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A
Thanks for joining our first ever support group for puppies.
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B
By show of pause, who's eaten a
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A
computer cable called a dongle?
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B
I ate a dongle before we had lemonade.
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C
Pet insurance. So to avoid a vet bill, they
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B
waited for me to poop the dongle.
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C
You pooped a dongle? I pooped a dongle.
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B
You pooped a dongle.
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C
I pooped a dongle. I pooped a USB stick. Yeah, but he pooped a dongle with lemonade.
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B
Pet insurance save up to 90% at
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A
the vet so you never have to
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B
find out if your pup can poop a dongle.
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A
Get a@lemonade.com Pep I am a little concerned that we seem to be getting numb to this stuff.
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C
I'm not fucking numb.
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A
Hello everyone. This is JVL here with my best friends Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of the Bulwark. We have some good news, some bad news. Some bad news that has led to good news, some crazy news, all the news.
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C
What's the good news? We have good news.
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A
Well, the good news is that as of an hour or two before us taping, we have word that DA HS and ICE are going to stop trying to detain people in their vehicles because they keep killing people.
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C
That's the good news. And the good news?
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A
That's the good news. That's what passes for good news in 2026. I'm sorry, buddy.
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B
Okay, well that good news is just a matter of the fact that Todd Blanche has a hearing coming up and they don't want him to have to answer for all of the people that are you investing?
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C
That's like the worst good news I've ever heard in my life. Honestly, I'm trying to think of a worse good news. Anyway, great.
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A
ICE says they're going to stop murdering people in their cars. Good news. So here's what happened. Last week, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was shot and killed by an ICE officer in Houston during a traffic stop. Yesterday, Joan Sebastian Guerrero was killed by ICE in Biddeford, Maine. I am a little concerned that we seem to be getting numb to this stuff or that because it's not American citizens. People aren't as like up in arms. But I don't know, I mean you guys have been banging the drum on this and working, working hard to highlight this and people's attention to it. Tell me what's going on.
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C
I'm not numb. So can I go first, Sarah? Unfor I. I had to. I taped Pete yesterday. I pre taped the pod with Pete. We'll Talk about at the end, but like it was, this was all just happening. And so like we, like, we did talk about it, but only for like two minutes because I, I just, you know, we didn't have the facts to have a full conversation about it. And. And so I haven't really had a chance to pop off. And it is so outrageous and insane that there have been two murders by agents of the state this week. Both cases the person that they killed was not the person that they were looking for. Both cases they killed the wrong person. In the main case, they didn't even give us the dignity of lying to us. In the main case that he was trying to go after the officers, they just said he was trying to flee. As if that is like at all justification or rationale for killing somebody for killing the wrong person. And it's like, it's hard to even imagine. I'm trying to think of a situation where like shooting somebody who is fleeing would be at all appropriate outside of the movies, I guess. Like a serial killer, you know, I mean, or somebody that is running that is like an acute violent threat to the community maybe. But like beyond that. Yeah. Federal agents shouldn't just be firing at people in Biddeford, Maine. This, this shooting was like 20 minutes from the bush compound in Kennebunkport. Okay. And quite far from the Mexico border, I should mention. And so it's like totally insane that we have armed agents of the state shooting people they didn't even secure. Like the pictures this morning. Have you seen the pictures this morning of the people who like wrote in shock, this is blood. Like the street in Biddeford, Maine is blood stained and they didn't secure it. The pictures of the two guys that did it seemed like they were just kind of plotting what their spin was going to be. Susan Collins said, oh, here's what my. Her statement was. I'm told by Mark Wayne Mullen that the DHS IG is going to look into this. It's like, oh, really? The people that have murdered four more, but I mean like four people point blank in the past few months. We're going to trust that department to do an investigation of itself. The murdering department is going to investigate itself. And Susan Collins, who's resident of her state, got killed is just like, I'm just going to see what the murdering department says about the murder and we'll see how that goes. Even though they've already lied about every other case. I mean like, it is totally, like totally outrageous and people should be up in arms And I do agree with you that, like the fact that they're immigrants in the case of Juan Guerrero, not an illegal immigrant. Not that this matters. You don't get to just. I know in Fox, I think it's okay. They think just to kill illegal immigrants with impunity. Like, if you come in illegally, then it's like, okay, whatever, you're a criminal, so we can do whatever you want to you. That's.
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A
Yeah, you have a death mark on you.
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C
Sure, yeah, you just get the death mark. But like, in this case, it wasn't even the case. I mean, like, the guy had a work permit, so he's illegal. And he was no different than the people working on Donald Trump's golf courses. And he's a three year old in the blue and bluey pajamas sitting there watching him get murdered. And the whole thing is fucking sickening. And. And this whole, like, oh, we're gonna stop doing car arrests. And it's just the same thing that happened in Minnesota, right. It's like, oh, okay, well, we're gonna stop doing Minneapolis patrolling now because people are onto us. So we're just gonna go out and patrol rural parts of the state. And here's what. Here's what happened. So there's my first ramp. I've got more.
- [05:47]
B
Can I just stipulate, for the sake of brevity, that I share completely not only the substance of Tim's rant, but also the rage with which he shared it? Okay, I have. I share the same. Now I have to tell you my bad news. I didn't want to go first because. And I'm going to get. I don't want to get blamed for this, but I had a focus group last night, swing voters, swing states. We asked about these shootings. They didn't know they'd happened. Hadn't heard anything about them, just didn't even know. And I think that this is indicative of two things. One point you've already made about the fact that these are not American citizens in the way that Alex Preddy and Renee Good were. Where people can sort of put themselves like, hey, I could have been out in those streets and cops are just shooting me. Right. Instead, it's something they feel like they identify with lust because they. As soon as you hear Illegal alien or whatever it is that they're using, you say like, okay, well, then they were doing something wrong. Right? So that's what the other difference is. It wasn't caught on tape the way that the other two were. And I think when things are caught on tape. And people are able to sort of do their own Rorschach investigation of what am I seeing here? Right. Like we're. Now you're being told. Being told that the car was driving away or whatever is completely different. That is life of the mind stuff than, oh, I'm seeing it right now. And I have to evaluate it by what's in front of me at multiple angles, which is what happened with Renee Good and Alex Preddy. And I think both of those things are just contributing to. And whether it's the Iran war plan sharings, whatever it being summer, we do not have an engaged populace in this. Like, people are not paying attention the same way.
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C
A couple of things. One, I take your point that, like, we don't have video of. You know, like, the part of the good thing was like, there's a lot of discourse about, you know, I honestly, even in some ways it drew attention to it that the Republicans, the administration was arguing that she was trying to hit the guy. Right, right. Because then there's this controversy.
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B
Well, that's what it did it through the lie. Right there was their statement, which we could then see with our own eyes was a lie in a way that is not happening in this instance.
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C
The other thing I would say about this, and this is just a broader point, takes me back to like, the right, right. Thompson interview I did earlier this year, which was one of my favorites, where he's talking about his mom and how she's posting on Facebook all the time. And he's like, mom, why are you posting on Facebook so much? This isn't helping. You live in Mississippi. People are going to hate you. And she was like, right, I lived through this once and I didn't say anything. I'm not going to do it again. I just. I thought that was really a short version of the story. I thought it was very powerful. And it's like, this is something that I've changed my view on because, like, during kind of the peak of peak woke, like around Covid Black Lives Matter, there was kind of a lot of performative posting happening, you know, in ways that you kind of would make you roll your eyes at some point. Like, everybody's putting a black square up on their Instagram feed. You know, like, okay, what's. What is being done with by this? But that is better than the alternative of nothing, you know. And I. And I do think that it is something that when I was. I guess it was the Houston, I guess it was the Lorenzo. There's so many ice shootings this week, it's hard to remember which one, but the Lorenzo shooting, I guess it was, I asked like the podcast emails, like, can we clip Bill and I talking about that and put it on social media? Because I want people to be able to share that, you know, And I, and I do think that that's like an important thing that people can do now. Like, I think it does matter, right? I get matters. Like they pulled out of Minnesota because of the reaction. There's obviously not going to be the same level of reaction in Biddeford, Maine as there was in a major metropolis like Minneapolis, as far as people on the streets are concerned. But they're already at least saying that they're going to change some policies and what we know, what they're really going to do, which is like, let things die down and go back to business as usual. But like, it's, it is actually important is meaningful. This is one area where it's meaningful, I do think for people to like, post on, like, make sure your friends have seen this, because I do think a lot of people probably haven't.
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B
They haven't. And it was, it was reminiscent of the time that, like an early lesson for me in doing focus groups was when Trump was on the stage with Vladimir Putin and cited against America's intelligence community. And I was in Columbus, Ohio, and I asked people about it and they just gave me these blank stares because I was like, oh, wait, the thing that people were literally freaking out about, like, you know, 80 years of American foreign policy had just evaporated and people in Washington were up in arms about it. Donald Trump was being forced to walk back his statement just to keep whatever. But, like, nobody in Columbus, Ohio knew or cared. And I've always liked quotations because they're nice and succinct and they like wrap things up. And one of them is the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference, which is Ellie Wiesel, who wrote Man's Search for Meaning, which is one of my all time favorite books about the Holocaust. And like that emotion of indifference. And it's not even that, like, that's what we're dealing with. And so, like, you have to sort of help shock the conscience of Americans.
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A
I'm a little afraid to ask, Sarah, when, when you talked about this with the focus group people.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Did they care? Like, once you explain what was happening
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B
Again, this is why I think the video makes such a big difference. I know I'm like, scared.
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C
I don't like that breath.
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B
I know I'm scared to Tell you guys. So again, these are swing voters. I suspect if it was a Democratic group, that would have been different. I suspect if it was a full MAGA group, it would have been different. These voters tend to do a lot of like, these people have hard jobs. I don't really know the situation. They are people who like, don't like the excesses of either side. Right. They, they are upset to see gardeners and people who've been here. Somebody mentioned gardeners in the group, which is why I'm saying it. But like, people who've been here for a long time, they don't want those people deported. They do very badly want the border closed and they want criminals deported. And so they sort of wrestle in this gray area.
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A
Do they understand that the criminals to be deported have all been deported and that everybody who's getting deported now is basically a gardener?
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B
Actually, no, they don't. They don't.
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A
Like there are quotas of 2,000 people a day.
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B
Yeah. Do.
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A
They don't understand that that means. Hard to find that out. You have to like spend 30 seconds on the Internet reading. I mean, it's almost impossible to learn.
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C
The other thing is, and this is an American thing that is worth, I just think important to have conversation about. And it's a little bit also related to kind of like why I was so pissed about the CPS thing with Pete. And I do think this is where my libertarian part comes in is just like, cops really shouldn't be killing people ever. Almost ever. I mean, sometimes, right, you get a gun drawn, you again, people think about the movies, they think about the TV show Cops. But there are countries. I remember thinking about this during the. As debating somebody during, after the George Floyd killing. And they're like, you know, this stuff happens. Da, da, da. And I, this is Covid. So you'd nothing to do. I remember frantically like going through various statistics websites and being like, did you know that in Japan police have killed one person this decade or something like that. And you know, I'm just pulling this out of it. But it's like in, in other developed countries, this just doesn't happen that much in our country because of the Second Amendment. Like there are, you know, the job is a little more dangerous than it is in Japan. And there are going to be instances that are close calls where you're worried somebody's gonna pull a gun on you, etc. Where things happen. But like, in general, police really shouldn't shoot at people running away, you know, and I, and I understand that this is Hard jobs people should talk about like that. But I think that is an important maybe element of this to bring into the discourse for people, which is like, we should have a different expectation, believe for what the state is doing.
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B
But this also goes to the fact that these are ICE agents and not cops too. Right. These are, these are halfway trained guys who often have their faces covered and we're told we'll give you a big bonus and fill the hole in your soul that says to be a big man, I've got to have a badge and a gun and be beating up on somebody in a weaker position than myself. And like fills them with that level of propaganda and then turns them loose in the streets. This isn't actually cops even like, or
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C
fully trained in some of these cases they've been fully trained people but who are used to dealing with cartels on the border.
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B
Right.
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C
And it's like, Right. And so I do, I do think that is a different job. You know, you've been moved from the border now by Stephen Miller to start menacing people in small hamlets near the Bush family compound on the coast of Maine. Yeah, it's like, yeah, you know, the tactics are a little different. We don't know anything because our administration are liars and they cover up. So we don't actually know who these people are. But I think they, it could, I think it could be either. Right. It could be non trained people that just joined or like, you know, people that had been in the shit for 15 years. That was one of the, I forget one of the guys, I think it was the Predi shooting. That was the latter.
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A
Sarah, I don't, I don't want to let you get, get away without answering the question. Were, were the people concerned about the deaths, the voters and the focus groups
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B
or they didn't know? Like this is where they, this is where when you, when you filled in
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A
the blanks for them.
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B
Yeah. But when you tell people, people are very like, I don't, I don't know enough to really have an opinion. And then they sort of wrestle with the broad contours of they don't want to see people hurt. Like they, they, they answer like decent children who are ill informed. No, I do want to push back. And this is, this is a difficult one for me because this is part of where there's Sarah who has personal rage about what's happening. Then there's me understanding the voters and being frustrated with elements of you saying, well, they could just go Google it. And you're like, okay, but they'd have to be. What would prompt them to do that? What is why, why would an average person just be like, I'm suddenly interested in the, how many people are being deported regularly. Like that's not a, that's not a real expectation for a person. The question is, is how do you get Americans to care about the fact that these people are being shot? Well, the first thing is they have to know about it. And I was just saying in this case they didn't even, they didn't know about it. And when they answered, they answered like in kind of a normal way, which is we have an immigration problem. But also I don't want to see Carol, remember our friend Carol from a year ago?
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A
Carol?
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B
Yeah, yeah, right. They don't want to see her deported. And so they live in this sort of gray area of like, well, we want America to be safe, we want our border to be closed. And also we don't want to shoot or deport people who've been here for 35 years. They're not monsters. But they are. This is why, this is why I said the thing about indifference is they're, they're just sort of not sure and they don't know about all the stuff that's going on. Like let me just, in defense of voters, slightly great, because I'm going to
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C
have a counter in a second. So give a full defense.
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B
Not, not on immigration per se, but on the information environment in general. Right now they are trying to. Is the Strait of Hormuz open or closed? Are we at war or are we not? Is Jeffrey Epstein the world's greatest pedophile? Is the person who is the architect of the COVID up of what he did for the entire administration about to be the head of our, the nation's top justice like agency? Are gas prices going to go up or down because of the Strait of Hormuz? Are the Trump boys enriching themselves on crypto money in the billions? Like the amount of information to sort through here. And every single one of them, every single one of them is a five alarm fire for democracy. And it is a lot to know about.
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C
I take that point. I just would also say this is just a frustrating thing to me about the immigration thing generally. And where I want more rage, more widespread rage is people do have object permanence if you'll sense we can remember what's happened the rest of their life. And we're now, I'm just, we have, the O's of us Here have been 40 some odd years depending on the person on this earth. And like, before last year, the federal government agents have not killed people in the streets. Like, that hasn't happened. Right. And there have been cop killings. There's the Rodney King. There have been things, but, like, federal immigration agents in masks roaming the streets, murdering people is something that has started really recently. And so I would think that that would be a thing that people could notice and say, hey, this is a new thing. People are getting killed. And, like, I don't want. I might want different immigration policy, but I don't really want mass thugs roaming the streets, murdering people and doing summary execution because in front of their children. And, like, that's happening right now. And so I just. I would think that just as a general thing, you don't have to know that much about the news to be like, this wasn't happening before, now it's happening. It's bad this and fuck these people. That's kind of really all I'm asking.
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B
This is how I get boxed into defending things that I think.
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C
I'm not asking to defend people, but
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B
all I'm saying is what I just told you is they didn't know about it, right? So it's like you say, I think that part of what has happened is that what happened in Minnesota, remember we went to Minnesota, all of us, what was the one thing that they wanted us to take back? Do you remember?
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A
Still happening.
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B
It was still happening. That's right. They were like, they're forgetting about it, right? And. And that was it. Like, they were like, once Jake Tapper sort of packs up and goes home, because we were kind of on the later end of it, and. And they sort of had already had the sort of big eyes on them and then seen them go away. And so they were so happy. We were there in part because they were like, people are still watching. Go tell them it's still happening. Because there is this sense of collective. Like, we moved on. And I guess my defense is more like one of the things that we struggle with. We. And then I think all Americans struggle with in the Trump era is the sheer volume of horrible things to sort through. And it's a lot. It's an enormous scale. When you say, like, this was happening before, it wasn't happening, that's true of so many things. And so the question is, is what are the personal consequences to Americans and each of them. Like, when have we seen Trump's approval ratings go down? Well, there's a couple places, right? The shooting of Renee Good and Alex Preddy was both a caught on video And B looked like it could have been a lot of them, right? And it's so that sparked a kind of outrage, the gas prices because of the war. The war wouldn't matter to people. But for the gas prices. It wouldn't be the deaths. It wouldn't be like it wouldn't matter to people. That's a reality. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
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C
But here's what I'm asking then I have an action item we're asking to tell people not to forget about it. What we're going to put in here in post is a video of Guerrero getting pulled out of his car in front of his three year old fucking daughter in bluey pajamas. And his lifeless body is being dropped on the street. And the two thugs that killed him when he was no threat to them are handcuffing his dead body on the street. So people can now watch that video. And now you can see the chalk outline of people saying, this is blood on the street. You can just tell in this picture it just says, little peaceful hamlet in coastal Maine. And so we will put this on Instagram and people can share it with their friends who are, I don't know, at outer Banks or whatever, blissfully unaware that the government continues to kill people in the streets of random towns in America. So there's my action item for people.
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A
Great. Now a word from our sponsor. Which one making it hard for me.
- [22:06]
C
Which lucky sponsor gets this slot?
- [22:08]
A
This show is sponsored by. Look, I'm going to make it up with enthusiasm. This show is sponsored by Laundry Sauce. When it comes to the scent of your laundry, it shouldn't smell like the same thing you use to disinfect your bathroom. Enter Laundry Sauce, the premium scented laundry pods that don't just clean your clothes but leave them smelling amazing for days after washing. Guys, I love these things so much. This is hand to God true. I keep them secretly stashed away in our laundry rooms that nobody else can use them. And I only use them for my own clothes.
- [22:42]
B
Oh my God.
- [22:43]
C
Can I tell you this? Jbl, can I give you just like the inverse of this. It's terrible, which is that Tyler is very also persnickety about his laundry detergent. And it needs to be, I don't know, like that has to have some special ingredient or something. And so we had all these different flavors. The Italian bergamot, we had people over, we set them out. And so like many of our friends then, now have Laundry sauce and are thrilled.
- [23:11]
A
That's nice of you to spread the love I keep it all for myself. If you need something sweet for the summertime, no further than their brand new limited edition scent Brazilian Vanilla. I have not gotten my hands on that. I want to the perfect fragrance for the sunniest season of the year with notes of whipped vanilla, caramel, coconut, white florals and grounding woods. Doing laundry will feel like a trip to the Copacabana beach. Their Australian sandalwood is perfectly rugged, warm and earthy, much like Tim. It's versatile enough for any occasion, but evokes just enough mystery to deliver plenty of compliments. Of course, you have to leave the house in order to get those compliments, so I don't get those. You won't want to leave this scent once you try it on. And the best part is that you won't have to with Laundry Sauce. Laundry Sauce also just made its Target debut. Very big news shop Laundry Sauce in select Target stores now. 90% of customers now love laundry day because of Laundry Sauce. Turn your least favorite chore into a self care ritual. And again, honestly, that's how I view it when I do my laundry with Laundry Sauce. For a limited time only, our listeners get 20% off your entire order when you use code thenextlevel@laundry sauce.com that's 20% off your order@laundry sauce.com with promo code thenextlevel. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that me, JVL from the next level sent you. It's time to make Laundry Day the best day of the week. So we have a war back on. And Iran. So yesterday, Donald Trump did something astonishing. He tweeted that the Hormuz Strait is open and will remain open with or without Iran. We are reinstating the Iranian blockade. Blah, blah, blah, blah blah. The USA will be from this point forward known as the guardian of the Hormuz Strait. But as such, and as a matter of fairness, we will be reimbursed at a rate of 20% on all cargo shipped. Oil shot up yesterday after Trump tweeted this out at 10:16 in the morning. But the rest of the world did not freak out, which tells you everything you need to know about the rest of the world's appraisal of America and the American president.
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C
Yeah, it seems like some of his business partners, the sheiks, the oil sheiks, gave him a buzz. It seems like he got a buzz from a couple of them.
- [25:45]
B
Well, the 20%'s already off. He's already pulled that off. He's already taco.
- [25:49]
A
So that, that happened this morning. So 20, a little bit less than 25 hours after this. He was like, oh, nope, never mind. We're not gonna, we don't need to do this 20% tariff anymore. What I kind of wanna focus on here, though, is whether or not it matters that what Donald Trump did was threaten an act of war against the entire world. So let me explain. The Strait of Hormuz is what I, I did a deep dive into maritime law today.
- [26:19]
C
Law of the sea treaty, just like
- [26:21]
B
every American could if they were just, if they would just take the time to do it.
- [26:24]
C
Yeah.
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A
I mean, it didn't take me but three hours. Like, it's not, it isn't like getting a Ph.D. you know, like it is. You know, and in fact, you, whatever. Anyway, you're just trying to wind me up.
- [26:36]
B
I am so 1/16 of an expert in maritime law. So let's go.
- [26:40]
A
I'm like, I'm like, like Michael Bluth in, In, you know, the law of the sea. So the Strait of Hormuz is an international waterway which has been governed by the last 80 years by international law and has been designated. Before that treaty, there was no government before that. It was, it was disputed. So this is again, there's UN treaty on maritime codes. And the Strait of Hormuz is, is what is called. It has transit passage, which means that all cargo and military ships may pass innocently through. This is like the legal terms of art they use in maritime law. And interestingly enough, Iran has never agreed to this. Iran has objected to this and claimed that the strait was its own, its own property and that it should have administrative rights over it. And they were basically just over. Overruled by the weight of, of signatories to international law who just said, no, this is, this is not how we do business. Donald Trump, yesterday, unilaterally, without even an act of Congress, he declared that that regime was over. He said that the strait was no longer governed by international law and that the United, it was now a part of the United States and that he would exercise authority over the strait, meaning over any country attempting to transit the strait from thousands of miles away in Washington. And when you say a toll, a toll, my libertarian friends, what is taxation?
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B
Theft.
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A
Theft. Right. What, what are the state laws are all enforced at the point of a gun. Right? This is, this is the, the libertarian. That's what this is. This is Donald Trump threatening violence and war. It's any country that doesn't pay his toll, which is Tantamount to a blockade. A blockade is, again, by all the legal definitions, from the Supreme Court to international law to the UN Charter, is an act of war. And so the President of the United States just says this. He jettisons 80 years of law on this and threatens war against the entire rest of the world, and nobody fucking cares because everybody knows he's insane. How are we supposed to live like this?
- [29:08]
B
Well, I think a lot of people are just trying to wait him out. Yeah, people just basically aren't taking him seriously, like. And why aren't they taking him seriously? Because he's already. It's sort of like where Trump bleeded at one point, like, birthright citizenship is over. And everybody's like, sure, but that's in the Constitution, so probably this isn't real. And it's like, he does. He does this, right? And so, yeah, when you say, how are we supposed to live like this? I guess everybody just wants to wait him out. But at every. Every one of these things that he does, what it does is it reinforces the idea that just straight nihilism. It's all straight. It's all. It's all a power play. It's all what we say it is. Although just as a practical matter, he's wrong. To the Iranians then also tweeted, because this is the world we live in now. And they were like, no, we own it, and we're going to charge $2 million. Better bargain. And you're like, okay, this is foreign policy now. Just a bunch of crazy lunatics tweeting about how much they're going to charge people to go through international waters. And then everybody gets on the phone and calls the relevant parties and is like, you need to back this off, and here's why. And before you know it, Trump's like, well, we're not going to charge 20%. We're just going to make great deals with other countries in the Middle East. And you're like, I don't know, maybe we will, maybe we won't. What is truth?
- [30:38]
C
I don't know. I. I just. Just popped in here. Just a really quick. Do a quick check on my 401k. Great day today. Things are doing well. Charts going up. So, I don't know. I think that people are going to live like this. Like, they're just going to keep on existing.
- [30:54]
A
All right, let me ask a different question. Was every president before Trump a loser and a sucker to conduct foreign policy as if it was something serious? Like, why. Why not just do it this way?
- [31:09]
C
I can feel that one, I can feel that one. Because he's getting humiliated. This is, I mean, he's achieving nothing. He's achieving nothing. In some ways it's kind of nice, actually, because maybe it will. This is, this could be the most absurd silver lining that's ever come out of my mouth. But like, maybe there'll be a regained appreciation for taking things seriously. How about that? Jbl? How about that possibility? People start turning to expertise again. No, I think that's probably unlikely, but like, it is. He isn't accomplishing anything. I mean, I think that your question, that rhetorical question, the classic kind of JVL maximalist troublemaking rhetorical question, would have been a really fair one after the Venezuela op because he didn't kind of just get away with that. And, and that was, you know, the type of foreign policy that people did engage in and kind of the pre 19th century, etc. But. And prior. But like, this is not working at all. Like, this is a disaster and this is just humiliating. And he's being mocked on the world stage. America looks weak. We're losing influence. What is he gaining out of this? And he just wishes it didn't happen, right? If he could win magic round, he
- [32:35]
B
would go back and be like this. I shouldn't.
- [32:37]
C
We're gonna invade Greenland instead. Like, you know, if you had a time machine, I think I can do.
- [32:42]
B
I'm gonna do dark Sarah. And because I think Tim Tim characterized, I think where I often normally am, there's an lol, nothing matters element to all of this. My sis, when I say wait it out, people are like, this can't really be how things are gonna get done. So we're gonna volley around a bunch and hope nobody goes to like real war. But hey, we don't know whether we're at the beginning of a story, a middle of a story, an end of a story. We could be at the beginning of a story about how World War three starts. And it starts with Donald Trump bumbling into this war, trying to negotiate with literal terrorists, him behaving like a terrorist himself and saying, I'm going to annihilate your civilization. Oh, no, I'm going to give you a bunch of money to go buy our crops with. Oh, I'm going to unfreeze your assets. Oh, I'm taking off our sanctions. Oh, the sanctions are back on. Hey, we're back on war. Who owns the Strait of Hormuz? And like, you know, all of these other countries in the Middle east and Pakistan, everybody else are trying to Keep everything even keel. Like, there's a whole bunch of world leaders in these negotiations trying to deal with the fact that, like, they don't want everything to blow up. Plus, you've got the Israel of it all. And so I'm not sure a lot of people are seeing the forest for the trees here. And we have no idea where this is going. We could look back and think we were all, lol, nothing mattered, ourselves into something horrible.
- [34:05]
A
Is this the global version of the first term in which all of the adults in the room saved Trump from his worst instincts? And, like, where the rest of the world is going to save Trump from getting the worst outcomes here because everybody else is going to figure out ways to protect the man baby so that we don't get World War three or something?
- [34:26]
C
Maybe. I mean, there's, to be honest, part of that is happening for sure, though I think Trump's own fear is driving a lot of his cowardice here. And I do think that if this were fiction and if this really were, if we're all just part of a simulation, I do think it would tie the room together nicely for the Earth to end in nuclear annihilation. Because Donald Trump bumbled into the stupidest war imaginable. Like that. He didn't even want to do that. He had no point to do, but he decided he had to throw a temper tantrum to be really strong, and that would pretty nicely encapsulate the Trump era. But I don't think that's happening. And look what I see is happening is this is like the stupidest and most malevolent version. Like, Trump's posture towards Iran right now is kind of a stupid and malevolent version of kind of how Obama had to deal with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Like, Obama did not want to be in those wars, but he also didn't want to be responsible for another 9 11, right? So he didn't want the terrorists groups to gain power. And so he's kind of like doing the minimum necessary to do it. Like, he didn't want to pull out and have disaster follow, but he didn't want to escalate. Right? And so he was kind of like, trapped in this box in this situation. Now, in that case, it was like, that's kind of defensible. Honestly, there's like a prudence to that. Like, he didn't want to get in those wars in the first place. So it's very different. The context around that is very different than, like, Trump bumbling us into the stupidest war. Imaginable because Bibi wanted to and because he thought it was going to be easy because he's an idiot. But, like, now that he's in it, he's kind of doing what about. Right. It's like, okay, well, we'll just drone people from time to time, and every time there's a little skirmish, we'll just do another run of bombings. And then Trump's going to add on kind of like the malevolent rhetoric part on top of that, you know, which is like, we'll kill your civilization, you know, and it's sort of like the, you know, whatever Hector Mountain Dew, Camacho version of what. What, like, Obama was doing, but, like, what was underlying it. Like, the motivations was like, he doesn't want to escalate this. He wants it to be over. Yeah, right. Like, and. But he just. He. He also doesn't want to look like a wimp. And so, I don't know, to me, like, the biggest risk factor, Sarah, when you talk about is this the beginning or middle at the end of the story is like. And where he's obviously different than Obama. And. And so compulsive and impulsive. Impulsive rather. Excuse me, is like, I don't know, man. What if, like, some Iranian splinter cell or one person, like, does a terrorist attack on our homeland, like, in response to the bombing that we're doing of their country indiscriminately? That doesn't seem like a crazy threat, Tim.
- [37:19]
A
How could that happen? Kash Patel runs America's counterinterrent counterterrorism apparatus.
- [37:23]
C
One of those things happens and you know Trump, who the fuck knows?
- [37:27]
B
Yeah, they could. They could. They could unleash some kind of bacteria that gives all of America diarrhea until we're all so dehydrated we can't eng. I mean, that. That's the other. Like, this is. The thing is, I don't know, maybe we just all end up with dysentery. This could go so many directions. Are we going to do Todd Blair? So I will just admit something up front. I have a rageful rant to do, but I preserved my strength and energy because I knew Tim would bring it on immigration. I need to do it for Todd Blanche. So tell me, what next?
- [38:05]
A
You know what? We're going to give our next sponsor a great transition from dysentery into their ad read. And after that, everybody can hear Sarah's righteous hate fire.
- [38:15]
B
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- [39:49]
A
gonna become one of a handful of men to ever serve as America's Attorney General. The highest, the highest position there really is in the American legal system. His hearing is tomorrow. Do you have any thoughts you'd like to share with the class guys?
- [40:01]
B
I was on Nicole yesterday and I started to like, you know when you're on TV sometimes and you feel yourself, you're like you're supposed to be on, you're talking like an analyst or just like a commentator. But I started to lose my ever loving mind as I got myself worked up about Todd Blanche because this is one of those things wherein or over on earth one, you go back 10 years, you could go back to Trump's first term. The idea that you could make the Attorney General of the United States somebody who had approved Donald Trump's slush fund, his immunity from the irs, who had been his personal defense lawyer, who gave Ghislaine Maxwell the sweetheart deal where she gets puppies and yoga at Club Fed, who literally went and on tape, in the conversation, Nicole Wallace played a clip that I had not heard that I think is why I started to lose my mind on tv where it is a tape of, of. Because Blanche himself went to talk to Maxwell, okay? He went and talked to her in jail. He is the person doing this. And he's. She's saying to him, you know, many of your colleagues in the cabinet were friends with Jeffrey Epstein. Many of the people you know were friends with Jeffrey Epstein. Why would they be friends with Epstein if he was such a bad guy? And there's this incredibly long pause, I mean like a 30 second pause where you literally, even while I was on TV, I thought did something cut out or whatever. And then Todd Blanche says, I can't remember what it is, but it's like a total non sequitur. He just asks for something totally different. He basically just does not comment on the fact that she just said half the Cabinet had relationships with this guy. He. Fine, like, go ask them, okay? This guy is sitting on top of a cover up of America's most notorious pedophile. He is the reason that despite Congress passing a law that says the Epstein files have to be released, we have not seen the ones that are still under a seal. There are millions of documents we still haven't seen. They're supposed to be released. He is keeping them from being released. He is also the one who was in the Situation Room. They had to go into the Situation Room to have a meeting, which we know from the Haberman swan book where the Vice President and Todd Blanche sat there to figure out how to do the PR crisis management around Epstein because the voters care about it. Trump's own voters care about it. And Vance said, I guess sort of to his credit, we should just get it all out there. And Blanche says, no, what we should do is say we're going to have the. We're going to release grand jury testimony because either they'll stop it, the judges, they'll stop us for releasing it, or alternatively it'll come out and it'll be a big nothing burger. This is the guy that we are talking about putting at the top of our justice system, okay? Somebody who acts as Donald Trump's permanent personal defense attorney was in fact Donald Trump's personal defense attorney continues to act that way and does not care for one second about the victims of Jeffrey Epstein. Not for one second. And so the righteous indignation that, that Tim and all of us, I think feel on the immigration thing, I just want to get that out on this Epstein stuff, which is another issue, by the way, that we have allowed to lapse into the background in the face of the scale of so much other news. But it still remains the case that we have not gotten any clarity on this. And when Todd Blanche released the first tranche of files, by the way, he's the one who made all of their personal information. All the victims got re. Victimized because he released their. Their addresses, their family members, they all became targets. This guy is the living worst and has no business being the head of the Justice Department. And any Republican. I am, I am not confident anymore that he will not. Like, I think Republicans will give Trump what he wants because they are the cowards that we all know them to be now. But the idea that they would let this guy get this job, that Cornyn or Tillis or Cassidy or Susan Collins or Dan Sullivan in Alaska, that they would let this guy who has orchestrated the COVID up for this pedophile and this president, I just. Is the most shameful thing I've ever. If they let it happen, and I think they will anyway.
- [44:39]
A
Question.
- [44:40]
B
Yes, question.
- [44:41]
A
Did you ask your swing voters about Todd Blanche?
- [44:45]
B
Swing voters don't really know who Todd Blanch is.
- [44:47]
A
Oh. Oh. If they knew, would they care?
- [44:50]
B
Yes. So wait, hold on. I have. This is. Here's the thing. Jbl. No, no, no, no, no. I'm sorry. This is a. This. I'm not saying this is a. This is good because I actually think it's like, I think there's something a little wrong with the fact that you actually can engage Americans on this particular issue. And it's because it involves Jeffrey Epstein and a pedophile. Right. Like, I just, I think that actually. And I wrote a whole piece about this for the Bulwark about how Jeffrey Epstein, Todd Blanche does not come up by name, but Jeffrey Epstein comes up all the time. And I think that Democrats should, in this hearing, make it very clear to hang all of Jeffrey Epstein's stuff. Rightly not. They don't. It's not even a PR gimmick or a move. All Todd Blanche has to own all of this. And they should make him. And they should make it impossible for Cornyn and Tillis and Cassidy and Collins and Sullivan to vote for this guy.
- [45:50]
C
He also doing the seashell investigation of Jim Comey, I'd like to add to this. Like, there's the silliness and there's. There's things worth getting outraged about, but, like, it's preposterous what he's been doing. It's Clownish, like, as. As Donald Trump's bag man. Like, randomly going after people under false pretenses. You know, I mean, this is the Todd Blanche and the recent Supreme Court ruling on kind of independent agencies. It's. It's sort of like the post Watergate reforms are completely all gone. I mean, essentially. Right. It's like that the whole point of what was happening after Watergate, the way that we tried to change our government, was to prevent somebody like Todd Blanche from becoming the Attorney General of the United States. That was. The whole point, was that, like, we saw there was too much cooperation, coercion, whatever, collusion between the White House and Justice Department on political matters, and it created this corruption. And, you know, there'd been these sort of corruptions before that, but, like, this really stark example, and there's outrage about it, and people like, we don't want to do that anymore. And now to confirm Todd Blanche is to do what J.D. vance said. Right. Which is to say that, like, actually, Watergate wasn't a big deal.
- [47:17]
B
Yeah.
- [47:18]
C
And, like, this is fine. This is the kind of country we want to live in where the Attorney General is just the bag man for the President of the United States. Corrupt ends. And it is insane that all the people you'd mentioned. I'd like to mention one other senator that will have to vote to confirm. John.
- [47:30]
A
Fabulous.
- [47:32]
C
Lindsey Graham's sister. I don't know anything about Mrs. Graham, Ms. Graham's politics. I don't know if anybody's asked her, but, yeah, I don't know. Who knows? Like, Lindsey Graham, at one point in his life, was a staunch supporter of immigration reform and, you know, was an advocate for immigrants. Lindsey Graham was a lawyer. You could imagine Lindsey Graham's sister not wanting the state to be doing executions of immigrants and not wanting a total hack to be running Justice Department. I don't. I can't imagine. I don't know. People have sisters. Donald Trump had a liberal sister. People have sisters that have different political views than them. The Ricketts family has a sister who donates to Democrats. All the brothers are MAGA hacks. So I'm not. I mean, clearly not since she's getting appointed. But I just. I also. I bring this up kind of because it's ridiculous, and there's a little bit of a JVL bit. But it's also just, like, it's pretty strange that it doesn't feel like anybody even cares. I don't know. Like, there's not even a presumption that I don't know Maybe the replacement for Lindsey Graham might have, might have concerns about Todd Blanche being the attorney general
- [48:49]
A
or pretty sure she'll be pre veterans.
- [48:51]
C
I don't know. Right.
- [48:54]
B
I guess that's what I thought too, is like that they were like, so you'll, you'll vote for all these things?
- [48:59]
C
You think they asked her about everything? You think they asked her about Todd Blanche in the pre vet? They asked her about, I would say ICE killings.
- [49:06]
B
Like some, one of the first things she's gonna have to face. You don't think they asked her about the big national issue she's gonna have to face hero.
- [49:11]
C
Does she have a position on tariffs? It's just preposterous. This whole thing I'm pointing out. It's preposterous. Sure, I guess. Like why actually appoint her? Why not just appoint like a stuffed animal? Like why not just, why not just appoint. Why not just take like a can of Coke and say that's the new senator from South Carolina and it's just going to sit on the yes button.
- [49:37]
B
Doesn't it feel like this is the equivalent of what we're doing?
- [49:40]
C
Yeah, it is. But why, but it feels like everyone's going along with the pretend in the political class. I don't mean us, I just mean, you know what I mean. It's just like political reporters. Like there's not even a. It's just, it's strange. There's just no pre, there's no pretense that it's possible that a Republican senator might have different views than Donald Trump if they're appointed.
- [49:59]
B
Yeah, well. Or just the idea that. So I walked out of my office yesterday when the appointment happened and said to the team, I said, this is insane. Like, what do you mean you're just going to make his sister the senator? Like, what kind of sentimental weirdness is this for a Senate seat? Okay, it's craziness. And you know what they told me? They told me that this is a time honored American tradition. I can't remember whether it was 44 or 444, but it's some very large number of times in which a wife has been appointed to this. Lindsey had married husband and because Lindsey Graham did not have a wife and they did his sisters.
- [50:40]
A
Can we talk about Lindsey Graham? We're talking about Lindsey Graham. We're talking about Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell. This is the part of the podcast where we have very open, authentic conversations in which we don't self censor at all. And as Garrett Graf said, you should
- [50:59]
B
live your life the Whole podcast man.
- [51:01]
A
So that when you. When you die, people don't have to say, everybody, remember your manners. Do you guys have thoughts about Lindsey Graham and his passing and Mitch McConnell's proof of life photo?
- [51:16]
C
I kind of shared my Lindsey Graham thoughts. I want to hear from you, jbl. What are your Lindsey Graham thoughts?
- [51:22]
A
I want to hear from Sarah.
- [51:24]
B
No, you go first. You go first.
- [51:25]
C
Don't be kidding.
- [51:26]
B
Come on.
- [51:27]
A
I wrote 2,000 words about him yesterday.
- [51:29]
C
You know, I think we just got a message from God that we aren't supposed to say our real thoughts about Lindsey Graham's death, but JBL's. Who the hell knows what's happening in New York City there with the WI Fi. But he's gone. We've done. We've had a good show, long show. And if people want to hear your thoughts, Lindsey Graham, you and Bill talked on Sunday. Bill and I Talked on Monday. JVL wrote 2000 words yesterday. I did a vibe check interview. You want to go watch me and Zach Stanford? I talked about it. That's enough. That's enough, Lindsay, for me. So I do Sarah, like, I want to just briefly close with, like, two Saraish candidates. Like, I know that John Ossoff is coming for your heart, but, you know, the OG Sarah loves. Josh Shapiro and Pete are both in the news ish this week, and I have things to talk about, and so I figured we'd close by chatting about that.
- [52:22]
B
You got to see Pete and how'd you do with him? Could you, like, were you cool?
- [52:26]
C
I was cool. Me and Pete are. Me and Pete. It's so interesting. It's kind of like I'm trying to think about how to describe the relationship. And the best example I can come up with is I was a model UN Kid. So was I. Yeah. But I was kind of the cool model UN Kid, which is not very cool. It just means that, like, every once in a while, I'd smoke a cigarette or something. You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly.
- [52:51]
B
So it's like I was always arguing for legalizing weed. Model unless.
- [52:56]
C
So I had friends in high school that were like, the Pete, you know, like, they were the serious model UN Kid that did all of the research. And then I'd come in in the morning, and they'd, like, brief me, and I would do the funny bits. And, like, we had a little thing, and that's kind of like me and Pete, like, you know, we're not. We're very different. But I feel like we easily slide into those roles. And, man, I don't know, I just. I appreciated that he was willing to do it, and I was glad we'll do it in person, because we did, like, I don't actually know how long it was. Felt like 20 minutes. Maybe it was a little shorter than that on the CPS thing. And it is just. You could see him get mad. And Pete is very even keel, you know, And I think that it was noteworthy how mad he was not, you know, mad for a person that has wild. That has our, you know, kind of emotional range of like, you know, he's even, but, like, he was mad, right? And you could see it and feel it. He cussed a couple times. He's not really a cussler. I think that it was interesting to kind of see him, like, really have to grapple with, like, do I have to do this? You know, and, like. Or do I want to do this? And anyway, I thought that was the most interesting part of the convo, but I also thought. My other observation was from outside the podcast, from in the room, is, he's gotten really good on Sunday night, and he's always been good, but, like, at the speech part on Sunday night, we went to the cattle call, kind of democratic dinner. And I forget who I was saying this to, but it was like, it's kind of like at a music festival, you know, when I go to there, and it's like, you see somebody and they're like, they're not quite ready for the main stage yet, and you see the real act come on afterwards, you're like, oh, yeah, that's how it's supposed to go. And Pete, like, really has it now. And I think that he always was obviously good in Q and A settings or arguing settings, but sometimes in the speech setting, it wasn't. He wasn't hitting the highs back in 2020, and you can tell he's really gotten better. And, you know, it was a little. You know, you could feel him stirring soul a little bit. And I don't know, I think he's a little kind of undervalued right now on that side of things.
- [55:02]
B
I do, too. I've been thinking a lot about what people mean when they say authenticity. You know, there's a lot of. There's these buzzwords right now of the moment, affordability, authenticity. And I think there's ways in which people sort of. There's a simulacrum of authenticity, which is kind of a Graham Platner, which is like, do you project a thing that I. I think somebody ought to project to be authentic. Or like the Trump authenticity, which is like, he's just been consistently an awful person the whole time. And then there's this, like, what I think of authenticity, I mean, is the person comfortable in their own skin? Like, I actually think what voters want is not this thing or that thing, right? It's, it's not that they want Trump or Graham Platner. It's, they're saying, like, are you a version of yourself that I can relate to? Does it feel real? Does it feel. Or does it feel like it's regular politician? Like someone wrote this speech for you and you're delivering it. And I think what's interesting about authenticity is that it is almost a skill. Right. Like, Pete has gotten his reps in to the point where now he is good at communicating the authentic things he believes. I also think that having kids, not that, but I think the fact that he's had kids, he's gone through some things. Like the stakes for Pete are a little bit different now. Like when you talk about him getting mad about that, it's sort of easy to be an even keeled analyst of everything. And I do think that getting some of the, like, I know what it's like to feel the threat that's coming from this administration on me personally and feeling the stakes of that in what you're doing so that you can connect with people at the level of real rage at what's happening to people. And I feel like that is something that Pete, you know, people will talk about him like growing a beard and like, whatever, but that's not. I do think what's happening is Pete is growing up, Pete is getting his reps in, Pete is understanding who he is in the context of politics. Like, I feel this way about John Ossoff. Like, John Ossoff isn't necessarily a great commuter in absolutely every context. Right. He is, though. He's developed his own authentic voice in a specific way in that he writes his own speeches, he has a way that the cameras shoot him, he has a way of relating to people. And so, like authenticity is like you developing your own way of saying the thing that's deeply meaningful and true for you anyway. And I think Pete is really coming into his own on that front.
- [57:28]
C
I have no idea what was true in his 2020 campaign, so maybe this was also true then, but I can say, like, he is writing and stuff now and he's got free time, but you can tell he is and you can tell he's like tinkering with it and. Yeah. So I know he's doing that, so, you know, we'll see. And I think that part of it is people will try to make him into inauthentic by making the case. That's like, he's been practicing for this his whole life. And he touched every box. He was top of the class, and then he was whatever, and then he was McKinsey, and then he was. Went to the war. And I don't know. You know, I always thought that, like, that never hit with me. I think it hits with people who have motivated reasons to hate them, both on the right and the left. And so that's what he has to combat. But anyway, it was a fun conversation. I liked it. I was able to do it in person, so I hope everybody listens to it. My Josh Shapiro thing, I swear to go off my chest and we'll let people go, is, do you see the Axios story about him?
- [58:20]
B
I did. He wants a fighter, but he's not a fighter. Yeah.
- [58:24]
C
I was so annoyed about this because it's just like, you know, sometimes. Do you ever see that meme going around of the stick figure, like, poking somebody, and it's like, do something. You know, and it's like, it kind of felt like the reporters were just like poking him with a stick, being like, do something we want you to do. The headline was, Shapiro wants a Dem fight so far without leading it. And, like, the point of the argument is that, like, you know, Shapiro sees himself as more as the center left and. And these different views and what some of these DSA candidates have been winning in New York and Denver have. But every time, you know, a reporter in a gaggle, like, asks him to criticize one of those people, like, he usually, you know, pivots back to what they're doing in Pennsylvania, or he'll, like, point out an area of agreement or whatever, and they're like, that shows a lack of leadership. And I'm just. I was so annoyed about this. But before I rant, I was wondering what you. You thought. Because sometimes you're known to pick a fight with within, you know, the faction.
- [59:23]
B
So I was also annoyed in part because I. Despite the fact that I. I have my own view of the factional fight in the sense that I myself would consider myself to be center. Center left. And I think that the far left do a lot sometimes to alienate people in places like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, I do have some beef with the left in that I wish if they would fight with Donald Trump with half the energy with which they fight with me. And Josh Shapiro and Matt Iglesias, we'd have a really good coalition going if we all focused on that. And, and I think that to me is I. Sometimes there's a real effort that I find frustrating to sort of stoke the flames of the factional fight that draws us into it. Like, actually, when you and I got in the argument, not to revisit it too much, but when we got in the argument about piker, it was because Third Way had decided to sort of get into this thing and like, in the. Had decided to say, okay, we're, we're going to go after him specifically, this is the thing, right? Is like, that led you to say some things that then I disagreed with and we got into it and like, before you know it, you and I actually don't think we do have that discussion. But, like, that's not an important discussion relative to the thing that we all agree on, which is that Donald Trump is destroying the country. And so I have to almost fight. And I think we all should fight. An instinct that is. Draws you into the factual stuff. And actually that's what Josh Shapiro is doing when he's being asked these things. Josh Shapiro. Now, obviously, the way I want Josh Shapiro to answer this is sort of the way I just did, which is to say I'm not going to fight people that I agree. This was Ronald Reagan's old line. That is like anybody who I agree on 80% of the time isn't 20% my enemy. Right? They're 80% my friend. And I think that's a good way to think about coalition building. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be there to sort of police your side, condemn things when they're really bad, which is what I, I do, right? I get drawn in. I'm like, well, if somebody says, you know, America deserved 9, 11, or someone says violence, things like my. Things go off in my head to make me jump in, but does distract from the fact that Josh Shapiro's job right now is beating his Republican opponent like a drum, which he is about to do by like. And so where Josh Shapiro is going to get his validity going into 2028 is not from picking a factional fight. It's from crushing a Republican effectively in the biggest swing state in the country.
- [62:07]
C
And here's the most important part about that. And it bugged me out the story because it kind of made it feel like the reporters wanted him to fight, and, like, they were disappointed he didn't fight, and so they were disappointed he didn't like, pick a fight to give them fodder. And so then they criticized him, like, letting them down. And it's just like, why are you a character in this story? I like, to my point, if the goal of this is to create political power, either for yourself or for your faction or for the pro democracy movement, any way you look at it, the best thing Josh Shapiro can do is maximize the size of his victory against the Republican opponent in Pennsylvania. Right? Like, winning. Even if he won a Twitter battle against Dariel Lisa Chevalier, like, what, what he win the war? And that's kind of like Donald Trump in Iran. Like, did we win the first three days of the Iran war? Like, yeah, we won the battle, but then he got mired into a stupid, pointless war. Like, and it's like, why would Josh Shapiro want to get mired into a pointless war with three random DSA House members? Like, it doesn't do him any good. It doesn't help him gain any power. It'd be one thing if you said, okay, you need to do that because of the way the system is set up to gain power for yourself. But, like, that's not our system. Like, he's running against a Republican now. Maybe if he decides to run for president, he might be running against them. But even maybe in that campaign, like, the right thing for him to do might be to try to get as many voters as he can within the Democratic Party by not alienating people. You know, eventually you end up on a debate stage and you get drawn into stuff. But, like, you know, again, like, there is strategy at play here. And I think that sometimes people feel like the best thing you can do to fight for your side is to fight whatever the other faction in your side. And it's like, not really, actually. And I just. I pointed out Mallory even more. There are a lot of things happening in that race. But did she gain anything from attacking the dsa? That primary doesn't seem like it. It seems like things got worse for her after she started doing that. So this doesn't mean there aren't moments that a call that call for it. This doesn't mean there aren't red lines that get crossed or you have to weigh in. And Shapiro has done that. And so as many others. Right. But it's like, I just think that there is, like, a fundamental misunderstanding of, like, how you accrue, like, in our political system, you accrue power by gaining as many people as you possible on your side. Right. And so if you are engaging in Twitter battles, alienating people who could conceivably be on your side. Maybe they wouldn't be, or maybe you wouldn't be their first choice, but they could conceivably prefer you over others. Then, like, what good is this? Like, you know, it makes you feel good. I guess it makes a couple people call you who agree with you to say, hell yeah, nice tweet, Nice TikTok video. And it's like, okay. In service of what? So, anyway, I was annoyed by the article. I think Shapiro is doing absolutely the right thing and I think that, you know, we'll see how things go going forward. I don't have a crystal ball, but, like, the best thing he could do for himself and for people who share his worldview is crush in November. And it seems like he's on the path to doing that.
- [65:03]
B
Yeah.
- [65:04]
C
So there we go.
- [65:05]
B
He's good at it.
- [65:06]
C
He is good at it. All right, that's our long, good show. Long show bonus segment with just Tim and Sarah. And I'm gone the next two weeks. I'm on vacation. And when was the next time we're going to have a full next level? I hope you guys enjoyed this episode because we're in vacation season now, but we're all going to be back together in August at some point. Rested, ready, re energized, ready to take on the fight against the bad guys, the real bad guys. And we'll be on tour together in the fall. That's going to be announced soon. So we'll be on the road so people get plenty of next level love. But in the meantime, you might have to deal with, I don't know, Sam or somebody in my seat.
- [65:44]
B
I got you on Monday. I got you on Monday.
- [65:46]
C
All right. I appreciate you, Sarah. Everybody else, thanks for checking us out. Subscribe to the feed. We'll see you all soon.
- [65:53]
B
Bye.