Latest / Politix / Emergency Debate Pod: Tear Down This Walz

Transcript

Emergency Debate Pod: Tear Down This Walz · Politix

0:00
SPEAKER_00: That was a great opportunity for Walls to be like, what's happening here?
0:04
SPEAKER_00: This is a vice presidential debate.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm running against Donald Trump's second running mate because he tried to have his
0:10
SPEAKER_00: first running mate murdered.
0:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
0:17
SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to the Politics Podcast.
0:19
SPEAKER_01: I'm Brian Boitler.
0:20
SPEAKER_01: I'm Matthew Glacius.
0:22
SPEAKER_01: It's another free special emergency podcast.
0:25
SPEAKER_01: episode of politics because it's now just a minutes after the vice presidential
0:30
SPEAKER_01: candidates debate ended between JD Vance and Tim walls.
0:35
SPEAKER_01: And I think we have to pretend like this is really important and it definitely mattered a lot.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: And like the race has changed different, different world.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: This is really the kind of thing where like halfway through this debate, I was thinking to myself,
0:52
SPEAKER_00: If this was four years ago,
0:54
SPEAKER_00: eight years ago,
0:55
SPEAKER_00: 12 years ago,
0:56
SPEAKER_00: when I had a job,
0:58
SPEAKER_00: I would be kind of annoyed at my boss for making me cover this.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: Because we think back through the annals of history,
1:05
SPEAKER_00: and there has never been a vice presidential debate that mattered.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: There's one vice presidential debate ever that was memorable, and it was Lloyd Benson.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: And then they went on to lose, right?
1:17
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, but right.
1:19
SPEAKER_00: But like,
1:19
SPEAKER_00: the fact that there's only one VP debate that anybody ever remembers,
1:23
SPEAKER_00: and they only remember one line from it,
1:25
SPEAKER_00: and the guy who did the great zinger lost.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's a sobering reminder that this is probably not...
1:33
SPEAKER_00: That's significant.
1:34
SPEAKER_01: I do want to say,
1:35
SPEAKER_01: though,
1:36
SPEAKER_01: that the reason you remember the one line from the one debate a million years ago
1:41
SPEAKER_01: is that virality was a different thing then.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: It happened on TV, and unless you were VHS recording it, that was the only time anyone saw it.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: And so something had to be really memorable as a gaffe or as a zinger.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:54
SPEAKER_01: to get into people's brains.
1:57
SPEAKER_01: But now for the last couple of elections, three election cycles at least, it's a little different.
2:03
SPEAKER_01: A VP debate doesn't necessarily matter, but they're a forum for creating those kinds of moments.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: And I think there were two or three from this one that I don't think that they're
2:13
SPEAKER_01: going to alter the fairly steady dynamics of the race,
2:18
SPEAKER_01: but they are going to resonate.
2:21
SPEAKER_01: People will see them.
2:23
SPEAKER_01: Well, okay.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: I was going to go in a different direction with this,
2:25
SPEAKER_00: which is that,
2:26
SPEAKER_00: you know,
2:28
SPEAKER_00: the Benson-Quayle debate,
2:32
SPEAKER_00: right,
2:32
SPEAKER_00: was a limiting case in how little these things matter for the elections,
2:38
SPEAKER_00: but vice presidents do matter.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: Like, VP selections matter for the future of politics, right?
2:45
SPEAKER_00: And so that debate mattered in part because it set the tone for the idea that, like,
2:51
SPEAKER_00: that Dan Quayle was a joke.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: And Dan Quayle never again played a significant role in American politics.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: After the 1992 election, nobody was like, oh, Quayle, he might be on the rise in 96.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: J.D.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: Vance is a young guy.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, if Trump wins, he's going to have a big future in Republican politics.
3:17
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he could easily become president because Biden's... Trump's very old.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: Trump's 80.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, also, even if Trump loses, Vance is still going to be around.
3:27
SPEAKER_00: And the question of what kind of future does he hold is very much a live one.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: And he spent a good deal of the campaign since his selection seeming like a real...
3:42
SPEAKER_00: You know,
3:42
SPEAKER_00: like a VP selection was causing problems for the top of the ticket when the guy on
3:48
SPEAKER_00: the top of the ticket was like already like disastrous loose cannon.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: And I think,
3:55
SPEAKER_00: you know,
3:55
SPEAKER_00: tonight at the debate,
3:58
SPEAKER_00: I don't think Vance,
3:59
SPEAKER_00: I don't think Vance like did anything to meaningfully alter the election.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: But I think he did a fair amount to look to Republicans like,
4:09
SPEAKER_00: oh,
4:09
SPEAKER_00: no,
4:09
SPEAKER_00: like this guy was better than Trump.
4:11
SPEAKER_00: You know, like, he was up there.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: He delivered good talking points.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: He didn't say any crazy stuff about cat ladies.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, he was, like, solid conservative.
4:21
SPEAKER_00: He pivoted to immigration, delivered his attack lines, and, like...
4:27
SPEAKER_00: So I think he built up his standing.
4:30
SPEAKER_00: And then Walls,
4:31
SPEAKER_00: conversely,
4:32
SPEAKER_00: I think that,
4:33
SPEAKER_00: as politics listeners will remember,
4:35
SPEAKER_00: I've always been a little jaundiced about this Walls pick.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: But there was a great deal of enthusiasm for Tim Walls in certain circles leading
4:45
SPEAKER_00: up to his selection and following his selection.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: And I think that in that kind of liberal...
4:54
SPEAKER_00: waltz hype zone he kind of he didn't deliver any great zingers he didn't have like
5:00
SPEAKER_00: he he originally went like viral for the like they're weird kind of thing and he
5:08
SPEAKER_00: didn't he didn't deliver that he didn't really like i mean i this is more your bag
5:13
SPEAKER_00: than mine but like he didn't really like
5:16
SPEAKER_00: Stick it to him, I thought, you know, until the very end.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: But,
5:20
SPEAKER_00: like,
5:20
SPEAKER_00: they meandered through a healthcare debate,
5:24
SPEAKER_00: which is,
5:24
SPEAKER_00: like,
5:25
SPEAKER_00: supposed to be Democrats' signature kind of issue.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: And he didn't, like...
5:32
SPEAKER_00: you know,
5:32
SPEAKER_00: he said some good lines and was up there,
5:34
SPEAKER_00: but it was like a very like low energy sort of exchange of ideas.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: You could imagine two frontline house members,
5:44
SPEAKER_00: you know,
5:44
SPEAKER_00: or like,
5:44
SPEAKER_00: like candidates for,
5:46
SPEAKER_00: you know,
5:47
SPEAKER_00: like a race in the suburbs of Oregon somewhere having this,
5:50
SPEAKER_00: this kind of debate.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: And yeah,
5:53
SPEAKER_00: For Vance,
5:54
SPEAKER_00: whose reputation heading into it was very low,
5:56
SPEAKER_00: I think that,
5:57
SPEAKER_00: like,
5:57
SPEAKER_00: pulls him up to mediocrity.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: And to Walls,
6:00
SPEAKER_00: who I think,
6:00
SPEAKER_00: like,
6:00
SPEAKER_00: people had gotten really excited about,
6:02
SPEAKER_00: it,
6:02
SPEAKER_00: like,
6:03
SPEAKER_00: drags him down to mediocrity.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: The two of them just, like, had this, I think, like, pretty boring debate.
6:09
SPEAKER_01: It was mostly pretty boring.
6:10
SPEAKER_01: I read the dynamics a little differently about how we ended up with the debate that we got.
6:15
SPEAKER_01: And to try to, like, weave the two...
6:22
SPEAKER_01: strategies and candidates behind them together.
6:27
SPEAKER_01: Walls is clearly just like much jitterier in a adversarial debate than he is in an
6:36
SPEAKER_01: interview on TV when he's auditioning to be Harris' VP,
6:40
SPEAKER_01: right?
6:40
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
6:42
SPEAKER_01: He also,
6:43
SPEAKER_01: I think rightly,
6:45
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
6:47
SPEAKER_01: the stuff he said before he even got picked about these guys were weird and then
6:51
SPEAKER_01: the cat lady stuff came out and like,
6:53
SPEAKER_01: and came out and,
6:56
SPEAKER_01: like confirmed his criticism of MAGA World.
7:01
SPEAKER_01: But since he's been the VP, like the...
7:06
SPEAKER_01: They are not—Harris and Waltz are not focused generally on trying to tear down J.D.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: Vance, right?
7:14
SPEAKER_01: Like, the internet is doing that for them.
7:17
SPEAKER_01: Like, the crazy things that J.D.
7:19
SPEAKER_01: Vance says and does, his weird associations, are making him super unpopular on their own.
7:24
SPEAKER_01: And they are, I think rightly, focused on Trump much more than Vance, where—
7:31
SPEAKER_01: Where for the Republicans, it's been the opposite.
7:33
SPEAKER_01: Like for most of the campaign,
7:35
SPEAKER_01: they've been trying to do to Tim Walz what kind of naturally happened to Vance and
7:41
SPEAKER_01: just like make him unpopular,
7:42
SPEAKER_01: try to swift boat him and all this stuff.
7:44
SPEAKER_01: And so now they meet at the debate and like that's all out the window.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: Like Vance didn't.
7:57
SPEAKER_01: as I kind of expected he would,
8:00
SPEAKER_01: try to bring up all these attack lines against Tim Walz about whether he was a
8:05
SPEAKER_01: command sergeant major or whether he said he was in war versus serving during war
8:10
SPEAKER_01: or whatever.
8:11
SPEAKER_01: None of that came up.
8:12
SPEAKER_01: He,
8:13
SPEAKER_01: I guess,
8:14
SPEAKER_01: got the memo that your job here is to mostly go after Kamala Harris,
8:18
SPEAKER_01: but also rehabilitate yourself
8:20
SPEAKER_01: because too many people think that you're a psycho to be the vice president.
8:25
SPEAKER_01: And so in his polished way, he kind of accomplished that.
8:33
SPEAKER_01: I think Tim Walz's strategy was to not get sucked into politics
8:41
SPEAKER_01: like reaffirming that he thinks J.D.
8:43
SPEAKER_01: Vance is weird and keep turning the conversation to all the things about Trump that are bad.
8:49
SPEAKER_01: So you ended up with this kind of more collegial than I expected debate.
8:55
SPEAKER_01: And I found that frustrating as I was watching it because for the strategy Walls
9:00
SPEAKER_01: picked and because I think that he's just like –
9:03
SPEAKER_01: just a little bit jittery.
9:04
SPEAKER_01: Like he can't, he can't, it's not like the way Joe Biden can't articulate what he's thinking.
9:09
SPEAKER_01: It's just like nerves.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: Right.
9:11
SPEAKER_01: There were,
9:11
SPEAKER_01: there were,
9:12
SPEAKER_01: I thought like opportunities for him to stick it to Trump and Vance about a variety
9:19
SPEAKER_01: of things that for the first 90 minutes,
9:20
SPEAKER_01: he just like,
9:22
SPEAKER_01: like let pass,
9:22
SPEAKER_01: like,
9:23
SPEAKER_01: like Vance would return to this idea that there was all this prosperity under Trump
9:27
SPEAKER_01: and wages going up and blah,
9:29
SPEAKER_01: blah,
9:29
SPEAKER_01: blah.
9:29
SPEAKER_01: And like, at no point did,
9:31
SPEAKER_01: Tim Walz think to say hundreds of thousands of Americans died and then Donald Trump
9:38
SPEAKER_01: incited an insurrection.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: Like that's how great things were, right?
9:42
SPEAKER_00: So, yes, but I want to be a little meaner about that, but yes, go for it.
9:46
SPEAKER_01: Okay, but, and this is admittedly me kind of looking for a silver lining.
9:51
SPEAKER_01: We'll get to this in a second.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: I think Walls won the debate insofar as I think that the moments that will last
9:57
SPEAKER_01: came from stuff that he said or stuff that J.D.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: Vance said in response to him was that at the end,
10:05
SPEAKER_01: He turns to Vance and he says, did Donald Trump win or lose the election?
10:10
SPEAKER_01: And Vance won't answer it because the third thing on Vance's mind, right, is like rehabilitate myself.
10:15
SPEAKER_01: Don't seem weird.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: Don't go after Tim Walls too much because I'm running against Kamala Harris ultimately.
10:20
SPEAKER_01: But also don't piss off Donald Trump.
10:23
SPEAKER_01: It was like that third one.
10:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure in his heart he knows Trump lost the election, but he wouldn't say it.
10:28
SPEAKER_01: And that allowed...
10:31
SPEAKER_01: walls to say,
10:32
SPEAKER_01: look,
10:33
SPEAKER_01: we've had this very substantive debate,
10:36
SPEAKER_01: and we disagree on some issues and agree on others,
10:38
SPEAKER_01: and that's how this should go.
10:39
SPEAKER_01: But what he just said right there is a really troubling non-answer.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: And that's the moment that I think is going to...
10:47
SPEAKER_01: to outlive any of the other commentary about the debate.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: It's the one thing that you can clip from the whole two hours that is both damning to Vance and to Trump.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: And it's a reminder of why he's unfit for office.
11:02
SPEAKER_01: And in a way, the fact that he missed more opportunities to stick the knife in Vance made that...
11:10
SPEAKER_01: a little bit more effective because it stood out as the one time he's like,
11:13
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying this is the one time I have to stop and say that what he,
11:17
SPEAKER_01: what he just said was really troubling.
11:18
SPEAKER_01: And I think it will help, you know, get the, the, um, get, uh, this thing going viral.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we'll see what happens.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: I,
11:28
SPEAKER_00: I,
11:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm of two minds about the merits of Walt's having like his best moment from the
11:35
SPEAKER_00: debate be at the very end.
11:37
SPEAKER_00: Right.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: Cause you know, if it's, um,
11:41
SPEAKER_00: if it's a sports, right, you know, you close out strong, like that's good, you win the game.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm a little bit concerned that,
11:48
SPEAKER_00: you know,
11:48
SPEAKER_00: everyone will have written in their notebook after the first hour that like Waltz
11:54
SPEAKER_00: was kind of struggling a little bit and then just typed up half their story by the
11:59
SPEAKER_00: time they got to the
12:01
SPEAKER_00: But that's why we've got to listen to politics and not subscribe to New York Times.
12:04
SPEAKER_01: Because we waited until it was over.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: We know the newspapers stopped.
12:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying, I don't know.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: But the whole time, you know, I'm grading in my notebook, right?
12:13
SPEAKER_00: Because this campaign,
12:15
SPEAKER_00: I think,
12:16
SPEAKER_00: has a very predictable rhythm to it,
12:18
SPEAKER_00: which is when you're talking about immigration or you're talking about inflation or
12:22
SPEAKER_00: you're talking about national security,
12:24
SPEAKER_00: the Republicans have the advantage.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: And when you're talking about abortion,
12:28
SPEAKER_00: you're talking about healthcare,
12:29
SPEAKER_00: and you're talking about January 6th,
12:31
SPEAKER_00: the Democrats have the advantage,
12:33
SPEAKER_00: right?
12:34
SPEAKER_00: And Walls, like Harris in her debate with Trump,
12:40
SPEAKER_00: displayed a very good i could tell she was annoying people by how much she was
12:46
SPEAKER_00: repeating her core talking points but she was doing a really good job of seeing
12:53
SPEAKER_00: what was going on in terms of who was asking questions and what was trump saying
12:56
SPEAKER_00: and like bringing it back to her beats and
13:01
SPEAKER_00: Walls was terrible at that.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: They did 41 minutes of debate without Tim Walls mentioning abortion.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: The first time Walls mentioned abortion was because he got directly asked a
13:15
SPEAKER_00: question about it by the moderator.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: They went an hour and 45 minutes before Walls mentioned January 6th.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: You know, Walls didn't mention health care until he directly got a question about health care.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: The question he got about health care was like about ACA repeal.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: So that's what he talked about.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: The whole debate, Walls didn't mention Social Security.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: He didn't mention the prescription drug pricing in Medicare.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: And he just, it struck me.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: No, he did.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: He did.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: He mentioned prescription drugs.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: All right.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: You got that wrong.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: Fact check.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean, again, not as like, oh my God, you know, this is like the end of the campaign.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: But as we are,
13:59
SPEAKER_00: you know,
14:00
SPEAKER_00: if you're scouting talent for the future,
14:04
SPEAKER_00: I felt like he was just not displaying the level of like heads up acuity that I...
14:14
SPEAKER_00: you know, want to see here.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: He was, he was like plotting through these assignments.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm going to answer the question that you asked me, Madam Anchor.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: You know, like he got asked this question about China.
14:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: And like something he said about China and he then delivered some incomparable response.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: And it was like,
14:36
SPEAKER_00: you just like,
14:36
SPEAKER_00: you have all this time to talk and like get in some of your good talking points.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: Like that was an awkward question for him, but like that's life, you know?
14:44
SPEAKER_00: And it was just for a guy who I think people fell in love with based on the idea
14:53
SPEAKER_00: that he had gone on CNN and like really stuck the knife in onto Trump advance.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: It was like,
15:00
SPEAKER_00: you know, like what, what happened?
15:02
SPEAKER_00: I guess it's like,
15:03
SPEAKER_00: it's like you,
15:03
SPEAKER_00: if you like,
15:04
SPEAKER_01: if you want walls to be everything that people like about him,
15:07
SPEAKER_01: plus a very good debater,
15:08
SPEAKER_01: then yeah,
15:09
SPEAKER_01: it's like,
15:10
SPEAKER_01: uh,
15:11
SPEAKER_01: a disappointment.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: I was wondering leading up to the debate,
15:14
SPEAKER_01: um,
15:15
SPEAKER_01: because early after he was,
15:18
SPEAKER_01: um,
15:19
SPEAKER_01: uh,
15:19
SPEAKER_01: picked after Harris picked him as her running mate,
15:22
SPEAKER_01: um,
15:24
SPEAKER_01: cnn reported that in their interview he said like my weakness is i'm not a good
15:28
SPEAKER_01: debater yeah and i thought that that was like an interesting thing to leak like
15:32
SPEAKER_01: maybe he said it maybe didn't but is it really true or is that that just something
15:35
SPEAKER_01: that yeah yeah the campaign wants out there to lower expectations in a you know in
15:40
SPEAKER_01: a beneficial way and i think that like it did lower expectations but rightly so
15:43
SPEAKER_01: he's like not a good debater sure on the i don't know healthcare thing like
15:49
SPEAKER_01: He did mention the $35 insulin and the 10 drugs that Medicare can now negotiate.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: He did not use that as an opportunity to point out that J.D.
16:04
SPEAKER_01: Vance is going around the United States lying and saying that actually Donald Trump did.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: that.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: Right.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: And I was going to say, you know, Harris, I mean, we talked about this after the Harris debate, right?
16:12
SPEAKER_00: Like I thought one of the best things that she did was at the front of the debate,
16:17
SPEAKER_00: I think before Trump had ever said anything,
16:21
SPEAKER_00: she was like,
16:21
SPEAKER_00: Donald Trump is going to lie a lot.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: He is a liar.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: So that then she rebutted some of the specific lies he did.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: She referred in general terms to the idea of him lying a lot.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: Um,
16:35
SPEAKER_00: But one of her themes was that Trump is a liar.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: I think Walz never established the...
16:44
SPEAKER_00: I think that if you came to this debate with no prior knowledge of either of these candidates,
16:50
SPEAKER_00: you would come out of the debate with some really false impressions about J.D.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: Vance's policy views.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: And whether he's honest.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: How intelligent he is.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Vance tried really hard to portray himself as a thoughtful,
17:09
SPEAKER_00: moderate person on a range of public policy topics.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: So he said, we're for clean air and clean water.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: We're not as invested in the climate issue as Trump is.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: But if you do care about the climate issue,
17:23
SPEAKER_00: you should boost American manufacturing,
17:25
SPEAKER_00: et cetera,
17:25
SPEAKER_00: et cetera.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: Walsh didn't come back with like,
17:28
SPEAKER_00: when Donald Trump was president,
17:30
SPEAKER_00: he rolled back 37 clean air rules,
17:32
SPEAKER_00: 48 clean water rules.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: He let agribusiness companies dump a neurotoxin into the water that the American
17:42
SPEAKER_00: Academy of Pediatrics has poisoned children's brains.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: The Obama administration was moving to ban that.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: The Trump administration stopped them.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: The Biden-Harris administration has done it.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: On family leave,
17:54
SPEAKER_00: on healthcare,
17:55
SPEAKER_00: they got into it a little bit,
17:56
SPEAKER_00: but Vance kept really indicating that it was practically like Susan Collins up there,
18:08
SPEAKER_00: that we need to regain people's trust on women's rights,
18:14
SPEAKER_00: et cetera.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: Vance Walsh rather debated with him
18:20
SPEAKER_00: But he never introduced the idea that these guys are just huge liars.
18:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, that like they tried to take Medicaid away from millions of people.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: They blocked family leave.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: They blocked IVF bills.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: They put the judges on.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, that like this whole thing is BS.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: And like it was frustrating to me to watch.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: Because he's not incapacitated Joe Biden.
18:56
SPEAKER_01: I was like,
18:58
SPEAKER_01: Tim Walls,
18:59
SPEAKER_01: if he's the sort of person I think he is,
19:00
SPEAKER_01: is going to spend the night or wake up in the morning feeling that wit of the
19:04
SPEAKER_01: staircase feeling,
19:05
SPEAKER_01: that there are a lot of things he could have said and done to make his points more
19:09
SPEAKER_01: sharply or to give the lie to the version of J.D.
19:12
SPEAKER_01: Vance that was presenting himself that night.
19:15
SPEAKER_01: But it's not like he missed every opportunity.
19:19
SPEAKER_01: He did bring up that J.D.
19:23
SPEAKER_01: Vance had opposed...
19:26
SPEAKER_01: abortion in the case of rape he's like two wrongs don't make a right and he could
19:29
SPEAKER_01: have brought out like uh the sharper line that like jd vance said like rape is
19:33
SPEAKER_01: inconvenient but you know he in the moment forgot i also kind of got the impression
19:38
SPEAKER_01: watching that part of what he was trained to do in debate prep was just like don't
19:44
SPEAKER_01: rock the boat you don't need to clobber this guy you just need to get out without
19:47
SPEAKER_01: you know without causing any damage and like to that i'm
19:51
SPEAKER_01: And if that is, in fact, how they prepped him, I think he accomplished it.
19:55
SPEAKER_01: Through the sort of staccato of the way he made his points,
20:05
SPEAKER_01: you could tell he is fluent enough in policy that if he becomes president one day,
20:10
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to be like,
20:11
SPEAKER_01: that guy doesn't know anything.
20:12
SPEAKER_01: The one time I felt like he was...
20:16
SPEAKER_01: You know, it was both a fairly good moment.
20:18
SPEAKER_01: Also,
20:19
SPEAKER_01: like maybe he doesn't know that the Supreme Court throughout or that Congress
20:23
SPEAKER_01: repealed the individual mandate.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: out of the ACA, and it's just like the law has worked despite there not being a mandate.
20:29
SPEAKER_01: But he was able to articulate why J.D.
20:32
SPEAKER_01: Vance's and apparently Trump's idea of letting healthy young people buy
20:38
SPEAKER_01: cheap-as-shit insurance outside of the ACA pools is going to make old and sick
20:43
SPEAKER_01: people's insurance much more expensive,
20:45
SPEAKER_01: which is like,
20:46
SPEAKER_01: that's the thing people need to...
20:48
SPEAKER_00: I agree.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: It was not bad.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: It was just not super polished.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: I just think...
20:55
SPEAKER_00: That's like, when he got a question about healthcare, you know, like he did fine.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: When he got a question about abortion, he did great.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: When at the end, the conversation finally pivoted to January 6th, he had his best time of the debate.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: But it's like...
21:13
SPEAKER_00: When they opened with the national security question,
21:15
SPEAKER_00: it was like,
21:17
SPEAKER_00: you know,
21:18
SPEAKER_00: governor brain kind of stuff.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't know what he's doing.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: You know, on immigration, housing.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: I just felt like he was not being very adept up there.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: I agree.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: And it's sort of not- And yet, I think he won.
21:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we'll see.
21:37
SPEAKER_00: You know, it-
21:40
SPEAKER_00: But he reminded me,
21:42
SPEAKER_00: the debate performance reminded me of the decision to pick him in the first place,
21:47
SPEAKER_00: which is that it's just all struck me as a kind of,
21:54
SPEAKER_00: like a prevent defense kind of thing.
21:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you look at Kamala Harris and her like 55% odds of winning the election...
22:05
SPEAKER_00: And you read that as like, she's winning.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: Don't rock the boat.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: Like, Walls is doing it, you know?
22:12
SPEAKER_00: But I'm nervous at 55%.
22:16
SPEAKER_00: You know, I want to put points on the board.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: I want to make gains.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: So, okay.
22:22
SPEAKER_01: So let's imagine a version of Tim Walls who showed up a lot like Kamala Harris,
22:26
SPEAKER_01: because this is something that I like wrote about,
22:28
SPEAKER_01: not a whole piece about it,
22:30
SPEAKER_01: but I included in something that I wrote this week that like,
22:34
SPEAKER_01: Vance is probably gonna come in,
22:36
SPEAKER_01: and this turned out to be wrong,
22:37
SPEAKER_01: with a mission to try to destroy Tim Walz on the stage and make him look like a liar,
22:42
SPEAKER_01: an extremist,
22:43
SPEAKER_01: and so he should start the way Harris did by saying,
22:44
SPEAKER_01: a lot of what you're about to hear over on this side of the stage is gonna be bullshit.
22:49
SPEAKER_01: Let's say he had come out like that and then made a big deal about the Cat Lady
22:54
SPEAKER_01: stuff and all the other things that you can bracket into weird,
22:58
SPEAKER_01: and a lot about,
22:59
SPEAKER_01: on the campaign trail,
23:00
SPEAKER_01: he calls Vance a robber baron,
23:03
SPEAKER_01: made a big point about his association with Peter Thiel and how Vance was bought
23:07
SPEAKER_01: and paid for and how he has all these extremist associations.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: Like,
23:11
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I would have found that personally satisfying and it's possible it
23:16
SPEAKER_01: would have worked better than what
23:18
SPEAKER_01: Walls did but if he came prepared to do that and the person who showed up to debate him was not the J.D.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: Vance that we know that describes but the J.D.
23:30
SPEAKER_01: Vance that actually showed up being like the generous like you know articulate
23:37
SPEAKER_01: young bloke, you know, right?
23:39
SPEAKER_01: Like in that context,
23:42
SPEAKER_01: I do wonder if it would have come off as like a bit hectoring and abusive and like
23:48
SPEAKER_01: not backfired exactly,
23:49
SPEAKER_01: but not persuaded anybody.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a tougher one.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to know.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: It would have been riskier.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: I actually think that Tim Walz probably couldn't have pulled it off.
24:02
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
24:02
SPEAKER_00: But I think that to pick a name, Pete Buttigieg,
24:08
SPEAKER_00: could have played a more aggressive strategy out there.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: Somebody who is quicker on his feet,
24:19
SPEAKER_00: faster with his tongue,
24:21
SPEAKER_00: to be like,
24:23
SPEAKER_00: these guys are really right wing.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: To be like,
24:26
SPEAKER_00: it's nice that standing up here next to me is somebody who,
24:32
SPEAKER_00: unlike Donald Trump,
24:33
SPEAKER_00: can speak coherently.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: And because he can speak coherently,
24:37
SPEAKER_00: he's going to do a much better job than Donald Trump did of lying to you.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: Like he's a much more convincing liar.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: And like that's unfortunate because like at the core of their agenda is tax cuts for billionaires.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: Millions of people lose their health insurance.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: Toxic waste in your drinking water.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: Social Security and Medicare go bankrupt.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: Abortion rights gone.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: You know, and like he did not.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: paint a picture, I thought, of the contemporary Republican Party as just like... really conservative.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: You know?
25:17
SPEAKER_00: It's like...
25:21
SPEAKER_00: Vance started talking about, oh, you know, we're going to leave it up to the states.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, abortion, I mean, this is like the Democrats' very, very best issue.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: So it was good exchange,
25:31
SPEAKER_00: you know,
25:31
SPEAKER_00: when I saw the dial tests and stuff on this and when Walls was like,
25:35
SPEAKER_00: it's a fundamental right.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: You know, people like that, right?
25:38
SPEAKER_00: But then he didn't go back to that at later points in the debate.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: Like, what's going on here?
25:44
SPEAKER_00: What's at stake here?
25:45
SPEAKER_00: What are we talking about here?
25:47
SPEAKER_00: I think you're showing your pro-Ivy League bias.
25:51
SPEAKER_01: I wish it had been the Yale guy and the Harvard guy.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm not saying...
25:55
SPEAKER_01: Having a sharper-witted debate.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: Well,
25:57
SPEAKER_00: this was the joke that I made in my subsect chat was that Walls was going to try to
26:02
SPEAKER_00: reverse education polarization.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: No, but that's the thing.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: Some of the Democrats, some Democrats are like well-meaning dimwits.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, that's okay for you too.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: You can be up there and like not really know that much or be that good at speaking,
26:18
SPEAKER_00: you know,
26:18
SPEAKER_00: and it's fine.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: And maybe that'll all work out.
26:22
SPEAKER_00: But...
26:24
SPEAKER_00: So what I worry about ever since Donald Trump came down the escalator in 2015 is
26:32
SPEAKER_00: just like a universe in which Democrats don't convey to people that like stuff
26:39
SPEAKER_00: happens in that just like all the normal shit that politics was about before Donald
26:46
SPEAKER_00: Trump continues to exist in the world.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: You know, that like
26:53
SPEAKER_00: Tons of people voted for Barack Obama twice,
26:57
SPEAKER_00: not because his opponent was Donald Trump,
27:01
SPEAKER_00: but because they didn't want Republicans to ruin the country.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: And Wallace seemed like such a nice Midwestern guy,
27:10
SPEAKER_00: like he wouldn't even mind if Republicans ruined the country.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: And,
27:14
SPEAKER_00: you know,
27:15
SPEAKER_00: like,
27:16
SPEAKER_00: it's bugging me because,
27:16
SPEAKER_00: again,
27:17
SPEAKER_00: part of what,
27:18
SPEAKER_00: like,
27:18
SPEAKER_00: the whole reason progressives liked Walls in the first place was that in Minnesota politics,
27:25
SPEAKER_00: he,
27:25
SPEAKER_00: like,
27:25
SPEAKER_00: won a legislative majority after not having one and passed these bills.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: And, like, those were important, presumably.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: You know, free school lunches, you know, all this good stuff.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to
27:40
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to see it.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: The ads.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: Do you see any of the ads on Ad Impact that the Democrats run?
27:48
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've seen many.
27:51
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what specific.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: They're so beautiful.
27:53
SPEAKER_00: There's a new one with this guy, Buddy.
27:56
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, I saw the Buddy.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: But that's future forward.
27:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, oh, man, Trump, he loves billionaires.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: Fuck that guy.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yeah.
28:05
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that was in the debate.
28:07
SPEAKER_01: It was part of Walls' presentation.
28:09
SPEAKER_01: I would have liked it if he was like, you're right.
28:12
SPEAKER_01: He was just like, I'm going to wait until I get a question.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm getting to play the Brian Boitler role here.
28:19
SPEAKER_01: As I watched it,
28:20
SPEAKER_01: I was filling in blanks either in my head or out loud to where Kelly thought that I
28:26
SPEAKER_01: was maybe a little crazy.
28:28
SPEAKER_01: Just like, ah, he should have said
28:30
SPEAKER_01: whatever, you know?
28:32
SPEAKER_01: And like, I would love it because I do think very highly of Tim Walls.
28:36
SPEAKER_01: If he also was like a killer on the debate stage.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: And it just turns out that he's not.
28:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:44
SPEAKER_01: I do want to, I just do want to run through why I think he won anyway.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: All right.
28:50
SPEAKER_01: And it's, I guess it's four reasons or something like that.
28:57
SPEAKER_01: It's,
28:58
SPEAKER_01: If you take each of the candidates' three worst moments,
29:01
SPEAKER_01: Vance's three worst are by far worse than Walz's.
29:07
SPEAKER_01: Um,
29:07
SPEAKER_01: and then the,
29:08
SPEAKER_01: uh,
29:08
SPEAKER_01: so in order,
29:09
SPEAKER_01: I think of like severity,
29:13
SPEAKER_01: increasing severity,
29:14
SPEAKER_01: uh,
29:15
SPEAKER_01: Vance claimed that he never supported a national abortion ban and that's just false.
29:18
SPEAKER_01: And there's documentary evidence of it.
29:21
SPEAKER_01: And the lie,
29:23
SPEAKER_01: while it was not called out by the moderators who were apparently like banned from
29:26
SPEAKER_01: fact checking,
29:28
SPEAKER_01: um,
29:29
SPEAKER_01: uh,
29:29
SPEAKER_01: and it wasn't corrected by Wallace himself,
29:31
SPEAKER_01: um,
29:32
SPEAKER_01: Democrats will take care of that.
29:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm pretty confident.
29:35
SPEAKER_01: The second one was that the one time the moderators did say anything that was
29:39
SPEAKER_01: slightly corrective of Vance on the Haitian immigrants in Springfield,
29:45
SPEAKER_01: Ohio,
29:46
SPEAKER_01: being there legally,
29:48
SPEAKER_01: Vance said,
29:49
SPEAKER_01: you broke the rule not to fact check me or whatever.
29:52
SPEAKER_01: I think that that clip is going to be pretty damaging.
29:56
SPEAKER_01: And then we already talked about
29:59
SPEAKER_01: Confronted by Walls,
30:00
SPEAKER_01: and this was Walls' best moment,
30:01
SPEAKER_01: to say,
30:02
SPEAKER_01: did your running mate win or lose the 2020 election?
30:06
SPEAKER_01: And Vance wouldn't answer.
30:07
SPEAKER_01: He deflected with something about Facebook censorship.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: It was really bad.
30:16
SPEAKER_01: And I am guessing that that is, like, Democrats' party number one is to get that out there.
30:24
SPEAKER_01: And then on the other side, like...
30:28
SPEAKER_01: Wall's head is embarrassing.
30:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I misspoke.
30:32
SPEAKER_01: I was in Hong Kong the summer of the democracy protest,
30:38
SPEAKER_01: but not Tiananmen,
30:39
SPEAKER_01: and I mixed it up or something like that.
30:42
SPEAKER_01: But he had this very discursive way of getting there.
30:46
SPEAKER_01: He said he seemed to support the idea of an individual mandate in the ACA because I
30:53
SPEAKER_01: think he thought that it's still part of the law.
30:56
SPEAKER_01: But when Vance tried to judo it, Walls caught himself and didn't defend the individual mandate.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: He said, I support the idea of the risk pools being broad enough to keep
31:09
SPEAKER_01: people's premiums in check.
31:12
SPEAKER_01: So that was fine.
31:15
SPEAKER_01: And then at one point he said,
31:17
SPEAKER_01: I've made friends with school shooters,
31:21
SPEAKER_01: when I think he meant to say,
31:23
SPEAKER_01: I've made friends with school shooting victims or something like that.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: And it was just like, it's not going to hurt him because...
31:29
SPEAKER_01: But like,
31:30
SPEAKER_01: if you're an asshole and you want to,
31:32
SPEAKER_01: you know,
31:34
SPEAKER_01: like just be a dick to somebody online,
31:37
SPEAKER_01: like I'm guessing that will circulate.
31:39
SPEAKER_01: And then,
31:39
SPEAKER_01: so,
31:39
SPEAKER_01: so I think that those are like the sort of three on each side that like,
31:43
SPEAKER_01: what,
31:44
SPEAKER_01: what,
31:44
SPEAKER_01: what is like the RNC research team or the Trump war room going to do with the stuff
31:49
SPEAKER_01: that walls said,
31:49
SPEAKER_01: and they don't have a ton to work with.
31:51
SPEAKER_01: Whereas like Democrats have three pretty good ones.
31:53
SPEAKER_01: So just like on that,
31:56
SPEAKER_01: stacking it up that way alone.
31:58
SPEAKER_01: I think Walls won despite being the worst formalist of the two.
32:02
SPEAKER_01: But then,
32:03
SPEAKER_01: I am not sure that being a good formalist is a huge advantage when the audience is
32:10
SPEAKER_01: 30 million Americans.
32:13
SPEAKER_01: I will be interested to see who the polls say,
32:15
SPEAKER_01: both the snap polls and the next day polls say won the debate,
32:20
SPEAKER_01: but I feel like Vance was...
32:25
SPEAKER_01: so polished as to maybe make some people be like, ooh, college boy thinks he's such a smarty pants.
32:32
SPEAKER_01: And Walls was more human.
32:35
SPEAKER_01: Part of what we find disappointing about his presentation will come across to other people
32:40
SPEAKER_01: as charming and plain spoken and normal.
32:44
SPEAKER_01: So I feel pretty strongly about the juxtaposition between the three worst moments.
32:49
SPEAKER_01: I'm not certain what the polls are going to say about who is basically
32:52
SPEAKER_01: quote-unquote more likable,
32:54
SPEAKER_01: but I think that there's a decent chance that Walls will win on that score too.
32:58
SPEAKER_01: So even though he didn't wow us pointy-headed...
33:01
SPEAKER_01: podcaster types who talk for a living.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: I think it was fine.
33:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to go to bed like, oh, fuck, did he really blow the election?
33:11
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, that kind of occurred to me, right?
33:13
SPEAKER_00: That there's a way of playing,
33:16
SPEAKER_00: you know,
33:16
SPEAKER_00: folksy small town school teacher,
33:19
SPEAKER_00: football coach against like the slick Yale law guy.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: But again, I think the problem there is that Walls never tried to make that subtext part of the
33:29
SPEAKER_00: Like,
33:30
SPEAKER_00: if their personas were reversed,
33:34
SPEAKER_00: right,
33:35
SPEAKER_00: the,
33:35
SPEAKER_00: like,
33:36
SPEAKER_00: slow-witted Midwestern Republican would be like,
33:39
SPEAKER_00: ah,
33:39
SPEAKER_00: this fancy elite lawyer,
33:41
SPEAKER_00: you know,
33:41
SPEAKER_00: who I'm up against,
33:42
SPEAKER_00: right?
33:42
SPEAKER_00: And, like, Walt's just, like, he says it on the stump, but, like, he didn't say in the debate that, like—
33:49
SPEAKER_00: J.D.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: Vance grew up in a small town in Ohio and then went to Yale Law School and became a
33:55
SPEAKER_00: venture capitalist on the West Coast where he met the biggest,
33:59
SPEAKER_00: richest,
33:59
SPEAKER_00: right-wing freaks in the universe and became their servant.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: And they parachuted him into an Ohio Senate seat in national politics.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: And his mission in life is to enrich Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: musk and like i congratulate them on having found such a bright young man to do
34:18
SPEAKER_00: this work for but it's like he just like he didn't say that stuff um yeah but so i
34:22
SPEAKER_00: i agree with you so i i'm scanning the headlines uh new york times uh very funny
34:29
SPEAKER_00: headline vance and walls argue over how to improve americans lives
34:35
SPEAKER_00: Um,
34:35
SPEAKER_00: but then,
34:36
SPEAKER_00: you know,
34:37
SPEAKER_00: but then like in,
34:38
SPEAKER_00: in one of their top bullet points,
34:41
SPEAKER_00: they say,
34:41
SPEAKER_00: Mr.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: Vance sought to downplay his running mate's role on January 6th attack.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: Mr. Walls was accused of revisionist history.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: So like,
34:47
SPEAKER_00: that's,
34:47
SPEAKER_00: that's the Boitler theory that like the single most memorable moment,
34:53
SPEAKER_00: uh,
34:53
SPEAKER_00: was that exchange at the end.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, Wall Street Journal, uh,
34:58
SPEAKER_00: says, Vance confident, comma, walls uneven in debate heavy on policy, which I also think is true.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: That is what happened.
35:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's true.
35:07
SPEAKER_01: I feel like it's like theater criticism more than it, but whatever.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: Politico said the slugfest was dot, dot, dot,
35:15
SPEAKER_00: midwestern nice uh which i think is sort of true jd vance and tim waltz had some
35:19
SPEAKER_00: real disagreements but the two were respectful even reserved on stage uh but they
35:24
SPEAKER_00: do have their top bullet point is vance refuses to admit that trump lost the 2020
35:28
SPEAKER_00: election i knew it i was right because that's what happened last and they kind of
35:32
SPEAKER_00: wrote this in um uh reverse chronological order so you know i i
35:39
SPEAKER_00: I think that's,
35:42
SPEAKER_00: you know,
35:42
SPEAKER_00: not an overwhelming sort of media tilt in Walz's favor,
35:47
SPEAKER_00: but supports your view of this.
35:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I do think these things will snowball.
35:52
SPEAKER_01: Like,
35:54
SPEAKER_01: if that moment,
35:55
SPEAKER_01: really,
35:55
SPEAKER_01: if Democrats are able to drive it home,
35:57
SPEAKER_01: like,
35:57
SPEAKER_01: wow,
35:57
SPEAKER_01: this guy can't be vice president after what,
36:00
SPEAKER_01: you know,
36:00
SPEAKER_01: that...
36:03
SPEAKER_01: Somebody can win a debate and then really like have been seen to knock it out of
36:06
SPEAKER_01: the park if two or three days later people are like,
36:09
SPEAKER_01: oh shit,
36:09
SPEAKER_01: he got that out of him.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: Well,
36:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
36:11
SPEAKER_00: I think the narrative unfolding is this was a mostly boring,
36:15
SPEAKER_00: mostly substantive debate in which Wall seemed more nervous.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: And the single most noteworthy thing that happened was J.D.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: Vance wouldn't say who won the 2020 election.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:27
SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that I said out loud on the couch while we were watching was
36:36
SPEAKER_01: that he's got to at some point make the observation that the only reason Trump's
36:42
SPEAKER_01: running mate is that Pence followed the Constitution and didn't try to overturn the
36:46
SPEAKER_01: 2020 election.
36:48
SPEAKER_01: And he just kept not doing it, kept not doing it.
36:50
SPEAKER_01: But then he did it.
36:51
SPEAKER_01: And it extended this moment.
36:53
SPEAKER_01: So you...
36:55
SPEAKER_00: I mean, yes.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: I just like, again, though, to like the whole strategy of this, right?
36:58
SPEAKER_00: Like it's a vice president.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, Walls got the very first question.
37:05
SPEAKER_00: And the first question was this like really like tough,
37:08
SPEAKER_00: no win for anybody question about Israel and Iran.
37:12
SPEAKER_00: And like when Vance got his chance to respond to Walls,
37:17
SPEAKER_00: he did exactly what you should do in that situation,
37:19
SPEAKER_00: which is like hard stop on ignoring the question.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: And like acknowledge the audience,
37:26
SPEAKER_00: acknowledge the American people,
37:28
SPEAKER_00: you know,
37:28
SPEAKER_00: just like do a little intro bit.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: And like, that was a great opportunity for Walls to be like, what's happening here?
37:35
SPEAKER_00: This is a vice presidential debate.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm running against Donald Trump's second running mate because he tried to have his
37:41
SPEAKER_00: first running mate murdered.
37:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: No, I agree.
37:44
SPEAKER_00: Look, I agree, I agree.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: I just feel like, guys, that's what this is, right?
37:49
SPEAKER_00: And then the moderators could be like,
37:51
SPEAKER_00: that wasn't the question,
37:52
SPEAKER_00: and be like,
37:53
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a pretty fundamental question.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: And just set the terms of the debate.
38:00
SPEAKER_01: Look, you know you're preaching to the choir here.
38:02
SPEAKER_01: I assembled the choir that thinks that this is a better way to do politics.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: I just want to get a little more mad.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't want to be too down on him, but just like...
38:15
SPEAKER_00: Because I still strongly feel that when you have popular governors of Pennsylvania
38:21
SPEAKER_00: and Michigan who you could have put on the ticket,
38:23
SPEAKER_00: that the idea of picking this other guy was to accomplish something,
38:27
SPEAKER_01: not to have him up there.
38:30
SPEAKER_01: But let's give Kamala Harris some credit, right?
38:34
SPEAKER_01: He told her,
38:35
SPEAKER_01: if the reporting is correct,
38:36
SPEAKER_01: and the reporting dates back to early August,
38:38
SPEAKER_01: so presumably it's true.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: No, I agree.
38:43
SPEAKER_01: I'm a bad debater.
38:44
SPEAKER_01: You should know that before you make a decision.
38:46
SPEAKER_01: Like, speak to all of him to admit that.
38:48
SPEAKER_01: And she is a very astute person who knows that Pete Buttigieg is an amazing public
38:54
SPEAKER_01: presenter and had pretty good reason,
38:57
SPEAKER_01: I think,
38:57
SPEAKER_01: to suspect that Josh Shapiro is also,
38:59
SPEAKER_01: like,
38:59
SPEAKER_01: no wilting violet as a debater.
39:01
SPEAKER_01: I'm not certain about that.
39:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but...
39:04
SPEAKER_01: But he's a good polished person.
39:07
SPEAKER_01: And she knew that Tim Walls was more like a gruff, Midwestern dad type.
39:13
SPEAKER_01: And she had all the information before her, and she still went with him.
39:16
SPEAKER_01: And I think that that was calculated.
39:20
SPEAKER_01: She says it was like a gut decision, but I think she...
39:25
SPEAKER_01: analyzing the totality of what a running mate and then a vice president should be,
39:30
SPEAKER_01: thought that he had a better mix of skills and complementarity to her,
39:35
SPEAKER_01: and so chose him in spite of knowing that he was probably not going to do great on
39:40
SPEAKER_01: the debate stage.
39:41
SPEAKER_01: And it would have been a mistake for her to be like,
39:43
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to make only one consideration,
39:44
SPEAKER_01: is who can beat J.D.
39:45
SPEAKER_01: Vance.
39:46
SPEAKER_01: It would have been poor management.
39:48
SPEAKER_00: I agree with that, that that would not be any way.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: we'll have to see what happens.
39:57
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to talk about you?
39:57
SPEAKER_01: I think that you had some beef with the moderators that I,
40:00
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
40:01
SPEAKER_00: I,
40:01
SPEAKER_01: I have some beef with CBS,
40:02
SPEAKER_01: but is that a,
40:03
SPEAKER_01: do you want to talk about it?
40:06
SPEAKER_00: I thought this whole thing was an interesting, you know, illustration of media dynamics.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: Like I felt like probably 75% of their questions just kind of like embedded sort of liberal assumptions.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: Um,
40:26
SPEAKER_00: And I felt like the childcare question was a great example of that,
40:29
SPEAKER_00: where they were basically like,
40:31
SPEAKER_00: liberal views of childcare are right,
40:33
SPEAKER_00: aren't they,
40:34
SPEAKER_00: Senator Vance?
40:36
SPEAKER_00: But then like,
40:38
SPEAKER_00: So, like, conservatives can be annoyed about that.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: But then the moderators didn't do anything.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: You know,
40:44
SPEAKER_00: there's no,
40:45
SPEAKER_00: like,
40:45
SPEAKER_00: actual tactical advantage to Tim Walz of setting up a debate where you ask a bunch
40:52
SPEAKER_00: of questions that have kind of liberal presuppositions,
40:56
SPEAKER_00: and then Vance,
40:57
SPEAKER_00: like,
40:58
SPEAKER_00: says stuff that's not true.
41:00
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, you kind of amble forward.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: And, you know...
41:06
SPEAKER_00: I don't really know exactly what to say about it,
41:08
SPEAKER_00: but I mean,
41:09
SPEAKER_00: I think it helps,
41:10
SPEAKER_00: um,
41:13
SPEAKER_00: in a way that situation makes it tougher for Democrats to,
41:19
SPEAKER_00: um,
41:20
SPEAKER_00: actually appeal to the center.
41:24
SPEAKER_00: One reason I want to see Harris do more press is I think it's in your interest as a
41:31
SPEAKER_00: politician to get hostile questions,
41:34
SPEAKER_00: to have somebody ask you,
41:36
SPEAKER_00: hasn't your open borders policy been responsible for the deaths of countless Americans?
41:41
SPEAKER_00: Because it then lets you explain why that's not true.
41:46
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
41:47
SPEAKER_00: If you don't get the questions, you can't answer the doubts that people have about you.
41:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's versions of really unfair questioning and things like that.
42:05
SPEAKER_00: But it wound up just always being Vance who introduced the idea that Kamala Harris
42:12
SPEAKER_00: was too soft on the border,
42:14
SPEAKER_00: that she's responsible for crime,
42:15
SPEAKER_00: et cetera,
42:16
SPEAKER_00: et cetera.
42:17
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know.
42:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just found the whole thing a little disappointing.
42:20
SPEAKER_00: We're not having any more debates.
42:21
SPEAKER_00: So, you know...
42:25
SPEAKER_00: We don't get to have it,
42:26
SPEAKER_00: but it's like,
42:27
SPEAKER_00: there's this conservative critique of the Biden-Harris record that is quite
42:33
SPEAKER_00: powerful and most people believe.
42:35
SPEAKER_00: And Kamala Harris needs to address parts of it and make people like her more.
42:41
SPEAKER_01: Well, I think she's doing a decent job at that, right?
42:44
SPEAKER_01: But I personally find the style of question that goes something like,
42:51
SPEAKER_01: either implicitly or explicitly,
42:53
SPEAKER_01: your most dishonest critics say X about you.
42:56
SPEAKER_01: Your response, right?
42:57
SPEAKER_01: Like,
42:57
SPEAKER_01: it's just...
42:59
SPEAKER_00: No,
42:59
SPEAKER_00: yes,
42:59
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
43:00
SPEAKER_00: I agree with...
43:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
43:01
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't put it that way,
43:03
SPEAKER_00: but like...
43:05
SPEAKER_01: But like,
43:05
SPEAKER_01: if they front-loaded it with like...
43:09
SPEAKER_01: Donald Trump says horribly dishonest, libel about you.
43:13
SPEAKER_01: What's your response?
43:13
SPEAKER_01: Or if they just say, didn't Harris's open borders policies cause a million fentanyl overdoses?
43:21
SPEAKER_01: It's not...
43:22
SPEAKER_01: Yes,
43:23
SPEAKER_01: you might be able to give a rip-roaring answer about it,
43:27
SPEAKER_01: but it's actually contrary to civic education.
43:35
SPEAKER_01: Even if you deliver the best possible answer to that, the question...
43:40
SPEAKER_01: presupposes the truth of the critique.
43:44
SPEAKER_00: No, no, but like this, like, you know, is Joe Biden responsible for inflation?
43:51
SPEAKER_00: Governor Walz.
43:54
SPEAKER_01: But that, see, to me, I feel like conservatives would be like,
43:59
SPEAKER_01: you know, they teed it up for him to pass the buck.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: Like it's, there's no way.
44:02
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
44:02
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
44:03
SPEAKER_00: no,
44:03
SPEAKER_00: I mean,
44:03
SPEAKER_00: but I'm just saying me,
44:05
SPEAKER_00: you know,
44:05
SPEAKER_00: I think,
44:06
SPEAKER_00: I think,
44:06
SPEAKER_00: I think that is how I felt.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: I felt that they asked a lot of liberal questions that just teed it up for JD.
44:13
SPEAKER_01: One of the,
44:14
SPEAKER_01: one of the staircase with things that,
44:16
SPEAKER_01: that like walls will kick himself about is that he,
44:18
SPEAKER_01: he,
44:18
SPEAKER_01: he did at one point,
44:20
SPEAKER_01: like,
44:22
SPEAKER_01: There was a manufacturing recession even before the pandemic.
44:26
SPEAKER_01: And then because of the pandemic, we inherited an economy missing 10 million jobs or something like that.
44:32
SPEAKER_01: Good, you got there.
44:33
SPEAKER_01: But he didn't extend that to like... And that's why we had inflation.
44:36
SPEAKER_01: Inflation was a global phenomenon caused by the pandemic.
44:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's true.
44:41
SPEAKER_01: He didn't say that.
44:42
SPEAKER_01: He missed it, right?
44:43
SPEAKER_01: But like...
44:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure that there's some ideal way to tee up the question that would have
44:50
SPEAKER_01: elicited a good answer from him.
44:51
SPEAKER_00: No, I agree.
44:53
SPEAKER_00: He's just too... Somebody who is in my family... Tim Walls is just too slow and weak.
44:59
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't know.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: Look, look, look.
45:02
SPEAKER_01: Somebody... We're talking about the moderators.
45:04
SPEAKER_01: Somebody in my family,
45:06
SPEAKER_01: who I don't know if they would want me to say who,
45:07
SPEAKER_01: so I'm just going to say somebody in my family,
45:09
SPEAKER_01: texted me during the debate to say...
45:12
SPEAKER_01: you know, the moderators are disgrace.
45:14
SPEAKER_01: And I think that they assumed that I would agree because I'm a media critic.
45:19
SPEAKER_00: You always say the moderators are disgrace.
45:21
SPEAKER_01: Well, I just didn't think it was true.
45:23
SPEAKER_01: Like, I think that what CBS did to them hobbled them.
45:27
SPEAKER_01: And my,
45:28
SPEAKER_01: my sense is they were not happy with that decision because a,
45:33
SPEAKER_01: they seem to violate the rule one time.
45:37
SPEAKER_01: And JD Vance said that, Oh, so you're going to fact check me in violation of the rules.
45:41
SPEAKER_01: Like,
45:42
SPEAKER_01: Um,
45:43
SPEAKER_01: but also like there was another moment and there might've been more than one where
45:46
SPEAKER_01: like JD Vance does this revisionist history about how Trump saved the affordable
45:51
SPEAKER_01: care act.
45:52
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was really gross lying.
45:53
SPEAKER_01: Right.
45:54
SPEAKER_01: Um, and, and that like, and that more people have insurance because of Donald Trump, right?
45:58
SPEAKER_01: Like the truth is the opposite.
46:01
SPEAKER_01: ACA enrollment fell under Trump because he,
46:03
SPEAKER_01: after failing to repeal it entirely,
46:04
SPEAKER_01: like tried to,
46:06
SPEAKER_01: to sabotage it.
46:07
SPEAKER_01: Um, and they turned to Walls,
46:11
SPEAKER_01: And said,
46:12
SPEAKER_01: essentially,
46:13
SPEAKER_01: like,
46:14
SPEAKER_01: I'm winking here for anyone who doesn't have video or I don't even know if we're
46:17
SPEAKER_01: posting video.
46:18
SPEAKER_01: Like, is it true that ACA enrollment went up under Trump, Mr. Walls?
46:22
SPEAKER_01: Wink, you know?
46:24
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, no, it's up now.
46:26
SPEAKER_01: And that's accurate.
46:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
46:29
SPEAKER_01: But,
46:29
SPEAKER_01: like,
46:29
SPEAKER_01: he missed that what they were doing is saying,
46:31
SPEAKER_01: we can't fact check this motherfucker who's lying about what happened to healthcare
46:35
SPEAKER_01: enrollment under the Donald Trump presidency.
46:38
SPEAKER_01: Will you take this opportunity to do it?
46:40
SPEAKER_01: And, like...
46:41
SPEAKER_01: consistent with your frustrations with tim wallace he didn't quite land that but i
46:46
SPEAKER_01: think that they're they were they the moderators like arrived in the right spirit
46:53
SPEAKER_01: and the questions that they asked were like i i would have liked them to like have
46:57
SPEAKER_01: loaded the dice a little bit for tim wallace a little bit more obviously but like
47:01
SPEAKER_01: they were fine you know they were they they
47:06
SPEAKER_01: They raised substantive issues.
47:11
SPEAKER_01: They,
47:12
SPEAKER_01: without fact-checking anything Vance said about climate change,
47:18
SPEAKER_01: they did note that...
47:19
SPEAKER_01: They introduced some facts.
47:22
SPEAKER_01: Temperatures are higher now than ever.
47:24
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
47:25
SPEAKER_01: And they didn't...
47:28
SPEAKER_01: The one question that they asked that was the exception that I think proves the
47:31
SPEAKER_01: rule that they were decent,
47:33
SPEAKER_01: which was like...
47:35
SPEAKER_01: And I think I would have had a good answer to the question.
47:41
SPEAKER_01: Surveys indicate that the public thinks Donald Trump was a better steward of the economy.
47:46
SPEAKER_01: Why do they think that?
47:48
SPEAKER_01: That was a bad question.
47:52
SPEAKER_01: But in the context of 20 questions that were mostly, I thought, pretty good.
47:59
SPEAKER_01: And my frustrations with the debate were...
48:03
SPEAKER_01: to like, with walls, not having like, uh, like, uh, taste for the jugular in that kind of setting.
48:11
SPEAKER_00: But so here's, here's all I'm really saying tonight.
48:14
SPEAKER_00: And you know,
48:15
SPEAKER_00: it's just as a,
48:17
SPEAKER_00: you know,
48:17
SPEAKER_00: a scorekeeper in meta narratives,
48:20
SPEAKER_00: like all day,
48:21
SPEAKER_00: every day for years,
48:23
SPEAKER_00: I'm hearing,
48:24
SPEAKER_00: hearing from progressives like,
48:25
SPEAKER_00: no,
48:26
SPEAKER_00: Matt,
48:26
SPEAKER_00: you're wrong.
48:27
SPEAKER_00: Uh,
48:28
SPEAKER_00: Nothing has anything to do with issue positioning.
48:31
SPEAKER_00: There's no need to moderate.
48:32
SPEAKER_00: There's no need to compromise on anything.
48:34
SPEAKER_00: All we got to do is just like fucking stick it to the Republicans,
48:37
SPEAKER_00: stick it to the Republicans,
48:38
SPEAKER_00: stick it to the Republicans.
48:40
SPEAKER_00: I don't really agree with that.
48:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, I got other ideas.
48:43
SPEAKER_00: Then we have this VP selection and progressives are like,
48:47
SPEAKER_00: You got to go with that guy, Tim Walls.
48:48
SPEAKER_00: Like, Tim Walls is awesome.
48:50
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, you got your way.
48:51
SPEAKER_00: You got your Tim Walls.
48:53
SPEAKER_00: Then he had a debate.
48:54
SPEAKER_00: Certainly at a debate is the time to stick it to the Republicans rather than
48:59
SPEAKER_00: rethink the Democratic Party's platform.
49:02
SPEAKER_00: And he did not stick it to Republicans.
49:05
SPEAKER_00: He, like, went out of his way to, like, minimize the scale of the policy contrast on a number... Like...
49:14
SPEAKER_00: literally like seemed like a guy from Minnesota who was hosting a more intelligent
49:21
SPEAKER_00: lawyer from a different Midwestern town at his house and like,
49:25
SPEAKER_00: didn't want to like be too mean to him.
49:28
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, it's fine, I guess.
49:34
SPEAKER_00: But like,
49:37
SPEAKER_00: It's like, this was the guy you guys wanted.
49:42
SPEAKER_00: If you'd put up there Josh Shapiro and he delivered this exact performance,
49:47
SPEAKER_00: you could say he didn't hurt himself and he's going to help in Pennsylvania.
49:52
SPEAKER_00: So it's like, what is Tim Walz doing if he's not sticking to J.D.
49:57
SPEAKER_00: Vance?
49:57
SPEAKER_01: You are talking like the totality of what he brings to the ticket is whether he clobbered J.D.
50:01
SPEAKER_01: Vance's
50:02
SPEAKER_01: or just narrowly won the debate or narrowly lost it.
50:04
SPEAKER_01: And I think that he gave Democrats and liberals a whole new framework for talking
50:09
SPEAKER_01: about Republicans in a way that isn't hind-footed and afraid.
50:15
SPEAKER_00: And that's valuable, right?
50:17
SPEAKER_00: He didn't use it.
50:17
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I know, not in this one setting, which I admit is a very high profile one.
50:21
SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
50:22
SPEAKER_01: But, okay.
50:23
SPEAKER_01: And then, like...
50:27
SPEAKER_01: Separately,
50:28
SPEAKER_01: I feel like one thing he did do at the debate is,
50:34
SPEAKER_01: like,
50:35
SPEAKER_01: make concessions to Republican ideas and also talk about how he's a gun owner and
50:41
SPEAKER_01: do all these things to,
50:42
SPEAKER_01: like,
50:44
SPEAKER_01: make Democrats more palatable to the center of the electorate that you wanted him
50:49
SPEAKER_01: to do,
50:49
SPEAKER_01: right?
50:49
SPEAKER_01: Like, so...
50:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
50:51
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
50:52
SPEAKER_00: Well, so here's my challenge.
50:54
SPEAKER_00: Kamala's going on 60 Minutes.
50:58
SPEAKER_00: Send us Tim Walz.
50:59
SPEAKER_00: Come on the politics podcast.
51:03
SPEAKER_00: Tell me why I'm wrong.
51:05
SPEAKER_01: I'll put in a request.
51:06
SPEAKER_01: Kick my ass.
51:07
SPEAKER_00: And I'll say to you, Governor, I have also been...
51:10
SPEAKER_00: on the education policy junket to Finland that you mysteriously referred to in a
51:15
SPEAKER_00: school shootings answer.
51:16
SPEAKER_00: So we can, we can talk about that.
51:18
SPEAKER_00: We can talk about,
51:19
SPEAKER_00: uh,
51:19
SPEAKER_00: they're adorable kindergartners and,
51:21
SPEAKER_00: uh,
51:22
SPEAKER_00: you know,
51:22
SPEAKER_00: snowsuits all winter,
51:23
SPEAKER_00: um,
51:24
SPEAKER_00: how they don't have school shootings,
51:26
SPEAKER_00: you know,
51:26
SPEAKER_00: uh,
51:26
SPEAKER_00: why JD Vance may or may not be weird.
51:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh, what's up with federal lands.
51:31
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a lot of, a lot of good wonky details.
51:33
SPEAKER_01: I would honestly love to ask him like you.
51:35
SPEAKER_01: Talk on the campaign trail a lot about how they're weird,
51:37
SPEAKER_01: about how he's a robber baron,
51:39
SPEAKER_01: about this and that.
51:40
SPEAKER_01: And I vibe with all that,
51:41
SPEAKER_01: and then it's the debate,
51:42
SPEAKER_01: and you're like,
51:43
SPEAKER_01: oh,
51:43
SPEAKER_01: what an agreeable fellow this guy is.
51:44
SPEAKER_01: Like, why didn't you bring the former?
51:47
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've been on the internet, right, Brian?
51:49
SPEAKER_00: Like, you ever had people who, like, talk a lot of shit on Twitter?
51:53
SPEAKER_00: And then you meet them, and they slap you on the back, and I'm like, oh, it's nice to meet you.
51:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've been there.
51:58
SPEAKER_01: I find it annoying.
52:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's what I'm saying, you know?
52:02
SPEAKER_00: Like...
52:03
SPEAKER_01: I didn't... It didn't scan to me as smarmy.
52:07
SPEAKER_01: It scanned to me as just like trying not to make any mistakes,
52:11
SPEAKER_01: being nervous,
52:12
SPEAKER_01: following whatever instruction the campaign gave him,
52:15
SPEAKER_01: and it just came out in a way that is not how I would have debated J.D.
52:21
SPEAKER_01: Vance if I was given the opportunity, but...
52:25
SPEAKER_01: Here's the bottom line.
52:26
SPEAKER_00: It's fine.
52:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm making too big a deal out of this because I'm up late at night.
52:31
SPEAKER_00: Our regular recording schedule is to record on Tuesday mornings,
52:34
SPEAKER_00: so holding the VP debate on a Tuesday evening was very awkward.
52:38
SPEAKER_00: Because I think if we recorded on Wednesdays,
52:41
SPEAKER_00: or Thursdays even better,
52:42
SPEAKER_00: we would have just talked about this days later and I would have been chill and relaxed.
52:46
SPEAKER_00: If we record on Sundays...
52:49
SPEAKER_00: We probably would have just recorded the episode at the regular schedule and not
52:52
SPEAKER_00: talked about this that much.
52:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
52:54
SPEAKER_01: by the time Sunday rolls around,
52:55
SPEAKER_01: the economy might be in a shambles because of the longshoremen,
52:58
SPEAKER_01: and there might be World War III.
53:00
SPEAKER_00: But because it happened to be that they were debating on a Tuesday,
53:04
SPEAKER_00: we decided not to record Tuesday morning,
53:06
SPEAKER_00: to instead record at 11 p.m.
53:09
SPEAKER_00: on a Tuesday night and talk about this debate.
53:11
SPEAKER_00: So I have to make mountains out of molehills because we inconvenienced ourselves to
53:16
SPEAKER_00: watch this goddamn thing.
53:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
53:19
SPEAKER_01: Last time I was like fresh off a plane from Spain and so jet lagged.
53:23
SPEAKER_00: It was great.
53:24
SPEAKER_00: You were delirious.
53:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm just grateful that I have my wits about me.
53:26
SPEAKER_01: I know.
53:27
SPEAKER_01: I feel much better tonight.
53:29
SPEAKER_00: So we'll be back next week, I guess, and like see if America has functioning maritime shipping.
53:36
SPEAKER_01: And like whether Appalachia,
53:38
SPEAKER_01: Southern Appalachia is going to- Oh yeah,
53:39
SPEAKER_00: like can people ever get to North Carolina again?
53:43
SPEAKER_00: Other things that I suspect may prove more consequential in the long run than this showdown.
53:49
SPEAKER_01: All right.
53:49
SPEAKER_01: So we'll catch you next week.
53:52
SPEAKER_01: Politics, it's Matt Iglesias, Brian Boyd, The Joint, and our producer is Mike Shane.
53:57
SPEAKER_01: Bye.
53:57
SPEAKER_01: Bye.