Indictment: Part Deux (The Secret Podcast)

Hey there. This is JBL. On the Secret Show with Sarah Longwell today, we talked all about the latest Trump indictment. We never do this because normally this show is all locked for subscribers. But because it’s breaking news and we think it’s important, we’re going to share the entire Secret Podcast with you today.

If you want to get the secret show every week you got to join Bulwark Plus. Here’s the show. Hello everyone. This is J VL here with my best friend, Sarah Longwell, publisher of

the bulwark. I have to say the table for

you guys. We are recording on Friday at about one PM. We recorded an entire show on Thursday afternoon. Not just an entire show. Maybe the longest show we’ve ever done in the history of this podcast, Sarah.

Does that sound about right?

It was long in meandering.

Because we were in the same room together face to face in meet space. I bet you hate that phrase. And and then we just had to blow the whole thing up because at seven fifty five last night, the word broke that Donald Trump is being indicted. Part duh. So that whole show is gone.

It becomes the second of our lost episodes. People can add that to secret podcast lore. And instead, we’re just gonna talk about indictment stuff.

Sarah, you’re just gonna you’re just gonna wait. You’re just gonna junk that whole episode, won’t you?

Why don’t

you just throw the top in? The the Sunu new, Christie.

It’s so off topic. It’s all maybe we’ll release that as a, like, you know, the way indie artists will do the the b sides, you know, where they you know, eventually, in late in their career, you know, you get the whole album with their their unreleased b sides or something like that. How did it make you feel? Last night, seven fifty five. The news broke y was sitting in an Uber going from Baltimore to New Jersey.

What happened? Your train broke down or they just stopped running the train with people on it?

There was a bridge strike, which means that either a boat or a truck struck, I believe, was probably a boat. Struck a railway bridge on the Susquehanna River, and so they stopped all rail traffic between Baltimore and Philadelphia while they inspected the structural integrity. And I believe it was ten PM before they finally cleared it for the train to keep moving by which point I was long gone because I had detrained in Baltimore and hopped in an Uber to take me up to New Jersey. Yay.

That sounds terrible.

It was not great. Oh, sorry. That happened to you. Indictment. Talk to me about how you felt.

Did you get tingly? Did you pop champagne?

What Why why would I do any of those things? So first of all,

because that’s what Tim hid. That’s why

Oh, okay.

Well

Because Tim is all a glow. That’s why I asked.

Is he

have you talked to him? That’s how

he is.

I I just talked to him five minutes ago. Yeah.

No. I mean, look. So mainly, I always have questions. Right? So my question is gonna be, How are the other candidates gonna handle this?

And since we’re taping at one o’clock on Friday, we actually know the answer to this. Youngin, Ron DeSantis. Everybody slipped so far. I haven’t seen Pence or Christy yet, have you?

No. I saw Aysa.

Aysa’s good. Aysa’s was good. But the main challengers like, I was actually really disappointed to see Youngin, Youngin called today We cannot have a two tiered justice system.

Yeah. I’m sorry, sir. Mister mister a hundred millionaire, we do have a two tiered such justice system. And normally, it works for the rich guys.

Yeah. Right?

Right? I mean, isn’t that just the truth?

Yeah.

That’s not what he means. That’s not what he means. She’s not making a criminal a criminal justice reform argument here. DeSantis said that under the DeSantis administration, he will make sure that to

de weaponize the DOJ that is being, you know,

going against Trump right now.

And I think that this

is the fundamental problem. Because voters, the question that people have, right, or will will this matter to voters? And why should it matter to voters if everyone in their party that they listen to or watch says that this is wrong, that this is an injustice against Trump. And so, if DeSantis says it’s an injustice against Trump, and Junkin says it’s an injustice against Trump, and Mitt Romney and Aissa Hutchinson say, this is bad, That doesn’t bode well for Republican voters hearing a message of this is actually really serious, and we need to do something about that.

Okay. So I’m glad

you said that because Tim

and I just had a miniature miniature debate about almost precisely this in which he was playing the role of Sarah Longwell.

K.

And what I said is First of all, I believe that all of these Republicans are taking this position purely because they think that’s where the voters already are.

Mhmm.

I don’t think that they think that they are trying to shape voter opinion. I do not believe that Ron DeSantis and Glen Youngin are trying to work an angle or something like that. I believe they are trying to do whatever is the most politically expedient thing for them, and they think that this is where the Republican electorate is. So that’s why they’re running out to that spot.

So this is why the triangle of doom is so important. As a theory. Because when you guys chicken or egg this, I think it really misunderstands what’s actually happening, which is that It is both that there is a chunk of voters who are going to react this way no matter what. Right? Trump is a victim.

They are aggrieved. Deep state. But there’s a big chunk of voters who would be open If a whole bunch of Republicans reared up and said, what Donald Trump did was a threat to national security is criminal. There’s no two ways about it. There are a bunch of Republicans who would be convinced, not all of them.

There are the always trumpers are always gonna always trump. But there’s a bunch there’s an available audience for people who like they don’t know the law. They’re just looking to the people that they trust to help understand what’s going on. And, when every Republican says, oh, no, this is a two tiered justice system, this is wrong, and you know, we’re gonna rush to Trump’s defense, then they think, oh, okay. Well, everybody, every Republican I know is saying that this is wrong.

And you’ve got the right wing infotainment media, part of that, creating incentive structures for people to rush in front of a camera to defend Donald Trump because they know those audiences. The people watching newsmax and the people watching OANN, they definitely wanna hear. All the reasons why this is b s that they’re going after Trump. And this is a product of the deep state. And it took no seconds.

For Josh Holly to rush out to talk about how bad this was. And so I just

That tweet was preloaded and draft?

That’s right. Exactly. So, I just I I think that it is I think that one of my big frustrations and it is part of this conversation that you and I have all the time, is that both are sort of true. There is a group of people are always gonna think this way, but there’s a big chunk of people that would be persuaded if the entire party said, this is all wrong. You can’t do this.

And and but nobody does. And so, like, it’s basically an untested theory at this point. It’s been so long since enough people have pushed back.

I don’t I don’t know. I mean, we did test the theory after January sixth, not for very long, but for, like, two days. We tested it for two days after January sixth, and the voters were where the voters were. Right? I mean, they moved further.

It’s the no. But that’s a perfect example of it’s a perfect example of how the Republican triangle of Doomark, how the toxic and symbiotic release ship work where that group who was like, Trump didn’t do this and the election was stolen and it’s not fair. And they went on Steve Bannon’s show and they were doing that in March Taylor Green was saying it in a bunch of whack jobs. And then like pretty soon Kevin McCarthy said it. And then a whole bunch of like And then we did teach him the Ted Cruz was saying it.

But we did have a few days where Lindsay and McCarthy and Mitch were trying to do the leadership thing. And the voters Republican voters weren’t following them. I mean, the the Republican voter approval of January citizens.

Of people who showed up at airports and yelled at

and

not spooked people, but that’s not all Republican voters.

No. It’s not. But I guess what I’m trying to say is we had a test And in the immediate aftermath, I wanna say we went from like fifty six percent of Republican voters being on Trump’s side of January sixth. To, like, seventy six percent. And that happened.

Right? That extra twenty percent happened exactly as you say once the the party all flipped. But we did have a few days in there where the party was trying to break the triangle of doom. And the Not really. Republican voters just weren’t with them.

Not really. They didn’t. They could have impeached him. They could have impeached him.

All of

the all of the Republicans could have stood together. They could have all said Ten rebuttals did try to No. They didn’t. They made speeches. They made some speeches.

They made some speeches. But they they didn’t push hard. They didn’t all close ranks. They didn’t go Not only the but

we did have some republic like, ten ten Republican senators voted to convict him. Right? Do I have that number right?

No.

You don’t. That’s how many they needed to actually get a conviction. I think

it was seven. It was seven. Okay. But the point is, like, some of them did And now we do have, like, you know, we do have Visa.

We do have Mitch. You’ll

have Christie.

But you know that that’s so first of all, you can name them on one hand. Right now, the people who are gonna come out and say the

right thing,

which means all the dynamics, all the elected officials, all the media. I mean, I was just scrolling through Twitter. Right? Stupid match slap and all the people who are the leading lights of this horrible MAGA movement are talking about how criminal this is. And so The Republicans who are supposed to be part of this governing wing could either come out and say, that’s not true guys.

He still and they could push back against them and they could have an open fight and they argue for what they know to be true or they could do what Glen Junkin did. And they could say we have a two tier justice system and make sure they line up on Trump’s side. And that’s how you never reverse the trajectory of the Republican Triangle of Doom. It’s how you never break that cycle, you never push you always move in the self radicalizing direction, you never move in the escalating, de radicalizing direction. Because no substantial there’s a collective action problem where not not enough people are willing to say the truth.

They’re always in some rump minority that’s slowly being excised from the party.

I don’t disagree. But here’s where I here’s where I really struggle.

Yeah.

I mean, we we come from a world of personal responsibility.

Mhmm.

Right? And we are not talking about underprivileged youths. We’re not talking about teenagers. We’re talking about grown ass adults. Who pay mortgages and have children and own guns.

They are they are mentally fit enough to operate firearms and carry firearms around in many cases without any training or any any certification. Like, if you can’t look at two plus two on your own and say, actually, these guys on the TV are saying it equals it equals three. I’m pretty sure that equals four. Like, I don’t like, how much of an alibi How far does that alibi extend? Like, at some point, aren’t they on the hook for understanding reality?

So they’re on the hook for so this is the thing is I’m not absolving them of any of, like, they they there’s no responsibility there.

I should yes. Totally under show. I understand. You are not but I’m can I clear for a moment? And I am not saying that you Sarah Longwell are trying to alibi them.

That’s not what I meant by that, and I’m sorry for that. What I what I meant is, like, at some point, wouldn’t a rational reasonable observer expect that these people would look at object of reality and come to a different conclusion irrespective

of a fundamental truth.

I mean, you know that the answer to this is, like, that the problem that we have had, that has increased over the last ten, fifteen years, with the bifurcation of media, objective reality now is just different. Right? You have to, a, want to be because first of all, right, they already want to believe this thing. And and so they they wanna believe it. So so I agree that like these Republican voters who supported Trump this whole time don’t wanna be told.

Really, that he didn’t Right. That’s true. But the objective reality that they would have access to is if Republican voices told them, no, this time guys, it’s really serious. You can’t do this. So the people who are in a position to tell truth to these voters, in a way that they would hear it, don’t do it.

And these guys, I they are adults with mortgages who carry a fracture. They’re also like, I’m gonna forgive them for not being like a award winning journalist who like are able to go seek out or be able to look through Here’s what they know. Here’s what they know and I think this is fair. They say, I don’t know with this document stuff but all I know is that Biden had multiple houses where they found documents. Pence had a house where they found documents, and now Trump did it.

And The ID like, because he’s not gonna get convicted on having the documents. He’s gonna get convicted on obstruction

—

Right.

—

for giving the documents back. And they’re gonna be like, this is b s. Call guest I know. I watch Ben Shapiro. I watch Ben Shapiro walk through this.

He did Trump’s voice. Kinda mocks them a little bit. I’m kinda silly. We just wanna have these documents. This is fun.

I just wanna have them. And But like, no nefarious they’ll say no nefarious purpose, you know? And wasn’t what’s what’s so bad about this? So he had him in his residence. And so unless a bunch of people who are on their team are gonna talk to them and this is where norms, values institutions comes in.

And say, guys, It is illegal. It’s illegal. No. And you know who’s doing this actually? There’s like one person who’s doing it.

Bill Barr is doing it right now.

Mill kidding.

Bill Bar is out there saying,

you cannot have your money on that number.

Yeah. No. Bill Bill Barr has been actually quite good. But of course, you know, Trump hates him and people think he’s a rhino, whatever, but he’s been on CBS and he’s not on Steve Bannon Show though. But he is saying, this is different from the other indictments.

You can’t do this. You can’t have the records people say, give these back and then lie to them about what you have. Have been showing them to people, which there was just a tape that came out this morning.

Yeah. I saw that.

And that is a smoking gun on the lot. And this is where Trump gets away with so much because we’re all like no kidding he was lying. No kidding he couldn’t declassify them with his mind. But just what what this shows is him talking about Iran and saying I could have declassified them, but I didn’t.

Mhmm. And

so he didn’t declassify them with his mind. They he knew they were classified. He was talking to people about them saying that it was a secret. But the voters won’t think that’s bad because they won’t understand it unless people who know better tell them how bad it is.

So it sounds to me like you are you are looking at this and thinking, Holy crap, none of this is gonna matter electorally. Is that what you’re trying to think

or not? This is what I’ve been wanting to tell you. So I had we’ve been asking for weeks. You’re gonna get this breaking thing. I’m gonna end up talking about this on the in the media a lot over the next seventy two hours, but I’m gonna tell you first, guys.

So I went back and I we’ve been asking now for many weeks when we do the two time Trump voter groups. What the indictment, like how it would, would it make them support Trump more, or would it make them support him less, or does their support say the same? And so, of the forty one two time Trump voters we’ve talked to in the last several weeks, Nineteen said it would make them support Trump more. Twenty said neutral doesn’t really change how they feel about Trump.

Oh, boy.

And two, said it would cause them to support Trump less

— Two. — two. Two. So so that’s — Two. — zero two and then not a decimal and nothing after that.

Just two. Wow. Two two two phones.

Just two. One two. One two. Channel them on two fingers.

Yeah. Sarah, that doesn’t sound good. By the way, I’ll just say, like, it they may it may made him supporting him less, that does mean they won’t still support him. It just makes it less. But to

me, seven cents.

To me, it’s the more number. It’s the more number that I’m looking at going, you know, this is this is the this is what I talk about a lot, the rally round Trump effect. We’re getting a lot of my theories in here in this particular podcast, my Republican Triangle of Doom, the rally round Trump effect, And, the reason what I started with is, the rally around Trump of Fink effect is really intensified when Also, his potential challengers join in to it. And the question that I always ask is, Will one of his rivals? You can’t beat something with nothing.

Will one of the rivals have enough political talent to use something like an indictment and doing something Will Saletan their political advantage, to be able to go after Trump. The answer is no. It is cucks, all around. For his for his by people that are actually challenging him. No much love to ASSA, but, you know, that’s not going anywhere.

I don’t know. I mean, but why not ASSA? I mean look.

What do what what what happening here.

No. I’m look. I I am saying, of course, ACE is not happening. Okay. But why isn’t ASSA happening?

Right. I mean, that that is a real question. Is it? Why why isn’t Christie happening? Well, I mean, the only answer to that question is because the Republican Party is a cult.

Or because the Republican party has has changed in a million ways that make it a totally inhospitable political party. For somebody like ASa Hutchinson. Yeah. Asa Hutchinson wants to talk about conservative policy. Or or Mike Pence.

Anybody who’s who’s, you know, Pence wants to run as a full spectrum Reagan conservative. Mhmm. There’s not an audience anymore in the Republican Party for a full spectrum. Reagan Conservative. They don’t like Reaganism anymore.

I know.

I mean, forget, like, not love loving it. They don’t like it there against Reaganism.

So this is one of the big observations I keep trying to say to people and they’re like, well, tell you, you know, things have changed, but why

did you change Sarah? Why did you change Sarah?

No. No. No. No. No.

It’s just like the it’s not that they don’t It’s not that they don’t celebrate Reagan anymore. It’s not that they don’t celebrate George w Bush or whatever. They hate. Yeah. Every leader of the Republican Party from the last forty years, they hate raven.

Hate Romney.

Hate Romney. Hate McCain. Hate McCain. Hey George w Bushley. That’s the change.

Like, they affirmatively hate those people.

Dick Cheney?

Dick Literally. All of them

all of John Bader?

Who’s a hero from the last forty years of the Republican Party that’s part of the story?

No. I’m I’m not even kidding when

I said, Dole. And Dole, only because he went and bent the knee on Trump? Well, he Dole is still acceptable because Dole came out

in more time.

He’s still alive. Abdul? Yeah.

I mean, I don’t know that he’s still alive. God, this is terrible. I’m gonna feel very bad either way. Whether he is departed or still with us, I feel very bad already. But what I will say is that in twenty sixteen, Dole was, like, the only guy from the entire last forty years of Republicanism who who got on board with Trump.

And so he was welcomed as a part of the new Republican Party.

Sure.

And then it wasn’t because of his policies. It was just because he bent the knee. Yep. Yeah.

And that’s That is a So, I mean, when you ask why not ASSA? I mean, I guess that’s the answer. That’s not who the party’s looking for anymore. And it’s not because of one thing, But

Trump Like, ten percent of the part. Why is an ace at nine percent? Right? I guess that’s the Well, because there’s too many other in there who

because there’s too many other wars. Anti trumps.

And who would rally to the, you know, to somebody making the case against Trump. Like, if Asa and Charlie Sykes stay at, like, you know, one percent each, then that tells me that, actually, there there isn’t really an audience even for, like, five percent of Republicans who want somebody to

attack Trump? I mean,

I am trying to look

for a poll really quickly where I

could look at the at the Republican Primerics.

If I added up, Haley, and okay. Let’s see. Here’s one. This is this is just Iowa. Iowa where oh, this is the one oh, this is American American greatness bowl.

So let’s not look at that.

Let’s not

look at that. This is Man, is there I these are all crappy poles. Is not anybody running decent poles these days? Let’s see. There’s a this is May twenty fifth, not so long ago.

It’s a fox news poll. They’re pretty good. They have got Hayley at four, Pence at five, Ramaswamy at four, Scott at two, Jununu at one. Christie is at zero, as is Hutchinson. So the point is is that if you are somebody who is like, a a normie, right, who might like, you’re going this you are the four percent for Haley, the five percent for Pence, Scott two, that puts you at there’s eleven percent, one for Youngin, about twelve percent.

There’s your twelve percent of Normies. They’re there. That’s they’re already split across. Acceptable perceived acceptable Republican candidates.

I guess. But it is telling that they’ll be with a nonentity like Haley instead of an ASSA. Right? I mean, because a says in explicitly, like, I’m gonna try to tell you the truth about Trump, and Haley is a I won’t tell you the truth about Trump. It just says to me that the appetite for anybody who says the truth about Trump is actually much smaller than the appetite for somebody other than Trump.

Right? And if you say the truth about Trump, you become disqualified even to the voters who want someone other than Trump.

Well, then there Does

that sense? It might it might be cutting that correctly.

Yeah. But so just to so DeSantis in that same Fox as well, so he had twenty. And Trump had What did I do with this? Trump had a lot.

I was

gonna say

fifty four. Well,

I was

gonna say it was more than that, a lot more than that, oh, here it is. Trump had fifty Ron DeSantis had twenty, right? So, So that’s That is a that is a seventy three, which I think is about right. So I think it has been pretty much like seventy five, roughly percent of the party. Wants Trump or Trump light or, like, Trump the Trump swerve.

Do you think he goes to jail?

So I don’t know. I mean, I’m here’s the thing.

Understand. This is we’re not predicting anything. And you’re just, like, talking about, like, what our general impressions are.

You might have to take this question and not me because here but here’s what I here’s what I know that I don’t know. If some of this is gonna get litigated in places like Florida. What’s it the southern, there’s like a southern district of somewhere in Florida. And it’s gonna be all they need is one person to say no. I think that it’s pretty likely that they can find a juror to not convict Trump of this crime.

I don’t think he goes to jail. Maybe. But here’s the other thing. How these cases get pushed, they they will bend over backwards to avoid it looking like a political prosecution. They will struggle with the timeline, the careening timelines.

Of the Republican primary and the general election, and they will seek to do things that look like they are interfering directly with those elections. Like the reason you’re

starting to think that to make it look like they’re interfacing. Yeah.

Like they’re gonna they’re I’m sure they were rushing to get this done while they were still

— Still some time. —

ten months out.

Yeah. But on the other hand, I think it is unlikely that there will be any trial before any primary.

Yeah. Right. Because let’s we’ll just let’s it’s easy to count really quickly. So it’s June, July, August, September, October, November, December, January, February. March, So it’s ten months until super Tuesday ish, little under ten months, but the primary voting starts, what?

At the end of January?

Yeah. With Iowa. And the truth is, this thing could be decided by New Hampshire. Right? I mean, if Trump if Trump is a close second in Iowa and he wins New Hampshire sure the race is over at that point anyway.

Yeah.

So I don’t you know, I and then Could you have a trial ongoing while he is the Republican nominee for president?

I don’t think so.

How can we live in a world like this, my god, Sarah? How I

don’t but I don’t think so. Do do you do you think we could? No. I don’t.

I don’t think we could.

And this is where this is where Trump’s illegal, buffoonish, disgraceful behavior, buttresses up against decency and people who are trying to do things by the book, because he knows that the people who are doing this are gonna are not political actors. Like, I mean, maybe maybe some of the some of the people are who are gonna just but then this indictment, the Jack Smith, not a political actor, gonna do it by the book. And, Trump will be basically taking advantage of the fact that Jack Smith will want to avoid any semblance of impropriety like he’s interfering in an election. They will try to avoid that. I

and so here’s another question because you you you listen to the people — Mhmm. — every day.

Mhmm.

If you’re a Republican voter, how real is this indictment anyway. Right? It’s like a thing he shows

up with the court. We just had one. We just had one. Like, everyone’s on stairs. Yeah.

Breaking apart, but, like, this is like, oh, no. Okay. We’re doing this again.

Right. And and, like, oh, we just did this and, like, until there’s a trial until it’s on how much of it is just like this thing which oh, they’ll never really do it. Right? I mean, I don’t know. I could see a Trump voters look in and say, Yeah.

This is all yeah. They always do this, but nothing will come of it. Just like the hoax. It’s just like the Russia, whatever. It’s just like the beach man.

Yeah. Not the outcome of this. I I don’t even know if it’s real to them. Or I guess maybe I’m saying I could see why it wouldn’t be real.

Mhmm.

For the love of

all the Tully Sarah Longwell

we’re just gonna go through another election season where I’m gonna have to spend all this time being, like, I’m not a lawyer, but we should get some more lawyers.

Yeah. You’re the first person in the history of the world to ever say, we need her some more lawyers.

Because we need more people to explain all the different functions of this to me.

Well, that was a a bracing conversation.

I am not sure that I am well, whatever. I I am not happy about any of this. I think it’s all bad for America.

I’m with you. I’m not happy about any of this. I I this the the, like, celebratory Trump’s getting indicted is not great.

Well,

you take that up with Tim Miller. Because we he opened with like, how are you feeling? And I was like, this is a dark day for America. I’m I’m sad about it. This is this is bad.

But there is one thing I will celebrate. Is that okay?

Yeah. What are you gonna celebrate?

Just one thing. I would like to celebrate the fact that the rule of law seems to be working.

Yeah.

And I I said this to Tim. For me, the rule of law like, the question of whether or not it works or doesn’t Bulwark, has actually nothing to do with a verdict in a trial. It has nothing to do with whether or not Trump goes to jail. It is just did the process work with enough integrity that most reasonable people can believe that the system of law function in the way it’s supposed to, even though the guy is a former president who’s running for president again. Yeah.

And like Merrick Garland has conducted himself almost without any any compromise at all. Jack Smith seems to have, you know, it was a very good idea to appoint him. He seems to have conducted himself at least insofar as we know with the utmost property. And they seem to have taken the entire thing seriously. They are bending over backwards to not make this a political thing.

And Like, that’s good. That’s what we what we want is for the system to work whether or not it gets to the outcome that we like and the outcome we think is the most just. Because that’s the rule of law doesn’t ever guarantee you outcomes. It never guarantees you processes. Right.

And that’s why it’s like this too can do anything.

I don’t think, like, Tim’s wrong to be glad that we’re not, I am proud of the Department of Justice. Because, you know, a lot they’re getting yelled at by everybody. You know, like, the resistance lives are all like, why aren’t you doing this? What’s wrong with you? Mary Garlands of disgrace.

You know, they’re doing what they need to do. And, like, I’m proud that we’re not shying away from this. It is a I am oh, I have always been a a this is not a it’s not a good thing. It’s gonna be tough on our country, but, like, you have to do the right thing. You have to do the right thing.

That’s it. Let right be done. Like, just a sec. It it is the only way to do this.

And I’ve switched on that. This is a thing where I, you know, early in our conversations about this. I was pretty squarely on the other side of that, which is that the The potential risks were so great that it would be better if the rule of law was sort of Just pushed aside a little bit here for this one case. And I’ve changed my mind on that. And for precise just as you say, like the rule of law has to hold and let the chips fall where they may.

And the the potential long term harms of pushing the rule of law side — Yep. — outbalanced the potential short term games of not having to not having to fight this particular fight within our society —

Yeah.

— at this moment. And and I don’t know, like, mayor Gerland, did everything basically by the way. This is can I just say I’m sorry? I hate to get this off my chest.

It’s great.

You know how everything about Maga is projection. Their complaint is that this is the weaponization of the Department of Justice. Donald Trump held up American military funding to a critical ally because he wanted that ally’s head of state to participate in his election campaign against Joe Biden. That is the literal weaponization of American foreign policy for domestic politics. Literal, in a way which has never been done in all of American history.

And then these guys, say that Merrick Garland, who I’m sorry, has behaved absolutely properly at every single step. Yep. He’s the one weaponized. It do you understand what I’m saying? Like, I wanna pull my hair out that they defend the Ukraine stuff that that Trump did.

They you they defend the drug deal, and then they attack Jack Smith. And I don’t I it makes me want to set my hair on fire.

Yep.

I expect you to talk me down. And be like, no. What really JBL you gotta understand.

No. No. No. On this on this And this is where, you know, it just goes back to our previous conversation, but like, and it’s the reason I think you have to you have to do it. You have to do it.

Is because at every turn, we’ve been told by Susan Collins or by Will Heard, but somebody else said, this is it’s a big deal to impeach your president and high bar. And every time they’ve let it go, He’s gone. We don’t need to convict him even though he

he gets to get

at the insurrection. Yeah. You know, we we The

democratic process play out.

Every time people have failed to act, and frankly, the courts have been the only place throughout his entire thing that have held that have done things, including the Supreme Court. And so, I think that this is really our only backstop because the cowardice and perfidy of these actors has failed us at every turn.

And I I would say that this should be a cautionary story for everybody. Because we wouldn’t have necessarily believed that all these other institutions would fail. Right in twenty sixteen, I think many of us hoped that they would hold. We weren’t We didn’t believe they would, but we hoped they they would. And they failed.

It is not Britmanstone that the court system and the justice system will always hold against this sort of assault. Right. Right? And the the institutions are people. And if you get enough Jeffrey Clarks, situated throughout the federal judiciary, then maybe the next time we’re here, the the courts don’t hold.

And that’s why it is so effing important to stop it now. Right? And this is This is where you and I are always on the same slide. Alright, Sarah. Good show.

A little short this week because again, we already did ninety minutes of maybe the best podcast we’ve ever done, and they will never see the light of day.

I can believe you’re not even giving you people the first half. You’re bad.

It’s weird. It’s weird to talk about stuff that’s no longer long to do is when we have the, you know, an incredibly important development happening Literally as we’re supposed to be putting stuff out. Hey again, it’s JBL. That was the show. And if you want to get the secret podcast with me and Sarah Longwell in full every week, Going over to Bulwark Plus and subscribe.

We’d love to have you.