More Extreme. Less Dangerous. Equally MAGA.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the next level I’m JBL here with my two best friends, Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of the Bulwark. Before we get started, go hit the thumbs up button. Hit the subscribe button. Give us follow.

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Do you remember that stuff, Tim? The Zane days.

I wasn’t really into Zines. Anyway, go over to

the bulwark dot com and follow us up. And then Sit down and buckle up your chinstrap because we’re gonna talk about how fantastic My Kevin is. Ladies and gentlemen, Speaker of the house, Kevin McCarthy, has actually given us the return to normal that we have been fighting for for seven fucking years.

Alright. With let’s we’re gonna put this tape on a reel. Let’s send it over to the Freedom caucus you know, send it over to all of his big supporters at Foxinue’s prime time and just let him know that the bulwark is giving him two thumbs up. Great job, Kevin. Heck of a job.

So I wanna be very careful here. I wanna be very very careful here because on the one hand, I like Kevin McCarthy’s attempt at normalcy to succeed. So I guess I should say that he’s a manga grifter who hates America or something something in in pundit accountability, when he won his speakership, I said this fight is gonna be what every single fight is over the course of his speakership. This is what the House Republican caucus is. And instead, he’s done an okay job.

Like, you know, if you’re a Democrat, you are not happy because he is not a Democrat. On the other hand, if your Democrat has been living in the world as we have known it for the last seven years, you have to look at Kevin McCarthy and be like, okay. Yeah. This is, you know, this could have been worse.

Is there anybody who argued that the Republicans might be better than you guys were thinking?

That doesn’t ring a bell.

That

they might act more normally?

No. Ross down Rossdown.

Oh, was it Ross? Was it Ross? Who did that?

Ross said that Kevin McCarthy wasn’t returned to normal say. Credit? Credit where it’s due.

Well, Ross always takes it too far. There’s a difference between saying there’s a return to normalcy, or the sort of generally optimistic shadow Congress these guys can get a few things done and — Yeah.

—

I think that I’m I’m happy. I’m happy to see like the effects of this would have been catastrophic and and to be clear that the time of this taping is not a completely done deal yet, we are listening to terrorist, arsonist psychos of the Freedom caucus. Do you see Chip Royce? Hey yesterday that Bill Crystal likes this deal.

And Mitt Romney.

And Mitt Romney, so it must be a terrible deal.

My favorite part about that is just showing about just really quick some young MAGA reporter like the day collar reporter or something was quoting Chip Roy and it’s like a twenty three year old and they spelled it Bill Crystal like the hot sauce, you know? And I was like, This is what this is what happens, Bill. You know? Time comes for everyone.

That’s true.

Getting name checked by Chiproy, but the but the embed doesn’t know how to spell your name anymore.

Like, I didn’t know that guy from city slickers was doing political commentary. Yeah.

Wokeville Crystal. That’s Wokeville Crystal to you now, Chip Roy.

I do wanna say that I did give Sarah Longwell credit. Not only good that I know that you were the you were the pundit, that accurately predicted that this would be normal, but I I twittered a tweet about that that received like hundreds of retweets So I I’m just I know I retweeted it.

I retweeted it.

Flowers on you. I’m I’m throwing social media flowers at your feet.

Oh, you were you were also right, Sarah Longwell and you and Ross. You were with Ross outfit back in the day? I didn’t realize that.

I appreciated that. I also appreciated JVail’s wife beloved by all of us being like JBL would like a word because JBL has been his newsletters of late have been very on top of this. I don’t think Shannon realized you were going back in the canon, back to when we were in the early days of of discussions about this.

I think that there were some deep doubts, some real reservations over whether Mike Kevin could actually pull together a coalition to get a vote and whether Mitch McConnell could bring across ten Republican senators nine now for various things, and me and JBL were very bearish on that. And Sarah, as is your wife, was rather bullish and here we are, you know, gun deal, infrastructure. Now we survived a completely unnecessary hostage taking. That too that would have killed the economy.

I’m ready to put him on Mount Rushmore, to be honest.

Let me just finish this one thing though. Which is the reason that Kevin is being successful, is in part because you have this MAGA establishment of Also horrible people like this is where it gets weird, right? And where I think our analysis, you can see who where what what we’re struggling with because Marjorie Taylor Green Thomas Massey, Jim Jordan. These are the people who are on Kevin’s team about this.

These are

the ones running out to defend Kevin on this debt limit deal, and so You know, people could be forgiven for thinking that Marjorie Taylor agreed and not be particularly serious about keeping us from defaulting on our debt.

So, Sarah, this is what I wanna ask you about. So this is a sort of nixon going to China thing where Kevin could do this deal precisely because he’s already out front on the Trump train, and he brought MTG into the caucus with him, and he has hugged her close. Right? And this is a pretty canny thing. Right?

He’s just not to get backseat to anybody else in his love of Donald Trump, and desire of Donald Trump to be the next president of these United States. That then is what frees him up to be able to do this even in a moment when Trump kinda wanted a default. Right? I mean, Trump’s own incentives diverged from from McCarthy’s incentives on this. Ron DeSantis?

Yeah. Well, Trump wants the economy to be in shambles, and for there to be general catastrophic failure. Can he, I guess, It it it’s it’s I I mean, the problem is. Right?

I don’t wanna give him candy. I’m not ready to I’m not ready to go so far as

can. Well, yeah.

I’ll ask this question back to you a slightly different way. Is it worth it for Kevin McCarthy to validate Marjorie Taylor Green? To have gone so MAGA validated Trump, validated everything he stands for, swallow all of it whole to do things like make sure we don’t default on the debt.

I mean, if the alternative is, if he doesn’t do those things, then we do default on the debt. Right? If if that’s the alternative and I’m not sure that that’s the case.

I’m not sure it’s the case either.

Yeah. But let’s maybe it’s a false choice, but let’s pretend that that’s the choice, then it’s absolutely worth him doing all of those things.

Well

then let me ask you, because do you know who I make this argument about sometimes? Kirsten Cinema.

Oh, boy.

She yeah. Look at I loved Tim’s face. Like, there’s we reflexively hate on a bunch of these people. Why I

have a

prison cinema t shirt. I don’t reflexively hate on her. I wanted to like her, and she’s acted very strange and inscrutably and weird and not and not very productive all but maybe I’m wrong. Make the pitch.

I mean the pitch is like she she inserted herself into the debt conversation because she has the ability and credibility to talk to you know, cornyn and a bunch of people on the right and you know, every time she seems to sort of abandon her team and cozy up to Republicans, It’s really annoying and yet especially because it seems to validate what has been horrible contemptible behavior on their part. And yet it does put her in a position in these sort of tense negotiation times to talk to both sides in a way where there’s not that many people who can bridge that divide.

I mean, if we’re gonna go giving Kirsten’s sentiment credit here for making this all work, then I’m sorry. I’m I’m happy to give credit to my Kevin.

I’m not giving her credit. I’m I’m asking about the theory. This do we forgive or allow people to to cozy up and validate, normalize these terrible people in this service of negotiation.

I don’t think she added anything through what she’s done.

Christian Cinema has a colleague named Mark Kelly. Why does it Mark Kelly get credit? Why like Kristen Cinema gives credit just because she the attention more than he does? I mean, Mark, like like Mark Kelly’s doing all the right things.

Because I don’t think Mark Kelly, is he trying to sit down with Republicans? Is he

I mean, he’s supporting these bills. He’s trying to do all the right things. He does bipartisan stuff, like, that isn’t arson.

What I would say, Sarah Longwell don’t think that any of the stuff that Kristen Cinema did enhanced her ability to do what she has done on the debt stuff. I think she could have been exactly what she was, you know, twenty four months ago and still have had the same effect.

But it’s not just this. This was like she she was doing it in service of an immigration reform at one point. Sure. Like, that is how

I don’t think it gained her much in terms of ability to go and do that.

But we didn’t think that about Kevin until we saw it like, you put to the test. Right?

Yeah. But he has a caucus to deliver and she doesn’t. Right? I mean, she’s she’s just one person. I would also like to give a little bit of this much credit to Joseph Robin at Biden who I don’t know.

Like, he’s just good at this stuff. Like, he just Nobody cares. Nobody cares. But I wrote this last week when everybody was like, oh, we’re gonna default. We’re gonna default.

And I was like, hey, so If we don’t default and he gets to a deal and he has told the Prags who wanted to use the fourteenth amendment to to settle down because he’s not gonna go break in their norms, and he hasn’t tweeted about how he doesn’t negotiate with Nazis and that he, you know, My Kevin has a stupid face and who could ever want a man with a face like that, and he’s a beta cock. And all like, he’s just inviting Kevin McCarthy over to the White House to sit down and

draw a call.

No duel.

I Joe Biden is a good president. I’m sorry everybody. I know everybody wants to say, oh, he’s terrible. He’s dementia, baby. He’s a good president.

Not the best president. He’s not Lincoln, but he’s been a pretty good president. Do you

see what else he did? The other thing he did as part of this deal that was really good to your point, but not only did he not do the Nazi thing to his detriment in the liberal media, he didn’t even make the case for the deal. Yes. But and he was asked about this, like, why aren’t you selling this harder, and his answer was, oh, what? You want me to run around and talk about how great of a deal I’m getting?

You think that’s gonna help? Get the votes? You think that’s gonna help get the republican votes? That’s not a direct quote, but that’s essentially the gist of what he said when asked about this in press conference. It’s like, That’s a smart guy.

Maybe he should write a book art of the deal. It’s a good title. I’ve heard. He’s got a pretty good sense for this stuff. He’s done a number of these things.

I do think he deserves credit for this and there are two ways to look at it. Right? And the one way in one sense they got a pretty good deal in the sense they didn’t really give up that much. I mean I we’re not actually cutting, you know, the the the spending is staying flat. Right?

The worst parts of the work requirement were all taken out. You know, and now it’s just able-bodied adults with no dependents. Right? So, you know, so you got a good deal in that sense. But in the other sense, didn’t get a good deal because they got nothing.

I mean, my my book editor Eric Nelson, I’m gonna steal this from a song shout this out. He tweeted. He’s like, It’s like what what are the Republicans who are complaining about Mike Kevin talking about when they say Kevin didn’t get a good deal? It’s like, they got a car and Joe Biden got a stick. And now they want leather seats in the car.

It’s like, Joe, like, Joe, that, you know, so I I there are

there are

two different ways to look at it. Right? In the sense that Democrats didn’t have to give up that much but in other sense they didn’t get anything. It’s not like it’s like the Republicans and good faith came to the table and said hey, in exchange for cutting the budget which we feel so so passionately about because we’re purists when it comes to budget responsibility and exchange for that we’ll give you, you know, a a twenty one year gun restriction for assault rifles or we’ll give you you know, we’re gonna fund some green stuff over here, like we’ll add we’ll add, you know, they got nothing. Like the Democrats got nothing out of this, but they avoided the fault.

They protected all the stuff that Joe Biden past in the in the first two years which is significant and you know everybody should be happy about this I think. Great job, Joe and Kevin, heck of a job. One of the Kevin thought that’s a little frustrating is have you ever seen the Twitter meme that is like about how Twitter is the only place where you can send a tweet that says I like waffles and somebody will respond to you and say, what the fuck do you have against pancakes? You know? And and the person’s like, that’s another sentence.

Actually. That’s a separate that’s a separate sentence. I I like waffles and I also like pancakes. And, you know, you do get that a lot. I notice you know, on on this Kevin thing.

I noticed JBL you got that in the comments on the sub stack. Even our great listeners, very erudite subscribers. Most of the comments were very good.

Ninety five percent of of our readers were like, yeah. Now Nobody’s more surprised than me.

You do notice this. And and I noticed you got this a little bit Sarah Longwell some of your comments, but a different candidate will talk to you in a bit. You know? And it’s like, These things can exist as two distinct sentences. My Kevin acted responsibly this time.

In a way that kind of surprised me, maybe he didn’t surprise Sarah Longwell surprised me in the How responsible he acted, and that does not absolve him of all his past sins. And, you know, your Twitter feed does become a little onerous. If every time you tweet Mike Kevin did something responsibly today, you also have to begin it with a rundown of all of the areas where he’s failed the Democratic Republic over the past ten years. It’s kind of stipulated but anyway, great job everyone involved.

Let me just give JBL his due on on Biden.

It’s you

know, this is one of those things where it’s really unfair to the person for whom you have the expectations of being grown up. No, not you. Oh, sorry. Alright. Like, we expected Joe Biden to want to avoid a debt default.

The reason that we’re also happy about Kevin is because we were like, I don’t know, maybe the lunatics own him and like he can’t do this. Right? And we’re all pleasantly surprised. Just to Tim’s point about the framing of this though that I find befuddling on the parts of Republicans, is that, you know, the way you do this is like you get some concessions like Joe Biden started from the position of absolutely no negotiations. Right?

Whether or not he ever intended to get into those negotiations, I don’t know. But that’s where he started. So Republicans feel like they’re getting something and they are. They’re the only ones who got anything in this deal. So why they’re not all running out there being like, we owned you, we got this, we win.

And because Joe Biden is playing the card of like, I’ll let them say whatever it takes to get this thing done. So like And yet, they’re all like, we got owned by this. And it’s like Who who taught you PR? Like what do you mean? You’re you’re gonna run around now being like, we got hosed.

This is terrible deal. Like Chip Roy. What is wrong with you, bro? Take the w.

Nancy Mae.

Take it.

We literally said

we got

owned by a guy who can’t put on his pants. It’s like what are you did you read that before you clicked tweet? There’s an insight here though. The that you are correct, their PR is terrible, but there there is a deeper insight about the the Republican mind right now. Right?

Which is the grievance, the being the victim is what moves people. The people Y’all

live in by losing. You only win by losing.

Right? Like, that is that is a deep psychological rant. I don’t know how to fix about It’s it’s it’s sometimes true about really active Democratic partisans too but less much less so. But like Republican partisans, like have to, you know, in order to energize them, they have to feel like some bad, scary, maybe Jewish person like Bill Crystal screwed them over. Right?

And like that is how you energize people. It’s like, is is that, oh, we need to fight we need to fight this because we’re we need to fight art or we need to fight even harder. We need to fight fight fight fight fight fight fight. And and that’s the only way to rally around people because they don’t wanna take the w, which is very strange.

We had a piece on this on the website last week by Robert Trissen you said that losing is Trump’s superpower for precisely this reason. And that’s that’s a very deep point. I do have one one little question. In the same way that the Bulwark audience was all able to look at my cabin and say, oh,

yeah.

Hey, no. He did a good thing. Good for him. He governed. Am I wrong to say that there is no mirror image of that on the right?

Like I don’t ever see a national review online piece saying like, hey, Joe Biden did this thing, you know, it was pretty good. Okay. He governed effectively for him. Do we not ever get that Like, does Mike Kevin did it?

While we’re while we’re complimenting Mike Kevin, he he was he was he was asked

to Joe Biden

also said that he’s

strong negotiator and I don’t I don’t have the exact quote in front of me, but very smart and very tough.

It’s very smart

and very tough.

Literally, the two worst worst words you could use in order for, like, for Trump to trigger him. You don’t wanna say that Biden is smart because he’s he’s very, very touchy about his own intelligence. He don’t wanna say that Biden’s tough because he thinks he’s the toughest bastard in the world.

But I can’t say that I’ve seen any of the writerly types or commentator types or maybe I missed it. If you saw it out there, please send it through. I like to give credit where due. I can’t I can’t say that I’ve heard anybody say like, you know, not even and forget Atta boy Joe Biden, not even like, you know, Turns out Joe Biden isn’t quite as socialist y in communist. Yes.

Maybe we worry. And we expected it to be Right. That’s kind of a really what we’re saying about Kevin. Right? Not the like he’s great.

It’s like he’s not quite as irresponsible as we expected him to be. I haven’t seen that. Maybe I missed it.

Tara, do you ever hear that in focus groups? Again, maybe you’re just not talking to like the leaners. But the people who who don’t like Biden, who aren’t gonna vote for him, But do you ever hear them say, like, look, I don’t even not my guide.

I’m gonna but, you know,

not as bad as I not as bad as I feared. Is that a thing you ever get

Not really. Not really. I’ve made this observation before, I think.

And, there

is an absolute difference between the way Democrats talk about Republicans, and Republicans talk about Democrats. And, I don’t know whether this is because, when I’m talking to like especially, let’s say, Democrats in Pennsylvania, most of their family are Republicans. Right? They don’t know Republicans. They’re around Republicans all the time.

And they’re much more likely to both sympathize with certain elements of what the Republicans that they know feel, or even, like, try to understand them. Now, sometimes it’s a condescending, kind of understanding. Like, who are these? You know, Jonah Golber used to have this formulation, the conservatives in the mist. And it was really about how the media approached it, which was like, who are these people and why?

But not with antagonism. Republicans hate Democrats. Like, they are not seeking to understand them, And I would say like the two time Trump voters, not the swing voters as much. And part of that is and it goes back to this The grievance is one piece. The other piece is the like, it’s a it’s a nephew or like a relate, it’s related to the grievance.

Of like, we’re always under attack. Right? And, because we’re always under attack, we live in a foxhole together in our tribe. And, so, we hate the other side. That doesn’t mean that there’s not lots of progressives that call Republicans Nazis, real thing, fascists all the time, everything.

That is real. But you hear you just like you just hear a lot more Democrats have empathy for Republicans or try to understand them, than not vice versa?

I remember that in your focus groups leading up to twenty twenty where you you had, again, like, liberal voters in Pennsylvania, literally explaining why they thought their Republican friends were gonna vote for Trump again. And it wasn’t that like, oh, they’re evil racists. It’s like I understand, man. Like, you know, times are tough and the jobs have left in more rural areas, and, you know, a guy like this comes along, selling magic beans, and like, it’s totally empathetic. Don’t see a whole lot of that from the right towards the left.

The one thing there is on the right is there’s often so like this let’s take Ted Cruz as an example. Or even, what’s his Klein? The guy who runs NRL.

Phil Klein.

Phil Klein. I saw both of them tweet related to sort of the LGBTQ. So, Ted Cruz was talking about Uganda, in the law that they just passed, that punishes homosexuality, and Ted Cruz tweeted against it. And for time, was defending. I know.

Wants to let me live. That’s great. And let all the Uganda Tims out there live.

Yeah.

Brave. Brave.

Yeah. I mean, if you watched his back and forth with Jenna Ellis and some of the other ones, like, he was he did he, like, doubled down on it. He didn’t he didn’t push back. And like Philip Klein was basically arguing also again taking a lot of heat from his from the right on it, that if parents wanna buy their kids like a rainbow shirt, that that is not like grooming, like, they’re not marketing it to children, they’re marketing it to parents who are showing support for gay people or are gay, like, I mean, I don’t think my kids have any rainbow stuff, but like I’m sure people I know have given their have their kids have rainbow stuff.

Obviously.

Yeah. You.

Yeah. She’s gone.

You have a girl.

Let me read for you guys the tweet. The response to Ted Cruz, from Pastor Tom Ascol rhymes with asshole. Who responded, tell it to god, Ted. And then he quoted leviticus twenty thirteen. If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination they shall surely be put to death, their blood is upon him.

Now we go back to pastor Tom. Was this law God gave to his old covenant people quote, horrific and wrong, which was the words Ted Cruz used to describe the ugandan law. So that is the quote from the pastor who helped launch Ron DeSantis campaign.

He did the invocation at at at DeSantis’s inauguration. He did the invocation and he’s been leading the effort to, like, recruit evangelical pastors for for Ron DeSantis. So again, the Ted Cruz tweet, it’s just I wanna get to Tom, but just worth settling for a second. On the fact that Ted Cruz’s tweet was basically gay people should be allowed to live. That was his that was the extent of his position.

And that all civilized nations should join together and believing that gay people should be allowed to live. Which is okay. Good. I mean kind of the bare minimum, but he did get this It’s

like the the twenty four pieces

of flare on gay people. Exactly. Like one piece of flare. Great job. We can live.

Anything else? Like, can we do it? How about, you know, can we mate for another day? But but he got a lot of pushback about this, which which judge show why he deserves one cheer for for saying it. I think it’s it’s it speaks to the nature of how the blue check the new blue check Twitter mafia is that that Ted Cruz would come under fire for such a position.

But the askold tweet I think is very is very important. You know, because again it speaks to the broader issues with the Santa’s both on policy and on you know his electability case. Right? And and and it speaks to the changing mores of the party. And obviously, there’ve been crazy pastors that supported Republican candidates for as as old as time.

But there is a real difference. I mean John McCain in o eight did not want to pastor Jeffra you know, said he would not, you know, campaign with him because of his, you know, comments. I believe it was about Jews but also gays. In in that campaign, I mean to have a person like this front and center, ask well if you don’t, you know, for people who don’t know, I did I just did a little bit of research on this. Was talking briefly to some of our friends in this world.

You know, he made a challenge for the Southern Baptist Ron DeSantis some leadership role. I forget what the what the title of the role was. But, like, it was it was like the Byron Donald’s challenge against Kevin McCarthy equivalent. Like, it was you know, it’s like the Southern Baptist convention. And he was he was going at, you know, the leader from the right, you know, talking about, you know, all the LibCucks in the midst and how,

you know

This isn’t Westboro Baptist. It’s not like twenty cranks on with the TV game. No.

It’s the Southern Redges convention. Right? And and he ends up getting, like, thirty percent in this in this vote of pastors. So, like, this is not a nobody. Like this is somebody that is influential.

He’s recruiting people to move them off of Trump to DeSantis. And he’s literally out there taking the position that gays should be put to death. Like, that’s not a that’s not a misrepresentation. They shall surely be put to death. Just god’s law.

That was the law gone gave his covenant people. Can he go back on the stage with the Santa’s Willie? I I think probably. Right? And and I and I think that that speaks to obviously the horrific policy agenda run to Sandes which I want to talk about a little bit, but but his political weakness.

If he’s gonna go like he did this week and try to make the contrast which Trump be, oh, I’m electable. You know, I can win. I’m a guy who can win. It’s like, really? You’re carrying a lot of baggage.

Sarah?

I know it was like not on our list of topics. I guess this was, this reverend person. But how do we think Ron DeSantis’s rollout is going? Because he has been, so there was a really good semaphore article. He’s out there in Iowa.

He’s stumping. I saw conflicting reports about size of his crowds, they were either enormous or a little small, depending on which reporter was taking a picture from which angle, But one of the things he he is attacking Trump now, to reporters. So when he’s talking to voters, Now, to be fair, the voters aren’t necessarily asking him about Trump. The reporters are asking him lots of questions about Trump, but he has started to kind of take some take some bigger swings to the media. You know, and he’s been doing this press blitz, so he’s everywhere.

I gotta say in like a conventional way, it’s like been a pretty good rollout, raised a ton of money over eight million dollars. But in terms of like watching him and whether or not he has any, like, he’s pretty boring. Like, for as much for as spicy as it is to be palling around with the with the, like, gay people should die, folks. And and the and the and his his his we’re gonna we’re gonna put the woke agenda in the dustbin of history Like I’ve been listening to him do his thing. Does it have it?

Even it still sounds, politician y. And like it it is not the words of a John McCain or Mitt Romney yet, it it manages to sound not that interesting.

Get an inside look at Hollywood with Michael Rosenbaum. Actress Kristen Ritter.

Your let you travel by yourself. It was a different time. They just put you on a train as a fifteen year old girl, you went to New York. I went on a bus, and I did get picked up at poor authority. They thought I was a runaway.

What would they do? They detain you and, like, get people on the phone, and then they finally let you go to your modeling job.

How many times did it happen?

Once or twice, That just

seems like it wouldn’t happen.

It happens. Yeah.

Inside of you with Michael Rosenbaum. Wherever you listen.

Can I test drive an idea for you, Sarah? You know, I I’m thinking about writing something, and I wanna hear your both of your take on this. I agree with that. The reason why I don’t want the DeSantis roll out to be on the agenda is I wanna we’re now deep enough into it that we’re gonna see around the polls this week, and I wanna I mean

—

We are. — and I I expect it’ll get a little bump. The question is to get a little bump or a real bump. And Around my

The monmouth numbers yesterday were brutal. Yeah.

But that was before his announcement.

But the most brutal number in that was who did Republicans think was the most the best candidate to beat Biden?

It was Trump. Yeah.

And on that count was Trump sixty

five and I I wanna say the scene just twenty five or something like that. I Sebastian and

I gotta tell you, I think that CNN town hall did a lot for Trump’s sense of electability.

Why wouldn’t it? Right? You looked tough, you looked engaged.

Oh, I

just wanna test drive something that’s more in the merits of what he’s been saying. So I’ve been listening to his all of his interviews, not all. But I’ve been listening to as many as I could. The ones where where it seems like he was contrasting with Trump. I don’t I don’t need to hear the Florida’s where what goes to die bit again.

But his contrast with Trump This makes sense why he would do this strategically, but all are either electability or from the MAGA right. And and I and I use that word carefully, MAGAite. Not the true con right. Not like, oh, we need to go back to social security reform and all, you know, cutting taxes. It’s all been stuff like, you know, he’s been willing to go there.

Like Trump didn’t wouldn’t these are all paraphrase of what he’s saying, but he he would he’s willing to go there on on the migrant you know, sending migrants from Texas to Massachusetts. He, you know, says that that Trump was moderating on the the abortion thing that he was willing to go there all the way to all the way to six weeks. On on abortion. Like, there are these series of issues, you know, obviously, on Fauci and the CDC and how Trump cared a little bit too much about how people were dying during COVID. And he keeps going at at Trump from from that vantage point.

And like DeSantis’s supporters like the the one way to make them just bristle with like just be like get gleefully, performatively upset is for anybody to suggest that that that Donald Trump to say this could be worse than Donald Trump or more far or more extreme than Donald Trump. And I and I don’t wanna relitigate that argument here. But what I do wanna say isn’t it interesting that Ron DeSantis argument is basically that he’s more MAGA than Donald Trump? Right? Like, do we not have to take him at his word on this?

Am I am I being too is this too MSNBC of a take here?

No. No. In fact, didn’t one of the and our writers literally say, you make the case last week that, like, no. No. You gotta understand.

He doesn’t mean any of this. Yeah. Right? Was it was it Is

that is that not is that not crazy? Again, it doesn’t change my personal view. I don’t wanna re litigate why we think Trump is the Trump third term nightmare blah blah blah. And and I and I’ll do a big wind up if I write this. But like, Ron DeSantis case is that he is gonna be more Maga.

Like that’s his contrast with Trump. Right?

So here’s the thing though. It depends on what he’s trying to be more MAGa on. Like, there’s the really, really dangerous aspects of MAGa, like the overturning of an election.

That’s true.

Which Ron DeSantis does not seem to be embracing. Right? He’s not running on an election denialism platform. He’s not running on a we don’t respect elections platform.

He wouldn’t though, though. He’s not disavowing any of that stuff. He’s just not running on it.

That’s true. Okay. And then also, it’s like one of the things that I I think where he tried to sort of run to Trump’s not necessarily right, but like the same as on Ukraine. Right? But he also got brushed around, he got pushed around and he walked that back.

True.

And like the six week abortion, abortion is not quite MAGa. Right. Like the abortion issue is more the social conservatives, It’s like a different the MAGa, Magas don’t care about the social issues. And probably don’t actually love the six week abortion ban. There’s a reason Trump can get away with taking a more moderate position on abortion is because voters have always kinda liked that about him.

And especially like the big trumper people, they’re not big social conservatives, that they don’t like love Mike Pence. That’s true. And also when people do the Ron DeSantis, it’s scary. I know you don’t want to litigate it, but I did get I like, David Jolly said this, and our friend Molly John Fast said this on the stage, and I just cannot take this argument. And a lot of times when they when they are talking about it, they bring up the way that he’s going after gay people.

And I think that he is certainly worse than Trump on these social issues. But this because this is this was actually Trump I was the board chair log cabin republican when Trump came along and one of the conundrums. Was that Trump was the most pro gay republican that had ever run. He is waving around a rainbow flag. And so like the the things that are dangerous about Trump is that Trump is genuinely a wannabe authoritarian.

Ron DeSantis is a liberal

—

Yeah. — and wants to do a liberal things. And, like, his rhetoric right now of, like, we’re gonna defeat leftism. We’re gonna end leftism as though, like, a whole set of ideas get ended, you know, not we’re gonna debate, whatever. He’s not a liberal guy.

Not we’re gonna persuade either. Right? We’re just gonna destroy.

Yeah. So I’m we’re fine tuning. I’m doing this live. I’m I I don’t I get it. This is a little bit of a slate pitch of an article.

I know Steve.

But like, It is not a slip not a slate advice column of an article, which they’re they’re really doing some good work over there in the advice column section. Is the other things that he hit Trump on. Right? This goes to your authoritarian question, not being tough enough on Disney. Right?

That’s the other thing. I was willing to go there and attack a private company for doing unclear exactly what I’m still begging for a reporter. Every reporter I talked to who actually gets to talk to to Santos, I’m begging them to ask him to tell us. I wanna know this specific scene of the Disney movie that was too sexualized for him. He uses this word every time, sexualizing kids.

I wanna I wanna know the specific scene that that triggered him. But toy story is me.

And it’s when Bo peep signa goes side eye like this at woody. Woody? Woody. The name

is woody.

Was an accident?

No. It certainly wasn’t. Here’s the other one. Why did Trump not remain true to America first principle and consider giving amnesty for dreamers? Industry for dreamers.

I mean, the dreamers things been going on for thirty years now. Like, there’s some dreamers who are forty, I think, who have been in this country since they were eight. Like, So again, this is his pitch, you know? Like his pitch is that I’m more America first than — Yeah.

—

than Trump. So shouldn’t he have to answer for that?

But answer in what way in in that we accuse him of being more dangerous? Like, that’s No.

But dangerous is not the word. I’m just saying that, like, Everybody in in the Ron DeSantis can’t bristles if you’re like, oh, he’s more How about extreme? Maybe extreme than dangerous? Like, he’s saying I’m more extreme. He’s saying Trump is more reasonable.

Now he didn’t say that word reasonable, but if your argument is, hey, Trump was willing to listen to Fauci, And Trump is willing to to work behind the scenes with these woke corporations like Disney, and Trump is willing to let dreamers who who were brought here as children. And I wouldn’t do any of those things. I’d go after the companies. I’d fuck over the dreamers.

Trump helped those vaccine companies with his operation warp speed. Again,

I I I know that DeSantis would have worn old people around him. There are all these other arguments, but is it not true that that’s his case against Trump? It is his case,

I think. Right? That is his argument. Right. The problem is that it’s simultaneously his argument is also a more electable.

And as he keeps doing this, he becomes less electable. Right? There I mean, there is a reason that during the Democratic primaries in twenty twenty, when, you know, they were candidates were asked on stage, raise your hand if you’re in favor of, you know, single payer health, and everybody except like Biden and mayor Pete, I think. Said, yes. And they didn’t because they’re like, no.

This will get hung around my neck in a general election. Right? Same thing with criminal decriminalizing the border. Right? Like all of these things that DeSantis says he’s for, he would have to answer.

And we’ve the three of us or at least two of us have been saying for a while now that it’s not clear that DeSantis really is more electable than Trump anymore. You know, with each passing week, I think actually that another reason to favor DeSantis is because I think that he might be more beatable by Biden.

No way?

No. You don’t think so, Sarah?

I think he’s compromised. I think he’s compromised,

but His thing could

just overcome everything. Right? The forty year difference could just swamp everything.

And and also, Ron DeSantis, he will change these positions. He just will.

Can you though? No. I’m sure he’ll change it, but does it succeed right? I mean, as a Republican, as a Democrat, you couldn’t have run first, you know, saying you’re in favor a single payer and then run away from that in the front. Right?

We can’t run away from abortion. Although, he could come out and be like, my federal policy will be fifteen weeks. Like, he could. He could be like, in Florida, six weeks four Russ, but federal policy, I’ll push for fifteen weeks with exceptions for rape and sicily for the mother. I just Look, Ron DeSantis knows as I think most people do, like, you don’t get to run a general election unless you can win a primary.

And so, they’ve got a theory of the case. I agree with Tim, that he is running to the right of Trump, that that is it. The question is, is like, the things that he is running to the right on Trump is like Trump didn’t build the wall, you know? Like, he he wasn’t as tough on immigration as I’ll be. He’s trying to take the parts of Trump that got noticed and were popular.

And like put them on steroids. The scariest parts of Trump were things like Muslim ban, overturning an election, Appointing people who would break the law, it was his cozying up to dictators, his interest in undoing the war, order and, you know, getting rid of NATO. Like — Sure.

—

those are the reasons to me that Trump is

Fair.

But I take your

I just might think my point is, like, you can’t run to the right of Trump and then and then make fun and then when I and when we notice that, say, oh, you’re a hypocrite. You know? And I it’s like, what? You’re you can do that. You’re full of shit.

Like, you can’t run to the right of Trump and then get mad at people for noticing. I guess that’s my only point.

Well, that that is it. I mean, there is an expectation because he’s running against Trump that all of us will know that he’s not serious. Like, we’re supposed to take him. What is it?

Seriously not literally.

Seriously not literally. Right? And everybody at NRO expects us to be like, he doesn’t mean that. You know it and play along. You jerks.

I wanna make one one prediction here though. And this is based on his launch night where he said I make a promise to you that if I’m your nominee, at noon on January twentieth of twenty twenty five, I will be sworn in because I will do whatever it takes. I think that’s coded language for the problem with the coup was that it didn’t work. He may not ever say it fully outright, But I think he’s gonna get, at some point, be pushed into that position as a as a position. Is that going

to the Tara Read section of the podcast?

So I think that’s coming. I

mean, he’s already said, he did that weasel worded kind of like I’m gonna pardon the insurrectionists. Right. He’ll flirt with it. I just Trump is like, Trump’s an entrepreneur, an authoritarian entrepreneur. He’s like, Can I get away with this?

Can I do this? Ron DeSantis just does have a different set of boundaries. Still illiberal. I’m not defending. This is where it is annoying.

It’s like, at no point do I wanna defend him? We’re among

friends here. We understand you, Sarah.

I people lose the plot when they get really excited to be like, as though it’s like a great take No. No. No. DeSantis is more dangerous because he’ll know what he’s doing. Like, that’s not how this works.

I agree with that. But you can also agree with that statement about Trump’s danger, we’re also noticing what the Santos has been doing the last two weeks, which is pretty fucking far out there. Like, would have been really far out there in the twenty twelve like, primary lineup. It would have been he would have been out there with the Herman Cain and Michelle Bachmans of the world. The kind of thing he’s running.

He’s not running as Tim Palenty.

One thing that’s funny about Santis to me is that if this version of DeSantis, which you don’t get this version of DeSantis without Trump happening, but let’s say Trump hadn’t happened and you just had this version of DeSantis, I always think like, I would leave the Republican party over this guy.

Hundred percent.

Right? I would have been out I would have had the same reaction to him, it would have been over for me, but because Trump came before him, that he is like this, that voters crave this, and that we now grade on this curve of like, Well, this horrible person who’s deeply illiberal and cynical is still preferable to the guy who set the precedent for all this stuff.

JViel, Sarah wants to do Chris Christie. I have no Chris Christie thoughts. So let her do it.

Just real quick. Yeah.

No. I totally I wanna do Chris Christie, Sarah. Do it. Go.

So Chris Christie is apparently gonna get in this race, guys. He’s gonna get in this race on Tuesday of next week.

Wow.

Guess where he’s getting in.

Where?

New Hampshire. Guess what happened last time he was in New Hampshire?

Oh, he finished second or first. Remind me.

He basically threw the punch the guarantee Donald Trump was gonna be the Republican nominee.

That’s right.

He sure

did. No.

Maybe He should get

back to New

Jersey by the time he endorsed him. I think he did a couple days on the beach.

Yeah. No. This this is where he he took Marco Rubio. Right? He just

Before he finished fifth?

Seventh, I think.

Seven.

Yes. The great Trump slayer Chris Christie, who finished out of the top four, at least in the answer.

That’s

yeah. This guy’s cooking with gas. Go ahead, Sarah.

I just

wanna give you my one take on Christie, which is, look, if this guy’s gonna get in the race delusionally, if he’s gonna get in, he’s gonna, like, actually try to I believe in doing your own sort of what karmic like recompense. Catholic.

This is a Catholic idea.

Yeah. If he goes back to New Hampshire and says and he says, you know what, I screwed this up last time, which he has, I think he’s set, right? I think he understands he did a bad thing. And if he wants to go and try to make good on that, by just leveling haymakers at Trump all day long, I am okay with that. I will say though, In terms of when we ask about these candidates in the focus groups, I’m not sure who they hate more.

Chris Christie or Mike Pence. But they hate them both a lot. Like Chris Christie has no constituency. There are no voters and all he has done is crowd this field of also rans with Nikki Haley, a little less so Tim Scott, but like this crowl Asa, he will fill that out nicely, and they can all split the ten percent of the party that the real Trump.

And at least Aisa will do it with dignity.

That’s

true. Dave Aisa is doing it. Dignity. Alright.

So here’s my question for you both. If he makes it to New Hampshire, can Christie finish better than sixth? Again. So he finished sixth last time. Let me tell you who I think is in front of him.

Trump DeSantis, Vivic, Tim Scott and Nikki Haley. Christy then has to beat both Pence and Asa. In order to hold on to his sixth place finish. What do we think of those odds?

I think he could. I’m just gonna really quick say that Chris Chris is getting in this race for attention. I don’t like giving it to him. And and if he starts throwing hand makers at Trump, I will praise him. In the meantime, I’m just not gonna talk about him.

I don’t I don’t I think that it’s I think it’s equally likely that he throws same acres around to Santos. I will say if he runs through the tape, I don’t think Chris could finish higher than six. Any other state any other state. But, you know, John Huntman finished third in New Hampshire. If there’s no Democratic primary, Democratic leaning folks can can crossover.

Christie’s kind of a more natural fit for Democratic leaving crossovers than ASSA, Despite the fact that ASSA has acted more honorably, like, you know, if you’re that, you know, he’s a little bit more socially, maybe not. I don’t know. We’d have to we could do a focus group of dem leaner in New Hampshire who might cross over and see what they think. Sarah, if we could find ten of them. But but, you know, so I do think that he could he could, you know, get in the the high single digits, you know, and and get into John Huntman territory when we finished a respectable third in twenty twelve.

Just in New Hampshire. I don’t see any path to him above eighth in any of the other states.

Okay. Think more likely that he finishes in eighth place, then fifth place. Couldn’t happen to a nicer fellow. Alright. So we gotta talk about about Tara Reid.

Sure. Not American pie and Big

Labowsky, Tara Reid. Her bunny Lavowsky is a tremendously great character. That was a heck of her performance. Classic. So she is a resident of Russia because I guess this is the time to move to Russia.

It’s nice this time of year.

Like Russia Russia has launched more of a Russian? No. I just mean, like, more broadly. Right? This isn’t even, like, snowden moving when we were only in like a mild cold war with Russia.

I mean, this is Russia has become an international pariah Actual Russians are fleeing Russia as fast as they can get out. It has moved to a wartime footing with conscription and mass mobilization. Crippling sanctions, and that is what has led this insane woman, who accused Joe Biden of raping her.

That seems unlikely. To move

to Russia because she said that if she stayed in America, she would be hunted down and killed — Yeah. —

was that She felt unsafe.

I would like to say that this is

one of those moments where when this obviously

insane woman accused Joe Biden of raping her. The Liberal mainstream media,

listened, and did some investigating. And, you know, they

weren’t they didn’t run, like, you know, full headlong into it like, oh, I gotta check this out. But it wasn’t just, like, dismissed and waved away. This is another example in which like, you know, the mainstream media basically did its job. Right? I mean, she was heard.

Everybody, you know, listened and looked into it and Joe Biden responded to it.

I’m gonna go even further. Not only do the mainstream media do its job. I think that some atta boys are due to the resistant lips on Twitter who saw Russia around every corner. And we’re maybe wrong. Maybe they’re maybe we’re seeing ghosts a couple of times during the Biden during the Trump years, but there was a lot of buzz that tear out when this was happening.

Like she, you know, had done stuff with RT and that, you know, might have had a Russian handler. And anytime somebody mentions that, obviously, the the Russia gate crowd, you know, throws their hands, say, oh, the Liberals are obsessed with this. Here it was it was true. Russia, it is just another friendly reminder that Russia is is not a all powerful boogeyman. They didn’t do everything they’ve ever been accused of.

They have been at, you know, continuously trying to interfere in our politics in favor of Donald Trump and against Donald Trump’s opponents, Oh, in favor of Donald Trump. That is Trump’s opponents. And and this was one ex and this was one example of that. I guess it was Maria Boutina. Who another handler

who the Russian People all insisted was absolutely innocent.

Yeah. She was in she was embedded in the NRA. You know who else? Tara met with recently, your friend Matt Gates. I believe Marg retailer Green was with them, so it is yet another example of the Russians easily infiltrating, Republican, influential, republican offices, and and and and interest groups in service to Donald Trump, And so anyway, that is something that happened.

It’s nice to know that it happened and I just I wish Tara well. I I I think that, you know, is really beautiful in November, you know. Nine months of winter, three months of work camps, I think will be really nice on her. Or maybe they’ll treat her better than that and she can have a nice, like, little one bedroom apartment somewhere on the outskirts of Moscow, where she doesn’t speak the language and I’m sure that it’s gonna be a very fulfilling fulfilling life for her.

Speaking of things I don’t wanna talk about, but I don’t wanna have an opinion about. I don’t know. You know what? This woman came out I remember when it and like we did, we gave it a hard look. I remember her story.

It was like, it made no sense from where she said it happened was like, not in the road honda exactly, but, like, in the hallways and, like, every

In a corridor, there was, like, a little secret look inside and, like, the in Core

at all? A Congress? Anybody who remember of Congress was like, that’s not a thing that could happen. And then I forgot about her. And you know what?

I was perfectly happy to have forgotten about her. I hope she lives the rest of her life in Russia gold. I think the only point that’s worth really pushing is the one that Tim made about the fact that like, Russia is always with us. They are here, they are trying to mess with us, and she was a product of that. And, you know, that made a difference.

And, and it created a narrative. Right? There was a narrative about Biden that the right was really trying to push of like the sniffing, the hair sniffing,

He’s a predator, Remor. It’s all projection. Right? Everything’s always projection.

Yeah. They took every hug he gave anybody as sexual assault attempt, and they brought her in to feed that narrative.

This is the other thing that’s coming. The other narrative serving is my Biden Killlist article I wrote it. The Biden Killlist is coming. That’s like It is this is these are all real things that are happening in the right wing media that is important to understand that there are people out there that think that the deep state literally could target Biden enemies. Alright.

So, Sarah, you didn’t wanna have an opinion on this. So I will do my impersonation of your opinion, which is sympathy and charity and and well wishes for a woman who sure seems mentally ill. Sympathy and charity for a

person that tried to give us a Donald Trump autocracy and has now defected to to Russia where they invading a foreign country? No. No sympathy and charity for for Tara Reid. I hope Tara read goes to Siberia you. I hope she gets sent to Siberia.

These stories don’t end well typically. And the history of defectors even defectors who are, like, of sound mind and sound body, don’t wind up happy in their lives once they are over behind the iron curtain, even though it’s not really the iron curtain anymore.

Maybe they shouldn’t defect.

Look, I agree. But again, is being mentally ill? Like, what what are your real choices? Right? There is a a rationality and it is not clear to me that this woman’s choices are the same as Eric Stone’s choices.

And she seems like a very sick person. So, and I’m trying to give the best I’m trying to be Sarah. Look at me, being a friend to humanity, and thinking of the the looking for the best in people. You know what, Tim? I wanna judge people by their best moments

back and worst moments so far.

I’m sure she was nice to her cats or something. Alright. Guys, long show, but a pretty good show. Before we get out of here, go hit our button, hit subscribe. We’re actually we’re getting a lot more subscribers on YouTube and the down loads are growing.

And the show’s really going gangbusters. So help us out, please, go leave some more reviews, share with some friends, Hang out in the comments. Tim and I have been popping by and bopping around with comments every once in a

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have to do that.

And then Shame on you. God forbid. If you’re not signed up for all the free stuff that we give away at the bulwark dot com, go do that. Just get it. Look, if somebody’s handing out free candy from shady van, of course, whatever.

Would you not take that free candy? That’s what we’re doing. Go take our free candy from our gypsy ice cream truck. Mhmm.

See you guys later. Alright. Go nuggets. Bye. Bye.

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