The Bulwark Podcast - Jessica Tarlov: POTUS Needs Some Moral Support

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

With Republicans in tight races stripping Trump’s name off their campaign websites, the president is in need of some love from Republicans he has summoned to Dallas to celebrate him. The fake convention also conveniently serves as a distraction from the surging price of oil. Plus: Vance may be the source who’s leaking about the missile depletions, Fox is giving more leeway for criticism of Trump, anti-Muslim hysteria is driving the complaints about Mamdani attending the 9/11 memorial in NYC, and Jessica from “The Five” has what she’s calling a “survival manual” for how to talk about politics with your MAGA friends and family members. Also, Tim is furious about the lack of media attention on Maryam Tahmasebi and her family, who are being imprisoned because of their bloodline.Jessica Tarlov joins Tim Miller.show notes: Jessica’s new book, “I Disagree: Winning Arguments Without Losing Friends” Tim’s piece on the green card-holding family Marco Rubio is imprisoning NYT on the newly-released 9/11 documents Get 20% off when you go to trustandwill.com/BULWARK For their buy 1 get 1 50% off deal, head to 3DayBlinds.com/THEBULWARK

Hey, everybody, it's Tim. I got a few items and something to get off my chest before we get to Jesse Tarloff, I'm very excited to have on the show today. Big news. We are going to do another fundraiser live show this time in Dayton, which is really close to Springfield, Ohio. You know, the proceeds are going to go to the Haitian community in Springfield. It's been something we've been wanting to do. It's in two weeks. So if you're bored on September 25th, if you don't have anything on your calendar, come on. fly to Dayton, come hang out with us. You can see, I don't know, some airplane museums.

There's got to be other stuff to do in Dayton, or you can just hang out with me. It's going to be a really good time. You can go to the bulwark.com slash events to get tickets, proceeds to charity. For people who can't come, will obviously give you an opportunity as well to support the community after just the horrifying suicide of Pierre

and just all these other stories and the videos from Mark Wayne Mullen, like shackling, the Haitians. who did nothing and putting them on these deportation flights back to the hell. I just, we got too upset about it and we felt like we had to do something. We'll be in Dayton, September 25th, blog.com slash events. It also has the details for Columbia, which is close to selling out, and then Charlotte and Atlanta in October. Also, you should be buying Sarah's book.

Have I mentioned that? Sarah has a bookout. You should probably be buying that as well if you haven't. Here's what I want to ran about. I wrote an article yesterday for the bulwark. It's something I've talked about a couple times on the podcast, and it is a woman, Miriam Tomasebi, and her husband, Issa, and her son who have been in internment camps in Texas for over five months now, separate ones. Husband is in like a literal prison camp, and Miriam and her son are in Dilley, the Dilley Detention Center, which we've been covering here in horrible conditions. The family has done nothing.

It's literally Japanese internment, but for Iranians. They're in this detention center because they are Iranian, because ICE's mother was one of the hostage takers in 1979, which is awful and horrible and condemnable and everything. But none of these people are even born in 1979. Like, we are imprisoning them just because of their bloodline. They've been in there with no accusations of crimes, no jury. no due process, poor medical treatment for months. And Mariam gets email one hour a day, and she's been emailing with me. I included some of the emails in the article, and so please check it out.

The headline of it is Marco Rubio's punishing a teenage boy for his grandmother's sins. The first email, Mariam wrote me, was about how she just wanted her son to celebrate his birthday and freedom. And this is a boy that got shackled and surrounded by vans at school drop-off. or his friends could watch because his grandmother did something in 1979 and it's fucking unimaginable so I wrote about it yesterday

and you know, Merriam first wrote for the nation which just what drew my attention to it and much credit to the nation for covering it. But last night, I was like,

I don't understand where this isn't giving more attention. Like I feel like if I went back in a time machine and we're chatting, and it was whatever 15 years ago and we said hey in 2026 we're going to be doing internment camps for iranians and venezuelans i think we would have just assumed that that would have been a pretty major news story right this is something that we are taught about in history books like one of the horrors of what our country has done like one of the

darkest chapters in our country's history i was learning about japanese internment and the way we treated a Japanese in high school, probably when I was about Merriam's son's age. And so it's like, we're doing it again. And it's like nobody's even covering it. I searched Google News this morning for Mariam's name and looked back through. And when at first happened in April, Marco put out a press release where he like tried to brag about how, you know, screaming Mary or whatever the grandmother's name is, her family, you know, he's taken away their green cards.

And so at that time, like there were a few articles about. this. The Hill wrote about it, some local places in L.A. The New York Post wrote a lot, kind of waving the bloody shirt about how happy the people at the New York Post are that we are keeping this child in a prison camp. New York Post was very excited about that. So they've written about it several times, talking about how great it is. Besides that, Newsweek probably is the best other article about this. They wrote something back in April. April is what, four months ago now, five. here's a CBS article. I was like, oh, there was one mainstream media outlet article from our friends at Barry Weiss's CBS CBS.

This is April 11, 2006. It was written by Mark Osborne. Mark writes this. The United States has revoked the green cards to detain the family of Iranian regime propagandist. Issa, Mariam, and their son have been detained by ICE ahead of their deportation. The department said in the statement, Hashemiya's wife both worked as professors. She goes on to talk about Issa's mother. And then they quote Marco, and we talk about how they came on a visa issued in 2014, how they're lawful permanent residence.

And then they go on to talk about other people related to terrorists that we've captured. Unclear how that's relevant. That was April. So, like, according to this article on CBS News in April, we were deporting them, which I would have been against. But at this point, Mariam, they want to be deported to not to Iran, but they offered to self-deport to Turkey. But we've captured them and we're trapping them. So we can't do that. So I don't know.

If I was Mark Osborne of CBS News, who wrote about this on April 11th, about how we're deporting these legal American residents, I don't know. I might be interested in doing a follow-up story on September 9th. Like, why are they still in an internment camp? The State Department told them that we're deporting this person because they were a danger to the country. You would think that CBS News would have some follow-up questions.

What is the danger? Why are taxpayers paying thousands of dollars a day to keep them in these kind of dusty hellscapes in Texas? When do they get access to due process? What is the rationale for this? Why are we punishing these people because of their bloodline? You would think that that would be something that would get more attention. And yet nothing. There's nothing else.

You just go through and like all summer there's been nothing. She wrote in the nation, as I mentioned, a couple of weeks ago. So I don't know. I know we have some journalists to listen to the show and we have some Democratic politicians to listen to the show and others. And I would think that there would be other people that would care about the fact that, like, the United States government is currently holding a teenage boy in a prison camp because his grandmother was bad because I don't know. I think a lot of us probably have some

bad family members, including Marco Rubio, his grandfather was an illegal immigrant and his brother-in-law was a cocaine dealer. So anyway, that's where we're at on this. I have a very slow, boiling, simmering rage about like the lack of interest. I hate to be venting to all of you because all of you have been so good, and many of you wrote to your members of Congress. The last time I raised an issue, the pregnant Venezuelan woman that we had in the internment camp who was trying to self-deport. Luckily, finally, after much hassling and much outrage, they've been allowed to go back to Venezuela. And so that's modest good news. And so we know these people fold. We know they folded on Oz Turk and on Sakot. But the remains of Oz Turk story for good reason,

was a major national news story. And I don't see how this is anything, but even more outrageous than that, given the length of their detention. So that's where I'm at on that. Go read the story. You know, call your local member of Congress or send a letter to the editor, I guess.

And we'll see if anybody in this country can be awakened to care about the fact that we're doing in tournament camps again. Up next, Jessica Tarloff of the five. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Here's a thought experiment for you. If you can wake up tomorrow and be better at one thing, what would that be?

Today, maybe for me, it's keeping calm, you know, because I don't want to stroke out while my child is still in elementary school. So that's something that I'm working on. What would it be for you? I'm not talking about like learn Chinese. I'm talking about like self-improvement on the inside. What can you do to become the best you? One way to kind of start to explore that once you've decided on what it is is through therapy and with our friends at better help. Better is a feeling defined by you.

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That's what it's all about. It's like home improvement the Tim Allen show, but for your life. Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com slash the Bullwark. That's BetterHELP.com slash the Bullwark. Hello and welcome to the Bullwark Daily. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Could not be more excited to welcome back to the show.

Co-host of Fox News The Five and the Raging Moderates podcast, who's branding I've long been jealous of, author of a new book coming out this week. I disagree. Winning arguments without losing friends. Another thing, I could really use some more. on Jessica Tarloff. I'm here for you.

I am great. I feel like it's a little bit of the calm before the big bookstorm. Sarah is in the midst of it on the high seas. And I am watching with bated breath for how intense it is. But she's nailing it. Sarah's in the heat. She's nailing it. Go buy it.

I've got it right here. How to eat an elephant. You know, I've got to support my guy. I know. I don't have my copy here, but I do have my copy. I'm going to take a picture. like eating it or something to make it feel fun for social. I just read out next week.

And just like I said about Jammelson yesterday, listeners can purchase, I disagree, and not feel any betrayal of Sarah because it's out next week. So you guys aren't competitors on the charts, you know? It's only Sarah versus Ted Cruz. We're friends. And then Jessica and Sarah are friends. Okay. Well, maybe I want to lose some friends.

We'll get to that. We'll get to the book stuff at the end. Maybe it's okay to lose a friend. or two. Where's my... I get it. I just... I want you to feel equipped to talk to these people if you do want to keep them in your life or invite them back in. That's what I just agree is about. I'm not trying to force you to do anything. I just want you to be better when you get there. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll explore the ways to do that here in a second. We've got to do the news first. Tonight, we're having a midterm. I'm editing myself. Some people are calling it the Trump of Palusa,

which I like, because it has Luz right in the name. But, They're trying to brand it as the midterm convention. It's not a convention, actually. This is an important distinction. A convention is an actual thing. You know, where you have delegates, do you nominate people? It's a political process by which, you know, back in the old days, before unfettered democracy. It's how we used to pick the candidates.

Some of us in the pro-democracy movement have the contrarian view that there was some benefit to that. But anyway, that's neither here nor there. I can't possibly see how this is useful for him. But I don't know. You're kind of in the belly of the beast where I was watching Fox this morning. We'll get to that where they're going to try to spin it. There are going to be some people on the network that will try to spin it as a positive. Like what is even the possible positive outcome here?

Steelman for me, what could work, if anything? You're like, preview the five for me. What are you what are you guys going to be talking about? What will Dana say? How will Dana argue that this is going to work? I don't think it's a Dana one. This is a Jesse one, I think, for how it's going to work. The Ayatollah is dead.

That's always a good one now. We only have Ayatollah Jr. Maybe he's gay. We hear about that a lot. Their military has been decimated. What was Biden's line? Bin Laden is dead and GM is alive. What would be alive in there spinning?

Ayatola is dead. I don't know. Trade war with Canada is alive. Very much alive. I wanted to figure out something with the straight of form is. Anyway, there will be some talk of the accomplishments of Trump's second term and how the groundwork is being laid for an economic boom that will hit, I don't know, November 1st. So it comes just in time for you to go out and vote a couple days later. I don't know.

We're going to hear about how there is a lot to talk about and how do. and how dire it will be if Democrats take control. I think it is going to be much more about the negative messaging than it is going to be about the positive messaging. And Donald Trump has been leaning into this as he's been, you know, out on the campaign trail. He's going to go to, what is it, like 35 swing districts he's taunting people with. And you see the various degrees of abject terror coming across the faces of these Republicans who think, I just stripped you off my website, and now you're actually going to come to hang out with me. But I think it's going to be a lot of the greatest hits that are not resonating with people right now.

And it is very telling that so many Republicans are opting not to go, that obviously the tickets are not selling. I can't believe how much they wanted to charge members to come. Like, that money would clearly be better spent actually campaigning. And I think if you went out and asked voters, even the biggest MAGA folks, like, should you spend tens of thousands of dollars on going to this or like be here for a town hall? I probably say, maybe you should be here for a town hall. So I don't expect fireworks. I think it's going to be a very insular convention. And for me, it's about Trump's ego.

And then I think it's also about the one year anniversary of Charlie Kirk's assassination. which is tomorrow, and which will be very, it's a very heavy thing. So I imagine because Vance is the headliner tomorrow night and Trump will do the closing remarks that that'll be a big focal point. I try to be fair and balanced here. I will give Trump this one thing listening to what you just said. I thought he was too old to kind of go out and do the campaign. He seemed pretty, like he kind of was walking with that hilt and he's dozing and falling

asleep and maybe sharding in these meetings. depending on what you look at it. It just felt like, God, 35 states feels like a lot. It's hard to travel in your 40s. It's hard to travel in your 80s. It's hard to travel in your 80s. So he is doing that. But the interesting thing is, it's funny, like the contracts,

you said that some of the frontline people won't be there. But Trump's message is the opposite. You put out a bleat that was like, we don't need people who are up 45 points as much as we love them. Like, we are trying to save the stage for the candidates who are in tight races. The candidates who are in tight races are like, no. No, opposite. Opposite.

But even this midterms, and I'm not sure how comfortable you are forecasting or, you know, what you're thinking about in terms of how the night will end up going. But candidates who should be in safe position feel concerned. And there's widespread reporting about that. You know, people winning by double digits that are saying we are not equipped. to handle this. We don't have enough money. Our voters are deeply upset and distrustful of our agenda and how we've been governing. And I do think on the flip side, you know, the Democrats have some real badass candidates running in these districts. And I don't think that they expected for it to be quite that uphill of a battle to save some of these seats. I just saw this morning. It's just one example.

Because it was last week I had Roderica Appellate who is over at Majority Democrats on the show. And she highlighted a strict that wasn't even on my radar, which is this Florida 22. Trump had won at, I think, double digits. This poll I'm looking at right now, the Trump

recall vote was plus 10. Some people lie. So maybe it's a little bit more than that. There's some people that are looking around right now and they're like, no, I didn't do it. It wasn't me. The voter for Trump. So I think maybe the actual number is a little higher than 10. And Pia Dandias, that that she was

is highlighting as she's this really strong kind of surprising challenger. She's up to in that district that Trump won by that. And so you're seeing that in a lot of places. And to me like that, the only case for this, you know, midterm rally that they're having is can you try to generate some excitement, even if it's a do-it-for-charlie? Like to try to shore up these plus 10, 12, 14 places, you know, to try to get people that are in the Republican vote that aren't really necessary to liable midterm voters to turn out. Like, that's honestly the only thing I could think of that's even marginally useful.

Yeah. I mean, the enthusiasm gap is enormous. And it has been consistently through the Trump era. You know, Democrats have been overperforming if they're losing their seats even by historic margins. And I kind of hate that comp, you know, when you're like, oh, you know, we got real close. Like, I just want to win. But, you know, some battles you can't win. Right.

But, you know, the timing of it, that it's 9-11 on Friday, that, like you said, if I do it for Charlie, there is a way to cast this as these are people who don't love our country. Right. They're not patriots like we are. And I'm sure there will be a lot of fearmongering about Mom Donnie. There will be talk of the, you know, the 9-11. 11 families who don't want him there at ground zero on Friday morning. He is going to go, which I do think is the right thing to do. We're coming back to that. Yeah, just a little teaser. But that feels like the only way that they can really go on offense. You know, I'm sure how many shots are we going

to have to take with Hassan Piker mentions, you know, there's going to be very little substance, I think, to the content from the convention. Also, it's going to be so hot and misdive. You were lucky that you were on the other side of that crooked con stage when we were all on that panel together with the song because I'm in all the pictures. You are. I was right next to him. We took a picture solo outside and that lives like my colleagues every day are like that picture of you on Hassan is the biggest thing in my timeline. Because anything that I say, they're like, she loves Hassan Piker. She is a communist.

She hates the country. She thought we deserve 9-11. That's how it works. And Hassan loves you. And you're like, I'm sitting here with you every day, Jesse. You're in favor of internment camps. But, okay, we'll get back to that. No big deal.

It's a tough spin for them a little bit on all this, you know, like getting people to get upset about some of these other things. We'll talk about whatever, whether who shows up to 9-11 memorials that Trump isn't showing up to. It's a little challenging when you have like gas prices jump this morning, like their biggest jump in a while. I think you kind of stopped monitoring this a little bit. Like right when the Iran war started, there was. because it was so volatile. But now it's just been creeping up, creeping up, creeping up, creeping up. It's now back over 100.

Like in the early days of the Iran war, I was using the Tommy from Landman, you know, kind of measurement. Because he said in one of the episodes that we want to keep it between 60 and 90, because if it's over 90, then people start to get pissed at us. And you can start to feel it. Well, we're back over that right now. And last night we have Central Command Center destroyed five Iranian oil tankers, Iran fired at our base in Jordan, question mark about whether there are injuries there.

Because the military lies to us about that. Michael Weiss, new bulwark contributor who were excited about, pointed out that Ukraine wanted just 300 Patriots to help protect themselves this winter. We're running out of patriots. We wasted 60 just one night defending these attacks on Jordan. This seems to be kind of out of control. The good news is hard to find because there's always some knock-on effect from something that has major implications. And obviously we won't ever know the real source of the stockpile leaks at the outset, what started in the Atlantic and then it got to the Times. But I firmly believe that it's J.D. Vance and his team.

And they're the ones that have been looking at the writing on the wall with this. and whether or not they actually want to be able to help Ukraine at the level that you or I think that we should doesn't really matter because they know that something bad is going to happen. There is going to be a crisis moment, whether that has to do with Russia or it has to do with China vis-a-vis Taiwan, et cetera, or in the Middle East, if we keep going on this track. And we are not going to have the equipment to be able to do this. and it's a strange place to be for our government. You know, we have the best resources in the world, the elite fighting forces, all the things, to have their head in the sand to this level.

I don't even know how Dan Driscoll's resignation didn't feel like a bigger deal to people. Like, that's unheard of that the guy went around Secretary Hegseth to the president directly and said, he is making decisions that hurt our readiness for the future. We are eliminating drone units. We are firing every general that is in charge of something that we need to be able to become a modern fighting force. And it was like, what, a two-day cycle and then gone.

Yeah, if that. Yeah. And we have like vacancies at top the army. And like there are multiple positions at the top of the army now that he's resolved. where we don't have key leadership in place, we don't have confirmed leadership in place in the middle of a war of choice in Iran, and who knows, potentially, you know, an increase

as we start to head back into the winter in hostilities in Eastern Europe. We also don't know what happened with past characters, like the resonations that happened. Remember when we used to shoot at, like, random fishing boats in the Caribbean? Right. And kill innocent people and repatriates.

create people to places they're not even from. Like, I mean, that feels quaint now looking back, but we still haven't heard from Admiral Holsey about why he resigned, you know, a year into a dream post for somebody. And, you know, they're military folks, so I doubt the tell-all is coming in the same way that it would from like a cable news host.

But these stories, I'm not doing that. But these stories, that is not what I disagree is. If that's what you were looking for. It's okay to tease kill a news host in the right context. I mean, I don't, I think that if Pete Buttigieg became president next time and was like, Jessica, I want you to be attorney general. You might be like, I don't know. I don't know if that's quite me, my role.

Yeah. I need something else that involves more hair and makeup. Thank you very much. President Pete. But my point is, we're moving so fast through stories with such enormous. importance, especially in national security, and we are all a lot less safe as a result of it and prepared for what the future holds. And this trade war with Canada, I think is a really strong indication of the fact that the rest of the world is not kidding when they say, we're figuring it out

without you. Like, we've got to go our own way. And it's not like we can wait a couple years to see if President P. or Asov or whoever it's going to be is going to bring back the old version of America because their new deals are going to last longer than this and their new alliances. And we will not be the entity, the country that was their partner when they really needed us to be. Canada holds its first defense coordination talks with China.

About a decade. Also a story that people barely looked at. I brought it up yesterday on raging moderates with Scott. But I was like, this is an enormous thaw in military relations between Canada and China. This is even just about trade, right? You're talking about military partnership. And again, it barely broke through. It's a good point on Holsey.

And I even, you know, like that was not at the top of my mind. You forgot Holsey? I think about him every day. Well, you know, it's important to colleagues at the bulwark. You know, like we must all have our. hobby horses about all the horrors of what's happening in the administration because it is impossible to keep track of all of them. Like the human brain is not meant to keep track of the scandals that are happening in every single cabinet office. Right. And among every single

member of his family has a different scandal. You know, so we all have our obsessions. For me, it's Jared in the internment camps and, you know, other people focus on other stuff. But getting holsey on the list of, like the testimony list for Robert Garcia is pretty long. Yeah, I mean, he has to start like in Trump land, I think. Right. But yeah, the list is very long. He said that Cush, the Cushner is at the top, which, thank God. I mean, Jared Cushner is kind of running illegal foreign policy as a non-government official on multiple fronts while taking money from other countries.

But the open telegraphing of the Pollyanna attitude about these people, like, I mean, the days of, you know, Whitkoff. saying, I'll just talk to Putin without a translator, like, no big deal. He's a really good guy. And then you listen to Jared talking the last few days. And you're like, how did we end up in this fresh hell? Like, how is this possible? And what can be done about it? You know, you win an election.

Hopefully, you know, it's too big to Reagan and all the things. But the institutional rot is so deep at this point. I thought that the Whitkoff comments We were sitting outside just now, me, Jared, and Carol, and then Yuri joined us, and we were all talking about when we retire. We'll have all these incredible stories and incredible memories, and yours will be right at the top of it all. I thought this was very revealing, the way he basically just says, you know, this is all just a life experience. You know, it's kind of like life is short. What do the kids say these days?

We're doing it for the plot. I just want to have an interesting experience for the plot. And for me, like, hanging out with you, Mr. Putin, who's bombing innocence and kidnapping kids and, you know, starting an invasion of choice. Like, just getting to come here to Moscow and have some vodka and talk to you is something I'm always going to remember. And it's just going to be great for my memoir.

Totally. That's the level of seriousness that we're doing with. They don't care at all. They're also so... in awe of wealth and power, that it can make anybody seem like an appealing person to have a chat with. You know, like they look at everything that's so gilded. You know, it's a dream architecturally for these people. What does Scott say that Trump would make everything into an Iraqi whorehouse, if he could, that Liberacee design?

So, you know, Moscow has got all of that. I remember I went to the World Cup in Russia in 2018. And it's, I mean, St. Petersburg was really the most stunning thing. But you walk around Moscow and you look at it and, you know, the empire feel is still there. And these guys are just so obviously in love with power, even if it comes in dictatorial packages. I'm jealous. I don't know if I ever be able to go. Fear of imprisonment is.

keeping me from ever-residing Moscow and Saudi. I get it. Yeah. You know, when I started talking about how MBS was a hermaphrodite, my husband did tell me that that kind of prevented any trips to Riyadh, probably. Do you think it was worth it? I do. I don't. I do.

Okay. But I would love to have seen Moscow and Riyadh, and I wish that, you know, their people could have freedom. Yeah, maybe one day. Yeah. Well, you know, on the yesterday's show with Pablo, we were talking about the way that Mark Walter was. taking people's life insurance money and using it to help himself by sports teams and by sports championships, which is not legal. And that gets you thinking about life insurance, doesn't it? Making sure you can find a trusted life insurance partner, about maybe you need to get some

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I want to just posit something to you that I think is, I actually think it might be wrong, but I spent the morning watching Fox and Friends to prep for the podcast. Okay. Because I want to, I have like a, what I was working out of my head, kind of like an index for how bad things are going for Trump based on the Fox News topics of the segments. Okay. Kind of like a Fox topic index success rating. And my theory of the case was that like there are like seven main categories.

You've got bragging about something that went well that Trump gets credit for. It's like one. So if they're doing a lot of that, like things are going well for Trump. two, it's kind of like positive news about this other conservative thing that's happening, maybe not directly related to Trump. Number three is making up something good that Trump is doing. Number four is talking about bad elected Democrats, something they're actually doing bad, and then kind of a 4B is making up something they're doing bad.

And then if we're trying to get into these last three categories, things aren't going so well for Trump. We're going to talk about a random crazy Democrat. We're going to talk about the WNBA. or some culture issue, or the last category, the juicy one that we really love, that you get to bring to the five is, we kind of have some criticisms of what Trump is up to. Like, maybe it's not perfect.

Yeah. And as I was watching Fox and Friends this morning with this rubric in mind, I was looking through, and, you know, we had Trey Gowdy do eight minutes on how Lane Kiffin is bad. So that's a classic number six.

Blaming House Democrats for killing the Lindsay Graham sanctions bill. That's a 4B. That's making up something bad, the Democrats are doing. Mike Johnson is running the house. You know, we go on and on. Hugh Hewitt bragging about Trump's midterm convention is a great idea. That's a number one.

So, like, as I watched, I don't know. I was hoping it was going to be worse. I was hoping there was going to be more of a sense of dismay. You wanted like all six, sevens. I wanted a lot of, there you go. Was that on purpose? Oh, yeah. No.

Does that make me like Gen Z. It was really good. I wanted all six sevens. Yeah. I was like, I was ready. I was wanted some delicious. Just six sevens, you know, just WMBA, Lane Kiffin, and people being like, gas prices are a little high.

But I didn't get that. Tell me what you think about the index, but more like, can you sense a vibe shift around there or not really? I will say that you've definitely spent more time thinking about this coverage than I have. How is that possible? Well, certainly today, because I didn't catch any of that. So I don't know what the vibes are in that particular show. But I do think in general, and you see this fanned out across supporters of the president in every facet.

You know, people who go on TV and also in electeds and people in surrogate spaces, that there is, he probably doesn't like that they feel that there is more leeway for criticism, but there is. And the, you know, Liberation Day, I think was sort of the kickoff to it. I mean, if you think about that, was only like, what, three or four months into the new administration anyway. But the war in Iran has really upset the apple cart in this sense because there is an overwhelming feeling that it is not actually going well and that we have moved so far from the original goalposts, which are things that I think we could all, in principle, say would be good if they happened. And I didn't agree with going in and doing this and thought the idea that it was going to be, you know, a 48-hour adventure was ludicrous. But sure, would I love a world in which Iran never gets a nuclear weapon and that the proxy forces are taken out and that the people are free? And, you know, they're not in weapons deals with the axis of evil, you know, like all the things. That all sounded good.

And it was clear from, I don't know, a couple weeks in that we were not trending in that. It was clear from hours in that we are not trending in that direction. And I think that that has been communicated in a wide variety of ways. Some of it explicit. Sometimes it's, you know, I don't know if it's the president's advisors, right? Like, we're not going to lay this at his feet. Like, he's getting bad advice. And I think that when you see like what Dan Driscoll did, for instance, that you get the sense

that he is getting. bad advice that Pete Hegseth is not pushing us in a good direction and that the people who have his ear, it's funny, I'm not sure if you've been thinking about this, but their energy levels are obviously different, Trump and Biden, but there is the same feeling that he's running an insular presidency the same way that Biden did, where there are only five people who actually get to talk to him or have an impact on his thinking. And that's a very dangerous place to be, no matter if you are a president that actually believes in democracy or one like the one that we have right now. So I'm not sure if that fully addresses your question in the way that you would have liked

and you want to if you wanted me to play, you know, one through seven. I don't have a good answer. Yeah, what are you going to get? What's on the five rundown today? Let's look at the list. I don't know. I haven't gotten it. I can go through what the categories are. No, I mean, it only doesn't in that, I guess just on the Iran thing in particular. Like, I'm tuning in and out. I'm not Aaron Rupar here watching three cable channels every minute of the day for 24 hours. So there's stuff on this. But like it has been kind of, it's notable that like there's still some Iran war jingoism happening. Like anyway, from like the times that I'm watching, like you see a lot of criticism in kind of the alt-maga media on the right, you know, of the Iran war.

And I think that like there's still a bit of a wagon circling. I don't know. I think you mentioned the Biden parallel. I think back to Afghanistan, folks know that like MSN. now it's like going to be quite generous to Biden in a lot of ways in the Biden administration. And they were like that's just reality. Like there was a lot of criticism of the Afghanistan withdrawal on everybody on the show. Yeah.

On the shows. Do you notice that growing or like not really? I guess is my question. I think that there were fever pitch moments and we are not in one because I just I don't think it's the front page story. And that is a story in and of itself, right? That it should be a bigger deal that we are actually. there's a war going on, whether he wants to call it that or not.

And they want to talk about a dumb, you know, 48-hour circle jerk in Dallas instead, right? So that is saying something about the state of the war. But when there are moments where it is obviously going badly, like taking over the straight of Hormuz, you know, the MOU, for instance, right, that was apparently Iranian propaganda. And then it turned out to be completely accurate that we had actually agreed to these kinds of terms. You saw that across the board, even from the president's most ardent defenders,

whether it was because they were upset vis-a-vis the impact on Israel because there's a contingent where it's about that, for instance, or part of this America First contingent who's thinking, like, America First doesn't mean Americans' surrender. Right. Like, we would have rather that we weren't in there in the first place. There's also a little bit of a rugpole where they like leaked the details of the MOU and a lot of the folks on Fox in other places, Trump defenders, like, went out to be like, it's not this. This is misinformation from Iran. And then the real one ended up being exactly right. I mean, you were

talking about that on the show. Well, not only that, it was crazy coincidence because J.D. Vance was was on the five the day that this happened. And so I'm sitting next to him. It was J.D. that said it was information. And he said that I was parroting Iranian propaganda. And I said from the Wall Street Journal, like, let's be real here, man. And then within 24 hours, the White House had confirmed it. So, A, a statement on the ease at which these people will lie, will look you in the eye, or at the very least look a camera in the eye, and say the direct opposite of the truth. And also what a scramble it is and that they feel, to some degree, at least invincibility that they can keep bullshitting through this. But that's why elections happen. And you see this uprising in people where they are

following these stories. You know, we went through a bunch of them just a few minutes ago. Like, why are we not talking about this or that? I'm stunned. If you go through the comments on the bulwark or on raging moderates, you know, everywhere, people are paying so much attention. to all of this. It has kicked the American populace into high gear where they say, yeah, my gas prices, obviously I know about that. You've got a daughter. I've got a couple back to school. I mean, the cost of school supplies, these things that are really hitting families hard. But they haven't forgotten Admiral Holsey. They remember that what Dan Driscoll did. And they're tracking all of this stuff that the administration would love if they could just, you know,

push into the closet. Do you think that JD, obviously you can't get his head, but like your sense, kind of having that dispute with him on TV. Like, do you think he was lying to you about the MOU? Or do you think he just was so out of the loop?

Yeah, and he's on his book tour, you know, that he, you know, just kind of like, like many people in Trump's defense, like assumed it couldn't be that bad. I don't know. It's hard for me

to think that the point person on the war doesn't know what's going on with something that is as big of a deal as the MOU. I'm sure that there are some, you know, language experts that could parse through exactly what he said so that it wouldn't mean that he was really saying the thing that we all heard and experienced.

I mean, calling you an Iran propagandist for talking about what was actually in the MOU as was revealed 24 hours later, seems like if not an intentional lie, a smear. It didn't feel great. Getting in the pushback of, we're talking about the Wall Street Journal here, did feel great, though, because, you know, there's nothing, I think, more potent than you know this, obviously coming from Republican, conservative world, that being able to use their own words against them or their own,

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The gastrum was a little bright. Right now, get the quality window treatments that fit your budget with three-day blinds. head to three day blinds.com slash the bulwark for their buy one, get one, 50% off deal on custom blind, shades, and drapery for a free, no charge, no obligation, consultation. Just head to three day blinds.com slash the bulwark. One last time, that's buy one, get one 50% off and you head to the number three, D-A-Y, blinds.com slash the board. Let's talk about Zora and we'll get to the book. The final segment that I watched on Fox this morning, it's just quite a joy to wake up and kind of get to spend some time with my friends, Brian, kill me, etc. And so I just, I appreciate. all the time I got. But it ended with a segment on 9-11 families. This is for Dana, actually. She's interviewing somebody whose dad died 9-11, obviously tragic. But then it pivots into the desire to ban Zoran from going to the memorial, the elected mayor of New York. On the same day, is 9-11 Jake Lang, who's a kind of far-right racist provocateur, is doing a march on Mam Dani. It's going to be an against Islamification. of America rally that's on 9-11. Giuliani said it's offensive for him to go.

And here is Councilwoman Vicki Palladino. I'm not asking politely for the mayor not to come to 9-11 to that ceremony. I am asking, I am demanding that he not show his face at that sacred ground. He does not belong there. So I guess this is a 4B. talking about the uh something that i guess i mean he didn't do anything it's you know it's not like you can imagine them praising him if he said he wasn't going to go they're just going to use zoran as a lightning rod because he's a muslim yeah i part of this also is the association with hasan piker

to go i don't know what number hasan is on your on your chart yeah not elected democrat but not even a democrat really but good no um a tent mate sometimes, I think, is the best way. What is the association exactly? Does Hassan work for him? There, I think he can't be like he was, I think so. Either way, it's a DSA thing. And it doesn't matter.

That's the point now, that it doesn't actually matter. You know, if you have a certain way of talking about your political opponents, you just go with it no matter the details. And I certainly know what it feels like to be the Debbie Downer that's like, could we actually unpack what Angie Nixon's policies are? Or could we talk about the fact that Abdul Al-Said isn't a DSA member? Now, is he very progressive? 100%. But, you know, the guy's a capitalist and owns a bunch of property and his wife doesn't even take Medicare.

So, like, you know, what are we doing here? This is very sad and personal to me. So Vicky Palladino is being Vicky Palladino. She's always like that. She's a vibe. I totally get it. But I feel awful that these families who have suffered such tragedy have something else that is so upsetting to them. You know, that day and the 25th anniversary should be able to just be about your loved ones.

Right. and the terror attack and the aftermath of it without this complication, whether I agree with where they land or not. And I don't. I think that the duly elected mayor of New York City should be at the 9-11 ceremony, which he has said. And he looked quite pained answering questions about it. Mom, Donnie, he said, you know, I love my city and I love my country. And I will be there. But I hate this for them, right?

that's something that's already so hard and traumatizing feels worse. I mean, I wouldn't pick on the family members, but I don't know, the politicians. Who are ginning it up. Yeah. The commentators. Like, and this is anti-Muslim hysteria is what this is. You know, you can't imagine any other, like somebody from any other racial or ethnic group who is a politician in America. People saying you can't come to a memorial because the perpetrator of the crime.

was your same race or religion. Like, that's insane. It's a Muslim special, for sure. And there's also a lot of misinformation circulating even amongst 9-11 families around the 9-11 Memorial and Museum, which Mike Bloomberg built. And a group of them felt or were misinformed that control was then going to be seated to Mom Donnie,

right? That this was something that I was something that actually got passed to whoever's in office, which doesn't make any sense because de Blasio wasn't in charge of it and Eric Adams wasn't in charge of it. But there's a lot of anger and anxiety and some degree of Islamophobia percolating in there. And I don't know. I feel badly for them, frankly. You were not the biggest Zoron fan at the start. I'm wondering what you assess for how he's been doing. I think that in some level, and this is bad because it's Islamophobia, my silver lining that I'd put on this is like, I don't know. He hasn't really given them folks who are his

political opponents a whole lot to work with, like about his actual governing. I mean, you know, the Pietater tax or whatever. Some people didn't like how he was targeting specific individuals. I guess what I'm trying to say is like the level of fear mongering about what would be happening in New York versus what's happening in New York. It feels like he's been pretty practical. No? And you live there. Maybe I'm missing something. No, I mean, you see that in his approval rating, which is at I think 57%, which is pretty high. And also he has a very high pleasantly surprised rating from people like me who were nervous about this and didn't know what a mom-dani administration was going to look like. I have friends in the modern Orthodox community. They are still not

fans of Mondani and, you know, don't feel like he is treating anti-Semitism, anti-Semitic attacks that have happened in the city, you know, issues around demonstrations outside of temples, for instance, that that has been, you know, taken as seriously as it should be. But I think on the policy front, he has focused on the things that everyone was actually pretty excited about or could wrap their heads around like why people would want their mayor to do these things, right? Talking about universal child care and extending free pre-K, the way that he communicates has continued, which would be an expectation from a millennial mayor like that.

But I think that it does make people feel more connected to him. And frankly, you know, he has in a lot of ways, I think, sidestepped some of the big mistakes that folks in the DSA have made because he stands shoulder to shoulder with police commissioner Jessica Tish as often as he can and touts the drop in crime. I mean, we had the lowest number of murders and how long was it over the summer? And, you know, summer, there's usually an uptick. A lot of people are on the streets.

Kids are not in school, et cetera. So I am definitely in the pleasantly surprised category. You know, he's definitely, those are like, if you look at Chicago, San Francisco, some of the other left mayor's mistakes, he's avoided. I guess the last thing on this in the transitions of the book, because you wrote about this, you lost your dad and it was related to the chrysinaigence after 9-11. I guess there were some documents from that that were private that they put out this week. I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts on kind of that and how it's impacting your family. Yeah, so I think that this is amazing that he's done this.

And I don't want to make a joke out of it. But the fact that he's, but it feels like the Epstein files for 9-11 survivors, right? And their families. Can I ask, what was the argument for keeping them secret prior? A lot of powerful people made bad decisions, right? And came out there and said things like the air is safe. You can go back to your homes now. You can go back to your offices.

and there has, you know, been a constant drumbeat from people in the 9-11 community and then advocates like John Stewart, who was out talking about it yesterday as well, with Mondani standing behind him, saying, like, we are owed this at this point. And I don't know. I think it's very much a stain on New York leadership that we haven't been able to see it before because there are real present health implications for people. You know, as you said, my dad died of tongue cancer related to 9-11. Two of my best friends, one of them their mother passed away from ovarian cancer, linked to 9-11, the other lymphoma linked to 9-11.

And we are not unique in this. And a lot of people think about 9-11 as that tragic day and the first responders, but quite literally an entire set of communities in the vicinity and then by extension of people were commuting in and out because Wall Street had to reopen are still living with the knock-on effects of 9-11. And it'll be interesting to see how this move to release all these documents is taken by members

of the 9-11 community who might not want him right at the Ground Zero ceremony. but they say, oh, this is the mayor who's actually giving us access to this. And, you know, the 9-11 victims fund and all of the machinery around it, the infrastructure that they've created, is the best that there is. I mean, these are the most kind and caring people that work there. Like, my mom has worked with, my father was treated at Sloan Cattering and has worked with their grief groups and social workers. She said nothing compares to the people. that work with the 9-11 community. You know, it's the same thing as that day

when people just poured in from across the country where they just got up and got in their fire trucks or in their cars. And that spirit is still very much alive. And it feels like having access to these documents and then by extension, registering yourself, you know, with the 9-11 fund so they can track. Like, you know, I'm 42 years old.

I was a senior in high school in 9-11. What does this look like for my generation? What does it look like for the little kids that were out in those playgrounds? You know, and it's a lot. But I think it's a good thing. That's how it should be, you know? And it's like rather than as a political football at this point. And now a message from our sponsor of the reading room here at the bulwark.

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family members, pales, you don't want to get rid of, you know, like people in the community. I don't want to stop going to my LSU tailgate because a couple of guys are in MAGA hats. You know, like there's certain things you don't want to give up. You want to one way to do this is just, you know, talk about football or the weather or whatever, gumbo. But if you decide you want to engage, if that's not possible, some tools for doing it. So why don't you give it the pitch? Yeah. So the pitch is that I disagree is a survival manual for having contentious conversations.

And the subtitle is winning arguments without losing friends. I totally get it if you want to lose those friends. Like if the gumbo chat is not even good enough to get you through a tailgate. But what I have found, and I talked with Sarah about this as well, and she gets this from her focus groups a lot, that even when people outwardly say or behave in their day-to-day, like they are impervious to the effects of having lost these relationships. When you really dig in with them, they know that life is longer than this political moment.

And they would really like to find a way back into each other's lives. And the book is part memoir and then part how to. And I use my life experiences, everything from how I grew up and what the dinner table in my household was like to the table on the five to chart this course through. acquiring and the hard work, frankly, of developing a skill set that has allowed me to be able to very peacefully coexist with people who feel very differently than me about politics, about the president. And I'm sure that you got this too, as someone who works in communications. People say, like, how do you do this? Right. I want to be better at being able to talk about this really hot stuff. And that's what the books is. So every chapter has a little tips box at the end

because I wanted it to be able to be a business book for people also. Obviously, there's a lot about rewiring your brain to think in data and numbers. I have a PhD in politics did a big, quantitative study for that. I worked as a pollster. The numbers matter. You know, thinking averages and not anecdotes. Be able to process criticism better. You know, that if someone's criticizing you on style, you probably won on substance. And I really hope that it's going to be able to help people. One thing when I watch you and I think about is this kind of slices both ways a little bit because I really admire like how prepares you are.

And, you know, my kind of style when I'm going on to peers is like think about two or three stats and then just drop insults. This is not in the spirit of your book. But, you know, whatever. That's kind of where I shine. You're so measured and so prepared. And oftentimes, you know, like you did with the vice president, are like dropping the facts that negate the feelings that they're offering. But like the thing that just makes you wonder is I kind of, I don't know, some of these people aren't moved by facts, right?

Yeah. And so at some level, if you're engaging on like, here's the facts and they're like engaging on a good. gut level, is there a disconnect? Totally. And it's funny now to have transitioned into feeling like the embodiment of Ben Shapiro circa 2012 when he first said, the facts don't care about your feelings. And that obviously became the rallying cry of the Trump defending right for 2016, you know, post-access Hollywood tape where it's just like, okay.

You know, we don't actually need a moral leader. I don't need to, you know, elect someone who I would leave, like, alone to babysit my kids. You know, I want someone that's going to rev the economy and, you know, has the right ideas on foreign policy. So, yeah, sometimes there is just a massive disconnect. And one thing that is a big throughline in the book is that I don't see my job and I don't see your job or what people, you know, who think like us and our talkers professionally are doing as necessarily changing. minds, but opening them up to the possibility that there is an alternative point of view worth considering. And that's why it's so important to also be a recurring character in people's lives. You know, if you drop in, like you say, like I prepare for peers, I want to say

these couple of things, but then I also want to make sure that like I love this incredible insult, right, that I have been brewing, whatever. MBS is a haemaphrodite, a truth nuke on, you know, Tim Poole or whoever is sitting there. Like, I totally. get that. But I'm in a different kind of relationship with my co-hosts. And I'm here, you know, half the week, because Harold Ford is on half the week, but basically every day, right? I'm in the building doing something. And if you're not a lot of Harold Ford clubs out there. Sorry, keep going. I'm just, you don't have to respond to that. It's a different argumentation style. Okay. One way, that's nice. It's diplomatic. That's a lesson from the book, diplomacy.

It is a lesson from the book. Not, and I get it. Some people don't want. want to be diplomatic. But in doing research for this, I looked at a lot of the social science related to how we actually hear and process information that flies in the face of deeply held beliefs. And I didn't realize that actually your threat reflex goes up in the same way as if you were scared because you see someone in an alley and that your pain sensors go off. So when you're having a conversation with someone and you're like really laying into them and you're like, over 70% of the people that ICE are picking up haven't committed any crime and they're looking at you like they're in pain.

Like they actually are. And feeling and understanding that really changed the way I thought about a lot of these conversations that you have to not only keep your side of the street clean, but you have to understand where the other person is coming from. And that's not just how they grew up. And obviously you can make a better argument when you really understand. the totality of the person, but that there's a real struggle going on. And likewise, or correlated, I guess I should say, what happens to us when we're confronted with information that flies in the

face of our long-held beliefs and narratives? Because we react the same way as humans. So what is your best short piece of advice for people who, I'm sure you get the question, I get it. I'm sure you get it a thousand times more. What am I supposed to do with my family? Like, what do I do? I don't want to stop talking to my dad or my brother or whatever, but they're just off the deep end. What do I do? So, I mean, it's one of the lessons in there.

And I use the example of talking with Greg, my co-host after Charlie Kirk was murdered, that really taught me this lesson about the value of listening and just how badly people want to be heard and how oftentimes liberals are the first ones to cut off, actually, not only cut off the relationship, but in conversation. So the lost art of listening, I think, is a big component of it. But this marriage between averages and anecdotes, I think, is the special sauce in having these

conversations. And I call it in the book, Your Soft Start, the way that you build connective tissue and a closeness in a conversation that you're a soft start. could turn contentious before you move into your data-based worldview. And I'm not saying you're going to sit at Thanksgiving and be like, the Pew poll, the NPR poll, the Washington Post, did you see the Fox poll? Like, no one wants that. I would get kicked out of my own celebrations.

But I think that people are usually too often in one camp or the other. They're either an automaton or they're just a big bag of feelings. and if you have listened and given them the space that they want and that they need to express their point of view, then you come in with your soft start and your data. I think that you will have a lot better of a Thanksgiving. And actually the alternate title, I realize I also have the book here, was surviving Thanksgiving, because that is what I hear from people where they're just like, I can't fucking get through this. This is so miserable.

So my appendix is 10 tips for your table, which is a cliff's note. It's like you've got to be at your uncles in an hour. This is how you talk about abortion. This is how you talk about ice. This is how you talk about the corruption. This is how you talk about the Constitution, all the stuff that might come up. I think that's particularly valuable for family members. And I'm a big, people don't always like to hear this because I'll email me and kind of, I think sometimes because I can be such a dick.

People want me to be like, fuck them. And I'm a softie. I have a hard candy shell and a soft center, you know, and I'm like, I want people to be able to to. coexist with their loved ones. Life is too short for otherwise. The professional people that you deal with, though, I do kind of put in a different category.

And like, this is the thing that frustrates me about Greg Gottfeld, you mentioned, about you give a story in the book about ales, about how like he told you in 2016 when he first met with him that he was for Kasich, and he's kind of moderate. And like, when I read things like that, it gives me this rage inside. And like, there's this moment on the five recently

where Jesse did something that has received more compliments than anything I think anyone's done on Fox in a long time, which was you got to the WNWA topic and he's like, I'm not going to pretend to be mad about this. And I think there is a reason why that resonated with people,

and I can just speak for myself. It was like this oasis in the desert where I'm like looking at all these people and I'm like, you're full of shit. Like it would be one thing if you like really deeply believed this. But like I think that there are elements of it deeply believe, of course, right?

It's not like you're not conservative, but like there is this fakery that happens. And when there's all this pain out there in the world, like when we see the suffering that's being wrought by this administration, like it makes me want to just scream in the face of the people that are, you know, spinning for it in ways that they know at some level are disingenuous. And like that is where where I wonder how you how you go a different path than what I wanted to, which is how I don't choose violence. Yeah. How do you not choose violence in that case? Well, I would say, you know, that moment obviously, which went, you know, very viral is consistent with how Jesse talks about those issues. He is not down the rabbit hole in the same way. And you even

saw that in his interview with Abdul Al-Sayed, where he's talking about, like, dingalings and things like that. And the Natalie Harp comment from John Ossoff. Again, he said, I'm not going to pretend that this offends me. So I picked out Greg and Roger Ailes. It's the people that I was that you wanted to do a murder. Yes. And the book is very clear also on what a bad guy Roger Ailes is. It was just an important anecdote to share in my evolution. I was just using that as representative of the fakery, yeah. On the record. Roger O'L's bad dude.

Was a bad dude. And here's the thing. And I think it comes, you know, in part from obviously knowing these people much more personally than someone who just consumes the show or most of the time people who just watch clips of the show. I mean, people who are out in the, you know, pro-democracy, YouTube ecosystem, probably don't know that I can talk for longer than 60 seconds at a clip, right? Because they've only seen Aeson's clips of me flying around with a narration from Adam Mockler or, you know, someone who's like, we got to talk about this thing.

And the show is a lot more than that. And I'm not saying that what aboutism is the right way to play this game. But I have, I am able to put myself, and I have heard this from my colleagues when I bring up this stuff. because it is an ongoing fight that I actually have with Greg about Trump, where he's like, why do you care so much that I like him? And I said it's not just like a friend you're bringing to the bar that I find annoying. Like this is someone that is putting decisions to place that the consequences are people are dying from it, right? Like at home and abroad, this is happening.

And then, and it's, you know, it's dirty politics in this sense. but they often bring up how many of us sat on TV and didn't acknowledge an enormous immigration crisis. Not, I mean, maybe not in the extremist sense of myorkas. We were rolling your eyes at peak. It was like 230,000 people across the board a month. We have armed agents in the street killing people, though. It's like, okay, fine, then fuck you. Then get mad.

Then don't fucking smear Renee good. Those are not. Those are conversations that I have had. Right, where I have said that and push back and been loud and, you know, slamming hands on the table. But there's this sense that, you know, we're on this higher moral plane and that we are legitimizing them. You hear this, I hear this all the time from the left, you know, don't platform this person or that or this gives them legitimacy. Like, we are not the gatekeepers anymore. We are not the arbiters of who people take seriously and who they,

they agree with. And I would much rather be in the conversation and be able to be representing my point of view and the point of view of tens of millions of people who think the same way that I do about everything from Renee Good and Alex Prattie's murder to how, you know, immigration enforcement is happening to what the Dobbs decision did to millions of women across this country, to the disastrous war in Iran. There is an opportunity to be able to engage that we miss out on because we rage too hard. And I don't, you know, I'm not on a sedative. I don't take sedatives, but I have, yeah. I, I know a guy for sure. I can help you out. I know that that isn't a good enough answer for you. No, look, I'm happy you're out there doing it. I just, I guess my point is

that it's what you're doing is different than what Greg's doing because you're an honest broker. And like, it's just not true. Like, you did criticize. Biden's immigration policy and Afghanistan policy. And it's like, okay, so just because whoever, you know, random, and I don't want to, I don't want to spear anybody. So random lefty resistance person never did. Yeah. Okay.

So, like, this is what you learn when you're nine, you know, like just because Jamie, you know, if I can, you know, jumped off a bridge, does that mean you're going to? And it's like, like, literally the first moral test that you get taught by your parents. And like, these guys can't pass. So I do know that. And it makes me want to strangle them. Yeah. You just, you have to move past that.

Well, you don't. That's that you don't. And that is, it's totally fine to feel that way. But I think the oftentimes we are missing out on understanding the point of view of millions of people who are not represented necessarily in what Greg is saying and have, a somewhat more muted perspective, but who are genuinely flummoxed by our party's inability to acknowledge things that are meaningful to them, whether that's knowing the names of American citizens killed by illegals who should have been deported eight offenses ago, you know, like angel moms versus the Black Lives Matter movement, right?

And I was very aware of the fact that I could rattle off the names of all of these unarmed black men that were killed by the police. But I didn't know the names of these girls like a Kate Steinley, for instance. And obviously, I think Lake and Riley set off a little bit of a different trend in that sense. But those are people that are losing their lives too. And I don't think that it hurts us being able to. Yeah, but I want to put their killers in jail. I know. Democrats want to put their killers in jail.

Yeah, no, they do. The person that killed Alex Freddie and Renee Good are still on the street. Totally. Yeah. No, but I will say, I mean, I'm going to be, I guess, that person. Like, when you watch these speeches that some, you know, blue city mayors or blue state governors give, you know, railing against ICE, which I agree with, you know, I think that they are. an out-of-control force operating with reckless abandoned. They don't have enough experience to be doing the job.

They are breaking the law. They are violating, you know, Americans' rights, and people who are here illegally, their rights, which they have. Antonin Scalia even said that. But we don't weave in these important points into the way that our rhetoric is around these issues. And you just hear ice out, no co-opement.

operation, even in a state where there has been someone who was recently murdered by someone who was here illegally. And it is just not that hard. People, like I was saying, that they know about Dan Driscoll and they know about Admiral Holsey. And they remember everything because the average American is smart and they are interested and they are informed and they care about this country. And I don't think that we always talk to them at a way that meets their level of care and concern and intelligence on these issues. And I really wish that our platform would shift to make that more obvious. Like once Tom Holman came in and after Christy Noam and Greig Bovino were pushed out, it made sense that Tim Wals and Mayor Fry said, we're going to work with you, right,

to get the bad guys out of here because then it will be even more obvious that you're just going after whoever is a little bit brown. And like, I want everybody to do that. Because the enormity of their cruelty will be so much further on display. But we give them, we don't get them license, but we give them the cannon fodder to keep having these terrible polarizing conversations. And then we waste valuable time having to defend it and say, well, obviously, I'm not for keeping, you know, people here who commit crimes on American soil. Like, you cross the border.

That's one thing. But, like, you hurt an American. You should be out of here. No. Jessica, I'm dead serious when I say this. Just like I was saying earlier, that, you know, everyone has to have their hobby horses and a role to play to make sure people understand what's happening in the world.

You know, we're all built different, you know? I wasn't ever going to be the defensive lineman for LSU. You know, there's nothing I could do. And I don't think I could have been the person to sit there the last nine years. And you are, you do a great job. A much better job than Howard. And we appreciate that you're doing it. And it's a good lesson for family members because we are completely aligned on that.

So people should go get the book, especially, you know, with Thanksgiving coming up. I'm sure you need some tips. You do need some tips. Thank you for having me. The book is called I Disagree, Winning Arguments Without Losing Friends. That's Just Tarloff. Come on back soon. All right, girl?

Yeah, absolutely. I'll come anytime you have me. Have fun on the book tour. Go check her out and Raging Moderates. Everybody will be back tomorrow with another edition of the show. See you all then. Country music singers Have always been a real close family

My kinfolks Have disowned a few others than me Because I changed my audition The Bullwork Daily is brought to you Thanks for the work of lead producer Katie Cooper Associate producer Ansley Skipper And with video editing by Dante DeChico And Audio Engineering and Audio Engineering and Editing by Jason Brown