Latest / Pod Save America / Trump Details His Dictatorial Plans

Transcript

Trump Details His Dictatorial Plans · Pod Save America

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, y'all, it's Tim Miller, Crooked Media's favorite Cuckservative. I'm
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: now hosting the Daily Bulwark podcast, which comes out every
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: weekday afternoon, rain or shine, hangover or no hangover. Here's
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: what's special about this podcast and my colleagues at The Bulwark.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: We are all united in a mission to defend democracy
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: from the burnt sienna buffoon. And as outcast Republicans, we
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: have no future career prospects. So we're free to tell
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: you what we really think. So check out my Daily
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Bulwark podcast or Cuckservative. If once a week is more
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: your speed, there's Lovett's Guilty Pleasure, the next level podcast
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: featuring me with my colleagues Sarah Longwell and JVL. Check
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: it out.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Peace.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: Welcome to Pond Save America. I'm John Lovett. And joining us,
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: you know him from The Bulwark. You know him from MSNBC.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: You know him from being a little drunk live with
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Lovett and Lucas.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: It's Tim Miller. How are you doing, brother? Thanks for
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: being here, Tim.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: I'm so excited. I think this is it. This is
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: official now. I just, for listeners, you know, you might
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: have somebody in your life that was maybe a frenemy
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: at one stage. And maybe you had a little tension
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: with at one point over... And over the years you
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: grow and you grow a bond and appreciation for one
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: another and it blossoms into a real friendship. And I
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: feel like that's officially happened right now.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: At this moment.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: And just so everybody knows, his audio did break up
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: for a second. He said sexual tension.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's what we had at one point. But
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I'm saying now it's blossomed.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: It's something deeper. It's so nice.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: It is nice. You don't know that this is coming.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: 20-year-olds out there, this is happening for you in your 40s.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: There's somebody in your life right now, and you're like,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: that guy? Never. But then in your 40s, you're like, wow,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: we like each other a lot.
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  Speaker 3: I never said never. But maybe you did, and that's fine. Yes,
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: when you're 20, you don't know what it's like to
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: be an adult for 20 years.
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  Speaker 1: I know.
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  Speaker 3: And that's the beauty of it.
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  Speaker 1: Anyway, let's talk about Gaza.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: But speaking of... Yeah, and also people that have been
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: adults for 50 years and don't seem to show it.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: We have a packed show today. Donald Trump spent some
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: of his precious time outside of a courtroom to do
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: a good old-fashioned sit-down interview with Time magazine, laying out
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: his vision for a second term, and it's worrying. The
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: Biden administration is reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: while student protests envelop campus buildings and our national attention.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: Marjorie Taylor Greene makes her move. Plus, the vice president
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: sits down with Drew Barrymore. And it makes everyone a
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: little uncomfortable. Okay. First up, Trump, he did something that
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: feels like it's from another era. He sat down for
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: an interview with Time Magazine in Palm Beach, lasted over
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  Speaker 3: an hour. All the pomp and circumstance, the description of
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: the room, the transcript has the aide coming in and saying, Mr.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: Trump has to get to dinner. We get some color
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: about the playlist. It's the same playlist, Sinead O'Connor. January
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: 6th choir, the two genders. And and then they did
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: a follow up 20 minute conversation. So we'll get to
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: all the details. But just were you surprised him to
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: see Donald Trump spend an hour doing this?
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I was. I have to be honest. There is a
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: print Time magazine that appears that you can get now.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: That still exists?
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: I believe so, yes.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: At airports. So it all made sense once I realized
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: that still existed. I personally did not know that. I
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: thought Time had gone fully digital. And I was like, Mr.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Trump might be an idiot. And he might have had
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: the wool pulled over his eyes a couple times. But
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: he certainly would not do an interview because he wanted
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: a fake digital cover. And this man would require a
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: real physical cover. That's right. And then he would do
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: an interview where he shames himself and really freaks everybody
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: out about what a Trump term would look like and
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: provides a political gift to Joe Biden. So it makes
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: sense for then, once I knew that, that Trump could
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: have the time cover that he could frame, because that's
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: what he really values. And then once I interviewed the
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  Speaker 1: reporter this morning, Eric Cordelessa, and great reporter, tough interview.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: So please don't take this the wrong way, Eric. But
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  Speaker 1: he does give off like, I got drunk with Madison
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Cawthorn at a Duke lacrosse party vibes. And so like
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  Speaker 1: once I spent more time talking to him, I was like,
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  Speaker 1: oh yeah, okay, this makes sense. The Trump people felt
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: like this guy was one of them, you know, he's
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: going to get his cover and, uh, you know, consequences
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: be damned. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So, you know, the, the, the, the 1980s Trump brain is, oh,
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  Speaker 3: time magazine. I want to be on time magazine. I
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: want to be on the cover of time magazine. Yes,
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: I also associate Time Magazine now with the kind of
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: downfall of Newsweek and U.S. News, but it's different. But
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: there was the other piece of this too, which is,
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: let's say you were thinking about this in a more
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: traditional way. The idea behind sitting down for a long
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: print interview, like there's no video, there's no audio, there's
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: just a transcript, was that there was some value to
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: getting out to elite news followers and to journalists, to
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: close watchers of politics, the vision, the kind of detailed
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: vision that you wouldn't get on a stump speech, that
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: you won't get in shorter television hits, to give people
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: the context of what Trump's trying to do. I don't
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: believe they were doing anything as sophisticated as that. But
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: if they were, what on earth were they hoping to
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: accomplish by having the president, the former president, walk through
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: all this stuff?
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they wanted to accomplish the physical. He wants the framed.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: I just cannot emphasize this enough. He wants the framed
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: magazine cover. I know he's already been the president. Feels
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: like that seems like small ball for him, but that's
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: what he wanted. Okay, granted that. Now moving on, what
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: was their strategy beyond that? I do not know. I
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: do not know. It doesn't seem like he went into
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: the interview. Going back to my days, we certainly had
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: some fails with my candidates, but if Jeb was going
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: to do a long sit-down interview... certainly sometimes he would
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: get stumped or he'd say something wrong, but we would
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: at least have like a proactive message we were trying
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: to get across, right? That if you looked at the transcript,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: you could see that he was coming back to this,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: whether it was an issue or whether it was an
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: argument that he was trying to put forth. That was
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: not what this was. It is total stream of consciousness,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump. It is indistinguishable from his rallies, except for
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: the fact that the reporter, Eric, got to kind of
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: direct him into some, you know, into like a briar
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: pit a little bit on abortion in particular, but also
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: on some other issues. And there was no sign that
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: they had like a proactive message that they were trying
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: to get across.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. So let's go through this. So it was wide ranging.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: He says a lot. He also refuses to say a lot.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: For example, he wouldn't say he'd veto a national abortion ban.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: He wouldn't say defend Taiwan. He wouldn't say he supports
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: a two state solution between Israel and Palestine. He wouldn't
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: commit to supporting Ukraine's defense. Almost immediately, the Biden campaign
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: went on offense with the interview, in particular on Trump's
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: abortion comments, not just refusing to say he'd veto a ban,
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: but when asked whether states should monitor women's pregnancies to
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: see if they violated an abortion ban, Trump said, I
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  Speaker 3: think they might do that. On abortion, what jumped out
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  Speaker 3: at you? And then we can go beyond that.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, on abortion... That was like the Chris Matthews moment.
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  Speaker 1: And Trump has struggled with this for nine years because
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  Speaker 1: he is faking it, right? I mean, that doesn't make
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: the threat any more real to vulnerable women about the
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: laws that would be put in place by the types
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: of people that Trump appoints, judgeships in particular, but also
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: into regulatory positions. But he personally obviously doesn't care. And
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: so he doesn't know how to speak the language of pro-lifers.
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  Speaker 1: Somebody who is a genuine pro-lifer, I think, would at
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  Speaker 1: least be astute enough to be able to move around
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  Speaker 1: the question of, are you comfortable with states monitoring women's pregnancies?
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  Speaker 1: And he feels like just by saying, oh, well, states
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  Speaker 1: get to decide, like that's some amulet that like protects
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: him from all criticism on this, right? That he's like, oh,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess I'm comfortable if the states
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: decide to do it, the states decide to do it.
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  Speaker 1: And that is a crazy view, right? That is going
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  Speaker 1: to be very useful to Biden in ads, where he says, essentially,
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  Speaker 1: if during a Trump presidency states want to monitor women's
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  Speaker 1: pregnancies so they can determine how far along they are
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  Speaker 1: in the gestational period in order to determine whether or
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  Speaker 1: not they would have access to an abortion. That is
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  Speaker 1: deep state 1984 type shit targeting women, and he just
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  Speaker 1: walked right into it. I think in large part because
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  Speaker 1: he hasn't thought about this stuff deeply at all, never
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  Speaker 1: even occurred to him that there might be a question
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  Speaker 1: about whether a woman is at six weeks or nine weeks, right?
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  Speaker 1: Like none of this stuff, he hasn't thought through any
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  Speaker 1: of this. And so he's just like, yeah, I guess
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  Speaker 1: if the states want to monitor women, they're going to
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: monitor women.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. He also, I think he, he, he views himself
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: as being very adept at, at, at, at the, at
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: these politics. Now there's one point he says, you know,
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: did you see everyone adopted my IVF position? You know,
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: he was asked about what his, what his policy position
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: is going to be on Mifepristone. His only response, by
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: the way, he didn't say what it would be, but
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: he says, it won't be very surprising, which I took
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: to mean, whatever he says, he really hopes people don't
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: pay too much attention to it. What else jumped out
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  Speaker 3: at you?
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: The Mipha-Pristone thing was funny because he says in the
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: first interview, which is poolside with the Cougars at Mar-a-Lago
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: and the well-done stakes during that first interview, he's asked
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: about his position on Mipha-Pristone and he's like, I've got
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: a great plan. Won't be that surprising It'll be out
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: in two weeks. Then there's a follow-up phone interview two
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: weeks later, and the first question is, are you ready
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: to share your Mifepristone? Another two weeks. It's just like
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: the Obamacare, the healthcare plan. So he still doesn't have that. Um,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: but again, I think part of that, I did wonder
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: if during the first interview he did, if he knew
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: what Mifepristone was, you know, and he was buying himself
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: two weeks, but you'd think by the second interview he would,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: and maybe he's just trying to dodge and by time,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: cause it was similar to the IVF. And this takes
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: you out of, into even pro-life people, right? Like are,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: are horrified by the idea that women might not have
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: access to Mifepristone in like the first days after you know,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: having sex, right? Like there are people that would support
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: a 15-week ban that think it's crazy that the states
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: want to ban, you know, access to Mifepristone, for example.
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  Speaker 1: And so, you know, that gets him to a really
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: dicey position, you know, if he doesn't have a clear
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: answer on that. And he did it over the course
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: of two interviews, because again, I think that he thinks
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: that he's got to get out of jail free card
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: here with this, the states can decide thing. But obviously,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: if you're going to sit down with time for an
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: hour and a half, there are a lot of holes
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: in the states can decide.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: Yes. And his ignorance on this is a feature for
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: the kooks around him who are already planning to use
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: an old federal law to make it impossible to mail
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: abortion drugs to people and deploy the federal government all
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: kinds of ways to make abortion inaccessible, even if they
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: don't pass a national law. even if it still continues
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: to be technically legal in liberal states. So it's, you know,
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: he can say, I don't want to see it too
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: much from what Trump's perspective is. In a lot of ways,
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: it won't matter because will he stand in the way
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: of Congress passes a ban? Of course not. Will he
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: stop some Schedule F flunky from doing something horrible in
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: an agency? Of course he won't. He won't have the
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: discipline or attention span to focus on it.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: This is why, just really quick on that, this is
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: why I think that to me, the most telling part
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: of the interview Because of exactly what you're saying, it's
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: kind of like who cares what Trump's like random blurts
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: out are on these various policies in some ways. Directionally,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: we should care, but like the details. What matters is
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: going to be people around him. And at one point
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: he was asked what he thinks about this notion about
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: hiring people who don't believe in the 2020 election. Like,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: should that be a litmus test for people that would
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: be hired into your administration? And Trump says essentially, yes,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: into kind of garbled Trump words. Like, yes, I would
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: only want, I would feel very, you know, he says
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: something like, I'd feel very strongly against, you know, if
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: somebody is too stupid to realize that the election was
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: stolen from me. Now, to me, that just puts all
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: of this in a very important perspective, which is like,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: they're going to be much more judicious is maybe the
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: wrong word, careful about hiring the kookiest people possible, right?
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: And like the types, yeah. And so I thought that
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: to me was as revealing as any of the policy
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: stuff in the interview and as conservative.
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I want to get to that in one second. Before,
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: I want to get to the implementation because I do
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: think that is, I agree with you, it's just as important.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: Before we get to that, were there any other policy
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: points that he made or that the piece makes that
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: jumps out? For one, that his number one agenda item
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: when he comes in is going to be extending the
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: Bush tax cuts, that some of those tax cuts for
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: the wealthy expire, including the doubling of the estate tax deduction,
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: that those things all expire in 2025. So one of
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: his first orders of business is going to be tax
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: cuts for the wealthy, in addition to a border bill,
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: because of course he killed the border bill. Were there
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: any other policy positions that jumped out at you?
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, two. As a free market capitalist, the thing
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: that stood out to me was the 10% across the
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: board tariffs, which is an absolutely insane policy that if
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: people are concerned about prices and will be disastrous. Just
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: in general, I think it's frustrating to get this across
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: to people, but he says that he's going to fight
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: the inflationary, the Bidenflation. His policies are going to stop inflation,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: but every policy he has is inflationary. Extending the Bush
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: tax cuts is inflationary. Fewer immigrants into the country is
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: inflationary because that affects the number of people that we
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: have in the workforce. Tariffs are obviously inflationary. So, you know,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: is there a way to make that message for Biden?
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: I think it's kind of a tough message for Biden
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: to actually implement in a campaign setting. But to me,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: maybe that's something for Nikki Haley voters that we can use.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: And then as someone, you know, who has feelings and compassion,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: the deportation plans are absolutely insane. And he goes along
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: every step the reporter asks him. He's like, well, would
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: you call in the National Guard? Yes. Would you call
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: in the military? Yes. How are you actually going to
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: implement this? Local police forces. We're going to have local
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: cops being our deportation troopers. And if a local police
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: force doesn't want to be part of the Donald Trump
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: deportation effort, where he specifically cites Operation Wetback, then he's like, well,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: then we'll stop funding them. We're going to not give
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: funds to police officers. you know, to local police, you know,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: so we're going to defund the police that will not
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: do illegal deportations. So, I mean, obviously, I think that
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: is the most alarming. And the thing that I would
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: be also the most scared about being actually implemented if
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: he were to win, because that's the one area where
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: he already has a team of competent sociopaths around him,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: led by Stephen Miller, who would be able to execute
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: on it.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And they already, by the way, you know, when
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: they did family separation, it was, pushback from what you
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: could call the old guard inside the administration, plus congressional Republicans,
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: plus political pressure, the ordinary political pressure that caused them
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: to at least, you know, sort of second guess what
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: they were doing. I don't think those guardrails exist in
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: a second term.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: No. I mean, and you could see like that great,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: I forget who wrote it. I feel like I should
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: credit her, but the great Atlantic profile that went in
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: so deep into the child separation and like how it
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: actually happened, like the TikTok of it. What it revealed
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: was it really only took Stephen Miller, Sessions, and there
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: was one other person who were adamant about it and
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: who just kept pushing and pushing it, every restraint in
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: the bureaucracy. And so if you now just imagine a
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: situation where those bureaucratic restraints are mostly excised through the
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Schedule F changes that they've talked about, and instead of
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: just having two or three people who really get off
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: on child separation, you have three or four times more
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: of that. you know, that get brought in because they've
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: done a more thorough vetting job of staff to ensure
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: that they're fully on board with these deportation plans. I mean,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: I think that it's really scary and it's really kind
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: of hard to calculate how much more damage that could
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: do to immigrants and migrants.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: And by the way, using Schedule F to threaten people
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: Who might otherwise have to go along.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: And, by the way, on top of that, using the
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: pardon power to give cover to people who are worried
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: that they're doing something that's illegal. And I think that's
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: the most pernicious thing about his pardoning. You know, about
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: how I'm going to pardon all the January 6th folks.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: Last time I pardoned Bannon. I pardoned Manafort. Now, he
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: basically would be sending a signal to... you know, the
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: shock troops, as Bannon calls them, that like they can
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: go ahead and not worry if they're running afoul of
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: various immigration laws while they execute these deportations, because if some,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: you know, rogue liberal judge that Joe Biden appointed or
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: some prosecutor goes after them, Trump will just pardon them.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: So I think the combining of the pardon with the
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Schedule F, I think like really creates a very different
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: environment for them in a second term.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: So I'm glad you pulled out the tariffs and immigration
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: and I think the immigration policy is absolutely horrifying, but
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: I do want to get mercenary about it. One of
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: the challenges is you want to tell people on imports, hey,
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: if Trump puts a 10% tariff on all these imports,
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: it's actually going to cause the kind of inflation that's
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: been bothering you for years. But I do think the
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: problem is that a lot of people sort this into
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: a made in America, American manufacturing bucket.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Rightfully so.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: But I worry a little bit that when we fight
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: back against that kind of a policy, it's tough to
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: do because you end up, you don't wanna sound like
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: a 2000s era Democrat talking about how good NAFTA is
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: gonna be. And then you got Ross Perot talking about
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: the sucking sound of American jobs. How do you talk
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: about a policy that I have a feeling at the
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: very least, is one that maybe people have mixed feelings
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: about because they do worry about manufacturing and they do
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: want jobs to be in the US. Yeah.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: And Joe Biden kept a lot of his tariffs, right?
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: And he doesn't have a clean message on that. To me,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: I think it's a negative message that is specifically targeted
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: towards my people, like the Haley voters, the former Republicans, right?
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: That's like, I don't know, maybe you're running these ads
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: just on Brett Baier's show or something, or in the
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal. But I think if you combine that
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Trump was actually pretty mean to Bibi too. I don't
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: want to get into that stuff later, but Trump was
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: pretty harsh on Israel. I don't think it can be
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: seen as a reliable partner for Israel based on his
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: comments in this interview. The tariffs, if you combine the
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: threats to take out of NATO... this is not a
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: huge segment of the population, but I think that you
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: can micro-target some people in the Atlanta, Philly, Burbs, that
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: have been traditional Republican voters that also are responsive to
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: the democracy message. You can layer on top of that.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: This guy is going to do a 10%. For that crew,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: the 10% tax on tariffs, they respond to it like
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: I would. This is going to be horrible. This is anti-market.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: This is going to increase costs. So, I think it's
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: more useful for that group to use it to say
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: to working class people that are worried about prices at
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: the grocery store, I don't know. It feels like a
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: bank shot and that the campaign probably have better arguments.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: He was all over the place on Israel and Palestine.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: He was all over the place on Bibi. It's actually
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: very hard to figure out what he's even saying. This
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: is always the problem when anyone tries to kind of,
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: I don't know, mediate what Trump says into something coherent.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: And by the way, it's not a judgment of the
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: journalist or the piece, because the piece is very clear.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: He is contradictory. And I do think the reporter really
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: does follow up and push back and come back to things.
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: Trump is just, you know, he's just, it's sand through
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: your fingers. But he's, but just, here's what he said
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: about whether or not there should be a two-state solution.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: Most people thought it was going to be a two-state solution.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure a two-state solution anymore is going to work.
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: Everybody was talking about two states. Even when I was there,
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: I was saying, what do you like here? Do you
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: like two states? Now people are going back to, it
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: depends where you are. Every day it changes now. If
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: Israel's making progress, they don't want two states. They want everything.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: And if Israel's not making progress, sometimes they talk about
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: two-state solution. Two-state solution seemed to be the idea that
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: people like most. The policy or the idea that people
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: liked above. Do you like it? Says the reporter. It
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: depends when. There was a time when I thought two
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: states could work. Now I think two states is going
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: to be very, very tough. I think it's going to
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: be much tougher to get. I also think you have
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: fewer people that like the idea. You had a lot
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: of people that liked the idea four years ago. Today,
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: you have far fewer people that like the idea.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: He goes on to mention that Sheldon Adelson was against
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: two states, I think, later on. I know, different digression.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: We're not sending our best here.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: You mentioned this a few minutes ago. It's not just
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: about what he's promising. It's how he's promising to implement it.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: Trump learned a lot of bad lessons during the first term,
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: including the danger of being surrounded by anyone who has
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: their own reputation to protect. What jumped out at you
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: in terms of how differently he'd go about a second term?
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: He talks about how he would never, he wouldn't wait
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: for people to quit now, he'd fire them. You mentioned, ridiculous,
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: but you mentioned Schedule F. What jumped out at you? Yeah.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: To me, it's really that litmus test thing just because
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: it's so insane. It's so insane. We say this, it's
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: almost cliche to be like, oh, it's a cult. It
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: is kind of a cult. In order to join this administration,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: you have to at least pay lip service to denying reality. And,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: and like that sets a tone and it sets a
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: tone with the pardons. It sets a tone with the,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: with the, for the existing people that they know that
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: they could be fired where it's like, now you have
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: to watch yourself. And I think I might've told this
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: on this podcast before I forget, but I had a
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: friend that was working at the RNC. That was one
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: of the quote unquote good ones who stuck around. He
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: was a lifer at the RNC and on a couple
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: of conference calls, he's, you know, he's like, I don't
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: know about this thing. Mr. Trump is saying, uh, you know,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: it's a little, it's a little crazy. I don't know
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: what the RNC needs to echo this. He did it
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: like two or three times. Jared Kushner was out on
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: any of these calls and he gets a call from
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Jared Kushner out of the blue one day. He's like,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: are you good? Are we all good? Is everybody on
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: the same page? And like that kind of mafioso attitude,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: you know, which they had in the first term, but
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: they were not, they didn't know how to implement. I
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: think if you just listen to him now, like that's
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: the one thing where it's like, they've got a hand
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: on that now. Like they're not gonna, they might have
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: people around who aren't true believers, but they're gonna be
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: the types of people who are sociopathic enough to not
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: ever reveal that they're not a true believer.
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I also think it does something else that's also pernicious,
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: which is it makes signing on to be part of
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: this administration a door that locks behind you. You know,
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: Ronald McDaniel- thought that she was clean because everybody knew, wink, wink,
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: she wasn't a real Trump person. She just became one
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: on television. And so that even NBC higher-up executives thought, oh,
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: they sorted her into the serious old-school Republican bucket, not
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: the magamaniac bucket. But because she had done so much
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: to defend the lie, there was enough of an uproar
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: that made it impossible for her to kind of be
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: treated like a... Be part of polite society, right? And
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: so now you say to these people, if you want
• 24:15
  Speaker 3: to be part of Trump world, you've got to sign
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: on to this. He kind of, he takes away people's
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: escape ramp. And I do think that that makes people
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: more beholden to him, which I also think is part
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: of this.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: Totally agree.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: The other piece of this is there are a lot
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: of people thinking very hard around Trump, not Trump, about
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: how he can better use federal power. I saw a
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: blast from the past phrase, the unitary executive theory. back
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: from the Bush administration, they also talk about trying to
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: get the president more authority to not spend money Congress
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: has appropriated, right? This would be for everything from not
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: sending money to the police to not funding social safety
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: net programs. Did any of that come about to you?
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not been a good quarter century for the libertarians,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: I guess, huh? I'm actually a unitary executive there. Look,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: it did. And I think that Again, when I talk to,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: there's a hint, like my old friends don't talk to
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: me anymore, you know, because there's the betrayal, obviously. Some
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: of the MAGA folks will talk to me though. And,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: you know, because they just, whatever, they always saw me
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: as an enemy. And the one of them as an
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: enemy within, and now I'm an enemy without, in some
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: ways I'm less threatening. And so when I talk to them,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: this is what they talk about all the time, right?
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Like that they've had to have learned from the first term, right? That,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: you know, consolidating power within the executive, that there was
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: a lot of deferring. Trump didn't know any better. Trump was,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: by the way, happy to kind of let Paul Ryan
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: do the legislating and Mitch McConnell. He had Paul and Mitch.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: He got to do the fun stuff. They did the
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: dirty work, right? And the mindset is totally different now.
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: A couple quick things before we go to break. Are
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: you ready to get into the good, the ad, and
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: the ugly? In the latest episode of Political Experts React,
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: Dan has joined by MSNBC host Alex Wagner to break
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: down viral political ads from Gavin Newsom, the Biden campaign,
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: and Republican voters against Trump. To watch this hit series,
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: type Pod Save America into the nearest YouTube search bar. Also,
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: from Trump's hush money trial to some pivotal Supreme Court hearings,
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: the last few weeks have been a whirlwind. Want to
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: keep up with it all but have a life? We
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: can't relate, but we've got you. Sign up for the
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: What A Day newsletter and get a pithy, funny digest
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: of the day's biggest headlines straight to your inbox. Everything
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: you missed and why you should care five days a week.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: All right. While Trump was apparently dozing off in court,
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: President Biden's administration were having a big week yesterday. The
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: Associated Press reported that the DEA is taking steps towards
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: reclassifying marijuana. Anonymous sources said that Attorney General Merrick Garland
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: will formally recommend moving marijuana from the Schedule 1 drug
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: to a Schedule 3 drug that puts it alongside testosterone
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: and Tylenol. And Garland's recommendation will trigger the start of
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: a long process. But given that 70% of Americans support legalization,
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: seems like a great step. Yeah. Because we tight him.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're going to light it up. We're going to
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: do a blunt together right now to celebrate.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: Look, man, this has felt like a no-brainer from the
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: start and that Joe Biden has been resisting. I don't
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: have any internal, you know, Joe Biden's a teetotaler. Joe
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Biden's from a different era. I don't know if you
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: noticed that. And so I think that he has been
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: somewhat resistant to this. But I guess a political matter,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: it is fucking obvious.
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: Just based on what has been like, look at what
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: happens on ballot initiatives anywhere. I mean, like in Missouri,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: they passed a, you know, kind of marijuana decriminalization or, uh, uh,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe it was medical, but I like Missouri
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: has moved like basically into Alabama territory when it comes
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: to like voting for Republicans, um, you know, and voting
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: for far right Republicans and blow out elections. And like
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: on the same ballot, they are voting for, um, liberalizing
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: marijuana laws, uh, Uh, so it seems like a no
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: brainer from that perspective as a motivation tool. I do wonder,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: I guess maybe I'd throw that question back on you. Like,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: is it kind of too late? Like to you, like,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: like there was like a period, like in 2015, it'd
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: be like, let's get the youth excited by talking about
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: legalizing marijuana. I don't know that the youth really care
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: about that anymore. Yes.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: Well, I think part of the problem is that, well,
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: it depends on where the youth are. Right. And also
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: it depends on what this, what act, what this actually does. I,
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: you know, we just live in this endless morass where.
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: When President Biden does something, even something good, even something
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: that progressives have been calling on for a while, it
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: takes a long time and they don't feel the effects
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: right away.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Like California- Kind of like a weed gummy.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: Exactly like a weed gummy. You don't know when it's
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: going to hit.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Then all of a.
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: Sudden you feel pretty good. But it's like two hours
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: after you ate it. You almost forget why. Because in
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: a lot of places, weed is pretend legal. Everyone pretends legal.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: Weed is legal in California, even though it is still
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: a schedule one drug. And then there will be a
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: lot of places where even if it is reclassified, there
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: won't be recreational weed because it's a state question. I
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: remember that I was reflecting on something, which is I
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: think we owe certain old school conservative pundits from the
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: 90s an apology. Because I vividly remember... Robert Novak Robert
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: Novak was a curmudgeonly conservative television pundit and I remember
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: there was this debate about medical marijuana and one by
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: one everyone around the meet the press table was talking
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: about how it was a good step and it helps
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: people who have illnesses and yes, you know, weed isn't
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: what it was in the 1960s and this is supported, blah, blah, blah.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: And then they get to Robert Novak and he goes,
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: this is the hippies. This is what the hippies are doing.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: This is the hippies revenge. They've been trying to get
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: legal marijuana. This is a gateway and I don't support it.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: I don't support legal marijuana. I don't support legal drugs
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: and I don't support the hippies. And I just want
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: to say that was what was happening. Medical marijuana was illegal.
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: a gateway to getting to legal marijuana recreationally. And I
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: think deep down, we all knew that at the time
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: and you were being gaslit.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: You're dead now, Robert Novak.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: But nevertheless.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: You were right about that and dead. Well, you're wrong
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: in the merits of the policy, but you're right that
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: it was a gateway. There's a similar example to this.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: I was walking into Jazz Fest last week and there
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: was some young progressives, kind of multi-hair colored, look at
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: me and maybe think, I could be somebody that could
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: win over on the issue of gay rights. I don't know.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: I guess I wasn't dressed gay enough that day. And
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: so we signed this petition to help support the gay agenda.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: And I was like, my old instincts came back out.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: I was like, wait a minute, there's no gay agenda.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: The conservatives were always like, the gays have an agenda.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: And we're always like, no, what are you talking about? No,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: we just want equal rights. There's no gay agenda. Turned
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: out there was a gay agenda, actually. Once we got
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: the rights, we were free to talk about it. So marijuana,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: it was a gateway. And the gays, we did have
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: an agenda. And the 90s Republican pundits were right about that.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah. They just, you know, they saw what was coming.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: One other note on this. This was from the AP report,
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: which is, once OMB, the Office of Management and Budget,
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: signs off, the DEA will take public comment on the
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: plan to remove marijuana from its current classification. Following a
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: recommendation from the Federal Health and Human Services Department after
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: the public comment period and a review by a administrative judge,
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: the agency would eventually... publish the rule. Hey, Tim, maybe
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: we do need a Trump's cleansing bureaucratic fire. Yeah.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, I do think we could probably get rid
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: of a few bureaucrats. I do. I maintain that view.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: I do have to say it. I'm discussing, I'm talking
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: with Josh Shapiro here in a few hours. And one
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: thing I want to ask him, which I'm excited to
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: hear is like, You know, I-95 collapses. I'm like, it's
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: fixed in two days. It's fixed in two days. And
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: I'm like, over in California, they've been trying to build
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: a train for like 20 years now. Like we spent
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: $ 800 million and we haven't even put down any tracks,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: you know, because we have CEQA. And so I don't know. Yeah,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: we could, I think we could get legalized pot and
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: trains and roads that work. A little bit faster, just
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: a little bit faster. We can have a couple of
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: bureaucrats still. I don't want to fire too many people,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: but I don't know, maybe do less. How about do
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: less bureaucrats?
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: Well, how about do more faster and cheaper?
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: How about that? Or do less. Yeah, do less review
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: or do more faster.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: I want to do more faster and cheaper. For the record,
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: if there is any place where we can move faster,
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: it was not to gut the government, 2010 era Tim
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: Miller style, all right?
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Okay. I can be on board with either, I guess
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: I'm saying. Do less or do more faster. Both of
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: those would be fine than doing more much slower, slower.
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: I do think Biden being out there on marijuana, ultimately.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: I think that put aside the policy taking time and
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: the fact that, to your point, it does feel like
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: weed has legalized itself.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: I do think that there is value to having, like,
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: I think for people who know that this policy is
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: just completely indefensible, I would like to see President Biden
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: saying that I'm out there trying to do this. And
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: by the way, I've taken steps on behalf of people
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: that have been locked up for nonviolent marijuana offenses. I
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: think that that's all really positive.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we've been joking about this, but it is. The
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: criminal justice side of this is serious. Like, you know,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: weed might be legal in our hearts as like rich whites.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: but like it is, it has maintained, it maintained, it
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: is still a problem, uh, for people that, um, have
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: less advantages and there are still people in jail that,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: that for weed crimes. And so on that side of things,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: I think that is a good argument to make. And
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: maybe that can be more motivating also to progressives when
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: it's framed that way and less about like, you know,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: you know, smoking spliffs or whatever.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I think that's right. I just, I also just,
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: it is like the fact that we have had this, uh, uh,
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: quasi legal status for so long is it is so
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: morally bankrupt that we have people in jail in one
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: place in one, in the same place that we have
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: people walking into a store, like it's an Apple store.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: And the fact that we have tolerated that, I like it,
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: it does to me, it's outrageous. And we, we, we,
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: we could talk about ad nauseum, but I do think
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: it speaks to like, you know, you, a larger conversation,
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: but like, how does the society become kind of soft
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: enough that Trump can sneak in. Well, I think part
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: of it is being the kind of place that is
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: willing to overlook those kinds of injustices.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: I'm snapping at you like I'm in the New York
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Times break room.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: Please do.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: Please do.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: Speaking of the youth, overnight, a lot of developments in
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: the campus protest movement in New York, NYPD officers in
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: riot gear and riding an armored vehicle moved in on
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: Hamilton Hall. The Zionists have taken back Hamilton Hall. While
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: protesters had occupied it and barricaded it, officers also cleared
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: out an encampment at City College. Nearly 300 people were arrested,
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: according to a very satisfied Eric Adams. A lot is
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: happening everywhere, Tulane, Yale, University of Wisconsin, here in L.A.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: There was an ugly physical altercation between pro-Palestinian protesters at
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: UCLA who had fortified their encampment with plywood barriers and
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: a group of what appeared to be pro-Israel counter-protesters trying
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: to tear down those barriers and throwing things into the encampment.
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: There's disturbing video out there of the two sides fighting. Eventually,
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: the police arrived and separated the groups. Tim, you made
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: a version of this point last night. It is what
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: I think is probably a very popular but quieter sentiment,
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: which is basically the fact that there is a lack
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: of space in this debate for people who are opposed
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: to the war, believe the Palestinians deserve freedom and self-determination,
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: opposed to perpetuating a famine, murdering civilians, opposed to the
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. around these protests and opposed, and this
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: is a quote of yours, opposed to militarized police marching
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: on the Portlandia Quad like they're invading Fallujah. What? And
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: I was glad to see you had a back and
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: forth with Mehdi Hassan, who we had on Love It
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: or Leave It last week. And the fact that I
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: think that there was so much comedy between the two
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: of you, I think speaks to the fact that there
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: really hasn't been that space during this moment, in part
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: because I think Republicans don't want it to be. They
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: want to talk about the chaos. They want to exploit this.
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: But I also think the media owns this. I think
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: Democrats own this. And the students themselves, by the way,
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: who have agency and ought to be held responsible for
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: their words and their actions. But how do we make
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: space for that kind of a dialogue, which is, I think,
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: clearly what's needed?
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're doing it right now. So like we are.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Look, I think that there are a lot of people
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: that are afraid to say what they really think about this.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: And I just I have to tell you, like, we
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: just did this talk about MAGA and talk about the
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: Trump administration, how they're trying to create a world. And
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: I came from a world where a lot of my
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: former friends have real thoughts about Trump that they will
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: tell me after a couple of beers or they used
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: to and that they won't say out loud. They won't
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: say on Twitter. And I feel like that there are
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: a lot of people that have the views about this
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: conflict and these protests. And I think that we need
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: to make it okay for people to express their views
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: without immediately going to ad hominem and saying, oh, that
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: means you're on Bibi's side. That means you're on the
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: terrorist side. When it comes to Bibi and when it
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: comes to Hamas, I think about, are you ever on Reddit?
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: Some of them time to time. You know the Am
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: I the Asshole Reddit feed?
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: Yes. Right.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: So on the Am I the Asshole, somebody writes, you know,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: a story about how they've been a jerk to their
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: colleague or something, and then the responders can say either
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: you're an asshole or you're not an asshole. But there
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: are some situations where the commenters respond, ESH, everybody sucks here. And, like,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: that's how I feel about the Hamas BB situation. Like,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: everybody sucks here, okay? Like, obviously not the innocent people
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: that have been killed, or whether they were in a
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: kibbutz or whether they were in Gaza, but when it
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: comes to the leadership of Israel... Pretty much everybody sucks here.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: When it comes to Hamas, who is still holding hostages
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: and still using their own people as human shields, everybody
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: sucks here. And unfortunately, I feel that way a little
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: bit about the Colombia situation, where I think there are
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: many protesters who are very earnest in their protest against
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: the war. And I think Mehdi, and this was part
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: of me and Mehdi's exchange yesterday, where Mehdi's like, well, Tim,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: the reason why they're not protesting Hamas is because we're
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: not giving weapons to Hamas. And They're only protesting Israel
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: because that's where we have some control in our democratic government.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, I guess that's fine. But it'd be
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: nice to have, if the protests also included some people
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: with signs that said, by the way, Hamas sucks too.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: And unfortunately, what I see in those protests are a
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: couple of people that have like Hezbollah flags or a
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: couple of people that are like, Jews should go back
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: to Europe or America where they came from, which is
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: just a historical or glory to our martyrs. All that
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: stuff makes me uncomfortable. And that's not to impugn everybody
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: that has very real, earnest concerns about the humanitarian crisis.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: But I would like to see a little bit more,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: you know, if the goal of these protests is, hey,
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: we need a ceasefire, then we should also at least
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: be expressing that we're pretty upset about the main party
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: that's preventing us from a ceasefire right now, which is Hamas.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: And so anyway, that's why I'm kind of like everybody
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: sucks here when it comes to those protests also. And also,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: the cops, which was, and Eric Adams, which is way
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: overkill and it's only in America and third world countries.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: Like there's, this is not happening in Germany or in,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: you know, Sweden. If they're, if they're protests, you know,
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: it's very nice officers with little, little batons, like asking
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: people to move off the property. Like the idea they
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: have these fucking face masks, like it's all, it's crazy.
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah. There's a, there's somebody, this is not my observation,
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: but somebody pointed out that you can track the evolution
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: of our militarization of police by looking at the way
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: the Lego policeman has changed over the years from like
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: a smiling kind of almost in a postal uniform to
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: basically now like a soldier. No, I agree with what
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: you're saying. I also, I do think that like one
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: of the ways our brains are all collectively pickled from
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: years of political coverage that treats everyone like a pundit
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: is we kind of bounce back and forth almost without
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: noticing between what is sort of morally righteous versus what
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: is effective. And now I have to think in both, right?
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: Like you are correct. Like it is both, I think,
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: less effective and I think less, I think, morally defensible
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: to not make denouncing Hamas's holding of hostage a part
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: of what you're trying to protest. But then sometimes I
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: also think just, okay, I don't agree with a lot
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: of what these protesters are saying. I'm sure I would
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: find them quite annoying, right? However, they have successfully drawn
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: attention to what is the urgent moral crisis half a
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: world away where children and civilians are being killed, where
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: there seems to be no end in sight to this conflict,
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: even as a ceasefire is being negotiated. And then I think, well,
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: you know what? It doesn't really matter that I disagree
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: with what these protesters are saying on the larger issue
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: or the fact that I find the ramifications of their
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: views abhorrent because what it would actually mean to achieve
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: what they claim to be their goals. I find it
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: abhorrent because what they are actually protesting right now is
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: something that I completely agree with, which is the inhumane
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: and despicable conduct of this war. And I don't want
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: to be a person who makes the same mistake that
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: a lot of people make when they look at a protest,
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: which is get sucked into a debate over its tactics
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: and methods rather than putting aside the longer term problems
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: with the BDS movement or the ways in which I
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: disagree with it, but rather what are they drawing attention
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: to and are they right to do it?
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm with that. I get it. I think about
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: that for sure. And maybe you could argue there's been
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: some success there. The fact that there's some more, you know,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: food trucks are getting in, you know, would that have
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: happened without the, I don't know, would that have happened
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: without the protests? You know, it's hard to do that counterfactual.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: I will say this though, There's just not another situation
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: for a group besides Jews where it would be acceptable
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: in polite liberal society to hold a protest where there
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: are members of the protest that are dehumanizing and personally
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: attacking people from a specific religious or ethnic group. Like,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine that being acceptable in liberal society
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: for targeting any group except for Jews. And so I
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: just like, there feels like there should be a way.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: There's not, it's a protest, right? There are going to
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: be a lot of people out there. You can not
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: pick one sign. Like, sure. Like, there's no way to
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: totally control every protester's sign or chant. And there have
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: been some gross chants from the pro-Jewish counter-protesters, by the way.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: But like, if at a broader enough level, there's a
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: certain group that doesn't feel safe and they feel like
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: they're being attacked, like there would be more widespread condemnation
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: about that. I think if that's other groups, and I
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: think that's upset a lot of Jewish people and a
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: lot of people that are allies of Jewish folks or
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: just observers of the situation.
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: I agree with that. And now the response is, right, well,
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: there are also Jewish students who are part of these protests.
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: But I think that the issue, right, is like, Why?
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: Why does this happen? Right. Why does this why does
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: there even if even if most of the protesters, while
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: saying things that I think ultimately would resort into a
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: cataclysm for millions of Jewish people in Israel, they're not
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: shouting anti-Semitic statements. They're not shouting slurs. But there but
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: but people that do do that are drawn to the
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: outskirts or are inside of these protests. We saw one
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: of the leaders in Colombia, which has also gotten an
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: absurd amount of attention. But nevertheless, saying horrible things came
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: to attention. Shocking that that person was walking around until
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: it drew national embarrassment for the school. But I do
• 44:54
  Speaker 3: think that that's a question, right? Why does this draw
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: this kind of antisemitism? And I think it is because
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: this line between anti-Zionism and antisemitism is a hard one
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: to draw. And I see it myself where you see
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: this word Zionist being thrown at people in a way
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: that it does get my back up because it's so
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: quick to be thrown as a slur. Um, and, and
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: so I just, in the end, I just like, this
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: is really fucking hard.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's a liberal Zionist. It's the liberals. Look, I
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: have a lot of friends like this that are in
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: Israel that are liberal Zionists that were in the streets
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: protesting Bibi, that believe Israel has a right to exist,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: that love Tel Aviv as just a beautiful city. That's
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: a very gay city, by the way, and a really
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: diverse city and like, and have moved there and love
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: being there. And they protested Bibi. They do not like
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: the Likud government, but they believe Israel has a right
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: to exist and, and, and they dress visibly Jewish and,
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: And they have the Star David necklace or whatever, and
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: they're being treated like shit by their friends on social
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: media and by some of these protesters. They're being treated terribly.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: And so, yeah, sure, they're anti-Zionist Jews that are part
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: of the... the protests, but like that group, they didn't
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: do anything wrong. Like they're not bombing Hamas. Their friends
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: or relatives or acquaintances got killed by Hamas, right? And
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: all they're trying to say is we have a right
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: to exist too. And we want to have a right
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: to exist peacefully. And we want the Palestinians to be
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: able to get aid. Those people aren't doing anything wrong.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: And they're being treated very poorly by the protesters. Is
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: that the acute problem? Are their feelings as important as
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: the dead Palestinian kids? Of course not. That's why you
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: always have to caveat. That's why you have this conversation
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: every time you say that. Yeah, everyone sucks here. A
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: lot of people are getting screwed here, but it's worth saying, though.
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: I think it's worth saying for another reason, which forget
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: the tone policing in addition to the baton policing that's
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: going on. I think it matters not just because of
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: how it makes people feel. But my sincere view, which
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: I've expressed many times in various forms on this and
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: other podcasts, is that the most effective way that advocating,
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: chanting from the river to the sea, making it this
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: Manichean struggle between colonialists and anti-colonialists, none of it puts
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: actual peace for actual human beings closer. And actually, I
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: think if it is effective, it puts those things farther
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: away because there's no answer. to this problem that involves
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: ratifying those kinds of ideas. It's far from it. And that,
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: to me, I do think is important. And not just
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: because I don't like what they're saying. I don't like
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: how it makes people feel. How Americans currently feel is
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: not the most important thing. I think it is because
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: the larger struggle, that piece in this larger struggle requires
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: rejecting those kinds of ideas.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You just have me on. You just want to
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: just peel away the onion and just, you know, you're like,
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: I want to bring up tariffs. I want to dunk
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: on progressive protesters. Like, let's talk about... Don't.
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: Characterize it that way.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: Don't fucking characterize it that way. You're doing it. It's intentional.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: I get it. That's fine. I'm happy to do it.
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: I'm happy to be your little, I don't know, token. Okay.
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: One last crass political question about the situation, which is
• 48:28
  Speaker 3: Republicans like this. They like the chaos. They like trying
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: to drive a wedge between Democrats and their Jewish constituency.
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: How worried are you about it? And what would you
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: do about it?
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: Many constituencies, not just the Jewish constituency, youth, Arab, just
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: broadly people of color, I think. There's a lot of
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: folks that have genuine unhappiness and concerns situation. It's a wedge.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: And so- Yeah. Look, I think that the Republicans do
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: see this as a political opportunity. They did not see any,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: with maybe the exception of the one or two random
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: libertarians who are in there. Our friend Justin Amash is gone,
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: so maybe there aren't any good ones left. They don't
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: mind seeing the cops with their batons going in there
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: and knocking some heads. They think that's a winner for them.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, I think, bleeded. and the protests now. There
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: is no nuance here. Jared Kushner is talking about building
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: Mar-a-Lago on the strip in Gaza. So they think it's
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: a winner across the board. They might be right. And
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: I think that it's concerning. It is concerning. If there
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: are you know, young voter, like, like the Joe Biden
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: has a very fragile coalition, which includes people that are
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: quite Israel sympathetic in the democratic coalition, but also kind
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: of the swing voters, um, you know, uh, who left
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: the Republican party over Trump, um, that are not, happy
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: with him. The young voters are in his coalition. Dearborn
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: voters are in his coalition. I mean, so he has
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: to navigate a very broad and wide coalition that has
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: very different views on this. Republicans are happy to take
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: advantage of it. Meanwhile, Donald Trump's coalition is like mostly
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: either pro-Israel or totally anti-Semitic. So it's a little bit less,
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: it's like less of a tightrope.
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, that's, it is, but it's interesting that it
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: is less of a tightrope because of what you just said.
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: But I do think what I was getting at, right,
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: is that, yes, this is an issue that, that what
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: is happening in Gaza is, uh, potentially alienating key constituents
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: Biden needs like Arab voters and, uh, young voters. While
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: at the same time, the Republicans are trying to exploit
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: the protests without really regard for the views of those
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: young people or those, uh, Arab voters in Dearborn. They're
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: trying to go for, uh, uh, they're trying to kind
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: of use the chaos. They're trying to say that Jews
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: are unsafe, right? They're trying to go after that constituency specifically.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: And I think it's working. It's alarming to me. But
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: anecdotally speaking, you know, is this 1%? Is this 2%?
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: I don't want to overstate how big of an audience
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: this is. It's a pretty small demographic. But it could
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: be important in Atlanta, could be important in Philly, which is,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: you know, Wall Street Journal reading conservatives who are either
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: Jewish or, you know, kind of have strong foreign policy
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: hawks that were turned off by Trump because of his
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: dabbling in anti-Semitism and because of his, you know, isolationism,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: that you hear them saying anecdotally, like that, I don't know,
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: I don't like what's happening. Trump will defend us. You know,
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: maybe I have to go back to Trump. You know,
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: the whole Dan Senor, you know, who works for Paul Singer,
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: who used to be a never-Trumper, who is a big donor,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: who went back to Trump. Paul Singer's already back at Trump.
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: It seems like Dan is sympathetic to that. Um, you
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: see this, um, and, and I was actually just with
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: someone today, um, who, who said that their friend, uh,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: who's Jewish, who said that their friends, um, they have
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: friends that feel this way. So is that going to
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: change by November? You know, will cooler heads prevail? Hopefully.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: But I do think that there is a small demo
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: of group voters that were, that were traditionally Republican, that
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: were gettable for Biden, that are, um, you know, that
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: are starting to lean back towards Trump over this. I
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: find that asinine, just to be abundantly clear, I find
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: that asinine and insane that you would, that on the
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: issue of anti-Semitism, you would go back to the person
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: that had lunch with Nick Fuentes and Kanye. I find
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: it ludicrous in the extreme, but that doesn't mean that
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: it's not happening.
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: So Biden, there are also people trying to lay what's
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: happening on a campus in New York, on a private
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: university campus at Biden's feet, I think often in bad faith,
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: but nevertheless, Biden has a difficult, square to circle here.
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: He needs to assuage the concerns of that part of
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: his coalition that is concerned about these protests and worried
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: about anti-Semitism, has to assuage the concerns of people that
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: are deeply unhappy with his policy in Gaza. That requires
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: a policy change. That requires something to actually shift on
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: the ground for sure. But what would you like to
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: see Biden say if there's anything he's not saying?
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: Man, this is going to be a very un-Tim thing.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: This is on the Podbro podcast. It should be you
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: guys saying this, but We could really use Obama on
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: this because it's so– he was really good at this stuff,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: like going out there and talking. And this was his
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: whole bit starting in 2004. Like there are red states
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: and there are blue states. We can be– we can
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: think about the– we can be empathetic towards the other
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: side while also understanding the policy ramifications. He was talented
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: at this. Biden's like that's not his strength, man. Like
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: he's got strengths, but like that's not it. And I
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: think that right now, there are people that are like,
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: where is he on this? And a lot of what
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: they've been doing has been relegated to written statements, which
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: are usually pretty good, by the way. If you read
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: the Biden administration, White House's written statements, they usually are
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: very empathetic, very nuanced, very thoughtful. But they're not letting
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: him loose on it. And maybe for good reason. I
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: think that it's really, it's dicey. But I do think
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: that he needs to speak out more. And you could
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: speak out from And the nice thing about having a
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: speech at a press conference is you can speak more
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: just about the thing like you can be the inverse
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: of my original statement. I always started this. Everything's an asshole.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: You can be the positive version of that, which is
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: I'm worried about Gaza. We're trying to get food in.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: I'm worried about anti-Semitism on campuses in America. We should
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: have that stopped. I'm worried about free speech rights. kids
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be getting knocked over by police officers when they're at,
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: you know, I saw he could do that, but it's not,
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: there's going to be people he doesn't please if he
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: does it, but it's probably, we'll see if it doesn't
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: get any better. It's going to be something he's going
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: to have to figure out how to do.
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's right. I do think that in
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: moments like this, when, when the rhetoric is heated, when
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: people are talking past each other and when Republicans are
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: trying to exploit it for the chaos, I do think
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: sometimes that does lower the bar a little bit, And
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: turns just stating first principles, sort of where we started
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: this conversation, into something that I think is calming and
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: relieving and actually goes a long way. Before we let
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: you go, Tim, Vice President Kamala Harris went on Drew
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: Barrymore's show on Monday, talked about a wide range of topics.
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: But this moment, I don't think you've seen it. And
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: I think we'd like to get your live reaction.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: I've not. I've been thinking that we really all need
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: a tremendous hug in the world right now. But in
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: our country, we need you to be Mamala of the country.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: It made me very uncomfortable. It made me very uncomfortable.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: It made Kabbalah very uncomfortable.
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: I know. I like that. I like this. What is
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: going on?
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: Is she about to touch me?
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: It's, um, everybody, we don't need any politician to be mom.
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: We don't need to be mom-a-la. We don't need to
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: be dad-a-la. We don't need a national dad. We don't
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: need any of that shit. It's a, it's a, it's
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: a city where they go to write laws and regulations
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: and to implement policies that affect our lives. They're not dad.
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: They're not mom. I hate that shit.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: Me too. We need a head of government. By the way,
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: this was like, this is fundamentally American, love it, where
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: you're getting at. Like, this is John Adams wanted to
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: name the president His Excellency or some shit, and George
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: Washington was like, fuck that, Mr. President. Mr. President, we
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: could have a Mrs. President, hopefully soon. That's it. They're
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: one of us. They're of the people. We do not
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: need a mom. They're not like the royal family. They
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: don't need to be anything special. I'm with you on that. Also,
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: the touching.
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: Also, the touching. Because you had a moment where Carrie
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: Lake touched you.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: It was kind of similar. It was kind of similar.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: If you touch me on the shoulders, I don't know.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: Drew is kind of the the good angel version of Carrie.
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: It's like the same energy, but like the light versus
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: the darkness kind of with Carrie or Drew. But they
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: both did the double hand thing.
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's too much.
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: You can touch me on my shoulder. We can hug.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: But there's something about the four, like eight fingers.
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: Remember when George W.
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: Bush.
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: lost himself for a second and tried to give Angela
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: Merkel a shoulder rub. It truly was just like he mis-categorized,
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: he just did something he might do to a relative
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: or a loved one, but he just, kind of as
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: he was passing, gave her a quick, and she shivered
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: like I've never seen a person shiver. The other piece
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: of this too is politics is emotional because it's serious
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: and the stakes are very, very high, but we actually
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: don't need these figures to assuage, it's actually the mirror
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: of the people People who say like, oh, they don't
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: find Joe Biden inspiring. Okay. I get wanting Joe Biden
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: to inspire other people because you want politics to have outcomes,
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: but you don't need to be inspired because if you say,
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: I want to be inspired, it's a little bit like,
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: I don't know, like Louis XIV being like, bring me
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: a show. I'd like to see something. Bring me a
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: lovely cake and a show. It's like, that's not what
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: this is about. Like, if you're feeling worried and anxious
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: about politics, it's not Kamala Harris's job to assuage you.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: It might be valuable. for others.
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: But if it's for you, it sort of should be
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: an embarrassing thing to request.
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: Go volunteer if you want to be inspired, you know,
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: go out in society and find somebody inspiring. That's not
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: what the, you know, the head legislator of the country necessarily.
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: It's nice. It's a nice bonus. You know, if you
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: get a little tingle up your leg when the president talks,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: like that's not, that should be a bonus, you know,
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: a little cherry on top. That's not the median requirement.
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: The idea that like, and I get where it's just
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: a very like I don't know. It's just a very Hollywood, oh,
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: the country needs a hug right now. The country doesn't
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: need a hug. People need hugs from their loved ones
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: in their own private lives. The country needs effective governance
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: and to defeat a despicable authoritarian movement. That's what the
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: country needs. Hugs after.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: Go watch Finding Forrester. That's nice. Go watch a movie
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: about a young man overcoming challenges. Whatever. Go find something.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: That's fine. You don't need a mom from Kamala. We're
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: very aligned on this, John Lovett.
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: Look, you and I You began by making... Peanut butter
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: and jelly. Tim Miller, you know him from The Bulwark.
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: Send all your negative comments at him. As always, great
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: to see you, Tim. That's great.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: And if you're the one person out there that agreed
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: with all my takes today, The Bulwark Plus is available
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: on Substack because I spent an hour for you. See you, John.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: I miss you.
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: And if Tim isn't your cup of tea, don't worry.
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: Dan and John, back Friday morning.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: Peace.
• 1:00:04
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