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The Next Level
1094: Secret Preview: It's 100x Worse Than Watergate—and Republicans Still Won't Quit
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Sarah Longwell
Hello everyone and welcome to the Secret podcast. I'm here with my best friend adjacent. My best friend who's not jvl but also a best friend of mine, Bill Crystal. Very exciting to have you here. Thanks for hanging out for the secret pod.
- [01:13]
Bill Kristol
Happy to do it. I'm glad you have many best, many best, several best friends. Would you have like five best friends or 50 best friends? How exclusive a club is this exactly? Really?
- [01:21]
Sarah Longwell
You know, I mean, look, I don't
- [01:23]
Bill Kristol
want to pry if you're personal. I don't want to pry. I don't want to, I don't want to be intrusive.
- [01:26]
Sarah Longwell
You know, I have a lot of best friends in life. I have my, my straights, as I call them, who are my, my, my best friends from high school and college. And then I've got my, my, my, my, my, my lesbian best friends. And then I got my bulwark best friends, you know, So I just, it's nice to have a lot of friends.
- [01:47]
Bill Kristol
It is good. It is good. It's good to have different varieties of friends, honestly. Actually I find two different ages, different backgrounds. Right.
- [01:54]
Sarah Longwell
Keeps you. Yeah, you got to hang out with a lot of youngsters.
- [01:56]
Bill Kristol
I like that. Actually. I always say that about the bull work. It's what it's. I feel it keeps me younger in spirit. I could be kidding myself, but I, I, I like to. That's my, that's my line and I'm sticking to it.
- [02:05]
Sarah Longwell
You know, I think that I, you always seem young to me. I just want to say as we get started, obviously JBL is not here today and Just keep that guy in your thoughts right now. And, and hopefully he will be back pretty soon. And we love you, jvl all right, so we're taping this on Thursday. It'll come out on Friday. But we're going to be off for the Fourth of July weekend. And this is when America is supposed to be celebrating its 250th anniversary. Now, I had Heather Cox Richardson on the focus group pod this week, and I asked her this same question that I'm going to ask you, but is speaking of, of, of your age and mine, I don't remember when America, because it would have been 76, so that's four years before I was born, is when America turned 200. But you must have been a kid, but not such a young kid. And so you would remember it. Maybe, maybe you're older. I don't know how old you are. But the point is, what do you remember about when America turned 200?
- [03:19]
Bill Kristol
So I was in grad school and I was actually in New York for the summer working on Pat Moynihan's Senate campaign in the Democratic primary. So I was a Democrat before I was Republican. And now here we are again, you know, full circle. And so it was kind of a crazy summer. And there was the big ships. That was the big thing in New York. And I remember taking Susan and I took the subway. We'd been married about six months at that point. We down to lower Manhattan to see the big ships. That was kind of the thing in New York. And it was kind of a big deal, the bicentennial, but not huge, honestly. I mean, there was a ton of 76. We'd had Watergate. We'd had the end of Vietnam. We had Reagan versus Ford on the Republican side and Jimmy Carter winning the Democratic nomination. And people forget 76. It was little. We were recovering, I'd say, from Watergate and Vietnam and the vigorous oil shock of 73, 74. But there's still a lot of uncertainty about where the country was going. So the mood was not rah rah, but it was kind of nice. I think I was thinking about the contrast this morning when I wrote Morning Shots. Gerald Ford was president. He sort of presided over the fireworks, I vaguely remember, in Washington. I was not in Washington, but in Washington on the night of July 4th. But he didn't give some. He wasn't like Trump, you know what I mean? He just was a normal president who thought he should show up out of respect and maybe say a few words. But it was not his show. But he went out of his way, I think, to go on July 5th to Monticello to where there was a naturalization ceremony at Jefferson's home. And I think that's, I noticed, I looked it up this year. There's still, that still seems to happen every year, I think, in honor of sort of July 4th as a naturalization ceremony. And he spoke at it and he gave very moving remarks. Ford is not, notice a wonderful orator or anything like that. And I didn't watch it. I just read the, the tax stuff. But really a strong, not just defense of immigration and immigrants, but an affirmation that they are why we are great. This is a nation of immigrants. This is a nation based on values. We can take in people, not just can take in people from all over the world. It's great to be able to take in people from all over the world. We get these people who want to live in a free country. And he goes on, it's not a really long speech, but It's a speech, 15 minutes or something. And it's quite, it's moving, really, and powerful, I would say. And in that respect, I think, you know, the contrast is pretty amazing. I mean, Ford said this in 76, if you remember, there's that clip that went around a lot when Trump began all the anti immigration stuff ten years ago of Reagan and Bush debating in 1980. You remember that? I think it's the New Hampshire primary. And they both give this pretty impassioned sort of appeal to defense of immigrants that have, in this case, I think, was coming from Mexico. And we, we need to, you know, welcome them. And, and that was very much the spirit of Ford's thing. And then Reagan, when he's president, his last public speech is the day before he leaves, January 19, 1989. That would have been at the White House. He's giving the Medal of Freedom to a couple of people and he goes out of his way again, he says, I want to add one thing that's a little separate from the ceremony, really. And he gives us a tribute to immigrants. And again, it's more than just a kind of, well, we could afford to take them in and be nice to them and we shouldn't succumb to fear. But it's not that defensive tone. It's, this is why we are great and this is why America has unparalleled dynamism and optimism and creativity. It's because all these people come here and we refresh us and we learn from them and we thank them for coming. I Mean, that was very much the spirit of both Ford and Reagan, who of course, had been big rivals in 76 and Bush for that matter. And I did give some thought, therefore, when I went back and looked at the Republican Party that I didn't quite grow up in, but I moved over to in the 70s, actually, from Moynihan to Reagan. And that you grew up in and how. And that issue in particular, I think the decline and the reversal has been so noticeable and so appalling, really.
- [07:18]
Sarah Longwell
It's funny you mentioned Reagan. I sometimes people say, oh, Sarah, your beloved Reagan. Or, you know, you guys are, you know, you're so Republican. And it was so bad with Reagan. I was 0 to 8 years old with, with Ronald Reagan. And it's funny what you pick up when you're sort of a kid or even as you sort of come into political consciousness and you're seeing people look back at a very recent past president. But I remember vividly that debate, those debate clips between Bush Senior and Reagan, they're not, they are trying to outdo each other in that debate as to who is the most, not just welcoming, but affirming. And it as a pitch for who we are. Right in that I remember that vividly. I also remember Reagan saying, because this imprinted on me like a duckling about who we are as a country where he said, you can go to France and never become French and you can go to Japan, but you'll never be Japanese. But any person from across the globe can come to America and if you've got freedom in your heart, you can be one of us and you can you become an American. And to me, it was like, yes, like that, that way of talking defined for me as a young person not just how I thought about America, but also how I thought about the Republican Party thinking about America and immigration. And so I didn't have this sense, I think, from people who, who view Reagan very darkly. And obviously my view of him shifted somewhat as I got older and I just had a much more complex view. But when you're a kid and you have a more cartoonish view, I, I still remember those types of things that defined for me what a Republican was. And maybe I was just choosing to, to take in some of the, the more positive things or the things that resonated with me particularly. But I just did not see a Republican Party that was hostile to immigration the way that Trump is and the, the birthright citizenship SCOTUS decision that just came down. Now that we've all had a chance to Digest this. I think people are, are saying, well, look, it's not so bad because even even though it was only 5, 4 in the dissents, you still saw even Thomas and Alito sort of saying, if they were, you know, we're not, we're not talking here, they had much narrower views of ways in which you would segment people to not fit the birthright citizenship decision. They would still say, look, if you came here with immigrant parents and you were born here, you're still an American citizen. Do you feel good about that, that even what is quite a radical Supreme Court did this? Or do you still feel like, geez, five, four, come on, it's black and white in the Constitution. What are we doing here?
- [10:22]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, more of the latter, a little more worried. I mean, I think if it's fair, some of the modifications of the sum, maybe over the top, you know, it's not just five, four. Maybe it's really like five two with two in between or something like that. Still, I would just say it this way. When Reagan issued the executive order on January 20, his first day at office a year and a half ago, you know, I'm on a couple of threads with law professors and stuff, many who, you know, many whom you talk to on your excellent lawyer legal affairs podcast and it's called the Illegal News. I couldn't remember. I know it's legal. Something illegal, something, whatever. We have too many podcasts, can't remember the names of them, you know, and, and I'd say the consensus was, well, that's a joke. It's a pitch to the base. And that one could really be. I remember several people said that could be 9, 0. I don't think even Thomas will go for that. Certainly 7:2 may not get to the Supreme Court because every lower court will strike it down right away, which they did. And the Supreme Court will just say, come on, we're not taking this. This isn't like a close call. Why should we take it? You know, there's no diversity, no disagreement between the circuits. There's no interesting constitutional issue. They took it and they ended up with this. You know, I don't what you call it 5, 5, 22 type decision, which is not good. I agree with that. And the other point I'd make on that, I have two other two points, I guess quickly. One is in the real world of immigration, leave aside this court decision, which is somewhat theoretical, it wasn't going to, you know, so we would be forward looking and not unimportant. But, but in the real world, it's bad. I mean, they pulled back a little after Minneapolis, but they're going ahead with all the mass deportation stuff. They've got this good New York Times article this morning. They've increased the quota of arrest. The White House called over to ICE and said, we want 2,000 arrests a day. They've literally given up any pretense that they're going after violent criminals. They're going after the worst of the worst. They're dealing with, I don't know, deadbeats, you know, who are, you know, need to be, you know, who are taking government resources. It's none of that. It's just anyone we can get. And they're now, of course, denying people to temporary protective status they've had for a few years in the case of the Haitians. But the Salvadorans are coming up and that'll be 20, 25 years, and they may not renew that and then they become illegal so they can go after them. So the cruelty, the stupidity, the willfulness in a way, of the assault on immigrants, and of course, they're not friendly to legal immigration either. That's really chugging ahead. And I think it's with dhs, with all that money, ice, with all that money, the failure to put on any constraints after all that pretty good fighting the Democrats did, and they stalled the DHS bill at all, which was good, I thought. But the end of the day, you know, what we remember three, four, five months ago, well, at least they're not going to wear masks anymore. At least they're not going to have to, you know, obey certain procedures and stuff. Well, Mullen pulled them back a little from Christy Noem day, you know, days, I suppose in terms of the dramatic character of their assaults on people, that doesn't seem quite as bad, but it's pretty bad. So the institutionalization of the anti immigration sentiments, I guess, if I can put it that way, I think is very worrisome. And I guess, I guess the broader point I'd make about the current moment is on the one hand, I'm sort of cheered up by the 250th, 250th anniversary in this sense. I don't think, and I'm curious to know what you think about this. I don't think Trump has succeeded in hijacking it. I don't think people care much about what he's tried to do or like it much. I don't feel like he's put a Trumpian stamp on our country through the, you know, having the cage fight at the White House and the idiocy on the Mall. And so I think in that respect, it's sort of been a dud from his point of view, which shows the public has a certain healthy resistance and they're going about their normal Fourth of July, you know, cookouts and fireworks at the local high school and so forth at a pretty good way. On the other hand, as we sit here on approaching July 4th weekend, what, 18 months into the Trump second term, the institutionalization of a lot of bad stuff, both in DHS, but DoD, DoJ, what's happening with, you know, the civil service and other case court, Supreme Court case, has some implications on that politicization of everything in the government. The grift, the graph, the corruption. That stuff is 2 billion. That stuff is bad. I mean, that stuff is bad and it doesn't seem to be letting up. The public doesn't like it, to their credit, I think, but, but the, the lever, they control the levers of power and they're exercising them pretty aggressively, I guess is the way I would say it. So that part. So I think it's got a good, you know, the glass is half full in the sense that he's not quite succeeded in convincing the public of a Trumpian vision of America or of immigration, for that matter. But he, on the other hand, he is, you know, his grip on the government, on the Republican Party, his ability to intimidate private sector actors and get them to go along with him and the bribery, both, the corruption, both ways, in a sense. Right. The, the transactional corruption, that stuff is pretty grim. I don't know. What do you think?
- [15:18]
Sarah Longwell
So this is the secret podcast. And since I know you don't listen to our, our own podcast, this is where, this is the podcast where JVL and I disagree often strenuously on things. And so I'm going to disagree with you too. That's the spirit of this podcast. So this is how I think about immigration. I have a piece coming on on this on Sunday, and it goes back to this point that we were talking about with Reagan. Just because the Supreme Court upheld what I think is in black and white in the Constitution. And you may remember that many of our friends in the conservative movement have long, you know, they aspire or their lip service was always toward. We are the great defenders of the Constitution. Right. You know, I pick up my pocket constitutions, which I was mailed by every conservative group. I just have stacks of these pocket constitutions. But I do think that Trump has, and this is from listening to voters. I do think that Trump has succeeded in re anchoring our values around immigration in a different place. And this is in my book and JVL and I really, we kind of worked on this part together because it's a little bit of a complex point. But when you think about somebody like Richard Nixon resigning, even though, you know, he still had 50% approval from the Republican Party when he left, he obviously didn't have enough that he could withstand the pressure from his own party that was trying to push him out. But he did this bad thing. And what was, what is important about him doing that bad thing is that the country still saw it as a bad thing. They didn't. He didn't successfully re anchor Americans values to say, oh, we don't care about them breaking into Watergate in order to do a cover up. Right. The values stayed consistent. I think that Trump has successfully re anchored a lot of Americans values on immigration. And because one of the things that I hear from voters all the time is this idea of these guys are coming here and getting all this stuff for free and you know, we should be prioritizing Americans and it's not okay. They're bringing crime, they're bringing drugs, they're taking things from other Americans. Like, because I always think about this line from Trump, they're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists. And I suppose some of them are good people. That is very different from most of them are good people. They believe in freedom, they come here to experience freedom and they add things to the country. Right. It's all about what they added. And that is the frame of Reagan, that was the frame of H.W. bush. Trump's is all around take, take, take. And I do think that immigrants take, take, take. And you, the average American, the feckless elites have abandoned you and they're letting these people take what is rightfully yours. And I do hear that now this sense that it's like, well, yes. Do voters mostly want to just deport criminals and not and close the border? Yes, that is where like the median voter is. But I do hear these Trump voters more and more say a version of the like, they're taking, they're taking and that's bad and no one cares that they're taking so much. And I just think that that has been a big re anchoring as opposed to being like happy that they come here because they think it was a point of national pride that so many people wanted to come here and it isn't anymore. And Trump has told a whole story that includes fentanyl, that includes terrorism, that includes crime, that is all bundled together as like a threat to the American people. And I do think that that is something that they've internalized and they have kind of again, what I call the moral alibi. And they say, well look, I want people to come here, but I want them to come the right way. Now the Haitians came the right way, right? Like the, the, the people that we're talking about that they're going to remove from temporary protected status did come the right way. It did come legally. And but I think that what it does for the American people, this moral alibi is they say it's not a question of liking or disliking immigrants. It is a question of process and fairness. Now of course, Americans have no experience with the actual process. And so they may be there thinking, well this is, it's an easy thing to do. Why don't you just do that the legal way. They have no sense of what it actually takes now to become an American citizen, how hard we are making it. And because we just have a broken immigration system and have now that's gone unfixed by our legislators for so long that coming the right way is quite difficult. Not that people shouldn't come here legally they should, but it's not the like, oh well, they should just do this legally. It takes six months, you know. But anyway, what do you make of that? This idea that Trump has re anchored our value like our, our sense of this?
- [20:21]
Bill Kristol
No, I think it's a very important point and I think you said it very well, actually. I mean, 10 years of Trump as president for what, five and a half of them now and as leader of the Republican Party basically, and you know, losing a fairly close reelection, you might say three time nominee of one of our two major parties throughout those 10 years has made a huge difference. I know some of it was happening before Trump. Trump's both a cause and all that. One understands that. But no, I think that's a very good point. I mean, I'm probably a little too kind to the public and a little so a little too tough on elites. I mean, one way I would say your point about Watergate is even though 50% of the Republican electorate was still for Nixon, the Republican elites turned against Nixon. I mean that's what happened. Goldwater famously Hugh Scott went to the White House. The leading conservative colonists and thinkers in America were against even rational review by the end was for basically for him, him leaving office and against it and incidentally he was over Watergate, which was 1/100th of the stuff that's happening now. I mean literally, you know, I mean he got some.
- [21:24]
Sarah Longwell
Well, J.D. vance said this recently.
- [21:26]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, no, he's sort of right. I mean he got some rogue CIA guy, you know, to do something to help cover up a burglary. Of course he was terrified. He couldn't go to the top people at the CIA because they were not going to go along with it. And the same with fb, you know, of course the justice. He fired Archibald Cox and Richardson quit and then he ended up with the special prosecutor anyway prosecuting him. And obviously Congress was run by Democrats. It was different. But the Republicans ended up splitting. But at least enough of them deserted. Nothing like that's happened with, with corruption and, and, and seizing of power and lawlessness. That's you know, 100 times what Nixon did. So. Yeah, so I think the elites have from, it's hard to know, you know, it's so chicken and egg with the elites and the public and with Trump and the public. Right. This causality both ways. But maybe the public, the public's not getting many signals to steer. If you're already on the Republican ish side or on the conservative side and you don't like woke Democrats, you're not getting many signals from people you like that you really need to stand up to this. The signals you might be getting from some decent normie Republicans is, well, this is going too far and it's overstated and we don't like the really shooting Alex Preddy or Renee Good in Minneapolis. But we do need to crack down after all. And they're not getting the kind of Gerald ford, Ronald Reagan, H.W. bush rhetoric from anyone really anymore. And that I, no, I think that's done a lot of damage. I think that's a, I, that's a, I take that point. I take that point. I mean, yeah, so now the public as a whole, there's been some erosion. So you know, it's, it's, it's 40 of the public that's there, not 50% or whatever and that's 37% or something. That's, that's good. And the other thing, there's also this phenomenon. You find this I think though too in the focus groups that there's a kind of, it may only be 37% now, not 49%, but it's a more radical 37% than it was even 18 months ago. The self radicalization of the nativism, the authoritarianism, the, all the different aspects of this, of Trumpism that continues. Right. I mean, it's really striking the reaction to this, the attacks on.
- [23:30]
Sarah Longwell
Well, this is what I was just going to say.
- [23:32]
Bill Kristol
Okay, go ahead. No, go ahead and you say it.
- [23:33]
Sarah Longwell
Well, only, I mean, the right wing freak out of like, I mean, just, just a Matt Walsh to take one. But there was many like, yes, the attacks on Amy Coney Barrett as like, you know, women are terrible justices because Amy Coney Barrett is obviously, you know, not smart and that's why she's, you know, sided with the liberal justices on birthright citizenship as opposed to being constitutionally conservative and sure, just being able to read the Constitution. But the, the thing that I saw from Matt Walsh that was just crazy was he was like, well, at least I got 40 years to live in America, you know, that, that didn't have this insane immigration, you know, whatever. And I was like, bro, we've always had birthright citizenship. The whole time you've been alive, the idea that something new has just happened is not true. Nothing new is happening to anybody. And around this totally.
- [24:31]
Bill Kristol
No, it's really amazing. I mean, literally, this has been. There's not an American alive, it's not a human being alive who hasn't lived all of his life or her life in an America that had birthright citizenship. So the idea that the court ratified the status quo. Right. I mean, and so it's the. Which makes the right wing freak out. Well, I don't know what doesn't make it, it makes it crazy, really crazy. It makes it indicative of something, I guess. And I can't sort of decide does it make it maybe they're kind of losing and losing their minds or, you know, because they're, they're sort of sense the country isn't quite where they are or, or the opp. Or is it. We're bad though? Because in a sense it just showed, the radicalization just continues. I mean, the degree of racism and misogyny and stuff, it's now just publicly expressed by semi respectable people. I mean people and people certainly aren't repudiated by the President or Vice President of the United States. Let's just start with those two rather important figures who certainly aren't repudiated by the Director of the FBI or the Attorney General of the United States or the new Head of National Intelligence or, you know, or the Secretary of Defense. The degree of just stuff that's there that we would have thought 15, 20 years ago, we would have seen it on the fringes and we would have said Ugh. You know, we need to be careful to keep that way off on the fringes. It is right at the center. It's at the center of a movement that's a little smaller than it was 18 months ago. So that's good, I guess. But it is at the center, and it's got control of important institutions, and it's getting, if anything, more radical. I guess that. That part is somewhat. I. I guess I'm pretty. That. That's very worrisome. Right? Yeah.
- [26:02]
Sarah Longwell
I mean, I'll just take Megyn Kelly as an example of somebody who is sort of breaking with Trump over Iran, Israel. And, you know, she and Tucker. But, like, as a result, like, part of the way that they maintain either their audience, their relevance, whatever, is to be as racist as possible. And so she did this whole speech on the Haitians. They don't share our values. Go home. And it was disgusting. It was, like, unbelievable. And it was the kind of thing that you never. You didn't see. And part of it is people can say, like, well, they were like this all along. And maybe, maybe that's true. Like, maybe this is who Megyn Kelly has always been or Tucker has always been. But as people who followed them kind of closely back in the day, and, like, who knew some of them personally, this is, to me, like, a new level of performance for an audience that they believe is durable and ascendant, and they're willing to debase themselves and be these figures who say these toxic things because they know that it brings an audience with it.
- [27:10]
Bill Kristol
Right. And they might do badly in a midterm election or something, but they think. They're pretty confident that the conservative movement of the Republican Party is continuing to go in their direction. And I suppose they're probably right. I mean, the birthright citizenship to come back, that was on some call with, again, our lawyer friends and stuff. And there was a lot of, you know, look, it's okay. There's. They can. Someone was making fun of Trump who said, well, we could just pass legislation in Congress. And, you know, of course, the court has said five votes are there to say it's unconstitutional. So they can't pass legislation in Congress. This is being explained and correctly. And they didn't really. They sort of were missing the forest for the trees. I think this is going to be a huge issue. I mean, they're going to spend. This is Roe v. Wade. They're going to spend the next. This year and 20, 27 and 8 saying we need to have a Republican president who's committed to overturning this terrible thing. And we need to have new justices and we need to have. Maybe we need to defy or test the courts by passing legislation, let them strike down a current piece of congressional legislation, not just rely on some quotes from stuff from, you know, 140 years ago. And I mean, I feel people are underestimated in that respect. The reaction on the right, but also by Trump and Vance and Speaker Johnson and all these people, is important because it means they think this issue is worth keeping alive. They brought it up in the first place. They didn't have to issue this executive order. It was kind of nuts. They were going to lose, but they wanted to have it alive. And this I thought a little about. They want to have it alive not because the actual number of babies who are becoming birthright citizens is that large. It's not that large. And not because there's any evidence that these children, babies, 15 years from now are going to be any worse teenagers or 30, 45 years from now any worse Americans than, you know, their peers. I mean, I don't know. Why would.
- [28:50]
Sarah Longwell
You know?
- [28:52]
Bill Kristol
It's because it's a wedge into a broader kind of nativism, but also bigotry and view of America. I've become really convinced that the immigration stuff, the mass deportation stuff, birthright citizenship, it's not just about the immigrants. You know what I mean? It is a kind of a sense of what. Of America. And they, they are fighting hard for their America. And it's not. It's not my America,
- [29:18]
Sarah Longwell
nor mine. I also think there's a little bit of. And I'm putting them on the couch here, and I don't know if it's exactly right, but part of it is you also have a. A political group that is, thrives and is driven by grievance, who's basically been getting everything they want. Like, who's that? You know, they got Trump and they've gotten. They get to own the Libs River. And so in some ways, to me, it's like, ooh, I get to be aggrieved. And like, the way that they've gone nuclear on this, like one of the, I mean, the, the editors, Molly Hemingway and Sean Dave, like the editors of the Federalist, they're so far from just having, like, a normal reaction, like, I think the kids call it really crashing out. But it was like, we need to sterilize anyone who's coming into the country. I mean, just bananas. Fascist isn't even the right word. It's just crazy. I do Think in a lot of ways, it is about how do I stay mad and aggrieved? And also, like, we are being done wrong. We are the victims. And I think that's just sort of necessary now for, like, the world that they occupy because they. They really took it to 12. Okay, I want to talk about. I want to switch topics because since JVL is out, I also wrote a triad today. JBL's gonna be so mad about how many pieces I'm writing with him. Not here, since it is a frustration of his that I don't write more. But I have a piece coming on the birthright citizenship stuff we just talked about. And then today I took over the triad and I. I wanted to wrestle with this question of the socialists who've been winning these elections. And what does that mean? Does it mean that the Democratic Party is becoming more socialist? Is it the new hotness now? Should the think tanks in the democratic world be freaking out about this the way a lot of them are? And I want to talk that through. I wrote a whole piece. Maybe you read it. I don't know.
- [31:21]
Bill Kristol
I did. I did. I did a while to realize it was you, not jvl, but that, you know, it comes out when you get the.
- [31:27]
Advertisement/Host Intro
Is that right?
- [31:27]
Bill Kristol
You know, it says, you know, because it's the triad. It says, you know, Jonathan, be last and stuff. I realized you pretty quickly because it was very. It was sober, calm, measured, you know, and. No, I love jbl, needless to say. But no, it was a good piece. We should. We should talk it through.
- [31:43]
Sarah Longwell
All right, so here's what we're going to do, guys. Sorry, but we're going to drop the paywall. And on the other side of this, we're going to talk about what it all means. And look, we don't pay all that many things. In fact, I was just being told by somebody in marketing that we are criminally under paywalling everything that we do, and they can't believe it. But we paywall so little. Most of it's free. This is one of the few things that's paywalled. We already give you half of it. Just come rock with us if you like all the stuff we're doing. We're also running a sale right now, which, again, I don't understand what the point of the $86 is, but we have lowered it from its normal rate to $86. So now is a good time. Become a Bulwark plus member. You can hear the other side of this conversation.