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- [00:01]
Jorge Gaviria
Hello, my name is Jorge Gaviria, and I'm the founder of Masienda. We partner with farmers in Mexico to bring heirloom corn products to every kitchen. With my Spark Cash plus card from Capital One, I earn unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase. And it has no preset spending limit, which means my purchasing power adapts to my business needs. My Spark Card helps me fulfill my mission of bringing Masa to the masses. Capital One, what's in your wallet?
- [00:26]
Tim Miller
Terms and conditions apply.
- [00:27]
Jorge Gaviria
Find out more@capitalone.com SparkCashPlus hello, everyone. It's the JVL, here with my best friends Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of the Bulwark.
- [00:40]
Sarah Longwell
Sarah, he's doing this now with the. The jvl. I thought it was a jvl.
- [00:46]
Jorge Gaviria
Earlier in the day, the JVL felt a disturbance in the force, and then I realized that. That it was happening. I was being invoked to you, not by you, to you on Nicole Wallace's show.
- [01:03]
Sarah Longwell
This was a nightmare.
- [01:05]
Jorge Gaviria
How was that for you?
- [01:06]
Sarah Longwell
I was doing Nicole, and I was on for the whole hour, and I was on with Heilman, and it was a perfectly normal show. And then we were. We were talking about the supreme court and the 14th amendment, which is the birthright citizenship. And I. I was. I was feeling good because I had just read the clause off my phone on live television. To be like, this is completely straightforward. Like, this is a constitutional question. It's not a public opinion question. It's not up for debate. And John Heilman goes, well, I had your colleague Jonathan V. Last on my podcast today, and he told me, there's nothing the Supreme Court can do about it. And I just started laughing. And Nicole was like, what's happening? And I was like, it was amazing. John, you picked my bleakest colleague. And he literally was like, well, do you think JVL's right? And I was like, don't make a joke about JVL always being right. Like, we are not on the Bulwark right now. This is too in group for television. But it was weird. Yes. You hung like a specter over the show.
- [02:09]
Tim Miller
Like, I've heard some good things about that podcast you did with Heilman. I haven't listened to it myself yet.
- [02:13]
Jorge Gaviria
Like the Holy Spirit. I'm like the Holy Spirit. I'm everywhere. The fruits of the Spirit descending upon my. My disciples, my friends, my colleagues. Tim, you'll get to talk eventually. But, Sarah, you went and wrote a piece today, which you let Sam edit instead of me, because I like to be your editor, but that's okay. Would you like to tell the people about your little. Having to come out and put Elon Musk back in his place?
- [02:44]
Sarah Longwell
I mean, I'm not sure we got anybody back in their place, but I gotta tell you, this guy has a lot of energy. Does ketamine give you energy?
- [02:52]
Tim Miller
No, it's a downer. It's a downer.
- [02:55]
Sarah Longwell
Is that right? Because he's, he's. He somehow has. Managing to dismantle multiple parts of our government, but also tweet totally made up conspiracy theories about Bill Kristol and to a lesser degree, me, even though it's actually not really Bill. I don't know, I'm like. But here's. Let me just.
- [03:14]
Tim Miller
Do you know how many. Just for quick fun fact, you know how many tweets he's tweeted in the last 24 hours? And I guess.
- [03:20]
Sarah Longwell
No, tell me.
- [03:21]
Tim Miller
Over 200.
- [03:22]
Sarah Longwell
So like, who is it just these seven kids that are dismantling the government while he's tweeting?
- [03:28]
Tim Miller
I think he's multitasking. Sometimes I tweet while I pod. Keep an eye out for that. If you look at the timestamps, you might catch it. You'll know when I'm getting bored by.
- [03:36]
Jorge Gaviria
You have to understand, he's not actually doing anything else like the video. The dismantling of the government isn't a high intensity job. You just tell people go in there and. And smash shit like it.
- [03:50]
Sarah Longwell
That's true. I mean, unless you just write one.
- [03:51]
Jorge Gaviria
Creating cold fusion.
- [03:53]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, you can write one post that you just copy and paste from the time you did it at Twitter.
- [03:58]
Tim Miller
Right.
- [03:58]
Sarah Longwell
It's like your services are no longer required. We're shutting you down. I guess you're right. It's not, maybe not that labor intensive, but I, the other day I like caught wind of this and honestly, it had been going on like Maga. Twitter is such. Even though now Maga is basically all of Twitter, it's still the real circles of conspiratorial machinations I'm still slightly isolated from. And so I think somebody flagged it for me that somebody had put together this like, you know, that meme from Always Sunny in Philadelphia where the guy is all the yarn and it's like all the things are connected and he's like smoking and losing his mind. And somebody had put together one of these charts that somehow had been like, USAID gave money one time to, I believe the Rockefeller foundation, who then at some point in the past had given a grant to something called the Hopewell Fund. And an organization that Bill and I work on had received money from the Hopewell Foundation. Now I know exactly where that money came from. Like I know. Okay, so there is. It is a pooled fund.
- [05:15]
Tim Miller
So like I assume Alex Soros and the deep state at USAID and a few. And maybe some Ugandan children. Did you take the money from some Ugandan children?
- [05:24]
Sarah Longwell
No, like it was from Francel Drip.
- [05:27]
Jorge Gaviria
All this money came from frazzledrip groups.
- [05:30]
Sarah Longwell
Of donors who pulled a fund for democracy related purposes. Right. Has nothing to do with these other places. Granted money to us and for a project we were working on. Okay, so cool. But the idea that because USAID gave money to the Rockefeller found or something and that they like at some point had given money to this other place that that meant Bill was taking money.
- [05:58]
Jorge Gaviria
Millions.
- [05:59]
Sarah Longwell
USAID millions.
- [06:02]
Tim Miller
Millions.
- [06:03]
Sarah Longwell
It's. It's like not even close to being true. But here's what's, here's what's interesting about it is that Elon is currently dismantling a government that he clearly has zero idea of how it works. But like all of these people. And actually to be fair, it's like other weirdos posting these like made up things that are like charts. And it goes here. Actually one of the charts had where the money actually went then like it was just some organizations that we were granting to. It's like, it's like the money clearly didn't go to Bill Kristol. Like actually it was sort of solved in the first thing, but there's a whole bunch of gibberish out there. But Elon was like, so somebody's like, Bill Kristol's taking money from usaid. And Elon's like, not anymore. I'm like, what are you even talking about? And then he's. But then he was doing things like responding to people with the, with the scratching chin emoji. Like, interesting, all of these charts connecting all of these things. But what was funny about today? So I responded. Usually I let this stuff go, right? Because like there's so much dumb stuff out there. Like Piero Meteor Funds, the Bulwark. No, he doesn't. Never did like not a thing. Right. People just make this stuff up on Twitter and at some point people would like decide it's true. And it's like, do you run this all down and do you try to explain like right now in my comments because I wrote this piece being like, here's actually works. This is not true. It's a complete lie. It's Completely made up. And I've got all these people in my replies being like, will show me the receipts. And I'm like, for what? A transaction that didn't occur. What receipts? Do you want for me to demonstrate that this is like made up in a lie? There's no receipts. It's not a thing. It's not real. But it has like 40,000 likes or shares or something on Twitter by people who are like, bill Kristol should be locked up in the Gulag for taking taxpayer money. And I'm just like, this is, this is. This is how this is going to go. I guess it's just going to be completely made up nonsense. I thought it would take them longer to kind of come for us, actually. Like, I knew anybody who's critical of them they would come for. But, like, it feels like it. I mean, I don't know, it's only been two weeks and like, they got a lot of government dismantle.
- [08:23]
Tim Miller
Can I just throw one. You left. There's a lot there. I would just like to make one very brief point and you can keep explaining. There is somebody in this whole conversation that takes money from usaid.
- [08:37]
Sarah Longwell
Oh, yeah, and that's Elon.
- [08:40]
Tim Miller
Elon Musk.
- [08:41]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah.
- [08:41]
Tim Miller
Like, the whole thing is just.
- [08:45]
Jorge Gaviria
Scratching chin emoji.
- [08:46]
Tim Miller
Every accusation is a confession. Or we're just in 1984. You can use whatever cliche you want. But like, it's all just. It's just like a bunch of freaks on the Internet. Like shouting Bill Kristol with the extra parentheses, you know, around it to denote that he's Jewish, you know, is like taking money. Bill Kristol is taking money. We've got to stop it. But it's like, well, no, Elon. Elon has been the one that's taking government money, actually a lot of government money. And now he's in charge of the money. So, like, you know, if you're going to be Charlie with the yarn on the wall, I'd probably be monitoring where the person who now has read only access to the Treasury Department, where the. Where that money is going with regards to him and his competitors. Might be something we're going to get.
- [09:31]
Jorge Gaviria
To read only at some point. But that is a thing for which I would like to see some receipts, actually. Like just some claims of. Don't worry, he only has read only access. Really. I'd like to see the screenshot from the admin dashboard showing what? Elon, that's all, you know, that's all I want. Every one of these things has an admin dashboard where you can see the permissions for all of the users. I would like to see the screenshot of that. Okay. Well, anything else? Tim, would you like to say anything about Bill Kristol's millions of dollars that he stole from usaid?
- [10:09]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I mean, I guess the relevant thing to say here is that besides these people are like insane lunatics and like there's no rationalizing with them. So, like, I appreciate that Sarah wrote the article and then it's out there so you can send it to a friend if they have concerns. But like the facts aren't really, I think gonna be. Be the thing that the scales aren't gonna fall from the eyes of. Of Banchi Maga 69. I don't think over after. After Sarah's article.
- [10:43]
Jorge Gaviria
Cat Turtle looks like my bad.
- [10:45]
Tim Miller
So sorry. But I think that it is relevant just in like the move fast and break things element of like what the. Of like what we're dealing with here, right. Which is that they actually don't care. It is all in group out group stuff. They just want to. They don't care if there's collateral damage. And so this is true about accusations about USAID funding. If it's Bill Kristol or if it's the Lutherans that get. That get collateral damage because they happen to doing some work that's in Immigration. Sorry, Lutherans, like, whatever. We got to shut you down. There are pedophiles there now. I guess I don't know whatever Elon has to come up with. But it's true everywhere, right? It's like the DEI firings, like we're just going to fire anybody that feels like they have a DEI job. And if it's a couple of you have real jobs, like Tough Brit, you know, whatever. We don't care. Like, it's the FBI thing. That's what they tried to do at the FBI. That this acting FBI director has actually done a good job standing in the breach of at least until we hear from what. What happens with Cash. But like if you're on, you know, like there was some reporting about that FBI agents think it was Candelanian, who are like conservative, like Republicans that were like kind of just tangentially on one of the investigations into Trump, like weren't like the key investigator. And they were like, you're going to get fired. And they're like, Why? I love Mr. Trump.
- [12:09]
Jorge Gaviria
I'm one of the good people.
- [12:10]
Tim Miller
Yeah. So you hate.
- [12:11]
Jorge Gaviria
Don't send me to the camps. I'm on your side.
- [12:14]
Tim Miller
That's a tough break. But, like, the. This, a lot of this, it's like, going to be hard to unwrap. Like, the advantage.
- [12:21]
Jorge Gaviria
I have to interrupt, Tim, have none of these people seen the death of Stalin? Do they not understand how purges work? That when there's a purge, lots and lots of people, even people who are actually totally loyal to Stalin, get thrown into the gulag anyway.
- [12:35]
Tim Miller
They're not seeing death of Stalin.
- [12:37]
Jorge Gaviria
Go ahead.
- [12:38]
Tim Miller
So, no, all I'm saying is, I guess I really don't know if this is a useful observation as far as counteracting what is happening, but they are just gonna go break shit up and it's gonna take a long time to do the unravel. And this is what flusters me. And I know we'll talk later about the Democrats, about the question of being. It's time to be strategic about what to push back on with them. And it's like, no, like, there needs to be a speed as a counteracting force as well, in the way that Sarah showed some speed in writing her fact check today. Like, that has to be replicated across all of these things. Because, you know, I think there was a guy in the Time. In the Time story about Elon, who was an agency official who was on background, and they're like, he's gonna totally. He's gonna have rolled up the entire government by the time that Congress and the courts get out of bed. And I think that, to me, is what is the big takeaway here from Crystal Ghazi?
- [13:41]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, just on some of the stuff that he's been doing. You guys saw this New York Times report today where they're just sending classified information in, like, nothing. It's just like, over email. It's, like, easy to access. They made it public in a way where, like, it's easy for the Chinese to figure out who the CIA agents are. And they're like, stunning.
- [14:08]
Tim Miller
You're just rolling over that. You know, we just accidentally outed a few of our CIA guys to the Chinese. That's just a minor story for today anyway. Sorry. Continue.
- [14:15]
Sarah Longwell
Minor story. But it's the kind of thing where, like, I was. I was a hunt when I was on Nicole. There was a congressman on. And he was like, you know, kind of giving it the. This is not good. You know, this is compromising information. And it didn't need to happen this way. There are easy ways to. And I was like, guys, they're. They're like, literally, I don't know if you remember, but in 2016, we had one of the candidates, and she had a server. And I don't know how many hours Fox News burned on the specific ways in which she dealt with her server. And their entire theory of the case about why she was unfit to be the Commander in Chief was because she was potentially putting national secrets at risk by mishandling classified information. These guys are just, like, casually outing CIA agents. And, like, Democrats need to be able to be like, this is making you, the American people, unsafe. And not just to anybody, to the Chinese, like, did we care about China? I was pretty sure we cared about China. I'm pretty sure that Donald Trump said he was going to do something about China. I'm also pretty sure that they said national security was important. I mean, I'm also sure he left all of our. Those documents he stole in his bathroom for two years. But it just feels like Democrats should put their pants on and, like, get moving on this stuff because it is crazy and you should be screaming and yelling about it. And I think everybody's like, well, everybody hates the government, and Trump's done such a good job of making the CIA the enemy and whatever. Like, well, then don't talk about the CIA agents. Talk about you, the American person who the. One of the few things you want the government to do is, like, keep us safe from foreign enemies. And they're just, like, making all of our stuff public.
- [15:55]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Well, one other thought on this, though, just on the politics of this, is that if we've learned anything from the last two decades, it's that doing stuff is not popular. I know that it's going to go against some people's ethos.
- [16:09]
Jorge Gaviria
You and I talked about this the other day, didn't we, Dan? It was such a sound point. I hadn't really thought about it.
- [16:13]
Tim Miller
Doing stuff ain't popular. Like, it's been a while since the president has done stuff and, like, gotten a lot of credit for it. Like, doing big things. Action is popular. Trump throw, like, waving his hands, being like, we got the Canadians. I got one over the Canadians. That's popular. But actually doing things that impact people. Not really. Not popular. Obamacare, like, you just go. You can go down the whole list. Like, eventually some of it ends up being popular, but people don't like change. So Trump, like, the Elon approach is different to the Trump approach. And I think that's why you're already seeing, like, his numbers become worse than Trump's. And I think his numbers are going to be worse than Trump's because he's doing things that some category of people won't like. Right. Like, there's, you know, not every person is going to care about what's happening in each of these various agencies. But, like, all the Elon action, I think has a lot of people like, whoa, I don't know. I kind of liked the fake trade war where we owned the Mounties, you know, like, that was great. Like, we, you know, we threatened a trade war. We cucked Canada. Nothing happened. People like that, dismantling the entire government and having a South African billionaire having Choppy in charge of Medicaid, that's making a few people, I think, a little nervous. And you can't see it in Elon's numbers. There's something to that, I think.
- [17:33]
Jorge Gaviria
Okay, so I'm just going to reorganize the show on the fly here anyway. No, it's good. I wanted to propose to you guys, certainly. So what I think of as an analytical mistake on my part, which is that while we were in the interregnum.
- [17:54]
Sarah Longwell
I'm listening.
- [17:55]
Tim Miller
I'm saying I have your attention.
- [17:57]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah.
- [17:58]
Jorge Gaviria
Tell me more. While we were in the interregnum, I believed that the Elon stuff would be vaporware, that Elon was going to be in charge of this. His doge was a blue ribbon commission where he would be running around Washington trying to feel important and all the doors would be closed in his face and that the danger would be like, well, what is Trump going to be doing? Is he going to be doing mass deportations or whatever? And instead we've gotten the opposite. We got the tariff thing, which was obvious bullshit the whole time. We'll talk more about what Wall street thought about that later on. We've got. There's a great story I want to read this to you in. In Colorado a few days ago, big, big, big tweets and video of perp walk. Because they got. They got one. They went out the DEA and ICE and they got themselves a bad Venezuelan who was a member of Trend de Aragua, who. Which is a Venezuelan gang. And he was. He was attempting to kidnap. And it was water, not agua. Aragua. Aragua. Anyway, locally reported three hours.
- [19:19]
Tim Miller
Like it actually means, like, testicle cutting.
- [19:23]
Sarah Longwell
Okay. Kings are not funny. So I don't know.
- [19:27]
Jorge Gaviria
Headline after publicized arrest of suspected Venezuelan gang member. Case is closed and he walks out of jail. The DEA in Colorado shared a video of a suspected Trend Aragua gang member being arrested in Aurora about a week later. Prosecutors declined to press charges. Wah, wah. And that is kind of what we've gotten from Trump. Whereas the Elon stuff has absolutely not been vaporware. Like, Elon is actually in there with a hammer vandalizing the Museum of America Federal government. Right. He's just running around spray painting paintings and banging up sculptures. And that is not what I expected. I was incorrect about that. Do you guys have thoughts?
- [20:15]
Tim Miller
I'm happy when you're incorrect.
- [20:17]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, I mean, I think. But it's a good observation about a way you were incorrect. I'm gonna take this opportunity to say a thing I was correct about, which is I've talked about some of the scenario plannings. Right. There's always, like groups doing scenario plannings. And I played Trump in one of the big scenario planning exercises and I went in there with a plan. And my plan was I was gonna. I came in with hundreds of tweets pre written and I just kept posting them in the chat. Cause you were allowed to tweet in the chat, right? And then over here I was issuing executive orders to dismantle the government. But. And so, like, I always thought that was like, roughly what was going to happen. What I did not anticipate is that actually Trump would be like, no, I'm going to sit over here and tweet and I'm going to say fun, fun things like, we're going to invade Panama, we're going to invade Greenland. Wait, where? No, we're invading. We're taking over Canada, we're taking over Greenland, we're taking over Panama, and now we're going to take over Gaza. 2. Okay, hold off on that.
- [21:16]
Jorge Gaviria
Don't mess up my show map.
- [21:17]
Sarah Longwell
I'm not, I'm sorry, I'm just. But I'm just saying there's like all these things that he's going to do that are like, preposterous and not going to happen. Like, Canada's not going to become the 51st state. I'm relatively confident on that. However, he's got Elon. Like, he doesn't have to do them both. And he doesn't have to, like, issue orders. He doesn't have to know anything about the government. He's got Elon just walking in and being like, we're shutting this thing down, guys. And when I thought they were gonna dismantle the government, I did think they would do, like, pieces of it. I don't know. And look, I'm not a. I've never been like the biggest fan of the federal government. I think there's some paring back that could be done. I think there's some spending that could be reined in. And so, like, I was actually kind of prepared for them to do some things that I was like, eh, it's not the worst idea.
- [22:04]
Tim Miller
Yeah, same. I was like, thank God that didn't happen. I was like, I don't want to have to hand it to Elon. I was a little nervous about that. I was like, one of these days I might have to hand it to Elon on the pod.
- [22:13]
Sarah Longwell
You do not have to hand it to Elon, which is nice because the way he is doing this is preposterous and illegal.
- [22:20]
Tim Miller
Yeah, well, the illegal thing. There's one more thing, and I was just on a panel here. So I'm in this hotel room instead of with my beautiful pinto beans, and I kind of blurted this out out loud. And then I was like, do I really think that? And I thought about it. I was like, I do kind of think that. And I'm taking this to the dark place right now. I think that the Elon behavior has me increasing my risk worry about worst case scenario stuff because the Elon, and I assume JD is there at some level. Elon is executing that JD podcast clip about, we're just gonna go break the law and you guys kind of figure it out. Like, good luck, nerds. And like, you and the Supreme Court can send the marshal to arrest me if they need to. Like, that's like, basically what they're doing. I mean, just if you just think back to the first term, like, Trump wanted to do a bunch of legal shit and they did some eos that were legal, but, like, you kind of had somebody like Don McGahn in the room all the time. Remember that guy? Just like, you can't do that. Yeah, you can't do that one. Sorry. I don't get the sense that there's anybody like that in the room with Elon. I don't think that they're like. The only time I've heard the word lawyer come up in conversation with Doge was in the article today where they're like, we've had a briefing with the lawyers and we want you to stop slacking.
- [23:49]
Jorge Gaviria
Slack is foible.
- [23:50]
Tim Miller
Yeah, slack is foible, Right? So the only thing I've heard so far with lawyer being mentioned, maybe I've missed in one of the articles, but is like, them using the lawyers to figure out how they can not publicize things that should be publicized by law. So that whole mindset just has me thinking, like, man, I don't know if that is where this thing is going. It's hard to see Trump being the restraining force at any point. And we will really be reliant on the courts being the restraining force. And then Elon and Trump abiding by it. I guess I've turned up the doomsday clock. The doomsday clock is now at 11:57 for me when it comes to that. It hasn't happened yet, but it's just something I was thinking about with the Elon statement.
- [24:47]
Jorge Gaviria
So I think that's right. It turns out to have actually been quite smart and clever of Trump to outsource the destruction of the government to Elon, who is not like, so if he had outsourced it to Russ Vote, then it would have been on Trump because nobody knows who Russ Vote is. It would have been like, you know, Trump's guy Russ probably. But it's, it's all on Elon. Elon's popularity can go down. What does, what does Trump care about that? Elon has his own independent sort of power base and he just lets Elon go and break everything. And I think that that was clever. It's also again, super duper illegal. And nobody can I just say nobody actually understands what this is. So Carolyn Leavitt said the other day that she was pressed on this. She said, no, he's a special government employee, I think is the, the term of art. And okay, so she said that that's true. Do we know that that's true? Have they provided a copy of the executed employment agreement, the contract between him and the government showing that this because like again, she went and also then said the day after getting hired for the government, they aren't breaking any laws.
- [26:02]
Tim Miller
Just put a finer point on that though. Like getting hired to the government is a huge pain in the ass. If you know anybody that's done right.
- [26:08]
Jorge Gaviria
There are waivers for special government employees. And one of the conditions then is you can only work for 130 days in any 365 day period. And like, okay, so is somebody keeping a time clock? Is that by hours? Right? Is it? Or is it like, are there timesheets involved in this? Like what?
- [26:28]
Sarah Longwell
Well, he's working weekends, I'll tell you that.
- [26:30]
Jorge Gaviria
Right? But what I'm trying to get at is that I am not entirely. I'm not, I'm simply not willing to take Carolyn Leavitt's word for it that he is actually a government employee. Like this could all be being run the way the mafia is, where it's all done like by voice with no, nothing in writing, no records and we have this guy just walking into buildings and saying, I have authority here. Do this thing I'm telling you to do. It's insane. And once we're here, I don't think there is any going back.
- [27:04]
Sarah Longwell
And it must be menacing enough that there's things coming out. Like, people are saying, they came in and we tried not to give them access to things, and they made us.
- [27:15]
Jorge Gaviria
Right.
- [27:15]
Sarah Longwell
But, like, I don't know. I feel like we should be getting more color at this point. They fired a gajillion people, and those people are too afraid somehow to go out and speak against him. Like, we're not.
- [27:28]
Jorge Gaviria
They do things like lock out people out of their workplaces. They're like, you know, we're coming in for the weekend. Everybody else who works here is locked out and can't come into the office for three days. Like, they did this. One of the agencies. Like, nobody's coming in on Monday over tv.
- [27:40]
Tim Miller
Well, a lot of this stuff is up in the air, though, right? Like, because nobody knows what's true or real. Right. I don't know. They might be able to get their job back. I think we've got lawyers that are telling them, like, we don't. Like, that was illegal, what he did. You know what I mean? Like, I don't. And there haven't been a bajillion people fired. There have been, like, a couple dozen people, which is a lot at DOJ and FBI, like, taken out. And then there's been a lot of people that are being told that they're being fired. And then there's all the USAID people. So I guess once you start adding up all those deal. But like, in the other. And. And then there's people that are, like, saying, you could resign if you want, you know, with the fake buyout. So, you know, it's just. There's a lot of balls in the.
- [28:31]
Jorge Gaviria
Air, but none of this is in writing.
- [28:33]
Sarah Longwell
Employees that you think could go in front of a camera or even. I'm not even seeing a lot of people who were part of these agencies, like, who are like, politicals from the last administration, who three weeks ago were in those jobs on tv talking about it.
- [28:48]
Tim Miller
So I see a couple of the inspectors general, a couple of the inspectors general.
- [28:53]
Jorge Gaviria
This is intentionally being done under cover of night, which is another thing that is like what you get in the Eastern European republics as things were going south for them. It's. It's crazy.
- [29:08]
Tim Miller
The other thing I talked about this with Applebaum on Tuesday is there's the Ed Martin element of this. Like the D.C. attorney, right, who put out a press release that's like, I'm investigating the people that are blocking Elon from getting access to stuff.
- [29:26]
Jorge Gaviria
And the people who are names of.
- [29:28]
Tim Miller
Elon speaks to your question about, like, some, you know, I mean, if you're one of those people, obviously, obviously, at this point, you need to be very careful about what you're going to start saying publicly. And there's other categories of people that probably could be out talking more, but like, the Ed Martin. But now, you know, knowing that they will have overtly political district attorneys, and this is like the kind of niche stuff that it's hard. I feel like it's kind of hard to explain to people, but it's like, this is like, not how shit works, right? Like, I keep bringing up the Alberto Gonzalez thing because, like, we had an attorney general had to resign because he fired people because he wanted US Attorneys to act in a more political fashion, and he thought that some of them were acting against the political interests of the Bush administration. He had to resign over the scandal. Trump has put in a U.S. attorney in D.C. in the central spot who's just like, YOLO, I'm investigating anybody who's. He replied to somebody on Twitter that was like, I'm gonna look into Will Stancil. Do you know that annoying lib Will Stancil? Like, Will Stancil tweeted about how Elon was a Nazi and like, fart muncher22, quote, tweeted this tagged eagle Ed Martin and said this. This seems like a threat on Elon. And Ed Martin said, I'm looking into it. Like, so I. That is so, like, that is also like, another layer to this that is different.
- [30:47]
Jorge Gaviria
They.
- [30:48]
Sarah Longwell
They just. They just outed all these CIA agents and put their lives at risk. But, like, you name the people who are actively dismantling the government on Elon's behalf, like, big balls 42 or whatever that guy is. Like, you put their names in Elon's, like, you're being prosecuted. You're breaking the law.
- [31:04]
Jorge Gaviria
Like, this is treason. Yeah, so what maybe people, maybe people out there, normies, civilians don't understand, is that up until five minutes ago, the way the federal government worked is that everything is done in writing and everything has a paper trail. And it is done in, like, for. For many reasons. There are national security reasons, there are CYA reasons. And this is, you know, people want to have get out of jail free cards so that if they are, you know, if they are doing something that they think might be sketchy. They, they have a long string of papers showing them why they were doing it because this person X told me to do it and then person Y told person X, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It seems like all of this is being done. Again, like Stringer Bell, don't take notes on a criminal conspiracy. It is just Musk and Trump said something to one another and then I guess Musk is doing DMS with people. I also, I mean, again, nobody needs to hear me say this, but if you are a person who uses Twitter direct messages for anything, Elon Musk has access to all of that. Why would you do that?
- [32:22]
Tim Miller
I guess Elon can see my very friendly DMs with my new friend Build Ben Stiller. Anyway, we have some other topics we have to get to, I think.
- [32:32]
Jorge Gaviria
Yeah, we got other stuff.
- [32:34]
Sarah Longwell
Sorry. This is the one last thing on this though. You know, they're out there accusing everybody of taking this USAID money. Ben Stiller got accused of taking USAID money. Politico got accused of taking us. And guess what? In Politico's case, it was a bunch of USAID employees who paid for Politico Pro, okay? In Ben Stiller's case, he paid his own way to Ukraine. And they were like, no, us, like they're just making all this stuff up because they don't know how it works. And then they keep trying to tell you, no, you're laundering money and you think we don't know how it works. And you're like, okay, is it wrong.
- [33:10]
Tim Miller
That I'm happy that the government's not paying for Politico Pro anymore? Is it wrong that I'd be happy about that? Okay, just, just aside.
- [33:17]
Jorge Gaviria
Well, you know what?
- [33:18]
Tim Miller
Again, I totally agree just on that one.
- [33:20]
Sarah Longwell
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- [35:32]
Jorge Gaviria
All right, well, I want to go to something else then. I want to talk a little bit about William Cohen from Puck has a piece that dropped right before we came out. And that's okay. I'm going to, I'm going to read to you guys. What he did is he talked a whole bunch of Wall street guys to try to understand where they are on the Trump stuff. And the answer is they're all quite happy right now. The tariff thing, none of them took it seriously. They, they all say the tariffs are ridiculous and that Trump is an idiot for being so obsessed with them. And that voters. But they say consumers, but consumers are idiots for not understanding how tariffs would affect them. But because they knew Trump would never actually do it, they didn't really care. And here is Trump did do the.
- [36:24]
Tim Miller
10% tariff on China. Just throwing that out there. That thing that did happen.
- [36:28]
Jorge Gaviria
Here is one of them explaining to William Cohen anonymously why he went Trump as opposed to Kamala Harris. To me, it was a prisoner's dilemma. We had an anti business Biden opportunity or a pro business Trump who may put tariffs on or may not, but if he puts them on and he realizes they're bad, he may take them off within 24 hours. So they said we'd rather deal with Donald Trump because he'll take our phone calls and we can tell him how bad these are, whereas Joe Biden won't take our phone calls. Corporate America felt like we could sway Trump. We could get to him and convince him that the tariffs were wrong.
- [37:09]
Tim Miller
That's not a prisoner's dilemma. Just by the way that person doesn't know what a prisoner's dilemmas. But that's just a quick I do.
- [37:14]
Sarah Longwell
Think it's the same law who was pumped that he was allowed to say again, I bet this is the same guy.
- [37:22]
Tim Miller
I think that there are a lot of these fucking guys.
- [37:24]
Jorge Gaviria
I'm just going to read Bill Cohen here. In fact, other than blanket pardons for the January 6th offenders and the press conference where Trump blamed the fatal helicopter jet collision on dei, the donor class on Wall street is generally happy with Trump too, according to this banker, a reality that much of the media still refuses to comprehend. Here's the quote. There are very good reasons to criticize dei, but in this context it's a little insane, he said, referring to Trump's post crash comment. On the other hand, he continued, quote, everyone is thrilled, end quote, that the quote apple cart at USAID is getting turned over and that people are seeing who is getting paid for what from treasury. Sort of all that Doge stuff. He said which Wall street types are giving a standing ovation. That's a, that's a direct quote. So if you believe this, the Wall street types types think that Musk running around and destabilizing the payment system for the US treasury, which could create, I don't know, economic instability, harm. They think it's great and they're super pumped about the DEI stuff because the people at Goldman, God knows, I mean their whole lives must be spent worrying about DEI and you know, Goldman's famous big parties about inclusion. They don't even care about making money at Goldman anymore is what I hear. All they care about is the cuck stuff.
- [38:56]
Tim Miller
I fucking hate these people so much. Just a few things. I fucking hate these people so much. These are the worst fucking people. And I just, I hope that their investment fund crashes. I just, I'm pulling for a crash for their fund in particular, not for hopefully we can isolate that sever that somehow the S&P 500. I'm just going to just kind of pull this up randomly.
- [39:19]
Jorge Gaviria
January 22 Biden was good for business.
- [39:23]
Tim Miller
January 22, 2021 so two days after Biden takes office 3841 the S&P 500 on November whatever, eighth right after the election, 5900. And it was up.
- [39:38]
Jorge Gaviria
That seems like it's graph go up.
- [39:39]
Tim Miller
Like it almost doubled. It almost doubled during the Biden administration.
- [39:43]
Jorge Gaviria
The graph is just to the moon rocket ship emoji.
- [39:47]
Tim Miller
Like these guys all did fine. These guys all did great.
- [39:50]
Jorge Gaviria
They didn't do fine, they did amazing.
- [39:53]
Tim Miller
The risk side of this, there are plenty of things to criticize the Biden administration about, about, you know, particularly if you have specific knowledge about a specific industry. There's probably some regulation that you hate or some person in the government that was really annoying or stupid or even harmful to the business unbalance. That's all fine. But like the economy got better. There was stability. Like there was no risk that Connell is going to come in with her corporate lawyer husband and corporate lawyer brother and be like some social, do some socialist attack on businesses. The risk is so high. These guys are all. We knew he'd back down on the trade stuff. You did. Are you sure, are you sure that 81 year old Trump's going to back down on the tariff stuff? Are you sure, Are you sure that if fucking if like the Justin who knows, Justin Trudeau could have decided he wanted to butch up and said like let's do it, let's have the trade war. You don't fucking know. Yeah, these guys don't know. And like the downside risk of like the collapse of the rules based Western world order, that's they're not calculating that. They don't have fake prisoners dilemma. They don't know what a prisoner's dilemma is. Maybe they should actually read a Wikipedia that.
- [41:07]
Jorge Gaviria
But put, put democracy out of this just purely on economics. Where is there more risk? There's more risk once you start monkeying with treasury and you have a guy who says he's going to go to war with the Fed over interest rates and I just. Sarah, please, please defend capitalism.
- [41:27]
Sarah Longwell
Well, this isn't capitalism, right? Like this isn't. No. So one of the things that, that was interesting about the tariffs is like a lot of people made a lot of money betting and betting on Trump's pulling back the tariffs. Right? They shorted that stuff and they made a ton of money because they're like, you know what? He's not going to do this. It's really unpopular and everybody's going to blink. And he did. And in fact. And he just claimed a victory. We didn't even talk about this. He claimed a victory by saying Canada agreed to do something it agreed to do during the Biden administration. Like the press release they put out, the things they agreed to do, the money they agreed to spend, all done during the Biden administration.
- [42:07]
Tim Miller
Not the Fentanyl Czar. We got a czar.
- [42:09]
Sarah Longwell
We got a Fentanyl czar. Well, I missed. Now that I know we got a Fentanyl Czar. Trump part of the deal. Best negotiator ever. 16 dimensional chess.
- [42:19]
Tim Miller
Can we just.
- [42:19]
Sarah Longwell
Capitalism is like the free exchange of goods. Okay, that's not.
- [42:25]
Jorge Gaviria
Is it?
- [42:25]
Sarah Longwell
It's not. This is not what this is. This is robber baron crap.
- [42:31]
Jorge Gaviria
I don't know.
- [42:32]
Tim Miller
It's also just short sighted guys and it's people that are like, you know, whatever, like, going to make decisions based on what the next earnings report is going to look like and all this stuff. I just, I just fundamentally think it's a bad bet. Like, that's my. I feel these, like, these guys are morally repulsive and like, their quotes are like asinine and infuriating. And I would like, rather just. I don't know what, something that sounds very unappealing, like, rip my toenails off one at a time, then go to a dinner instead of a dinner at some douchey steakhouse in New York with these people. So they're awful. But, like, you just put all that aside. I just straight up don't agree with the bet. Like, maybe it'll pay off. Maybe it'll pay off. We don't know what the future holds. Maybe in 2028, Donald Trump will leave and the S&P 500 will be at 12,000 and he'll cut rid of all the red tape and, you know, like, the rule of law will hold. But I just. It seems like a really risky fucking bet to me.
- [43:30]
Jorge Gaviria
Well, let me, let me read one more piece. Last, last thing from William Cohen. Given the largely foreseeable chaos of the past few weeks, was there anything else that motivated the Wall street donor class to lean so heavily into Trump last November? I wondered. Here's the quote. They don't think being rich is enough. One of my sources told me they think they need to be venerated for being rich. And Biden didn't venerate them for being rich. Boom. Roasted.
- [44:03]
Sarah Longwell
You know, here's the thing. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a slightly contrary thing on this. Yeah, you won't. Like, maybe. I think there's some weird truth to this. So I'm watching the Dems now. They want to kind of be like, we want to go after these billionaires. Billionaires are unpopular. I actually don't think that's true. I think that part of Trump's appeal and part of Elon's appeal is people are like, I want to be rich, too. I think these rich guys are cool. I think it's cool. I think. I think billionaires seem like they're smart, seem like they know stuff. And I think, like, watching these idiots, you know, try to respond, who, like, don't understand anything and they want to sound smart and they're like, okay, but if money comes in here, like, they assume Elon is smarter about stuff than everybody else and that's how he made all of his money. And so I just. This, like, we're going to go to war against the billionaire class. I feel like that's kind of like a go to move on Dem's part. And I feel like the culture's not really with them on that.
- [45:14]
Jorge Gaviria
That's entirely possible. I'm open to that possibility.
- [45:18]
Tim Miller
I'm also open to it. I'm open to the. Totally. To the, like, I'm.
- [45:21]
Jorge Gaviria
I guess I'm open to the opposite.
- [45:23]
Tim Miller
Full candor here. I'm exploring, I'm interested. I'm listening to the different things. Like, you could tell me that the path to victory is by getting a Luigi tattoo on your back and talking, you know, burning down the billionaire class. You could tell me that that's not right at all. And that the Democrats really need somebody that speaks to everybody's aspirations and is like, actually these Trump and these guys are clowns and they're not going to help you get rich. I am like, or anywhere in between. I really don't know.
- [45:53]
Sarah Longwell
Well, part of it is that. And here's the thing. I think people have this outmoded sense where they're like, but Romney, you know, Romney was a rich guy and nobody liked him. Romney's the kind of rich people people don't like, right? There's this new class of billionaire bros that are accessible to people and you know, like, like, this is. I was talking about this when I was recording the focus group pod where people were into Mark Cuban, right? I was like talking to Dems and they're all like, very into Mark Cuban. And part of it is that he's wealthy and he's a business guy and he's on tv. And like, a lot of the things, things that we sort of assume actually people might not like. I'm not sure about that.
- [46:35]
Jorge Gaviria
I mean, I would just, I would.
- [46:37]
Tim Miller
Caution people like, stupid shit. I totally agree with that. We're aligned on this, that I might be disconnected from what people like for.
- [46:45]
Jorge Gaviria
Sure before we move on. Again, totally open to this possibility, but I would say we haven't had a concerted effort to demonize billionaires, and I.
- [46:59]
Sarah Longwell
Don'T think that's true. That was all Bernie Sanders. That was like his whole thing. There's been pretty well, fair work.
- [47:05]
Jorge Gaviria
Pretty well. A lot of those Bernie voters became Trump voters.
- [47:09]
Sarah Longwell
I'm just saying that you really didn't mind the billionaire part at all.
- [47:13]
Jorge Gaviria
Well, I mean, they didn't. They didn't, right? I mean, they hate the elite. They hate. I'm just saying that I, I think somebody really wants to try to, to make billionaires be a thing. People didn't used to hate immigrants. I think somebody decided they were going to really make immigrants.
- [47:29]
Sarah Longwell
I think you want people to hate Elon. I think, like, billionaires is a class. I'm not sure. Like, I don't.
- [47:35]
Jorge Gaviria
I. Oh, yeah, you got to freeze it and personalize the Alinsky.
- [47:39]
Sarah Longwell
I might have said this a while ago, too, but I just don't agree with it now. I just, I listened. People are like, but why would, why would black men like Trump? And I'm like, they see him as aspirational. They talk about like, he's rich. I want to be rich, too. Same with Elon. Same.
- [47:52]
Jorge Gaviria
But what you'd have to do is you'd have to make Elon the face of all billionaires. You know, like, this is. You have to make him the stand in for it. Okay. We had a lot. We got it. I want to do like an hour on the Trump Gaza thing, but we'll save that for dessert because it's going to be so delicious and not at all nutritious.
- [48:12]
Sarah Longwell
Well, we've already been at this for 45 minutes. I want to do it. Do we have, like, other very.
- [48:16]
Jorge Gaviria
I have one other topic, you know, professional host here. Sarah. I know how to run a show. Politico ran a big piece about Democrats this week, and I just wanted to let the two of you guys just, just dunk all over it.
- [48:32]
Tim Miller
I just.
- [48:33]
Jorge Gaviria
Who wants to go first?
- [48:34]
Tim Miller
I'm so. Me. I'm so annoyed with the piece. I will, I will, I will. I'm so annoyed at the Democratic strategists that talk to Politico for this. The headline is Democrats are falling for Trump and Musk's foreign aid trap. Veteran strategists want their party to be more thoughtful about fighting Trump's anti bureaucracy campaign. Among the quotes is one from Rahm, who I usually agree with Rahm. I like Rahm. He says this. You don't fight every fight, you don't swing at every pitch. And while my view is while I care about the usaid, as a former ambassador, that's not the Hill I'm gonna die on. You just see a lot of this out there right now about the Dems being strategic. And you also don't fall in Trump's trap. Like, Trump's trying to distract you. Trump's trying to do this. And I just like people who, and maybe it would include some of us and some of our listeners who follow politics in the way that people follow sports have now, I think, have had their brains broken a little bit by like the notion that everything that like, happens and everything that every politician says, like, is going on a scoreboard somewhere. And it's like, we got one point today or we did this, we said this thing and it backfired and helped Trump. And Trump got three points today. And I just, I want to encourage everybody, unless you're Abigail Spanberger or one of the people running for New Jersey governor, like, there are no points on the scoreboards this year. Like, you can do stuff that would hurt the Democratic brand. Democrats could go out and say really stupid things. You know, like there could be a video of the Democrat 2028 nominee doing an interview where they're like, I think the government should pay for sex changes for illegal immigrant criminals in jail. Like, that would not be helpful. Like, you could do things that are unhelpful in the long term, but like being righteously angry about something and going after Trump on it and trying to raise the salience of these issues, like, at this time is not ever a bad idea. Like, it just isn't. Like right now it's the Dems job to check Trump, to attack Trump and to challenge Trump. That's it. The opposition party. That is their political job and responsibility. And like USAID deserves to be fought for. It does. And it does not hurt the Democrats for there to be people speaking out on behalf of the children that are gonna die because we shut down usaid or speaking out on behalf of America and our role in the world as a values based leader, which I guess we're just gonna twilight without a fight, apparently. So it is worth fighting about that. It's worth fighting about immigrants, it's worth fighting about trans people in the military. As long as they're fighting and they're pushing back, they're not doing this, you know, stupid Democrat navel gazing stuff. And like, they're punching them. That's good, that's good. Challenge him, sue him, raise salient issues. And like in fucking June of 2026, you can decide, okay, maybe our strategy should be to really focus on healthcare or whatever. The fact that we're shutting down these community health centers or Medicaid or who the hell knows what other atrocity will happen between now and next year. Like, you do not have to be. Every tweet a Democrat sends attacking Trump does not have to be tailored and message pointed to whatever polls and focus groups the best. Just like start throwing shit and see what sticks. Like there's this notion that Trump was so like strategic, Go look at Trump's fucking bleeds. Trump attacks everybody attacks people's face. He attacks things that backfire. He attacks on stupid issues. Like just try to challenge him, try to weaken him. That's the job.
- [52:45]
Jorge Gaviria
Tim, I don't want to depress you, but we have literally probably 120 crazy Trump stories between now and June of 2026, at least. Like if you just do the rate at which they come out and the.
- [53:00]
Tim Miller
Number of days, there's no way you could possibly know. Just forget, forget Trump. If you were in February 2021 and you were the Democrats, you didn't know that Roe was going to happen. You didn't know what the main issue was going to be in the 2022 election. Like, you didn't know in 2017, Democrats attacked the Muslim ban right away. The same article could be written about that. It could be a bunch of strategists who are like, I don't know, guys, you know, who's not very sympathetic terrorist loving Muslims from Kazakhstan. Maybe we should just let this one, maybe should let this pitch go by. No, like, Democrats attacked it. People protest it. That didn't end up being the salient issue by 20, that time moves fast. That didn't end up being the salient issue by 2018.
- [53:49]
Sarah Longwell
I don't think I agree with you.
- [53:51]
Tim Miller
I know you don't. That's the number one thing that I disagree with you on and several other people on my podcast that I, that I like. I need to send a warning sign for guests before they come on, which is like, I don't want anybody even talking on my podcast about, like, what do you think voters in Michigan think about this? I don't care. I don't care right now.
- [54:11]
Sarah Longwell
So I read that Politico piece and you know, it's Rom, it's Axelrod. And I read it and I was like, you know at some point, like, I was like, I'm not sure actually this is even the right thing to be punching at Democrats about. Like, I was like, what the DNC did over the weekend, horrible, was one of the most insane things I've ever seen. And the, like, the idea that that is the going to be the alternative to what Trump is offering, you know, I just think there's a lot of voters who are gonna take a pass on that, whatever that was. Okay. That being said, I do think Democrats need to figure out what is both in line with their values and popular. Like, I don't. I'm sorry, I would not pick a fight on trans military service. Like, I would not pick a fight on, like, Democrats. Like, there's. We've talked about this, but there's a line that Ezra Klein has that I think is really, really deeply correct, which is that Trump won the culture by a much larger margin than he won the vote. And I think on some of this culture stuff, Dems are gonna have to let it go. And I'm, I'm like, I. Look, obviously I think that trans people should be allowed in the military, but, like, dying on that hill right now, like, making that the issue, it's not.
- [55:39]
Tim Miller
Dying on the Hill to go out there and say, actually, I think that brave trans soldiers should be able to stay in the military and they shouldn't be kicked out by a draft dodger who pretended to have bone spurs. I don't think that's dying on the Hill. That's not the only thing you have to say. As we mentioned, Elon tweets 200 times a day. If you're a Democratic senator, you could tweet 50 times in a day. And one of them, you could have 10 press conferences a week. One of them could have been about the trans military thing. Like, why is it, why is it dying on the Hill?
- [56:08]
Sarah Longwell
You know, that's a fair point, actually, that it's like, it doesn't have to be the only thing. I do think Democrats tend to go for those issues and make them the issue.
- [56:16]
Tim Miller
Sure.
- [56:17]
Sarah Longwell
As opposed to, I think there does need to be an offense strategy. They should be screaming and yelling, but, like, I do watch them sort of do things. Like, they all went and stood outside of usaid. Like, the USAID people have no idea what this is. Right. Like, and so Democrats being like, we're going to go to bat for usaid, we're going to go back to bat for a particular department. Like, no, that is. That, to me, is not the way to fight the way to fight is to scream and yell and be like, the American people did not elect Elon Musk. What he is doing is illegal, and he is shutting down whole sections of the government without thinking through any of it. And they are incompetent and they're leaking CIA, probably people's names and they are putting us all at risk. Like, there's a way to go on offense in ways that I think track with what people are like, yeah, I'm not sure this is great, but, like, defending different parts of the government that people have no idea what they do. Like, if people don't know what they do, they don't care about them. And now is not the time to educate the public on what USAID does. Now, I do think, like, getting some of the families in front of it to be like, we just moved uprooted our entire life to move there to help save, you know, Sudanese babies and do, you know, vaccines for whatever, and like, getting them in front of people to tell the real stories. That's a good idea. But I don't think that, like, I think it is fair to say don't swing at every pitch and that some of this stuff is meant to distract and to trap Democrats into going to bat for things that are deeply unpopular and just reaffirm for people that these people are out of touch. And I think they've got to figure out what issues matter to them and then they need to go on offense about them.
- [57:55]
Tim Miller
Yeah. I just have one area of disagreement on this, which is, I think, which will summarize where we have a different pov and it's possible I'm wrong about this. We'll see. We have to know. I just think that in this media environment, what the strategists in that article are calling for and what a lot of Democrats are calling for right now is like, we need to really have a strategic, targeted approach that goes after him and brings in a broad coalition and is not reflexively opposed and learns some lessons from 2020. And I'm like, no, my lesson from 2024 and 2016 is the Democrats do not need a tailored strategic message. They need animal. I want fucking. I think that the next Democratic leader needs to be somebody that throws. That is exactly what the pundits tell you you shouldn't do, which is be a totally rabid, anti Trump rage monster that goes after every pitch and goes after him relentlessly and is unapologetic about it and does not give a single centimeter. And I think that is probably the.
- [59:09]
Jorge Gaviria
Best Voters do like dominance. Voters do respond to dominance.
- [59:14]
Sarah Longwell
I think you can do that without getting trapped into unpopular positions and without taking on things that, like, are the terrain that Republicans want to fight on.
- [59:22]
Tim Miller
Sure.
- [59:24]
Jorge Gaviria
Fair enough. All right, now we get the dessert.
- [59:27]
Tim Miller
Great.
- [59:29]
Jorge Gaviria
On Tuesday, Tuesday evening, Donald Trump made some new US Policy by saying that we were going to take over Gaza and develop it and turn it into the Riviera of the Middle East. Since then, some of the cucks in the administration have tried to walk that back. Marco Rubio said that the President was merely talking about rebuilding. Steve Witkoff, Trump's Middle east envoy, went in front of Republican senators and said that Trump was absolutely not going to spend a single dollar on rebuilding Gaza. Slightly contradictory. Walk back.
- [60:12]
Tim Miller
Well, it's because we're making money, we're making cash, Carolyn. Think about the rent we're charging.
- [60:21]
Jorge Gaviria
Carolyn Leavitt said that Trump has not yet decided to put boots on the ground. I guess that's a thing that maybe we were. I have so many thoughts about this and I would like to hear yours first.
- [60:36]
Tim Miller
No, I want to hear yours.
- [60:37]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah, no, you, you, you, you've been waiting for this. You said you did a lot of research. Let's hear it.
- [60:42]
Jorge Gaviria
I, I, I mean, so, on the what? So this is bait. This is the type of stuff that, like I am, I have been desperately trying to avoid writing about in my promise to myself that I'm not going to write about the meaningless shit that Trump says. But I do get to talk about it here. And so it's obvious we are, we are not going to move 2 million people who currently live in Gaza to countries which refuse absolutely to take them. And we wouldn't do it even if Egypt and Jordan did agree to take them because that would be a nightmare logistically. This is, Gaza is not going to become revere in the Middle East. This is not a, that's not a thing. That's not a thing.
- [61:42]
Tim Miller
Maybe you're just kind of putting ceilings on our aspirations. JVL I, I don't know. Why not? I, I want to see it.
- [61:51]
Jorge Gaviria
Here's all I care about. Here's all I care about. I want to read this. A statement from Layla Elabed, the co chair of the Uncommitted Movement. Remember them? I feel sad, angry and scared for our communities. For months we warned about the dangers of Trump at home and abroad, but our calls largely went unheard. Harris left a vacuum by not visiting Michigan families impacted by US supplied bombs to help create a permission structure for their trust. While Trump visited Dearborn and filled a community in despair with lies. Trump's illegal calls for ethnic cleansing are horrific. But as on so many other issues, Democrats had a chance to persuade voters they were better alternative, and they blew it. Again, the woman saying this was part of a movement to convince people to not support Harris. And so for her to then say, really, it's. It's on Harris. She didn't, you know, come. I don't want to say what I would like Layla to do, but it's a Falcon heavy. I would like her to get on a falcon heavy to the sun and, and with her, I would like to send. Do you guys remember Bashara Baba?
- [63:11]
Tim Miller
I don't.
- [63:13]
Jorge Gaviria
He was the gentleman who was interviewed by Isaac Chotiner in the New Yorker.
- [63:19]
Tim Miller
Oh, yeah. Over the summer.
- [63:20]
Jorge Gaviria
He's the Palestinian American who, Who founded Arab Americans for Trump. Big Trumper. Big Trumper. And he. The interview. We should put this in the show notes. The interview he did with Isaac Chotiner is unbelievable. That's really good in, in the, the level of, I guess, self deception from this guy talking about how great Trump was and how way better than, than Biden Trump was. And, you know, he's asked. Chotner asked him. He says in the presidential debate, which was less than two months ago, Trump said during an exchange about the war in Gaza that Biden had, quote, become like a Palestinian. Baba says, I know that statement very well. Isaac says to him, how do you understand that statement? He says, well, from my perspective, I'm a Palestinian American. The way you would see it was clearly as a slur in a derogatory manner. However, it was later explained to us that he meant to say Hamas, and this guy just accepts it. So what does Bashar Ababa say about the plan to do some light ethnic cleansing and then redevelop Gaza into Sandals Resort for, for Trump Properties. Last night, he changed the name of his group from Arab Americans for Trump to Arab Americans for Peace. And the statement said, we appreciate the president's offer to clean and rebuild Gaza, but. But take issue with the president's suggestion of taking over Gaza and removing its Palestinian inhabitants. It was just a suggestion. He was just floating the idea. And these aren't people with a historic right to their homeland. They are just Palestinian inhabitants. I just. These fucking people. I. You know what? This, this is, again, political capital. I would not expend a single ounce of blood. I would not move the little finger, little knuckle on my little finger to do anything. You know what this is? This is the World they wanted enjoy it. Democrats should spend precisely zero effort on this. Just say, well, I guess we're gonna have casinos in Gaza. Great, let's see it happen.
- [65:55]
Tim Miller
I would like to see it. I think this is back to the JVL thing of, like, why aren't you doing this? Let's see it. Let's do it. Like, okay, I don't. Let's. Let's. Let's see the effort here. I do think that there are. I mean, some of our. Some of our old neocon friends were titillated by this suggestion. I saw some. Saw some conversations over in Beacon and Commentary World. They're like, might be something here. Shapiro was like, yeah, they might greet us as liberators.
- [66:28]
Jorge Gaviria
This is a great idea. Then shouldn't they be upset when he doesn't do it?
- [66:32]
Tim Miller
Just a little democracy problem.
- [66:33]
Jorge Gaviria
This is what I don't understand. This is what I just don't understand. If this is a good idea and it's not insanity, then surely they'll be upset if it doesn't happen, right?
- [66:43]
Tim Miller
I would think so.
- [66:44]
Jorge Gaviria
Right?
- [66:44]
Tim Miller
Well, yeah, sure. I don't know. I don't think so. But you would. You would want them to be sad. I do wonder. It's hard for me to get into inside the mind of a, you know, random Hezbollah member. So this might be wrong. But just as, like, human instinct, I would think that there actually is some tangible negative to this for us. Like, I have it, you know, if you think. Wouldn't you think that, like, some of the terrorists would be like, all right, usa. You want to come in here and turn our ancestral homeland into a gaudy casino? We have a few thoughts about that. One of your decadent flesh pots of fucking sex and drugs. Women show off their ankles. I don't know. I don't know. It just. To me, it seems like it might make them mad and that, like. And that there might be some targeting of U.S. interests and assets over this.
- [67:53]
Jorge Gaviria
Also seems like the kind of thing that helps with recruiting for Islamist terrorists. Right?
- [67:58]
Tim Miller
Yeah.
- [67:58]
Jorge Gaviria
Just having the US President say that he wants to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip seems like the kind of thing that you could tell impressionable young teenagers.
- [68:07]
Tim Miller
Maybe the terrorists take Trump seriously. But not literally, though.
- [68:10]
Sarah Longwell
You know, I think you guys are being too negative about this. I think you should give this guy a Nobel Peace Prize. Trump. Only if he does it.
- [68:18]
Jorge Gaviria
Only if he does it.
- [68:19]
Sarah Longwell
He has caused peace in the Middle East. He's gonna build some high rises. Here's the thing about the stuff like this I do have, actually have a lot of thoughts, but one of the first is Donald Trump's pitch to his supporters that everybody said they were for. Literally embedded in America first is the idea that we are non interventionists. We are not going to just do adventurism abroad. We could go tell people in other countries we got stuff here to do at home. I don't know if you know this, but I hear voters say this all the time about why they voted for Trump. We got to take care of our own. We got to do stuff here.
- [68:54]
Jorge Gaviria
Oh, so they want to spend more on social service programs.
- [68:57]
Sarah Longwell
So to watch a bunch of MAGA idiots be like, yes, we need to. This is, this is. This is. We got to invade Canada and Greenland and the Panama Canal and we got to build the Gaza high rises. And what's great about Trump's speech, when he's doing it in Susie Wild's eyes, watching him do it, I enjoy that. I enjoy watching bad people who put Trump in this position suffer with the. As they see, like, what the kind of stuff he's doing. But, like, who. No, this is literally the opposite of what he pitched.
- [69:37]
Jorge Gaviria
And yet his people love it. Right.
- [69:41]
Sarah Longwell
It's almost like there's not a commitment to any particular worldview.
- [69:48]
Tim Miller
I guess I would make this. This, though, goes back to the actual actions. And so this is why it's like, yeah, Trump, do it. Because I think that it is something that could actually.
- [69:58]
Sarah Longwell
I do not want him to do it. There's a lot of people. First of all, I'm the joker.
- [70:04]
Jorge Gaviria
You want to know how I got.
- [70:04]
Sarah Longwell
These scars way to do that. I mean, that is us. We would have to. I don't know. I don't. Would we kill people? What would we do to just move everybody?
- [70:15]
Jorge Gaviria
I don't know. I'm excited to find out.
- [70:18]
Tim Miller
That's what my point is. Right. Like, okay, so. So, like what he keeps getting worried about, it doesn't matter what we wish, right? Because our wishes don't matter.
- [70:26]
Jorge Gaviria
Never going to happen.
- [70:26]
Tim Miller
Yeah, our wishes don't matter. My point is, if he actually did it, all right. I do think that that would be something that would have negative impact on him actually with his own people. Right. Like, if there were actually people, right? Because you think, you think about what he explained.
- [70:42]
Jorge Gaviria
Positive.
- [70:42]
Tim Miller
He was like, we're going to go through. There are a bunch of bombs that have been unexploded. We're going to do whatever. Control detonations. Like having American troops over there doing controlled detonations in Gaza while Like, who the hell know? Like what? You know what I mean? It just would be such a shit show that would negatively impact him, I think, if he actually did it. So I think that the America first people. This is a compliment, I guess, or just an observation. I think that they have a genuine commitment. They didn't like Iraq. They have a genuine commitment to not wanting to do this. They also like that Trump is jingoistic and is gonna own the.
- [71:22]
Jorge Gaviria
They want this stuff. They don't want the actual action.
- [71:25]
Tim Miller
Right, Exactly. That's what I'm trying to say. Yes.
- [71:27]
Jorge Gaviria
Yeah, absolutely. Do. I had a question.
- [71:30]
Tim Miller
Sorry, sorry. Did you do something else?
- [71:31]
Jorge Gaviria
Sorry, Sarah. Keep going.
- [71:33]
Sarah Longwell
No, I'm, I mean, this is.
- [71:35]
Tim Miller
I.
- [71:36]
Jorge Gaviria
So here's, here's my question. So with the, like with. To go back to the tariffs, why did Justin Trudeau keep kayfabe on this? So if you're.
- [71:50]
Tim Miller
I can answer that.
- [71:51]
Jorge Gaviria
Canada and Trump is doing this nonsense, and Trump's people are coming to you on the side and saying, just give us anything that we can spin as it being a victory for him. You've got the entire country on your side. In Canada, they were Canadians, the politest people on God's green earth were booing the Star Spangled Banner at hockey games, which I find amazing. That's how angry they were. They pulled stuff off the, pulled American liquor off the shelves. And all across the country, they like rising nationalism in, in Canada for three days. Why not? For Justin Trudeau, say, fuck you, I'm not going to participate this. You want to, you want to try putting on tariffs? Go ahead.
- [72:40]
Tim Miller
Because the consequences, it'll hurt you more than really bad for Canada. And the consequence. That's just the reality. They'd be worse than the economic consequences. No, I don't think so. Actually, the economic consequences for Canada were going to be really bad. Like, so that's the answer.
- [72:53]
Jorge Gaviria
Really.
- [72:54]
Sarah Longwell
Yeah.
- [72:55]
Jorge Gaviria
Also, Trudeau's on his way out. Fuck it. Like I. Like this is again, until you, if you, if you keep rolling over for the bully, he's going to keep shaking you down.
- [73:04]
Sarah Longwell
No, he got the best of both worlds. He got to look really butch on his way out, standing up to Trump, giving that speech, why would our friends do this? And then, like, his people know that he didn't give anything up. Like, anybody with a brain can be. Like, this is not a real deal. It's just so happens that there's like 70 million Americans who, you know, you.
- [73:24]
Tim Miller
Want this for you. Jvl. I get it. I want it for me, too. I want Justin Trudeau. If I was Justin Trudeau's conservative, I.
- [73:31]
Jorge Gaviria
Want it for me. What other reason is there to want anything?
- [73:34]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I would be demanding that he stand. Hold the line. But, you know, I'm not a. Whatever. Lumberjack in Calgary.
- [73:43]
Sarah Longwell
Listen, I have a slight complaint about this show right now. We're in its 70th minute or getting close to its 80th, and the topics were. None of them are built for the thing. My rant that I'm really upset about right now.
- [73:59]
Tim Miller
Okay, great.
- [74:00]
Jorge Gaviria
Who uses the cold open?
- [74:02]
Sarah Longwell
No, no, no. It can just be the end. It can just be the end. Okay, here's the thing that I'm. As I'm watching. We didn't. We're not getting to this. But like Cassidy, like all the Republicans who caved.
- [74:14]
Jorge Gaviria
Oh, yeah, we didn't even get to that.
- [74:15]
Sarah Longwell
It's like, yeah, it wasn't one of our times. But I have a thing to say about it, which is many people are giving this excuse of like, Trump has a mandate, he won the election and the popular vote. Is there a limiting principle on that? Like, is there like, at what point? Like, what could Trump do that? The Republican response would be like, you know what, that's too far.
- [74:47]
Jorge Gaviria
That's literally nothing.
- [74:49]
Sarah Longwell
Or is it? Is there literally? Because I gotta tell you, these voters, okay, much like they're the people who are screaming at Bill Kristol for not actually getting USAID money, but are ignoring that Elon Musk did get USAID money. These are also the America's a republic, not a democracy people. Okay? And part of what they mean by that, right, Their point is that they're taking a very sort of political sciencey, originalist approach to the idea that we don't just, you know, Mike doesn't make. Right. You know, you can't have the tyranny of the majority. Right. It's good. That's founder stuff. I agree. No tyranny of the majority. These are people right now who are just full on tyranny of the majority, folks. Everybody's just like, nope, Mike makes right. He got 1 million more votes and therefore didn't break. Didn't break 50% of the country, but, you know, million more votes, smaller vote.
- [75:52]
Jorge Gaviria
Margin than Hillary Clinton, actually smaller vote.
- [75:54]
Sarah Longwell
Margin than when Joe Biden beat him in 2020. So. But that gives him what blanket. He can do anything. I just want to know what the limiting principle is from these Republicans.
- [76:08]
Jorge Gaviria
None.
- [76:08]
Tim Miller
I would also like to know it, but not really expecting to see it. Okay, well, that's I mean, it is your point. The other way of making that same point is like, if you went to any of these people, Todd Young and Bill Cassidy, and was like, in October and were like, hey, Trump's gonna win. He's gonna pick a Fox host to run the military and, like, the Cash Patel to be in charge of the FBI and Tulsi and rfk. Like, what do you think? What do you think you're gonna do? I'm from the future. What do you think you're gonna do? Like, Todd Young and these guys have been like, no, no, no, no, no. We'll. We'll talk. We'll talk him off. That. That'll just. That'll just be a. You know what I mean? Like, they would have thought that they had a limiting principle is. I guess my point and the revealed principle is that there is. There is no limit. Limit does not exist. To borrow from Katie Heron, if Trump.
- [77:03]
Sarah Longwell
He'S going to pull people out of. We're going to build a Riviera in Gaza. Are the Republicans going to be like, cool. Are we going to invade Canada? Are they going to be like, well, we've gone this far, I think, yes. It's good to know.
- [77:22]
Jorge Gaviria
Well, that's a heck of a show. We gotta. We go along when we tape at night. We gotta. Kids stay during the day. We can keep it to a tape.
- [77:29]
Sarah Longwell
I don't have any other meetings or anything.
- [77:30]
Jorge Gaviria
90 minutes I do.
- [77:31]
Sarah Longwell
I gotta go slow horses and go to bed.
- [77:33]
Tim Miller
I gotta go to a dinner. I'm on the West Coast. I've got a dinner here I gotta get to.
- [77:37]
Jorge Gaviria
I gotta prepare for the next snowstorm because that's happening tonight up here in New York City. It's great. All right, guys, awesome news. We only have another 49 weeks of this in this year of the Trump administration.
- [77:56]
Sarah Longwell
It's been two weeks. Two weeks, three days.
- [78:01]
Tim Miller
I did this on the Monday show. I was like, man, it has been the longest three weeks ever. And I was like, wait, no, it's only been two weeks, actually. It's such a long two weeks. It's been the longest three weeks up for. So, yeah, here we are. All right, that's good.
- [78:15]
Jorge Gaviria
It's great. Good luck, America.
- [78:17]
Tim Miller
Looking good.