Pod Save America - Trump Details His Dictatorial Plans

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

Lovett and guest host Tim Miller discuss Donald Trump's mind-boggling interview with TIME Magazine, in which he details his plans to use the military to deport immigrants, allow states to monitor women's pregnancies, jack up prices on all imported goods, and much more. Plus, the Biden administration moves to reclassify weed, riot police move in on campus protestors, and Drew Barrymore asks Kamala Harris for a very special favor. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. 

Hey, y'all, it's Tim Miller, Crooked Media's favorite Cuxervative. I'm now hosting the Daily Bulwark podcast, which comes out every weekday afternoon, rain or shine, hangover or no hangover. Here's what's special about this podcast and my colleagues at The Bulwark. We are all united in a mission to defend democracy from the burnt sienna buffoon. And as outcast Republicans, we have no future career prospects, so we're free to tell you what we really think. So check out my Daily Bulwark podcast. Or if once a week is more your speed, there's Love It's Guilty Pleasure, the next level podcast featuring me with my colleagues Sarah Longwell and JVL. Check it out. Peace. Welcome to Pond Save America. I'm John Lovett and joining us, you know him from the bulwark, you know him from MSNBC.

You know him from being a little drunk live with love that's right it's tim miller uh thanks for how you doing brother being here tim uh i'm so excited i think this is it this is official now i just for listeners you know you might have somebody in your life that was maybe a frenemy at one stage and maybe you had a little tension with at one point over and over the years you stage and maybe you had a little tension with at one point over and over the years you grow and you you grow a bond and appreciation for one another and it blossoms into a real a real friendship and i feel like that's officially happened right now wow at this moment and just so everybody knows his audio did broke up break up for a second he said sexual tension that's yeah well that's what we had at one point

but i'm just saying now it's blossomed it's just like it's so nice it is nice it's something like you don't know that this is coming 20 year olds out there this is happening for you in your 40s there's somebody in your life right now and you're like that guy never but then when you're 40 you're like wow we like each other a lot i never said never but maybe you did and that's fine yes when you're 20 you don't know what it's like to be an adult for 20 years i know that's the beauty of it anyway uh let's talk about gaza but speaking of yeah and um and also people that have been an adult for 50 years and don't seem to show it uh we have a pack show today donald trump spent some of his precious time outside of a courtroom to do a good old fashioned sit down interview with Time magazine, laying out his vision for a second term.

And it's it's worrying. The Biden administration is reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug while student protests envelop campus buildings and our national attention. Marjorie Taylor Greene makes her move. Plus, the vice president sits down with Drew Barrymore and makes everyone a little uncomfortable. OK, first up, Trump, he did something that feels like it's from another era. He sat down for an interview with Time magazine in Palm Beach, lasted over an hour. All the all the pomp and circumstance, the description of the room, the the has the aide coming in and saying, Mr. Trump has to get to dinner. We get some color about the playlist.

It's the same playlist, Sinead O'Connor, January 6th choir, the two genders. And then they did a follow-up 20-minute conversation. So we'll get to all the details, but just were you surprised, Tim, to see Donald Trump spend an hour doing this? I was. I have to be honest. There is a print Time magazine that appears that you can get now. Does that still exist? I believe so, yes.

At airports. So it all made sense once I realized that still existed. I personally did not know that. I thought Time had gone fully digital. And I was like, Mr. Trump might be an idiot. And he might have had the wool pulled over his eyes a couple of times, but he certainly would not do an interview because he shames himself and really freaks everybody out about what a Trump term would look like and provides a political gift to Joe Biden. So I do. It makes sense for then. Once I knew that, that Trump could have the time cover that he could frame because that's what he really values. And then once I interviewed the reporter this morning, Eric Cordelessa, and great reporter, tough interview.

So please don't take this the wrong way eric but he does give off like i got drunk with madison cawthorne at a duke lacrosse party vibes and so like once i spent more time talking to him i was like oh yeah okay this makes sense the trump people felt like this guy was one of them you know he's gonna get his cover and uh you know consequences be damned yeah so you know the the the going to get his cover and, you know, consequences be damned. Yeah. So, you know, the 1980s Trump brain is, oh, Time Magazine. I want to be on Time Magazine. I want to be on the cover of Time Magazine. And yes, I do. I also associate Time Magazine now with the kind of downfall of Newsweek and U.S. News, but it's different, but it's different. But there was the other piece of this too, which is like, let's say you were thinking about this in a more traditional way.

to elite news followers, to journalists, to close watchers of politics, the vision, the kind of detailed vision that you wouldn't get on a stump speech, that you won't get in shorter television hits to give people the context of what Trump's trying to do. I don't believe they were doing anything as sophisticated as that. But if they were, what on earth were they hoping to accomplish by having the president, the former president walk through all this stuff? Yeah, they wanted to accomplish the physical. He wants the framed. I just cannot emphasize this enough. He wants the framed magazine cover. I know he's already been the president. Feels like that seems like small ball for him, but that's what he wanted. Okay that now moving on what was their strategy beyond

that i really i do not know i i i do not know i don't it doesn't seem like he went into the interview like going back to my days you know we certainly had some fails with my candidates but if jeb was going to do a long sit-down interview certainly sometimes he would get stumped or he'd say something wrong or but but we would at least have like a, a proactive message we were trying to get across, right? That you would, that if you looked at the transcript, you could see that he was coming back to this, whether it was an issue or whether it was a argument that he was trying to put forth. That was not what this was. I, it is total stream of consciousness, Donald Trump. It is indistinguishable from his rallies, except for

the fact that the reporter, Eric, got to kind of direct him into like a briar pit a little bit on abortion in particular, but also on some other issues. And there was no sign that they had like a proactive message that they were trying to get across at Yeah. So let's go through this. So it was wide ranging. He says a lot. He also refuses to say a lot. For example, he wouldn't say he'd veto a national abortion ban. He wouldn't say defend Taiwan. He wouldn't say he supports a two state solution between Israel and Palestine. He wouldn't commit to supporting Ukraine's defense. Almost immediately, the Biden campaign went on offense with the interview, in particular on Trump's abortion comments, not just refusing to say he'd veto a ban, but when asked whether states should monitor women's pregnancies to see if they violated an

abortion ban, Trump said, I think they might do that. On abortion, what jumped out at you? And then we can go beyond that. Yeah, well, on abortion, that was like the Chris Matthews moment. And Trump has struggled with this for nine years because he is faking it, right? I mean, that doesn't make the threat any more real to vulnerable women about the laws that would be put in place by the types of people that Trump appoints, judgeships in particular, but also into regulatory positions. But he personally obviously doesn't care. And so he doesn't know how to speak the language of pro-lifers.

Somebody who's a genuine pro-lifer, I think, would at least be astute enough to be able to move around the question of, are you comfortable with states monitoring women's pregnancies? And he feels like just by saying, oh, well, states get to decide like that's some amulet that like protects him from all criticism on this, right? That he's like, oh, I don't know. I guess I'm comfortable if the states decide to do it, the states decide to do it. And that is a crazy view, right? That is going to be very useful to Biden and ads where he says, essentially, if during a Trump presidency states want to monitor women's pregnancies so they can determine how far along they are in the gestational period in order to determine whether or not they would have access to an abortion. That is deep state 1984 type shit targeting women. And he just walked right into it.

I think in large part because he hasn't thought about this stuff deeply at all. Never even occurred to him that there might be a question about whether a woman is at six weeks or nine weeks. None of this stuff, he hasn't thought through any of this. And so he's just like, yeah, I guess if the states want to monitor women, they're going to monitor women. Yeah, he also, I think, he views himself as being very adept at these politics now. There's one point he says, did you see everyone adopted my IVF position? He was asked about what his policy position is going to be on Mifepristone.

His only response, by the way, he didn't say what it would be, but he says it won't be very surprising, which I took to mean whatever he says, he really hopes people don't pay too much attention to it. What else jumped out at you? The Mifepristone thing was funny because he says in the first interview which is poolside with the cougars at mar-a-lago um and the well-done stakes

during that first interview he's asked about his position on myth of pristone and and he's like i'm gonna i've got a great plan won't be that surprising it'll be out in two weeks then there's a follow-up phone interview two weeks later and the first question is are you ready to share your mifepristone another two weeks like uh it's just like the obamacare the health care plan uh so he still doesn't have that um but again i think part of that i did wonder if during the first interview he didn't if he knew what mifepristone was you know and he was buying himself two weeks but you think by the second interview he would and maybe he's just trying to dodge and by time because it was similar to the ivf and this takes you out of into even pro-life people right like are are horrified by the idea that women might

not have access to biff of bristone in like the first days after um you know having sex right like there are people that are that would support a 15-week ban that think it's crazy that the states want to ban access to Mifflip Ristone, for example. And so that gets him to a really dicey position if he doesn't have a clear answer on that. And he did it over the course of two interviews because, again, I think that he thinks that

he's got to get out a jail-free card here with this the states can decide thing. But obviously, if you're going to sit down with time for an hour and a half, there are a lot of holes in the states can decide. around him who are already planning to use an old federal law to make it impossible to mail abortion drugs to people and deploy the federal government all kinds of ways to make abortion inaccessible, even if they don't pass a national law, even if it still continues to be technically legal in liberal states. So he can say, I don't want to see it too much from what Trump's perspective is. In a lot of ways, it won't matter because will he stand in the way of Congress passes a ban? Of course not. Will he stop some Schedule F flunky from doing something horrible in an agency? Of course he won't. He won't have the discipline or attention span

to focus on it. This is why, just really quick on that, this is why I think that to me, the most telling part of the interview, because of exactly what you're saying, it's This is why, just really quick on that. This is why I think that to me, the most telling part of the interview, because of exactly what you're saying, it's kind of like, who cares what Trump's like random blurts out or on these various policies in some ways. I mean, directionally, we should care, but like the details, what matters is going to be people around him. And at one point he was asked what he thinks about this notion about hiring people who don't believe in the 2020 election

fraud. Like, should that be a litmus test for people that would be hired into your administration? And Trump says, essentially, yes, in kind of garbled Trump words. Like, yes, I would only want, I would feel very, you know, he says something like, I'd feel very strongly against, you know, if somebody is too stupid to realize that the election was stolen from me. Now, to me, that just puts all of this in a very important perspective, which is they're going to be much more judicious, is maybe the wrong word, careful about hiring the kookiest people possible. And so I thought that, to me, was as revealing as any of the policy stuff in the interview and as conservative. Yeah, so I want to get to that in one second. I want to get to the implementation

because I do think that is, I agree with you. It's just as important before we get to that. Were there any other policy points that he made or that the piece makes that jumps out for one, that his number one agenda item when he comes in is going to be extending the Bush tax cuts, uh, that they, that some of those, uh, tax cuts for the wealthy expire, including the doubling of the estate tax, uh, deduction that those, that those things all expire in 2025. So one of his first orders of business is going to be tax cuts for the wealthy in addition to a border bill because, of course, he killed the border bill. Were there any other policy positions that jumped out at you? Yeah, well, two. As a free market capitalist, the thing that stood out to me

was the 10% across the board tariffs, which is an absolutely insane policy that if people are concerned about prices will be disastrous. And he has no, just in general, like, I think it's frustrating to get this across to people, but like, you know, he says that he wants, he's going to fight the inflationary, the Biden inflation, right. And like his policies are going to stop inflation, but every policy he has is inflationary. Extending the Bush tax cuts is inflationary. Fewer immigrants into the country is inflationary because that affects the number of people that we have in the workforce. Tariffs are obviously inflationary. So is there a way to make that message for Biden? I think it's kind of a tough message for Biden to actually implement in a campaign setting. But to me, maybe that's something for

Nikki Haley voters that we can use. And then as someone who has feelings and compassion, the deportation plans are absolutely insane. And he goes along every step the reporter asks him, he's like, well, would you call in the National Guard? Yes. Would you call in the military? Yes. How are you actually going to implement this? Local police forces. We're going to have local cops being our deportation troopers. And if a local police force doesn't want to be part of the Donald Trump deportation effort, where he specifically cites Operation Wetback, then he's like, well, then we'll stop funding them. Like, we're going to not give funds to police, you know, to local police, you know, so we're going to defund the police that will not do illegal deportations. So, I mean, obviously, I think that is the most alarming. And the thing that I would be also the most scared about being actually implemented if he were to win, because that are, that's the one area where he already has a team of competent sociopaths around him led by Stephen Miller, who would be able to execute on it.

Yeah. And they already, by the way, you know, when they did family separation, it was, um, pushback from, uh, what you could call the old guard inside the administration, plus congressional Republicans, plus political pressure, ordinary political pressure that caused them to at least sort of second guess what they were doing. I don't think those guardrails exist in a second term. No. And you could see that great, I forget who wrote it, I feel like I should credit her, but that great Atlantic profile that went in so deep into the child separation and how it actually happened, like the TikTok of it. What it revealed was it really only took Stephen Miller, Sessions,

and there was one other person who were adamant about it and who just kept pushing and pushing at every restraint in the bureaucracy. And so if you now just imagine a situation where those bureaucratic restraints are mostly excised through the Schedule F changes that they've talked about, and instead of just having two or three people who really get off on child separation, you have three or four times more of that that get brought in because they've done a more thorough vetting job of staff to ensure that they're fully on board with these deportation plans. I mean, I think that it's really, it's really scary. And it's really kind of hard to calculate how much more damage that could do to immigrants and migrants. And by the way, using Schedule F to threaten people who might otherwise have to go along. And by the way, on top of that, using the pardoned power to give cover to people who are worried that they're doing something that's illegal. And I think that's the most pernicious thing about his pardoning, you know,

about how I'm going to pardon all the January 6th folks. Last time I pardoned Bannon, I pardoned Manafort. Now he basically would be sending a signal to, you know, the shock troops, as Bannon calls them, that like they can go ahead and not worry if they're running afoul of various immigration laws while they execute these deportations. Because if some rogue liberal judge that Joe Biden appointed or some prosecutor goes after them, Trump will just pardon them. So I think the combining of the pardon with the Schedule F, I think really creates a very different environment for them in a second term. So I'm glad you pulled out the tariffs and immigration. I think the immigration policy is absolutely horrifying, but I do want to

get mercenary about it. One of the challenges, right, is you want to tell people on imports, right? Hey, if Trump puts a 10% tariff on all these imports, it's actually going to cause the kind of inflation that's been bothering you for years. But I do think the problem is that a lot of people sort this into a made in America, American manufacturing bucket, rightfully so. But I worry a little bit that when we fight back against that kind of a policy, it's tough to do because you end up,

you don't want to sound like a 2000s era Democrat talking about how good NAFTA is going to be. And then you got Ross Perot talking about the sucking sound of American jobs. Like, how do you talk about a policy that I have a feeling at the very least is one that like maybe people have mixed feelings about because they do worry about, about manufacturing and they do want jobs to be in the

US. Yeah. I mean, and Joe Biden kept a lot of his tariffs, right? So, and he doesn't have a clean message on that. To me, I think it's a negative message that is specifically targeted towards my people, like the Haley voters, the former Republicans, right? That's like, I don't know, maybe this is, maybe you're running these ads just on brett bear show or something i don't or in the wall street journal but i think if you combine that that a trump was actually pretty mean to bb too i don't want to get into that stuff later but trump was pretty harsh on israel i don't think can be seen as a reliable partner for israel um based on his comments in this interview the tariffs if you combine the threats to take out of NATO,

you know, this is not a huge segment of the population, but I think that you can micro-target some people in the Atlanta, Philly, Burbs, you know, that have been traditional Republican voters that also are responsive to the democracy message. You can layer on top of that. This guy is going to do a 10% tax. They do, like, for that crew, like, the 10% tax on tariffs,

they respond to it like I would. This is going to be horrible. This is anti-market. This is going to increase costs. So I think it's more useful for that group to use it to say to working class people that are worried about prices at the grocery store, I don't know. It feels like a bank shot and that the campaign probably have better arguments. He was all over the place on Israel and Palestine. He was all over the place on Bibi. It's actually very hard to figure out what he's even saying. This is always the problem

when anyone tries to kind of, I don't know, mediate what Trump says into something coherent. And by the way, that's not a judgment of the journalist or the piece, because the piece is very clear. He is contradictory. And I do the the reporter really does follow up and push back and come back to things. Trump is just you know, he's just it's it's sand through your fingers. But he's but just here's what he said about whether or not there should be a two state solution. Most people thought it was going to be a two state solution. I'm not sure a two state solution anymore is going to work. Everybody was talking about two states. Even when I was there, I was saying, what do you like here? Do you like two states?

Now people are going back to, it depends where you are. Every day it changes now. If Israel's making progress, they don't want two states. They want everything. And if Israel's not making progress, sometimes they talk about two-state solution. Two-state solution seemed to be the idea that people liked most. The policy or the idea that people liked above. Do you like it? Says the reporter. It depends when. There was a time when I thought two states

could work. Now I think two states is going to be very, very tough. I think it's going to be much tougher to get. I also think you have fewer people that like the idea. You had a lot of people that liked the idea four years ago. Today, you have far fewer people that like the idea. He goes on to mention that Sheldon Adelson was against two states, I think, later on. A different digression. We're not sending our best here. You mentioned this a few minutes ago. It's not just about what he's promising, it's how he's promising to implement it. Trump learned a lot of bad lessons during the first term, including the danger of being surrounded by anyone who has their own reputation

to protect. What jumped out at you in terms of how differently he'd go about a second term? He talks about how he wouldn't wait for people to quit now, he'd fire them. You mentioned schedule, ridiculous, but you mentioned schedule F. What jumped out at you? us but you mentioned schedule f uh what what jumped out at you yeah i to me it's really that litmus test thing just because it's so insane it's like it's so insane uh you know it is it is you know we say this it's like almost cliche to like throw to be like oh it's a cult but like it is kind of a cult you have to you have in order to join this administration, you have to at least pay lip service to denying reality. And like that sets a tone. And it sets a tone with the pardons.

It sets a tone for the existing people that they know that they could be fired, where it's like, now you have to watch yourself. And I think I might've told this on this podcast before, I forget, but I had a friend that was working at the RNC that was one of the quote unquote good ones who stuck around, who was a lifer at the rnc and on a couple conference calls he's you know he's like i don't know about this thing mr trump is saying uh you know it's a little crazy

i don't know if the rnc needs to echo this he did like two or three times jared kushner was out on any of these calls and he gets a call from jared kushner out of the blue one day he's like are you good are we all good is everybody on the same page? And like that kind of mafioso attitude, you know, which they had in, in the first term, but they were not, they didn't know how to implement.

I think if you just listen to him now, like that's the one thing where it's like, they've got a hand on that now. Like they're not going to, they might have people around who aren't true believers, but they're, they're going to be the types of people who are sociopathic enough to not ever reveal that they're not a true believer. Yeah.

I also think it does something else that's also pernicious, which is it makes signing on to be part of this administration a door that locks behind you. administration a door that locks behind you? You know, Ronna McDaniel thought that she was clean because everybody knew, wink, wink, she wasn't a real Trump person. She just became one on television. And so that even NBC higher up executives thought, oh, they sorted her into the serious old school Republican bucket, not the not the mega maniac bucket. But because she had done so much to defend the lie, uh, there was enough of an uproar that made it impossible for her to kind of be treated like a suit, be part of polite society. Right. And so now you say to these people, if you want to be part of this, of Trump world, you've got to sign onto this. Uh, he kind of, he, he, he,

he takes away people's escape ramp. And I do think that that makes people more beholden to him, which I also think is part of this. Totally agree. The other piece of this is, there are a lot of people thinking very hard around Trump, not Trump, about how he can better use federal power. I saw a blast from the past phrase, the unitary executive theory,

back from the Bush administration. They also talk about trying to get the president more authority to not spend money Congress has appropriated, right? This would be for everything from not sending money to the police to not funding social safety net programs. Did any of that come about to you? Yeah. It's not been a good quarter century for the libertarians i'm like i'm actually a jerry executive theory um the uh look it did um and i think that again when i talk to there's a hand like my old friends don't talk to me anymore um you know because there's the uh the betrayal obviously some of the mega folks will talk to me um though and um you know because they just

whatever they always saw me as an enemy and uh the one of them uh as an enemy within and now i'm an enemy without in some ways i'm less threatening um and so when they i talk to them this is what they talk about all the time right like that they that they have had to have learned from the first term right that that's you know, consolidating power within the executive, that there was a lot of deferring. Trump didn't know any better. Trump was, by the way, happy to kind of let Paul Ryan do the legislating and Mitch McConnell. He had Paul and Mitch. He got to do the fun stuff. They did the dirty work, right? And the mindset is totally different now. Couple quick things before we go to break. Are you ready to get

into the good, the ad, and the ugly? In the latest episode of Political Experts React, Dan is joined by MSNBC host Alex Wagner to break down viral political ads from Gavin Newsom, the Biden campaign, and Republican voters against Trump. To watch this hit series, type Pod Save America into the nearest YouTube search bar. Also, from Trump's hush money trial to some pivotal Supreme Court hearings, the last few weeks have been a whirlwind. Want to keep up with it all but have a life? We can't relate. But we've got you.

Sign up for the What A Day newsletter and get a pithy, funny digest of the day's biggest headlines straight to your inbox, everything you missed, and why you should care five days a week. All right. While Trump was apparently dozing off in court, President Biden's administration were having a big week yesterday. The Associated Press reported that the DEA is taking steps towards reclassifying marijuana. Anonymous sources said that Attorney General Merrick Garland will formally recommend moving marijuana from the Schedule 1 drug to a Schedule 3 drug. That puts it alongside testosterone and Tylenol. And Garland's recommendation will trigger the start of a long process.

But given that 70% of Americans support legalization, seems like a great step. Yeah. It's weed tight, Tim. of americans support legalization seems like a great step yeah is we tight tim yeah we're gonna light it up we know you know do a blunt together right now to celebrate um yeah uh look man um this has felt like a no-brainer from the start and that joe biden has been resisting i don't have any internal you know joe biden's a teetotaler joe biden's from a different era don't know if you notice that and so i i think that he um has been somewhat resistant to this. But I guess a political matter, it is fucking obvious, just based on what has been like, look what happens on ballot initiatives anywhere. marijuana decriminalization or maybe it was medical. Missouri has moved basically into Alabama territory when it comes to voting for Republicans and voting for far-right Republicans in blowout elections. On the same ballot, they are voting for liberalizing marijuana laws. It seems like a no-brainer. From that perspective. As a motivation tool, I do wonder,

I guess maybe I'd throw that question back on you. Like, is it kind of too late? Like to you? Like, there was like a period like in 2015, it'd be like, let's get the youth excited by talking about legalizing marijuana. I don't know that the youth really care about that anymore. Yes. Well, I think part of the problem is that, well, it depends on where the youth are, right? And also, it depends on what this depends on what this actually does. We just live in this endless morass where when President Biden does something, even something good, even something that progressives have been calling on for a while, it takes a long time and they don't know when it's going to hit. Yeah. And then all of a sudden you feel pretty good. Yeah. But it's like two hours after you ate it. Yeah. You almost forget who, you almost forget why.

But the, because right, like in a lot of places, weed is pretend legal. Everyone pretends legal. Right. Weed is legal in California, even though it is still a schedule one drug.

And then there will be a lot of places where even if it is reclassified, there won't be recreational weed because it's a state question. I remember that I was reflecting on something, which is, I think we owe certain old school conservative pundits from the 90s an apology. Because I vividly remember Robert Novak. remember, Robert Novak. Robert Novak was a curmudgeonly conservative television pundit. And I remember there was this debate about medical marijuana and one by one, everyone around the meet the press table was talking about how it was a good step and it helps people who have illnesses. And yes, you know, weed isn't what it was in the 1960s and this is supported, blah, blah, blah.

Yes, weed isn't what it was in the 1960s, and this is supported, blah, blah, blah. And then they get to Robert Novak, and he goes, this is the hippies. This is what the hippies are doing. This is the hippies' revenge. They've been trying to get legal marijuana. This is a gateway, and I don't support it. I don't support legal marijuana. I don't support legal drugs, and I don't support the hippies.

And I just want to say that was what was happening. Medical marijuana was a gateway to getting to legal marijuana recreationally. And I think deep down, we all knew that at the time and you were being gaslit. You're dead now, Robert Novak, but nevertheless. You were right about that and dead. Well, you're wrong in the merits of the policy, but you're right that it was a gateway. There's a similar example to this. I was walking into Jazz Fest last week and there was some young progressives, kind of multi-hair colored, look at me and maybe think, maybe I could be somebody that could win over on the issue of gay rights. I don't know. I guess I wasn't dressed gay enough that day. And so we signed this petition to help support

the gay agenda. And I was like, my old instincts came back out. I was like, wait a minute, there's no gay agenda. The conservatives were always like, the gays have an agenda. And we're always like, no, what are you talking about? No, we just want equal rights. There's no gay agenda. Turned out there was a gay agenda, actually. Once we got the rights, we were free to talk about it. So marijuana, it was a gateway. And the gays, we did have an agenda. And the 90s Republican pundits were right about that. Yeah. They just, you know, they, they saw what was coming. Yeah. One other note on this, this was from the AP report, which is once OMB, the office of management and budget signs off,

the DEA will take public comment on the plan to remove marijuana from its current classification. Following a recommendation from the federal health and human services department after the public comment period and a review by an administrative judge the agency would eventually publish the rule uh hey tim maybe we do need a trump's cleansing bureaucratic fire yeah i mean i do think i do think we could probably get rid of a few bureaucrats i do i do i maintain that view. I do have to say it. I'm discussing. I'm talking with Josh Shapiro here in a few hours.

And one thing I want to ask him, which I'm excited to hear, is I-95 collapses. And it's fixed in two days. It's fixed in two days. And I'm like, over in California, they've been trying to build a train for 20 years now. And we spent $800 million. And we haven't even put down any tracks because we have CEQA. And so, I don't know. Yeah, I think we could get legalized pot and trains and roads that work a little bit faster, just a little bit faster. We can have a couple of bureaucrats still.

I don't want to fire too many people, but I don't know, maybe do less. How about do less bureaucrats? Well, how about do more faster and cheaper? Or do less. How about do less, bureaucrats? Well, how about do more faster and cheaper? Or do less. Yeah, do less review or do more faster. I want to do more faster and cheaper. For the record, if there is any place where we can move faster, it was not to gut the government 2010 era Tim Miller style, all right?

I could be on board with either i guess i'm saying do less or do more faster both of those would be fine than doing more much slower slowly or i do think i do think biden being out there on marijuana ultimately like i i think that put aside the like the policy taking time uh and fact that, to your point, it does feel like weed has legalized itself. I do think that there is value to having, like I think for people who know that this policy is just completely indefensible,

I would like to see President Biden saying that I'm out there trying to do this. And by the way, I've taken steps on behalf of people that have been locked up for nonviolent marijuana offenses. I think that that's all really positive. Yeah. We've been joking about this, but it is the criminal justice side of this is serious. Like, you know, weed might be legal in our hearts as like rich whites, but like it is, it has maintained, it is still a problem for people that have less advantages, and there are still people in jail for weed crimes. And so on that side of things, I think that is a good argument to make. And maybe that can be more motivating also to progressives when it's framed that way and less about smoking spliffs or whatever.

Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right. I just, I also just, it is like the fact that we have had this quasi-legal status for so long is, it is so morally bankrupt that we have people in jail in one place, in the same place that we have people walking into a like it it does to me it's outrageous and we we we could talk about it nausea but i do think it speaks to like in a larger conversation but like how does the society become kind of soft enough that that trump can sneak in well i think part of it is being the kind of place that is willing to overlook those kinds of injustices i'm snapping at you like i'm in the new york times break room please do Please do. Speaking of the youth, overnight, a lot of developments in the campus protest movement in New York. NYPD officers in riot gear and riding an armored vehicle moved in on Hamilton Hall. The Zionists have taken back Hamilton Hall. While protesters had occupied it and barricaded it, officers also

cleared out an encampment at City College. Nearly 300 people were arrested, according to a very satisfied Eric Adams. A lot is happening everywhere, Tulane, Yale, University of Wisconsin, here in LA. There was an ugly physical altercation between pro-Palestinian protesters at UCLA who had fortified their encampment with plywood barriers and a group of what appeared to be pro-Israel counter-protesters trying to tear down those barriers and throwing things into the encampment with plywood barriers and a group of what appeared to be pro-Israel counter-processors trying to tear down those barriers and throwing things into the encampment. There's disturbing video out there of the two sides fighting. Eventually, the police arrived and separated the groups. Tim, you made a version of this point last night. It is what I think is probably a very popular but quieter sentiment, which is basically the fact that there is a lack

of space in this debate for people who are opposed to the war, believe the Palestinians deserve freedom and self-determination, opposed to perpetuating a famine, murdering civilians, opposed to the anti-Semitism and Islamophobia around these protests, and opposed, and this is a quote of yours, opposed to militarized police marching on the Portlandia Quad like they're invading Fallujah. police marching on the Portlandia quad like they're invading Fallujah. What? And it was I was glad to see you had a back and forth with Mehdi Hassan, who we had on Love It or Leave It last week.

And the fact that I think that there was so much comedy between the two of you, I think speaks to the fact that there really hasn't been that space during this moment, in part because I think Republicans don't want it to be. They want to talk about the chaos. They want to exploit this. But I also think the media owns this. I think Democrats own this and the students themselves, by the way, who have agency and ought to be held responsible for their words and their actions. But how do we make space for that kind of a dialogue, which is, I think, clearly what's needed? Yeah, we're doing it right now. So we are.

Yeah. Look, I think that there are a lot of people that are afraid to say what they really think about this. And I just I have to tell you, like, we just did this talk about MAGA and talking about the Trump administration, how they're trying to create a world. And I came from a world where a lot of my former friends have real thoughts about Trump that they will tell me after a couple beers or that they used to and that they won't say out loud they won't say on Twitter and and I feel like that there are a lot of people that have the views about this conflict in these protests and and there's some and and and I think that we need to make it okay for people to express their views without immediately going to ad hominem and saying, oh, that means you're on Bibi's side.

That means you're on the terrorist side. When it comes to Bibi and when it comes to Hamas, I think about, are you ever on Reddit? Some of them time to time. You know the Am I the Asshole Reddit feed? Yes. Right? So on the Am I the Asshole, somebody writes a story about how they've been a jerk to their colleague or something.

And then the responders can say either you're an asshole or you're not an asshole. But there are some situations where the commenters respond, ESH, everybody sucks here. And like, that's how I feel about the Hamas BB situation. Like, everybody sucks here, okay? Like, obviously not the innocent people that have been killed, or whether they were in a kibbutz or whether they were in Gaza. But when it comes to the leadership of Israel, pretty much everybody sucks here. When it comes to Hamas, who is still holding hostages and still using their own people as

human shields, everybody sucks here. And unfortunately, I feel that way a little bit about the Colombia situation, where I think there are many protesters who are very earnest in their protest against the war. And I think Mehdi, and this was part of me in Mehdi's exchange yesterday, where Mehdi's like, well, Tim, the reason why they're not protesting Hamas is because we're not giving weapons to Hamas. And they're only protesting Israel because that's where we have some control in our democratic our democratic government i'm like okay i guess that's fine but it'd be nice to have if the protests also included some people with signs that said by the way hamas sucks too and unfortunately what i see in those protests are a couple people that have like hezbollah flags or a couple people that are like jews should go

back to europe or america where they came from which is just ahistorical, or glory to our martyrs. All that stuff makes me uncomfortable. And that's not to impugn everybody that has very real, earnest concerns about the humanitarian crisis. a little bit more you know uh if the goal of these protests is hey we need a ceasefire then we should also at least be expressing that we're pretty upset about the main party that's preventing us from a ceasefire right now which is hamas um and so anyway that's why i'm kind of like everybody sucks here when it comes to those protests also and also the cops which was wet and eric adams which is way overkill and And it's only in America and third world countries. Like there's, this is not happening in Germany

or in, you know, Sweden. If there are protests, you know, it's very nice officers with little batons, like asking people to move off the property. Like the idea they have these fucking face masks, like it's all, it's crazy. Yeah, there's somebody, this is not my observation, but somebody pointed out that you can track the evolution

of our militarization of police by looking at the way the Lego policeman has changed over the years from like a smiling kind of almost in a postal uniform to basically now like a soldier. No, I agree with what you're saying. I also, I do think that like one of the ways our brains are all collectively pickled from years of, of political coverage that treats everyone like a pundit is we kind of bounce back and forth almost without noticing between what is sort of morally righteous versus what, what is effective. And I, and now I have to think in both, right? You are correct. It is both, I think, less effective and I think less, I think, morally defensible to not make denouncing Hamas's holding of hostage a part of what you're trying to protest. But then sometimes I also think just, okay, I don't agree with a lot of what these protesters are saying. I'm sure I would find them quite annoying, right? However, they have successfully drawn attention to what is the urgent moral crisis, half a world away where children and civilians

are being killed, where there seems to be no end in sight to this conflict, even as a ceasefire is being negotiated. And then I think, well, you know what? It doesn't really matter that I disagree with what these protesters are saying on the larger issue or the fact that I find the ramifications of their views abhorrent because what it would actually mean to achieve what they claim to be their goals. I find it abhorrent because what they are actually protesting right now is something that I completely agree with, which is the inhumane and despicable conduct of this war. And I don't want to be a person who makes the same mistake that a lot of people make when they look at a protest, which is get sucked into a debate over its tactics and

methods rather than putting aside the longer term problems with the BDS movement or the ways in which I disagree with it, but rather, what are they drawing attention to? And are they right to do it? Yeah, I'm with that. I get it. I think about that for sure. And maybe you could argue there's been some success there. The fact that there's some more, you know, food trucks are getting in, you know, would that have happened without the, I don't know, would that have happened without the protests? You know, it's hard to do that counterfactual. in polite liberal society to like hold a protest where people are just uh where there are members of the protest that are dehumanizing and personally attacking people from a specific religious or ethnic group like it's hard to imagine that being acceptable in liberal society

for targeting any group except for jews and so i just like there feels like there should be a way there's not it's a protest right there's gonna be a lot of people out there you can you can not pick one sign like sure like there's no way to totally control every protester sign or chant and there have been some gross chants from the pro-jewish counter protesters by the way but like if at a broad enough level there's a certain group that doesn't feel safe and they feel like they're being attacked like there would be more widespread condemnation about that i think if that's other groups and i think that's been that's been that's upset a lot of jewish people and a lot of you know people that are allies of jewish folks and or just observers of this situation i i agree i i agree with that and and and you know and now the response is right

well there are also jewish students who are part of these protests, but I think that the issue, right. Is like, why, right. Why, why does this happen? Right. Why does this, why does there, even if you, even if most of the protesters while saying things that I think ultimately would resort into a cataclysm for millions of Jewish people in Israel, uh, they're not shouting anti-Semitic

statements. They're not shouting slurs, but people that do do that are drawn to the outskirts or are inside of these protests. We saw one of the leaders in Columbia, which has also gotten an absurd amount of attention, but nevertheless saying horrible things came to attention. things, came to attention. Shocking that that person was walking around until it drew national embarrassment for the school. But I do think that that's a question, right? Why does this draw this kind of anti-Semitism? And I think it is because this line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is a hard one to draw. And I see it myself where you see this word Zionist being thrown at people in a way that it does get my back up because it's so quick to be thrown as a slur.

And so I just, in the end, I just like, this is really fucking hard. Yeah, it's a liberal Zionist. It's the liberals. Look, I have a lot of friends like this that are in Israel that are liberal a liberal zionist it's the liberals look i have a lot of friends like this that are in israel that are liberal zionists that were in the streets protesting bb that believe israel has a right to exist that love tel aviv as just a beautiful city that's a very gay city by the way a really diverse city and like and have moved there and love being there and they protested bb they do not like the lukud government but they believe israel has a

right to exist and and and they dress visibly jewish and you know they have the star david necklace or whatever and they're they're being treated like shit and by by their friends like on social media and by some of these protesters they're being treated terribly and so yeah sure they're anti-zionist jews that are part of the the protests but like that group they didn't do anything wrong like they're not bombing hamas their friends or relatives or acquaintances got killed by hamas right and all they're trying to say is we have a right to exist too and we want to have a right to exist peacefully and we want the palestinians to be able to get aid like those people aren't doing

anything wrong and and they're they're being treated very poorly by the protesters is that the acute problem like as compared as their are their feelings as important as the dead palestinian kids of course not that's why you always have to caveat that's why you have this conversation every time you say that yeah yeah everyone sucks here everyone a lot of people are getting screwed here but it's worth saying though i think it's worth saying for another reason which forget us forget the like tone policing in addition to the baton policing that's going on uh i think it matters not just because of how it makes people feel but my sincere view which i've expressed many times in various forms on this and other podcasts, is that the most effective way that

advocating, chanting from the river to the sea, making it this Manichean struggle between colonialists and anti-colonialists, none of it puts actual peace for actual human beings closer. And actually, I think if it is effective, it puts those things farther away because there is no answer to this problem that involves ratifying those kinds of ideas. They are as far from it. And that to me, I do think is important and not just because I don't like what they're saying and I don't like how it makes people feel. How Americans currently feel is not the most important thing. I think it is because the larger struggle, that piece in this larger struggle requires rejecting those kinds of ideas.

You just have me on. You just want to just peel away the onion and just, you know, you're like, I want to bring up tariffs. I want to dunk on progressive protesters. Like, let's talk about... Don't characterize it that way. You're trying to do it. Don't fucking characterize it that way. You're doing it. It's intentional. I get it. That're it's intentional i get it that's fine i'm happy to do it i'm happy to be your little i don't know token okay one last crass political uh question about the situation which is republicans like this they like the chaos yeah they like trying to drive a wedge between

democrats and their jewish constituency how worried about it and what would you do about it many constituencies not just the jewish constituency youth uh arab uh just broadly people of color i think there's a lot of folks that have genuine unhappiness and concerns situation it's a wedge and so yeah look i think that the republicans do see this as a political opportunity they did not see any with maybe exception of like the one or two random libertarians who are in there um our friend justin amash is gone so maybe there aren't any good ones left. They don't mind seeing the cops with their batons going in there and knocking some heads. They think that's a winner for them. Donald Trump, I think, bleeded and the protests now. There is no nuance here. Jared Kushner is talking about building Mar-a-Lago on the strip in Gaza. So

they think it's a winner across the board. They might be right. And I think that it's concerning. It is concerning. If there are young voters, like Joe Biden has a very fragile coalition, which includes people that are quite Israel sympathetic in the Democratic coalition, but also kind of the swing voters, you know, who left the Republican Party over Trump that are not happy with him. The young voters are in his coalition. Dearborn voters are in his coalition. I mean, so he he has to navigate a very broad and wide coalition that has very different views on this republicans are happy to take advantage of it meanwhile donald trump's coalition is like mostly either pro-israel or totally anti-semitic so it's a

little bit less it's like less of a tightrope yeah well that's it is but it's interesting that it is less of a tightrope because of what you just said. But I do think what I was getting at right is that, yes, this is an issue that that what is happening in Gaza is potentially alienating key constituents. uh young voters while at the same time the republicans are trying to exploit the protests without really regard for the views of those young people or those uh arab voters in dearborn they're trying to go for uh they're trying to kind of use the chaos they're trying to say that jews are unsafe right they're trying to go after that constituency specifically for sure yeah and i think it's working it's alarming to me. But anecdotally speaking, is this 1%? Is this 2%? I don't want to overstate how big of an audience this is. It's a pretty small demographic. journal reading conservatives who are either Jewish or, you know, kind of have strong foreign policy hawks that were turned off by Trump because of his dabbling in anti-Semitism and because of his, you know, isolationism that you hear them saying anecdotally like that. I don't know. I

don't like what's happening. Trump will defend us. You know, maybe I have to go back to Trump. You know, there's a whole Dan Senor who works for Paul Singer, who used to be a never-Trumper, who is a big donor, who went back to Trump. Paul Singer's already back at Trump. It seems like Dan is sympathetic to that. You see this, and I was actually just with someone today who's Jewish, who said that they have friends that feel this way. Is that going to change by November? You know, will cooler heads prevail? Hopefully.

But I do think that there is a small demo of group voters that were traditionally Republican, that were gettable for Biden, that are, you know, that are starting to lean back towards Trump over this. I find that asinine, just to be abundantly clear, I find that asinine and insane that on the issue of anti-Semitism,

you would go back to the person that had lunch with Nick Fuentes and Kanye. I find it ludicrous in the extreme, but that doesn't mean that it's not happening. So Biden, there are also people trying to lay what's happening on a campus in New York, on a private university campus

at Biden's feet, I think often in bad faith, but nevertheless, Biden has a difficult square to circle here. He needs to assuage the concerns of that part of his coalition that is concerned about these protests and worried about anti-Semitism, has to assuage the concerns of people that are deeply unhappy with his policy in Gaza. That requires a policy change. That requires something to actually shift on the ground for sure. But what would you like to see Biden say if there's anything he's not

saying? Man, this is going to be a very un-Tim thing. This is on the Podbro podcast. It should be you guys saying this, but we could really use Obama on this because he was really good at this stuff, like going out there and talking. And this was his whole bit starting in 04 like there are red states there are blue states we can be we can think about the we can be empathetic towards the other side while also understanding the policy ramifications he was talented at this biden's like that's not his strength man like he's got strengths but like that's not it and i think that right now there are people that are like where is he on this and and and a lot of what they've been doing has been relegated to written statements, which are usually pretty good, by the way. If you read the Biden White

House's written statements, they usually are very empathetic, very nuanced, very thoughtful. But they're not letting him loose on it. And maybe for good reason. I think that it's really, it's dicey. But I do think that he needs to speak out more. And you could speak out from first principles. And the nice thing about having a speech on a press conference is you could speak more just about the thing like, you can be the inverse of my original statement

where we started this, everything's an asshole. You can be the positive version of that, which is I'm worried about Gaza. We're trying to get food in. I'm worried about antisemitism on campuses trying to get food in. I'm worried about anti-Semitism on campuses in America. We should have that stopped. I'm worried about free speech rights. Kids shouldn't be getting knocked over by police officers when they're at, you know, I saw he could do that, but it's not, there's going to be people he doesn't please if

he does it, but it's probably, we'll see. If it doesn't get any better, it's going to be something he's going to have to figure out how to do. Yeah, I think that's right. I do think that in moments like this, when the rhetoric is heated, when people are talking past each other, and when Republicans are trying to exploit it for the chaos,

I do think sometimes that does lower the bar a little bit and turns just stating first principles, sort of where we started this conversation, into something that I think is calming and relieving and actually goes a long way. Before we let you go, Tim, Vice President Kamala Harris went on Drew Barrymore's show on Monday, talked about a wide range of topics. But this moment, I don't think you've seen it. And I think we'd like to get your live reaction. I've not.

I've been thinking that we really all need a tremendous hug in the world right now. Yeah. But in our country, we need you to be Mamala of the country. It made me very uncomfortable. It made me very uncomfortable it made me very uncomfortable it made kabbalah very uncomfortable i know i like that i like this like what what is going on is she about to touch me it's um everybody we don't need any politician to be mom we don't need to be mamala we don't be dadala we don't need a national dad we don't need any of that shit it's a it's a it's a city where they go to write laws and regulations and to implement policies that affect our lives they're not dad they're not mom i hate that shit me too we need

a head of government by the way this was this was like, this is fundamentally American, love it, where you're getting at. Like, this is John Adams wanted to name the president His Excellency or some shit, and George Washington was like, fuck that, Mr. President. Mr. President, we could have a Mrs. President, hopefully soon.

That's it. They're one of us. They're of the people. We do not need a mom we they are not like the royal family they don't need to be anything special that does bother that i'm with you on that also the touching also the touching yeah because you had a moment where carrie lake touched you during it was very it was kind of similar it was kind of similar i don't mind if you touch me on the shoulders kind of i don't know and Drew is kind of the good angel version of Carrie.

It's like the same energy, but like the light versus the darkness kind of with Carrie or Drew. But they both did the double hand thing. Yeah, it's too much. You can touch me on my shoulder. We can hug. But there's something about the four,

like eight fingers. Remember when George W. Bush lost himself for a second and tried to give angela merkel like a shoulder rub he got it truly was just like he like miscategorized like he just he just did something he might do like to to a relative or a loved one but he just he just like kind of as he was passing gave her a quick she shivered like i've never seen a person shiver the other piece of this too is like politics is emotional because it's serious and the stakes are very, very high.

But we actually don't need these figures to assuage. It's actually the mirror of the people, people who say like, oh, they don't find Joe Biden inspiring. Okay. I get wanting Joe Biden to inspire other people because you want politics to have outcomes, but you don't need to be inspired because if you say, I want to be inspired, it's a little bit like, I don't know, like Louis XIV being like, bring me a show. I'd like to see something.

Bring me a lovely cake and a show. It's like, that's not what this is about. Like if you're feeling worried and anxious about politics, it's not Kamala Harris's job to assuage you. It might be valuable for others, but if it's for you, it sort of should be an embarrassing thing to request. Yeah. Go volunteer if you want to be inspired. Go out in society and find somebody inspiring. That's not what the head legislator of the country necessarily... It's nice. It's a nice bonus. If you get a little tingle up your

leg when the president talks, that should be a bonus you know a little cherry on top that's not the median requirement yeah the idea that like and i get where it's just a very like i don't know it's just a very hollywood oh the country needs a hug right now the country doesn't need a hug that's one of those people need hugs from their loved ones in their own private lives. The country needs effective governance and to defeat a despicable authoritarian movement. That's what the country needs. Hugs after. Go watch Finding Fullerster. That's nice.

Go watch a movie about a young man overcoming challenges. Whatever. Go find something. That's fine. You don't need a mom from Kamala. We're very aligned on this, John Lovett.

Look, you and I, you began by making... Tim Miller, you know him from the bulwark. Send all your negative comments at him. As always, great to see you, Tim. That's great. and if you're

the one person out there that agreed with all my takes today the bulwark plus is available on sub stack because i spent an hour for you all right see you john i miss you and if tim isn't your cup of tea don't worry dan and john back friday morning peace if you want to get ad-free episodes, exclusive content, and more, consider joining our

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