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Making full use of the half-price electricity he gets every Sunday from 11am to 4pm with British Gas. Lovely creases, mate. Search British Gas Peak Save. Smart meter required. Eligibility and T&C supply. Hello, everyone. This is JVL here with my best friends, Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of The Bulwark. Well, we're a week going into this thing, and it's great. Has it been a week?
I found myself last night at three in the morning laying there just thinking, Pete Hegseth? We'll get to that in a minute. First, I would like to... It brought me a lot of joy, I'll say, but we'll get to it in a minute. Okay. We'll get there. I would like to say that I've been on this spot for a very long time saying that Donald Trump will attempt to run for a third term. And what I've said is that he will...
Use the period between now and like 2027 to constantly tease the idea in a will he won't he sort of way. And that once we get to 2027, then he'll see if he can put his foot on the gas. Kind of like a Ross and Rachel type thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And there are just like, there are a bunch of structural reasons why he would do this. Today, again, we are only a week into this thing. He appears before the House GOP conference and says, I'm going to quote, I suspect I won't be running again.
Unless you say he's so good we got to figure something else out. It's the perfect Trumpian. That's a real thing that just happened today. Who's reporting that? Is that... Punchbowl? It's all over the internet. Sorry, I was taping another podcast. Can you read it again? I suspect I won't be running again unless you say... He's so good. We got to figure something else out. It's like the platonic ideal, right? There's enough deniability. It's like, see, he's saying he won't run again.
He's saying he respects the Constitution and the 22nd Amendment. But is he? Do we have a constitutional scholar? Because I took a look at the language in the old the old Constitution.
Old number 22. Yeah, the 22nd Amendment's quite clear. It's not really. So I've done a little bit of digging on this. It is possible that he could run, I mean... just taking everything exactly as it is now without assuming any supreme court stuff that he can basically do what like putin did with medvedev which is he could run as a vice president run as the vice president
With everybody understanding, you can even make it explicit, that the guy at the top of the ticket, let's just pretend for the moment it'll be Don Jr.,
because he wouldn't trust J.D. Vance with his life like this, would then on January 21 step aside and resign the office, at which point Trump would be going. So that seems to be... pretty vp gambit airtight the vp gambit but that's not what worries me what worries me is that uh like with the 14th amendment gambit uh if the supreme court was faced with the fact of this guy doing it and with a bunch of state parties putting him on a primary ballot
And polls showing that within the Republican Party, you know, 65 or 79 percent of the people are going to vote for him. And Supreme Court is being asked to, like, tell these people they can't have what they want. There isn't anything we have seen from this court. I have two thoughts about this. I have two thoughts about this I want to share. Number one, you do this.
I think the worry is fair, which I'll get to. You do the 14th Amendment comparison, which isn't really a fair and apt comparison. I mean, like the 14th Amendment was a lot murkier. than the 22nd. It was. I know that for the shtick, you have to kind of act like it was similar. And I was open, by the way, to the 14th Amendment being enforced in a way that would have prevented him from running. I thought...
I think that there was an interesting constitutional question there. The 22nd is a lot more cut and dry. So that comparison isn't quite as apt as the shtick requires it to be to work. That was presidential immunity.
Was that a cut and dry, or was that something they just invented out of thin air? That was something they invented out of thin air, which is pretty concerning. So we've seen that they can do that. There are things to be concerned about. I'm not saying that they're not. I just want to, on the specific point of the 14 and 22 comparison, I just...
wanted to get on the record that i i don't think that's that as apt as a comparison um i will say this though i received a text yesterday from somebody about like mona i guess wrote something that was like there are no permanent losses no permanent defeats
for the bulwark yesterday and somebody was like well i thought that the bulwark was like democracy is over and so i just like for the purposes of this conversation just kind of setting the table i i feel like i've been very clear but sometimes i don't i'm not i'm not um listened to as you know i'm not the people don't translate my words as clearly as i had hoped i felt like from the beginning like probably it was more likely that he would just leave
If you want again, it was more likely than not. I've kind of vacillated between like there being a 2% chance that he tries to stay in power. Or like a 40%. It's pretty wide range. Kind of depending on my mood that day and what Trump did most recently. And so the point that I was always trying to make and that many of us, I don't speak for everybody at the board, but many of us were making is like that risk.
whether you assess it to be 2% or 40% is too great we've never had that risk really since the Civil War yeah it's never been above zero since well I guess you could say since FDR I guess it's never been above zero since FDR and And that's bad and that's disqualifying in its own right. And now that we're living it.
You know, like there's this question of he's like making these jokes and like the jokes are bad. And I don't and I don't think that it does us any good for me to get my crystal ball and like decide what I think. Who the fuck knows what the world looks like in spring of 2028. But I do think that it is responsible and right to live in a world where he might try this. There should be a legal vertical of people that are focused on that side of things.
And there will have to be a public, you know, a public conversation that is sober that hopefully like, you know, convinces people. that they should not give any aid and comfort to this. I'm not that hopeful on that latter point, but I think that all that stuff is required because he's joking, he's not joking. It's an insane thing to joke about. So that's what I think.
I want to pick up on this point that Tim's making about democracy over versus democracy fine and just how much space exists between those two things. So our concern about Trump. And I'm glad you're bringing this up because I do see some people saying sort of like, well, I thought that, you know, of course we'll never have another election again.
I don't think any of us have ever even begun to argue that. And again, this idea of democracy over, it takes a long time to end and would, especially for the world's oldest.
democracy right we do have a lot of things that even like places like orban's hungry and other places where we've seen sort of democratic slide you know take place and so Our job, or even what we have been warning against, is the extent to which Trump stresses the democratic institutions in ways that other candidates and people who have been president...
have not. Now, lots of people, though, lots of presidents have tested the limits of their power and have done things that I think conservatives have balked at over the years. I think, you know, President Obama doing all of his czars and sort of doing an end. around the advice and consent role of the Senate. And every time that there's been sort of a stretching.
of the guardrails or a stretching of what it means, it can then be utilized by the next people who come along to say, okay, well, we've busted this norm. We've busted that norm. We've changed this rule to the point where it gets harder and harder to sort of race. in.
people who want to do really bad things, especially if they are people who have really bad intentions. I think our argument about Trump was always, this is a guy with really bad intentions, extra constitutional intentions, and he will stress our institutions in ways that...
our country's not quite prepared for and that we don't have like lots of laws and stuff that make it super good. But this is one of those places where I think 22nd Amendment, like that's what the Insurrection Act and that type of thing, like that was so murky and it was like. a test and it wasn't so clear cut. 22nd amendment much more clear cut, but that doesn't mean he's not going to stress our institutions at every level. But the last thing I'll just say on the actual Trump running again.
We know what an 82 year old man looks like because Joe Biden is one. And we know that Joe Biden at 78, much better than Joe Biden at 82. I do think Donald Trump at 82 struggles to, you know.
organize yeah organize the idea that he ought to be and actually let me just make one more point I met some I'm talking to a lot of democracy people right now and I wanted to make this point to them and I haven't had the chance to do it yet which is The extent to which it is very difficult to convince the American people about democratic threats when eggs are too expensive and milk is too expensive because democracy is a luxury item in some ways.
You're like, well, now you've got to think about institutions. And people don't want to think about institutions when they're stressed about paying their bills. And we don't have to fight about that. I just want to say that was a suboptimal time to try to persuade people around it. of democracy. As Trump is testing, our democracy is a good time to persuade people and educate people about what he is doing.
I've got especially good news on this front. I've got especially good news on this front, Sarah. It's a good news next level. We haven't had one of those in a while. Just saw a stat today. And Republicans increasingly think the economy is doing great. You saw the total inversion now, like a hockey stick style growth in the economy over the last week.
It's just amazing the magic that happens under Joe Biden's leadership in a lame duck. And so I don't think people will be stressed about it. So they won't have these luxury issues. Hold on one second on this, though. So I think there was always, JVO was always right about boat parade people. There was always, because we're also seeing the opposite.
be true where like democrats now think that the like there was always a political poll the democrats in the same survey thought that they're starting to see view the economy more negatively right which i think justifies this idea that there is a political partisan valence to how one views the economy, whether your side is in control or not. That being said, I think these extra margins for Trump in terms of the people who did vote on the economy.
uh were people who are not republicans per se they are just people who were mad about the economy and prices that chart is turning me into the joker though i've totally turned it i'm just like i'm like this the fuck this is crazy like it's like they've inverted now
Sarah, I have some bad news for you. Joe Biden's still the president. Couldn't you people at least wait until January to talk about how the economy's magically gotten better or worse? Joe Biden's still the president. I got some bad news for you, Sarah. If democracy is a luxury good that you can only think about in good times. What is the last good times presidential election we've had? I think it was 1984. Sure. Every election since 1984. The dominant.
The dominant theme was like, I feel your pain. We got to keep going. Things are still hard. That's pretty young in 96. Every presidential election is... boy, things are really tough out there and I got to come in and fight for the middle class. Every election since 1984 has been there. Actually, you raise a good point here, which is I don't want to be glib about saying, because democracy is not a luxury item. It is the foundation upon which...
All the rest. No, I know what you mean. Totally understood. I'm not trying to be dismissive of, but I also think... I have argued and we have argued so much about the fact that like, and it's funny, there's been a bunch of charts now showing how much democracy has actually risen.
in the eyes of people in terms of an issue that they are voting on the problem is is lots of republicans are also voting on the issue of democracy because they think that joe biden is a threat to democracy and so i just I think that we should make sure that we are very clear when we use the word democracy that everybody ain't talking about the same thing and that people do not see the threats as the same thing. Okay, so let's get to the real news. Pete Hegseth, who... Is that the real news?
Who is a weekend morning cable news show host with 10 years of experience and a number of New York Times bestsellers to his name. I read the first four chapters. a word of any of those books, but that's okay. I'm sorry, I've read the first four chapters of his most recent, and I think that strong chance he took the pen.
at least in some parts. It does not read like, you know, it was an erudite Manhattan Institute author. It reads like a Fox and Friends weekend co-host's book. When we are off air... I will share some intelligence I have from inside the right-wing publishing. industrial complex okay so you're indicating that it's all written by one guy it's a good it's a good ghost ride a ghost rider that was able to channel the voice of a weekend fox and friend
It's worse than that. But I can't actually I can't burn my source. So I'm going to keep that to myself. I'm sorry, friends. But he seems to have no experience running any sort of organization. At all? He ran an AstroTurf pack. He ran an AstroTurf pack that I think had a couple staffers, including his brother, who he hired.
And there was a complaint about that, and his response is basically, there's no laws against hiring your brother for a non-profit. So I think he was in charge of, I think, three or four staffers at an AstroTurf. Profit. And he's been nominated to be the Secretary of Defense. I think this is like nominating...
Allison Janney to be Secretary of the Treasury because she was on the West Wing. Why are you being mean about Allison Janney? She went to Kenyon. FYI. She's the best. She is the best. She can run Treasury. She would be better than all these.
i i just would like to can i i want to i want to give my broader thoughts but first i want to tell a story i want sarah to go first but i just want to tell a story that like this because people have been worried about my feelings because i was crying on yesterday's daily podcast and i gotta tell you You cried? Love it cried. And I got a little verklempt. Love it. Love it. I haven't listened to that. Love it cried. Like, love it. Real payfabe cried or real cried? Love it like.
To add like a grown man cried Wow. Tim Walz, like I love my son crying. Yeah, Tim Walz, I love my son crying. You never know what's going to happen on the Daily Bowler podcast. You should be tuning in every day. I'm having to tape it every day. You guys should be listening. Yeah, there's nothing more than listening to two grown men cry. It's nice. You know, we're gays. We're in touch with our feelings. Anywho, some people have been concerned. John Lovett is gay? Yeah, obviously. Okay, anyway.
So, you know, people are worried about me. And I'm going to tell you, when I saw the Caputo tweet come across, I laughed like I haven't laughed in ages. I mean, I couldn't control myself. I had uncontrollable private laughter in the car. And I'm like, I know I shouldn't be laughing at this. It's serious. And they're like, people's lives are going to be on the line. But I couldn't help myself. And I cried again, but it was laughing, crying.
And then I showed up to dinner. And like you, can't reveal your stories. I don't want to embarrass the people I was at dinner with. But I went to dinner with a couple serious people. Serious, you know, not podcast hosts. Serious people I had a serious dinner with. They hadn't been looking at their phone, and so I was able to break the news to them that Pete was going to be running the entire United States military, and their faces of shock, followed by not believing me.
Both of them got their phones out and started Googling at the same time, and then they showed it to me, and I was like, yeah, you don't need to show it to me. I just told you. It was like that level of astonishment. I need to see the New York Times front page with his picture on it before I...
believe this that was so enjoyable for me that i wanted to start going around the restaurant to tell other people just so i could like relive the experience um but uh luckily i did get to live a little more time because tyler was
I'd fallen asleep on the couch, so I got to wake him up with the news, which was really enjoyable as well. So anyway, I have broader serious thoughts about this, but I want Sarah to go first. I just wanted to share with people. It was really good for me internally, at least in the short term.
Yeah. So I will say that I have been thinking about what is the threat level of these choices, right? And like, what do we want? Like, what's the best... case scenario for the country around this and like i think on some level it's not that i'm happy about marco rubio per se it's that i'm happy it's not rick grinnell right it's like i'm happy that Because there are dangerous people, there are craven people, and then there's stupid people. And I would say I would take craven.
but like qualified over actively dangerous. OK, which I think flies in the face a little bit, JVL, of you being like, no, no, I want them to get the full Trump experience, which means, you know, I want these dangerous people. But I actually think that Pete Hegseth. might be how we split the difference, JVL, because he's just stupid. Now, stupid in serious roles can be very dangerous, but...
My guess is that that guy, based on what I know about him, is just a head of hair who has an affair every single time he gets married and has many, many children. Like he's not a serious, he's an unserious person. He's a Princeton and Harvard guy. He's an elite. Is he? Dare I say an Ivy League elite. Isn't he both though? Isn't he both stupid and craven?
Okay, but I guess I'm working through the fact that at least with Stupid and Craven is like a better version than like... actively dangerous right like we're not getting people who are so far who are like i'm going to pull us out of nato abandon ukraine and like when he puts um wants to do with vaccinations in the military yeah like well okay but so if he puts rfk right rfk at health and human services say he's running that uh that's dangerous ben carson running hhs
it's just sort of stupid and craven right it's a little and so i'm just i'm asking but i would say my gut reaction to that is not not like pleasantly surprised that i'm just i'm just this feels like Okay, you're both getting the Trump experience, but it doesn't feel as like the harm is so bad that I really kick in with the like, no, we have to do the things that prevent.
so much of this harm. Let me tell you the one possible downside of that for this is that it seems to me that Hegseth will have two briefs if confirmed. or recess appointed uh the first brief will be to getting all of the woke out of the military get i mean so far as i can tell the military is one gigantic gay bar and it's just like going to pride
to a pride parade. Um, it's nothing but, uh, trans people. And I don't know if drag queens are still a thing or what pups, whatever pups are. No, nobody will tell me what are those things guys? We'll talk to you about pups. the other side uh well you know you have a second brief what is the second brief and then but the second brief is going to be culling the general officer ranks In getting rid of the cucks and woke generals, translation, the generals who take the Constitution seriously.
And that's a big danger, I think. That's a good teaser. That points to, you know, that bad stuff that we started out talking about. All right, so before that, Tim, would you like to give us a little message? I would like to give you a message because in these times of clownishness and potential terror. It's important that you're eating healthy, you know? It's important that you take care of you on the inside. And if the beginning of fall has you feeling farmer's market vibes,
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All right, Tim. All right. Go ahead. Do you want to talk about the generals? I do. Which one of you wanted to talk about the generals? You had two briefs there. The Clown College brief and then the Insurrection 2.0 brief. So let's start with the Clown College for a little bit because, as I mentioned, I was reading...
I was reading the book, The War on Warriors, earlier this morning. And a couple of things I noticed. The word transgender appears in that book, I believe, 28, 29 times. Very serious. Like this book. which is pitched kind of as like a...
Pete Hegseth wrote a book about how to reorient the Department of Defense in the military. It's like one of the reasons why you would justify picking him, right? It's like a blueprint. The whole book is about transgender people. I don't know how many transgender people there are in the military, but if you listen to Pete Hegseth... I mean, you would think that everybody had the pronouns they, them, and were getting mastectomies, double mastectomies. Here's a quote I want to pull up here.
um one of there are so many quotes like this um he talks about how now for promotions firsts is the most important factor in filling new commanders and the military is will not stop until trans lesbian, black females run everything. I find that interesting. I mean, that's probably very close to happening in the military. I guess I was going, is there a single trans lesbian black female running anything? I guess would be the first place to start. Because, you know, I disagree with the premise.
I don't think that there would necessarily be a problem with having a major or a captain who is a trans lesbian black female. But if that's the biggest problem facing the military that he's going to need to address, I guess... You would think that there'd have to be some evidence that a single one of those people existed. I'm not sure that...
They do in leadership roles in the military, but I'm happy to be corrected on that. I think that the scary version of this we should talk about, but the amusing... uh idiocracy hector mountain dew camacho running the government uh version is is like is leading by a nose in the race in my mind and i think it's like
Probably it'll be bad for like four generals that like wrote memos about their concerns about white nationalism or radicalization in the military. A couple of them are going to be fired. That sucks.
I feel bad for those generals. Like... they're going to get fired and then there's going to be like they're going to not raise the pride flag in june and instead they're going to raise like a hulk hogan flag or something and uh and they're going to ban people from using pronouns Besides the pronoun of birth. You know, Pete is going to write like memos in crayon to people like to the military, like letting them know, you know, how to ensure that heterosexuals get primacy.
And then they're going to declare victory. I kind of think that is going to be his main remit, and then there'll be some other people that do everything else. Can I ask a question about that? Are you at all concerned that... He might try to make the military friendly to white nationalism. Yeah, that's not great. That.
kind of worries me in the long term right i mean if the military becomes an incubator for that because again this is the kind of thing we see in other countries right like you know you talk about like the pakistani military or the egyptian military and they have their own political subcultures and everybody like nobody is quite sure whose side they're on i guess i just think that's a bottom-up thing and like the only difference which is bad is that like
people will feel free to like show off their Punisher tats and like put Punisher stickers on their Kevlar vests and like, rather than just kind of post about it on the internet. Like, is it real? You know, I don't know. Like, is it any different? It's different once you stop feeling like you have to hide that stuff. That's true, JBL. I will say, and this going, it's not, I agree with Tim, it's not great, but...
But here is where the clownishness, I do think, can become just sort of an asset, which four years is not necessarily long enough to engender... complete cultural change in an institution that has an extraordinarily strong culture right and so you can fire a couple people you can i like i agree i think he will do some of these things but in terms of making it like
Like, so for example, I'll give you one example of where I think it would be tough for them to make a change because of the ingrained culture. So I know that Pete Hegseth, much less so than talking about white nationalism, has said that he does not think women should be in combat. Right. That's something that I think he talked about in that book. That's a big something that he believes.
Going and taking women out of combat now at a time when they are having a really difficult time staffing an all-volunteer military, like one of the reasons that having women in the military became increasingly attractive is that... We have a career military. There were lots of women who wanted careers in the military and they needed more people to come have careers in the military. And so the idea that they would simply like he would be able to flip a switch and purge that.
seems unlikely. And furthermore, the idea that they could shift the culture to such a degree that it became... I mean, I actually think we already have a little bit of a problem where... people who are in the military it's not so much white nationalism but i think there's like if you go and um look at the people who like stake out the border and join these militias many of them are ex-military right it is people who are sort of
looking for something to do now that they no longer have their military world and they sort of go find another war to fight. And so I think it's already a problem. So it might exacerbate that problem. But I don't know that I think. that it is like bottom falling out situation. And this is where I'm like, I recognize this is a very serious job and that you are now in charge of 3 million members of the military.
uh but i would take clown over pernicious actor i believe in this i'm testing that theory a little bit but that's my gut instinct
This is, and I want to get to the worst part, but just really quick on the clown over serious danger. This is where me and Bill are in a disagreement. As Bill wrote for the morning newsletter about how this is an important moment for demonstrating that the Trump's... mega people can't get everything they want and they can be stopped but i i don't know maybe that's true maybe i'll feel differently about this in january but to me it's like
I don't understand why we should let the Republicans unravel themselves from this and make themselves feel more serious than they are because there is no rationale. by which you could say, I think that Donald Trump should be the commander-in-chief of the military, but I do not believe that Pete Hegseth should be the secretary of defense. I'd love to hear somebody try to make that case in a serious forum, in a long-form setting.
I don't know what their case would be, though. None of them actually believe that Donald Trump should be the commander. Well, unfortunately, they all supported him. I know, but this is the difference. between what they say in public, what they say in private, right? So for me, it's like, why would we encourage them to give themselves the patina of seriousness when it's like...
I mean, if Donald Trump's going to be the president, why not? Pete Heseth and Secretary of Defense and Judge Jeanine at DOJ and Mike Huckabee as the Ambassador Israel. He already has that. And I don't know what other hosts. We can give things. Tyrus could run a HUD. What? Purging the general officer core. Yeah, I mean, that's not good.
That's not good, but they signed up for that. Again, Donald Trump wants to do that. It's not Pete Higgs that just wants to do that. So I guess the serious problem that you get to then on purging the General Officer Corps is... Is that part of some effort to create a military full of loyalists to Donald Trump? A Republican Guard, just to pick out a term. Well, I think that that's a tail risk.
I think that's a tail risk. That's challenging to do in three years. This is my point about the short period of time. To create that, to undermine the entire culture in three years. I'm saying it could move in a not good direction, but like... The bottom falls out and now he's got Republican guard scenes. And it's like John Kelly. That was already shifting beneath our feet and we didn't realize it. Kind of like 2016.
Maybe. But how easy is it to demonstrate? Just look. Just look at Kelly, Mattis, Millie. They all got picked by him. You know what I mean? It's one of those things where... And all these people have fucking convinced themselves that like we're preening panic artists and Donald Trump really is strength, you know, through peace, through strength leader. Right. And so it's like it's not actually as easy to.
vet the types of people that would go along with the trump coup as you think because like to be honest like john kelly would have seemed like somebody that would have gone along with it i think if you're doing a little system internally you're like all right well he took dhs and he went along with the muslim ban And he enforced that. And like, this might be a guy that we could try. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. It's not.
It's not as obvious as people think. I think I said there are 44 generals. Who are the four that would go along with it? Who are the eight that we have to purge? I don't know that that is the... That's the optimistic view on this. Yeah. That is the optimistic view. That's the optimistic view. Sarah, do you have a message for us? I do. And I'm glad to be able to do this one this time.
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Limited time only. Exclusions apply. See site for details. Well, JV, before you go, can I break the show map here a little bit? Sure. For a second, is that okay? Of course. I've been receiving some texts. There's a there's a new New York Times piece out how Trump won 13 young undecided voters discuss why they voted for Trump.
And I just think it'd be fun to do this live and read a couple of them to you, if that's okay. I should have been listening to the Bull and Branch endorsement, which I fully second, but instead I was reading some of these. Okay, are you ready? Jasper, 25. Jasper's 25. He's biracial and works in food service. He voted for Biden in 2020, Trump in 2024.
he says i'm kind of worried about project 2025 if some aspect of that goes through people are going to blame me for voting for trump i'm also a little bit worried about food safety scares i'm also worried about personal immaturity type stuff where he'll just say things to world leaders we could enter a nuclear war so maybe don't do that this is warning to the man that he voted for aisha 21 um south asian
didn't vote in 2020, voted this time for Trump, at least there's not going to be another January 6th. You know, because that already happened. Lillian, 27. White works in digital advertising. The thing that was really the nail in the coffin for me was when Biden called half the country garbage and then the White House moved to change the record officially. That really bothered me. That made me want to rally.
So the White House attempt to put an apostrophe in a transcript for a speaker who wasn't on the ballot made her vote against. OK. OK. Actually, can I make a comment about what's interesting to me about that? Yeah, sure. Is that all of those people, that means that they were listening to content. going into the election in which the kerfuffle over the garbage comment and then the White House is, you know, sort of scrambled to defend it and say that that person...
That is the thing that they saw. Whatever they were watching or reading, somebody viewed that, like that was the thing they were drilling down on. And I think that... especially among young people. So I will say I've been doing a bunch of focus groups post-election with these sort of Biden to Trump voters.
And one of the things that I think is going to be fodder for a lot of discussion is the way a lot of our terms around Republican and Democrat have lost a great deal of utility as we see the coalition shift, because these. voters are not Republicans. They are red-pilled. And red-pilled in the sense that it is a rejection... of the establishment, rejection of political elites, rejection of the media. It is not defined by a set ideology or anything that they are for or interested in.
It is built around what they reject. And they reject it because the media that they consume, the things that they see, mainly on TikTok and other things, are... are basically creating for them the sense that the real the real people that are messing it up are these elites like joe biden um and i just think you should
grapple with this. This is a nice transition into the norms convo that JBL is going to do, but I have to read one more first because this was in a swing state. Pierce, 26, North Carolina, white, didn't vote in 2020. I voted for Trump. I decided after Kamala went on call. her daddy. So there you go. Maybe Kamala shouldn't do as many podcasts. They do more podcasts. He saw a caller daddy. He's like, nope, not presidential enough for Pierce.
Don't want to see these ladies talking about their coochies on a podcast. Are we sure? I mean, are we really, really sure that we should have a democracy? No, no, no, no. These aren't people who actually were just Republican voters. We're not sure. We're not sure. This has happened like 60 Minutes, I think, recently. Because these things sound like what...
I would conjure up if I was writing a column making fun of people like this. No, I think they're real. And the reason is that we've just done a bunch of focus groups and I've been listening to them. And they all sound red-pilled. So... Yeah, so the norms question it does. The Daily Today, we had a long conversation with this guy, Osito Onevu, and I had the same conversation with Pablo Torre about, like, the Democrats are in a fucking tough position right now, where if the...
Dominant culture is institutions suck, everything sucks, and we've got to tear it down. And the Dems have to be the ones that are like, no. we think things are great. Like our institutions are strong and we should respect experts and elites. Like that's a losing hand to play. So anyway, I think that is relevant to what you're saying and where JVL was going.
So I was actually going to skip the norms because we're starting to run long and the other two things on my to-do list here are more important. Okay. Well, then could you just give an answer to that, JBL? We can have a longer pod another time. What's your short answer to the Democrats?
Assuming that the thesis is true, that is being laid out by Sarah and these focus groups and what we're seeing elsewhere, that the Democrats having to defend the system is putting them in a bad place with key voters. How do you fix that? My short term, my tentative answer, because I really don't, this is something I've thought a lot about so far and I don't have, and neither of you are going to like it.
is that the way the Democrats square the circle is by going very, very hard into populist radical economics. And it becomes like an eat the rich. The system they're rebelling against is the billionaire class and the oligarch class. And it looks much more like Bernie than Josh Shapiro. I think. I mean, again, this is not a preference thing, but just for precisely the reasons you say. So you can still be pro-rule of law.
in that scenario right but you have an institution that you're scapegoating i think you can also be populist center populist center we have to reform the campaign finance get the billionaires out of our political system right like there are ways to do that maybe you could do that I mean, I would like to live in the popular center. The people who ran ahead of Kamala Harris, the Democrats who ran ahead of her, held their seats, whatever, they ran against Democratic Party.
like insanity like like government overreach and uh they did not run as populists they didn't they ran colin allred you know you guys like it or not but i i was looking at the what he said he he made the trans stuff he like said i do not think he had a whole ad the focus of it was i don't want boys and girls sports And so I have seen no evidence electorally that the more populist Bernie-like candidates...
But that's different than the trans stuff, though, right? I mean, the more populist stuff is a straight economic. It eschews all of the identity politics stuff and runs right at sort of a hardcore economic populism. which I think is like sort of where Walls was, kind of. I don't know. Tim Walls? Yes, horrible. Guys, we have not done a re-litigation of Tim Walls, but if we do at some point, I've got thoughts.
I mean, look, five minutes from now, nobody in America is even going to remember who he was. Yeah, well, we can avoid that. That's it. That's it. There was a loud. OK, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Kind of the point, though. Yeah, that's exactly that's the that is that's the point. So Elon Musk seems to maybe kind of be like the shadow president. He was on the phone call between Trump and Putin. He was appointed to the Doge Committee.
which Tim, I saw the thing you and Sam did last night on this. The only thing you missed is that obviously the report should not come out on July 4. It should come out on April 20 because this is like Elon loves weed jokes. like loves weed jokes more than anything and uh is in 420 or is it 422 420 well 420 420 yeah it should come out on april 20th obviously yeah um they could just do it at 420 in the afternoon that's what's but elon was
With Trump at the House GOP meeting today as well. Co-president. Do you guys have any thoughts about this? I hate it when I steal a thought that I don't, that I forget who did it. The Elon Trump thing is does it has a whiff of being less Elon going into Twitter and tearing everything up and more elon marrying grimes and having a couple of children with weird names and then divorcing and falling out with all like he has with all of his wives
Did he split with Grimes? I thought they were still together. I mean, they're on again, off again. My point is... He's had several failed marriages and it feels more like a failed marriage than a takeover. Is this really going to last? Like that Elon Trump buddy comedy? Like how long could this possibly fucking last? So let me tell you what it reminds me of, which is Bannon.
Right. Which is what happens when Trump has somebody who provides him a lot of help by bringing him sort of a populist message that Trump, you know, is like, oh, OK. And like somebody is kind of an architect of something with him, helps him out. But then that person goes around all their friends being like, no, I'm really the one running the show. No, I have a lot of power. Let me tell you about all my influence. And Donald Trump, that doesn't sit with him.
Right. Like he needs total subservience. You don't get to have your own like universe of loyalists. He needs all of it to transfer to him. And if it doesn't and he thinks you're using him to build your own. influence, he will cut you off. Can I float something that I would like you guys to pass a verdict on? Sure. Trump, greater sign, greater sign, Musk.
in terms of if one of the two of them had to be president or had to watch my children or had to sit across from me for a meal for two hours in every single possible case I would take Donald Trump over Elon Musk. Because Trump is a degenerate and a liar and a bully and all those other things. And Musk is an insane person.
I'm a no in that except for the dinner. I don't want to have dinner with Elon Musk. But in the other categories, I would rather have Elon Musk in charge. I mean, he did land the rocket on the rocket thing. I don't know. I mean, his system. Maybe they're both just the luckiest fucking people on Earth, but the government gave money to SpaceX and to Boeing to come up with low-orbit satellites or whatever to figure out.
SpaceX figured out how to do it and Boeing didn't So I don't know Tesla created maybe he's just good at hiring people but whatever that would then make him better than Donald Trump if it's just as simple as that and like Elon is just a fucking weird Svengali and it's all smart people behind the curtain I don't know but like
They've worked on the satellite, on the rocket, on the electric car. His shit's worked when other people's haven't. So I guess I'd rather go with him. I do, I mean, I think that it's like... It's the most corrupt relationship that has existed in the federal government in modern times. Not going back to the industrialists. The idea that he's in charge of a...
Of culling government spending while also being the largest government contractor. Right. It's hard to even explain to people just the scale of corruption. corruption and and how it compares to like other little corruptions that people worry about people like oh big pharma is really i like the revolving door it's like yeah yeah there's some other corruptions of the revolving door but this is like literally
like the dude is in charge like they're put like he's deputizing him to be in charge of government spending when he's a recipient of massive amounts of governments anyway sarah do you have elon thoughts oh i would rather starve than have dinner with either of them I would. The answer is no to them. Dinner with Trump would be kind of fun. No, I think the wrong word. I sort of agree with Tim, though, in terms of.
uh elon has at least done impressive things like donald trump just bankrupted everything uh and like pissed it all away like i don't know and stiffs everybody like donald trump is a not an impressive person. Like he figured out how to, he got in an industry where he said, okay, I can figure out how to act as unethically as possible and do that to climb to the top. And then bankrupt myself.
Yeah. And then I'll and I'll still bankrupt myself and I'll use the shield of that to be able to keep doing all this. Like Trump is not. He is a very lazy, dumb person's image of what a rich, powerful person is versus. uh versus elon musk who i think has done legitimately interesting and and world changing uh things but also this like this idea about corruption uh like that just because somebody's this is
Just because somebody is good at one thing does not mean that they should be put in charge of all the other things, though. Like, that is a thing that we do in our culture that I think is weird. We're like, oh, you figured this thing out that requires complex... physics formulas. Maybe you should control the federal budget. Like, they don't all translate. You've been really good at doing segments about the woke Bud Light beer can with himbos on a couch.
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Head to Roan.com slash The Next Level and use promo code The Next Level to save 20% off your entire order. That's 20% off your entire order when you head to rhone.com slash thenextlevel and use code thenextlevel. It's time to find your. Corner office. Comfort. Did you guys see Sebastian said Thune's going to be the majority leader? Yeah, I saw that. I don't have any thoughts on that. We'll get to that maybe if you wanted to do the button. But I want to talk about Jack Smith.
So we got news last night that Jack Smith is planning to resign before Trump takes over. And I. I am curious as to what you guys think about that, because that leaves a bad taste in my mouth, and I don't understand why we're going to save Trump the fight. Of firing Jack Smith and then the public shame of going after everybody in DOJ who doesn't resign over it? Why would you deny Trump?
that cost to doing the thing he wants why would you make it go away on your own but maybe I'm missing something maybe because I'm not sure there's as much value add in him firing him as you might think. Like, I think this is one of those things that everybody's like, yeah, that's going away. But it's unprecedented, right, to make him fire him.
No? Maybe I'm just overthinking this. Yeah, aren't there other parts of the investigation, too? I mean, you know, I'm with you. I don't know that I have really deep thoughts about it, but I don't like it. And, you know, I guess I don't see – what is the point of quitting beforehand? Just to avoid the hassle? I don't know if that's it or if it's – so there – He has to give a final report by statute to the attorney general. And maybe the answer is that if he does, if he gets out ahead of time.
he can give his final report to merrick garland in the hopes that merrick garland makes it public whereas if the final report goes to attorney general judge she would would disappear it right she'd just pop it in the shredder um so maybe that's the the calculation and if so and if what's in the report is damning and if garland releases it then
I think I understand and it all makes sense. But if Merrick Garland is like, nope, there's really no public value in releasing this information. We got to be apolitical here. Then that fucking guy. I do think George has kind of been on this on the legal side where he thinks that kind of like the one thing that really needs to happen is that Jack Smith has to figure out a way to make this public.
And the public should know what's in there just for for historical posterity, if nothing else, even if it's not persuasive from a public opinion standpoint. And I think. That sounds right to me. I do think the American public, because this stuff all moved so slow and we didn't actually get to adjudicate Trump's crimes, I think that the... whether it is posterity or public opinion, whether it would have mattered or not mattered. I do think it was important for America to know the truth.
about Trump's mishandling of classified documents. I think it was important for the American people before they had to face the choice of electing him again. And we didn't get those. And I think that's been really, it's a net harm in a lot of ways. I mean, he could have gotten both, though, right? I mean, if he stayed on, he could have forced Trump to fire him, and he could have given his final report to Trump's AG, and then he could also have given a version of it to the New York Times.
Jack Smith is not without agency here, right? I don't know about that. Why not? Well, I don't know. I would have somebody from DOJ advise me on what this is. But the idea that you can just... be appointed a special counsel and just leak everything to the new york times that feels like maybe a road special counsels in american history who have done exactly that um ken star did a lot of leaking
A lot of leaking from Ken Starr. That's true. Can I throw out there? Ken Starr's office. Sorry. And I don't mean Ken Starr person, but it was like, you know, the special prosecutor, the impending counsel office is a sprawling thing. Like it's got dozens of people in it. That's what I'm saying. And I just – we should just say, like, there were obviously molar leaks before the final report. Again, like, not everything went out. But is it – I guess we should just –
Throw into the possibility that fear of retribution is driving this. Yeah. Right. Trump has talked about wanting to arrest everybody who was. doing this right hasn't he spoken specifically about jack smith himself and yes so i again i don't i'd like to know more um before i render a verdict i'm with you uh it should be public um but um
I think that there are a lot of concerning reasons why he would be doing it. He would be resigning first. Do you think Garland would sit on it instead of releasing it? I find that hard to believe. But I got to say, and I guess this is a real question for you guys. And maybe it's not fair to judge Merrick Garland retrospectively. Because we know things now in 2024 that we didn't know in 2021.
but his decision to slow walk all of that and to give the republican party the grace to move on from trump to give trump the ability to walk away And, you know, stop the bleeding and the body politic and all that. That stuff looked statesmanlike but questionable. And now I think it looks...
hopelessly naive, and catastrophically foolish. I have a button thought on this. I think that beginning literally as early as June 2015, With the way that the Republican other campaigns including one that I was working on dealt with Trump Trump has benefited from his opponents lack of imagination about his political potential and the nefariousness of his potential activities
and um you know like we did a lot of campaigns we didn't we i always when people ask me what is your what do you look back on for 2016 is there any way you could have stopped trump in the primary and like the only thing i can think of is had we tried to kill him in the crib not literally
phrase um but like had there been an oppo campaign against him to stop him to remind people how liberal he was to just like prevent him from getting momentum maybe that wouldn't have worked by the way but that didn't happen right like he was able to get this huge run and he was winning by the time anybody really tried to
throw a punch out um and so that was based on like a naivete like i believe that trump's not really gonna win like like actually be better if we let him get up there because then if it's marco and trump last or jeb and trump last we'll like we'll be able to beat him because he's so weak, right? So that naivete undergirded McConnell's failures.
Garland's failures, Ruth Bader Ginsburg's failures. Hillary Clinton's failures. Joe Biden's. And I think that it's probably a good lesson for right now. Also, as we... As we contemplate questions such as, might he try to run again in 2028? Pete Hegseth, how dangerous could he be? Et cetera, et cetera. So I think that that's true about Merrick Garland, but I think it's true about basically everybody.
I have nothing to add to that. Guys, good show. Super long show. I feel like we're coming to a better place. I feel like maybe... Maybe it's just so crazy that everything could all work out okay in the end. See you next week. And he's up. Cooking. Cleaning. Washing. Even the ironing. Making full use of the half-price electricity he gets every Sunday from 11am to 4pm with British Gas. Lovely creases, mate. Search British Gas Peak Save. Smart meter required. Eligibility and T&C supply.
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