Virgins Can’t Be President

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

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Come get all the best content and all the best word all the best words from the Bulwark. Hey, guys. Hi. What’s up? Well, Donald Trump went on Tucker Carlson’s show last

night. Is it a substantive exchange of ideas?

Well, I mean, I guess we’re back to kabuki lands. He’s rolling out a new policy. Did he have a new substantive white paper that he was gonna roll out? He came out with a solvent entitlement reform with this one weird trick. You know, so I guess Tucker is back to to doing the K FAB.

Yeah, I really love Trump and there’s several things to unpack, but I guess the most interesting thing is Trump going on and on basically unprompted about his three favorite dictators and how top notch they are. And how Xi Jinping and Kim Jong un and Vladimir Putin are all just top shelf talents and intellects and minds and people. And we we are not at our best over here in America. I mean, we’re like, you can’t shoot straight. I was watching the Lakers and the Timberwolves last night

in out of this. I had I had some counter programming. Can we see? Can I see it? Yeah.

Yeah. No.

Let’s go to the tape. President Xi is a brilliant man. You went all over Hollywood to look for somebody to play the role of president Xi? You couldn’t find it. There’s nobody like that.

The look, the brain, the whole

thing. We had a great relationship. You know, when he first came tomorrow, it became the first day. He said, for a few days. We were going to have a fifth.

It was so organized by them and by us, but by them. Very plump. Bump. Bump. Everything’s like business.

No games. You know? They don’t say, gee, how did the Yankee’s do less. Not oh, that was a wonderful day.

German. They don’t care about anything. I

said, do you ever go to a Broadway play? I’ll take you to one. Do you haven’t had plays like, give a go, no. I don’t no. He’s old.

This is He was so close to doing banks. I That’s right. I like it. You know, in a way, I like it. I have no life, but that’s what he likes.

Yeah. Top of the line smart. Top of the line. Top of the

line. Top of the line. I don’t

know what you’re so mad about. This is obviously Donald Trump cares about the underrepresentation of Asian men in media, and he thinks that there shouldn’t be a movie about Xi. It’s like

the only Asian guy in on the movies is Bruce Lee. He doesn’t look at all like Xi. You know? Like, we need some you know, we need different body types as well. We need plump Asians in the movies.

We don’t just need these ripped Kung fu Asians. We need all types. I’ve not actually seen the rest of it. It goes on. I I read the transfer control, he’s like, he’s letter.

It goes on from there. Top notch. She’s always talking about top notch. They are. How strong the Putin one really, really caught my eye.

If you wanna really understand Donald Trump’s you know, just high level thinking that he’s got going on. I I marked down the transcript here of this one. It’s you can’t beat Russia. Russia right now, I’m not saying anything out of school, because I read it one of our news — Deepak Jimes. — so we know it’s probably fake news.

But maybe not. I don’t think it is. It’s like it’s just he’s

all over the place. It’s

like he says the word newspaper and it triggers a thing in his head and he’s like, wait a minute. I’ve got I’ve gotta do a little bit of a fake news bit about this. Before I come back around to my point about how no Russia is unbeatable and unstoppable. Which is not what I’ve been reading on Kathy Young’s reporting in the Bulwark and other places. But Tucker just has to sit there in in giggles.

Yeah.

So I think there’s a very meta lesson here, which is that what is Tucker doing? Trump loves dictators. Dictators love their state media, that just sit there and nod at whatever insane things come out of their mouth. Did you get a hole in one sir? He said sir, like five thousand times?

And he just sat there with this that, like, it was, like, just he just, like, nodded and giggled and it wasn’t, like, an actual interview.

On the other night, isn’t Tucker a China hawk? Is the other thing I’m sitting here listening to. I thought the whole thing is that, you know, him and Tucker are aligned on Putin, so I wouldn’t have expected any pushback on Russian supremacy. But on the China part, he’s talking about how brilliant she is and how wonderful and how great the relationship is. It wasn’t just a compliment.

It’s one thing you can understand you know, Tucker has the authoritarian impulse, maybe more than an impulse. So you can understand how he wouldn’t, you know, want instinctively push back on, you know, lavish praise of dictators. But the part about how, oh, it’s not just life as crazy. It’s I love them. It’s I loved working with China so well.

Like, we had a great and he doesn’t know the word bilateral, but we had a nice bilateral together. We worked. You know, we were a team. It’s like every other night on Fox, the whole thing is China is a menace. We got a crackdown on them.

You know, the NBA. If one NBA player says something nice about China, you know, we do it four nights on it. I

get calls from reporters sometimes where they’re like, Trump holds this position, but he also said this and, like, isn’t that untenable? And I just laugh and laugh. Like, THIS GUY MANAGES TO CONTRADICT HIMSELF WITHIN THE SAME SENTENCE, WITHIN THE SAME INTERVIEW MANY, MANY TIMES NOBODY IS LOOKING FOR CONSISTENCY FROM HIM he could just get away with it in the way that nobody else

can. And partly, that’s because no Republicans are gonna try to make him pay for it. Right? Right. I mean, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis aren’t gonna come out and go to town over this.

Are they?

No. Nike Pompeo might make a side comment. If he’s asked, if he happens to be on one of his globalist panels this week. Right? You know?

But he’s not even in the race yet. No one’s gonna actually gotten proactively do a campaign to to challenge him. There’s an absurdity about all this, of course. And, you know, there’s the seriousness. There’s the one level of seriousness that Donald Trump president again, which is very serious.

But the other thing that I think it speaks to from a policy standpoint is just how easy they are rolled over on show. Yeah. And we’ve discussed this before. Right? But it’s like, that’s all fake.

There’s so many layers of fakeness to it. It’s like Tucker who despises Trump is like giggling and sucking up to him. You know, the party now says that, oh, well, the one place that we do wanna still be tough on foreign policies on China, but Trump started talking about, no. Actually, we’ll just, you know, me and shield this cut deals back room, it’ll be fine. Like, we’ll just have a dictator, you know, a little cuddle puddle.

That’ll be fine. And and no one will object to that either. Right? Like, there’s no reason to think that any of these guys actually say what they believe about even their most convicted seemingly convicted policy proposal.

There is one person in all of this who is saying exactly what he believes, and that’s Donald j Trump. You know, you wanna talk about fake How about the audience? How about the Fox audience? Which must know what this host of Fox actually thinks about Donald Trump, because they’ve they’ve seen the texts. Right?

There is no upside right now. They wrong. I I find it impossible to believe that in all of their travels on Facebook, these elderly boomers have not come across the text from the Dominion Law suit. I I just can’t can’t believe that. Okay.

And they then go and sit there and accept this. The fox people were being fake. The fox viewers are being fake. The only person who is the courage of his convictions here is Trump himself. And I think this is why he wins.

Right? Because he is whatever else you wanna say about him, he’s authentic. Like, he’s He’s just telling you, he likes these strong men. He really likes, you know, that Kim Jong Un, you know, a lot of people when they inherit stuff, they just waste it. Right?

They throw it away with their you know, look look at my idiot son Eric over there. Right? But that Kim Jong Un, he really you know, he gave him an entire country at age twenty eight. Mhmm. He just he just murdered as many peoples he had to to keep them in line.

And they’re a very tough industrious and hardworking people.

I mean, this this is the part where the series were like, it goes from absurd to your, like, Kim Jong like, he’s a genocidal maniac. Yeah. He he murders people. This is why, like, Ron DeSantis, like, when he did the territorial skirmish and then, like, he needed to do, like, his cleanup on aisle, you know, twenty twenty four. He, like, he made sure to say Putin is a war criminal because that is the other side of the coin on these things.

And Donald Trump never never says, you know what? But she has these concentration camps and that’s not good. Like, he never tosses a thing out for the decent side of things. No. And and nobody like, who would have you heard today?

Who among Republicans today have come out and condemned any part of that interview? Another interesting thing about to me, about DeSantis. Right? When DeSantis came out and called Ukraine a territorial skirmish, THEY WERE ON HIM. MAN, THE MICH MCCONNE OF THE PARTY WAS ALL OVER Ron DeSantis SCELLING AT HIM, PUBLICLY CONDEMNING WHAT HE SAID.

You heard anybody say anything today about Trump just kissing up to all these dictators on Tucker?

Credence.

Quickly. Oh, this is the other advantage that he has. Going to prior so going back to Jev in sixteen, you know, I I keep getting all these PTSD flashbacks during the early DeSantis campaign, like, the things I’ve tried to, you know, put in the recesses of my mind to not re remember again. But, like, one thing that comes up just right now and you said that there is the you remember the Jeb Megyn Kelly interview? This was also in our pre launch.

Where Jeb get asked about the Iraq War, Megyn Kelly, said something, like, knowing what you know now, would you still have gone back into Iraq? And that question came as like, I forget, it was like, maybe the third follow-up on Iraq. And Jeb was already in arguing mode and just, like, talked right over her and was, like, well, you know, and gave whatever talking points he had, which were bullshit, by the way. But they’re the typical politician, Bulwark. Talking points, right, which is like, oh, I’m gonna answer the question you didn’t ask, and I’m gonna answer a different question that, you know, that talks about, well, you gotta consider the okay.

So he does that. But on the tape, it, like, looks like he says yes. Right? Because he was, like, arguing with her. It looks like he says, yes.

I still would knowing what we know now. We spend, like, five days of, like, trying to fix that. Right? Like, Jeff has to do another interview and then he gets shit. And then, you know, people are now digging down into the particulars of that.

Like, what I wanna get a what do you mean knowing that you know now? Like, knowing everything, knowing that

WLP is pieces. In the intervening period. You

just have to deal with all these nitpicky follow-up questions, and you should have to deal with them. Right? Like, policies important policy matters are Ron DeSantis should have had to deal with this given his ridiculous authoritarian statement that he sent in to Tucker, basically supporting the Russians. But Trump doesn’t. Right?

Trump can just give word salad, gobbledly good about how chairman Xi, like, you know, you couldn’t cast him because he’s so million to them. We’re tough on China, but we also love them. And and he doesn’t have to deal with that. And that is just an an asymmetry that Ron DeSantis is stuck with because he’s a normal politician.

Well, what Ron DeSantis does have though to his advantage is right now he’s a sitting governor and so he can punch immigrants to make Republican voters happy, which is what he seems to be gearing up to do with his proposed immigration Bill coming up. Tim, do you do you wanna give the quick tour through this or do you want me to to do it then you go? I’ll

do it. I because I’ve got

an article coming out on this tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow, we’ll you don’t hold me to it, people, you know, just refresh the blog dot com and it’ll be out Friday. But the gist of the bill is there’s a lot of kind of it’s a grab bag anti immigration built that has a lot of stuff in other places that you see in other states. But but the things that I I think are worth zeroing and on, Number one is language about how you are not allowed to harbor or transport. Undocumented immigrants.

And if you’re caught harboring or transporting undocumented immigrants, then that’s a third degree felony. Up to years in jail.

How about feeding? Are you allowed to feed undocumented immigrants or do you go to jail for that as well if you give them a sandwich?

It depends on where. If you’re in a home, if you’re in your own home, probably not. Oh, this is If you’re in a restaurant and you you haven’t made it to a restaurant owner that that is guilty. So the the interesting thing here is it’s under the auspices of of human trafficking. Right?

So you get your little q and n wink And you also get the, oh, the serious conservatives can come in and be like, well, this is a problem. We need to crack down on the human traffic Chris. We just cracked down on the cartels that bring people across, and there’s something to be said for that. We do need to crack down on cartels that do real human trafficking. The problem is, that when you read the actual bill, it’s very similar to the don’t say gay thing.

Well, it’s like the interpretation is very vague. An example, I give. Right? For example, as back when I was doing just been tutoring for Guatemala and a sale lease. Like one of the kids I worked with, his brother was undocumented.

Right? They all lived in the same house. Most of them had come in legally through the Obama rule back in twenty fourteen. But, you know, one of the siblings for various reasons couldn’t come at that time and ends up coming to be at the family illegally. So if I’m driving the kid I’m tutoring and his brother home, right, from school, like, that criminalizes me, per se.

Now, really, are they gonna criminalize me? Probably not. Right? Because I’m there is a two tiered system of justice, and I’m I’m a I’m a like guy with resources to have a lawyer. But what if it was the kid that was tutoring, that I was tutoring, that was driving his brother?

His English is bad, you know, his brother is undocumented. He shows documentation.

No. Like, he’s gonna get targeted. Right? Like, they’re gonna get targeted. And so the whole thing is to put showing effect on this entire community.

You

know, if if there’s anyone in the community that’s undocumented, then it’s like you get nervous. The other element to the bill is the hospitals now have to report. If you go into the hospital, your immigration status. Right? So, again, the chilling effect now these people who are here undocumented are like, what does the dad do in that family that has an undocumented kid?

The kid’s sick. You’re trying to decide, do I take him to the hospital? Do I not? Like, not only might my kid get reported now, but I might get in trouble for transporting him and housing him. Right?

It just, like, creates all of these nefarious like second order effects, the the, like, the whole purpose of it is to intimidate immigrants. So on the substance of it, the bill’s terrible. Politics of it are probably okay because you can just paint as an anti human trafficking thing and a law and order thing that is in line with very similarly, we probably could have, you know, had this exact same conversation around, don’t say, gay, but you just kind of replace the word gay and put an immigrant, you know, similar with some of his other the other provisions. And I think that there’s probably a word of a conversation just having about this Ron DeSantis legislative session. Which is touching all these boxes.

The immigration is just the latest. Well,

that’s because when you say, like, it the only intent is for to have a chilling effect, or maybe you didn’t say only. But I would say, like, Actually, there’s two. Like, they don’t actually care that much about the substance. Right? These are

messages. They don’t even care if this law goes into effect.

Right. These are messaging pieces of legislation. It’s about Ron DeSantis saying, this is how I feel about immigrants. I’m on law and order immigrant guide, the same way that they don’t say gay though, which you could drive a truck through the loopholes in that. And, like, if you actually thought about it for five seconds, how it could be applied.

And the only way you’re gonna find out what the word instruction means is when teachers start getting sued for

it, and the CRT bill, too.

Right. That’s right.

Yeah. All these things would you, by the way, mostly, been held up by the courts because they’re not constitutional. And this

is actually why I think he’s struggling with his national candidacy. He’s like, down in Florida. He doesn’t have to he’s like sowing control and in command and, like, gives access to the only people he wants the media, that, like, when he gets pushed back on the don’t say Gabelle, he’s like, oh, you you want to teach gender identity to kindergarten or to groomer. Oh, you want human traffickers, Tim Miller? Like, that’s how he goes on offense.

And I think some of it might be, like, national media, like, that might be a little harder to get away with once he’s out of this session because people will challenge him on some of the merits of it in ways that I think might not be happening down there in Florida, and which he might not be ready for. But that is all these bills are. These are messaging bills for him to sort of create the space that he is intending to occupy. Here’s

the other thing that has worked for DeSantis is that he had a two track governorship up until this session. Like, unlike some of these other, like, buffoons who are all for show, does scientists have, like, a secret Jeb Track governorship and a Fox Track? Right? Like, where he did stuff that, like, regular people liked. And part of it was benefited by all these states of huge influx of money from the governments, thanks to the COVID relief.

But right there, like, he gave teachers increase in pay and, you know, like, there was COVID. Right? He I I cleaned up the Everglades. Right? So he had this job track that, like, people normally Republicans who were turned off by Trump in the suburbs liked, but then he had this performative foxtrot about all this stuff like you guys are saying, isn’t much of it this doesn’t even get affirmed by the courts.

Much of it doesn’t even go into law. Right? Like, it’s just, oh, this gives me a chance to have a press conference to yell at some reporter and get on fox to talk about it. The problem is a national campaign is all the Fox Track. Right?

Like, people don’t care about the stuff that was on the gem track. Like, you know, his everglades reform isn’t part of a campaign. Right? And so, like, it’s all this stuff that has no actual substance beneath it. And it’s just this performative, cruelty, performative, anti compassionate, conservative, you know, kind of policies.

The one thing about the immigration thing that I just think is worth mentioning is unlike the stop woke act, which will never go into law. Like this, probably will and probably will affect people. I went back to find this. One of the first things I wrote for the book back in twenty nineteen was about this kid Francisco Galicia who was in Texas. Who this happened to.

His brother was undocumented. He was undocumented. He was driving him. He got put in jail. And now in that case, it was illegal.

What Texas was doing. That’s what I was writing about. But Florida is trying to make that legal. This one, assuming it goes into law and it doesn’t get changed because there’s time between now and when he signs it. To make it more tailored to human traffickers.

So so this one is a little bit different in that regard that there are, like, real, like, negative effects, but most of the stuff for him has just been CAGNY KANDY. CAGNY FOR EVOL PEOPLE. Reporter:

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Governor DeSantis has a new potential rival. The senator Tim Scott of South Cakilecki has announced that he is exploring his presidential run and see what that ground swell of draft draft Tim Scott’s stuff looks like. Sarah Longwell you just go? I wanna hear everything you have to say about this.

Did you watch his launch video? Did either of you watch it?

I haven’t watched it.

You should watch it.

Okay. I will.

So here’s the thing. It’s like weird it’s weirdly inspiring on like two ends. Right? Because he to me, he’s hitting notes that I like, which is all about how good America is. He’s kind of starts out this like we fought a civil war and it was for the soul of the country and our our souls were good and the good guys won and People like him have this great thing.

And then he talks about the radical left who are filled with grievance and who hate America And and, like, I was sitting there being like, but you’re talking about your own party now. Like, like, if you’ve listened to the middle part, where he starts trying to define the left. It is just projection on the modern day Republican party. They don’t think America’s great. I’m listening to Donald Trump, praise all these dictators.

And talk about how, you know what the real problem is? He tells this story. People ask me, who’s the biggest enemy? Trump? Mister Trump, sir, who is our biggest enemy?

Is it China? Is it North Korea? Is it Russia? He says no. It’s from within.

It’s us. We’re the bad guys. But Tim Scott, who by the way, said that he supports all of everything Trump did all the time, He’s running with his optimist division. I’m pro optimist division. Watching it was for me such a trip because it’s it’s twenty fifteen, Sarah Longwell all in on that guy.

But I have to ignore what I’ve seen over the last eight years to to buy it. Also, this guy’s gonna get crushed. I am quite interested in the the dynamics of the South Carolina primary with both Tim Scott and Nikki Haley. Does somebody release the South Carolina poll this morning? I don’t know if either of you have it.

And combined so DeSantis is at twenty, Trump’s at, like, forty five, and combined Nikki and Tim Scott are getting, like, twenty five percent.

Oh.

There it is. I got I got it. It’s Trump forty Ron DeSantis twenty. By the way, the South Carolina primary is predicted everything, you know, always on, you know, it’s it’s the most predictive. So trumping a forty one is notable.

DeSantis twenty — Yeah. — Haley eighteen.

Towing it. That’s

better know what I thought. Scott seven. Scott seven. Pence five, Pompeo two, Sunrunu one, Windrop University. So

twenty five together. Now, who are they taken from there? DeSantis

probably

from meatball run. Right? No. I

think I mean, probably a little bit of boats, honestly. Yeah. But here’s the thing. Those two and I said this whenever Nikki Haley announced. And I I think I can’t remember if I got pushed back or not on this idea of, like, Nicki Haley thinks she’s gonna be in a position at that point.

Right? With her eighteen percent, somebody’s gotta give her something to get her out of there. But if Tim Scott starts eating that too, they’re all taking from DeSantis, not entirely and I think Trump’s number two for a lot of people as well, but the point is Ron to say just cannot consolidate against Trump if people like that are in the race through South Sarah Longwell these early primary states. You just can’t. Yeah.

I mean, I definitely think that there is some Trump secondary things, but, you know, again, he’s at forty one, so he’s gotta get nine percent out of that other group. Yeah.

Could he get nine out of the twenty five points? Yeah. I think he could. Yeah.

Before you get into the question, GV, I just I just wanna throw this out there because I don’t I didn’t know this. So maybe everybody doesn’t know this, Sarah. I’m sorry that I’m about to do this to you. But are you aware that Tim Scott is a virgin? Excuse

me?

Tim Scott is a virgin. Are you aware of that? That’s just a just a fun fact. I just wanted to know why

why do you know this?

Okay. Because I got a early read. This is a free promo for Ben Terrace at The Washington Post. I had to read his book before it comes out. It’s coming out soon.

It’s great book. I feel horrible right now. I’m blanking on what the name of the book was called, but it’s by Ben Terrace, and we’ll put it in the notes what the name of the book is so he can pre order. And it’s kind of like an updated this town of Mark Liebovich that does like some vignettes about various people. One of the people in the vignettes is Tim Scott’s chief of staff.

It’s a pretty interesting woman actually. That’s just one of the topics. And Tim Scott had said that he was a virgin, that he was saving himself for marriage previously a couple of years ago, and Ben kind of followed up. On it. And, I mean, I guess, it wasn’t it wasn’t verified.

It wasn’t verified that he was still a virgin, but he did not back away from his statement that he was saving himself for marriage.

It is so funny how I watched that whole video and never noticed. And you

wondered if he was allergic to No.

I never noticed he didn’t have, like, never noticed he didn’t have a wife and kids in there. And now that you say it, I’m like, oh, he’s not married, but he isn’t his sixties.

So I Scott is sixty. He’s I think so.

I think he’s like sixty.

So I look, my immediate takeaway from this is that there’s no way Trump picks him as VP. Trump

would never be a burden. That’s why I had to break this up because Fifty seven. He’s fifty seven. Don’t be fucking in my three years.

You’re very sensitive about people’s age. Yeah.

Donald Trump is not gonna learn this about Tim Scott and say, I’m gonna pick this sexual wacko, weirdo was my no. Well, way. Right? This is yeah.

Trump’s not picking a version. This is VP. This is this is why I brought them up. Because this is a VP. Yeah.

Well, I don’t know that it’s his virginity, but I’m not gonna I don’t wanna I think good for him. If

Good for him. No. No. No. This is not This is a comment about

Trump not me saying that makes Tim Scott a weirdo. It’s that Trump would find it bizarre. Right?

I also find it a little weird. But but yeah. I but I was thinking mostly about Trump.

Whatever. I forget that part. I I did notice in his ad. Like, I was there for the optimistic bits about the country, but, like, it was pretty religious. It was actually quite a religious.

I I I filled with he’s reading the bible at one point. He makes a specific sort of Judeo Christian ethic that we were founded on. And this is where Mike Pence and Scott and a bunch of these people were like, they have not cropped. Maybe they’re in the bible belt of South Sarah Longwell. His eight percent, like, really matters to him to see him holding the bible.

But, like, I don’t know that these guys have caught up. That this is just not does not matter anymore. That, like, you just have to show that you’re gonna take an order here or there. Not from the almighty, but from his surrogates on Earth. And as long as you do that, like, cool.

We don’t really expect you can be Donald Trump. You can be married three times. You know

who else hasn’t really got this, it seems like, is the evangelical grass tops that brought Donald Trump. Charlie’s podcast with Tim Alberto is really good. She owes you a list of Yama. And there’s this, like, category of earnest evangelical pastors are Russell Moore and that crowd who said no and who are stalled about this and either said no to Trump or just didn’t go along with it and, you know, focused on the religious side of the religion. Right?

Okay. You have that category. And then you have, like, the mag magrifter totally fallen. Like that that crowd. Yeah.

Okay. You got that crowd. Right? But then there was this, like, middle category of folks who were a little up to call it first, and then, like, went wrong with it, got their deal, and now are out there talking Alberta interviews. They’re stealing them, and now out there being, like, I don’t know.

You know, Trump made some comments about evangelicals recently that we didn’t appreciate. And I I think maybe we should go on to somebody else and it’s like, Sorry fellas. No. Like, you made your bag you you made your bag of bag here and, like, you are in it. Okay?

Listening to that, I’ll burn to interview though. You can see how there are enough people. But it’s like anything. It’s like you say, oh, there’s nobody. It’s like that it’s only eight percent of the Republican Party.

Well, eight percent of the Republican Party is eight million people. Right? You know? So you know, there are enough people out there to that talk to Pence and that talk to the Scots and that share that view. Right?

It’s just it’s just about eight percent.

You see them at see Ireland for the AEI donor retreat every year. Yeah. Exactly. Look, I’m clowning at Scott. I I don’t mean to be because again, I would like to see Donald Trump denied the Republican nomination if if Tim Scott was running in the New Jersey primary against Donald Trump, I would register as a Republican and vote Tim Scott was on my heart.

If Tim Scott was gonna be president, I think it’d probably be fine, you know, not my preferred president, but I would not worry about the whether or not we’d have another election in twenty twenty eight. Right? I’d be like, great. Okay. Sure.

You know, you can oppose his policies and do what you want, but, you know, it’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. But

you gotta try to

be fine. Yeah. No. I think so I’m I’m I’m I’m forced, Scott, if that’s not clear. And I honestly if it wasn’t for his what we’ve seen, his obvious sort of syncophantic behavior toward Trump and being unwilling to condemn him at any level, Like, part of it too is, like, watching any of these guys make their earnest pitch and their religious pitch.

After watching them just, like, cowtowners. Like, it just it defies credulity at any level. There’s no way to take any of them. But, I mean, he’s outright preferable. Like, it’s not like I don’t mean outright preferable.

What do I mean? Because Ron DeSantis is to me outright preferable in, like, the horrible world of options. SCOTT IS SOMETHING CONSIDERABLY BETTER THAN THAT. IT WOULD BE AN AMAZING TURN OF EVENTS IF SUDDENLY THE PARCH WANTED SOMEONE LIKE TINSCOTT. TIGHLY.

But you’d have to try. Here’s the other thing. You have to try.

Okay?

Is this I I can’t be I I can’t be on our little niche and did you ever drop the podcast? Like, be demanded to, like, you know, puff up somebody who’s not even trying. Right? Like, Tim Scott does not appear to me to be trying to be downtown. He’s got Larry, whatever.

His name is Alison, putting a bunch of money in and a few people in his ear, you know, tell him that he can do this, and and there’s a bunch of wish casters out there being like, maybe the party does want an optimistic vision. And it’s like, okay. Maybe it does. But you gotta, like, try to win And and if and if if if everything about your campaign smells like I’m trying to be Donald Trump’s VP, that doesn’t do a whole lot for me. Fair.

Yeah. That’s a it’s hard for me to be like, oh, man. I have an obligation to try to spin this, to help this guy. It’s like, okay. Try to try.

And I’ll I’ll give you an out of boy for that. But so far, what I’m seeing is somebody that’s trying to be Donald Trump around to say it as vice president, which is not exactly. My cup of tea.

TBL,

you we were asking a question before though that we should answer because which is, like, does the scientists run at this point? You know what? Sure. Let’s let’s

ask that. That’s exactly what I was gonna ask. It’s like you’re inside my head. I gotta

ask this on TV the other day, and I was like, yeah, he definitely does. And again, before twenty two, I was in the like, why would the scientist do this? He has four more years. Why would he sign up? But then Trump, like, looks so weak after the midterms, Ron DeSantis, you know, has this twenty point win, looks really good.

And I’m like, alright, he’s gotta do it. Now there’s no way. Here’s the thing. DeSantis cannot have cut ads with him in a bomber jacket acting like Maverick and say and and then God made a fighter and then bow out of this one. I don’t think he’s missed his moment per se.

I do think that, like, this is it though. Like, this is his shot. This is his time when he’s new enough. Yes, he’s young, but I don’t think he gets another crack at this if he doesn’t take it.

Right. He might wimp out, but I I which I don’t expect. I’m I think ninety eight point five percent chance Rhonda stages runs. You know, there’s always a reason something might happen. But, like, if he bounce

out, he’s Scott Walker because he’s too far he’s too deep. Right? Like, he could have bowed out last year and said, I’m gonna wait for next time, I’m gonna be a good

soldier, but now he’s like too deep in this now. I mean, he’s basically in a campaign either wants to admit it or not. And

he’s already effectively in the race. Yeah.

And so and so pulling out now would be, like, quitting like Scott Walker. Nobody there was nobody this time being, like, you know, maybe we should give Scott Walker another go.

Mean, the the reason people get a little twisted up around this, I think, is because two things are true at the same time. The first thing is Ron DeSantis’ chances of winning are declining, but also they are higher than they will ever be again. Right? Yeah. Even if they are declining.

And, you know, even if his chances go down to, like, one in five, that is still a better chance than he would ever have at some undetermined future in twenty twenty eight. Speaking

which, did you see that refinci Sarra and titan are fueled? I can’t

believe he even wrote that piece. I’m like mad. I I Can

you please tell me what I’m sorry. Catch me up.

It’s like if Donald Trump loses, he’ll run again in twenty twenty eight. And it’s a whole piece about Trump running again in twenty twenty eight because he would be the age Biden is about to be what he’s doing it and there is this, like, thing there was this part of me that was, like, you’re both right, Benjie Sarlen, and also screwed you for writing this piece. Like, what are you doing right now? Get out of here with this garbage.

Screw you because I should have written it. That’s all. As soon as I saw this, I was like, god, did I let Angie Arlin beat me to the chase. Yeah. That is so great.

Here’s the thing.

Anyway, kudos, Benjie, Ireland. Very rarely am I jealous of a take that’s out there and I’m like, I I should have been a tin take. But this wasn’t

it.

What I liked about that is it already presupposed Trump loses, which is nice. Number two, what’s funny about it is, like, there is something So I I was, like, mad, but there was this part of me that was, like, yeah, you know what? He’s with you until you die. He’s gonna rootburt livestock. He’s gonna live to be a thou and and Republicans are gonna have to deal with him around their necks, and that’s gonna be the price of accommodating him forever.

He’s gonna outlive Mitch McConnell And the What’s the downside of fumoring him? They’re all gonna find out. You’re

right. Yeah.

I do wanna say one thing about this. Did

you read the piece? Did you read it while? Would you even know we’re talking really quickly?

No. But I I wanna give you a peek into the future. Oh god. One of the knocks on Trump in the Republican primary will be Donald Trump is great, and we know he could win. But he could only serve one term.

Only for you. So shouldn’t you shouldn’t you I am telling you as sure as I’m sitting here right now. Trump is gonna be coy about whether or not he can only serve one term. This is strange. He’s gonna say something like, well, you know, a lot of people have said that I was treated so unfair during my first term that I should be given another term because it doesn’t even You should

try you should try at this.

That is that is one hundred percent coming.

He’s gonna say the last one was stolen for him, so he deserves you know, it is funny when I saw the title of that twenty eight thing, I thought that’s what it was gonna be about. I actually thought it was gonna be about how Trump was gonna say that he could do twenty eight too.

You know the voice. Right? The voice of it is a lot of people are saying, we’re gonna be looking into this. I’ll say something about this at a later date that’s gonna make everybody very happy because it’s gonna be very strong.

I hate it so much. This is why I hate everybody. I hate all these fuckers. When people were like, why are you still obsessed with this? I was like, I hate all of them for making me deal with this.

You are right. That is gonna happen, and everybody who got us here. Fuck them.

Alright. I wanna talk about Greg Abbott. Greg Abbott, governor of Texas, he announced earlier this week that he is going to pardon somebody. He vowed to pardon a convicted murderer. Spell name is Daniel Perry.

He was convicted to murder just last week. Literally, it just happened to me. Did he

murder cereal is this serial killer who killed serial killers? Because

I I like those. Those guys are gonna be okay. Alright. Let me let me just lay out the facts of the case for you guys and for everybody listening here. Okay?

Eye of twenty twenty, Daniel Perry was an active duty sergeant in the United States Army. He was working a side hustle driving for Uber. There were some Bulwark lives matter protests happening in the area of Austin, Texas, where he live. And when mister Perry woke up on the morning of July twenty fifth, he wrote in Facebook, quote, I might kill a few people on my way to work they are riding outside my apartment complex. He then drove to a Bulwark Lives Matter protest.

He ran to a red light and drove his car into the crowd there. But his car is a weapon against peaceful protesters, not rioters, but peaceful protesters. At this point, a guy named Garrett Foster, who was at the protest, approaches Perry’s car to tell him to stop attacking people with his vehicle. Mister Foster was open carrying an AK forty seven across his chest, which is legal in Texas. At which point, mister Perry shot and killed mister Foster.

Perry’s defense was he had a gun and I was reasonably afraid for my life. The jury did not buy this for a second. They convicted Perry of murder and, you know, like, thirty six hours later, Governor Greg Gapen announces that he intends to pardon this gentleman because it was out of control woke d a’s who brought the case never should have because Texas’s stand your ground laws are so sacrosanct. That this just can’t can’t be real. And so if you drive your car into somebody and somebody comes over to you to say stop trying to kill people with your car, if they have a gun, you can shoot them.

That’s great.

But they may have a gun because they also may be standing there ground or because there’s open carry laws, everybody can just have a gun. And so how are you —

The space ground is everywhere. —

everyone’s ground is everywhere. And

the launch of this is you should shoot first.

Yeah.

Right. Right. This is the logic of this position. And it’s insane and it is a little I mean, I don’t understand it. This is why I get whenever we have our second amendment conversations, I get really angry.

I think we talked about this couple weeks ago, and he said, why can’t these people just say, the truth of their position, which is that the second amendment is like the first amendment and that it’s gonna cause a bunch of really bad outcomes, but you have to support it anyway. And you like the first amendment you’re gonna get KKK marches in Skokie, Illinois. You like the second amendment, so you’re gonna get kids murdered in their schools. And I’m sorry, that’s just it. But the fact that they don’t say that tells me they don’t really mean it in the same way that things like this happen.

And it seems like where are the rights of the guy who is the Bulwark Lives Matter protester who was open, Kerry. It turns out, oh, he doesn’t get rights because he’s on the wrong side. He’s

a liar.

He’s a liar.

Can I

just make a quick point about the difference in the first and second amendment?

Yeah.

And why one, I think, should be absolutely unfettered in the other not? Because speech won’t kill people. There’s just such a difference. So, like, the k k cake in March, and we accept that as the price of free speech. And our free speech allows us to condemn that The problem with the second amendment and the idea that it should be completely unfettered access is that people die.

Like, the point of the free speech is actually to prevent violence. Because when people use their speech, they don’t use their other violent tendencies. Right? They have to talk about it. That’s why speech is so good.

And such such an important form. And so the Black Lives protests Black Lives Matter. People, they’re exercising a very important, their free speech rights, which is not violence. And this other person engaged in violence. Just know to make that distinction, throw it out there.

Yeah.

One other thing I’d throw out there on that is the nature of speech hasn’t actually gotten more powerful and virulent since seventeen seventy six. If anything, it’s maybe disintegrated. If you go back and, you know, read the federalist papers, our speech now is down a few notches from there, whereas the musket power has increased significantly since seventeen seventy six. That’s another key another key difference between the two amendments. Just two other quick thoughts.

One on the gun broadly. Did you see the story in Florida about the two guys driving with their girls in the back?

Oh, yeah. They had a shootout. See this? Yeah.

Both of them are packing. They have a road rage. They shoot at each other’s cars. Their kids both get hit. Both kids have to go to the hospital.

Both kids are injured. Neither of them die. Thank God. But, like, this is where we’re going. Like, this is the path we’re going in in

a constitutional carry world. Like, how do you not see that that is just inevitable that you run into more situations like this anyway. That’s just one thought of that one on the specific case. The

only thing I was gonna say is I saw something in in the vein of things on Twitter that are useful. I saw somebody on there making this distinction where like America’s always had guns but we didn’t always have gun culture, not the way we do now. And I think that that that to me was a crystallizing point because I talk about this is JBL a lot. Whenever we get into the guns about how I grew up around all kinds of guns. Like, they were just in people’s living rooms, like in a case, like displayed, their hunting rifles or whatever, like, next to the fireplace, like, whatever.

And so I didn’t have this fear of guns, but also there was not a gun culture that was, like, this is about how macho I am or, like, whatever. Like, people use them to go hunting or had them in the collector’s closet or whatever, but you didn’t hear people obsessing about their guns or talking about them or menacing each other with guns or having shoot

outs

places. That never happened. And so, like, The world has changed on this in terms of people’s sense of gun culture as a cultural signifier in a way that’s why it

ends. Right?

Yet but it’s tagged to a lot of toxic things. There

was a culture. Right? It’s just a different kind of culture. Right? That’s what you’re saying.

Yeah. What we have here, though, is our friend Damon Linker who is a contributor to one of the many great Bulwark podcast, which you can find at the bulwark dot com. Thanks Beg to Differ. He wrote about this, and he trotted out a a popular liberal explanation for what conservatism is. I’m sure you guys have read this on message boards.

There must be in groups whom the law protects but does not bind and out groups whom the law binds but does not protect. And that’s basically where we are with the second amendment too. Do you guys remember the case of Philando Castillo? And I was a black guy, right, driving by in Minneapolis with friend, his four year old daughter. He is legally carrying a firearm.

He’s pulled over by the cops at the very beginning of the interaction on the stop. He says to the officer, hey, so you know, I I have a firearm. I have, you know, the the cop starts screaming. Don’t pull it out. Don’t pull it out.

He says, I’m not pulling it out. I’m not pulling anything out and the cop then shoots him seven times. And the NRA said buckets about this. Right? Because the NRA is not interested in defending full handle Castile.

They’re interested in, you know, in March retailer Green and Thomas Massey and their their people. And that’s what all of this winds up being about. It’s about the in groups and the out groups. And — Yeah. — when the law itself is being used in states in this way, Like, my god.

Isn’t this a problem? I

was about to pull up

just bringing back to the text situation. Patrick Shovenek, who’s great. He tweeted this This were based on a careful review of the evidence in the jury’s decision. I’d be open to that making sense. But that’s not what this appears to be.

It appears to be solely in response to lobbying by prominent media figure. And that’s right. Like, this happened like this. It wasn’t like Greg Abbott said, oh, I’m gonna have some lawyer in our office go through all the evidence and we’re gonna have a review and we’re gonna

bring it to it. Right? Like, we’re gonna we you have a pardon committee for these types of things. Right? Like, we’re gonna review these certain cases, things that

whatever reason this looked like there were problems in the way the prosecution worked. It was twenty four hours from Tucker Carlson going on TV and saying this is an outrage

and saying we should defend these people and like that the black lives matter, whose riders are getting preferential treatment and there’s tiered system of justice targeting conservative bullshit. It’s the

next day that Abbott’s like, oh, yeah. We’re gonna we’re gonna pardon this. We’re gonna look into this. We’re gonna get this part and done. I mean, like, that is is the most specific evidence point for what you’re saying.

Right? Like, this has nothing to do with law. Right, when it’s somebody that has perceived to be on our side, you know, as having committed the crime.

Sarah, how long do Republicans get to pretends to be the party of law and order with voters? And for it to work. They

get to. I mean, they will continue to get to.

Voters are just gonna keep is this all just, like, hangover of the seventies? I

wanna answer this question. As long as the law and order people are on the side. As long as the police are on their side. Right? And so in some ways, this is how the Democrats play into it.

Right? It’s like, if we had Joey Biden doing his cop funeral thing that he was doing for a long time and he still will do. Maybe that’s different, but Yeah. The perception of law and order is not because, like, the mass population of Americans have some deep respect for the constitution and for the parchment paper. Right?

Or

for the neutral application of the law.

Right. Mall orders stand in for, like, the cops are on our team. We got the we have the flag now with the blue line on it. Like, we created a new American flag. Right?

So, like, that is what it is. That is what it’s about.

I grew that. And also, right, because that’s the FBI and the DOJ and all of these other, you know, Those are not law and order. Customer

No. You know,

I was doing a focus group the other night with Trump voters, and I was asked them about the indictment. And it was funny because there’s a bunch of polling that’s come out that I’ve seen shared by a lot of our friends. It’s like good news. Fifty six percent of people think Trump did something wrong, broke the law, whatever. And the people in the group, there’s like several kind of normies in there.

Some DeSantis folks, and they were saying, well, you know, look, if Trump really did it and there’s a and then a completely independent body finds him guilt and they also hold Hunter accountable and Hillary, and Biden, and the Clinton crime syndicate, then you could hold Trump accountable. The extent to which there’s a story that people have told themselves. People have told themselves a story that allows them to not do strictly law and order. It’s like law and order with caveats and also defund the people who are holding my people accountable because they’re corrupt,

I thought it’s the same poll. Someone who’s tweeting, some god love and resistance person who’s tweeting. It’s like thirty seven percent of Republicans even think what Trump did is bad. And I was like, wondering what percentage of that percentage think that that’s good. It’s good.

It’s good. It’s, like, eight percent of the thirty seven are, like, I think you did something bad and Yeah. Yeah. And then, like, another twenty percent of the thirty seven percent are, like, I think you could something bad, but we all but not as bad as Hunter. You know, and then there’s like nine percent of the thirty seven percent they’re like, he did something bad and that’s bad.

Right? So anyway, that was just a theory of mine. I’m glad that the focus groups have borne that out.

Good show, long show, guys. Thanks for coming and doing this. Go to the Bulwark dot com. Sign up for Charlie’s newsletter. Sign up for newsletter, go listen to all the podcasts.

We do them every day, sometimes two a day.

We’ve got a good guest on Sunday.

Oh, yeah. We got a very good guest coming on Sunday. Alright, guys. See you on Sunday. Bye.

Bye.