No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen - Democrats score surprise wins ahead of 2024

Episode Date: July 16, 2023

Democrats get good news on congressional maps ahead of the 2024 election. Brian interviews the Bulwark’s Tim Miller about whether there’s a lane for anti-Trump Republicans in the GOP, whether Biden’s age would actually prevent him from getting votes even when put up against Trump, and the impact that Threads will have on Twitter.Donate to the "Don't Be A Mitch" fund: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dontbeamitchShop merch: https://briantylercohen.com/shopYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/briantylercohenTwitter: https://twitter.com/briantylercohenFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/briantylercohenInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/briantylercohenPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/briantylercohenNewsletter: https://www.briantylercohen.com/sign-upWritten by Brian Tyler CohenProduced by Sam GraberRecorded in Los Angeles, CASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we're going to talk about some really good news for Democrats as we look ahead to 2024, and I interviewed the bulwarks Tim Miller about whether there's a lane for anti-Trump Republicans in the GOP, whether Biden's age would actually prevent him from getting votes even when put up against Trump, and the impact that threads will have on Twitter. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie. Let's talk about some good news here. We've gotten a raft of court decisions that may very well allow Democrats to flip the House in 24. So just days ago in like the single most consequential decision this cycle, an appeals court

in New York ordered the congressional maps to be redrawn. Here's a bit of background. New York relies on an independent redistricting commission to create its maps. But ahead of the last midterm cycle, ahead of 2022, when that commission met to draw new district lines, it was deadlocked along party lines. So it got to the point where the commission wouldn't even meet anymore. And so the Democratic legislature took over the process and drew its own lines, which were of course favorable to Democrats. Republicans sued, and New York's highest court sided with Republicans, opting to give control of the maps to a Republican-leaning, neutral mapmaker. And what followed was that Republicans flipped four seats in the 2022 midterms.

But in this most recent court decision, the judge ruled the lines drawn by that third-party mapmaker were only meant to be temporary, meaning it'll now be up to the independent redistricting commission to meet, quote, forthwith, which basically means now. If that commission deadlocks, it'll then be up to the legislature, which, again, is controlled by Democrats to redraw the maps. And this time, the court won't appoint a third party to step in. And of course, Republicans seeing this have now promised to appeal the decision to New York's

highest court, which is called the New York Court of Appeals, but it's basically New York's Supreme Court. And whereas this is the same court that ruled against the Democrats ahead of 2022, remember that Governor Hockel has since appointed a new liberal judge onto that court. And the chief judge, who is now also a liberal, was one of the judges who dissented from that 2022 decision. So while nothing is certain, it looks promising that Democrats will be able to undo this Republican gerrymander in New York. And that's a decision that could net Democrats between four and six seats in the House in 2024, just in New York alone. And remember, Republicans currently

have a five-seat majority. So that alone may be enough to flip the House, but there was another court case that could lead to another round of seats for Democrats. In June, the Supreme Court in Allen versus Milligan struck down Alabama's congressional map for violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, prohibits the dilution of the voice of minority voters. So as a result, the Alabama legislature is now redrawing its congressional maps with a second minority majority district so that black voters can elect a candidate of their choosing, meaning that we're certain to see another Democratic seat in Alabama. Milligan, that case, also impacted Louisiana, which will now also have to draw a second

minority majority district, which means there will be another Democratic seat added in that state. The decision is also likely to impact Georgia, whose congressional and legislative maps both violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The judge in the case challenging Georgia's current maps have requested briefings now from both parties in light of that Milligan decision. Texas may also see as many as half a dozen districts impacted because of this decision.

In total, across the country, there are 32 active Section 2 lawsuits across 10 states, which not only offers a lot of hope in terms of fair maps for 2024, but it really does underscore the extent to which Republicans have relied so heavily on rigged maps to take control of the House this cycle. And that's a house, by the way, that has plunged our government into dysfunction because, you know, Republicans have decided to use their majority to obsess over Hunter Biden.

So, whereas the Democratic House last cycle passed the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act and the infrastructure package and the gun safety law and the PACT Act and the Chips Act and ensured that the U.S. would have the fastest economic recovery of all G7 countries and the lowest inflation of all G7 countries and the most jobs added in the shortest amount of time in U.S. history. Now we're still. with the Republican majority, whose top priority is gas stoves. And there's a Republican majority, by the way, that they shouldn't even have. And look, I do want to draw one caveat here. None of this is to say that Democrats have this thing in the bag. What this does is give us the opportunity

to flip these seats, whereas before, these districts were basically scientifically engineered so that Democrats couldn't win. But we still need to turn out. Remember, if Republicans nominate Trump, that guy is a turnout machine. So while Democrats did overperform in midterms when Trump wasn't on the ballot, we may not have that luxury in 2024. So we've got signs of life here, but it's still on all of us to make sure that we bring this thing home. Next step is my interview with Tim Miller. Now we've got writer and podcast host at the bulwark. Tim Miller, thanks for coming back. Hey, brother. Good to be back with you. Thanks. All right. So let's jump right into the Trump of it all here to start. Let's get the bad stuff

out of the way first. Who's that? Yeah. So there's this prevailing notion here that, Trump's indictments are going to be making him stronger by virtue of, like, buttressing this idea that he's a martyr. And so him being indicted, him being possibly convicted is going to ultimately redound to his benefit, right? You're in that whole quasi-Republican world. I don't know. Not too deep into that world anymore. But, you know, you, you know, obviously host a show where there's a lot of former Republicans. You work with Sarah Longwell, who runs focus groups at the bulwark. In reality, is there any evidence that, to suggest that Trump being indicted, Trump possibly being a convicted felon, would in any way

actually help him when it comes to the general election? Oh, the general election? No, I certainly don't think so. But, you know, he's got to get to the general election first, right? And I do think that this is based on the idea that in the primary we've seen, particularly that Bragg indictment, a lot of people rallied to their man, you know? It's the whole stand-by-your-man effect. And I think that there was a little bit of that following the brag indictment.

But that was, the brag indictment, I feel like, is different from the DOJ indictment and the possible Fulton County indictment. Yeah, for sure. And so I think that the Republican, but Trump's bump within the Republican primary voters happened after the brag indictment, though. And that then coincides with DeSantis, like having his failure to launch with Elon. And so now the question is, do these additional indictments hurt him with the big middle of the Republican primary? So this is the group that matters, right? There's the third. 35% that are in a cult. There's 15% that are going to be with Mike Pence or Tim Scott or whoever, somebody else. Some of them are with DeSantis. And then there's the big middle, 50%. They liked Trump. They thought he was a good president, but they aren't sure if they want to stick with him. Will these additional indictments move those people? So far they haven't. So I think that right now, there's reason to believe that Trump could easily still become the nominee in spite of being in trial. Now, does this help him in a general election? Are you insane? Like, he might,

have to be in court. You can't campaign when you're a criminal defendant. I mean, there's some logistical elements to this that will hurt. And then we just live through the midterms where across the country, the most insane pro-insurrection, pro-coup Republicans were rejected. I was in Arizona a bunch for the circus. We saw this with Carrie Lake and Blake Masters. You saw it with Herschel Walker, Doug Maseriano in Pennsylvania, right? These people were punished for their association with Trump's anti-democratic action. there's no reason to believe those same voters will then want to be for Trump in the face of additional criminal activity even since the midterm.

So obviously I don't think it helps them in the general at all. So, I mean, is the primary that much in doubt on Trump's behalf that he has to lean into this whole martyrdom thing with these indictments? Like, shouldn't he be, I mean, he's polling like 30 points ahead of his closest rival. And granted, you know, we've both seen, we both like called races for Hillary Clinton that didn't pan out that way. But is the primary that much in doubt that he has to lean into the martyrdom of it all? I think that Trump acts like a savage beast.

He's an animal who acts instinctively. And if he feels that he's being persecuted, he is going to lash out, right? And I don't think you can always put strategic motives behind it. And look, here's one thing that just happened this week. The governor of Iowa, Kim Reynolds, is neutral in the primary between him and DeSantis, which is kind of crazy because she's much more of a DeSantis type of a person or even more of a Tim Scott type of person, but she's stayed neutral. Trump starts attacking her as an idiot and like a buffoon and he's sending out bleats on his social media account about how

horrible she is now. No political consultant would ever say to a candidate, like attack the governor of the first caucus state who's neutral. She doesn't even oppose you. Like viciously attack her. But he can't help himself. It's like I know she's not for me. Oh, she's against me. I'm going to attack him. And I think he was the same way, you know, with Bragg. He's a skin be the same with Jack Smith, with random people on these grand juries are going to get attacked. I obviously find this disrespectful and gross, but I just think that when you're trying to get inside his warped mind, you know, trying to project like strategic... Like long-term strategizing. It's stupid. Like, he's not like looking at the poll numbers

before he decides what he's going to fart out on a social media account. You know, Chris Christie has been going full bore at Trump, obviously. Do you think that's going to have any discernible impact on him or is this just Christy basically placating some grudge for Trump trying to kill him a couple years back? So I'll have two thoughts about this and they're a little bit in conflict. One, I've been begging

for somebody to do this, you know, in the Republican Party, just say the truth. You don't have to be gratuitous. Just deliver the tough attacks on Trump that he fucking deserves. Chris Christie's finally doing it. But then it's like, but it's Chris Christie. And like, Chris Christie was

like the reason, like one of the main reasons Trump got nominated. He attacked Marco instead of Trump in the last primary. It kind of shows this isn't like some longstanding principle thing for him. It's just a grudge because Trump gave him COVID and nearly killed him. And the first thing he asked was like, hey, you're not going to tell anybody about this, right? Yeah. And so, look, I'm happy he's out there doing it. I'm particularly happy he's on Fox doing it because, you know, viewers need to hear the stuff. Maybe it'll seat through the blood-brain barrier of some of the, like, viewers. And that would be good.

And just to be clear, I have turned off the Wi-Fi here. There won't be any seepage. I'm really nervous about that. I actually had to ask for you to approve that before I came into the studio. It was on your rider, that's right. But here's the thing that really worries me if you want to get into the dorky politics of Christy really quick. So I worked for John Huntsman in 12 and Jeb in 16, and then I want to lump Kasich in there who I didn't work for, but it's kind of in that mold. I do this moderate Republican.

Bull, like, Kuntzman and 12 got, I think, 16 or 17 in New Hampshire. The case that got 15 or 16. You know, Jeb, we got down the single digits. So if you look at a place like New Hampshire, there's like about one-fifth of the Republican primary electorate is there for someone like Christy. Yeah. But here's the problem. It's only one-fifth.

Like, Christy's not going to do any better than we did. So he's going to end up in the teens, and he's taking that vote away from somebody who could conceive beat Trump. So in a weird way, Christy being in is like kind of, harming the chances that someone else could actually be Trump in New Hampshire that might have a broader base of support than him. So anyway, I don't know. I like what he's doing, but I don't think that in the end it's going to be for much of anything except maybe a distant, distant second to New Hampshire is the best case scenario. And then what?

Do you think that, I mean, this is the ultimate question, but like, do you think that there is any room for an anti-Trump candidate in the Republican Party right now? No. The anti-Trump group is about 15%. Right. And if you just look, look at the top three people. I was early on this. I was like, if there's anybody in this field, maybe someone new will come in. But in this field, if there's anybody besides Trump or DeSantis, who has a chance, it's Vivek. Because what the voters want in the Republican Party right now is MAGA. And they want somebody that smells MAGA, that sounds MAGA, that is not one of those old-timey Bush bulwark people, right? Like they don't want anybody who even has the scent of that on them. Okay. So here we are. right now today. Trump's around 50, DeSantis is around 20, Vivek's around 10. He's now cleared the former vice president, Mike Pence, in multiple polls. So that's 75, 80% of the primary wants Trump, DeSantis, or Vivek. That's the party. Which is just some iteration of Trump, maybe Trump himself or Trump without the legal baggage. Yeah, Trump imitator, without the legal baggage who's younger, right? That's it. That's 80% of the party. So 15 or 20% want somebody else.

20 is the absolute max. And it's just these guys, can't wake up to the reality. And so now, just this weekend, it's Pence, Scott, and Nicky are all going to Iowa to go to an event with Tucker where it's like the crowd's like throwing tomatoes at them. Tucker's making fun of them for being pro-Ukraine. They haven't accepted the reality of what has happened to the Republican Party. And my big message is to all my old friends of the Republican Party is like, wake up to the reality. It's not what you wish it would be. It's not what you want it to be. The party is what it is. And the vote. voters want MAGA nonsense.

But I mean, there has to be some degree of being able to see more than five inches in front of your face. And recognizing what happened to your point in 2022, recognizing what happened to Trump in 2020, recognizing what happened to the Republicans in midterms in 2018, doesn't your former party recognize that like MAGA might work within the base? But to get to that point where you actually have to win the primary, you're making yourself radioactive in the general. Or is it just like we're in an era of no compromising. total polarization and you just win or or and you don't compromise at all. Well, so the answer is twofold. At the top, like the strategists class, they recognize it. Of course. But they're scared of the voters, right? And so, and they're still trying to get their cuts on their TV buys so they can buy their beach houses, right? And so, you know,

they don't want to go out and say the truth because as soon as you do, then you get branded a rhino, never trumper, and you don't get work anymore. Okay. So the smart people recognize this. but can't do anything about it. The voters don't recognize it. And here's why. Because in 2015 and 16, a bunch of people like me and the Republican strategist class said to the voters ran ads,

you can't support Trump in this primary because he can't win. Hillary will beat him. I said Hillary would beat him from jail. I thought I was being cheeky. Wrong. So these people... Turns out you were just a few years too early on that one.

So these people all looked at the supposedly smart establishment class that they had kind of grown to resent anyway. And they're like, You guys told us he couldn't win. You were wrong. We were right. He won. And now you go ahead to 2020 and most of them believe that it was fraud.

So you can't go to them with logic and say this isn't working because they would say back to you, no, we won in 16, we won in 20 and the deep state stole it from us. So why would we go a different direction? Yeah, yeah. I guess that's like, this is an instance where the Republicans own big lies actually coming out to hurt them in the end, their own party in the end. I mean, it's not, you know, Democrats aren't hurt by it. It's the Republicans who are basically screwing themselves.

For sure, absolutely. You know, DeSantis's poll numbers peaked in about December of 2022, and they've continued to plunge since then. If you were advising him, what would you tell him to do differently right now other than, of course, not letting anybody know what his voice sounds like. Yeah, well, that would help. I don't know that I would have announced in an audio medium, you know, if I was Ron DeSantis. You want to play to your strengths, okay?

Yeah, exactly. And his voice is in his strength. Okay. What would I say to run DeSantis? Well, my first cheeky answer is that if you have a critique of Donald Trump, it shouldn't be that he was too nice to gay people. I don't think that that's like going to land with anybody. And by the way, like, who does that work on? Nobody. That's what I'm saying. Like, oh, you know what? DeSantis told me that Trump was like a huge friend to the gays. Now I'm moving over to DeSantis. It doesn't work on anybody. So it's just stupid. It doesn't even land with MAGA voters. It feels unauthentic. I always thought that DeSantis had a good elevator pitch that he's gotten away from. And this is, again, I'm not endorsing this because I don't like a lot of his policies in Florida. But just from a strategic standpoint, it was, I gave you all of the mega policies that you wanted.

The left hated me as much as Trump did, and I did it successfully. Okay, we enacted these policies. I won in huge landslides. He didn't. I like Donald Trump. Nice guy. Maybe not a nice guy, funny guy. But, you know, he just didn't, he wasn't effective.

at, you know, getting the policies enacted when he is president, and then he lost. And you might think he got stolen from him, but then all that means is he wasn't effective at containing the deep state and coming up with, you know, ways to get, right, like coming up with policies of his own to get people to the polls. Like, this is what this is about. We need to win. The left needs to lose. We need to drink their tears.

I did that in Florida. Go with me. I always thought that was like, maybe an elevator pitch that could work, right? And when he was doing the best in December, it's because of that, right? voters looked and they're like, man, a lot of these Trump-endors candidates lost them in terms. DeSantis won huge. I think that was a big part of his surge. The problem is once you get down into the details, he's decided to get away from that a little bit and attack Trump from the right on these weird cultural issues. And I just think you get into this little extreme right

ghetto of super online. Yeah. Well, to your point before, you have that like fashy fear porn and that's what that anti-LGBT ad was. It was way deep. You have to be so terminally online to even understand the references. The Gigacad. Yeah. Who knows what the Gigatad is? Like maybe a thousand people.

And by the way, the median Republican primary voter, I don't have the exact numbers on hand, but from like 2016 is about 67 years old and didn't go to college. So they don't understand you're super online. I need to be deep on Reddit and 4chan references. So I think that, and the other thing that people don't really understand about the Trump 16 primary, is Trump did the best with both the far-right voters and the moderate voters. Because the far-right voters saw him as like, oh, this guy is like a New York moderate, but he's cutting a deal with us, you know, on the judges and on abortion, and I like him.

And also, that was the evangelicals too. Yeah, the evangelicals deal, right? And so he's like, and he'll be mean to the left. I like him because of that. The moderate voters, they looked at it, and they're like, yeah, okay, I've always thought that, like, some people in the Republican Party were too churchy. Like, imagine your head, you know, a working class guy that's like, doesn't go to church every Sunday. Isn't like a hardliner on abortion? And you see the porcelain doll that is, Mike Pence, walk forward.

Yeah, you're like, that's not my guy. Like, I don't want somebody, you know, if I accidentally knock somebody up, I don't want somebody telling me what to do about that, right? Like, that guy, they loved Trump. So Trump got from both. So by trying to get to Trump's right on all these. cultural stuff, DeSantis is just going straight down Ted Cruz alley. And he has Ted Cruz's advisors. So it's like, these guys didn't learn anything. He's running the Ted Cruz campaign over again, and it's fucking crazy. And so unless he changes course, he's just staring down,

getting his ass kicked, just like Ted Cruz did, and he'll probably get his wife insulted in the process. I want to pivot a little bit and talk about Joe Biden for a moment. Obviously, Republicans are trying to make Biden's age the preeminent issue in this campaign. I get that that's a point of concern. I don't want to discount that. He would be the oldest president we've ever had. But given that the actual election is a binary choice between two people, it's probably going to be Biden and Trump, do you think at the end of the day that the issue of Biden's

age is going to in any way eclips the danger of Donald Trump for any of these voters? It doesn't eclipse it for me at all. It's not even a close call. Donald Trump tried a coup. could it eclipse it for some voters yeah i think maybe for some i think that if you look at biden and what i see is a guy who exceeded all my expectations really on on on getting stuff done bipartisan bills infrastructure chips you go down the list but like from a presentation standpoint he just looks really old he does and and and i think that there are when i talk to people

that are outside of politics. There are a lot of people that have concerns about this and who are not like MAGA far right weirdos. And, you know, he just looks old. And so that's something that he's going to have to really work to combat and campaigns, demonstrating vigor on the campaign trail, you know, getting out there more. He started to do some of this, which I'm happy to see, because it's going to be a more rigorous campaign than 2020 was since it was during COVID. Well, you know, I had asked the question about DeSantis, but if you were advising Joe Biden, then, what would you tell him to do? I mean, he has different routes that he can go. He can go touting the legislative achievements.

He can go pushing back on, you know, all the bullshit that's being put forward by Republicans, the Trump of it all. Like, what would you advise him to do? Because he can't do everything. Yeah, you can't do everything. No. I think that coming from Biden himself, you know, I think that his messaging has been fine, right? It's focusing on, here are the things that we've done. I think he could talk about it more.

Here are the things we've done, and literally democracy is a threat on the other side. The threat from Trump is too big. And I think that's a good contrast for him that he should stick with. But presentation-wise, I want to see Scranton Joe more, man. I want to see him out there with the people. You know, like the old picture of him with the lady and the biker chick on his lap. Like, I want to see biker chicks on his lap. I want to see him out there.

Do you think they're keeping him contained too much for fear of making him, a single gaff that would just kind of overshadow the coolness of having that moment with the bike. Maybe that's what they're thinking. But I just, in this day and age, it's a different media environment, right? Like, there's constant stuff churns, man. Like, a gaff's going to churn through. And I think that they need to have Kamla out there more. I think that my two critiques of the administration right now is one, somebody else besides Joe Biden needs to be the salesperson for this administration, because Joe Biden has a ton of strengths. And like I said, he's exceeded my expectations across the board. But his strength isn't like, we nailed it on infrastructure. We nailed it on

chips. Like, we're bringing you the best economy ever. He's not a pat himself in the back guy. He's not a really compelling orator like Obama was. He doesn't, he doesn't, he's not a braggadocious guy like Trump. He doesn't have that. So he needs someone else to do that for him. And it doesn't feel like they've found somebody to do that. So I think that is, you know, getting Biden out there a little bit more and finding someone else to be like really carrying that message. It feels like it should be Kamala. And for some reason, you know, it just doesn't seem like it has been. Yeah. I want to get into some, some hot takes here. Oh, I love that. All right. So this is all, everything here, just as a disclaimer, is going to age very poorly. Okay. Oh, my hot takes age

pretty good. So speak for yourself. Well, that's, that's how we ended up with President Jeb. No, I took Jeb seriously. I do the best one. I'm shooting for the hip. Okay. Who will be the first three Republicans to drop out, and who will be the last three Republicans to drop out of the Republican primary? Okay. I think that the last three, I'm going to take that first,

are going to be Trump, Vivek, and Christy. Wait, so, wait, so the last three to drop out. So you're saying Trump is, oh, no, no. Who do you think is going to be the nominee? Trump. Okay, so who are going to be the three to drop out, to drop out, to leave Trump? I think Christy will just keep fighting down towards the end. And at this point, I see DeSantis fizzling out and falling behind Vivek and Christi.

Okay. So you think the final four are going to be Trump, who's going to be the nominee, and then Vivek Ramoswami, Christi, and DeSantis. But do you think are going to be the first three to go? I wouldn't be surprised if Mike Pence just cried and and dropped out of the race after the Tucker Carl's an interview that I just watched a couple hours ago. So I don't, I think that I'm trying to think about all the people in the field. I mean, then you've got the Ace of Hutchinson's, Will Hurd. Barely in there. Nicky's campaign hasn't gone anywhere, but you could see her staying

around until South Carolina, I would say. Bergum? Bergum in Dakota. He's got money. He's got money. He's got money. What's the reason for him to get out? I might donate. I heard you, I heard if you give a dollar. You get a $20 gift card. Yeah, get $19. One of our viewers did that and got a letter back that, like, the card's not going to come

for a few weeks. So if you need money, urgently, that's the way to go. Not a great bridge loan. Yeah, I would say that ASE, Pence, and Nicky. I don't see any of them. I think Nicky looks at Tim Scott and sees that he's got more money and a better chance of South Carolina. And I think all of them see that they don't really have a path.

Okay. Next hot take. Who are the general election candidates in 2028? Oh, man. We're skipping this full primary. We're going right to the next general election. Skipping both those primaries too. Who are the final two?

I'm going to give you what I think and what I want for the Democratic side first. I really think it's going to be Kamla. I think it's very challenging to beat her. This is kind of a zag take right now. I would think that the vice president would be the next nominee. But for whatever reason, people are very down on her. I just think it's going to be very challenging to beat a black woman in a Democratic primary. And James Carville has a good rule of thumb.

has a good rule of thumb, which is whoever can win in the black churches in the South is going to be the Democratic nominee. And who's going to beat her down there? I just don't know. I don't see it. I really love Josh Shapiro, though. So things change. I think he's done an awesome job as governor of Pennsylvania already. It's only been a year. What he did with I-95? I think he's great. So anyway, Kamala and Shapiro. Maybe that's a ticket. On the Republican side, I think Donald Trump will be been on again in 2020. I mean, until somebody else beats him, he could run again. I don't want to trigger your viewers, but he could lose in 2024. There's no rule against not running again. So I guess I'll say Kamala against Trump. I never even like, I never even considered the prospect of more than a decade of my life being spent on Donald Trump.

Yeah, I think that, I think Trump's looking good. If not Trump, somebody in, like, very much in his ove, like, that's where things, and that's my main, like, that's where things are going, you know, JD Vance or somebody like that. So do you think, like, I mean, I don't want to, I have one more hot take, but, but do you, do you think that if they've lost in 2018, in 2020 and 2020 and if they lose in 2024, do you not think the spell will be broken? Do you think they're like, that they look at Donald Trump to say, what we need, after all these losses, is more magnet. Yeah, it's more Trump. Yeah. I don't know what I'm thinking. And I say the spell will be broken as if it's like one of those zombie movies where like the main zombie like gets killed and the rest of them snap out of it.

I mean, people are people. Like your identity is your identity. So it's, I guess it's not that easy to just. No, it isn't that easy to just, to just drop something. Especially when you've tied so much your life to it. You've got the hat. You've got the Facebook. You've got your friends associated with it.

I'll say this. The party is not going back to what it was. And people might decide that Donald Trump has. himself has too much baggage at some point. I don't know why they haven't decided it already. But anytime you talk to voters, anytime you listen to a MAGA focus group, anytime on the road,

like these people hated the old Republican Party. They didn't like the pro-immigration stuff. They didn't like the green, eye-shade cutting, you know, spending stuff. They don't want us to do anything overseas. Like, they love the culture war. Like, they want some version of MAGA. So even if they decide that Trump isn't the right person anymore,

it will be something in his image not, it's not like the party's not coming back to Tim Scott like to any of these guys. I just want to like, I want to be optimistic and talk about how great America is on the world stage and talk about freedom. It's just not what the people want right now. Okay, last hot take.

Does Donald Trump spend a single day in prison? I've been starting to think about this a lot. I really hope so. I really want it so bad. And I've been trying not to hope. I've been trying not to hope. But man, I've been pretty impress a Jack Smith. And it doesn't seem like he's fucking around. It doesn't seem like he's

fucking around. So I don't think he spends a day in jail before 2024. Jail isn't going to save us from this election. We've got to save ourselves from Donald Trump one more time. But I'm going to do a hot take and just say, yeah. I think he does send a day in jail. And we're going to, we'll do a live YouTube champagne toast when that happens. Yeah. Well, any conservative bona fides you had before this are gone. They've been burned for a while. Yeah, that's true. If you want, we can talk about, you know, regulatory policy or something. I can earn some of them back. Maybe next time.

I'm sure that's what's going to do it. Okay. I want to finish off with some Twitter versus Threads commentary. So I'm wondering which megalomaniacal billionaire you support. Whose team are you on? I guess I'm Zuck. This is like an Iran-Iraq war type situation. But here's the thing.

We've had to, especially as never Trumpers, have had to learn that, that, sometimes in life you've got to decide between two shitty options and you've got to just decide and you can't just check out right and you can say by someone who's worked in politics for a long time like you know if you get two pieces two meals in front of you and like you know one of them is a shit sandwich and one of them is a mayo sandwich I really don't like mayo at all but I'm going to suck I'm going to suck it up and eat the mayo sandwich and so I'm good and suck is the mayo sandwich in this analogy and so that's where I'm going I want to see Elon must suffer. And I want to get some joy out of that. And he, you know, he's still going to have a good life because he's a very rich man. But, man, he's made one of the worst business decisions in history. I mean, like, he's going to lose 40-something billion on this Twitter deal. And I really hope Zuck and Adam and the people at Meta fix get threads good enough that it can really just replace it.

Yeah, I agree with that. To suggest that most of what I do is not fuel. by hate and spite would be a lie. So, you know, I've heard criticism that there's concerns that all the libs are going to move to threads. All the conservatives are going to stay at Twitter. And so our media ecosystem will be even more fractured than it already was. You work in media in a very strange subset of the media kind of between both sides anyway. So what's your take on this, on this idea that the media ecosystem will be even more fractured?

Yeah, I'm, I guess I'm of the opinion that I'm really worried about this, but don't have a good solution. Because I think that this was already happening, right? I think that there is a really of deep lack of appreciation among a lot of folks for just how thick the MAGA media bubble is. How do you penetrate that? I have no idea. It's not like the old days where people listen to Rush but then got Tom Brokaw at night, right? Like, these people are in a completely self-fulfilling, like, Earth-2 world. And when you talk to them and ask them where they're getting that information from,

like, the most normal person is like Ben Shapiro. You know what I mean? Like, this is, like, they're in a very deep bunker. And so how do you penetrate that bunker? That's one question. I don't know the answer to that. I think that two progressives, to liberals, I would say, don't do that to yourself. Like, you don't need to listen to Steve Bannon's podcast, but try to be an electric curious.

Like, there is, it's healthy for your brain to list, to do this, to listen to other things. And I do my best to listen and read things across the board. I punish myself with, I've got a Candace Owen's profile coming out next week. I spent a month listening to Candace's podcast. That's, that's a weird world. But I just, I want to hear what everybody's saying. But I think that that is probably going to be an outgrowth of the threads thing is a more bifurcation of our social media. But I just, to me, it felt like that was inevitable anyway.

And so I don't, I don't, you know, I don't think that's a reason not to go to threads. Yeah, there's also the element of the incentive structure on these platforms is not to reward people who are in any way moderate, right? And so even when you do allow voices from the other side to come in, the voices that come in are like Dan Bongino and Seb Gorka and like, and the worst actors because they know how to game the system. And I've said on threads before too, I'm like, this is a new platform. do not allow these people to like rage bait you into replying and quote tweeting and doing like engaging with them in any way because they know what they're doing and they know how to gain the system and they know that they can you know post something like men can't get pregnant and then just sit back and watch as like 10,000 libs angrily prop up

their their post by by replying and quote tweeting it and and so you know that's where I was hoping for for threads and and to everybody's credit it does seem like that's that's actually working out pretty well. So far, yeah, dude, don't feed the trolls a good policy. Okay, now the next level of challenge from here for, okay, the first step is don't feed the trolls. The second step is, okay, if somebody of good faith offers something that you disagree with, maybe engage with them in good faith or ignore it or don't, you know, don't yell at them

and say that they're like a crypto-fascist, right? Because like this is the other problem, right? Because you can't have dialogue if the only people, you know, if you're a lib, let's say, short and you're like the only people who are willing to go on your platform are damn bonjino trolling you and then other people who do disagree with you but they're like oh man I might you know I'm trying to think of a story recently I was I kind of was with morin doubt on the on the Biden grandchild thing right but it's like am I going to tweet about this like if I tweet about it then like the people that like me are going to get mad at me

and then you know someone are going to troll me you know what I mean and so it would be nice if we could try to cultivate an environment where you know their disagreement on a few things in a healthy way is also okay. And I do feel like we're losing that a little bit. Yeah, I mean, I don't really know what it is. I don't really view the internet as a place for, like, dialogue anyway. I just kind of see it as like, as a messaging platform at this point. I don't think anybody really goes online, expecting to have, have their opinions changed by, expecting to like engage in real dialogue anymore. Maybe that was wishful thinking, but I mean that we can have a healthy dialogue. But I guess a lower step than that would just be

not unnecessarily dunking on people for no good reason. And we'll see. I mean, I do think that Threads maybe has that, I feel like, I mean, Twitter got so toxic that, that, and look, I mean, I'm not above spending all day

dunking on people. No, me neither. I love a dunk. But I think that there is something to be said for the possibility of a platform that is just a little less toxic, a little less overtly toxic, where the point of it isn't just like vile mayhem every day. So we'll see if that's what Threads turns into.

But let's finish off with this. Tucker's show, his ratings have been going down week over week. I think he's at almost 90% down from where he first started. And granted, you know, the view count is already wildly distorted. Elon just basically counts any impression as a full view. If just someone's scrolling past it on their timeline. But do you think that he ultimately decides to stay on Twitter? I think so because there's a little axis of evil thing.

going on with Elon and Tucker, and it's mutually beneficial. And Elon, despite the fact that he's losing a ton of money on the Twitter deal, still is one of the richest guys in the world. He's got some cash left. Yeah. So he can throw the bag at Tucker to help him prop up the platform. And he needs that. He needs a big star to keep people on the platform because he's not just at risk of losing

me able to threads. Trump has his social media. There's still getter and all these other right-wing ones out there. But to that exact point, when Tucker is the main star on your platform, you know, it's a star on your platform, then your platform basically devolves into a far-right platform. And when you look at these far-right platforms, the getters, the O-A-Ns, the true socials, they're not necessarily valuable enterprises, right? So isn't in a way he's kind of like doing the, like hurting himself, doing the opposite

of what he's looking to do by virtue of devaluing the brand to the extent that he is? Yeah. You know, the big advertisers, you don't see flocking to getter and parlor. No, maybe, but, well, A, I think that Tucker, excuse me, that Elon has, like, not literally, but figuratively taken the red pill to, like, such a degree, that I think that he thinks that Tucker is mainstream. It's, like, speaking truth. Like, I really do. I don't think it's an act. I think that Elon is believing his own bullshit and has, like, gone down this radicalization pipeline.

So I don't know that he sees Tucker as that, you know, as extreme as. as he objectively is. So I don't know. I think to me that that seems like the deal that they are going to cut. And the one thing that he will definitely get with Tucker, not advertisers, is a significant chunk of the Republican Party and of conservative Internet users who see themselves as Tucker-style Republicans. And that's, we spent time earlier talking about how tiny the never,

the anti-Trump group is within the Republican Party. The Tucker wing of the party is huge. And Tucker was just slaying all of these guys who are governors, the vice president, Mike Pence, you know, went up and had to humiliate himself in front of Tucker, you know, because the Republican primary voters like Tucker. They will follow him. They'll watch his platform. And so, you know, maybe that sewer platform will just end up being Twitter. Yeah. I mean, we'll see how it goes. Look over at OAN and choose social parlor, just rolling in it. Yeah. So we'll see what happens. Tim, where can we see and hear more from you? You can hear the Bullwark podcast every day. We have a next-level podcast at the Bullwark on Wednesdays and Sundays. I'm on Snapchat.

I've got a Snapchat show, not my party. I'm on MSNBC sometimes. I might go on the circus again this fall. That kicks back up in October. So maybe we can hang out together, do like, you know, maybe we can argue about something next time. Yeah, perfect. Bring out my old Republican bono.

Yeah. Tim, thanks so much for joining. I appreciate it. Thank you, brother. Thanks for having me. Thanks again to Tim. One more note, Ohio, August 8th, there is a crucial, crucial election. Republicans are trying to raise the threshold to pass constitutional amendments from a simple majority,

so basically 50% plus 1, all the way up to 60%. Why? Because pro-choice activists want to enshrine abortion rights in the Ohio Constitution in November. And so before November, conservatives want to create an insurmountable hurdle to get this added to the Constitution. So on August 8th, vote no on these Republican efforts. to raise that threshold to 60%. So if you live in Ohio, if you have friends or family in Ohio, please spread the word.

Okay, that's it for this episode. Talk to you next week. You've been listening to No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen. Produced by Sam Graber, music by Wellesie, interviews captured and edited for YouTube and Facebook by Nicholas Nicotera, and recorded in Los Angeles, California. If you enjoyed this episode,

please subscribe on your preferred podcast app. Feel free to leave a five-star rating and a review, and check out Briantylercoen.com for links to all of my other channels.