Bulwark Takes - Sarah Longwell: They Support Gun Rights—But Only for Republicans

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

Fresh off MSNOW's The Weekend with Catherine Rampell, Sarah Longwell explains why the killing of Alex Pretti is breaking through with voters—and why government lies and Second Amendment hypocrisy aren’t holding up.Watch The Weekend on MSNOW: https://www.ms.now/the-weekend

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Expert support. Lose more weight. Make it last. Get started today for as low as $25 at Weight Watchers.com. Hey guys, I just jumped off the weekend show over at MS now with a board colleague, Catherine Rampel, where we were talking about the outrage, the continuing outrage about what is happening in Minneapolis, the lies that our government officials are telling about it. But most specifically, I talked about the hypocrisy of the right now suddenly deciding that the Second Amendment is apparently only for conservatives. And so we have a little bit of a debate about what the Second Amendment is really there for, which is to protect Americans from the tyranny of their government, which is exactly what we're

experiencing right now. Go check it out. Joining us now, Sarah Longwell, publisher of the bulwark and host of the Focus Group podcast and full disclosure, the person who hired me at the Bullwork, and Baratunde Thurston, writer, host, and creator of the Speak Easy Substack newsletter. Why doesn't Alex Pretty get the same? pass that all of these other people do? Yeah, this is a question of whether the Second Amendment only applies to conservatives. But I want to talk about something that's bigger than just Republicans suddenly forgetting their

commitment to the Second Amendment because they're also forgetting their commitment to the First Amendment. Alex Pready had free speech rights to be out there protesting. He had Second Amendment rights to be out there. carrying a gun for which he had a permit. People have Fourth Amendment rights against illegal search and seizure, something that was inherent to people who came up on the right, and maybe at least remembers this, but they were always mailing us. If you were part of these organizations, they would send you these pocket constitutions constantly. I've got stacks of them from my time

coming up on the right. But when Donald Trump said that he would suspend the Constitution prior to the election in 2024, what we're seeing now is a wholesale abandonment of principles. Doesn't matter whether it's a second amendment, whether it's the First Amendment, whether it's the amendment that says Trump can't run for president again for a third term. There is a total disregard for the constitutional principles that underguard this, undergird this country from the very people who claim that they are the ones who take it serious. And so, yeah, I think there's a real sort of Second Amendment for me, but not for the going on right now. And there are attempts to smear and place blame on this young man who is doing nothing but exercising his First Amendment rights.

Sarah, you spend a lot of time doing focus groups with people on the right. And you get to hear their sort of inner thoughts, the way in which they're processing our politics, our culture in real time. A, I'm curious if you've already had conversations with some of these folks, or if not, what you are planning to ask them in the aftermath of all of this. Because as Bertuant just spelled out here, you know, in addition to just sort of the principles, the constitutional elements that back this story up, there is a simple sort of disturbing fact that the administration is telling us a story that directly contradicts what we can see with our own eyes. it's Orwellian, in a sense. At least at this time, perhaps they will give us body cam or additional footage that gives us new information or facts. But at this point, the story is not aligning with the evidence. And I guess for people who have warned and worried that we would come to a point where our government could turn on us,

ask us to accept lies, and also punish us for trying to protect ourselves or to carry arms or to exercise our First Amendment, how can any of this play with people who worried about this exact moment arriving? Yeah, so let's talk about the voters. So when it caught, if you were a call call, we were in this exact same situation three weeks ago. They shot a mother in her face who was trying to drive away. There was video footage. Everyone's trying to parse it, look at it, and the government lied then too, right? They immediately tried to frame the story in ways that turned out to be absolutely untrue.

But they made, they threw up enough smoke. There was sort of enough doubt with all the angles of the video about this question of whether or not the police officer that Renee Good when she was turning her car, did it look like she could have hurt him, right? Did he have fear for his safety? And so the voters sort of took in that confusion. They had a real sense, especially they were like, I'm sad she got hurt, but I'm just not sure. And it's hard to know with AI, what's true, what's not. here's the thing about this one. This one, it is not even remotely unclear.

It has clear as day what is happening. And so their stories are not holding up the same way. The government did the same thing. They came out and they lied about it immediately. Christine Nome lied about it. The president, Stephen Miller is lying relentlessly and smearing this victim in a way that is so callous and disgusting. I've almost never seen anything like it. And so, you know, for voters this time around,

I think it will be, especially when they happen so close in succession, it's going to be harder for people to just feel confused this time, even if they want to try to feel confused so that they don't have to take accountability for the government that they've been supporting. This one is clear cut, clear as day, no excuses. And I think you're going to see a different kind of backlash this time around. Sarah, I want to go back to something you said about how in focus groups with Trump voters, right? leading voters. With Renee Goods killing, there was so much confusion that they could easily dismiss it. They could say, well, this was a very confusing situation. The video, not necessarily definitive. It was easier to dismiss as an isolated incident. Do you think that that has changed now with Alex Prattie? And do you think that the fact that he was a lawful gun odor and was armed, and now Trump administrations are coming out with the most anti-second amendment arguments of basically, well, he was carrying a gun, he was at a protest, seemingly justifying shooting anyone who is lawfully carrying a gun.

Do you think that this is actually going to be a fissure within Trump's strongest supporters? I do. I think this is going to backfire on them. And let me tell you why, because there's something that people who are big fans of the Second Amendment understand, which is that the reason that people fight so hard to maintain our Second Amendment is because they fear the tyranny of the government, right? It is about being able to protect yourselves if jackbooted thugs are robbing you of your other constitutional rights. And this is very clearly what is happening in this video. And the reason that you were watching public opinion turn on this is for a few reasons. Number one, Democrats are finally finding

their spine on this in a bigger way. Democrats have got to start going on offense on these things. The American people will be with you if you show leadership in this moment. We've already seen tonight Jackie Rosen, who's a swing state senator, call for the impeachment of Christy Knoem. Democrats should do this. I understand that in the past people have felt like, oh, maybe this jumps the gun, maybe it's too aggressive. No, it's not. Americans do not want to see. Police, I'm sorry, they're not police officers. enforcement border patrol covering their faces in masks shooting americans in the streets for exercising their first amendment rights i'm watching a lot of people on the right trying to make excuses

trying to say that you can't bring a gun the fact is this isn't going to wash in public opinion especially if it keeps happening um and so i just i also want to reiterate the people of minnesota right now they are doing the work that everybody needs to start doing, right? People need to find their voice in this moment, the business community, Republicans, speak up for what's happening in our country, okay? That's what time it is.