Breaking News from Pod Save America - Jon Lovett and Tim Miller SLAM Trump's IDIOTIC Lies About The Iran War

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

Jon Lovett is joined by The Bulwark's Tim Miller to discuss Trump's update about the hottest country in the world, Scott Bessent praising the economy, Mike Johnson on the World Cup, Zohran Mamdani's work in New York, Stephen Miller trying to persuade Democrats, and a special surprise by Kelsey Grammer. CHAPTERS 1:48 - Trump update 10:13 - Scott Bessent 15:17 - Mike Johnson 25:34 - Stephen Miller 30:32 - Kelsey Grammer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hey everybody, welcome back to Speech Center. Tim. So much has been happening in the sports world. The Knicks, the World Cup, Bible verses on hats. You've been sick, so this is like your flu game today. How you doing? It's like my Jordan flu game. It's a good poll, good reference. John, I don't know which producer gave that to you, but they deserve a bonus. I've been doing great. I mean, soccer is a little gay for me and not in a good way. Right. And so I'm not really, I mean, I like it. I like the pageantry.

Now who's the gay? I like the, you know, I like the chanting. The actual ball and net stuff is a little bit boring for me. But the Knicks are thrilling. Well, so I've been going to Angel City Games. Okay. We're season ticket holders. And I've come to appreciate, to me, the problem with soccer is that you either can just watch highlights

and which is really the goals or the near goals, whatever. Or I feel like you have to watch the whole game. Because to me, what I've come to appreciate about it is, like, yes, there's a long time where nobody's scoring, and that's part of the experience. But I've come to appreciate in time is that what you're kind of watching is like, I don't know, just stalt feeling of who is putting more pressure on the other team. Like who is, who is like successfully kind of owning, I know, I've said, listen to me. Listen to me.

The foreplay. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway. You're liking the foreplay. A lot, you just want a long, sensual period of soft cuddling before you get down to business. Yeah, plus I'm enjoying soccer. All right.

So on today's show, the communists, on today's show, the socialists are taking over, Dilan. No, no, Trump's saying the communists are taking over. The communists are here? Yeah. All right, everybody look busy. Also, the peace talks with Iran continue, even though we can't even agree on what we're agreeing on. And we have an update from Trump himself. I think we had a really great meeting and we're very proud of the party.

We like our leader. We like everybody really in the room. I don't like a few people, but that's okay. I think you know who they are. We have the hottest country anywhere in the world. We're the most powerful. We're the smartest. We're the most respected.

Two years ago, we were a laughing stock all over the world. Everyone said, what we've done in a year and a half is a miracle. We have the hottest country in the world, and we want to keep it that way. We have more factories being built right now than we have at any point at any time in the history of our country. And all of those factories are opening up soon.

It's all jobs. And our job numbers are incredible anyway. I see that oil just broke the $70 number. Who would have thought that was going to happen? And that's during a war. And Iran is being very nice. They're agreeing to everything that I want. And they have to.

Otherwise, we just go back and do what we have to do. Thank you very much. That's an amazing run of different categories. to be just to be lying about first the meeting was apparently terrible uh there was a did you see the confrontation that apparently happened between bill cassidy and trump yeah uh do you want to fill people in on what happened well i saw that there was a confrontation where they were yelling at each other over trump was mad at him for voting uh for the war powers bill that was going to limit the war powers of the war in Iran that's not happening was that were there additional anecdotes that came out well one thing

that um manu raju posted was that apparently in the meeting uh bill cassidy was standing and Trump ordered him to sit down. Cassidy didn't sit down, called him brother. And then Trump said, I'm not your brother. And then apparently eventually he did sit down. Well, we just call people that in Louisiana. No, no, I know. Yeah, he's sort of, it was in a kind of. I got, I got this happened to me one time with a barista that I called brother. And they had a different, you know, gender identity than that. And I was like, this was really like intended to be genderized. I don't think that Bill Cassidy was intending. it as, you know, anything, you know, as an attack on Donald Trump's status is a non-honorific. I think it's just kind of how we talk. Yeah, I think it's a bit patronizing, right?

Is it a little bit, well, I think the way he said it, I imagine you're saying, it's a little bit like, bless your heart, you know? Like when someone calls somebody pal in the, you know, with a little bit of edge to it, listen, pal. Like, that's not, the word itself is not meant to be negative, but the familiarity is about, has a contempt to it. Well, that's fair. I wasn't there.

And hopefully it did have a little contempt. Donald Trump deserves contempt. But no, the meeting did not go well. And then he comes out, this is one of his favorite things that he goes to immediately. He's running out of phrases. So he's like recycling through all the same ones. And one of the ones that is just his old reliable, like an old crutch that he goes to is, before I came in, everybody is laughing at us.

nobody thinks about people laughing at them and whether they're laughing at them or not laughing at them more than Donald Trump and that does that exude confidence to me somebody that's very confident in their standing and feels good about what they're up to and you know it feels like they're acting in their own integrity and as self-actualized

I don't think that type of person is generally thinking are people in Portugal laughing at me right now? What's happening? Hey, how is this playing in Geneva? Are there some Greeks laughing at me over Taziki in this moment? Famously, there's an aphorism that's often attributed to any leader you want on like brainy quotes. It's always like Gandhi once said, and I'm not sure that he did. But, you know, first they laugh at you. You know, that's sort of the sometimes being laughed at, right, is from a place of,

oh, they don't understand what's coming because I'm so sure of what I'm doing that people are undermining me or thinking I'm stupid. You know? But I don't think that's Trump's energy. also manufacturing jobs are down. They're down. They are down. We have lost manufacturing jobs. We're building new plans, but they're all the data centers that everybody hates. Yes, they will be policed by the robots. They will be served by the robots. Robots, listen, a nation of the robots by the robots for the robots is our future.

Big, whirring dynamos of economic growth in which there's no one there. There's a kind of a guy walking around saying, this lights out. One other miss there I want to point out, since. this is the speech center, and the original point of this, was that we were going to critique speeches, was a big opportunity missed there when he said that the gas prices got below 70 to just saying that the gas prices got to 69.

Yeah, the oil prices, the oil prices. Yeah, the oil prices, excuse me. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's right there for him. Yeah, it's right there. It's sitting right there. You know, he likes a double entendre, and he just does a whiff.

You know, it's like the oil prices got down to 69. Who would have thought we'd got down there? You know, there were plenty of opportunities for him. He didn't take. And I guess on the substance of it, it's also worth noting that oil prices were well below 69 before the war started. Yes. We have not yet achieved anything post-war in which the world is a better place than it was pre-war. I think you could, look, the exchange for destroying some of Iran's military capacity has been giving Iran control over a vital waterway that it can assert at any time.

time in perpetuity and plans to. I don't think that's a good exchange, but you could make an argument that there's some benefit to destroying Iran's military. That wouldn't have been my plan, but I can understand the argument. But other than that, maybe we'll get inspectors in. Those inspectors were in under the previous agreement. We've lifted sanctions that have been in place since 1969, sanctions that previously were only to be removed in the event that Iran's behavior and ambitions shifted, which we're doing in advance now. So, you know, no. It's a no on that. Well, kind of a parochial mindset of you love it. Things are better in Oman than they were before the war. Oman now gets to be, have joint custody over the Strait of Hormuz. And it's a nice benefit for the

people of Oman. You think the people will benefit from that? You think it's going to trickle down to the people of Oman? You think? Maybe. Maybe. A little. Maybe a little. Tricle down economics. And by the way, this meeting more broadly is part of a, it was described by some reporter as a venting session, in part because Trump, he was supposed to sign this housing bill, this bipartisan housing bill, all the Republicans thought he was going to go and sign it. And then he pulled it saying he's not going to sign it until they pass his Save Act, which doesn't have the votes and is meant to federalize elections and make it so that Republicans can't lose. It is a punishment to these guys, though, because all they want is to have a press conference where Daddy pats them on the head. I mean, they're all just like little lost boys who want Daddy's approval, and they don't actually care about the substance of the housing bill. What they wanted was to be able to get validated by Daddy Trump, and then also to have some pictures that they could show. show to their constituents and friends about how good they did and how Mr. Trump is happy with them. And so, you know, by withholding that, I would say that Trump, that's a real card that Trump has

to use one of his phrases. I wonder what's going to happen with that. I don't know. I mean, I wonder what happens if a bill they all voted for. Trump suddenly just says he's against and then it has to go for an override. And suddenly all these Republicans are changing their votes for no reason other than Trump's mercurial shift. We're ahead of it. I doubt he'll do that because he said to Mike Johnson,

nobody cares about housing. Yeah, that's true. He said to Mike Johnson privately that nobody cares about housing, which shows how, you know, close Trump is to the pulse of the people. Yeah.

To young voters in particular. Nobody at all is concerned about housing prices in the country. Definitely not homeowners or people trying to buy a house or people trying to sell a house or people trying to get a bigger house. But, you know, I think that probably if you take him his word on that, then he, like,

I would be happy to just who cares. not do the ceremony. Right. Punish them that way. Up next, here's Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, reassuring us on CNBC that our international relations are staying strong through dollar dominance. Dollar dominance is essential and everything President Trump is doing here, you know,

if you look, the new Venezuela is invoicing in dollars. They're coming back onto the dollar system. They were selling discounted oil to China and not getting dollars. You know, we're seeing in the Iranian negotiations, the Iranians will be invoicing in dollars. So everything we are doing is pushing the dollar the back. It's never left as the centerpiece for the global currency system, but we're reinforcing it.

You know, I would anticipate when the Russia-Ukraine conflict ends, that Russia will want to come back in the dollar system. The great thing about the United States is we course correct when we go too far one way or the other. And I think we should not be shy about flexing where we have advantages and where we have advantages share with our allies and push back on those who are not aligned with us. Flexing. Flexing. Yeah. So the dollar as the global reserve currency being one of America's great advantages that bestows upon us, it's basically like a little bonus that we get for our economy that Trump.

Trump and these doofuses have been jeopardizing as our chaotic, unreliable, bellicose, bullying behavior leads people to seek refuge in the euro, in other currencies, risking something that a lot of people just take for granted. And Scott Bessent knows that, which is why his two examples happen to be countries we're in the middle of buttonholing into Venezuela. we grabbed the leader in the dead of night. Iran were in these intense negotiations with. Do you have other examples that you might want to suggest Scott Besson in which we're not currently in some kind of a conflict or no? And by the way, your other option being, I'm sure

Russia will want to get back on the dollar after the Ukraine war ends. When's that going to be, my guy? When's that day? And who could stop that? When are we meeting in Versailles for that one, buddy? For just one second there, I thought you were about to start to wax poetic about Bretton Woods. No, no, not today. Just for a second. Not today. Not today.

I thought it was coming. I felt like you were winding up to it. You know, the other thing I just would say about the Venezuela, Iran turning to greenbacks, I do think, you know, the pitch to the forgotten man to the American people before these two military conflicts, if it was, you know, we're going to engage in two expensive and risky military operations in Venezuela and Iran. We're going to send our troops into harm's way. Some of them will eventually die. we're going to spend a lot of resources and military material.

And like the end game for it is that when we're trading oil with Iran and Venezuela in the future, it's going to be on greenbacks again. I don't know that that sale would really be landing with that many people. You know, it doesn't feel like something that the Hawks would have been that excited about.

Now that we're going to get Iran just back into the system, people can just buy Ayatola oil with dollars now. It seems like the hawks wouldn't like that, and it feels like the doves would think that this was kind of stupid for us to get into military conflict over this. And I feel like regular people are like, well, I'm a little bit more concerned about how far my dollar's going. So I don't know.

But maybe it's making sense to the people on the CNBC squawk box. Yeah, I think it's more for the squawk box heads. And by the way, I think it's an important note that it's only Ayatollah oil if it comes from Iran. Otherwise, it's sparkling crude. And so something to keep in mind. But yeah, I don't know that these arguments about, you know, the dollar as the reserve currency are really moving the needle. But I will say that, like, I care about it in part because the decadence of this era is squandering the hard-built structures that allowed us to become the most prosperous nation in the history of the world.

Did you see this? When you ask people in the UK, you know, if you had to compare the UK as an economy to an American state, what American state would we be like? And they all assume they'd be like one of the richest American states. But actually, it turns out the United Kingdom would be the poorest American state. Yeah, they're worse than Mississippi. Because the scale of American wealth is just sort of not, it's taken for granted. And that's been part of the people coming to the World Cup and being like, holy shit, this food is amazing. What do you mean?

You got free refills. You know, there's a lot of good here. Look at bounty. You know, Trump and Besson are playing with fire. Even what he says there, like we need to assert our dominance, use our advantages, leverage. It's like, how many different ways are you going to try to leverage our advantages? You're doing it with tariffs. You tried to bullying NATO into using your air bases for the Iran war.

You're trying to take over Greenland. You're eating your seed corn, you know? I'm sorry to use a Hillary Clinton analogy, but it's what came to mind. You'll be surprised to hear. I don't recall that iconic Hillary Clinton analogy. I think we only used it when she was in Ireland. Next up, we have Mike Johnson decrying the radical laugh for ruining the country's moment to host the World Cup. Right now we're triumphantly hosting the World Cup games all around the country.

And we're seeing people from different countries come and get a little taste of America, a little taste of freedom of our culture and our society, and they appreciate it so much more than these socialists running for Congress. Dutch travelers are in all buckies. German players took a midnight trip to the Waffle House. It's the greatest thing you ever seen. People from Europe and Latin America, many countries around the world, many of whom grew up under repressive state-controlled economies. They've never known freedom. They've never known these kinds of things. And they're seeing them for themselves.

the genius of America's system. That's what the Republicans stand for. That's what French Hill fought for in the housing bill to give more people a chance. To restore the American dream, that's what we promise to the voters, and that's what we are delivering. And it is a sad irony, and I'm so disturbed this morning. Y'all know me, I'm a happy warrior.

I like to be optimistic. Visitors around the world marvel at what our free system of free enterprise is built, while rising socialist, Marxist, Democrat candidates are trying to tear the system down. He sounded so gay at the beginning of that video. Maybe that book, it's so funny that you say that Because maybe that's why I was going to say

That I was kind of liking his spunkiness A little more than usual Somebody put a little Maybe he got that quad shot There was just a little Frappuccino this morning You wanted to do that at the end of it Like he wanted like that was like

There was like a little bit of that in his In his voice The Germans went to the Waffle House Boom Sis Yeah You know it's like go off queen You know, the world is loving America and I'm loving it.

I don't know that why he's turning the Germans enjoying the waffles and the Swedes enjoying the hot dogs into an attack on what's happening in three districts in New York. But let them add it. Yeah, I mean, there's... Let's hear it. Some of the candidates in New York had a couple bad takes. For sure. I hate to agree with Mike Johnson on anything. But, you know, there's some bad takes happening.

That said, this is why... Could have we let the narrative get away from us? As a former Republican, I feel like I'm going to try to do some teaching for the Democrats now. Pull up a chair. Pull up a chair. Pull up a chair. A Republican is teaching us. Yeah.

Instead of bemoaning the way the Republicans are using these kind of rhetorical tools to make the Democrats look bad and how they're being a little unfair when they're doing it and how it's a little condescending or whatever. Can't we just do the same thing? Say, well, yeah, I guess it is true that they were enjoying the Waffle House, but we have Waffle House in blue cities. We have Waffle House in Los Angeles. We've been hosting many matches and the beautiful cities of Los Angeles and Seattle. San Francisco, the places that you say are decrepit wastelands. But instead, the players from Senegal and Iran and Norway and the Netherlands have come to our coffee shops. They have eaten at our farm to table restaurants. They have walked our walkable cities, ish. And they're loving that

part of America as well. And we're all America. And why is it Mike Johnson that is trying to turn us against each other? Why is it he that only loves the parts of America that don't look askance at him when he talks with a southern accent that also has a lisp. Yes, I would go further. I would say, even further. Great. I'll go further than that. I'm just pitballed.

It's the first draft. I'm going to build on it. I'm going to build on it. I'm going to build on it. You know what? We love America. Democrats love America. We're fighting for America against people that we think are trying to undermine it.

One thing people are loving when they visit this country, they're having great tacos in Los Angeles. They're going to Thai town. They're having great Korean food. They're having a waffle. You think we invented the fucking waffle? No, it came with the immigrants that built this incredible, vibrant country filled with incredible vibrant cultures that together make all of us richer and better off.

And that's what makes America a wonderful and amazing place. And thankfully, Trump wasn't able to so fuck up our immigration system that people didn't feel safe coming here to watch these games. But these people are traveling to this country at a time in which immigrants and visitors don't feel safe here in part because of his policies. he does not appreciate what it makes America great and never has. And that said, I agree. Some of the things that that candidate in New York posted were very stupid. What do you think the white South Africans are adding to the culture? Okay? Nothing. Nothing.

All right. Hey, what's your favorite South Africaner food? What's your favorite? Tell me about it. Tell me one thing about Afrikaners besides the racism. Here are the two things I want to get off my chest about all this. okay for the two things I want to get off my chest about the DSA winning in New York oh okay we're going to do that now yeah can we do it we can if you are one of these people that is on background lamenting that these people won first of all either put your name on it or shut the fuck up but also what do you mad about they are saying this is what we believe we are democratic socialist this is our agenda and it is getting a lot of people excited now you can be worried about that but my question would be why do you think people are turning to that versus what establishment candidates are offering because I'll tell you you're

not going to get people to vote for those center-left candidates by criticizing the DSA to death. You need to have something you're offering that's compelling because there are all these people that are mad about Graham Platner. They're mad about what's happening in New York. They were mad about Mamdani. Well, you put up Andrew Cuomo against Mamdani. You put up a person that would have been older than Joe Biden for the Senate in Maine. You put up a creaking politician who's been around forever and not particularly inspiring in New York. If you want the center of left to prove that it has energy and enthusiasm. How about you get some candidates that can tell a story that excites people and inspires people because especially in a very left, very Democratic

district in which there's really no hope of Republican winning, you have an inspiring candidate on the far left. You have a lukewarm candidate in the center. Lo and behold, people would rather be inspired and excited. You got to give people an option. Stop asking people to vote for someone just because you think they should, even if they're not super excited about. Just stop do it. Like, that's your fault. That's on you, you know? That's my first point. point. Second point. I agree with that. I have no notes on that point. Second point. On the other hand, for a good reason, the DSA has been built to fight Democrats, right? It's a factional battle in a Democratic area. I totally get that. That makes sense. And I'm glad that people are like walking

back some of their most anti-democrat, kind of heinous shit that they posted. Just for an example, people aren't familiar. Deri Liza Chevalier, DAC, who won. She said, fuck Kamala Harris in 2021. and she called Joe Biden a rapist when she was attacking him. And so that's not really what you do as a team player. So she's now in the same way people said grand plan or deserved a chance to apologize and explain and grow. I think the same thing should be afforded to other people who maybe were posting at times in which they did not see themselves as national political figures.

Fine. But to me, it's like a signal problem in that the more power and attention and responsibility that members of the DSA get through success, through earned success, the more they have a responsibility to see themselves as part of a coalition with Democrats and to take that responsibility really seriously. I think AOC does. I think Bernie does. I think a lot of the leaders do.

And so I think that to me is like really important. I'm glad she walked back those comments. But you're going to have a responsibility to moderate members, whether you like it or not, whether you like it or not. And no, you should not, you know, trim your sales because you're worried about a kind of unfair attack from Fox News. But like I do think everyone seeing themselves like Jamie Harrison is posting dumb to me like dumb shit attacking the left saying that you but as if the voters themselves aren't the one deciding

the direction of the party like the Democratic Party exists to serve the voters, not the other way around at the same time, I think people on the left that are gaining power like our job is to come together to figure out how to defeat Republicans. And at times that's going to mean negotiating our differences and like deciding on a path together and that's not always easy, but that's the that's the job, you know. On the positive side, look, a lot of this is also, Zoron's been a fucking awesome mayor. Yeah. So far, he could, you know, he could hit a roadblock at any point.

But he's focused mostly on making people's lives in the city better. He has kind of eschewed some of his, like, more ideologically whatever, motivated parts of the mission or like the activist parts of the stuff and like folks on being a practical sewer socialist type mayor. He's also super charismatic. And so, like, it's not that surprising that somebody that, that he and, endorsed the slate of candidates and a lot of people in New York are like, man, I'm excited about this guy, he's a mayor, I'm on board with his team and his program, I'm going to vote for his slate. And so I think that probably some percentage of the voters are the people that voted for those DSA candidates are like DSA, you know, whatever, putting on there like Antifa, uh, uh,

Caffillas, great, whatever, if that's what you are. But I think that there are also some people that were probably just like, I'm excited about this new movement within the party and aren't exactly like fully on board with, you know, the craziest stuff that these people said. Yeah, seizing the means of production and abolishing borders and all the police. It was like, we shouldn't even have prison for murderers. It's like, okay, I guess that's a pretty unpopular position. Yeah. And we'll see how that plays out in Congress.

As we go through this process, I think that a lot of people have like really, you know, passionate, factional views on like which way things should go. And, you know, I think that it is important that we can maybe all come together and say, hey, we don't want to redo the Hillary Biden-Combollah campaigns again. We want to try something fresh. We want to try something that's future-oriented. But like there should be a couple. I'd like to see some other flavors presented

that might be more palatable to, you know, your median voter in Scranton than abolish prisons. And I want to wipe my dirty fingers on the American flag. Now here's Stephen Miller on Hadidon, where he also condemns the radical left and claims that the Democratic Party, wasn't always this way. I wonder how Stevens looking these days.

I haven't seen it all. This will be interesting. Maybe he's had a glow-up. Look, we used to have a country. You could pick what time period. Maybe, say, the 1980s, where you had a center-left Democrat Party, really a center, I would say, a center-to-center left

with many members who were actually center-right. These were called Reagan Democrats or Blue Dog Democrats. And over time, the Democrat Party has abandoned all of that, and they have instead adopted this radical, revolutionary and in many cases violent ideology

that wants to tear America down and destroy everything that we know and love from top to bottom, right? Living in a state of total anarchy without police, without law enforcement, where criminals can rape and maim and murder with impunity, where your kids are taught from the age of two to hate America,

to hate their God, to hate their parents, to hate their family, to even hate their own gender. Ultimately, what President Trump is doing and what he is leading is an America First Movement that says we need Democrats to come vote for us to leave that insanity because ultimately that's just a death knell for America. The Quasimodo shoulder situation is weird.

He's like we have a droop. Angle. The droop. Yeah, it's a very, well, he tilts somehow. It's like a tilt that he likes to do. I don't know who's that place for at this point. I mean, there was a poll that came out today or yesterday that showed that even strong support for Donald Trump is now down to 16%, which is remarkable.

He had this core base of superfans that never seemed to leave him. They do seem to be less enthusiastic. I think the moment in which Stephen Miller could persuasively argue to Democrats to come over and vote with us to save the country has passed. Yeah, I also think the pitch, like when you're just kind of picturing your mind, like the ability of somebody who come in the streets of America and kind of rape and pillage and maraud Americans with impunity, I think that the first image that comes to most people's mind there

would be the ICE agents that Stephen Miller sent into the cities of the country. not whatever imaginary world he's trying to create about the Democrats. And it kind of goes back to the Mike Johnson thing. This is this intention, right? The idea that these Democrats want to have these like lawless cities where your girls are raped. And then also isn't amazing how much everybody loves the World Cup who's come to these same cities. Yeah. Donald Trump really is an online phenomenon because none of this works.

for people that are actually going to these places and experiencing these places. This works for people who are consuming a version of New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, mediated by right-wing media and mediated by right-wing algorithms on Facebook and other social media. Platforms, that's who it works on.

These are people that are, they're watching this stuff at home, they're posting, they're reading posts, they're donating from their couch, they are consuming, but entirely via screens. They're not in the world. It's why whatever Trump rally he's going to have for the nation's birthday, it's going to be sparsely attended. You know, he got the best he could do is that insurrection. And, you know, those guys did a lot of damage.

Those did those, did a lot of damage. But they didn't shut down Washington, D.C. It wasn't an orange revolution. They don't have the guys. They just don't have the guys. It's actually what makes these Republicans so embarrassing. It's because they've basically capitulated to Donald Trump as if he has brown shirts. Yeah, right.

That's the thing that pisses me off the most. We're way off topic. now. But I do, that's like the safe complaint when I go to these stupid panel discussion things, which I try to do, which is when people are like, well, you know, on the one hand, it's like, why don't the ribbons of spines? There's always a person that's like, well, they're scared. They're afraid of their family. And I'm just like, are they? It's revealing, right? Because this is, I think, one of Trump's strengths. Hypogracy to him is so interesting because he doesn't really experience it because he doesn't have values. Right. Right. Hypogracy, when people are doing

hypocrisy, it's because they have values. They're not living up to them. They don't care enough about them. And so he really exploits people's hypocrisies, both the hypocrisy where their actual values are different and the hypocrisy where those values are very lightly held. And so he can go to a liberal college and discover, oh, it turns out they're not as liberal as they said. You can go to a law firm that claims to fight for people. Oh, turns out they'll bend at the first sign of trouble. You go to a news organization controlled by a company that promised to preserve their independence and the value and prestige that it had. And oh, it turns out, no, they don't give a fuck about that. And so Trump exploits that and he exploited that with Republicans because it turns out the idea of

of the Congress as being a bulwark against executive overreach. It's just a very lightly felt thing. They don't really care about it. Nothing they're going to get their hands dirty for, nothing that they're going to take on any risk to protect. But, yeah, I mean, nice if the executive respected the laws and respected Congress's prerogatives over the purse, but they're not going to get their hair must over it.

No, they don't get yelled at the tailgate. They're not afraid that they're going to get killed. Now, before we go, Tim, we have one last clip. Here's one of our unsung political orators. I don't know what this clip is, for the record, speaking the truth on live television. Joins us now. How you doing, Kelsey?

Oh. Good, Tessie. How are you? I like the monologue. Thank you very much. Very nice, man. So why can't we have nice things? We can, and most Americans understand that we can and should.

There is a virus that has infected a very small number of people, I think, who just want to tear things down. They've been a... consumed by hatred and of course hatred ends up basically destroying you. I pray for them, I pray for everyone to find decent sentiment in their hearts about this country and about the people who run it these days and about those who love it. And it's great that we've been given this chance to see it in the eyes of so many of

our European fellows and South American fellows and this whole idea of out of many we are one is one of the greatest things in the world. It's by definition a diverse nation, but we have a unifying concept that everybody's worth reaching for the moon, and America will help you do it. Other than the context of him being on Jesse Waters, sort of an unobjectionable sentiment, I would say. It could almost have been read as a critique of Jesse, except for the one line about how people should have charity towards the people who run the country.

No, I heard that. The one spot we're like, this is so far about Trump, Kelsey. Feels like a critique of primetime Fox. Does it give you any sadness as a longtime Frazier superfan to have to watch Kelsey? Do you think there's any parallels toward like how I feel about, you know, kind of former Republicans that I had worked for that I thought were better than they were? That's interesting. Well, first of all, I can separate the art from the artist. And it's interesting to think who Frazier and Niles would have been for and who Martin Crane would have been for.

Because, you know, Frazier and Niles, man, first of all, Blue. Blue no matter who. That's just a no brain. They would have just been Blue no matter who. I do think they would have been a kind of maybe Bill Maher consumer concerned about the left going crazy. But real P. Buttigieg fans, I think there's a maybe Warren, but I think they're Buttigieg type voters, if I were to guess. Do you think Niles may be dealing with his own internalized issues might struggle to choose a gay. I feel like it would give away the game a little bit. It's interesting because Nile's yearning for Daphne was pure and real. He was genuinely horny for Daphne.

He wanted to absolutely rock Daphne's bones. So whatever the actor may have brought to the performance, the character was a hound dog. I mean, he blew up his life. I don't know. I mean, it could. He blew up his life for Daphne. It could be a one-off.

He could be just a homosexual that has just a particular passion for Daphne. That's true. Or perhaps he put her on a pedestal as this magical creature to avoid facing the feelings that he was having. So maybe you're right, maybe that might have pushed him towards another candidate in the primary. But Martin Crane to me is the question, right?

Because a gruff, old school guy probably receptive to Trump maybe the first time. But also strikes me as the kind of person that hopefully would have walked away. I have to have a more bleak view of you. And I think Martin is a clear three-time Trump voter. Wow. I think Kelsey, I see Kelsey maybe as a blue no matter who threw COVID. and then finding himself radicalized by some of Seattle's stringent rules. Oh, I see.

You think he was annoyed. And he becomes kind of, he's a talk radio host, so he becomes kind of a shock jock, sort of lamenting the kind of lefty authoritarianism that you're seeing among them in the city. When the opera's closed, the opera's closed, he's annoyed about that. Or he has to wear a mask to the opera, but the singers don't have masks. So why do we have mass? I can see that.

very annoyed about that. He tries to run for the board to suggest that we've already tested. Why are we wearing masks at the opera? Hillary Biden-Trump. Maybe. Fuck. Fuck. That could be. Tim Miller, everybody go follow the bulwark. Go listen to the bulwark pod. Catch Tim on the ones and twos. Basically, you know, he's on he's on the ones and twos for the algorithm on YouTube for democracy itself. So, you know, played through sick. Still got the 50 points. I think he had 52. Jordan flu game points two gays figuring this out ooh not even close 38 38 still great 38 points 38 7 and 5 better than I could do as healthy as a as healthy as an ox better than I could do all right let's end this thing