]
A
tiny woman to prevent himself from falling,
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B
she's in heels to high heels. But he's the. When people say darling like that to you, it is so disgusting and dismissive.
- [16:12]
C
Number one, I would have spit on him, sir. You really, I just, you just have it un adulterated urge to spit in his face, don't you?
- [16:20]
B
But here's the thing. The rain is killing me. Like he's so mad about the rain. And I, I will say, I don't know, it's a, it's a production choice to be like we're gonna go in a barn in the middle of this rainstorm. It was like a tin roof. So it can be maximally odd. So like I, I get it that, that they could have made some different choices but like they weren't making him stand in the rainbow to do the interview. He was in a dry place. And like I'm sorry if there's. It strikes me, you know, he's about to turn 80 any second. It is a real old man move to be like the sound of the rain. How can we do business? How can we talk like this? And it is clearly agitating him. And she, because she, she did this thing where she's like. I called the President and he's agreed to sit down for another interview. We both agreed the weather was a problem. And I was like, what is he. What are you even talking about? The weather was not the factor in why he got up.
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A
The guy says, you are crooked and you're destroyed. You're basically an enemy of the people and that you're on. And he walks on your interview and you say, you know what? We had A mutual. A lot of respect between the two of us.
- [17:33]
B
Someone in the chat. Someone in the chat is like, it's really loud in rain. Listen, I grew up in central Pennsylvania. I know what rain sounds like on a tin barn roof. I do. It is loud. But also, Trump is wearing an earpiece in an inner. Like, he hasn't his earpieces, guys, where she. Even though she's right across from him, her voice is being pumped directly into his ears. Like, it is not. It is not like an insane thing.
- [17:55]
C
It's an old man. It is. It is loud.
- [17:57]
B
It is an old man.
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C
And there's nothing. It happens when you're old. This is the thing. He's really fucking old. And he's a really old president. It's reminiscent of my. My pop rip. I like thinking about going to an Italian restaurant, you know, as he was getting older, and it was like, very loud in there and. And he was like. He hated it, like, all the sounds. And he just, like, turned off his earpiece. It's like, turned it off. It was just like, I'm just going to sit here in silence and, like, eat my rigatoni. And like, that's kind of where he's at. Like, he wants to go home. He wants to see his stories. He doesn't leave, really. Like, he is in the White House or his clubs an astonishing amount, more than any other past president.
- [18:37]
B
Yeah.
- [18:37]
C
If you ask anybody who's like, covered presidents.
- [18:39]
A
How did he look? How do you guys tell me look?
- [18:41]
C
He looked at the. The skin was. It was. The orange was caked on, a little dark. It was almost like a burnt orange.
- [18:48]
A
He looked red, very puffy.
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B
He looks like a very angry, cranky, grumpy old man. But. But here's the other thing that was interesting about that. Two things. One, she was trying to move on. She wasn't even trying, like, that. Everybody's like, oh, because you got pressed on the thing. Like, she's trying to move on to something else. And he's losing his mind about the election stuff. And continuing insist that. Sarah. The other thing is where he keeps being like, your elections are crooked, you. And I was like, I'm sorry, sir, but are you not American? Like, these are all of our elections. But the way that he was projecting it out to her was such a weird thing to do. Everything about it is strange and he should be so emotional.
- [19:28]
A
Did you. Did you clock that in the interview? When you talk about your wars,
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C
I
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A
mean, it's a bizarre thing.
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B
I can't wait for him to be 86.
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C
Solipsism. It's just the only thing that exists that he cares about is himself and his own interests. Right. It's like hard to go into. Like, it's hard to even process. Like, he's not up for election. So it really is to him. To him, it's your elections that's happening.
- [19:53]
B
Right?
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C
Right. It's like I'm not, I'm not up. Like, the only elections that count that I that are my elections are the ones about me.
- [20:01]
A
All right, we've got to take a break. A short break for read for our first sponsor, Sarah.
- [20:07]
C
Everyone, please go anywhere.
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A
Don't go.
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B
I've got it right.
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A
We're gonna do some bits. I've got fabulous.
- [20:14]
B
Our first ad is from Quince. Summer always makes me rethink what I'm reaching for every day. Lighter fabrics,
- [20:22]
C
the same thing for 20 years.
- [20:24]
B
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- [21:54]
C
JV. I have to do this. I know you want to move on, but I have one more Iran thing from ABC recently.
- [22:00]
A
Pause, pause. Standby. Yeah.
- [22:01]
C
All right.
- [22:02]
A
Sean Casterly in the comments says, please talk about the pocket hose. Quince is helping Sam with his look.
- [22:09]
C
Sam loves his pocket.
- [22:10]
A
We get a pocket hose and Quince crossover event collab.
- [22:15]
C
Well, that's, I can't believe how much
- [22:17]
B
Sam loves the pocket hose. He talks about it just in casual conversations.
- [22:21]
C
You would think it would be me, but no. Trump hints at a Marshall Plan style Iran reconstruction and says we'll take half the oil in return. So that's where we're headed now. Yeah, it's, it's a little bit nation building, a little bit of reconstruction. The money from the reconstruction will go to the good ayatollah, you know, the gay invalid ayatollah that's being run around by the irgc. He's going to be the one that's taking the money from the Marshall Plan reconstruction. It's a great, it'll be a great deal. Hormuz will split the fees.
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A
Did either of you guys, you know,
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B
I keep wondering about this. Oh, sorry, no, I just, I just, I thought we were getting all of Venezuela's oil and that the money is just flowing in.
- [23:03]
A
He says.
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B
So I, it seems like we actually have an oil problem from the strait. It doesn't feel like we've gotten a bunch of new oil from Venezuela.
- [23:12]
A
So my, my question is, did you guys clock the moment in the interview where he was trying to, he was asked who he was negotiating with and he couldn't name anybody. And then Kristen Welker sort of throw some bones as the support supreme leader and he's like, yeah, yeah. And he still like can't get the name of the person. And then, you know, but lots of people and, you know, they're very strong and they revere him.
- [23:42]
C
And there's absolutely no way he can name a single of one of the key players in the Iran negotiations.
- [23:48]
A
Just me, that, that if you are looking for dementia signs, that interview looked a lot like dementia. Dawn.
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B
So I
- [23:59]
C
could just be just bored and not care. Doesn't care about this, only cares about himself. He cares. He's got a big birthday party coming up. He's got the arch, the marble. He's got to care about the marble armrests on the, you know, in the ballroom. I just think he's got a lot on his mind.
- [24:14]
B
Do you know do you know that there's like a 96 foot claw that is like holding the cage up that they're going to fight in? And Trump has proposed just leaving it up indefinitely after his birthday party with the ufc.
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A
Don't you think that that's the monument America deserves?
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B
I mean, it's that. That's the only monument.
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C
I'm sorry, I hope that this. You know, close your ears, Cash, but I kind of like the idea of keeping a claw, a massive claw on the White House lawn in case we get back in there. I think we could think of some creative things. Some creative things. Some people to pick up and holds and bump the light up. You know, let them, let their legs kind of shake. Scare them a little bit. Put a good fright into them. I don't know. Creative idea.
- [25:01]
B
To your point?
- [25:02]
A
Yeah.
- [25:02]
B
On. On Trump seeming like he has dementia. You know, when I watched that Welker interview, and I've had this more than once, like when Joe Biden had that health event on stage, we all noticed and saw it, right?
- [25:15]
A
Yeah.
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B
Trump says so many insane things all the time. Like he is certifiable in that interview, but he's certifiable. So much of the time he's talking, but he's blathering on about. There's so much evidence. And you think to yourself, if Trump weren't such a psychopath and he was being judged by a different baseline, and then you saw that interview, you'd think you got to get the 25th Amendment right. Now he's having a health event. What's wrong with him?
- [25:39]
C
And this has been true of him from the start. And I've put the, like the Mitt Romney 47% quote into the middle of a Trump speech. Nobody would even talk about it. We wouldn't know it happened.
- [25:50]
B
Right.
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C
They should do it as a gag, actually. They should put it into like something like that, some big controversy from the past, like into the middle of the speech, and no one would even talk about it because, like, it would be, you know, the 19th worst.
- [26:03]
A
He should say, for the first time in my life, I was proud of my country. Remember we did three weeks on that.
- [26:08]
C
Yeah. Just throw that in the middle of the speech somewhere. Nobody even notice.
- [26:12]
B
It's be funny because it would be the most normal thing he said in the whole speech.
- [26:17]
A
That's true. I would say also the other thing he did was he just kept reaching back for repetition. Like he brought up Vietnam a whole bunch of times. He talked about the Vietnam War lasting 19 years, a whole Bunch of times.
- [26:32]
B
Yeah.
- [26:32]
A
This is just stuff where. Funny. It just looks like his circle of things that he can grab, like thoughts that he can lay his hands on, is shrinking. That's all I'm trying to say.
- [26:46]
C
Okay, we should have someone do an analysis. Like, number of words used with AI. This is doable. Now we should send Claude in and just like in a given week of this presidency versus the same week, words does he use. Yeah. Versus the same week in the first term. And I would imagine it's a lot fewer words.
- [27:04]
A
Let's get on that. Hey, Jared Connor, somebody do that.
- [27:09]
B
All right, in the context of Welker video, are we going to talk about the California election? I'm sorry?
- [27:15]
A
I mean, we can. The new. Stop the steal. Let's talk about the new.
- [27:20]
B
I just. I just, I really want to talk about this just for a minute, which is the absurdity of the entire Republican Party right now. And this is. This matters in terms of the Platner conversation, in terms of anything, we want to look at Democrats and say, you know, these are. Let's say these are objectively bad things. Right? So. So the right, you know, is attacking, you know, over platter and stuff. And then. And I can look at that objectively and I can be like, yeah, I think these things are bad. But also, then I look at Donald Trump and the entire Republican Party. Mike Johnson is like, this California thing stinks to high heaven. Let me tell you what's happening.
- [28:00]
C
It's too demonic to even know how they're doing it. He literally said was demon. Was it demonic word? It was something like that, yeah. Too demonic for us to even know it's a spiritual thing. The way they're stealing this election from Spencer.
- [28:14]
B
I'm sorry. Spencer Pratt is getting the exact same vote share as any Republican who's ever run in the city of Los Angeles. Like, when this is all said and done, he may even do just like a smidge better than where in the. It's one thing, this idea that the Republicans think they should do better in a. In California than, like, in a place where they just don't elect Republicans. They don't get over 25%. Like, it just doesn't happen. Like, they get 25, 26% all the time. There is zero evidence. It's like, couldn't be more consistent as an election. And so this rotten party that decides to take every election, which, by the way, I just. This is part of the reason I want to talk about this is the California stuff just like the Fulton county seizures it is all a predicate for how he wants to be able to talk about 2026. He is right now doing the litmus test thing. Right. He's making sure that all Republicans are like this absurd California claim. Yeah, I'll get on board with it. And so, like, there really is this hack gap. We sit around wrestling on the Platner stuff while the entire Republican Party is like, sure, Paxton, sure, Trump, sure. All Republicans. You know what? We're gonna.
- [29:24]
A
We're gonna do proud as being wrong.
- [29:28]
B
I just, it's. It's so replete that it really is. There's both a hack gap in that and that the right just jumps on board with every insane thing that they do. And, like, we sit here in good faith and try to wrestle with it because we care about how it makes us feel. And it's just. It makes me enraged, the asymmetry of it.
- [29:47]
C
I'm sorry, Sarah. My uncle and Del Boca Vista sent me some Spencer Pratt AI videos and said that they were really great. And you could just tell the deal is resonating because of how many people I was hearing it from. And I was hearing it from my uncle and retired in Florida. My cousin, who's a crypto guy in New York was sending me some stuff. One of my college buddies who lives in Dallas was sending me Spencer Pratt videos. They were all hot on Spencer Pratt. How could he not have won? It must be cheating. It must be cheating.
- [30:20]
A
So here, Here's a question. Would this be happening if Spencer Pratt was just the Republican comptroller from Santa Barbara?
- [30:32]
C
No. No. Right.
- [30:34]
A
Part of it is the fact that he's a ridiculous figure like Trump. Right. That this is the new hotness and this is. Right.
- [30:43]
C
Yes, no, absolutely. I mean, that is. Look, they will lie about any election, so I won't care about. Yeah, but like, for example, you know, there is, as I continue to complain about the California election count and have people getting mad at me in the comments. But, like, part of the reason why I complain, by the way, is to your point, Sarah, is like, we're staring down the barrel of this happening in December.
- [31:07]
B
Yeah.
- [31:07]
C
Like, it's going to take California a month to count. The Democrats are going to win four or five seats. They're going to pick up four or five seats and there's going to be four weeks of fucking nonsense while they count the votes. So anyway, just prepare everybody for that. But that's happening right now. Just to prove your point, jv. I like David Valadao's race. There's that race that Kevin Kiley sees. Independent. Used to be Republican as an independent, same thing basically happened. It looked like the Democrats were gonna get shut out of this. It's like a Northern California, like Lake Shasta, kind of the rural part of Northern California. So it's still Republican. Ish. And it looks like it was gonna be two Republicans in the runoff, but a Democrat catches up during the mail and there's no cottage industry about. How about how the California second district thing is getting stolen? So, yeah, I mean, part of it is like the Pratt. Like the super online nature of it, for sure. But also, it's the predicate lang.
- [32:00]
B
It's the predicate lang. And look, they're not complaining. Like, overall, Steve Hilton got into the runoff over Tom Steyer for the governor's race. And so he's like, yeah, guys, this is a legit election. Because he's not, you know, he's like.
- [32:15]
C
So the nefarious demonic figures that stole the election from Spencer Pratt decided not to steal it from Steve Hilton. Why? Who knows? Who knows what happened all through the
- [32:27]
A
2020 election when Republicans down ballot overperformed Trump.
- [32:30]
B
Remember?
- [32:31]
C
Can't get into Lucifer's mind. You know, why would he.
- [32:36]
A
Yeah, it's great.
- [32:37]
B
Okay, thanks. Thanks for letting me talk about that. That's.
- [32:39]
C
No, that's.
- [32:40]
A
That's. That's fine. So big news for Todd Blanche's life this week. He was given an actual diabolical, not demonic.
- [32:49]
C
Thank you. On Kate's question. It was diabolical. Thank you. Same thing, Simon.
- [32:53]
A
Well, yeah, so we got. We got a real big boy.
- [32:58]
C
Sorry. JBL believes in demons. It's not quite as. It's an important distinction for him that support. Okay, I'm just. Shut up.
- [33:09]
A
Todd Blanch nominated to be Attorney General. Discuss.
- [33:16]
B
I got lots of thoughts on this.
- [33:17]
A
So. So let me ask you first, Sarah, before you. Before you want to take it in whatever direction you'd like to take it.
- [33:24]
C
Why.
- [33:26]
A
Why did Trump.
- [33:27]
B
Why Todd Blanche?
- [33:28]
A
No, no. Why did he give him a real nomination? Because he could have gotten what he wanted.
- [33:32]
B
This is a good question.
- [33:34]
A
Sitting there like there is a. Nick Katagio wrote about this. Like, this is just the equivalent of signaling that he's a made guy. Right? This is.
- [33:41]
B
Yes. So I'm glad he put him up for a nomination. I'll tell you. Why is that? I want to see what Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski and Cassidy and Cornyn and Tillis did because I'm going to make a prediction.
- [33:54]
C
And John Houston Sullivan, I'd like to throw on there as well. They're going to have very important re elections this midterms. We'll keep an eye on you.
- [34:00]
B
Yeah, I think they're going to vote to confirm him. And I think the reason that Trump put him up, because here's what Trump could have done, he could have just left him as acting for a long time, and then he can reset that twice. All right. Remember how in Trump's first term, we had all these actings that just went on for forever and forever, because back then you still had a Senate that might not confirm a lot of Trump's more insane picks. Now Trump now knows he can get most of his insane picks through. And Todd Blanche is the number two at doj. And so I think that Trump think he thinks he has the votes, which is why he's putting him up.
- [34:36]
A
It's actually worse than, than you say, Sarah, because he wouldn't even. Because Blanche is already confirmed as the deputy and he's next in line to be ag. Even if Trump just left it open, like, didn't have an acting ag, but just like, didn't nominate somebody to be Attorney general, Blanche would be the acting attorney general, by law, doesn't even need to be appointed. That. So, like, he was going to run the Justice Department so long as Trump wanted him to, no matter what. And so he did this to. Why is this, why does he, why does he want to spend capital on this? Why does he want to fight this fight with people? Is it just so Senate Republicans because he hates these.
- [35:17]
B
No. Here's what I think happened. Well, a little bit. I think that behind the scenes, they killed the slush fund and they think that's the win that they got as senators. They think they drew a concession out of Trump on the slush fund and they got Blanche to say he wouldn't do it. They didn't take out the irs will never prosecute Trump or members of his family, but they did stop the slush fund. And so I think they think, look, we did it. We did that. We did a good response.
- [35:45]
A
We pulled the Gates nomination. We can vote for Tulsi and Cash.
- [35:49]
B
This is, I do think they make these calculations behind the scenes.
- [35:55]
A
So.
- [35:55]
B
So that's part of it. But can I just really quickly, I want to run you through who Todd Blanche is, and I can do this really fast. Not only was he Trump's personal lawyer. Right. I was just having this conversation with Andrew Weissman on illegal news, which is why it's all fresh in my mind. He tried the Stormy Daniels case And lost it. Right. He's this funny blend of incompetent and malicious, like, or like corrupt. But also. So he's the number two at doj, which means everything that Trump has done has had to go through him. Right? The number two is the one who shepherds all this stuff through. That means he did the vindictive prosecutions against James Comey, against Letitia James. Right? That is him. He oversaw the pardons, all the corrupt pardons that are like the quid pro quos for Trump, including of the January 6th folks. He has Ghisain Maxwell. He's the one who got her the sweetheart deal. He's also the one who oversaw the releasing of the files. Remember when it had all the victims names in it? Like how botched it was, like, that is all him. And so, oh, he prosecuted. He tried to prosecute the senators, the, the, the Alicia and all those guys. Mark Kelly, for coming out.
- [37:10]
C
Like, don't give credit.
- [37:13]
B
I'm sorry. So my bad. That was really bad. Super bad slip. But that is who. This guy should be unconfirmable. He should be unconfirmable. And if he gets confirmed, which I suspect he's going to. And it, it again goes to the question of, like, Susan Collins. I am, I have like a lot of complicated feelings about Platner and stuff, but, like on Susan Collins's partner, she is aiding and abetting this whole thing. Like all these corrupt prosecutions. Stop calling her a moderate. Stop calling her a moderate.
- [37:46]
C
I, I want to add something. I know this seems weird because it seems like these guys, like, don't give an F about any of the rules or norms, what anybody thinks. Like, that's what they want to project. But, like, deep down, they're all very insecure and want to be accepted and praised. This is why Trump, you know, has all the rich CEOs come in there and give him gold bars and talk about a great, you know, never the scene in oh Brother, Where Art Thou? Or they talk. The girls talk about having a, having a boyfriend that's bona fide.
- [38:19]
A
Bona fide. He's bona fide.
- [38:21]
C
Bona fide. I think Todd Blanche wants to be bona fide Attorney General. I actually think that's what's behind this. I think that it's an ego thing and that he's saying to Trump, like, like, let's, like, let's make these guys do it. Let's pressure them. Portrait to do it up. If you're acting, you don't get your portrait up. Exactly. I think they care about that. And I think so. I think what you can combine that then with the point that Sarah's making, which is they don't believe that this current Senate will stand up to them on it. Like, they just don't. They refuse to believe it. They think that they can bully them. At the end of the day, it's like you've really got Murkowski, Tillis and McConnell who have like a foot out than Cassidy, I guess, who you know. So there are a bunch of people with a foot out the door. And so anyway, this is what Bill and I talked about on Monday. I think it's incumbent upon the Democrats, the media and senators then in that confirmation hearing to really go after him on Epstein because, like, who is the Attorney General is a little bit kind of in this esoteric democracy space, the voting to confirm the person that did the Epstein cover up is something very tangible. And I think that that's why I wanted to mention the senators in Alaska and Ohio, in addition to Collins, who have these key races in November, like they. That they should. They're gonna. They're all gonna vote for him. Maybe. Maybe they'll let Collins off the hook. If they don't, unless they don't have the votes, they'll force her to do it.
- [39:47]
A
But Collins will vote against him so long as he's gonna pass, correct?
- [39:52]
C
Yeah. I mean, that's what she always does. Like, it's so funny. Like all of her moderate votes people mentioned, it's like there was the Obamacare was the one time where her McCain voted against something that killed it. So on all credit to her on that. But, like, besides that, it's always been strategic voting.
- [40:07]
A
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- [41:51]
B
You did great.
- [41:52]
C
You did great.
- [41:52]
A
Thank you. Thank you. I. I wrote a big long Platner thing today, and I know everyone wants to talk about Graham Platner, so let's not. And instead, I want to talk about Greg Bevino because, guys, we have a little fella. Toe in the war. Toe in the war. Toe in the water for 2028. With Greg Bevino posting yesterday that he, you know, News Nation is reporting that I'm exploring and running for president in 2028. Here's the truth. My one and only priority is deporting 106 million illegals who are here. That's it. The grassroots support I'm seeing tells me the polls are completely wrong. If I'm getting this much energy, it's probably because 90% of the country wants mass deportations. The media just isn't asking the right questions. Okay, first of all, 106 million illegals is 31.1% of the country. Of the country? Not quite. Sort of. Can someone. I'm going to challenge you to do math right here. 31% of the country has to be deported, but 90% of the country wants mass deportations. Sarah, explain.
- [43:01]
B
I don't like to do math live, but that sounds. That sounds like it doesn't. That math doesn't matter.
- [43:05]
A
It just seems to me that at least 20% of the country thinks they should be deported themselves.
- [43:10]
C
Or some do. Or some. Or the 90% of the eligible Americans. Maybe that's what he's saying. 90% of the eligible Americans want to deport.
- [43:19]
B
I dispute that statistic as well.
- [43:22]
A
The. The real Americans. The, the. The American Volk, the volunteer. Say, Tim. So I was reading this and I just. The 106 million number jumped out to me because it's so specific. And the reality is that just 100,
- [43:39]
C
you know, it wasn't 100 plus.
- [43:41]
A
If it was just 100 or 100 exactly, then that would have been like, huh, okay, that's just, you know, just reaching for 106 is a really specific number. And if you, if you actual deal in the reality, we believe that there's about 14 million undocumented people in the country. So that is, I mean, we're off
- [44:02]
B
by who actually count these things.
- [44:04]
A
Well, estimate Greg Bevino himself is a professional. I mean the guy spent his entire life basically as a grown up as an employee of the United States Federal government, dealing in immigration. So if anybody should know this stuff backwards and followers, it should be him. And so I was trying to figure out where he would have gotten to this. And so 340, 341 million people in the country. 106 million people is 31.1% of that. And so I, I went to look just out of curiosity as to what the racial makeup of America is. And you can see here on this chart. Wait, hold on, hold on. Computer, enhance. Oh, Hispanic, Latino and black. Do you, do you want to do this math, Sarah? What is 18.9 plus 12.54?
- [45:00]
B
Wait, is that 31, 31%.
- [45:04]
A
31.3. So Greg Bevino wants to deport 31.1% of America and all blacks and Hispanics combined for 31.3% of America.
- [45:20]
B
Just a few of those mixed race people gotta go too.
- [45:23]
A
Do you guys have any thoughts about this? Am I making too much of it?
- [45:26]
C
No, no. I would get a kick out of the Greg Bevino for president campaign. I guess this will be careful what you wish for situation. We don't. God love Jonathan Chait, all love to him, but you never want to have the headline, we hope Trump runs because he'd be easy to beat. You know, we've all some misses back in 2015. So you don't want to do that. Who the hell knows. But I feel pretty confident a 5 foot 2 Nazi is not likely to be elected President of the United States States, given especially how erratic he is in particular. But, but who knows? But it does make me upset. Like that's the part of the, of the Platner discourse that upsets me, which is like I just, I do think that there's a lot of credible things for people to like or dislike about Graham Platner I'm happy to listen to or that are good faith critiques or compliments of him. But like the main right critique of him just continues to be that he's a Nazi. They Keep being like, nazi, Nazi, Nazi, Nazi, Nazi. And it's like, if you showed me the person, maybe David French is the one single person and, you know, he's the one great American. But if you showed me the other person, a MAGA person, not him, who like attacks grandpa for being a Nazi, but then also said, I don't like the fact that we've been doing actual Nazi shit in this country, like putting a 5 foot 2 Luftwaffen guy with a fucking Nazi haircut doing the Hitler style Hitler salute. And like having him do racial profiling and putting people into detention camps or taking people that are innocent based on their tattoos and sending them to a foreign gulag, like that is like, it's not exactly Nazi, you know, but it's like on the path. It's like it's the type of thing that a Nazi would support.
- [47:09]
A
Racial purity.
- [47:11]
C
Yeah, right.
- [47:11]
A
I mean, there is no other way
- [47:12]
C
to interpret it other than this is
- [47:15]
A
a man who says he believes that America should be racially pure. And also he's not a guy on the Internet. He was given a badge and a
- [47:22]
C
gun and he was put in charge of our immigration policy. And there was nobody out there was like, you know, this stuff's getting a little too fashy for me, you know, in MAGA worlds. Right. Like, I can't be for this. And as. Not that I recall, I don't remember Graham Platner ever being like, I really love the fact that we're racially targeting people and sending them into camps in the country. And so it's like, it's all just a fake. It's all a farce. It's like, it's all just a bad faith rhetorical, like, you know, WWE kayfabe nonsense. And it's just like, when you get to the actual policies of it, like, these guys put in place some of the worst racially motivated policies that we've had in this country since Japanese internment. And they did it in the past two years. And it happened from the top. And to my knowledge, Susan Collins never objected to it. Greg Bovino one time.
- [48:10]
A
Am I being unfair to Bavino? Like, is there another way to interpret 106 million as like, oh, well, you know, it's not really as bad as you think it is. Jvl, because that is a thing I do sometimes.
- [48:22]
B
Yeah, I mean, I, I buy it. I think that's. I think it's. I think it's a good, fun theory because otherwise the 106 is just wrong. This is a guy who presided over everybody Everything that. When Tim talks about, like, the sort of fascist stuff, he was operating outside the law. Right. They were the ones. They are not sharing the information from what happened in Minnesota with the local officials. They aren't doing an internal investigation. Still. The people who shot Renee Pretty and. And I'm sorry, Alex Pretty and Renee.
- [48:55]
A
Good.
- [48:55]
B
They were just, like, sent other places. It's like the molesting priests, they just, like, move them around. And this is where Susan Collins has done nothing. And this is. This is very important context for this discussion, and I think it's legitimate to wrestle with it. But, like, I don't judge anybody one bit. In fact, I feel this way quite a bit too, where you're like, in a macro sense, Susan Collins has done far more fascist things or abetted. Right. Accomplice. And this is why, you know, don't tell me. She voted to impeach Trump in 2020. Once again, she did it when she knew there weren't votes. Like, there weren't enough votes to actually do it. And I'm sorry, but in his second term, she has been nothing but a rubber stamp for him.
- [49:38]
C
And she. And Trump came back in. She voted. This is her and Cassie. It's my thing. They voted to ban him from ever running again. Okay. That was their vote. A good vote.
- [49:46]
B
Yeah.
- [49:46]
C
Kudos for that vote. Okay. Then he ran again, and she never really answered whether she was for him or not. But she's a senator for Maine. She elected, like, so you would think that the senator from Maine would then support the other candidate that was on the ballot when there are two options. One of the two options was someone that she had voted to ban from ever running again because of his crimes. And. And she instead was like, well, I don't know. I'm just not sure what's happening. It's like, what. Like what. What is the point of view?
- [50:20]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [50:21]
A
All right, so we've got.
- [50:23]
B
The point of her is that she is.
- [50:24]
A
Sorry, she is.
- [50:25]
B
She is part of the problem. She is. She is absolutely making things worse. She's not making anything better. She. She never speak like, being moderate to what? Partly. What. Part of what just makes me upset about the moderate thing is that they act like it's sort of just about votes, as opposed to the fact that she never speaks out, she never stands up. Like, the whole Susan Collins is concerned meme is real because it is how she has responded. Like, after his first impeachment, she said, I think he learned his lesson. No, he hasn't. And she never does anything Rhetorically, to actually stand up to him. And so I just. What I won't let people do is say Susan Collins is a moderate and one of the best members of the Senate. Like, I'm sorry, but screw that. And, and, and then also, they have no moral authority. None of these people have any moral authority in this conversation. Donald Trump has done all of the things. He's invited the white supremacists to dinner, you know, and the actual, like, Kanye, when he was at his peak anti Semitic, he was like, come to dinner and bring Nick Fuentes. Right? He has done all the sexual assaulting. He's been. He's been adjudicated for rape in a court of law. Right? He has. He's been accused of sexual assault his entire career. Like, he's covered up the Epstein files. He was the best friend of the most notorious pedophile in American history. He is corrupt beyond imagination. Like, he's got all of that. He released the January 6th prisoners. Where was Susan Collins when he released the January six prisoners? She didn't.
- [51:57]
C
So anyway, I just worried there might be Iranian. That's my favorite Susan Collins story. When she was interviewed on January 6, and she was like, when the first. When the noises first happened and the building was being charged, I thought it was the Iranians. I was like, why did you think it was the Iranians? There was a MAGA rally happening outside.
- [52:15]
B
They had Trump flags.
- [52:18]
C
What? What? Come to society. Come to earth. Be on earth with us.
- [52:25]
B
We are not supposed to, like, just. We are. They cannot expect us to believe this or to engage in this as though they are good faith brokers who, who have not tolerated every awful thing. Because it's not just. It's Paxton right now. It's Kerry Lake. It was Herschel Walker had choked out his wife and was like, pulled a gun on her. And they were all like, georgia, go get it. Like, get out of here, Sheriff.
- [52:53]
A
All right, so we're going to get some. Some voting today. One of them is in Maine, where Graham Platner is going to win. Another is in South Carolina. And two races we have our eye on in South Carolina. The first is Lindsey Graham, who is desperately trying to avoid a runoff. He's being challenged by a guy named Mark lynch, who is polling God knows what anywhere between 13 and 36%, which is to say nobody knows. Here's my question for you guys. Lindsay ran in 2020 and got 68% of the vote in his primary. Why is he struggling to break 50 now? Is it Iran? Is it something else?
- [53:39]
C
I'M not sure what we know that he's, that he's struggling. I don't know. I mean, he had very. Maybe.
- [53:46]
A
Maybe he'll be fine.
- [53:47]
C
Yeah. And he had some close, close fish races in the past, really competitive races. I, you know, I, I would like to see. I'm intrigued that Nancy Mace is in fifth. I do think there's something to be taken from all this is that, like, things are in fact flux. Right. You can overstate the maga, you know, Civil war stuff. But it's like, I feel. Sarah, I wonder what you would think about this since you're hearing from voters in the focus groups. It's my sense that the plates are moving under people's feet a little bit and they're not sure exactly where to go, you know, and it's like Nancy Mace's website. She's running for governor, and if you look at it like you would think that she was running to be the new host of the Jesse Waters Show. You know, it's like Sharia law should be banned from South Carolina. It's like they're like two Muslims in South Carolina. It's like, what. It's not a concern, you know, and it's. And so she's like running on all these cultural war Trump stuff and it's not really working. Lindsay, like, is like an old school neocon, whatever. And he's. But he, like, he has, he's been Trump's buddy, so he's Trump's endorsement. You know, I don't, I think that things are a little unsettled.
- [54:57]
B
I think that's right. Well, so the thing about Mark lynch is that he is running. He's the America first candidate. Right. Like, the interesting thing to me about the Lindsey Graham Senate race is like, this isn't Jamie Harrison vs Lindsey Graham where like, everybody kind of got excited. But, like, guys, this is South Carolina. Lindsey Graham's going to win. The question is, is Lindsey Graham going to be forced into a runoff potentially because he can't get to 50% because you've got an America first candidate. And it kind of gets to the MAGA establishment. Right. Versus the first thing. And I will be interested to see because, you know, we just had in Iowa, which is a race I was obsessed with, Trump endorsed Randy Feenstra as the MAGA establishment candidate, and he lost to the MAHA candidate, who's like a complete insane weirdo.
- [55:51]
C
The Cochrane entrepreneur.
- [55:53]
B
The Cochrane guy who lives in Kansas.
- [55:56]
C
Yeah.
- [55:57]
B
So I do think that it's. Yeah, I think that there's. There's I'm just interested. I'm not. I'm not predicting anything because I don't know enough about the South Carolina race. But I'm interested to see if Graham gets forced into a runoff or otherwise underperforms because there's a big group of chunk of people moving into the more even more extreme sort of America first and anti Iran war. Can I wing of the party.
- [56:23]
A
Can I ask you guys something? It's a little dangerous. Probably shouldn't do this on the live. Feel free to just say no.
- [56:29]
B
Just at 56 minutes. Just a cool 56 minutes. JVL gonna drop one of his bombs.
- [56:34]
A
Possible that the the eventual outgrowth of this is that Trump pulls the plug in Israel and Trump, Israel. Yeah. Like he realizes I got to get right with the base on Israel.
- [56:51]
C
Didn't we do this a couple weeks ago? My position is the same, which is I just don't know. Like, I don't understand and I do not mean this in the oh, maybe Israel's pulling strings on Donald Trump. I don't mean this in that sense. Like, I mean it in the genuine sense of like, to me, throwing Israel under the bus was the obvious thing for him to do like 14 weeks ago.
- [57:13]
A
Weeks ago.
- [57:14]
C
Why hasn't he done that? I truly don't know. I don't know if it's related to Kushner and business deals under the bus. No relationship ideological thing. I don't know if it's people in his inner circle. I don't know exactly what the reason is. But like, that does. Like it is the way that things are moving.
- [57:37]
A
Okay.
- [57:41]
C
Graham is not going to do that. And I don't. It would have been more interesting. South Carolina Senate race would have been more interesting if there was a Paxton type situation. Like, there really there was like nobody like this guy. Like, whatever, like Graham. Could Graham have withstood like a real like charismatic America first type candidate with name recognition and money? I don't know what the answer to that is. Obviously Cornyn couldn't. Graham has been slightly more deft than Cornyn at like sucking up to Trump, if that's the right word. Deft. Shameless, maybe is a better way to put it. And so maybe that gives. Gives him enough cover to avoid it.
- [58:15]
A
But. All right, we're gonna have to move on. But first, Tim. Tim. For you to bring to our audience a word from our final sponsor for the day.
- [58:25]
C
This sponsor sponsor the show is sponsored by Soul. If you've been listening to the show for a while, you already know how much I like souls out of Office THC Sparkling Bevies. Had one of those last night. Well, I was watching game three of the NBA Finals. I was able to stay awake during the NBA Finals and enjoy it. You were able to podcast podcast at halftime of the game? Had I had the. No, I didn't have the Sparkling out of Office beverage until the third quarter. I was podcasting sober. Donald Trump, on the other hand, had some French fries and fell asleep the now they've got something new, though. It's called Mood Gummies. They say balance is the key to life. I'm all about that balance in all things. And with Mood Gummies, they have precise dosing, clean ingredients and formulations designed for predictable effects so you can choose how you want to feel while staying in control. You don't want to get into a Maureen down situation. If you're looking for a bright social energizing buzz, you go with the uplift gummies. 3 milligrams of Sativa THC. Perfect for daytime plants, maybe hanging out by the pool when it's time to wind down at night. The mellow gummies deliver 3 milligrams of indica. That's what you got. You're a mellow gummy gum. If you're looking for that just right anytime vibe. Sol's balance gummies, 3 milligrams of the hybrid. Make today a good day and get yourself some sold gummies. Right now, Sol is offering our audience 30% off your entire order. Go do it right now. Go to getsol.com and use the code. The next level. That's getsoul.com promo code. The next level for 30% off. Off.
- [59:55]
A
So I, I did want to take us down a quick little thing about the Texas race, which we had a little bit of stuff happening. There was a new ad that dropped just recently, I think today or that I think it's worth us watching it.
- [60:14]
C
So we're super pack boys in white
- [60:17]
B
dresses with blue satin sashes.
- [60:19]
C
Girls dust with hormones till they grow mustaches, changing the gender of all your offspring.
- [60:27]
A
These are a few of my favorite things.
- [60:34]
C
So let's give it as an exclusive to the Daily Caller.
- [60:38]
A
Tell what angle the Pakistan campaign is taking on tackle Rico and how they're going to run against him. And I was wanting you as a political party professionals, you understand campaigns. You trying to decode this for me? Like what is. I just don't get it.
- [60:55]
B
You don't get that because for me the, the schizophrenia of the Paxton campaign is both that half the narrative Is that this is low. Tao Rico, he loves trans people. He doesn't eat meat. But then the other half of their smear campaign is he's dated a bunch of girls and his hot girlfriend currently is a vegan. And some of them were, like, with in the same year. And so I'm like. And so they're like, he's a predator. And I'm like, well, which is it, guys? Like, so it is a. It's not like. Like, at least with Platner, there's like. This is. I've got. We've got one picture we're trying to paint of this guy with Paxton. It's like we have two versions we are trying to paint, and they are in direct opposition to one another. Part of it, though, is just the AI ads of it all. Like, do you know how cheap it's making production to do this kind of crap? And the Republicans are doing it way more than the Democrats because it's all done in this, you know, now. Oh, look, we can put Del Rico in a dress, so we will.
- [61:56]
C
I want to talk about.
- [61:57]
A
This should be illegal.
- [61:58]
C
Okay, so, yeah, let's get into this. Sorry. The d. The Dems. I think there are two simultaneous questions happening at the same time. Okay. What is appropriate to do and what should the Democrats do and what should the lobby. Right. And. And I. I think that the most Democrats, you ask, I think would be on JVL side of that point. Right. That this should be illegal. We should ban AI from ads. Could that survive the Supreme Court? I don't think so, but. Okay, whatever. We could pretend.
- [62:24]
A
Unless it's clearly labeled, like, yeah, this thing, as it is, should be illegal. If you put a giant watermark across it that says, this is AI. Right. In the same way that people. When you watch, like, a historical recreation, there's, like, not real footage.
- [62:40]
C
Right.
- [62:40]
A
We don't have movies of this actual Civil War happening. Yeah, right.
- [62:45]
C
I hear that. So, okay, I think that's a debate that we could have that people could have about what to do. I would say, though, you know, like, people were sending pamphlets calling their opponents gay back to 1782, you know, like, with different technology. So there's some element of this. This is out there. And I'm concerned that in the meantime, while that policy debate is happening, that I think should happen. Right. About how to do deal with AI and political campaigns. Like, the Democrats need to fight fire with fire. And I was pretty concerned about the report that said the DNC banned AI use. I think if you look at if you look at polling of, like, not polling, but, like, staff surveys, AI is much more. It's more used predominantly on Republican campaigns, on Democratic campaigns. And I just think that this is where it's funny. We keep going back to the platinum thing, but the Platner example of sometimes you hear Democrats say, this is good. We want a guy that's got rough edges to fight. We don't wanna do the Michelle Obama stuff anymore. And I'm kind of like, okay, but another alternative to look at is maybe the tactics you should just use should be as aggressive as the Republican tactics. Right? And you could do that on behalf of a good person like Talarico. And I don't see why the Talarico campaign and super PACs could not be putting. They should be putting out AI ads, I think, immediately giving Ken Paxton, like, the south park treatment. You know, he should look like a big blob with, like, huge boobies and a tiny dick. And they should talk about how he cheated on his wife and how he's a pen thief. Like, Ken Paxton's gonna come steal your pen and you're on your daughter because he's a fucking, you know, creep degenerate, right? And I think that, like, there are plenty of Ken Paxton AI movie of
- [64:31]
A
Ken Paxton making out with a black woman or.
- [64:35]
C
And, like, with his one eye, he should probably have because he's like, the other one. Because he's like, he should just look as hideous as possible and as, like, pathetic and humiliating as he's trying to, you know, cheat on his Christian wife with others and, you know, steal fancy things from your house, like a kleptomaniac. I don't know. I'm open to other ideas. Nice thing about AI is you can have them come up with 100 ideas and see which one's the meanest. But, like, that. I just think that's, like, the way to, like. I feel like full attack mode now is my response to this. It's like, gross what they're doing to tell Rico. I don't know if that stuff is going to work, but, you know, there's no time to wait and find out. I. I just think it's full pedal to the metal smear campaign.
- [65:17]
A
Before you give me. Before you give me your. Your view of what the Democrats should do, in your professional opinion, as somebody who speaks to regular voters all the time, what percentage of Republican voters will see this video and believe that it is real?
- [65:38]
C
F. Old people.
- [65:41]
B
Yeah, old people in Texas. I. I do think, like, this is where with younger voters, the AI stuff. Like, we can immediately know what AI is. But, like, you can just see somebody who's 75 being like, how did they get him in a dress? Like, how did they catch him in the dress? Yeah.
- [65:58]
A
I can't believe he made that video.
- [65:59]
C
And maybe that should be what it just is. It's just AI. Maybe instead of going where I'm going, which is like, Jabba the Hut, Ken Paxton, like, actually maybe having a Ken Paxton that looks like Ken Paxton, like, and running that out on Fox and Newsmax talking about how happy he was to cheat on his wife. And whatever. You go through whatever a million other things that you have about Ken Paxton and you can fool.
- [66:22]
A
Make it look like it's home security for real.
- [66:26]
C
Yeah. Maybe that's the thing to do. I think that's better. Like, make it look real and put it. And advertise it to old Republicans in Texas and make them think that they've caught Ken Paxton. I don't know.
- [66:36]
B
Yeah. I mean, look, I'll just. This is. Boy, again, not to talk about Tao Rico too much, but, like, this is where I have in my book, like, when I was putting together, what do I think Democrats should do? It is nominate good people. Right. The quality of the candidates matters so much in these races. However, from a narrative dominance standpoint, like, your candidates have to be good, but your communications tactics can be brutal. Right. And you have to go harder. And it's like Democrats are kind of doing the opposite. They're like, oh, well, we need to nominate, you know, people with all these flaws because people will find that more relatable. Instead of being like, we are coming for your jugular every day. Like, you will fear how aggressive we are going to be. We're going to flood the zone with all your. And, like, that's the offense. Right. And so Democrats have actually been pretty
- [67:31]
A
good in nominating candidates. That's platinum aside. Right. It's been Mary and Tell Rico and yeah. Sherrod Brown. I mean, I just want to stand up for Democrats. And they're nominating here. They've chosen.
- [67:44]
B
I agree. I. I just. My point is, is that that's the conversation we're having right now. The conversation is, well, voters want, you know, these types of candidates, maybe. I actually think most people in Maine, if they're fine with Platner, they'd be fine with, like, they want to.
- [67:59]
C
They'd want to.
- [67:59]
B
They would nominate. I see a lot of voters, and I'm heard a lot of voters say this, like, I would vote for A tomato can. I would vote for like a rock over Susan Collins. And like, good. That's, that's good energy. Democrats shouldn't. But like, you don't want to rock with baggage, right? You just, you want to, you want to try to have less baggage. And Democrats have been good at not being. But that's not really the point I'm making. The point I'm making is that the conversation where, like, well, you have to be this way is, is less important than the conversation around. How do you achieve narrative dominance? How do you go on offense? How do you flood the zone against them? Because Tao Rico is going to have to basically go everywhere in Texas, it's a big state, right. To show them the real him, not the caricature that they are trying to paint of him, but the other. That's one thing that is, that is how he can do the sort of the positive side. Meanwhile, there should be a million packs doing exactly what Tim is talking about. Going hard. Paxton has. And the fact that we're talking about Platner and not Paxton enough is a real problem. Like go make ads that make people be like, oh yeah, screw that guy. Like, that is awful. That's how you do narrative dominance.
- [69:05]
C
Won't even believe all the details of Paxton scandals once they come back up. Like a lot of people don't even know them. Like, they get that he's a scandal ridden. But you know, the various thefts and his personal baggage and the way he treated, it's just he's disgusting. And his own staff reported to the FBI he's a disgusting person. So I don't know. I just, I think that the AI thing in particular, I think there are a couple of conversations happening. But I just think in the meantime, I think that the Democrats just need to set aside any personal opposition they have to AI and just like deal with it like it's here. They have to use it as a, as a tool. But in the meantime, I do think that talking about banning it, talk about other reforms, I go back to this and this is something. I'll hand it to the left and Platinum talked about this. I was just. I feel Warnock on the pod tomorrow and he's been talking about this a lot others. But like going back to like banning all of this shit, like banning the big, the big influence in politics. I just think that after Citizens United, like that discourse kind of just died down because like the Supreme Court has weighed in on this. But I think that there's kind of a moment now to go back and be like, hey, we have to change the rules around this all the time together. I think that's okay to be.
- [70:17]
A
So we got to get out of here. But before we do, I kind of want to talk about Tim's pod today. But I don't know if we don't want to talk about that or if we'd rather talk about the 60 Minute stuff.
- [70:29]
C
Let's talk about. I've talked about 60 Minutes,
- [70:32]
A
Sarah.
- [70:32]
C
You're.
- [70:33]
A
You're giving me that.
- [70:34]
B
No, no, I read. I read the transcript of a bunch of the Tim pot. So I'm. I'm ready.
- [70:41]
A
So Tim, as his guest today, had Jason Calacanis.
- [70:46]
C
Calicanis, yeah.
- [70:47]
A
How we pronounce his name. And it's his third visit. I did not listen. I only read the transcript, and it was a rough transcript, so maybe I'm getting this wrong, but I wanted to put him on a Falcon Heavy and send this motherfucker into the sun. Now, I know we should not bash podcast guests. That's not like, somebody comes on the show, they're on the show. Like, we, you know, good for them for coming on. I. I don't want to be in the habit of dunking on people who come on the show, but the part where he at once was talking about how the Iran war is horrible and presidency destroying and then said that Kamala Harris absolutely would have gone to war in Iran because of her close ties to Israel. I just wanted to tear my hair out and I just wanted to. I don't know, I need to say that to you, my friends in this space.
- [71:51]
B
Tim, I just want to say for the record, I think it's really good that you're having people on that are. That. That, that they're willing to come on. You're there to challenge them. And, you know, we can get to the bottom of why this. Because this is a common. This is. This is a strain of politics out there. And this is. I'm sorry, but when I get in some of my fights with people on the far left, some of it is because these are people who have frustrated me for a long time over there. They're saying, like, Kamala Harris and Trump would be just as bad. They would do the same things. Like, yes. No, they're not. Like, the idea that Kamala Harris would have just gone into war with Iran because Bibi was like, don't you think we should do this? No, she wouldn't have. And neither would Biden. And like, you know how we know this? Because literally, because they didn't he tried. He tried with all of them. Trump's the one who went for it. And so, Tim, I think you. I'm always for it. When you have people on who aren't always just saying the same thing. That being said, this person is wrong about everything.
- [72:52]
A
Really believe what he's saying, though.
- [72:53]
C
Yeah.
- [72:53]
A
Or is that just the bullshit that he's.
- [72:55]
C
Yeah, No, I wouldn't have him on if he did it. And this is the hard part about having people on the show who have different views is like, it's very hard to have on Trump defenders because they're just like, almost all of them are lying about their support. What they're, they're hiding the ball on why they really support them and what they really think about stuff. And I just don't want to have those people on. And so, like, that's why I was excited to have Sager and Genteon from Breaking Points a while ago because he, like, was a Trump supporter, but as like, pissed about the war and was just unapologetic and did not sound like Jason at all. He was much more blunt about it. I have someone else coming out in a couple of weeks. I think people are going to have a similar feeling about. But you know, it's doubt that. It's not doubt that, but they. But Jason believes this stuff. Jason doesn't think that deeply about politics. And I don't. I would say this to him to his face. So I don't. I'm not talking behind his back at all on this. Like, I think. I do think he's smart on the tech stuff. I disagree with him on a bunch of stuff, but like, he's obviously like, knows what's happening on the tech stuff, but he just. On politics. I think that if you thought that, that his, that it must have meant that he was lying, that his views made no sense. I think his views make no sense because, like, my frame for him would be more like a Sarah focus group attendee. Like, he's literally more of like a me. Like, he's like a rich median voter kind of on politics stuff. And like he mispronounced Christy.
- [74:14]
A
No, just a median billionaire.
- [74:15]
C
God love him. Yeah. I don't know if he's a billionaire, but others on the show who I wish, who I tried to have on, I've tried to have on all of them. He's the only one who will come on. So kudos to him on that. And he's the least crazy of the four. The thing about the conversation, I wanted to raise and you know, we could all have a big agreement about how, how wrong he was about Kamala Harris. But like, I think the more challenging question that I kept getting to, when, when once we're getting deep into the discussion of why are the tech guys going along with us? Like, don't they see the medium term risks? Like, don't they see the pitchforks coming? Like, like, like, like they're just being so short sighted and like this is not a new thing. Like you could just learn through history that like, you know, this is why the fucking Rockefellers and stuff ended up giving money to libraries and shit, right? Like, like over time you make so much money that you, you have to go over the top to keep the pitchforks at bay, right? And these guys have now created a culture of the opposite where it's like cuckish to care about, right, Your people. And it's just like Max, you know, charcoal up maximum profits. Like we really are back to like a roaring 20s type thing. And, and I just, and he didn't. And he, and he said bluntly, kudos him for this. He's like, these guys would be happy with oligarchy like these. Yeah, they're not, they're not for capital. Unfettered capitalism. This is not Adam Smith stuff. Like they're trying to make money for themselves. And if oligarchy's the way to do it, he was just very blunt about that. And what I kept saying to him is like, do they realize what's coming next? Because like, I'm just sorry and this is not my cup of tea. And I know this stuff makes Sarah uncomfortable if it makes me uncomfortable too, but it's just like the response to just unapologetic, nihilistic oligarchy. Like it's not going to be like, you know, we need to bring back a fair playing field system. You know, it's going to be, no, we're going to come take a bite out of your hide and we're going to use the tactics you use to fuck people over to go after you and what that looks like. There's a wide range of things that are like, some are really bad and you know, some are a little, a little, you know, not my, you know, not exactly my preference. And there are other things that we could do within the law and we could talk about what all that looks like, but to me it just feels inevitable. Like if they keep going down this path, like full speed ahead, all gas, no brakes like that, the backlash against them is going to be something that is like not Bill Clinton triangulation. Like it's going to be something much more extreme. And, and I was trying, I, I almost felt at one point I was like trying. I'm like, you get how bad it's gonna be, the backlash, right? And, and it's just, I don't know,
- [76:48]
A
don't they already think they're in the backlash? Isn't this why Peter Thiel went and moved our, you know, got his Argentinian citizenship, they all have passports to New Zealand. Feeling sort of, hold on.
- [77:00]
B
I, I do think that they think that the upside of AI, that the benefits of AI, like if you listen to any of these tech guys talk about AI, they are extraordinarily optimistic about what it will yield for people, which is not how voters feel at all. I'm just, I'm just saying, like, if I have listened now to a bunch of these tech guys trying to explain sort of. And they get really. And they will tell you straightforwardly. And I don't know that I had quite put this together originally, but the reason, I don't know if this came up in your interview, Tim, the reason that all of these Silicon Valley guys, after being some of the biggest funders of Democrats, after being much more socially liberal, whatever, it's not just that they're red pilled, it's that the Biden administration and Democrats were going to regulate AI in some way. And Trump was like, I won't touch you, I won't touch you unfettered. And he did it with the crypto guys and he did it with the AI guys. And so they will pitch you a very positive story about AI. And look, I, again, in my optimistic nature, I do think that there's a lot about like, number one, it's coming whether we like it or not. Like it is coming. And so there's like, the conversation isn't how do we not have AI? It has to be a question of like, how do we maximize its upsides and minimize its downsides. They don't want to have that conversation nearly as much as they want to be like, how do we make as much money about on this as possible right now? And Donald Trump is giving us the total free reign for the few people now. And some of this also comes from Trump's competitiveness with China, right? There's like a real sense that Trump wants to be able to on AI, we want to beat China because whoever feeds the AI algorithms, the bots, right, that are crawling, all the AI stuff like they want. And this I'm like slightly open to this line of thinking where they want the AI to have Western values because if China beats us to them, they won't have Western values. Like, that's sort of the story that they'll tell you. But I think that we shouldn't miss There's. I'm just saying there are not. No arguments on this side. I think, though, that it is. We would be foolish not to acknowledge the reason that they all went pro Trump is because he said, we'll do zero to regulate you. You can make all the bank from it without having to put money back into what is, what is being lost, whether it's jobs, whether it's the impact of the AI data centers and as a result, the average American. Because let me tell you, in the focus groups, the voters talk about the data centers all the time. They talk about AI all the time. I just did a bunch of Gen Z stuff. The level of anxiety about AI and how it's affecting their job prospect is through the roof.
- [79:45]
C
And this is why this is the thing I kept trying to say to Jason is like, what I genuinely don't understand, they have the model, like, they just did this in the social media. I know it was a smaller scale on social media where they played the game. They're like, we're going to do some. They all got rich. They all made ungodly amounts of money. That's why they all have the huge chip stacks. Use the JBL analogy in order to put in the money to get on the front end of these AI companies. Like, they're all richer than anyone in history. And they managed to do it during the social media revolution by minimizing backlash. There was some, there was waxing and waning. But now to do this, oh, we're going to go, no red tape, no regulation at all, all gas, no brakes. They're going to end up. And maybe this is good, actually, maybe this backlash is good. They're going to end up in 2029 with a Democrat that's like, we're taking over your company. Like, we're taking over half your company. And rather than had they come in on the front end and been like, you know, let's figure out some regular. Let's work together, let's have some working groups, you know, let's go to Congress. We agree with you. We're worried about some of the excesses. Like, they could have done that. Like, that's what they all. That's what they all did when they were white hat, trying to pretend to be white hat people in the early Internet era, they didn't do that. They decided to do Black Hat and they're going to get. Yeah, they're going to get theirs over it.
- [81:03]
A
I think I'm looking forward to having a golden share for America in Open AI. Oh, thank you, Enixpector. Tim, your skin looks great. Are you looks maxing. Sarah's hair looks good, too. Jbl, congrats on the spring. Thanks. I also look good. I'm kidding. Thank you.
- [81:19]
B
You do.
- [81:21]
A
All right, guys, good show. Long show was. Was great to be together. Thank you, Enoch Spector. I appreciate that. And we'll be back next week. Sarah and I will be together on Friday doing the Secret show. And guys, it's been great. Good luck, America.