Tommy Vietor: David Plouffe Would Have Murdered Us

Hello and welcome to the Secret Podcast. It’s Friday, so you got me Tim Miller. I’m your host Charlie Sykes is still on vacation. I brought in a friend of mine who is here to help us out on the Friday episode. You might have heard of him.

His name is Tommy Vitor. He did wonderful in an interview with Brett Bear about ten years ago. You might remember him from, and he’s also the host of the Pod Save of the World podcast, which I’m embarrassed to admit I’m a big fan of. I’m a world And I asked Tom to come on so we could talk about the world what’s happening on the around the globe. We’ll do a little politics first.

I think he’s on another podcast. I don’t recall what that one is called. So Tommy, thank you so much for being with us.

Tim, it’s great to be here. I enjoy being your token, liberal friend. And, you know, I’m glad you were just telling me about how you went on a White House tour recently. You’ve forgot some stuff, but you’ve maybe recovered it by now. Everything good there.

I’d never been to the White House. You people never invited me in the Obama. You know, I guess you thought that who knows what I would have done. Maybe you plant some cocaine in there. But Ben Lebould, I was invited to the White House recently.

I’m pretty sure I didn’t leave anything there. Okay. Got it.

I’m a

hundred percent sure, but I’m pretty I’m pretty sure I didn’t drop anything. I was busy. I had a lot happening. So jury’s still out on that. I wanna start this is I don’t think appropriate place to start, but I’m gonna do it anyway.

I’m gonna start by betraying a confidence and sharing a private text message you sent k. Are you ready? Tim am I a naive Lib Duck if I think that Tim Scott is a good guy? Question, Mark? I know shit like this plays in the media, but it also seems to be from a genuine place.

Links to an article about Tim Scott doing kind of an undercover boss thing. And he went on the prompt save I forgot the other podcast is called and talked about just kinda how hopeful and optimistic Tim Scott is. So my first question for you here on the Secret Podcast, is this your moment are you kinda doing the straight shooter thing and and officially getting behind the Tim Scott campaign? I’m just kinda wondering how you feel about that now a few weeks out after lunch

No. So okay. Here was the context. I was reading Ben Terrace’s book from the Washington Post. I forget your name, but it’s out recently.

It’s very good.

I’ve learned it. I also forget the name. It’s hard to remember book names even when you blurred them, but it’s really good, but can you should buy it.

Maybe I’ll share that private text later in the conversation. I asked Tim Feed right said, oh, yes, I blurbed it. He DC won up to me in like the biggest way probably from Cafe Malato or something. But in that book, it makes it sound like Tim Scott is sort of like has some core decencies to him. He’s a guy who, you know, does things quietly like Bulwark as a janitor for a week, get to know people.

I don’t think his candidacy is going anywhere.

Okay. But you were impressed with the integrity that Tim Scott showed, like, you know, on January sixth and throughout the Trump presidency. I think I just I just said, oh, is your take on on And and what do you think you’d be for him if you had to vote in the California Republican primary?

I’m the annoying liberal here. I’m the one who’s supposed to have like stride in litmus tests about all conduct towards Trump and not be able to sort of hold two thoughts in my head. What are you doing to me here?

No. I’m the Never Trumper. Okay. We are the ones who have been thrust out of the family. There’s a family feud, and I will not fucking allow Sorry.

Sorry. I’ve reached anything. Okay.

Know, seriously, it’s like, do people like him? Like, your core response to me was basically, like, I don’t know if anyone can get elected when you’re talking about being a virgin into your forties, just sort of a there’s a weirdo vibe. I don’t know that he’s connecting with people, but I don’t know. He’s seen a couple little bumps in the polls. Right?

He’s like seven percent some places.

Ryan decided to be worried about him in South Carolina. We’re gonna get to run here a little bit because if he gets passed by Tim Scott Ron in South Carolina, things are really going down. I just like the Tim’s thing. There’s just a fundamental disconnect. Right?

He seems like he is a decent person. I met him. He was super nice to me when he hosted John Huntman back in twenty twelve, speaking of Cux during an event in South Carolina and he hung out with me and Huntsman for a while was nothing but gracious. Was not really our crowd, but he, you know, kinda shined us up a little bit, which I appreciate it. And people I know that work from I know a lot of people consult for him.

Everybody says he’s a good person The problem is there’s this fundamental disconnect where how do you reach the people that are grossed out by what happened in the Trump years when you’re never willing to say anything bad about them. Yes. And how do you reach the Trump people if you’re never willing to compliment all the things that they like about Trump, which are as the all the Ron DeSantis and all the cruelty. And so this kind of leaves him in this sour spot where he has like a two percent support among, like Wall Street Journal, Edboard, leaders, you know, who are, like, kind of hoping that nineteen eighty three is gonna come back her out. And so that leaves me a little cold, I guess.

It’s all.

Yeah. No. That’s fair. And I I think his statewide counterpart Nikki Haley has got a similar challenge and that she won’t really criticize Trump. And she’s going for that niche group Republican to like like the UN general assembly or something.

So there’s about more people they’re fighting over there. We’ll see how it goes.

Yeah. Yeah. It’s so Pence, I think, on an ad this week, I hadn’t seen it. I was supposed to talk about it on something else. So they sent me the Superback out, and it’s this kind of Superback.

It’s like Republicans stand up to despots. Like, Republicans stand up to the evil empire. Republicans don’t bow down. And Nikki is also doing this thing and it’s kind of like, Is that true? Actually, any more?

Most Republicans actually I think people feel pretty good about the way Donald Trump conducted foreign policy. I don’t see how evidence sipp theirs. Unhappiness.

No, I think Donald Trump’s currently getting paid by test bits. He’s getting kickbacks from the Saudis and his other friends. So, no, it’s going quite well for them.

People like it. Yeah. This is the thing where it gets frustrating when, you know, you can give them credit where I can’t because I was them in twenty sixteen. I was there in South Carolina. I followed Donald Trump around the spin room saying, loves Putin over his shoulder and, like, thinks nine eleven was an inside job.

And I just, like, trolled him throughout the studio thinking that this was gonna land. In South Carolina, I was like, there’s no way that this guy can win in South Carolina saying nine eleven was an inside job and and Putin is his buddy. You remember what the scoreboard on that one. I I saw I was wrong. But so I’m awake though.

It’s been nine years since then. It’s kind of like it’s frustrating to hear people that have not waken up on that front.

Yeah. I think that’s a great transition into the broader twenty twenty four conversation because I’m looking at the strategies of all these people and wondering, did they learn anything? Were they sleep during that period when you were trying to troll this guy.

Yeah. Okay. So let’s start there. Ron DeSantis. He’s had a lot of discussion on the board this week about his like weird creepy homophobic and homoerotic ad with the giga Chad and oiled up giga Chad and just kind of impressed by those muscles and demonstrating Ron DeSantis’ white booted strength.

So we discussed that at length. You can talk about that if you want to. But I wanna get into we haven’t discussed is he goes on Tammy Loren’s podcast — Mhmm. — on the Outkick Bulwark, and he’s talking to Tammy and she asked him at the ad. And so the backlash and let’s just play around to Santis’ response.

I mean, I think, you know, identifying Donald Trump is really being a pioneer in injecting gender ideology into the mainstream where he was having men compete against women and his beauty pageants. I think that’s totally fair game, because he’s now campaigning. Saying the opposite, that he doesn’t think that you should have men competing in women’s, things like athletics. And so, we’ve been very clear on it. That we believe in protecting the rights of our girls.

That’s enough. I can’t listen to his voice anymore. How do you grade that kind of move? There’s very weird ad everybody hates and you say it’s fair game because Donald Trump has been a pioneer in advancing gender ideology. Do you think that Lance was voters?

So there’s this really smart strategist out there named Sarah Longwell something, Longwell, I think is her name. And I read it more of her. Yeah. She’s really smart. And she said something like, you can’t go around Donald Trump.

You have to go through him.

Mhmm.

And I thought that was very well stated like this broader Ron DeSantis strategy of trying to outflank Trump from the right is confusing to me. But in this case, he’s doing what all the twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen candidates who ran against Trump tried to do, which is be like, look at his record from back in the day when he was a liberal and cavorting with the Clinton’s and, you know, with the mister American, like, do any Republicans who watched him for four years in the White House? Really think that this guy is soft on LGBT rights or is, like, catering to this community?

Pioneer and radical, gender ideal.

Is this credible to you? It’s just a

weird word. It’s a weird phrase to who talks like this? Who thinks that Donald Trump was a pioneer in pushing radical gender ideology?

I don’t even know what that means. My old boss Robert Gibbs said the first rule spin is it has to be believable. And I don’t think that we passed that test there. I mean, I guess, like, the positive Tim is we’re talking about this ad. Nate, is that a good thing?

I don’t know in this sort of attention autonomy may be used. But, like, what kind of campaign is finding this weird AI homoerotic imagery comparison to Patrick Batman, a literal psychotic serial killer from an account called Proud Elephant, and then sharing it as if it were their own. Like, this is just a weird

new How did Proud

is

that not how the Obama campaign worked? Even on more winning campaigns than me. So so generally, like, when you’re putting out a video was it kind of, like, unvetted, you know, sort of fan blogs, fan sent in videos, and then, like, mid level staffers just kinda put them out. Is that how the — Yeah. Exactly.

— process works on the Obama campaign?

It’s very DIY. Do it yourself, you find whatever you can on the Internet and you re share it. I mean, like, David Pluff would have murdered us in our sleep while we were awake. In some way, he would have found us and killed us if we had done something like this.

Even Donald Trump even Donald Trump did back in twenty sixteen, like, remember he blamed the young m turned. Right? Like, when he x not accidentally, when he tweeted white genocide —

Right.

— you know, sixty nine or whatever it was. And he was, like, he’s, like, and he didn’t realize you know, that he was tweeting white genocide and and it became a new cycle. It’s like, oh, it’s just a young intern. The same just came to you and pull that spin. Okay.

I got one more to Santa sing for you. And then we’re gonna we’re gonna get to the thrust of this interview, which is the inverse of what I have to deal with on Crooked Media Podcast, which is me quizzing you about what the Democrats are thinking. Perfect. And then we’ll close on some world events. But we have one more to Santa’s thing you wanted to talk about.

I think that’s fair. This is a very long ad, and so I’m not gonna subject everyone to it. But here’s a clip from another recent ad. Than the DeSantis campaign.

Parents rights, defended, school choice, universal, critical race theory, prohibited. D e I, stopped.

T o l.

Child mutilation, illegal. Girls, same. Communitiesities protected our economy, growing, and freedom, guaranteed. But winning the fight in Florida is just the beginning. We must protect parents’ rights and the innocence of our children.

We must restore sanity in our society. We need every mama and every grand mama in every corner of the country to stand up and fight back by electing Ron DeSantis president of the United States of America.

Up until that last second, I thought that was gonna be a really awesome Casey DeSantis for governor ads. Once Ron gets term loaded out, kind of like a little, you know, hand off situation there. But what was your take? Our sound people I I guess I will say we’re not impressed, but mix sync — No. — quality of that ad, but I’m wondering what your what your take was on it.

With little drum line. I mean, I I just remember a couple weeks ago I was reading I think it was the New York Times a long story which is frankly kind of like a genre you see often about the candidate’s spouse, Casey DeSantis, going on the trail with him, kind of warming him up to the crowd, making Ron look like a family man, bringing out the kids, telling stories about parenting, you know, sort of like the sweet softer side of the DeSantis family.

Yeah. And

then a couple weeks later, they have her voicing the, like, anti TEI, Agitprop. And to me, it’s just like a very weird strategic decision is

scary.

Yeah. How do you do both of those things? Because click she’s a very attractive person, seems friendly, like, is clearly Tell me more

about that.

Speaking to her right now. She’s a beautiful woman. I mean, like, there’s a lot about her that’s appealing I think to audiences. There’s a young family element. Right?

There’s sort of a generational argument they’re trying to make about, like, bringing kids back to the White House and fresh blood and people in their forties, whatever. And then but to have her be your henchmen in this video in July of twenty twenty three. We’re not in like the thick of the primary if I were six months out from Iowa. I just don’t I don’t get it.

Yeah. Hrenchment is a really good word. It’s like, Cruella. You know? It’s like we’re bringing, like, the tough strong —

Yeah.

— woman. And that’s fine. Bulwark for, you know, women candidates. But as the I need to kind of be the tough guy, the reinforcement for Ron, for my husband. It’s a little strange.

The substance of it also a little strange. I enjoyed David Jolly’s wife. We didn’t know it. Like, I’m a mama that doesn’t want people to be cruel to my kid’s friends. So, Casey, the Santa should not speak for me.

Like, I don’t know that all mamas share your view.

Great.

I’m wondering where you land on one more thing on this. We’ve been ongoing debate. I mentioned David Jolly in never Trump world about this whole, like, Trump DeSantis thing is is DeSantis actually scarier than Trump because he’s more effective. Where do the Pod Rose land on that matter?

My answer six months ago would have been very different than my answer today. Distantis for a long time seemed like a pretty disciplined, pretty effective, pretty ruthless, kind of like engineer behind the scenes of accomplishing his political goals. And now I wonder if that’s just because he had a super gerrymandered state in Florida where he could ram through whatever he wants. His campaign looks pretty bumbling and ineffective. And like less people think my, like, comment about Casey, the Santos was gendered.

Like, you don’t see Doug Emhoff out there, like, lobbing bombs you know, they’re constantly fighting antisemitism and like going around the world. Right? It’s just like there’s a it’s not the typical role of a spouse

this mouse isn’t delivering the the attack ads, generally speaking. It’s hard to think of an example of that.

These guys rolled out their fundraising reports. Today. Right? Ron DeSantis raised twenty million, and he’s got well over a hundred thirty million sitting in his Superback. Right?

Yeah. So someone is sitting around doing a lot of focus groups, doing a lot of polling, and testing to sort of figure out what their strategy is. Like these are maybe ineffective people, but they’re not dumb. The net impact so far is to hurt his pulling and to help Donald Trump. I’m just wondering, like, do you think they’re seeing something in the numbers that suggests that this attack on Trump from the right is effective?

Because Chris Christie is just being like, he lost he’s a loser, he’s gonna lose again and that’s where I would go.

I can’t answer the answer is nobody knows. But I’m sure it’s been tested to the hilt, restablish and Republican consultants wanted nonnegative candidates in the set of primaries. Right? And they couldn’t even do that. So, like, for you beating Trump himself, they couldn’t figure out how to beat Trump endorsed candidates.

In these primaries, even when it wasn’t Trump on the ballot. Right. And so, you know, sure. You look at the numbers, and it’s one thing for a voter to respond to a poll and say, yeah, you know, I wish Trump would have fired Fauci. Or I wish the wall would have been built or whatever.

It’s another thing though when you’re executing a campaign, right? Like these people get defensive of their man like, you have to demonstrate that you can take the mantle from him and that you will fight for them as hard as he did. And, like, that’s very tough. And it might not be doable. There just might be a plurality of people within the republican party.

They’re so deep in the cult that, like, there’s no way to to walk that line. The thing about the Desienta strategy that I don’t get or I do get it. It’s like he’s it’s the Ted Cruz strategy. Like, he has a Ted cruise Ron DeSantis.

Mhmm. It’s

the Ted cruise strategy, and they’re doing it again. And it failed. And I think that their their theory of the case is that the Ted cruise strategy didn’t work in twenty seen because people hadn’t seen Trump. And now that there he’s actually has a governing record. They’re more substantive things to hit him on.

I guess, I think that’s the theory of the case. But it’s still to me, like it seems like, you know, the definition of insanity.

I’m with you. Yeah. The Ted Cruz Ron DeSantis, Skye, Jeff Roe, who’s flying around private jet paid for by, you know, Ted Cruz campaign donations or whatever on young kid? Yeah. Attacking Trump over, like, the handling of the miss universe pageant.

I mean, who gives a shit about any of that at this point in time? It just seems so bizarre to me.

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Okay. Let’s move on over to the DEMs. I guess question number one I have for you is what’s the panic level? Talk to me about the panic level in DEM world about about whether Joe Biden is up for this reelect.

I mean, I think people are anxious, but like, Democrats are always anxious Right? I mean, people were anxious in twenty twelve, let Obama’s reelect because things weren’t looking so great. Maybe

you should have been a little more anxious in twenty sixteen on the other hand.

Yes. You know? Yes.

I worry that the twenty sixteen is the apt comparison here, not twenty twelve, but but anyway continue.

Listen. That’s in the back of my head constantly. And for entirely personal reasons about like, you know, my own credibility and thinking and things I said at the time about how Hillary would never lose and you can’t lose Pennsylvania and downstairs, Kansas, Pennsylvania, yada yada yada.

Were you quoted saying that Hillary would be Trump from jail? And this has been featured in any mash up YouTube videos because so it’s not you’re you’re doing better than me, but anyway I

can’t recall. I can’t recall. But I mean, I I think on the Biden front, like the weird thing about it is I think if you sat a bunch of Democrats down and said, what would you think about a candidate who did the biggest investment in clean energy in our nation’s history? What would you think about the infrastructure build? What would you think about the chips act and all the ways sticking it to China?

They would probably like that. But then when you tack those things to Joe Biden, there is this large sort of negative feeling that comes into the polling. And I think a lot of that is age. A lot of that is probably like frustration with inflation, etcetera. So I think you have time to fix those things.

I think the way you fix them is you get him out on the trail, you do more, and you worry less about gas, and you just kinda like show him out there doing the jobs. But also, listen. Like, when you look at polling about, you know, are you open to a third party candidate? It’s constantly hovering between, like, sort of thirty and forty some odd percent. Like, we Americans are, I think, are always kind of unhappy with whoever is president even when we love them, like Reagan or Obama or some of the others.

So I think once there is a actual campaign being run and you’re choosing between Joe Biden and an alternative, my hope is that the numbers will move in Biden’s direction because of the record that we talked about and because Trump is manifestly unfit I’m just obviously assuming that he’s the candidate.

Yeah.

But, yeah, I mean, listen though. I’m not gonna sit here and pretend like, I think the the numbers right now look great. They obviously don’t.

Yeah. So, I mean, I’m torn on this. Personally because Biden has, you know, objectively governed well, you know, I I had some — Yeah. — that’s what I disagreed with. I with Afghanistan, disagree with suit modes.

Objectively, he’s he’s covered extremely well. Sometimes I feel like the Bulwark is, like, his biggest cheering section even more than the ribs. Maybe not everybody at the board, but a lot of And — Yeah. — like because he has accomplished or nobody thought he could accomplish doing bipartisan, you know, all those all those things you just listed were bipartisan. You could add on to a gay marriage and some others.

Yep. And so he deserves a lot of credit for that. I mean, he’s objectively had a better first term than Obama did. Right? You’d agree with that.

I think the Affordable Care Act was a pretty big deal but, you know, the first term is not over yet.

Okay. I tried to slide that one by you. So I concur with, you know, the fact that he’s doing great. On the other hand, he didn’t have to campaign in twenty twenty, really. You know?

And, like, the basement campaign thing was like a little bit of a joke, but also was reality. Like, he didn’t have to do Hello, Scrant. You know how tiring that is. Right? And not there being a president is a tiring, but it’s just it is a different animal, like flying around.

I’m in Michigan. I’m in Pennsylvania. I’m in Georgia. And he didn’t have to do that. Like, he’s looking old.

My Democratic friends who are not in politics who you know, this is the constant thing that they asked me. Like, are we sure? Are we sure? And so it is a little concerning given the threat of Trump to me, but sometimes I feel like it’s like the pros on the damn side. That are the ones that are like camping down that, like that legitimate fear.

And so I’m just kind of wondering if you can reassure me that that behind the scenes, the pros have this under control.

I cannot reassure you. I mean, I guess, it’s still

like all our cards on

the table. We share the same anxieties. I hear the same things about by end age. The question you then get to is what

also old.

What are you? They’re both old. What do you do about that?

Yeah.

Right? Like, I don’t think anyone should be primary Joe Biden. I I he’s done a great job like you said, but let’s say you wanted a primary Joe Biden. Right now, your alternatives are Mary Ann Williamson, who’s on her third campaign manager in a couple days. Robert f Kennedy junior who would rather inject your kid with bleach than a vaccine apparently.

He’s running in the wide open Steve Bannon of credit primary. Yeah. It’s just like a lot of room to run there.

Yeah. No. He’s got the, you know, sort of the Silicon Valley general class David Sachs and those douchebags sort of all in for them and getting their money. So good for them.

David Ball Sachs is the bolt was the blower podcast style on that so you know.

That’s very good. Good. So there’s not gonna be a primary candidate. So basically, he’s going to run the question becomes how does he address these concerns about age, fitness, etcetera. I have not heard from anyone.

Anyone I know who’s encountered Joe Biden, who’s worked in the White House, who’s ever suggested to me that he’s sort of lacking the mental capability of fitness to do the job, the opposite actually. I think Kevin McCarthy, in fact, right, recently said, a great job Joe Biden did negotiating over the Dead ceiling bill. They’ve gotta figure out a way to translate that

— Good point. —

to show him looking active, but out out on the trail and I don’t know, doing rigorous things. I mean, it’s gonna be challenging, but I do think you show not tell in these cases and to your point, like that is gonna require getting out into the country, doing a bunch of big rallies, doing energy events, lighting up the surrogates, getting Obama out there, getting all the popular governors to, like, hit the trail early. You know, it’s just gonna take a huge team effort basically.

Yeah. Boy Josh Shapiro. Trying to carry us across the finish line.

Just burning down other parts of I ninety five so he can rebuild them. That’s we’re gonna do.

So we’ll talk about the, I guess, elephant in the room here, which is a pun that doesn’t really Bulwark. But isn’t part of this also that like you just mentioned that we’re gonna get the governors out there, like, shouldn’t it become, you know, it’s just generally speak this is not the responsibility of the vice president. I get that. You know Joe Biden was just a supportive character for Obama a good one, a helpful one in certain ways. You know, Dick Cheney.

Basically, was the reason for the Bush administration’s disaster. So, you know, anyway, I think that he’s not exactly a good model. There’s no model, right, for this? Like a president that people have concerns about at this level. But here we are.

Explain to me why. Why aren’t they doing everything possible to to buff her up?

I think they are. So listen. Let’s just be honest, like, Como Harris is getting beaten up in large part because she’s the vice president. Right? That job comes with all this scrutiny — Sure.

—

far more so than the senator.

Happened Al Gore.

Yeah. Our buddy Jonathan Last Martin, great reporter over political, wrote this sort of fan fiction about Gretchen Whitmer and however would love for her to have been the vice president and for her to run-in primary, Biden this time around. And that’s all, you know, Jay Mark can do that and sort of lob these grenades into the West Wing if he wants. The reality is the mini Do

you think Gretchen Whitmer likes that column? Just quick aside, we’ll get back to Colin. Do you think Gretchen Whitmer was happy that POLITico wrote about, you know, the dreams that she was sitting there and kinda left wing instead of Compla. You don’t think she planted that?

She’s burning Day Mart’s book in her yard. No, I’m sure she wants to kill that guy for writing. But the reality is for Gretchen One was great. I hope she does consider running for president someday. But anyone who gets into the race, you immediately start getting pummeled and your your approval goes down and, you know, you get vetted.

Right? So it’s like it’s gonna happen everyone. Kamala Harris, from what I can tell is going to be leading a lot of the messaging about abortion access in this country. I think that will be the single most important issue Democrats run on in addition to the economy in twenty twenty four. Emily’s lists announced that they’re spending ten million dollars or burnish her reputation and talk about the things she’s done.

The ads that I’ve seen that have come out from Emily’s list so far are mostly about her fighting for abortion rights and abortion access. I didn’t mean to leave her out when I talked about governors in Obama. I was thinking about people who weren’t, like, kinda core to the ticket. But like, I think she’ll be obviously key and out in in a lot of states. And leading a lot of messaging, especially on abortion rights.

Yeah. I didn’t I didn’t think that you meant to this slide. It’s just is it’s an obvious thing that people have concerns about, especially when you talk to folks. Who are, you know, just watchers of politics.

But some of the conventionalism that’s like, okay. So let’s say people have, like, really strong concerns about Kamo Harris, and they want Biden to drop her from the ticket and do something unprecedented and announce a new VP. How long do you think that new cycle lasts? Three days, four days.

Yeah. And who is that person? There’s no magic person. It’s not what I’m asking for. I’m I’m asking for we are what we are.

Okay? I agree. If if we were to hide you on this podcast last year. Maybe there’s a conversation about, okay. How do you you know, should there be a Biden challenge?

Should there be why old Wiseman? I don’t know who that is. Should it be your old boss, Obama? I’m being like, Joe. Like really, man.

Like, we need somebody else where we’re concerned about fascism. Okay. But that we are where we are. My question to you is, okay, let’s say that there’s a coup inside Crooked Media. And, you know, the John’s decide that they no longer want you to be part of the team.

And, you know, you get bought out and pushed out. There’s kind of like a progression style coup. And media. Okay. And you get called by the vice president.

They’re like, and she’s like, I need one person. The only person I have in the world who can help me right now is Tommy Vitor. Help me burnish my creds. What could they do? Like what are you doing for her right now?

I mean, I think she’s doing a lot. She’s doing a lot of like she’s talking about abortion rights. She’s doing a lot of interviews. I don’t know. Just get her out on the trail.

Like, I think people in politics worry too much about gaps and misstatements and missteps. And I think, like, you get better by reps and those things get smoothed over when you’re out there all And that’s what I would do with Biden and with her. It’s just have them out more. Like I know it’s like overly simplistic, but that’s what I would do.

No. I agree with that. I think more is more. And I get all these and there’s certain things targeted things that come with doing. I think they’re smart.

And I’m on the VP’s list and I’m seeing the stuff that they’re doing, but it’s not breaking through into the news. And you know that’s Trump’s fault, and that’s our media culture’s fault. But I feel like just in general, you need to up the risk quotient. Right? Like what is the risk?

I frankly, like, there really is no downside to us for Kamala Gaff. You know, like at this point, right, because like the people that have an ingrained view of her as being not up for the job or what which which I think is is frankly bullshit for the most part. But the people who have that view like what? They’re gonna feel even more strongly about that. Right?

Like you need to try to win the people over who haven’t enough out of her. And that might mean going into some places that are not quite a safe.

Yeah. I think it means going to places that aren’t quite a safe, but also I think like you know, you and I sort of came up at the same time in politics and communications in DC. And I think our brains are still like imagine like a big risk for her would be like going on meet the press. I think this day and age, the bigger question is, like, how are you reaching people that have never even heard of what meet the press is? They don’t even know that the show exists.

Like, what cultural shows are you doing? What YouTubers? Like, that’s why I worry about the RF k junior Joe rogan sort of nexus you know, sort of like eleven million, like, young men of all races, by the way, who think that government is full of shit, and everyone lies to you and all politicians are bad. So why not just throw your hands up and try the guy who’s saying something kinda radical sounding and new. Like, I think you know, I’d love to see like Gavin Newsom go on Joe Regan or some, like, really good Democratic messenger go on and start trying to reach those people.

I’ve been on kick for like two years. Absolutely. Anne Bar stool and all of that. I think those are all gettable folks. And if she’s gonna talk about abortion, like who better to talk about that with?

Like p f t Like, right, honestly. I mean, none of those I mean, if you’re gonna talk about abortion, you’re gonna go to a, you know, planned parenthood and Emily’s list of stuff, that’s fine. That’s okay. But like, reach the dudes who don’t wanna have to be a dad at twenty one to not be too blunt about it. Right?

Like, try to reach them and and and you co opt the freedom message, maybe Kam was not the right person for that. But, like, I do think Democrats sometimes leave that on the table and assume those folks are hostile when they’re not. And they are hostile at certain point, but they’re gettable in hostile. If that makes sense.

Yeah. You have to do some preaching to the choir, but I do think there are

— Sure. —

a lot of sort of barstool Republicans who likes Trump because he was on the apprentice, and he was a billionaire, and he dated all these people, and it was sort of like a They like that brash kinda You can’t cancel the image of him. They did not sign up for Mike Pence’s politics. They didn’t sign up for Ralph Reed telling them what to do. Right? And you even saw Dave Portnoy, the CEO of Barcelona Sports, saying that the overturning Dobbs was a red line for him, that he would vote democrat because if he thinks it’s insane to tell women what they can do with their own bodies, like, we should lift up messengers like that and use them to communicate to people who might listen to them.

Okay. So going back to Gavin, this was the one I really wanted to ask you about. What is he doing? Because I guess in some level, like him going on Hannity did achieve what you were just talking about. Right?

Because I just just from being a consumer of social media, I saw that in a lot of places that were not like political nerd —

Me too.

— you know, centers. You know, people were interested. But like, you know, some of you don’t see anymore. Everybody’s in their own bubble. So, you know, he’s fighting it, you know, going toe to toe with with Hannity.

So I thought that was an interesting strategic move to do that. But so talk about that booking in particular, but also just were huzzily, like, what is Gavin doing? And is it is it actually contributing a little bit to concerns about Joe Biden that he’s out there so much? And, like, shouldn’t you be worried about the homeless people in Los Angeles a little bit more? So two part question.

Yeah. Both part question there. I think that, like, letting yourself fall into the trap of will x person going out make Joe Biden look worse as a bad one? Because then you’re just taking all your circuits off the field potentially. If you can convince yourself that they might make the president look bad.

Right? So I wouldn’t do any of that. I want Gavin out there. I want Obama out there. I want Michelle Obama to get everybody out there.

First of all, Second of all, look, I mean, when I first read that Gavin was going on Sean Hannity, I was like, that is a mistake. Go on a rogan, like, what do we Why Hannity of all people? Like, you’re not reaching anyone who’s convinceable. You’re reaching a dead or dying audience of the most hardcore Trump fans you can find. I was wrong.

He did a great job on that. I’ve spent some time with Gavin. He’s like hyper competitive. He talks about politics like you and I talk about politics. He wants to win.

He’s frustrated that we don’t fight back more. He watches Fox News all the time. He thinks we live in information bubbles and want to push back and reach people in different places. So I think it’s like part of that effort. It’s part of this fight he’s picking with with the state of Texas basically.

In Florida. Yeah.

In Florida too. And he’s I think really you know, finds DeSantis disgusting. So, you know, I like the competitiveness. I like the fight. I think you gotta make sure you’re sort of doing these interviews and things in focused ways, but I think the Hannity thing was a huge success.

I’m not sure what the next act would be.

So doing this as a figure skating judge, I thought he crushed on Hannity, real honestly, like ten out of ten, great job and, you know, maybe he should be I don’t know, like Biden should just name him emissary to arguing with cons. So I just wanna grant that. Is he the best messenger though right now? Like, is he doing a good job? Is your governor?

I think

he’s doing a good job with our governor. I mean, look, I think there are we’re we’re about forty million people in this state. It is also there’s a lot of devolution like there’s a lot of power that’s dispersed to municipalities and cities and states that make it hard. One of the best parts about that interview was when Hannity was pushing him on homelessness in California, and he was like, I think it’s a disgrace. You know?

Like, he basically was like, we failed on that front. We’ve done some of what we tried to do, but not all of it. Unfortunately, like, I don’t think like Gavin like rolling his sleeves up is gonna be how you fix that. I think you need to build a lot more housing in California and then do a lot of things that take time. And that are results of years of failures, frankly.

But, like, I I think he walk at you got me. I think into a Hannity interview and govern this date. I’m not worried about that part.

Alright. I wanna go around the world with you. You are the host of a global podcast, but before we get to our around the world game, I just I also wanna talk about, like, what your world view is now, right? Like, just kind of stepping back. I have a running gag with Ben Roads, your cohost, but how him Crystal are kind of like meeting in the middle right now.

Like, they’re both slowly nudging towards each other and that this would horrify both of them. And if I told both of them this in twenty eleven, they would have spit on me, you know, but here we are now and it almost they could do a road show like Ben and Bill with his very little disagreement, I think. And the crux of this, I guess, is that well, we know why Bill’s gone cuck. But in Ben’s case, I think the crux of this is that as you look at the internal threat of Trump, and you look around the world and you see a lot of trumpian threats and frankly even worse threats if you’re looking at Xi and and other places around the world in Putin. And all of a sudden, like, The idea of, like, American hegemony is starting to seem a little better.

Maybe than it seemed in two thousand eight when we made some errors, when we made some bungles, it’s starting to seem a little bit better. So anyway, where where do you kinda land on that? Where do you what’s your foreign policy philosophy these days? And where are you on American Hedimone and American exceptionalism and American greatness.

Oh, boy. Wow. So it’s meaningless. There was a period of time where because we were in the middle of a cold war, the United States treated every country like it was a proxy in that war. And that led to supporting coups and backing right wing death squads, shout out Elliott Abrams, who just got named to some position at Biden this region.

More evidence by the way. If Elliot Abrams can get appointed in a democratic administration, then the Bill and Ben buddy comedy that I’m pitching might might be possible as well. Anyway.

So I don’t think, you know, American hegemony is is necessarily the right thing. I don’t want a really strong military. I think we want great diplomats I think we want great alliances and relations like NATO, etcetera. I think where your theory of the case of the Bill Ben, what they’re called when two black holes collide, whatever that is. It just falls apart is I think Ben and I have been much harder on the actions taken by this current Israeli government.

Than basically any party in Washington would allow us to be. We’ve both criticized our own boss even for slapping so many sanctions on Venezuela and basically sort of crushing the economy there to the point where, you know, a quarter of the population is left. We are very pro Iran nuclear deal and diplomacy, and I I don’t think Bill was the biggest fan of that at the time. I think he might have started a super pack of sorts. With a friend of ours, mutual friends.

There’s still some remaining disagreements. There’s still some remaining disagreements. But, like, the notion that So tell tell me if this is wrong. Tell me this if I’m projecting incorrectly on what the incoming Obama view was in in o eight. There’s this view in eight that we have all these bungles, that the US has fucked up in Iraq and Afghanistan, and that really a little bit of a retrenchment.

Not isolationism, you know, but a little bit of a retrenchment is maybe called for and having being more humble. And I wonder now if you look at it and and maybe that was right in two thousand eight. I wonder if you look at it now in twenty twenty three, especially with what is happening with Putin and China, and you see the threats of kind of these rising despots in a lot of places. What’s the opposite of retrenchment? What’s a retrenchment incident?

Maybe it’s time for a little bit more. Forward leaning of American involvement.

The Obama theory of the case wasn’t retrenchment. It was, we got to end the war in Iraq, then he sent tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan in an effort to deal with Al Qaeda there. And then there was the pivot to Asia, which Which

I thank you, Regrats.

I mean, I regret it. Obviously, the end of the war in Afghanistan was horrific. Like all of us, I think, were shocked by the images like we did not do enough to get the people who helped us out of there, etcetera. But I think what happened there is the result of twenty years of failed policy. And Joe Biden was just sort of like the last man standing in a game musical chair.

So there’s some things tactically that I would have done differently like, maybe push out the withdrawal date even further outside of the fighting season, so there was less of a chance the Taliban would kinda roll through the countryside as quickly as they did. But like, money morning quarterback from a guy sitting in Los Angeles in shorts. Right? I mean, I think, basically, you had a twenty year nation building exercise that fails. And the government that had no legitimacy.

And a military that decided at the end of the day, it didn’t wanna fight against the Taliban. So we’re probably like, I think what Obama was trying to do is refocus on the right places, in particular Asia, and then of course, like Russianization of Ukraine has sort of upended everything.

So in short, you’re saying you wouldn’t define yourself like as an American greatness conservative. Right now, when it comes to your foreign policy world. Yeah. You love America, but you’re just not quite there.

The thing that I learned in the White House is like, Barack Obama is the most powerful man in the world. And most of your days are spent responding to events outside of your control. Like, he didn’t announce in Springfield, Illinois being like, in one day, I’m gonna plug a giant fucking hole in the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico that BP created for me. You know what I mean? It’s like, that’s every single day.

The Arab spring turned into years of just sort of like rolling crises. Right? So it’s like, there’s all these events that haven’t found your control. All you can do is manage them as best you can.

Alright. Before we do around the world, okay, you you brought it up. So then one more. So looking back Arab Spring, do you feel like in retrospect, you know, we could have maybe been more, you know, support like, there there was a little bit of PTSD from Iraq and and maybe we could have been more supportive of, you know, freedom loving people in the Middle East? Or do you think that it was just there was just nothing that we could’ve done?

I know because obviously the Arab spring has fizzled and we’re about to go around the world, you’re gonna find — Yeah. It’s fizzle. — winter in most of these places.

Well, you

know, look, Tunisia is sort of like the one bastion of hope and that’s that’s gone south recently. In Egypt, there was a transition to the first democratically elected president in history, Mohammed Morsi, and he was booted out by a military coup. I mean, a lot of the story here is, like, ultimately the guys with the guns have a lot of power influence, and that was challenging.

Well, you do love freedom, though. We haven’t met maybe as closely as I thought we have, but we do we do both love freedom. And I — Freedom is good. — and I like that. And that’s that’s what I like about these exchanges of ideas.

We both don’t like Trump.

Fact.

Bad. Orange Man is bad. Okay. Alright. We’re gonna close here with a little game on a call where in the world is Tommy Vitor.

I’m ready.

Well, she sneaks around the world from Right on a ghost box in China. I tell me, bam, in the world

this Tommy Vitor. Yes. Okay. That’s for all the elder millennials out there. I’d really do love how they’re the world.

I really do. I feel obsessed with all the stupid respond like, I have to know every micro advancement Asah Hutchinson campaign. God love you ASSA. And I feel like it’s making me dumb and so the positive refreshing break for me. To, like, learn about other things that’s happening to use my brain though.

Sometimes, I I you know, you guys do I’m like, I had to skip last it was two weeks ago or whatever because it’s, like, the Trump doc I’m like, oh fuck, Tommy. I wanna hear about what’s happening in Peru.

Tim, but you know how it goes. You put out a subject that’s like, the Kuan Sudan

— Nobody — hundred

ninety thousand listens. Trump Docs, three hundred thou right. These are numbers. It’s a depressing state of content in this country?

Dropping your download d there. Oh, we heard that. Okay.

I made that turn. Where in the world?

It’s Tommy Vietor. Okay. We’re gonna go around. I want just sixty seconds from you. On what is happening in these hotspots.

You have a new podcast also called Pod Save, the UK. What is happening in the in the United Kingdom elections go?

The next election isn’t until January twenty twenty five. Basically, like a parliament can last up to five years, then it dissolves automatic and then there’s a election takes place like a little less than a month later. The PM can call an early election, but that has not happened yet. Basically, Rishi Sunak, the current Tory Party Prime Minister is in charge. He’s relatively weak.

He was not popularly elected. He was chosen by the hundred and seventy thousand somewhat Duce paying Tory party members who are more conservative after Liz Trust was given the boot. Cheer Starmer and the labor party is waiting in the wings, they have a huge opportunity to win back a lot of seats because of Tory Party weakness. And because the S and P, the Scottish National Party, is dealing with some big scandals from its former leader, Nicholas Surgeon, and her husband who was like the CEO of the party or something like that or the treasurer or something. So if labor can win a bunch of Tory seats back and win a bunch of S and P seats back, they could be in a really good spot, but it just won’t happen for a while.

So you’re optimistic. Labor. It’s been a long time in the wilderness for labor. In a weird way, I thought there’s been some Republican Party labor Sarah Longwell, sticking to a toxic leader for way too long, Jeremy Corbyn. Obviously, there’s some differences, but you think there’s a way out of the wilderness there?

I hope so. I mean, I think they’re they’re kind of trying to decide what are we gonna be as a party? Are we gonna play four corners? Are we gonna get really aggressive? Especially when it comes to Brexit because they’re not saying we gotta undo Brexit in back in the European Union, they’re saying we have to sort of like fix the mess that it’s created.

But I think a lot of labor party supporters would like to see them go even further than that.

Alright. Next up. Carmen’s flying down to Egypt. Tell us what’s happening in Egypt.

So, I mean, things aren’t great. The latest news I saw is that they’re going to have elections before the end of this year instead of next year

— Early. —

present. Yeah. President Abdul Fattel CC. Basically ran through a constitutional referendum that allows him to run for a third term until twenty thirty. So this is the guy.

Remember so Mubarak got booted, Mohavenmore, so he gets elected the military stages of coup. And so LCC’s been in charge. He’s basically used that time to further entrench the military’s power, crush human rights, not a great guy.

He’s illegally jailing our mutual friend, Muhammad Sultan’s father,

yes, all sorts of dissidents.

Retorturing.

And so, you know, candidates will have to submit like applications basically to run at some point next year. They have to get all these, you know, approvals or support from a certain number of citizens, like kinda get on the ballot here. But there’s a big question I think of whether that will be a free or fair election at all.

Okay. That’s not uplifting. Alright. Next, let’s move on up to Iran. You mentioned it.

You mentioned the Iran nuclear deal. What the fuck is happening in Iran? Give me I’ll give you ninety seconds on Iran. There’s some boats recently, but I think we think we had a conflict with some boats anyway. Sorry.

Yet, Tim, some some of you know being like, I wanna ask about this story in Iran, which I hadn’t read yet. And I wanna show you how I prepped for it, Tim, which you can see here during tummy time. This is doing tummy time with my daughter. So that’s

Tell me time in reading about Iran. Okay. Well, you don’t need to talk specifically about that story. I’m just like, I was I was going through the world and not looking for interesting things that have happening, and this Iran thing happened. And I was like, what is actually happening in Iran?

I’m not even sure. So Tommy, you you can give me you can go broad. You don’t have to talk about the boat if you don’t want.

Sure. I mean, I I do think, like, there probably some bulwark fans who were not fans of the Iran nuclear deal back in the day. And I just want them to know that the IEA says that Iran’s total stockpile of any rich uranium is now twenty one times higher than the amount permitted under the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal, and they’ve detected particles enriched up to eighty three percent, which is just shy of weapons grade. So basically, Obama’s are on nuclear deal limited stockpile to three hundred kilograms in enrichment to this lower level, which you could only use for nuclear power after we withdrew the Iranian started enriching uranium closer to sixty percent. There’s no civilian use for that.

They’re also working on their ballistic missile program. So everything is getting worse. Everything that Trump and Mike Pompeo told you what happened, they were resumed to turn etcetera, etcetera. They would actually deal with Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Everything has gotten worse.

On the boats thing, Tim, I mean, I saw that too. Iranian navy tried to seize a couple ships in, you know, the Strait of Hormuz the other day. That’s the the choke point in the Persian Gulf where like a fifth of the world’s oil goes through on a daily basis. The US may be intervened to stop them, but this is something they do all the time. I assume these are like I don’t know this.

I assume they’re like IRGC vessels. That steal stuff, sell it as part of their sort of illicit black market economy.

Are there any green shoots in Iran? Right now?

No. I mean, there’s reports that there may be some talks between the US government and the Iranian try to get some sort of Iran deal like step in place, but nothing has happened.

I should take this moment for the bulletproof that that do not like Tommy’s analysis there. Those probably unimpeachable. We have a foreign policy podcast here, also shield of the Republic, which is the other one I listen to. In addition to Pod Save the world. I should shout out the shield guys.

Eric Evelman is my pal. Alright. We got two more. I did prep you for this one. The last one’s a surprise.

I did prep you for this one. You’re doing tell me time. I was at a child’s birthday party last weekend, and I met with gentleman who is a Argentina expert, expert self proclaimed, you know, maybe not an expert to the level, but, you know, not an Eric Edelman. But somebody cares a lot about Argentina. Started talking about the elections.

It seemed very interesting. And so I wanted you to look into what’s happening in the Argentina elections. Give me your thoughts, and then I have a follow-up question. For you. So so just give us your broad take on Argentina.

Sure. I mean, I think the the sort of mood music there is that inflation in Argentina is over one hundred percent I think the official poverty rate is around forty percent. So the country is collapsing. The central bank is running out of money. So they have this primary coming up in and then there’s an election, a general election in October.

Both of them, I think, have runoff provisions if people don’t meet certain thresholds, but whatever. But I I think the big thing people are concerned about in Argentina is this guy Javier Mile, who is running. He’s an economist, but he calls himself an ultra libertarian Anarko capitalist. He calls the state a criminal enterprise that needs to be disbanded. And what that means is eliminating the central banks privatizing state companies, Argentina decriminalized abortion in twenty twenty after this amazing grassroots protests, etcetera.

He wants to ban abortion again. He’s out there talking about ending cultural Marxism. This was a great quote. NPR story Tim. He said, I won’t ask anyone for forgiveness just because I’m blonde, blue eyed, and have a penis.

I feel like I should probably adopt that one. He’s a fan of Trump and Bolsonaro. So, like, you know, this guy is, like, super right wing but kinda, you know, ran Poly in, like, dismantle the state? I don’t even know.

Yeah. So the interesting thing that my friend wanted me to follow-up, Dion, is we have one of these situations in Argentina. Where you have the proronis, you know, or the leftist socialist party, and then you have this. And we’re going in the broadest strokes here. So if we have anybody listening from Buenos Aires, I’m not gonna pretend to be an expert on something.

I’m not but then you have a I guess what you consider, like, a center center right party —

Mhmm.

— is the other sort of option here that that I’m I’m gonna use Macron as kind of stand in for, you know — Sure. — it’s like something to that effect. And then you have this, like, trampy, rant Paul scenario character. In these sort of situations, friend was wondering what I’m wondering, get your take on is, does the Roads and Vitor world view think that understanding what the humility American, we can only do so much. But generally, should you guys be more sympathetic with the Macroni center center right parties strategically in situations, you know, where the alternative might be so dire.

Yeah, I mean listen, I think

politics is about sort of binary choices. And so, yeah, I I would always take better over worse. I mean, I think I saw Paul in late June that showed that together for change coalition, I think you’re talking about there’s a couple candidates in that block, art about thirty two percent, the peronist sort of governing party candidates at twenty eight percent, and then this anarchist is around eighteen percent. So by all means, I would love to see sort of a center right coalition come together to stop the guy who’s gonna blow everything up.

But if you had your brothers, you’d go with the Peronist?

I mean, I don’t have trunk feelings about it. I know this kid

is so sorry to interrupt with you. I got just fucking with you. I’m just teasing you. Okay. Our final question, where’s the world’s Tommy Vietor?

We’re over. He’s got a parent. Is this. Famous George w Bush in nineteen ninety nine was asked by a Boston television show host. Who the president of Pakistan was, that was the general who had just taken over Pakistan.

He did not know the answer, and he was widely mocked in liberal media. So Tommy, Vitor, host of pod save the world. Who is the current leader of Pakistan? And what can you tell us about that person?

Well, so the most interesting thing happening at Pakistan right now is the former leader, Imran Khan, who is this like cricket star Lathario, kind of famous dude, was elected, got crosswise with the military. And got pushed out. And he has basically been leading this kind of mini insurrection rallying his supporters ever since, and was recently arrested while in court awaiting other charges. The current president is like a scion of a ruling family whose name is escaping me at the moment. It is don’t tell me Don’t tell me.

I’ll get it. Fuck. It’s Yes. Not too

far off.

No. I you know what? Fuck it. Who was remind me.

I loved your very long. You’re helping yourself, you’re talking, you’re talking about Imran Khan, you’re talking about cricket scores, a Reef ALvey? No. Is that right?

No. It’s

No? Hold on. What the fuck do I now?

The oh, the prime minister, Shibaz sharif.

Oh, Shibaz sharif. We have a president and a prime minister in Pakistan.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Prime Minister. K.

Well The interesting story is in Ron Con though.

That was pretty good. You know, you had Scion in there, you didn’t write Con, It was better than George w Bush’s answer, not not an a

plus. Yeah. Not perfect.

I am so impressed. I do love pods throughout the world. You do do the news roundups, which I highly recommend to people.

Thank you.

So that is it. Do you have anything else you have any final notes for the bulwark listeners?

No. I love the bulwark. I mean, I appreciate you having me out. It’s very fun. It’s good to get pressed on check your priors, you know, and get get pressed on your own bullshit.

Yeah. I’ll tell the bubble a little bit. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay.

I appreciate you for doing this. I was wearing the world as Tommy Vietor. I want to thank everybody for hanging with me on this Friday podcast. He, if I haven’t mentioned, is the host of Pod Save of the world, out every Wednesday. You can find me on the next level pod on Wednesdays with that Sarah Longwell person that he mentioned.

And on Sundays as well, I’ll be back here next Friday with a special guest you’ll really like. She’ll be better than Tommy. No way. And on Monday, we’ll have the second installment of the corruption of Lindsay Graham with Will Saletan all Ben. Have a wonderful weekend.

See you later, Tommy. Peace.

Me?

Where in the world is? Tommy Vitor?

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