The Bulwark Podcast - Brian Beutler: Time to Pop Off, Dems

Episode Date: July 15, 2025

The majority of elected Democrats would prefer to talk only about policy, but that's not enough for today's freewheeling new media environment. It's way past time for Dems to figure out how to shoot the sh*t—and stop being the kids at the front of the class who don't know how to talk to the ones in the back. And when it comes to Epstein, Trump & co were either lying about the pedophiles back then, or they're lying now to protect themselves. Plus, make the Republicans own all the healthcare cuts: they are happening because of "Trumpcare."  Brian Beutler joins Tim Miller. show notes Brian's Substack piece on how Dems should talk like regular people Brian's podcast, Politix

Hello and welcome to the Bullock podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller, delighted to welcome back cohost of the Politics with an X podcast with Matt Iglesias. He also writes the Off Message, a substack newsletter, was it Crooked Media before, The New Republic and other Lib outlets. And he has a great article. Whenever I read a great newsletter from someone that I agree with 100%, I'm like, they must come on the podcast so I can have my priors affirmed. It's Brian Boitler. How are you doing, man? I'm good, but it makes me think that it's been like a year and a half since I wrote something that you fully agreed with. And that kind of hurts my feelings. That is not true. Actually, I when I texted you about how good it was

I noticed I had done similarly a couple months ago But I just wasn't a podcast worthy agreement this with this agreement was like I am engorged by how much I agree with this And we both podcast on it. I Apologize to my mother-in-law for that The article is Jeffrey Epstein Trump care and the influencer problem and I want to get into the Epstein stuff with you and a bunch of other issues in micro. But first, the macro point that you're making is something I've been talking about a lot that I think that is hard to just kind of process for the Democratic strategist class and politicians a little bit is this. Your subhead is, what

if the people Democrats want to reach aren't terribly interested in policy per se? You go on, we should cop to attention, a pretty severe one between the Democratic party's desire to contest election on safe ground like healthcare policy and the new consensus that reaching marginal voters will require with engaging the online influencers and pop culture figures those voters admire. I, this is right. I think I ask pretty much every Dempah that comes on this show about this, like, how to navigate this? Like, is the problem with reaching these voters policy actually,

or is it something else? So why don't you talk about it at the at the top level? Funny enough, it's like, it relates to what we were kind of joking around at the outset about is that if you're if you're a podcast host, like you are, you have to select your guests and part of what you do when you're selecting your guests is like thinking like who can talk about a wide range of issues or about the issues that I want to care about. And if you survey the landscape and the politicians in the Democratic Party have made clear in all their public statements, what we want to talk about is health care. If you bring up a subject that isn't health care, we're going to say, you know what? That's a distraction from the issue that really matters, which is health care. They're going to be kind of disinclined

to want to bring you on because you can't fill three hours of Joe Rogan show with, I mean, I guess you could. It would just be really boring. And people would talk about what's in the Trump care bill. And so- Reimbursement rates, you don't think you could do 40 minutes on that on Rogan? Just got a chief chief of blunt going to get deep with him on the different reimbursement

rate rules. Different states. Yeah. F map like just, you know, you have a you have a politician be like, and then the F map and like, they won't even think to explain what F map is. At which point, like half the audience is tuned out. And, you know, I think it would behoove Democrats to, like, actually think about what they mean when they talk about this problem they have, reaching young voters reaching the audiences of people who are

like consuming lots of new media, almost none of which is about policy, and what it would take for them to like become simpatico with that universe, and how that's not a good fit. It doesn't really match with their other theory, which is that if we're just normal, turn down the volume, talk about the issues that matter in people's economic lives, then people will realize we're not scary and they'll give us a chance. And I don't, I don't think you can actually square those things. I think you can screw up in certain situations. Like I was thinking of that exact example

you came up with, right? Like, there's no, you know, I'll just pull back the curtain here a little bit. Nobody thinks that I'm not a big fan of Abigail Spanberger. She's bad. She was like one of the first politicians that I interviewed when I started doing, you know, sitting on the interview side of the chair. She's very bulwarky Democrat. She's running for governor of Virginia. Frankly, it doesn't behoove either of us to do an hour right now. Like, she wants to focus on Virginia issues. She's winning in the polls.

I'm happy to talk about that race. It's best for her to pivot everything back to what matters to Virginians and to the Commonwealth. You know, she doesn't want to fucking shoot shit with me about like speculate about who might be, you know, in the Epstein files and write like get, you know, get into like democratic infighting talk, you know, Zoran versus her, right? Like, why? Right. So there's certain races and times where that's called for.

But like, at the broader like brand level, you also need Democrats who can do you need people who can do both, I guess is my point. Yes. And there are obviously examples. And I think an increasing number of them, you know, like, it's not that I think the Democrats are cheap talking when they say, we got to break into this realm of media, we've got to meet audiences that don't know anything about us. They're just in the transition. And so it's awkward. But like, even in just the last six months, you've seen real effort on the part of particularly Democrats who have

longer-term political ambitions to try to just go out and show up on a podcast that they probably hadn't heard about two or three months ago and and shoot the shit with some hosts who don't really care about policy that much. I read a quote I think it was from Tim Walls yesterday was am I getting ahead of you? I know you're not getting ahead of me. No, I just mean, I know, because who knows we could go to Tim Walls, because he might be talking about man code. No, no, no, no, this was this was this was a much better

taken quote, which is, which is that if you don't do interviews, you I'm going to script the quote now, and probably should just Google it. If you don't do interviews, you really will reduce the risk that you say something that can be used against you or that something comes out of your mouth that you wish you could take back. But you also lose an opportunity to reach new people. And I mean, that right there is a cognizance of the problem.

And so I think that it's a problem that is getting better over time. But it's a problem that is getting better over time, but it's awkward. We could talk about this in a minute, but I kind of think that the majority of politicians in the Democratic Party just were poorly selected to become the kind of people who are good at freewheeling. Hey, one thing I love about living in New Orleans is like, people stopping by all the time, either neighbors or buddies who happen to be in the hood.

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Yeah, no, let's just talk about it because I'm with you because you wrote, I like this line that politicos love admonishing each other to meet people where they are. That's a good cliche that you hear in consultant circles. But what if where they are is at the intersection of pop wellness and the Epstein-Pfeil's Venn diagram. And then you want to say, how many high profile Dems could sit with somebody that is a pop wellness Epstein, you know, obsessive and actually talk about it in depth. And like this to me is like, I have an area of disagreement to next, but this is like our key agreement on this insight, which is like, say what you want to Trump. Trump could not actually sit down with you and Matt Iglesias on the politics

podcast and talk about the Medicaid rules for an hour. No, he could. He has no idea actually what changed with Medicaid and he doesn't care, right? Like he can hand, he can bullshit and do talking points for a little bit. But if you want to sit down with him and do, Hey, Hey, Mr. President, you want to do an hour on the Hunter Biden laptop? He could fucking do an hour on the Hunter Biden laptop. Like he is seeped in that world. And like I said, I was my advice to Biden people before the horrible debate is I was

like, understand, like, he knows more about some of the stuff than Joe does. Like, you got a brief about this, like, he'll be like, again, those first 2016 debates, he was able to go deep on random shit that like Jeff didn't even know about, right? Because he wasn't reading, like, they weren't consuming the same material, right. And to this point, it's like, okay, step one is all right, we need to engage on Epstein. And we can do a tweet or two about how, oh, Trump is, you know, protecting the

rich again, just like he did with the tax cuts. That's a good tweet. And you should send, Democrats should send that. But like, can you actually go and sit down with somebody who's been following the story for eight years and bullshit about it and know things and like seem like a normal guy that's like hanging out at the bar talking about Epstein that or gal. That's a tougher task. And like, and it takes actual like work for any Democrats who are who are like our age. And unfortunately, we're getting old enough that that's like an increasing number of them now.

Like they should think a little bit about what what would grab their interest as regular people if they had not made whatever turns in life brought them into politics, right? Because I, you know, I am interested in the Jeffrey Epstein story. And I'm actually even a little bit interested in like, health, fitness, internet, you know, completely detached from politics. And I think that if I didn't have a political career of some kind, like I just be deeper into those worlds, and I might even be susceptible to like, going into some

conspiratorial rabbit holes. You might be a CrossFit cult. Maybe. I mean, for example, but like, for example, yes, like, like CrossFit comes with benefits, it comes with some risk. And it also comes with the possibility, like the risk of making people really kind of weird and cult like. And like I've built up, you know, defense mechanisms against that over time. But but like if I hadn't, that's probably where I would have ended up. And I think that like a lot of Democrats have kind of convinced themselves that like rectitude and also political strategy should make them like when the news or the buzz online veers into areas that don't really intersect with policy very much

that they should kind of be like that is distraction stuff or that is like Republicans doing weird propaganda and disinformation stuff and we should just like shut our brains off to it almost and so now you know we're 10 or 11 days into like Epstein scandal round three, and you get the impression that a lot of the Democrats who are starting to comment on this have only kind of wrapped their heads around why this was a gripping conspiracy theory in the first place. And I don't think it necessarily even has to be like this, right? Like, when I was first writing about politics in the mid 2000s, Democrats ran the 2006 midterm campaigns on a bunch of stuff, but like, they were running against the Bush

culture of corruption, like that was the tagline for the and they were using like whatever powers it could to, they had to unearth examples of like basically favor for money trading that was happening on K Street, people went to jail, Abramoff, this is Mark, I was working on a campaign that you're to mark Foley page scandal was like, honestly, what crushed our campaign. Yep. Like we're like, it was a very close race against an Iowa three and

another story. So those are important issues, but there's very little policy content to them. And then they they come to power, they pass a bunch of good bills. And I think that they internalize this idea that if we just nail the governing, then all this other stuff is going to melt away and people are going to be appreciative of the good things we have brought to them, right. And it turns out it like doesn't really work that way. Because a

nothing's ever right, perfect in America, right? And it turns out it like doesn't really work that way because, A, nothing's ever right perfect in America, right? Like there's a lot of ruin in a nation. But then like, I remember in 2014, that the generic ballot for the midterms that year was like really close. And all the way through to like September, and it was kind of like, Dems might lose the Senate. Maybe Ruth Bader Ginsburg should have retired.

But it's kind of a toss up. And they ended up getting wiped out. And they got wiped out because that August or September and then into October, there was an Ebola outbreak in East Africa. And Republicans, led by actually Donald Trump, started demagoguing on this issue. And then they were going to bring scientists back.

And they said, no. And there was a nativism thing where, where terrorists were going to cross the border bringing Ebola with them. And they got crushed on this issue that was just kind of made up. I mean, like there was actually an Ebola outbreak, but it was being addressed, right? And then Hillary Clinton goes on to lose the next election, not because of policy content, because of, but because of her emails, right? And at some point like it started dawning on me that the theory that democrats were operating on that like

govern well and like you will reap the political rewards is just not correct and that they really did need to engage on these hysterias basically yeah and just know how to talk about it yeah i agree with you. I think that the Democrat, and this goes to the Chris Arnade stuff, where he's like the front of the class, back of the class stuff, and like all the Democrats are front of the class people. And there's something to be said for being a front of the class person. But you know, you need to be able to talk to back of the class people too. And like, as you said, the Democrats are self-selecting for the types of people to run. We're all front of the class people.

And so they weren't capable of talking back to the class people. Obama was an exception to that because he was in the choom gang. So he was able to cross over. He could code switch between the front and back people. It's true though. Yeah, no, it's true.

And so I think that's like almost the easy solve to this. Like the thing that we really agree on. Like you just have to accept that this is a truth and try it, right? And like actually try and engage and recruit people that can do against this. And then there are friendly class people can learn how to talk about Epstein.

You just gotta like read some New York Post and whatever like, you know, like follow the right people on social media and like do a little, you know, I could give you some briefings if you want. And we can- Hire Tim. Yeah, no, no, please don't hire me.

I'll pro bono, I'm retired. But like that was the easy part. The hardero. I'm retired. But, but like that, that was easy. The harder part that I want to get at with you is like, is like, there's a cultural bridge beyond the tabloid stuff that like the Democrats need to really reckon with. And like this gets you into the more of them, you know, your cohost, the Matt Iglesias space, right? Like where it's like, yeah, sure. You can do some things. So you can start talking about Epstein. You can engage in tabloid politics better, like in a way that Trump does. You know, you can not whatever, only do white paper politics. But like, aren't there actual substantive either issues or the manner in which you speak

or, you know, aren't there other cultural barriers that are like hurting the Democrats that are a little harder to bridge than just like you should talk about Epstein now instead of pretending like it doesn't exist? Yes. And you know, I think part of the reason Matt focuses on policy so much is that that's where the streetlight is shining down, right? Like, if you're a politician, you really do control entirely what issues you run on and like how you sell them to voters. And so if you're not connecting with people, one way to try to change that is to like turn the policy toggles a little bit. And I'm like, depending on the policy, I think that that's totally fine. But I think that what you were alluding to about, you know, the front row kids versus the back row kids, the way people in the biz talk about it is high education attainment and low education attainment. And Democrats are increasingly becoming a party of college educated, middle to higher income people

who will become more and more culturally distant from the party that is becoming increasingly lower education. So what do you do about that? I mean, you purge the party and recruit a bunch of blue collar workers, give them a little bit of media training and throw them. I just want to try to like tease out right because you asked a question. It's like, you know, if you ask any anybody in like, the squad, like Bernie world, right, like their answer will be

well, policy, like which is, but their policy answer is we need some socialism, right? Like, whatever, like we need more economically populist, whatever word you want to put on it, like, you know, bigger social safety net, like, that's the answer to this question. If you ask your co-host, Matt Iglesias, he'll be like, well, no, it's policy, but it's more like we should, Democrats should be for drill baby drill and like guns, like, or whatever, like there should be cultural policy. And then you and I think you and me agree that there's also just like a performance part of it. Democrats should actually recruit more working class people who are more comfortable talking with other working class people and fucking language that they use and with references they use. It's like in that triangle of options, do they need to do all three, do you think? Could you get away with just doing one of options? Like, do they need to do all three? Do you think is could you get away with just doing one of them? I think you definitely need some mixture of all three. I think

that what you first need to do is because there's this weird synthesis between the left and the center, where they seem to agree that if the main thing is just to make people who are from the lower and middle classes feel like government is working in their material interests and if you solve that problem you will win back all the blue-collar voters because they'll be grateful for the improved conditions and I kind of think that like the 2024 election is proves that's like Yeah, at least it's a it's a strong mark against it. So I I have a I think that's wrong

I mark against it. So I have a... Yeah, I think that's wrong. I agree that the Democrats should do that because that is good. It's just it's a net good and to help people improve their material lives. But I don't think that that's the skeleton key to beating the mega. Right. So put that out of your mind or at least downweight how much you think that that is the skeleton key to politics, right? And then, you know, when something outrageous happens, you know, Trump, Trump corruption, scandals exposed, or he's, you know, you know, basically is pushing California to the brink of secession, whatever, like actually get mad about it. Because like, when you

talk to Democrats, particularly younger ones who are like feeling their way in the direction that we're talking about privately, they like they, they let their real emotions about what's happening come out. And a lot of the times when I'm having those conversations, like, you should just say that. It's not, you know, the 1960s, 70s or 80s anymore, where if a politician says, damn, everyone gets all, you know, weirded out by it. Like if something has happened, happening, that's outrageous. And like, the fact that Donald Trump has committed

11 billion impeachable offenses in the last six months is something that all Democrats are terrified to mention. It's just like, why? Why be so scared of that idea? Trump literally was calling the Democrats evil. I was thinking about this yesterday. It's like randomly at the prayer breakfast, he just does an aside where he's like,

Democrats are evil. And it's like that, and prayer breakfast, he just does an aside where he's like, Democrats are evil. And it's like that. And that's just part of his schtick. And he just and it seeps in with people and it's even with voters. And it's like Democrats are afraid that if they do it, that one of the panelists on CNN will like wag their finger at them and say, don't look down at Republican voters by saying they're evil. So it's just kind of like, I don't want why, why? What is the asymmetry here? Like

if it's like, if they're doing if Trump and the administration is doing evil shit, like call them fucking evil. Right? Like, but to your point, right? Like, why do swing voters matter as a concept? They matter because both parties compete over the same pool of them, right? So what what Trump is doing worked a little bit better. Overlapping pools, really, because there is also a pool of

swing voters who are either Republican or no vote and or Democrat and no vote, right? And then the swing, then there's the middle pool. Yes, but, but, but they're like, however you want to group them, Trump did a little bit better than Democrats in the last election at reaching them. But like he, it wasn't with policy,

it was with bombast, right? And so it's like, if it works for him, then at least you know that there's no huge penalty to pay for popping off at the mouth a bit and not being so wrapped up in yourself that you can't express yourself like a normal person. So I think that those are like step one, there's more to politics than just governing well.

Step two, learn to talk. Like you would talk to your spouse or your best friends from college or high school or whatever about what's fucked up about what's happening in the world. Then third, and this is where I actually think Matt makes his best point, which is it's about the Senate specifically, but I think it's a generalizable thing is that if Democrats want to stop the slippage into authoritarianism, make the country more democratic, they're gonna need to win back the Senate and

they currently don't have a plan to do so because their brand, whether it's a policy problem or a interpersonal problem, is toxic in the states that you would need to win, right? So what's the plan for winning North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, whatever? And his emphasis, I think, is mostly on the policy changes you would need the party to tolerate in candidates from those states. So blacks on guns, strict on the border, things like that.

And I think that that's probably correct. But I think that what you what you want is not just like a new prescription, like this is the old agenda, here's the new agenda, but a method for peacemaking within the party so that the kinds of candidates who might win in North Carolina are willing to run right, like it's probably not going to be someone like Zoran Mondani, it's probably going to be someone like Roy Cooper. And you want that person to feel like, well, I'm going to run for Senate, I'm going to talk about how I'm more lax on guns and the

rest of the party. And like the gun control movement, people are going to jump down my throat about it. What I've written about as a proposal for like intra party peace isn't about finding the middle ground between policy, but it's about just like establishing grounds for good faith, right? Like I think that I would want progressives and I think that I think you're seeing this start to happen with people like AOC to have more grace for the kinds of candidates that you need to win in red and purple red states, right? Just like when they run on like, like from your state, if John Bell Edwards ran, and he ran on being pro life, like, don't make a big stink about it, because it's important to the people.

Or maybe just make a big stink about it, but kind of just wink about it. Sure. I mean, be a politician. But, but so that's the give like the take is that what they need to have grace for are things that are actually culturally important to the people who live in Louisiana or Texas or North Carolina. And to me, those are things like guns like abortion, and they're not like what you end up getting from a lot of centrist Democrats like Kirsten Sinema, which is like private equity concerns and, and, and like

capital gains taxes. And then they're, they're claiming that it's no, I need to do this because my state is more conservative. And you know, I'll get, I'll get run out of office if I don't do these things. It's like, no, that's not true. You're just mining for donor bucks and you're using the, your political challenges as covered to be a little bit

soft corrupt, right? And so that you want moderate leaders to say, we are not going to do that. Like, yes, we need the party to moderate on actual issues that matter to actual people in actual parts of the country that are more conservative than blue America, but not as a smokescreen to do crypto and AI. Yeah, I think that's right. My one more and another thing on that before we we move on, is also they got to be able to attack the main body of the party.

And I think of all of my complaints about Joe Biden, which are myriad, my biggest one that does not get enough attention is once he decided to leave, this sensitivity to being criticized. like once he decided to leave, this like sensitivity to being criticized, like what, you know, and like this happened internally where there were like calls, like where, and part of this I think was common to be loyal, but part of this was like the Biden people were very sensitive to being criticized and like Joe didn't want his legacy to be heard or whatever. And it's like, no, like the, to reach these guys that we're talking about, that care about Epstein, that think that there is a conspiracy happening,

you need to be able to credibly run and say, I'm not part of that. And like, basically, and that was what worked for Obama in 08. He's able to credibly do that because he wasn't around for the Iraq war vote, basically, but also because of the nature of his name and like a lot of reasons. He was like, I'm different.

And then that's Trump. And you can't expect that you're going to be able to win over voters that voted for Trump in Texas for the Senate, if they think that you don't have any legitimate criticisms of the Democrats. So your advice about how mad they need to be about Trump, I agree with that. And you also need to, whatever thing it is, I actually, I literally don't care what it is, but whatever thing it is that pisses you off about the Democrats, you need to be mad about that too and make sure people know it, you know?

So it doesn't seem as if you're a stooge. Yeah, just like everything's been fine and we just had some bad luck or whatever. I mostly agree. I think that there are a couple of distinctions I'd draw in that. One is like the distinction between Biden per se the person and the Democratic Party establishment, which is, you

know, he's a part of but is is a bigger and in some ways easier to hate on thing than he you know, like, I mean, like I sensed when he decided to run for president at 77 or whatever, that there was a lot of ego here and that this could get us into trouble. And sure enough, I think that the Democrats who are torn about throwing Biden under the bus are just genuinely fond of the person.

And it's tough. And by the way, that was not me saying that like, oh, the thing to do is throw Biden under the bus. And you can do it if you want. That's fine with me. I just meant like, you can't be afraid to separate yourself from either Biden. Yeah, well, but like to tie it back to what we've been talking about all along

is that, you know, anyone who has ambition, the Democratic Party is going to be asked the Biden question. And I think that like just as in policy, all these people should stop and they should ask themselves, what do I really think about Joe Biden, the person, how he carried himself, what he did in office, how he handled the final year, how he's handled things since, and what do I want to say about it. And I think that what I've seen so far, Mallory McMorrow and a few others, is just this like,

consultants say throw Biden under bus, and so all the nuance collapses out of that, and you're defining yourself in contrast to Biden, right? It's a little bit shitty. And it's also, I don't think it scans as real, because you could probably go find quotes from most of those Democrats from literally just a year ago, saying the opposite.

So you really need to know what you believe and then figure out how to articulate. That's quaint. So that's Biden versus the party per se. I feel like give them a wide berth. I do see sometimes that candidates, especially when their race is really hard, they will go about this in ways that I think are, maybe they're helpful in their races,

but they are so cutting and mean about the Democratic Party. That's like, like, it hurts the rest of the party really badly. Right? Like, so the one that sticks in my craw is Bernie saying the election was stolen from? Yeah, well, okay, okay. Jared Golden, I was Bernie talking about, like, at a time of unusual economic prosperity, how 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, which is a made up statistic, is not helpful. It's like you want your party to be able to run on the optimism of morning in America,

not like, hey, sorry, it's been three and a half years, and you're all still miserable, right? So that's a good example. But Jared Golden, his thing after the debate was, this confirms my suspicion that Donald Trump is going to win the election. And I'm okay with that because I disagree with Democrats that Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. It's like, whatever, it was one quote in one newspaper.

So it wasn't like some major incident, but it validates the Republican critique that Democrats have Trump derangement syndrome. And all their other warnings about threats to democracy are opportunistic and fake or hysterical and you can just ignore them and like either he's stupid or he was like very cynical in doing that. And I think that like you want people to be responsible enough to know that like the difference between attacking the Democratic Party on grounds where it has legitimately failed or underperformed and attacking the Democratic Party with casual slander like they're all making up that they think Trump is a threat to democracy because the like the latter is damaging the former is Constructive a little harder than it sounds it seems like Brian. I know I mean, it's a it's a maze All right, I've got to tell you about this game-changing products been a sponsor of us for a while and it's something I use before night out with drinks. It's called

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checkout for 15% off. Let's get back to Epstein. Here's the easy part. Talk about Jeffrey Epstein, listen to a Julie Brown interview so you know what the hell you're talking about and let's use it as a cudgel as it should be used against Republicans. I want to play you this audio, it's a little mashup. People probably heard most of these, but it's the attorney general, the FBI director, and the deputy FBI director, and their own words talking about the Epstein files.

Please do not let that story go. Who has Jeffrey Epstein's? Black book? Black book. FBI. But who? That is that I mean there's that's under direct control of the director of the FBI what the hell are the House Republicans doing they have the majority you can't get the list put

on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are who's on the Epstein tapes, folks? Who's on those tapes? Who's in those black books? Why have they been hiding it? And this is something Donald Trump has talked about. The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients.

Will that really happen? It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump. Everything's going to come out to the public. The public has a right to know. Americans have a right to know. I mean, they might be clowns, but it's the attorney general, the FBI director and the deputy FBI director all passionately using Brian butler's advice, passionately advocating for the release of this material. Like the Democrats cannot just let this go. And I don't think they're going to.

Here's one place where I do sympathize with Democrats. Is that like what you're hearing from these guys is acting. You know, they're pretending to, you know, maybe some of them are actually like really down the rabbit hole to conspiracy theories. But every time something insane happens in Republican politics, you'll get a lot of liberals being like, can you imagine if a Democrat, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah?

And what I always want to say is don't do the meta critique, just have Democrats go out and act themselves. Like, perform your anger. And I honestly would be horribly uncomfortable doing that as a, like, that's just the kind of person I am. And I think probably Democrats are a lot like- You would? I'll do it right now.

I'll do it, I'll show you how to do it right now. I'll I'll do it. I'll show you how to do it right now. FBI director Cash Patel. You said that the FBI director has this information. These are pedophiles. They're real victims out there that were harmed by these powerful people. What are you hiding? Is it Donald Trump?

Is it friends of Donald Trump that you're hiding? Come testify today and explain what happened. Or were you lying then? Because those are the options. That's easy. That's not performative. That's legit. So we're recording this Tuesday.

I guess it comes out Tuesday. So whatever. Tuesday. Yesterday, Hakeem Jeffries, I think in two different places, finally came out with something strong. He was really good. Let's listen. There are only two things that are possible here.

Option one, Donald Trump, Pam Bondi, and the MAGA extremists intentionally lied to the American people for years about the Jeffrey Epstein situation. That's option one. Option two is that in fact, there's reason for the American people to be concerned as it relates to what information has not been released that could be damaging to the Trump administration and the friends

and family of the Trump administration and their billionaire corrupt supporters. And so they're actively engaging in a cover-up. Option one, they lied for years. Option two, they're engaging in a cover-up. At this point, it seems reasonable that can only be one of the two things. He was good. Yes, but you'll notice that the formulation he came up with, he came to it like a week after the podcast bros did.

Like as soon as Trump backed away from from Epstein stuff and stuff and got Bondi and Patel on board, they realized, this is either you lied to us about pedophilia to get elected, or you're covering up the fact that you're implicated in the pedophilia scandal, which is it we need to know. And when I recognized that that was the either or that Trump had presented, I was like, that's an important point. Democrats should jump on that.

And I mean, I happen to know a little bit about how Democrats go about figuring out what to talk about and when and how to say it. And it's that like they waited for the focus group information to come back on whether they should talk about this and what they should say about it. And what they learned is essentially that like

the democratic party standards that like the Democratic Party standards that like do best in focus groups still outperform Epstein stuff, but interest and engagement level is so much lower on that stuff that if you talk about Epstein, you reach so much farther and that like that outweighs

like the persuasive power of things like healthcare. And they had to wait for some sort of laboratory experiment to tell them that before they felt comfortable coming out and saying it. And this is the kind of impulse I want to unplug from the party. Because I don't think I think Hakeem Jeffries is a smart guy. And I bet you he kind of knew that that this was a decent approach and that he didn't actually need to wait seven days that like literally as soon as Trump posted that crazy thing on true social or

whatever, that this was a good line to use and. But better late than never. They're doing it. The other thing happened yesterday. They added an amendment to like some crypto bill, I guess, about, um, you know, demanding that the files be released, which is like, it's kind of like what are the files, right? Like, it's not exactly like there's like a, just a ledger that lists all of the pedophiles, right? Like the files include like, you know, all of the investigations and the videos that were taken from Epstein's house and, you know, very, the redacted stuff of things. It's already been released anyway. But they, they put an amendment through. Ralph

Norman voted with them, Republican from South Carolina. Chip Roy, Republican from Texas, abstained. And so you're getting close to actually forcing the hand. And so doing that kind of stuff, I think, is important and meaningful. And things will come out from all this. The other example I always gave, which was I was so frustrated with Democrats' oversight the last time they were in charge, was I was like, there's a lot of mockery of the Benghazi hearings.

There's a lot of mockery of all of that sort of stuff. But that, in a weird, indirect way, the Republican oversight hearings led to the Comey letter, right? Because it was like, oh, we realized that Anthony Weiner has a laptop with this, and then we looked at the laptop, right, like you just, you never know what stuff will be uncovered. And like there is obviously more information and more people, we don't know who they are.

Are they donors? Are they people that have gotten sweetheart deals from this administration? Does Trump show up in a weird kind of way that's a little bit great? You know what I mean? Maybe he was interviewed. I mean, maybe the FBI interviewed him. Yeah, right.

The answer might not just be like, oh, Trump is on list, right? And like Trump raped young girl. Like maybe, I don't know, like there've been a lot of accusations against Donald Trump, but there are a ton of other things that could lead to other distractions and problems. It's worth playing in that pool and seeing what happens. What you said about Benghazi is literally true. It was through the Benghazi investigation that they found out that Hillary Clinton was using this email server, which started that investigation, which led to the initial Comey

statement. Then they found the laptop. There was a through line and all that. And somewhere in the middle of that process, Kevin McCarthy came out and ruined his first bid for speaker, saying, remember how popular Hillary Clinton was at the beginning of this campaign? Well, what did we do?

We started a Benghazi select committee and look at what happened to her numbers. And back then there was still a little bit more shame in politics than there is now. So it ruined his, like, Republicans were a little embarrassed that he had confessed to what the strategy was, but he was dead on, he was completely accurate, right?

I took a lot from that experience. And so when Democrats took over in 2019 and then did an impeachment over the Ukraine shakedown, there was a moment in that investigation where one of the witnesses, I think, attested that Trump had a bunch of other corrupt sounding conversations with international leaders that they stashed on this server, that was improperly classified. And it was like, oh, they can blow

this scandal wide open. And like the leadership shut down that avenue of inquiry. And it's like, why would you maybe that's the, that's the Hillary's emails in the, and they just, they like resist the temptation for the jugular. And it's related to what we were saying about waiting for the focus group information to come back. And like, I don't think Jeffries blew it. Like time was not so much of the essence here.

Like he struck it while the iron was still plenty hot. Yeah, no, it was good. Yeah. And like, and like, and like, I think still plenty hot. Yeah, no, it was good. Yeah. And like, and like, and like, I think John Kennedy in the Senate, the your senator was like, they're gonna have to go back to the drawing board on this. But I would like Schumer now to say, like, we are going to introduce these new elements of obstruction until Republicans stop the Epstein cover up so that the story doesn't fizzle out. Because if they, if Democrats don't stay on it, it will eventually fizzle.

Another example of this, just as I was listening to you talk about the foreign influence and stuff, is the crypto thing, something I'm obsessed with, like the Trump crypto coin and how that's going away. And again, Democrats right now have limited avenues for doing hearings and stuff instead of the minority. That's another thing that, just going back to our original meta point,

you could go on one of these bro shows because they do crypto, you know, go on with Portnoy or one of these fucking guys, you know, and talk crypto and be like, isn't it strange that the president has this fucking shit coin and we don't know who's investing in it? Like, aren't you worried about that? You care about corruption.

You like, you care about the congressional stock, Congress, Congress people Congress, people investing in Palantir and you're mad about that are stocks or Nancy Pelosi got rich. It's like Trump's getting rich. We don't even, at least we know what Nancy Pelosi was invested in. We don't even know who's investing in them. And again, like that is a type of thing that I, you know, you hear Democrats mention as a talking point, but like it's something that like you can go and sit down with somebody in for 20 minutes and dig in. And that starts to get, you know, their natural conspiratorial podcast mind

percolating a little bit. And Tim, don't you think it would have been better if instead of saying, hey, we need to placate the crypto barons, let's pass this bill and let's pass it even though Republicans are blocking a provision that would prohibit Trump from owning being involved in the crypto industry. If instead of that, the senators who wanted to cave to crypto went on these shows and were like, look, like we want to meet you where but like first,

isn't it weird? That like they're not rules. Yeah, rules like this that the president can't have an anonymous anonymous investors in his coin because I'm with you. If we add that rule to this bill, I'm for it. Yeah, I totally agree. Yes. Ruben Gallego could have done that. That's easy. He absolutely could have. And I think that like he he probably would have been actually pretty good at it. And yeah, but you know, I also think that like there's a donor consideration that's

kind of making it hard for them to see their own political interests clearly, but that would have just been better. It would have been good on onming Trump. It would have made the crypto bill better, and it would have given lots of Democrats easy inroads to these audiences who probably aren't super familiar with the legislative process or what's in the bill or whatever else. And it's not too late. The bill's passed. Yeah, yeah. But it's like, it's not too late. The issue's not dead, though.

Yeah, it's not too late. The issue's not dead though. Yeah, it's not too late. Like you can do all this stuff, you can reinvigorate all this stuff. I don't, you know, again, like learn from Trump. Trump fucking brings up scandals from nine, fake scandals from nine years ago. He's so good at it. Like all the time.

You know what I mean? And so like, okay, just because we're not, the Qatar plane story is off of, you know, the front page of the Washington Post doesn't mean that you can't go talk about it to some fucking influencer. Anyway. Yeah. One thing I love about our sponsors is that I feel like I've become a shirp of a pied piper of sorts for straight men who want to get into face moisturizing. The amount of middle-aged straight men

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I just want to let you cook. What is a valuable way to now that the tax and spend bill has passed? It's kind of a disaster, I think. How do you wrap your hand around that issue as opposed to these more tabloid issues? So what I've written, and it's the best I've come up with so far is really essentially to take a page from you guys. Back in 2010, at the bulwark, RNC, you know, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, where are the jobs?

Well, specifically like Obamacare, right? Yeah, Democrats were fretting over the details of their bill and Nancy Pelosi was like, we just need to pass the bill, then we'll implement it. People will be happy with it once they find out what's in it. And Republicans were like, uh-uh. Obamacare means you own everything that happens in the healthcare system.

Everyone whose insurance gets canceled, every cent that gets cut out of Medicare reimbursements, we'll call it a Medicare cut and we'll blame you, right? And I think that Trump has made Trumpcare now. And most of the harms of Trumpcare are set to take effect at the end of or after his presidency. And so it's not going to be like we wake up early next year and 10 million people lose their insurance all at once.

But hospitals are already under strain, they're going to continue closing. Like, honest health care executives will say the looming Medicaid cuts are making that happen faster. Every time a rural hospital closes, Trumpcare did this. Your member voted for Trumpcare, right? And it's not like always going to be the sexiest topic or the thing that gets you invited onto onto Joe Rogan's show or whatever. But I do think that like, the sort of memeification of what the consequences of this bill will be will do a better job getting into people's head if they have a simple mnemonic for for understanding what is changing

about health care and who's responsible, which is what essentially what Republicans did when they wanted Democrats to own every negative thing that happened to the healthcare system after Obamacare passed. And I think that Trumpcare offers, like, a pithier way to do it than, you know, I've heard you on your podcast struggle with, like, whether we call it one big fugly slut or,

and Democrats, because they're like- Trumpcare is the answer. I think it's Trump care. But Democrats are stuck on one big beautiful betrayal, which makes no sense. Yeah, big ugly bill. Big ugly bill. Yeah. And like the beauty of just being like, okay, you pass the generation reform to the health care system one that really sucks, and it's going to hurt a lot of people fold in the rest of the Trump health care policy, like, sucks and it's going to hurt a lot of people, fold in the rest of the Trump health care policy. Trump care is also cancer research being gutted. Trump care is also the problems that people

with preexisting conditions will experience when their premiums go up because people drop out of the insurance exchanges. There's a lot to work with here that isn't just in the text of the bill. And if I were a staffer for an ambitious Democrat, I would keep one eye out for any health care story that was even like loosely connected to Trump administration policy or this

bill, and just be like, hey, Trump care claims another victim. That's me cooking like there's there may be better better ideas out there. I also feel like and I think I know this issue matters to you a lot. They should be thinking now about what they're going to do about Oh, I like look like I honestly, I don't know where you're gonna go. What is your manager? immigration? El Salvador? I'm thinking of like the $150 billion for ice in the prisons. But I think the debt in a weird way might have a number

of issues that I care about Brian, I just thought it'd be funny for me to say the deck because I knew that isn't what you're going to. But it might help Democrats on its own if debt leads to inflation leads to stagflation interest rates, high interest rates, really, like it could save democracy that Trump is being so reckless fiscally, but they should be thinking about like the new politics of immigration that have transformed because of these raids, the stories about alligator Alcatraz, like suddenly Trump is way underwater here

and he's just about to start building this secret police force in this Gulag archipelago. And you know, either people are gonna rebel further against him on this stuff as it becomes a nationwide infestation, or they're going to get used to it. And I think I would want Democrats to like get out of the fetal position on immigration and think about how to go on the front foot now because otherwise they're going to inherit this situation at some point in the future, and either have to dismantle it or this enormous

police force is going to be like controlling their politics in the same way like corrupt city police forces sometimes undermine mayors, but if they don't get their money and their enforcement priorities met. Yeah, this is, and I obviously agree with you on that and Democrats should be on the front foot on this. And this goes back to our main topic of the day, our overarching topic, which is like, nothing is a distraction actually. You can use anything that he wants to use a distraction to your benefit now that he

is the president, right? And if he wants to talk about fucking Greenland, he's talking about Greenland instead of solving your fucking problems. And so let's engage on Greenland and fucking mock him over it. If he wants to build a fucking gul build a fucking, you know, Gulag and Everglades. Okay. Well, like he can do that if he wants, but he could have built housing that was going to be more affordable for you. Right? Like if a Democrats are so, if they buy the frame that you and I don't buy, which is they have to pivot things back to kitchen table issues, you can still use it within these conversations.

I liked Michael Tomaski wrote in the TNR the other day that they're spending four times as much on immigration detention centers as is in the budget for low-income housing. I think that's a legit populist economic issue and way to get into this in a way that people get. That's an easy talk. And people like, do we really want that? Do people really want that? Like, sure, the Stephen Miller acolytes do, but a lot of people don't, you know? And so I do think there's a way to get into these issues that way.

If I could talk to Hakeem Jeffries or like a swing state Democrat or, you know, somebody who's being really like careful. Yeah, probably I'm tiptoeing around the issue. I'd be like this policy is essentially disembodied Stephen Miller, right? Like, it is his DNA that's flowing into these policies. Look at Stephen Miller, listen to him. Can you think of a less appealing person? Why are you scared to take Stephen Miller on? I mean,

like the most defeatable person in the in the world of politics. And you think that he's got you in checkmate or something like this? Like, I, I, I suspect that there are ways, because this is a question of tyranny versus liberty, beyond like housing and economics, that there are ways for Democrats to take the issue on frontally. Amen. Totally agree. But if to the extent that you're still scared of being like, and that means that we're going to have to do something else with undocumented immigrants, and that means that they're going

to stay and you don't want to end up having to cop to that, sure, what you said is totally true is like, why would we spend $150 billion on concentration camps, but like, less than 10 billion on housing, the biggest, the biggest economic crisis the country's facing, right? Can we do a little Zoran talk? Of course. Since you're the house, you're going to be the house lib for the day. Where are you at on that? I just, I just want to get an open, uh, do you have concerns, uh, opportunity?

Are you excited or both? do you have complex feelings about them? Yeah, I think I'm a little bit more on the like, like, let's let this guy cook side of things than then you and your co hosts at the bulwark. He was at Nowadays, you get excited. He's at the hipster hangout in Brooklyn, everybody got a lot of cheers, you know? Oh, man, I'm in Washington, DC. We don't even know about

that anymore. Washington DC is so is so over. It's cooked. So I could see like a literal implementation of everything on the Zoran agenda not working out so well. I really do hope he is prepared like has thought through what he's going to do not just about how the general election race is going to go, but like the corrupt and abusive act of retribution that he and the city are going to come under because he is in the right wing's imagination, a perfect foil for them,

and they want to make him famous. So he needs to be likable and charming and clean, uncorrupted, so that when that comes, like he's, people watching are like, wait, that guy seems totally nice and normal. Why are they abusing him? And also like, what are you going to do to protect the people there if Trump comes after them? So that's my, that's my reservation

about him becoming mayor. I don't know that there's anything you can do about it. And it's like, I feel a little bit like it's victim blaming to put that all on him because honestly, like, it should be a scandal that the Justice Department or whatever might come after the mayor of New York and the federal government might crush New York City because they want to raise the profile of somebody who calls himself a democratic socialist. It's like, it's pretty gross. Have you fought with Matt about his Eric Adams, his quasi Eric

Adams endorsement? No, no, I, I think Matt is being a pretty relative to a lot of other Democrats who are in full mumdani freak out mode. I think Matt has been pretty mature about the situation. Like I think he, I think his view is basically like, like, I don't think this is going to work out great as a as a substantive matter, but I hope I'm wrong. And the Democrats who are trying to simultaneously claim to be big tent Democrats and also trying to push Mamdani out of the party should shut the fuck up.

And I think that that is a good place for people in the moderate camp to be. This takes us back to that original triangle question about what the Democrat solution is, you know, and like how did, like, is it, you know, you got to pivot to the right on cultural issues, you got to pivot to left on economics, or you got your, the vibe's gotta be different, right? Like, and he, and he's kind of two of the three in those potential options.

And I wonder, like, where, what's your answer to the question of like, could there have been a, like, could there have been a, I don't even know, I don't want to brand their politics, like a Pete, like somebody with Pete's politics that like ran that got the same level of excitement? Was it necessary for Zoran to be a democratic socialist to have that level of enthusiasm in New York? Or was his campaign, you know, was the strategy

that he employed enough that you could have glommed on a different ideology onto it and it still would have worked? I'm going to speak from intuition because I suspect that Mamdani would have won on the same platform if he had never been a part of the democratic socialists. But I'm not sure that his margin would have been as big, but it's possible that my instincts are wrong and that he would have actually done even better if he had just been like a progressive who was young, charming, literate online, same charisma, same star power. Just he thought of himself as like an FDR Democrat instead of a democratic socialist.

But in an enclave like New York City, it might have helped him. That's just where my gut is on that. I think Pete shows it on a national level. You can be more mainline and have serious reservations about socialism or people who identify as democratic socialists and still get big crowds and still inspire a lot of people. I don't know if Pete would win a presidential election,

but he can definitely fill an auditorium. That's the thing that worries me about Zoran is like, and I love people, and like Pete appeals to a certain demo. It's like, what I don't want is like 27, 25 year old progressives to like become, it's like AOC or Zoran or nothing. Yeah. Like the only way to excite me is through that. Because I think like AOC or Zoran or nothing. Yeah. You know, like the only way to excite me is through that because I think that AOC and Zoran totally work in New York, whether he'll be a good mayor or not remains to be seen.

I've hashed out my various reservations about him, the things that I think that he did well. But like, obviously Zoran or AOC are not going to win like Wisconsin. I think we can in 2028 at least, I don't know what the future holds, maybe, you know, I guess Donald Trump could send us into a Great Depression and AOC could win Wisconsin potentially, I would say. Zoran can't run for president. But I guess my question is like, that's the thing that worries me about him more than like any actual specific policies like that something like New York is resilient. New York's had plenty of bad mayors, he ends up being a bad mayor, New York will be fine four years later. But like, I worry that like

young Democrats like really kind of glom on to this and like anything else seems like a sellout and it's hard to like channel any sort of excitement that crosses the whole breadth of the party. Like that's like the meta concern I have about about the Mamdani mania. I can see that. I think that a lot of Democrats, any young Democrats who try to emulate Mamdani in cities or districts or whatever that don't have New York City style politics are gonna find out pretty quickly

that it's not a universal thing. And you know, then there are gonna be others like Kat Abugazela is running on a very progressive district, like that might work. I do think that AOC and Mamdani have a kind of star power that is a little bit hard to like, maybe she's like, they could become president because presidential elections tend to be like, closely run things and they're super charismatic. But if you tried to run somebody with Joe Biden levels of charisma on that

platform, it might not work out so great. I wrote in my Tuesday piece is it's about like what policy and politics can do about the epidemic of loneliness and like spoiler behind the paywall is that I was like the way I would like to see Democrats Thank you for providing the Bullock listeners some behind the paywall material. We appreciate reward me with your subscriptions. The the way I would like to see Democrats learn from mom Donnie more than just like let's let's say we're

democratic socialists just like he did and it'll be it'll be magic and we'll win our primaries and then lose the general election is like what would Zorn mom Donnie have run on if the animating issue in that race had been loneliness as opposed to cost of living. Obviously, those are overlapping issues. But and I think that instead of being like here's a 10 point plan for loneliness, he would have said four day work week. And like that would have been the thing that that people glommed onto like, yes, he gets it like,

we're lonely, because we're exhausted, because we work too hard. And we need like leaders, we don't have a labor movement that will do this for us, we need leaders who will champion something like that. I mean, it could be a bunch of other things, it could be like taxing the tech oligarchy for mining our brains for attention and making us miserable, like, come on, keep giving me one I might like. Alright, the second one was better than the first one. Where we go and more.

Like come on keep giving me one. I might like all right the second one was better than the first one where we go more Spend that money on unlike community investment but for so that people can congregate and party and do extracurricular activities that are Subsidized and that you can walk to and like you could do that obviously that's not just an urban thing like hunting excursions in rural America, like, like, like things so that you're hanging out with people instead of on your screen. But ultimately, like, I think it's mostly having

somebody who has charisma, who makes clear through the way they campaign that they care about this, and that they're like in this to, to heal the country's soul, like that will just attract people and then like give them a leg up in the primary. And it's an important issue. And so like not how would the Center for American Progress or Harvard take on the loneliness problem, but how would Mom Donnie do it?

And I think that something good might come out of that. And like, it doesn't have to be the ideas I wrote about in my piece by any stretch. I'm trying to think about, I'm trying to think about socialist policies for loneliness I could get behind. How about like capping the amount of data you could use in a given day on your phone, forcing them to jailbreak phones in order to be on,

to be on the more data, you can text, you can call, but you've only got three hours. There's a very anti abundance view. I would come up, I would come out about this in ways where one thing I think is that if anyone who cared about this issue decided to run at it by saying we're going to take away your phones, the people who are made miserable by their phones would be furious. They'd be like, don't you dare take away my phone.

If you tell people like, we're not here to take away your phones, but we all kind of agree that the phones are making us unhappy. And so here's some resources that make it easier for you to choose to be off your phone or off your screen or off your gaming console or whatever. And I think that there are probably like policy is going to be like a so so lever for this. But you know, a political leader who tries to elevate the issue, make enemies of the people who are making us miserable. That'll resonate. I think there are a lot of people who are I like this. I'm worried that it's like a heat seeking missile targeted towards elder millennials who remember life before the phone. And maybe it might not be as popular with 27 year olds,

but I'm open. This is like you, I'm anti-democrats obsessing over focus groups and polls and stuff, and just fucking like speak from your gut and have passion and let it rip. Like it's like the right thing to do 90% of the cases. This might be one where like, yeah, I don't know. I wanna see some data on it.

Yeah, and I mean, like what you said about our age is actually a point I wanted to make is like, yeah, I don't know, I want to see some data on it. Yeah. And I mean, like what you said about our age is actually a point I wanted to make is like, the one the one way mom Donnie is a bad representative representative of this like, attention problem, this loneliness problem is that his campaign was super online and super algorithm forward or whatever. But I think that like, what you were saying about people our age is like related to this problem Democrats have communicating because like, Mom, Donnie, AOC, Maxwell Frost, maybe a couple others like, right, they didn't

have to adapt. Like the internet happened when we were when we were kids. So we're the generation that was like really cavalier about phones and the internet. Like, we photos of ourselves piss drunk online, got in problems. You know, like this was like late 2000s, early 2010s. And we didn't really feel the distinction between private and public life. Most elected Democrats are older than us. And so the problem was even worse for them. And then so when we all started realizing that this was like a double edged sword or like a

like everything we did online was in some way public, we all kind of climbed up and everyone got scared of saying anything out of context because who knows when the cameras are rolling or whatever. And like Mom, Donnie and AOC like didn't really need to adapt in the same way to to that change. That was just life for them. So they're super comfortable in all realms of public life, like giving a speech or talking to a stranger on the street. They're not liable to do something stupid, like be drunk or say something vulgar, but they're just really comfortable in their own skin.

And I don't know how you teach somebody who's our age, let alone in their 50s, 60s, 70s, to have that because the internet really did come around in our lifetimes. But it would, I think, help address some of these problems. And then once you have that, I think that a lot of you are like, how should we campaign on any issue, including loneliness or the attention economy becomes more, it just becomes easier. Cause once you know what you believe,

you also know how to articulate it in an internet friendly way. All right. The sub stack is off message. I'll keep reading it. Next time you do something really good, you can come back on the podcast. So I'll see you in like a year and a half. Yeah, it'll be a carrots and sticks treatment

of your newsletter writing, kind of sitting in the back, sitting in the back of your head. Everybody else, we'll be back here tomorrow for another edition of the Bullard Podcast, and we'll see y'all then. Peace. Tree leaves, Luigi, green passion, drinks and seaweed, you hot, I got snacks Four keeps, I play like Maurice, my bitch a little freak, she plays me like Candice G5 LV from Los Candles, sick mind, I think I need counseling Sepitize a bones and bad habits, nine lives, this finks, no catfish Tim man, a heart is what I'm after

One and one, the force is like magnet Hope 12 don't stop me in traffic Bad luck, I don't need At 13, I was playing drums for the baptist Countin' on you when you countin' on me Numbers don't lie when the truth is a lie That'll set you free Let's get free, you and me, baby Countin' on you when you countin' on me The Bulldog Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason

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