Wrapping 2025 with Jon Favreau and Tim Miller

Summary

The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart

Episode: Wrapping 2025 with Jon Favreau and Tim Miller
Release Date: December 11, 2025
Guests: Jon Favreau (Pod Save America, Crooked Media) & Tim Miller (The Bulwark)

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Episode Overview

Jon Stewart hosts the final podcast episode of 2025, joined by media pundits Jon Favreau and Tim Miller for a deep, candid year-in-review. The trio unpacks 2025’s political and cultural chaos, the ongoing legacy and unique challenges of Trump’s second term, the state of both political parties, the incentives driving American politics and media, and what hope and peril may lie ahead.

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Main Themes

• Processing the Relentless Pace and Toll of Modern Politics
• The Trump Era’s Emotional and Political Aftershocks
• Democratic and Republican Party Weaknesses
• The Search for Optimism and "Revolutionary Zeal"
• Challenges of Media Incentives and Social Media
• Future Leadership and Structural Concerns in U.S. Governance
• The Role of Corruption, Coherence, and Delivering Value
• The Rise of New and Dangerous Political Personalities
• Dilemmas about Changing Political Incentive Structures

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Year-in-Review Fatigue: “How Many Years Has This Year Been?”

• The panel opens by reflecting on 2025 as yet another exhausting year in politics and public life.
• Tim Miller: "Every day is a lifetime ... it's been a slog, I'll tell you that." (03:42)
• Jon Favreau: “It’s been a long year, but also a long decade ... it sort of feels like that’s the only life I know.” (03:58)

2. The Emotional Cost of “Covering” Trump

• Favreau and Miller, both from different sides of the political spectrum, express anger and exhaustion.
• Jon Favreau: “If Donald Trump exited the scene tomorrow and our politics returned to some semblance of normalcy ... I would take that trade easily... What’s propelled me this year is just sort of a rage." (06:01)
• Tim Miller on compartmentalizing: “...some days I just am like, it’s just a lunch pail, man. ... You can’t run at 11 all the time ... and then when something happens that makes me really upset, I get on here in my little hole and ... I scream.” (06:42–07:59)

3. Frustration With Both Parties

• Stewart distinguishes between Miller's and Favreau’s positions—Miller angry at “the family feud” within the GOP; Favreau at Democratic fecklessness.
• Favreau: “We all have a little stink on us here: voters, media, Democrats, Republicans. ...I can’t believe we haven’t figured this out yet and that we’re still making the same mistakes...” (10:11)
• Stewart: “My feeling is rage against fecklessness.” (09:46)
• Miller: “I get the most mad at the most normal Republicans ... They know better.” (09:08)

4. The Trump Rally: All Hits, No Heart

• Discussion on Trump’s latest rally, noting its lethargy and out-of-touch messaging.
• Favreau: "...He’s doing the ‘your kids don’t need 37 dolls’ ... we’re like two weeks out from Christmas ... And also, I just fired the architect of my new ballroom because he couldn’t build it fast enough—two dolls, maximum.” (13:59, 14:30)
• Miller: “He needs a foe. That’s the thing he’s good at ... He tested out Jerome Powell.” (13:00–13:45)

5. Authoritarian Drift, but Diminished Enthusiasm

• Stewart points out that Trump, unlike prototypical authoritarians, is not that popular in his second term.
• Tim Miller: “I think it’s his own incoherence ... the nativism and the kind of right-wing authoritarianism, I don’t know that’s going anywhere ... but Trump himself ... has lost touch with the types of people who came into his coalition late ... I think you’re seeing that in his numbers going down.” (17:28, 19:15)
• Favreau: “His political standing is ... weaker than it’s been ... but he’s also never had more power than he does right now ... as he gets weaker politically, he gets more dangerous.” (19:42, 20:04)

6. The Limitations of “Band-Aid” Politics

• Favreau: “We are in a cycle where one party takes power and then doesn’t deliver in a way that solves people’s concerns ... And that would be difficult enough if both parties were normal political parties ... but one of them wants an authoritarian takeover.” (22:21)
• “If we don’t have that larger narrative and that larger vision, then we’re going to end up right back here.” (23:55)

7. Democrats’ Need for Bolder, Deliverable Ideas

• Miller: “The last two successful political figures ... tried something new ... Could we learn something from that? Could somebody try to try something?” (24:15–24:41)
• Favreau: “Delivering on the campaign promises is just as important as the boldness of the promises you make. ... If you can’t do free buses, or freeze the rent, ... it deepens cynicism.” (39:40–41:04)

8. Structural and Generational Shifts

• Stewart: “We are in a joint custody agreement now ... these pendulum swings are much more ... especially if the Supreme Court grants the executive the ability to come in and just wipe out the entire government.” (26:50)
• The trend toward anti-institutionalism and lack of genuine reform is expected to entrench cycles of retribution and weak governance.

9. The Limits of Left Populism (And the Search for Better Leadership)

• The group muses on whether a left-wing version of a strongman would be desirable or effective, and the need for real reform instead of just “playing by the rules.”
• “What I want is a Democrat who understands that government’s role is partially to be a check against corporate power, not a lubricant for it.” — Jon Stewart (29:12)

10. Corruption, Coherence, and Delivering Value

• Stewart: “Democrats haven’t proven that people will get value for that extra money. ... They have to be more remedial ... They have to step back forward.” (77:31)
• Favreau: “Our ability to deliver on the promises we make has to be as important as the promises themselves.”
• On corruption: “The message can’t be, ‘They’re corrupt and we’re not. So elect us because we're better.’ ... that’s why you need an actual reform agenda.” (76:40–77:02)

11. Rising Figures: J.D. Vance, Tucker Carlson, RFK Jr.

• Skepticism about the GOP’s post-Trump bench (Vance, Carlson, etc.), with concern these figures might lack Trump’s “magic” but could pose their own dangers.
• Jon Stewart: “Miller’s poison has to be filtered. And Trump is the perfect vessel ... you take that away, and when people get a real taste of this shit ... I don’t know, maybe I’m being naive.” (57:36)
• On J.D. Vance: “He’s a shapeshifter ... I could see how he could kind of learn how to adapt and appeal.” — Tim Miller (56:51)
• On RFK Jr.: “The only one that possesses that sort of magic that Trump has and the kind of like I-don’t-give-a-fuck devotion ... and I would think can do the most pull-ups out of any of those motherfuckers.” — Jon Stewart (62:01)

12. Incentive Structures for Media and Politics

• Stewart: “It feels like the political system and the media ... runs on a different currency than its purported kind of ideal. ... If those two things are corrupted, and I think they are, we don’t get the results that build a healthier environment.” (65:48–65:57)
• The group wonders if the only way to break perverse incentives is someone winning despite them.
• Favreau: “You need a person ... willing to run a different way.” (67:05)

13. Social Media, AI, and Political Emotionality

• All agree the online world turbocharges outrage, catastrophizing, and loneliness, posing unprecedented challenges to democracy.
• Favreau: “If the way we interact with each other ... has fundamentally shifted, then of course our politics is going to change dramatically.” (71:05)
• Jon Stewart: The very incentive structure of social media is to make you feel “existential crisis,” as ex-influencer Dan Bongino openly admitted. (69:19)

14. Zero-Sum Politics vs. Positive-Sum Society

• The Trump worldview is described as “zero sum” (“if you win, someone else loses”), both domestically and in global affairs—a stark contrast to the argument the panel thinks Democrats should make.
• Favreau: “Politics isn’t zero sum. ... We can grow the economy in a way that benefits everyone. ... but we have to actually deliver.” (73:12–74:26)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Jon Stewart: “I look like I sleep in a meat dehydrator, for God’s sakes.” (04:19)
• Tim Miller: “I haven’t gone full native. The Democrats have not done a good job governing a lot of places where they’re in charge...” (37:34)
• Jon Favreau: “If you can’t do free buses, if you can’t freeze the rent, ... it deepens cynicism and makes people less likely to participate in politics.” (40:47)
• Jon Stewart: “Our ignorance doesn’t make us safer. ... Discernment is the first quality you need in building a better state.” (82:35)
• Tim Miller, on MAGA-drift: “I’m way more open to ... extensive taxation of the wealthy than I was ... I’m much more open to that than I used to be.” (37:29)
• Jon Stewart, on left- and right- roguery: “Do we want someone who’s gonna go after all the MAGA people like they did Democrats, or do we want to be the party that believes in government that works and people can have faith in?” (33:27)
• On AI, technology, and risk: “Maybe we’ll have a benevolent AI president. ... And none of that will ever get weaponized by the Mercers.” (71:20, 71:30)

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Timestamps – Key Segments

• 03:33–06:01: Initial reactions to the year, emotional exhaustion, and rage as motivating force.
• 09:08–10:29: The “family feud” within GOP vs. Democratic fecklessness and self-blame.
• 13:00–14:44: Trump’s rally recaps—hits vs. incoherence, “state fair” and “affordability” bits.
• 19:15–21:49: Declining popularity and increased danger as Trump loses touch with his coalition.
• 24:15–25:34: Miller and Favreau on the need for revolutionary zeal and political risk-taking.
• 32:31–35:10: Dilemmas for the next Democratic president — rules, reform, and responding to Trumpist precedents.
• 40:47–43:36: The gap between campaign promises and delivery; managing voter expectations.
• 57:23–59:48: Discussion of the next GOP wave—Vance, Miller, Carlson, and post-Trump dangers.
• 65:01–67:05: Changing incentive structures in American media and governance.
• 69:19–71:05: Impact of social media and AI on emotionality, isolation, and political behavior.
• 73:12–74:26: What’s at stake: moving beyond zero-sum, spoils-system, and corruption-based politics.
• 79:14–81:27: Dark and comic moments of the year: Trump’s MS Paint faux pas, cruelty as spectacle.
• 86:12–96:14: Light-hearted end-of-year listener questions, reflections on optimism and holiday traditions.

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Final Reflections

• The episode closes with notes of cautious optimism mixed with realism about the depth of dysfunction in the American system.
• Stewart, Favreau, and Miller agree that big, structural changes and bold, deliverable policies are needed; both parties must confront the realities of mediated politics, digital incentives, and an electorate growing weary and distrustful.
• The fight for 2026 is painted as being not just about personalities, but about offering real value, coherent governance, and resisting both explicit and implicit corruption. The group hopes for a political breakthrough—someone willing to break the negative incentive cycle—while warning about the persistent allure of nativism and authoritarianism.
• The greatest danger, Stewart warns, is acceptance of dehumanization and cynicism as virtues. At bottom, all three presenters remain committed to public engagement and the hope that “fresh water” might soon enter the system.

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Memorable Quote to End:
Jon Stewart:
“Our ignorance doesn’t make us safer ... discernment is the first quality you need in building a better state of understanding individuals and not groups.” (82:31)

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For a full experience, listen to the episode for the hosts’ signature wit, cathartic rants, and moments of gallows humor—a much-needed recap to a brutal year in American public life.

Transcript

[Tim Miller]

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[Jon Stewart]

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[Jon Stewart]

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[John Favreau]

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[Tim Miller]

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[Jon Stewart]

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[Tim Miller]

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[Jon Stewart]

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[Tim Miller]

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[Jon Stewart]

Hello everybody. Welcome to the weekly show podcast. My name is Jon Stewart. I will be your host for this lovely afternoon. It's Wednesday, December 10th. This is the final podcast that we are doing this year. We will be back, I think in the, maybe this, the second week of January. You know, old people need a good time. You know, know it used to be when you're younger, you go on vacation. I believe I am going to be convalescing. I believe that is the proper term for ladies and gentlemen over 60 years old who are taking a little bit of a break. But we would be back then. And when we come back, publishing on Wednesdays instead of Thursdays, which I know will make a really, I don't want to say crucial difference in your life, but the impact will be sensational and we're delighted because it's the wrap up episode of the year. We're going to do a wrap up type thing. We're going to grab a couple of our favorite pundit type individuals and talk to them about how they're viewing about the year in rewind and how they're feeling in terms of optimism for the future. I'm sure it's all, it's going to be all rosy people. That's what, that's how we've been living this thing. So let's get to, let's get to them right away and jump into our urine. Review episode. Here we go.

Ladies and gentlemen. What would a year end wrap up be without two media moguls? Moguls? That's right, you heard me, moguls. I don't throw that word around lightly. I mean it in the sincerest form. Jon Favreau, founder of Crooked Media and host of Pod Save America, and Tim Miller hosted the Bulwark podcast. Gentlemen, welcome.

[Tim Miller]

What's up?

[John Favreau]

Thanks for having me.

[Jon Stewart]

Thank you for taking time from your media empires.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, it's upstairs in my house. My kids room is right over there.

[Jon Stewart]

Is it really?

[Tim Miller]

Oh, yeah.

[Jon Stewart]

That's the beauty of podcasting. Favreau, by the way, mentioned this earlier. He has to let me talk about what a sucker this motherfucker is. He has to get in a car and drive to some place of business.

[John Favreau]

In LA, no less, where he breathes.

[Jon Stewart]

Shared air.

With others.

[Tim Miller]

Well, it's a, it's a progressive outlet. So there are a couple, masked couple of people.

[Jon Stewart]

There's always two. There's always two. And you always say, oh, are you sick? And they go, I don't want to talk. And then you have to move along. Gentlemen, as a year end in review, let me ask you this. We shall begin with this. I think it's the question of, of the era.

How many years.

Has this year been? Tim, you go first.

[Tim Miller]

Who could say? I don't know. Like, on the one hand I'm like, how is it Christmas? I haven't bought a single present yet. And on the other hand, I feel like every day is a lifetime. And so I don't, I don't have a great answ to that, but it's been a slog, I'll tell you that. It's been a slog.

[Jon Stewart]

It is a slog. Favreau, how you holding up?

[John Favreau]

I'm holding up okay. It's been a long year, but it's also been a long decade. I'm really feeling the fact that we've been dealing with this in some form or fashion since 2015 now. And it sort of feels like that's the only life I know.

[Jon Stewart]

Guys, I didn't want to say this. I'm 24.

[Tim Miller]

Really.

[Jon Stewart]

Look what this has done to me. Look at this. I look like I sleep in a meat dehydrator, for God's sakes.

[Tim Miller]

The. This is what I've got, the carry Lake Vaseline on the lens thing to try to help me.

[Jon Stewart]

I should smooth that and get some, some good diffusion that, that's going on here as People. So it is the inevitable contradiction. So the rise of your media empires coincides with the sort of attention economy that is occurring. Is it symbiotic at this point? You know, people used to say to me during, you know, the Bush years, you know, I think Larry King said this to me once, you know, George Bush gets reelected, that good for you? You hoping for that? And I was like, no, I have children. Larry, how do you separate sort of your professional engagement and success from that feeling of. It is. It is. You're having to wade through a turd mine to get there?

[John Favreau]

Yeah, it's a good question.

[Jon Stewart]

We're catching Favreau on a reflective day.

[Tim Miller]

Deep Catholic guilt.

[Jon Stewart]

For me, we're having a reflective day with Favreau.

[John Favreau]

I mean, I. Look, if. If Donald Trump exited the scene tomorrow and our politics returned to some semblance of normalcy, which probably hasn't been normal in my whole life, but some semblance of normalcy and our audience went away, like, I would take that trade easily any day over continuing this shitstorm that we've been in for a decade. So that's.

[Tim Miller]

That's that.

[John Favreau]

I think what has propelled me this year more than anything else is just sort of a rage.

At.

[Jon Stewart]

Tim is nodding, by the way, when you said what has propelled me is a rage, I just saw a glint of recognition.

[John Favreau]

I'm usually like the hopeful guy, and I still, you know, I still have some hope, but I'm just. I'm so fucking angry that we're here and that we're dealing with this and that it's been as bad or worse than. Than we imagined in. In 2024 and before Donald Trump coming back.

[Jon Stewart]

Tim, on the emotion wheel, where. Where are you? I would. That a similar kind of rage. V. Optimism and.

[Tim Miller]

No, no. A deep, abiding rage. Yeah. And. And anger. And I don't know. For me, though, I also. Because this has been our life, because it's been a decade, I've tried to process this as like, this is just a job now. Like, this is a. This is our life. Like, this is it. I did everything I could think of to try to convince people in my tiny little way to not vote for this person the first time or the second time or the third time. And I lost two out of three, and we have to deal with the consequences. And so I get up and some days I just am like, it's just a lunch pail, man. It's just like, we gotta get up and talk about this shit. And I think that's the only way to deal with it and let the emotions. I said last year when I was thinking about this, how was I going to deal with it emotionally? I was like, I'm only going to get mad and upset about the things that make me really mad and upset. And there's a lot of. We'll talk about it on the year. There's a lot of crazy shit that happens that's bad. It's objectively bad. But it doesn't really affect me emotionally. And I just do. That's healthy, I think. You can't run at 11 all the time. And then when something happens that makes me really upset, I get on here in my little hole. I walk up to a little hole and. And I get upset with. People yell at night. Yeah. And I scream.

[Jon Stewart]

You allow yourself to do it.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. People. And I think people want that because they're all screaming at their phones. So we might as well scream together.

[Jon Stewart]

Two things from that that I find interesting. One is, so, you know, Tim, your frustration. You were coming at it from, you know, the Trump voters were inside the house.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Jon Stewart]

You know, you were coming at it from a more conservative perspective. I think for John and I, it always felt like an oppositional place. Our frustration probably went more towards how can you not to the Democrats present a more coherent and thoughtful and affirmative case other than. I think this guy is nuts. Don't you? Doesn't everybody see that? But having that happen. I don't want to throw this to the Mets, but like the Mets recently lost Edwin Diaz to the Dodgers. The. That's what it feels like to be a Democrat, to be a Mets fan. But you're coming at it. You were the. You. You were on the Dodgers.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. I don't do baseball metaphors, but I'm gonna go with you on that. But, yeah, it's a family. I'm gonna make it. Yeah. I'm gonna do holidays. It's a family feud. You know what I mean?

[Jon Stewart]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

It's more personal. I'm pissed. You know, it's more personal and you get more upset. I do that. Not that you go. You know what I mean? But there's just some. There's a different level of valence. There's like the narcissism of small differences. Is that phrase. I get the most mad at the most normal Republicans. If that makes sense.

[John Favreau]

Sure.

[Tim Miller]

They know better. Marco and whoever. All the way down the line, the people that I knew personally. And I do think that.

Creates a different body response maybe than being mad at somebody that you think has been stupid and wrong the whole time.

[Jon Stewart]

That's so interesting because, John, I. I don't know about you, but my. My feeling is rage against fecklessness. That idea of, you know, Kamala Harris wrote a book, 107 days. I only had 107 days. I couldn't put together a coherent governance plan. And you're like, well, it's been a year now. Like, does anyone over there have chat GPT? Can you just throw that in there? Like, hey, what's a good affirmative liberal case for economic. Like, what's. What's your frustration?

[John Favreau]

It is with that maybe not primarily because I do think, like, you have to. You know, Republicans and Republican politicians have agency and so do voters. Look, look, it's been. It's been 10 years of this. All of us are to blame, you know, like, everyone.

[Jon Stewart]

You're in a dark hole, man. Everyone has a little dark hole.

[John Favreau]

You know, I know we all try to blame someone else, but it's like we all have a little stink on us here, you know, voters, media, Democrats, Republicans. But no, I do. I am very. I find myself very frustrated with the Democratic party and Democratic politicians because I just. I can't believe we haven't figured this out yet and that we are still making the same mistakes that we made. I don't know. In 2016 on. It's just like we haven't learned many lessons.

[Jon Stewart]

John, to that point you're making.

[John Favreau]

I.

[Jon Stewart]

He came down the escalator in 2015, and I remember being gleeful. I thought, well, oh, my God, Yosemite Sam has just entered the race. A cartoon villain. I mean, who chooses the escalator? The least powerful mode of getting downstairs, you know, you might as well come down on a fire pole. And then he comes out and he's Mexicans or this and blah, blah, blah. And I thought, oh, this is just going to be a funny circus that we're all going to enjoy ourselves. And 10 years later, I, I. Did you guys watch any of the rally last night?

[John Favreau]

Oh, yeah, unfortunately, I watched the whole thing.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. That's the lunch pail part of the job we were talking about earlier. I only did. I did a. I did a strong 14 minutes, I think, really what I could take. Yeah, maybe 16.

[Jon Stewart]

All right, so what was. I. I'll tell you what jumped out to me a. It felt a little bit like when you see a big star from 20 years ago playing a state fair, like where they go out there and like, everybody's just kind of sitting there, like, just do achy Breaky heart and let's go.

[John Favreau]

Yeah. Yeah. His heart really wasn't in any of the affordability message that he was supposed to, which he told us, which is always. This is. You know, you got to give him credit for that. He's like, oh, my chief of staff is making me do this. And they're telling me not to call it a hoax, but it's a hoax. And let me show you all these charts. And he held all these charts up about inflation and the Biden administration, and, you know, no one really cares about the charts. And he's like. He's like, let's do one more chart, since they're playing so well. And it's like, you know, he is funny.

It's a funny joke, but his heart's not in what voters actually care about or what most voters actually care about. His heart's in, you know, going off on Ilhan Omar and Somalia and immigration stuff.

[Jon Stewart]

But that's also, if you notice, for the audience, until he plays the hits.

[John Favreau]

Yeah, that's their watchtower right there. That's.

[Tim Miller]

Somalia was the good stuff, I thought, and it was really gross. And the good stuff for him, like, working with the audience, like, you know, the. He did, like, five minutes on Elon Omar last night. And. And to me, I thought it was the most telling because a. It was the. The crowd response was probably the most into that. It's the crudest or maybe the fake. Three more years or maybe the f. Four more years, champ. And it's like he needs a foe. That is the thing he's good at. He was good at making Hillary into a foe. He's good at making Harris and Biden into foe. He's good at going after elites. He's good at going after immigrants. It's tough for him on the economy because he doesn't have a foe. He tested out Jerome Powell. You know whose fault it really is? It's this guy Jerome Powell over at the Fed.

[Jon Stewart]

My favorite image of the year, the two of them in hard hats.

[Tim Miller]

That didn't really land.

[Jon Stewart]

He's like, you're over budget. And Powell looks at it and is like, that's a different project, you dumb fuck.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Somalians are much, you know, more in line with the type of thing that his folks are gonna respond to, you.

[John Favreau]

Know, it's not just that his heart wasn't in it, though. It's that I think he has become even more out of touch in this second term and in the first year, like he's doing. The last night, he was Doing the. Your kids don't need 37 dolls. Like, we're like two weeks out from Christmas, you know. Right.

[Tim Miller]

And only two or three.

Is the.

[Jon Stewart]

Best it's ever been. You're all doing amazing. Make your children at Christmas cry.

[John Favreau]

And also, like, I just fired the architect for my new ballroom because he couldn't build it big enough or fast enough. So while I'm old enough, yeah, I'm sort of using gold leaf all over the White House. But, you know, two. Two dolls. Two dolls. Maximum two dolls.

[Tim Miller]

Maybe three maybe.

[Jon Stewart]

So I'm going to throw out to the. To the. To the sadness. I'm going to inject a little bit of that MDMA in this thing. I'm going to throw a little bit of ecstasy into the room. The thing that it strikes me as. And, and the reason why I bring up sort of the state fair analogy or.

That the, the vein of this that's so tapped into something deep and dark in the American spirit seems to be waning, that if you look at somebody in his more. He's in authoritarian, right. He wants to run this thing. He wants us to be more like Russia and more like Orban and all those things. Generally authoritarians in their first year are legitimately popular. That the things that the. I'm going to take care of the drug dealers and I'm going to kill the. And I'm going to deport the Somalis and all those things that are the trappings of kind of a more darker, authoritarian thing usually play pretty well in the countries where they're deployed. He's not that popular. And is that the thing that maybe gives you a little bit of like, oh, wait a minute, maybe this lunch pail shit we're doing, maybe it's working. Or maybe it's his own incoherence that's causing this.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Jon Stewart]

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[Tim Miller]

I think it's his own incoherence. I'll maybe take a half dose of the MDMA because I'm with you on him.

He's made a lot of problems for himself. I think that the nativism and the kind of right wing authoritarianism, I don't know that's going anywhere. I think you just have to.

[Jon Stewart]

That holds its appeal.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, you got to hang around some young MAGA voters for any length of time and you'll see the trajectory we're on. That is, that's still scary. But Trump himself, the ability for him to control power. I look back at the year and in some ways I think about that inauguration picture with him with all of the tech billionaires, and I think maybe the seeds of his demise were really right there. I do think that he has lost touch with the types of people that came into his coalition late who really were pissed about inflation, who really were kind of pissed about the way the COVID governance happened. These kind of young men that we all talk about who are more libertarianish, but they had economic concerns and they didn't like the establishment. And Trump ends up ensconcing him with the richest people in the world and doing them favors and doing nothing to actually help regular people. And I think you're seeing the results of that and his numbers going down. I don't know that he's lost the core MAGA base, people that are injecting Newsmax into their veins or have not turned on him yet. But like that layer of people, the manosphere types and Hispanic voters and other folks who came in in this last time who voted for him the third time but maybe didn't the first or second time, I think that he's really alienated them and it's hurting his political standing for sure.

[John Favreau]

Yeah, I think his political standing is probably weaker than it's been at any time in the last decade, save for, you know, after he tried to foment an insurrection, the Capitol.

[Tim Miller]

It was pretty, it was pretty dicey there for about a couple weeks, about two weeks later.

[Jon Stewart]

I believe that that's been reduced to some sort of subtextual footnote that, you know, there was also that if I, if I remember correctly, there was when he tried to overthrow the, the government of the United States of America.

[John Favreau]

Yeah, it was that. And then right behind it, concerns over inflation. But yeah, so his, politically, he's, he's rarely been weaker, but he's also never had more power than he does right now. And so I, my concern is that. So the good news is definitely like, I'll take the full hit of mdma.

[Jon Stewart]

All right, bring it.

[Tim Miller]

There you go, bud.

[John Favreau]

Getting some water.

[Jon Stewart]

Let's hit the rave, man. Hit the rave.

[John Favreau]

Yeah, yeah. Like, I think, I think the off year election showed us that I feel like relatively hopeful about the midterms because of this. But I do think that he and the people around him also are not going to let go of power easily. And he is going to. He has proven in the past that the more cornered he is, the more dangerous he is. And so if I'm looking ahead to next year and the year after, what I worry most about is that he lashes out and abuses his power in ways that are even more harmful and dangerous to the country as he gets weaker politically.

[Jon Stewart]

You think that as he's, as he's more cornered, it'll do it? Because I'm always struck by that juxtaposition that you're talking about when you think about the, that he's done like, okay, January 6th. And there's no question that January 6th was the culmination of a two month strategy to overturn that election in any way possible that it could. Then there's the. I've got the Epstein files, the QAnon.

Sort of power that surged through my campaign and got me to like. But I'm not doing that because I've done doodles of pubic hair with like, messages of like. And please don't tell anybody about all the girls we fudge, like, you know, all those different things and we line up all the unbelievably like unprecedented through 250 years of attempted republic governance of a country. A historical, you know, consent to the governed experiment that we're trying and we lay it all out there and the uptake of it is always like. So I think we're going to do better in the midterms.

I think, I think the Democrats and.

[Tim Miller]

Not even that good, actually. I don't know that we're going to take the Senate, like, we're going to do a little better in the midterms. Maybe one House, not the other.

[Jon Stewart]

What has happened to our. Our zeal, our revolutionary goals of, like, have we been reduced to a guy overturning, you know, a unitary executive overturning everything? And the best we can hope for is, like, there's a swing district in Georgia that I think is really. I tell you, they're primed. If we just get a centrist in there, like, has she beaten us down?

[John Favreau]

I mean, the concern, and this is where I get annoyed with Democrats is the concern I have is we are in a cycle where one party takes power and then they don't deliver in a way that solves people's concerns and. And alleviates their distrust in their government. And so then the party in power gets thrown out and then the other party comes back in. And that would be difficult enough for democracy if both parties were normal political parties. But we are playing a bit of Russian roulette with these parties because one of them wants an authoritarian takeover of the country, which is the one in power right now. And so for Democrats, there is a way to look at this like you just did, Jon, which is, okay, we can. He's going to be unpopular because he has not fixed people's chief concern, which is costs and inflation and affordability. And so based on that, we can maybe take back the House, maybe take back the Senate, but maybe not.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[John Favreau]

And then. And then hopefully eke out a victory in 2028, but only if we focus only on these, you know, economic concerns that people have. Okay, that's fine. But that is continuing to put a band aid on.

A gaping wound that we've had for a decade now. And if we. And if we don't have leaders who speak to the broader set of challenges that we have as a country, and not just the ones that voters are saying that they care most about, which are important. But if we don't have that larger narrative and that larger vision, then we're gonna end up right back here.

[Tim Miller]

I wanna say one thing about the revolutionary zeal, I think was your phrase, John, because, like, this is the thing.

[Jon Stewart]

Please know, Tim, that I am very careless with my wording. So just know that whatever it is that I said, I take it back.

[Tim Miller]

No, that's great. I'm right. We need revolutionary zeal.

[Jon Stewart]

And that's what I meant.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Maybe.

You can be the leader of the revolutionary zeal. I don't know. Because here's my frustration with Democrats, which is like, we're in year 10 of this and the last two successful political figures in this country, meaningfully successful. Sorry to gas up Favreau right now. I really hate to do that, but it's like a guy who's named Barack Hussein Obama. Iran is like the ocean should recede and red states and only the first black poor president. And we're not very grand ambitions.

[Jon Stewart]

Audacity of hope.

[Tim Miller]

Exactly. And then it's Donald Trump who's like a reality show host bigot, who's like, we're going to build the wall and arrest our opponents. Neither of them were going at all by normal political playbook. And they tried something new, the establishment and conventional wisdom. And the pundits mocked them. And they won success, including myself in both cases. And they won overwhelmingly. And it's like, could we learn something from that? Could somebody try to try? I'm desperate for somebody to try to try something. It might not land. It might not be my preferred policies, you know, the great center left, my former Republican radical. It might not be that. But what. And we just. And there's not a lot of trying out there, of giving people something to get excited about. And that I think is frustrating.

[Jon Stewart]

I'm going to sing your song, Tim. I didn't want to have to do this, but I'm going to sing your song.

[Tim Miller]

Please, Mom.

[Jon Stewart]

Donnie.

[Tim Miller]

Whoa. Yeah. Well, he was born in Uganda, unfortunately, so we've got limited gap on his ambitions.

[Jon Stewart]

But isn't that the. The thing you're talking about? So a little bit. I think structurally, we are more set up for what you guys are talking about now. So we're. We are in a joint custody agreement now. Sometimes dad gets the country, sometimes mom gets the country, but there is no real interaction. It is not. What do they call it, a conscious uncoupling. This has been a. It's one of those divorces that has a lot of vituperative elements to it. But the structure is also set up now so that these pendulum swings that you guys are talking about to go from Barack Hussein Obama to Donald Trump is, you know, we keep having those pendulum reactions to one another, but now those pendulum swings are set up to be. The gap between them is much more, especially if the Supreme Court grants the executive the ability to come in and just wipe out the entire government, everybody that comes in there. So depending on which billionaires are the ones that are victorious in whatever they do there, aren't we set up actually.

Not for the thing that, that we're all talking about, which is a healing candidate that brings an affirmative case that finds a way to break through this kind of attention economy fog that we've all lived in. Aren't we. Aren't we in for a little bit of a rougher cycle than that?

[Tim Miller]

Maybe.

[John Favreau]

We certainly could be.

[Jon Stewart]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

I was worried about this. Favreau's new friend, Ben Shapiro. He's been on multiple panels with him recently. But I was watching Ben and he was like, rationalizing Trump. I forget who he was in an interview with, but he was rationalizing Trump by saying that he thinks we're going to go through the cycle. You just laid out Jon Stewart. He's like, we're going to have kind of an authoritarian, ish right wing person followed by an authoritarian ish left wing person. And if that's going to be the cycle, then I've got no choice but to sign up for the authoritarian, ish right wing person. And I do think there are a lot of forces out there that are like, incentivizing that dynamic. And so I worry about that. And that is like, part of the reason why I am trying to gently encourage opponents to Donald Trump to have some positive ambition or else I think that we could end up there. And I don't want to. I didn't leave one authoritarian side to join up with another one.

[Jon Stewart]

Right. See, that's where Tim and I, we disagreed a little bit because I was more down with that.

[Tim Miller]

You're down.

[Jon Stewart]

I was more down with not. Not authoritarian necessarily, by the way. And I say this in no way to scare anybody except myself. There is a giant bee. And at first I thought, oh, look at that giant bee outside. And now he's on my phone and I realized, oh, he's not outside. And.

[Tim Miller]

Is this a metaphor?

[Jon Stewart]

I wish it was. I think it's. There is a giant.

[John Favreau]

Do you want to kill it?

[Jon Stewart]

Clearly unhealthy.

[John Favreau]

Or let it go or just.

[Jon Stewart]

I don't want to kill it.

[John Favreau]

Wish it away.

[Jon Stewart]

I want to find out what's wrong.

I want to diagnose.

[John Favreau]

You want to help it.

[Jon Stewart]

I want. I want to help this be desperately. Not to derail anybody. But if you find me at any point while you're talking going, oh, my God, that's why I apologize to Rob Votola for blowing out the sound just.

[Tim Miller]

Now when the beat came in. I think you were saying that you wanted a left wing Franco.

[John Favreau]

That's what it was. Yeah, that's where we were.

[Tim Miller]

You wanted kind of like a democratic Franco to. To. To just shake things up.

[Jon Stewart]

Yeah, I Mean, I say that sort of, you know, facetiously. What I want is a Democrat who understands that government's role is partially to be a check against corporate power, not a lubricant for it. That when you have government does the corporations won't or can't do, like, health care? So, like, when we talk about, you know, Obamacare or like, setting up an insurance pool to all that, like, I want government to understand the lesson that every other industrialized, sophisticated country understands. The market for health care is inevitably broken. It doesn't work. And therefore you have to accept that. Like, they've all accepted. We're the only ones who haven't accepted it, and we see our cost skyrocket. So if a more.

Robust executive can use the bully pulpit to push through what, like what John was talking about earlier, a policy that could actually solve the problem that we're facing, rather than.

Kind of just adding more liquidity to a system that we have that is already broken through the externalities that capitalism doesn't fix. Tim, does that sound dystopian to you?

[Tim Miller]

Not dystopian, no. I mean, you know, we can hash out the details. I'd like. I'd like to hear. Like to see your white paper, sir? No, that's. That's. That's right.

[John Favreau]

You do need a white paper for that.

[Jon Stewart]

Hey, folks, it's. It's December. It's snuck up on us. Holiday time, which means I'm already late in terms of getting gifts, and I will be late. And then I'll get some sort of a gift card, and then it won't be used, and then I will feel shame, only shame. But I got to tell you something. If you're looking for an actual gift, one that people will actually like. Or frames. Or frames. The frames that are, like. They're just digital picture frames, right? And you upload your photos and videos, you download the OR app, you connect to the WI fi, and then, boom, you're sharing the photos and videos. It comes right from your phone. You can use it all year long. And by the way, this is for people who like their friends and family. I'm not for those of you who are misanthropic. This might actually not be the gift for you, but this is for people who are capable of love and happiness. You upload the photos of the frame before it ships. It's a perfect gimmick straight out of the box. You can use it. Every frame is packaged in a premium gift box. You don't even have to be embarrassed by Your really, truly, let's be honest, subpar present rapping abilities for a limited time. Save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com to get 35 off Aura's best selling Carver Matte frames named number one by Wirecutter by using promo code TWS at checkout. That's a U R A frames.com promo code TWS. This deal exclusive to listeners and frames sell out fast. So order yours now to get it in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply.

[John Favreau]

Look, this is a choice the next Democratic nominee and hopefully president is going to have to make, which is Donald Trump has taken a sledgehammer to whatever was left of government when he got there and he has politicized everything. And Democrats, you know, one style and one piece of advice has been you got to fight, you got to be, you got to. They play, they don't play by the rules. Why should we play by the rules?

And in some cases, you know, I agree with that. I think that Democrats take the Senate then and we have a Democratic president. We should get rid of the filibuster immediately because there is going to be no other way to pass legislation where democrats aren't getting 60 votes in the Senate probably in the next decade.

[Tim Miller]

More they could try, I'd like to throw that out there.

[Jon Stewart]

You're saying they could try to get.

[Tim Miller]

Elected trying to win some races in red states.

[John Favreau]

But honestly, it's going to be, it's going to be uphill at this point to get to 51.

[Tim Miller]

Sure.

[John Favreau]

Right. And so if so, we're going to need to get rid of the filibuster. On the other hand, it's like, okay, who's the next Attorney general? Do we want someone who's going to like, go after all of the MAGA people like they went after Democrats, or are we actually the party that believes in a government that works and that people can have faith in and trust in and believe isn't politicized? And so you're gonna have someone like that. And then if you do that, then that gets a bunch of people really off because now you're not fighting hard enough. Right. So there, there are real choices for the next Democrat to make because of what Donald Trump has done. Do you get rid of all the people, all the, the crazies in the Trump administration? Yeah, I probably would. But like, what if someone, what if he installs someone as Fed chair who's really bad, but now you're a Democratic president, you're Going to fire the Fed chair and that's going to screw up the markets. Maybe you do that anyway. But these are, I think the next. I think we are underestimating right now the choices that the next set of Democratic candidates have to make in regard to, like, what kind of country they want beyond.

[Jon Stewart]

Tim's not having it.

[Tim Miller]

No, that's all. I am having it. I'm. This is my kind of. This is my kind of hardball. My question is favs. Optimism is showing. I mean, isn't J.D. vance or Donald Trump Jr. Going to be in charge of the next Fed chair? Democrats need to convince people and win. You know, but this is nice.

[John Favreau]

I'm talking. No, well, Tam, I'm talking about, like, these things will be hashed out in the campaign.

[Tim Miller]

Oh, God.

[John Favreau]

Before you. That's why I said Democratic candidate.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[John Favreau]

Like, this is, this is going to be a conversation we're having in 27.

[Jon Stewart]

Maybe this, though, is, is kind of the viewpoint of it, which is, and I hear this a lot from the Democratic Party, is we've got to get rid of the filibuster or we've got to pack the Supreme Court. And what I don't hear a lot of is to what end? Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Jon Stewart]

So when they say we're going to get rid of the filibuster, I go, oh, great. What are you going to pass? I think we're going to pass an extension of subsidies to insurance companies that does not in any way address the broken health care and insurance market system. And then we're going to continue along with the kind of failed legislation that does not address, in an agile way, the needs of the people you purport to represent. And this is my largest problem. And Tim, I'm so curious about you, though, because, yeah, you're in this kind of. It starts out as a diaspora.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Jon Stewart]

And I imagine that you begin to have more affection for sort of the Democratic side. Not to suggest like a Stockholm syndrome, but it's sort of like, you know, I don't know if you've seen Cheryl Hines on any interviews recently. Oh, yeah, she was like a diet in the wool liberal, you know, all these different things. And now she's just like, maga opened their heart to me and the liberals turn their backs on me. And you're like, right, because you're useful to them. You agree with them now. So they embrace you. Look at this. They're saying about other people. Like, for you, has the embrace of liberals changed you politically? Do you still feel the same kind of political mindset or are you in a diaspora? Like, where. Where are you?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, it's changed me some. Like, anybody who's like, Donald Trump getting elected twice did not change my ideology at all. I think that's a sign of a really small thinker. It's like, I don't know why in a society we have to be like, oh, the good. The way to show that you're moral and true is to have the exact same views when you're 22 as when you're 82. That is what a principled person does. So, yeah, I've changed some. There are certain things in particular, like Republican things that were just. I didn't care about that much, but I just signed up for the team on issues that were not high priorities for me that I'm like, you get a little time to think about them and you change your views. I'm way more open also. I've been around way more rich people and important people lately, and I'm way less impressed with them than I was when I was 22. And so, like you were ever impressed with them. Yeah, I'm much more open to, you know.

Extensive taxation of the wealthy than I was when, you know.

I was convinced by the pull myself up from the bootstrap stuff that I learned as a college Republican. So I've had some changes. But there's also stuff I think that, look, I think that you guys, I'm sure, agree with this. I haven't gone full native. The Democrats have not done a good job governing a lot of places where they're in charge of everything. So I'm not on board for everything the Democrats have done. I lived in San Francisco or Oakland, but I lived in the Bay for a while. The Bay wasn't governed that great. And now they've got Lurie in as more of a center guy. And I think things are getting better. So I'm not on. Chicago's not being governed that great. I don't think that the National Guard should go in and that we should have the jackbooted thugs menacing people. But I don't think the mayor of Chicago is doing a particularly great job. And I think Pritzker would have questions about that if he were to run for president. So I've had some changes. And I think that. Just going back to your Zoran point about how Democrats could think about this.

Zoran's messaging is grand and the movement is grand, but the ambitions aren't that grand. It's tangible stuff for people. It's free buses. It's rent control. We're going to cut some of the red tape so that the food. Food truck guys can survive the halal trucks.

I'm fully on board with all of that. I think it would be a big risk for the Democrats to come in and say we just listed out all the things that need change. It's like, okay, well, we're going to put in the Swedish health care system. Sure, I'm fine with that. I have no love for this current healthcare system. I'm not going to go to the mathsresses over that. But you know, that's gonna be a rocky transition and that might lead us right back into a MAGA. To MAGA 2032. And so I just mean that there's a lot of stuff to consider. It's complicated.

[John Favreau]

So Tim and I joke that our politics have sort of moved now so that we have the same politics. Like I've moved towards Tim and he's moved towards me. And so we don't disagree on anything anymore.

[Tim Miller]

That's a bad clip for you on TikTok Favreau.

[John Favreau]

You know what? This is part of it.

[Tim Miller]

When you run for governor in California, Tim.

[John Favreau]

This is.

[Jon Stewart]

Is part of it.

[John Favreau]

I don't give a shit.

[Jon Stewart]

What are you guys trying to do to me?

[John Favreau]

I don't give a shit.

[Jon Stewart]

I'm getting clicks here. You're fucking me up.

[John Favreau]

But one way that I've sort of rethought my own priors on this is the delivering on the campaign promises is just as important as the boldness of the promises that you make. And so I do, like when I think back to the 2020 primary on the Democratic side on healthcare, to stay with that example, it was an entire. Every single debate, every single time they all got on stage, it was. They were debating the finer points of various Medicare for all proposals. And if you didn't have Bernie's, you had to explain why you were lesser than Bernie and why you weren't as committed to healthcare as Bernie was. Everyone on that stage knew, including Bernie probably, that you're never gonna pass just a clean Medicare for all. Some people had pretty bold plans that would be just light years better than we are right now. You know, thinking of like Pete Buttigieg was like Medicare for all who want it. So you have a Medicare program. You can have people choose into it and then it slowly kills off the insurance system. Right. That would be amazing. But so we're debating all this stuff. Joe Biden wins and what do we get? We get an extension of the healthcare subsidies because that's all that passed right now. What do you think that means?

[Jon Stewart]

And they also got to negotiate the price of four different drugs.

[Tim Miller]

Four drugs?

[John Favreau]

Yeah. And the other ones are coming soon.

[Jon Stewart]

Coming. You won't believe it.

[John Favreau]

And so do you think, like, what do you think that does to all the voters who were thinking, oh, we had this big debate about health care, and then we win in 2020, so there's going to be real change coming. Like, I'm pretty excited about this. And so. And I think the Mamdani point is instructive here, which is Mamdani's success is going to, like, completely hinge on whether he delivers the promises that he made. That sounds obvious, but, like, if he can't do free buses, if he can't freeze the rent, then it's not like, you know, people's fears are like, oh, he's a Muslim socialist who's gonna, you know, institute Sharia law. No, the real fear is that he just doesn't manage the city well and doesn't deliver on his promises. And so therefore, it deepens cynicism and it makes people less likely to participate in politics. And so I do think that our ability to deliver on the promises we make has to be as important as the promises themselves. And so you need a path, a realistic path to get where you say.

[Jon Stewart]

You want to go, and a coherence to it. I mean, one of the things that strikes me about this administration I'd love for you guys to think about is the utter incoherence. He's a wonderful announcement, President. He makes great announcements. We're gonna have. We're gonna cut drug prices by a thousand percent. He never actually follows up on you. China is gonna buy more of our farmer soybeans than in the history of. Of soybeans. You're going to have to. We may have to plow over Omaha to plant more soybeans because of how much China's going to buy. And then they don't. And then Caroline Levitt goes out and says, under Biden, China didn't purchase any soybeans. Just a flat out lie. They actually purchased more than they're purchasing now. Does coherence. The price of in there has to be a price for incoherence. There has to be a price for somebody who's going to get us in a war to stop drug trafficking while pardoning a guy who literally moved mountains of cocaine into America. Surely coherence has to be a part of this at some point.

[John Favreau]

I mean, surely.

[Jon Stewart]

And stop calling me Shirley.

[John Favreau]

Surely I think surely, I mean, I think he's paying the price for it right now in his approval ratings and we saw it in the off year elections. Like there is, there is a price to it. But I think that the key is, and what's frustrating is there's only a price to it when you are lying to people about something that they know you're lying about because they're experiencing it in their own lives. Right. And so him going out there last night and being like it's an a economy and affordability is a hoax like that is going to hurt him with voters. It is hurting him with voters.

[Jon Stewart]

Right.

[John Favreau]

On the other hand, when he says, like, well, I'm getting the worst of the worst off the streets for immigrants, like if you don't live in a community where ICE has been raiding the community and he's telling you that these immigrants, you know, committed all these horrible crimes and now he's cleaning them up, you know, it's more possible for you to believe that bullshit because you're not experiencing it in your own lives. So I do think that the, the economic trouble that he's facing is the first, is, is the, is the thing he can't run from with just all of his usual bullshit.

[Jon Stewart]

Well, some of it too is sowing the seeds of our destruction. I mean, you know, how do you make America stronger? By completely gutting our research capacity.

[John Favreau]

Right.

[Jon Stewart]

In. In anything. So maybe these things don't. Don't pile up. Tim, what, what do you think is the, is the thing that's going to start to create a sense? Because even when we say, like, he's not that popular, like, I don't understand how he's even in the 30s, quite frankly.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, the research thing, that makes me sad. I just want to say one sentence on that because like some of the stuff that's in the most destructive that he's done actually isn't going to matter at all. And that's really. That gets you into a dark place, into wanting to have some bourbon because.

We won't even know. We won't ever really be able to say, was it because of that cut that we weren't able to deal with this disease, that we weren't able to have this discovery that we could have had, and then on the USAID cuts on top of that, and all of the vulnerable people throughout the world have died and Cheryl Hines doesn't understand why liberals are mad at her. All of that.

[Jon Stewart]

Well, that was most even I saw. I think it was Nicholas Kristof made A great point, which is for all the MAGA people that are upset about Nigeria attacking Christians, like, nothing will kill more Christians in Africa than cutting off usaid.

[Tim Miller]

That's nothing.

[Jon Stewart]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

But I don't think that will matter to me what has mattered, you know, and I spent a decent amount of time, like, listening to, like, MAGA adjacent media to try to see what's like, resonating. And for them, like, or listening to Marjorie Taylor Greene lately for, you know, like, there was a genuine feeling like the America first thing really did resonate with people.

[Jon Stewart]

Sure. As it has for 150 years.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. And there's obviously some racist elements to that that I deplore. But, like, just this idea that the government doesn't care about us. It cares too much about the elites, cares too much about our foreign adventurism and militarism. And I think that you think that Trump, as I mentioned before, with having all the tech guys being his new BFFs, bombing people in Venezuela, blocking the Epstein files, caring more about his peace prize than he cares about the food bank lines in Kentucky. I think that is his real vulnerability, that he seems to just be kind of just like any of the other elites that have let people down. And it would be for the Democrats to best capitalize that. They need to find a messenger who can, without the racist parts, speak to that. Right. Like, speak to the fact that, like, I, I do care, but without the.

[Jon Stewart]

Racist parts, where's fun?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Jon Stewart]

You got no judge on that.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Jon Stewart]

It's not as fun is that it's John, when you think about. Sort of. Because I. You guys live more in the world of, of, of these pundits. Tell me about the conversation that occurs not on television, where people, you know, how many times did Marjorie Taylor Greene just recently say, you won't believe what Republicans say about Donald Trump when they're not on television or you won't believe the things that they say to me. You know what, what is the conversation below the conversation?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Fabs. What's. What's Ben Shapiro saying to you in the green.

[Jon Stewart]

What has been. John, you and Ben.

[John Favreau]

I think we're so tight now at.

[Jon Stewart]

At Hanukkah, first night, I think it was, which is really the night. By day six, there's very little enthusiasm for the candles. I think we all agree on that. But, but are. Do you. Because I've always said this, the real news is what people are talking about in the green room of the news network. Not the sort of performative news that you see, you know, Being delivered every night. That's where the truth is.

[John Favreau]

Yeah, I mean, I think on the Democratic side.

Look, I try to keep. My whole goal is to narrow the gap between the on mic conversations and the off mic conversations. But honestly, on the Democratic side, the conversation is like, what are we? We don't have anyone for 2028. What are we gonna do? Really? Like, no one, like, people can. This is why I'm trying to be honest about this. People can tell you that they're really impressed with one candidate or the other, or they think this one's gonna win or this one has a chance. But it's like, it's. It's either something that you say in public to not piss everyone off, or it's something you tell yourself to make yourself feel better. And, like, you sort of get to the point where you're like, yeah, I could get on board with this one. I could maybe get on board this. This could work.

[Jon Stewart]

So when Democrats say, I'm so impressed by our deep bench, they're completely lying.

[John Favreau]

I think either to themselves or to other people. I, you know, I am, I will say I am not impressed with a deep bench.

[Tim Miller]

Some people are definitely lying to themselves, I guess. I had a Democratic, very prominent Democratic strategist. I don't embarrass him, but he gave me the deep bench thing just a month ago. And I was like, what are you talking about? Are you serious? I was like, is this a bit? And he's like, no. So some of them have convinced themselves.

[John Favreau]

It'S a big bench. There's a lot of people on it.

[Tim Miller]

And by the way, Trump could fuck everything up so bad. That doesn't matter.

[John Favreau]

Yeah.

[Jon Stewart]

Do you have a sense of. With the Republicans, like, when Marjorie Taylor Greene comes out now, nobody tells the truth until they decide not to run anymore. And even then, people are a little bit reticent. So when they talk about that, you know, we can all relate it to kind of the emperor's new clothes. Like, is anyone ever going to say it when it still means something that the emperor has no clothes? Or are we, are we really sentenced to this sort of backroom conversation that is the real conversation? Like, I would love to know, and I know, Tim, you recently had a spot with Scott Jennings, but like, I would love to know in his quiet moments when, when the Demogorgons visit at night, like, what he really thinks about all this shit. Because certainly, like Dan Bongino recently now, as the FBI deputy director said, oh, all that conspiracy shit. Well, I was being paid.

[John Favreau]

Yeah.

[Jon Stewart]

I was being paid to lie to you and stir up discontent and trouble and. And all kinds of other incredibly negative emotions to undercut the authority of the United States government. But now that I'm in it, I just want to let you know, like, we're all good.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I guess I'll just. Look, these guys don't talk to me as much as they did the first term, you'll be surprised to know. So I have, like a somewhat limited vantage point.

[Jon Stewart]

Right.

[Tim Miller]

Our boy Scott Jennings, I think he's. I think he's Vonneguted himself. I think he's become the person he pretended to be. So I don't know that he has quiet moments, to be honest. Maybe he does, but I don't know. I think that what you're seeing, though.

Where you can kind of get a little peek into what's happening is in the frustration from the House of Representatives members. It wasn't just mtg. Nancy Mace has spoken out about this recently. Elise Stefanik's running away, running for governor. A bunch of people retiring. There's just another one from Texas today. And they all say, they're all saying the same things. We're not doing anything. I don't feel like we're accomplishing anything. And.

They can't blame the person whose responsibility it is.

[Jon Stewart]

But what is it that Nancy Mason, Elise Stefanik thought they were going to accomplish? They seem like just bomb throwers. I mean, at least Stefanik is a pretend. Like, I think underneath all that is probably someone much more sober. But, like, what exactly is Nancy Mace frustrated about not accomplishing?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, it's a great question. Look, I think part of it was when things were going well. I think that they were happy to do what you just said. Right. It's like, oh, hey, look, we are gonna drink liberal tears and go on Air Force One and go to the parties at the White House and we're winners, so it doesn't matter. But I think what's revealing about it is that Trump's poor political standing means it's not as fun anymore. And so they do wanna be able to say, oh, hey, you know, whatever, whatever it is. Like, the Epstein thing was a real break for them, you know, on a variety of other issues. They want to be able to go home and say to people, we're doing. I am like, trying to deliver something for you economically. And instead they're not doing anything.

[Jon Stewart]

John, do you find Democrats, like, during the Biden cycle, did you find a very similar thing where all of a sudden some Democrats were Like, you don't understand, because I didn't see much of that. You know, none of them were. Very few people were coming out and going like, yeah, I'm not sure this guy's up for a reelection campaign.

[John Favreau]

Yeah, look, there was anyone who was close to the White House was even privately spinning the same shit that you would hear in public with like maybe taking it down a few notches. But like, he's, he's tired, he has his days, but he's good. You know, I was in a meeting with the other day, he was so smart.

[Jon Stewart]

He.

[John Favreau]

And it was, it's, yeah, it's, it's very like, you know, participation trophy kind of thing. It's like he stayed.

[Jon Stewart]

Sounds like a parent teacher conference. You can't. Let me show you a picture. This, he drew this.

[John Favreau]

Remember Jill Biden after that debate when she came out on stage and was like, joe, you answered all the questions and like everyone.

[Tim Miller]

Why are we doing this?

[John Favreau]

I know, I can't.

[Tim Miller]

You're traumatizing me.

[Jon Stewart]

Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

[John Favreau]

But anyway, yeah, no, so you didn't. But, but people who weren't close to the White House. Yeah, that was the same thing. Look, this happened, but this was, this goes Back to like 2016, if people who weren't close to the Clinton campaign were like, oh, Hillary, not a great candidate, but like, you know what? Donald Trump is so bad that she's obviously has to win and we just got to, we just got to get her there. And I just, I cannot, I cannot go into another presidential cycle where it's like, you know, the person isn't the best, but like, they got to be better than J.D. vance. And I think we can just get him there. I think we can. It's just to Compare him to J.D. vance and we'll get him there.

[Jon Stewart]

You want something affirmative.

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Speaking of J.D. vance, let's, let's pivot for a second because Donald Trump will. He's 79 years old. As much as he threatens the, you know, we're gonna change the constitution or there's a lot of things we're looking at that talk is quieted somewhat based on, on popularity. And certainly JD Vance would be seen as, as most vice presidents are the, the person that's going to inherit this. But I think most people look at J.D. vance and go, doesn't have the magic. Like Donald Trump gets away with. There's a certain antibiotic resistant kind of.

Being to, to Donald Trump. Shit doesn't stick to him. He's able to get away with saying the most horrible shit and it doesn't seem to affect that dude doesn't have it and Rubio doesn't have it. So they're going to be back to, okay, now we're stuck with Pat Buchanan platform, but without Trump's ability to somehow put gold leaf on it and make people not see it.

[Tim Miller]

I'm with you on that hobby. Look, I don't. Maybe we can compete on this and have some sort of competition. I don't know that there's anybody that has more disdain for J.D. vance and me. Like, I find him utterly contemptible. I'm up there like literally, if you ask me, like names.

[Jon Stewart]

You guys really do agree on everything.

[Tim Miller]

Somebody in public life, your entire life that you like less than JD Vance and it's literally like mass murder. You know what I mean, Epstein? You know what I mean? Like, it's hard to find.

[John Favreau]

I think Stephen Miller's up there for Steven Miller.

[Tim Miller]

Okay, so I hate Vance more. So anyway, with that big wind up.

He'S a learner. He's a learner. I think it's a little bit of Hopium. Yeah, he's a shapeshifter and he's good at it. I think about him on Theo Vaughan's podcast, the manosphere guy from here in Louisiana. And he did fine, actually. I mean, it wasn't my cup of tea, but they did some cocaine jokes. He seemed kind of. He didn't seem scary. And I could see how he could kind of learn how to adapt and appeal in a way that's better than he is now.

[Jon Stewart]

But he would have to soften the. You know, Stephen Miller is only able to be there because Donald Trump dilutes the poison.

[Tim Miller]

Sure.

[John Favreau]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

Right. That's true.

[Jon Stewart]

They may not. There may be no difference or distance between what they actually believe, but you can't feed that. I truly believe this. I'm not one of those people who believes that America, at its heart, I think this nativist era we're living through is antithetical to our actual country's spirit. And being like, I really do. I don't think people dig this. And Miller's poison has to be filtered. And Trump is the perfect vessel to be able to do that. You take that away. And when people get a real taste of this shit.

I don't know, maybe I'm being naive.

[John Favreau]

No, I think there's some truth to that, but I don't think I will agree with Tim. Again, I don't know that Vance. I think Vance is. He's definitely not as good as a vessel as Donald Trump for Stephen Miller's bullshit, but he can code switch in a different way than Donald Trump, which is he has been part of the elite circles in media and the never Trumper worlds that we all have been swimming in for the last decade. And so he, like, think about him against Tim Walls in that debate. Like, that was a nicer, more respectful J.D. vance. And the way he makes the argument for nativism is not as, let's say, exciting as Donald Trump, but it is more cohesive and intellectualized in a way that is targeted to people who, like, when, you know, when he talks about. There was this quote he was trying to explain himself the other day where he's like, you know, should you really. What's wrong with not wanting your neighbors to speak English? So you can. If you go over for a cup of sugar, you know, you can ask them in English and when they don't speak English, like, that's okay that they don't speak English, but really, do you want a whole town like that of people who don't speak your language? Right. You know, and it's like, he's like, I don't. I think it's bullshit. I laugh at it. But, like, I think he is more adept at speaking to sort of the nativist strains in Americans than we might think. And I worry about that because that. That coalition after Trump is going to be more ideological.

[Jon Stewart]

That's what I mean.

[John Favreau]

This is more personalistic right now, because it's all about Trump. This, the post Trump coalition will be more ideological, more dangerous, I think, in many ways. And so. But maybe more. Maybe politically weaker.

[Jon Stewart]

But Tucker would embody that much more cleanly than J.D. vance. He would be much more like that.

[John Favreau]

And he's more entertaining. He's like, more. He's more genuinely. I can't believe I'm saying this, but funnier than J.D. vance. Like, J.D. vance does have a stiffness to him that. That. Yeah, I don't think Tucker has.

[Tim Miller]

Tucker might be believing his own bullshit now, though. I was a little more scared of Tucker a year or two ago, but I think Tucker might have seriously had a psychotic break at some level. Donald Trump knows it's an act. Right? Like, remember, he made fun of. Of Mike Pence for being too religious. And, like, he makes fun of Stephen Miller being like, I don't know if we'd want what this guy. We don't want to know what's in his head.

[Jon Stewart]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

And Tucker might, I think, have had an actual psychotic break.

[Jon Stewart]

It may. He may now be along. I tell you the moment for me. And, you know, I've been a fan.

[John Favreau]

Of his long time.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Jon Stewart]

For a long time. For me, you know, my. My break, obviously, with subscribing to Carlson.com or whatever it is that they do. There was when he said he was attacked by a demon and scratched, and I was like, that's weird. And then he told the story. He's like, so I'm asleep with my four hunting dogs, and I wake up with four scratches, you know, because I was fighting a demon. And I'm like, look, I'm not. Obviously, I don't want to be like, Occam's Razor here, but, you know, there is a possibility. I have dogs. I sleep with them, and I do wake up occasionally with markings. My first thought isn't demon, it's Toby.

Toby, what did you do, Toby? Why would you scratch me?

[Tim Miller]

Maybe. Maybe that shows you're out of touch. Maybe the d. Maybe you should be thinking of demon John.

[Jon Stewart]

No, I. I think the problem that he'll have is, again, there's a shape. There's too much of a shapeshifter element. The whole thing about Trump was authenticity. You know, if. If your career was, I'm the bow tie Wearing Buckley and now you're. I'm the Marlboro man who fights off demons. Like that's a hard pill for Americans, I think to swallow.

[John Favreau]

Yeah, but we don't have long memories.

[Jon Stewart]

I'm going to throw one out there for you. There's only one person within that coalition who has that sort of magic that Trump has and the kind of like I don't give a fuck devotion and that's rfk. He's the only one that possesses that and I would think can do the most pull ups out of any of those motherfuckers.

[John Favreau]

Too weird.

[Tim Miller]

The voice.

[Jon Stewart]

Voice I'll give you. I think that might, I don't think too weird. I think that's part of the mythology that gives him his. It's like saying like Donald Trump never would have been. I mean look at his house. He shits in a gold toilet. Nobody's going to buy that.

[John Favreau]

But he, but the problem with Trump that we missed is it was like, oh, he's too offensive, he's too offensive. No one is going to do that. It's RFK's problem is not that he's too offensive. It's like the whale carcass and the, and the, all that.

[Jon Stewart]

I think, I think you're falling for sort of and, and you're falling for monology rather than like that's become the butt of a joke. Like oh, he's got a worm in his brain and a bear carcass. And I, I don't think that is.

[Tim Miller]

In anyway, he's going to be 75. Are we ever going to have a candidate again? It's not a thousand years old.

[John Favreau]

And the other thing is he can't be, he can't be outsider shaking up the system anymore. And like if you're a weirdo but like you're going to go in there and you're going to, you're going to shake some things up. Like he's going to have run HHS for four years and he'll have a, he'll have a record.

[Jon Stewart]

But his people don't view him as weirdo. What I'm trying to say is his people view him as a like heroic Hercules standing against the tides of institutions that are designed to kill Americans. Like there's a mythology around that guy that none of the other ones have.

[John Favreau]

Yeah, but like, but he'll have to answer for. Did you, did you do anything to those institutions over the last four years? Did you save us?

[Jon Stewart]

Will he do, does anyone have to answer for anything anymore? Isn't that the lesson of the Trump administration.

[Tim Miller]

No, no, no.

[John Favreau]

The lesson is that once you're, when you're out of power, it's easy to just throw rocks at the institutions, but once you're in power, then people get pissed at you and then they throw you out and they put someone else in.

[Tim Miller]

I'm intrigued.

[John Favreau]

That's the only thing I would say.

[Jon Stewart]

No, no, no, I'm intrigued.

[Tim Miller]

I think Bobby versus Stewart, under his breath.

[Jon Stewart]

Let me hear, Let me hear more.

[Tim Miller]

I'm intrigued. I think Bobby versus Stewart, he wants to do it, obviously. I think if you'd read the Olivia Nitze book, like she said. I mean, she's very honest about that.

[John Favreau]

Did you guys see yesterday? Cheryl says no. Cheryl says he's not running in 2028, no matter what.

[Jon Stewart]

And Cheryl, she's been very predictive.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, she doesn't need to be running the show.

[Jon Stewart]

She. He's never gonna. I mean, endorsing Trump, that's a bridge too far.

[John Favreau]

And then he'd never stray from our marriage.

[Tim Miller]

The voice, though, is really, I think.

[Jon Stewart]

The saving grace that may, that may be a political reality for Americans. That, that, that make it, that make it harder in, in your. Let's sort of try and, and wrap up. Is the way to change.

The results we're getting from our government. Do we have to change the incentive structure around what wins? Because the thing I noticed in Washington is it runs on a different currency than what its purported kind of ideal is. It's sort of like the Washington Post. Remember the Washington Post put up on their masthead democracy dies in Darkness, you know? But meanwhile, in the Washington Post boardroom, they had a list of articles and how many clicks it got, you know, and they were running on a different currency. It feels like the political system and the media, which I sort of likened to America's immune system. Right. If those two things are corrupted, and I think they are.

We don't get the results that build a healthier environment. Do we need to change the incentive structures.

On media, on social media, on governance? They're not rewarded down there in the same way that you think they are. Does that sound fair to you guys?

[John Favreau]

I think that, yes, I think you do need to change the incentive structures, for sure. But then the question is, how do you change the incentive structures? And I think the way to change, or the best chance of changing the incentive structures is to have someone who wins, who doesn't follow those incentive structures and proves to everyone else that you can run a different way. And when this is the. You're going back to. Obama wins, Donald Trump wins. And they won based on campaigns that people would have guessed before they ran would not have been successful. And so I do think it still comes back to. In my opinion, you need a person willing to, like a leader, willing to sort of go outside the box and sort of swim against those tides and show people see all this stuff that you think you need to win is actually bullshit. And you can win by doing, you know, something different.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, look, Trump has revealed that, like, this structural, you know, architecture of our government and society is a lot weaker than we thought it was. Right. And so I'm totally with you.

[Jon Stewart]

I am pointing and thumbs upping Tim right now for those of you who.

[John Favreau]

Great.

[Tim Miller]

And I think that a successful candidate potentially in the future would run on a just total reform of how to do things and really not just kind of a marginal change. And in ways that would make people uncomfortable. In ways it probably makes me uncomfortable. I think that's probably right. The thing that I struggle with on this, though, John, is I go a little bit back and forth. I think that's obviously true if you look at Trump. The other thing, though, I think that's obviously true. That's in conflict with that, is that our society has went through so many worse Times than the 2016-2024. Just putting Trump aside.

People'S experience floating through, like, you know, except for the pandemic.

[Jon Stewart]

I think that's probably. The pandemic had. Had historical echoes to it in a way that most things don't.

[Tim Miller]

It did for sure. But, you know, I mean, look, we went through, like, look at how black folks were treated throughout the entire history of the country through the Civil Rights Act. They didn't, like, turn to, you know, their stupidest, you know, like, I guess. I guess stupid, authoritarian, like, black nationalist to try to overthrow the government. I just, like, two weeks of wearing.

[Jon Stewart]

A mask in Massachusetts and guys stormed it with assault rifles.

[Tim Miller]

Right, Exactly.

[Jon Stewart]

I'm sure black people are like, oh.

[Tim Miller]

And so to me, you think about that. It's like something else is happening too. Right. It's like, yeah, people are struggling. I don't want to try to minimize anybody's struggles. I just mean, like, looking at a historical lens, like, what we're going through now does not seem to match, like, the level of rage and the political reaction to what people are going through. And why is that? And, like, the phone is really the answer to that, I think. And so then, like, how do you deal with that? Is that fixable? Is that not Fixable. Is that a generational thing where it's, our kids will be able to manage that better than we are? I don't know the answer to that, but that to me is the other element of this.

[Jon Stewart]

Now, I've said that I think for a while, which is the catastrophizing that occurs when you live online, because that, the incentive structure of social media and all those things is to, you know, the weaponization. Like, again, I hate to go back to the Bongino thing, but like, he basically said it like, my job was to make you feel like shit is completely falling apart and we are in an existential crisis. Now my job is to try and hold things together so I can tell you what's actually going on. And it's actually not that bad. And you almost, you know, it's. It's that part of it, right? It's like so, oopsie, oopsie, poopsie. But AI is going to make that worse. And what have we done to that? Rather than, again, show the government as maybe the only powerful enough check against that power, we've invited them into the hen house.

[John Favreau]

Yeah. And I don't think anyone is speaking thoughtfully about AI and how we're going to handle it on the Democratic side at all like that. Even the social media stuff, to some extent, we're now fighting the last war on that because people are moving, you know, even off social media towards their chatbots, who they're going to be friends with. And. But, like, the way we, I mean, we talk about this, like, is it really the phones? But it's the way humans interact with one another. Right. And if the way that we interact with each other, get information from each other, debate with each other has fundamentally shifted, then of course our politics is going to change dramatically. And I think that if AI continues to push us further, you know, it could divide us further, it could make us lonelier, it could make us, you know, we have these chat bots that are obsequious and they're going to just flatter us the whole time and tell us everything we want to hear.

[Jon Stewart]

Or drive vulnerable kids to suicide. I mean, literally drive them to suicide.

[John Favreau]

Yep. And. And what are we going to do? We're just going to. We're charging ahead so that, like, the 10 people that run these companies can become, like trillionaires and not just billionaires.

[Tim Miller]

Maybe we'll have a benevolent AI president. That's what Sam Altman said. The AI is going to pull everyone, see what everybody wants, and then do what everybody Wants problem solved, what the hell are we needed for?

[Jon Stewart]

And none of that will ever get weaponized by the Mercers to try and figure out. Exactly. That's the problem. All these technologies are being weaponized. I think it used to be. I used to think like, oh, it's going to be. It used to be like communism versus capitalism or democracy or, you know, those various things. Then I thought it was woke versus unwoke. That was going to be the new schism. I actually think Trump's onto something different, which is the sort of stable world order that we had that was based on kind of shared liberal or democratic values he does not in any way value. He thinks that's for pussies. His mindset seems to be the five Families. Russia is the Gambinos. We got China over there is, you know, whoever that family is. And, you know, and we're going to divide up turf.

[John Favreau]

Yeah, it's very. It's very great powers.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, we're North Jersey.

[Jon Stewart]

It's, you know what it is? It's, you know, if you ever watched Thomas Shelby and, you know, do you remember that show Peaky Blinders had a theory of power called Big Small.

And. And that's what strikes me as. So I think this next election, what we're really going to be fighting over is, is the world order going to be the five families dividing up the spoils, or are we going to try and go back to a more stable, liberal thing? But I don't think that can be the explicit battle.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Jon Stewart]

The Democrats can't make this about, we don't want to go to a spoil system. We want to go back to. They've got to address real people's concerns. Is that sound fair to you guys again?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[John Favreau]

I mean, what they are selling, what's behind that sort of five Families style of leadership is it's zero sum politics. Right. And it's domestic as well. This is Trump's view, which is.

If you win, someone else loses, and so it's might makes right, and it's survival of the fittest. And that's why I like the people with power and I like the people with wealth. And everyone else is a sucker. And so we're not losers.

[Jon Stewart]

We're the hottest country in the world.

[John Favreau]

We're not losers. If you're the right person and you have enough strength and you have enough power, then you can get whatever you want and take whatever you want and everyone else fend for themselves. And that's why I respect Putin. That's why I respect Xi and I respect all these people who, you know, who are, who are tough.

[Jon Stewart]

He only respects people that don't have to face elections or real elections.

[John Favreau]

And I think that the argument we have to make is that this is not like politics isn't zero sum. That there is. That there can be winners and winners, and that, like, we can grow the economy in a way that benefits everyone. We can have a government that benefits everyone, that we actually do believe.

[Jon Stewart]

But that can't be the argument. The argument has to be explicitly like, child care doesn't work, health care doesn't work, education doesn't work, and here are the ways that we have to do.

[John Favreau]

It and we have to actually deliver.

[Tim Miller]

Well, yeah, And I would just say, look, the spoils system. My argument to them against it is more is less, that he pitched you that the spoils was going to come to you. That was the point of the spoils system. And that these liberal democratic pussies, as John put it, cared more about what was happening in the Netherlands and Rwanda. And I don't, I want the spoil system to help you, but we saw what happens to the spoil system. Actually, the spoil system helped Trump. The spoils were for Trump and his family and their crypto money. And we need an alternative vision to that. What is the counter vision to that? That is not like the League of Nations. You know what I mean? Like, people don't care about that stuff. I do.

[John Favreau]

Which is why the corruption message comes in in addition to what you're saying, John, which is like, yes, childcare, healthcare, all the things people want, but you have to talk to people about why they're not getting it and haven't been getting it. And Trump is giving a perfect example of that right now.

[Jon Stewart]

The difficulty with the corruption message is in the nuance of it.

[John Favreau]

Yes.

[Jon Stewart]

Because I think Tim said it earlier, which I thought was a really great point, which is Trump has found the ways to do this. He's made the corruption that we all suspected were in our society explicit. But it's a hard argument to make. You know, you look at 1789 capital, or you look at, you know, Jared Kushner is now going to finance the buying of CNN and hand it to the president so that he can kill it in front of us or, or.

[Tim Miller]

Hand it to the Qataris and the.

[Jon Stewart]

Saudis or give it to the Saudis. You know, Donald Trump Jr. Is suddenly now the head of a drone company or on the board that has like a half a billion dollar contract. The problem is Hunter Biden was on the board of Burisma. And you may say, oh, but that the order of magnitude is different. And you're right, but it speaks to the same thing, that proximity to privilege is what matters. It's how kleptocracies and those things work. And so I think if the Democrats try and make it again, a moral corruption argument, there's enough whiffs and notes and heady hints of Teapot Dome and Tammany hall in their backgrounds that it's a hard argument to me.

[John Favreau]

But that's why you don't. The message can't be, they're corrupt and we're not. So elect us because we're better and.

[Jon Stewart]

Trust us, but that is always what they do.

[John Favreau]

I know, I know, I know.

[Jon Stewart]

Weird moral black and white.

[John Favreau]

But back to what we were saying earlier. That's why you need an actual reform agenda. Like, I am willing to change the institutions. I'm willing to change the incentive structure. I'm willing to get money out of politics.

[Jon Stewart]

A new deal for against corruption. A new deal to tap into inequality occurs because we value capital and not labor. There's got to be a way to tap. Tim is. Tim is a socialist now. I see it on his face. He is so excited about this new plan.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, you can definitely sell me on just painful levels of taxation for the. For the AI CEOs. You know, like, you get. You could get, like, I will. I will flank Elizabeth Warren on the left.

[Jon Stewart]

But you can't. Here's when you can't sell taxation, Tim, because the Democrats haven't proven that people will get value for that extra money. The message of we need to get rid of the filibuster or we need to tax billionaires means nothing if nobody ties it to fair value. They have to be more remedial than that. They have to step back forward. Now, you can frame it two different ways. You know, the first thing is, the first commercial Democrats should run is Trump said he was for you. He said Democrats are for they them and he's for you. And that works if you're Ghislaine Maxwell. If you're the Cutterys, if you're like that should be. Every ad is showing who you is.

[John Favreau]

Yep.

[Jon Stewart]

But on the Democratic side, if they can't prove that taxpayers get value for their dollar, they are fucked no matter what they think of.

[John Favreau]

See, this is where we're becoming more centrist, John. We're moving towards. Tim.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Jon Stewart]

Wait, what?

[Tim Miller]

Exactly what just happened? Yeah. No more wealth. The abundant reform. Okay. We're going to have Sugar, we're going to have.

Socialism and welfare reform and cutting red tape so we can build things for one.

[Jon Stewart]

We can do that. But value doesn't mean not, because, first of all, it's not welfare. It's not an entitlement. It's an investment. If we invest in oil companies to go drilling somewhere, how the fuck can you not invest in human beings getting enough food and getting enough shelter to be their best selves? These are investments. That's value.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, you got me.

[Jon Stewart]

All right, I think we're done here.

[Tim Miller]

Almost.

Gentlemen, I need to see the White paper still.

[Jon Stewart]

You're probably right. Any moment from this year that you would like to highlight on your. On your way out to go to your respective media empires, anything that strikes you.

[Tim Miller]

The one that. For me, that was both, because I think it represents the year, which is simultaneously. It's like the dark comedy. Like, it's really, like, heartbreakingly horrible, but also just clownish. Was when Terry Moran was interviewing Trump in the Oval Office, and I was asking about Kilmar Abrego Garcia and Trump's team to prove that Kilmar Brego Garcia was Ms. 13, had done the Ms. Paint. The font, it was like Arial 12 font that they put on top of his hands. And it says Ms. 13.

[Jon Stewart]

Yes.

[Tim Miller]

And Trump says to Terry Marin, he's like, what? You're crazy. Like, Obviously, he was Ms. 13. That said it on his fingers. And Terry's like, that was Photoshop. And he's like, no, it wasn't. And then Terry's like, I guess we're gonna have to agree to disagree. And Trump won't let it go. Like, Terry's trying to let him off the hook. And Trump's like, give me the picture.

That was it for me.

[Jon Stewart]

That's a beautiful one, John.

[John Favreau]

It's funny. I was gonna do. I was gonna do well. Kilmer, Brego Garcia. This was a little darker. But I mean, the fact that the. When I knew that, like, this was much darker than even I had expected. The fact that the United States government in court admitted that they mistakenly sent someone to a torture chamber, and then their response to that was not, bring him back. It wasn't even, okay, we'll get him out of there and send him somewhere else. It's. We're now going to ruin this guy's life and make this a big cause on our side, that we are going to punish this guy no matter what, just because. And that is how they dealt with the whole deportation regime since then. And it is a. They are Delighting in violence and wanting us to know that they delight in the violence and the abuse.

[Jon Stewart]

Right.

[John Favreau]

And I think it's that, that sadism.

[Tim Miller]

The memes.

[John Favreau]

Yeah, the memes and how they try to make it like a joke, but funny. Like the desensitizing people to violence and abuse and sort of dehumanizing people is I think the sort of the underlying. Like the real poison of the last year and something that's going to take a lot more to get out of the system than just a few better policies.

[Jon Stewart]

That's so interesting. And it is, it's the dehumanization as a virtue.

[John Favreau]

Yes.

[Jon Stewart]

The idea that that is the virtuous way and it really is. It's. They make a virtue of the ignorance, of a lack of discernment. And the thing that I think always comes to you is we're not actually safer when our government can't tell the difference between Ms. 13 and an 18 year old valedictorian who's lived here from Honduras since she was 7 but got the same treatment and sent to some facility in Louisiana. That's the thing that I think maybe also has to be brought to bear to the American people is our ignorance doesn't make us safer. It doesn't make us America first. That discernment is the first quality you need in. In building a better state of understanding individuals and not groups. Gentlemen, I so appreciate you taking the time. I know you guys are. Are awful busy. Tim Miller from the Bulwark and John Favreau from Pod Save America and obviously you will be consolidated when the Ellison's buy you. And I think that's. By the way, I think it's a great move on their part.

[Tim Miller]

We're not selling.

[Jon Stewart]

That was for the moment for me, and this is probably selfish, is when Donald Trump is like I'll choose who gets Warner Brothers and you're like, is that where we are? Like literally the president?

[John Favreau]

Make me another Rush hour. I want rush hour 4, 5 and 6.

[Jon Stewart]

I want rush hours and you can have it guys. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful Christmas holiday, Hanukkah, New Year's and I look forward to seeing all the good stuff you do in the next year.

[John Favreau]

You too, John. Thank you.

[Jon Stewart]

Thanks guys.

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[Brittany Mamedovic]

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[Tim Miller]

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[Jon Stewart]

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[Brittany Mamedovic]

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[Jon Stewart]

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I'll be honest with you, they seemed like worn down at first. I think they, they, they, they started to gather that, that vigor again to go back into battle. But they definitely. I had a feeling of like, it's fucking December.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

Yes.

[Jon Stewart]

And I want to buy presents for my family and my friends. But like, this is an incessant grinding.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

This year has felt a million years long as you said at the top. But you also weren't introducing such fun ideas like RFK is going to inherit the ear.

[Jon Stewart]

Now you're saying that it. Actually, I was not in any way bringing optimism. And, and I mean, maybe you tried.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

You are the problem. I definitely didn't leave the conversation feeling optimistic, but I wouldn't expect that for a conversation recapping 2025. Yeah, look at our outfits. We all spontaneously wore black.

[Jon Stewart]

Oh, God.

[Tim Miller]

I didn't even.

[Jon Stewart]

I didn't recognize that. Can I say maybe I'm insane, but I remain optimistic. I, I honestly think the despicable nature of this administration is the effect that it's having on those two. That, that is not the effect that it has on political operatives. That is the effect that it has on human beings that don't want to live in this acid based. This is not like it's a. It's Mars. We don't want to have to wear spacesuits to breathe freely amongst our people.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

Yeah. People are sick of the shit, I think.

[Jon Stewart]

Sick of this shit. And they're starting to realize he's the band leader. Trump is the band leader of this shit. Optimism.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

There you go. We did it.

[Jon Stewart]

Jillian's so not buying this, by the way.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

No, I really, I, I think that you're right and I want it to be true as much as I think it's true. All right, well, for real optimism, we'll have a new mayor in the new year.

[Jon Stewart]

And listen, man. Which presents opportunity like we haven't had in a very long time. And each one of the thing, these moments presents opportunity to get some fresh water into this brackish cesspool that we've been swimming in and we'll get out of it. And it's the end of the year, obviously. We want to give our listeners a chance to pop in a couple of questions there, Brittany. What. What do we got from.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

All right. They are versatile kids, so here we go.

[Jon Stewart]

They are versatile. This is our last podcast of the year, by the way. That's why I'm talking like that.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

All right, John, in your opinion, what is the best and worst thing that Trump did this year?

[Jon Stewart]

Oh, God. Best and worst?

[Brittany Mamedovic]

Yes, sir.

[Jon Stewart]

I mean.

Holy.

[Tim Miller]

Really?

[Jon Stewart]

I mean, obviously, like, for me, the worst thing is it's creating clouds of humanity that are not individuals. They're just a patina generally shaded that he feels are inferior to.

To his. You know, I think he truly believes in those kind of hierarchies.

[John Favreau]

And.

[Jon Stewart]

And he believes that his people are at the top of the hierarchy. And, you know, take this for however you think it, but that the. The lower castes are disposable. They're not individuals. They're not particularly on the same level of humanity that he is on. There is no individuality. A Somali doctor has nothing against a Swedish petty Larsonist. Like, a Somali doctor is worse because he's in that cloud and therefore can be treated in the manner that his administration is. Is treating him. And. And that's by far, I think, the worst thing. It's not an individual thing that he's doing.

The best thing he did was accept a trophy from the World cup that literally looks like zombies reaching out of the grave to tickle the underside of his balls.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

He also banned. Didn't he ban paper straws? So, I mean. Oh, did he do that for granted?

[Jon Stewart]

All right, what's next? Hopefully this one will perk us up a little bit.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

I doubt it.

[Tim Miller]

Oh, boy.

[Jon Stewart]

End of year, people are hurting, man.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

We'll get there. John. Trump has stated that he believes it's seditious, perhaps even treasonous, for the press to report on his health care, to comment on his health.

[Jon Stewart]

First of all, I think he's doing great, health wise. He looks great, I have found. And again, I'm obviously not like an orthopedist, but I found that the thicker the ankle, the better the balance. That is that famous saying, and that's for old people. Falling is really. But if you get those. If your ankles are tree trunks, you can't get knocked over, you can't break the hip, and that's generally the beginning of the downward slide. So I would suggest that that in and of itself would give you confidence that this may be the healthiest, most robust president that we've ever had in the history of the United States of America.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

Ankle circumference alone, yeah, but.

[Jon Stewart]

But it once again gets to the point of, for Donald Trump, the level of fealty can never rise to a level that is satisfactory. Him. There is no level of ass kissing that you can do. I mean, when you watch his, you know, everything is seditious that falls beneath the level of my God, sir, thank you for not allowing too many hurricanes to hit the United States as Kristi Noem did in that stupid cabinet meeting that they had. He, he is angry at Fox News, which is literally like a 24 hour a day ball washing machine for Trump and is designed specifically to keep him in power. So for him to say something is seditious and treasonous means nothing. Because the bar of entry to Donald Trump is purely about how deeply you are proving your undying loyalty to the King. Anything below that obviously is, is seditious and none of us measure up, unfortunately.

[Tim Miller]

Sad.

[Jon Stewart]

It is sad. And I, and I hate it because, you know, it's so hard to be a billionaire president.

[John Favreau]

I know.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

I mean, I don't know, but for sure.

[Jon Stewart]

But you can imagine money corrupts and power corrupts and to have all the money and all the power, it's, it's like if Lord of the Rings ended where you know they're going to drop the ring into the fire and then instead of hitting the fire, he catches it.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

Spoiler.

[Jon Stewart]

Think, think of how hard that is on someone. Yeah, we don't feel bad enough for him.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

That's why he's so sleepy.

[Jon Stewart]

That's right. That's right. All right, what's next?

[Brittany Mamedovic]

All right, next. Do you think it's possible for Trump and Jimmy Kimmel to end their feud or is it too far gone at this point?

[Jon Stewart]

First of all, Jimmy Kimmel might be the most generous, kind hearted individual that I have met in my entire life. He is someone, he, he doesn't even sleep like he spent in the middle of the night. He will just sit and google, like, ideas for what the best thoughtful gift might be for you that he could send to you in a moment when you're feeling low. Like, that dude is all heart, like all of it. Like, he is always. He is a naturally generous, gregarious.

[Tim Miller]

Warm.

[Jon Stewart]

Individual that people are drawn to and he is drawn to people. He is. I wish I could be more like him. I am a kind of introvert, loner type personality that, like, I love people over there. He brings them in, into an embrace in a manner. So if anybody could do.

Would be him. He is the antithesis of everything that that guy stands for and he has been and his family has been put to the ringer for no apparent reason. Donald Trump could say nobody. You know, everybody's Mean to me. And you're like. Because you're the fucking president and you have an army and nuclear weapons.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

Yeah. It's kind of part of the job.

[Jon Stewart]

Right?

[Brittany Mamedovic]

And he's also mean, so.

[Jon Stewart]

Yeah. But you've. You've drawn fire on him and his family because he said shit about you you didn't like.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

Tough shit, you know, Learn to take a fucking joke.

[Jon Stewart]

Boom.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

I would love a president that could take a joke and stay awake through a meeting. Two things, like, I don't ask for a lot.

[Jon Stewart]

When. When was the last time this country had that? I think it might have been Eisenhower.

I just. I just hate that he's honestly, like, one of the best human individuals underneath the. The scenes, behind the scenes, whatever, that you will ever see in your entire life. Colbert, too, by the way. I. I'm very fortunate that those people in my life who understand my eccentricity, but also warmly embrace me at the same time. I'm very lucky to have folks like that in my life. Absolutely.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

Something to be grateful for in the holiday season.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

This is a good, optimistic note, Brittany.

[Jon Stewart]

You just put a bow on that. Well done.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

Thank you so much.

[Jon Stewart]

Yeah.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

Last but not least, John, do you think Christmas should be more about Santa Claus or the baby Jesus?

[Jon Stewart]

Oh, God. This is not in my jurisdiction. I don't know. Well, I've got some explaining to do to the people at home. I don't know if you can tell by, let's say, my face, but I would be more comfortable answering any question about Fiddler on the Roof.

I can give you the ins and outs of the show, Yentl, but as. As far as this, I'm assuming that Christmas has. I mean, other than the birth of Jesus being the tent post, the. The. The rest of it doesn't appear to be about that in any way, shape, or form. Am I. You guys might know better than me.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

It's giving presents. Yeah. It should be more about Santa.

[Jon Stewart]

Yeah.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

Why not?

[Jon Stewart]

Like, I don't. I don't ever go, like, on November 19th. Oh, my God. The Jesus commercials are starting so early this year. Like, it doesn't seem to have a whole lot to do with that. But I will tell you this, as someone who never experienced it when I was younger, when my kids were younger and they still believed in all that. It was the most fun holiday I have ever experienced when they still believed in magic.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

Yeah.

[Jon Stewart]

Like, Brittany, do you recall when you believed, like, did your family?

[Brittany Mamedovic]

Very much so.

[Jon Stewart]

It's kind of magical.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

Yes. My mom. Actually, one of my favorite memories is I was 11 years old, and my mom sat me down, and she goes, you know, Santa? And I said, yeah. She goes, well, it's me.

She wanted the credit.

[Jon Stewart]

And I was like, that's awesome.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

Devastated. I love that.

[Jon Stewart]

Yeah, we didn't. It, like, it was one of those things that, like, we were always talking about, like, when are they gonna figure this out? Cause we knew it wasn't gonna come from us. It. They would be like. So Katie told me.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

Yes, Katie.

[Jon Stewart]

And it is your entree into the world of lies. Like, it is your. And then your entire worldview is like, wait a minute, there's no Santa. And I think the president might be corrupt. Like, you. The. The jump from there and the way that you parent your kids up to that point, and then after that point is like, before that, it's all a certain, like, magical morality tale. You know, it's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice. Sharing is caring. Like, it's all that. And, like, as soon as that other thing hits, it's a lot of, like, there's fentanyl and cocaine. Remember that. Like.

Everything changes very quickly. All right, well, this is our last podcast of the year, as we said. We're back January 14th, so it's a nice, long, beautiful, and you guys have. Have earned it in the new year. Obviously, we're publishing podcasts on Wednesday instead of Thursday. That's just something that you can lie down there. And this end of the year is a nice time to remind everybody that all the work that is done on this podcast that hopefully you find yourself enjoying is done by the people that I'm talking to now or that you are not seeing. But they are behind the scenes, and they put in the diligent work that allows me to feel prepared and ready to talk to anybody, and I mean anybody. They're throwing me the creators of AI and Political Pundits and all these other things. And I just. I love it. I love being able to just talk to people that I find interesting and fascinating and pick their brains and learn. There is nothing better in this entire world than learning something you didn't know yesterday. And it's just something I really appreciate, and I really appreciate you guys for obviously doing the hard work that allows me to do those sorts of things. Brittany, how do they get a hold of us?

[Brittany Mamedovic]

Twitter. We are weekly show pod. Instagram threads. TikTok, Blue Sky. We are weekly show podcasts, and you can, like, subscribe and comment on our YouTube channel, the weekly show with Jon.

[Jon Stewart]

Stewart, our lead producer. Is Lauren Walker, producer Brittany Mamedovic, producer Gillian Spear, video editor and engineer Rob Votolo, who has to sit back there when I see a bee and go, oh, that's going to suck.

Audio editor and engineer Nicole Boyce, who also has to deal with that. Rob actually more has to deal with just how much of the Knicks picture I'm going to show and how pale I'm going to look. Nicole is the one actually who has the turn down. I guess it's the gain. I don't really know what it is when I shriek.

[Brittany Mamedovic]

Very good.

[Jon Stewart]

Like a scared girl. And our executive producers, Chris McShane and Katie Gray, who keep the whole ship running. Thank you guys so much for all of it and thank you guys for in any way listening or watching this. We really do appreciate your support and we will see you guys next year. Bye Bye.

The weekly show with Jon Stewart is a Comedy Central podcast. It's produced by Paramount Audio and Busboy Productions.

[Tim Miller]

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[Jon Stewart]

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[John Favreau]

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