State of the Sausage Maker

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the next level. I’m JBL here with my best friends, Sarah Longwell and Tim Miller of The Bulwark. I’m coming to you live from New York City, that morning after Joe Biden’s first state of the union address? Sarah, I had a question for you.

Now, I got cut off. Yeah. Hold on. You

didn’t get cut off, Tim. Just somebody is asking somebody else a question. That isn’t you.

Okay. I just

Sarah, I am having a weird whiplash in the realization that the two most effective and best presidents of my lifetime are Ronald Reagan and Joe Biden.

Yeah, Tim, the reason he’s coming to me is because he wants to do his like Joe Biden victory lap and That’s that’s why. Okay. Well, I just

thought we might just take take a moment to discuss the fact that JVEL’s, like, little dig at me there because I am coming out of your life from New York City, actually. Yeah. We are coming into life from New York City, not in New Jersey anyway. So JBL’s a little sad when I didn’t just swing over to visit him, forty five minutes south in Central Jersey, not during rush

hour. Two and a half hours

of a rush hour trip.

Right.

Besides that, it would’ve been it would’ve been nice to see you. And I apologize. I apologize. I’m sorry about that. But please, Sarah.

Continue your assessment of Joe Biden, greatest president ever or second greatest president ever. So

I’m just saying, in our lifetimes, we’ve had we’ve had, like, three reasonably effective presidencies. And those have been Reagan’s president and Biden. And believe me, Nobody finds that weirder than I do.

Right. Yeah. I mean, like, we’re talking about one speech last night, but I will I will say it was a quite effective speech even with sort of the word gumbo that happens when he’s like rushing through stuff. Even with that, even with some of the weird moments where I was like, wait, what did he say? Or the back and forth, where I was like, like, what is happening right now?

Why is he doing a call of response? Why are we having a conversation? I’m super stressed out. But for a state of the union, which is usually this, like, very boring PowerPoint of a thing, watching him kind of bounce in there, just happy as a clam making jokes I didn’t understand because he wasn’t quite spitting them outright. He did look like the happy warrior.

And, I mean, the best part was when he got into that joust with the Republicans, and then owned them on it. Like, he he stuck with it. I was like, you’re on script, bro. Don’t do it. Don’t do it.

They’re whatever. This is bad. And then when he was like, you know, we’re all in agreement. No cuts to Medicare and Social Security. It was amazing.

It was. It was amazing. It was a it was a great speech, and I think I was not doing an interview yesterday and they were like, what does Joe Biden need to talk about in his speech? And I was like, I don’t care what he talks about. What Joe Biden has to do is make sure that everybody’s looking at him and thinking, I could do this two years from now probably.

And I felt like he accomplished that. So, you know, that’s a that’s a win. So just to

demonstrate that I’m not a homer before we start this, I wanna confess something about that’s happening in the interior life of Tim. Kinda an interior life of a gay man, which is very important in in cinema. So I’m always spent a lot of time dealing with. Not

Kristen Cinema. You mean the movies.

In the movies. Yeah. Her interior life is also interesting. Okay. That’s for another day.

I had a thought yesterday that just kind of crossed my brain that was like, man, maybe it’d be nice if he did really bad. Because that would just sort of kickstart the kind of discussion of, like, we’re not so sure that he can do it, you know, because it’d be better on balance, it’d be better for him to be to demonstrate decline. Never. Right? That’d be the best case scenario, so he’s some kind of he does some sort of benchman button type scenario.

The next best case would be, you know, that he would he would demonstrate to kind as soon as possible. Right? So that you could resolve it. Right? Like, the worst case scenario is that you’d demonstrate decline, like, debate two of the

general election. That’s

right. So that’s something that you’re still nervous. In my head. And that that that nerve, that’s gonna be a low level of anxiety from now all the way till till next fall. So I say that to say, I I wasn’t like ready

to go in there and be, like, rip off my shirt and reveal my Joe Biden t shirt and his aviator

— Right.

— and, like Oh,

okay. JBL.

And,

yeah, Yeah. Please, Shabelle. And — Come on. — don’t don’t insult us. The but I wish I brought my Aviator shirts.

To New York City, where I am right now, because I would be wearing it today. Well, it’s chilly, but I would if I could have it under it’s pretty tight. Too. So if there’s a way to put it over top of something I would wear. And because he was phenomenal.

I know, like, really quite good. I like, even not grading on a curve, good. There were certain things that I I did that you could nitpick. I saw Sarah’s face. So I guess if you’re getting on the curve of, like, was it the greatest orations since Cicero?

No. Okay? But, like, just as a political speech that as serving a function of not grading him just based on the fact that he’s eighty, but just say, hey. Did a politician succeed at achieving their political goals, delivering a message, you know, being in at times inspiring, a little funny, engaging, yeah, he did. He did.

He was good last night. I thought the message was good. Like I said, I wanna nitpick a few other things, but You know, the call in response though was definitely the highlight. I was also like Sarah doing the no no no no yes thing. Like, she’s like, please don’t do this.

Now. But I I think that it achieved the main like, the best case scenario for him last night was a to show energy, which he did, that he had capability, which he did, and to have some Republicans behave like lunatics and haven’t seem kind of normal by comparison, and the call in response allowed that to happen. And then he achieved, I think, even a higher degree of difficulty of, like, kind of, doing the Joe Biden thing, which is, like, okay, we made a deal. It’s, like, deal and Joe doing it live. Alright.

Here we go. I don’t it annoys me. I do feel like the regular pundits, you know, you’re you’re both sides pundits or we’re giving a little bit more credibility to the Republicans for the booing. I mean, all Joe Biden was doing was quoting Rick Scott’s fucking proposal. Like, that’s all he was doing was literally quoting one Republican said he wouldn’t say the guy’s name.

That was my, I guess, like, one criteria, which should have been, like, guys. Why why are you yelling at me? He’s, like, let’s just printed

out.

Oh, he

should have pointed at senator Rick Scott and said, Rick, tell them. He’s sitting right there. Rick, do you have your handout with you? Could you have could you pass that around, Rick?

Anyway, I I I thought that he really that that part was the best for sure. We should stipulate that none of this matters.

I don’t think. We I don’t think there this matters to us for purposes of understanding where Joe Biden is as a politician, even important to us in terms of placing the two parties on a continuum and understanding in which direction they are moving in terms of practical political effects. I think it it moves the needle zero one way

or the other.

Well, wait, I guess I’m not positive about that. Michelle Goldberg from The New York Times had called me, like, two days ago. And was like, what do your focus groups say about Joe Biden running again? And I told her the truth, which is that everybody says, they don’t want him to run. And they don’t think he should and that they think he’s too old.

And she had written a piece and it was like Joe Biden has been a tremendous president and he should not run again and she like quotes me in it. But I saw her. She wrote a a piece of The New York Times. Everybody was doing like these like quick ewows of the speech, and she was like, you know, if that guy shows up all the time, I changed my mind. Like, I I I would withdraw.

And so I think that it has a practical political matter there has been a kind of everybody’s aware of the timeline. Everyone is aware of the what the dynamic that Tim laid out, which is There’s a a period of time, a window of time, and we’re in it. Where Joe Biden can say he’s not running again and give the Democrats an opportunity to find an alternative. And even that’s gonna be messy and it’s a little dangerous and these are some of the main reasons why these are not things that you do lightly. And I would say, just like the twenty two midterms, this speech goes a long way to quieting the pundit accuracy.

So I think that’s maybe part of the political effect. Because I I mean, I I think a lot of people have watched that speech. I was like, yeah. I mean, can you still do this you know, at eighty two? Is he eighty now?

When he’s doing, when he’s running? I don’t know. But I don’t know. You’re sort of like, how am I gonna just keep arguing this when you know, he can get up there and like do a pretty good job. And I have a lot of substance things I wanna get into, but like style, which I thought was the most important.

I just think he think you hit that. I do think that has a practical political effect, I would say. But you’re right. Like, average Americans aren’t watching it, but I think it has an effect on the pundits class.

So I I would say one thing that I think is underrated about Biden is that he is a creature of Congress. In a way that no president in our lifetimes has been. I mean, Obama’s inside it for three years. George H. W.

Bush was in house, but, you know, a a bazillion years before he became president. Like Biden spent thirty five years in congress or something like that. Like, his he does not have the temperament of an executive. He has the temperament of a deal maker and a backslapper and, you know, hey, we all get a longer. And so that’s why he can walk into a room like that.

He just approaches a state of the union. It turns out differently than all other chief executives in an hour timeline. Right, which has been, you know, they’re up there to be the big boss and tell people how it is. And, I mean, Biden’s up there given the congress credit for every like, everything he was like, we did it. Right?

And it was a very bipartisan speech for most of it. I mean, he went out of his way. This is the weird thing. Right? Biden went out of his way to talk about things that some Republicans wanted to do.

And say, and I understand this isn’t the position of your party, and this isn’t what all of you think. He said this is about Ukraine. He said this is about the debt ceiling. He said this is about cut social security, Medicare. He opened by by congratulating Mike Kevin about getting the the precious speaker ship gavel.

He went to Mitch. Right? He said Mitch. Mitch looked so unhappy with like, Kevin in a weird way was actually kind of, like, happy to him too. Like, he’s so into the gavel, but even though he realized it was probably bad for him to be being praised by Biden, he couldn’t resist, like I

am.

Mitch did not like it. It just I don’t know. Like, this is Biden’s default setting is the before times version of American politics. Which is sausage making. And he clearly enjoyed that more than any other president I’ve ever seen, give a say to the union.

Like, Clinton sort of enjoyed the performative aspect of it, but there’s a lot of, like, lower lip biting and, you know, he saw it as, like, a Shakespearean monologue. And this was like the fryers roast for Biden. He was super into it.

I do think Biden relaxed and happy because, you know, he does oratorily. He kind of rushes through things, through a kind of clenched teeth and, like, squinty eyes, like, the lights must be bright, and he’s had a lot of Botox. And so, like It’s I think it’s BOTOX. He’s not a lot of BOTOX, but he he was happy and that was palpable. I just turned to my wife, and I was like, I don’t know.

I was like, this is just like cheering me up. It was just I was having a a nice effect on me when he was thanking Mitch, I was like, this is great. This is what we all wanted. And, you know, when his big verbal slips and and there were some of them, but, like, he didn’t confuse major sort of military countries that were in conflict with. He just called Schumer, the minority leader.

Which sounds like That’s funny. That’s funny. How how big is that majority? I mean, he did seem like a like a loose grandpa. I’ll bake that majority down there, Chuck.

Chuck’s holding up one figure and just call it in the minority leader. That stuff’s great. Like, whatever.

And I think that also goes to the back and forth, which we kind of discussed. Right? Which was he liked that. Biden seemed happy to come to the conclusion. It’s like, alright, guys.

Yeah. We did this one. We we resolved this one. We don’t need to we we can just move on the next time we gotta get together to deal with the debt ceiling thing because this is now off the table. I’m glad we all agree.

Alright. Now let’s move it on forward. And and, yeah, I was watching This was a Chuck Todd afterwards. And I love Haiti Haitkamp about as much as anybody, my husband worked for her. And I just I love the Christmas party.

She’s a great person. She’s on the Boardwalkwalkwalkwalkwalkers once in a while. She cusses great. But she did a little bit of like, oh, I don’t know. I felt like that was outside of decorum kind of commentary on that exchange.

And I did that was just one area. It’s like, I don’t think so. I think that’s good. You know, that was a little ruckus and they’re shouting your liar and he’s like, what are you talking about, Jack? And, you know, they’re going back and forth.

And I I thought I mean, I thought that some of the Republicans looked a little classless, you know, like MTG looked like a little bit like she was, you

know, at a at the Chili’s, like, echoing

the Friday night entertainment. But all in all, I thought that that like, again, it’s kind of what we want. I I thought it was like this melding of our new world

Yeah.

With kind of someone from the old world who’s like who has like that decor on that and it’s like fine. You can throw a shout a name at me, but we’ll just still cut a deal and That’s all good. That’s that’s a superpower of Biden. So I think that really worked to his favor. It felt

like the before times.

Well, Janet, because it felt not like the Republicans were being hostile one of the things that was I was taking away is, like, the mood with Trump was, like, dark in this way, the American carnage kind of way that made you feel sort of sick to your stomach. Whereas, this did not. Like, even though they were looking stupid and behavioral, like, the way that Biden was engaging with them, smiling, keeping it really light, just made me feel like this doesn’t feel dangerous. Doesn’t

feel

like we’re on the brink of something bad. It feels like Even though it was, like, outside of decor, I’m, like, it didn’t feel mean, it didn’t feel bad, it didn’t feel dark in the way that things often have and the exchanges that people have been having.

There was one part that made me feel a little gross, and that was Kevin’s face. And not just his muppet face in general, but like the face that he was making, it seems like maybe he was practicing because he had it, like, very the same the whole Studying boredom. Studying boredom. There you go. Yeah.

I mean, you know, like the oh, I’m the jock. You know, and we’re in this class that they’re making me take, or or maybe it’s like the jacket had to do a sexual harassment training maybe afterwards. They’re sitting there and just kind of like rolling their eyes at the process and I didn’t love it. And my contempt for him was rising over the course of the hour hard for me to judge whether that was just

me or whether that was something that maybe an average voter would have also felt. Like we said, maybe average voters aren’t really even watching this, so it doesn’t matter. But

he was the only thing that was affecting my my uplifting long well esque bipartisan spirit of the evening. How

about Sarah Huckabee Sanders? Yeah.

I was gonna say, in terms of, like, people who cause my skin to grow, and this has been a feature of the modern sort of Trump Republican party that causes me

I

feel disoriented by it because the way that people would call Trump. They would be like, well, he’s charming. He’s charismatic. And I’d be like, that’s interesting because I find him absolutely repellent. Like, the sound of his voice, the look of his face, his stupid hair, like, everything about it makes my skin crawl.

Her Slack jaw, like, delivery of things is

Big.

For starters.

Yeah. It I I find her utterly repellent. Like, there’s no part of me that is interested in listening to her words. She’s got, like, dead eyes. Because she knows better.

She and I are roughly the same age. I we we share many friends in common. She was sort of in DC two. I know lots of people who know her. She’s just at least a sonic type who saw the power wind shift and totally changed shoes.

And, like, when she was doing the press briefings, I felt the same way. I was like, this person is not talented. And so when the whole Republican party is like, this is our star. This is our next generation. I’m

like, really? She’s a Nippo baby. She’s just another Nippo baby. But here’s what I thought was interesting. So Biden’s speech was mostly bipartisan, sought to credit Republicans, sought to distinguish the views of some Republicans from the others It was very substantive in the, you know, he’s talking about, like, the taxes passed on the hotel bills and stuff like You know, it was all economy, economy, economy, with a little bit of climate change, and dash of abortion, thrown in.

And then Sarah could be anders is like, you know, they want you to worship their false idols with the woke mob. Isn’t their Marxist BLM entity? She is not running against the Democratic Party or Joe Biden. She’s running against Rose Twitter, I guess, or like, some version of, like, progressive Twitter —

Or the person who hates — she’s not very interested. The one DEI official at your child’s school or, you know, the one person that annoys you on your TikTok feed. Right? Like, that’s who she’s running. Like the random liberal in your life.

And maybe that works. Right?

Can you do that? Can you win elections by running against a cartoon version of a person that people are annoyed by when the other person is just running on the economy. Can you can maybe you can win like because I don’t know. I wrote about this on on Tuesday. Looking at the polling data, people are fucking stupid.

And I, you know, I am mystified by what people think and why. And it’s not clear to me that Sarah Sanders’ version of this, which is, again, is really the DeSantis playbook. That that can’t win.

Yeah. I think it worked. So just from my experience of last night, which I think is was maybe made closer to a median voter, after about halfway through three quarters away through Joe Biden’s speech was like, I got the gist of this. And I’m here in New York City, so I went and met a friend for a quick drink. Cut the end of the Lakers game, LeBron James, now the all time leading NBA score flipped over TNT.

And then when that was over, went back. And kind of rewatched flipped on Fox. I wanted to see what the Fox guys had to say about the night, you know, and then flipped on my

little social media feed and watch Sarah and and so forth. And I missed everything implied in that way. So in that context, I mean, she seemed repellent. Right? But the

whole time I was sitting there, I was wondering, the tone had to be particularly bad for anyone that watched them back to back. You know, and that’s the danger of doing these responses when when you don’t know what the other person’s gonna say. Right? And and that, you know, her speech was not a response at all, which is kind of how these are starting to become, anyway, traditionally. But, like, in a particular tonal way, It was like, that guy, you know, old deal and Joe up there, compliment Mitch and like that like that.

What’s the guy? That’s the guy that you’re talking about forcing you to worship his flag. Like, what are you talking about? So for those people, a highly engaged, I think it might have been dissident. For the people that are like, oh, I watched a few minutes of Joe, turned on the basketball game, cooked dinner, you know, went and then turned on Fox News.

I think it probably works for them.

No. I think that’s right. She had no substance. And here’s the problem, right, is, gosh, if Joe Biden was just even seventy four. And had given that speech, I would just be, like, rolling into twenty four If that’s the best these Republicans have, those two visions are such a stark contrast.

He’s gonna crush it because I will tell you on a substance. You know what’s interesting? Is that while I don’t always agree on let’s call it the particulars of the substance, like, that eat some of the bills that he’s excited about, don’t necessarily excite me broadly on substance. This was a jobs, jobs, jobs economy like No social stuff almost at all. And again, just this is one pushback I think I would have on this, like, does it matter?

I do think that Joe Biden has the opportunity to teach some Democrats some incredibly important lessons right now about how you reach the broad middle. I mean because right, you one of the things you do with a speech like this that nobody watches or that not a lot of people watch is you, like, win the next day news coverage. It’s gonna be a lot of monetary taylor green, darling. But it’s also gonna be, like, you talked about the economy. You talked about the economy.

I mean, just hampering on jobs was exactly right. Democrats don’t do that enough. Happy Warrior, talk about jobs, tell people our best days are in front of us like it was good on that substance. And side by side, with Doron DeSantis, woke is everything. And I’m mad all the time, and I’m fighting with you all the time.

Got it. Joe Biden was seventy four. I just I just think there’s there’s mass I think he would crush in that match. And

then Huckabee is that they’re going, this culture war that they thrust upon us It’s like, what are you talking about? We just watch, like, buy

American, made in America. What culture war? We

just watch the two hour speech where you barely fought any culture war points. And then you’re you’re leading off with this fully kind of imaginary, like, war of your own creation. By the person who’s the first bill in Arkansas that they’re putting forth is a ban on drag brunch. The first bill of the legislative session in Arkansas time as a drag brunch man. You know?

And so you have these little moments with, like, the end like, she’s, like, oh, yeah. And we also have this I’m announcing tomorrow this education reform bill. And I’m like, okay, that’s probably fine.

I

don’t know who knows. I’m sure there’ll be stuff tucked in there that don’t say gay, there’ll be stupid culture where stuff tucked in there. Right? But, like, they’re so close. Right?

Like, had you just, like, reoriented that speech? Right? Like, Biden did. I mean, eighty percent about these substantive things that you think people right mad about and then throw in a couple little red meat for Fox. Okay.

Maybe that’s a politically viable speech, but her speech seemed deranged.

One other thing that struck me is the difference between the parties. So you have Biden who talked a lot about helping the parts of the country that didn’t loan for him. Right? We talked about, you know, we got to build this we got this bridge that’s connecting Kentucky and Ohio, and their representative didn’t vote for the you know what? I’ll see at the the groundbreaking.

How’s

another great movie going?

Yeah. These people feel left behind. These communities, which have been followed. You know, he’s like, half of what he talked about was helping, you know, basically, red America, you know, very sympathetic. These people left get to say, what can we say?

Or is it all? Coastal elites are terrible. And it is pretty obvious that, like, again, it’s a political strategy. I’m not trying to position this as altruism. Maybe he is a deep patriot and loves all people and all of God’s children.

That’s possible. But as a matter of politics, his his is an outreach to parts of the country which did not vote for him in an attempt to convince them to vote for him. And the Sarah Huckabee Sanders Republican, Rhonda Sanders, is like we will attack the parts of America that don’t vote for us in order to get more votes in the parts that do vote for us, I guess. Is this winning? Is that a winning strategy for Democrats?

Not for Republicans? If you run those two things side by side, which is I guess what Trump did. Right? I mean, Biden ran talking about, you know, helping small towns in the Midwest and Trump ran demonizing people who live in big cities. Is that gonna work again?

I don’t

know. I mean Josh Shapiro ran this strategy really effectively, for

example, the Biden strategy, you know.

And Josh Spiro basically did exactly what you’re saying, you

know, and and spent a lot of time outside of Philly and Pitt’s Berg and went out of his way to do that, then it paid off. It’s a margins game,

you know? I I don’t I don’t

As I went by fifteen points.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah.

And Nasrat, that’s a lit But what I was to say is I don’t think that he won I’d have to go to the county by county map. I don’t know that he was winning in, you know, loser in County or whatever. Maybe he did. I don’t know. I’ll I’ll I’ll pull it up here.

Or fucking, but but that’s probably not realistic for a democrat and a federal race in twenty twenty. But can you cut the margins down by doing that. I it seems like, yes. I don’t I think that there was good reason to be skeptical of that JBL. That that doesn’t work.

That’s an old out of date style politics. We’ve seen some evidence the last twenty and twenty two that you can actually tamp down

the margins by running in the Biden Shapiro in a meaningful way. That matters. Maybe not, you know, as much as we’d like, but

Do Republicans have to run the way that they seem to want to run, like, against half the country? Look at Mike DeWine. Do they know I I mean, this really, can you win a Republican nomination in a, you know, meaningful place or nationally without? Running against half of America.

Let me contrast. So early Donald Trump. If you’re gonna look at early Donald Trump, he also looks happy. And he is attacking enemies, but he’s also saying, like, we gotta do better for black people. And we need this economics, like, I think that part of the problem is that the way that people have interpreted I need to be like Trump with the fighter all the time is that they are lacking a kind of natural political instinct that Donald Trump did have, where Donald Trump was able to bring different people in.

And he because he was sort of culturally moderate, which is, like, an way overly nice thing. Like, he had three wives and no moral code whatsoever and, like, whatever. But but that that helped him in a

way that an orgy. That’s

culturally moderate. Okay. That’s right. I’m like, people just didn’t think that he was sort of a nor like a weird conservative, you know, stick in the mud, which is I think helped him with a lot of these, like, not religious working class voters. But, Rob DeSantis, I don’t know if he can discover his inner happy warrior because he’s grumpy.

Sarah Huggabee Sanders was grumpy. And, like, that’s the dichotomy And so when Joe Biden last night was just so happy that, like, radiated off of him. And I think he comes out like, the groundhog and, like, knocks it out of the park, winters over, springs come in, you can’t put the reps in on that. Right? Like, part of being president and being able to project these things is like being able to do it all the time.

Right? Because part of it is if he just does it in one speech, I’m not it doesn’t break through the way it does when they’re sort of the constant you’re constantly in people’s faces, bringing that energy. And I think that’s one of the limitations is, like, we need this job by an all time. Like, that job’s an accounting message is so helpful. It doesn’t work.

Like, the darkness of Rhonda Santos and Sarah Hawkins work if people feel dark, if they feel pessimistic. And so you sort of have to yeah, take that energy, that forward looking positive energy of Joe Biden, but, like, that has to be pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed to help people feel like the better times are ahead of us to kind of nudge people into that happier place. Otherwise, the dark stuff resonates. And so I think that’s part of the problem. Well,

but this has buttoned his MO. Right? His entire campaign and presidency has been a low key under the radar guy. And it has pluses and minuses. Right?

The the big minuses that you can’t convince people that everything is good unless you’re out there saying that everything is good a hundred times a day. Right? This is this is your your point about what Trump did. Right? He would just go around.

Look, we moved the embassy to Israel and, you know, he had his three things that he just said over and over and — Yeah. — and so he was like, yeah, I guess the economy is great. But that’s not how Biden ran for president. Not how he’s carried himself out as president. It’s not how he would run for reelection.

Right? He is a maybe Workhorse not show worse isn’t the exact right metaphor, but that’s just not like not where he is at this stage of his life and maybe that’s a problem. I don’t know. I do wanna ask about the age thing though because the Sarah Huckabee Sanders did basically what Eric Swallwell did during the primaries. But what Eric Swallwell would get up on the debate stage and basically shout a Joe Biden demanding that he pass the torch.

Give me the torch old man. It’s time for a new generation. And I always thought that’s not the way to highlight an age contrast. Right? I mean, the you don’t you don’t actually yell at the old man to give you the torch.

Sarah can be standards standing up there and saying, like, he’s an old man who’s eighty, and I’m forty. Because, like, again, I think age is probably the single biggest weakness for Biden. I think all three of us would agree prospectively for twenty twenty four. I don’t know that steaming there and yelling about it is the way to exploit that weakness optimally.

No. That’s a show. Don’t tell. Move. That’s Yeah.

And I don’t know if Sarah’s up for that. Okay. I I’m gonna just I’m gonna stay out of trouble here and avoid You

mean Sarah Hot. Not me. Yeah. You

you are. Yeah. Yes. Sarah Huggini. I’m just gonna stay out of the image analysis of Sarah Huggini Sanders as the age contrast.

But, you know, one thing that is worth mentioning is that I don’t know if because, you know, it says, I feel like we should’ve mentioned the buying glass handing, like, for an hour after the speech. This also goes to, like, how he’s really out. And it’s almost like he should give a state of union every month. They should do a monthly congressional kind of something. I don’t know exactly what it is, but he was out there you know, just like yucking it up with the Democrats, the handful of closet normal Republicans, you know, are coming up to him being like, hey, there’s the one exchange, you know, because he’s all miked up.

Right? There’s the one exchange where the guy from California at LaMatha. I think LaMatha is asking about water. And he’s like, well, you know, I’ve been out there four times this year. I’m concerned about the water too or since I’ve been president, I I’m concerned about the agriculture and, like, we gotta figure out and he’s like, yeah.

And then we’re talking guys like, yeah. And I appreciate that. I was like, oh, there we go. That’s on

tape. So

just I I do wonder if there are ways to get him to get him out in his comfort zone, you know, that aren’t that that don’t accentuate his weaknesses. Of age. Right? Which is, you know, some of the straight to camera, you know, some of that sort of stuff. So the interview is, I don’t know.

I have a couple substantive critiques, but I’m a little upset we haven’t made this far without mentioning the winner. The night, though.

George Santos. Willard.

No. Willard had a problem. In

that exchange.

And then did you see we’re on these post Biden response?

Yeah. His one on two.

Three by Romney had three moments last night. Okay. This is, like, trigger warning. We’re getting into the bulwark. A good zone here.

So just FYI. But like Mitt Romney first goes in, he sees George Santos. And unlike I think, you know, a weaker man that would just kind of roll your eyes and walk by. He confronts him. He’s like, you want to be embarrassed.

You shouldn’t be here. This is embarrassing. If you had any shame, you would be in the back. I I mean, Romney, like, lights into him. On the walk in, because Santos has nothing to do, so it gets there early to wait on the isle.

Then afterwards, you know, there’s this scrum of people they’re asking around me. Did you tell them that that he ought to be embarrassed and that he shouldn’t be here. And he’s like, yeah, he shouldn’t be here. It’s like, you know, what to exaggerate is to say you had an a when you had an a minus. Which is the best Mormon example ever, you know, like, high achieving Mormon, like, lie that you could think of.

Okay. Because that’s That’s an exaggeration. A lie is when you say you graduated from a college, you did not even attend. Now, you’re putting shame on the house. Like, what kind of message are you sending to the children?

I mean, just savage Romney on the way out. And then he goes back to his office and tapes like an off the cuff response to Biden that’s like, You know, I just wanna start by saying appreciated that what Biden said about Ukraine. Totally agree on that. Appreciated what he said about China and how we need to build here, and they should be competitor, not an adversary. He’s like, you know, and then I had a couple nitpicks.

You know, I think that there were a few times where where Biden might have been exaggerating or maybe he was a little disingenuous, let’s say, when making this argument about the debt ceiling or about the deficit, etcetera. But you know, all in all, I just thought that you guys might like to hear my response. Boy was that heartwarming. I mean, I was just getting I was this kind of rubbing myself a little bit while I was watching that. I was like, couldn’t this?

Couldn’t we why does there only one senator that can is capable of this? Just being like, there were some merits and there were some demerits and happy we could all get together tonight. Like, how about that?

Well, I will just say Lisa Murkowski

also

just taped one of these and it was also very similar and great. Upfront did a lot of, like, appreciated this, appreciated the tone, this was good, agreed on this before she said, but too many Alaskans don’t feel the optimism that president Biden was putting her, like, Fine. This is you know what this is? Normal, political discourse.

Single

a dog. This is normal, political discourse. The George Sanders thing, that guy, you’re right, because he doesn’t have anything to do. He, like like, black Sabbath tickets or something. He was, like, camping out.

This what a freaking attention horror? Like, he — I did. — told you guys this at the live show. When Tim was saying, oh, you

know, his tolerance for pain. I was like, no. He gets off on this. Mhmm.

He wants to be there’s reason they get camera shot when everybody walks down. I couldn’t tell how everybody figured out what Mitt Romney was saying to him. Like, it was like real lip reading because the clips that were coming through I couldn’t tell you

embarrassment. Yeah. You ought to be an embarrassment. I don’t know. There’s I’m not a good lip reader, but there’s something about the word embarrassment that is I I I don’t know that just jumped off the screen.

Yeah. I also would just like to say about those scrums because it was amazing. Like, he was I have two things. One is I don’t know how they do it with the walking, with one thousand reporters, up against their shoulders, just like lobbying to them. I guess you get used to it because he seemed to feel like it was totally normal, but I was like, I would like die of claustrophobia from that, so that was impressive.

I will say, watching Mitt be that version of himself about telling lies, made me a little pissed off that we couldn’t get more of that mess, that unbridged mess over lies with Donald Trump. Because it is one thing to go up and give the business to, like, the freshman who’s being publicly humiliated and, you know, because he’s obviously a liar and, like, looks like a little like twirpy weekling. I’d like to see some of that big bad stuff have been directed at Trump. Like every time somebody does it, and take some moral stand. I just remind it, like, reminds me of how much I know he did.

He did during the impeachment. There were points on what he did,

but he gave a huge speech in the middle of the primary — Yes. — member and But this

is this is always talking about greeting on a curve. Right? Mitt Romney, is the best of a group of people that were atrocious. Right? And so there’s still left a lot to be desired on an objective moral scale.

I

can’t believe I’m gonna do this. I’d like to stand up for me. Last week, we talked about the desire to change things from within.

I talked about that.

And in the early days, I meant we as a group. And in the early days of the Trump administration, it was not crazy. It wasn’t my preferred pathway. I didn’t think it was likely to work out, but it was not crazy to think that it was important to get responsible grown ups into the administration and that maybe that would, yes, the risk was it would legitimize and normalize Trump but the potential upside is it might, like, save the republic. Right?

And do you guys remember that photo of Romney and Trump having dinner at Trump Tower?

Progress.

That is to me almost like one of those seyonsie type photos from the eighteen eighties or something where the camera is actually showing you the supernatural world because the way Trump is lit, he looks like Satan and he has this this shittied in grim. And Rami is looking at the camera and he looks like a man who had just sold his soul. Yes. And yet again, I ultimately think that that was an incorrect judgment, but it’s not an outrageous judgment. And I understand that I I think Romney was was working hard on an angle that didn’t pay off.

Listen, I agree with this, but I actually wanna reach to the screen and like strangle you a little bit because last week But the update was mock me when I was making this point about Larry Hogan who frankly was better than Romney throughout much of the Trump administration because he was a governor, he wasn’t there, and he was much more aggressive about confronting him on day to day regular things like COVID, where Romney would just like, I’ve actually been more disappointed in Mitt Romney maybe Romney’s always risen to the important moments, I think. Like, maybe voted for both impeachments. He does the right thing when it really matters. And I I defend him on that all the time. But, like, with Trump that was never enough, and it’s been this post insurrection part where everybody was like, Trump’s on fit.

He’s not gonna run it. He doesn’t want him to run again, but Romney says that clearly. But he also sort of stays in his well, Republicans are objectively always better than Democrats. In a way that is like, tribal and seems like too important to be on the team.

Totally agree. And

this is my my thing with with Hoboken is, like, if nobody’s gonna say the truth, And it doesn’t have to be like, well, democrats are great now and I love them. But, like, if you can’t identify how dangerous your side is, and sort of say it clearly and and sort of fight, then it’s all tacit permission. And I and I it’s not fair because he is the best. These are the best of them. And so maybe it’s unfair to, like, want them to be better, but I just do because I know they know better.

Like, that knit romney version that you saw with Santos is, like, That is the moral clarity that is necessitated in this moment.

Also, the reality is that on a policy basis, Guys like Hogan and Suneau and Romney and Murkowski are closer to the center of gravity of the Democratic Party than they are to the center of gravity of the Republican Party. And it’s it’s a close thing. Again, talking about, like, you know, the balance where we stack it up and and weigh it. It’s not like super obvious. But it’s at least a very close run thing for them just on the substance.

Forget the moral clarity stuff and the character logical stuff. And the inability of folks to recognize that. I wonder if, like, the next generation. If the rising generation, like, whoever the thirty five year old Mitt Romney is right now realizes that he is better off as a conservative Democrat. Or if he makes on the least define, I calculate and decide, well, I just might as well go all the way.

Like,

if Mitt went down with a little checklist, like, he had a he had a ledger, and he’s listening to Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ inaugural speech or state of the state or whatever, and then Gretchen Whitmer’s. And was like when he’s heard something he liked check and when he heard something he didn’t like x and then he looked at the ledger at the end, it would be pretty even, I think, probably. It’d like probably be pretty close. You know, and, like, that’s just where he lives right now. And and that’s, like, hard for in terms of can I complain about one substantive thing on the speech last night?

I know we’re fifty minutes in. Sure. Know people come to us for our figure skate judging. But as a globalist, I’m pretty concerned about our decline. And, you know, of the Joe Biden things, I can get around on, like, oh, we’re gonna spend a little bit more on this program or that program.

And we’re gonna tax the billionaires. Maybe isn’t gonna be my exact preferred tax policy, but neither was gonna be the Republicans. But I I really bristle at the oh, we need every piece of wood made in America that gets used on every bridge to come from the trees of fucking Kentucky. Okay? Like, this is stupid.

It is really bad policy. It’s like anti American in a weird way.

It is.

Because, like, what America really needs is to be able to build shit. And there was I I I don’t don’t have a

to other countries. But

in infrastructure, he’s talking at this particularly in infrastructure. There was one example, and I’m just gonna make the city’s generic because I I forget I was reading it in the Atlantic, my favorite globalist outlet. And it was like, in order to expand the subway in some American city, you know, it was like it cost a billion dollars and took four years to expand one mile. And like, meanwhile, in Madrid, like they built fifty miles or five hundred miles, and it cost four hundred million. You know, I’m just making all those numbers up.

But but, like, Madrid. Right? Not we’re not about Singapore, like, the really efficient Asian countries. Like, we’re talking about Psoriatic Europe. Yeah.

And, like, it is harder for us to build ship. That sucks. That our subways suck in San Francisco. Like, that is crazy. This is like the tech hub of the world.

Why don’t we have a functional subway system. Like, we should be able to build

a on a fault one. And then,

finally, did build a fucking monorail? I don’t know. Or, like, do the hyper move. I don’t know. I I get all the smartest people in the world are here and they’re making decks for Facebook and and going through Sequa trainings.

Over like the environmental impact of everything. I just build me something cool. Okay? And like in America, we can’t build cool shit. Because of stupid shit like this.

So that like was the one substantive part that I was like, this is bad actually. This is not like not my preference. You know, there are a few other things that are like that wouldn’t be my preference, but it’s fine. This is bad. And then now both parties are doing it, and somebody needs to stand up for the global s of the world.

I’m with Tim so hard on this and those were not the only parts. The protectionist populism that has captured both parties is going to crush us. And in part, like, here’s the thing. As a political matter, I thought it was really good for Joe Biden to focus on some of those things. Like, that there’s just no doubt about like the by America and made America shit works with Americans.

But it’s also, like, part of what we are finding comforting is that it’s a throwback. Like, you know, things you’re saying are a throwback to a time where we understood politics and it felt sort of normal. But we didn’t like those as policy preferences. But so they’re but they’re comfy. We live in a moment where because of the way we are sort of fighting the toxic forces in our own domestic politics.

We are missing the fact that we are declining. We don’t have big ideas. Like, the part that really got to me was the education piece. Where it’s like we’re gonna pay teachers more. And I’m like, how about the fact that we’re graduating eighteen year olds that are neither qualified to to hold a job or go into the military.

That we have an aging that a big part of our aging infrastructures that we haven’t rethought education in this country. And I’m not even talking about privatized homeschooling, you know, any of the conservative stuff. Talking about public education. Why can’t we get a big optimistic pitch for like how we’re gonna revitalize education? How we’re gonna revitalize our infrastructure?

Like, I don’t wanna just fix cracks in an aging system. I would like And this is where the age thing sort of does get to me. Like, I am okay with the fact that just having a norm say normy things feels better than a psychopath, saying psychopathic things. But we do have to get to a place where the vision is bigger can’t just be like a stupid pro form a. We gotta pay our debts.

On the debt ceiling, like, I don’t know, thirty two trillion dollars of debt owed to China is actually a policy problem. Not all owed to China, but a lot of it is owed to our political enemies. And, like, we should be concerned about that. We should be talking about how are we gonna compete our way out of this? How are we gonna innovate our way around climate change?

Like, what are we gonna do, guys? And like, we just do have to invite bigger thinking and drives me crazy.

I have a big thinking pitch on education really quick. Are you ready for this? No child left behind. No child left behind. Just like kind of a big, big goal.

I have to say I had the exact opposite reactions there, which is that after the authoritarian attempt of the Trump years, which if you’re on our side of it, you thought great. We’re losing American democracy. If you’re on the Republican side of it, you thought American carnage. After the eight years of Obama, which was this messianic, you know, the seas shall stop rising, and we are the ones we’ve been waiting for. And then and eight years before that, which were all global war on terror and, you know, like, we were afraid to get on airplanes and We have this minitian battle of of islamist expansion.

But I was thrilled to have a moment where it’s like, you know what? We could shore up some policy cracks. Nothing big going on here. We’re just gonna move some nuts and bolts stuff, but I found that deeply comforting

in my own — I disagree. —

I get it. It’s comforting. I do I I know I I understand the comforting part. I just again, just because of the way our politics has been, we are missing opportunities think we’re just gonna look back and think this was a really important moment to start even talking about doing big things. The

AI is gonna take care of everything. Oh, okay.

With the AI, great.

Yes, great.

Chat GPT that’s gonna solve our problems.

Fission, did he mention fusion? Monocharon’s big issue, did he mention infusion and the energy part last night. I guess there’s this was the one thing that they were getting in on domain, Fox.

It’s ten it’s ten

years. Ten years. That was optimistic. Maybe a little maybe a little hot on the other side. I’m being a little overly optimistic, but there you go.

There was something there. The Fox people did not like that. I gotta tell you this real quick briefing for Fox. I know it’s been a long show, but, like, as you might expect,

just a total alternate universe. I tuned in for, like, ten minutes of Hannity and that my old boss ranks was on there and and the morning show guy with the the peg Seth, the guy that beat me on the New York Times list, not that I’m bitter about that. And it’s just like, you

know, you’re talking about speech gumbow.

I I mean, it’s just, like, talking points, Magna extended universe gumbo. I mean, like, they’re just, like, spitting out words that had It’s like hard for me to follow, like,

what the critique was because I don’t understand fully the context of of the discussion happening on Fox. So all of this is to say that, like, for that segment, you

know, their response to the speech was, oh, Joe Biden’s crazy. He wants to get rid of your gas cars. He attacked you. Sarah Huckabee Sanders was inspiring, and that was maybe the best speech since Margaret Thatcher from her. Like, that was the basic takeaway from Hannity.

I think that’s probably true, but you know what? I I checked out this morning. I took a spin through dementia, Twitter. Because after Joe Biden gives us speak, like, dementia’s always always trending. And I was quitter and it actually was pretty clear to me that there was a little bit of a gulp happening on sort of right wing Twitter of I mean, he stumbled some, but, like, I don’t know, pretty hard to argue that guys full on dementia.

Yeah. It was pretty, you know, it was a pretty effective. Like, because you can sort of count on the pindotocracy, including me a little bit, like, when Joe Biden is not at his best, to ring their hands and be like, this guy is too old, and that is how I feel often. But, like, last night, I didn’t and I think probably most other people didn’t and that is not great for the Fox News cinematic universe that definitely wants you to believe that he has full on dementia and that Kamala Harris sits back with, like, a puppet straight, you know, hand up and and is just controlling him, which is what they want you to believe.

Dimension does set a low bar and expectations are everything in politics. So that is nice. So that is that is one favor that they’re doing for over there.

Well, you know, I I suspect that in a week, we’re gonna get a post-sided union poll that’s gonna show that Democratic support for Biden running for reelection has dropped even further because when I was writing about this yesterday, one of the things that blew my mind is that in October, So the month before the midterms, one of the democrats are all preparing for a wipeout. Fifty two percent of democrats wanted Biden to run for reelection. And then by late November, after the amazing successes of the midterms had manifested, that number dropped by, like, twenty points. So I I just assumed that we’ll get even more erosion in the present new Germans who want him to run.

I do think that it’s probably a fader complete that Joe Biden runs at this point. To Tim’s point, I think there has to be a thing that is a precipitating event that makes not just other people think, but Joe Biden think that other people are so convinced that he can’t do it, that he can’t. And he’s gonna get raves today. I think he’s gonna feel great about it. He’s gonna announce.

And I think Everyone’s just gonna have to live with that.

Alright, Jack. We’ll see how it goes senior year

then.

Did

you guys understand that? Because I didn’t. I loved it, but I didn’t understand

that. I thought it was great, though, in the same.

Good luck in your senior year, isn’t that one? It

was. It was. It was like it was football coach. It was I maybe this is a varsity high school varsity football joke that I don’t understand.

Yeah. I didn’t get

much. I played a lot of high school sports. I did not Good luck in your senior year.

I think that’s going for you lost. Like, it’s like your junior year. It’s a big game. You lost. You know?

And it’s like, tough cookies. Make good luck in your senior year. Like, seasons over. I I I don’t think that was I think I goes to message the Republicans. Like, you lost this one tough break.

Good luck next round, I think. Is mayor Pete

maybe adding some gray highlights to his hair? Or do we think that’s happening naturally? Because may or may or may or may or may or may

comes for all.

He had two kids. He had two kids with health capital. Do you know what that I mean

Yes. I do know. Yes. I do know.

I remember when you had him. The treasury secretary. He had twins. You know?

Transportation. Transportation. Transportation.

Whatever. He’s the secretary of some kind. He has to look and he has to go on Fox. He’s forty.

He’s forty. He’s younger than I got. That’s

I I yeah. I’ve got some gray friends at forty forty. Forty one. I I think that it’s natural. Tim are you forty eight?

None of your fucking business.

There’s a lot of discussion on Twitter.

There’s a lot of discussion on Twitter about his haircut. That’s an awesome thing sometimes. This is maybe you might remember JBL from when you turned gray. It’s like you get a cut and all of a sudden you’re like, oh shit. Like, there’s a raise under Yeah.

Right? And and so there’s a lot of discussion about the cut on on gay Twitter. And I think that’s I think that’s what happened.

Good show, long show, go, hit all the some scribes. Give us the thumbs up and give us five stars you’re listening on an Apple podcast. Tim, Sarah, good catch up with you guys. See you next week. Bye.