The MAGA House Takeover is Complete

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the next level. I’m JBL here with my best friend, Tim Miller, and sitting in for Sarah Longwell, a b Stoddard now of the Bulwark. Don’t get

in trouble with that best friend talk and all three of us. Okay? Let’s just be a little happier today. Alright? We don’t wanna send anybody into the garage.

Having this

having this lineup. Yeah. This is like put your head in an oven lineup. This is ginkled.

That’s not it’s not appropriate, and we are not doing that to this time. We’re gonna there’s a lot. There’s good stuff to talk about there’s bad stuff. It’s gonna just be right down

the hall.

Jenna Ellis stuff. Yeah. There. There’s your tease guys. The good stuff is gonna come in segment two with Jenna

Ellis. Be. Okay. This is one of some candy too, actually. Tom Ember calls.

We are taping on the morning of Wednesday, October twenty fifth. We are now in week number four of the house having no speaker. Yesterday, Tom Emma became the speaker designate which is, I guess, a new title that we’re all gonna pretend exists now. And this lasted for how long was it AB? Was it four hours?

Three hours?

Four hours and ten minutes.

Four hours and ten minutes.

I actually in in the interim, my nominated AB is speaker designate as well. From the innovation party.

But then Warren Davidson at Ohio came for me and it was all over in minutes. Oh,

So, the conference really has no interest in having Tom Emma as their speaker. I think maybe Mike Rogers is on the clock now. Is that that a thing that has happened or is he already done?

Mike Johnson, and I think he’s gonna I I’m scared of my job. I’ll give you a little Mike Johnson rundown. And the AB knows these folks. That so so, Amy, please try and identify. If there’s anything you need to revise and extend on my Mike Johnson briefing.

I’m gonna steal a line from Sarah. I don’t remember exactly what Sarah’s line was about Glenn Youngkin, but it was something to the effect of, Mike Johnson is, is Patrick McHenry in the streets and Jim Jordan in the sheets. K? So, like, he looks like

Wait. Or or the other way around, which which way?

No. That way, he looks he presents publicly as a very dorky nineteen eighty four Republican. You know, just like his mom packs his lunch and like it’s just a very, you know, goes to church on Sunday and doesn’t, you know, isn’t hungover. It doesn’t show up late, stays till the end. Says says hello to the priest after it right like the whole the whole deal.

He like he just looks like a good boy, but, his voting record has been that of a very bad boy. And so in and so in private he has done a much better Jonathan Last, better or worse depending on how you look at it. He has he has been much more willing to suck up to and accommodate and and and try to win over the hearts of the MAG crazies. Then maybe your Patrick McHenry or your Tom Emmers were willing to. And so, I think he might be in the Goldilocks zone for getting the speakership.

I when I looked at that list of nine, he was the one that jumped out at me. He scared me. I remember when I wrote that piece about going to the Louisiana republican, convention a few months ago. He scared me in that one because he gave a, he gave taped remarks. He had to be from DC.

But the taped remarks were the most normal sounding thing of the entire day. I was there. But yet the crowd, the Maga crowd that was ultra mega, you know, you know, for folks who don’t remember. And this was like a everyone there was for Trump. They they it was the event where everyone said Trump won the debate even though he didn’t show up at the debate this is not a normal crowd.

Okay. This was a very trumpy crowd, and they were super into him. And so I was like, this guy this guy knows how to, like, work, you know, work his way around Magaworld and and he has a and he has a presentation that won’t make him look like a freak show on the Sunday show. So when I looked at that list of nine, he was the one that I was worried about from the start as as as maybe being able to get it. He’s also a long time, yeah, Christian conservative, so he’s got the evangelicals on his side.

He does, you know, he was doing don’t say gay stuff before it was cool. There was a Baton Rouge Republican city councilman is no, you know, No Bulwark squish. Okay. Like, this is, this is the real stuff. He called Mike Johnson a despicable bigot of the highest order.

Following his, his two thousand fifteen bill about gay marriage. So that’s what you got. You got a Christian conservative guy who looks like an establishment guy, but votes like a Magga guy. It was lobbying his fellow house members to support the insurrection. I to me that that seems like maybe maybe they might have found in here.

I don’t know. ABe, how do how do you feel about that Mike Johnson analysis?

Yeah. I think what you saw at the state meeting was an indication. He’s done a great job of keeping a not a low profile, but a no profile. In terms of house Republicans. So he hasn’t really made enemies, really hard for Democrats to define.

People are googling him, including Senator Susan Collins, whose chairman of the appropriations committee this morning on the Senate side,

She’s literally googling him. I’m sorry. I missed this. She’s she she was literally googling him.

She doesn’t know him since he told the media that she’ll be googling him. Think about him. There’s several things about him. It’s really depressing. You can ask Bill Crystal, it gets an f on Ukraine.

He was the lead in the House Republicans on a Texas lawsuit. So he’s a major stop this dealer Not a coup plotter, but an election denier and a big Trump sniffer. And that was critical to him being able to position himself. In another place in time, we could say, wow, there’s a sky. Is it a constitutional lawyer?

And he’s on the judiciary? Trade committee, and he’s on armed services, and he’s probably a grown up, and he probably really knows his facts. But if you if you look at, I mean, any what constitutional lawyer would be the lead on a case that the Supreme Court threw out was a joke. And then if you look at his work in as a commentator and a columnist and and a and a radio host, It was really championing to the Christian conservative cause. And so we know where this is going.

And It’ll be so interesting to watch him. Should he not have his candidacy or his designation blow up while we’re actually here together because that still might happen. Sure. But if if he is the speaker by the end of this day, Boys are gonna be interesting to see how he navigates, you know, having I mean, he has Trump as his back, but He is an unknown back man who’s gonna have to go, you know, from zero to eighty, right away. We know where he’s gonna be on.

These issues. He’s been civil with Democrats. Apparently, he’s had some past relationship with Nancy Pelosi where they got along over something. He’s polite and he’s not a bomb thrower, but we know behind the scenes where he’s gonna be in a so fascinating to watch him navigate. People who are not gonna let him have a continuing resolution.

This type thing in twenty threes.

And that I think is the vague hurdle if he doesn’t get it, right? That’s the remaining ahead. Is that like last night during a press conference he was asked after he was named as the nineteenth speaker designate he was asked about about his efforts on the stop the steal and he was asked about the continuing resolution and getting a vote on Ukraine and he said he made fun they made fun of the reporter on the first one. Virginia Fox started yelling. You’re an idiot.

What she started? She

said shut off

Shut up. Yeah.

She started yelling. I’m sorry. Why is unacceptable?

Yeah. She started yelling, shut up. Virginia Fox, for asking about that. I guess not a legitimate question anymore. I can’t ask our elected members about their, you know, attempt to overturn an election.

And then he said he wasn’t gonna talk policy. That leads me to believe that he hadn’t, like, kind of and it’s not all locked up. Right? Like, if if he felt like he had the deal, then he could talk policy because they would have come to a deal. And so, you know, there might be holdouts on who knows?

Either side. I don’t know. Like, he, like, but he’s such a unknown quantity. I he could be on the side where he wants to do another CR or not or I like, who like, that all that is up in the air still.

Two questions for you guys. First is, why would anybody take the job without getting deals on both the Ukraine stuff and the the eventual government shutdown stuff within the caucus first. Right? I mean, you you can’t take the job and just say like, hey. Well, you know, twenty three days from now, we’ll figure out this other big thing.

Because then twenty three days from now you’re dead. Right? Don’t you have to while you have the leverage? Because you you can say I could take this job or leave it. No.

Am I wrong about things?

So they’re trying to do that today. Don’t you think, AB? Isn’t that what he’s got left to do?

I think he has to secured the votes with some kind of deal, and they’re all refusing to tell us. That’s why they were shouting at the press last night.

Yeah. Or they don’t have everybody on board. You can only lose four people Right? So like Thomas Massey, for example, who’s gonna be a hardliner on all this stuff on the budget side. He’s like someone that does actually have mythos.

He’s not just a crazy. He’s a crazy with an ethos. He went from abstaining last night to this morning saying he’d be forums. We don’t we don’t know what what they said during that conversation, but it seems to me like he’s ironing out the particulars today. And and that might be what blows it up or or finish this up.

And point number two, this is just psychology. Why would Jim Jordan go along with this? If you’re Jim Jordan and you think America wants you, and this pusher is gonna be your boss now, I mean, like, I’m I’m just sorry. I don’t think that’s how workplaces work normally. Right?

The the guy who thought he was gonna run the office, is suddenly being told, you know, the water boy actually, we’re gonna make him your manager. And, like, if Jordan has the power to blow this up, which presumably does. Right? Like, he can find three other people.

Can somebody clip that little segment and send it to Jim Jordan’s office just for let him just gonna let him review that video, and and maybe that’ll change.

Why would he go along with that? Right? Why? I mean, I and I mean this quite sincerely. If you’re Jordan or any of these other guys, At this point, why not just go to the mattresses?

Like, let’s see if these people are still gonna wanna deny you your gavel three more weeks from now. You know, like, I don’t understand why someone like Jordan who is willing to blow up his relationships with the entire conference would then just be like, Oh, yeah. No. No. No.

Sure. Okay. Yeah. Sure. You know, like, that doesn’t that doesn’t make any sense to me on a psychological level.

Okay. You’re scaring me because last night, I saw the headline about how suddenly after Emer. McCarthy was gonna rise again. He was gonna be speaker and make Jordan assistant speaker. And I freaked out and started texting all these real goods.

Tell me this is not true. Tell me that this is I cannot take the Phoenix rising from the ashes where I thought we were done with Jordan. Anyone but Jordan, please tell me no. And, and then they were going into that conference meeting. And I saw John, president Han tweet that, like, he’s like, that is not happening.

So let’s move past it. So I was like, okay, good. And I just took melatonin and went to bed and woke up at Mike Johnson with the designee. But I I I literally I mean, JBL, the idea of him, like, ruining this for Johnson today and rising up again. And I I can’t.

I I can’t I can’t take it. Please I mean, yeah, this guy lost. He lost in secret ballot. He’s unwanted. And, I mean, because the Sky Johnson is, like, because he’s trump’s sniffer.

I don’t know what what does Jordan have on him? That he’s like a judiciary chairman who’s led like a pathetic impeachment inquiry. So far, I I don’t know. Please tell me it’s over. Please tell me.

I, yeah, I think it’s over. I hear what you’re saying, J. V. L, about the psychology. I think there’s another psychological element here, though, which is to, like, Those of us who rate high on the shame quotient, you know, those of us who have a lot of shame and don’t like to be humiliated and don’t like to be embarrassed and like all of this.

We might look at the house conference and people like my and Jim Jordan say these guys have no shame. None. They’ll do whatever. They’ll go along with whatever as long as the same power. And the reality is that’s like inhuman.

They’re still human beings, and they have a tiny bit in a monoclonal shame. And I was I was told even that Matt Gates was starting to get really like kind of embarrassed and uncomfortable in certain settings. Like, he might not show it on TV, but but folks that have talked to him because he was like, He didn’t expect it to go this well or this bad depending on how how you looked at it. Right? Like, he didn’t think that this was gonna happen.

Catastrophic success. Yeah. Catastrophic success. And he’s starting to get embarrassed. And I think Jim Jordan is starting to get a little embarrassed.

And, like, I think that there’s, like, a, we need this to be over with kind of thing. I I think that that element is is is is coming into play. And I was on MSNBC last night with Joy Reed and Ali Vitale. And we are like laughing like, little school girls. I mean, just hysterical hyena laughter over the Kevin McCarthy suggestion and, like, they’re, you know, and so that subject around.

It’s like MSNBC hosts laughing and pointing and mocking the house guy’s debut. Eventually, that starts to matter to them. They’re still human.

Again, you’re if you’re not embarrassed by the fifteenth vote, right, when you’re Kevin McCarthy here, you’re wanting to go to, like, the sixteenth. Why why now? If you’re not embarrassed at day fourteen, why are you embarrassed by week for I I don’t

humans are complicated JBL, you know?

I I don’t understand the humans.

I’m like

the humans. We have many buyers.

They’re like an onion. Know, they have many layers.

Like the pod people. I I have one more question, though, one more psychology question. And I’m gonna write about this today. You guys can help me talk through my my newsletter while we’re here there.

Tom ember sensities.

So Tom ember. Sorry.

I’ve seen the guy. Trump.

Not anti trump, but Tom Emma, you know, goes and tries to suck up to Trump. And Trump’s response is to call him a rhino and a terrible person who defends Elon Omar, and he destroys Tom Hemers. Like, the the moment, the most important moment in Tom Evers’ career, Donald Trump doesn’t like pocket veto him. Donald Trump takes a sledgehammer to him. And Thomas’s response, is to do nothing.

Yes. Do not become a never trumper to not say, f this guy and, you know, give it right back to him. I I thought tit for tat was, like, the optimal game theory strategy. And Tom Emma is just, like, you know, I’ll just sit there and take it. Like, what is What is wrong with these?

I thought we were all told like, oh, well, they’re just transactional. Well, I’m I’m sorry. This guy is it transactional or is it like DS? Is this a a a DS relationship? Like, well, I don’t I don’t get it.

And I I don’t understand. I and I I was thinking about was I’m thinking about the the scene in the dark knight, where the Joker shows up to the mob, and he, like, and he says, why? Why do you meet down here in the middle of the afternoon? Right? What?

A year ago, none of these cops woulda woulda lifted a finger to you. What happened? Did did your balls drop off? Right? And this is what what is wrong with these people?

Jamie Hill, it’s the death threats. Tom Ember PUT out a tweet of Trump saying I’m gonna try to stay out of the speaker race. And so, pretending that Trump was neutral even though Trump can’t stand him and his allies spent whatever the weekend, like, telling people he had a DUI or something years ago, which, like, that matters now in the age of Donald Trump. So so Trump So everyone knows Emma’s like possibly dead by Monday morning because of or Tuesday or whatever day it was because Trump. Then he gets that clip of Trump in New Hampshire getting on the ballot.

He says, I gotta try to stay out. Basically, He sends it around as a tweet saying like, thank you, Mr. President, and tries to sort of snuggle him, but saying like Trump’s not gonna Tink me. And that’s it. That enrages Trump.

And so he sends out a tweet at two PM yesterday and that’s the end of top member. And what you do is go quietly He do not say have Trump. He do not become an ever trumper. He has enough people in his driveway right now. JBL threatening his wife and his dog.

What else

does he have to lose? I mean, this is what I don’t understand. Right? I

don’t understand this. I can feel this one.

Got it.

I got it. Well, for starters, he is a beta bitch. K. He just does. He’s just a total beta and he’s happy to let Donald Trump dominate him.

That that’s so that that’s one element.

It’s just weird the gimp mouse.

That’s he should. And that’s one element of the psychology of this. There’s a there’s a certain level of these people who just who just wanna be told what to do. And as long as they can keep their little pin and, you know, be able to get into the Capitol Hill club and whatever, that’s fine with them. And this has been this goes to what I always write what I wrote about today for the site.

Which is these guys have been kicking the can down the road on confronting the freaks. For over a decade now. Over John Bainer took the speakership in twenty eleven. Right. So it’s been like almost a decade and a half that these guys have been dealing with the freaks on the fringes of their party and and that fringe grew grew more and more and more and now it’s almost like majority of the party, among the electives.

But their strategy the whole time has been accommodate them, appease them, do whatever is necessary, you know, to to keep them happy as long as we can stay in our jobs. As long as we can stay in power. Just kick the can, kick the can, kick the can, kick the can, whatever. We’ll throw them another We’ll do another fake impeachment. We’ll do another brinkmanship on a shutdown.

We’ll do whatever you want. Right? As long as I can I can stay in charge? And like, here’s the thing that might have seemed like a really stupid and humiliating thing, but it has worked, like, kind of for a long time, really. I I mean, if, you know, you could sit in in John Bainer’s seat in twenty thirteen and think, man, the tea party’s gonna take this over by twenty fifteen.

Right? Like, really? Or you could sit in Paul Ryan seat in twenty seventeen and think that like a mega guy is gonna throw me over by twenty nineteen. And here we are in twenty twenty three, and McCarthy was still in charge. So, like, that strategy, while being morally bankrupt you know, and humiliating has like also kind of worked.

They’ve all stayed in their leadership roles. They’ve all stayed on their private jet trips with the donors. They’ve all whatever. Okay. And that I think mindset has really baked in across all of these guys.

And Tom Emer and that Tom Emer might not be speaker, but he’s like, I still can be the whip. I still can, you know, have a security detail when somebody threatens my life. I can still get, you know what I mean? I can still get on Paul Singers playing if I want to Like like all that stuff is still I still can get as long as I just take it from Donald Trump and them. And I and I and I think that’s the real psychology of of this.

I mean, I never thought I’d say it, but here, Kristen’s cinema looks like the paragon of moral courage for saying that she can go and get on any board she wants, and she doesn’t care if the voters throw out. Can help us?

I know. And if Mike Johnson gets us today, I do stand by this. I know it’s been fantasy politics for three weeks, but if one person had taken the cinema approach, It was the moral and strategically correct approach for whoever it is, one person to say, nope, I’m gonna go deal with Ikeem Jeffries. I’m gonna try to become the speaker with Democrat votes. And if I don’t get it, whatever, I’ll go sit on whatever board I want.

And I I I won’t have to deal with these Maga freaks anymore. And if I do get it, I’ll be speaker and have a portrait. To me, that seemed like a logical thing, but a lot of, apparently most of these guys are too weak to do that. So I guess kudos to Kristen cinema. Who knew?

Alright.

So we’re gonna move on in a minute. First, this show is sponsored by Better Help. I don’t know about you guys, but seeing our government reach this level of dysfunction and turmoil has been incredibly exhausting and depressing. And when this happens, mental health suffers, that’s why I always try to stay on top of the state my head is in and figure out the best way to address it. Therapy can be a great way to work through your issues and can help you become the best version of yourself.

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That’s betterhelp. H e l p dot com slash next level.

Little known fact. A b is here today because the better help people, the sponsors were like, you know, we need the listeners to just have that one little nudge, that one nudge that they need you know, and having a business and the three together. Uh-huh. So three of you guys and people are gonna come out of this and no, I’m joking. Therapy is good, though.

You should get it. You should get it.

I am gonna fight for my bite to be dragged in here as a sub. And only to be told that I’m too dark. Okay?

We’re dark.

It’s just

dark enough.

To warn the audience. On Sunday that I was coming, and we were doubling down on the dark. And I want to show you guys, I am brimming with help today. Not about my Johnson, but other things. I have unrealistic optimism about Please share.

Legal peril. And I’m so excited about Jenna Alice, weeping in court, and turning on him. Next up, originally, Mark Meadows. I’m I am so lit today. Okay.

I have no darkness for you. So I have nothing. But, like, I’m, like, almost feeling joyful. Like, I I feel like, yesterday was the best news day and so long, I I can’t even find the words for it.

Alright, AB. I wanna explore this. But I love this. As therapists say, tell me more. This is this is a a therapist blogger.

I know jokes that, like, basically, ninety five percent of his job is pausing thoughtfully and then saying, Tell me more. A, so Jenna Alice, who, once upon a time, tweeted in response to a liberal critic of Donald Trump cry more, read out her her plea deal in court yesterday, which she got to do over video conference, and she wept She cried more. And, I was surprised in our in our internal Slack. I would say one one of our colleagues whom whom I love and respect, said, boy, she seemed pretty, pretty sincere. And I thought to myself, are you effing kidding me?

That seems like the most put on thing that I’ve I’ve maybe ever seen. She deserves a razzie for how bad the acting is. And did where were you on this? Tell tell me as you watch that because her plea deal made me angrier a b. They thought she’s getting away with it again.

No. No. No. No. She is eating shit, but let’s just start.

Let’s back up. So I walked by the TV set, and I had been anticipating as any of us who pay way too much attention to this that she was potentially the next slipper and then that directly leads to Giuliani. So I have been getting excited about this. And seeing it on the car on on the TV just made me do a little dance. And then that was before I learned about the weeping, She’s a total bullshitter.

She’s a never trumper. She tweeted in in twenty sixteen that he was a lying criminal, and she went to Charlie Sykes summer camp and became a cult member and bullshit her way through like, you know, being a real close advisor to Trump pretending

to be

so Don’t forget that she’s a Christian.

Yes. Oh,

so sorry. Such a Christian.

She’s she did at one point during.

She and the big JC, they’re like this.

One point during the coup, she believed that there should be a biblical interpretation of the constitution, which she is not an expert on. She’s done some criminal law. Anyway, she was very close with the big boys. She was, I guess, you know, on the John Eastman cruise to stop pence, to use pence to stop the certification. Then, after that, they would find other ways to lie about, you know, whatever.

It the whole thing, she went on that tour as you guys remember the coup tour, November, in December with Giuliani. Showing up in places stood by him beautifully as the nearby ran down his cheek. So she’s a she’s a huge member of the Stripe force that try to pluck the coup and then and then stop the certification. Friends with Trump, whatever, really on the hotline. And, There’s just something.

Magette has now mad at her because she didn’t go fund me for the legal defense. They want their money back because she’s you know, bailed on Donald Trump.

She ruled like a rat.

She’s a rat, but there’s it just hit me for the first time because She’s for all we we don’t really I don’t know. We can’t really relate to his part, but there’s something about Sydney Powell and Jenna Alice before a jury. There’s something about it. It started to feel real to me. That I always assumed that we will never get a a a twelve person jury in this country to convict Donald Trump ever.

There will always be one Ron applies psychotic person who believes that JFK Junior and him are gonna run next year as a ticket. And I just began to feel for the first time and I could just kick myself for it. But then maybe just maybe by jeez end, I learned about Mark Meadows having immunity and him saying that he he said that Donald Trump is being dishonest from like whatever that was November third on election night, I started to feel the sort of collective weight of it, and I got really excited. That the justice system so far has worked. You mean, the January sixth commission was unbelievable and did absolutely nothing.

To change Americans minds that the justice system is hard at work on our behalf and it’s beginning to bear fruit. And that when sitting and listening to people like those Stop and Steelers say it was total bullshit and I did it anyway. We just might have we’re right up.

Tim, you’re coming out of your seat here.

I wanna test. I’m just excited to test AV’s optimism. And I

did not screw anything before I came to this screen to meet with you guys.

AB, my comments about this podcast being dark. I just I just wanna caveat. It’s kind of like, you know, in high school, JBL wouldn’t know about this, but my guess is AB would know about this. You know, You have a group of friends that are kind of goody two shoes friends when you’re around them. You’re, you know, following the rules and you have another group of friends that are a little bit of troublemaker friends when you’re around them.

All of a sudden, sneaking a cigarette by the playground. Okay. I I that’s what I meant.

Tim, if you do that, it’ll go on your permanent record.

Yeah. I know. That’s I meant a b I meant with the three of us come together. It’s like, It’s like the darkness congeals and and and the darkness begins to, you know, I mean, our AV and

I, the people smoking in the the playground.

Kind of. Yeah. That’s what I’m saying. I’ll Yes. For we’re eat we’re that for each other.

Awesome.

Was that

was that a person’s name? It’s about this. It’s about this tryout. No.

I’m approaching influence, and I understand it. But you still don’t wanna be back. So But

we did. My question for you, though, so I wanna test this optimism in Exuberance. We’ve we had a little game on this podcast a while back. I don’t know if you remember it. And it’s called jail or president.

And I want you to look at two years from now. I wanna see how how exuberant you are. What percentage chance do you think Donald Trump will be in jail? What percentage chance do you think he’ll be president? What percentage chance do you think neither?

And I’ve count house arrest as jail. We’ll lump that in a second. Do From jail? President and jail. I guess those are all options.

I just would break that down. What’s the the the most likely for you is president and jail?

No. Okay. He’s gonna be president. I’m gonna put my head back down, but I just want to tell you that it was authentic exuberance and hope, but I hadn’t found a really long time.

Great.

That I I didn’t catch up. We’ve gotten this time, but Yeah. I just started to feel good.

I’m forty five percent president, forty percent in either fifteen percent jail. That’s how I am right now.

Here’s the thing. A lot of the January six protesters at their plea plea deals. Right? They’ve given very moving testimony about how, they were just wrong. And they’re embarrassed by what they did and what they did was terrible, and they can’t believe that they got hoodwinked and all this.

And I that’s the kind of thing that, like, okay. Great. Whether you believe it or not, you’re saying that, and that’s what matters. Janellis got to stand up there and say, I was relying on the advice of many other legal minds, and my sin was that I didn’t do my due diligence to really investigate the representations about the law they were making to me. And so I am very sorry that I gave into this bad advice.

Without really tracing down all the stories on my own. That’s Yeah. And the fact that she gets to freaking lie like that in her plea. Just drives me nuts.

It drives me

absolutely nuts, and it makes me sick. I won just for a few

days I wanna believe that she’s gonna pinch Rudy. That’s what I wanna believe. Just just gonna spend a few days on this believing she has the Rudy goods Rudy state of mind, phone recordings, whatever. That’s what I believe. Just and so I can’t believe it anymore.

If she’s gonna pinch Rudy, I’ll let her say it. I’m with JBL, she doesn’t, if she doesn’t do that. So I’m gonna trust Bonnie Willis right now. I think that So far, the amount of flips we’ve had is is beyond. I think what was the optimistic expectation I mean, when when George had happened, when that when that came down, I think that that a lot of people were like, this is a very serious.

This could be the big one, but it’s like, It’s not gonna happen for the election. You know what I mean? That that was kind of the consensus view among legal experts and every and it’s like, okay. Well, still probably not gonna have him before the election, but the the timetable is moving a lot quicker than than folks were expecting. So, so I’m putting some faith in Fony Willis on that front.

I agree with JBL that she’s a phony baloney and a liar and she’s full of shit and she did know better and she should have to atone for that. I also think her life is pretty bad right now. And so I’m gonna I’m gonna enjoy that level of shot in Freud duh. I hear you read it commenter. Shot in Freud duh four syllables.

I’m gonna enjoy that. And I think that her life is bad. I think that all of her old friends hate her. I don’t think she has any new friends. I think she cried in court on TV.

Think that her her parents are embarrassed. Like, I I think that her life is pretty bad right now, and I’m and so I’m gonna it’s not it’s not the total comeuppance that I want, but there’s There’s something to that. And, like, we’ll we’ll see how this thing’s turned out.

There

are there are levels of bad that you wouldn’t wish on on anybody.

Yeah.

And I I I do not wish any of those levels of bad on Jenna Ellis. Sure. But it does not seem to me that when you say her life is bad that her life is anywhere near any of those levels.

That’s true.

Her life seems like, yeah, not what she wanted it to be. That is not the same as being bad.

I think she’s breathing into a paper bag. It’s not. It’s not bad enough. I do think she’s breathing into a paper bag in hyperfamily. She deserves worse.

I I I I don’t I agree. I’m just saying it’s not nothing. It’s not nothing. Okay.

You know what? She is telling herself that the lord has forgiven her and she’s just a fallen sinner. I

mean, I hope you all.

And we all are. And so I’m not even thinking about her life, Tim. I just wanna to pinch Rudy, and that’s my fantasy right now.

I’m with you on that.

Alright. We have another sponsor for the show today, Timothy. Take it away.

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That’s fine. Is that fine?

Did you did you get it? I I was watching Saturday morning cartoons.

I did. No. I was like I was like Little Mike Johnson, but the good and I was I was like eating dry cereal while reading the newspaper or reading a hard copy newspaper in the morning. I was like,

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Alright. Last segment, a bunch of bunch of people on the right are really, really outraged at the horrible antisemitism coming from the Biden administration as they refuse to take Israel’s side. And just, you know, all they do is equivocate on Hamas and what Tim, you wanna tell what’s going on?

It’s a rough

day on this list.

I’m gonna give I’m gonna give the real story. What’s happening? I I I do. I always appreciate your your sarcasm intro. But, so here’s the deal.

Divide administration, I think for for good reason, especially there was the incident where the, Islamic kid was killed. Is that in Illinois? Six year old is killed and and so and since then, a lot of their rhetoric has been, you know, saying that we condemn antisemitism and we condemn islamophobia. Joe Biden has sent many tweets about anti Semitism. I did a little Twitter search to see how many Ron de sanctus has sent about anti Semitism, just the one from him.

Joe Biden has sent several. Tweets about anti Semitism and his concerns about anti Semitism, but he did one tweet that only mentioned Islamophobia. And then you have KJP, the press Secret Podcast really boof one yesterday. Like, let’s just be honest about this. She was asked about anti Semitism and then responded by talking about Islamophobia.

So that’s a booth. The White House needs to be needs to be careful about this. Everybody needs to be careful about this. Democratic leaders have been pretty darn good at us. We have Dan Goldman on the Sunday show.

You can listen to him if you want. Like, anti Semitism, real problem. People are legitimately concerned. Problem in Israel. It’s a problem here.

The threats against Jews here. Like, we need to be Bulwark about this and clear eyed about this. That said, the criticism of the of the White House from the right has been I think kind of revealing and you have a lot of the more the anti trump right folks that that just they’re gonna have to find a reason to get on board with them next year. They’re gonna have to figure it out. You know, our, you never know, our Ben Shapiro, our National Review types, they’re gonna have to find it.

They’re not to figure out a way to get on board. And so they have, I, isolated the K. J. P. Gaff.

And the one tweet, And they and they are now what we’re getting is this is the Joe Biden Administration’s very fine people on both sides moment. It really is. And this is their all lives matter, and they just, they cannot say it, and it’s just the same, and they cannot condemn the anti Semitism in their ranks on the left. Now mind you, there are some problems with this comparison like for starters. It was Donald Trump that was doing the very very fine people on both sides.

And it’s like a back some back bench congress people that are doing it on the democratic side. And and the fact that Joe Biden has been really, really good. And BB Netanyahu is like probably not as cup of tea politically was like and his non emotional man was like crying and hugging Joe Biden and people in Israel is thanking Joe Biden. And, you know, so there’s some problems with this theory, but they’re running with it. There was one tweet about Islamophobia and one screw up by the spokesperson.

And now it’s kind of like same same. You know, same same. Donald Trump might have been sharing on the white Jonathan Last, but Joe Biden one time said he was concerned about Islamophobia, and it’s kind of the and I don’t know. We might be forced to vote for Donald Trump. So how a b where how do you feel about that that summation of the state of play?

Well, I was Sorry to slap the White House around, but I was a little bit shocked to see, Corran Jean Pierce response when the question was specifically about anti semitism. I mean, it wasn’t a statement that she was making to talk about threats to from Americans or anything. She she just answered a question about antisemitism with this statement. So it it was very jarring and look, these guys on the right have been eating shit for weeks with Joe Biden sending his secretary of state over to Israel to hang out at a donation center with Israelis crying in his arms and thanking him. Dubai himself then goes to Israel Makes all the right statements initially after ten seven, and then makes this incredible speech that all these Republicans know has been Star Wars an energetic defense that has never once slipped that has surprised them And they’re tired, Tim.

They’re tired of this. They were tired of Trump saying hezbollah was smart and crapping on TV netanyahu. So they were waiting for something. And this was their app.

I’m gonna out bill Crystal in a private conversation, which I don’t usually do, but I think Bill will be fine We were talking about this yesterday. He’s down in New Orleans. We’ve event, New Orleans tonight. Wednesday night. If you happen to be watching this this afternoon on YouTube, and you’re in the greater New Orleans area.

Come see us at La Fatete Theatre tonight. But, I was talking to him yesterday. And he was like, here’s the thing. There’s this, like, myth that these kind of anti anti trump Republicans and the, you know, the neo con types that stuck with Trump, like, have been looking for an excuse to go to to leave the party and like and the problem is they couldn’t because the left is too crazy and blah blah blah. And like that is just wrong.

Right. Like that, like his point is what knows that is just wrong. They’re looking for an excuse to stay. Like Joe Biden gave them every olive branch to say, you know what? We can be united on this front.

But that’s not what they’re looking for. They’re looking for an excuse to stay and so the moment that that Corinne Jean Pierre gives them an excuse to stay with an admittedly bad statement All of a sudden it’s like, oh man, Joe Biden’s the same as Donald Trump. And and like, they are not living in the reality. And we’ve done plenty on this podcast and on the Bulwark and on other board podcast about, but the concerning stuff that’s happening on the left on campus and from the squad and others. But, like, there has been a robust response, not just from Biden, but my friend Peter Hamby at puck did an article to quote it, Alyssa slotkin, Ritchie Torres, Jake Ockenklaus, all Democratic reps, criticizing their left flank over this.

Like with the kind of clarity that we’ve been begging Republican politicians to criticize their right flank with. And they’ve done it over and over again, but, like, these guys just they can’t take a guess for an answer.

I think Bill’s right. And you’re right that they’re looking for an excuse to stay, but I think the most Engaged and well informed among them are very aware that on this issue, Joe Biden has gotten the attention of Republicans who care passionately about this issue and Republicans or Republicans who are Jewish or whatever that that this on this this This was a serious moment of pause for their coalition knowing that Joe Biden delivered. And less unprofitable. So I think that I don’t know if they know that it’s, like, maybe an electoral threat, but if you’re if we’re looking, right, for Sarah Longwell and sold to peel off just a certain number of Republicans in each swing state and keep them at home if they won’t vote for Joe Biden and not to vote for Trump, This is part of that calculation. And I think those people like Brit Hugh who praised Biden’s speech, they see that it, and they see that that is a problem electorally to give to a Biden credit.

I just wanna read a couple of passages from some of the speeches that Biden gave while he was in Israel. He says the truth of the matter is if there weren’t in Israel, we’d have to invent one. You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, And I think the security and safety of Jews worldwide is anchored in the continued vibrance of the state of Israel. Why why is it? Why why did he believe that?

Because, as he said, one of his other speech, there had been millennia of anti Semitism and genocide of the Jewish people. And that October seventh was, again, this is Joe Biden, just another one of these. Right? Just another scar left by millennia of anti Semitism. So it it shows that they really care much more about finding a reason why they can support Trump than they do even out the foreign policy, which was supposedly, which drove everything.

Right?

And those are really good clear statements. You can say that being clear eyed, that there are people on the left that don’t feel that way. And and that in my view, have really wrong views on Israel. And it’s because those folks exist within Joe Biden’s Coalition that it makes the fact that Joe Biden has not equivocated on this even more laudable and noteworthy. Right?

Like, it gets a higher degree

of That has rebuked. The sister soldier. Right? That’s you know, Biden’s had his sister soldier moment on this. And in fact, I think you could say very accurately that Biden’s leadership within the democratic coalition has actually moved some Democrats on this.

In people who you would not have expected. Right? AOC has been better. Not great, but AOC has been better. Federment has been it’s been like, this is

Amazing on this.

So if you are a person who cares about the foreign policy issue, Biden is not only doing the right thing, but Biden is turning the democratic party to be on your side of the issue. Why wouldn’t you welcome this? Right? This is this is the equivalent of if we had a Republican who was gonna run on climate change and environmentalists on the left, attacking that Republican, right, instead of being like, yes, great. We can get the Republican party on board with climate change.

And they probably would do that, by the And so that’s they they would deserve to be criticized, but

they would deserve to be criticized. Fair enough. Alright. Guys, good show, long show. Not nearly depressing as I thought it would be.

Oh, great. Uplefting. Even though AB never really told us the Trump presidency versus jail and We never got, like, give

us your give us your right. I would have to. I would, you know, it’s hard.

You don’t wanna, you don’t end on a dark house.

No. To right. Why did you bring this up so that I would a dark note. You’re chopping me.

Great point.

Yes. It is true that I think if the election tomorrow, he would win. So I it’s hard for me to get beyond that right now.

Fifty five percent president, zero percent jail, forty five percent neither. There. That is the answer.

That’s the correct answer. There you go.

Alright, guys. Good show. Long show, AB. Thanks for being here. Tim, I’ll see you on Sunday.

Have a great show in New Orleans, my friend, and, we’ll be back again. Bye.