DeSantis Deflation

Hello, and welcome to the next level podcast. I’m Tim Miller in the Captain’s chair with my best buddies, Jonathan Victor Last of The Bulwark, and Sarah Longwell, Publisher of The Bulwark. How you doing guys?

Look, Tim.

On Tim, Tim. Hey, you wanna know something? Yeah.

That’s it. So I was

going through pictures. I meant to bring this. I found a picture of Tim and his not yet husband at the time from my East Coast wedding party and they are just like it’s babies. I was just looking at Tim’s face and thinking, like, we’re just aging together. Ugh.

And Tyler, like, weighed a hundred and two pounds soaking wet. And now he’s like a muscle man that’s been a full metamorphosis. I think I I’d probably look the same, but, you know, maybe you think I look like a baby. I don’t know. Just it in the eye at the beholder, I guess.

Guys over at Charlie’s podcast, Secret Podcast, which we love and everyone should be listening to. He offers little palate cleanser sometimes for people at the top, and since I’m driving, I want to copy Charlie Sykes. And since I live in New Orleans now, instead of calling it a pallet clons, I’m gonna call it a little line yep. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that term, but I’m embracing New Orleans culture like JBL’s embracing Broadway. And so a little long.

Yeah. But I don’t know if you’ve seen this from the Florida legislature Let’s just do it live here. And for people not listed on the podcast, you might wanna go over to YouTube because the faces

are pretty important here. So that should give us a play. Like we never usually do. We bombed it because they threw homosexual is off that building. Our terrorist enemies hate homosexual is more than we do.

They’re the ones who discriminate. Our job in the military, our Navy creed, I’m committed to excellence in fair treating of all. That’s what we

learned in boot camp. That’s what we drill into ourselves each and every day while we’re in boot camp. Please vote up on this bill. That is so good. Representative Kelly

Skidmore there proudly serving district ninety two in Boca horitan, Florida in the background. They hate the homosexual’s more than we even more than

we do.

And we hate them a lot. We just don’t hate them. Throw them off a

building a lot. You can’t mention them in twelfth grade. Mhmm. But we do not wanna throw them off the building like our enemies. That was just such a nice synthesis of our two decades of aging together, Sarah Longwell culture war.

You know? It’s like the Islamist of the real homophobes. We’re just kinda we’re a homophobe blind.

No. We hate. We hate. We just hate. We just hate slightly less I loved her face.

What’s going on with

that

woman who’s sitting behind the speaker there? That’s

what I’m saying. That is representative Kelly Skidmore of district ninety two. That is her sitting behind the other rather

oh, I forget

the biggest name. I’m sorry. Thank you for clarifying. She is sitting there listening to her colleague just like The woman was too shocked to speak. She’s like, what is what is this guy saying?

Wait.

Can we do a quick, like, body language recap on this? Because here’s what’s great about it. Right? He says it, her mouth drops open. She cannot believe he said it.

Her mouth stays open he slowly realizes what he’s just said. You can sort you have to watch him really closely, but you hear his voice hit that like, just hit a little gauge of, like, oh, no. I set it out loud. I wasn’t supposed to say it like that. And then you see her do this thing where, like, she looks around the room.

Like, other people heard this too. Right? Like, I’m not alone and just hearing this the same

thing. But

she is alone. I understand the insane thing. She looks like you remember office space. The one of the the great comedies of our time, featuring one of the great walk off performances of all time. From a little known actor named Greg Pitts who comes in and plays Drew, who’s the office buddy who does the bone coaster bit.

And she looks like she’s making the bone coaster o face. Oh, it’s it’s amazing. The yellow face. Anyway, we’ll get back to Florida. Then another week, it’ll be funny to talk

about, my not my party is gonna be about the craziness happening in the Florida legislature. So that was So little side little side clip I got is doing the research for it. I wanna talk about what Republican voters want in twenty twenty four. You know, rather than getting as much into the horse race. JBL, you did a nice try out about it.

You said that I’m assuming Sarah Longwell not read.

I read. No. Maybe

oh, you did you read could you

Did you notice the note I included in it for you?

Did I read I skimmed it.

Right.

Because I I in fact had a whole number of people comment about how amusing they thought it was that I had tucked in the note addressed to you within the triad.

He’s

knowing full well that you would not read it. Just

give me a hint. What did it say? It

literally says, hi, Sarah Longwell which part? The part you didn’t read. It

was a long try. It was a long try.

I love this, sir. I think I think I this is I read them all a little bit. Like, I just wait. I’m always

I’m like the student who tucks in, you know, the the first paragraph of the Gettysburg address on page sixteen of his twenty five page term paper, just see if the teacher is awake.

I love that. Why don’t why don’t you just brief us then? JBL. It was give us the TLDR just in case So

the the the CBS and YouGov did a poll asking likely Republican primary voters, what it is they most want from their presidential nominee? And the answers were that they want somebody who will oppose wokeness.

Boom. Eighty five percent. Highest rating.

Somebody who will say the Donald Trump won in twenty twenty?

Sixty one percent. Third third highest. What

what was the what was number two on the list there, Tim? Second

one is oppose any gun

restrictions. Right? And then the fourth number, then the fourth hole make Liberals angry. And as a a buddy of mine said, well, like, cut taxes is great, but you ever pissed off a liberal? Ugh.

Right? This is this is inside the mind of Republican voters. But

cutting taxes wasn’t on the list. Right? That wasn’t offered up as an option?

I guess not. It is true. I have I had to have a critique of the polls, which is kind of telling about where the party is right now, which is I gave the series of questions which is are you looking for a candidate who does and then these series of issues? And once the cut taxes was not one of the ones that they that they proposed. JB, why don’t you give you a FYI pull up with the other options worth?

Well, I mean, the the most important thing about this is that none of this requires governing power. Right? You can oppose wokeness by simply saying stuff. You can oppose wokeness on Twitter. Ron DeSantis, his his great innovation is trying to figure out a government policy agenda for opposing wokemus.

Almost all of it seems to get struck down by the courts because it’s not actually constitutional. But beside the point, I think voters are just as happy that people oppose Wokeness by saying stuff. You you support Donald Trump having won the presidency by simply saying it. You make Liberals angry by simply talking or tweeting. Now the gun stuff, you would actually have to vote against a piece of legislation if it happened.

But that’s how you oppose gun reforms and gun restrictions. It strikes me, you know, everybody’s like, well, Republicans really want someone who can win. I’m not sure that’s true because it seems to me that a failed presidential candidate could satisfy these desires much more completely than a successful governor or senator could. And a successful presidential candidate if he had to, like, moderate on some of these things, I think might not be very attractive to Republicans.

And I think this is key because it’s kind of related to I I did my Santa’s Elizabeth Lauren bit last week, which was, you know, that he’s getting too far down the rabbit hole on some of these specific issues, you know, where you do have to actually do stuff on policies. And the numbers here bear that out. Supports USA to Ukraine. That is the second lowest number of Republicans care about that. The lowest is wood cut spending on social security.

So Trump has won that argument, you know, when it comes to social security. Even the national abortion ban, comes in below making Liberals angry. So taxes and regulations weren’t included on that. So, you know, open dialogue on whether Republican voters love to do another follow-up. And whether republican voters care about that more or less than making Liberals angry.

But we know that they care less about entitlement reform, abortion, and a strong foreign policy — Yeah. — against the commies than they do about making Liberals angry and, you know, this amorphous fight against Woke. And and I think this is where Ron DeSantis has gone wrong a little bit when it comes to just the Florida legislative agenda, you know, which is the six week abortion ban. Like, these these very prescriptive like, social issues. You know, we’re we’re trying to fast policies on.

And that’s, like, not really what the folks are voting for. He was better positioned as liberals hate me because I veered a different direction on COVID. You know, Liberals hate me because I say things on Fox to get them up that. Right? The world people hate me when the details weren’t really filled in.

Yeah.

I mean, I wanna go back to something JBL said about how, you know, people don’t wanna move on. And and I think that’s not quite right. Right? I think there is a chunk of the party that wants to move on. And I I’ve talked a lot about this, written a lot about this because the focus groups especially in that period from about the January sixth committee, which is when I saw it really starting, which coincided with the round of scientists media boom lit, that’s when people started to say, I think Trump has too much baggage.

I think we need somebody else. And I think it should be this Ron DeSantis guy. That accelerates after the twenty twenty two midterms where Rhonda Santos by twenty points and Donald Trump has a massive failure in his endorsements and everybody comes out and says this guy’s a loser and everyone thinks Trump’s too weak. To to win and you start to see a big chunk of the party say, we need somebody who’s a electable, we need to to move on, and we like Ron DeSantis. Then what happens?

And I think this point that you just made about I’ve always said this about DeSantis. It’s not about who Ron DeSantis hates. It’s about who hates Respondus. That is his power. K?

Now here’s the problem. Now it’s Trump though who hates Respondus and that presents a real conundrum, but also Ron DeSantis is getting attacked by the media, you know, whatever for his legislative agenda. But Trump’s getting indicted. Right? And there’s a pathology on the right that says, the one that they’re going after the hardest.

Right? They go after Donald Trump because they’re afraid of Donald Trump. And so that means that Donald Trump is the guy we should go with because that’s who they’re most afraid of. That’s who they’re trying to make sure we can’t vote for. That’s who they’re trying to get rid of.

And the other thing I also say is that I’ve started to really dig into in the focus groups the call the diploma divide. College educated versus

one of

college educated. And there’s a big difference. So the college educated folks are the ones who will talk sometimes about policy. Right? And at at minimum understand, like, have a sense of the what the policies are on the left that they don’t like.

And

they’re the ones who like Ron DeSantis.

And they’re the ones who like DeSantis. The problem is is that over for Republicans, their share of college educated voters has been dropping per simply, and they’ve had a major rise of non college voters, mainly white, but also across racially diverse. Hispanic, wax. And so as a result, the noncollege folks have are much more about, like, the words. Like, I wanna be mad.

I want I don’t wanna go after elites. I don’t want an actual politician. And so this, I think, is is just a big piece of this. Right? There’s not a big policy preference.

It’s also why you see the guns popping really high. It tends to be a lot more sort of rural, non college whites who care about gun rights as a as a top line item. Anyway, that’s my thought

on This is just really quick on the noncollege because I I was gonna rent something. It was it’s somebody else’s playing out on Twitter. I for you to watch. I I I apologize for not cutting you, but it was both on the non college if you looked at the cross tabs of this poll and on the independents. Where all of the more vibesy stuff rated higher.

Right? And and I do think this is a nothing that people forget about what Trump did is he brought in these people who were disaffecting — Mhmm. — they weren’t traditionally or unpreditional voters. Yeah. They do not care about Ukraine.

They do not care about the Social Security cuts. And they do not like this, you know, sense that the culture is moving away from them. Which is the stand in for the woke. Right? And so how do you appeal to that?

Well,

and so here’s the Achilles heel for DeSantis. Right? And so if the people who like you within the party are the party elites? Yes. But the entire party, its posture, is anti elite, How do you make the sale by having the smarty pants college educated Republicans tell the rooms in the with the clearest voice that they’re wrong and they should vote for DeSantis — Yeah.

— that you can’t do that. Right? Way they’re doing this something that means Saravith saying, I don’t know if you’ve seen

this, they’re they’re trying out this. Oh, Trump is the establishment. Yeah. There’s a new MAGA establishment, right,

which has

been a big man in Sarabit, but that’s that’s not gonna

work. It just doesn’t it doesn’t smell right. While we’re here doing a little accountability, I would like to say this era that I think we can comfortably blame her and all the never trumpers Ron DeSantis’ decline. Because as you as you say, it is his power was in who hates him. Right.

And we had this you know, we spent, like, two months with the whole, you know, in Democratic and Democrat circles with people talking about, is DeSantis worse than Trump? And people like us, I think, basically won the argument did Ron DeSantis is not worse than Trump. Trump is much worse, and you, you know, you you have said you would happily vote for DeSantis over Trump. And so what have we done? We’ve we’ve proven that we we don’t hate the scientists as much as we hate the art of black.

Yeah. And therefore, Republican voters have no choice but to support Donald Trump. It’s our fault again. I’m

tell somebody go look at the day Jeb Bush came out with his endorsement of Brown Vicente. And and and a market against per decline. And Jed’s name on your back. Again, this precipitous decline in the balls. Oh.

And I also gotta say, like watching the national review and the and, like, some of these other DeSantis Stans, like, they’re just fighting so hard. And, like, watching it. Stop

it. Please run.

You are our great hope. I mean, Eric Ericsson just, like, can’t do enough. And you know what? These guys, they tried this before and they lost. Now, I I’m not saying, that’s definitely gonna happen.

This time, I’m just saying, I don’t know that they realize that when they fight this hard, that, like, if you just look at the comments, they’re all just like, yeah, you rhino never trumpers, and I’m like

Do you do not lumpy in with Rich Lowry band of commenter sixty nine four twenty? Anyway, one other interesting thing about all this, though, when you you talk about it, like, the place where they kind of have a point, the DeSantis people, about Trump being the establishment we’ve saying that Trump has seen my establishment is he has co opted these people — Yeah. — to a really to the swampy people, to a big degree, just he doesn’t seem like it, to the same degree that the scientists And that’s all vibe’s thing. But, you know, Sarah, in the green room, we were mentioning this political article just came out. I have worked very closely with both Chris Luspidah and Susie Wiles, who are running Trump’s campaign.

There’s a high competency level. They have wins under their belts. And, like, they’re running a real effort in this Social Security thing and this poll is a prime example of this. I thought they’re overplaying their hand a little bit on the cut social security thing? No.

It was last place on this — Yeah. — cutting in time of it. Sonya, what what was your take, like, reading that, you

know, kind of takeout on Trump’s operation vis a vis DeSantis? I

mean, I just think it’s been really evident that Trump this time around, like, has a plan. And it’s honestly a plan I mean, you wanna talk about accountability. If I went back and listened to us right around, like, November, December, about Trump getting in, I’m sure I was saying, like, this is ridiculous. You know? Like, what is he doing?

It’s dealers. They’re so stupid. But you know what he’s been able to do is now he’s he’s been able to set the pace of this race. He’s been able to be in it a long time, so now a bunch of people are like, well, why aren’t these other people in? Which opens the I’m up to all this, like, will Ron DeSantis really get an enemy?

Trump’s been running this campaign. Trump is locking up endorsements early. He’s making personal calls. And this professionalized operation is doing things like Oh, is Rhonda Santauson DC today? Boom.

We’re gonna unroll all of our Florida endorsements. And that kind of thing has been devastating. To DeSantis. Let me just think about all the Jason Miller, you know, Corey Lewandowski. I mean, I guess, Kellyanne is like a real pro.

But, like, I would say, like, broadly speaking Even

LaSida and Susie are both more. And if you go back to the twenty fourteen era, say, like, who would you recruit during the campaign? Both BuzzFeed and Susie would be ahead of Kelly Ann.

And I have to really question, like, what inside them died that is allowing them to run this campaign.

But

from an actual just a totally morally neutral, like, competency standpoint, they’re running a really competent campaign in it. So I I saw the article because Eric Ericsson tweeted it by basically being like, when DeSantis gets in the race and shows everyone he knows what he’s doing, you know, this this media narrative is gonna fall apart. And I was like, you know The

media narrative being that Trump has a better campaign. Yeah.

And the DeSantis is kind of flailing. I don’t know. I mean, I don’t think that the last month has been as much of a Trump acceleration as it has been a DeSantis deflation. And I think that the DeSantis deflation is not because he’s not in the race. I actually think it’s because people are taking a look at him harder now.

And instead of being like an overlapping Venn diagram with Trump, like as a separate entity, and I don’t think he’s he’s standing up people are like, I don’t know that I like him that much.

The only component that he has as his argument against Trump is electability, and that is plummeting because, again, we’ve we’re seeing his retail political skills and his lack thereof. Again, he’s gonna have to carry around the abortion ban, the six week abortion ban, and his constitutional carry with him everywhere he goes, like luggage or herpes. And these guys, like Andrew McCarthy, from from National Review, who this week wrote that Trump can’t win. Period. Here yeah.

I I wanna read what just just one sentence. Right? I am as certain as I am writing this. That Donald Trump will never again be elected president of these United States. How does this guy have a job writing words for a living?

Like, I just I don’t understand who would pay for that because I’m sorry. You know, at the absolute worst, Trump might have a thirty sent chance to win the presidency should he become the nominee? They’re even starting to see this in the polling. We had a poll pop this week that showed Trump running five points ahead of DeSantis against Biden. We’ve seen both sides of that, though.

We have seen both sides of it, but when DeSantis running ahead of Trump? He’s not running ten points ahead. Right? It’s two points here, four points there. And this idea that DeSantis is infinitely more electable than Trump is an absolute mirage and voters are going to see that.

If your entire argument is electability and you can’t prove the electability of the thing, And your only response is, well, in twenty twenty two, he won Florida by nineteen points against tomato can Charlie Sykes Crist. I I’m sorry. That’s not that’s not going to be an argument that closes the sale with voters.

Yeah. The real danger of the electability argument is that it goes away as soon as polls start consistently showing Trump even or better with Biden, like, it can just it can just go away that way. And

I think it goes away even more just die on innate reptilian sense that Ron DeSantis doesn’t feel more elective.

Yeah.

I actually think that’s hurt hurt some more of the polls. Just one last thing on the on the Hugo poll JBL above your take on this. The thing that Republican voters care the second least about is supporting Ukraine. Do we have to give my Kevin a little love on on the next level here for going against the voters here. What was your read Jonathan Last did did he just was it, like, this vestigial, like, you know, anti Russia thing from the back of his brain, from being a college Republican that just came out in a moment and he wanted to wag his finger at

the Russian reporter, or was there something more applies. So he’s asked by a Russian reporter about this and, you know, he basically watches a no. We we do support aid to Ukraine and and your country has done there is shameful and we all feel it is the exact wording, but it was very very good statement. And this is how Republican foreign policy used to be, the problem is that Republican foreign policy now lives inside the Democratic establishment. And, like, it’s a weird thing and a lot of people have trouble getting their heads around that.

But if you are like a person who wants strong robust American foreign policy that is going to take care of our alliances and protect interest in the world. Your only home is in the Democratic party right now. And, you know, every once in a while, you’ll get a flash of this. From Kevin McCarthy or Mitt Romney or Mitch McConnell and they’ll say the right thing, but they don’t have the power within their caucus to execute on that because that’s not what the Republican voters want. Right?

Yeah. Because the problem here is not the politicians. The problem is the voters. So you you the polls can only be as good as their voters will let them be. And Trump, but because Trump brings the voters.

Right? Let’s

just be real. If Trump disappeared, if he had the heart attack in my dreams, then the voters view on Ukraine probably wouldn’t change that much. It would tack a little bit back because leadership matters triangle doom etcetera etcetera. That it would be kind of like how things were, which had its own set of problems, but kind of how things were on immigration, like in the two thousands, or the party didn’t want wanted tough immigration, but the leaders kind of like went against what voters wanted. I I think that that’s what would be happening on Ukraine right now.

Tucker would still be Tucker Marger Taylor Green would still be Marger Taylor Green. That beast has been awoken. I I I just don’t think it goes back to sleep just because Trump dies.

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you listen.

I wanna go deep in the heart of Texas. Change change topics. I’ve got a Texas popery for everybody. I spent, like, three days driving across Texas. There’s a good oh, I wish I pulled it up.

There’s a good poem somebody sent me about how you wake up in Texas and you just go to sleep and you’re in Texas yet. I couldn’t get the fuck out of Texas. That was very big state. Sarah why don’t you pick here? We’ve got Colin Allred announced as a senate race, and we’ve got the shooting, and and we have the very interesting response by the Texas legislature set shooting.

Which one which one

does it? I’m so mad about the shooting. So let’s go there. Okay.

Let’s go there. We can end with Colin. We can have Colin afterwards, a little dessert. So I I assume I’ve ever seen this, but just very quickly, there was a undocumented immigrant that killed a family, which I didn’t even realize until after Gregor put a statement was also full of undocumented immigrants. With an AR fifteen over a dispute, the family was upset that the guy was firing off his AR fifteen, like eleven PM, and it was kinda loud and eight eight year old who wanted to go to sleep.

And and so he killed them all. Abbott, his response to that, was to like, attack the illegal immigrant family, kind of, in a statement. And then the legislature has had a very interesting response as well about not this time, it isn’t door control. It’s we’re gonna train our eight year olds in battlefield combat. We want them to be able to suture a wound.

So anyway, Sarah Longwell,

I just have one. I’ll let JBL do the eight year olds to the one thing, but it wasn’t that Abbott came out and, like, criticized the family exactly. It’s what he did was he made clear in his statement they were gonna offer, I believe, a fifty thousand dollar reward to catch this guy who had killed a family of illegal immigrants. And he made sure that we knew that the people who had been murdered in this gun massacre were immigrants. And it one is one of those things that is unnecessary unless what you wanna do is to humanize people in that moment, to make sure that that people understand that the the he wanted to signal to people that either we didn’t have to care as much or that it was important to designate them as such that they were Will Saletan I I gotta say when when people have been massacred to sort of make sure that you are getting in that sort of finer political point it felt so gross because the point is to rob people in that moment of their, like, dignity and humanity.

It’s so unnecessary. Like, you just don’t need to do it. Like, it’s one of those things that, like, you only need to do it to demonstrate that you, like, live in a moral rot. Yeah. It’s how I feel about it.

It’s just

a situation. One one of my observations driving through. So I I go through Arizona and then you go through El Paso. And then, you know, kind of up through you know, we were probably a hundred miles from the border. I went to Martha.

And there’s like a highway an immigration highway check. Going across I ten that you get stopped. And there’s, like, immigration patrol everywhere. The Republicans always are going to the border, like, need more border control. We need more border security.

And the alarming thing to me just on both fronts was like, we have a lot of border. Security actually already. Like, very significant and and it’s a significant problem, of course. So I’m not saying we don’t necessarily need more. Maybe we do need more.

But I I make that point because it feels so central to the lives of folks down there. Right? Like when you’re living through this every day, that, like, it is not an accident to make that demonization point. Like, this is a way to position himself you know, continually as being, like, I’m strong on this. And and if you don’t read conservative logs, like, it actually is, like, Abbott’s got criticized by a lot of right wingers, like,

in order to try to butch up DeSantis talking about how, like, DeSantis was doing Abbott’s dirty work for him by sending immigrants, you know, he had to go to Texas

to send the migrants to Martha’s Vineyard because Abbott wasn’t doing his job. Etcetera. So, like, it’s just so far if you’ll this is going back to original poll question. It’s just so far if you’ll JBL from, like, how w and repair even as governors of that state, like, dealt with this.

I mean, look, the I would say the political response, but really the human response when anything happens that’s bad, when there’s tragedy, is to be immediately sympathetic for the victims. And the idea that in that literally, that first blush of reaction that one’s one’s impulse is to label the victims to make clear as to which side they’re on. Like, you know, when a tornado goes ripping through a town in Arkansas, the initial report on it does not say the town which voted for Donald Trump by a margin of eighty two to

twelve — Great.

— was decimated by these horrible tornadoes and three were killed. That’s not that’s not how people react because if you react like that you’re a monster, right, that is an inhuman way, And I really wonder if that was a calculated statement of his to to, you know, prove bona fide. Or that’s just a reflexive view of the world. And I don’t I don’t like it. One of the things I like about Biden is that is not how he, you know, reflexively interacts with the world look, I see ghouls on Twitter from, you know, I’ll do my both sides of them, but you you will see ghouls who react to things like the Arkansas tornado or something by saying, yeah, well, those people voted for Trump and they don’t believe in climate change so f them.

And I think that’s monstrous and horrible. And

But

those are randos on Twitter, and this is the governor of the second most popular state in America. So it’s not equivalent, but it’s the impulse is the same and it’s bad. And we we should we should be slinking back away from that. The

other thing banging around on this is totally endorsed out of Honda Peep, by the way. The tax legislature in response to you of Aldi. So back in, I think, it was twenty nineteen. There’s a Democratic legislator that was part of a comprehensive kind of package about how to deal with school shootings. Had a piece of legislation that required there to be like battlefield trauma kits in schools.

As a horrible reality, but seems to make sense. There’s also another provision that had that had seventh graders had to be trained on how to use these. Pretty gross. Again, very sad that that is a sad reality of America. There’s an amendment right now here.

I wanna pull this up, which is Republican king is proposed bill that pay public school teachers and staff up to twenty five grand if they’re willing to carry a gap at school. So it’s one response to this. The other one though is an amendment which has the student enrolled in campus in grade three or higher. Will be trained. There’ll be a bleeding control station required must contain the following supplies, turnkey kits, chest seals, compression badges, bleeding control bandages, space emergency blankets, etcetera, etcetera.

We’re gonna be training third graders on how to use this equipment I What? How do we square this with the I ain’t Not that they’re trying to square it. Like on the one hand, it’s like third graders cannot read about the penguins, the gay penguins, but but we have to teach them how to use. Tourniquet — Right. — approved for use in battlefield trauma care by the Armed Forces of the United States.

That’s a direct quote from this bill. Yeah.

And this is a Democratic messaging bill and it’s psychotic. Like, I understand that it’s meant to shame Republicans. Right? That’s the whole point of it. It’s not going to pass.

But I am. Are

you sure? Yeah. Are you sure?

Yeah. I mean, I’m not sure. I I I yeah. She’s introduced this bill, like, you know, seven times now, I think. And Okay.

I I believe this is a messaging bill meant to embarrass Republicans. And I don’t like it because maybe you trigger the cons with it, but also if it were to be put into practice, it would not help anybody. It wouldn’t save a single life. And all it’s gonna do is, like, traumatize kids. Is

the twenty five thousand bonus for teachers to carry guns at school, a messaging bill? I don’t think so. I

think that’s been a serious response. Right? That’s that’s the serious response. Which I don’t know how teacher pay scale works in Texas, but I’m pretty sure that you don’t get twenty five grand in most schools for agreeing to coach the softball team or something like that. Right?

I mean, teachers get a pay bump for opening. It amazes me that somebody would think, yes, we should we should give a teacher five times the bump for carrying a gun day to day, then we would give them for being involved in an activity which helps further the low prospects of the kids. I know these people are so unserious these these Republicans with this door stuff. And I I really I’ve said this before in the show. I really wish that they would stop being cowards and just have the courage of their convictions Ron DeSantis, it’s like the first amendment, and I’m sorry.

You’re gonna have kids killed in schools every year because we cannot infringe on anybody’s right to carry a gun and you people should just live with it. Just say that. Just say it because that’s what that’s what their position is. Saw this thing the other day on

the Internet, and it was this dad talking about the fears he had for his daughter. Things like getting sexually assaulted, being massacred in school by guns. It’s like, you know what I’ve never has never been scary to me because I’ve never heard of it happening. It’s like, a dude being in the women’s bathroom that’s transgender and, like, having that be, you know, like, a scary thing. He’s like, this is just like not the thing that I’m scared about.

I’m scared about all of these other things because he’s like, why would I be scared about this thing? I’m scared about this other thing. That happens all the time, and that is a big cultural problem. I hear Republicans say all the time like, well, they’re very afraid of you know, they’re being trans kids in the bathroom. You

know, like, that’s the They’re boxes.

Is is is this what we should be afraid of? Are we structuring our fear properly. I think maybe we’re not. The

Democratic state reps, this is I mean, it might feel like a messaging bill, but I she she seems genuine. She gives a lot of interviews about this bill and thinks that this is what’s needed. I I mean, I I guess, I I understand the frustration of a mom. Who’s like, oh, this is something that we need, you know, and you’re in the face of you and these legislators are not coming up with all these these solutions, but it’s pretty pretty insane. The question is so we’ve got Colin Alred who announced today just a little bit before we taped it.

We had a great interview with him and JBL and I did for the Sunday. Next level podcast we should go back and let’s do if you if you missed it. How does somebody like him navigate all this without getting into Beto Land? Right? I think this is the really big question.

Right? Is there an opportunity for a Colin Allred to engage on these kinds of issues in Texas where you have a governor that’s just grow testfully demonizing immigrants. We have a five week abortion ban with a bounty on it. You know, you have these like, you wanna incentivize teachers to carry gaps. Like, some of that stuff’s popular in Texas, some of that’s less popular in Texas.

Sarah, I want you to put on your strategist cap and she didn’t want in that interview as Colin and and might have a more clear eyed view on it. Like, how can somebody like him engage in that stuff? Without getting baptized into just getting Biden voters. Right? Because he’s gonna have to give a couple of Trump voters if he’s gonna be Ted Cruz.

A

couple he’s going to get a lot. Decent

amount. And Trump won by five and a half. So Trump won by nine and sixteen, five and a half in twenty. So that’s still a significant win, but the trend line is the other way. So

I I have all this right in front of me if you want me to tick down.

Yeah. Take down. It’s

very uncomfortable. But I can make an optimistic case for you as to why I think Alred is a chance to win. In twenty eighteen, cruise wins reelection by two point six percent. He runs five points behind Greg Abbott in that race, which is amazing.

That’s a horrific Republican year. Just as a And it’s a bad

Republican year, but he but here what is interesting to me is that five hundred thousand Texans who voted for Abbott turned around and voted for Beto. Yeah. But I’m looking at the differential between cruise in the top of the ticket shirt. Okay? Abbott much more popular in Texas than Trump.

So Abbott even in a bad Republican year gets to fifty six percent vote. In twenty sixteen, Trump gets fifty two point two percent. In twenty twenty, it’s the same, basically, a little bit less. Fifty two point o six. But

there’s a big difference in that gap is that there is all of the people and there’s like a four percent Johnson. I don’t know if McMullen was on the ballot there right in. Right? Like, that all of those people essentially go then to Biden. Right?

Right. So he so Trump Trump has about the same

ballot share between sixteen and twenty, fifty two percent. So you’re

gonna have to cut into that fifth Yeah. That’s gonna cut into that two percent. But the Democrats already

basically picked up, you know, that, you know, third party vote from sixteen, which cuts it to five and

nine. Yeah. But can I just say the thing about Award’s ad that I think so how does he not descend into battle in? There’s a couple ways. And I think he’s doing it in his ad.

It’s a very good first ad. But I thought one of the things he did most effectively was the contrast with Ted Cruz. Right? Like your biggest the biggest opportunity is to make people hate Ted Cruz more than they hate you. The problem for Beto is he moved into enough of progressive land and because the lips were so excited about him and because he was jumping on tables, he turned off a lot of people who were just like, you know what?

I don’t really like this whole stick. Right? And it got started to feel sticky. And he also took on guns as head on as you can possibly imagine. And he was, you know, I remember him, like, he was drop the f bomb play like, whatever.

I think this guy, big guy football player, has real star quality and Beto had that. But I think if he runs just a little, like, goes hard at Ted Cruz. The Cancun stuff, every time I remember the Cancun stuff and I must be like this for Texas. You’re just like, oh, and his idea that Ted Cruz doesn’t care about Texas, I think can really resonate. I think that is good.

And so I think being less of grabbing all the progressive issues and making them his issues and instead making it a contrast campaign with Ted Cruz, I think that’s effective. I thought that Ad was doing that.

So this is what he does, I think, and what he is clearly going to do, which I think is so interesting. He’s creating permission structure for Republicans to vote for him. He’s not running against evil Republicans. He’s not saying that, like, you know, we gotta protect stand up for justice and protect democracy. What he said to us on the next level was fascinating to me.

He said, I’m in Texas and it feels like we have one senator. Because anytime there’s a crisis for Texans, it’s John Cornyn who shows up to help us and not Ted Cruz. In presenting that contrast as a sort of like, hey, I’m a Democrat, and I would not have run against John Kornen because John Kornen shows up to do the job. But this guy This guy over here, he’s not here doing the job. He’s on Twitter and he’s in Cancun and he’s taping Secret Podcast because he’s a conservative influencer and he’s not working for Texans.

And I think that’s where Colin already has to live. And I think in a neutral year, all he’s gotta do is run a couple points ahead of Biden in Texas. I think that’s it’s close but I think it’s doable. Does that make sense? Yeah.

I wanna get back to Erin. It’s like just two my I have two nitpicks and I wanna follow-up with Erin. About the ad. I thought the ad was really good. I thought he was good with us on the next level.

Again, focusing on the absentee Ted. What he added in the video that we didn’t talk about a lot of he focused a lot of the working class stuff. He’s got to do well with non college Hispanics. He’s got to. Right?

And, like, immigration is not that this shit. Right? It is. It’s pocketbook stuff and it’s not seeming too far at their own cultural stuff. So the two things is the one is I loved the part of that of the ad where he talks about how he wants to be a good dad because he didn’t have one.

So good. The thing about how he was the first congressman to take paternity leave — Yeah. — I’m for it. I’m

for it, but like It was it wasn’t great. It’s true. It’s

a little it’s a little cringey. It’s a little cringey. I’m for it. He should do it. I’m on board on the merits.

This is just this is just a political criticism. It makes you seem a little whole foodsie. Right? And he’s gotta lean in on cracker barrel. Right?

Like, he’s gonna get the whole foodsie people. Don’t have to worry about that. And then then there was just one little clip about Ted Cruz wanting to ban

pornography from schools, saying teachers are are spreading pornography, which is,

again, probably ridiculous. But, like, I looked at that and I was, like, what’s wrong with that? Like, like, parents don’t want pornography to be in school. So, just there’s a lot of good stuff out there. And I think this is my question for you, Sarah.

It’s like, how do you resist the urge to kind of jump on all of these things like with land here on the next level and with other people that go to Whole Foods like I did yesterday, but just engaging on the cultural stuff in areas where there’s broader agreements that he can try to bring over that last four percent. Yeah.

Can I tell you this is why oftentimes even though I think it’s Fantasy Politics, I always think like Republicans really need to run like lapsed Republicans really need to run for these seats? And the reason is is that they’re native to the tribe of Republicans, and they would understand that you do not boast about being the first congressman to take paternity leave. It’s just one of those things that, like, you can’t see it. If you’re part of a different tribe. It’s sort of like one of the things I always think when a reporter sends me an email and they have their pronouns in the email.

I’m like, that’s cool, but you didn’t tell me your pronouns really. You told me your politics. And, like, I don’t think about them sending it to me, but I think about that reporter sending it to try to, like, a Republican, to try to get them to do an interview. For a state. Right?

And how immediately that Republicans, like, I can’t trust this person. This person is not this person is outside my tribe. And

so I don’t know. I always kinda wanna get these guys like like a Republican coach. You need a different email signature for Republicans. For Republicans when you’re asking for a comment under your seg line, it says my pronouns are fuck around and find out.

Yeah. But, like, you don’t have to do that. Just don’t do the thing that signals live. Right? Yeah.

Two other thoughts I have. One is, just because I sometimes, I think we get, you know, live listeners like, but you need turnout stuff. And and and and you have to motivate the base. You have to and

that’s what Techstars want.

Yeah. Exactly. And this is where I’m going. Right? Like, Beto, I I totally I give Beto credit.

Beto and Stacey Abrams are both like the the the people that you send in on the front line of the battle. To, like, go down, you know, and and and they were sacrificial lambs. Okay? And and Beto got close. He was two point four percent off Stacey got close in the first time.

Both of them got did worse the next time.

And they showed that you could fight, that there’s a fight to be had. Right?

Yes. And so credit to them for showing that those states winnable, the states are worth competing in, and they brought and and registered people and brought them into the system. Those people are in the system now. Okay? They’re voting now.

They’re engaged. Great job, Beto. And Stacy, the way to get people to go to the polls in twenty twenty four is gonna be Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump, and Ted Cruz. Two of those three people. Right?

That’s how you’re gonna get the people to the polls, is that these people are insane. Okay? And that they want

to end democracy. And the January sixth stuff was great. I’d love to see a cop’s contrast from all red, you know, being pro cop versus Ted, you know, resulting in

the death of police officers with his January sixth protest. So, like, that is how you how you motivate people now. The other thing is I do think that there’s a way to go on offense on the cultural stuff. It’s hard, though. But but I I think the immigration thing is probably a loser, unfortunately.

But I think on the gun stuff, there’s a way to do it. There’s a way to engage where focusing on Ted Cruz not caring more about Secret Podcast stats. Caring about those kids, you know, focusing on some of the, you know, very popular, you know, the twenty one plus age thing that I always hit on, I think that they can engage in that on abortion. Obviously, five weeks, bounty. This is a winner in Texas, opposing that bill.

So I do think that there are ways to do it on the cultural stuff. It doesn’t mean you have to, like, run a milk toasty, Mark Pen, no labels campaign or whatever. That’s not what I’m arguing for. It’s just you gotta be you gotta be smart about it. Are

you taking a leave of absence to go run Colin’s campaign?

No. I’m not I’m not doing that. I’m retired. From that. Mhmm.

And so I appreciate people as as I need your content. I’m always happy to give my two cents though, you know, for people that want my opinion. I’m happy to give logo design notes. I was running Jeb’s Combs campaign though, and we we finished in last place and also managed to tank DeSantis apparently according Sarah Longwell don’t know I don’t know if you you might not want me. You might not want my advice, so take it for what it’s worth.

We’ve had a very long show. No. But it’s been pretty good. Any final thoughts, any final little words of wisdom, bong mots, I will tell you I’ve had two broken washer and dryers delivered to my house too. We’re waiting for the third delivery in this new home.

So I am like a old maid in the in the seventeen hundreds, you know, washing Toulouse’s underwear in a bucket. With soap. Do you have a washboard, the metal washboard, and you’re scrubbing it down?

Hey, man. I have some actual advice because our our washing machine crapped out recently. There’s this thing called rinse. It’s like Uber Eats, but for clothes now. You can just give them all your stuff and they were like, want they’ll take it in a big bag, and then they’ll wash it, and they’ll bring it back folded in a big bag.

Okay. Maybe

I’ll do that for sure. Sounds good. Kind of I feel weird about giving people my undergarments. Does that not weird you out a little bit? I

mean, if you wanna wash them in a bucket, fine. I don’t Yeah.

Just pretend it’s robots. I

appreciate the advice. So rinse. Rince is not sponsoring us unlike our glorious sheep.

Yeah. They’re not. But I just it’s a thing. I also if people are in Washington DC, I have an event coming up with Diane Ream — Mhmm. — and real idea.

Golden voice. And

it’s a it’s a fundraiser. And so if anybody wants more information on that, there’s there’s details that I’m not gonna give out here. But if people are in D. C. And they wanna come see me in a salon with a Diane Ream and has some cheese and whatnot, then email us, and I’ll get you the info.

Well Well,

that sounds okay. You should probably come to New York instead.

You should not come to New York. And

see JBL in his element around people getting touched. Oh, JBL loves

that. Is this there a smile

while they rub my face? You know, and you can watch Charlie berate me for my lack of knowledge about nineteen forties musicals, which somehow is a heterosexual man. He seems very well versed in and very passionate about. It’ll be wonderful. May eighteenth, still some tickets left.

We have a good number coming, Arty, though. It’s gonna be a good crowd of Bulwark workers. So and and I might go to the gay bar after? No promises. So, you know, if you wanna get rowdy, I don’t know about Sarah Longwell know, we might relive our hay day.

She’s smile.

She’s interested. Every time you talk about

going

to a gamer, I have a very specific image that pops into my brain. If you

In two thousand and eight,

if you you and at Young, you and

me. I behaved differently in twenty twenty three. I think you’d enjoy it. Sebastian, you’re not invited. You just invited himself.

I was trying to get Sarah Longwell in our guests and maybe Sebastian will count as well. You’ll get to see him. And this has been great. It’s been such a great show. Not long at

all. I’ve

been I I do a great job in the cap chair. JBL will be back in charge next week. What did you do?

What by Diane Ream thing is on the twelfth, just FYI. Oh, that’s okay. I just realized I forgot I hadn’t said that.

Diane Ream on the twelfth. New York on the eighteenth, Colin Allred running for Senate. Go nuggets. We’ll see you on Sunday for a Sunday show with Larry Wilmore. He’s awesome.

Already taped it. See that. Bye.