Place Your Bets: President or Jail?

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the next level. I’m J VL here with my best friends, Sarah Longwell, and Timothy Miller of the Bulwark, happy fourth indictment week to all

who celebrate before we get started, please go over to the Bulwark dot com and go ahead and give us an email. Sign up. We do all sorts of really good free stuff. I think what we do is really quite good. I would say, I’m looking at our content this week.

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Very, very good content. And, like, ninety percent of it is free. So go go get all the free stuff. We’ve got indictment number four. I’ve already spoken with Tim a little bit about this in the impromptu to YouTube live stream we did yesterday.

Sarah, I have no idea what your thoughts are on this. Do you think that this is real prosecutorial overreach? And another example of two tiered system of justice that we have in which these politically motivated democratic district attorneys are out there Doing their their thing going after a god fearing patriot?

Yeah. That’s what I think. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know, you know, I don’t know about the overreach Like, with the Rico case, I’m not a lawyer.

I’ve read now positions from lawyers I respect across the political spectrum. People have different opinions on how this could play out. I understand the concerns of people who think because it’s so wide reaching, you could end up with like minor victories for Trump along the way if certain things get thrown out. And I do think that this is it is starting to come into view how wild I wish I had a law degree because so much of this is gonna be legal over the next, you know, eighteen months. But, like, the extent to which he is going to be in and out of court rooms where there is going to be breaking news, discovery coming to light, like all kinds of things happening, while this election is unfolding is just crazy.

Because we were doing an ad, I’ve listened to his call with Brad Raffensberger, like, a thousand times while we were editing the ad, The call is via The full call

is a full perfect phone call or just the just the clip?

Well, I’ve listened to the whole thing, and then I’ve listened to what I think are the best excerpts. So both, and he is just there being like, you can recalculate. This is this will be very bad for you. Brad Raffensburger, it will be very bad for you if you don’t recalculate and go find me, eleven thousand two hundred and sixty one votes, which is one more than we need. I mean, it’s just so clear.

But, you know, I get a lot of calls from reporters who were like, my editors are just wondering if, This is gonna be the one that really breaks through. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news. I hate to break all these, people’s hearts, but I gotta tell you, we’ve been asking about these indictments and focus groups for months and months and months And if I haven’t said this already,

I’ve been in jail this morning. Who knows? Maybe that was it. Maybe it happened. This time,

it’s different.

Big change. And I would just like to draw a quick note around what has now become a pretty familiar playbook. But, like, again, so the voters I think there was a period of time, right, where people were like, but the accumulated weight of the indictments. Right? Once there’s so many, that is gonna chip away.

And it’s actually the opposite. Right? The more of these there are, the less people can tell them apart, the less people dig into particulars, the more it feeds a narrative that is now very well established, within the right wing media ecosystem and also among elected officials. I mean, it I don’t know, had had cruises comments. Like, people, they have righteous indignation.

This is about Biden coming after his main political rival, you know, and it is unfortunate for a variety of reasons that Trump is so far out in the polls because that lands with a lot of people. Like, yeah, trump’s gonna be the nominee, and this is Biden prosecuting Trump. And that is all I hear from voters in these groups.

How stupid are these voters, Sarah? I Do they understand that Joe Biden does not control Fannie Wallace? That she does not she’s not a direct report to him.

How stupid as Ted Cruz. How stupid is every There’s

like a Harvard Law, didn’t he?

Yeah. And these voters didn’t, mostly.

Maybe they’re all in on it. And I didn’t get a law degree. So help me understand. But there so there have been four separate grand juries now. Yeah.

Made up of regular folk. Regular folk, not Richmond, North of Richmond’s, just regular people, you know, that got called in to sit on these grand juries. You would think that In one of the cases, one of them would have said, no, I don’t think so. Actually, I don’t think that we should indict this person. This seems like a witch hunt but that hasn’t happened yet.

So I I just I am confused. Is is dementia riddled Joe Biden just kind of also controlling? The people in all of these separate grand juries in four different jurisdictions in four states.

The extent to which Biden has refused to get involved in any of this. It’s like he’s been the

boy scout. Everybody says they want

and gets no credit. That’s great.

The argument is that the jurisdictions are all part of woke of the cities. Florida. These are all,

woke, Florida?

You hear

you hear about woke, Florida all the time. I think I feel like Florida’s where woke goes to die.

It’s a great point. But cannot JBL just admit though, or I’m not admit I’m not demanding of you, but like You can demand. You you yell at these voters But, like, Ted Cruz and a bunch of these other these these members of Congress, many of them do have law degrees. Mhmm. They do know the difference.

Well, they’re lying. Right. For personal gain. Sure. So if you’re a voter, you you have no personal gain about this.

And what why would you take Ted Cruz’s word over, like, Maggie Haberman? Are you?

Ryan Ted? It’s right in the name. Lion Ted.

Literally right in the name. You hate Ted Cruz.

They don’t. And let me tell you what. I mean, the idea that you would be like, why would you trust Ted Cruz over Maggie Abraham, like, as an honest question of, like, how these voters think, to me is, come on, man.

I’m

sorry. That’s because I am not going to have, like, the soft bigotry of low expectations for them. Right? I am not going to Yes.

Right. This is about you having deep respect for the voters.

It is.

Loving them so much.

It is. I love all children of god. Tim, you’ve been barely talking, and I can see you chomping at the bit.

God, well, I’ve got feelings. I’ll I just did the first day of kindergarten drop off. So I might cry at some point during this podcast. I’m getting I’m emotional. I’ve I’ve had a couple celebration mimosas.

I know it’s early. I don’t know. Think it’s because we do we get two spring breaks in Louisiana at any way. So I’m a little emotional. So I was happy to listen to Sarah Talk.

The thing that is just worth stepping back in that everyone has soft bigotry low expectations for these politicians, the Republican politicians.

Mhmm.

Except for, you know, if you’re watching MS or something. Like, it does feel like, like, there is no pushback on this one. I mean, the fact that Steve do see what’s furthest on YouTube was like softly pushing back on Trump’s lawyer and Trump’s lawyer was like, whoa, Steve. I thought you were here for mister Trump. I I nobody asked these the obvious questions.

You know, I was watching Chris Christie who I hate on Fox and thank goodness he’s out there, this person that I love. And, you know, Dana Perino and Bill Hemer, who I guess are the normal ones on Fox are asking him about the free speech element to this. Like, wasn’t he just expressing free speech? Yeah. You know, wasn’t he just doing that?

And and Chris Christie is like, Like, does the Al Gore thing? He’s like, yeah, sure. He could have done all the legal challenges he wanted, but like eventually has to concede. And that’s what I said to him in December. And you can kinda see the body language of Dana and Bill drop down a little bit and be like, I don’t know how to back on this.

Like, Dana is nodding at Bill while he’s asking the question. And then Chris Christie gives, like, the obvious reply. And these people are are so sealed in their information bubbles that they’re not challenged. And so they can perpetuate these obvious insane lies about about the deep state and and the free all of this without any without any issue. And I think that also plays into the voter element of this.

I wanna talk a little bit about the legal aspect of this because it seems to me and, can White talk about this yesterday? This case is never coming to trial. There are nineteen co defendants. There’s gonna be jurisdictional fight about moving at least three of them over into federal court, they’re gonna be decisions about who wants to be tried separately, who wants to be tried together. Like, this thing It could be two years before it ever sees the inside of a courtroom in terms of anything other than motions.

And that’s bad, and especially bad because the indictment itself is quite damning. But I I do have a ray of sunshine. Because do you know who’s gonna get screwed in this?

Rudy.

Rudy and all of the middlemen. All of the functionary these other these other eighteen guys, they are aft. And that is a really important function.

And tell me why.

Well, because they’re gonna have to roll because a lot of them don’t have the resources to fight infinitely. Right? Rudy is dead to rights. Right? I mean, Trump has the defense of, like, I was just doing what my lawyers told me.

My Fakata lawyers. Right? And and Rudy is the lawyer who is saying, let’s go do the criming. Rudy is going to either die or wind up in prison. I don’t think there’s a world in which Rudy, like, escapes this.

Right? I mean, except for death. Right? Unless unless he dies before he gets sentenced, I don’t think Rudy Rudy can get his way out of this. And a lot of these other guys

cirrhosis Surosis does have a way of coming at you.

Race stalling Smith, that guy is screwed, Janet Ellis is screwed, it’s really, really important. In the same way that prosecuting all of the January sixth insurrectionists was important. Because you have to send a message to other prospective people who think that it’s all free. And you could just do whatever you want. You could go out and then, you know, invade the capital and, you know, it’s just like being on Twitter.

You you you say some stuff on Twitter and you stir up the pot. And then if it gets too hot, you can delete your tweet. But that’s, you know, the rules of Twitter are the rules of the real world. And it is important to, you know, like I said this yesterday. I’m gonna say it again.

I might try it today. Poran Pogilozhotras, we we we want to drop the full force of the rule of law on these people’s heads so that the next set of functionaries who think that they can shuck and jive within Maga World, you know, for fun and profit, think, oh, maybe my life will be ruined if I do this.

Yeah. So one of the things that Trump has in addition to the I relied on these lawyers is that he’s been fundraising. You know, he he’s got all kinds of money to pay all these lawyers to go through the Jenna Ellis. I bet does not. And you know who’s not gonna help them and pay their legal bills?

Donald Trump.

I’ve got something for you. I also have a French, phrase. Fuck you, Jenna Ellis. And, you are finding out Here we go. Here she is.

I’m on her I’m on her x page right now. It’s what you call Twitter now. X. She’s a servant of Jesus Christ. That’s her biome.

We all. Interesting. Just a couple of x’s. I want a a couple of zits I wanna share with you. Set one yesterday.

We will fight for Jenna, third person. If you would like to help support our efforts, please consider donating by clicking the link below. America and the profession of law are worth the fight. Good luck with that, Jenna. I’m sure you’ll get a couple of pennies you know, she is for DeSantis now.

This is really a bad call, I think, for her. Probably the wrong time to find find Jesus, so to speak. And, and flip to DeSantis. Because, a lot of quote tweets dunking on from Maga World, you know, calling her a traitor. So I don’t think those people are gonna be giving her money.

Another interesting post from Jenna Ellis, on X from when it was called Twitter. This is Jenna. I could spend a full time job just responding to the ridiculously illogical inconsistent and blatantly stupid arguments supporting Donald Trump. Oh, March seventeenth twenty sixteen. But here’s the thing, his supporters don’t care about facts or logic.

They aren’t seeking truth. Trump probably could shoot somebody in the middle of the street in New York City. We don’t have a truth seeker. We have a narcissist. Probably should have stuck with that.

Probably should have stuck with her initial re response. And this is the thing that is so just gratifying about this, about all about the middlemen going down is that it is you know, one of the key themes of my book and on this podcast and and my yoga practice was just accepting the fact that that that good things happen to bad people and that the people that went along with Trump weren’t gonna get punished. And it is nice to see somebody who was is so blatantly caught red handed. Doing this for the grift, not believing this, advancing a lie, in an attempt to overthrow our democracy is getting what’s coming to her. Now she’s begging for pennies in order to fund her defense and racketeering charges in support of Donald Trump.

So that is that’s really heartwarming. I do have to say.

When Trump said he could shoot people on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. He meant people like Jenna Ellis. They got shot.

Oh, my gosh. Anyway, so do I do either of you have, like, high expectations for this thing? Cause because I don’t. But, reading, I okay. Tim, please give me your expectations.

Here’s my expectations. My jail expectations, we can table. The thing is on camera. I I understand the argument that, oh, Trump’s gonna have some small legal winds and there’ll be certain things that make him feel good of good news cycles. But here’s the other thing.

Like, there is gonna be bad Donald Trump news in the news constantly. It it is going to be televised this. There’s going to be additional testimony. News outlets are gonna have to cover it. Will this penetrate the people listening to Steve Bannon’s podcast No.

You know, that’s like another problem for another day. Will it penetrate the, did you see the John Meacham which I’m so annoyed that I have to I have to give him credit for. He called him the Peter millar vest conservatives. You know, those you gotta Google a Peter Malar vest. It’s like those there’s like kinda kinda puppy vest that the guys wear to Sun Valley.

Oh. You know, you’ll see Bob Eiger in them in Sun Valley. You know, like those guys that read the Wall Street Journal Edboard and, you know, their wife, it was upset with them that they didn’t support Hillary. Will this penetrate those people? Yeah.

It is going to. Not in Republican primary, but Donald Trump’s popularity goes down the more this stuff is in front of people’s faces. It does have an impact on casuals. It does have an impact on soft Republicans and this thing is gonna be really bad news for him constantly over the course of the next year. And we’re gonna get to the enjoyment of the fingerprinting and and all of the and all of just the other stuff that makes Donald Trump feel ashamed and and makes him feel owned really because he has to surrender.

He has to surrender. Tefani Willis sometime in the next seven days. And that’s it’s tough to be the alpha male while you’re surrendering Tefani Willis.

But what about the timeline? I agree with your analysis of how it would affect sort of swing casual voters. That’s if it takes place during the general election. And I guess some part of it will, but to JBL’s point, what happens if it’s mainly motions, paperwork, change of venue filing, and, like, all they are are process stories for the next eighteen months.

Still not great.

Yeah. Yeah.

Right. I mean, on the margins. I’m sure is it everything we want? Is it jump in an orange jumpsuit before the election pro

probably not. Is it is it him, you know, in a televised trial besides like the plea Yeah.

Well, at least one. It’ll at least start. We’ll we’ll start. We’ll get that in sometime in the next week. Great.

He’ll please not get to you and it’ll take two seconds.

He’ll

be he’ll be selling t shirts with his mugshot on it. Right? This is, you know, his mugshot will be Jetjjad and Yeah.

Again. Yeah. Sure. That’s so look, Like, I would share your guy’s view about this if I held out any hope that a normal person was con could beat him in the primary because I do agree. The mugshot t shirt Sure.

Like, help them raise money. It helps the rally around the flag effort and the primary.

I’m gonna see people wearing those all over my town. A month.

Yeah. But that part is already done, though. It’s already happened. Like these guys are running against him. The nicest thing you could say is there’s a debate next week and so let’s see what happens.

But, like, you know, they are saying his talking points already. They might as well wear the mugshot t shirt.

Yeah. Right?

So I’m the science. Good day. I’m

sure I will.

Vivic will campaign in the in the mugshot t shirt.

So if there were people out there, if this was a tough race, and I I thought that it might help down some of the margins in the primary and there was a better alternative Like, that’s not the world we’re living in. So I I so the mugshot t shirt does not help him in the Atlanta suburbs with the Peter Malar vest dad. Going to, you know, the gym in Buckhead. I promise. And those are the people that he needs to win back.

I hope you’re right. I try to stay as far away from voters as possible. But I fear that, that those they’re gonna, you know, look, they don’t want to. But that that’s BLM Antifa, socialist, Joe, with his woke mind virus, and I will say some somebody on Reddit posted the other day, I just paid a dollar forty nine for eighteen eggs. I was assured that this is the most important metric in the world.

Does this mean that Joe Biden’s gonna win a landslide? I was like, Oh, my friend. I’m sure the price of gas will become the most important metric in the world. And then it

Egg prices have gone down. I noticed we we’re in a peach shortage.

Well, that’s

why it’s

a peach shortage. Because, you know, normal people — I’ve been very unhappy with grocery stores.

I just don’t don’t recruit in my local grocery store. I’ve been disgusting this year.

That price is the bellwether for Presidential reelect. Are you currently

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Introducing Rich Valdez, America at night, the podcast. Welcome to the conversation familiar. Perfect blend of news and entertainment, interviews and insights. It’s really just an expose on how messed up things are. America’s nighttime downhole whenever you want.

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Okay. We’re gonna do this once a month. We are going to remember the the Johnny Carson great car none of you people even remember who Johnny Carson was. I don’t know why I’m trying to do that like an old person.

Some of them, you

know, We have some doubt that we remember. People don’t even remember Jay Leno. We’re

gonna pretend

we’re gonna pretend that it is August of twenty twenty five. Two years from now, and you have a three choices to predict the future of Donald Trump. He is either in the White House, in jail, or neither. Tim, you go first.

I’ve been enjoying this bit because it’s like, this is crazy. This is our world. Right? Like, these are the options. Jail or the White House.

Like, and this is a high high stakes game of poker, if you will. I was thinking about this last night. And my quick math is if he has an eighty percent chance of being the nominee, which is probably low, but let’s just go with that, and a forty percent chance of being winning the general. Just maybe a hair high. That takes us to about a thirty two percent a third.

So I think that we have a one third chance that he’s in the in the White House. So I’m just going a third, a third, a third. That’s how I feel right now. This is my highest that my jail number has ever been. Today.

Like it’s just been going up slowly. You know, it was maybe at five percent last Christmas. So so the jail number is is right now. On the upswing. I’m one third, one third, one third.

Sarah?

Two years from now. I’m gonna go with neither, but close to potential jail. Right? I just think the timeline on this stuff I I was talking to a lawyer friend, and they were just, like, the amount of documents in any of these cases. Like, if it was a normal, like a normal person, like, it would take at least two years to litigate these cases.

And I think that things are gonna get really weird the closer we get to the election, and I’m not sure that there won’t be, like, full on stops in things or, you know, that there will get he will get some of these judges to rule. I mean, some of them won’t There’s different judges in all of these, but some of them will probably hit pause. And so, like, I think that my jail potential is also higher than it’s ever been. But to me, the timeline matters a great deal for all of this. Oh, rank the three?

Rank the three most likely to least likely.

Neither most likely, White House jail.

You guys are both way too optimistic. I would say it’s fifty percent chance he’s in the White House. Forty nine percent chance. It’s neither. In a one percent chance to jail.

He’s not going to jail. Have you you’ve seen America. Right? You guys live in America. People like him don’t go to jail.

She Gordon Liddy went to jail. I watched White House plumbers.

People like Donald Trump don’t go to jail. Past presidents don’t go to jail. And honestly, I’m not sure he should be in jail. Like, he should be guilty, but I having him actually get carted away in the jumpsuit. I think introduces all sorts of really dangerous stuff.

I I just don’t see a way in which he ever sees the inside of even a holding cell.

I agree with twenty fourteen Ben Shapiro. And then then he was like twelve years old. And he was like, we should be jailing more presidents. Was maybe a little hubristic at the time, but I don’t know. I think that’s right.

I think we should be jumping. Fifty forty nine one

for you. Yeah. Wow. No. He’s either For him, honestly, I On brand.

Alright. Twitter DMs. The president of the United States was using Twitter to communicate with people I mean, I feel like this is a breach of some sort of presidential communications law in that you can’t whatever. What the fuck do we even care? Like, he did an insurrection and everybody says it’s fine.

Be worrying about him using unsecured Twitter DMs, which belong to a private company, which can then compromise the president on it. That is

I’m so I’m sorry. No. Secure hygiene and communications was the number one issue of the twenty sixteen elections. I don’t think we can just brush it aside.

I mean, I’m nobody and I won’t use Twitter DMs to communicate with people because that shit is not secure.

Like, just really quick. Number one, the fact that he’s DMing people is actually the most surprising thing I’ve learned about Donald Trump in ten years. I feel like everything else is predictable, but I was like the fact that he’s I need to see these DMs. Like, can you, like, his thumbs? Like, I can I I could there be national?

Like, do you think in do you think he’s, like, doing, like, bomb Iran question mark and sending it to Hannity? Like, what is, like, like, what do you, like, what is the DM say?

I bet it’s him DMming, like, Robert Pattinson after the Kristen Stewart break up and be like, you stay strong kid. I bet it’s all like celebrity star fighting. No. I bet it’s all celebrity star fucking, like him throwing at a boy in the bowl that he likes.

Retweet request. For his cat turd?

Question. Here’s the thing about the dams. They can’t have been particularly people would have leaked that he was dming them. Right. Like, it would have come out that he was if he was DMing celebrities, you don’t think people would have shared that?

Probably. Cat turd probably keep it close to his vest though.

Yeah. That guy’s the soul of discretion.

I don’t know about this. I think any of these Twitter, like, Trump suck ups would, at some point, have put that into the public domain.

But we know they the Twitter knows that he was DMing. Like, the the there was there’s some data in the deal.

Yeah. But maybe it’s

just sending weeks

back and forth, like, to tweets, like, and it’s very Or maybe there’s, like, two people he communicates with over DMs, like members of his campaign, like, certain things

we don’t have to worry about in a Joe Biden administration. I don’t understand why nobody else sees this as a big plus. Right? We’ve got this this ninety year old grandpa who doesn’t know how to use anything that plugs into a wall with that new fangled electricity.

Reading paper, newspaper, sitting at the desk.

Ride this bike and eating his ice cream, and we don’t have to worry that he’s DMing people on Twitter. And isn’t that a good thing? But, no, no, we’re all gonna take on risk on the guy who could otherwise wind up in jail. Because I don’t did you see Mona? Mona has a piece up today?

I’m sorry. I’m really talk for a moment amongst yourselves while I pull up this Mona stat.

Okay. Well, you put the Mona piece. Can we just though you’ve skipped over. I there were two shocking elements of the Twitter DM. Story.

And and we got to the fact that Trump DMs people at all is intriguing, but did you see the links that Twitter went to prevent the prosecutors forgetting this. Did you see this political story? So we’ve got the district judge, Sarah Longwell, held Twitter and contempt of court find the company because they weren’t complying with this search warrant, but the more interesting thing is the company told Trump Like, this is this is totally inappropriate. Like, they they subpoena for this. The company wouldn’t has no not do this in other cases.

It’s not like if my Twitter DMs were subpoenaed for some reason that, you know, a Twitter spokesperson would call me and be like, Hey, by the way, the feds heads up. The feds are looking looking for you. Twitter gave Trump a heads up and this judge is out there going is is saying is this Did you do this to make Donald Trump feel like he’s particularly welcomed as a new user of Twitter? Did the new boss demand this? I mean, that is wild shit.

How about this? Do you remember when, Barry Weiss and the other anti aunties were given an all has passed to Twitter to look at anything and everything.

They

could ever they could just tell, you know, they had the god’s eye view of Twitter. None of them thought to check-in on this. Amazing. Amazing. Alright.

This is this is from Mona’s piece today. This is, again, go to the Bulwark dot com. This is the shit you’re missing. Recent poll found that only thirty two percent of Americans believe that Joe Biden has, quote, the mental sharpness to serve effectively as president. Thirty two percent.

That same poll all asked about the Trump’s mental fitness to serve, effectively as president. Would you like to guess the the trump’s number?

He’s got a baseline of forty five.

So forty six. Yeah. Fifty four percent. Fifty four percent of this country. Thinks that Donald Trump has the mental fitness to be president.

Those are your voters, Sarah Longwell

just doing they’re just talking about cognitive. Like, he’s cognitively all their man woman camera. Have they

listened to him speaking?

First dog or whatever.

First, there is no way to shine this up. This democracy thing, it does not work.

I’m sorry. I wanna go back. That is a terrible stat, but I I I’ve not got Demona’s piece this morning yet. And so I don’t wanna know what’s in the rest of that article, but that’s alarming. But the very wise thing, I I’m sorry.

I just I can’t get off this. That is it is crazy Elon Musk takes over this company and is like, Very Weis, and Matt Taibe, can have total all access to everybody’s inform all of the the Chorus abundance of the old regime, like whatever you need, you can have. A federal judge says weaning access via subpoena, and they’re like, no, pound sand.

Hey, man.

I think

like the woke mind virus. He’s a serious people.

And the whole premise of Berry and all them seeing this is is it was to expose the fact that the last regime was politically biased. So biased. Because this because Elon’s certainly not acting politically biased. He certainly would have done this for Joe for Joe Biden. He certainly would have done this for, you know, Diane finds

Dorothy is hopped off the Elon train. I don’t know if you clocked that.

I don’t have extensive Twitter thoughts. The thing that I was gonna ask is, So Jack Dorcey was the one fighting the subpoena. Right? So Jack, it

was No. Musk.

Elon was fighting.

It was February. It was right after he took over This all happens right after he takes over.

That is weird. Okay.

Well, is it that weird? Is it? No. Because it’s like trying to suck up to Trump. Get him back on the site, you know, signal to it which team he’s on.

Three hundred fifty thousand dollar fine. They don’t have a lot of money to throw around over there.

Well, they have enough. I mean, you know, they can put their their big strobe light x up on the top of the building, and they could, you know, they they have enough to cover the essentials, Tim.

Yeah. And at this point, he’s what? In for four forty billion dollars of the bank’s money. Like, he’s fine.

He’s like firing people. He’s like firing coders and being like, these cat ladies, that Dorsey hired, you know, that don’t do anything and sit at home and, like, work remotely. They’re fired. I can’t cover their salary, but I’m happy to pay these fines. To run cover for

Watching Elon Go Pro Trump after pushing all in into the Santa’s is gonna be amazing. And I can’t wait. Because we’re gonna have a confluence events where these two guys who hate each other, Elon is gonna have to go full trump. And it’s gonna be glorious to watch because everybody’s gonna be talking about Trump, and Elon can’t have people talking about things that don’t involve him. And he was on the wrong side of this, And so he’s gonna be back with Trump to fight the woke mind virus.

It’s gonna be great.

Can I throw this question at Sarah on this point? This isn’t something that’s been bouncing around my head before we get to Richmond We’re just we’re just exploring this live. Okay. We’re exploring this live. I’ve been about as hardcore on the fact that if there’s a third party, no label c type person that it that it hurts Biden, and I still think that that’s likely right.

But with everything that’s happening with Trump, you have the Joe rogan class now. Like, rogan is I mean, Elon will pro come around on Trump because he’s pot committed now. Rogan’s got his own base. He’s not going back to Trump. Right?

Like, he’s not. Like, he’s gonna sit it out. He’ll he’ll do the whole, like, you know, the rogan bro crowd will do the whole Biden as dementia, trump’s a criminal. We you know, the this country’s broken. We need something else.

Right? Is there not a third person in that category that could take from Trump? I I was always of the view that that, like, really any third party person takes from Biden. But is there not a category of person that could run that could take from Trump in the kind of bro culture lane.

Yeah. Like Kennedy

Like, Kenneth. Yeah.

So I think somebody like that could because it’s not you know, it’s not just Joe rogan. Like, I’ve been having this thought too not about the third party, but about what people do like Ben Shapiro. The people who really went all in for DeSantis, he’s out. They have made it clear they think what trump did is bad. Like, what do they do when trump’s the nominee and they’ve got this audience that there’s that they’ve basically figured know.

That they basic right. They figured out how to gently be on Trump’s side. You can he’s bound, but we still have to vote for him. So this, but, like, I don’t know. Those types of people I could see, Joe Joeogan ran himself, somebody like that, like a celebrity of the right, I think those people could.

But those people don’t have the infrastructure to get on the ballot. Like, the reason And

that’s not who no labels is talking about. Like, no labels isn’t gonna bring

in RFP

to January. Yeah.

And so the reason no labels is dangerous is that the kind of candidates that they would mind would be like, the Joe Manchin Larry Hogan ticket. And so now you’re not playing in the right wing, you know, podcasting space. You’re pulling from Normies. Come on. Let’s talk about the weird singing guy.

Alright.

So There is this, ginger mouth breathing idiot who is gone viral on with his his Cree Decure. Look at that. Look at me dropping French everywhere.

I haven’t understood half this podcast.

Aveguan. Aveguan. Right? He has a a song, an anthem for the working man, for the populous patriots who run this country called the rich men north of Richmond. His name is Oliver Anthony.

And Tim, do you wanna do the lyrical, the the lyrics? I do. Please.

So I I’m gonna say, just a few things. Before I do the lyrics is that. So on the Amanda Shire’s interview, we talked about the Aldine song, the song, the song, the viral country song before this. And and she had many interesting things, if you don’t listen to that podcast, you should, to say about it. But her most trenchant insight was was This is not a bop.

It’s a bad song. It’s not a bop. That’s not really true for this one. All over Anthony’s time, it’s a little catchy. It’s a little bit of a near worm.

It is. If you’re into that sort of hillbilly kinda old Chrome Medicine show type thing.

I am.

If you’re not into Yeah. Right. So if you so if you listen to it, it’s a little bit of an earworm. What’d you think?

Nails on chalkboard. Amazing.

It’s not amazing. It’s not the best song ever. Okay.

It’s a

little bit of an earworm for me. And like the guy, you know, when he starts, you know, it’s kind of like it starts as if it could be you know, sort of an old John Prine song or something. You know, it’s like he’s it’s normal. I’ve been selling my soul working all day overtime hours for bullshit It’s like, okay. This could be David Allen Co, like, whatever, normal stuff.

And, you know, he seem he could try is trying to do this. Oh, I’m a Like, I’m genuine. I care about you. I care about the working man thing and all these interviews. And I was like, okay.

Well, there there could be something here. But then we get to the third verse. You ready for the third verse? I don’t think Sarah made it that far, so she’s excited to hear it. I had to listen to this first part a couple times to understand what he was saying.

I wish politicians would look out for minors. And not just minors on an island somewhere. Do you get that? That’s a little that’s a little Epstein Islands.

Coal miners. Versus minors, Lolita express minors.

Exactly. And then he goes, Lord, we got folks in the street and got nothing to eat. And the obese milk and welfare. Well, god, if you’re five foot three and you’re three hundred pounds, taxes ought not pay for your bags of fudge rounds. Young people putting themselves six feet in the ground.

Wanna kick them around blah blah blah, taxes are bad.

What are Fudge runs? Are they good?

She gets some.

What are they?

Fudge runs, I’ve kinda know. It used to be the ding dong joke, I think, or twinkie. We’ve moved on to Fudge Jones. I think that’s kinda showing that he’s, you know, that’s what they got down at them at the market in Farmville, Virginia. My issue with this is, like, the whole thing is Bulwark.

And the reason why I want to talk about it, it is so just on the nose for the entire Magga bullshit conceit, right, which is that like we care about the working people we’re gonna be on the side of the working man.

Forgotten man. We’re gonna

help you out. The forgotten man. But then when you get down into the particulars of it, it’s like, no, you’re not. I, like, this is nothing. Like, his what his his solve, the thing that’s gonna help the working man is that we have to stop giving snap benefits.

To somebody that is on welfare. Like, we can’t give food stamps to people. Like, who’s that gonna help? This guy? Like, let’s just take him seriously.

In this conceit. He he’s working two jobs for bullshit pay. He’s not fucking paying any taxes. He does he understand how the progressive tax system works? If he’s working two jobs with for barely enough pay, like, he’s paying minimal taxes.

He’s paying like tiny payroll taxes. His money isn’t going to pay for the Fudge you know, like, the people that are paying for snap are are rich people. Like, it’s rich people’s taxes that are going to pay for snap. And so if this guy is worried that his tax is money is being taken. The policy answer to that is lower taxes on the bottom rung of the tax ladder, increased taxes on the rich to pay for it.

Do you know whose policy platform that is? Elizabeth Warren. That’s Elizabeth Warren’s policy platform. That’s that’s not Donald Trump’s platform. That’s not measurement.

None of these people want to do that. Like, they want minimum taxes. That was the whole thing about makers and takers. And, like, the, like, the the the Republican tax plan would make this fucker pay more money. And so like this whole thing is just full.

It’s just bullshit. It’s just all like, oh, I’m on the side of working people. But the bad guys are some some shadowy government people who actually I agree with on policy and fat black women who aren’t working hard enough for my taste. That’s it. Those are the enemies, the in this thing.

It’s fucking enraging.

Sarah, I’m sorry. I know you you go first because I I would like to rant about this.

Well, we just don’t, I think, talk about this enough as in terms of Trump, where what Trump has done with his populist movement is managed to signal to people culturally and do nothing for them economically. Cause he has won, he dominates with these white working class non college voters but it is not because of his economic policies. No. Like, he manages it’s it’s a trick. It’s a trick that they have managed to pull off.

By saying, like, we are on your side on these cultural issues, and we will feed you that. Right? That’s what we will feed you instead of economic policies that are designed for you. Good, bad, whatever it’s just

trade wars would be the one thing that he’s saying he’s doing for them economically. Right? But But

he lied about a lot of things. Like, when besides specifically minors, this was something trump did that enraged me the whole time he was campaigning. He kept telling people he was gonna bring cold jobs back. He would go to these communities that had been built up around mining that had been flatlining for a long time. If you drive around Pennsylvania, you see them.

But he would go and sell them a fiction that those jobs were coming back. Those jobs were never coming back. The world it just it the world has moved on from that. And, like, he’s a lie. It’s a false hope.

Also, as our friends, Noah Smith, did, because he tried take this thing seriously and unpacked. He treated this as if it was a policy treatise and unpacked it. Coal miners make twenty percent more than the national average. Coal miners are fine. The remaining coal miners are Well,

those jobs are minors. The reason people want those jobs back is because they were good middle class jobs.

Danged up. Yeah. They they are

and they are right now. There there may not be tons of them, but they if you’re a coal miner, if you’re working in the mining industry, you’re doing well. The incoherence of this thing.

I don’t know. That’s not right.

I mean, just the stats are the stats. Right? I mean, twenty percent more than the national average in terms of of

That’s the point. The point is those jobs are gone, and they used to be the thing that people counted on in whole communities of how they raise their families and they went away. Like, if you drive around, like, the cores of Ohio and Pennsylvania and, like, what they call the rust belt, you just see hollowed out towns that you still once thrive around manufacturing, around coal mining, and those are gone. And that’s where the forgotten man stuff comes from.

And you know what we’re building a lot of right now? Manufacturing facilities. Yep. Thanks to a couple of You know? It’s like but I guess thanks to the Richmond North of Richmond, but I they didn’t get they didn’t get a shout out, the new.

I I guess he didn’t he didn’t pay attention to what was in the IRA.

So the this is I mean, it is stake to treat this ridiculousness as a bill of particulars or a policy roadmap. Right? Because, you know, we have a guy who’s saying the government wants to control everything. Also, why aren’t why isn’t the government helping coal miners, and why isn’t the government helping people who are committing suicide? And also why isn’t the government helping the people who are homeless?

Also, the government should stop helping the people who are fat. Like, what it’s it’s it’s insane. Right? And and so government can troll is bad, but it should be controlling all of these other things. And what it really is is about it’s about they.

Right? So they and them, the bad people who are responsible for all the lousy shit that’s happened in your life. Right? And I am so sorry.

It’s also kind of about the pronouns though.

He is concerned about people who want to control everything you do. What does he think about the Texas fucking portion of bounty law. Right? I mean, what what was the the story you shared with us yesterday, Tim, or the day before about the seventh grade girl who was raped in Mississippi and had to have a kid. This is that seems to me to be like government trying to control things.

Now maybe you think that good. And your government should control them. But then don’t in your song in your creed occur. Be like, but the government is trying to control things. Right?

You you have a vision of control that you would like to see. And it turns out that none of this means anything except that They look around and they don’t like the Brown girl at Starbucks with the nose ring. That’s what it’s all about.

I don’t know about all about because I do think if you go into these communities, like, the opioid crisis was real there. The fentanyl crisis right now is real. They do know lots of their friends have died. There is an addiction crisis. There’s a loneliness crisis.

I think the problem here is where and this is this is a this is again a trick is where there is real suffering And so people want to blame someone and Republicans have given them an out group to blame for their suffering in lieu of solutions. In lieu of policies that help.

I I I really agree with Sarah on this. And this is the thing that is what is the core of what pisses me off the most. I’m not that we should expect this fucking red dish to, like, like, understand the nuances of every policy, but on on the politicians, among the JD Vanses of the world. When I looked back at, like, the, at the autopsy, and I did, like, my self reassessment of the things that we did wrong. I I think in retrospect, we could have put forth a vision for a Republican party.

I wouldn’t have liked. But that would have been true. Right? That would have said, Hey. These people have gotten fucked over by the wars.

They were disproportionately serving in the wars, and that was stupid. And we should we should reflect on that. That that free trade has been like pretty good on balance, but there have been certain communities that got fucked over on that, and we need to figure out ways. To, you know, make them whole. Like, that that we should be spending more money on Medicaid and, like, re and and addiction treatments and things like this.

Should reassess some of the old Republican Party policies on that stuff instead of reassessing the Republican party policies on immigration and gays and and, you know, the soft stuff that I like. And, like, that would be fine. That, like, again, that would then we could have two healthy parties. One that it’s like, I am concerned about, like the the working class rural folks legitimate concerns and trying to solve them. And and, you know, another party that is more diverse and has a different interest.

But that isn’t what any of this shit is. Like, that’s the thing that it pisses me off so much about this song and about JD Vance and Josh Holly. And it’s like, It’s all it’s all fake. Like, we’re getting people mad about fake shit and and we’re not actually helping them. And and in fact, we’re stealing their money to pay for Donald Trump’s defense And we’re telling them not to get vaccinated, so they’re dying disproportionately.

And some of them, the ones who are most riled up, they’re in jail now We have them in jail because they believed our lies about the election. And like this and this shit at shit is just totally in line with all of that. And the and the goddamn Wall Street Republicans that, like, wanna use these people for votes, like, are out there, like, tweeting, like, Patrick Ruffini is like, hell yeah. Oliver Anthony. What’s the left’s response to this?

And I’m like, you’re a fucking moron. You’re either a moron or near nefarious. And I think it’s actually more likely the latter.

Can I just tell you guys a joke real quick?

Yeah, please.

What happens when you play a country song backwards? You get your wife back, you get your truck back, you get your dog back.

That is

I like country music.

I also all I listen to is country music.

Is that true? What’s your favorite country song right now?

I most listened to ninety country and two thousands country.

Oh, can

I love

Toby Keith? You and Tyler of the same playlist. No.

And, actually, I have a whole rant about Toby Keith. Toby Keith’s music is the most misogynistic music. They they they they they’re they’re they’re boppers. But, like, how do you like me now? Is all about a girl that he, like, tormented in high school, because he had a crush on her, and then how she wouldn’t date him, and he was mad about it.

And now he’s a big country star, and she’s, like, sad and crying. And, like, how do you like me now? And then he’s got another one that’s called, I wanna talk about me. That’s about, like, I listen to you go on and on about your stuff, but I wanna talk about me. Anyway, I do not like Toby Keith.

I wonder why those people like to tell Donald Trump. Yeah.

There’s a lot of Greek country music.

Sure. Like like what? What’s what’s something that you’re liking right now? Shaniya? Are you do are you on a Shaniya?

I’m not,

but I’ve always liked Shaniya.

Dixie checks.

Well, the they’re just the chicks now and, I don’t think they’ve had new stuff for a while.

As your friend Amanda pointed out him, their position is now the dogma position of the entire Republican Party, which cast them into the outer darkness. Has there been any sort of reassessment of the Dixie chicks or apology made to them saying, Hey, you know what? We are sorry we tried to cancel you. It turns out you were correct about all of this war stuff. We feel very has that happened?

Oh, no. Because again, none of this is about real policy. It’s all about hating the outgroup. That’s what it all is. That’s what it all is.

It’s been a good show.

It’s been

a great

show, but the show is over. Go over to the bulwark dot com sign up and get all the good stuff we do. You should definitely read Mona’s piece today.

Really quick. I have a great guest on Sunday. Robbie Kaplan, if this was a if if we were in righteous world. Robbie, John, doing I’m not doing. There

should be a rule. Anytime you do lesbians, I get to be on.

This is like the seventh lesbian we’ve had Sunday show. So I all the slander about me being anti lesbian before, I think I’ve been I’m vindicated on. In a righteous world, Robbie, would be the most famous lawyer in America. She’s unbelievable. And so if you haven’t heard about her, you’re gonna really enjoy the podcast on Sunday.

Please tune in.

Bye. See you.

Makes a little sports analysis, pop culture, and great interviews. And you’ve got the rich and show podcast.

The jets are bracing themselves into doing hard knocks this year.

Bracing themselves. Look, a coach’s wanna control the controllables. They don’t want to have a camera crew in the building. You know, I know that they wanna lie low. This is what happens when you go and swing for the fences and get out of Rogers.

Are you kidding me?

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