Panic! At The Dow Lows

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Next Level – "Panic! At The Dow Lows" (April 23, 2025)

Hosts: Sarah Longwell, Tim Miller, Jonathan V. Last

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1. Introduction and Upcoming Events

The episode kicks off with the hosts, Jonathan V. Last (JVL), Sarah Longwell, and Tim Miller, discussing their upcoming live shows in Chicago and Nashville. Sarah emphasizes the importance of selling out the 800-person venue in Chicago, urging listeners to attend and support the podcast.

• Sarah Longwell [00:36]: "If you are a listener in Chicago or in the surrounding area, we're going to need you to come because this is an 800 person venue and we've been selling out shows left and right but we got to sell out 800 this time."

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2. Market and Economic Overview

The conversation transitions to the state of the stock market, specifically the Dow Jones Industrial Average. JVL points out that the Dow is struggling to maintain resistance at 40,000, noting a slight rebound after the Treasury Secretary hinted at reducing China tariffs.

• JVL [01:31]: "Donald Trump's numbers are looking a little... when in October of last year when Kamala Harris was leading Donald Trump, dow was over 41,000. Today the resistance level is at about 40,000."

Tim expresses skepticism about the Treasury Secretary's assurances, suggesting they serve to calm private investors without addressing underlying issues affecting Main Street.

• Tim Miller [02:02]: "It really has concerns about Main Street. You know, like we hear a lot about how they have concerns about Main street, not Wall Street."

The hosts also discuss the weakening dollar and problematic bond markets, highlighting fears of a potential recession driven by Trump's economic policies.

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3. Trump's Approval Ratings and Public Perception

The hosts delve into Donald Trump's approval ratings regarding his handling of the economy and immigration. Citing polls from Reuters Ipsos and YouGov, they highlight a significant decline in Trump's approval, particularly on immigration policies.

• Tim Miller [02:28]: "Two polls I have for you on the question of Trump's approval of his handling of the economy. Reuters Ipsos has him at 37% approval. Yikes."

Sarah emphasizes that beyond the individual poll numbers, the broader positive shift in public perception is crucial. She argues that Trump's mismanagement of the economy and immigration is now becoming evident to voters.

• Sarah Longwell [03:32]: "The good news here to me is not the individual poll numbers. The good news is you can make a difference with people's perceptions of Donald Trump and the job he is doing now. He's doing a lot of the work for you by doing a terrible job."

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4. CEO Meetings and Tariffs Impact

The discussion shifts to recent meetings between big-box store CEOs and the administration concerning supply chain disruptions and tariff impacts. The CEOs express concerns about empty shelves and supply shortages, reflecting the broader economic strain caused by Trump's tariffs on China and other countries.

• Tim Miller [13:52]: "The tariffs are so great and so debilitating that he could dial back a lot and still have like a massive middle class tax, working tax increase on everybody from the remaining tariffs."

The hosts critique the administration's handling of tariffs, suggesting that while there might be short-term market stability, the long-term economic damage remains unaddressed.

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5. Immigration Policies and the Jose Hermosillo Case

A significant portion of the episode focuses on the detention of Jose Hermosillo, a 19-year-old American citizen seemingly detained by ICE due to questions about his citizenship status. The hosts critique the government's handling of the case, highlighting systemic flaws and potential racial profiling.

• JVL [25:24]: "The government's account of this seems to be dishonest because the government says that he claimed he was from Mexico and that he was in America illegally and that is why they detained him."

Sarah and Tim discuss the broader implications of such immigration policies, linking them to inherent racism and systemic issues within ICE operations.

• Sarah Longwell [37:10]: "I think he is a racist. I think that a lot of Americans have a problem with the fact that the border is not secure."

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6. Tesla's Earnings and Elon Musk's Strategy

Turning to corporate news, the hosts analyze Tesla's recent earnings report. They note a 71% decline in net income and a 20% drop in vehicle sales, attributing these figures to production challenges and tariff-related issues. Elon Musk's focus on future projects like self-driving taxis and humanoid robots is critiqued as diverting attention from the company's immediate financial struggles.

• JVL [41:24]: "Tesla did their quarterly earnings call yesterday... Net income was down a touch, 71%. The actual sales of vehicles down 20%."

The hosts express skepticism about Musk's ambitious plans, questioning the feasibility and impact on Tesla's brand reputation.

• Tim Miller [50:51]: "The robots are the funniest thing. Do you guys remember when he launched the robot?"

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7. Political Outreach and Media Strategy

The episode concludes with a discussion on political outreach strategies, particularly focusing on Mayor Pete's appearance on manosphere podcasts. The hosts debate the efficacy of engaging with such platforms to reach broader or opposing audiences, balancing the potential benefits against the risks of mainstreaming extremist views.

• JVL [54:19]: "I think none of this stuff with Elon happens without those protests. Like it Took the protests, making like deciding we're going to make this guy and his brand toxic. And it worked."

Sarah underscores the importance of maintaining authenticity and resisting the pressure to conform to extremist narratives, advocating for clear political stances.

• Sarah Longwell [64:58]: "If you don't define your own positions, they will define them for you."

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8. Conclusion and Promotions

Wrapping up, the hosts reiterate their upcoming shows in Chicago and Nashville, tease potential special guests, and provide links for listeners to purchase tickets. They also briefly mention and humorously dismiss possible appearances by high-profile celebrities like Taylor Swift.

• JVL [71:17]: "Possible special guest, Taylor Swift. She hasn't said no."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Sarah Longwell [03:32]: "The good news here to me is not the individual poll numbers. The good news is you can make a difference with people's perceptions of Donald Trump and the job he is doing now. He's doing a lot of the work for you by doing a terrible job."

• Tim Miller [02:28]: "Two polls I have for you on the question of Trump's approval of his handling of the economy. Reuters Ipsos has him at 37% approval. Yikes."

• JVL [25:24]: "The government's account of this seems to be dishonest because the government says that he claimed he was from Mexico and that he was in America illegally and that is why they detained him."

• Sarah Longwell [37:10]: "I think he is a racist. I think that a lot of Americans have a problem with the fact that the border is not secure."

• JVL [41:24]: "Tesla did their quarterly earnings call yesterday... Net income was down a touch, 71%. The actual sales of vehicles down 20%."

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Conclusion

In "Panic! At The Dow Lows," The Bulwark's "The Next Level" hosts provide a comprehensive analysis of the current economic landscape, Trump's declining approval ratings, contentious immigration policies, and corporate challenges faced by Tesla under Elon Musk's leadership. Through insightful discussions and critical perspectives, the episode underscores the intertwined nature of politics, economics, and public perception in shaping the nation's trajectory.

Transcript

[JVL]

Hello everybody. This is JVL here with my best friends Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of the Bulwark Guys. Donald Trump's numbers are looking a little.

[Tim Miller]

We're going to Nashville.

[JVL]

Oh, okay. We're gonna plug stuff first. I thought we would just tell people news.

[Tim Miller]

I don't know, maybe, I don't know. You're just getting straight into the poll numbers and the next level seems to have a little bit, a little bit vibe here. It's the next level, you know, I don't know. It's just felt like I was going on to Chris Jansen show there for a second and so I just thought, you know, we're going to Chicago, we're going to Nashville.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, I was going to say why did you do Nashville first?

[Tim Miller]

Because I'm so excited about Nashville because there are some special guests may be coming. Tbd well, I'm just going to tease.

[Sarah Longwell]

That the Chicago venue is so big that I want to talk about Chicago because if you are a listener in Chicago or in the surrounding area, we're going to need you to come because this is an 800 person venue and we've been selling out shows left and right but we got to sell out 800 this time.

[Tim Miller]

So easy.

[Sarah Longwell]

Tell your friends, tell your wives, come out and see us.

[Tim Miller]

Come to Chi town. There's a ball. Go see a ball game. Will there be a ball game? Jvl? I don't even know. Is it baseball season yet?

[JVL]

Yeah, yeah, there's going to be a Cubs game. Cubs and Rockies are playing, playing that that week. We're going to be there. All right. Can we talk about the news now?

[Sarah Longwell]

Sure.

[Tim Miller]

Do we have to? I don't, I mean I just don't like. What's the rush? The news is bad mostly.

[Sarah Longwell]

Actually there's good news.

[JVL]

Is it bad?

[Tim Miller]

Let's hear it. Let's hear the good news.

[JVL]

So when in October of last year when Kamala Harris was leading Donald Trump, dow was over 41,000. Today the resistance level is at about 40,000. Dow is sort of struggling to make that. It popped a little bit yesterday after our Treasury Secretary told a group of pro private investors that the, the China tariffs were coming off. In a matter of days they're going to be drastically reduced and this is all happening.

[Tim Miller]

That feels like a totally like the forgotten man, somebody. Like it really has concerns about Main Street. You know, like we hear a lot about how they have concerns about Main street, not Wall Street. And that's what the Treasury Secretary was in a room of private bankers Giving them a little bit of a winky wink. Things are going to be okay, you know, before the market went back up. That's.

[JVL]

Well, that's so they could run back to the office to call Cletus and let him know.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, okay, got it.

[JVL]

That was, I mean, that's my understanding of how this works. This happens after two weeks in which Donald Trump said he was going to fire day late Jerome Powell or whatever nickname he's given to the Fed chief, and then said suddenly, yeah, no, no, I'm not going to terminate them. So we have a little bit of a market rebound yesterday after hours in overnight trading and futures and into today because the market is back to thinking, well, maybe Trump doesn't mean anything. The market may be getting fooled, but who's not getting fooled are voters. Two polls I have for you on the question of Trump's approval of his handling of the economy. Reuters Ipsos has him at 37% approval. Yikes. And YouGov has him at a minus, net minus 10 for not, not overall approval. Approval of handling the economy.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[JVL]

Sarah, would you like to do a victory lap?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

He's at 44 approved, 53 disapprove. You know, here's my, this is not what I want to say about this because it's not a big, it's, it's not a victory lap. Just as his poll numbers are going down slightly, here's what I think is a lesson, though, that people should take from this, which is, and because the numbers that you didn't read, it is actually to me, the most important one, which is 53% of registered voters say Kilmar Abrego Garcia should be returned to the US 30% oppose. And then 50% of registered voters in the same Economist YouGov poll say that Trump's handling of immigration is too harsh. But in this Reuters Ipsos poll, Trump's handling of immigration, he's got a 46% opposed to a 45% opposition approve. And so that is down From March when 49% approved and 44%, only 4, 44% disapproved. And this is the lesson, guys. Make something an issue. Go at his strengths, his perceived strengths. You know, everybody who was running from Abrego Garcia. And look, Trump's always, he's had good numbers on the handling of the economy and on the handling of immigration. Those are the things that he's always sort of untouchable on. He is screwing both of them up. People are noticing. And I gotta say, the, the way that everybody thinks at every minute, they need to be a political strategist versus deciding what's right or wrong. Right. Deciding what's right or wrong and then believing that people can be convinced of the correctness of your argument and going on offense and pushing it. People are being convinced of that. And so the good news here to me is not the individual poll numbers. The good news is you can make a difference with people's perceptions of Donald Trump and the job he is doing now. He's doing a lot of the work for you by doing a terrible job.

[Tim Miller]

But really quite bad.

[Sarah Longwell]

But. But do not. Do not shrink from this. Do not be afraid to fight. This is a moment for offense. He is on his heels. That's why he's reversing himself on all of this stuff. He is being pushed into a retreat mode. So let's keep pushing Paramount.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I agree with that.

[JVL]

Shots fired.

[Tim Miller]

Shari Redstone. I thought Shari Redstone was like a VC corporation, like a venture capitalist. Like the name. I was like Andreessen Horowitz until yesterday when I saw her picture. And I was like, whoa. It's like the. It's like the bad person from. From Succession. It's like that's like the lady was all of them, but it was like, well, they're trying to do a merger with Royco and whatever. And the lady that owned the other business, it was like that lady. I was like, wow, she could be on. She could be on the new TV show with the four. Four rich guys that I will not be watching. Go to. Like, go to the. Go to the mountain mountains or whatever.

[Sarah Longwell]

I saw the ad for that.

[Tim Miller]

Anyway, speaking of rich guys, can I go back to the economic numbers for a minute, please? Because Scotty Besant, our just brilliant gay treasury secretary, gave a speech here about an hour ago, Tim.

[JVL]

He was either going to get treasury or the Kennedy Center. And so the Kennedy center gig was taken.

[Tim Miller]

Rick got that. All right. So you know Scott, he left his house with all the doilies. He doesn't have any cheap TVs or anything because that's not the American dream. And he gave a speech to the Institute of International Trade and Finance. I want to read this for you. The US And China have the opportunity to strike a big deal on trade. This is an incredible opportunity. I think if Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio were to write something, he could call it a beautiful rebalancing. I saw this before he came on, and I was like, was Trump on stage? Was like a panel between him and Trump. And I went and looked at three different articles just to make sure I had this right. And I was like, no. Scott Besson now talks like Trump. He's like, we have a new big, beautiful trade deal coming. I'm gonna randomly name check a rich guy. Everybody calm down. The markets can calm down. Don't worry. Ray Dalio, who's not in the administration, it's Howard Lutnick and a weekend talk show host, but it's Ray Daniel said it would be very beautiful. And it's like this. These are guys that are panicking. This is a total panic move, I guess, is what is, is where I wanted to go with this. That, like, they feel like that they're sending out the top gay to like, try to calm the markets by letting them know that everything is going to be okay. When it's like. And, you know, I guess the markets are going up, but I don't know. You know, we haven't seen the big change in the bond markets, which unfortunately we have to talk about these days. But, like, I don't know why that this little comment would give you that much confidence, right? That's like this, this is, you know, it is really kind of like we've. We've corralled the, We've corralled the toddler king for a couple of days. All right? Don't worry about it. We're gonna do a beautiful deal. And it's like, well, what if he gets mad again? What if, what if she says something mean about his. About like the stake at Dural or.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, what if, what if he finds out that on the major social media channel in China, what is, what is trending right now is I believe Trump caved or Trump, like, there's some, like, Trump back down when he finds that out. Because we are dealing with somebody who basically both he and Elon are like this. It's like, I will start a trade war if you make fun of me. China. He is, though. He is, make no mistake about it, Trump is short term caving on his China tariffs because the market may be going up and down. And I do think there's a little bit like market green, Trump happy, market red, Trump sad like going on here. But the dollar is weakening. The dollar has dropped 10%. We do have this problem with the bond markets. Like, the fundamentals of the economy are getting unwieldy. Most people are starting to predict recessions that are entirely of Trump's doing. We're seeing the beginnings of the layoffs from the tariffs, the beginnings of freakouts from the Business leaders. And so yeah, getting panicky. Even though the stock market rebounds, like that's a short term little like let's all tickle things to get a little happier. It's not solving the underlying problem.

[JVL]

All right, I'm going to say something dark here and maybe after I do, we'll just decide Sebastian has to cut it out and it'll never see the light of day. But if we were thinking through what are events which could reverse the economic problems right now and how would the markets react to them not saying I want this, I'm just thinking through God forbid, God forbid.

[Tim Miller]

I try to think what could he be thinking?

[JVL]

Donald Trump were to visit his doctor.

[Tim Miller]

Regulatory announcements, red tape, sir, the doctor.

[JVL]

Should say with tears in his eyes, sir, I'm so sorry, you have in, you have Kinecti in your Sri Lanka's and you've got five days to live and I'm so sorry. And that that news leaked that Donald Trump had a terminal, terminal disease. How do we think the markets would react to that? Because I have to think they'd line go up.

[Tim Miller]

Well, I think they might go down a little bit briefly for just panic about what he might do.

[JVL]

Really, you know what I mean?

[Tim Miller]

Like, like, like a short, I think there'd be short term exploded.

[JVL]

Then they go up.

[Sarah Longwell]

If I'm going, you're all going with me while I've got the button.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, yeah, I'd be, I would. If I heard that he had five days left, I'd be, I'd be holding on for dear life for those five days. You know, like I'd be buying gold, you know, putting money under the bed. Let's see. Let's make sure we can get through.

[Sarah Longwell]

Bomb shelter with a lot of Campbell's soup. Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

I think the line would go, I think the line would go up. Yeah, I agree with that.

[JVL]

Yeah, right. I mean this is a. Because again I want to emphasize this is a man made economic disaster. This is not a, you know, like, well, there was all this risk happening inside the system and nobody realized it.

[Sarah Longwell]

Man, if you're listening to this show, you know that there is so much going on in politics right now. And even if you listen to our good show long show the whole way through, it is still hard to get a proper breakdown on everything that's going on right now. But that's why the NPR politics podcast is where I go to decode what goes down in Washington in and what every decision out there might mean for me and you. First impressions are always important. All this Week, the NPR Politics podcast is unpacking the first hundred days of Trump's presidency. They're tackling what's been done, what's to come, and what might change, and as always, what it means for you, the listener. Every episode makes it easy for you to understand what's going on. From the complete restructure of the federal government to immigration policy, tariffs and trade, these hundred days have been monumental. Has Trump lived up to his early promises? Will his executive orders and spur the moment decision making change the US and your life in the long term? Obviously, if you listen to this show, you like politics. And every day the NPR Politics team will focus on one thing and boil it down to 15 minutes or less. You can think of it like a political multivitamin. I listen to it often at night as I'm falling asleep. The podcast team of reporters make the shitstorm that is the Trump administration easy to understand and absolutely keeps you up to date on what you need to know. So listen now to the NPR Politics podcast only from NPR and wherever you get your podcasts.

[Tim Miller]

Did you see about the CEO meeting? Looks like this is another thing about our toddler. Oh, the big box stores. Big box store CEOs of Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Home Depot. A couple others went to the Oval and were like, sir, sir, we're gonna have empty shelves like your people. They're gonna be shot. They're gonna be coming into the stores and looking for the lawnmower that they want to buy for the summer, whatever. You know, the, you know, the, the really huge box of goldfish. And it's like, we don't have that anymore. Like, we're not, we have, we have terror, we have supply chain issues now. We have tariff issues. And there are some that are reporting that that was, again, part of the reason why he was chilling out yesterday again in the Oval Office. And again, it's just like, this is so insane that these are the same people that were like, three months ago. It's like vibe shift. Like, oh, man. Like we're about to be an economic rocket ship taking out. We're a coiled spring that's just about to explode. We got the business guys are back in charge. That was three months ago. Three months later, they're like, please, sir, we might have breadlines at Target. I mean, talk about how, what a bad bet by the titans of industry.

[Sarah Longwell]

But they can say retarded and the P word. So are they still winning or not?

[Tim Miller]

Does the CEO of Target usually say the P word that often? I don't know, so if Trump does.

[JVL]

Because again, he's only said he's backing down or he hasn't said, Besant has only said that he would back down. If Trump were to back down, would all of the people who've spent the last two months explaining why the tariffs are great and why we had to endure short term pain to get long term gain people like Oren Cass will Orin Cass then come out and say, yeah, no, this is good. All that stuff that I said we had to do for the good of America in the long term. Well, now that Trump has decided not to do that, that's the best choice too. Well, Oren Cass say that. Oren, what do you think there, buddy?

[Tim Miller]

I think that Orin will go on board with whatever he said. I will say though, are TV producers.

[JVL]

Gonna keep putting that asshole on television?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, for sure, for sure. I'm not, you know, again, that's my father that's in the finance industry. So this is not financial advice but you know, I think that they will, you know, know come around. But here's the thing, like the, the amount of tariffs that have been put on right now are so great and so debilitating that he could dial back a lot and still like have like a, a massive middle class tax, working tax increase on everybody from the, from the remaining tariffs. And Trump did say in the Oval Office yesterday, he's like, I'm going to be nice or something. He's like, he's like, I'm going to be nice to the Chinese. Like it's not, I'm not going to be that tough. So he did back up, pedal a little bit. And, but it's like if you, again, if you just go back three months and you said to the CEO of Walmart and Target and said, okay, you think the plan is extending the Trump tax cuts and cutting red tape. Here's what the actual plan is. In April, Trump will go to 145% tariffs on China and then he'll be nice and bring it back down to an additional whatever, 18% tariff on China. And we're also going to have some tariffs on the EU the, that are above what they are. And we're also going to tariff certain things from Canada and Mexico that aren't part of the usmca. I think all those companies would be like, that is a worst case scenario. The thing that he might retreat to is what I think a lot of big business folks and not that we're in castles of the world, like the more free the Wall Street Journal type folks would have said this would be, that would be.

[JVL]

That's the art of the deal. See, Trump was able to teach those people that that wasn't the worst case scenario.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, that's the deal. The Chinese. He ordered the deal. His own, his own support.

[JVL]

He ordered the deal. His base.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, got it.

[JVL]

He ordered the deal. His base.

[Sarah Longwell]

What do you think happens in that meeting where all those CEOs come and talk to him? Do you think he goes, oh, well, this is brand new information. Like, I didn't know that placing these tariffs would cause this level of disruption. Like, what do you think? What, what do you think his position is?

[JVL]

I mean he literally said on, it was like March 30, he like, I couldn't care less. When confronted with, you know, sir, this is going to cause prices to go up on auto. I think it was about cars, it was automotive prices. And his line was I couldn't care less.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. I do think part of this strategically is about not letting him get away with screwing things up and declaring victory because he will. Right. I mean to JBL's point about people who run cover, right. This is one of those, like Trump creates the problem and then Trump acts like he solved the problem he created and declares victory. And I think that we have to keep making the case about how bad this. Because the more. Here's the thing, him bouncing this back, it might calm the markets short term, but like there's still this massive level of uncertainty now. Like the uncertainty.

[JVL]

We saw capital around businesses.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, totally.

[JVL]

America still has an enormous problem. Capital flight, you see in the bond market, you see it in the dollar. And the, the structural damage is done. There could be more structural damage, but, but we have done the implosion of America, leading the world rules based trading order. That's gone and that doesn't come back for generations.

[Tim Miller]

I was trying to imagine this image you said, Sarah.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

And so to help myself, I wanted to see what the CEOs looked like. So I just, I kind of want Sebastian to put it up on the camera. I'll send it to him. Just for the YouTube people, we've got Doug McMillan.

[JVL]

He's an African American gentleman, no white guy.

[Tim Miller]

I mean, like these guys look like they, all of them could be at the Bentonville Country Club and just fit right in. This guy went to Bentonville High, so he's kind of rose up the ranks there in Arkansas. We got Brian Cornell, another, another white guy. No need for dei actually. Don't worry, no worries here. All, all white guys this is not a. This is not a problem with dei. Brian Cornell looks like before he was at Target, he was at Best Buy. Are they crushing. Is Best Buy crushing it?

[JVL]

I don't know. Yeah, Best Buy is actually back.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, they have. They've turned it around.

[Tim Miller]

Wow. I wonder what he did at Best Buy to turn that around once last year. It wasn't him.

[JVL]

I. There was some other guy came in and saved Best Buy.

[Tim Miller]

Ted Decker. Ted Decker. He looks nice. He was. He. He wants to be a man of the people. He puts on the Home Depot smock, you know, when he goes in. That's nice. It's just like. And this is just. I just. The hubris. You can just imagine the old white guy hubris of this situation, of these guys going in there and just being like, bro, you know what? I thought you were a businessman. And it's like, no, sorry, Sorry, man. That helped the Best Buy turnaround. Donald Trump was not a businessman. He decided whether or not to fire. You know who was the guy with the big clock?

[JVL]

Flavor. Flavor Flav.

[Tim Miller]

He decided whether or not to fire Flavor Flav in the boardroom. That was his job, actually. He did not turn around a big box store. So you're gonna have to do some hand holdings.

[JVL]

It's. It's quickly.

[Sarah Longwell]

Just real quickly. Let me tell you how this bike came back. It realized it was Amazon showroom. I heard. I listened to a long interview with this guy. It was a really fascinating story. And they basically made it so number one.

[JVL]

Yeah.

[Sarah Longwell]

So, yeah, they did a price comp thing where, like, if somebody came in and they were like, well, I saw this cheaper on Amazon, they would be like, we'll match that price number 1, 2. Then they would come install it for you. And also their geek squad, like, the help that people provided, became like a big thing that people, like, needed to come into the store for anyway.

[Tim Miller]

I love it.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's a cool turnaround story.

[Tim Miller]

It's a good capitalism story.

[JVL]

What they did is they empowered all sales floor people to immediately override prices. And so you would, you know, people would go in, they would just show you their phone with the Amazon picture. Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Seems like whoever did that turnaround would have been better as either president or the head of DOGE than the reality TV star and the person whose brain got broken by Twitter. Just like something to think about in the future if you're going to kind of put forth a technocratic businessman to lead the country.

[JVL]

Yeah, but I mean, that guy, and I'm flanking on his name, I think it was the same guy who turned around Panera. Although I could be wrong. I think that he does not like the Nazis though. And so really, do you want him in the federal government?

[Tim Miller]

It's a good point.

[JVL]

I mean, he would never do a. Kidding. Not kidding. Sig Heil salute.

[Sarah Longwell]

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[JVL]

Can we talk about the Jose Hermosillo story?

[Sarah Longwell]

Sure.

[JVL]

I put in our show map.

[Tim Miller]

So we have definitely read the show maps.

[Sarah Longwell]

This is a dig at me whether or not I look at the show map.

[Tim Miller]

Me and Sarah are very prepared for this. Having read this.

[JVL]

I, you know, I do spend time on this now. Five guys. And so we have the story today from Judd Lagum of Popular Information and he spoke with Jose. This is a 19 year old American citizen who is detained by ICE for 10 days because they did not believe he was a US citizen.

[Sarah Longwell]

Why didn't they believe he was a US citizen? What, what was the, what was the issue?

[JVL]

Well, he, he is Hispanic. Oh. And, and they picked him up.

[Sarah Longwell]

We have some of those in America, I think.

[JVL]

He didn't have any ID on him.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay.

[JVL]

And, and so they just arrested him. They arrested him because he didn't have his papers.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[JVL]

And then just put him in detention. And it's, and then it's. It does seem as though the government, I know is going to shock you guys. The government's account of this seems to be dishonest because the government says that he claimed he was from Mexico and that he was in America illegally and that that is why they detained him. The government's position is we picked up this guy outside of a hospital where he was trying to get a ride home and he told us that he was here from Mexico illegally and that's why we took him in.

[Tim Miller]

My favorite thing about this is. I'm sorry, I feel, I feel bad to laugh about this, but it was like, these people are so fucking stupid. A couple of the MAGA straight shooters I follow on social media, you know, who do like the, you know, post hoc rationalization for the stuff that MAGA people do.

[JVL]

Like Orencast.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, we're, we're posting this yesterday. This, the, the government's statement. They're like, see, Fake news, New York Times and Judd Legum. This is why you don't jump on these stories until you get all the facts, look at the real facts of the story. And here is his sworn testimony that he was from Mexico. And I was looking at that and I was kind of like, why would he have said that he's from Mexico? I don't. Was it like the whole. None of it makes sense. And it does make sense if you just assume the ICE People were lying to cover their ass. And that he thinks is a guy with a learning disability. But otherwise, I don't know. Maybe it was like, in their. In their theory of the case, what would even have. What would have even have been this person's rationale? He was, like, begging. He just wanted to be deported so bad. He'd seen some movies about Mexico, so.

[JVL]

He went up to the border patrol office is what happened. So. So he was in. He was in Tucson, had a medical emergency, was taken to by ambulance to hospital because he had a seizure. After they released him following treatment, he sort of comes out of the hospital and was like, yeah, I don't quite know where I am. He sees border patrol officer and he goes over to ask the guy for help.

[Tim Miller]

Don't do that.

[JVL]

This I'm not reading from. From Judd's piece. I saw a car, and I asked him for help. Hermosillo said he told the officer he was staying in Tucson. The officer said, quote, you're not from here. Do you have your papers? When the officer asked where he was from, Hermosillo told him that he's from New Mexico. He is from New Mexico. The officer then accused Hermosillo of lying. Quote, don't make me out like I'm stupid. The officer said, I know you're from Mexico. And after that, he was arrested.

[Tim Miller]

He was like, no, sir. New Mexico, that's a state. That's the bordering state. Maybe you know what might help people like this? Maybe we should rename it New America.

[Sarah Longwell]

New America. I had the same.

[JVL]

I mean, that'll really solve all these sort of misunderstandings. So we then have. Part of the government's case is that they released a sworn statement that they said Mr. Hermosillo signed. In fact, it is signed with his first name. And we now know that Hercio has learning disabilities and dropped out of high school and has difficulty reading and writing. And so he signed his first name because he didn't know what he was signing. This is government Escostapo, is it not?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. No. Yeah, it is.

[JVL]

I mean, I don't want to, like, go too far with the fascism talk, but, like, I'm picking you up and I say you're lying. And because you look Mexican to me and you don't have your papers, nobody can travel anywhere without their papers.

[Tim Miller]

This is government. It's fascism. I will say so. Sarah's going to disagree with this. I'm going to pop in first before I'm going to be the radical. My only issue with making this story blow up in the same way as the El Salvador stories are concerned is I read the story as acab. Like, I think that they're. I think I'm pretty. I've been pretty unsympathetic to ICE agents in. Under every administration throughout all of history. And I don't know. I think that this is kind of the type of thing that ICE people do. All cops are about, which is. This is like a lefty. A lefty saying.

[Sarah Longwell]

What is acab?

[Tim Miller]

All cops are bad. It's acaba. That's like a lefty thing.

[JVL]

That's. That's the safe for work.

[Tim Miller]

I know, I know, I know, I know. Sarah.

[JVL]

Don't tell Sarah.

[Tim Miller]

I know Sarah's gonna get mad at me for saying this, but, like, I don't really literally mean that all cops are bad. What I mean is that there are a lot of cops in the past. This is not the first time in history. It's not during the Trump administration where there has been a office, an immigration officer who. Who, you know, treat it. Who racially profiled somebody and treated them poorly. Speaking of which, I want to get to the Omar Amin story next. But anyway, Sarah, I don't know if. If you.

[Sarah Longwell]

Well, I certainly don't think all cops are bad. I do think this. And I. I.

[JVL]

Not all cops.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, sure. I just. I. I don't know. That seems reductive and unhelpful to discourse. But. But the. The. This sounds like a guy like this ICE agent who is like, I would concede, like, they are now under a regime where they know that they would not face harsh consequences for doing something like this, and so they're much more prone to do it. But I would say Gestapo tactics are. When you have an organized. Like, the dictate is to go make everybody show their papers and. Which is, I think, not where we are. And I want to be. I do think it's courthouse raid.

[JVL]

When you see the court. Did you guys see that story that I sent you? Where.

[Sarah Longwell]

Listen, hold on. I think. I think Donald Trump is. Is. Is way out on the way that they are trying to do immigration enforcement. But I think that saying, like, we're in Gestapo territory is. I just. I don't like this stuff because I think, like, at some point I want to be able to say we're in Gestapo territory when I think we're really in Gestapo. Terry. Right now, I think we're in. Donald Trump's immigration policies are illiberal, fair, and the way they're. Yeah, okay.

[JVL]

Yeah, well. Well taken. All right.

[Tim Miller]

Tim, can we talk about Omar Amin really quick? Yeah. On this point? Because I wrote about this five years ago during the first Trump administration. Which shows you that this is. Which actually speaks to Sarah's point. This is a slow burn. It's a slow brew. It's been bad for a while. It's getting worse, slowly but surely. But in 2020, when I last wrote about this, I had encountered it because the lawyer was also in the Bay Area, and I'd met her at something, and she told me this story, and this was like, this guy is in jail in Sacramento, and it's like, based on a lie. He's an Iraqi refugee that came to America like a fucking long time ago. I don't have it in front of me right now. Fifteen years ago, maybe, and probably more actually. And he went to Utah first and, like, had a big family and had a job, and he went through traditional vetting. He didn't come across the border. It wasn't a cbp, one thing. And. And then he moved to Sacramento. And somehow somebody in Iraq, like some terrorist that we had captured, like, gave a list of names of people that he had collaborated with, and this guy's name was on it. Even though this guy was like fleeing ISIS or what, you know, whatever the. The group was at the time, they had no other evidence besides that he was on this thing. And they kept him in. And. And like, they made a big deal out of it, like when they arrested him, like we arrested an ISIS cell, you know, that was hiding in America. And the guy, like, kept trying to, like, it's hard to, like, prove a negative, disprove a negative. It's like, you're. I wasn't isis, like, it was like a decade ago. And I'm on some terrorist phone. He's like, I don't know, he's like, they were going after me. And so anyway, he had. He had not had any issues in America, not at any legal issues since he'd been here, but he was just kind of rotting away in a prison in Sacramento. And they kept trying to send him back to Iraq, but the lawyers, he kept winning in court because he was like, no, it was. The terrorists were coming after me. You can't send me back to Iraq. So it's kind of similar to the Brego Garcia situation, right, where he was here in this. Well, yeah, was free, but he was in a prison. But he was here in this kind of in between state where they couldn't deport him because, you know, his life was at risk. But they Weren't going to, you know, give him citizenship. So, anyway, this news yesterday came across the feed, and I was like, fuck, I hadn't thought about this guy in a couple of years. We sent him to Rwanda. It's the first example of the Rwandan government accepting people. We cut a deal, I guess the Rwandans cut a deal with the Trump administration. And this is going to be the first of, I guess, many relocations to a third country for people that are here in this country and that have legitimate asylum claims. And we don't want to deport them to their home country because they have legitimate asylum claims, but we don't let them stay here. So we're going to send them to Rwanda. And Omar Amin, who has a big family of children, they're living in Sacramento. I guess they're going to have to decide whether they live without their father in Sacramento or whether they relocate to Rwanda. I mean, that is fucking insane. Like what? Like this is. Again, I just. Like, we can do the rant I've done a million times, but it is just the most fundamentally UN American thing I can possibly think of is like, somebody that was fleeing oppression to come to the land of freedom, the home of the brave. And we're like, nah, we're gonna send you to some totally other country. We have no. You don't know the language, no family, no nothing. And good luck.

[Sarah Longwell]

Is he in jail there? They just send him there.

[Tim Miller]

Here's what we know so far.

[JVL]

The.

[Tim Miller]

The US embassy cable reads that Rwanda's motivation for accepting Mr. Amen spelled incorrectly and subsequent third country nationals is to improve US relations and show it can advance the America first agenda. Was an official statement from. From our government. And they said they don't speak on the deliberations or decisions of the Rwandan government. So I guess TBD on that question.

[JVL]

I mean, this does speak to the. The. Under. The underlying immigration thing was never really about illegal immigration. Like, the. Illegal immigration was just the. The pretext. The casas belli. What this really is. They don't want any of these people here. They don't want people claiming asylum. Right. In America. They don't want. They don't want.

[Tim Miller]

Except for the white South Africa.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, I was going to say white.

[JVL]

South Africa because things are really bad for them, you know, it really is. It's the racism. Sarah, you hate it when I say that, but it is kind of the racism, isn't it?

[Sarah Longwell]

I don't. I mean, first of all, I'm not going to argue that racism is not part of what's happening here. We do have a broken immigration system, though. Like, this is the problem is, like, you sort of lump in Stephen Miller, who is absolutely. And this is where I will go into, like, he is a Goebbels, like, racist, horrible, human.

[JVL]

Allegedly.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, sure.

[JVL]

So if you just say allegedly, you can say anything.

[Sarah Longwell]

Okay, well, then allegedly. Actually, no, objectively, I think he's a bad guy. I. That is my personal opinion that he is a bad guy and a bad guy of significant magnitude in his lack of humanity. But I don't think that most Americans are like Jason Miller. I think most Americans actually who support the deportations of criminals.

[Tim Miller]

What he said. I don't think most Americans are like Jason Miller. And I said, yes, sorry, they have chins.

[Sarah Longwell]

Oh, yeah. I meant. And I meant Stephen Miller. I get the two. Okay, I get the two horrible maga Millers confused. But anyway, the Stephen Miller. I just. I think he is a racist. I think that a lot of Americans have a problem with the fact that the border is not secure. We have lots of people here illegally. When people do commit crimes who are here illegally, we don't always have a system for, like, getting people out. I mean, people want this stuff dealt with, and I don't blame them.

[JVL]

I know. And you. You hate it when I say this. There has never been a time when the US Border was secure and where the system was good and it worked. It's always been a sort of like, no, no, no, no, no.

[Sarah Longwell]

I disagree. I just. The way that. Listen, the border crossings under Biden until Biden closed the border, like, there's a massive magnitude of difference between the two. Like, you can do border enforcement. Is it imperfect? Sure. Is it different than just, like, not doing it? Yes. And you can't just not do it. No. American. Very few Americans want that. I'm not saying there aren't some people who are just like, nope, open borders. Let everybody in. But if you want to have in this country a social safety net, a meaningful social safety net, then you have to have a mechanism by which people come into the country legally. I want America to be a place for asylees. I want us to be a place where people can come. But we do need an immigration system that is, like, not insane.

[Tim Miller]

This agreement, this disagreement is not a disagreement because we're talking past each other. It's just going about who we mean by these people. Like, the. Are these people all the people that voted for Donald Trump or these people that. Are the people that are enacting the Donald Trump immigration regime and that these people that are enacting the Donald Trump immigration regime don't want anyone to come here. They don't want any asy. Like we all agree on that. They don't want any asylees. They don't want refugees except except white South Africans. And I think that is abundantly evident.

[Sarah Longwell]

And maybe people who are really good.

[Tim Miller]

At computers remember and I guess maybe the farm workers. Now you might have to be on the farm. We got to do this patchwork style one time. Oh yeah, and the guys that work in Mar a Lago and Doral.

[Sarah Longwell]

That's right.

[Tim Miller]

You can't get rid of them unless they have tattoos. Spring is so often busy season. I don't know about you. I'm doing a lot of youtubes. It's Jazz Fest. Got people coming down to visit, going grocery shopping it's hard to find the time to go grocery shopping or to cook healthy meals at home rather than just going up to Klesi's and getting a messy classy and so what I've turned to is Hungry Root. It's like having your own personal shopper and nutritionist all wrapped into one. They take care of the weekly grocery shopping, recommending healthy groceries and meals tailored to your tastes, nutrition preferences and health goals. With hungryroot it's easy to get high quality, nutritious food and achieve any diet or health goals from anti inflammatory to gut friendly, gluten free or dairy free. You can relieve so much stress by letting them take care of the shopping and planning. Just tell them about your goals and preferences and they'll fill your cart with personalized recommendations. Most of Hungry Roots recipes can be made in just 15 minutes or less. Hungry Root also has healthy groceries like smoothies, kids snacks, sweets, ready to eat meals, salad kits and even supplements. Moreover, they only source top quality meat and seafood free of hormones and antibiotics. Hungry Root's been great for my family. I'm sure it'll be great for yours. I love hungryroot. Take advantage of this exclusive offer for a limited time, get 40% off your first box plus a free item in every box for Life. Go to hungryroot.com thenextlevel and use code thenextlevel that's hungryroot.com thenextlevel code thenextlevel to get 40% off your first box and a free item of choice for life. Hungryroot.com thenextlevel Code the next level Got.

[JVL]

To move on to Tesla. Tesla did their quarterly earnings call yesterday. For scheduling purposes, they did it after the market closed. I think that was probably just because they couldn't find time in Elon's schedule to get him in during. I think that's why they did it. After the markets closed, they were.

[Sarah Longwell]

The earnings good.

[JVL]

Net income was down a touch, 71%. The actual sales of vehicles down 20%. Just 20%. Very good news. The part of the business that runs on carbon credits, which is to say government welfare, that is still doing okay. So still getting a lot of money from their government subsidies. It was, it was not, it was not the most forward looking happy call. The, the people from Tesla said that one of the problems that they had was they've been closing production plants in order to retool for refreshing some of the product lines and tariffs. No mentions of Elon turning the brand toxic or anything like that. And Musk then said that the sales of cars aren't actually important because the future of the company is self driving taxis and, and bipedal robots, humanoid robots. I have so many things to talk about with this. Tim, you and Sam did this a little bit yesterday. Sarah. The first thing I would like to say is that if following this call, Musk said that he would be stepping away from Doge starting in May, would you like to spike this football as well? Because this is another case of if you fight, you can make them lead. Metaphorically.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. And this is where, look, they're in retreat, guys. This is where I'm like, I want to talk to CBS and Paramount right now. Just because you are on the precipice of trying to cave so you can get your little deal merger done, don't do it. Don't, don't cave to these guys. They're weak and they are in full retreat in every way. Now Elon did say he's going to finish out this term with Trump and he's going to still be involved in Doge part time, but he is going to return, you know, 80% of his time or something, you know, to the, to Tesla, which. Great, I guess. Although yeah, your point about the fact that they are not dealing with like their earnings are off, they're not selling these things because the people who would buy electric cars hate Elon Musk and they're not going to unhate Elon Musk.

[JVL]

The problem isn't that Elon's not spending enough time around the office. Their spin seems to be if T law, if Elon was just at the office more then the earnings would be way up. But that's not it. There's A line from Ross Gerber, who runs a wealth fund. He said, look, his time is very valuable, and I think Tesla needs his attention. But doesn't change that people don't want the Tesla brand. I don't know how you fix that, which is the most obvious thing in the world.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. And you know what? I don't want Elon Musk. Robots.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. I was like, the biped robot thing is freaking me out. The Doge thing. It is worth mentioning that I know these guys don't care about the law or whatever, but legally he's required to leave in like, 37 days because he's a special government employee, and that gives. And, you know, that protects him from FOIA and like, a bunch of other stuff. So I just. And I mentioned the same. But I just think it's worth. As we are processing all of this, like, Elon isn't always telling the truth, you know, I know that that's not breaking news. And, like, there are some. If I'm elan, I'm thinking I have to leave in 130 days anyway. If, you know, or I have to fight this thing. The fucking shareholders are pissed. You know, they want me to care more about Tesla. I can go back in May for a couple weeks, whatever, you know, still, I'll still have my little incels running around, and they will be able to call me and I'll be able to, you know, send them dms at all hours of the night and when I'm not sending DMs to women whose wombs I want to take and, you know, and then I'll come back again the fourth of July. Right. Like, you know, and, and, and we'll tear down a different department. Like, I, I think that, like, that to me feels just as likely as that is that there's like a don't hit, let the door hit you on the way out, Elon, it's been fun kind of thing. I think that feels less, you know, and so I think some people were interpreting it like that, that it was like, Elon and the. Do the time, you know, Elon and government. That time is coming to the end. And I don't. I'm not sure I. I'm ready to celebrate the collapse of the Tesla brand and the stock dropping 50%. I'm not really ready to, you know, think that, like, where the end is nigh for Elon and the government.

[JVL]

Well, that's. That's my question for you, Sarah. What do you. Do you think that the Doge project has basically hit the end of the road or do you think this is just a Potemkin? You know, look, he can just DM all of. He's got his lieutenants embedded everywhere, right. And the question is, does Trump want him to stop destroying the apparatus of the government or not? Because if Trump wants him to keep doing it, there's no reason he can't do that while he's sitting in the Tesla boardroom.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, I mean, I did, I was thinking, you know, yes, there's him going back to Tesla because he wants to go back, but there's also like, maybe he got out of like for Elon personally, what he wanted to get out of this. He got out of it perhaps, like he has access to all the information he wanted to have access to. They, you know, here's the thing though. My guess is, is now that they're deep inside, here's what we know about Doge. It's not happening. Like, the cutting isn't helping. They're not saving the money. Like the 2 trillion in savings that was ratcheted back to 1 trillion in savings that now they've, you know, saved some much, much smaller number that is basically just people that they fired, many of which they're now trying to figure out how to rehire because they actually do critical work that people need. And so like I, I think that one of the places that ought to be we, where we ought to go on offense as well is to demonstrate how Elon has not done the thing he said he was going to do because otherwise they are going to pretend like they've had massive. He's going to try to declare victory. No, no, the only place, the only thing you cut was your own stock, bro. The only numbers that really fell were your shareholders numbers because you have done nothing to save the American people money.

[Tim Miller]

He killed some Africans.

[JVL]

Yeah, well, that, I mean, that's what I was going to say. Like he did real harm, like USAID being gone.

[Sarah Longwell]

But they're rounding errors matters. Like, like the thing is, is like he managed to get people killed and to eliminate a lot of our soft power savings for things. But by the way, the amount that we've saved, completely overtaken by the inflationary actions that they're taking and by the, by what they've murdered in the dollar and its value. Yes, he's saving us, Jack.

[Tim Miller]

Now the interest on the debt, every little tenth of the bond, you know that the bond yield goes up. The interest on our debt is like way, it's going to cost way more than what usaid the cost of USAID was.

[Sarah Longwell]

We have got to hammer this particular point. He has been a net debt failure on the money side. He is saving America.

[JVL]

No money is costing America money while also destroying American power.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yes.

[JVL]

Yeah, this is, you know, this is the.

[Tim Miller]

I want to hear your take on Tesla. You always have good Tesla takes.

[JVL]

Well, I, I was really. So I went back and I looked at some looking on the full self driving because the first time Elon told us about full self driving was in 2015 and he said that all Teslas will be full self driving by 2018. He said within three years. That didn't happen, obviously. Since 2020, every single year he has promised full self driving by the end of the year. Has not hit yet. Yesterday on the call he said that by this June, which is like nine weeks away, there would be full self driving Tesla taxis in Austin. Okay, maybe, we'll see. But the robots are the funniest thing. Do you guys remember when he launched the robot?

[Tim Miller]

No.

[JVL]

This is four years ago. He did a Tesla event. It was 2021 and he announced the Tesla robot. It was a big deal. Optimus. Get it? Get it? Like the Transformer. And he had a guy, he had a guy come out in a bodysuit pretending to be a robot. That was his robot. And last October, so again we're talking like what, five months ago, seven months ago, they had a Tesla event in which they showed real robots this time working and doing things. And then it turned out that the robots were just being remote controlled by humans wearing like motion suits to make the robots move.

[Tim Miller]

So it wasn't kind of Rosie in the Jetson situation quite yet.

[JVL]

He said again yesterday on the call that they would be manufacturing thousands of these robots that would be working in Tesla factories by the end of this year 2025, and that within five years they will be producing 1 million of 1 million robots per year. Yeah, bro, sure. Cool story, bro.

[Tim Miller]

I got a question. Why don't you think there are more people coming after him from inside the house? Is it just totally a cult there at the executive level at those companies? I mean like there's got to be, you know, anti trump mid to high level executives at these companies.

[JVL]

No, I think it's, I think it's all cult. Except maybe it's basically. And the reason at Tesla you need Tesla needs Elon. Because without Elon, Tesla stock is worthless. Right? Right. It is only the, the HID the meme stock power that is Elon Musk that makes Tesla stock valuable. And the robot stuff is bullshit. And Google is eating their lunch on robot taxis. I, you know, so I, A long time ago, five, six years ago, I had lunch with a very senior person at Google and I was asking about their self driving stuff and he said, yeah, self driving has been a nightmare for us. We got like seven years into it and realized that we, the entire paradigm we were using was wrong and we had to start over. And at the time he was like, and the Tesla guys are still going on the old paradigm. He's like, I don't know when they're going to figure out that they're in a blind alley. But like they're way behind us. And he was right. They are years behind WH MO and Google and you know, but the market just buys it.

[Sarah Longwell]

I do think he's probably for, you know, him and his meme stock stuff, he's done a lot of damage to that. I'm not saying there aren't going to be, you know, always Elon people and they're always going to think he has. And look, I mean Starlink, here's the thing about his robots. I don't know tons and tons about his business. I do know he said he was going to put like a gazillion satellites up in space. He did put them up in space. And like he has, like he does. So like I don't.

[Tim Miller]

Well, SpaceX is an exception.

[JVL]

Pay him to do that again. This is, this is Elon's genius. Elon was able to realize that governments would be too stupid to not pay him and allow him to create the satellite network for them.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[JVL]

Which is again is just, you know, malpractice on the part of the US government to become so indebted to this guy at the top of the gravity well. And he realized that governments would be stupid and would pay him to do these things. I'm not sure that counts. Like anybody could have done it given the amount.

[Tim Miller]

Well, not really, actually. I mean this is the one. You hate to hand it to Elon, but the government gave contracts. I think it was Boeing and SpaceX to do this and only SpaceX did it. The company failed.

[JVL]

Fair enough, fair enough.

[Tim Miller]

I'm sure Boeing has a CEO that's a 62 year old white man that looks like they could be at the Bentonville Country Club who didn't, who didn't live up to it because of dei.

[JVL]

But this is another like remember the Tesla takedown protest that kind of started organically.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah.

[JVL]

I think none of this stuff with Elon happens without those protests. Like it Took the protests, making like deciding we're going to make this guy and his brand toxic. And it worked in like, Sarah, it's just one more. It's you again. This is the fight. Stand up and fight and do something. Right?

[Sarah Longwell]

I do, yeah. I mean, I think, look, I think the protests, sans the couple people who did bad, you know, damage and you shouldn't do those things, but just the regular protesting. Yes. Although I do think he made himself toxic. Like even before the protests, like people were making bumper stickers for their Teslas to be like, I bought it before Elon's shit.

[Tim Miller]

We've got Stop Elon on the stop signs in my neighborhood. It's people spray painted Elon underneath it. Toulouse was asking me about that yesterday. She's like, what's Elon?

[Sarah Longwell]

This is just such a. It's such an example of somebody where. So his market were liberals who were trying to do good things for the environment and were willing to overpay for ugly ish cars in order to start an electric car movement, which people have been saying for years is going to be a big environmental boon. So that's his audience. Well, those people freaking hate him now. And there's not enough Republican or like new Republicans over here who are in the market for a $300,000 electric car or whatever to make up for all of the college educated environmental libs who were buying his car. So he has destroyed this part of his business. I think this is like not a thing that comes back.

[Tim Miller]

I want to get Sarah's bipartisan muscles kind of flex in here. I floated this with Sam last night on the Borg Takes Feed. Go check out the book Takes Feed. But Sam, you know, as a, as a lib establishment reporter from Washington D.C. maybe didn't appreciate this idea as much as Sarah. I think, well, which is, I just, I see the beginnings of a big bipartisan opportunity here. First time in a while, which is we can cut the EV subsidies. We can get some Democrats who hate Elon who look at this report and say the only reason that his company has succeeded is like fucking viable right now is because of all the government subsidies he's receiving. And they can walk across to Chip Roy and say, hey, Chip, you want to sign on board with me with this cost savings bill, the Moskowitz Roy cost savings bill, which will cut the electric vehicle subsidies that were passed in the woke Biden Green New Deal. I think that to me this feels like a winner.

[JVL]

I don't like it.

[Tim Miller]

I know you wouldn't like it. I thought Sarah was gonna like it.

[Sarah Longwell]

I do like it. Wait, why does JVL not like it?

[JVL]

No, the reason not to like it is because the first movers always want to pull up the ladder behind them on these things. Right? So this is like Amazon.

[Tim Miller]

We're like pass first movers though. Hold on, we're way past first moving though now.

[JVL]

I don't think so. I think. I think if subsidies got cut now, Tesla would be helped as much as hurt.

[Tim Miller]

No. No way.

[JVL]

Okay.

[Tim Miller]

I don't know though. We'll ask Mike Murphy. Yeah, he's actually gonna pass. So anyway, it's more of a PR.

[Sarah Longwell]

Idea, just against subsidies, period. So. I don't know.

[JVL]

I've come around on a lot of this stuff. Like the.

[Tim Miller]

Well, we can have a whole commie jbl. Unbelievable.

[JVL]

Tell me about it.

[Tim Miller]

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[JVL]

All right, I want to talk about going into hostile territory. Mayor Pete went into the manosphere. Tim, how did it go?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, well, I don't know. I've only seen one clip. But I'm excited that he did it. I'm excited to watch it and it's interesting that it happened yesterday. So I wanted to cover it because there's this guy, Andrew Schultz, who has a great marketing team because he's everywhere. I can't get away from this guy and it's stupid funny.

[JVL]

I've never heard of him.

[Sarah Longwell]

Me neither.

[Tim Miller]

Once you. Once you see him, you're not going to get away from him. He's. He does a very good. He's on all. He does all the interview shows. You guys aren't though. You guys don't Tick tock. All my, all my comedy, all my manosphere stuff comes from tick tock. Now they know I'm a 40 year old man and so I just get manosphere shit sent to me in my TikTok. So that's. That's probably why. Actually, I've seen them everywhere and you haven't. But anyway, I did a rant about him on yesterday on YouTube because he was on one of these shows talking about how he used to be a liberal because liberals fuck and you know.

[Sarah Longwell]

Oh, I did see this. I saw this.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, he's like, Clinton was getting blowjobs in the White House and, like, rappers were hanging out and the liberals were cool. And like, now like, liberals are like school moms. They're mean to me and they tell me I can't say retard.

[JVL]

And I guess he never heard of Tipper Gore.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, the whole thing is stupid, which is the point of. I did a very extensive rant on how stupid it was that everyone should enjoy. It's 13 minutes. It'll. It'll just really warm your heart of your lunch break tomorrow. So go check it out if you missed it. But the, the interesting thing is I did the ramp and like an hour later, Pete sends out a tweet. It's like a picture of him with the. On the guy's podcast. It's like, it's coming out tomorrow. And so several, several people, like, were messaging me and we're kind of like, ooh, bad timing. Like Pete to do this after this guy said this. Such an embarrassing thing. And I was like, no, opposite. Great. I'm so happy that Pete went on this morons podcast. I've seen one clip where he's talking about being gay in the military. I think it's good to just have like a guy who just like talks about being gay in the military and, you know, isn't doing drag race references, you know, is just like hanging out and just being normal about. I think that's very, very useful. I don't know what the rest of the podcast was. The fact that Pete is sharing it makes you think Pete thinks he did well. So, you know, I'll be checking that out and giving him a review on a future podcast. But I wanted to mention it because it's like, we do plenty of nitpicking of the Dems around here. Like, we're like this does seem like it's starting to seep in. Like Pete was always kind of doing it. But we had Max Frost on Fox with, with Will Kane where Will Kane was making fun of the Bulwark readers. The other day that that happened, we had Yasamin Ansari. I think I'm getting her name right. She's a freshman congresswoman from Arizona. I was not familiar with her game uh, until I saw her on Laura Ingram last night. Uh, she was on talking about Abrego Garcia and uh, did very well for herself I thought uh, you know, handling that. I mean Laura was obnoxious and I don't know if any actual Laura Ingraham viewers were move but it was like again it's good to inject some real information into like you know, like would the Laura Ingram viewers have known that a Reagan judge, you know, said this without her going on to say it? Probably not. I, I don't know. I'm not a nightly viewer, but I don't think she was probably, you know, reading from Judge Wilkinson's decision on her show if it was not for Ansari. So anyway, I just, it's nice to give ADA voice when people are doing the right thing. Like I think this is, this only matters on the margins. But they're, you know, it's important to do and you might and you like it is you need to do it. So anyway, go ahead sir.

[Sarah Longwell]

I don't think it matters on the margins. I think it's the ball game man. I think that this idea of oh no, we need to build our own media ecosystem and I'm like sure, if you want to build some of your own media infrastructure, fine. Obviously I believe there's good room for independent media companies like ours. But like just go everywhere. Go on. Here's the thing. If you don't define your own positions, they will define them for you. If you just seed that ground, they will define it for you. And if you're there to say no and here the part of it is Democrats having the confidence to argue for their own positions. Right. And I, I just have that confidence. You Trump is on his back feet. These Republicans are on their back feet. They're, they're probably like letting them, they want Democrats to come on so that they've got like a foil. Right. So that they can find some way to. But like no, you are injecting truth in those moments. And so now I will say though, it's one thing to go on Fox News because like Van Holland was on Fox News in some ways, I keep wrestling with the thing about Joe Rogan or, like, this guy I've never heard of. Like, I do think that Pete should go on all these places, but there is also a weird thing about, like, do we have to. Are these. Are these. I saw this guy's little rant about how he just likes it, you know, when his politicians are getting head and everything else. And I'm like, do we have to, like, take these people seriously? It's a little bit of a tough.

[Tim Miller]

I actually don't think. Just really quick on jbl. So I don't think that Andrew Schultzing is tough at all. The. The Fox thing, I think, is a little more complicated. I think it's useful, but it's a little complicated because the types of people that watch Fox are, like, pretty high info magazine. And so it's kind of like, are you really getting those people? Like, there are a lot of people that watch Andrew Schultz that, like, have never heard from a Democrat except, like, on, like, at length. Except for, like, whatever showed up on the news and whatever they got made fun of for, you know, on these podcasts. Right.

[Sarah Longwell]

It's funny because I feel the opposite. Like, I could see why somebody would go on Fox News, whereas, like, I'm like, Joe Rogan is an idiot, and I know he has a huge audience. And, like, yeah, you could. No, like, go on. Like, I'm not saying don't. I just. There's a part of me that does chafe at the notion that to reach people, you have to talk to morons and act like they are valuable partners in conversation.

[Tim Miller]

It's not a winning political effort to not win votes for any moron.

[Sarah Longwell]

I don't.

[Tim Miller]

Unfortunately, I think that's a minority position.

[Sarah Longwell]

I'm with you.

[JVL]

I think this is not as cut and dry as you guys maybe do. I am open to the possibility that what you guys are saying is correct. But on the other hand, this is like Gavin Newsom inviting Charlie Kirk.

[Tim Miller]

Wrong. Not at all like that. Totally opposite. Totally. Well, because. Egg, please. Thank you for bringing this up, because I will. I will address this question. Gavin is. Charlie is using Gavin.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

Charlie is going on to Gavin's platform, and there are people watching that. They're like, oh, the only thing I know about Charlie Kirk are, like, the five clips of him sounding as stupid as possible that my lib friends have retweeted onto social media. And now I listen to him talk for 45 minutes and listen to Gavin buddy up with him. Unless I want to talk about how, you know, kids are drinking too much these days and, you know, maybe we should like, try to re. Imagine, you know, some a society that has more value, you know, and Gavin wasn't trying to press him on any of his crazy views. And all of a sudden people are like, man, everybody told, you know, there at least some people listening to that that are like, people told me this, Charlie Kirk is a dumbass, idiot, far right conspiracy theorist. But I saw him on Gavin for 45 minutes and I don't know, he seemed okay. Anybody seems okay except for, like, really stupid people for 50 minutes. You know, Dan Bongino wouldn't seem that good. Marjorie Taylor Greene. But like, anyone who is at all savvy can go on for an hour. And the people listening will be like, you know, I don't really like that guy, but they made a good point here or there. So Charlie was using Gavin, and this is the inverse. This is Pete trying to convince some of Andrew Schultz's audience that, that, that, oh, wait, Democrats aren't as big of pussies as I thought.

[JVL]

Wait, things go both ways because everybody is always using both sides to attract an audience and to talk to that audience.

[Sarah Longwell]

Here's the problem with what Gavin did, and it's why it's totally different. Pete is there to say, let me make my case to your audience. Right. Gavin is there saying, I'm gonna tell Charlie Kirk why Democrats are wrong about a bunch of stuff and Charlie Kirk and his people were right about them. If. If Gavin Newsom wanted to talk about trans kids not being in sports, a position I happen to agree with and that I think the Democratic Party would be wise to get off the table as quickly as possible. Gavin Newsom should have said something to a progressive. He should have fought with the progressive. He shouldn't have gone to Charlie Kirk to validate Charlie Kirk.

[Tim Miller]

Great point, Charlie. You're so smart.

[JVL]

I think Gavin thought the. I think the logic of it was, I'm having Charlie on my show, and so a bunch of Charlie's listeners will come and listen to it. It. And I think the same thing with Schultz is that, you know, thinks that a bunch of Mayor Pete's people will come and it's. It's trying to trade audience and stuff.

[Tim Miller]

If they think that they're totally wrong.

[JVL]

Like, I don't know, it is a little weird to say Fox is not a legitimate news source. And also, I'm going to go on Fox. Like, it's. Because it isn't.

[Tim Miller]

It's a.

[JVL]

It's just a Propaganda outlet. It's not a legitimate.

[Sarah Longwell]

I agree with that. I agree with that. But. But also, random dude. Who's this random podcaster? Like, why does somebody have to go on Theo Vaughn? Like, Theo Vaughn is just like a guy who shaved his chest on the Real World. But, like, he does have a massive audience. And this is the world we're living in where. It's where I think part of what you're doing is saying, I can sit and mix it up with these people, and I can demonstrate that I am normal. And.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I just think just the numbers, though. Like, the new. Like, we have podcasts. You know this. Like, anybody who thinks that is wrong. Like, I had Sam Harris. Like, this is Sam Harris. I had Sam Harris on. We did get a bump from him because some Sam Harris people came and checked it out. So that was the purpose of doing it, but it was like X hundred thousand Bulwark listeners listen to it, and then 10,000 additional Sam Harris people listen it. So, like, you're reaching way more of their people. If you go onto their platform, you're reaching way more of their people than the people you're bringing.

[JVL]

I guess I view this as more of a conditional, prudential thing than a blanket yes, you should always do these things. I think there are. There are cases where you could say, yes, that show is okay. You can do that one that, you know, just prudentially. But then there are other ones where you should look at it and say, no, you shouldn't. You shouldn't go on that show. Right? Like, that. That. That helps that show in some.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah. When Tim invited me on his show, I was a hard no on. On Tim Pool show.

[JVL]

You know what I'm saying?

[Sarah Longwell]

I'm a hard no on Chris Cuomo show, which is why he shits on us online. It's because none of us will go on his stupid News Nation show. But, like, so I. I do think. I think it's.

[Tim Miller]

Stop drunk tweeting us Chris Cuomo, please.

[Sarah Longwell]

Yeah, it's not gonna happen. Sorry. Anyway, I do not think. Or I. I agree that it's like, you shouldn't. There are. There are lines, but if it's people who are, like, comedians who just have.

[JVL]

Like, yeah, I think I'm okay with that.

[Sarah Longwell]

Like. Like Rogan, I think I can't. Like, my brain starts to leak out of my ears listening to Joe Rogan, but he has a massive audience, and, like, it's three hours, and it's mostly him talking about, like, if a shark and a gorilla wrestled Each other. Who would win? Like, I don't know. You can do that.

[JVL]

Yeah, I. Then I think. I agree with that. I. But, like, I think you shouldn't probably go into Oan. Right. And, like, I just want people to, in general, be mindful that when you. When you participate in a platform, you are giving something of yourself to it. And you might be getting something, but you are giving something. And I just wish people would be mindful of that. All right, guys, good show. Incredibly long show. We had a whole other thing to talk about, but we didn't even get to it. We had so many other. My little symposium that I. It was, you know, it was on the show.

[Sarah Longwell]

We wanted to fight about this, and now we're gonna have to do it on secret pod.

[Tim Miller]

The symposium. We are gonna symposium. And you're taking that away from me.

[JVL]

I'm so glad I spend all this time.

[Sarah Longwell]

I did read the show map. I read the show map. I forgot the other thing, but I read this whole thing and I was ready to fight with you about it.

[JVL]

Well, you know, you'll have to wait to fight. Boy, do I have something to look forward to now. I get to wake up on Friday morning and have Sarah yell at me at 7:30 in the morning. That's great.

[Sarah Longwell]

You and my children.

[JVL]

Guys, we're coming to Chicago in Nashville. Music City. Possible special guest, Taylor Swift. She hasn't said no.

[Tim Miller]

It's not Taylor Swift.

[Sarah Longwell]

She hasn't said no yet.

[JVL]

I'm kidding. I'm very kidding. We'll put a link in the thing for it, but also go to the bulwark.com events. Get your tickets. Please help us sell out Chicago. I'm all for clump.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, we'll see y'all there.

[JVL]

Good luck, America.