Live from Pittsburgh!

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Live from Pittsburgh!" on The Next Level

Date Released: October 20, 2024
Host/Authors: Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller, and Jonathan V. Last
Podcast: The Next Level by The Bulwark

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1. Introduction and Setting the Stage

The episode begins with the hosts engaging in their characteristic banter, setting a lively and personable tone for the discussion. Jonathan V. Last (JVL) jokes about finding a place to sit, while Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller respond humorously about managing the live setup ([00:11] - [00:54]). This lighthearted exchange quickly transitions into serious political discourse as they welcome listeners to Pittsburgh and dive into the week's pressing political issues.

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2. Donald Trump’s Campaign Dynamics and Nikki Haley

Sarah Longwell introduces a critical discussion on Donald Trump's campaign strategies, particularly his relationship with Nikki Haley. She references a "fantastic rant" by colleague Andrew Egger, highlighting concerns that Trump's decision not to utilize Nikki Haley might hinder his electoral prospects. Longwell notes, “So let's not give any good advice tonight to the Trump campaign” ([01:00]).

Tim Miller echoes the skepticism surrounding Trump’s endorsement choices, mentioning Trump’s dismissive remarks about Nikki Haley on Fox and Friends, stating, “he’s like, she sucks” ([01:56]). JVL adds insight into Trump’s alignment issues, questioning his support for certain campaign figures over Haley ([02:14]).

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3. RFK Jr.'s Rising Favorability and Media Scrutiny

The conversation shifts to RFK Jr., whose favorability ratings have unexpectedly surpassed notable figures like Kamala Harris and even Taylor Swift according to recent polls. Sarah Longwell observes, “his favorables higher than Trump, you know, higher than Harris” ([02:33]). However, Tim Miller offers a counterpoint, mentioning that favorability tends to increase once a candidate exits the race, suggesting that RFK Jr.'s surge might not be as alarming as it seems ([03:34]).

JVL contributes by sharing an unusual video of RFK Jr. discouraging vaccinations, illustrating the polarizing and unconventional stances that may be driving his popularity ([03:34] - [04:19]).

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4. Trump's Erratic Behavior Potentially Undermining His Campaign

The hosts delve into concerns raised by a New York Times article highlighting fears among Trump’s allies about his return to erratic behavior, which could jeopardize his election chances. JVL cites the article: “those close to Trump are privately worried that the former president is returning to his usual ways in the final days of the campaign” ([05:16]).

Tim Miller criticizes the New York Times for inadequately addressing the complexities of Trump’s influence, arguing that Republicans are struggling to manage Trump's unpredictable nature ([05:04] - [07:35]). He elaborates on how Trump's alliance with controversial figures like RFK Jr. exemplifies the broader issues within the current political landscape ([06:13] - [07:35]).

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5. Criticism of Republican Donors: Gordon Sondland and Paul Singer

A significant portion of the discussion targets Republican donors such as Gordon Sondland and Paul Singer, critiquing their unwavering support for Trump despite his controversial actions. JVL expresses frustration over Sondland's financial contributions to Trump, referencing his role in the impeachment and subsequent behavior ([18:01] - [20:32]).

Tim Miller highlights the transactional nature of these donors, questioning their motives and the ethical implications of their support: “They just want grift because he's a transactional person” ([20:32]). The hosts discuss how these donors prioritize personal gain and access over the integrity of the political process ([21:11] - [23:05]).

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6. The Influence of the Billionaire Class in Politics

The conversation extends to the broader influence of wealthy individuals in the Republican Party. Sarah Longwell references Susan Glasser's New Yorker piece on billionaires reclaiming support for Trump, illustrating a trend of financial elites throwing their weight behind him despite personal reservations ([12:03] - [17:18]).

JVL and Tim Miller further dissect the motivations of billionaires like Mark Cuban and Reid Hoffman, who support policies they believe protect democracy, contrasted with their financial contributions to Trump ([16:23] - [21:24]). The hosts criticize the prioritization of personal wealth and influence over national well-being ([21:24] - [28:13]).

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7. The Al Smith Dinner and Political Fundraising

Sarah Longwell introduces the topic of the Al Smith Dinner, a traditional fundraiser in New York where major party candidates interact post-debate. She describes it as a “lighthearted comedy moment” that should foster unity but instead showcases problematic support for authoritarian figures ([35:51] - [37:10]).

The hosts lament the normalization of Trump’s divisive presence at such events, highlighting how even influential Democrats like Chuck Schumer participate without challenging Trump's ideology ([36:09] - [38:25]). They argue that these gatherings inadvertently bolster Trump's standing in the political arena ([37:10] - [39:43]).

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8. Electoral College Concerns and Implications

A critical discussion ensues regarding the Electoral College system and its impact on reflecting the popular vote. Sarah Longwell raises the concern that Kamala Harris could win the presidency without securing a majority of the popular vote, a scenario unprecedented in modern elections: “that puts her at 50.5. Like she'll have a flat majority of the country voting for her” ([50:13]).

JVL and Tim Miller express frustration over the Electoral College's ability to potentially disregard the popular will, emphasizing the need for reform to better represent the electorate's intentions ([50:46] - [53:17]).

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9. Strategic Path to Victory: Focus on Pennsylvania and Key States

Tim Miller outlines a strategic focus on swing states crucial for securing the presidency, specifically Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Nebraska. He emphasizes Pennsylvania as the "ballgame" state due to its undecided voters and historical significance in elections ([53:01] - [58:43]).

JVL and Sarah Longwell discuss the importance of targeting moderate and independent voters who may swing in favor of Harris, leveraging the demographic advantages of women voters who are likely to support her over Trump ([56:13] - [58:43]).

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10. Emotional Impact and Call to Action

The hosts openly discuss the emotional toll the election is taking on them and their listeners. JVL shares his frustration and anger towards the political dynamics, advocating for decisive action to prevent another Trump presidency: “The moment to stop him is now. It's right now, right this second” ([26:36] - [35:25]).

Sarah Longwell urges listeners to actively engage in the political process by contacting undecided voters and mobilizing support in key states, emphasizing the importance of collective effort to influence the election outcome ([58:21] - [58:56]).

Tim Miller reinforces the urgency, encouraging listeners to “call everyone you know. Call the people who are soft Republicans” and highlights the critical role of grassroots campaigning in securing victory ([58:15] - [58:56]).

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Notable Quotes

• Jonathan V. Last (JVL): “Can we read the exact quote?” ([05:16])
• Sarah Longwell: “we have to do something to, like, shake people and say, is this a thing that you want?” ([10:04])
• Tim Miller: “We are sleepwalking into an autocracy” ([10:57])
• JVL: “They just want access.” ([23:41])
• Sarah Longwell: “You cannot roll up your sleeves if you are wringing your hands.” ([58:09])
• Tim Miller: “You have to do something to, like, shake people and say, is this a thing that you want?” ([10:04])

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Conclusion

In this intense and emotionally charged episode, The Next Level hosts dissect the complexities of the current political landscape, focusing on Donald Trump’s campaign strategies, the unexpected rise of RFK Jr., and the troubling influence of billionaire donors within the Republican Party. They express deep concerns about the integrity of the Electoral College system and mobilize listeners to engage actively in pivotal swing states, particularly Pennsylvania. The episode blends insightful political analysis with a heartfelt call to action, urging listeners to contribute to the democratic process amidst mounting anxieties about the future of American politics.

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For those who missed the episode, "Live from Pittsburgh!" offers a comprehensive examination of the critical factors shaping the 2024 election, providing listeners with a blend of analytical depth and passionate advocacy for democratic engagement.

Transcript

[JVL]

I was just getting my little jerk off dance going. Where am I supposed to sit?

[Sarah Longwell]

Don't worry, I'll be my own stage hand.

[Tim Miller]

I'll be on roadie. It's cool.

[JVL]

We got it.

[Tim Miller]

We had to find a good to see y'all, you know, with nine days. And these lovely people here were like, we got you. And then you guys sold it it out in like 24 hours.

[JVL]

Trying to turn my back to y'all over there. I'm gonna turn it around a little bit so you can see my pretty face.

[Sarah Longwell]

I move back so I can see the people over there.

[Tim Miller]

Hey, guys, there's a guy over there wearing a POD save shirt.

[JVL]

Get out.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, you gotta go out.

[Sarah Longwell]

Hello, Pittsburgh. Welcome to the next level. JBL here with my best friend Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of the Bulwark. So last night we were in Philadelphia, and our colleague Andrew Egger went on this fantastic rant about how he was so stupid that Trump wasn't using Nikki Haley. And all this polling shows that, you know, it's the Haley voters who are really open to going for Kamala. And, you know, and here was his. His own hubris was gonna cost him the election. And we get back to the hotel, and fuck me if Mark Caputo isn't reporting. Mar A Lago looking into calling in Nikki Haley at the 11th hour.

[Tim Miller]

Damn it, Edgar.

[Sarah Longwell]

So let's not give any good advice tonight to the Trump campaign. But then he goes on Fox and Friends this morning to say it's like, I mean, she sucks.

[JVL]

Nobody's ever lost by as much as she has. Why would I need her? He was like, and I guess some people, nobody's ever, why don't you campaign with Dysanctimonious? And he's like, he did better than she did, so why wouldn't I campaign with him instead of her? So I guess he wasn't really aligned with Susie Wiles on that.

[Sarah Longwell]

And then he starts talking about the people he does want to really talk about, which is rfk. And RFK is definitely going to be in the cabinet, which sounds amazing for America. Sarah, you have something interesting that you picked up on RFK Jr. And what the people think about him.

[Tim Miller]

I have no idea what you're talking about.

[Sarah Longwell]

We had this conversation last night that his favorables. His net favorables higher than Trump, you know, higher than Harris.

[Tim Miller]

I didn't pick this up.

[Sarah Longwell]

Higher than Taylor.

[Tim Miller]

Bill was sitting there. Bill was sitting there just, like, freaking out in the green room, reading off the new Fox News poll that was showing that RFK had higher favorables than Taylor Swift. And Bill is a real swiftie. And so he was, like, super upset about this. Here's the thing, though. Everybody's favorables go up once they get out of the race. I don't know if you've looked at Biden's lately, but they've really gone up, too. And so I was a little less alarmed about this because I think people are just happy he's not in the race anymore. I don't know that it is, like a super. I don't know that people are like, oh, I love. I love me some RFK. He was down to 3% by the time he dropped out. People had rendered a judgment on his bear killing, dumping it in the wood, like, in Central Park. Then he was like, maybe gonna eat the bear.

[JVL]

Do you know the one I saw today? Have you seen this? Maybe I just missed. I feel like I see everything. So whenever I see a weird video, I'm like, how'd this one get past me? But it was rfk. It was an old video of him on some zoom during the pandemic telling people that when he goes hiking and where's the place everybody hikes in? La.

[Sarah Longwell]

Topanga Canyon.

[JVL]

Yeah, up in Topanga Canyon. He's like, when I go hiking and I see a mother with a young baby in a satchel, I go up to.

[Tim Miller]

He wants to eat it.

[JVL]

No. I go up to the mother and I say, don't vaccinate that child. And I'm like, you go up to strangers to tell them not to vaccinate their children. That's a weird. That's weirder than the bear thing, I think.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[JVL]

Isn't it? And could you imagine if that man with all those steroids and his weird voice came up to you and he's like, hey, your kid right there. Don't vaccinate him. I'm like, I'm going to get a double dose today. Get away from me. Very weird.

[Sarah Longwell]

So this. This dovetailed nicely with a story in the New York Times this morning with anonymous Trump allies who are worried. They're very concerned that he's back to being erratic and he might cost himself the election.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Great news.

[Sarah Longwell]

Don't get excited. Do you have thoughts on this?

[Tim Miller]

Do I have thoughts on whether or not Trump is back to being erratic?

[JVL]

Can we read the exact quote?

[Tim Miller]

Actually, yeah, because.

[JVL]

Can we read the exact quote? My husband, he left. He doesn't want to hear me podcast again. So he went. He went to the Irish bar around the Corner. But he texted me this, he texted me earlier, the exact quote, to wit, those close to Trump are privately worried that the former president is returning to his usual ways in the final days of the campaign. Concerned that his, quote, impetuousness and scattershot style on the campaign trail needlessly risk victory. Tyler sends us returning. Question mark.

[Tim Miller]

But wait, what's that in?

[JVL]

What's the New York Times?

[Tim Miller]

Okay, this is.

[Sarah Longwell]

Oh, Tim, I thought you didn't want to hear criticisms of the New York Times anymore.

[JVL]

No, I just don't want to. Never mind.

[Tim Miller]

No, it's worth talking about for two minutes. Not to criticize because dumb media criticism can get overdone.

[JVL]

All I was saying on the other podcast is it's not the New York Times fault that we're here because it's only us. It just exists for everyone. I can still be blamed for everyone. I can still be mad at the New York Times for their bad writing. I'm just saying it's not their fault that we're in this place. It's other people's fault.

[Tim Miller]

I think this is more of an instance of how ill equipped we are to handle Donald Trump and continue to be despite the fact that it is eight years later. And like, they should know better now. They should understand that the idea of saying Donald Trump is going, even, even letting these Republicans be quoted anonymously, like, there's actually in that small snippet, it encapsulates everything that is wrong with the current political moment. The fact that these Republicans go on background, the fact that it is RFK that's the problem and not Trump's horrible judgment that would bring him in. It's the way that they think that they can still. They think they're in the driver's seat. They're ones that are going to make sure that we don't get the weirdo like rfk. No responsible Donald Trump will get elected. He just needs to keep those irresponsible people like Laura Loomer and Kanye and the other white supremacists he had dinner with and then everything will be fine. Everything about that and then the media and the way they print it just demonstrates how insufficiently they've been able to figure out how to talk about Donald Trump still now.

[JVL]

Right. You just fall back into the old habits, which is a writ large problem of just like, well, you know, and on this side, they're saying this on this side, you know, and some Democrats are also nervous about Kamala's campaign because the organization in Pennsylvania isn't quite as strong as they, some people think it might be in Politico. And so, like, you end this up with this story and people are like, some Democrats are worried about Kamala's grassroots efforts in Pennsylvania, and some Republicans are concerned that Donald Trump has completely lost his mind, you know, and it's like both sides, everybody's a little concerned about what's happening, you know, within the campaign on each side. I have one other thing, though, on the Trump, on the rfk, Nikki thing, because taken together, and I just do hope that you people in your lives, I said this last night. If you have a friend that's on the fence in Pennsylvania, I'm doing individual phone calls, I'm doing one on one phone calls to Pennsylvania Republicans that are on the fence. So if you have anybody, just let me know afterwards. But, like, as a writ large message to this group, you might have an opportunity to do this soon. In addition to your ads. It's like Trump is telling you what his administration is gonna be, you know, like Dan Crenshaw, when me and we're having that debate, he's like, well, what about what happened in 2017? And it's like Trump is telling you what he wants to do when he gets back in. And it's Nikki Haley, she is a bird brain. I don't care about her. Get her away from me. Rfk. I want that dude in the inner circle, all right? He's going to be in the cabinet and whatever crazy shit he's into, like, that's what we're going to be doing. Like, he's telling these voters that he doesn't want them. And it's important to kind of package that in a way that it sinks in with people, I think, in these last 18 days. Because that remains an important demographic. Like the demographic that would want Trump to have Nikki Haley around, not rfk.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. And I'm just gonna go back to them, the New York Times being ill equipped. Like, and I know that we're gonna sort of talk about this in a second, but the idea that Donald Trump is gonna put RFK in the Cabinet, like, this is like a joke from an alternative universe. Like, it's like a thing that you're like, but this can't be possibly happening. And I do think that we should sit here tonight. Look, the three of us are together a lot and we are trying to process what's happening. And I think one of the things we struggle with is, like, what the fuck, man? Like, what.

[Sarah Longwell]

How are.

[Tim Miller]

How do you make people. How do you and I normally don't swear on the podcast, but, like, I don't. It's like, we are insufficiently alarmed. I keep using the word insufficiently because everything's insufficient to the moment, right? We are, like, sleepwalking into an autocracy, and we have to do something to, like, shake people and say, is this a thing that you want? Like, these are two lunatic people who will tell you that they've paid off porn stars and murdered bears and they assault children and they don't believe in vaccines. And one of them literally led the program. There's like, the only thing he did well in his administration. He did one thing, Operation Warp Speed. And they got the vaccines up. And literally he's now bringing on board the one guy who hates vaccines more than anybody else. And now he's like, yeah, we're best friends. And he's going to be in my cabinet telling everybody not to get vaccinated. Why isn't everybody freaking out about this stuff? We are.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, I took a.

[Tim Miller]

Well, yeah, we are. My dad.

[Sarah Longwell]

I mean, I was pretty freaked out this afternoon, but I took his annex before coming up here. And I gotta tell you.

[JVL]

Jbl, take his hand. He comes up to me backstage, like, we're at a panic. Like, I'm back at a panic show in 2005. He's like, check this out. And he takes out his tongue and shows you a little Xanax he put on there. I was like, okay, dude, calm down. All right. Little pharmaceutical.

[Sarah Longwell]

All right, so who wants to watch me play a game with Sarah?

[JVL]

Me.

[Sarah Longwell]

So you know the gay conversion therapy stuff, Tim? People say it doesn't work.

[JVL]

Yeah, well, it doesn't. I had a couple meetings.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, Sarah is a capitalist.

[JVL]

Oh, great. We're doing some capitalism convert, and I'm.

[Sarah Longwell]

Going to convert her. Who wants Sarah? Commie.

[JVL]

Wait a minute. But the problem with this metaphor that you've just created is you're like the creepy priest trying to keep me straight.

[Tim Miller]

I'm, like, so worried about what's about to happen.

[Sarah Longwell]

So, Susan Glasser, am I still allowed.

[Tim Miller]

To be a lesbian? Or are you just getting rid of the capitalist or just the capitalist?

[Sarah Longwell]

Just the capitalism. We're gonna. I don't know, what, you know, pray the Monet out of you.

[JVL]

That's pretty good.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. This is the material, folks. Enjoy the veal. Susan Glasser just wrote, like, 25,000 words in the New Yorker about how the billionaires got back on Trump. Has anybody read this? This morning it popped out. I can't find this right now. I Just want to drop a couple of things here for Sarah, who believes in meritocracy and the greatness of capitalism, to respond to. So does anybody know who Nelson Peltz is? He's a billionaire type. He was a big in on Trump in 2016 and 2020. And then on January 7, 2021, he went on to CNBC and said, I'm so sorry. I'm ashamed. I'm so embarrassed that I voted for him. I really. This is horrible. Good for him, right? This is what we want. Conversion.

[JVL]

Sarah Matthews and Nelson Phelps standing alone, January 7th.

[Sarah Longwell]

I'm just going to read from the New Yorker now. In February. That's this February.

[JVL]

FIFA, Kamala.

[Sarah Longwell]

Now, the billionaire investor Nelson Peltz convened two dozen of the country's wealthiest Republicans for dinner at Monsteral, his $300 million oceanfront estate in Palm Beach. He opened by saying of Donald Trump, he's a terrible human being, but our country's in a bad place and we can't afford Joe Biden. I'm sorry, you motherfucker. You can afford literally anything. So Pelt concluded, however much they might dislike it, quote, we've all got to throw our support behind him. That's just.

[Tim Miller]

That's just making me dislike Pelt.

[Sarah Longwell]

Hold on.

[Tim Miller]

I'm not sure capitalism is on the line yet.

[Sarah Longwell]

Ed Rogers, a good, bushy, good Romney guy, was a Jeb guy, I think.

[JVL]

Oh, yeah, Yeah. I know there are a couple guys that I've been that I've texted with in this story.

[Sarah Longwell]

Ed Rogers said that, quote, the choices are Biden or Trump, and I'm at peace with that. I wish it was, damn it, I would take me. You know, I wish it was a different equation, he said, but it's not. Then we got a different equation. We got another person, not Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

[JVL]

And did Ed change his tune?

[Sarah Longwell]

Ed Rogers, like, oh, I can't vote for her either. Then Gordon Sondland, remember him from impeachment one, Right? The guy with the Patek Philippe. Not that I was keeping his penis.

[Tim Miller]

That's a watch. I've learned that. I don't know if you caught that, but it's a watch that rich people wear.

[Sarah Longwell]

He's the guy who wound up as ambassador to the eu. And he testified that.

[JVL]

You don't remember him, sir. He looks like a human penis.

[Sarah Longwell]

I didn't want to say it, but he testified that Trump engaged in a quid pro quo with Zelensky. Donald Trump fired him, like, two days later. And this guy, he's like, yeah, I'm voting for Trump. He says it's a binary choice and I want the Trump policies. So here's my question, Sarah, about our capitalist billionaire class, Joe Manchin, who wrote the fucking Biden administration policies can't endorse either Biden or Kamal Harris. But this class of people who hate Donald Trump got nothing from. And who Donald Trump despises and who have all renounced him are now like, yeah, we'll do anything. We'll do anything for him. So capitalism, defend it. We're all commies now.

[Tim Miller]

You guys don't feel like this is. This is a logic that follows, right? You see where. Do you know who else is a capitalist and keeps running around talking about what a big capitalist she is? Kamala Harris.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[JVL]

Yay, capitalism.

[Sarah Longwell]

I'm working on her next.

[Tim Miller]

Please don't. She has to win Pennsylvania. Why don't you just go up to her and be like, hey, you know what? You should ban fracking Kamala. And then don't take your advice. Listen, you're not going to succeed here because you know, Mark Cuban is doing a great job out there. And you guys may not even know this because it's hard for me to talk about all the things, but we also. One of the things we're doing through our pack is business leaders for Harris, which includes Mark Cuban and Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn and a bunch of billionaires. And they. They don't care that their taxes might go up because they think democracy is on the line. And so I, you know, hashtag notall billionaires. Hashtag not all billionaires.

[Sarah Longwell]

Timothy, please jump in here because you're with me. You can pretend not to be.

[JVL]

I'm getting redder and redder every day, I gotta tell you.

[Sarah Longwell]

Thank you. Give it up for Tim.

[Tim Miller]

You don't mean Republican red. You mean Commie red.

[JVL]

Commie red. Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[JVL]

I just. I really hate these people so much. The Gordon Sondland thing. The Gordon Sondland thing. I don't know. What do you guys think? Sam Stein, who we brought in, good guy, you might have seen him on the YouTube. He thinks that I should call. I'll tell him. He had three cheers. Literally. Not like three cheers for Sam, but three people cheering for him. He was like, you should call your old buddy Gordon and have the video team tape it. And I'm like, I honestly don't know if I can do that. But let me know. Let me know if you guys think that's a good idea after you hear this rant.

[Tim Miller]

Score.

[JVL]

Gordon was A big Jeb donor. So I had to talk to Gordon a lot. This fucking guy. Another quote that I thought you were gonna read. I'm happy you didn't, because just every time I look at it, my blood pressure keeps going up. He's like, not only has he come around for Trump, he says to Susan that. He's like, you know, back when I got on early, you know, after he was for Jeb and against Trump, and he didn't like Trump, but he's like, he got the ambassadorship. He's like, back then, it was just like 50 grand to sit around a table with him. Like, wasn't that much. He's like, things have changed now. You gotta add a zero to that. And in exchange for the zero, you get around a table and he talks for, like, 10 to 15 minutes, and that's it. And he's like, back in the old days, in the Bush days, at the end of that, the people would have wanted, or sitting around the table, would have wanted a picture with Bush to put up in their office or whatever, which also seems like an expensive picture, but whatever. And he's like, but that isn't what these guys want. They want to get in the room because they think Trump's going to get back in there, and they know that they can just get theirs once he gets in there. So they just want access.

[Tim Miller]

They just want grift because he's a transactional person.

[JVL]

Yeah, yeah. They just want grift. They just want to be able to call, and they just want straight grift. And I'm just like, okay. I mean, I guess if you're, like, in a highly regulated business and, like, this is what you need to do, like, maybe I can understand the rationale of being one of the cogs that sends us down the road to Mussolini, but do you know what Gordon Sondland does? Anybody know want to shout out? He's a fucking hotelier. He's a hipster hotelier. He doesn't need any access. It's not like he's a fucking defense contractor. He doesn't need any deals with Donald Trump. He runs hipster hotels all around the country, and he has unbelievable. An unlimited amount of money, and he's paying a half million dollars to get 10 minutes with this despicable creep that fired him. How fucking pathetic are you? Think about what you could do with half a million dollars. You could buy a little pied a terre somewhere. You could get a quarter of a pj, fly around. You could give it to an orphanage. You know, and you could walk in and all the little kids would be so excited to see you every time you went in, because they started to get better meals. There's anything you could do with a half million dollars, you're giving it to Donald Trump so you can sit next to him for 10 minutes. I hate these people. I hate him. It makes me so mad.

[Tim Miller]

Capitalism is about the free exchange of goods between individuals. I just wanna. This is a different thing we're talking about. It is. Yeah.

[JVL]

Yeah. But his kids don't deserve money. Okay, I'm still capitalist. But his kids don't deserve money, though. Like, I'm now for an 100% death tax. I'm all in on the death tax. All right? Like, if Gordon Sondland is gonna use his money to buy Chris Lac Vita a beach house and to pay for Donald Trump's lawyers, instead of using it for something for the good of society, then I just. I think that we need to garnish all of his money upon death.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. So I'm just gonna. I don't think this was in the piece. I only read the first half. But the. Paul Singer is another donor that many of us know in our Republican world.

[JVL]

Oh, God, you're really going to get me going now.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Sorry. But I just. I just saw this, and now that we're talking about it, I remembered how angry this made me. He was recently in a meeting with Donald Trump, and Donald Trump was yelling at them, yelling at the rich guys in the room because they're not doing enough for him.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

When Paul Singer, who funded the PAC that you worked on in 2016 to stop Trump, still a lot of Republicans who were trying to defend fear Trump.

[JVL]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Trump put out, like, that pack.

[JVL]

Just as a quick aside for people that miss this. The PAC that Paul Singer funded in 2016, it was called Our Principles PAC, Our Principles Pack. I was a spokesperson for that pack. Now, the principle was that Donald Trump shouldn't be in the White House. So you'll be interested to learn that when Donald Trump won the nomination, he created a new pack called Future 45, which supported putting Donald Trump in the White House, which did raise some questions about the name of the previous PAC that I had worked for. And he asked me to come work for that pack, and I was like, literally, is this a prank call? Like, wasn't the name of the PAC our principal's pack? And his guy was like, yeah, but, you know, we got to. We got to stick with the team now. And then they're like, and he's like, everybody's on board except for you and Katie. And I was like, what? Everyone's on board? Everyone's on board. You know, it's. The last one didn't do it. So that's Paul Singer. Now he's meeting with Trump, apparently getting yelled at for not giving him enough money.

[Tim Miller]

This is the thing. Donald Trump, like, he had to get armed guards. He had, like, tons of. Because Trump went after him for having funded that pact. And now he's like, hey, no, let me sit at the table, and is taking heat from Trump. I can't remember this staggering amount of dollars that he's already put in, but the message that Trump sat around the table and ate an overcooked steak and yelled at all these rich guys, but how they're not doing enough for him.

[JVL]

Here's the thing, though. This isn't even a good transaction. Like, it isn't a good transaction. Like, if you're a rich person, you want to make more money. Again, if you have a. If there's a specific business where you think Trump will give you a good deal. But, like, Paul Singer's an investor. Donald Trump wants to put in 1000% tariff on shit. And Donald Trump, like, wants to turn the country into an autocracy. Like, do you think. Is the Hungary economy something to aspire to? You think Paul Singer is going to do a lot better if our democracy collapses and we have 1000% tariff on all goods coming into the country? Like, what are they doing?

[Tim Miller]

Sometimes I just want to sit here and listen. Things that have happened recently, and one of them is like, remember when Trump was asked about foreign leaders and he cited Viktor Orban as his character reference?

[JVL]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, that's one that's just, like, popped into my head. Then there's another one. So lately he's been on this thing where he says, we were just peacefully protesting. We didn't have weapons, and the other side had weapons. When he's talking about January 6th. No, not they.

[JVL]

They.

[Sarah Longwell]

Them have weapons.

[Tim Miller]

They. The insurrectionists. Donald Trump is. That is a we for him. We. The insurrectionists.

[JVL]

They was the Capitol Police. They.

[Tim Miller]

The Capitol police. I. Are you just shouting out things that are insane? Because that's what I feel like doing. Like, it's when Donald Trump and Steve Bannon. And I actually know that Steve Bannon didn't really mean this when he was saying it, but when they were talking about, we're going to flood the zone with shit because America and human beings, they don't have enough bandwidth to take in all the shit that we're going to flood it with and be able to parse each insane thing. Because if you just have one insane thing, people can get their minds around it. But if you have hundreds of insane things, if you tried to overturn an election, if you stood on the stage with Vladimir Putin and sided against America's intelligence community, if you slept with a porn star and then lied about it, and I don't know, what are the other ones? If you cheated on your pregnant wife with that porn star.

[JVL]

I take your point, but can I take us to a darker place? Sorry, JVL took the Xanax. So can I be JVL for a second?

[Tim Miller]

Here's the thing, I do not like you on Xanax.

[JVL]

Here's the thing, I love me on Xanax. The flood the zone with shit strategy is supposed to target the median American. And I do not mean this as a pejorative, but like people that are working, that have families, that have other shit, and like, they don't have time to follow the news all the time and it's just like all more crazy stuff over here for Donald Trump, it becomes just noise, right? Like that is a workable strategy for them. And I understand why it works and why we have to combat it. But you use it like right after we were just talking about Paul Singer, who is a political operative and donor who follows the news and understands this stuff and became unbelievably wealthy. And so it's like that strategy shouldn't work on these people. They fucking know better. They're not getting fooled by the flood the zone with shit strategy. They are bad at their core, they are bad. And they've decided that they are willing to risk the country for their own fucking access and ego. They want to be able to go in to Air Force One. Like that is what it's about. It's like, about base human failings. And that is actually worse.

[Sarah Longwell]

One of Paul Singer's enemies is Tucker Carlson. Tucker hates Paul Singer. Used to when he had his Fox show, he would go off on Singer all the time. Something like, tucker picks the vp, Ruthless and cosmopolitan. I don't remember exactly what the complaint is. That's a joke.

[Tim Miller]

I didn't even get it.

[JVL]

Tucker made an anti Semitic joke about Paul Singer.

[Sarah Longwell]

No, he didn't. I'm saying that his objection could have been read possibly as that it was a lot of these activist investor globalist types and I don't know. So Paul Singer, Trump hates him. Tucker hates him. The future of the Party is heading out towards Tucker and JD World. This is what I don't understand. So with guys like Gordon Sondland and Paul Singer, don't they have a shred of self respect? I mean, I will spite people for nothing. Right.

[Tim Miller]

This is really true about him, actually.

[Sarah Longwell]

You know, somebody rejected a peace of mind when I was 23, and I still have them on a list. Right. And.

[Tim Miller]

But he walks on going, everybody who's not us is an enemy.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yes, in my defense, it's true. But these guys, they just, they just roll over for anything. And I don't understand, like, can you get really rich by just letting the whole world walk all over? I didn't think that's how it worked.

[Tim Miller]

Actually, now that we're talking about this, I have another objection.

[JVL]

Great.

[Tim Miller]

Which is we spent a lot of time, all of us did, in sort of conservative world around these rich children. And there's a lot of talk about how great America is and about how liberals don't care about America and like, why they're conservative is rooted in this idea that, like, American, you know, and it is this American dream, capitalism, whatever. How much do you have to hate America, though? Deep down? Like, there's no love for America. Donald Trump has the darkest vision of America. And who we are talks about says, we're a third world nation, we're a failing nation. And the idea that if they actually cared about this country, like in any meaningful sense, this, it's because what's weird about this is like the urgency, the imperative. We must get Donald Trump elected. Yeah, or what? Or like libs are gonna give you taxes.

[JVL]

Yeah, that's it, Sarah. Now I'm taking you into hell. We're taking you to hell. We're gonna take you all the way to the bottom now. And then we're gonna build you guys back up for the end of the podcast. But that like, they hate America. They actually hate America. They hate America as it is actually constituted. And that's what it comes down to. No, no, they wanted. They liked the idea of it like the, oh yeah, Hulk Hogan. And we're really strong and we're back to back World War Champions. Like that, like, that was the kind of thing that they liked. But like the multicultural country where people can be able to go live out their dreams in any way they choose. Turns out they don't like that very much because sometimes, a lot, sometimes people choose ways that they don't care about, that they don't care for, either in gender and sexual politics or in campus politics. And Their hatred of the people that are choosing a path that they don't like completely overwhelms their love of America. And fundamentally, I hate to say this because it's not a nice thing to say. You can't love America and be for Donald Trump. J.D. vance. Like, you can't. You just can't. You don't.

[Tim Miller]

You might trick yourself, like, certainly not if you're one of these rich guys. Because I take your point about these guys who have access to all the information.

[JVL]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

And. And they understand all the facts. You know, it's different, maybe, for. I'll take it from a. A voter who has, like, a very specific idea around patriot Donald Trump hugging the flag and, like, making a big show of it, whatever.

[JVL]

And then Trump said they were the Capitol police.

[Tim Miller]

One of them kneeled, some athlete kneeled for the anthem, and so now they have to vote for Donald Trump. I can forgive sort of a regular voter for that in a way they cannot, these rich guys.

[JVL]

I guess that's true. But I. Donald Trump is literally campaigning on the side of, like, there's an enemy within the country that we need to root out, that the people that were on that were trying to protect the Capitol from his rioters are the enemy within. They're the other side. The Capitol Police are the other side. And that his people, the ones that storm the Capitol to try to overturn the election, are actually great patriots that need to be let out of prison and they're being treated like Japanese at the internment camps. That's what he said today.

[Sarah Longwell]

Interning the brown people.

[JVL]

That is his explicit program. It's his explicit program is that there is an enemy within the country that needs to be rooted out. So, yeah, I guess, sure, there could be people that don't understand Donald Trump's program that are for him. For surface reasons, that's fine. But if you understand his program and you are for him, then you're not for America.

[Sarah Longwell]

I have one quibble with this, which is that your diagnosis is true for many of them, but a guy like Paul Singer, I bet that singer.

[Tim Miller]

People in the audience are like, why are they so obsessed with this?

[Sarah Longwell]

Because we know these fuckers. That's why. I bet that singer like Mike Pence secretly hopes that Trump loses.

[Tim Miller]

Guys, this is so.

[Sarah Longwell]

This is a different pathology.

[JVL]

Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

There are the people who hate America because it's not what they want it to be, and so they want to make it what they want it to be. But then there's another class who just think somebody else will take care of this shit for me. I don't want to put a toe out of line. I don't want to risk.

[JVL]

That's fucking worse. It's been a decade. There's no rational view to that right now. I mean, I'm sorry. I know. I saw you. Taking you to hell. We were building you back up. We're going down one more level. We're in Jonta's inferno now. It's a coin flip. Right now. It's a coin flip. The moment to stop him is now. It's right now, right this second. Like, there is no cavalry. Like, we have to do it. And so if you're donating to Donald Trump, you. I just. I. I don't accept that anymore. I don't accept it. There were people that secretly wanted him to lose in 2020, but all these people that we're talking about, they had a chance, they had agency to stop Donald Trump in 2021. Like, there was a moment to stop him. And again, I know none of you give a fuck about Paul Singer. We keep bringing him up. But I'm just saying, as an example, like, he could say, I was not gonna donate to any of you senators that don't vote to convict him. We need to end this right now. He actually had agency. Like, there's a small number of people that had agency. The senators, the big Republican donors, the advisors to the senators. Like, there were people that had agency in January 2021 to say, this is over now. This is over now. You're done. Okay, we're gonna convict you. You cannot run again. We are gonna move on. And he was among those people. So I don't accept from any of those people. Oh, I'm really secretly for. I secretly want him to lose so I can get Glenn Youngkin next time. No, fuck you. Fuck you. You're for him. You're for him. Own it. You're for him.

[Tim Miller]

Here's the thing. But this is where the nihilism kicks in on it. It's not. It's because I think. I think it's a little less than their forum, baby.

[JVL]

They're for him.

[Tim Miller]

They want their hedge fund managers and they are hedging their bets, right?

[JVL]

This is.

[Tim Miller]

This is. They are playing both sides. They want. They know Kamala Harris isn't going to throw them in jail for opposing her, for supporting Donald Trump. Huh?

[JVL]

Yeah, obviously. Yeah, obviously.

[Tim Miller]

They. So they're like, I hope she wins so that we can, I think, to the extent that they care about and have ever cared about the conservative movement, the conservative experiment. Whatever. They want Kamala Harris to win and Donald Trump to lose. Because if Donald Trump wins, and they know this, if Donald Trump wins, the party is his forever, and it's still already kind of his. But every next step locks it in further, makes it impossible to go back to anything that resembles what they thought they knew. And so they know it's better for them if Kamala wins, but they think he might. And so for them, they have to be. They think, like, we have to go hedge against this, which is just nihilistic and terrible. That is where.

[JVL]

This is why I can't call Gordon Sondland tomorrow, by the way, because I just. This has filled me with murderous rage. We need to move on.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, Your Xanax is keeping. Is allowing us to just. Now we've worked ourselves into.

[Sarah Longwell]

You guys are cooking. You just keep going. You're having a great show. No, this is great. You guys just described capitalism and it sounds like it's working out fabulous. All right, so let's. I want to talk a little bit. I wrote today about the Al Smith dinner. Please, some of you fucking clap like you read it.

[Tim Miller]

Please clap.

[Sarah Longwell]

Please clap. She was sitting five inches from me as I wrote it and she didn't read it.

[Tim Miller]

I had to read. I had to catch up on earlier weeks. Triads, they're long anyway.

[Sarah Longwell]

And I was really worked up about the idea of normalcy and, you know, like the Cardinal. Cardinal Dolan and Chuck Schumer.

[Tim Miller]

Explain what the dinner is. Cause I. I don't need to.

[Sarah Longwell]

They read it.

[Tim Miller]

Raise your hand if you read JBL's triad. That's kind of a solid eight.

[Sarah Longwell]

A solid eight.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

So the Al Smith dinner is a dinner for Catholic charities to raise money in New York. It is traditionally, in quadrennial years, the last time that the two major party candidates see one another. It takes place after the third debate. In normal times, when we have three debates and election day, so it's always like this period, this two or three.

[JVL]

Weeks, it's an important fundraiser as well because, like, there's a big backlog of legal funds that the Catholics had to pay for Teddy Carrick. So like kind of like they're paying off all of the old pedophile priest lawsuits many years ago. It's important to have the fundraiser tough but fair.

[Sarah Longwell]

So. And it's a roast. It's a. It's a light hearted comedy moment where they come in and they. They jab with each other. But they're very self deprecating too. And it's like, we're all on the same team here. And, you know, they just had the guy who wants to be a dictator come and do it. And all these people just sat there like it was normal, including Chuck Schumer. And on the one hand, I want everybody to stop doing that because you're helping him. But on the other, we're wired to not be able to stop doing that because you can't live in a state of existential alarm for a decade without losing your mind. Right.

[Tim Miller]

This is the triad I read of JBL's that I actually think is one of the best ones he's ever written, which is about how we are biologically.

[JVL]

It's hard for you to be the judge on the best one he's ever written.

[Tim Miller]

It's one of the best ones I've ever read.

[JVL]

There you go.

[Tim Miller]

But we are hardwired to not live in a state of emergency. Our nervous systems can't take it. Don't you feel like your nervous system can't take it? Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

No, I'm good.

[Tim Miller]

And so we do this. Do you know, I was at a live show one time, and a woman came up and, like, pressed into my hand many, like, a full. What are those crinkly tab things of Xanax? And she was like, this is for jbl. And I was like, and people give us stuff at the. All the time. But I was like, I don't think I can. She's like, it's cool. I'm a pharmacist. And I was like, oh, well, in that case, I'll keep these. Anyway, Sorry, what were we talking about? About how we can't live like this. About how we can't live like this. And, like, we are wired. One of Donald Trump's. It's like, it's on purpose to some degree to, like, to exhaust us and to stress us to the point where, like, you tap out a little bit. Like, we are hardwired to normalize things that are not normal to adjust to a new reality because we're just not capable of living up here. And what's the problem? That's why authoritarians are successful, though, is because, yeah, it's like, you do get exhausted by it, and then you can't maintain that level of emergency, which is literally, maybe why we exist, is to constantly try to keep people in a state of emergency. Like, we are not sufficiently alarmed.

[JVL]

Yeah, that is why we exist. And it's turning me crazy. But that's okay. All right. You know, just a little bit of jack Nicholson, for me, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. I'll be fine. It is disappointing, is really what it comes down to. Like, watching the Al Smith dinner makes me want to vomit. Like, the fact that only Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and Mark Cuban seem to like and Sarah Matthews seem to care about this to the level that it merits caring about is frustrating. Besides, obviously, Democrats and people, but of the people outside of the core Democratic Party. And it's frustrating, and it's frustrating to watch that. And I do think that, like, part of the anxiety that I'm feeling, that I'm sure some of you are feeling is, like, a frustration with that is that, like, we're getting to the last 18 days or 17, however many days, how many days we got left? 16. Now I said 18. We're getting the last 18 days. And it's like, people should be running around in the streets screaming like, this cannot fucking happen again. It's a coin flip. This cannot happen again. We cannot have him in there again. We have to stop it. And I've been doodling over. Jamie has to write five triads a week, and I write once a month now that I have a daily podcast. It's nice, so I can really make them good. I've been noodling over how to write about this and how to think about it and how to try to penetrate with people at the very end, but it's like, it is brain breaking when you're, like. You're looking at this choice out there, and you're like, we have this choice between, like, we are. There's like, a plate of food in front of you, and somebody's like, I don't know. 30% chance arsenic is in there. You don't know. You can taste. It's not even going to taste that good either. It's like a Sloppy Joe, a 30% chance arsenic in it. Then over here, it's like, we got to roast chicken. And I'm like, all right, shouldn't it be 100% to zero roast chicken? And, like, that's not happening right now, right? And it's like people are like, 50, 50. I'm standing there, and people keep walking onto the plate and trying the sloppy jiggle. Like, what am I missing? What am I missing? Why are people trying the sloppy Joe? And I know why, and I know the actual reasons. But even still, after what we've been through, I understand the anxiety that creates, and I share the disappointment that there are so many people that are not treating it as if it's chicken or arsenic. But, you know, where was I going to go to be positive?

[Tim Miller]

We should call this tour our In Our Feelings tour.

[JVL]

Where was I going to go to be positive? At the end, I was going to close positive.

[Sarah Longwell]

We'll get there.

[JVL]

Was I rounding the corner to something positive?

[Tim Miller]

I think we probably should.

[JVL]

No, actually, no.

[Tim Miller]

We should find our rank punditry mode, because in rank punditry mode, I have some optimism.

[Sarah Longwell]

Ok, well, hold on. I'm not ready. I host this show.

[Tim Miller]

Great. I'll stay sad. It's fine.

[Sarah Longwell]

Two things. First of all, I do think it's important to sort of name why everybody's so anxious. So it's the third time Trump is running, but this is the first time that we've hit this moment in the election and people have thought that he has an excellent chance to win. Right. Because by this point, the Comey letter hadn't come out and Hillary was up by like five and a half points in 2016, and Biden was up by like seven and a half in 2020. So, you know, at this point, the other two elections, everybody was like, yeah, he's toast. Don't worry, it's gonna be fine. And now everyone's like, coin flip. And that's new for us. So in addition to everything else and knowing what he really looks like and knowing what a Trump presidency is.

[JVL]

Something positive?

[Sarah Longwell]

Not yet, no.

[JVL]

Okay, good.

[Sarah Longwell]

No, but I do wanna.

[JVL]

How many layers did Dante have? You've done Dante.

[Sarah Longwell]

You know, I forget. But the other question I have for you is, so we say that, like, you know, we can't live like this in a state of emergency. It seems like the bad guys can.

[Tim Miller]

Am I wrong about that causing the emergency than being, like, experiencing the emergency?

[Sarah Longwell]

Can you, can you unpack that for me?

[Tim Miller]

I mean, yeah, like, it's. There's momentum to offense. There's momentum like Donald Trump loves to live in a crazy. Like, it's, it's. I don't know what. It's easier to burn things down than it is to build them. It's easier to destroy than it is to. Like, that just is.

[Sarah Longwell]

Is the answer is that because they know that if they lose, Kamala Harris isn't going to do anything bad to them. I mean, isn't that what it really is? What it really is is they understand that, well, if the good guys win, the good guys are a bunch of pussies. They're not going to turn Washington D.C. into a state. They're not going to do any of the things that would need to be done to create structural reforms to prevent minority rule.

[Tim Miller]

This is the.

[Sarah Longwell]

You guys know where I'm going with that.

[JVL]

Right?

[Tim Miller]

That's so difficult to live with. Right. Is all of the Republicans. And we know people like this, a lot of people like this who are like, but it'll be a disaster if Kamala Harris wins, like, the end of the world. And you're like, but why? And it's like, well, she's a socialist and she's going to pack the courts and, I don't know, save NATO.

[JVL]

Green New Deal, open the borders. Kind of a Green New Deal.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[JVL]

Who knows? Could happen. Free lunches for every kindergartner. That could happen. Trans people, kids could go into. The kids of going to school as a boy, come right out as a girl. You never know what could happen.

[Tim Miller]

This is so funny. Donald Trump says this all the time, and I always just want to be like, if that happens to you, if you dropped your kid off, like, you dropped your kid off a boy, and then you come home and you pick up girl, you've got the wrong kid. Like, it's not. That's not how it works. You grab the wrong one, take him back, and give them to the other parents. It's not yours.

[JVL]

The peeing, the cats, any. Do you have. Any of you have children or grandchildren identifying as a cat? It is a widespread issue. It's happening everywhere. Fuck no. Fuck no. Biden might have done it. Kamala's not. Kamala the cop. She's not partner. Trump. All right, thank you. We've turned the corner. We're not going to pardon him.

[Sarah Longwell]

So you're going to close abc Always be closing.

[JVL]

Okay, so it's me, you, Timothy. I am in my feelings.

[Sarah Longwell]

What's happening?

[JVL]

What?

[Sarah Longwell]

What's happening?

[JVL]

Yeah, I am in my feelings. Here's the thing. That's what I. Because I'm going to be in my feelings in the podcast for the next three weeks and whatever you guys listen, you're here, you know, we're all here to support each other. Sometimes people say to me, it's like, you're calming to me. I'm like, really? All right, I appreciate that. I don't exactly get why I'm not calming to myself, but, you know, part of it, I think, is the candor. Like, part of this is that we're all, like, dealing with this together, right? Like, we're communing over this. Like, everybody has people in their lives that were like, did you turn? Yeah, I watched the bad guys. So you don't have to, but. And I also kind of talk about this so you don't have to talk about it with your friend or mom or aunt or whoever it is in your life that you're like, really, you're gonna be for Trump. And so I think that there is that like, element to this. But the downside of like being honest with each other and being here with our feelings is like, sometimes you're gonna get me in my feelings. And it's like the best case, like there is a, the best actual case scenario. Let's talk about that for a second. The best actual case scenario is she could, she could win all seven. She really could win all seven. I think that there is poll herding happening. It's pretty obvious there's poll hurting happening because none of these, all these polls just want to have good ratings. So none of them want to have any outliers. It's like we don't really know like what, like whether there's an error, like which way the error is. And it's possible there's a couple point error towards her. Not, not what we need. Has anybody here been pulled? You've been pulled? Couple people, yeah. I mean, look, there are good pollsters out there. So I don't, I don't think it's junk science. I'm just saying I do think some people are trying, are fudging the numbers a little bit that said she could win all seven. We could all be happy. There might be some mad MAGA people and there might be some stochastic terrorism. But like, honestly, all things considered, that's, that's, that's our best case scenario outcome. So enjoy that if it happens. Like, I really, I still believe that the mean outcome is that she wins like 270 or 276 electoral votes. Let's be happy about that. I do think so. I think that's the most likely outcome that she wins. That she either wins these three states that we're in, plus Omaha, plus Nevada or not Nevada. And that would be two set. I don't know about that. So that's 276. And this is where I want to come. Like, that fucking sucks. Like, I will be happy. I will play my Kamala Coconut playlist. Like, the podcast will be amazing. The next day when they call it, we will be partying together. But like at the biggest picture right now, what you think about it, like, that says something very bad about our country. If she wins this thing with 276 votes and you guys are dealing with angry red hatted people in Harrisburg talking bullshit like they were just doing during the hurricane about, oh, I don't know. I was in Luzerne county one day and I saw somebody come in and there were two Janes on the list. And I was like, there can't be two Janes in Luzerne County. There must be some something illegal happening here. And then Don Jr posts it and they're like 8 million TikTok views. If that is the median outcome. And I think it is. It says something not great about our fellow countrymen. And I don't like that. I like to be happy. I like to be positive and uplifting. But that is our reality. And I just think that we have to kind of process all that together and deal with it and hopefully by talking to all of our friends we're here in Pennsylvania, by talking to folks that are on the edge, nudging a few extra people over and making the difference from being 276 versus 268 because that's a pretty big difference.

[Sarah Longwell]

I'm going to let Sarah take it home, but I'll give you guys my what my concern. So Hillary Clinton finishes with 49.6% of the popular vote. Biden finishes with 51.5. I suspect Harris is going to be in the middle of the two. So if she splits the middle, that puts her at 50.5. It puts her over the magic 50. Like she'll have a flat majority of the country voting for her.

[JVL]

Woo.

[Sarah Longwell]

And she may, I mean it is a coin toss at that point. Like, you know, does she win the electoral College or does she lose it? I don't think we've had a president lose the electoral College while winning a flat majority of the popular vote. I think that is an absolute possibility this time around. And if that happens, I mean, I know everybody's like, well, the popular vote doesn't matter. Believe me, it will matter to people. Believe me, it will matter. It is one thing to say, well, you know, she only had a plurality or you know, with Gores, the same thing. It only had a plurality the vote. And what's, you know, to have a flat majority of the country saying we want this and then the system gives you that and it's been happening like this for 30 years now. That's really a problem. And that is one of the things that I worry about a lot in addition to everything else.

[JVL]

So let's make that not happen.

[Sarah Longwell]

So Sarah, tell us why it's all going to work out.

[Tim Miller]

So that's A problem you can't do anything about because the electoral college isn't going anywhere. And so whenever he gets on his thing about the electoral College, I'm like, it is what it is, man. Here's the thing. So these guys are killing me right now.

[JVL]

This bro over here in the friend of the pod shirt is like, this is not how they do it at Font Save America shows. It's like, we're gonna do it, guys. Vote Save America.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[JVL]

I love those guys.

[Tim Miller]

Well, here's the thing. We were in Philly last night. Charlie Dent was one of our special guests, a former congressman from Pennsylvania, and he endorsed Kamala on the stage. He had said that he had voted for Kamala Harris during early voting. And I have a few theories about why I think this election is going to go the way we need it to go. The first is that I no longer care about the national average. I have stopped looking at that. Now. I am doing some things, whether it's out of self preservation to maintain my nervous system, but in some ways, it's actually just like a very calculated, like, what do we need to do? And I basically stopped caring about Arizona, and I stopped caring about Georgia, and I stopped caring. I never cared about North Carolina.

[JVL]

We still could get North Carolina.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay.

[JVL]

We're caring about North Carolina. Me and her and a couple other people are caring about North Carolina.

[Tim Miller]

For you, that's fine. I'm just going to tell you what we need.

[JVL]

Okay? Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

What we need.

[JVL]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Can't always get what you want, but sometimes if you try, play it.

[JVL]

George.

[Tim Miller]

Here's what we need. We need Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin and Nebraska, too. I feel good about Michigan and Wisconsin, where the margins were considerably better in 2020, and where in Wisconsin, we've got a couple things that we've seen since the 2020 election. In Michigan, we saw Gresham Whitmer win by double digits there in and get the MAGA candidate rejected in. He just called Detroit a shithole, too. Yes, he did. You know, he's out there winning, making friends and influencing people. And in Wisconsin, there was a very important Supreme Court race in the state with a relatively progressive judge, and she won by 11 points. Okay? So I feel like in both of those and the polling has been the best in those states. You guys, there's a reason we came here tonight and there's a reason we started in Philly, is because Pennsylvania is the ball game, okay? And I don't know if you know this, but I'm from here. I grew up in Perry County. Did you guys know I grew up in Perry County? Yes, I talk about it sometimes. My parents now live in Cumberland county and I also lived there when I was older. And I have. Pennsylvania is an interesting state, right? We've always liked like, we like our moderates, we like our Charlie Dents and our Tom Ridges. And I think that in 2016, you know, I listen obviously I do the focus groups all the time. I've listened to voters over and over again talk about how they just didn't think Trump was going to win. And so like they took a flyer on him and they were Republicans. But right now, if you look at the polling from Pennsylvania, the New York Times Sienna poll, 11% of Republicans in this state, self identified Republicans say they're gonna vote for Kamala Harris. Right. It has the kind of Republicans in Bucks county, right? The collard counties. These people were MC McCain voters, they were Romney voters. And they have been getting bluer and bluer as time has gone on because Donald Trump is repelling them from the party. And so I think that late breaking independents, these right leaning independents, soft GOP voters who we talk to all the time, I think they break for her ultimately. That's one data point. The second is the boys versus girls thing, men versus women. And the question that I've been asking myself all the time is that if I was running a campaign, which would I want? Would I want to rely on women to turn out women who show up to vote, who are a majority of the population and make up a majority of the actual voters in every election, or would I want to put it on Joe Rogan listeners? Which would it be? I'll take the women every day.

[JVL]

Right?

[Sarah Longwell]

Typical lesbian.

[Tim Miller]

Typical lesbian. I'm sorry that I have a high opinion of women and I think that when men fail to get the job done, women tend to show up and do it right. But I also just have a lot of faith in Pennsylvania and I think that Pennsylvania is going to bring it home. But this is the thing that we need from you guys. So we talked a little bit before about like our nervous systems and the way that this authoritarians know this. They know that by exhausting us. They know by hitting us with too many things to respond to so many lies that you can't combat them effectively one after the other. They know that is how you get people to just give up, throw up their hands. And I talked about the fact that right now it feels like we're sleepwalking into this autocracy because nobody feels up to the task. But I believe this. I genuinely believe this, that there are so many just quiet commila voters, people who have kind of tapped out because they're like, I can't take it. Right. Our nervous systems can't take it. They are going to take. They're going to avail themselves of their early voting like Charlie Dent did. And a lot of these center right voters are going to walk in and say, I do not want to do another four years of Donald Trump. And I believe that Pennsylvania is going to be the tipping point state and that Kamala Harris is going to win here. That's Tim over there, by the way. But here's the thing, guys. I say this a lot. You cannot roll up your sleeves if you are wringing your hands. And so despite all of us up here wetting the bed and being in our feelings, like, the point of us coming was to tell you to try to like, communicate how serious it is. And I know you know that because otherwise you wouldn't be here. But like, don't just panic. Don't refresh. 538. Call everyone you know. Call the people who are soft Republicans. I know that you know them. Our voters tend to be center left to center right. And if you're progressive, great pod save, dude. We actually welcome you here. We love you. We love those guys.

[JVL]

It's all good.

[Tim Miller]

But, like, go do something. My. We were. George Connolly was knocking on doors in Pennsylvania yesterday in Bucks County. Like, anything you can do, do it. Because this state is the whole ball game. Marginal voters in the state are going to make the difference. This is how we win this election. So it's up to you guys. And we just want to come out here and not depress you. We actually wanted to pump you up, so be pumped up.

[Sarah Longwell]

I told you we turned the corner, guys.

[JVL]

I told you we turned the corner, guys. It's been.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's been a good show. It's been a long show. Thank you for coming out. We're going to go get changed and come out and hang out with you guys.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, we'll come say hi to us.